teaganmitchell (teaganmitchell) wrote in horror_story, @ 2013-02-26 19:08:00 |
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Teagan wasn't surprised when she wasn't asked to be anyone's Valentine. This year, she'd been counting on not having date. Determined to take matters into her own hands, she'd been stalking the obituaries for months, looking for likely candidates.
The first attempt hadn't exactly gone as planned. Charlie Patenaude had barely come back at all. She'd had to do all the digging, and even when he'd been unearthed, all he'd done was twitch uncontrollably for a few hours before lying still again. Apparently, store-bought meat couldn't be substituted for live animal sacrifices in resurrection spells. Lesson learned. Burying Charlie again was way harder than digging him up had been. There'd been an overall feeling of defeat to it, rather than the anticipation of something exciting about to happen.
The second attempt had been much smoother, though she'd felt a pang of guilt over the loss of the cat. Teagan liked cats a lot, but they were easier to find than live goats, and far easier to hold down. She hadn't wanted to chance another fuck-up. He'd come back to life, all right, but she hadn't accounted for how much damage the accident had done to him, let alone the week and a half of decay. Poor, sweet Gideon Fair barely had a head left, and was all in pieces. Dead boys brought back to life with feline sacrifices were also capable of feeling pain, it was worth noting... Or at least, he'd acted like he was in pain. He wouldn't stop screaming, which was rather impressive, considering what had been left of his lungs. Too bad, really, as Teagan had always been fond of redheads.
There was a saying about third tries being charmed, and Teagan was hoping it was true. This time, she'd brought a much larger animal. It probably wasn't kosher, stealing a blind woman's dog... but this was true love, and that was not to be skimped on. This time was special. The body was fresh, and had barely been damaged, aside from the autopsy scars. Dr. O'Neill had given her an odd look when she'd gone to him with so many questions about cause of death and rate of decay, but he'd ultimately humored her. The older man had actually been very informative, in his own stumbling way. Happy to chat about his work, and Teagan had been happy to listen.
She hadn't actually known Mallory Cunningham, but she'd seen his picture in the obituary and he'd seemed just her type. Dark hair, thin, a pretty face... he'd even worn glasses in the picture, and she had a thing for the nerdy types. They were more forgiving of her oddities, after all. She knew he came from a big family, survived by a pack of siblings, and the wording in the obituary seemed sorrowful, so they'd probably loved him a lot. That meant he was lovable. A good person, kind... not particularly tall or muscular, but that was all right. She wasn't about to judge someone on their height. After all, who was she to be picky?
He hadn't been married. No wife listed among the names of the bereft. So it was possible that he'd been lonely. A kindred spirit, floating through a world that was callous towards the outliers. Hive-mind blondes and gorgeous athletes finding love at every turn, but none to be had for the meek or the strange. Teagan could fix that, though. There were spells for that. One of them involved slitting the throat of a seeing-eye-dog and chanting over a grave for several long, harrowing hours.
Out of deep affection, she'd dug up the grave for him, just to make it easier. A lot of modern coffins had cement linings to keep the bugs out, last-ditch efforts to thwart the natural agents of decay. Teagan didn't want him to break his fingers trying to get out of it. Not when the dead couldn't exactly heal.
So the grave was dug and the coffin was already open by the time his eyelids fluttered, shortly before dawn on Valentine's Day. No time to spare, but wasn't it more romantic that way? That it was left down to the wire, with him coming to like Sleeping Beauty just when all hope might have been lost? Already, she loved him for that, and Teagan wiped her filthy hands on her equally filthy jeans before brushing the hair out of his face. Anticipating his first words. Hoping that they were articulate.
Though the shovel was still nearby, just in case.