Hidden away in the catacombs, I lit a little candle. Setting it down on one of the many long crates lying about, I pulled out the meagre meal I’d stolen from the kitchens above; some bread and cheese, and I’d filled my flask with wine. I shivered as I heard the scurrying of rats all around me.
Giving a brief thanks for the food, I began, slowly, bite by bite, to eat. Want had taught me to savor what I had. Engrossed in my meal, blinded to the darkness behind me, trying to tune out the noises of the rats—I didn’t hear anything until one of the long crates rolled with a crash onto the floor.
Turning around, I found the disturbed coffin, half broken open, a boney hand escaping through a large fissure in the old wood reaching out toward me. The odor was awful. Swiftly stuffing my food into my satchel, I jumped to my feet, snatching the candle up in my hand.
I held the light up and looked down at the corpse. It was completely still. A rat, I assured myself, had toppled it over. Had to be. But I knew no rat could do it. Multiple rats, then, I argued. But where were they? Their scurrying and squeaking had died with the falling of the crate.
I listened, and I heard the dreadful creaking of nails being drawn from wood. My gaze moved deeper into the darkness, past the corpse at my feet toward the stack of crates it had fallen from. The whole pile shifted again, and I saw, there gleaming in the candlelight, an eye peering out from the slowly rising lid of one of the coffins.
Tale Told 