2005
GRAVEYARD SHIFT
Warning and Disclaimer
Graveyard Shift is intended to be a romantic comedy with a mystery or two twisted into the plotline. A portion of the story takes place in an old-fashioned mortuary/funeral home. If you are sensitive to mortuary-themed humor (funerals, autopsies, and embalming) of which there is a considerable amount contained within the series, then please stop here. Most of the terms and situations are based on real occurrences, but not the characters. They are the Slayers of novel, manga, and anime fame– not ours, just borrowed.
GRAVEYARD SHIFT
CHAPTER ONE -Always Available-
"When you need us, we are there, 24 hours a day, every day."
"I am not going up to that house! Not for all the tea in Seyruun!" the pretty, blonde teenager avowed.
"Miss Filia's right, Miss Lina," said a petite brunette in more formal address. "Mr. Zelgadiss told me that the guys living there were a bunch of drug addicts and convicts. We shouldn't have to try selling these cookies to people like that." And then she said the magical words, the ones that settled Lina's mind once and for all, "It's not safe."
"Oh, yeah?" a smile crept to Lina's lips; a demonic gleam stole her expression. Lina was one to skip all the formalities of common speech and to be attracted to risky ventures. "Well, I'm game to try. Dear Zelly is such a delicate creature, Amelia. He probably thinks I'm a bad influence on you. Don't worry. The guys in there are at worst slackers with crummy jobs. Besides, your sister hung out with one of them last year, didn't she?"
"Friends of Nahga? Well, that settles it for me," Filia sniffed. "The anime club can go broke if selling these cookies for a fund raiser means I have to go...to that house."
Amelia was thinking that Zelgadiss-dear wasn't wrong to think Miss Lina was a bit rough-around-the-edges, when she noticed that Miss Lina had made up her mind to call at the Rubyeye household anyway. "Miss Lina!"
Yes, Lina was already striding up the walkway to the front door.
"We can't let her go alone!" Amelia insisted and grabbed Filia by the arm. "We don't have to go in, I guess. Just stand by her, in case."
"In case of what? An infectious disease outbreak? Or someone pulls a gun on her?" Filia's tirade was cut off when the door opened to Lina's pounding.
Amelia sucked in air in an audible gasp.
Filia's eyes narrowed and her lip curled as if she'd just tasted sour milk, "Druggies..."
Using the door to hold his body mostly upright was about all the young man at the door seemed capable of. He appeared to have been aroused from bed, and it was the late afternoon. His shirtless torso displayed a lean, pale, but well-toned chest, and below that, he was dressed in a pair of low-slung, silky black pants. His eyes were closed to the sunlight, but his wan smile encouraged Lina to go on.
"Hey," Lina began as a friendly lead into her selling patter. "Wanna buy some cookies? They're the best. Made out of artificial stuff with, I'm sure, a few real ingredients thrown in there somewhere by machines someplace, and then mass marketed for promotional use. How 'bout it?"
The man at the door appeared confused by her appearance. He rubbed his eyes and ran a hand through his long, straight, black hair. The bangs fell back in place, covering his forehead completely. His smile strengthened as he noticed that three pretty ladies graced his doorstep, "Oh my..."
Another guy, several inches taller, but only a few pounds heavier, pushed into the doorway with a lanky, tanned arm, "Food's cool. Got drinks to go with that?"
Hunks of mint-green hair fell free from his headband, framing his amber eyes. 'Cave Dweller', the name of a heavy metal band long defunct, was tattooed on his bare shoulder. His outfit entailed once-white sweat pants, a torn sleeveless undershirt of a similar shade, and gray socks.
"No, idiot," Lina snapped. "COOKIES. Five bucks a box. The boxes don't hold much so buy lots."
"You got money, Xel?" the taller, green haired guy asked his roommate.
When he turned back to look at the girls, he had a narrow-eyed, edgy look that sent chills through Amelia. She was unaware that she took a step backwards putting more distance between herself and the occupants of the house. He winked at her and she nearly collapsed, weak-kneed.
