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That man is alive. That man is alive, and Andrew knows it.
He has no way to prove it. But Andrew decides, maybe he’ll keep that casket in his room, just for a little while, to see what happens to it. He feels no revulsion sleeping near bodies; when his mama first went, he laid with her until she went properly cold. Anyone who isn’t as desensitized to corpses as he might have nightmares at the thought of the ‘slab’ in the room with them. There’s nothing sacred about the corpse itself. They’re just pieces of meat. Why would Andrew be self-conscious about sharing a room with an empty shell? Thus, Andrew, ever-vigilant, watches the casket that contains the dead drunk musician (Antonio, his name was), and the body is silent for about a week until, on the fourth night, something moves in the casket.
It’s the—the creaking of the wood. Just a trick of his sickly mind. These games, disposing of the bodies that Percy makes, take a toll on his fragile form more than his job at Laz ever did, and this is the most direct form of murder he’s ever partaken in. Forcing that drunk madman into this box, slamming the lid down on that man’s hands as he scrabbled at the sides, nailing the casket shut with such force that he drove the rivet straight through one of the man’s fingers, sitting on the top until the struggling stopped. He can reach only the obvious conclusion as to why Antonio would go silent: he’s died, right? Why don’t you open just to check? the casket mocks him.
Against his better judgment, Andrew gropes in his work bag for the hammer and pries the nails out one-by-one until there’s nothing securing the coffin lid but gravity. It slides out of the groove with little effort, thumping to the floor.
Andrew knows that he should turn in fear when the corpse sits up straight, violin falling into its lap from where the instrument is clutched to its chest. Its strings twang in protest. He can’t manage anything further than a dull That’s not supposed to happen. Dead lips part for dead teeth in a dead dead dead smile. The fingers on one bony hand beckon Andrew. He obeys as if possessed, stopping just short of the open coffin. The Violinist is dead, but that doesn’t make him any less alive. Andrew feels no satisfaction at being proven correct.
The coffins are wide unlined pine boxes imprecisely measured, put together in a slapdash job by a disinterested Andrew, made to entomb bodies in the ground rather than out of love for carpentry as an art form. There is consequently a gap to the corpse’s side when it shifts in its box, big enough for Andrew to fit if he tried. Come here, it says without speaking, tilting its head, long dark hair falling into its face, obscuring its decaying eyes. Lie with me. You’ve been dead all your life, and there is space in this coffin for two. Andrew does not approach. He is already close enough for the corpse to reach out and touch. It cups his cheek with one cold palm, stroking it, sharp-nailed thumb grazing just under his eye. If it angled its finger slightly upwards, it could blind him.
He allows himself to indulge in the fantasy of dying like this. He toes his heavy boots off and shucks his coat. Just like getting ready for bed. The Violinist’s corpse lies back down— while it’s of course quite wide, the coffin itself isn’t long enough, and it’s a bit cramped for a body so tall, so it needs to curl around Andrew, legs tangling in his own. Andrew rests his head on the corpse’s arm, winding his fingers into the corpse’s still-white shirt. He could linger here in the comforting dark for quite some time, close his eyes, and fall asleep.
The body’s unoccupied decrepit arm reaches for the casket lid like it’s pulling a blanket over them, a pair of lovers, wood grinding inevitable against wood as it moves to seal them in the dark, and that is where the spell breaks: This dream is too somatic to be a fantasy. He has been deluded into assuring his own death. Andrew shrieks and grasps for the remaining sliver of freedom: the sunrise peeking in through the cracks in the window. He is entirely uncoordinated in his flight, limbs flailing like an animal in a trap, and the corpse’s grip closes around one ankle on Andrew’s way out, sending him crashing to the floorboards on the sweet outside of the claustrophobic box. He scrambles to his feet and dives for his hammer, discarded beside his coat.
It gives no chase. He pierces the silent night with rapid-fire hammering, making a horrible racket, no doubt disturbing the other current occupants of the Manor. Andrew doesn’t care. He must seal this demon back in its container, and by the time Andrew feels safe enough to stop pounding the lid shut with nails, he’s sweating, chest heaving, breath short. He, shaking, picks up his coat and boots and puts them back where they should be.
There’s a muffled drawling laugh from inside the casket the minute he turns his back. The body within shifts like it’s getting comfortable, then goes silent.
Andrew buries the casket the next night. It’s light like an empty box.