The Dead

tripled his efforts.

He heard a crack; something gave. A bark of triumph burst from his lips.

It was only when he crashed once more into the wood and felt a tremendous shout of pain inside his shoulder that he realized what he had done to himself.

Panting, grimacing, he fell back. Starting at his fingers, hot tingling numbness spread up his arm and out into his chest, smothering the agony from his broken bone.

The thumping in the coffin grew louder and louder, the screams unmistakable now.

He won’t last long, Gary thought. Nearly resuming his assault on the barrier in front of him, he remembered the service door at the front of the room…it stood open, beckoning.

He stumbled back down the aisle, paused by the coffin, saw it trembling and shaking, rocked by the struggles of the prisoner inside. Gary bent close to the vibrating bronze surface, shouted: “I’m going for help! Save your air!”

He was answered by a shriek that stung his ears even through the coffin lid.

Continuing toward the door, he cried out in horror and anger as it began to close, slamming shut before he could reach it. A lock snicked. He tugged on the handle. The door remained frozen in place. He pounded on it, shouting his throat raw. No answer.

He stumbled back toward the coffin, wondering what to do. The volume of the screams swelled excruciatingly.

“Dad… Dad…” he moaned, hardly able to hear his own voice.

A tremendous impact boomed against the coffin lid. The coffin’s front end jounced up off the catafalque and dropped back with a dull heavy clang. A fist-sized dome of metal showed in the lid.

Gary’s jaw dropped. This is just not poss-

Another dent bulged up.

Nothing human could-

BOOM.

The coffin seemed to lunge toward him, falling over the edge of the catafalque. He dodged backward. The hurtling mass just missed his foot as it struck the carpet.

He retreated slowly, staring at it. Almost as if in pursuit, the casket jolted forward an inch or two.

Gary shrilled a hysterical laugh, his terror no longer for his father now. What in Hell was in that box? It couldn’t be Dad.

Yet even if it was, was that any less reason for fear? Was the strength of madness, of raving insanity, at work on that coffin lid?

The booming stopped as these thoughts flashed through Gary’s mind; the shrieks faded. Had his father-had whatever was in the casket-succumbed at last to lack of air? Such furious exertion certainly would’ve-

Another earsplitting shriek.

A crashing thump.

A squeal of split metal.

“Jesus!” Gary cried, trying to shield his face from flying bronze fragments. One stung his palm, another his forehead. Blood crawled into his left eyebrow.

Lowering his arm, he saw that something had smashed up through the coffin-lid. His first impression was that it was a knot of dark shining wood. Then he realized it was a fist, its knuckles like studs on a club. If it was human at all, it looked like it belonged to someone long dead, mummified, petrified, not a man two days gone.

Not Dad, Gary told himself, not knowing whether to be relieved or appalled. Can’t be. Surely it was just coincidence that the class ring on one of those desiccated fingers looked just like his father’s…

The fist jerked back down through the crown of ragged metal, stabbed up in another place. Gary had never heard anything so piercing as the shrieks now pouring unmuffled through the holes. His skull rang, his ears thrummed with pain. And the cries were so raw with rage that any remaining doubt that he was in terrible danger was ripped clean away.

He rushed back to the service door and flung himself against it with his good shoulder, thudding into it again and again, praying to a God he didn’t believe in, cursing Him for putting him in such a trap…

Behind, the hammerstrokes kept bashing into the coffin lid. He could hear the bronze stretching, parting, the fissures widening with a terrible yawning screech that scraped him to the marrow. The thing in the coffin would be free any moment.

But the door was shuddering now under Gary’s onslaught. Weaker stuff than the front doors, it began to give.

He took a last glance over his shoulder. The catafalque blocked his view of the casket; two spindled chunks of coffin lid arced into view above it, one landing among the seats in the second row.

The door rocked forward at Gary’s next thrust, attached only by its bottom hinges. Another slam knocked it free. Charging on to it even as it struck the floor, he snagged his trouser-cuff on the handle and tripped, palms smashing onto the carpet beyond the door. Instantly his numb arm gave way, and he went down hard on his face. Dazed for a moment, he ripped his leg loose and scrambled to his feet. There was another door ahead, at the end of a hallway.

Back in the chapel, the booming had stopped, but not the shrieks; barely audible beneath the cries, footbeats slammed in pursuit.

Gary never dared to look back. He sprinted along the hall, pulse beating in his temples, lungs burning. He got to the door, yanked on it. The handle turned, but the door was stuck-or locked.

The footbeats pounded closer. The shrieks set his teeth rattling. Any moment now and the thing from the coffin…

Daddy?

…would be upon him.

He gave another tug, certain it would do no good. To his astonishment, the door swung open. Even though the shrieks were right behind him now, it took him a moment to start forward, onto a descending ramp.

Too late. A hard mummified claw flailed down on his shoulder like an eagle’s talon, yanking him back, nails ripping through fabric into flesh. Blood spewed past his face, and-

The phone rang.

Bathed in sweat, he sat up in bed, screaming at the top of his lungs in the echoing darkness of his room.

“What’s the matter?” Linda demanded groggily, rising on one elbow beside him.

Cold perspiration sluicing off his forehead, he stopped screaming and looked at her, mouth working silently. Her face was a silvery blur in the streetlight filtering through the curtains.

The phone rang again.

“Want me to get it?” Linda asked.

“I’m all right,” Gary said. Turning, he fumbled for the phone. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the display on the clock-radio.

Three-fucking-thirty in the morning, he thought, picking up the receiver.

“ Gary?” came his mother’s voice. With sudden, chill certainty he realized why she was calling.

“What’s wrong?” he asked mechanically.

She kept control just long enough to say, “Your father’s dead.” Then the weeping began.

Chapter 2: Father Ted

Gary and Linda taught at Delaware University in Newark, his field English, hers, history. Both were presiding over five-week summer cram-courses, and could ill afford to take three days off to go up to Bayside Point for the funeral; but luck smiled on them, and they found colleagues willing to handle the classes. They taught their Monday morning sections, packed up the car after lunch, and headed north on I-95, Gary behind the wheel. Crossing the Memorial Bridge, they swung over onto the Jersey Turnpike.

For a long time neither spoke. Gary was lost in his own thoughts, memories of his father, and worries about his