Xel, meanwhile, straightened somewhat, stuffed a hand into his pants pocket, and felt around for some bills. The problem was that the loose drawstring was giving way, and he wasn't wearing anything underneath.
"Geez..." Lina moaned. "Pull up yer pants, willya? I don't need to see yer dick."
"Huh?" Xel realized what was happening and withdrew his hand, blushing hotly. "Shit, sorry... Sorry. Hold on. Let me get my wallet." He nearly tripped over his pant leg as he bent under the other guy's arm. "Don't go away!" he called out as he stumbled into the darkness beyond.
Lina and the green-haired guy looked one another over. "Friend of Nahga's?" they both asked simultaneously.
Lina smiled, "Yeah, I thought that's where I knew you from. Val something."
"Valgaav, yeah." Val couldn't recall Lina's name, though. It didn't bother him. He took his time looking over the over two girls and grinned as he asked, "Wanna come in?"
Filia answered before he finished the 'in', "No, thank you. We have to move on and sell all this and we only have an hour." She turned to Lina, "Who knows if that first guy will ever come back. Let's go. We're wasting our time here."
"Besides...it would be wrong to take dirty money..." Amelia began, then noticed something and pointed behind an upraised hand and whispering, "Oh, too late. Look!"
Xel had returned, "How many boxes have you got?"
Lina looked around Valgaav to find the dark haired guy holding a rolled-up wad of bills. "Forty," she ventured. There were thirty or forty boxes left, but he didn't appear to be clear-headed enough to count. He did seem to have plenty of money to spend, which was good enough for Lina, even if it was drug money, or only possibly drug money. Money was money.
"Why don'tcha carry them all in, and we'll count'em. Just to be sure," Valgaav suggested and pushed the door open all the way. "Take a load off."
"Don't mind if I do," Lina muttered.
"It's so dark in there," Amelia said from the safety of the step just outside the entry. "We should just stack the cookie boxes inside."
"I'll open the curtains," Xel said gaily as he dashed around the front room drawing open the shades and kicking trash out of the way.
"Eh, lets just go in. Maybe they'll open a box for us to eat?" Lina said and led the way, elbowing Valgaav in the ribs in passing. "Gimme some space, move!"
That left Filia and Amelia to haul in the thirty-nine boxes of cookies from Filia's car.
Xel pealed off nine twenties, handed them to Lina and then waved another in the air, "You have change?"
Lina had already stripped the wrapping from a box of thin chocolate mints and jammed two in her mouth. "No," was her answer as she tore the bill from his hand. "I'm good for it later."
"But you're eating our stuff! I paid for that so now you owe me ten dollars," his voice rising to a whine in complaint.
Lina leaped from her seat on the floor and confronted him face-to-chest, "I SAID I'm good for it. I'll bring it by later."
"Them. You'll bring them by. That's ten dollars," he repeated with a smirky smile.
"Bite me," she clipped off without thinking. In the afternoon light, Lina noticed that his hair shone with purple highlights– pretty. Too bad he was an annoying jerk, she decided.
Before Lina turned away, Xel dipped his head, buried his fingers in her mass of red curls, and brought his mouth to her neck.
Lina noticed that suddenly there was a strong masculine scent and heated body pressed up to hers. "Aaaaaack!" she screamed and dug her nails into his arms.
He released her, but not until he had finished giving her a ruby hickey above her pulse point. "You BIT me!" she snarled and smacked whatever part of his anatomy she could reach.
A punch connected with his diaphragm, forcing the air out of his lungs. "Hughhhhhhh..." he gasped.
Valgaav broke into a part barking cough, part cackling laughter, "Oh, ho...ha...hack, hack..."
"We'd better go," Amelia said in a low voice to Filia. "This was a really bad idea."
"At least it wasn't OUR bad idea. Lina can't blame us," Filia agreed and backed up slowly toward the exit. "Too bad Gourry wasn't here. He would have flattened that little piece of creepy garbage..."
