He could not see. He had used up almost all the air within his narrow coffin. He could imagine the grave-diggers walking around complacently several feet above him. If he could only make them hear! He was smothering—buried alive!
With a scream of horror he would waken, and lay panting, as he tried to recover from his nightmare. But he could not entirely push these dreams away, for he knew that there might be some truth in them. He had already seen an article in a magazine telling of just such a case. He decided that he must find the article again.
Searching for several hours through the pile of magazines which he kept stacked within one of his small rooms, he at length came upon the story which he had been seeking. Although it frightened him, he could not help reading it again.
He learned that for some reason the buried man had been dug up a few weeks after his interment, and when the casket had been opened, the dead man was found lying on his stomach with one hand clutching his scalp, from which most of the hair had been torn off.
Fascinated by the horror of the tale, he found himself reading it again. He could not help himself. For the remainder of the night he would lie thinking of the possibility that he himself might be buried alive.
In the daytime he was obsessed with this same thought. Even while he walked down the street to his office—and he found it more difficult to do so each day—he could clearly imagine himself so paralyzed that the neighbors might take him to be dead. Mentally he could see them gathering around his bedside. He could feel them lift him into the casket. He could feel himself driven to the cemetery, and lowered into the cold ground, all the while powerless to cry out or show in any way that he still lived. This idea almost smothered him, even while he was wide awake.
He grew haggard because of his fear, and would go about the town muttering to himself, and occasionally flinging out his arms, as if to push off something that seemed to be enveloping him. People thought that he was going crazy, and, indeed, his actions tended further to substantiate their judgment, for he grew more queer from day to day.
At last he went back to see Dr. Jackson, and confided his fears to him. The latter only laughed, and told him not to worry for the townspeople would not bury him before he was entirely dead.
“Anyway,” the Doctor added, “the embalming fluid will kill you if you aren’t dead already.”
“No! No! No!” screamed the terrified old man. “I won’t be embalmed! I won’t be embalmed!” and his voice rose more shrilly at each repetition. “Promise me that you won’t let them embalm me!” he demanded, and his eyes shone wildly.