Excerpt: I wonder what the title is!

The full moonlight bathed the landscape in washed-out ghostly blue as L’gruk stole past the front door of the lone country church, where the small but devoted congregation gathered. Yellow light flickered faintly but warmly and cozily from within, and through the stained glass in reds and greens, but every where else around, the colors all washed out into shades of faint greys.

A small sign in the doorway of the church read “Reader Vigil.” L’gruk raised his eyebrows curiously. Odd title for a sermon. Didn’t they usually talk about hell fire or the wrath of the divine or such things? Oh well.

Breathing heavily as he hauled the heavy machinery down the stepping stones along path to the cemetery, half carrying and half dragging. Yes, tonight would be the night! Tonight, his long wait would be over, as finally, yes! His plans blossomed into fruition! No more would the towns people laugh at L’gruk, and make fun of his worn once-elegant velvet coat and hat, which now smelled strongly of mildew; or his odd walk or his manner of speaking. No more! It would be L’gruk’s turn to laugh now! Lots of laughing! Ha ha ha!

The machinery would have been a curiosity in any age. A retro-future mash-up of vacuum tubes, springs, old brass gauges, dials, levers, frankenstein switches, arrayed around a base shaped vaguely like a giant vase with four or five of what looked like antennae radiating from the top, like stems whose flowers had fallen.
Awkwardly, L’gruk dragged the heavy machine down the path until he reached the stone bridge across the friendly gurgling stream. He dragged his bizarre machinery across the bridge, and finally reached the graveyard itself, where he stood before the array of headstones as might a conductor before an orchestra.

There was a singular feature of this graveyard. All of the headstones bore the same name: Cliff Brooks. Different styles of writing, different dates and causes of death, all of them, various sizes and shapes of stone, from ornate colonial to plain modern, but every single stone was engraved with the two fateful words. Even while he stood there watching, several new gravestones emblazoned with the same moniker appeared as if by magic. He wrung his hands with glee. “I so love November!!”

L’gruk chortled a terrible laugh, a laugh sounding like the grating together of bones. With loving affection, he began to adjust various of the controls on the machine. A dial here, a lever there, a switch here. Like a musician, he played the various elements of it, pausing now and then to execute a few steps of a twisted little jig, then dancing back to his beloved device.

The device began to hum, to whirr, to emit every sort of squeak, hiss, creak, and disturbing industrial noise one could imagine. It also began to emit a faint light, which grew stronger as time went by.

He went down by the bank of the river, and dipped a cup of pure sparklingly clear water. The cold moonlight glinted off the bottom of the metal cup. He raced and pranced back to his machine, pouring the water into an aperture on the side. Scooping with a shovel, he dug up some dirt from the ground beside him, and shoved it into another aperture on the opposite side. Then he took out a match, and, extending a small tube from the side, lit a flame with it. The glow was ever increasing the whole time, as were the odd variety of mechanical and other sounds.
“Water, earth, fire, and...” around on the other side, he leaned over to an opening on the other side, and huffed a puff of air into it.

It was then that the aerials on top began to sputter with electricity. Higher and higher the sparks flew. The voltage grew until the curves of glowing sparks arced between various of the wires of the insane Tesla's ladder, rising in wild chaotic curves again and again. Very loudly.

L’gruk chortled with glee, doing a contorted little dance in beneath the full moonlight streaming down, bluish light that reflected silver off the trees all around and turned the landscape into pale parody of itself, as if composed not of solid matter but of mists and clouds.

At this point, a note regarding common mistakes made by those seeking to raise zombies from the graveyard for fun or profit, for example in effort to organize an army for the purpose of taking over the world, seeking vengeance, or other sundry purposes (e.g. house painting, landscape clearing...)

And that is, to consider the whole event from the perspective of the zombie. To wit, that after mouldering beneath the ground for several centuries, when some mad scientist or supernaturalist comes along and resurrects you, after digging your way out of the grave, you are going to feel rather hungry. Ravenous, in fact. The result is that one will eat whatever, or whoever, first appears to be edible.

Now if said mad scientist or supernaturalist would have the courtesy to provide simple refreshments, for example your garden variety baker’s dozen of doughnuts and coffee, the zombies would be fully occupied and scrapping for those, rather than on devouring whatever, or whoever, might happen to be around. These simple tips, and other bits of wisdom relating to raising and reanimating the dead, can be found in “Raising Zombies for Dummies,” available in many local bookstores. Unfortunately, L’gruk did not frequent such establishments (being allergic to the smell of ink) and thus was sadly lacking in an understanding of some of the commonplace errors one might commit in such an enterprise.

So while he was dancing around underneath the moonlight, and the nefarious machine was sparking and arcing with cacophonic noise which was nonetheless strangely musical, a transformation began to take place all across the cemetary. Here and there, before each headstone, and in a few places where there were no headstones, the ground began to shift. Here and there to collapse and rise.

Then the insects began to come out, no doubt disturbed by the commotion. Soon the ground was a moving carpet of spiders, beetles, ants, centipedes, and any other kind of creepie-crawlie one could imagine.

