The Empty Casket - A Short Story

Written in 2021 | Rewritten in 2024 | 5,306 words

The story you are about to read is a “vomit draft.” This means that it is in its rawest form of writing and has no professional editing done whatsoever. But I welcome any corrections, grammatical or otherwise, you may find.

PART I 

Less than one week since the end of school and my hamster decided to kick the bucket on me. I had such plans for us. We were going to enjoy the summer together. Go fishing down by the creek. Catch new bugs in mason jars to see how long they’d last this summer. But with Dexter gone, I would have to adjust my plans slightly. Not that he ever really helped me catch bugs or fish. Dexter was more for company than anything else.  

My parents got me my third Dexter because they refused to get me what I really wanted; a dog. They had no idea how I managed to “get rid of” two hamsters already. I thought my plans would work perfectly. I’d insist on taking my hamster with me on my outings and presto, he’d scamper off into the forest, gone forever. I’m not an evil child. No harm ever came to the first two Dexter’s. I know exactly where they are to this day and can visit them any time I wanted. Of course, my mother and father didn't know that. 

How do I know the hamster currently dead in my cage is a third one? Well, because my father would pretend to go out into the forest in search of Dexter. By the following afternoon, there Dexter would be, spinning in the wheel in his cage. The first time it happened I frowned, wondering how my father found a hamster that was perfectly safe and sound at Mr. Travis’ house. To think my parents would rather lie to me about a hamster just so they wouldn’t get me a dog! 

The second time I played this trick on them was no good either. There Dexter the second was, asleep in his cage the next morning. Mr. Travis made me swear I wouldn’t bring him another hamster. He said two was two too many. 

As I looked down at Dexter the third, I knew he wasn’t asleep. He never slept with his tongue hanging out or his eyes wide open the way they were. It must’ve happened in the middle of the night while I was asleep. Now I had a decision to make: Would I go crying to my parents about my truly dead hamster or sneak him out and bury him, making the same claim that he ran away again? I felt my luck might be running thin on Dexter running away at the start of the last two summers and I ran the risk of their deciding to not replace him at all. It’s not that I didn’t have a warm place in my heart for Dexter, I did. I was just tired of hearing my friends at school talking about how much fun they had last summer with their dogs. I wanted that to be me! 

As I lifted him out of his cage, he felt ice cold to the touch. Dead for hours. I slowly walked out of my bedroom, trying to work up some believable tears over his loss. I could smell the bacon and eggs my mother was preparing and I instinctively licked my lips. I didn’t realize just how hungry I was as my stomach grumbled loudly. 

The sound of my father’s off-key singing in the shower made me giggle just before I rounded the corner into the kitchen. I completely forgot my plan as my mother spotted me in the doorway. 

“Good morning, dear. Don’t you think you should leave Dexter in his cage while you eat your breakfast?” 

Dexter? Oh, right. “Look mom, I think he’s dead.” I held Dexter out to her for confirmation. His stiff little body cradled in the palm of my two hands. 

She raised one eyebrow as she always does when she’s thinking what to say next. “It appears he is. I’m so sorry, honey.” 

My next reaction had to be real or she’d read through me like a book. Turns out parent’s are attuned to the lies their children tell. I know this from listening to the other kids in my class. They are always trying to trick their parents into letting them do something or buying them something and it never works. I wasn’t going to fail like they did. Nope, I was going to be smarter. 

“I’ll miss him. He was good company for me when I went fishing.” 

She nodded and placed a consoling hand on my shoulder. I knew I had her right where I wanted her. “Do you want to bury him, or do you want me to get rid of him for you?” 

Bury him? I hadn’t considered that. I walked past the old cemetery every day on my way to school but I thought it was filled with people. Not pets. “Where would I bury him?” Damn it! I was going off track changing the subject this way. I needed a way to get back to the issue at hand. I had no pet and I wanted a dog. How could they deny me one now after such a loss? 

“Why don’t you get an old shoe box from the basement to put him in. I think you’ll find my spade out front. You can use that to dig a spot for him in the front yard. I think it’ll be a good way for you to say goodbye to Dexter.” 

I hung my head low, but not too low, I didn’t want her to think I was all that sad, and took Dexter with me to the basement in search of a shoebox. The last time I was sent to the basement was to look for a flashlight I needed while on a scavenger hunt with Dexter II last Summer. We didn’t find much under the couch or the beds, but it was still great fun. 

“Hello, Mary.” 

I was so scared from the voice I dropped Dexter and he made a small thud as he hit the concrete floor. “Who said that?” I whispered, looking around the dark and dusty room. There was just a little light coming in from a small window that was nearly covered in dirt, but it helped enough for me to see a boy standing under it. “How did you get in here?” 

