Work Text:
He watches the twitching remnants of the corpse attempt to move towards him on the slab.
The being, working through the form of Jebediah Morningside scrutinizes the crawling, grisly pieces of what was once a human being, and he scowls. He puts aside his scalpel. Granted, it was an analogue tool at best, but sometimes the best equipment proved to be something directly tactile even with humanoid hands.
It squirms away from him, attempting to avoid his grasp. The thing attempts to moan, though its vocal cords do not exist, and it only has the remains of its lungs. There is no cackling, no words, or taunting. No. This thing isn’t one of the so-called Evil Dead. He might’ve consulted a copy of that book, had he still needed it, just be sure. When he found this particular thing, outside of his Cemetery, the hopelessly mangled thing simply attacked what it perceived as a woman in lavender … until he tore it apart.
But it is fresh, this fleshly construct. And it hasn’t been embalmed. There is enough gore and clotted blood to prove that much. When it had attacked him, in his other guise, he noted that it hadn’t bothered to even try to bite or consume parts of him. So this wasn’t whatever had begun in Evans City either. Besides, whatever iteration of that plague it had been, it had originated in Pennsylvania and that was far cry from Oregon.
No. This is something else. And it corresponds with something happening recently within his own territory. Within his expanding hunting ground.
He pins the thing down. It is mostly a chest and a neck, with stumps where its arms had been, and one blood-shot eye. No jaw. He takes the pump, and forcibly inserts the needle into its mutilated neck. It gurgles, almost in agony. Interesting. It can still feel stimuli. Perhaps even pain. No black liquid comes out though.
The mortician, which is what most people have been led to believe he still is, activates the mechanism. At first, more dark blood comes through the tube. But he has a suspicion.
Eventually, he sees it. Red gives way to green. A bright green. It almost looks irradiated.
It confirms his suspicions while, at the same time, it presents more questions.
It takes a little more time, dissecting the thing further, but he sees the result of the re-agent. Some of it almost looks like some kind of reptilian tissue growing on the muscles and sinews, even the dead nerve-endings of the thing. It’s crude. But the similarities to his own solution, his own yellow ichor, continues to hold the majority of his consideration.
This concoction is crude. Perhaps it has several other doses, with varying results, but he still has yet to find more. But the mortician knows that this might not pose too much of an issue, finding more of these specimens. His own fluids, when applied with the appropriate procedures, made obedient constructs, some of them even passable as the living when combined with his specific technology. Only one other man, a coroner in Potters Bluff and formerly of Rhodes, Providence could match that craftsmanship without his machinery – and these were not it. No, these things are just puppets with a reanimated limbic system fuelled by anger, and pain.
His quota of bodies had diminished of late. A new funerary parlour had been opened up. Two young men from Massachusetts were involved. From a certain University.
The work looks like that of a child, just beginning to play with life and death. Who knows what they could become if they continue at this rate. Who knows how great an inconvenience they would be to his plans, here, in this reality – and possibly others – if he lets this persistence.
No. The dead are his purview. Death is his realm. The Dark Ones are bad enough. He will not tolerate these usurpers getting in the way. There will be no further competition for this world.
The Tall Man gets up from his work bench in his Mausoleum. He points at the writhing pieces of corpses for his Sentinels to deal with, the silvery spheres hovering around the reanimate, and slicing it into further pieces. He tells his assistant to burn the things. What a waste. That corpse could have made for a perfectly good Graver, and its brain for one of his own constructs.
But no matter. The being that used to be known as Jebediah Morningside leaves his Cemetery. Some little boys lost their toys, making them without his permission. And he needs to pay them a visit.