A smile breaks across the dead man’s face, tearing the dried out skin. I try to wake up but am caught in a limbo of both worlds: my safe and silent bedroom is all around me while the terrible intrusion of darkness fills my senses with the rank and unearthed grave. His countenance is still there, grinning like a ghost floating above me. It’s all wrong. In the dream, I’m standing over him. As I drag myself into the real world, he is above me, his white teeth shining in the black, gelatinous decay of his mouth. I sit up, and the vision’s gone.
It’s just me here, alone in my room. My heart’s racing, and I glance at the clock. The glowing numbers warn me that it’s far too early to wake up, and so I do lay my head back down and sleep.
Every muscle in my body aches, and my ragged clothes of yesteryear hang off me threadbare and worn. They have seen me through the most of this long trek, and now, like me, as the end of the journey presents itself, we’re coming apart at the seams. I can swear I heard his voice this morning. Every shadow is him darting out of sight. Yet, they say he’s dead. I’m too old a soldier to take their word for it, though.
A handshake, to ease their minds, and I camped outside town where they won’t see me. Dead, eh? and they showed me his grave. Well, I’ll be sure, one way or another. I dare not let my lamp shine too brightly lest someone see me, and so I work in near darkness, shoveling the loose dirt away.
The doctor said something about an aneurysm. Had gotten into an argument at cards. People thinking a gunfight was likely to break out, then he just moans and keels over.
“That ain’t how this story ends,” I grumble at the hole. “We ain’t ending this until all debts are paid.”
Huffing and puffing, I plunge my shovel into the earth again, and hear the crack of rotten timber. A coffin was more than he deserved, and what would be the point except to make a show of burying him when he wasn’t there? They said he had no money. How would he afford a coffin?
“Nice try,” I whisper into the night.
Kneeling down, I begin clearing the dirt off of the rough wood, brushing it away as I search for some handle I can pull the lying lid away by. My fingertips find a small purchase, and I tear the box open.
The horrid stench belies my original thought that the coffin was empty, and grasping my lamp, I shine a beam upon the dead man’s face.
A smile breaks across the dead man’s faceā¦
Tale Told 