Not much of a distance in theory, but the deepness wasn’t a straight hole. A stack of earth had to be contended with to reach their prize.
Vincent and his gang took turns, two on the dig, one on watch. A sheet of canvas lay beside the grave, catching earth and helping to maintain silence, as did the wooden implements they used. When they spoke, they spoke in whispers, for noises travelled well in a graveyard. Harold, the strongest amongst them, had only swapped up once. Joe and Vincent, twice each.
Vincent currently stood watch as his men dug down to the coffin.
Harold, a gravedigger by trade, was their inside man when it came to knowing when fresh bodies were interred.
Joe, a porter at St Thomas Hospital, was their direct contact to the Anatomists.
Vincent watched in darkness. To have a lantern up here…he knew what could happen to Resurrectionists caught at it.
Six feet to a freshly buried corpse they’d sell to eager Anatomists for a good price. Around twelve guineas, for a male specimen in fine condition.
This one had been buried for three days. Relatives guarded the gravesite the first two nights, for graverobbing was rampant in the area. On the third day, when reports of a gang’s capture hit the newspapers, they’d let their guard down and departed.
There could still be a patrol of men with dogs about. Even a policeman.
“We’re there, boss,” Harold’s deep voice said from the pit.
Vincent looked down. Harold, his large face smeared in dirt, the hair of his balding head askew, stared up at him. He held the head of his pick over one shoulder.
Beside him stood Joe, a shorter man, thick mutton chop whiskers leading from his red hair to his chin. He was scraping dirt from an uncovered coffin lid.
Harold lifted their dark lantern, slid the panel aside so Vincent could see better.
“Blooming thing looks old,” Harold muttered. “Coffin’s been here an age.”
Peering down, Vincent saw that yes, the lid appeared pitted, rotten in places.
“Maybe they bought it used,” Joe said. “Or ratbag diggers blagged the new coffin, swapped it for this old thing.”
Vincent shrugged. “Never mind that. Let’s get on.”
Joe nodded, turned to Harold. “Back up some. I’ll open her.”
“Willdo,” Harold replied.
Vincent watched Joe edge around the coffin, jam his shovel into its side.
The lid came open easily, but an unexpected cloud of effulgence escaped its insides.
Vincent backed away, the pungent reek of death making him gag.
His companions coughed up a storm, one of them retching between coughs.
Death fumes could choke the unwary graverobber, had been known to kill a man, or so rumours in the trade said. There shouldn’t be any in a fresh grave though.
After deep breaths of cool, clean air, Vincent returned to the graveside.
He found Joe peering up at him, his eyes watering, face green about the gills. He patted Harold on the back, the man doubled over as he vomited bile into a corner.
So much noise. At least the pit diminished it some.
Joe pointed to the open coffin.
Vincent gulped. No new corpse in its death shroud lay there, but rather, an aged skeleton completely stripped of flesh.
They’d dug up the wrong grave, quite obviously. A wasted night.
“Boss, I don’t believe this,” Joe said, shaking his head. “Bloody hell. I checked the marker before we began.”
Harold wiped his mouth, stood straight. “Damn thing will be the death of me.” He kicked soil into the coffin, sending it spattering over the occupant’s ribcage. “I knew the earth felt wrong under my pick.”
Joe patted Harold’s shoulder, stepped around the coffin to Vincent’s side.
“Give me an arm up, please, boss,” he asked, and Vincent obliged.
After he’d pulled him up, Joe said, “I want to check on that marker again.”
Vincent looked to the headstone. He couldn’t read too well, but the stone was obviously new, and freshly carved.
“Hey boss?” Harold said from the grave.
Vincent stared down.
Harold grinned, slivers of drool still hanging from his chin.
“This skeleton has gold rings on its fingers. Some gold teeth too!”
Vincent and Joe turned to one another. Joe grinned.
Perhaps the night wasn’t such a waste after all.
As Joe walked to the headstone, Vincent knelt, retrieving a sack from the ground.
“Stick them in here, Harold,” he said, tossing the sack down.
Harold caught the sack, nodded. “On it.” He knelt himself, and began working on the skeleton’s hands. Gold glinted encouragingly in the lamplight.
Joe, having crouched before the headstone, prodded the surface as he read the inscription.
“It’s as new as can be,” he said. “Albert Percival Marsh should be buried here. Death date is this year. He died at the age of twenty-three, the poor bugger.”
So, who have we dug up?
Vincent returned his attention to the grave.
Harold, having finished with the hands, was on the grisly task of removing the teeth. Or trying to. He seemed to be having trouble snapping them out.
Vincent considered ordering him to leave it. But with no guineas forthcoming at the end of this night? It wasn’t like they could wander the graveyard, searching for the grave the Marsh headstone belonged to.
“Just grab the skull,” he told Harold.
“The skull?” Harold looked up, blinking.
“Break it off and bag it, so we can get ourselves away.”
“Good plan boss,” Joe said. He was stood now, leaning against the headstone.
