Singing Bells

Singing Bells

Paul Littler

            Bernhard’s eyes opened, or at least he thought they did, as he could see nothing.  Am I blind, he wondered, did my fall from the horse rob me of my sight?  He tried to lift his head and cracked his forehead on a wooden surface only inches from his nose.  He could smell something familiar; resinous wood, pine at a guess?  And something else, dirt, soil, earth?  Bernhard tried lifting his hands but they too were stopped by a wooden barrier, as were his legs as he bent his knees.  He kicked to the side and there too he was unable to move more than a few inches.  If it’s not my eyes, he wondered, and my sense of smell works as do my limbs, then there’s only one possible answer: I’ve been buried alive.

            The young man gulped for air, heart pounding.  He tried twisting in the limited space and tore at the bandage holding his jaw still and began to scream,

            “Mother, Father, I’m alive, I’m alive!”

            Bernhard’s confinement overwhelmed him, his throat sore with anguished cries.  Turning inside his coffin he scratched at the sides and lid finding that despite it being a cheap pine box it was sturdy enough to prevent escape.  He couldn’t guess at how long he’d been lying there; he was hungry and thirsty so it may have been days.  Bernhard wept at the nightmare he was living through, sobbing, using up what precious air remained, hopeless.  It was only when he tried to wipe the stinging tears from his eyes did the back of his hand brush against something dangling from the coffin lid.  He felt again and gripped it, a thin cord.  Of course, he laughed, the bell rope.

#

            Wilhelm Riehl, the cemetery supervisor sat passively at the Geisler dinner table.  Candles provided ample light for the Christmas feast as Waldemar, head of the household banged his fists on the table and pointed his fork at various guests to reinforce his message,

            “Mark my words, my ideas will save lives.  What do you say, Wilhelm?”

            Riehl quietly nodded, “Certainly, Herr Geisler, our measures may curtail the incidents.”

            “I think this an inappropriate discussion for the dinner table,” said Dorothea Geisler, directing her stern gaze at her husband.

            “Nonsense,” roared Waldemar, “Mark my words, no corpse will be disturbed by grave robbers.  Better still, no man, woman or child will be buried and unable to summon assistance should our inept and drunken doctors make yet another error when they declare someone dead.”

            Various guests shifted uncomfortably at the direction the conversation had taken, except for young Bernhard who was fascinated.  He’d sat in his father’s study poring over line drawings and plans of intricate pulleys and levers, central to which was a coffin, six feet underground linked to an above ground bell.

              Riehl, as the cemetery superintendent had been intrigued with Geisler’s ideas.  He shuddered at the frequent occasions where criminals had dug up recently interred bodies, leaving only torn shrouds and splintered planks; doubtless stealing corpses for medical students at the university.  

            Dorothea rang a small ceramic bell to summon the staff.  Bernhard barely smothered a guffaw at the sound.

            “What’s so amusing?” asked his mother.

            “It sounds as if you’re calling Herr Riehl to bring his spade,” the young man laughed.

            “Bernhard, really…” Dorothea snapped, but said no more as her husband raised his hand.

            “The boy is right,” Geisler shouted, “if anyone touches a grave fitted with my alarm system, illegally digging or waking within a coffin, Herr Riehl’s staff will be alerted immediately.  I only wish I’d had my ideas before what happened to poor Theodor.”

            Geisler had become a thorn in the side for city officials since his brother’s grave had been disturbed and the body left beside the mound of earth, the coffin showing evidence of panic stricken scratching inside the lid, his fingers torn and bloodied, his face anguished, missing body parts, doubtlessly used for anatomy lessons.  Riehl had willingly agreed to trial Geisler’s ideas, a partner in an enterprise with the potential to considerably enhance his annual wage.

