He stooped down and looked at the marks closer, while everyone else moved in to have a look at the body inside. Kelly reached out, touching the jagged metal where it had been scraped away.
Steven looked over, noticing Kelly’s attention to the lid. He moved a little closer as well, a brow quirking.
Kelly looked over at him as he rose back up. “Why’s the lid torn up inside like that?”
The funeral director closed his eyes and hung his head, pointing toward the coffin. “I think someone made a serious error when this poor woman was buried.”
Kelly felt an unwelcomed creeping sensation wash through his body, centering in his lower abdomen, as he looked where Steven was pointing.
The body inside was dried out, but there was still skin and clothing on it. Instead of being lain out on her back, the naturally mummified woman within was contorted, nearly folded in half and on her side. Her shriveled, dusty gray hands were up toward her face, the fingertips curled over the remains of her lower jaw, shoved into her mouth.
“What the hell?” Kelly asked, moving closer to Ryan and getting a better look. “Why would they...”
“They didn’t,” Steven replied, shaking his head. “She wasn’t dead. The Victorians were absolutely phobic about being interred while alive because it actually happened now and then. She tried to dig her way out. Bet she ripped all her fingers to shreds in the process before she finally suffocated.”
Tension wound up in Kelly’s gut, and he looked at Ryan for a moment before turning away. The horror she must have felt realizing she was buried alive transcended the time that had elapsed. Kelly had wondered a few times in his life what going through something like that must be like, but he’d never had an occasion to witness the aftermath of anything so gruesome. While the coffin with the liquefied remains in it had been awful, the sheer emotion he felt upon seeing inside this one was far worse.
He looked back at the curled body, the monotone flat brown of the woman’s skin and dress forever burned into his memory. Her final moments of terror were still evident on her dried out, taut face. Empty eye sockets looked up at him, her jaw agape with her fingers all pushed inside.
“Jesus Christ,” Kelly whispered before moving away from the coffin, unable to be near it any longer.
Ryan jogged to catch up as his friend headed toward the highway. “That’s messed up, huh?”
He shook his head, keeping his eyes focused on the ground. “I used to think about that kind of shit when I was a kid. It used to really freak me out, you know? I’m not okay after seeing that. Did you feel anything?”
“Yeah,” Ryan said, shoving his hands in his pockets as they crossed the road. “Sorta... It was bad. The kinda thing that just makes you sick to your stomach.”
Knowing they were a safe distance away from the others, Kelly finally lifted his gaze and met Ryan’s eyes. “No, I mean like,” he paused and looked back across the highway, “aside from how horrible it had to be for her. Didn’t you feel something evil when you looked inside?”
Ryan shrugged. “I dunno. I didn’t get the willies like I thought it was done on purpose. She’s been dead for over a hundred years. It’s not like it happened yesterday. There wasn’t anything we could have done about it. Besides, with all the creepy shit we’ve been feeling all day, it’s just par for course.”
Kelly thought for a moment before stopping once they were back on their own side of the road. He looked toward the work site, seeing the funeral director already working to lift the poor woman’s twisted corpse out of the coffin it had been trapped inside for ages. Again, his stomach knotted as he thought about the horror of her final moments.
If the coming storm got him away from all of this for a few days, it might not be the worst thing in the world. Ryan was right, they had both been jumpy and on high alert. Living in that state wouldn’t do either of them much good. The last thing Kelly needed was a bout of digestive issues from stress, and Ryan wasn’t the best at handling it, either.
“Let’s work on shoring up the graves we’ve already dug. They won’t catch up to us by day’s end as it is, and I don’t think we have enough plywood out here to cover more than we already have excavated to keep the snow out overnight,” Kelly said, turning his attention back to his friend.
Ryan looked up at the sky, his eyes panning toward the west. There was a thin line of gray along the horizon. “Yeah, sounds like a plan. We can always move headstones, too, since we’ve plotted most of it out.”
Chapter
13
Within a few hours, Ryan and Kelly were both in a better mood, back to joking around. The weather, however, was definitely getting worse. While it had been bitterly cold all day, within an hour after their lunch break, the wind had kicked up and the temperature had plummeted even further. The clouds continued their march across the sky, and the sunlight was blotted out to a weak ambient glow.
Ryan and Kelly walked across the highway again, after catching up with the work on their side. Three bodies had been moved over since lunch. A fourth coffin was sitting next to the hole it had been exhumed from, with the funeral director readying the new coffin before he moved to open the old one.
After seeing one liquefied corpse, and one woman buried alive, Kelly wasn’t particularly keen on watching another opened. The novelty had worn off for many of the workers present, and the site around the coffin was much less crowded than the first few times.
Ryan strolled over to see what this one held, while Kelly went toward Henry, knowing the older man would have all the information about the growing storm at his disposal.
“What’s the latest?” he asked, leaning against the side of Henry’s pickup truck.
Henry had his weather radio sitting on the hood, and he was looking at the screen of his laptop, documenting exactly what they would have finished by the day’s end. His eyes flicked up and he gave a small shrug. “Could be exactly what the warning said earlier, could be something else entirely. You know about how accurate they are with this. I guess it’s already coming down in Colby and Oakley pretty good, though, so it won’t be long. We’ll get this last one opened up and placed on your side of the road and call it a day.”
