Unhallowed Ground Read online

  Chapter

  8

  By the time they returned to the cemetery, the coffin had been lifted from the grave and placed on the ground. Several men were standing around it talking, the funeral director nearby with Henry. The two men halted their conversation when Ryan and Kelly neared to set the boxes of donuts on the opened tailgate of Henry’s truck.

  “Took you boys long enough,” the older man said, the funeral director stepping away from him to immediately open one of the boxes.

  “We weren’t gone that long!” Ryan reached over and pulled out one of the croissants Dani had thrown in for his dad.

  Henry came over and snagged the croissant from his son’s hand, lighting up. “I’m guessing this was the girl’s work, not because you were particularly thoughtful.”

  “Correct.” Kelly turned from the boxes, a donut in hand. He looked over at the funeral director, still picking through the donuts for one he liked. “So, how many of these sorts of things have you done?”

  Steven picked up a plain cake donut and turned to face the other men. “Well, like I was just telling Henry here, I’ve only been involved in a few. There aren’t many reasons to dig people back up out here. The last I did I did were the Steiner boys back about, oh, fifteen years ago. The state wanted them checked to verify it was carbon monoxide poisoning and not something nefarious done by the mother’s boyfriend.”

  Ryan and Kelly looked at one another. The boys in question had been about their age, and their deaths back when they were in grade school had made a profound impact on them.

  Steven saw the looks that came over their faces, and he realized they’d known one another. He softened his tone. “For the record, the boyfriend was cleared. The vent to the water heater had just gotten blocked up by some damned squirrels shoving crap into it.”

  Kelly recalled the funeral he’d been taken to for his fallen classmates, and it sent an unwelcomed jolt through him. He needed to get his mind off of it. “So, what do you think we’re going to see when that coffin is opened up?”

  Steven looked back over his shoulder at the dark-gray box. “It’s sealed up pretty good, but it’s been over a century. There’s bound to be small cracks in the lead somewhere, and it’s probably going to simply be some dried out bones. Shouldn’t be too gruesome.”

  “Good,” Ryan said, finishing his donut. “Are all of them sealed up like that?”

  “No, they were using wooden coffins out here for most of the cemetery’s history,” Steven replied, motioning out over the scene. “These lead coffins were just an expensive Victorian fad, so there should only be a few of them out here. This church was abandoned not too long after they started using them.”

  “Just enough of them out here for the environmentalists to get their panties in a bunch,” Henry added before shoving the rest of his croissant in his mouth.

  “We did find a few wooden coffins already eroding out of the ground closer to the creek.” The funeral director looked at the boys, a spark of excitement in his eyes. “No bones exposed yet, but it wouldn’t have been too long. We might see some really interesting stuff during this dig.”

  Kelly didn’t share Steven’s enthusiasm. “So, how are you going to open that thing now that it’s out of the ground?”

  Henry tipped his head toward the bed of the pickup truck. “Sawzall.”

  The younger men looked and saw the beat-up power tool lying next to the donut boxes.

  “A little unceremonious, don’t you think?” Ryan asked.

  “You have a better idea?” Henry replied, shoving his son aside to get another croissant out of the box. “Besides, we’re already digging them up. You think a little buzzing from that thing as we pop their cans open is going to put them over the edge?”

  “I guess not.” He looked at his friend. “Whatcha think, Kel?”

  “I guess that is about as good as anything,” Kelly said.

  Steven reached for the old reciprocating saw and picked it up before heading to the coffin. “Well, the sooner we get to it, the sooner we can get whoever is in there relocated.”

  Chapter

  9

  The rest of the work crew descended on the donut boxes while Steven and Henry went back over toward the coffin and fired up the saw. Henry had no desire to be the one cutting into the casket, so he passed the entire job off to the eager funeral director, while he simply stood back and watched.

