The Coffin

Abe Philips knew the idiom well, “whistling past the graveyard.” All his life, his family and friends lobbed it at him, aggravated by his apathy towards troubles and setbacks.

“You’re just whistling past the graveyard,” they’d say. “But these things will always come back to bite you in the ass! Just you wait!”

In due time, Abe would often reply, but never out loud. What they saw as apathy, he construed as coolness and suave. True enough, while this attitude did nothing to mitigate the mountains of misfortune he’d endure, it did save him energy otherwise spent on worry and regret. One need not waste time scaling walls when he could just walk around them until an opening revealed itself.

Tonight was different, however…albeit, different in the way one might wear a different-colored tie to work. Like one errant stitch in a shirt: it’d only bother him if he dwelled on it, if he were looking for it. 

Abe had offended a client in his office. He said the circumstances of her husband’s death were deemed insufficient for full coverage. The lady didn’t like that, and she jumped to her feet, pointing and spitting like a cobra about to strike. Angry clients never bothered Abe, and this lady was no exception, standing at about 4’10, hair wrapped in an ethnic shawl. He’d merely shaken his head and calmly asked her to leave. 

Surprisingly, she had. But when she turned to accost him one last time, her eyes had blazed in such a manner that they had managed to eke a knife under Abe’s skin. Mulling it over for the final few hours of his shift, Abe concluded there was no other way to describe it. 

Black fire. 

There was a focused frenzy to her fit of rage. A deep deliberation to her words. As if, her cursing held a more…literal purpose.

Ignore it, Abe thought, as the elevator deposited him in the lobby of the insurance firm. You’ll never see her again and nothing will become of it. Tomorrow is another day. 

Tomorrow might be another day, but tonight was turning out to be like no other. Perhaps lost in the fog of the encounter, Abe had missed the last bus in his route. He swore, pacing at the edge of the sidewalk, considering his options. A cab was out of the question; he hated the smell of curry. No coworkers were available to give him a lift either, and he had no friends; or, at least, friends who owed him a favor.

Rolling his eyes, and grumbling at the blossoming pain in his feet, Abe Philips took to walking. 

With a distance of six miles, and held back by formal shoes and a heavy suitcase, Abe estimated it would take him two hours to get home. 

No matter, he thought, pumping his arms in an overly chipper manner. Just power through it. You’ll get there eventually.

After forty minutes the sun had become an amorphous orange blob behind the skyline, and the streets were caked in shadow. Abe fought back against a shiver. He had no idea such a rapid departure of sunlight could induce coldness so quickly.  He could feel dull pain hammering his arches with every step, and he muttered bitterly at his missing the bus. Damn that crazy lady, who – whatever she was. But he’d be out of the urban sprawl eventually, and back to the expanse of his quaint little neighborhood.

Once he exited the city and emerged into the countryside, the sun had set entirely. The sky was a deep nocturnal blue, the passing clouds like stony gray scabs. But streetlights illuminated the path for Abe, and he walked with confidence, itching to get home and quell his unease with Kraft macaroni, maybe a finger or two of Evan Williams. A delicacy. 

The façade of a familiar white church loomed on his right. He passed it without a second thought, but it was its neighboring graveyard, vast, hilly, and studded with bonelike tombstones, that managed to turn his head. 

He remembered he had an uncle who used to tease him, saying that those impure of heart who walked through a graveyard would awaken the dead, eager to feast on wicked flesh. 

We’ve all had an uncle like that, he mused. 

The streetlight beams snaked through the iron bar fence, striking the tombstones at twisted angles. An owl hooted somewhere deep within the grounds. Damn, he observed, eyes still glued to his side. If there’s any graveyard I wouldn’t whistle past, it’s this one. 

Keep walking. 

A minute later Abe reached the far corner of the graveyard, where the fence gave way to residential lawns. He was safe. Back in safe, familiar territory. Terra firma. He could almost taste the cheap cheese powder sticking to the roof of his mouth. 

Galump. Galump. Galump. 

“I don’t hear that,” he blurted. He put a nervous spring in his step and continued down the sidewalk. His house was just down the street. He fished in his pocket for his key. He wanted it in hand and ready to go.