She was stopped when she contacted a firm chest. "If yer looking for the bathroom, its down the hall," Valgaav told her. His voice was low and gravely, but not harsh.
Filia shuddered. She would die before entering their polluted, scummy bathroom. "I wasn't. I was just leaving. Lina, come on!"
Meanwhile, Xel recovered from Lina's fist. "Bite you! No, not... really, I actually sucked really hard...no teeth marks, see?" Xelloss said between gasps, and then smartly put a few feet between them. "That wasn't very nice...low blow..."
Lina glared up at him, "Try a stupid stunt like that again and it'll be lower and harder."
He shook his head, "No thanks. I like my women more...docile. My name's Xel, by the way."
"Lina. And I like my men more..." she searched for the right words, "...clean, dressed, and rich."
"I'm clean! I just woke up! I showered when I got off work, ah, that was at... 9 AM," he said in his defense.
"You work at night, huh? So, we woke you up? That explains why you might do a stupid thing like that. Brain dead. I'm a bit like that when I first wake up too, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. That means, I forgive you."
"Watermelon. I like watermelon," Xel answered dreamily.
Lina squinted at him to bring him into focus, "What?"
"Your hair smells like watermelon." He smiled and stepped closer.
"Uh, yeah. So, you gotta job. Whatcha do?" Lina asked, edged further away from him, and leaned on the arm of an overstuffed chair. She looked more at ease than she felt.
"I don't want to find out," Filia said more loudly. "We really have to go, Lina."
"Hey, I'm curious," Lina insisted. She liked the way she had put both guys on the spot. They were passing the ball back and forth in silent eye-only communication.
It was Valgaav who stepped up, "We're into filming."
"You're MOVIE actors?" Amelia cried out, her eyes wide in wonder.
Valgaav smiled and straightened, "Yeah." Nahga's younger sister was amusing him, with her big blue eyes and patent innocence.
"I've never seen you in anything," Filia sniffed.
Xelloss had crept up behind Valgaav. He could just peer over the taller man's shoulder. "Oh!" he piped up in a cheery voice, then he snaked both arms around his friend, sending one hand down his front to grab at his crotch and the other beneath his undershirt to caress his abs. "That's because we do, you know, A-aaaadult Films." He drew out the word for emphasis.
Valgaav hadn't been expecting his cousin to do that and reacted badly. He exploded, sending Xelloss careening, and chortling with hysterical laughter back onto the couch. A cloud of dust surrounded Xel, and then Val stood over him ready to pound his face in. And he might have connected in another second, had a small, gentle hand not clamped onto his arm.
"Hee, hee...don't kill me! Huuuuu...hee..." Xelloss giggled and curled instinctively into a fetal position to protect himself.
"Oh, please, no! Mr. Valgaav! Please think again!"
Filia rolled her eyes, "Oh, yeah. These guys just get better and better, the perverts!"
But Amelia's touch and sweet-toned voice cut off Valgaav's anger instantly. His mind went hazy. He felt like he was moving through a cup of honey. He turned his head and looked down, meeting her open gaze head on. His entire thinking capacity shut down as he stood as if mesmerized and locked under her power.
"He was just teasing you, wasn't he? It would be unrighteous to hit a man when he's down!"
Xelloss hadn't noticed. He still believed his friend was going to pulverize him for his stupid joke, and joke it was. Neither one of them messed around with partners of the same sex. "You can't hurt me!" Xelloss was crying. He pulled his arms above his head, wrists crossed as if they were tied together, and unfolded his legs as he continued, "If you do, I'll only be good for... restraints. Just... sub-worthy. Doomed to be the central figure of... bondage flicks."
"...sexual deviants on top of it," Filia continued to rail against continuing their stay any longer.
"What do you mean, Mr. Xelloss?" Amelia asked, very confused by his chatter.
"Don't listen to him." That advice, strangely, came from all three: Valgaav, Lina, and Filia.
