The Hunger
Doreen Sorrel woke up hungry, and despite the feeling that she had been asleep for a long time, she was still tired, the weariness most likely a result of her fasting. Visions not of sugarplums but of thick, juicy chunks of beef and loaves of hot, buttered, freshly baked bread danced through her head. Famished, she did not even bother dressing. Instead, she immediately went in search of food.
In moments, she was in the kitchen, standing in front of an open refrigerator, her eyes greedily taking in the mouth-watering sight of its contents. Doreen smelled meat and followed her olfactory sense to a white Styrofoam container where a half-eaten prime rib dinner was waiting like a sacrificial lamb to be devoured. She quickly consumed it, cold though it was, and enjoyed every morsel.
With the leftover steak and baked potato gone and her hunger far from sated, she opened the cooler drawers. They were filled with fresh produce: navel oranges, Granny Smith apples, green bell peppers, red seedless grapes, celery hearts, Vidalia onions and bagged salad mixes. She downed them one after another, seeds, skins, pits and all, not bothering to peel or slice them. Not bad tasting, but not nearly as delicious as the prime rib.
Doreen proceeded to work her way up the refrigerator shelves, emptying one after another. A microwavable container of Bob Evans macaroni and cheese. Four cartons of Yoplait low-fat yogurt. Land O Lakes salted butter. Breakstone's sour cream. Heinz ketchup. French's mustard. Vlasic bread and butter pickle slices. A half-gallon of two percent milk from a local dairy. A bottle of Ocean Spray cranberry juice. Yet even after nothing was left except for a pile of cardboard, plastic and glass, she was still hungry.
Her eyes went to the kitchen cabinets. She was not finished yet.
* * *
Ruth Nayler was folding the clean clothes in the basement laundry room when she heard the front door open. Believing it heralded either a burglary or a home invasion, her heart raced with fright. Trembling, she quietly tiptoed to the basement door, intending to let herself out and run to the neighbor's house for help. Once outside, however, she spied her husband's pickup truck in the driveway. Relief flooded over her, only to be replaced by a new fear moments later.
It's only nine o'clock, she realized, heading back into the house.
"What are you doing home so early?" Ruth wondered when she found her husband sitting at the kitchen table waiting for the Keurig to spit out Green Mountain Nantucket blend coffee into his Fenway Park souvenir mug.
"I had to shut down for the day," Harold replied as his wife picked up the cup of coffee and put it in front of him.
"Why?"
"Thanks," he mumbled with a half-hearted smile as he reached for the creamer. "You wouldn't believe the morning I had! I was clearing a parcel of woodland up on Naumkeag Mountain, not far from the old, abandoned Puritan Falls Church. I was sitting in the operator's seat of my backhoe, digging up boulders and tree stumps. I had my iPod on, listening to AC/DC, volume turned up to try to drown out some of the noise of the chainsaws and the chipper. I hadn't been at work for more than fifteen minutes when I took a look at the bucket. What do I see inside it? A goddamned coffin; that's what!"
"It's not that surprising, what with all those old graves up behind the church. Several of the headstones must have been destroyed or stolen."
"We weren't working anywhere near the cemetery. We were a good quarter mile away from it."
"What did you do?"
"I called the police. They sent the casket over to the morgue. Then, on the off chance that this could be the burial spot of a murder victim, they asked us to stop work for the day so they could investigate."
"Was Shawn there?" Ruth inquired, referring to their good friend, police officer McMurtry, who was known throughout town for having a fascination with true crime dramas.
"No," Harold laughed. "I bet he'll be sorry he missed all the excitement."
"No doubt if he were there, he would have envisioned that the Puritan Falls P.D. had uncovered the burying grounds of Whitey Bulger and the Winter Hill Gang!"
* * *
As was the case with Harold Nayler, for Leeanne Burnley, the day had begun just like every other Thursday morning. Shortly thereafter, though, everything went south. After dropping the kids off at school, she drove to Shop 'N Save to do her weekly food shopping. The day took a detour from the ordinary as she stood beside her grocery cart halfway down the snack aisle, trying to choose between a bag of Rold Gold pretzels and one of Smartfood white cheddar popcorn.
Suddenly, her eyes glazed over, and her face lost all sign of emotion. Like a ravenous zombie, she tore open the bag of pretzels and shoved handfuls of them into her mouth, chewing noisily. Other shoppers stopped and stared as she went from the pretzels to the popcorn to a family-sized bag of Wise potato chips.