“Don’t be frightened. I live here.” 

“You live here? No, you don’t. I live here with my mother and father. We’ve lived here all our lives and I’ve never seen you before. What’s your name?” 

“My name’s Nick.” 

“Mary, who are you talking to down there?” my mother shouted down to me from the door at the top of the stairs. Nick held a finger up to his lips but I had to answer her. She was the one who sent me down here. 

“No one, mom. Just talking to myself.” 

“Well, hurry up and find that shoebox. I don’t want you down there too long. It’s very dusty.” 

“Yes, mom.” Nick pointed to a spot just over my shoulder and I looked back to see a shoebox covered in dust on top of several storage boxes. “Thanks.” I picked Dexter up off the floor and carefully placed him inside the shoebox and closed the lid. “Wanna help me bury my pet hamster?” I asked him as he stood next to me and watched me closely. 

“I need to tell you something first. I’m just like your hamster, Mary.” 

“What do you mean? You’re dead?” Nick nodded. “I don’t believe you. If you’re dead how come I can see you?” 

He shrugged. “Maybe cause you need to see me. Your mother can’t see me. No one else can. And you can’t tell anyone about me. If you do, I’ll disappear forever and I won’t be able to help you.” 

“Help me? With what? I don’t need help?” 

“You better go upstairs before your mother comes back looking for you. I’ll meet you in the front yard.” 

I looked up when I heard my mother’s footsteps walking back towards the top of the stairs. I turned back to Nick, but he was gone. Like he vanished into thin air. I quickly sprinted up the stairs with the shoebox before she could yell at me again. I ran out the front door and looked around for him, but he wasn’t there. 

“The spade you’re looking for is right here.” 

I spun on my heels and there he was, hidden by the shadow of my house, pointing down at the spade my mother told me to use. “What are you doing there? Come into the light so I can see you better.” 

“I can’t. If I do, even you won’t be able to see me.” 

“When did you die? What happened?” 

“I can’t tell you that right now. But I need your help to take me to someone who I think can help. Will you do that?” 

I frowned at him because the last thing I wanted to do was help some ghost. I had bigger plans for this Summer than spending time talking to him in the shadows. I had to convince my mother and father to let me have a dog this Summer for my thirteenth birthday. As a teenager I could be trusted with more responsibility and if they saw me talking to myself they might never let me have a dog. But if he really is a ghost it would be even cooler to tell my friends at school that I spent the Summer with a ghost! 

“What exactly do I have to do? I sorta got my own plans for the Summer already.” 

“Do you know the man who lives in that house?” Nick pointed to a house on the other side of the street at a man who was sitting on a rocking chair on his front porch. 

“I sure do. He’s my friend. That’s Mr. Travis. Is that who you want me to take you to?” 

“Yes, I think he can help me.” 

“Why don’t you just go there by yourself? Oh, right, because no one can see you. Have you even tried? Mr. Travis is pretty weird. If there was anyone around here who could see ghosts besides me, it would be him for sure.” 

“That’s why I need you to take me to him. I can’t leave this house unless it’s with someone alive who can see me. I can follow them.” 

My eyes widened when I realized my mother had been watching me this entire time from the kitchen window while I was talking to Nick. It wasn’t until I saw the look of confusion and concern on her face that I realized what he was saying was the truth. She couldn’t see him. And what made it worse is that she must be thinking I’m crazy. Great! Just great! 

I dropped down onto my knees and used the spade to dig a hole large enough to fit the shoebox with Dexter inside. Every few digs into the dirt with the spade I would look up to find my mother still watching me. By the time I laid the box in the hole and covered it in the dirt, she had moved away from the window. Probably to call my father at work and tell him what she just witnessed her daughter doing. I could feel the dreams of getting a dog this Summer slipping from my fingers. 

“Are you finished? Let’s go before your mother comes back to the window.” 

I got up and cleaned the dirt from my hands onto my jeans. “So, how exactly do I take you to him? Do I need to hold your hand or something and walk you across the street? Cause if that’s it, I’m not doing it.” 

“I told you, if I walk into the sunlight even you can’t see me. I just need you to go to his house. Get him inside. I’ll meet you there.” 

“Fine. But after that, I’m done. My mother thinks I’m nuts now because of you.” 

My parents don’t like me visiting Mr. Travis so I needed to learn how to be sneaky about it. I’d start by walking down our side of the street till I was out of her line of sight from the window. It was Mr. Travis who told me where I should cross the road so that she wouldn’t see me from our kitchen window. Then I would between two houses that were near the end of the cul de sac and enter his house through his backyard that he never locked. 

