Prologue ; Shifting soil , blanket of mud

An old man sat down on a bench feeling his bones creek and squeak .

" Oh , age . What we would give to be young , eh boy ? " He said looking down at the small animal next to his leg .

It was a rottweiler , ancient and short of breath . It's coat was lined and sagging just like the skin of the old man. Half its eye sight was gone but it didn't bother the dog since it had a good sense of smell . The old man however needed the dog to lead him sometimes ,more so nowadays as his eyesight was starting to fail .

" Hello , lady Wilfred , Mr Owens and good old Sussy Lane . " He said looking left , then infront and then right . He smiled but then he started as if remembering something , " Hello back there Zander ! Sorry , almost forgot you . "

He gave a small chuckle , that echoed around him and if anyone else had been there , they would have felt eerie instead of the peace the old man showed on his face .

A cement pavement was infront of the old man and beyond that was clear green grass with multiple pieces of granite around for nearly fifty yards . Infront of the granite , pieces of plastic and paper could be found on many of them whilst others were barren , even looking neglected . Because the granites were gravestones and the old man was at a cemetery .

He'd been coming to the cemetery since he was a young boy , for his grandparents , then his own parents and then his wife and last month his children . The only family he had left was the dog infront of him , his children dying before having any children of their own .

It was a sad affair , dying before your loved ones but worse was not dying after them. To live on was by far more painful and the old man knew he had shed plenty of tears in his life . He was alone and the only moments of solace he had was when he came to the cemetery and talked to his family , from the oldest to the youngest .

It was all he could do , except wait for death , that felt important to him and made him get up in the mornings . He wanted to die , no one be mistaken , he would gladly join his family but he would wait until fate deemed it so . No matter how many years he had to wait , he would wait .

His only sadness was that the dog would die soon aswell. It had been a present and was first a puppy but now , it looked older than the old man and that was saying something . The person on the bench had a vultures bald head and veiny , sagging skin . His body moved at a snails pace and protested like hell when he moved too fast .

He looked up and saw a fuzzy white and grey ball , surrounded by blurry white dots . The night sky was luminous then with a full moon that shined on each and every grave in the cemetery . Why was the old man in the cemetery at night ?

Because he hated people . Or rather living people .

After losing everyone he loved , he felt a bitter hatred for everyone who lived . Why were those children growing up whilst his had never even gone to college ? Why did that couple hold hands while he had nothing but his wife's ring ? Why did those two children laugh so much with their parents when his were gone and his grandparents ? Why ? It was not fair !

So he had stopped coming to the cemetery when other people were around . He only needed his family anyway , and of course his ' friends ' , some gravestones that just stuck to him and that he greeted whenever he sat on the bench. He had never met Zander , Sussy , Mr Owens or lady Wilfred . But he acted like he did just to have more people to talk to that weren't his family .

An owl called from a nearby tree and the man coughed deeply before sighing softly . His health was not great , infact he should not have been out there in the cemetery but he was a stubborn man . The nurse that looked after him had long since given up trying to stop him . ' If he dies there , then maybe it's a mercy .' the nurse had thought .

" Rufus , I think time's is almost up for both of us . " He said to his dog which gave a wine , " No complaining , you've lived longer than most dogs have . You should be awfully proud old boy . Huh ? What was that ? "

The old man turned his head around to the direction where a strange sound had come from . Behind him however was nothing but Zanders grave . He tried to see beyond that but his eyesight was a horrid mess .

" I thought I heard something . Guess my ears are getting bad too. Old age , worst thing since sliced onion . " He said and patted Rufus but the dog moved away from his hand .

It slowly got up and started barking at him , " Ruff ! Ruff ! Howl ! Ruff ! "

" Rufus , what's the matter with you ? Be quiet ! " He ordered and the dog layed down and whimpered .

" I'm sorry for yelling but you can't go barking in here . What if you wake someone up ? " He joked .

Rufus on the ground looked under the bench at the grave behind his master . He couldn't see but he could smell that something was wrong , very wrong . There was a bad smell in the air and he didn't like it . He had tried warning his master but then he got yelled at .

His ears perked as a strange sound started again , just like before. It sounded like mud or soil and Rufus could tell it was coming from behind his master . He got up and decided to be a brave dog , one last time .

He barked and walked behind the bench until he was infront of the grave . Then he started barking louder and louder .

" Rufus , what's with you old boy ? " The old man said as he got up from the bench .

He walked behind it and got next to his dog . Rufus kept barking and the old man was getting annoyed , the peace and quiet was gone . He was about to tell at Rufus when he felt soil on his legs and he looked down onto the ground .

" What is that ? " Slowly , the old man went down on his knees and placed a hand on the lump of soil infront of the gravestone . There was fresh soil ontop but the old man could swear that the ground had been green and flat .

A hand grabbed his wrist and pulled him down . His face landed on the dirt and just as he was about to scream , another hand reached out from the ground and pulled him harder down . The pressure on his weak old bones made it easy to neck his neck .

Rufus whimpered as his master lay still and not moving . Then he smelt it again , the bad smell . But it was coming from behind him . He turned around and was grabbed before he could get a bark out . The thing that grabbed him held his mouth and his stomach .

It pulled the dog hard , making it have tears in its eyes before the animal snapped in two . The intestines dangled and slopped to the ground . The thing holding the dog threw the back half onto the ground and started eating the dogs head , crushing it's skull with its teeth and munching on the tender tissue .

But soon he was not alone . Other creatures like him came and started taking apart the man on the ground . Ripping his clothes off and tearing through the flesh to get to the soft organs inside .