            “Son,” Geisler placed his meaty hand on Bernhard’s skinny shoulder, “make sure when I’m in my box I have the cord within easy reach.”  He threw his head back and roared with laughter as Dorothea pursed her lips, yet again disappointed in her son.  He was a dreamer, an idler, spoiled by his father, happy to wander aimlessly into the family business rather than become a man with his own mind.  She’d hoped for a rebel, a moody artist, a reckless musician, a drunken actor or even a penniless writer; anything other than taking after his father.

#

            Bernhard gripped the thin rope and gave it several sharp tugs.  Indistinctly there was the ringing chimes of a bell.  Again and again he pulled it then lay praying it had been heard.  He had no idea whether it was day or night.  The darkness was overwhelming and his breathing was growing more difficult as his oxygen grew thin.  Bernhard knew if he was to survive he would have to breathe more shallowly, expend little effort except to keep ringing the bell, his only real hope of being recovered.

            Squirrelling through his recent memories he tried to remember the incident leading to him tumbling from Kaiser, his horse.  It was only two days since Christmas and snow was thick in the fields surrounding the family house.  He’d kissed his mother good morning and she’d absently returned to reading the newspaper, barely lifting her eyes to acknowledge him.  His father was at the factory so with the day ahead of him Bernhard had decided to trek across to the cemetery and pay a visit to Herr Riehl and in particular to see Willi.  

Willi Schoen was the thick set, sullen labourer who single handedly dug the graves and maintained the grounds.  He would right any toppled headstones and was now responsible for managing the increasing number of bells at the head of graves.  

            “What if rats gnaw the ropes?” he’d asked Herr Riehl.

            “You bury the ends and pretend you saw nothing,” replied Riehl, “If they aren’t dead going into the ground, they soon will be.”

            Willi simply shrugged his massive shoulders, the misfortunes of those rich enough to afford family plots, elaborate masonry memorials and now warning bells with their ornate and delicate ironwork, was of no matter to him.

            Bernhard arrived at the cemetery and tied his horse, Kaiser panting great clouds of steam, before waving to the industrious figure of Willi.  

            “Hi, Willi, it’s a cold day isn’t it?”

            Willi simply nodded; cold or hot, wet or dry, he had to work or he and his elderly mother would starve.  Why should the weather bother the Geisler boy?

            “Have you many graves to dig today?”  Bernhard crunched nearly knee deep through the accumulated drifts, only the tops of the gravestones peeping through in places.

            “No graves, no, only clearing the bells.”

            Geisler and Riehl had arranged, for a fee, to ensure all graves with the bells would be kept free of all and any obstructions.  The additional maintenance charge didn’t trickle its way through to Willi.

            The leaden sky threatened more snow and Bernhard wrapped his scarf tightly around his neck, protecting his chin from the piercing easterly wind.  He followed Willi on a neatly cleared path through the graves to the small brick building where Willi’s tools, his small paraffin stove and the watering cans and vases for graves were kept.  

“It’s warm in here,” shivered Bernhard, wondering if there was a hot chocolate drink on offer?

            “Anywhere is warmer than out there,” grunted Willi.  He had work to do and didn’t understand why the boy was bothering him.  “Sit there if you want to stay warm.”

            Willi looked out of the frosted window and frowned.  He took a deep breath and sighed quietly, “It’s happened again.”  Quickly grabbing a spade he pushed past Bernhard.

            “What’s happened?” asked the boy.

            “Someone’s been digging!”

#

            Dorothea rang her little bell.  Her mid-morning tea was quietly and efficiently placed beside her and she sipped delicately, deep in thought.  Through the window she could see nothing except a vast winter landscape.  She hated being so isolated from her friends and family.  Her husband’s factory chimney, spewing cinders and choking smoke, was the only landmark in sight.  Everything around her reflected his boorish personality; the ugly house, its cluttered rooms and interiors, gaudy fabrics and furnishings, the ornate silver cutlery and showy Dresden ceramics.  He was industrious, driven, extremely sociable, highly irascible, garrulous and opinionated.  How unlike me, she smiled.  