I stamped and wiped my feet on his welcome mat that was so old only the first and last letters were visible. The sound made Dexter I and Dexter II rattle in their cage which would alert Mr. Travis to my presence. In the beginning he would greet me inside but they’ve become so frequent that now he stays outside, not wanting to miss anything that might happen during his absence from his rocking chair. 

His house was always dark and dusty because he never changed or opened his curtains since I’ve known him and from all the journals he kept in stacks throughout his house. His kitchen table, counters, cupboards, and entire living room was covered with boxes filled with journals. The newest ones he kept next to his chair in the middle of his living room, opposite a fireplace he never used and a tv he always had on, turned to a news channel. 

“Hey, Mr. Travis, can you come in here for a second? I want to introduce you to a friend of mine,” I shouted out to him through the screen door. Mr. Travis removed his front door a long time ago, long before my family moved into the neighborhood. He feared nothing and no one, except for bugs, which is why he kept the screen door. 

“A friend?” I could hear the anger in his voice and his feet shuffling across the front porch. “A friend?” The screen door opened and slammed shut behind him with a bang. “I thought I told you never to bring anyone with you to my house, Mary.” 

When Mr. Travis looked in Nick’s direction, he dropped his journal and pen onto the floor. 

“Mr. Travis, this is Nick. He’s not really my friend. I only just met him this morning while I was burying Dexter III. He’s actually—” 

“A ghost,” Mr. Travis said, cutting me off to finish my sentence.

PART II 

Mr. Travis slowly sat down in his favorite chair and just stared in Nick’s direction for a very long time. As there were no other places to sit down, I plopped down on the floor where I stood and crossed my legs. 

“So, you can see him?” I asked, breaking the silence. Mr. Travis just nodded, never letting his eyes turn away from Nick. “I thought you told me no one else could see you?” 

“That’s not what I said. I wasn’t sure if anyone else could see me since I’ve never been anywhere else besides the house.” 

“Who are you?” Mr. Travis said, finally finding his voice. 

“His name’s, Nick. Apparently he’s a ghost who needs your help,” I said. I didn’t want to be left out of the conversation as I was already feeling like neither were paying me much attention. 

“Nick?” Mr. Travis whispered under his breath. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. I’d seen him do this on several occasions and learned quickly he did this to think. My father did something similar whenever he watched a game show on television, shouting out the right answer seconds before the contestant. Mr. Travis opened his eyes and looked at Nick. “I don’t know of a boy named Nick who was ever missing or killed in this town and I’ve lived here most of my life.” 

“You wouldn’t have. I never lived here. I moved here.” 

“You’re in the Flowers house?” 

“Yes. But I want to go home and I think you can help me do that.” 

I folded my arms, angry that they were talking to each other and not including me at all. “I doubt Mr. Travis can take you anywhere. He doesn’t drive. 

“You don’t need a car where my home is. Will you help me?” 

Mr. Travis nodded again. I never knew him to be this quiet unless he was out on his front porch spying on the neighbors. I was also surprised to see how disinterested he was in what was going on outside his doorstep. Never once did he glance towards his screen door. I left the two of them to talk and walked up to the door just in time to see several women walking down the street. I knew they were headed to my house. It was Wednesday, the day when mother entertained the ladies of the neighborhood. They all sat around the table in the kitchen and talked for hours about really boring things like their husbands and recipes they found in magazines. 

“Anything interesting going on out there, sport?” Mr. Travis asked me. 

“Not really. It’s Wednesday afternoon. You know what that means. Mother and her gossip group.” 

“Indeed,” Mr. Travis said, a hint of excitement in his voice. “This might be just the distraction we need to find proof. Mary, we’ll need your help if you’re up to it? But you have to promise to keep it a secret and be very careful.” 

Wow! Mr. Travis and Nick needed my help after all! And to do something dangerous! This was turning into a great summer already. 

“What do you need me to do?” 

*** 

Walking back home, I went over the plan in my head. I knew mother wouldn’t be watching me from the kitchen window, too busy gossiping. So I left Mr. Travis’ house from the front door and crossed the street. I could just make out the bobbing heads of the women sitting around the kitchen table through the window. 

The plan was pretty simple and boring to me, but it would surely be an adventure as I had to avoid my mother hearing me enter the house and make sure she had no idea what I was up to once inside. They wanted me to go up into the attic to find some old clothes that Nick swears are hidden away in a box up there. I needed to get them and bring them directly to Mr. Travis without my mother suspecting a thing. 

First, I knew I needed to climb to my window. The kitchen was in direct view of the front door and was the location of the backdoor. I’d climbed up and down from my bedroom window so often that I got into the habit of leaving my window open just in case. 

