Welcome to Gaia! ::

Rigor Mortis

((First draft, written in under an hour, and done with pure inspiration.))

The meeting was to take place in the graveyard across from the elementary school. M. Kaneus's latest client had a morbid sense of taste. The strange taste affected the man's style of clothing, as was soon found out. Kaneus approached the man from the worn dirt path. "Eric Wiggs" and his six feet of plain, dark clothes made him more intimidating than he should of been.

His dark overcoat was buttoned tightly over a broad and apparently well-muscled chest. A small skull broach was fastened just over where his heart would have been, and seemed to mark that symbol as the theme for the rest of his acessories. His hair was long and dark, and was neatly dreaded. Every other strand was tied by interlaced black and white ribbons, with small silver skull charms suspended from the ends. His face fit in with the rest of his mildly interesting appearance. It was calm. There was no better word to describe it. It was almost as if he had just done something arduous and finally been granted rest.

"Mr. Reeves." Wiggs greeted. He only knew M. Kaneus by his alias: Jason Reeves. "I would express how grateful I am to have a man of your talents meeting with me... but I'm sure you're tired of that treatment."

M. Kaneus stopped his approach a few short feet away from Wiggs. His hands dangled at his sides, as if he was waiting for something to happen. "Indeed." He replied quickly.

"I'm sure you want to know what it is I wish you to do?" Wiggs asked. "I can't express how grateful I am to have you meet me here without hearing out my task beforehand... Most people in your line of work wouldn't do that for someone like me..."

"You're no threat to me." Kaneus replied. "What is it you would have me do?" He asked. It sounded more like a statement than a question.

"Uh, yes. That building over there..." Wiggs gestured to the school across the street. "The principal's secretary, Annette Willaas. She's a member of a small faction that is slowly gaining power. They wish to forbid the uses of magicks and things akin to those arts..."

"Get to the point." Kaneus interupted.

Wiggs smiled quickly. "I would have you incapacitate her, and bring her back to me. I've got interrogation planned for her."

"Understood. She will be armed?"

"No." Wiggs laughed. "She's a secretary at an elementary school."

Kaneus nodded. "I will be back shortly." He turned around and started to leave the cemetary.

"Mr. Reeves, take your time. Enjoy yourself." Wiggs said quietly. "Life is... so short."

Moments later, M. Kaneus was sitting in a chair across from the secretary's office, waiting to be admitted. He was wearing clothes he felt utterly uncomfortable in. Blue jeans, a tan sweater, with a long leather jacket covering them. It was under that jacket where he hide his most reliable tools. Bessy, his sawn off shotgun, which rested in an under-arm holster on the left side of his chest, and only one Desert Eagle on the right side of his chest. Though, that wasn't to say that's all he had for arms. He was typically known to carry arms in the most unlikely of places.

"Mr. Reeves, the principal will see you now." Secretary Annette Willaas announced.

M. Kaneus rose from his seat slowly, and entered the office. He stopped in front of the desk, and looked down at Annette. She stopped typing and looked up at him.

"It's the first door on the right."

He nodded in response, and then bent down over the desk as to get closer to the secretary.

"I'm going to ask you not to scream, or make any noise of any sort." He said calmly.

Annette's eyes widened. "What?"

"There is someone across the street that would like to meet with you. I will take you to him." Kaneus answered.

Annette opened her mouth to scream something, but found something hard and metal in there before she could utter so much as a yelp. The business end of Kaneus's DEP rested in her mouth. Annette almost jerked back with the pain of her teeth being chipped by the hard metal, but restrained herself.

"Silence." He said softly. "...Now, rise..." His voice fell flat as way too much screaming broke out from several other places in the school, almost simultaneously.

He didn't look away from Annette, but rather pulled her along with him as he walked out into the hallway to examine the situation. A cold chill ran down his spine when he layed eyes on the scene. The small and utterly innocent children were running as fast as their malformed little legs would carry them. It was what was chasing them that got to Kaneus. The undead were roaming the halls, chasing the children around almost as fast as the children could run.

"Oh my god!!" Annette shrieked. Once that short utterance of horror escaped from her lips, she couldn't seem to stop herself. She started screaming and wouldn't stop.

Kaneus's lips parted in terror. He couldn't seem to do anything other than watch helplessly. Zombies were mindless killers. They existed only to eat and kill. It was that sheer lack of being that struck fear into Kaneus's heart. They couldn't be reached. There was no turning back once a fight with a zombie began.

A particularly small child spotted Kaneus and Annette from his spot down the hall. In his eyes, the grown-ups would save him. He started running to them as fast as he could. Kaneus saw the child approaching, and the zombie chasing it, but couldn't respond to either. He was completely terrified.

Tears pouring down the boy's face, he glanced over his shoulder at the zombie chasing him, and tried to run faster. The zombie sprinted and closed the final gap between him and his prey. He grabbed the boy and lifted him off the ground. He bit down into the side of the boys' neck, and pulled.

