Chapter 1
CHAPTER 1 — The Cellular Pulse
Laura dropped her coffee.
It hit the linoleum floor of the hospital corridor with a wet, heavy slap.
Brown liquid splattered across the polished white tiles, staining the cuffs of her blue scrubs.
She did not stop to look at it.
She did not stop to apologize to the janitor pushing a cart down the hall.
She just ran.
Her sneakers squeaked against the floor, a frantic, desperate sound that echoed off the fluorescent-lit walls.
Her mind was spinning faster than her legs could carry her, piecing together a terrifying, impossible puzzle.
Mary’s phone was dead.
The cellular service had been terminated. The physical device was sitting at the bottom of a six-foot hole inside a sealed wooden box.
But Mary had worn something else.
Laura remembered it with sickening clarity.
A birthday gift from last year.
A black, waterproof Apple Watch with a built-in cellular line, strapped to Mary’s left wrist.
When the funeral director had asked about jewelry, Laura had told him to leave it on.
“She hated taking it off,” Laura had said, her eyes red from crying. “It tracked her heart rate during chemo. It made her feel safe.”
The watch had its own data plan.
A plan that Laura had not yet canceled because the billing cycle didn’t end until the fifteenth of the month.
Laura burst through the hospital’s automatic sliding doors, hitting the humid June air like a runner hitting a brick wall.
She scrambled into her Honda Civic, her hands shaking so violently she dropped her keys twice before jamming them into the ignition.
The engine roared to life.
She threw the car into drive and slammed her foot on the gas pedal.
The tires squealed against the asphalt of the parking garage.
“Hold on, Abby,” Laura whispered to the empty car. “Just hold on.”
She dialed 911 through the car’s Bluetooth system as she merged onto the highway, weaving recklessly between lanes.
“911, what is your emergency?” the dispatcher’s voice filled the cabin.
“My name is Laura Collins,” she gasped, her voice cracking. “I need you to send police and paramedics to the Oakwood Cemetery on Route 9. Right now.”
“Ma’am, what is the nature of the emergency at the cemetery?”
“My sister,” Laura sobbed, gripping the steering wheel until her knuckles turned white. “My sister was buried there yesterday.”
“Ma’am, I don’t understand. If she was buried—”
“She’s alive!” Laura screamed, the sound tearing her throat.
“She’s alive inside the casket! She just called my niece from her smartwatch! She’s breathing!”
There was a pause on the line. The kind of pause that meant the dispatcher thought she was dealing with a psychiatric break.
“Ma’am, are you sure? Hallucinations can sometimes happen during severe grief—”
“Send a backhoe!” Laura roared, tears streaming down her face. “Send an ambulance! If you don’t, I will dig her out with my bare hands!”
“I am dispatching units to Oakwood now, ma’am. Please stay on the line.”
Laura disconnected the call. She didn't have time to argue.
She pulled into her own driveway, the car hopping the curb and tearing up a patch of front-lawn grass.
She left the engine running, the driver’s door swinging open.
She burst through the front door of her house.
“Abby!”
Abby was still sitting on the floor of the spare bedroom.
She looked small. Too small to carry the weight of the universe.
The phone was still clutched in her hands, her knuckles white, her eyes wide and frozen in absolute terror.
“Aunt Laura,” Abby whispered, her voice barely a thread of sound.
Laura fell to her knees beside her niece, wrapping her arms around the trembling girl.
“I’m here, baby. I’m here.”
“She knocked,” Abby said, staring at the blank screen. “I heard her knock.”
Laura took the phone from Abby’s hands.
She opened the voicemail.
She pressed play.
The static filled the quiet bedroom. The wet, muffled scrape. The desperate, suffocating breath.
And then, the sound that would haunt Laura’s nightmares for the rest of her life.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Wood.
Flesh hitting solid wood.
Laura’s medical training kicked in, shoving the panic down into a dark, cold box.
“Abby, listen to me very carefully,” Laura said, grabbing the girl’s shoulders.
“Your mom was wearing her watch. The one with the cell service.”
Abby blinked, trying to process the words.
“We didn't embalm her, Abby. She wanted a natural burial. No chemicals. No preservatives.”
Laura’s voice trembled, but she forced herself to maintain eye contact.
“The doctors made a mistake. A catastrophic, impossible mistake.”
“Is she alive?” Abby asked, a tear finally breaking free and rolling down her cheek.
“She’s fighting,” Laura said fiercely. “And we are going to get her out.”
Laura grabbed Abby’s hand.
They ran out the front door, leaving the house wide open to the morning wind.
They jumped into the idling car.
Laura shifted into reverse, spinning the wheel.
The cemetery was twelve miles away.
They had to beat the clock.
They had to beat the dirt.
May you like
Because oxygen inside a sealed casket only lasts for a few hours.
And Mary had already been underground for eighteen.
