It was a particularly warm and stormy Allhallows Eve on that fateful night. A storm was building round the ridges of the mountains that encircled the house. Flaming orange streaks ripped across the steel grey horizon to the west.
Grandpa sat in his rocking chair next to the oil fired stove in the corner. Unswayed by the roar thundering down the cotton hills, he sipped a cup of coffee and read the paper.
Nanna, on the other hand, gazed intently out at the lightning dancing around the pine trees. She and I sat on the couch under the south facing window and watched the dark clouds spill over the mountain tops and down to the valley below.
She turned to me with those beady green eyes and elevated eyebrows, and asked, “Would you like me to tell you scary story?”.
“He’ll have nightmares”, grandpa said, as he lit a cigar.
“No I won’t”, I muttered as the wind whooshed ‘round the house.
“Wuuuuhhhhhh”, he whispered while making spooky noises across the room.
“Behave Dee”, Nanna hollered whilst smiling at him.
“Are you ready?” She enquired, as she looked out at the closing storm.
“I’m ready”, I whispered while sitting Indian style.
“I grew up in a log cabin up high in the mountains….”
“What were the logs made of?” I asked with great enthusiasm.
“Let me finish”, she muttered as the wind picked up outside.
“How many rooms did it have?”
“Let me finish, please”, she stated, as she and grandpa laughed.
“Sorry…”
“Anyway, I grew up in a small log cabin with eight brothers and sisters. All of us slept in one bed, except for Frank. We called him stinky. He had a cot to himself. Momma and daddy slept in the main quarters next to the kitchen. It was a small place for so many kids….”
“When does it get scary?”
Grandpa laughed so hard that he almost spit out his cigar.
Nanna patted me on the head, and said, “Hush".
“One evening in the fall, Carey, the eldest sister, and I went down to the creek to fill four pails with water, as we did almost every evening when the boys had been out working. We had supper that night without a care in the world. Dad played the harmonica and mother played the dulcimer by the fire, as us kids sat in awe of them…”
“What happened next?” I demanded as a loud crack of thunder rumbled through the house.
“The next morning I went to wake Sarah to feed the animals and collect eggs for breakfast. I found her side of the bed was soaked with sweat. She was burning up with fever and uttering nonsense. We sent Frank on horseback to Dr. Billings house a few miles away.”
“What happened to your sister?”
Grandpa laughed again and went to the kitchen.
“Boy”
“By the time he got there….”
“Who?”
“The doctor…zip it!”
“When he arrived, we were all gathered around Carey. Mother was praying and reading passages from the family bible, while I and the other sister kept cool rags on her forehead. We had seen it before. I once had nine siblings, but Daniel died of a the same fate”, she mumbled, as she got up to light another candle.
Nanna ran through the house closing windows, forgetting the one where we sat. She and papa came back from the kitchen, he with a glass of milk and her with a ball of yarn and needle.
“All of the kids, including myself, huddled around the kitchen table praying and holding back our tears. We feared the worse for good reason. We had already lost a brother.
A great chill went down my spine, as I heard mother scream to the top of her lungs. Dr. Billings shortly followed by dad came down the ladder. I had never seen my father that way. He had no expression on his face. It was as though there was no soul in his body. Frank and the four other boys followed him outside. Sarah, the youngest of the bunch, and myself went up to find mother cradling Carey in her arms.
Mother rocked back and forth all night with Carey, stroking her hair and singing to her. The next morning we discovered Carey dead in mothers sleeping arms.”
“What did she die of?”
“Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever…Damn ticks!”
“Me and mother dressed her in her favourite dress that father had purchased for her while on a trip to Raleigh. All of our friends and neighbours showed up that afternoon at the church for the wake.”
“You didn’t wait three days?” I asked with curiosity
“We didn’t embalm people on those day, so the faster the better.”
“Oh!”
“That night, mother woke up screaming. None of us could sleep, so she told us about her nightmare. She had dreamed that Carey wasn’t dead and that she was still alive. Mother demanded that we go dig her up right then in the dead of night.
Daddy cracked open a bottle of moonshine and paced back and forth in the tiny kitchen. She became increasingly excited and pleaded with us to dig her up. Father tried to calm her down but to no avail.
At daybreak the next morning, I awoke still sitting at the kitchen table. Mother and father were gone. Fearful of what I might see, I ran to the church. Just as I approached the church, I heard mother wailing. I turned the corner of the church to discover the preacher and my parents crying and leaning over the freshly dug up casket.
As I ran towards them, the preacher screamed and motioned for me to stop. I kept runnin’…”
“Was she still alive?” I pleaded, as my eyes grew to the size of the oatmeal pie that grandfather was devouring.
“What I…what I saw has stayed with me all of my life”, she said, as she gulped and turned to the light show outside.
“Father turned with rivulets of tears streaming down his cheeks and cried for me to stop. I didn’t. I discovered my beautiful sister in shambles. We had buried her alive.”
“Oh God”, I yelled as a limb on the pine tree outside the window splintered and broke.
“Her long elegant fingers had been whittled to nubs, and all of her hair had been ripped out. Small gashes and blood covered her face and arms. I turned away from the horrific sight to find the top of the casket. On the underside of it a message was inscribed”, she muttered, as her voice shook with fear.
“What did it say?” I demanded, as my eyes twitched.
“It said, “”I curse all that put me in this box for all eternity and wish you all a happy Allhallows Eve””, she whispered whilst cackling like an evil witch.
“Aaarrgghhh”, I yelled!
“She really did have a sister that was buried alive”, grandpa muttered whilst lighting another cigar.
At that moment, lightning struck a tree in the yard, setting it ablaze. Grandpa fought the wind and hail long enough to put out the fire.
He ran back inside, and yelled, “A tornado is a comin’”.
We huddled together in the bathroom until the tornado passed. It skipped over his house and ravaged several homes a few streets over. I never forgot that night, nor did I quit asking about the girl in the coffin. He swore it was true, but she never would confirm it.
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The gravediggers in the country used to tell such stories. They would talk of there being bells inside the coffin for the person to ring in case they woke up! It spoilt their day to point out that had a person been alive they would have very quickly died from suffocation.
Sadly, the speed at which people were buried and the lack of medical knowledge probably meant there were tragic incidents.
I have heard about the bell as well. From what my grandfather used to tell me, they’d hang a bell on a short stake and run a string down to the coffin. I’d run, if I heard a bell in any graveyard.
This part of the US has always been behind the times. We didn’t get a sewer system in this city until the 1950′s!
She was very articulate in her scribblings . . nice spooky tale tho. Go over to Maxi Cane’s and folow the Blogosfear, it’s really fun!