Xelloss cracked open an eye to look at Amelia and noticed Valgaav staring at her with a strange vacant look on his face and his fists hanging limply at his sides, and then explained, "Bruises and lacerations are frowned on for close-up work. It limits your parts to being..."
Lina cut him off with a word, "Shuddup. Okay, Fil, I'm ready to go now."
"Oh? Going so soon?" Xelloss sat up and followed her out with his eyes. "Don't forget the change!"
"I won't," she assured him.
"I could stop by your house and get it," he suggested. "Where do you live?"
"I said I'd bring it by, and I will!"
"I could use it right away," his voice became more wistful, "It was all I had..."
"No it wasn't," she cut him off. "You had at least that much more in that wad of money. Geez, what a whiner you are. You remind me of Gourry's baby brother. How old are you, by the way? I know Valgaav's over twenty-one 'cause he and Nahga were out carousing last year."
"Ha! Then you're wrong! He's only nineteen and I am...much, much older," Xelloss had managed to walk her over to the door. "It was nice meeting you, Linaaaaa..."
"Inverse. I'm in the phone book, but don't bother calling. Thanks for doing business with you, boys!" Lina shouted and marched out the door behind Filia and a starry-eyed Amelia.
"That's the last time I am ever setting foot in that place. Honesty, Lina, the messes you get into sometimes, and now you've encouraged that one."
"Filia, I did not. I just gave him my name, which when that Valgaav guy wakes up he'll realize he knows and would have told Xel anyway so I might as well have just told him in the first place," Lina said.
"But most importantly," Amelia brightened, "We have sold all the cookies and have 200 to donate to the anime club. That should ensure us plenty to cover the movie rental fees each week so it can continue meeting all summer, don't you think?"
Filia and Lina nodded in agreement, and then they all climbed into the car to leave.
Xelloss slumped against the door jam, eyes glued to the retreating girls. "That was Lina Inverse?"
"Yep," Valgaav said as he crowded him in the doorway. "We have just met the younger sisters of the notorious Nahga and Luna duo."
"Amelia and Lina," Xelloss let out a sigh, "I'm in love."
"No you're not. You're in lust."
"I'm...in something."
"Trouble's the word. We both are."
"Yep," Xelloss agreed. "That acting thing, think they bought that?"
"Maybe."
"Why actors?"
Valgaav shrugged, "First thing I could come up with was the film business. They jumped to conclusions and put us into the acting roles; pretty good, considering, I think; until you f-ed it up."
"Better than the truth," Xelloss wasn't into arguing.
"Shit yeah."
"No bigger turn-off than telling girls what we really do."
"No shit," Valgaav groaned.
"Want cookies for ...what is it? Breakfast?"
"Sure," Valgaav sighed and shut the door. "Too bad summer has to come. I like it better when its dark, like in winter with the short days, ya know what I mean? Or other times when its dark and cloudy, then I don't feel like I'm missing out."
"Yeah, I get you, but it's the hours that I have trouble with still. There's no way to date properly. We have to be at work by 9PM! That kills most plans. Sure we can be up in the morning and sleep all afternoon, or sleep in the morning and have some of the late afternoon and evening to see girls, but..." Xelloss poured them both glasses of milk while Valgaav tore open a couple boxes of cookies. "You do realize that those were the first girls we have had step into our house since I've moved in here? At least when we were going to college in Atlas City we met girls."
"Yeah, like Nahga and Luna," Valgaav dipped a peanut butter flavored cookie into his milk, lost it, and used a finger to fish it out. "I just don't wanna go back to college. I got my technician's license and I got the job. You can do something else, if you want. It's just the hours that suck."
"Royally suck. And I can't do much else, if you recall, I'm here on orders from mother-dearest to 'learn the trade, Xelly-honey.'" he trilled in a falsetto voice. Xelloss intentionally filled his glass with cookies, and then mashed them down with a spoon to make a cookie-mush.
"Glad I'm not you."
"Maybe we could go into something else, like...films?"