Not wanting to upset a regular customer, Kenny Halidon, the sixteen-year-old stock boy, called for the store manager to handle the situation.
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Burnley," the manager, Murray Peeler, apologized, "but it's store policy to pay for all items before you eat them."
Leeanne acted as though she had not heard him.
"Please, Mrs. Burnley," Murray urged.
Having finished the entire bag of chips, she reached for another, even larger bag and tore it open. Short of ripping the snacks out of her hands, there was little Peeler or Halidon could do to deter her. Reluctantly, the manager took his cell phone out of his pocket and dialed 911.
Humming an old Beatles tune, Shawn McMurtry drove his police cruiser down Atlantic Avenue, patrolling the streets of his peaceful seaside village. He was eager to return to the station house so that he could grill Detective Stan Yablonski about the human remains that had been unearthed in the old churchyard earlier that morning. As he approached the intersection with McIntire Drive, a call came over the radio. He turned the cruiser around and headed toward Shop 'N Save.
When he entered the grocery store, he headed toward aisle seven. There he found people crowded around Leeanne Burnley, who was lying on the floor, struggling for breath.
"Call 911," he cried.
"I already did," Murray Peeler replied. "An ambulance is on the way."
Shawn saw the half-eaten jar of Planters salted peanuts lying on top of a pile of empty snack bags and concluded that the woman was experiencing symptoms of anaphylactic shock. He grabbed her purse, spilled the contents onto the floor and found the EpiPen. Thankfully, she was wearing a dress. He lifted it by the hem and injected the epinephrine into Leeanne's upper thigh. Thanks to his swift response, her breathing returned to normal by the time the paramedics arrived.
McMurtry followed the ambulance to the hospital emergency room and drank a cup of coffee while waiting to speak to the physician on duty.
"How's Mrs. Burnley?" he inquired when Sarah Ryerson was finished with the examination.
"She'll be fine—thanks to your finding her EpiPen so quickly. Good job, Shawn!"
"What about the disturbing behavior she exhibited?"
"What behavior is that? I thought she was brought in because of her peanut allergy."
McMurtry filled the doctor in on the woman's snack food binge.
"I wasn't aware that the patient knowingly opened a can of peanuts and ate them. I thought she consumed them by mistake."
"From what the manager at Shop 'N Save tells me, Mrs. Burnley was tearing open bags of potato chips, pretzels and popcorn and downing them like she was a human vacuum cleaner. He and the stock boy tried to get her to stop eating, but she didn't appear to hear a word they said. She must have downed a few dozen bags of snacks before she started on the jar of peanuts."
"That's odd," Sarah said with a frown.
"Isn't it? Why would anyone risk a possibly fatal allergic reaction like that?"
"No, that's not what I meant. I had a patient brought in earlier this morning who cleaned out everything in her kitchen, except the food in her freezer. She ate so much that her stomach nearly ruptured. Funny thing is she can't remember what happened. The last thing she recalled was going to bed the night before—then nothing until she found herself vomiting on a kitchen floor that was littered with empty boxes, bags, cans, jars and bottles. Needless to say, she had one hell of a stomachache!"
* * *
Elena Alvarado of the Essex County Medical Examiner's Office entered the morgue at Puritan Falls Hospital and requested to see the remains of the body found at the churchyard earlier that day.
Marty Lovett, the morgue attendant, nodded in the direction of a rotting wooden coffin that appeared to have been in the ground for more than a century. Elena was surprised that the bones were still inside the box. Why hadn't anyone removed the skeleton from the casket?
As if he had read the doctor's mind, Marty explained, "Thought you might like to see how we found her."
"Her?" Elena echoed.
"Unless this is a transvestite," the attendant explained, "we've got a Jane Doe here."
The clothing—in surprisingly good condition for its age—was clearly that of a woman.
"What's with all the religious paraphernalia?" Dr. Alvarado wondered.
"I haven't got a clue, but I counted twenty-three crucifixes and four Bibles tucked inside the casket with the remains. And there were six more crucifixes nailed onto the top of the coffin."
"Where's that?"
"It was almost crushed by the backhoe, so I put the pieces in a box in the storage room."
"Want to give me a hand getting her out?"
Although the bones did not weigh much, the medical examiner wanted to use as much caution as possible in handling them. With Marty Lovett's help, the skeleton was removed and put on an examining table intact.
"You would think something here would give us a clue to the young woman's identity," Elena said, looking to see if there was any writing in the Bibles. "Based on all the crosses buried with her, I'd say she was either a saint or a major league sinner."
