No Sharks in the Med and Other Stories Read Online Free PDF Page A

else and I’d simply smelled what I “expected” to.
    Garth pulled a sour face. “ Ugh! ” was his only comment.
    The air cleared and we looked into the tomb. In there, a coffin just a little over three feet long, and the broken sarcophagus around it filled with dust, cobwebs, and a few leaves. Garth glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. “So now you think I’m wrong, eh?”
    “About what?” I answered. “It’s just a child’s coffin.”
    “Just a little ’un, aye.” He nodded. “And his little coffin looks intact, doesn’t it? But is it? ” Before I could reply he reached down and rapped with his horny knuckles on the wooden lid.
    And despite the fact that the sun was shining down on us, and for all that the sea gulls cried and the world seemed at peace, still my hair stood on end at what happened next. For the coffin lid collapsed like a puffball and fell into dusty debris, and—God help me— something in the box gave a grunt and puffed itself up into view!
    I’m not a coward, but there are times when my limbs have a will of their own. Once when a drunk insulted my wife, I struck him without consciously knowing I’d done it. It was that fast, the reaction that instinctive. And the same now. I didn’t pause to draw breath until I’d cleared the wall and was halfway up the field to the paved path; and even then I probably wouldn’t have stopped, except I tripped and fell flat and knocked all the wind out of myself.
    By the time I stopped shaking and sat up, Garth was puffing and panting up the slope toward me. “It’s all right,” he was gasping. “It was nothing. Just the rot. It had grown in there and crammed itself so tight, so confined, that when the coffin caved in…”
    He was right and I knew it. I had known it even with my flesh crawling, my legs, heart, and lungs pumping. But even so: “There were… bones in it!” I said, contrary to common sense. “A skull.”
    He drew close, sank down beside me gulping at the air. “The little ’un’s bones,” he panted, “caught up in the fibers. I just wanted to show you the extent of the thing. Didn’t want to scare you to death!”
    “I know, I know.” I patted his hand. “But when it moved—”
    “It was just the effect of the box collapsing,” he explained, logically. “Natural expansion. Set free, it unwound like a jack-in-the-box. And the noise it made—”
    “—That was the sound of its scraping against the rotten timber, amplified by the sarcophagus.” I nodded. “I know all that. It shocked me, that’s all. In fact, two hours in your bloody Easingham have given me enough shocks to last a lifetime!”
    “But you see what I mean about the rot?” We stood up, both of us still a little shaky.
    “Oh, yes, I see what you mean. I don’t understand your obsession, that’s all. Why don’t you just leave the damned stuff alone?”
    He shrugged but made no answer, and so we made our way back toward his home. On our way the silence between us was broken only once. “There!” said Garth, looking back toward the brow of the hill. “You see him?”
    I looked back, saw the dark outline of an Alsatian dog silhouetted against the rise. “Ben?” Even as I spoke the name, so the dog disappeared into the long grass beside the path.
    “Ben!” Garth called, and blew his piercing whistle. But with no result. The old man worriedly shook his head. “Can’t think what’s come over him,” he said. “Then again, I’m more his friend than his master. We’ve always pretty much looked after ourselves. At least I know that he hasn’t run off…”
    Then we were back at Garth’s house, but I didn’t go in. His offer of another coffee couldn’t tempt me. It was time I was on my way again. “If ever you’re back this way—” he said as I got into the car.
    I nodded, leaned out of my window. “Garth, why the hell don’t you get out of here? I mean, there’s nothing here for you now. Why don’t you take Ben and just