            It had started to snow again.  Heavily.  Looking over at a rather vulgar mantel clock bookended by two elaborate Ormolu hounds, she realised Bernhard had been gone for more than two hours.  Despite her casual indifference towards her only child she didn’t want to be considered heartless; he could get stuck in drifts and freeze to death, unable to alert them.  She rang her bell again and her maid appeared,

            “Alert the groom,” she said, “prepare my horse.  I’m going to look for my son.”

#

            Willi shook his head.  The grave had been completely dug out and the remains of the coffin, along with an elaborate gown, were scattered in the dirty snow.  The headstone had tumbled backwards slightly, only held up by a large drift, and the bell mechanism had been beaten and twisted out of shape.  He jumped down into the grave and felt around, handling the rough soil and stones.  Squatting he peered into a corner and leaned forward, his large hands gently pushing earth to one side.

            “What is it, Willi?  Graverobbers again?”  Bernhard was growing cold again and snow was coming down thick and fast.  He looked across to the reliable Kaiser who seemed skittish, pulling at his tethered reins.  Odd, thought Bernhard, normally he’s such a steady old soul.

            “Graverobbers, perhaps,” Willi clambered out of the hole and surveyed the vandalism.

            “What else could it be?” Bernhard watched Willi carefully as he straightened the stone and gathered up the shattered coffin, turning the wood over, inspecting each side.

            “It’s not my job to speculate,” Willi gathered the remains and headed back to his hut.  He lay the pieces of wood on his workbench, turning them this way and that.  Something made no sense.  There were scratches, deep gouges in the wood, purposeful yet frantic, on all sides of the coffin.  He hadn’t missed someone summoning him, he was sure of it.

            “Did they try to escape?”  Bernhard pressed up close to Willi, relishing the warmth and fascinated by the peculiar marks.  “Why didn’t they ring their bell?”  

            The long thin cord was intact.  Willi laid it beside the curiously marked wood.  “Could be the spade cutting into the coffin.  They were rushing, maybe?”  But university students out on a night like last night?

            “I must go,” Bernhard was hungry and didn’t want to miss lunch.  “Thank you Willi, may I come again, to see the officials of the police conduct their investigation?”

            Willi nodded absently.  He had to visit Herr Riehl’s home and report his discovery, although something wasn’t quite right; something his mother had said to him after the last violation of a grave made him pause.  He’d speak with her first.

#

            Kaiser was a lot calmer once Bernhard led him away from the cemetery and mounted him, riding slowly past the forest boundary.  Fascinated by yet another grave robbery, and a possible live burial, he was fizzing with excitement and couldn’t wait to tell Mother.  Kaiser stopped, his nostrils flared and he began to rear up,

            “Hold steady!” commanded Bernhard, confused, wondering what was making Kaiser so jittery.

            The horse continued to buck and spin, Bernhard gripping the reins, trying to control his mount and see what was causing this reaction.  There was something there within the darkness of the forest floor, a pale, grey skinned figure.  The boy could barely make out what it was when Kaiser kicked strongly and Bernhard tumbled, crashing to the ground headfirst, dealt a blow by the milestone at the side of the road.

#

            The storm had worsened and efforts to travail the route had taken hours.  Kaiser had returned to the stables, saddle and bridle still intact but without his rider.  Dorothea and the groom arrived at the crossroads at the forest border in the late afternoon.  She knew then something was wrong and had demanded the groom head to the factory immediately to alert Herr Geisler and instructing him to bring men to assist her search.

            In the end it was unnecessary as when Waldemar Geisler and volunteers from the factory had arrived she was cradling her son in her arms, her fingers frostbitten and raw as she had removed her mittens to place over her son’s frozen hands.

            The doctor, reeking of schnapps, declared the boy deceased, prompting a desolate lamentation from Waldemar Geisler: Dorothea quietly stunned.  The funeral, only days later, had been expectedly sombre.  Willi assisted with lowering Bernhard’s coffin into the dark frozen grave he’d dug that day.  A cord, as instructed, had been passed through the lid of the coffin and attached to a small steel bell, inscribed with Bernhard’s name, the stone yet to be carved and erected.  