As I knew it would be, the window was open a few inches already. I glanced around me to make sure I wasn’t seen by anyone, except Mr. Travis, who had returned to his front porch when we left and was now watching me closely. I must admit, his eyes staring daggers into my back made me nervous, but I completed the climb, only needing to open my window a few more inches for me to enter. I made sure not to step too loudly on my carpeted bedroom floor, afraid my mother might hear me. She always seemed to hear the smallest of sounds no matter how quiet I tried to be. 

“Took you long enough,” Nick said, standing in the furthest and darkest corner of my bedroom. 

“Easy for you to say. I’m the one who had to climb up here without anyone downstairs hearing me.” 

Just then, cackles of laughter erupted throughout the house from the kitchen. Clearly mother had started pouring alcohol and it was already affecting their moods. This was perfect. They’d be so busy laughing and chatting loudly, if I happened to make a sound up here, my mother wasn’t likely to hear it so clearly. 

I slowly opened the door to my bedroom, remembering the squeaking sound it makes when opened past a certain point. Once in the hall I had only a few feet to my parent’s bedroom. The entrance to the attic located in their closet. 

Once inside their bedroom I did my best to focus on getting to the closet and not letting my curiosity get the better of me like I usually do. I like playing dress-up in my mother’s clothes and putting on her make-up when she’s not around. 

“Can we get a move on. I don’t want you to get caught.” 

“Don’t worry. They’ll be down there for hours. Drinking and laughing.” 

And I was right. Mother would entertain her friends almost to the minute before she, and all the others, would have to start dinner for their husbands who would be arriving home from work within the hour. Only trouble is, from up in the attic, I couldn’t hear them leave, nor could I see outside the tiny window covered in dirt that the sun was nearly setting. 

Nick and I were so busy looking through everything we found upstairs that we completely lost track of time. Well, I did all of the looking for him. As a ghost, Nick was unable to touch anything. 

“Mary?” 

I heard my mothers voice, muffled through the floorboards, but knew she was in the hallway, probably outside my bedroom door, calling for me. I couldn’t risk shouting down to her or she’d know where I was. 

“Quick, put on that shirt and pants and let’s get out of here.” 

The last thing I wanted to do was put on clothing that looked as dirty and old as the ones we had found, but Nick insisted it was what he and Mr. Travis needed me to find. 

I crept down the attic stairs, slowly closing the lid behind me, and listened as my mom spoke my name once more and knocked on my bedroom door. Maybe she would think I was still playing somewhere outside? After all, she hadn’t heard me come in. I opened their bedroom door and peeked out to see her hand on the doorknob of my bedroom. She was going to open it. The bathroom was just a few feet away from their room. Before I could calculate how long it would take me to sprint two steps and sneak inside she turned the knob and slowly opened my bedroom door. 

Without thinking I tiptoed across the hall, careful to avoid any creaks in the floor, opened the bathroom door and shut it behind me. Then, to make it all the more believable I flushed the toilet. 

“Yes, mom?” I shouted from inside the bathroom. 

“Oh, there you are. Your father will be home soon, dear…” she said, her voice trailing off. 

“Okay, mom. I’ll be right down. I just want to wash my hands.” I turned on the faucet then knelt down and looked through the keyhole of the bathroom door and watched as my mother walked over to their bedroom door and closed it. “Damn,” I whispered under my breath. In my panic running to the bathroom I forgot to close their door behind me. I was in for it now. 

“No rush, dear. I’ll call you when supper’s ready.” I couldn’t see her face, but I could tell by the tone in her voice that she knew I had been in their bedroom. But that shouldn’t be cause for punishment. I had been in their bedroom before. Only, this time, her voice was different. Father would be told and I never knew what his reaction was going to be.

PART III

“We have to get those clothes to Mr. Travis,” Nick said, his voice sounding panicked. 

“I know, but you hear my mom. If I’m not here when she calls me down for dinner I might be grounded all Summer and it only just started.” I took off the shirt and pants, happy to no longer be wearing them as they smelled old too. 

“I don’t think you should go down to dinner when they call for you, Mary.” 

“Why not? I’m starving.” 

“I can’t say. I just think it would be safer for you to take these to Mr. Travis and stay there with him.” 

“You want me to stay with him at night? My parents told me never to go out after dark. What if I don’t make it there?” The sun had completely set by now and I could smell chicken and rice wafting through my bedroom. My stomach growled with hunger. There was no way I was leaving any time soon. 