"My money's on the latter," Marty theorized.
"Why's that?"
"The coffin was found outside the borders of the cemetery. They don't bury saints in unhallowed ground."
* * *
I'm hungry—again. Why can't I satisfy this gnawing emptiness inside me? I'm so, SO hungry!
* * *
Josiah Barnard sat at a table in his restaurant, the Sons of Liberty Tavern, discussing the upcoming Fourth of July Parade with Martha Prescott. Martha, known to television audiences as Belladonna Nightshade, the former hostess of Thriller TV network's Classic Horror Movies, had been selected by the organizing committee to be the grand marshal and lead the parade down the streets of Puritan Falls.
"Would you prefer riding in an open car or on a float?" Josiah asked.
"I hadn't given it much thought. What kind of floats ...."
Martha was distracted by a young woman who had arrived at the restaurant and headed directly toward the buffet line without waiting to be seated by the waitress. The customer, Alicia Hoyt, a high school gym teacher, passed by the stack of plates and silverware and headed straight for the row of chafing dishes.
"What's she doing?" the former television personality wondered, watching the teacher pick up the large metal serving spoon and shovel chicken marsala into her mouth.
Appalled by his wife's behavior, Neil Hoyt tried to pull her away from the hot-foods table.
"What's gotten into you?" he cried as she violently struggled to break his grasp on her arms.
Josiah went to the husband's aid. Together, the two men managed to keep her from shoving sauce-covered meatballs into her mouth with her bare hands. Suddenly, Alicia's eyes rolled upward, and she swooned. Neil was able to easily support the weight of his one-hundred-and-eighteen-pound wife. Meanwhile, employees of the Sons of Liberty began cleaning up the mess.
Embarrassed, Neil, albeit worried about his wife's mental state, felt the need to apologize to the owner of the restaurant.
"I don't know what made Alicia act that way. It's not like her at all. She usually eats like a bird."
Within a matter of minutes, the gym teacher came to.
"Where am I?" she muttered, clearly confused.
"We're at the Sons of Liberty Tavern," her husband answered. "You tried to eat directly from the serving pans."
"Don't be ridiculous!" she argued, but the sauce from the chicken marsala staining the front of her pastel pink blouse was proof of his claim.
"Come on. I think I should take you to the hospital and have Sarah Ryerson look at you."
Frightened by her own bizarre actions, Alicia Hoyt put up no argument.
* * *
Friday morning, Marty Lovett arrived at the hospital morgue ten minutes early. There was only one new corpse in the refrigerated cabinet, that of a ninety-two-year-old former firefighter who had passed away peacefully during the night. D'Agostino's Funeral Home would send someone over later in the morning to pick him up.
While the attendant was preparing the necessary paperwork for the transfer of the body, he noticed something shiny on the floor beneath his desk. He rolled back the wheeled chair, reached down and picked it up. It was one of the antique crucifixes that had been tucked inside Jane Doe's wooden coffin.
Marty picked up the cross and opened the cabinet door. When he slid the drawer out and saw Jane Doe's remains, he believed he was being made the butt of a tasteless practical joke. What had once been nothing but a skeleton now looked like a person who had been skinned alive. There were now muscles, tendons, intestines and lungs. Where had they come from?
Fearful that if he failed to report the incident, he might be in danger of losing his job, he locked the door to the morgue and went in search of a doctor. Sarah Ryerson, who had worked the early morning shift, was just going off duty.
"Dr. Ryerson," he called. "Can I talk to you?"
"I was on my way to the cafeteria to get a cup of coffee. Want to join me?"
"Could you come downstairs with me first?"
"Sure. Is something wrong?"
"It seems someone has been tampering with human remains."
Marty opened the door and rolled out the body discovered in the churchyard.
"Who would remove the skin from a dead body?" Sarah inquired.
"You got it wrong. It's worse than that. Yesterday, there was a skeleton on this slab. Had to be at least a century old, possibly older."
Sarah leaned forward to get a closer look. As she was examining the opening in the skull where the nasal cavity had once been, upper and lower lateral cartilage began to form.
"Oh, my God!" she exclaimed.
"What the hell is going on?" Marty cried in alarm.
"It looks like the most amazing case of regeneration in the history of biology. A new nose is forming right before our eyes."
