A very merry Halloween! [Mingle]

[ourearth]

Date: 31st of October
Characters: Open!
Warning: Non-sexual desecration of formerly buried corpses

---

On the morning of Halloween, when people first step out of their houses, they will almost step into something.

A bucket of water. Every flat and every house in the Mossgate Boundary has a bucket placed in front of its entrance door (and sometimes, especially in Folkton and Moss Manor, the back door too), in which scary apples are floating. A little sign taped to the bucket reads: Have fun bobbing!.

But that's not the only thing that happened. The second thing that people will notice is that there are billions of spiders of all sizes crawling all over the town and villages, the military base, the Manor House... everywhere. And they certainly did their job - trees, lanterns, the higher attractions on the pier, and everything else that is high all over Mossgate Council is covered in thick layers of cobweb.

And lastly... those who pass by a church will notice something about the graveyards around them. Namely, that someone placed skeletons on top of most of the graves... Awfully real looking ones. Really, really awfully real looking ones. To some of them, the soil of the graveyard still clings, and the graves underneath them are in a state that betrays that they were dug up during the night. DNA tests would show that, indeed, the skeletons belong to the individuals buried in the graves.

Comments

[catted]

"I'm not five any more. You don't have to protect me." Truth be told, she's worried about her father. After all this is the graveyard that her mother is buried at.

If that means...

She won't tell him 'you need me'. But she will come over towards him and not leave.

[scarsolderthanyou]

He shoots her a little glare over his shoulder, but doesn't protest further. He just stalks the rest of the way to Amy's grave, and stops a little ways from it. Sure enough, more bones resting on top of the disturbed grave.

The noise he makes at the sight is practically a growl.

Somehow he's not all that surprised, either, when for beat later he has to put a hand to his head at the feel of another of those dizzy-heartbeat-echo things, and the memory of more bones distracts him from the scene. Not for long, though. Just probably long enough for Mary to notice.

[catted]

She notices, but fails to correctly interpret the sudden change.

"Dad-" she reaches out, not grabbing him, but reaching out to position herself and her hands in a way that she could easily step into a professionally supportive hold if he swayed.

[scarsolderthanyou]

He does reach out with his free hand to brace himself on her shoulder. "I'm okay. I'm okay. Just angry. And got another of those pulses with a vision-- they make me dizzy."

[catted]

She will be furious as well when her more immediate worry about her father fades. Right now, she just wants to make sure that he gets through this safely. Because if what they think happened to her mother's grave really happened, she is much more worried for his physical and mental health than she is for her mother's body - as much as she cares about that, her father is still alive and here.

"Do you think it is related?" She tries to focus on him, but can't keep her eyes from straying to where she knows her mother's grave to be.

[scarsolderthanyou]

"Probably. It had to do with bones, too." And apparently the revelation that whoever he's seeing visions of has multiple forms. At least two, it seems. Weird. He puts that aside for a moment, though, and swipes his hand down his face once to get himself focused again.

Which means angry again. "So we need to get the person in charge of this graveyard. See if they have any kind of cameras that might have caught whoever did this, and get it fixed. Amy shouldn't be out here like this, dammit. None of them should. They're people, not Halloween decorations."

[catted]

She nods - that may or may not sense, but now is not the time to inquire further.

She pulls out her phone and does a quick google search for the number of whoever runs this graveyard. And then pauses. "Shall I call the police or see if I can get in contact with whoever runs this graveyard?" Is it the church at the centre of it? Someone else? She has no idea.

...But then, it's fairly on in the morning, she can't know if there'd be someone in the office...

[scarsolderthanyou]

He'll explain later, if she asks. Right now he's focused squarely on getting his wife properly reburied. "You call the police and I'll check at the church for a caretaker," Sam decides. "Or call the police and come with me while I check the church."

[catted]

"...I'll stay here, you never know when the signal cuts out." She'd rather come with him, but the signal in this dip is notoriously spotty, and she feels like they'll think she's a prank caller anyway, so good connection will be vital for making it clear what she wants to tell them.

[scarsolderthanyou]

"Thanks." He pauses on his way towards the church proper to give her shoulder a squeeze, then strides off again. At least he looks steady on his feet, now, so there's no worry of falling.

Each skeleton he passes gets a narrow look, too, because while it's mostly Amy he's angry about, the rest of them aren't helping, either.

[saveournpcs]

There's nobody in the church itself, but there is an office right next to it in which there's light. The door to the parish office isn't far away, and there's a doorknocker.

[scarsolderthanyou]

Handy, that. Sam strides right on up to the office door and knocks sharply. "Hey. Anybody in there?"

[saveournpcs]

After a bit, the door opens.

A woman in a blue dressing gown that msotly covers pink PJs with yellow bunnies on them stands there gives him a professional smile.

"Yes?"

[scarsolderthanyou]

"Somebody desecrated the graveyard," Sam says with a kind of brisk anger. "I'm guessing nobody's told you yet."

[saveournpcs]

"Oh for-" she sighs in deep disappointment, yawns, and then straightens up a bit, her voice now matter-of-fact. "Let me guess, it's three graves near the entrance to the churchyard?"

[scarsolderthanyou]

"Those," Sam agrees tightly. "And just about every other damn grave in the lawn, too. Including my wife's. Somebody excavated the dead."

[saveournpcs]

If he was younger, she would assume a prank.

It just sounds too ridiculous. But with his age... There's the vague thought that maybe there's some form of elderly confusion going on, but that wouldn't stop her from checking it out.

"Let me grab my coat." And once that is done, and shoes have been put on, she steps out.

And stops.

"What the fuck." ...She actually might have said that out loud. Oops?

[scarsolderthanyou]

"Yeah, that's about what my reaction was, only a little less shocked and a little more angry," Sam says, watching her reaction. She does seem genuinely surprised. How else do you get a priest to say fuck, after all, besides really, really surprise them? "So can we call the usual gravediggers and have them come fix this?" While he sniffs around to try and find the scent of who did it.

[saveournpcs]

"...The gravediggers will do their job as soon as they can, I will make sure of that." She just hopes that he will accept what comes next. "But I fear that we'll have to inform the police first. I want all those poor people to be interred again as soon as possible as much as the next person, but we shouldn't destroy evidence so hopefully they can catch the wankers who did this."

She is, for lack of a better word, as furious as him. She's doing her best to stay professional about it, but there's no doubt in her voice that she's about ready to punch whoever did this.

"Do you want to come inside while I make some phone calls? I just boiled the kettle." She won't be able to stop him if he stomps off, but she obviously feels that after a find like this he should have the option to sit down and have a tea.

[scarsolderthanyou]

His lip curls a little, but he manages to keep the growl that wants to rumble out from sounding. That might just disturb the poor priest more. And besides, as much as he hates to admit it, she has a point-- he just doesn't like seeing Amy's poor bones exposed like that. "All right, fine, that makes sense," he admits. Grudgingly. "My daughter's out there still, so I'm going to pass on the tea. But thanks."

[saveournpcs]

"That sounds like a good plan." Family support is for the best with something like this. "If you need me later at all, you can find my phone number on the parish website."

And now she will make phone calls and hope that the police gets here before the press does...

[scarsolderthanyou]

"I'll probably be hanging around here until I see my wife back where she belongs, so if I need you, I'll come knock on your door again," Sam says, a bit dryly. "Thanks."

And with that, he leaves her to her phone calls and heads back out to Mary.