  Kelly and Ryan stood next to Henry, watching on as Steven struggled to get the cut started through the dull lead lining the wooden box. It was obvious the funeral director wasn’t overly familiar with power tools, but he managed to finally get the blade to pierce through the side of the coffin. From there, the cutting became easier. The blade easily sank right into the soft wood beneath.

  After just a few seconds, Steven dropped the saw and yelped, hastily running backward away from the coffin, managing to slip and fall into the dirt.

  “What the hell?” Henry asked, going forward and offering Steven a hand.

  The funeral director didn’t immediately reach for Henry’s outstretched hand. Instead, he got onto all fours and dry heaved for several moments, unable to answer.

  Kelly’s curiosity was piqued, and he took several steps forward toward the coffin. Even though the frigid winter air dulled any smells it carried, a rancid stink hit Kelly with a force that made him reel and quickly return to Ryan’s side. “Oh God, I’m gonna puke!”

  Steven finally got up with Henry’s help, retreating even further from the coffin. The other workers who’d gathered around moved back as well, the stench enveloping them all.

  Henry got a whiff of it, and his face twisted up. “Shit! You said it was too old to stink!”

  The funeral director’s complexion had gone ashy, and he shook his head, pulling up the collar of his jacket over his nose and mouth. “It shouldn’t! It’s over a hundred years old!”

  Kelly took in a deep breath, realizing he was upwind from the coffin. While he knew what dead, rotting things smelled like, the odor from the coffin had been exponentially worse. There was a putrid, sulfurous reek from the coffin that had jetted out when the box was first punctured, the gases inside under pressure.

  “Well, it sure as hell does smell,” Henry said, taking several more steps back from the coffin, though the intensity had abated. “I can only imagine how bad it will be when we open that sucker all the way up.”

  “We’re going to need respirators,” Steven said, regaining some of his composure. Though a mortician, he’d never smelled anything on the level of what he’d just experienced. “It must have been a completely airtight seal all of these years. Anaerobic bacteria went to town. How it didn’t rupture before...”

  Henry rolled his eyes and looked at his son and Kelly. “Bring the yellow tote out of the pickup. The feds were kind enough to send us some bio-hazard crap for this. We were hoping we wouldn’t need it, but I guess we should have been wearing them from the get go like they told us to.”

  “We shouldn’t have needed any of that crap!” the funeral director added, looking back at the coffin and shaking his head. “This whole job just got a lot messier.”

  Ryan and Kelly moved away from the workers, giving each other sidelong glances. Kelly couldn’t get the lingering traces of the smell, or perhaps it was just the memory of it, out of his nose and lungs. If getting the respirators out meant he wouldn’t have to experience it again, he wasn’t going to hesitate.

  “I’m ready to go back to the other side of the road,” Ryan said, once they were out of earshot.

  Kelly looked back over his shoulder. “As sick as it sounds, after smelling how bad that is, I’ve almost got a morbid desire to see what the guy in that box looks like.”

  “That does sound pretty gross, Kel,” Ryan said, grinning. “You’re one sick bastard.”

  Kelly leaned into the bed of the truck and grabbed one end of the large yellow container, pulling it to the edge of the bed. “That’s why we’re friends. We’ll just
see what it looks like, then I’m happy to go back over and dig some more holes with you.”

  Ryan took the other edge of the tote and helped Kelly lift it down and carry it toward the others. “Twenty bucks says the body is green and slimy.”

  Kelly snorted. “Judging from the smell, I think he’s going to look like a puddle of what came out of your cat’s face that time he had that abscess.”

  That visual was enough to make Ryan gag, and he had to stop for a second to get back in control. “Too far, Kel, too far.”

  “I dunno. I could use that twenty bucks,” Kelly laughed.

  “Fine, it’s a bet.”

  Chapter

  10

  An hour later, and Kelly, Ryan, Henry, and Steven were wearing respirators and gathered back around the coffin. Steven had taken the reciprocating saw back up, and he’d finished cutting around the outer edge of the lid.