"Eat your fing mess and shut up," Valgaav growled.
"You're in a foul mood. I know! Let's have a party this weekend. We don't work..."
"Yeah we do."
"Not Saturday or Sunday! We'll have friends over and put on some music and get a life. Whatdoya say?" Xelloss smiled.
"What friends? Everyone we know's in Atlas City."
"Well, we can invite... Amelia and Lina and...that other girl, maybe, and ask them to bring some friends. It doesn't have to be a big one." Xelloss finished the last of his breakfast 'drink' in one gulp. "Okay?"
Valgaav gave him a sideways look.
"Break you out of that shell. Do you good to be a little more outgoing."
"Sure, then."
"When I see Lina tomorrow, I'll set it all up."
"If ya see her, you mean."
"I'll see her, you can bet on that," Xelloss said confidently.
"Okay, betcha ten bucks she don't show."
"Twenty she does."
In another part of town, a teenage boy nearing manhood stood in conversation with his aging, yet not elderly, grandfather. It was of the future that they spoke.
"You got me a what?" The slim, dark-haired boy stood stone-still, a study in tragic appeal.
"A job with a distant relation in town. You should be thankful. It pays well and the work's not hard."
The boy's expression darkened. "But, grandfather, it's MY summer vacation. I had all kinds of things planned to do. A job will eat up all my free time."
"What kinds of things?" his youthful-looking grandfather asked as he folded up the newspaper he had been reading and stacked it neatly.
"Reading...things..." emphasizing the word as if that gave it more meaning.
"Zelgadiss, you were the one who was complaining about getting bullied around at school. You were the one who wanted to get, as you put it, stronger. Now you can. Reading won't build muscles."
"But this job can! How will this job make me stronger?" There was a note of anguish in the boy's tone now.
"Dead bodies are awfully heavy, I understand. After hefting a dozen or so around all day, you ought to build up some fine arm and shoulder muscles, legs too, if you learn to pick up the weight the right way and not abuse your back. I should know, many men my age are complaining all the time about their sore backs, but not I. I learned to use the proper method of..."
"DEAD BODIES!" Zelgadiss shrieked. "Why dead ones? What kind of place is it anyways?"
"Read the appointment card."
"For all your funeral arrangements, Rubyeye Funeral Home and Morgue. Giving your loved ones the most important gift of all, a final resting place in peace and security. Oh...my...dear...gods..." Zelgadiss moaned and sank to the kitchen floor. "This is horrible. I should just die now."
"You can ride your bike to get to and from work, which will strengthen your legs and build some wind. You need endurance to get by in this world," the older man continued. He was completely nonplussed by his grandson's theatrics.
"No one must ever know...ever... I'll have to keep the job a secret from everyone."
"What are you mumbling about now? You don't have time to fool around on the floor. Your interview is in 30 minutes. You have just enough time to go change your shirt and ride over there. Now GIT!"
"My life...is over... Unless," Zelgadiss' eyes brightened up, "I work the graveyard shift, and then no one will find out. I can see my friends by day and work secretly at night. Yes...that could work..."
"If you are late for the job interview, there will be no job and you will have to work for me," the grandfather said sternly.
Zanaffar Pharmaceuticals. No way did Zelgadiss want to push a mop there.
"Eek! I'm going!" Zelgadiss rushed to his room, ripped off his t-shirt, grappled into a short sleeved oxford cloth blue which had been pushed, ignored, to the back of his closet, smoothed down his hair and tied it back into a long dark ponytail, and flew out of the house to the side yard where his little-used bike leaned on a box. "Have...to...put...air in the...tires," he huffed as he gave his arms their first workout in weeks, pumping air. It took longer since the tire gauge let out half the air while he was trying to get a reading.
With a final check that the brakes were still intact, he jumped on his bike and took off for his first-time- ever job interview, with his 'Uncle' Gaav, several (hopefully hundreds of) times removed. "I hate my life."
End Graveyard Shift, CHAPTER ONE