Lucy awoke one morning with a leathery wing spread out across her face.

She smiled, eyes still shut but mind awake, in that swirly sort of space between sleep and consciousness where one couldn't always be sure where dreams ended and reality began. The feel of the wing on her cheek, however, was certainly real. She knew at once it could only be her pet bat Fangs. He often liked to squeeze his way through the opening of Lucy's coffin bed in the mornings to cuddle with the girl. And hidden away in the darkness of her casket, nobody could see her smile or hear her laugh as they snuggled together. What a shame it was that he was nocturnal, and their waking lives only intersected for a few hours each day. She liked to think that made what time they did have together more special.

She never understood why most people were so terrified of the creatures; with his big eyes and ears, Lucy always thought Fangs was adorable. A bit like if the family's pet hamster sprouted wings and had black fur instead of brown. Not that she would ever say so out loud, of course. It wouldn't be very goth of her to describe something, even Fangs, as cute. Still though, as she gingerly hugged him, she couldn't help but lament how unfair it was that so many, even those in her family, viewed bats with disgust, despite them being no more evil than any other animal. She supposed bats and her had that in common. Dark and macabre, yes, but also misunderstood. It was a small comfort to know that she and Fangs, at least, appreciated one another for who they were.

Lucy petted him for several moments, still too groggy from her early rise to truly notice how limp he was as she handled him. Finally she lifted the lid of her bed and stood up, doing what she always did and crossing her arms as she rose in imitation of many of the vampire movies she'd seen.

As she had done countless mornings before, she held Fangs up to her shoulder, waiting to feel the light scrape of his claw as he climbed up her shirt to perch there. Then she could go make breakfast and perhaps cut up a banana for Fangs to enjoy as a treat. But when Lucy brought him to her shoulder on this morning he did not shift from her grasp at all, and it hit her how she couldn't feel a pulse or the rise-and-fall of his chest as he breathed in and out.

"Fangs?" she said, quietly so as to not wake Lynn. She expected all of a sudden for him to suddenly spring to action, as though he were only asleep and just needed to be roused. Then she noticed that his eyes were open even as he remained still, and Lucy knew then without question that Fangs was dead.

The realization hit her harder than she expected. After all, she thought of death often, far more than was normal for an eight year old girl. But for reasons she couldn't fathom seeing Fangs' lifeless frame sitting in her palm gave her a feeling like her insides were being shattered. For an instant she couldn't breathe, her throat seeming to close up. Then all of a sudden the breaths came heavy, inhaling and exhaling at a frantic rate as water pooled in her eyes. She pressed her finger to his chest and shook it back and forth, half-hoping she could restart his heartbeat, but quickly gave that up.

"Goodbye, Fangs," she whispered to him, "I will see you in the next life." A grim joke entered her mind, and she couldn't help but turn to face the stone vampire bust on her nearby shelf and say it out loud. "Looks like you're my only friend left on this side of eternity, Edwin," she said, "At least I won't have to worry about you ever dying. You were never even alive to begin with."

From behind her she heard Lynn's body shift on her bed, followed by a mighty yawn as she awoke. Lucy dared not turn around, lest her sister see her loss of composure. Even considering the tragedy of the morning, she still had a reputation she wanted to uphold, that of the "duchess of darkness," to borrow Lynn's phrase. She began taking deep, slow breaths, and after ten or so she started feeling relatively calm again. Luckily all her tears remained welled up in her eyes, and thus covered by her long bangs. Lynn wouldn't be able to notice them.

"'Morning, Lucy," Lynn's voice sounded behind her. No answer followed. Lucy only stayed still, clutching Fangs' body to her chest. "Everything alright?"

"Fangs died in the night," Lucy answered bluntly. She didn't trust herself to speak in longer sentences without losing control again and outright sobbing. Immediately the sound of bedsprings creaking echoed through the room as Lynn got out of bed and stood at her sister's side.

"Geez Luce, I'm really sorry. You okay?" Lynn said, though to Lucy she didn't sound it, not truly. Sure, she may have been making an effort to console her, but Lucy had it in the back of her head that it was only false sympathy. Lynn and Fangs never got along. He was always nibbling on her and drawing blood and dropping disgusting bombs of guano upon her belongings. If anything, Lucy figured, Lynn was probably happy Fangs was dead, and was likely waiting for Lucy to leave the room so she could celebrate in private, without having to worry about being in poor taste. Still, hollow as she was sure they were, Lucy supposed that Lynn's words had to count for something. A cold comfort was a comfort nonetheless.

"I'm fine."

An awkward silence followed, broken a few seconds later by Lynn speaking up again, her voice having an air of strained positivity. "Hey, maybe later you can have one of your seance things. That way you can still talk to him."