* * *
Melba Chisholm parked her Subaru in front of the farm stand halfway up Naumkeag Road. Not wanting to drive thirty minutes to Whole Foods Market in Swampscott, she opted to purchase her fresh fruits and vegetables right from the farm.
"Good morning," she called to the teenage girl behind the counter and grabbed a plastic carry-all from the nearest stack.
She was inspecting the vine-ripened tomatoes for soft spots when she dropped her basket and began eating them like apples, one in each hand.
"You have to pay for those first," the teenager scolded her.
When Melba ignored her and reached for more tomatoes, the girl went to get her father out in the cornfield.
* * *
As in that too-often-repeated advertising slogan "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas," what happened in Puritan Falls was usually kept within the village limits. Therefore, when Jane Doe's corpse grew a new layer of skin, no one called the county medical examiner. Legally, there was no reason to. Elena Alvarado had completed her examination of the bones, and the necessary paperwork was on its way to the proper government agencies.
With the blessing of the hospital's administration, Sarah Ryerson was appointed to head an investigation into the medical anomaly. Believing the key to solving the puzzle might be discovering the dead girl's identity, the doctor called on long-time friends Shawn McMurtry and Patience Scudder, the town librarian and local historian.
"I stopped at the antique store this afternoon," Shawn said when he met up with Sarah and Patience later that evening. "I showed Mrs. Lundy the crucifixes that were found inside Jane Doe's coffin. She confirmed that they all dated back to Victorian times."
"Which coincides with the style and apparent age of the corpse's clothing," Sarah pointed out.
Patience removed a notepad from her purse and reported, "I spent the day searching through old copies of the Gazette from before 1900 and found something most interesting. Back in 1892, there was a family named Seagrave living on Hawthorne Boulevard. They went through a tragic run of bad luck that year. The mother died of TB, or consumption as it was called back then. Less than five months later, the two daughters succumbed to the same disease. The younger one died first, followed by the older one three months later. When the only son showed symptoms, the father questioned the cause of the deaths. He had the bodies of his wife and daughters dug up. Unlike the other two, the older daughter's body showed no sign of decay."
"Could she have been buried prematurely?" Shawn wondered. "Wouldn't that account for the condition of the body if she died later than they had assumed?"
"If she were buried alive, she wouldn't have lasted long. There's not much air inside a coffin," Sarah answered.
"Perhaps his mind was rattled with grief, but Mr. Seagrave believed his daughter not only killed her mother and sister but that she was systematically draining the life from her brother as well," the librarian continued.
"A fact that would surprise most people," the doctor concluded, "but this is Puritan Falls. We've heard these kinds of bizarre tales before."
"If Seagrave thought his daughter was some kind of vampire, that would explain the crucifixes in and on the coffin," Shawn surmised.
"The father went further than that," Patience explained. "According to the tenets of old folk medicine, the victim of a vampire could be saved from death if he or she consumes the heart of the monster. The father thus removed his daughter's heart, burned it, mixed the ashes with water and then gave it to his son to drink."
"Cure TB with ashes and water?" the doctor laughed. "I bet the New England Journal of Medicine never heard of that approach."
* * *
High school senior Kara Macardle was thinking about her upcoming graduation ceremony when she reported for work at the concession stand of the AMC Loews Theater in the Puritan Falls Mall on Saturday morning in time to prepare for the first showing of the latest Batman movie at eleven. After filling the soda fountains, she put the pretzels under the heat lamp, turned on the warmer for the nacho cheese and filled the rows of candy, being careful to bring the older stock up to the front. Meanwhile, one of the ushers vacuumed the carpet in the lobby, another put supplies in the restrooms and the ticket sellers counted the money in their tills.
Mace Hunsaker, who worked with Kara in the concession stand, was placing hot dogs on the preheated rollers when he noticed his coworker rip open a bag of nacho chips and cram handfuls of them into her mouth.
"Are you crazy?" Mace asked. "If the manager catches you, you'll lose your job."
Kara finished the nachos and tore open a box of Raisinets. The Milk Duds and Goobers were next, followed by the Whoppers.
"What's she doing?" one of the ticket sellers asked, as the theater employees gathered around the concession stand to observe the ravenous teenager.
"She must be looking to get fired," the usher with the vacuum cleaner suggested.
The manager stepped out of his office, curious as to why his employees were not at their posts.
"We open in less than five minutes, people," he reminded them.
Then he saw Kara consuming Twizzlers at an alarming speed. His anger at what could only be considered theft of theater goods soon turned to concern for the girl.
"Somebody stop her. She's a diabetic."
