The cemetery greeted her with the heavy, damp scent of decaying leaves and wet earth. The iron gates creaked as she entered the silence. She wandered the paths until she reached the “Gold Coast” section, where the local elite were buried.
Robert Sterling’s plot wasn’t hard to find. A mountain of fresh wreaths with gold ribbons surrounded a massive granite marker. A temporary plaque read: *Robert N. Sterling.*
Nearby, an elderly man was slowly sweeping the asphalt path. He wore an old but clean tweed coat over a worn cable-knit sweater. His glasses were held together at the bridge with a neat wrap of electrical tape.
“Bringing flowers to the new resident, miss?” the old man’s voice was unexpectedly deep and resonant, like a retired stage actor.
Eleanor startled. The man leaned on his broom, watching her from under bushy gray eyebrows.
“I was his doctor,” Eleanor said, feeling an odd need to justify her presence.
“A doctor, then… a healer of the body. And I am Silas Thorne. I used to try and heal souls with literature. But as Hemingway said, the world breaks everyone. Some are just broken in the quiet places,” the old man remarked with a sad smile.
There was a weariness in his expression that made Eleanor uneasy. She sensed he was hiding a heavy burden behind his literary quotes.
“Eleanor Vance.” She pulled her scarf tighter against the chill.
“Nice to meet you, Eleanor. Don’t stay too long. This November air is treacherous for the lungs.”
Silas nodded respectfully and shuffled away down the alley.
Eleanor was alone. She stepped up to the fresh mound of dirt and placed the lilies atop the pine boughs.
“How did this happen, Robert?” she whispered to the wind.
The only answer was the whistle of the wind through the bare oaks. Eleanor closed her eyes, trying to fight back a wave of nausea. She needed to leave. Go back to her empty house, make some coffee, and figure out how to exist without a job or a husband.
She had just turned to leave when a sound made her freeze. It was a dull, guttural groan. It didn’t come from the trees or the neighboring monuments. It came from below. From beneath the layer of frozen, wet earth.
Eleanor stopped breathing. Was she imagining it? Stress, exhaustion, a nervous breakdown—her medical brain immediately began listing rational explanations.
Then the sound came again—clearer this time, a raspy, muffled cry of pure animal terror.
“Oh my God!”
Eleanor dropped to her knees in the mud, ignoring the cold water soaking into her slacks. She pressed her ear to the fresh grave, staining her cheek with wet clay. Beneath the dirt, someone was scratching. The sound of fingernails on wood made the hair on her arms stand up.
“Silas!” she screamed, her voice startling a flock of crows. “Help! Over here! Hurry!”
The old man came running, his age-related slouch vanishing instantly.
“What is it, Eleanor?”
“Someone’s alive! He’s screaming!”
Eleanor was already tossing aside the wreaths with her bare hands, her skin tearing on the wire frames. Silas turned pale, his face matching his white hair. He didn’t waste time with questions.
“I’ll get the shovel from the shed!” he barked, sprinting toward the caretaker’s cottage.
He returned a minute later and began frantically stabbing the metal blade into the fresh mound. Eleanor helped as best she could, clawing away heavy, cold clumps of clay. Her fingers went numb, and dirt packed under her nails, but she felt nothing. The ER doctor instinct, honed over years of trauma shifts, took over. Every second counted. Whoever was down there was running out of oxygen.
After twenty minutes of grueling labor, Silas’s shovel struck wood with a hollow thud.
“We’re there!” he gasped, wiping sweat from his forehead with his sleeve. “Help me clear the lid!”
The coffin wasn’t the expensive oak promised by the estate. It was a cheap pine box, hastily nailed together and covered in a dark lacquer that was already bubbling from the moisture. The groaning from below suddenly stopped.
“We’re too late!” Eleanor choked out, a spasm of fear tightening her chest…
