Horror
He wrenched off the coffin lid, trying not to look as he did so. Throwing the lid onto the ground next to the hole, he forced himself to contemplate what lay within.
It was Cochise, all right. She looked very different. It wasn't just the greying flesh, the beginnings of rot and the stomach-turning stench. Paragus had steeled himself for that. She had been dead for over two weeks now. It was her face. It was different from how he had remembered it, different from the photographs he had. Already, he had begun to forget her. Tears filled his eyes and his stomach churned with grief and the odour of death.
He knew what he had to do now. But balanced over the body of his dead wife, a knife in his back pocket, he felt he couldn't do it. She was beautiful, in spite of the rot and grey of her face. It was like she was only sleeping…
A small noise sent a jolt of terror through his entire body. He stumbled forward and nearly plunged into the grave with Cochise. Righting himself, he looked rapidly over the edge of the grave. There was no one in sight. He heard the noise again, a rapid, urgent creaking. It was only the branches of the ancient yew trees. Shivering, Paragus noticed for the first time how creepy it was in the graveyard at night. When he had arrived here he had been so preoccupied he had barely noticed anything. Now he saw the dark shadows of the other graves, the menacing figures of the statues, the empty spaces between the trees, dark and unfathomable…
Paragus was not a particularly cowardly man, but nor was he a brave one. The graveyard was frightening not only because of its ghoulishness, but because it reminded him how twisted what he was doing was. He heard Bardock's strange, rough voice in his head. 'Don't mess with the dead.'
Once again, Paragus clenched his fists and pushed his doubts aside. The sooner he got this task over with, the sooner he could go home to his bed. He bent down over his wife's slender figure. He hesitated, and then pulled up the red shirt she was wearing. The flesh underneath was decaying. Paragus hesitated again. He didn't know where her heart was.
His hands were shaking badly now. He had to get this over with. He cut through the skin below her shoulders. Sticky, congealed black blood oozed from underneath. The stench suddenly grew much worse. He cut further down, peeling a flap of skin off. He was convulsed with nausea now, but it was less disgusting than it would have been in daylight. The dark blurred it into mostly grey. Where was her heart?
Wishing he were anywhere else in the entire universe, Paragus used his knife to pry the ribs on the left upwards. He had a vague memory of the heart being in that area. There was something that looked like a heart- a slick lump of smooth flesh amidst the ragged tissue and muscle. He used the knife to push the tissue aside. He couldn't bear to touch the stuff with his hands. Why hadn't he worn gloves?
The shining lump could only be her heart. It was bigger than he had expected, veined and covered in arteries. Paragus cut through these, one by one, until he had severed it from her body. He nudged it along with his knife. It only travelled a few inches. Shaking with nausea, he realised he'd have to carry it back with his bare hands. With immense reluctance, he picked it up. It was sticky but smooth. He climbed out of the coffin, trembling with relief.
Paragus sat on the grass for he didn't know how long, dazed and ill. He idly glanced at his watch and then froze. It was more than five hours after he had arrived. It would be dawn soon! Then a terrible wave of guilt and fear washed over him. He vomited uncontrollably on the grass beside Cochise's headstone. Then a demonic energy filled him. Someone could be coming right now? How could he have thought to attempt such foolishness? He slammed the coffin lid over his wife's mutilated corpse and heaped the earth back over her. It took a ridiculously long amount of time. The earth would not flatten and it was still unconvincingly lumpy after he had spent nearly all his energy jumping on it. He realised with the grass gone, it would be obvious someone had tampered with the grave. But who would suspect him? And anyway, was what he had done really a crime?
He had to get out of here. He wrapped the heart up in the bottom of his shirt and sprinted away. He wasn't aware of where he was running and didn't stop until he got back to his inn. Disorientated, filthy and covered in gore, he staggered up to his room without anyone seeing him. The first thing he did was to shove the heart into his underwear drawer. Then he slumped onto the bed. He was exhausted. But he was also certain there were things he needed to do before he could allow himself to go to bed.
Paragus looked down at himself and realised for the first time he was covered in blood. Sickened, he ripped off his shirt and ran to the bathroom. He scrubbed himself with boiling water until all the filth had gone from his face and arms. He even pulled a few blood clots out of his hair. Fortunately, his clothes had protected the rest of his body. He stripped them off and put on a fresh set. He ran back to his room and shoved them into a cupboard corner. Sitting exhausted on the bed, he wondered if there were any other ways he could cover his tracks. He thought for a few minutes, and then was satisfied there were none. He lay back. He'd sleep today, in preparation for tonight. He was dead to the world in a minute.
It turned out no one connected the disturbance in the earth around Cochise's grave to Paragus. In fact, no one even noticed, though he had done a shoddy job of covering it up. No one connected it to the bloodstain on the handle of the door to the inn, which was attributed to a fight and quickly cleaned up. No one connected it with the landlord's deathlike sleep, either. The workers all assumed he was sick. Probably related to his grieving over his poor wife. He had been acting very odd lately. So Paragus slept the whole day undisturbed, missing the preparations for the night time festivities. He would need his rest for tonight.
He woke up at about seven o'clock in the evening and lay paralysed with fear at what he had done. He allowed himself to contemplate the possibility that it had all been a dream. Then he remembered his wife's heart, rotting in his chest of drawers. He dragged himself off the bed, walked across the room and opened the drawer. He shifted around a few pairs of socks. There it was, an abomination, rotting and revolting, stinking of the grave. He had a seconds-long flashback to cutting open Cochise's chest the night before. How had he managed to do that? The sight of this heart in front of him turned his stomach. And to think it had once been part of the beautiful Cochise, the most quick-witted woman he had ever known… This piece of flesh wasn't his wife, he thought miserably. He began to doubt more than ever this would work. Again he contemplated turning back, and again he saw the pained face of Mehetabel. He strengthened his resolution. Tonight was still on. It probably wouldn't be as horrible as last night, he reasoned.