The Bell-Ringer
The College of Funeral Services.
Something special happened in the lecture hall whenever Dr. Wolfe taught his lesson on premature burial. Students — who had seen bodies skinned like wild game, and regularly played with the boiled bones of the dead — went as white as candle wax and appeared to melt into the benches. The walls exuded an extra musk of moss and wet wood, the sound of squirming seemed to emanate from within the bowels of the university, and, for a moment, it felt as though we were all inside a giant casket, waiting for the worms to burst through the panels and onto our laps. For nine years — first as a student myself, then as Dr. Wolfe’s personal assistant — I watched them writhe. It was absolutely delightful.
“Premature burial is the great scourge of our day,” Dr. Wolfe was saying, waving his arms dramatically and flapping the sleeves of his robes. “Thanks to the tuberculosis and cholera epidemics, there have been one hundred and seventeen cases documented in 1842 alone. And those are just the ones that have been reported!” Dr. Wolfe gripped the sides of his lectern, the tassel of his cap swinging across his face and giving him the appearance of an animated grandfather clock. “When I was a student here at the academy, we focused largely on anatomy, funerary services, and the dressing of the dead. I would never have guessed this matter would make it into the curriculum. But, alas, here we are.”
Elias Freeman raised his hand in the front row. Always a question, that one. The dimwit. “Pardon me, professor, but I had always assumed these accounts were folklore and hogwash. Can you offer up proof of this so-called scourge?”
“I thought you would never ask,” Wolfe grinned, approaching his easel.
He flipped the parchment over, revealing the illustration of a man. Wolfe tapped the man’s face with his pointer. “This is Thomas Lowe.”
It was one of my better works, if I do say so myself. I had used charcoal to give Thomas’ face the necessary combination of youth and harsh furrows that reflected his rough lifestyle.
“Thomas was local roustabout and drunk,” Wolfe continued. “After a night of copious drinking, he lost consciousness for twenty hours. His friends attempted to revive him by slapping Thomas for the better part of thirty minutes, but ultimately determined that he had passed in his sleep. His body was placed in a coffin and stored in a church vault in preparation for burial. When the sexton went to retrieve the body the following day, he heard scratching coming from within and decided to pry open the lid. Thomas was dead, of course, but not from his drunken sortie. His face was a disfigured wreck — he had woken up from his coma in a panic and spent his final hours bashing his head against the lid in an attempt to escape.”
Wolfe flipped the page to reveal an illustration of the man’s pulverized face. I had decided to use oil paints to depict this, as the vast array of reds properly emphasized the mush of Wolfe’s devastated features. Seemingly pleased with his students’ winces, Wolfe moved onto the next illustration.
“Violet Simmons became ill and passed away in 1836,” Wolfe said, pacing around the image of a middle-aged woman in a shawl. “She was buried right here in Green-Wood Cemetery. Shortly after the funeral, her mother began to have nightmares that Violet was crying out in some dark place beneath the ground. She insisted that her daughter had been buried alive. After a week of repeated entreaties, the authorities finally agreed to exhume Violet’s body and put her mother’s fears to rest. However, upon opening the casket, the onlookers found Violet’s corpse lying on its stomach. Her hands were bloody from assailing the coffin’s interior and clawing at her face in agony.”
Judging by the gasps, my illustration of Violet had delivered its intended effect. Students averted their eyes from the image of the skeletal woman with the shredded skin. It had taken me quite a long time to get the flaps of flesh to look accurate.
I suppressed a grin when I caught old Elias staring at his feet and choking down a sob.
“But neither of those examples compare to the horror I witnessed as a young man just out of university,” Wolfe shut his eyes, appearing to retrieve something from deep within him. He took a breath and revealed the portrait of a beautiful young woman.
I considered her my masterpiece. Her outline was done in pencil, but I used pastels on her eyes. Her irises shone from the illustration like two chunks of glowing tanzanite. When Wolfe had seen it for the first time, he claimed that those eyes had the power to peer into a man’s soul.