As if unaware, L’gruk continued his little dance. “Now they’ll listen to me!” he squawked. “Now they’ll pay attention. No more the little putdowns and looks of disgust. They won’t dare! Not after my beloved army rips the mayor into shreds right before their very eyes! Tearing the limbs from his living body, ha ha! That will be funny, for a change! Now it will be my turn to tell some jokes and have everyone laugh! Ha ha!”

Here and there a hand now was protruding from the soil, writhing or grasping. The ground began to crumble and shift, more like a liquid than a solid. Pairs of hands, and here and there the top of a disheveled head. Rising like cornstalks, uncurling and unfurling, the sinister figures, all alike aside from the differences in varying states of decay, the zombie clone army emerged from the dark blackness of the earth into the moonlight.

And they were hungry.

Now, here and there a knee appeared, clothed in the worm-eaten formal garb of a funeral, or of shrouds and sheets. And then, feet, enormous feet. Each figure stood seven feet tall at least, and all were in varying poses of stiffness, staring at the machine that had summoned them forth, with its electric showers of sparks and arcs.

“Yes! Yessss! Now, my pretties, time to attack! Attack the towns folk! Starting with the congregation in yonder church! Yes!”

The zombies, on the other hand, had other things in mind. Slowly, steadily, they began walking forward.

At first, L’gruk assumed they had heard his command, and were moving to obey. Then he noticed that, rather than setting out on the path to the church, they seemed to be converging on the location of himself and the machine.

“Wait! The church!” he shouted frantically. “Attack the church! Attack!”

Several of the zombies were curiously examining the machine. One of them reached out and touched it gingerly, darting their hand back as if it had touched a hot stove. Nothing happened. The same zombie reached out again, touched the machine, and drew back. Nothing. Reached out again, this time grasping one of the large Frankenstein-style switches, and throwing it into the opposite position.
Instantly, the sparking, sputtering, and noise ceased. All of the zombies except the one who had thrown the switch collapsed in various heaps all around. He looked around for a few seconds at them just lying there. “Hm,” he said, then threw the switch back, and the noise, light, and commotion resumed. The zombies began getting up once more from the ground.

“Attack!” shouted L’gruk frantically. “The church!”

He felt a large hand gripping his collar, lifting him up. Kicking and clawing, he dangled from the zombie’s grasp, like a kitten from its mother’s mouth.
The zombie began to move its lips, as if remembering the existence of language, its origins and purposes, and then the specifics of utterance. Not just expressive gutteral noises, but the lexicon of words.

“Do-”

“What? Do what? Why is it you telling me what to do? I raised you from the dead, like my own sweet children! It is yours to do my bidding, not the other way around!”
L’gruk was possibly failing to grasp the overall significance of the situation, particularly in terms of the relative strengths at play, in particular that of his in comparison to of a single zombie, not to mention an entire army of zombies.

“Put me down! At once!” screamed L’gruk, kicking and struggling.

“-nut.”

L’gruk ceased his struggle for a moment, a blank expression on his face. “Nut?” The enormous brute was trying to tell him something. What was the message? Was it in english, even?

Other zombies around began echoing the expression of the first zombie:

“Do-nut...”

“Do-nut...”

“Donut...”

“Cough-”

“Fools! Can’t you even spell?! It’s Doughnut for crying out loud!”

“fee...”

“Doh!”

“Oh, just great. Now it’s Homer Simpson!”

“Es...”

“Cof-fee...”

“Doughnut.”

The message was becoming clearer to L’gruk. “Ok, ok, I got it. You want doughnuts and coffee. Look the bakery opens at six, which isn’t really that long from now when you think about it, especially considering that some of you have been dead for hundreds of years, Ow! Let go of my ear!”

“Press...”

“Doughnut...”

“...Oh!”

“Doughnut! Coffee! Espresso!” the zombies began chanting, quietly at first, then progressively louder.

“Look!” shouted L’gruk. “I’m sure I saw a giant plate of muffins inside the church when I walked by!” he lied sweetly. “Why don’t you all just walk over there and have muffins instead?”

“Muffin, no. Doughnuts!”

“Doughnuts!”

“You imbeciles! Put me down at once!” screamed L’gruk in counterpoint. “You are nothing but physically powerful brutes. You need my brains in order to make carefully reasoned choices based on logical conclusions! To formulate strategies! Do you see the beauty of it? You’ve got the physical strength, now all you need is brains!”

The chanting ceased, while the zombies contemplated the significance of this outpouring. “It’s all about choices!” screamed L’gruk. “Put me down so we can plot together our takeover of the world!”

“Brains,” said one zombie. “Need brains.”

“Hm,” replied another. “Eat brains.”

“Need eat brains,” synthesized a third.”

“NO!” screamed L’gruk. “Brains make choices! Carefully reasoned decisions based on the universe knowledge available, seasoned by academic learning, wisdom and prudence! Strategies based on studious scrutinization of histsoric precedent!”

“Brains,” echoed a fourth.

“Eat brains.”

The zombie that was holding L’gruk held him closer for examination, to see if perhaps there might be an easy way to get his head open to get the brains out. L’gruk punched him hard, right between the eyes.

The zombie was so startled, that it dropped L’gruk, who scuttled off down the river bank.

He was gone. Vanished into the shadows beneath the moonlight, which streamed through the trees in mysterious beams that dappled the forest floor with pale bluish light.