How typical for Lynn to misunderstand and oversimplify the dark arts that meant so much to her. Lucy knew that only those that died with some part of their lives left unresolved stuck around as spirits, to be communicated with by means of crystal ball and seance. There was no way, Lucy was sure, that Fangs' ghost would be hanging about in the mortal realm, not after Lucy made certain that she had given him a fulfilling life. No, Fangs was flapping about on some celestial shore somewhere, waiting for her to join him many long years down the line. Rather than explain all this out loud, no doubt only for Lynn to forget about it within the hour, Lucy merely said, "that won't work," and left it at that.

"…Okay. Well, if you change your mind, I could help you set one up."

"I would, however," Lucy continued, "like to invite you to a funeral."

By the time Lucy was eight years old, she had transformed the backyard of the Loud house into a graveyard.

Animal corpses littered the underground, buried away in little makeshift coffins crafted from shoeboxes and the like. Former pets mostly, often Lana's, though Lucy didn't discriminate. Even the dead mice that Cliff would on occasion drop at her feet like gifts would be given a proper burial. Part of it was a true belief that every once-living being deserved a place of eternal rest, part of it was that she once saw Pet Cemetery and couldn't help but be inspired, and part of it was pure and simple planning for her future. After all, If she was to be a funeral director one day, she might as well get in as much practice as possible while she was young. And she already had a lot of practice. Besides, everybody, including her siblings, deserved to feel a sense of closure. She liked to think that was what her funeral services provided; closure for the living, and rest for the dead.

The only downside as far as she could see was that she was running out of space. After placing his body in a box and sticking it in the freezer for temporary storage before the funeral, Lucy walked along the grass, surveying the yard for possibilities as to where her beloved Fangs could sleep eternally, but every worthy prospect was already occupied. Her parents, knowing how likely it would be for any of their children to trip over one while playing in the yard, disallowed Lucy from placing any tombstones, but she had memorized over the years every location of every dearly departed animal. There lay Rowlf, one of Luan's former show bunnies, who tragically died after a magic trick gone wrong as Luan was performing at a birthday party, over by the back stairway. There lay Susie Q, Lana's first pet chameleon, who passed peacefully away in her sleep at the ripe old age of four, near the fence. And so on and so on.

She continued to look, not wanting to just pick any old place that was free. After all, Fangs was her loyal companion for years, and he deserved a resting place of honor. That's when it hit her. All of a sudden it was painfully obvious where was the perfect place to bury him. Under the shade of the tree where they first met. It was only appropriate, she reasoned, that his exit from her life match his entrance in some way.

She went to the garage to grab a shovel and returned to the yard to start digging a grave near the trunk of the tree. It was an activity she had become well acquainted with over the years. All she had to do was press the tip of the blade an inch or so into the dirt, kick down her foot on one of the shovel treads till the whole of the metal was driven into the ground, then fling the resulting shovelful over her shoulder. And thus she did, over and over again and again in a steady rhythm.

Press. Kick. Fling. Press. Kick. Fling. The process became automatic, something she didn't even have to consciously think about, as if she were an animatronic with these actions as her only programmed movements. As the soil flew above her head, her mind couldn't help but wander. Given the day's events, she found herself thinking back to the night she and Fangs first met so many years ago.

Unable to sleep one night, she went downstairs for a drink of water when she heard a rapid flapping and high-pitched squeaking coming from outside. Looking out the kitchen window, she saw a bat, looking rather like some kind of nightmarish moth darting about in the blue light of the moon, flying around the tall oak in the yard before going to one of its branches to hang.

At that age she half believed it to be a vampire taking on an animal form, much like how they did in the Gothic literature and old horror films she loved. She walked out the back door to investigate, going to the tree and staring up at the bat, waiting for it to return to its human shape.

"Are you a vampire?" she asked after so many moments of silence, her voice taking on the same awestruck tone most children used when asking a mall Santa if he really was the true Saint Nick. The bat only clung to its branch, silently shrouded in its wings. "It's okay if you are. I won't drive a stake through your heart or anything like that."

This time the bat seemed to briefly perk up its ears, but otherwise stayed still. Disappointed, Lucy started walking back to the house when she felt a sudden weight pressing on her shoulder. Turning her neck she saw the creature sitting there, looking at her with curious eyes before reaching over to gently lick her cheek, the sandpapery tickle of its tongue inspiring a giggle from the young girl. It crawled along her, clinging to Lucy's nightshirt then onto her skin as it moved from her shoulder down her arm and eventually settling into her hand, where she commenced lovingly petting its soft fur. And even though it was painfully obvious at that point that it was no vampire in disguise, feeling its calm heartbeat under her fingers was enough to cure Lucy of her disappointment.

