Shadow Hunters

Graves

He whistled.

Yesterday's morning storm was a beast raised from hell. Radio stations and tv aired the news of massive damage and destruction sustained in the rural areas as farm lands marked another record waste of their harvest. The urban luck played itself as the ghost of the event was murdered into a comparitively much harmless sand storm. Yet the beast provisioned the lightning struck deaths and ravage of a pristine city. This morning the punctual and scheduled humans of the city woke up with  improvised work hours and steady hours in front of the tv- if the electricity supply is promising. Yesterday's storm even devastated some of the power lines.

He whistled.

He was a free Lancer. On Wednesdays he makes formal visits to the editor's office as a small time journalist for one of those junk magazines. Most other times he runs a number of errands. And of course there's his usual routine with the creatures of shadows.

He tried raising one from his own shadow but it's no easy task. The graveyard he now worked in assigned him with bigger tasks-tasks that'll determine tonight's dinner.

So he whistled. And shovelled away the dirt.

Digging a grave is no merry task. His editor quoted it 'grim'. He never felt the tinge of it. A grave is a grave meant to rest a dead human for eternity. It's just...another job.

But today's work load needed more effort. The lightning claimed  men and women needed their beds ready for their everlasting sleep. Worse, the savagery of the storm even violated the graveyard-shattering graves stone's and uprooting flower trees. The scattered bits of debris is enough proof of the unholy devastation. But there's also the grave gaurd's narration of ghosts and possessions and demons.

"It was like the devil himself came to wreck this place! The wind was insane with the sand storm! Three gravestones were struck down by lightning over there!" He pointed his finger.

"It was crazy! I had a feeling something like this will happen. The morning's stormy zest was an omen enough. Then there was this strange woman amidst all that madness grieving for her son. She mumbled to herself and talked to her son as if he was still there. Possessed I gotta say. That kind of desperate mother was the root of the evil yesterday."

"When the storm was getting  crazy I hurried to warn her. Her was a straight face. I tell you her eyes were as still as stone and voice even steel like. She said she will stand there for longer. I don't know what was going on. Insane I guessed. And she was alone."

He was knee deep in the grave he dug. He tossed more mounds of earth out of the grave with his shovel. This ones for a woman. The lightning claimed her. Her family must be mourning now.

"And boy was I right! After calm peaceful moments, you will not believe the kind of angry maniac she turned into. Frantic! She kept calling to a boy demanding to return. She rounded the whole graveyard and shouting out at every grave. And the storm was just as worse. She didn't even seemed to care! There's a reason I say mother's desperation is a cursed thing."

The woman was found unconscious after the storm's aggression began to cease. She was immediately transported to the hospital. But even the hospital couldn't bring back her conciouss self. He felt it was too sad.

He dag for another hour. The graveyard lonely but for him. The great number of shadow creatures littered its surface-looking up at the sky to a new beginning. The day was silvery cold and the clouds still a grey horizon in the sky. The Sun nowhere to be seen. No matter how much the grave gaurd disapproved of the weather calling it some kind of omen, he never seen a lovelier weather. And the beauty of the day gave him what inspiration he needed to get his job done, however grim it is. Hours later he was six feet down, proud of his work. The dinner was determined. And so was a woman's resting place. He grabbed onto the rope ladder and climbed out only to lie down on the mound of earth he just removed. The creatures crawling everywhere and their sinister howls filling the air. Among them, a four feet long shadow creature's howl was the loudest, its skawny shapeless head peeking out of a nearby gravestone. Its bulging big eyes drinking from the grey colour of the sky. He never saw a smaller such creature given their incredible ability grow long and limpy. The strength in the howl and youthfulness of the creatures body gave him a kind of relaxed hope. Let the wind cry. It wasnt a bad day to die and part ways to eternity.