Grave Robbery

Snidley silenced his shovel and put his finger to his lips. "Shhhhhhh! It’s the constable!" Young Tom Brown followed suit and froze like a statue.

The youth’s pulse thrummed loudly in his head as he waited, eyes searching past the wrought-iron fence down the hill. Together with the older man who had hired him, he watched as a figure immerged from the fog that hung above the cobblestones of Mulberry Street. Neither man moved a muscle. It was an hour past midnight and they hoped the darkness would be enough to conceal their ghoulish deed.

Now the figure became the familiar form of the local policeman walking his beat. As the uniformed gent passed the little cemetery he ran his baton along the iron pikes of the fence. The clatter rolled across the graveyard with an eerie tone. As he neared the gate he slowed his pace. Then- to their horror he turned at the opening and stepped through the fence. The cop now stood on the path that led straight up the hill to the old section of the yard. This was where the two thieves waited motionless. The newcomer remained there for an agonizingly long second or two, and then finally rapped his club twice upon the open gate. Then as the sound echoed away, he grabbed the gate firmly and stepped back to the outside walkway, pulling it shut with a clang. Thankfully the constable turned and continued on his way, finishing his monotone musical composition on the remainder of the fence with his billy club. Not until he disappeared back into the fog of Mulberry Street did they dare to breathe again. Soon the two were once more sweating as they put their shovels back in motion.

Tom Brown was trying to appear to be doing his fair share of the work, while simultaneously slowing the digging down as much as he could without making his employer suspicious. The truth was that Tom dreaded what was below them. This was his first time at such an endeavour, and he had only taken the job out of sheer desperation. Snidley had been one of his recently deceased uncle’s closest and only friends. You wouldn’t be able to say that the old curmudgeon was warm or friendly towards the boy. It was more as if he barely tolerated him due to his relation to the late Percival Brown.

Tom was on the brink of starvation even more so than usual. He now found himself trying to muster up the courage to continue with this dastardly deed; all for a sack of potatoes, a wheel of cheese, and three loaves of bread. As far as Tom Brown was concerned, it was a king’s ransom- a feast that had been dreamt of for many nights prior. Still- this was not his line of work. Forgetting for the moment that it was highly illegal, he could not even stand the sight of blood. The thought of digging up a human corpse, absolutely terrified him.

It was however Benson Snidley’s line of work and secret business. He had once had a partner. Body snatching was done best as a two-man operation. But the partner was now dead. All that remained was his light-hearted, non-ambitious, waste of time nephew. He had had no choice in the matter. There was no one else he could trust with the secret. The lad might be weak of stomach- and a skinny waif not much good for digging, but he was all that the old man had.