A deafening boom ripped through the earth, a primal scream that vibrated in our very bones. Sandra and Sarah flinched as if struck, their faces contorted in silent agony. Will, Michael, and James stood frozen, their eyes wide with a dawning terror. Clare… Clare had vanished, swallowed whole by the sudden, suffocating silence that followed the blast.
"What in God's name was that?" Sarah's voice, a trembling thread, barely broke the stillness.
Then it happened again. Another earth-shattering bang, a resonant, guttural roar that resonated from the soles of my feet to the roots of my hair. It sounded like the gates of Hell themselves being wrenched open beneath us, or the agonizing moan of the earth, protesting the violation of its deepest core. A rush of memories flooded my mind. Childhood. My father. The smell of gunpowder. My first attempts at firing a shotgun, bracing against the brutal recoil, the gun muzzle buried in the soft earth for stability, "safer this way," my father had said.
"Shots," I whispered, the word catching in my throat like a shard of glass. I stumbled towards the weathered, moss-covered crosses, "They're shooting… somewhere underground."
Life is a kaleidoscope of perception. What we deem impossible, what lies outside the boundaries of our accepted reality, our senses simply fail to register. It becomes invisible, muted, a whisper lost in the din. But the moment our understanding of the world shifts, the instant our minds open to new possibilities, we begin to perceive what was always there, hidden in plain sight.
As if my words had shattered some invisible barrier, their perceptions snapped into focus. Like me, they no longer heard just the jarring bangs. A low, insistent hum, previously dismissed as the innocuous buzz of a nearby power line or the distant drone of highway traffic, now clawed at our attention. It was different, urgent, a siren song of dread. Our eyes darted nervously around the dry, rustling trees, searching for the source, while icy tendrils of fear constricted our hearts.
"Is that… voices?" Michael breathed, his voice barely audible above the rising hum.
A few feet beneath the surface, every cry for help is stifled, every desperate plea reduced to a muted drone. We were listening to a symphony of suffering, an aria composed of hundreds of desperate, unheard cries. I felt paralyzed, unable to move, when Will, possessed by a sudden, frenzied energy, lunged toward the nearest grave. He dropped to his knees and began to dig, his hands clawing at the cloying earth, flinging clumps of dirt and decaying leaves into the air.
"What's wrong with you all? What are you waiting for?" he shouted, his voice raw with desperation. "Can't you hear it? Someone's buried alive down there! We have to get them out!"
He was right. We could hear it, and it wasn't just one voice, but a chorus of torment. Michael, James, and even Sandra seemed ready to join Will, their eyes reflecting a desperate desire to help. But Robert held back, his face a mask of conflicted fear.
"Hold on! Wait a second! Think about this!" he shouted, his voice sharp with panic. "Whoever is down there… two minutes ago, they were firing a gun!"
James spun around, his face contorted with anger. "Oh, shut up, Robert! So what if they were? Are you seriously suggesting we just leave them to suffocate?"
"I'm not suggesting anything! I'm just saying, we need to think about what we're doing here, for once!"
Like a swingboat gaining momentum, each push sending it higher and higher, the argument threatened to spiral out of control. One wrong move and we would all be flung into the abyss.
"Calm down," I murmured, desperately trying to regain control. "I think Robert has a point. Before we… "
I never finished the sentence. Suddenly, events accelerated, hurtling beyond our ability to comprehend or control. The "before" I had spoken of became irrelevant, swallowed by the terrifying "after." If we hadn't been so caught up in our petty squabble, perhaps we would have seen the fingers as they broke through the clammy earth, wriggling like grotesque worms. Perhaps we could have prepared ourselves. But can anyone ever truly prepare for a resurrection?
Engrossed in our argument, we failed to notice the hand emerging from the grave. By the time a guttural groan tore through the silence, it was too late. A neck, shoulders, a head, and finally, with a choked gasp, a body clawed its way free from the earth that had so recently concealed it. And it wasn't just any body. I knew that face, or at least, half of it. I had known it for weeks, haunted by the memory of his eyes, eyes that held the chilling freedom reserved only for those who have embraced their own demise.
He erupted from the ground like a geyser, a macabre spectacle of rebirth. The others, their backs still turned, whipped around at the sound of his ragged breathing. The sentence I had started died in my throat, choking off the air to my lungs. Recognition slammed into me, a physical blow that sent me reeling. A wave of dizziness washed over me, and I stumbled forward, desperate to succumb to the comforting darkness of unconsciousness.