Galump. Galump. Galump. 

“Stop it,” said Abe, a slight quiver to his voice. He dared not to look behind him. Probably just a road sign shuddering in the wind. Or a car door opening and closing. Or a particularly heavy-footed nightguard. Nothing to do with him, of course. 

Galump. Galump. Galump. 

He had walked a good thirty feet but the source of the sound’s distance remained the same. It was following him. Keeping pace.

Sighing with doomed resolution, Abe shot a glance behind him. 

His heart lodged in his throat. Within the cone-shaped beam of the streetlight stood a massive coffin – black and ornate. Its edges were lined with gold and a jagged cruciform was welded on its front. It rocked from side to side like a metronome, its corners emanating that jarring galump with each impact. 

Abe stared at the coffin, eyes darting around it, looking for a motor or strings or perhaps a very, very strong prankster holding it up. But as it approached, looming in the next streetlight, he saw that the thing was walking on its own, poised to overbear him, its maddeningly rhythmic galumps jolting through his chest.

Abe turned and ran. The cool night air nipped his face as his unfit feet screamed with agony – and the coffin, horribly, kept up. 

Galump galump galump galump…

He could see his house, the only one with unlit windows. He broke into a sprint, wheezing past the stitch in his chest, feeling his work shoes flattening and warping with each frantic stride.

Galump galump galump galump – 

He tripped on the front step, falling forward and scraping his front on the concrete threshold – crying out in desperation, he fumbled with his key, unlocked the door – galump galump galump galump – and threw himself inside the house, swallowed in darkness, but he kicked the door closed and sprung up, locking it at last – 

Galump galump. Galump. Galump. 

It haltered at his front door.

Abe collapsed onto his back, crawling backwards towards the stairs. Spittle frothed at his lips as he tried to rationalize the absurd terror that had just transpired. It was that woman’s curse, it had to be...bewitching a coffin to come after him on his way home from work…a literal manifestation of the long-known idiom, come to haunt him. Oh, how prophetic.

He eased his way up the stairs in a bizarre crabwalk, still staring at the door. What would he do once he got upstairs? He had no weapons, his phone was in his briefcase which he (Goddammit!) had dropped outside where that accursed thing was…he supposed he could jump out the window and round it off, but he was unsure if he could even – 

The front door came crashing down and the coffin eased into the foyer. 

Screaming, Abe scrambled to his feet and half-fell up the stairs, running on all fours, each angry galump behind him syncing with his heartbeat. He dashed down the dark hallway and locked himself in the nearest room he could manage. 

He turned on the light – the bathroom. “No!” he hissed, gazing wildly around. What could he use to defend himself? The towel rack? 

Galumpgalumpgalumpgalumpgalump – 

The bathroom door came crashing down too, and the coffin slipped in with him, its spacious bulk filling the doorway, cruciform gleaming evilly. 

Abe Philips bellowed in fear and wrenched the towel rack off the wall and lobbed it at the coffin – it bounced off its polished mahogany lid, clattering to the floor with an ear-piercing atonal metallic ring. 

Galump. Galump. 

Abe grabbed the discarded towels and sideswiped them underneath the coffin, with the mad hope that it would slip and topple over – 

Galump. Galump. 

Tears welling in his eyes, he lifted the lid off the toilet tank and threw it at the coffin. It shattered a foot to its right, leaving an ugly chip in the floor. 

Galump. 

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” he cried, trying to rip the sink off its fixture. “Please! I swear! Leave me alone!” 

Galump. 

“Please! Just leave me alone!” he screamed.

In one final act of vanity, Abe opened the medicine cabinet and hurled all manners of pill bottles and ointments at the coffin, to absolutely no effect. 

Galump. 

There was one last bottle in the cabinet. Abe Philips grabbed it and eyed its label – Nyquil. He was dead certain that it would be the last thing he ever saw before being smashed to bits by a demonic coffin. 

Summoning the last vestiges of his will, he closed his eyes and chucked the Nyquil at the coffin with all his strength. 

The coffin stopped.