  While the smell was still thick in the air, their respirators were keeping them all from suffering the bulk of it. Most of the other workers had moved much farther away, going back to prepping other graves for exhumation. Curious or not, they couldn’t bear to get any closer to the coffin being worked on, and most of them weren’t ready to wear the uncomfortable respirators any longer than they had to.

  Steven finally set the saw down and looked at Henry, waving him over with a gloved hand. “Help me lift the lid off. This thing is heavy!”

  Henry tugged on the gloves he’d pulled from the tote and went over. Though he was generally a tough old man, he wasn’t keen on seeing into the coffin after smelling it earlier. The idea of seeing bones hadn’t fazed him in the least, but he now knew it wasn’t going to be that clean. Some of the fear he’d felt about taking the job pressed in on him, and his chest tightened.

  Steven leaned down at one end of the coffin and grabbed the lid as Henry came over and took the other side. He gave the older man a slight nod before they lifted the lead-shrouded lid off of the coffin and set it to the side.

  Kelly stepped closer and looked inside, Ryan lagging behind him a few feet. Whatever the color of the lining might have been in the coffin originally, it was now stained black. The occupant within was little more than a syrupy pool of black ichor, some clumps of unidentifiable material and fabric visible on the top layer of the soup. A softened and collapsing skull rested at the head of the coffin, a few patches of mildew-colored hair clinging to the top of it.

  “Nope!” Ryan quickly turned away and left Kelly standing there near Henry and Steven.

  Steven remained composed thanks to the respirator keeping the majority of the stench knocked back. “This is why modern sealed coffins are such a pain in the ass to work with. I really didn’t think these would be this tightly closed up.”

  Henry shook his head and crossed himself. “You mean to tell me this happens in those expensive-ass fancy boxes you all want us buried in these days?”

  “There’s no legal reason you have to buy a sealing steel coffin,” Steven replied, shaking his head. “There’s always cremation, too.”

  “I don’t know if I’d rather be burned up or underground stewing in a pressure cooker for all eternity,” Kelly said, taking a step back.

  “Dead is dead, Kel,” Henry said, forcing his eyes away from the interior of the coffin. “You won’t know the difference. Leaving you like this is a bit of a joke on future archeologists, though, if you stay this soupy.”

  “True.” Kelly eyed the simple wooden coffin sitting nearby, awaiting the remains. “So, how are you going to get him into that?”

  “We’ll line it with a little plastic and shovel him in,” Steven said. “Not as nice as I’d hoped, but I’m not sifting through that by hand to retrieve all the bone fragments.”

  “I’m not going to argue,” Henry said, already moving away. “Do whatcha gotta do. Kelly, you and Ryan get back across the street and dig more graves. We need to get these guys back underground as quickly as we can. I don’t want my men having to smell this shit any longer than needed.”

  Without a bit of protest, Kelly nodded and moved toward Ryan. Once the two of them were halfway across the road to the new cemetery, they pulled off their respirators.

  Ryan didn’t say a word, simply fishing in his pocket and pulling out a twenty. He reached out and shoved it into the pocket of Kelly’s coat.

  “Not even going to argue that the color wasn’t like what came out of Snowball’s face?” Kelly asked.

  He shook his head and shuddered. “No. We’re not talking about that. I’m going to have nightmares for a year. That was the sickest thing I have ever seen, hands down.”

  “It really was pretty nasty, but it’s kind of amazing.” Kelly returned to the backhoe and tossed the respirator up into the cab.

  Ryan set his down onto a tarp they had on the ground with their tools lain out. “I said we’re not talking about that.”

  Kelly realized Ryan had been put over the limits of his grossness threshold, and he didn’t feel like antagonizing him further. He went over and picked up a shovel before heading off to straighten the sides of one of the new graves they’d dug.

  Chapter

  11

  By the time their lunch break rolled around, three of the new wooden coffins had been brought over to the side of the highway where Kelly and Ryan worked. Mercifully, there was little smell involved as the other two bodies exhumed had been nothing more than skeletons. Still, the two younger men had been diligent about wearing their respirators until all three of the coffins were covered back over again.

