A Salem Awakening

Chapter 35

He opened his eyes – slowly. His throat was dry but somehow there was enough moisture for him to dampen his mouth by creeping his tongue around. His tongue felt... sticky. "Uhhh, my head. It feels like my sinuses are going to burst." He wanted to put his right hand onto his forehead, just to wipe the hair and sweat away. He thought the pressure of his hand against his forehead might ease the pain. But he couldn't. His arm was laying across his chest with very little room to move. He could only lift his arm maybe five or six inches before it hit something solid. He tried to move his arm down to his side, but hit something solid just to the right of his body. The pace of his breath increased.

It was dark. Too dark to see what was there. He tried moving both arms, and neither could move. "Dear God," he thought. Panic grew in his chest and tightened against his heart. He could not move and he could not see. "Am I trapped?" He could feel the sweat drip down the side of his face, but he was unable to wipe it away and relieve the discomfort.

His legs could not move too far upward. He estimated he could only raise his legs four or five inches at most. They could barely move side to side. He banged his legs as hard as he could up and down, trying to determine what was confining him. All he could tell was he was not on a bed of any kind, but on something hard and in something confining.

He started screaming for help, which gave him more clues to his surroundings. His screams had no echo and he could tell he was boxed into very close quarters. His lack of motion in all directions confirmed this to be true. The thuds made by his kicking produced no reverberation whatsoever. He was in a dead space. His panic grew more intense, and he began screaming uncontrollably.

His mind was racing, and his breathing was rapid. "Where can I be? Am I being held hostage? I'm not tied up, so that's unlikely. What was the last thing I remember? Uh, I don't know – I can't recall." He no longer cared about his dry mouth or throbbing sinuses. He just wanted to get out of wherever he was. It was hot – stifling hot. His perspiration made the small space even warmer from his own self-induced humidity. He could only assume he was somehow buried alive, which was always one of his deepest fears.

He did not know what time it was, nor the day. His ears heard no sound. He did not know how he got there, how long he'd been there, and most importantly, how he might escape. He devised a plan, though it was flimsy. It was his only option – it would be better to die trying to escape than to die not trying at all.

"Think William, think," he urged himself. "Graves are dug about six feet deep and a standard coffin is probably two to three feet deep. If I'm correct and someone has somehow buried me alive, that would mean I need to escape the coffin and dig through three to four feet of earth to get to the surface."

He couldn't know Tobias' men did not have the time to dig a full six-foot-deep hole. His grave was only four feet deep, so in reality the top of his coffin was only about twelve to eighteen inches underground. It was still a lot of earth to dig through, especially in the state of panic and anxiety in which he found himself, but it was certainly more achievable than three or four feet.

Logic and reason abandoned him – an unfamiliar feeling for William. His only thought now was escape. He was able to wedge his arms onto his chest and turn his hands upright. He felt like the walls were closing in on him, compressing onto his body and preventing him from taking deep breaths. This caused a combination of even more panic and less logical thinking. He started scratching and clawing at the surface just above his face. It was too dark to see if he was making any progress, but there were bits of wood and dirt falling onto his face and into his mouth each time he scratched. "Progress," he realized nervously.

He was scratching at the surface like a dog digging to hide a bone – fast and ferocious. William used both hands simultaneously and his fingers were moving faster and faster as he made more progress. He could feel wood splinters pushing into the skin under his fingernails. It was painful and caused him to scream with even louder agony, but his mind was beyond the pain. He was only thinking about getting out. His fingers dripped blood onto his face as his panic grew to pure horror. The air in his confinement was thick and heavy but every bit was precious. His hard work and fear were using up the oxygen too fast, and he knew it. Awareness of one's plight makes it even worse. It is true ignorance can be blissful.

When the pain from the splinters in his fingers was too much, he paused the scratching and tried pushing his body against the surface above him. At first there was no movement. But each time he pushed, he tried to get more force into his arms, even pressing his elbows against the surface beneath him for leverage as he pushed his full body with as much torque as he could muster. His face writhed in pain and he grunted a loud, sustained moan as he summoned as much power as he could to push against the surface.

Finally, on the third try, he felt some movement. It was heavy and still very difficult to move. But it was enough to give him hope. He needed every ounce of hope he could find. He started scratching again, but not for too long as the splinters were creating a significant amount of pain as they crept deeper and deeper into the tender skin below his fingernails. Newly formed splinters entered the soft under-nail skin behind the splinters that came before. His face bulged with anguish. He went back to pushing on the surface, since it involved less pain even though it was a more intense struggle and weakened him faster.

Every minute or so he paused to rest his muscles. He was making slightly more progress each time, but found himself unable to catch his breath. The air inside his box was stale and seemed to thin. He was sweating heavily now and could feel the wood beneath his neck becoming damp. There was little for him to do except to keep trying. His chest tightened. Either he would escape or he would suffocate from the lack of air.

He pushed as hard as he could each time, using every bit of energy he could muster. He was feeling dizzy from the combination of extreme exertion and lack of fresh oxygen, but he needed to keep trying.

Finally, with one large push as his body became drained, he forced the surface up a full inch or two. The dirt rushed in through the gaps he created like water filling a hole. The area he scratched gave way and collapsed onto him. This happened right above his face and the dirt filled and covered his mouth completely. Still unable to move any part of his body other than his hands, there was not much he could do to stop it. He frantically tried to sweep the dirt away from his mouth and eyes, but each swipe led to a frenzy of more dirt filling in behind it. William could not keep pace with the deluge. He sapped all his energy and his lungs felt heavy from the earth pressing down on top of him. His horror turned to terror, his panic to dread. He tried to breathe, but was unable. He attempted to force himself to cough but nothing happened, which was the most horrific moment for him. There is no fear like when your mind can think, but you cannot force your body to perform even the simplest of functions. It's being aware of your plight that makes it so frightening. He immediately realized he lost the battle. Not knowing how he got there or why, his life was ending in a most horrible manner. The ground filled his throat. He felt the rough, gritty feeling of dirt packing his esophagus. William could not swallow because there was not enough room for his Adam's Apple to move. He was suffocating while desperately trying to reach toward the sky, his outstretched hand unknowingly a mere six inches from the surface. He died with his eyes open revealing the fear of his final moments.