[ti]open[/ti]Bad to the Bone

Zac hated graverobbing. It was always messy, often fruitless, and bone dust had this weird smell that was hard to get out of car seats. Besides, the word 'graverobbing' was so judgy. Who was being robbed, really? The deceased didn't need their items, and anything of value that was intended to remain in the family should have been willed to a loving son or cold-hearted step-daughter.

"Hey! Find anything over there?" Zac called over the rounded headstones and blunted crosses. He was deploying the classic 'divide and plunder' strategy, and while he briefly scanned each gravestone for signs of pre-deceasement riches his B-Team of Petal, La Trixxia, and Charlie Sheen scoped out the mausoleum side of the yard.

"Uh, nope! I think all the treasure is back in that sunny grove we passed an hour back," Petal said. Something hooted from the crooked trees nearby and her head whipped around. "Trixx!" she hissed. "Tell me you found something!"

"Noh. Ai've been loo'ing after zis, 'ow you say, 'eg'." The Vulpix has her baking tails coiled around the egg from Zac's latest breakfast hunt. It was a rusty brown, like her own coat, and she was hoping against hope that inside was going to be another Vulpix, or at least someone with more than coins or acorns rattling around in their head.

Zac finished checking a row, and was absentmindedly brushing the leaves off of a marble headstone when a vision stopped him cold. He wasn't touching marble at all. No. Instead he was reaching out to touch thee frozen, snow-crusted wrists of a winter corpse. He jumped back, bumping into another headstone, which set rocking like the long-empty chair of some missing grandparent. "Ah! Bugger off ghosts! I haven't even taken anything yet ya greedy spirits!"

The leaves underfoot coiled around his ankles like deciduous serpents, and he stamped them away, stumbling back down the line of graves. His foot his against something solid, and he spun around to see two corpses lying on the ground. The first was a young girl with crazy green hair and bright purple clothing. She wasn't his type, and was too old to be a potential assistant, so her appearance was more shocking than alluring. But the second corpse was what really caught his eye.

It was a handsome man with bright red hair, a suave suit made for on-the-go chicanery, and a winning smile, even when lying dead in the dirt. "That's...me?" Zac said, just a moment before his knees gave out. "Still got it," he mumbled, as he collapsed into darkness.