Tombstone Read Online Free PDF Page B

confusion.   She stared at the etched epitaph.   It had Donny’s name and dates, with some nonsense about being a loving husband and son.   This, she barely noticed.   The words circled by the entwined hearts and vines beside his name were what had caught her attention.   ‘Claudine E. Strickland, July 1, 1977 - August 5, 2000’.   It was the same date that Donnie had died.
    The man behind her leaned down, and Claudine felt his warm breath on her neck.   “Tragic, really.”   His words were barely a deep whisper.   “They were such a young couple, with so much happiness ahead of them.”
    Claudine was stunned, and her fingers left the stone while she turned to look up at Donald.   His contemptuous smile froze any words she might have uttered, and she backed away from him into the gravedigger’s chest.   Claudine gasped, still too shocked to try to begin to understand what could possibly be happening.   She felt a sting and she looked down to see a needle being withdrawn from her arm.   The laborer capped it and dropped it into his shirt pocket while Claudine slid down his body to the ground.
    Donald knelt in front of her and gripped her chin, staring at her with eyes burning such deep hatred that it caused a queasy cold slam to hit her stomach.   He dropped her head and rose to walk towards his car without looking back at her.   The last that Claudine saw before losing consciousness was the icy blue eyes of the gravedigger.
    Claudine came to her senses in slow bursts of awareness.   When her eyes opened, she found herself staring into an oppressive pitch black.   There was a silky padded feeling under her hands and feet, which were folded behind her and wedged under her bottom.   As her head cleared, she realized that she had been handcuffed in the uncomfortable position.   There was foam in her mouth that muffled her screams, and she lifted her head until she encountered more of the slick padding.   Her eyes widened and she remembered the gravedigger.   Claudine shrieked in terror.   My god, I’m in a coffin.
    She heard two rapid thumps on the lid, followed by a heavy bump and staccato bursts.   He’s burying me.   Claudine sobbed into the gag, and she began shaking so hard she was afraid she would vomit into the foam in her mouth.   Oh, my god, he’s burying me alive.   Claudine heard the shoveled dirt hit the top of her tomb, and she screamed around the foam when two more clumps hit the top of the coffin.   The sounds of the shoveled dirt faded and Claudine was left in the terrifying silent darkness.
    She had cried and screamed behind the gag until her voice was raspy and her throat was sore.   Useless pulling at the metal cuffs proved she was securely bound and that there was no way for her to escape.   She pictured herself buried next to her husband, while Donald Sr. was holding court at his son’s wake.   The look of hate in his eyes haunted her.   No one would be asking about her, and with his money and power, no one would question her disappearance… or her presence in the cemetery.
    Claudine heard scratching on the sides of the coffin and she shrieked, at first picturing rats trying to claw their way to her, and then her dead husband, his skeletal fingers reaching through the dirt, ripping at the sides of her tomb.   She lay frozen, eyes wide and staring into the nothingness, praying for unconsciousness to claim her and take away her petrifying fear.
    When the lid began to open, she sucked noisy panting gasps in through her runny nose.   The gravedigger from the cemetery stood over her, smiling with frightening intensity shining in his unnaturally pale blue eyes.   This first lesson was more a part of Tombstone’s macabre sense of humor.   It would serve as a terrifying reminder for the young woman of what could happen if she chose to be uncooperative.   There were certain aspects of his erotic sculpting and training that would require her cooperation.
    Tombstone had