Saved by the Coffin Bell

I was walking the grounds, spraying for bugs.

Dusk was fast approaching. It was July second, 1889, and it was going to be a long, dark, and hot summer night.

My name is Mortimer Graveshadow, and I’ve been working maintenance for twenty years, just like my father. And his father before him. We’ve been grave maintenance dating back at least ten generations.

This graveyard used to be privately owned, but the owner ran out of space to bury people. With no new clients to bury, there was no new money.

He sold the grounds to the city for a fraction of what the land was worth, and now the city pays me to be the groundskeeper.

Tonight, I was working the graveyard shift.

I was walking by a tombstone and I thought I heard the bell ring. In the twenty years I’ve worked here, I’ve never heard any of the bells ring. Even on windy days, the bells didn’t ring. Most of them were rusty, the rest were heavy and would require a strong human hand to pull the string to make the bell ring.

I brushed it off as my imagination. The most recent grave to be dug was three years ago, which was before the city bought it. Even if someone was buried alive, they’d most certainly be dead now.

I started to walk away when the bell rung again.

“Impossible,” I muttered. The bell kept ringing vigerously.

I grabbed a shovel and started digging. I got to the coffin and broke it open.

The rotting corpse inside had been dead for years. Was I dreaming? Was the bell really ringing?

I was about to climb out of the grave and put this whole bizarre incident behind me when the corpse’s eyes opened and its hand grabbed my leg.

The corpse hissed at me, sat up and tried to bite me. I grabbed my shovel and smashed it off me.

How was this possible? In ten generations there’s never been one zombie sighting here, dad would have told me. Zombies weren’t real.

I climbed out of the grave, not forgetting my shovel, and the zombie sat up again, climbed out, and began to chase me. A visitor to the grounds looked horrified and screamed as we ran past.

I ran to the supply closet and locked myself in. I heard the zombie scratching at the door. I grabbed an axe hanging on the wall, opened the door and swung. I missed but hit the zombie the second time, partially taking off its head. It fell to the ground.

I dragged it back to its grave, dumped it in, grabbed the shovel and reburied it.

I dusted myself off, proud of how I handled the new situation. I’d have to research zombies.

There was a cacophonous blast of noises everywhere.

All the funeral bells were ringing.

Well, crap. I’d have to read more on zombies fast.

Could this be related to the new organophosphate pesticides I sprayed, I pondered?