At the same time as Mace Hunsaker, assisted by two ushers and a ticket seller, managed to restrain Kara Macardle from eating more candy, Sarah Ryerson was examining what she, Patience Scudder and Shawn McMurtry believed was the body of Juliet Seagrave, the young girl who had died of tuberculosis back in 1892.
What could possibly cause the regrowth of tissue, especially to such a drastic extent? the doctor mused. Cells can reproduce in a living body, but a dead one?
"Here's your cup of java, Doc," Marty Lovett, the morgue attendant, announced, handing Sarah a Styrofoam cup from the hospital's coffee shop.
The emergency room physician was raising the beverage to her mouth when she saw Juliet Seagrave's eyes open.
"Holy shit!" Marty exclaimed, spilling his coffee on the floor as he jumped backward.
Sarah immediately took her iPhone out of her lab coat pocket.
"Shawn, it's me," she said when McMurtry answered. "You might want to come over here as soon as you can. Our alleged vampire has just come back to life."
* * *
"I've run the usual tests on Juliet Seagrave," Sarah informed Patience and Shawn, who were joined by psychiatrist Lionel Penn and Abigail Cantwell, the owner of the Bell, Book and Candle and a well-known authority on matters of the occult. "She gives every indication of being human."
"And how is her health?" Lionel inquired.
"She has tuberculosis."
"Which was what killed her in the first place," Patience noted.
"This isn't the nineteenth century, however," Dr. Ryerson said. "A diagnosis of TB is no longer a guaranteed death sentence."
"You can treat it then?" Shawn asked.
"Yes, but it's still a serious disease, requiring a regimen of six to nine months of antibiotics. I've already given her Streptomycin, and she hasn't had any adverse reactions to the drug."
"And if she beats the disease this time, what then?"
"I suppose we have to wait and see."
"Can she stay here in the hospital for the next six to nine months?" Patience asked.
"I don't think that will be necessary. I'm sure we can find someplace for her to live. We've got people in Puritan Falls that have spare rooms to let."
Abigail Cantwell spoke for the first time.
"Are you sure that's wise?"
"I'll keep my eye on her. If her condition worsens, I can put her back in the hospital."
"It's not the girl's safety that concerns me."
Shawn, ever the public servant, was immediately concerned.
"You think she's dangerous?"
"There must have been hundreds of people from our town who died of tuberculosis over the years," Abigail reasoned. "How many of them have come back to life? Maybe the girl's father wasn't a man driven mad by grief. Perhaps he knew something we don't."
"You don't think that Juliet Seagrave was actually a vampire?" Dr. Penn asked Abigail with disbelief.
"I'm not talking about Count Dracula, Lion. I've heard rumors of eccentric behavior since this girl's casket was opened. One woman ate so much her stomach nearly burst. Another endangered her health by eating peanuts, knowing she was allergic to them. Then there was a woman who pigged out at the farm stand on Naumkeag Road. And, most recently, that girl at the theater, a diabetic who went on a sugar binge."
"You believe these incidents are connected to the regeneration of dead flesh?" Sarah asked.
"Can you prove to me that they're not?" Abigail countered.
* * *
I'm hungry.
Juliet Seagrave opened her mouth slowly; she had not uttered a word in one hundred and twenty-five years.
"I'm ... hungry," she managed to say.
After several unsuccessful attempts, she was at last able to get out of bed and stand on wobbly legs.
"I'm hungry."
Step by lumbering step, she walked across her hospital room and out into the hallway.
"What are you doing out of bed?" asked Nurse Hildy Geeson, who knew only that Juliet suffered from tuberculosis, not that she had come back from the dead.
"I'm hungry."
"Let me help get you back into bed first, and then I'll have some food sent up from the kitchen."
As she took the girl's arm, the patient lunged forward and bit her on the neck. Two of Hildy's fellow nurses promptly went to her aid.
"Get a doctor, STAT!"
Word of the attack spread rapidly through the hospital. Sarah Ryerson was one of the first to receive the news.
* * *
"She's been sedated," the doctor announced after Patience, Shawn, Lionel and Abigail arrived at the hospital.
"What do we do when she wakes up?" Lionel asked.
"Commit her?" Shawn suggested. "We can see that she's taken care of, particularly that she's fed regularly. And if she's kept under lock and key, she won't be able to hurt anyone."
"How can we be sure of that?" Abigail argued. "She was able to feed by controlling the minds of those other women before. She could probably do it again, even locked away from the world."