I did not remain unconscious for long. Unfortunately. Only a few seconds passed, not nearly enough time to escape the unfolding horror. I clung to my swoon as if it were a lifeline, a warm, soft blanket to ward off the encroaching winter of madness.
"Wake up! Come on!"
Michael's voice, sharp and insistent, dragged me back to reality. His stinging slaps on my cheek forced my eyes open, and the scene before me seemed like a grotesque nightmare. The policeman, barely thirty, who had shot himself in the head nearly a month ago. The policeman whose face had been irrevocably shattered, was now whole again. The brain matter that had been splattered across his dark blue uniform had mysteriously returned to his skull.
There was little about him to remind us of that murderous Monday morning. Only the dried, almost black blood clinging to his skin. But what was truly missing was the expression of chilling freedom that had haunted his eyes. It had been replaced by a raw, desperate agony. He raised his weapon, his hand trembling violently.
"Why did you bury me? Stay where you are, or I'll kill you!"
Sobbing, Sandra and Sarah huddled on the ground beside me, their faces buried in their hands. Michael and James tried to offer them comfort, their silent reassurances falling short of the overwhelming terror. Further away, Robert stood motionless, his face buried in his hands, his lips moving in silent prayer to a god who seemed to favor death over life. None of us wanted to die. We didn't know what fate was about to bestow upon us. Had we known the terrifying ordeal that awaited us, we might have been better prepared for what was to come.
Unlike the rest of us, Will remained standing. The trembling gun barrel, held by a resurrected policeman, hadn't forced him to the ground. He stood defiant, staring death in the face, his gaze fixed on the weapon pointed directly at him. Isn't he afraid of death? I wondered, as I watched him standing there, his eyes closed, his hands raised in a gesture of surrender.
"We weren't the ones who buried you," he said, his voice calm and steady. "We heard gunshots and we were trying to dig you out."
I swallowed hard. Will might have wanted to dig him out, but me? If it had been up to Robert and me, he would still be buried underground. Now, Will was about to pay the price for our hesitation.
"March 6th," my trembling voice offered, desperate to appease him. "You shot yourself in the head that day. Your picture was all over the news." I took a deep breath, afraid it might be my last. "I saw you back then. You… you should have been dead. Half your face was…" My voice broke, fading into a whisper. I cleared my throat, trying to regain control. "... just gone."
He ignored Will, leaving him standing beneath the mosquito-infested trees, and advanced toward me. Closer. Again. Some say that at the moment of death, your entire life flashes before your eyes, a montage of your most significant memories. As I listened to his boots crunching on the gravel path, I prayed that I wouldn't have to die. Not so much because I feared death itself, but because there was nothing to see. No important moments, no terrible regrets, nothing at all that seemed worthy of revisiting. Perhaps I was too young, or perhaps my body already knew that it would survive.
"Get up!"
His voice, rough and guttural, sounded like a relic from a forgotten age. Yet it possessed enough force to propel me to my feet. Suddenly, I was standing directly in front of him, my face inches from his. I cringed, feeling his hot, fetid breath on my cheek.
"If I had shot myself in the head," he snarled, "how could I possibly be standing here now, huh?"
His lungs rattled with each breath, like a broken string instrument. Fine beads of sweat glistened on my forehead as he toyed with the gun. Desperate, I clung to words, as if they were a life raft in a churning sea.
"Can you not hear them knock? It's not just you."
The gun barrel wavered before my eyes. Slowly, hesitantly, he lowered the weapon. He cocked his head, his expression puzzled, and strained to listen.
"They're everywhere," I added, and even as the words left my lips, I saw movement in the periphery of my vision.
A second later, it happened. With terrifying speed. The next time I blinked, the policeman was on the ground, a chaotic struggle erupted over the gun, and then, a shot rang out.
Duller, louder, more metallic: do bullets sound different when they pierce your flesh? Or does the bursting of veins and the tearing of tissue drown out all other sounds?
