Original Fiction: Ain't No Grave
I begin the Halloween season with a spooky contest submission.
It’s October and that means it’s Halloween season. This month I have planned a few spooky posts. So, let’s start off with a story I wrote for a Discord contest. I didn’t win, but I think it’s a decent enough story to post here. In any case, it fits the theme. In two weeks, I pull double duty with a book and movie review: The Serpent and The Rainbow. Stay tuned!
Ain’t No Grave
The summer heat grew heavy and the sky broke open and poured a deluge on the dusty earth. Then the man in black came. He walked down the street, a coil of chains wrapped around his neck and shoulders. With these he dragged a plain, pinewood coffin.
He stopped in front of a porch where two old men sat watching the storm. With the rain pouring from his wide-brimmed hat he said, “I’m looking for Maximilion Donovan.” It was then the wind blew open his duster jacket, and they saw a six-shooter strapped to his hip.
One man pointed to the saloon.
“Obliged,” said the man in black. The coffin plowed a muddy rut behind him.
* *
The air was thick with the smell of spilled whiskey and stale cigar smoke. Max pulled a mound of poker chips into his chest with both arms.
“Another pot for me!” he celebrated.
The other men at the table grumbled to themselves. They were miners fresh from the hills. Their pockets were heavy with the day’s wages - that is, until they sat at the card table with Max.
The gambler’s hands deftly shuffled the deck in preparation for the next round. As the first cards left the pack, a roar of thunder shook the saloon. The windows rattled. The wood beams creaked, and the oil lamps hung from the ceiling swung precariously.
The thunder quieted to a murmur as it slunk away, leaving the room soundless except the ticking of a grandfather clock and the relentless pounding of the rain. Max’s sharp eyes snapped to the batwing doors. There stood the man in black.
The brim of his hat obscured his features. Still, Max saw his square, ebony-colored chin and iron mustache. Something in those features reminded Max of the past.
For a moment the stranger didn’t move, and neither did the handful of miners and cowboys that populated the bar. Then Pat McGirk, who sat nearest the saloon entrance, ventured to say, “Th-those are mighty heavy lookin’ chains there, mister.”
The man in black lit a cigarillo. “Yes, heavy with divine retribution.” Smoke left his mouth like dragon's breath.
Max stood up.
“N-Ned? Is that you?”
The man in black started forward. The sound of his heavy footfalls accented by the jingle-jangle of the chains and the scrap of the pinewood box.
“Well, look way over yonder / tell me what do you see? / I see a band of angels / and they're coming after me.”
“Ned, thank the almighty yous alive.” The man in black lifted his head, meeting the gambler's eyes, and Max felt his insides turn to ice.
“When I hear that trumpet sound / gonna rise right outta the ground / because there ain’t no grave / that can hold my body down.”
“It was an accident, Ned. I swear!”
The man in black uncoiled the chains, and they clattered to the floor.
* *
Wind whipped through the tall prairie grass atop Damascus Hill, carrying the scent of rain - and betrayal.
Max stood by the freshly dug grave, sweat slicking his brow as he stared down at the open coffin. In it laid Ned, still bleeding from the gash where Max had struck him. Max’s eyes shifted from his unconscious friend’s injury to the bullet wound in his own chest that sucked and gurgled with each painful breath. It was a terrible thing: a ragged, gaping hole that seemed to throb with a life of its own.
Cheating Death is easier than one might imagine. Max had done it a few times before. The plan is deceptively simple: bury Ned in his place, leave his own coat and hat draped across the body, and make a quick run out of town. He could vanish into the next territory, leaving Death confused, tricked into believing It had claimed the right man.
In addition, the pissed-off gambler he had hustled back in Montana believes he got his revenge, and, therefore, will leave Max alone. Better still, Max got to enjoy spending the gambler’s money. That’s what is called a win-win-win.
Max heaved the lid shut. As he shoveled dirt over the coffin, he heard Ned moaning from within. Finally coming to, but it was too late.
“I’m not dead … Don’t bury me, I’m not dead.” The feeble imploring faded away as the coffin disappeared under the earth.
Finally, Max planted a crude, wooden cross into the ground. It had two words scrawled in black paint: Maximilion Donovan.
* *
The grandfather clock counted off the seconds.
“Ironic that this lifeless object, with each relentless tick, cannot grasp how it steadily marches us toward our doom. Death comes for us all, Max, but for some, It arrives much sooner than others. And still for others It comes at the wrong time.”
“W-what are you sayin’, Ned?”
“That was your grave you put me in! You were the one who was supposed to die on Damascus Hill. But you left me there to take your place.”
The sky groaned with thunder, and in that moment, Max felt something shift - like a card dealt face-down, waiting to be flipped. Death had been cheated, but It didn’t forget. Not ever. And deep down, Max knew some debts had a way of collecting themselves.
Ned opened the coffin.
“Get in the box, Max.”
Max didn’t move. No one did.
“Get in the box!”
The saloon erupted in chaos as the storm outside seemed to spill inside, the wind howling through the open batwing doors and shattering the windows. The oil lamps hissed out, and shadows darkened the room.
The chains caught fire, turned red and seared black marks into the wooden floor. This was the only light, and all eyes watched as Ned lifted the steel conflagration and wrapped it around Max like a snake tightening around its prey.
The gambler howled. Ned shoved him into the coffin.
“Don’t bury me. Please, don’t bury me, Ned!”
The lid slammed shut. The hellfires went out. All that remained was the claustrophobic darkness.
Libera me, Domine, de morte aeterna, in die illa tremenda…1
“I’m not dead yet. Oh, god! I’m not dead yet.”
Max heard clumps of dirt raining down upon the lid.
Dum veneris judicare saeculum per ignem…
He wrestled against the chains. The air grew thin.
“Oh, god, I’m in here…!”
Dies illa, dies irae, calamitatis et miseriae: dies magna et amara valde…
“Don’t bury me, pleeease, I’m in heeere!”
Libera me, Domine, de morte aeterna, in die illa tremenda.
* *
The summer breeze swayed the tall grasses that covered Damascus Hill where rested the remains of Maximilion Donovan.
The man in black took a long drag off his cigarillo. He dropped it and crushed it out with the heel of his boot. Having paid his respects, he took his leave and sang:
Well, meet me, Jesus, meet me
Meet me in the middle of the air
And if these wings don't fail me
I will meet you anywhere
Ain't no grave can hold my body down
Requiem Mass Translation:
Deliver me, O Lord, from eternal death, on that dreadful day…
When you shall come to judge the world by fire…
That day, the day of wrath, of calamity and misery: a great and exceedingly bitter day…
Deliver me, O Lord, from eternal death, on that dreadful day.
This is part of the Requiem Mass. It is a plea for deliverance from eternal death and judgment. Translation is provided above.