“Angela Miller was my first project as a funeral director,” Wolfe said, staring into the portrait. “Her end was a tragic one. She was with child, and died of consumption eight months into the pregnancy. I emphasize this case because I examined the body myself. I used all the methods you are taught here, and I swear to you I could not find any sign of life. I cleared her for burial, and, after the service, she was interred in the family vault. For a week afterward, children passing by the church claimed they heard moans and entreaties coming from within the tomb. I thought it was superstitious nonsense, of course. We all did. Simply ghost stories. That was until the sexton heard the wail of an infant coming from the vault. He retrieved me and we opened the casket to reveal a horrific sight. There was Angela, her knees pulled to her chest and her shawl rent to pieces. On the inside of the lid, we discovered the scratch marks where her fingernails had clawed at the wood. But that wasn’t the worst part. There was an infant writhing at the foot of the casket in a mess of dried viscera. In her last moments, Angela had given birth. The child survived, but the same cannot be said for Angela. I will always remember her face.”
Dr. Wolfe spun and flipped the page, revealing the final image. He had done this enough times to have perfected the exact amount of dramatic effect. The climactic illustration was the result of a year of work: the beautiful woman had become a ghastly corpse, her dead features contorted into a howl of frozen terror as her fingernails dug into the coffin lid. A wailing baby spilled from her loins. There was a great murmur across the room, and I giggled quietly as Elias turned and vomited onto the floor beside him. Other men became ill and coughed into handkerchiefs.
“I hope,” Dr. Wolfe said, pacing across his stage. “That I have thoroughly emphasized the importance of this problem. As funerary experts, it is our responsibility to be thorough and precise. Do not make the same mistakes I made, gentlemen. It is preventable. In fact, I am currently devising a patented solution. Hopefully, I will be able to reveal it to you before this course is complete. That is all for today. You are dismissed.”
As the students rose and left the room in a daze, Dr. Wolfe strode over to me.
“Another effective lesson, Edmund, my boy,” he said, grabbing me by the shoulders and giving them a squeeze. The good-natured trill of his voice and the rosy flare of his cheeks signaled that he’d been sipping from his flask under the podium.
“You’re the teacher, sir.” I attempted to maneuver out of his grasp. “I have nothing to do with it.”
“Nonsense,” Wolfe waved a hand. “Without your illustrations, they would just be hearing the words of an old man. No, you bring the victims to life.”
He did not seem to recognize the irony.
“Thank you, sir,” I said, walking away and attempting to extricate myself from the conversation.
“I think I’m ready,” he said suddenly.
I stopped in my tracks.
“Ready, sir?” I inquired, playing dumb.
“Yes, Edmund. I’m ready for the final step of our little experiment. I want to reveal it to the world, but we need to test it on a full burial. Are you free this evening?”
“I think I can find the time,” I tried to say as casually as possible. I began to sweat profusely, and I was sure that Wolfe could see through me. “When would you like me to be there?”
“Nine o’clock,” Wolfe said. “The usual spot. Remember to bring the bratwurst and beer.”
The moon painted the tombstones into ghastly teeth that chewed the fog like it was soggy meat. I carried my lantern through the cemetery, breathing in the damp air, and turned towards the usual plot to the right of the tombs. Dr. Wolfe was standing there beside a mound of freshly moved soil, peering into an open grave.
“Brought your dinner, sir,” I said, holding up the basket.
“Fine, fine,” Wolfe muttered with the nervous excitement that usually filled him before going under. “Set it here.”
I placed the basket down and followed Wolfe’s gaze. He was looking at a blank headstone, belonging to nobody but the two of us, located in the center of a plot largely occupied by bodies from the 17th century. No one visited them anymore, and Wolfe had chosen the location to deter suspicion and prevent curious onlookers from stealing his idea. The casket was placed deeper than usual, set the full six feet into the earth. There was something new this time: a small hole had been bored into the lid, and a long cylindrical tube ran from the casket to the surface.
“Your latest innovation?” I asked, nodding to the device.
“Yes, my boy,” Wolfe tapped the cylinder. “This changes everything. Before, I could never attempt the experiment below the earth like an actual victim! This tube will allow me to communicate with you and stay under long enough to test the signal!”
Wolfe pointed to a bell mounted on the headstone. A string ran from the bell, down through the tube and into the casket.
“How long are you going under for?” I asked.
“Long enough for me to eat my dinner, ring the bell a few times, and make sure everything works.”
I placed the basket in Wolfe’s hands and gave him the closest thing to an encouraging pat on the shoulder I could muster.
“I’ll be right here,” I said. “Let me help you down.”
After I lowered Wolfe into the grave, he stood in the open casket, appearing to consider something. “Cover it with soil, Edmund,” he said, finally. “All the way.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“As sure as I’ll ever be!” he laughed, then dropped into the casket and shut the lid.
