The Graveyard Buffet

[Numinous]

A new piece of short fiction from the locally-acclaimed author Natural 20!  

The following is a second-person perspective piece, which I feel is a highly underuitilised form of narrative.  It may be a little jarring, but try to read through it anyway and you should have little trouble.

[ic=The Graveyard Buffet]The night winds whistle throug the trees around you, the crescent moon in the sky above illuminating the scene.  Your breath grows ragged as the amount of running you have done begins to catch up with you.  Long strides have carried you down from the highest of the surounding snow-covered peaks, where the ice never melts and the clouds float by like ships on a silent sea.

Now, your nostrils flare as you approach your destination.  Various stones, sculptures, crude wooden markers fly by your swiftly moving feet.  You come to a stop at a mound of freshly overturned earth, possessing a hloas the mon glimmers of it's soft contours.  Without hestitation, you kneel and thrust your arms deep into the soil, the sensation of cold lost on your bloodless limbs.  Long fingernails tear at the dirt, flinging it high and rapidly nurrowing down towards an eagerly awaited prize.

Whump

A questing hand strikes wood, releasing an echo which rings across the valley you have come to.  now with great haste you clear this vault of it's earthen imprisonment, and proceed to pound it's covering to splinters.  Under your brutal assault, the letters R.I.P. are obliterated, leaving you with a view of a pale maiden, sleeping in the final and lngest of dreams.  As you reach down and pull her out by the shoulders, and her limp body puts you off balance with it's unexpected wait, shouts fill the night, and torches can be seen coming up the road.

You abandon your work and seek the shadowed embrace of the pines nearby.  You faintly remember the pungent scent of the tree you now hide under, but your nostrils cannot find it now, all they detect is the warm and welcome scent of blood, and even, fear?  Oh yes, fear...

Two men bearing shovels and torches, hastily garbed in night-clothes have found your night's work.  They shuffle uneasily over the open grave, apparently unwilling to disturb the raucous cacophony of their feet and the crackling of the torches that they would deem silence.

Carefully placed steps lead you to the border of their lit circle, and another leap gives you purchase on the back of one of the foolish men.  A quick jerk, and a loud snap greets your ears as he falls to the ground for the last time.  You turn your feral eyes to the other man, and the  bitter smell of urine fills the air as his fear becomes apparent on his trousers.  He attempts to raise a trowel for defense, but you bound forward and place a pointed hand right through his throat.  

His dying gasps are music to your ears, and you catch him as he stumbles backwards.  Holding the small of his back and leanign forward as though the two of you are dancing a perverse waltz upon this sanguine night, your fangs sink deep into what remains of his devastated throat.  What little color was left in his face fades, and his life-blood goes with it.  Wiping the red from your lips on a tattered and grimy sleeve, you bend down and repeat the gruesome ceremony on the second man.

Finally, refreshed with the unexpected buffet you have recieved, you turn to behold the object of your quest.  The maiden remains in her grave, disturbed as she was, her face still belies her serenity.  Stooping down over the pit once again, you easily sweep her up over your shoulder.  The smeel of fresh death lingers around her, and you can still sesne the blood in her veins.

After a few minutes of easy running up the jagged faces of the peak you now call home, you enter a nondescript cavern and approach a rugged bed in the corner made from some hides most would squirm at the very thought of.  Laying the object of your affection down on the bed, her raven locks spread magnificently across the coarse furs she rests on.  Her lips lie open, as though at any moment she might gasp and resume living.

Removing the paltry vestiges of luxury you wear, a once-magnificent cloak, boots with more holes than satin, and a tunic with a intricate crest; you fold them and lay them upon a crude stone shelf in the wall.  Creeping slowly towards the bed, you climb upon it and lean over to kiss the girl next to you, the kiss leads downward, and your abnormally long canines sink into her cold flesh.  Now, as you drift off to sleep, a single thought fills your head, in rhythym with the faintly beating heart pressed to yours.  

"My love, even death cannot keep us apart."
[/ic]

So, how did you like it?

[Raelifin]

Hmm... Vampire, eh? Interesting peice. A few criticsms:

I find that the general comprehension in the work is fairly low. Perhaps a longer exposition, or more detail would help. I know that many authors choose to include inner monologue, but a second-person abstract thought sequence is a bit confusing.
Example: you faintly remember the pungent scent of the tree you now hide under, but your nostrils cannot find it now, all they detect is the warm and welcome scent of blood, and even, fear? Oh yes, fear...
In this squence, you describe the momories lost from life, and how the vampire cannot smell anything but his prey. However, leading into a longer introspective during the pine-break would give more insight into the proceedings and setting. I know that the mystery is part of the alure, (heck, I thought the main character was a zombie for half of it) but proper "confusion" in writing involves giving a horde of clues and description without touching on the plain truth. I feel like you just wrote sparingly.

A few notes on the freshness of the corpse would be nice. You don't want readers to think she's decayed. Also, rigor mortis is a factor to consider when writing about the dead.

The jumping needs a LOT more detail. I read it and went... "What? Jumping?"

One final point: I didn't think vampires could turn corpses. Oh well. ^_^

Good job, keep writing,
 -Rael