James McGee - Resurrectionist

And from the darkness beyond the edge of the light came the sound of a low cough.

The men froze, then ducked down. Quick as a flash, Sawney blew out the lantern flame.

The sound came again, closer this time. The hairs on the back of Sawney’s neck prickled. He could feel his heart pounding like hoof beats inside his chest. He peered around him, but the mist had thickened into a solid layer a foot deep that hovered above the ground like cannon smoke, impenetrable to probing eyes.

Then, at the edge of Sawney’s field of vision, a shape appeared. It was low down, approaching quickly. Sawney’s hand eased towards the knife in his belt. Beside him, he sensed Lemuel Ragg reach inside his jacket, extract a six-inch length of tortoiseshell and, with practised ease, flick open the wafer-thin razor blade.

The fox padded past them with a vulpine look of disdain, silent as a wraith.

Sawney let out his breath. He relit the lantern using a tinderbox and a sulphur-dipped cord. “Well, don’t just sit there with your gob open, Maggsie,” he said. “Tick-tock.”

Maggett draped the loose sacking over the head of the coffin exposed by the digging. The rest of the coffin was still covered and weighted down by soil. Standing on the tail end, Maggett inserted the point of each hook beneath the sacking and under either side of the coffin lid. Then, gripping the T-bar of each hook, he heaved upwards. With Maggett’s bulk and the weight of the earth on the rest of the lid acting as a counter-weight, there could only be one outcome. The coffin lid snapped across. The sacking had been put down to deaden the sound of the breaking wood, but the noise still rang out like a distant pistol shot.

Sawney’s crew, however, did not pause. They were now racing against the clock.

Tossing the hooks aside, Maggett reached down, pulled back the splintered lid and grasped the corpse under the shoulders. Unfortunately, it didn’t want to come. Maggett’s shoulder muscles bulged. He tried again. He felt a sharp tug inside the coffin. The burial shroud was snagged. Maggett swore, put his back into it and pulled hard. This time his efforts were rewarded, accompanied by the sound of cloth tearing. The corpse came out of the coffin like a pale grey moth emerging from a pupal sac, with the remains of the shroud clinging to it like folded wings.

Maggett laid the corpse on the ground and, without pausing, removed what was left of the torn cloth and tossed it back into the open coffin. The four men stared down at the body. It was female and shapely, with dark, matted hair, skin ghostly pale against the dirt and grass.

“Nice tits,” Lemuel murmured appreciatively, his head on one side. “Wouldn’t ’ave minded giving her one.”

Samuel giggled. “Still time, Lemmy. You want us to wait?”

Lemuel grinned and cuffed his brother around the back of the head.

“Enough!” Sawney snapped. Gathering up the sacking from the top of the coffin, he tamped down the broken lid with his boots and climbed out of the grave. “Fill ’er in.”

The brothers picked up their shovels. Sawney collected the two hooks and wrapped them in the sacking, leaving Maggett to attend to the body.

Maggett knelt down and removed from his pocket three rolls of dirty bandage, two short and one long. His broad face betrayed no emotion as he concentrated on using one of the shorter rolls to bind the corpse’s ankles. He used the second short roll on the corpse’s wrists.

Maggett prodded the corpse, testing the consistency of the dead flesh. The smell coming off the body was like wet leaves. Death — the result of a convulsive attack, according to the undertaker — had taken place only the day before; long enough, Maggett knew, for rigor to have worn off, though with some corpses that could vary. Sometimes it passed off within ten hours, other times it took as long as two days.

Maggett grunted with satisfaction. This one wasn’t going to be a problem. He wouldn’t have to break any joints. Pinioning the bound wrists between the corpse’s knees, Maggett pressed the legs back towards the chest, trapping the arms. Taking the last strip of bandage, he tied it round the compressed legs and torso, cinching it tightly until the bound corpse resembled a plucked and trussed chicken. Then, after a quick check to make sure the knots were secure, he went and retrieved the sack. Stuffing the corpse inside it was easy.

Maggett finished tying off the sack at the same time as Lemuel Ragg shovelled the last heap of earth on to the top of the grave. Sawney removed the three acorns from his pocket and placed them in their original positions in the soil. Due to the digging, no frost remained on the top of the grave. The absence was noticeable compared to the rest of the terrain, but Sawney knew it wouldn’t take long for a new coating to form over the disturbed patch. Come the morning, it would all look the same. He gathered up the canvas sheet, mindful to shake the last granules of soil back on top of the grave. Then, placing the sacking containing the hooks within the canvas, he rolled the lot into a bundle and hoisted it on to his shoulder. He looked again at his watch. The removal had taken exactly sixteen minutes. He gave a satisfied grunt, looked at the others and nodded. “Let’s go.”

The four men left the gravesite and headed towards the church. Their footsteps made soft crunching sounds in the crisp frost.

They could hear the snoring from twenty paces away. There was a small, wooden hut nestling against the church’s wall. The reverberations were coming from inside.

“Hope that’s not Sal sleepin’ on the job,” Lemuel Ragg whispered.

Samuel let go a snort of laughter, quickly suppressed by the warning look on Sawney’s face.

“I heard that,” Sal said softly. She emerged from the open doorway, a shawl over her shoulders, and stuck out her tongue. “Cheeky sod.”

Sawney said nothing but looked past her into the hut. There wasn’t a great deal to see; a small, rough wooden table and an upturned keg for use as a chair. On the table sat a lantern, an earthenware jug and a grubby square of muslin, upon which rested a slab of sweaty cheese, a bruised apple and a hunk of dry bread. Seated on the keg, wedged against the wall, head tipped back, mouth open, was a beery-looking man with a pockmarked face, bushy side-whiskers and bad teeth. Sawney gazed down at the snoring man with contempt. The man’s breeches were open, he noticed. His eyes moved to the side. Resting against the wall, butt to the floor, was a rusting musket. Next to it was a small cudgel and a rattle. So much for the bloody watchman, he thought. He turned to Sal. “Give you any trouble?”

Sal shook her head. “Good as gold. Didn’t take long. The grog was enough. I didn’t even ’ave to show my titties.”

“Showed you ’is gun though, did ’e, Sal?” Peering over Sawney’s shoulder, Lemuel Ragg leered suggestively. “’Ave a big barrel, did it?”

“At least ’e’s got a gun, Lemmy,” Sal said, and winked.

Lemuel’s face flushed red. His jaw tightened. His brother sniggered.

Sawney looked at Sal and nodded towards the sleeping man’s lap and the unbuttoned trouser flap. “Been practising,’ ave we?”

“Don’t need the practice.” Sal ran her tongue along her teeth. “You should know. But I do like to keep my hand in.” She grinned wickedly.

Sawney felt his loins stir.

“Should I do ’im, Rufus?” Lemuel had the razor in his hand. His thumb played a silent tattoo along the side of the open blade.

Sawney shook his head. “Not this time. Let the bugger dream. He’ll wake up with ’is buttons open and he’ll remember Sal and think he had a really good night. He doesn’t know we’ve been here. No one does. Might as well keep it that way.”