I put my frozen hands over my mouth and blew steaming breath into them as I walked through the misty cemetery, a dense fog pouring into the half-open door of the church. Stumbling blindly down the graveyard path, I instinctively reached my hand out to guide me, but shivered when it fell upon a gravestone. I drew my hand away and kept marching,
Am I even going the right way?
I looked up at the night sky and watched dense clouds envelop the moon, taking the eerie glow from the mist, but also cutting off my sole supply of light. I shivered again. Strong winds whipped my face and wound their way into my open coat, steering me off course. Cold and disorientated, I spun on the spot to find any glimmer of light to show me the way to the gates, and as I focused I heard it.
Ringing.
The unmistakeable ringing of a bell. Frantic, panicked ringing. I followed the sound desperately, tripping over graves, trampling flowers and knocking over crosses, and where it was loudest I crouched down. There was a sparkle of brass in the darkness, and immediately I put the pieces together.
A safety coffin.
The wind dropped but the ringing continued, faster than before.
Somebody was buried alive.
Wasting no time, I fumbled on the ground on my hands and knees, clawing at clumps of soil above a coffin containing somebody slowly dying. Eventually, after crawling for several yards I came across a broken down shack. Quickly, I broke down the door and grabbed the largest shovel I could find and ran back to the loud ringing.
Shovel after shovel of soil was dislodged, and I kept shouting It’s okay! Hold on! Not caring if he heard me or not.
Eventually my spade thudded against the coffin lid, and I screamed with relief and delight, and hammered at it with the shovel with all of my might. The muffled banging and crying on the other side of the wood became so loud with every cracking of the spade against the lid. I had smashed the lid to splinters, and was about to lift off the shattered remains of the coffin when I was dragged out of the grave. I shrieked as loud as I could, but a large hand stifled my cries. My head was jerked sideways and I was suddenly face to face with the groundskeeper. He put his finger to his lips and hushed me. He released his grip and began pushing the mounds of soil back onto the coffin.
I shouted, outraged
What are you doing? There’s somebody down there!
He scowled at me and shook his head. After he had patted the remainder of the dirt flat atop the grave, he turned back to me, and I considered screaming again. He reached into his pocket and my heart stopped. Slowly, but surely, he produced a large grey object from his coat pocket, and angled it straight at me.
Click
The light of the torch flooded through the churchyard, nearly blinding me. Aiming it at the gravestone, he gestured to me to read the inscription on what was before a dark, blank gravestone.
Victor Shaw
Beloved husband, son and brother
1902-1958
He will be missed
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