"In so doing, she might have caused serious harm to them or even death," Patience stated. "All five of them are lucky to be alive."
"Then what do we do with her?" Lionel repeated his question. "If she's a monster, aren't we obligated to destroy her?"
"You and I are both physicians," Sarah reminded him. "Taking a human life would violate our Hippocratic oath."
"And I'm a police officer," Shawn added. "I swore to serve and protect the people in this town. That includes Miss Seagrave."
"That's presupposing Juliet is human," Abigail contended. "I, for one, don't believe she is. I suppose if I were to attempt to destroy her myself, you would all feel duty-bound to try to stop me. Furthermore, if I succeed, Shawn would no doubt arrest me."
"I agree with Abigail," Patience declared. "My conscience will not allow me to let that monster run loose in Puritan Falls."
"I may have chosen to become a psychiatrist," Lionel said, "but I went to medical school first. Whatever Juliet Seagrave was before she was put in that coffin, I don't believe for one minute that she's human now."
"So you want to kill her, too?" Dr. Ryerson cried, stunned by his words.
"Not exactly, Sarah. You say the creature has tuberculosis. Stop the Streptomycin and let nature take its course."
"I don't see much of a difference between letting her die and killing her."
Abigail then proposed an alternative that even Sarah could agree with.
"Why don't we assume we're dealing with an honest-to-goodness vampire and try to fight her on those terms? No, not by driving a stake through her heart or by cutting it out and setting it on fire," Abigail added when she saw the look of doubt on the doctor's face. "I suggest we try holy water. If Juliet is human, it won't hurt her."
Half an hour later, as the doctor and her cohorts kept watch over Juliet Seagrave in case she should wake up, Shannon Devlin, proprietor of the Green Man Pub, entered the hospital room.
"Did you get it?" Abigail inquired.
Shannon took a half-filled bottle of Dasani out of her purse."
"I never knew Coca-Cola bottled holy water," Lionel laughed. "Couldn't Father Antonio have put it in something a little more ... religious?"
"The father didn't actually give it to me," Shannon admitted guiltily. "I waited until he went into the rectory, and then I dipped my empty water bottle in the baptismal font."
"Quick thinking. Now let's see if it works," Abigail prompted, raising the plastic water bottle to Juliet's mouth.
Although she had received a strong sedative that should have knocked her out for hours, once the holy water crossed her lips, Juliet immediately woke up. When she tried to sit, Shawn placed a crucifix on her forehead, and Sarah placed another one on her chest, above her heart.
In horror movies, such actions cause vampires to writhe in agony as smoke wafts up from their scorched flesh. Some fictionalized bloodsuckers age rapidly before death reduces them to a pile of dust. This was Puritan Falls, however, not Hollywood. Whether the holy water was the cause or the crucifix placed against her flesh was to blame—or perhaps a combination of both—the regenerated body gradually faded and vanished, leaving only the aged bones draped in a green hospital gown lying on the bed.
* * *
Told that the remains of the poor girl dug up by a construction crew were to be given a proper burial, Vito D'Agostino sold McMurtry a steel casket at wholesale price. The cost was divided among Shawn, Sarah Ryerson, Lionel Penn, Abigail Cantwell and Shannon Devlin. Since Shawn was a cop, his salary was considerably less than that of the others, so McMurtry's share was much smaller.
Marty Lovett, the morgue attendant, joined the mourners at the old Puritan Falls Church to watch the casket being lowered into the ground to rest among the graves of Juliet Seagrave's family.
"Does anyone want to say a prayer before I put the dirt back in the grave?" asked Harold Nayler, who was standing beside his backhoe.
"Wait a minute," Abigail said, removing a six-inch silver crucifix from her purse.
"Another one?" Sarah asked. "We already put all the others back in the coffin along with the Bibles."
"One more for good luck."
The sound of silver striking steel echoed through the abandoned cemetery. The eerie silence that followed was soon broken by the sound of an engine as Harold Nayler turned the key in the ignition of his backhoe.
This story was inspired by the true account of Mercy Brown who died of tuberculosis in Exeter, Rhode Island, in 1892. As with Juliet Seagrave in my story, it was believed she was responsible for the deaths of her mother and sister. In hopes of saving her brother, Mercy's body was dug up. Her heart was removed and burned, and then the ashes were given to her brother to drink. (Sadly, the brother died soon after.)
When I hear the word "hunger," I can think of only one thing: Salem!