"Once the bullet hits them, if it hits them right, they are not frightened anymore. They are not suffering, but at peace." My father used to tell me that. But the older I grew, the more I doubted him, convinced he had only said it to shield me from the reality of the animals we hunted. It wasn't until the resurrections that I understood he hadn't just said it. It was true. And I realized something else: that shots that tear your flesh do sound different, but not duller, louder, or more metallic. The bullet that tore through my carotid artery that day made no sound at all. The shot that accompanied my death was deafeningly quiet. Nothing made any sound anymore. Not the cries of the others as they rushed toward me, their mouths open in silent screams. Not the frantic struggle for the gun. Not the vibrations. The humming had ceased. I was bleeding. But not for long. Not nearly enough for the damage that had been done. And after a few seconds, not at all.
When I looked at myself, a sudden cacophony of sound erupted. The vibrations, the humming, the scuffle, the whimpering of the others returned at full volume. Dazed, I stared at them as they touched me with trembling fingers, frantically trying to heal me. They couldn't, for they were tending to wounds I no longer possessed.
Like everyone else, the disarmed policeman stared at me, as if I were a ghost. His eyes held the same vacant, haunted look I had seen in his after his resurrection. Clare stood beside him, holding the gun in her trembling hand. It must have been her who had ambushed him. Perhaps she had witnessed his resurrection from afar and returned to stand with us. Standing by she was, but she was also standing beside herself.
"Like me," she whispered, her eyes fixed on me. "Just like what happened to me, weeks ago."
I wanted to speak, but a sharp pain flared in my throat as I tried to move my vocal cords. Michael, seeing that I was responsive, swallowed hard and scrutinized me.
"Did the bullet… miss?"
As much as I wanted to answer, the truth was too terrifying to voice.
"Don't be stupid," Sarah snapped, taking over for me. "Of course, it didn't miss! We all saw it! He was bleeding, see? It's still on his skin." She pointed to my neck.
As I touched my carotid artery, my fingers came away sticky with warm, thick blood. Panicked, my other hand searched for an injury, for a hole, a scratch, a tiny indentation in my skin. When it found nothing, disbelief and a chilling realization forced it down again. A wave of nausea washed over me. Not from the sight of the blood smeared on my fingers, but from the horrifying implications of what was happening.
Seized by a horrific thought, I saw the same dawning understanding in the eyes of the others, the same truth I had been desperately trying to deny. It was James who, swallowing hard and groaning, attempted to put it into words.
"Guys, does that mean that… "
Clare cut him off, her voice flat and emotionless. "Yes. It means it's happening to each and every one of us."
As if he had always been a part of our group, the newly re-erected, resurrected policeman intervened. "Oh, would you just stop! Nothing is happening to me! What exactly is 'it' even supposed to be?"
The fact that he had just threatened us with the weapon that had almost been my undoing suddenly seemed irrelevant. Everything else faded into insignificance: the hum, the circling mosquitos, the darkening sky. We stared at him with grim eyes, knowing what "it" was, even though we were incapable of explaining it. How do you convey a truth that shatters the very foundations of someone's world, even as your own world crumbles around you? We remained silent, because the inexplicable cannot be explained. You have to experience it to understand it.
"See for yourself!" Clare challenged him.
Her eyes wide, she extended the gun she had just taken from him. Even though he had fought so desperately for it only moments ago, her gesture seemed to repel him. The gravel crunched beneath his feet as he recoiled slightly.
"I'm sorry, what? I'm not going to shoot myself in the neck. Why would anyone…"
Maybe we should have intervened, said something, done something to stop him before it was too late. Then, suddenly, it was. A shot tore through the air, sharp and echoing. It hadn't hit his neck, and he hadn't been the one who fired it. Instead, the bullet ripped into his foot, fired from the gun still clutched in Clare's hand. We watched in horrified fascination, holding our breath, clinging to the fragile hope that we were wrong. That he would bleed, collapse, and remain on the ground, brought down by a permanent injury.
He did sink to his knees, the gravel beneath his feet staining crimson. For a moment, he seemed unable to rise. He tore off his shoe and removed the blood-soaked sock. We were so transfixed by the sight that our hearts barely dared to beat. But our hope proved fleeting, a fragile butterfly that fluttered for only a moment before being crushed.
Dark shadows of disbelief crept across his tormented face. His thick blood continued to trickle across the white gravel like a dark snake. Then, the wound in his foot began to close. In perfect synchronicity, we groaned. Like air, hope escaped my half-open mouth. Even though I knew it would cause me pain, I forced my vocal cords to move, my gaze locked with the policeman's.
"Now that you can feel it… do you believe it?"