Kelly smiled to himself, glad they wouldn’t be working into the night or the coming storm. “Ryan and I have gotten the reburial of those coffins down to an art. Once this one comes over, we’ll have it buttoned up in a half-hour, tops.”
“Everyone’s done a real nice job today. I’ve only had to lose my temper about three times.” Henry gave a smile, though he wasn’t entirely joking. “You’re more than welcome to come over for dinner tonight. I know you and Ryan will both be starving.”
“I appreciate the offer, but I’m probably gonna just go home and crash. I’m not used to these hours.” Kelly looked at the last coffin, seeing Steven furiously working his way around it with the reciprocating saw. “Grace had me spoiled coming in at seven.”
“You and your damned banker’s hours.” Henry closed the computer. “That feed store—”
There were cries out around the coffin, the few who’d gathered by it suddenly moving back. Henry and Kelly turned just in time to see Steven throw the crowbar in his hand he’d used to pry up the lid off to the side before he bolted. Whether he was throwing it at something or just ejecting it before he retreated, they couldn’t really discern.
“What the hell?” Henry moved around the truck and started toward the scene. “We must have another stinker.”
Kelly was torn between staying where he was or moving forward, but when Ryan ran toward him, he decided to remain put. “What’s going on? Is it another wet one?”
Ryan’s complexion was ghastly, and he was breathing hard though he’d only run a short distance. “I don’t know what the fuck that was!”
All of the anxiety and fear Kelly had worked on letting go over the previous hours came flooding back. He could see Ryan’s hands shaking at his sides, and no one was going back toward the coffin. Steven seemed t
o have vanished.
“What do you mean?” Kelly asked, looking past Ryan’s terrified face toward the coffin again.
“He pried the lid open, and I swear to God, Kelly, something came out of it!” He glanced back over his shoulder before moving to lean against the truck.
“Came out of it?” Kelly turned to face Ryan, hearing the telltale wheezes in his breaths. “You got your inhaler?”
Ryan nodded, fishing around in his coat pocket before coming up with the device. He took three long draws off of it, doing his best to ward off the tension building in his chest. The cold air wasn’t helping, and he opened the truck door then climbed inside, getting out of the wind.
Kelly went around to the other side, knowing he needed to keep an eye on his friend. Ryan’s childhood asthma had never abated. Though he was now in his twenties, his rescue inhaler was still a frequent sight. There were times when it wasn’t enough, however, and Kelly was filled with additional worry given how far they were from the town’s only urgent care clinic or the emergency room.
Ryan began to relax, but he reached over and pushed down the door lock, his anxiety growing. “I don’t know what could have been sealed up in the coffin with the body that could possibly be alive and run out like it did, but...”
“Like what?” Kelly asked, sitting sideways on the seat. “Could it have been a rat or something?”
“How would a rat have gotten in there?” Ryan pointed out the windshield.
“Well, something along those lines, though. I mean, most of the coffins have been cracked and who knows what could have gotten inside?” Kelly looked back toward the coffin, seeing Henry near it with several workers talking to him animatedly, all wearing their respirators again.
“This one was sealed like the first one.”
Kelly felt a tingle across his skin as his eyes moved back toward Ryan.
Ryan let out a shuddering breath and looked at Kelly, locking gazes with him. “Whatever ran out was covered in the same human stew that filled the first coffin, and it left a wet trail on the ground until it vanished off into the dead grass.”
“It actually left a visible trail?” Kelly asked. While he could accept people might have mistakenly thought they saw something, knowing there was physical evidence of it changed things.
“Yeah, if you want to see it, just go over there. Looks just like someone dragged a wet mop along the ground,” Ryan said, calming down. “I can show you.”
Kelly nodded and moved to open the truck’s door. It was time to get to the bottom of things. Maybe Ryan thought he saw a trail in his panic, but it was impossible for something living to have emerged from a sealed coffin underground that long. After all the drama in the town with the ghost hunters and such, Kelly’s annoyance was great enough to overcome his instinctual fear.
Ryan hadn’t actually expected Kelly to get out of the truck, but he followed in short order with the collar of his coat zipped up over his mouth and nose. They went back to the coffin, several of the others now closer again. Many of them were looking inside the coffin itself, and the stench emanating told Kelly without looking that the body was in the same state as the first one they’d exhumed.
Ryan walked around it before pointing at the ground. “There.”
Kelly knelt down, trying to make sense of what he saw. As Ryan had said, it looked as though someone had dragged a wet janitor’s mop along the ground from the coffin to where the dead grass began not too far off. There were no distinct prints in the path, just parallel drag marks.
He got up again and followed it to the edge of the waist-high prairie grass. Whatever it was had bowled its way into the weeds, the path visible into them for a short distance before fading out. Kelly wasn’t going to go into the dense grass to try and track it down as it had most likely kept right on running.
He hoped, anyway.
Ryan crossed his arms over his chest, ill at ease for being back at the scene. “Well?”