I labored and shoveled the dirt into the hole, then took my seat beside the cylinder rising from the freshly packed earth. I looked around the cemetery, imagining spectres striding between the tombs as I listened to the cry of the loons and the sound of Wolfe devouring his dinner beneath the ground.
“How are you doing down there, professor?” I asked into the tube as I watched a spirit wrap itself around the arms of a marble cherub.
“Just fine, my boy,” Wolfe’s muffled voice said. “I tell you, you simply haven’t lived until you’ve had a bratwurst and beer beside the bodies of our pioneers!”
“Perfect night for this,” I said, eying a skeletal face that appeared to peek from the barred window of a nearby tomb. “The air is quite refreshing.”
“Yes, though I must admit — it’s getting a bit stuffy down here. Is there anyone around?”
I scanned the cemetery and watched a group of phantoms chase each other between the markers. “No,” I said. “Nobody here.”
“Alright, then. Let’s see if it works this far down.”
The string that ran up the tube tightened and relaxed. The bell rang, one, two, three times, chiming across the empty cemetery. Wolfe tugged it again for good measure, and the final toll echoed off forgotten headstones and obelisks.
“Well,” he called up the tube. “Did it work?”
“Exactly as expected,” I said, standing up and grabbing the shovel. “There’s no chance anyone will be mistakenly buried in this.”
“Fantastic! Well, if you don’t mind, it’s getting rather uncomfortable down here. Do you think you can get me out?”
I stuck the shovel into the earth and sat beside the grave. “No,” I shook my head, even though I knew he could not see it. “I don’t think so.”
There was a pause. “Come on, Edmund. Don’t joke. I don’t have time for games.”
“Neither do I, professor,” I said, leaning into the tube.
“Edmund, I mean it. This is not funny!”
I sighed. “You made it far too easy professor. I’ve been waiting for this moment all my life! I had always imagined it would be more complicated. More challenging. That I would have to drug you or ply you with liquor or beat you over the head and drag you into the depths. But here you go, leaping straight into the abyss yourself! What luck!”
“Edmund! I demand that you let me out. It’s getting hard to breath!”
“Oh, professor. I know the inconveniences of being trapped in a coffin. After all, I was born in one!”
I let the blow sink in. For a moment, there was silence.
“Edmund,” the professor began, but it seemed he could not find the words.
“Nine long years,” I said. “Nine years getting into your good graces, dear professor. Nine years gaining your trust. Nine years of watching you use my mother’s horrid fate as a lesson for dimwitted rich boys! Damn you for making me draw her, for making me relive her death again and again. Now I can only remember my mother’s face as the contorted expression of a ghoul! You will know her fate, Dr. Wolfe. After all, you were the one who condemned her to agony in the dark. You will know what it’s like to call for help, to claw and caw and have no one answer you!”
“Edmund, please. Let me out and let’s discuss this like men.”
I stood up, retrieved the shovel, and dumped the soil down the tube. I shoveled again and again, until I could no longer hear Wolfe’s pleas.
I sat back down and waited. The bell began to ring, delicately at first, like a song whispered to an infant. Then it increased until it clanged away in a furious panic, pealing with the desperate insistence of a penitent ghost. I let him ring it. I wanted him to think there was a chance someone would hear it. I waited until it rang with such fervor that it seemed the thing might rip right off the headstone. Then I pulled the knife out of my coat and cut the string. It detached from the bell and coiled on the mound of fresh dirt like a salted worm.
I devoured the silence, grinning and staring at the still bell. When I was satisfied, I stood to walk away, but, just as I turned, I heard a strange chiming. I spun around to ensure that I had done the job correctly, and found that the safety bell was still dead. Yet the sound grew louder, and I could no longer deny the peal of the phantom bell. Some part of me knew the ringer. It was my mother, calling me from beyond. I listened to the sound, tears filling my eyes, and raised my hands to the eastern wind.
Before long, the bell was joined by others: the booming knells of tolling church bells, the tinny clangs of jingling servants’ summons, the shimmering quaver of rumbling gongs. The bells called across the cemetery, sweeping like golden gasps. It was music! A celebration! I swore I heard my mother’s voice, calling with the ringing. The ringing and the ringing. What music!
What sweet, sweet music!
Bob Weekes is a writer and middle school ELA teacher based out of Rochester, NY. He is currently querying his first fantasy novel. Follow him @BobWeekesELA on Twitter.
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