  Henry brought the three headstones of those coffins across the highway on a flatbed pickup. It took all three men and the hoist mounted to the old truck to lift the heavy markers and put them in their new resting places. After the last one was set, they climbed into the cab of the pickup to warm up.

  “It looks like that first coffin might have just been a freak thing,” Henry said, slipping the truck into drive and pulling them back out onto the highway. “We’ll get something hot for lunch.”

  Kelly sat against the passenger door, and he leaned forward to look past Ryan. “So the funeral guy thinks the rest of them are going to be okay?”

  “Yeah. The last two had cracks in them that let them dry out. The older part of the cemetery will be old wood coffins without the lead business, so those won’t be an issue, either. We might not get to those for a while, though. The digging in that part of the cemetery is going to be a lot more difficult, too. They’ll literally have to sift the bones from the dirt.” He looked at the two younger men. “Any opinions on where you want to eat?”

  Kelly shrugged, having no opinion and leaving it to his friend.

  Ryan thought for a moment before blurting out the first place that came to mind. “Chicken Palace.”

  Henry nodded, turning his attention back to the road. He glanced at the mirror, seeing several other vehicles pulling away from the job site as everyone broke up for lunch. “That’ll work.”

  There was a brief silence as they drove toward town until an irritating alarm sounded from Kelly’s phone, followed by the ones from Ryan and Henry’s.

  Kelly was the first to pull his phone out to look. “God damn it. Winter storm warning.”

  “When? It wasn’t supposed to snow last I heard,” Ryan said, squirming to get his phone out of his pocket.

  Henry plucked his from where he’d tossed it onto the dashboard. “Shit. From four this afternoon until tomorrow morning. Eighteen inches of snow or more? That can’t be right... We’ll have to make lunch quick and get back to secure everything. I don’t want to leave some poor soul dug up but sitting on the ground overnight.”

  “The weather was supposed to be cold but clear for the next week!” Ryan complained, scowling as he dropped his phone into his lap. “It’d be nice if they could get it right once in a great while. We’re getting paid for the job even if it’s delayed by weather, right? Those government jerks can’t possibly hold us accountable for being stopped by the weather when
they demanded this start in the middle of winter.”

  “Don’t worry, we’re getting paid,” Henry said, turning the truck onto another road as they approached town. “They knew damned good and well we’d be delayed a few times due to weather. I made that real clear from the outset, and it’s in the contract that we can pull weather exceptions.”

  “It’s still gonna make it a muddy mess once it melts,” Ryan said, shaking his head.

  “Or the ground will just freeze hard as a rock.” Kelly wriggled and got his phone put away again. “Nothing we can do about it, though.”

  Chapter

  12

  After lunch, Henry drove them straight to the old cemetery, where the men already had another coffin up and resting on the surface. Everyone had gotten the weather alert by then, and work had kicked up to a higher tempo now that they all had some idea what they were doing.

  Steven was already standing with the reciprocating saw in his hands near the coffin, ready to open it up. Kelly and Ryan gave a brief thought to the fact their respirators were on the other side of the highway, but they weren’t going to walk over to get them.

  Steven began to work his way around the coffin, the saw making quick work of it now that he’d gotten a little practice. Kelly and Ryan both held their breath for as long as they could manage, afraid they would smell something like they’d encountered the first time. Once the lid was cut around, Steven waved over a few other men to help him lift it off.

  The two younger men were relieved when there was no horrible reek in the air afterward. They stepped closer as Steven and the others placed the lid on the ground, bottom side up. Something about the lid caught Kelly’s attention and he stopped, cocking his head to the side.

  This coffin had no fabric lining, the inside covered with lead like the exterior. The interior surface of the lid was nearly black from oxidization it had suffered over the years. The surface of it wasn’t smooth, though, and there were several gashes dragged down the metal, some of them going all the way through to the wood beneath.