This was back when I was lawyer. I had just gotten off work. The office was all but buried in paperwork, and for a rather boring case, so by the time I got out the sun had set. I realized I hadn’t seen the sun all day, being cooped up in the office as I was. But that isn’t the real scary part…

No, the scary part comes before the next sun would rise.

I decided to walk home since the buses and trains had stopped running for the night. I passed closed business and dark houses until I heard a party just ahead. Just down at the bottom of a very large flight of stairs there was a fiesta going on. My lawyer loafers had little treads, so when I came upon a puddle just before a steep set of stairs, I slipped. I stumbled, and tumbled, and plummeted down those stairs. For so long I fell that I was met with the blackness of unconsciousness before hitting the bottom.

Those who saw and the doctor, too, must’ve thought I was dead, for I awoke in a small wooden box. It was too dark to see that it was wood, but I could feel it with my finger tips. The grains, the knots, the solidness of it. I’d slept in a coffin every night, as all good vampires do, but this one was cheap and bare. By then it had set in: the realization that I had been buried alive!

Hours passed, or so it seemed. It felt like so very long with so very little to do. The only sounds I could hear were my breathing and the twiddling of my thumbs. Besides this there was only silence. I thought the silence was the worse part, worse than the cold, worse than the hard walls that hugged my shoulders too tight.That is until I heard the slinking of wet bodies and the nibbles of toothless mouths at the coffin walls. As time wore on, I heard more of the sounds. Wet, disgusting sounds. And nibbling. Every so often I heard the loud crack of splitting wood. I feared that the earth would collapse on me at any moment. Then after a particularly loud crack I heard a light, soggy slap on the coffin floor. Then another, then two more, and so on. I felt small, slimy bodies climbing up my arms and onto my chest, and then they spoke.

‘We are the worms and we’ve come to feast on your flesh.’

‘Please don’t!’ I said, terrified for I could not move in so tight a space. ‘I’ll give you money.’

‘Money! Money! What use have we of money?’ they sang in chorus.

‘Your time?’ they asked, confused. I could hear one stifle a laugh.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’m a lawyer and if you wish to sue someone I can lend you my ear, my advice. Time is money after all.’

‘Pff!’ They spit mouthfuls of dirt and wood on my face. ‘Money! Money! We have no use of money!’

‘What then? What do you want?’

‘We want to devote our time to your soft flesh.’

I was scared, of course, but being a lawyer I had faith I could yet convince them. I knew I had to do so quickly, though, for even then I could feel a few worms biting at my toes, tasting me. ‘If you get me out of here,’ I said, ‘I shall plant you a grand garden.’

‘A garden?’ they asked, intrigued.

‘Yes! A garden with lot of fruits and vegetables. After all, raw meat is bad for you and vegetables are good. Besides, I’m thin and I am cold without the sun.’

‘It’s true,’ said the worms at my toes. ‘He is rather cold. A warm meal would be nice for once.’

‘Fine,’ said the others. ‘We’ll warm him in the sun.’

I rejoiced to hear this, but pretended I was still afraid, as if I wouldn’t just leap away once unearthed.

For hours the worms dug, but finally I saw the sun peek through a crack in the coffin. I kicked the lid off, and scrambled out of the six-foot hole, feeling the warm sun on my skin, thinking I’d never felt something so nice.

The worms cried out in anger, ‘But none of the other corpses could move!’

I dared not think then of how many had been buried alive, or how many of the corpses could speak to the worms. Though in the dark hours of night, I can’t help but do so. And so, I decided to plant a garden after all. Now, when I see my cabbage torn to pieces by hundreds of wet, toothless mouths, I don’t get mad. I’m happy the worms are eating vegetables, and leaving the dead alone to rest in peace.

The End