The coffin felt like it was shrinking around me, becoming smaller and smaller until it crushed me to death.
It was only my imagination, of course, but I also thought I could hear the corpse-Wesley-laughing at me, ready to bite down on my neck and rip out a huge mouthful of flesh.
“ We’re gonna die together Andrew, you and me together forever so let’s make the most of it, shall we Andrew? ”
Hell no!
I began pounding on the lid with both fists, screaming and blubbering like a child.
Stop it!Stop it!Control yourself!
I was not going to die down here! If I had to rip the lid of the coffin apart splinter-by-splinter I was getting out of this thing! I’d figured out a way to keep Charlotte alive, and I could sure as hell figure out a way to keep myself alive!
“ Didn’t do so well with Susan or Trevor, though, did ya? ” asked Wesley. “ And what about Thomas?He’s in worse shape than I am! ”
I continued pounding on the lid.
Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump!
My situation wasn’t hopeless. It was bad, it was really bad, but it wasn’t hopeless.
Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump!
I wondered what was happening to Roger. Were they killing him now? Was he strapped to the operating table at this very moment?
Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump!
Crack.
I instantly ceased my pounding. Had I broken part of the lid?
I slid my hands along the top of the coffin, and then raised my legs to what little extent I could and began to slide them along the wood as well, gathering splinters but searching desperately for an imperfection. There didn’t seem to be one.
I braced both hands against the lid and pushed up as hard as I could, pushing until my arms felt like they might snap in two. I could feel blood trickling from the cut in my shoulder.
Crack.
The lid had definitely split somewhere. The maggots and decaying flesh soaking my skin were abruptly forgotten. I continued searching for the break in the wood.
Then I found it. It was directly above my navel. I tested it with my index finger-it was small, but definitely there. Daniel should’ve invested a bit more of his fortune into the coffins.
I continued pushing on the lid.
No good.
I wished I had some kind of tool, but that didn’t matter. I’d claw at that break in the wood until there was no skin left on my fingers, and then I’d keep clawing at it with exposed bone, if that’s what it took.
Bone!
I felt along the corpse until I located its right hand. I tested each finger. They’d all been partially devoured by the maggots, but the middle finger was the closest to being completely skeletal. I wrapped my own fingers around it tightly, and then tried to bend it backwards. After considerable strain, the finger snapped off.
After a moment of blind panic where I was unable to locate the crack in the wood, I did find it and pushed the finger bone against it. As a kid, I’d broken my arm once when I’d been standing too close to the batter while playing baseball, but this pine lid was nowhere near as sturdy as a wooden bat.
I pushed the tip of the bone against the crack, desperately hoping that the wood would break first.
The bone snapped in half.
I stared at it in dismay, even though I couldn’t see anything in the darkness.
Don’t scream!
I didn’t scream. There were other bones. I had all the time in the world. Until I suffocated.
YOU WOULDN’T think that maggots squirming on your body were something a person could get used to, but I was so focused on the task at hand that it wasn’t long before I didn’t even notice them. With a twist of the corpse’s rib, the wood began to break away. I was moving the bone slowly, deliberately, but the sound of wood splintering was enough to make me want to giggle with maniacal glee.
Then a small chunk of the wood broke, and I felt some dirt trickle in and pour on my waist. I set the rib aside and fingered the gap. It was about an inch square. I dug my thumbs into the dirt on the edge and tried to pry it apart even further.
MY THUMBS were raw and bloody, and I’d gone through three more ribs, but more bits of wood had broken away. Now the gap was large enough that I could fit all of my fingers into it.
As I struggled with it, there was another cracking sound. I slid my hand along the lid, and realized that a foot-long split had appeared, stretching from the square gap in a straight line toward my face.
I continued pulling on the edge of the wood.
IT FELT LIKE it took forever, but I don’t think it was more than a few minutes before I managed to break away a long strip of the wood. More dirt poured onto my chest.
At this point, I had to start being really careful. I wasn’t sure how deep I’d been buried, and if too much dirt came crashing down the coffin lid might cave in and squash me like a…well, like a maggot.
Slow and steady.
My arms were agonizingly sore, forcing me to take a break. I rested them at my sides, closed my eyes, and tried to breathe easy.
I imagined Wesley snarling at me. “ Get a move on, ya slacker! ”
After a few minutes, I managed to break off another chunk of wood, and then began to vigorously scoop out handfuls of the exposed dirt and toss them to the foot of the coffin. Dirt was raining down on my face in small quantities, and I spit it out to the side.
I HAD DUG as high as my arms would reach. The digging part was pretty easy, since the grave had just been filled in and the dirt hadn’t had time to pack itself down.
Now I had more room to maneuver, and I set about breaking away more of the coffin lid.
THOUGH IT was hard to breathe, my spirits were high as I sat up, scraping my already-injured shoulder badly against a jutting portion of the lid, but certain that I was home free.
Sticky flesh clung to my back. I ignored it.
I’M GOING to make it!
I was filled with hope and energy. Despite this horrific ordeal, despite the fact that my chances of survival once I reached the surface might be slim, despite the fact that I might never see Helen, Theresa, or Kyle again, I felt recharged. I was getting out of here.
Sitting up straight, I dug with an incredible fervor. My arms could stretch almost to their full length over my head, so I had to be getting close.
I wondered if anybody was waiting above.
Would they bother to have somebody guard a grave?
There was only one way to find out.
MY HAND burst through to the surface. The cold air felt absolutely fantastic.
My other hand broke through, and I clutched the smooth ground above. It took several tries to work up the strength, but finally, I pulled myself out of the grave.
After being in complete darkness for so long, my eyes burned in the light. I just lay there, panting, completely exhausted.
I’d made it!
Then I heard somebody applaud.
“Now that was impressive. Nice work!”
Roger! It was Roger! But had he escaped, or was he still a prisoner?
I shielded my eyes from the light and turned around. “Rog!” I gasped.
“Ummm, nope, not Roger. Your traumatic experience has left you a bit delirious. This is your good friend Curtwood Foster.”
And it was. Foster sat on a folding chair, a paperback novel in one hand, and a martini in the other.
I just collapsed to the ground.
“Aw…is the poor guy tired?”
Foster set his book and drink aside, and then stood up and began to walk toward me. He cracked his knuckles. “You are so, so, so very dead.”