The sound of the unknown occupant’s skull being wrenched from its spine cut through the night air.
Vincent flinched at the noise. He scrutinized their surroundings for a moment, and looked down to see Harold stuffing the skull into the sack.
Bundling the sack in his hands. Harold tossed it up.
Vincent caught it two-handed. Within the sack, jewellery rattled against bone.
“I’m coming up. Just grabbing the pick.”
Vincent watched Harold step around the coffin, lean over to retrieve his pick.
A creaking noise made Vincent look up.
A shocked expression filled Joe’s face, as the headstone beside him fell forward.
“No!” Vincent said.
With a scatter of earth, it tumbled into the grave.
It hit Harold’s head with a loud “crack.”
He and the headstone toppled into the coffin; Harold ended up sprawled atop the skeleton, his head horribly twisted.
His mouth gasped and bubbled blood, his glazed eyes staring upwards.
The headstone had miraculously survived the fall.
A shrill whistle returned Vincent’s attention to the graveyard. Shouts followed, as in the distance, he spied the light of a lantern.
Nightwatchmen? Police? Or worse, a group of vigilant locals. If the latter, he and Joe might end up like poor Harold.
He stood, turned to his surviving companion. Joe was staring into the grave, oblivious to the approaching danger.
“C’mon, man,” Vincent hissed. “We must leave. Trouble’s coming, fast!”
Seeing no reaction from his friend, Vincent waited a moment longer, and fled.
A mad dash through the graveyard followed, then a squeeze between the gap in the fence they’d entered by. Beyond the fence he passed Harold’s cart, his horse Rosie, waiting to transport their charge to St Thomas’.
Rosie, startled by his appearance, whinnied and stamped her hooves. The horse startled Vincent also, adding to his panic as he fled through the night-darkened streets.
Only when he arrived at his boarding house did Vincent pause for breath, sweating in his coat, his vision blurred from fatigue.
Between breaths, and through the buzzing in his ears, he listened for pursuers.
Nothing. I made it, he thought. Slumping against a wall, he heard something clatter at his feet.
The sack! By some good fortune, he’d kept hold of it during his escape. Some items to pawn, to make up for a disaster of a night.
But what of Joe? Captured? Worse?
Vincent hoped for neither, but had to watch out for himself, first and foremost.
He had to get off the street, and there were three flights of stairs to contend with to reach his attic room.
He retrieved the sack, tried the front door and found it unlocked.
His landlady Mrs Bucket, a veteran gin enthusiast and as crooked as a butcher’s hook, was accustomed to her lodgers’ late hours.
Breathing steadily now, Vincent stepped inside.
He walked quietly, for politeness sake, and heard heavy snoring from Mrs Bucket’s rooms.
Heading up the roughly carpeted staircase, he passed a first floor rooming five prostitutes. The second floor followed, which hosted a disgraced Spiritualist and two footpads.
His steps grew leaden as he passed the third floor. This roomed a forger and his family.
Finally, he reached the attic. Empty except for him, the floor stood unoccupied due to the sounds nesting pigeons made in the roof at night.
The birds didn’t bother him. Most nights he was out on mischief or in a dead drunk.
Walking across bare floorboards, he searched his coat pocket for his key.
Honesty amongst criminals only went so far.
The fatigue of the night hit him hard at the door. Unlocking it, Vincent staggered into the room beyond, slamming the door closed.
He didn’t bother lighting the room. Dropping the sack to the table, one of the few bits of furniture the room possessed, he headed to a threadbare settee near the window.
His coat came off along the way, and his cap.
He collapsed onto the settee gratefully, kicking off his shoes before rolling onto his back with a groan.
What a disastrous evening. No payout, Joe possibly captured, and Harold dead. Joe would keep his mouth shut. Harold though... He’d had valuable contacts, knew some crooked Sextons.
The gang would survive. He knew other men with similar contacts. Still, he’d have to get back into operation quickly, in case some rival gang invaded their patch.
As the aches in his legs diminished, and the comfort of the settee eased his mind, Vincent began drifting toward unconsciousness. A welcome feeling, he turned onto his side to embrace it.
“Crack.”
The noise brought him up from the settee in a hurry.
Vincent blinked, scanned the room for the source.
“Hello there?” he said, thinking it might be the door.
No answer.
It wasn’t an unfamiliar sound, and he tried placing it.
A stone at the window? He stepped around the settee toward it. Perhaps Joe was below, throwing up stones.
The street stood empty.
Just where did—
“Crack.”
Vincent flinched, turned to the room slowly.
If his ears didn’t betray him, the sound came from the room’s centre.
A lump formed in his gut.
The table? He headed toward it, noting the three candles there in the shadows, and the sack.
Vincent stopped suddenly, the lump growing much heavier.
He now knew where he’d heard the noise before. That of a skull being snapped from its spinal column; a man’s neck breaking in an open grave.