The screaming stopped.

Kaneus's hand was holding his shotgun without him even realizing he'd reached for it. He aimed for the zombie and squeezed the trigger. The zombie's head vaporized from the force of the blast. The zombie dropped its prey and fell to the ground, twitching briefly.

He was running down the hall, reacting simply on impulse. The zombie's he saw were quickly reduced to unmoving flesh golems. There were so many zombies... The ammunition stored on the inside of Kaneus's jacket was depleting quickly.

Out of no where, a zombie latched on to Kaneus's leg, and bit down. The mercenary stumbled and fell over, landing in the blood of something recently living. Putting that horror aside, Kaneus whipped around and squeezed off his last round into the zombie's face. The zombie's grasp remained, but it was easily kicked off. The sheer adrenaline pumping through his veins made everything much easier.

From the corner of his eye, he saw another horrid scene taking place. No less than four zombies had pinned down a particularly weighty child, and were gnawing at her like there was nothing else in the world. The shrieking was deafening. She looked over and spotted Kaneus, and reached out what should have been an arm. The bloody remnants of tissue and bone waving around made Kaneus vomit on himself.

He forced himself up, but found his right leg unwilling to cooperate. He dragged it along and forced himself to the girl's aid. He tossed down his shotgun and clasped the DEP with both hands. Kaneus wouldn't be able to take the kick of that weapon with one leg. He squeezed off more than eight rounds, trying to hit the zombie's rapidly moving heads. What seemed like ages later, all four zombies had stopped moving.

Kaneus couldn't bring himself to look down at the girl. The blood around her spoke volumes, though the girl had stopped screaming. A tear ran down his cheek.

"Help me." She said in a tone barely above a whisper.

He shook his head and raised the DEP. He squeezed off one shot.

The screaming throughout the school had been steadily growing quieter. Kaneus's mind leapt to all sorts of scenarios. His mind pulsed with images of the horrors he had seen within the past ten minutes. Of all things in the world, children were among the most sacred. Kaneus had never hurt a child intentionally, and had actually gone out of his way several times to secure a child's safety... But the images in his head seemed to be burned into the back of his eyelids. He couldn't get rid of them. He raised his DEP to the side of his head, and pressed the muzzle to his temple. Eagerly, he squeezed the trigger.

"Shame." A familiar voice said. "Out of ammo so soon?"

Kaneus opened his eyes and looked toward the voice. Eric Wiggs stood in the doorway of the classroom Kaneus was in. His arms were crossed and a smirk of satisfaction lay on his lips.

"You've destroyed so many of my puppets. I'd expect no less... However, the ones you haven't destroyed are now feeding on the children of this school. Their flesh and blood will make my zombies stronger, and they'll move on, killing and feeding on more people." Wiggs laughed. "How does it feel to know failure so well?"

Kaneus dropped his DEP and opened his clenched fists. He dashed at Wiggs and tackled him down to the ground. His leg seemed to hurt much less. Wigg's eyes grew wide when he recognized the emotion on Kaneus's face. Sheer rage.

He pressed his palm to Wigg's neck and pinned him down to the floor. With his other hand, Kaneus dug two of his fingers into Wigg's nostrils and tore. Wigg's screaming was nothing but a dull roar in Kaneus's ears. Kaneus continued digging into Wigg's still-living skull until the screaming stopped. His hands were covered in blood and tissue, but he continued digging for several moments after.

When Kaneus finally stopped, a thought came to mind. He had attacked Wigg's out of hatred and rage, but the fact that the zombies were under his control, meant that they were no longer empowered. Their master had been killed, thus, the zombie's resumed their role as corpse.

A door behind Kaneus creeked open. He looked over his shoulder and reached to his boot for one of his hidden firearms, and then paused when he realized what he was looking at. A small boy peered out at Kaneus.

"Come here." Kaneus said. His voice was high pitched from the emotion pulsing through him. "They're all gone.

*poke*

This could be turned into a longer story. The majority of the story could focus mostly on your main character being normally emotionless. If you make him really seem like a bad guy, the way he reacts to children getting hurt later on would be a great point of interest. Also, if you exponded on his fear of zombies throughout the story it would create a very dynamic character. Then of course, it would seem much more dramatic when he overcomes his fear to save the children.

Then there's the villain of the story. You put the most detail into him, but you didn't really give him much of a point. Seems like he's being evil for the sake of being evil. That's fine, but even someone like that needs a motivation to be interesting. Like, does he have some kind of hidden grudge against the main character?

The secretary was really pointless...and the setting was unintimidating. Except for the cemetary I guess. It would make more sense if the meeting took place somewhere a bit more secretive, if you do keep the meeting as it is at least. An elementary school secretary just seems so...unimportant. It's hard to think of her as being an influential person unless, maybe, you show her in action. At protests and rallies or whatever.