by Sanguinary Red (sanguinary_515 @ hotmail.com)
Sanguiary's note: Before reading the story, make sure you have read Dig by Slipstream. This fic is based on her account of the events surrounding the burial of Arky. I also borrow funeral customs from her.
Three days after they buried Arky, Daisy found the dog wandering through the garden.
This didn’t surprise Daisy much. She was three years old and her grip on reality wasn’t strong. She had been told that Arky had Gone To A Better Place but here he was, shivering and covered in dirt.
The dog weaved closer. A horrible stench surrounded it, causing Daisy to plug her nose and mutter, “Pee-you. Arky stink.”
Arky didn’t seem to mind the insult. Arky didn’t even seem to notice that Daisy was there. The dog was swaying back and forth, his skin pulling strangely across his bones.
“Nice doggie.” Daisy put out a hand to wipe the dirt off the dead dog.
Arky’s eyes focused on Daisy. He snarled, pale lips curling back from gritty fangs, and lowered his head. Daisy’s eyes went wide and her hand dropped. A strange, grainy growl rose from his chest and Daisy turned to run but the dog was faster. He sprang, pinning Daisy to the ground, its rotting eyes stared straight into her face. She shrieked and he bit.
Daisy’s screams turned into a wet gurgle. By the time the family found her, sprawled between two rows of petunias, it was too late.
A family of Funeral Undertakers came all the way from Bindbale Wood to prepare her as the heartbroken, shocked family were unable to manage the grisly chore on their own. They brought with them a finely crafted wooden coffin, which was terribly, heartbreakingly small. The size of a child. It reflected back distorted tears and despair from its polished brown surface. They also brought their daughter who was Daisy’s age. Frodo-lad watched as she helped make a bouquet of flowers. He wondered if the coffin was modeled around the little girl. He wondered what it would be like to hold still as your parents measured you to make a box for the dead. Elanor stitched three flowers into Daisy’s winding sheet. None of the younger children were allowed to see the body.
It began to rain half-way through the ceremony, dark heavy drops pelting everyone. Most of those attending left early, too cold, wet and sad to stay. But not one of the Gamgees left. Even Frodo, who was taking another of his sickly turns and was so weak he could barely stand, stayed and watched as the casket was lowered into the ground and covered in mud.
The ceremony ended quickly and Frodo-Lad lingered in the rain. His little brother Pippin stood near to keep him company as the others slumped back into Bag End.
Suddenly Pippin flinched and turned to Frodo-Lad.
"Did you hear that?" he whispered.
"Hear what?" Frodo-lad turned to look at Pippin. The boy's eyes were huge with fear.
"It's Daisy's voice. I can hear her crying."
Frodo-lad listened carefully. He heard the flowers brushing against one another and, dimly, the sound of the new baby wailing, but he didn't hear anything from the filled hole. "Are you sure you didn't imagine it?"
"I swear it was her! It was her cry." Pippin blanched, "What if she was buried alive?"
"She... she wasn't alive, Pippin. There was no way she could have been alive."
"But sometimes people are alive and they get buried by accident! Remember when they accidentally dug up that old grave near the mill and found scratch-marks inside the coffin?"
Frodo-lad shivered. "I remember. But even if she were alive, she wouldn’t be able to cry. There wasn't enough of her throat left to do that."
"But... what if she...?"
"She's not!" Frodo-lad cut him off harshly. Then he sighed and dropped a heavy, but comforting, hand on Pippin’s shoulder. "Come on. Let's go inside and help mum."
They walked away.
Another cry issued from the ground, followed by a steady scratching noise. The living quickly died from a lack of oxygen while trying to escape a premature burial. There was simply no time.
But the thing buried in Daisy's coffin didn't need oxygen. And it had all the time in the world.
~
Pretty Good Year