“Clyde!" Sprawled out on a patchwork blanket, Clyde awoke with a loud snort, falling out of his bed with a jaw-rattling thud. A wet patch of drool stained his lumpy pillow, stuffing poking out of a dozen minor tears.
“Clyde, get yer arse up here!" The man yawned widely, wiping his mouth on his sleeve before trudging up a set of creaky wooden stairs to the main deck of their ship. Wilbert had won the vessel after a lucky streak and long night of gambling, though it was definitely a fixer-upper – nonetheless, the boat felt like home. It was what elevated them from small-time thieves to proper grave-robbers, the best venture one could have, at least in their opinion. Clyde inhaled deeply, enjoying the ocean breeze while his eyes adjusted to the morning sun.
“Whot’s the matter, Wil?” The other man fumed silently, gesturing to a broken railing, splintered planks hanging limply off the side of the ship. Clyde could faintly remember bumping into it the previous night, but the details were fuzzy. The two were heavy set, to say the least, and far from elegant when drunk. He thought for a moment, scratching the stubble on his chin.
“I reckon I could patch it up…d’you remember where-”
“That’s not the problem, dung for brains,” Wilbert exclaimed, whacking him over the back of his head. “Over there, our vega-tubles, ‘n such.” Clyde could just make out a barrel bobbing in the distance, fruits and dried meat spilling out into the water. Swearing silently, he turned, stooped over, and swung open the doors to a storage cellar underneath the main deck. Tarnished coins, jewelry speckled with clumps of dirt, a few fingers the two couldn’t quite manage to pry the rings off of, a gold-engraved casket, and yet no food to speak of.
“We’re fresh out,” he lamented. “Whot’s the nearest town we could restock at?”
“Frostmill, I reckon, but it’s too cold this time ‘o year. Like me mum always said, ‘only gits forget mitts.’”
“I don’t care about yer mum, ya big oaf,” Clye muttered, grabbing a map and compass. He stood there for a full minute, brow furrowed in concentration, swivelling his head between the two instruments before tentatively pointing north.
“Nearest island’s up there, ‘bout a couple hours away.” Wilbert nodded, hoisting the sails with a gentle flapping of cloth as they fluttered in the wind.
~
Clyde precariously teetered on one foot, reaching for a mango, his other arm hooked around a wicker basket half-full of fruit. Their ship was neatly docked beside the island, parallel to a sandy beach fading into shady grass. Much to their delight, the two had found that groves of fruit trees winded through the island’s rolling hills, and had happily split up to gather a new supply. Finally snatching the mango from its branch with a tiny snap, Clyde sighed contently, looking around. He could get used to this – the weather was nice, there was plenty of food, as long as they didn’t get tired of fruit, and their last haul was big enough that they could take a week or two off before moving on to the next job.
“Oy, Clyde! Reckon I found something!” All the way out there? They hadn’t seen any signs of human activity on the island so far. He gently put down the basket of fruit before following Wilbert’s voice to the nearest grassy hill, leaves rustling softly overhead. A squat slab of stone jutted out from the ground, sitting above a small mound of dirt.
“…Well, it’s a grave, innit? Whot’s it doing here?”
“Y’know, I heard ‘bout these,” Wilbert whispered, leaning in conspicuously. “Sometimes kingdoms bury royalty ‘n such out in th’ middle of nowhere, if they didn’t want to rest in a dodgy ol’ crypt. They try t’ make it look incun-spicoo-us, right, so folks don’t bother ‘em.”
“Tucker, eh? Never heard of th’ chap,” Clyde mused, reading the front of the tombstone. “Reckon we should give it a go?” Wilbert shrugged, inspecting the heap of soil.
“Might as well, looks pretty recent too. Mind fetching th’ shovels?”
~
Clyde exhaled wearily, sticking his shovel into the ground with a slight scrape against the rocky soil. He stood waist-deep in the grave, and it was already mid-afternoon. Wiping his brow with the back of his hand, he read through the tombstone once more, only to catch something odd in the hole out of the corner of his eye – it looked like a foot.
“Oy, Wil! Take a look at this!” Sitting in the grass, the other man was cooing to a squirrel, trying and failing to lure it over with a handful of apple seeds. With a disappointed sigh as it ran off, he picked himself up, lumbering over to join Clyde.
“Well, that’s strange. S’pose the chap never got a casket…” With a few more scoops the man was fully uncovered, as the two peered down from the edge of the pit. His skin was on the verge of rotting, though hadn’t quite started to decompose just yet.
“Poor fellow,” Wilbert remarked, pointing to the hole in his stomach caked over with dry blood. “How d’you reckon he- OH GODS,” he bellowed, stumbling back. “Clyde, I swear he moved.”
“Relax, you blockhead,” they muttered, leaning in closer. “Ya must be imaginin’-” Clyde froze, eyes slowly widening. He mumbled a short prayer, legs suddenly feeling like jelly. This wasn’t right. They shouldn’t be here.
“Wil, g-ghosts ain’t real, right?” Wilbert hesitantly shuffled beside him, unable to find words to describe the sight in front of them. The edges of the man’s…Tucker’s…skin were unravelling, thin strands of flesh and bone dancing in an unseen wind. Even as they watched, one of his clouded eyes quivered, splitting into what looked like a ball of yarn, before sluggishly spiralling out from its socket. Wilbert coughed uncomfortably, reluctantly pointing to a ring clutched in the man’s decaying hand. It seemed to be made of delicately twisted silver, streaked with veins of glowing purple crystal.
“We could…erm…” Clyde placed a hand on his shoulder, solemnly shaking his head. Nothing more needed to be said. Dirt crumbled once more over Tucker’s body as they filled the grave back in, straightening the headstone and leaving a small bundle of wildflowers resting below it. Being grave robbers, honoring the dead wasn’t something the two thought about often, but this…this was different. And so Tucker dreamt on.