Chapter 406

Chapter 406: Gunfire in the Graveyard

In the graveyard, the Old Caretaker raised his head again and glanced at the Warden’s hut beside him.

He had already reported the restlessness among the dead in the mortuary as an express dispatch to the Cathedral, but there was still no reply—clearly, with the whole city shrouded in strange fog and the sunlight in the sky unnaturally gone, the Cathedral no longer had the spare attention to care about an Anomaly in a small graveyard.

“We can only count on ourselves now…” the Old Caretaker muttered, pulling his coat tighter. The leather armor and metal plates sewn into the lining gave a faint scraping sound. “This fog covers quite a distance…”

The clatter and scraping broke the deathly silence of the graveyard. Under the thick fog, several coffins on nearby platforms seemed to give a faint shudder.

“Considering I stand night watch over you lot every day, you cannot behave yourselves at a time like this?” The Old Caretaker frowned and lifted the barrel of his gun a little. He knew these bodies, laid out properly for days, were suddenly “moving” because of this strange fog, but there was nothing he could do.

He could only wait for them to climb out and then send them off one by one with a shot.

As this thought ran through his mind, a sound different from the restless noise inside the coffins suddenly caught his attention. He froze for a second, then reacted at once and looked toward the path at the graveyard gate.

A small figure stumbled out from the far end of the path. In the dimness, the white coat and skirt looked like a bouncing snowball.

“Grandpa Caretaker! Help me! Grandpa Caretaker! Are you there?!”

The little “snowball” shouted as she ran along the path. Her voice sounded strained, as if she was trying hard to press down her fear and panic.

“Annie!” The Old Caretaker forgot his shock at once and called through the fog to the girl: “Come here! Do not go that way!”

The flustered girl running into the graveyard finally saw the old man standing near the Warden’s hut. For a moment, the fear on her face eased, and she ran toward him at once: “Grandpa Caretaker! I am so glad you are here…”

“Why are you still running around outside at a time like this?!” The Old Caretaker did not bother listening to her joy. He set his face and scolded loudly. Today was not like other days. The danger in this fog was nothing like slippery streets in a snowfall. “Do you know the whole city is under lockdown now?!”

“I got separated from my classmates!” Annie was startled by the old man’s stern face and tone, but she still waved her hands and explained quickly: “We went with Teacher to visit the City Museum. When we came out, we ran into the thick fog. Teacher said to take us to the nearest veil of night shelter, but in the blink of an eye Teacher and the others walked into the fog and were gone…”

The Warden stared wide-eyed: “They walked into the fog and disappeared?”

“Yes, gone, just like that, in a blink,” Annie still looked badly shaken, but she tried her best to explain what had happened. “Then I went to find a place to hide by myself. The City Museum was sealed off. I could not find any Lords on the streets. All the doors were locked. I knocked as hard as I could but no one opened up. Then I remembered Teacher said that if we ran into danger, we should go to the nearest priest, Guardian, or constable. The graveyard is the closest, and I heard you say you are a veteran Guardian…”

As he listened to the girl’s rapid-fire explanation, the Old Caretaker’s expression shifted several times. He realized that, in his panic, he had wrongly blamed the young lady. For someone her age, this child had actually handled things quite calmly. But he could not bring himself to admit it, so he kept his face stiff: “So you came to the graveyard to take shelter?”

Annie nodded hard: “Yes. Everyone says veteran Guardians are stronger than normal Guardians…”

“…But a graveyard is not a good place to take shelter,” the Old Caretaker said in a low voice. “Especially at a time like this.”

Annie looked flustered: “I… I should not have come here?”

“…No. There is no better choice now. If you ran around the streets in this fog, it would be even more dangerous,” the Old Caretaker shook his head. “You hide first—”

Before he could finish, a strange rattling noise nearby cut him off. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a shadow rise suddenly from the nearest platform. The lid of a cheap coffin was shoved open. A restless arm struggled up from inside, and then the restless dead sat up!

He did not even have time to tell Annie to close her eyes. The Old Caretaker raised his double-barreled shotgun by instinct. With a thunderous bang, the corpse that had just staggered upright fell on its back and rolled off the platform to the ground.

“Ah!”

Annie, hiding behind him, was still only a child. The gunshot made her jump, but more than the gunshot, she was shocked by that corpse that had just sat up in the fog.

“That… that…” The little girl pointed in terror at the platform from before, stammering.

