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PROLOGUE
Marvin woke with a gasp and tried to sit, but his head smacked on something hard and he collapsed back with a cry, ears ringing. He tried to lift his hand to his head, but it smacked against the same hard substance.
He took a deep breath and tried to calm his pounding heart. Where was he? The air smelled stale and musty, a moldy smell that reminded him of his grandfather’s old compost pile. He and Grandpa used to dig for earthworms to use when they went fishing at the old creek behind their house.
Well, he wasn’t in a compost pile, so where was he? And what was this wooden box he was—
Oh God.
Oh no.
Oh God,no!
“Help!” he screamed. “Help me!”
He tried to pound on the lid of what he now realized was a coffin, but the coffin was narrow, and he couldn’t get any force behind the blows. The sound echoed inside the confines of the box, but he knew no one could hear him outside.
Outside. Outside was six feet of solid earth. He had been buried alive.
Panic surged again, but he forced himself to stay calm. He knew that panic would only hasten his death. He tried to think about how he had gotten here. If he could remember what happened last night, maybe he could figure out how he had made it here and—
And what? Call the police? He patted his pocket and wasn’t particularly surprised to find it empty. No cell phone. No way to call for help.
Not that it mattered. He couldn’t remember anything after the bar. He had arrived after work to have a few drinks before going home and enjoying a mandatory off day before once more being on call all day. The day had been hard. They had had to perform CPR on a toddler who had climbed through the doggy door to his backyard and fallen into the pool. The kid still wasn’t breathing on his own when they reached the hospital, and he didn’t need to be a doctor to know that if he wasn’t breathing on his own after that long, he wasn’t breathing on his own ever again.
So, he was going to enjoy a few drinks, just enough to numb the pain so he could survive another day in hell. He was well on his way through his second Long Island iced tea when he felt a hand on his shoulder.
And then he was here. And it didn’t matter if that girl was real or if she had something to do with this because it was too late. He was going to die. He was going to die, and there was nothing he could do about it.
A tinny scratch like the static from an old radio cut through his panic. He jumped and cried out, hitting his head again. It started to throb, a dull ache behind his temples, and he didn’t know if the ache was due to hitting his head twice or to the thinning oxygen. Already he felt like he couldn’t catch his breath. He didn’t have long.
Good evening,a robotic voice carried through the coffin. It sounded exactly like an old radio host, and he realized that there must be a radio inside the coffin. Marvin’s heart leapt with hope.
“Yes, hello?” he cried. “Can you help me? I’m stuck inside one of the graves. I—I don’t know where I am, but I think it’s one of the freshly dug graves. I mean, it has to be, I would only have been here a few minutes or I would already have…” He squeezed back tears.
Before he could speak again, the voice continued.By now you’ve figured out that you’re in a coffin. The time is now midnight. You have perhaps four or five hours of air left before you asphyxiate to death.
“Yes, I know!” he cried out. “Can you help…” His voice trailed off as he realized the horrible truth. “Oh my God. You’re the guy. You’re the guy trying to kill me.”
Hot tears leaked from the corners of his eyes. His heart pounded and his head ached. The voice continued, calm and cultured.There’s still hope. There’s a string somewhere in the coffin. That string is connected to a bell at the surface of the grave. If you sound the bell, there’s a chance the night watchman will hear it and know that you’ve been buried alive.
He began searching frantically for the string, banging his hands all over the box and all over himself, twisting to see if maybe he was lying on the string, in his panic not thinking that the string would have to be hanging down from the top of the coffin.
Be calm,the voice reminded him.Don’t panic. The more you panic, the more you use your available oxygen and the less time you have to summon rescue. Keep in control and look for the string. It’s youronlychance.
“Please,” he sobbed. “Please let me go. I’ll do anything you ask me to. I’ll do anything, just please don’t kill me.”
Look carefully,the voice replied impassively.Time moves quickly in the dark.
“Fuck you!” he shouted. “Why are you doing this?”
There was no response. “Dammit!” he shouted, pounding his hand against the top of the coffin again.
He sobbed once more, and the pounding in his head increased. He forced himself to remain calm and resumed his search for the string. The seconds seemed to tick by with aching slowness, but for all he knew, they were moving at breakneck speed, each one that passed lessening the amount of time he had to save his own life.
He had to move quickly. He had to—
There it was! There was the string!
