A Grave Error
Easy remedies
I was only about two feet down when the steel of my spade hit with a dull thud.
Finally, paydirt.
Fortunately, the local grave diggers were lazy, drunken sods. They never dug as deep as they were paid to.
I cleared around the coffin until I had uncovered the box. It was a plain pine coffin, nothing fancy—just a wooden box. No ornamentation. Not even handles. A simple burial. No extra booty to sell here. At least it was a fresh burial. Easier to bag the body than pull the box up.
I opened my old sea bag. It was big enough to hold a corpse, as it had back when I was pirating down in the Caribbean. Now that I’m landlocked, it hasn’t seen much action.
Taking a big swing with my spade, I broke open the box. I tore off the lid, ready to stuff the prize into the bag. To my surprise, the corpse moved and moaned.
“We’ve got a breather, boss,” I yelled to George, a large hulk of a man, leaning on his shovel and holding a gas lantern.
George was the leader of this gang of resurrectionists, as he liked to call us. I just called us graverobbers, at least when George wasn’t around. No use in talking fancy when I was ass-deep in corpses.
“We don’t get paid for live ones. Fix it,” George snarled.
“What did you do, then?” Billy-Boy interrupted, so excited he almost spilt both his grog and mine.
With a broad slap of my hand on his shoulder, I replied, “A dead body’s worth a couple of quid, plus the plunder buried with them. A live one’s worth jack squat. What do you think I did?”
I smirked as the boys laughed and bought another round.
This story is based on the following writing prompt:
Paul Mansfield is a writer, a photographer, a guitar player, a philosopher — some he does well, some not so well, but he still tries them all.
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