Story II

Graveyard Shuffle

This is a story that I developed for my film coursework, but thought would be a good storyline to use her as well. It follows a gravedigger named Danny.

A girl named Danny lives and works in a graveyard. She digs graves in the cemetery that her uncle owns and keeps it looked after for him. She has a habit of watching/attending burials to assess how wealthy the person that died is and late at night, she digs up the coffins to take anything she can pawn that they are buried with - clothes, jewellry, shoes, watches, gold teeth etc. One night when she has no money to buy any food for herself or her pet lizard, she digs up a fresh grave and hopes for the best. When she pops the lid off the coffin, to her surprise, she doesn't find the coffin full of a body; she find it full of drugs and money. Sensing that she could get into trouble if she takes it, she puts the lid back on the coffin and buries it again. She decides to dig up a different grave the day after and leaves the one filled with drugs alone. A few nights later, she has a little money from another grave, she's in her house listening to records when she hears some loud noises and scurrying of feet. Knowing that the graveyard is off limits at night, she puts on her boots and coat and picks up her shovel to scare off the intruders. When she leaves the door, she is pulled out by a bunch of shady figures. A bag is put on her head and she is driven away somewhere in a van. It turns out she has been taken by the mob! And they want to know where the money and drugs they were storing in the graveyard are. Unfortunately for Danny, one of her enemies was watching the graveyard that night and waiting to get revenge on her (she beat him up with her shovel when he wandered into the graveyard while she was grave robbing). He saw Danny dig up and re-bury the coffin filled with loot and took it all for himself. Meanwhile, Danny is in a tight spot, a lot of buried treasure is missing and she doesn't know where it is. After a good beating, the mob give her a few days to come up with the foods or they'll bury her alive in her own graveyard. Danny, unphazed by the threats, begins to find a trail to where the loot could be. To begin with, she digs up the grave during the day and sees that all of the drugs have been taken, but half of the money has been left. She stores the leftover cash under some loose floorboards in her shed. While at the coffin, she finds a few clues - a huge, muddy boot print on the lid which has a unique logo on it. She also finds the shovel which the thief used in the hole beneath the coffin. She could tell it was an amateur grave robber who did the deed. The first person she finds is the local drug dealer and asks if anyone is trying to move a large quantity of drugs in the area. He sends her in the direction of an alcoholic named Miranda who was barely any help at all on account of the fact that all she ever spoke about was her bitter divorce that happened three years ago. However, she does say she saw a dodgy looking guy in the local pub a few days ago with a pretty hefty duffel bag hanging from his shoulder. Danny goes to the pub and asks the owner if he has seen anything strange around. The owner takes Danny into the male toilets and pulls off the lid off of three toilet basins to show her the bags of cocaine floating in each of them. Danny takes the drugs and tells the owner that she'll deal with them. She asks about a dodgy looking guy with a duffel bag but the owner had been on holiday all week, she she has a barman named Frank. Frank said he saw the guy come in and walk mud all over the carpets, his hood was up and he walks straight into the toilets. He couldn't see the guys face though, but he did order a glass of soco and lemonade, then he left when he had finished it. Danny stashes the cocaine back in the shed. She realises that she's hit a dead end and she doesn't have a lot of time left. She decides to take a walk to clear her head. She ends up at her friends house to cool off and watch some TV (a possession that Danny doesn't own). While there, her friend's dad is constantly bitching and moaning about his garden. He keeps throwing all sorts of crap out of his tool shed and making a racket. He finally comes in and sees Danny - he asks her if he can borrow a shovel to dig up his flowerbed because his is missing. Something clicks in Danny's mind and she says she'll be back in 20. She goes home to the graveyard where the she gets the shovel she found in the hole and takes it back to her friend's Dad. During the exchange, her friend comes downstairs and recognizes the shovel. She asks if Archer gave it back after borrowing it the other night. Danny leaves the house to find Archer - She realises that after the beating she gave him a few weeks back, he was probably getting payback. She finds him asleep in his Mother's basement with his filthy boots still on his feet. She grabs him by the scruff of his neck and ties him to the bed where she forces him to tell her where the drugs and money are. He points her in the direction of his bathroom where he stashed the goods in his bath tub. He admits the he left some of the drugs in the pub and couldn't carry it all from the coffin. He also bought on packet of cigarettes and some beed because he didn't know what to spend it on. She takes the stuff and waits for the mob to come calling. In the early hours if the morning, she is picked up in the same van to take the stuff back. She gains the respect of the mob and forms a new ally. The mob sends a few men round to Archer's house to rough him up for taking their loot. Everything is finished, Danny solved the mystery of the missing loot and now she can get back to doing what she does best, digging graves!