Kelly returned to his side and nodded. The thick stink from the coffin was blowing away from them, but even the trace of freezing liquid smeared along the ground was putting out a gut-wrenching odor. “I believe you. I can’t imagine for the life of me what it was, but I believe you.”
“Let’s see if Steven has an explanation for this one.” Ryan saw his father talking with the funeral director and went to them, Kelly going along at his side.
Steven was frantically trying to convince Henry that something had launched out of the coffin. His arms waved before him, his eyes as wild as Ryan’s had been immediately following the event.
“Well, that’s horseshit,” Henry bellowed, losing his patience with the workday being dragged out. “Everyone’s freaking out about this, and you’re supposed to be the goddamned professional!”
“There was something that came out!” Steven looked back toward the coffin. The only thing visible was the layer of soupy putrescence, just as they’d seen after the first exhumation. “I dare you to find anyone in the industry that’s dug up a sealed coffin after a hundred plus years to have some sort of fucking animal come running out!”
“There was something,” Ryan said, moving to stand beside Steven. “He’s not making it up. We all saw it, and it left a trail.”
“Well, if there was something and it ran off, can we all agree that it’s gone now and get this wrapped up?” Henry still looked angry, but with his son moving to defend the funeral director, he lost some of his gusto. “Probably just a rabbit, for Christ’s sake. Actually, with everything under pressure, your so-called trail was likely just shit that jetted out. Like a shaken soda can. Either way, the storm’s coming, and I want to get my ass home before all hell breaks loose.”
“I’ll take care of it just like the first one,” Steven said, already turning away to retrieve his respirator.
Henry switched his gaze between Ryan and Kelly, his scowl softening and a grin cropping up. “Bunch of fucking kids around here. All the superstitious old folks got you guys wound so tight a damn cottontail runs by and everyone pisses themselves. Probably just dug up the poor bastard’s burrow and woke him up from hibernation with all this. Do you all need to change your shorts?”
“No.” Ryan wanted to argue that it most certainly hadn’t been a rabbit, but he didn’t feel like pushing it with his father. If his anger was going to give way to just belittling, he’d take it. At the end of the day, their paycheck would be the same, regardless.
“Come on, Ryan.” Kelly reached out and tugged on the sleeve of his friend’s coat. “It’s no good for you to breathe this crap when you’ve already had an attack.”
He nodded and started to move away, glancing back at his father briefly. “We’ll be ready when you bring that one over.”
Chapter
14
Ryan dropped Kelly off at home once they’d finished up for the night. The snow had started by the time they got the final grave for the day backfilled with its headstone in place. They already had a jump on the next day’s work, with three more new graves dug and ready to receive their occupants.
While his friend was off to spend the evening with Dani, Kelly was looking at another night alone at home. He envied Ryan on that front, as the other man had never been lacking a girlfriend for more than a few weeks since they’d been teens.
Kelly had seen a change in his friend after starting up with Dani, though, and he was fairly certain their relationship was headed for marriage.
Kelly got a small fire started and flopped himself onto the couch with a blanket for the night. The house had a shed out back, filled with a few cords of wood the previous renters had left. Anytime he could save money by not running the furnace, he did so.
A few hours passed as he watched part of a marathon of commercial fishing shows. He didn’t know why he liked it, but there was something about watching those men doing something about as far away from rural Kansas living as possible that intrigued him.
By the time his usual bedtime rolled around, however, he s
till wasn’t ready for sleep. Though he’d had Ryan swing him by the drive-thru for a burger on the way home, he was hungry again. Being out in the cold working all day had taken a toll on him, and he threw off the blanket and went to the kitchen.
While he waited for a cup of instant noodles to cook in the microwave, he wandered to the kitchen window and looked out at his backyard. The snow fell heavily, and it had gotten quiet outside. Without the wind howling, the snow would settle in deep everywhere. Kelly frowned to himself, knowing there would be plenty of shoveling to do when the storm finally passed.
If the snow was deep enough, however, it would potentially get him off of work for a few days. Though he didn’t believe in any of the nonsense surrounding the cemetery, the day’s events and the overall tone of the previous two had burned him out. He’d never been one to spook easily, but the day had gotten him worked up several times. Having a small break so everyone could relax and get their heads on straight about the job would be in everyone’s best interest. In that light, the snow falling might be a blessing, and he tried to reassure himself with that positive thought.
It didn’t last long, though, as the beep from the microwave startled him and made him turn his head so fast that there was a twinge of pain immediately in his neck. Kelly grumbled as he went and pulled the Styrofoam cup from the microwave and shoved a fork into it. He grabbed a bottle of ibuprofen out of the cabinet and took it with him back to the couch.
He dry-swallowed a few pills and then began eating. Another fishing show was about to begin, and he decided he might as well watch one more episode while the pain reliever kicked in.
Kelly found his mind wandering right back to what he’d seen inside some of the coffins. While the first and last had won with their grossness factors, it was the one with the woman buried alive that bothered him the most. While he knew the fear of being interred alive had been common amongst the Victorians, to see an example of it was something he’d never expected.
Unhallowed Ground Page 5
