The crow screeched at her, ruffling his feathers before flying directly at the camera. He angled upward inches from the lens, circled over Spencer’s head, and landed on his shoulder before letting out a caw so close to the microphone that it was sure to give the viewers a good jump scare. The network execs were going to eat this episode up.
“I see bones.” Alan dropped his shovel and kneeled beside the hole. Lilith joined him, and they continued digging with their hands. Spencer moved in close while Rebecca filmed a wider shot.
“Here’s his head.” Lilith cupped her hands around a mummified skull. “Do you have brushes to remove the dirt?”
“Yeah.” Alan retrieved two brushes from a duffel bag, and they gently removed the earth covering the corpse.
Spencer zoomed in on the remains, and Alan and Lilith backed away so he could get a clear shot. He’d expected to find nothing more than a skeleton and a few splinters from the wooden stake they’d used in the burial. This body, however, was fully intact, though emaciated.
The sickly greenish-brown skin stretched taut over bones, and the eye sockets had sunken in like all the viscous matter in the eyeballs had long since evaporated. Spindly arms crossed the man’s chest, and his ragged clothing looked frail enough to disintegrate if it were moved.
The stake pinning the man to the ground wasn’t wooden, nor did it pierce the heart. A rusted iron rod penetrated the corpse through the upper abdomen instead.
“Staking the heart wasn’t widely common when this man died,” Lilith explained, and Spencer turned the camera toward her. “With many diseases rendering people catatonic, being buried alive was sadly quite common.”
“And with burials this shallow,” Alan said. “I imagine they experienced a few people rising from the grave.”
Lilith nodded solemnly. “The stake was meant to keep them in the ground.”
“Looks like it worked for this poor fellow,” Alan said. “Should we remove it? Let him finally rest in peace?”
“Andrei requested we leave the graves as we found them.” Sadness filled Lilith’s eyes, and Spencer’s gut wrenched. She was responsible for the vampire population. He couldn’t imagine how she felt seeing someone treated this way.
She sniffed and straightened her spine, regaining her composure. “Villages like this one still do not practice embalming on the dead, so it’s not uncommon for the deceased to be buried with stakes through their hearts today.”
“Fascinating,” Alan said before making a cutting motion across his throat.
Spencer lowered his camera and turned his back to the grave to wave over Rebecca. She jogged toward him and froze, her gaze glued to the ground in front of him.
The hissing registered in his senses first. He glanced down, and his muscles seized. Six inches from his ankle lay a horned viper, coiled and poised to strike. Gods, how he hated snakes. His owl rose to the surface, but before his fight or flight instinct brought on the shift, he stumbled backward into the grave.
The snake struck, its fangs piercing his jeans and sinking into his flesh. His leg kicked out instinctively, knocking the iron stake from the ground and sending the snake flying across the grave. Spencer’s ass met the dirt, and he clutched his ankle. The bite stung like a thousand fire ants had crawled through the punctures and were making their way upward toward his heart.
“Spencer!” Lilith darted toward him, and everything around him seemed to move in slow motion. She kneeled by his side, first taking his face in her hands, and then turning toward the corpse, her eyes growing wide as it sat upright in its grave.
Its head slowly turned toward Alan, and dust and clumps of hair rained down around its shoulders. Its bones creaked with the movement as if they were living in a horror movie.
Alan peered at the living corpse, an expression of awe making him look ten years younger. His mouth hung open, his eyes blinking rapidly.
It lunged.
“No!” Lilith shot from Spencer’s side, leaping over the grave and tackling the still undead vampire. They rolled over each other, the corpse stopping on top of her and landing a punch to her jaw before leaping to its feet.
Spencer sat on the ground, stunned and in agony. He should have shifted. He should have gotten the hell out of the way, but he just sat there as the vampire corpse barreled toward him and latched onto his neck. He vaguely heard the sounds of Lilith’s screams and Alan’s sasquatch grunt before the vampire gnashed down and ripped out his carotid artery.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Lilith let out a guttural roar that shook the pits of Hell. She leaped to her feet and charged the blood-lusting vampire. Wrapping her arms around the vile fiend’s waist, she ripped him from Spencer’s body, tumbling over and over as the creature lashed and screamed.
She landed next to the metal stake, and she threw the vampire off her before clutching the rod and marching toward it. It hissed, baring its fangs, and Percival swooped down, pecking at its eyes before she plunged the hunk of metal into its heart, pinning it to the ground.
It flailed its arms and legs a final time before Lilith ripped off its head, ending its undead life for good.
“Lilith! Lilith, you have to help him!” Rebecca sat next to Spencer, her hands pressed against his neck, blood oozing between her fingers.
“Come on, buddy. Stay with us.” Alan rested one hand on Spencer's chest and patted his cheek with the other.
“Let me see the wound.” Lilith dropped to her knees.
