Tomorrow, Stone sent back.I want to tell you about someone I met tonight. I think you would have likedher.
Grave Payback
A Short Story from the Grave Report
R.R. Virdi
Dying with a lungful of black dust, waterlogged insides, a leg that felt like it’d served as a piñata for an overly enthusiastic minor-league team, while restrained, isn’t a good way to go.
But waking up like that is a helluva lot worse.
Trust me on that.
I do this a lot.
Add in the fact that my surroundings were about as bright as the mind of a frat boy on Friday night after rounds of drinking, well, it couldn’t get any darker.
Great circumstances for when you return to the living.
I tried to move, only to find something biting hard into my wrists. The wood pressing against my back and my calves let me know I’d been tied to a chair. Another wriggle told me the piece of furniture had seen better days, the way its joints loosely protested the stress. A bit more strength and something might give way.
All of that was a clue in and of itself—the kind to make you worry.
The person whose body I was now inhabiting didn’t need to be held long before being sent off to the pearly gates. Either his killer had known they were going to end it quickly, or he’d been left in no state to resist and break free.
Neither were good signs.
The pitch black of the area around me meant the poor stiff was unlikely to be found by anyone who might come looking for them. And I wasn’t gagged. That told me whoever had done the victim in didn’t care about them crying out for help. I was somewhere that no one would hear me.
Dead. Silent. Emphasis on both parts.
…until a rhythmic tapping echoed through the space around me.
That’s not ominous.
I shook harder in the chair and cast a wary look around me to no avail. My eyesight hadn’t adjusted yet, and I wasn’t sure any amount of time would help it do so in these conditions. My lungs burned like they’d been stuffed with rough-powdered glass for a long enough time to leave scars. I coughed, and everything that had already ached inside me doubled in pain.
Something warm dribbled past my lips, leaving the taste of salt, copper, and black earth behind.Because things weren’t peachy before.
The noise around me intensified, and I realized it wasn’t tapping at all but knocking. Small distinction, but those often can make a world of difference in my line of work.
My name is Vincent Graves—paranormal investigator, and soul without a body. The job? Almost as simple as that, and just as complicated as you can imagine. Wake up in the bodies of those killed by the supernatural and find out what ended their lives.
And stop them.
Yet it was never as easy as that. The only small mercy of the gig was that every body I woke up in was nearly restored to a functional enough state just prior to the person’s death.
Nearly restored. Like I said, the small details matter.
The knocking loudened.
“Uh, who’s there?”
Silence.
“You’re supposed to say, ‘Knock, knock,’ you don’t literally do it.”
Another stretch of discomforting quiet in the dark.
