Inest Clentia Forti

A few days old but, anyway:

Dear Friends,

Throughout October I’ll be sharing tidbits of horror with you all. Some will be pictures. Some will be fiction. The story below is neither.

Joey, an acquaintance of mine, is quite the horror show all to himself. He grew up in a violently abusive household, evidenced by the fact that, when he was twelve years old, he shot his father dead. I didn’t know Joey then, but all I can say is that today he labors under considerable mental illness. Whether he will ever be totally free from the demons that plague him, is strongly to be doubted.

For what reasons, I don’t know, but the fact is, Joey is a grave-robber. He finds the oldest graves he can – the ones most likely to contain only the bare coffin – and digs them up, to steal wedding bands, gold teeth, etc. How he does this by himself I don’t know. Maybe he had/has help. I also don’t know how many times he’s done it, but a mutual friend of ours related this story, allegedly from Joey’s own admission.

In a lonely graveyard somewhere in Ashe County, he located an ill-tended grave with a headstone so worn the name of the deceased, as well as the dates, were illegible. This he chose as his target. Either that night, or sometime not long after finding it, Joey returned at dusk to begin digging. How long it takes to dig down to a casket by hand I couldn’t begin to guess. However long it took though, he eventually uncovered it.

Inside the casket was the body of a woman. This much was obvious, since her long, golden blonde hair still cascaded down her back, which was facing upward. She lay on her belly, her legs scrunched as if toward the fetal position, and her hands were clasping at the sides of her head. There was only one explanation: the poor woman had been buried alive.

It isn’t actually the lack of oxygen that kills you in such a place, but rather the toxic build-up of carbon dioxide breathed out. Between her horrible panic, and the ever more poisonous air, her breathing rate probably peaked at well above 200 breaths per minute. What terror and agony she had died in is beyond guessing.

That’s it. I don’t know what, if anything, Joey took from her, and I don’t know how many times afterward he went digging for treasure in such places. I for one, like to think it cured him right then and there – but knowing what little I do of him, all I can do is shake my head and wonder.