Lucas crept through shadows under a cold and somber moon; what small luminescence it gave absorbed by thick fog that clung to the ground in patches. The slender young man grasped his shovel tight and ventured forth, into darkness.

This will be a night my parents will never forget, he thought as a wicked grin stole over his face. Years of putting up with their abuse, only to be forced out onto the streets!

Apparently his parents felt he was an unstable child, a deviant. They had tried to institutionalize him but he ran away. He couldn’t believe their talk of birth defects and insanity; he wouldn’t believe it.

“I’ll show them both,” he cackled. With his awkward gait and demented demeanor he seemed some twisted henchman from an old horror film. “I’ll have a surprise for them tonight, oh yes,” he muttered to himself, “especially when great-grandmother comes home!” His voice cracked on his last words, and he laughed hideously. At some point he had concocted this plan to terrify his parents, by digging up his poor dead great-grandmother and placing her on the doorstep of his parents’ house. In his mind this would not only terrify them; it would be justice served for their crimes against him. Eagerly he continued forward.

He had been to this cemetery before, in the daytime only. He knew where his ancestor was buried; it would just be hard to find at night. As he looked about the moon shone like a spotlight on the statue of a weeping angel, and a large black bird perched on one of its slumped shoulders. Nearby this spectacle stood the tombstone Lucas had been searching for. It read simply: STIFF. No dates or inscription. Lichfield was a small and unassuming township in his great-grandmother’s time.

Granny Stiff, how do you fare tonight? Grinning, he approached the grave, though a feeling of unease was creeping stealthily into the back of his skull. He began to dig. When the shovel first struck earth, the angel’s familiar squawked and took flight, and a cloud passed over the moon. He cast about with furtive glances as he worked, but Lucas knew this graveyard was ill kept, there would be no caretaker here at this hour.

There was a certain stagnant feel to the air, like a tomb fresh opened, and uneven piles of black soil began to pile up around him. These were quickened with mindlessly squirming worms as he dug deeper, and images of rotten fingers groping for the surface flashed through his mind. The night grew long, and the shadows lengthened. Lucas’ hands became sweaty with unease in the stale air, and his back ached. Suddenly the shovel met a hard surface with a hollow thud.

“At least they didn’t bury you quite six feet under,” he gasped.

His heart pounded in his chest from the strenuous exercise; he knew he should rest. Still he could not stop the terrible exsanguinated pictures of filth and decay that arose in his mind in a grim montage. Dropping the shovel on the now partially exhumed casket, he climbed out of the grave for a break. Something didn’t seem right; something was very wrong, he could sense it.

Resting on a gnarled branch above Lucas, the starving scavenger eyed him carefully. Though he himself stank of death enticingly, the crow wanted the newly unearthed worms that writhed seductively about. This strange human was in the way, and the carrion eater was hungry. Desperate, the cunning bird decided to attempt to scare the obstacle away.

Lucas looked up just as the crow left its perch with a raucous cry and swooped downward. With a yelp of his own he threw his hands over his face and stumbled backwards toward the open grave. He fell over one of those piles of dirt and down, down into the hole. As his head struck the metal of the shovel he felt he now knew what was wrong. His vision faded and he felt no more.

The crow could hardly wait for its feast. It ignored the worms it had previously lusted after and now sought the still cooling corpse of Lucas Stiff.