No, you’re being daft. Of course, the tomb lid hasn’t moved! What a macabre thing to say as we walk past the graveyard’s black wrought iron gates, so near the witching hour. You’ve been watching too many horror films, pal. We’re not characters in a Stephen King novel, we’re just two dogsbodies on their way home after a long shift at work.
Perhaps the grave was vandalised by a passerby. A lager-charged hooligan wreaking havoc on their way home from the pub, staggering between the weather beaten obelisks and mausoleums. Probably the same person who spraypainted that rude word on the bus shelter down the road. Although they must have been very strong; it would take unearthly power to rip the tomb’s casing ajar.
Actually, we’ve had terrible weather recently, haven’t we? It’s possible that the granite slab was dislodged by November gales, the brute force of a winter storm. On this quiet, country lane, the streetlamps are dull and flickering, so maybe your tired eyes are playing tricks on you in the dim light. Headstones stand motionless, sombre guardians of the lifeless. They don’t move, you idiot.
There is an unpleasant smell around here, though. Rotten meat, mouldering matter. A wild animal or someone’s missing housecat must be lying hidden in the undergrowth, succumbed to the elements, slowly withering away.
From inside the burial chamber, it’s not like some decayed cadaver pushed the stone slab up from the inside. Bursting forth from its churchyard incarceration. As for that strange noise from the cemetery, I’m sure it is nothing to worry about.
For a second there, I thought I saw a ragged, jerking shape, crawling between the tombstones towards us. A glimpse of a tattered shroud blackened with grave water.
Forget it, it was probably just that trick of the light that fooled you earlier.
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