It was a difficult process convincing her parents to let her keep him, but eventually they relented. Several shots from a local veterinarian later, Fangs was allowed to join the family as perhaps their most unusual pet, though really only Lucy took care of him. The others seemed frightened of him at first, and their dislike for him seemed to only intensify once it became clear what a troublemaker he could be with the way he would knock things over or harass her siblings. Unintentionally, of course. Lucy was always quick to explain that he was only playing whenever he, for example, flew around somebody's head like a demon, shrieking all the while. It struck Lucy as hypocrisy of the highest caliber that they should despise Fangs for such things, yet adore Charles despite the dog's tendency towards scratching the furniture or using the floors as his toilet.

So Lucy became the only member of the Loud house Fangs became truly close to, yet another example of her being the odd one out. The intervening years were spent playing with him in her room, watching him take flight and hunt mosquitoes in the cool summer night air during their long outdoor walks, and holding out to him little cubes of fresh cut strawberries in her fingers and cooing lovingly as he nipped them from her grasp and greedily ate them, her pretending that the juice from the fruit morsel dripping down his mouth was blood and he had just finished turning some lucky mortal into an undead minion under his vampire sway…

She dropped the shovel to the ground as she fell on her knees and tears ran down her cheeks and landed in the dirt before her, where in her grief she briefly imagined that they would water the soil to the point where fresh plants would sprout up. How nice it would be, she thought, if Fangs' essence could be absorbed into some beautiful flowers growing over his grave, life energy being transferred in a cycle of decay and rebirth.

Tears still flowing, Lucy gazed into the hole to check her progress. Only about half a foot deep so far. More of a wide indentation than a hole, really. It made no sense to her. Every other grave she had ever dug was finished within minutes. Of course, never before had her digging been interrupted by sobbing breaks.

"Hi Lucy."

Hastily she wiped her sleeve across her face, soaking up as best as she could the tears that stained her cheeks. Once dry, she turned and saw Lana standing behind her, a sad pout on her face as she rubbed nervously at her elbow.

"Hi Lana," Lucy said. A faint crack could be heard in her voice, though Lana didn't seem to notice. Or if she did, she made no comment.

"Lynn told me what happened to Fangs," the younger girl said. "I'm really sorry. I know what it's like to lose a pet. I remember how sad I was when my old frog Seymour died." Lucy also remembered well. All throughout the funeral and for hours after Lana bawled her eyes out. In the ensuing days on occasion Lana's whimpering would echo through the upstairs. And though the house was always filled with noise of one type or the other, the sound of Lana's crying in such a vulnerable state seemed to posses the magical ability to cut through the chaos of the Loud house and reach her sisters' and brother's ears with no problem, beckoning them to come to her room to comfort her. It seemed to Lucy in those days that every time she passed by the twins' door she saw Lana being cradled in somebody's arms as she sobbed into their chest.

Lucy didn't expect such things for herself, for the others to come rushing to her aid in times of duress, even if she were to cry out in the open. After all, Lana was friendly and cheerful and good-natured and all those other qualities that Lucy felt in her heart that she lacked. Not at all was Lana like the weird and gloomy girl that now struggled to give her one close friend a proper resting place.

Knees shaky, Lucy turned back to reach for the shovel again, hoping that Lana would see that she was busy and let her return to her work in peace. Instead, Lana walked over and looked at the meager excuse for a hole, watching the worms writhe in the small patch where the top layer of grass had been flung away. "Whatcha doin'?"

"Digging a grave. Service is at three. You're welcome to attend."

"I'll be there. Do you want some help?"

It was a tempting offer, but one Lucy had to decline. Lana was a far better digger than she was, practically mole-like in the way she could move soil around. But Lana also loved to play around in the dirt. No doubt she'd turn what was meant to be a solemn ritual undertaken with a heavy heart into a game of some sort. Fangs needed to be shown the proper respect. Lucy wanted every lift of the shovel to weigh heavy, if only to show that he was worth the effort.

"No thank you, I can manage."

"Okay. If you need anything, just ask and I'll be there for you." With that, Lana walked back into the house, and Lucy turned her focus back to the task at hand, digging with renewed intensity, hacking her way through roots as she dug deeper and finishing as quickly as she could. In the end she had to admit it wasn't her finest work, a slapdash rush job that was artless and uneven, but such were the concessions she had to make if she wanted it done on time before another crying spell could rear its head. Besides, she figured that it didn't really matter how nice the hole looked, just as long as it fit the coffin.

After all, it would only be filled again by the end of the day.