He felt around the table for a box of matches. These found, he opened the box, shakily lit a match and the candles. The illuminated candles created a warm circle of light, made the shadows at the room’s corners flicker.
He shook out the match’s dwindling flame, let it fall from his hand.
“Crack.”
The sack jumped.
“Holy Mary Mother of God,” he said, crossing himself while backing away. He halted when his legs touched the settee.
The skull, that sound was the skull!
Jesus Christ what have we done? The thing is cursed.
Harold’s death was only the beginning. The curse had followed him right here to his lodgings.
Gold or not, he had to get rid of the skull. Vincent glanced around, noting the nearby window.
Throw the damned thing out.
With this in mind, he crept back to the table, gingerly reaching past the candles.
Pausing his hand over the sack, he took a deep breath, and snatched it.
Vincent dashed across the room. He held the sack at arm’s length, expecting a movement at any moment.
The sack remained still but for the motions from his shaking hand.
He reached the window, fumbled with the latch as he struggled to turn it one-handed. With this done, a hard shove opened it, at the expense of a cracked pane.
He tossed the sack out, watched air currents catch its corners as it went tumbling down.
Vincent grabbed the windowsill, leaning outside just in time to see the sack hit the ground.
He sighed. Some lucky beggar, or the early morning street urchins, could have the rings. The skull was hopefully smashed beyond recognition.
He pulled the window closed, putting his back to it. He wiped his brow and sighed again.
It’s gone, he thought, the lump in his gut finally dissolving.
Shutting his eyes, he leant back, resting his head against the window’s cool glass.
What a night this had been. Could he sleep? Only one way to find out.
“Crack.”
The sound sent him to his feet in panic.
“Crack.”
There it was again. Not as loud as earlier. No, this time it issued from beyond his room.
“Crack.”
A little louder now, it was right behind the door.
The candles hissed out, one by one.
Sweet Lord please.
Feeling cornered, Vincent heard the doorhandle turn.
What was coming for him?
He didn’t care to find out.
Reaching behind his back, he nervously searched for the window latch.
He knocked the broken pane out in his fumbling, felt cool air touch his bare hand.
In the darkness, the doorhandle turned.
His following scream escaped his lips as a strangled cry.
The door creaked open. From beyond issued the stench of an open grave.
Vincent found the latch, pushed the window open in a grip gone clammy with sweat.
Two points of light appeared beyond the table. No, not lights, but a pair of eyes, glowing like hot coals.
He called out desperately, “No, please! I beg you!”
Deep laughter filled the room. The stench grew into a cloying, graveyard funk.
Gibbering in fear, Vincent turned, placed a knee on the windowsill.
Death awaited him on the cobbles below, a far better death than the one stalking toward him.
The table screeched as something large pushed it aside. The candles rolled off onto the floor.
A loud, hollow breath hissed behind him; it spoke of festering graves and cavernous tombs.
As the breath’s icy chill reached him, Vincent leant forward, releasing himself to gravity.
—
Joe had led his pursuers on a merry chase, over high walls and down twisting alleyways. He’d lost them, eventually, afterwards making his tired way toward Vincent’s lodgings.
In his rush to escape, he hadn’t considered Harold. The loss of his friend was just beginning to register as he turned the corner to Vincent’s home.
His shock at seeing what lay upon the cobbles pushed all other thoughts aside.
Is that the boss? Joe thought, pausing at the corner.
Streetlamps, illuminating the corpse starkly, brought no doubt as to its identity.
Had Vincent been mugged on his way home? If so, they’d taken his coat, shoes, and hat. And his life, by the looks of the crimson pool forming around his head.
The sack from the graveyard lay near the body.
Harold and the boss. What a night.
His bile rose as he approached Vincent’s corpse. He hadn’t just been attacked; one side of his face had been smashed to pulp.
Christ no!
A bloodshot eye dangled from Vincent’s mutilated socket.
Joe turned away in disgust, his gaze encountering slivers of glass on the cobbles.
These made him look to the attic. A window stood open up there.
No mugging then, the boss had fallen to his death. But how had that happened?
Joe shook his head. The answer was beyond his reasoning.
Poor man, he thought. Staring past the corpse, he noted the sack again.
No point in leaving it.
“Sorry, boss.”
He stepped around the blood spreading from Vincent’s head and grabbed the sack.
Gold rings and bones rattled inside: at least something gained from a tragic evening.
“Boss, I’ll see you’re buried somewhere safe and proper,” Joe said, and slinging the sack over his shoulder, he headed back into the night.
XX
Glynn Barrass lives in the North East of England and has been writing since late 2006. He has written over two hundred short stories, novellas, and role-playing game supplements, the majority of which have been published in Japan, the UK, and the USA. His website is: https://strangeraeons.godaddysites.com/
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This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious and any similarities to actual persons, locations, or events is coincidental. This work cannot be used to train artificial intelligence programs.
No AI tools were used in the writing of this story.
SIX FEET DOWN © 2025 Glynn Owen Barrass