Willi watched The Geisler family eventually leave the cemetery, heartbroken in their mourning black and stark against the snow, allowing him to begin to shovel the earth, ensuring the bell rope was secure.  He gave the bell a little tap and its sonorous chime rang out across the frozen landscape.

#

Bernhard remembered Kaiser’s panic and the fall; something was lurking in the forest, watching.  What it was he didn’t know, and despite his earlier hopes he knew he was running out of time.  Again and again he rang the bell, desperately begging for someone to hear him.  Again he could faintly hear the chiming overhead, but then was there another noise, another melodious sound?  He went still, listening intently.  Yes, there it was again, another bell sounding out.  Was there someone else buried nearby?  How could that be, that a doctor could yet again mistakenly determine someone to be dead and allow a body to be interred?  It went quiet.

Bernhard rolled onto his side, cramped and uncomfortable, so he could rest his ear against the coffin lid.  There was a sound, a scraping, shovelling from nearby.

“Willi, is that you?”  Bernhard could barely believe it.  The bell had worked.  Willi was coming to rescue him.

The scratching sound grew closer by the second and Bernhard already began to imagine the emotional embrace of his parents, the softness and warmth of his bed, biscuits and bread and jam and cold meats, his mouth watering at the thought.

A sharp rap came from the side of his coffin near his left leg.  Willi must have dug down beside rather than on top of him.  Clever, thought Bernhard, even an uneducated labourer knew he could crush someone by standing on the lid.  The scratching become more frenzied, desperate even.

“I’m well, please don’t harm yourself,” Bernhard called out.

The planks of the coffin began to tremble, agitated by a scuffling sound that sounded more like clawing than the cold iron of a spade.  In the pitch dark Bernhard felt a cool rush of air near his thigh as the coffin was torn open, dirt tumbling in.  Bernhard reached down, preparing to hold his rescuer’s hand in gratitude.  Instead he felt cold clammy skin and there was a foul stench, the smell of decay and hunger.  Instinctively Bernhard recoiled, trying to push himself into the opposite side of the coffin but there was no room, no route of escape.  The open side began to fracture and split as whatever it was tore maniacally at the wood, grasping at Bernhard’s arm and chest.  The young man let out a scream as the lid of the coffin was torn away and the creature clambered upon him, the moon in the clear night sky now visible through the route dug by the beast.  It was the eyes, the shining yellow eyes set in a grotesque face that Bernhard saw, and then lastly the teeth.

#

Willi had heard the ringing of the bell from his cot in the kitchen where he slept in the two roomed shack on the outskirts of Herr Geisler’s land.  He grabbed his clothing, lifting the latch as his mother appeared.

“Boy, stay here.  I warned you, didn’t I?”

Willi ignored his mother and pulled on his boots, “The cemetery bells are ringing, I must go.”

“You won’t be the only one summoned by the bells.  The Ghul, from the forest, feeding on flesh; it will come.  Stay here son, no good will come of you going there now.  It’s too late.”

Willi pulled on the thin woollen jerkin, all he had to protect him from the cruel frost, and pushed through the snow, a sharp moonlight transforming the landscape, making it glow.  He reached the cemetery gates and charged through, following strange imprints in the snow, clawed hands and feet more animal than human.  He stopped suddenly, spying the bell he’d cleared the previous afternoon at young Bernhard’s grave, lying on its side, the cord wrapped and knotted around the twisted iron frame.  In the moonlight he could clearly see the excavation of earth, a frenetic digging downwards into a now empty grave, except for the remnants of the coffin and the bloodied scraps of the young man’s shroud.

Making his way to Herr Riehl’s cottage, Willi stopped at a sound.  Faint, coming from the forest.  It sounded like a bell, but now he knew that was a lie.  His mother had told him.  It was a cry, the voice of a creature calling its kind to feast, its voice the sound of a singing bell.