The Old Caretaker started to speak without thinking: “Do not be afraid, that is just—”

“supernatural, volume three, chapter six talked about this!” Annie finally caught her breath and shouted quickly: “Teacher said that in times like this we should at once silently repeat Bartok’s name in our hearts, then use a rosewood branch or a smoke-cured rope to lash the Restless One, and then look for a chance to run to the nearest Cathedral for help…”

The Old Caretaker stared blankly as he listened to the girl’s rapid words. After two or three seconds, he suddenly snapped back, snapped another shell into the shotgun, and turned without looking back to aim at another platform. With another thunderous bang, another Restless One that had just crawled out of its coffin lay back down where it should have slept.

“Your textbooks are different from ours. Back then we only covered that lesson in high school,” he said offhandedly.

Annie hugged her head without thinking. Her small body shook from the shock of the second gunshot. She had recited the textbook fast just now, but her fear and nervousness still showed plainly.

“You hide inside the house,” the old man said. He shielded the girl and brought her to the Warden’s hut. He reached back to open the door and pushed Annie in: “No matter what happens outside, you must not leave. As long as you do not go out, this little hut is as safe as the icon hall in the Cathedral. Do you understand?”

Annie’s eyes opened wide with fear. She kept nodding as she stared at the fog outside. In her sight, the platforms in the fog seemed to come alive one after another. Shadows writhed between them. Invisible howls echoed across the graveyard. Coffins nailed shut split and burst open one after another, and terrifying figures were waking and sitting up from those “beds” that should have been for peaceful rest.

The Old Caretaker pushed Annie farther into the hut, shut the door, then turned and fired again.

The Warden’s hut was sturdy, and wards protected it. But if every dead body in the graveyard really climbed out, then this thin, small Sanctuary World might not hold off all their attacks. Even if it held up physically, the mental shock of the dead besieging it could still pierce the hut’s protection and affect the child.

The more he put down now, the safer Annie would be.

“By the God of Death, I have been retired for ten years!”

The veteran let out a rough growl from his throat. His hands worked the action with practiced ease, throwing out the spent shells and feeding in fresh rounds. In his already cloudy eyes, a fire seemed to burn. He needed almost no aim at all before he had the next unruly “resident” in his sights.

The gun roared. The dead rested. Smoke rose, and souls passed on.

“The Gatekeepers on the ‘other side’ will be busy today. I hope they can handle so many souls setting off early.”

The Old Caretaker muttered to himself, but his hands never stopped. Several Restless Ones had already started moving toward the Warden’s hut. He loaded round after round, fired shot after shot, sending his “tenants” on their way ahead of time.

More and more staggering corpses appeared around the path.

Those vague, flickering shapes even left the Old Caretaker briefly confused—

Were there really this many bodies in the graveyard? Even if you added up every platform, could they hold so many corpses?

Were they appearing out of this fog out of thin air?!

Bang!

After another gunshot, the Old Caretaker heard a snarl very close by. Without even lifting his head, his left hand slid to his chest, and a short sword appeared in his grip. In the next second, his body seemed to vanish and reappear a few meters away beside the door. The short sword flashed through the air. A corpse fell, and a swollen, twisted head rolled across the ground.

The old man looked down. On that head, there was only one huge eye.

His shock lasted only for a moment. Then he was back at the hut door, raising his gun and aiming at another shadow that was lurching toward him through the fog.

He pulled the trigger, but the gun did not fire. Only the empty click of the hammer sounded.

His eyes changed slightly. He sheathed the short sword at once and reached to the cartridge pouch at his waist with his free hand—it was already empty.

After a brief silence, the Old Caretaker sighed: “That is fine. The numbers are about right…”

He lowered the empty shotgun, drew his short sword again, and looked up at the shapes that were wobbling out of the fog one by one.

A faint creak came from behind him.

The Warden’s hut was being opened from the inside.

The old man turned in surprise and saw Annie peeking out at him.

The young lady clutched a loaded large-caliber rifle in her hands—that was his spare weapon.

At the girl’s feet lay several cartridge pouches and ammo boxes of all sizes.

Scratches showed clearly on the floor. Annie had clearly dragged all that heavy stuff over from the corner with great effort.

“Grandpa Caretaker, use this,” Annie said. She lifted the rifle and handed it to the old man with some effort. “Will it help?”

“…Yes.” After a short silence, the old man nodded, took the rifle, and tossed the double-barreled shotgun to the girl: “Load it.”