It didn’t take long for me to hear my father’s car pull into our driveway. What did take long was the time between his walking through the front door and when I was finally called downstairs to eat. My guess was they had been discussing my punishment for sneaking around their bedroom. Whatever it would be, I was sure it wouldn’t be half as bad if I had also snuck out like Nick had wanted me to. 

All the way down the stairs Nick followed me in the shadows, urging me not to go, or to at least not eat the food. But he would never tell me why. Part of me was glad to walk into the kitchen where there wasn’t a dark corner in sight. No way he could continue talking to me there. 

The moment a plate of food was placed before me I started to gobble it down. If I was going to be punished and possibly sent to my room, I wanted to make sure I was sent there with a full stomach. Only, my parents remained silent during the entire meal. Neither one asked me how my day was and my mother never mentioned any of the gossip she learned from her luncheon earlier. She never missed the opportunity to tell him all about what she found out. 

I yawned loudly at the table and quickly covered my mouth. I didn’t realize how sleepy I was. 

“If you’re finished, you should go upstairs to bed, Mary. You seem tired.” 

And I was. So tired in fact, I couldn’t even speak. I just nodded, pushed my chair back and… 

*** 

I wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but I knew I wasn’t sitting at the dinner table anymore when I opened my eyes to see Nick standing over me in the dark. I was lying in my bed. 

“It’s about time. I’ve been trying to wake you for the last hour. You need to get up. Can you stand?” 
 
I touched a hand to my forehead that was throbbing for some reason. “What happened?” 

“Look out the window,” Nick said. 

My legs were a bit wobbly and the room swayed when I stood up, but I found my way to my window and pulled back the curtain. In the backyard I could see my mother holding a flashlight down at the ground where my father was shoveling. 

“What are they doing?” I ask Nick, for the first time, frightened myself. 

“I’ll explain later, right now you need to take the clothes and get to Mr. Travis’ house. He’ll know what to do.” 

I look down at my mother who is looking right up at me. I quickly let the curtain fall back into place and back away from the window.  

“She saw me.” 

“Run, Mary. Forget the clothes and just get out of this house.” 

I run out my bedroom door and can hear muffled arguing from outside. I slowly tiptoed down the stairs and into the hallway closet just as the back door opened. 

“She might still be upstairs,” my mother said. 

“Are you sure she could see what we were doing?” 

“I was holding up a flashlight, Jim. For Christ’s sake. Of course she saw what we were doing. Why didn’t you listen to me and give her a stronger dose? She would still be asleep.” 

“Or she might be dead. I don’t kill children,” my father said. 

“No, you just bury them while they’re asleep. Come on.” 

The first step on the staircase creaked and I knew they were headed upstairs. 

“What’s going on?” I whispered to Nick. “Are they going to kill me?” 

“Yes, they are. Like they killed me a long time ago. I used to live with them in an apartment far away from here. They took me when I was a baby. They brought me here after they killed me to hide my body and because they took you after I died.” 

“Mary, honey. Dad and I want to explain,” my mother said. I heard the familiar creak outside my door. This would be my only chance. I open the closet door and run towards the only light I see coming through the kitchen windows. The back door is open and I run outside, trip over something wooden at my feet and fall face first into the dirt. 

I try to stand but feel a sharp pain in my right ankle that won’t let me put any weight on it. “Nick, help me. I can’t run anymore.” 

“Can you reach the flashlight over there?” he asks me. 

I crawl a few inches and pick up the flashlight my mother must’ve dropped when she saw me standing in my bedroom window. I shine it on the thing I tripped over and know instantly what it is, a casket. 

“What good will this do?” 

“Point it to the sky and flash the light on and off. Like this. Flash three times fast. Now flash three times slower. And three times fast again. Just keep doing that over and over.” 

I did as Nick directed me to do, and looked over at my bedroom window to see my mother standing there this time, looking down at me with a look of anger in her face I don’t think I had ever seen before. She looked back and shouted, probably telling my father she had found me and was gone from my bedroom window. I managed to do the flashes one more time before my mother snatched it from me and turned it off. 

“Hold her down,” my father said as he placed a cloth around my mouth and tied it behind my head so I couldn’t scream. I could then feel him tie my hands together and my legs. All I could do was stare up at the night sky. 

They lifted me off the ground and placed me inside the wooden casket I had tripped over earlier. Then put a lid to close me inside it. My heart begins to beat faster with panic. 

“This means we’ll have to move again, doesn’t it?” 

“Maybe.” 

The voices are muffled and with the added sound of my heart racing, I can’t really tell who is saying what, but I know they are more worried about themselves then they are about killing me. I feel the casket lift in the air and get carried and lowered into the hole my father had been digging. 

“What do you mean, maybe? You promised we could stay here. I like it here. I have friends here.” 

“We can just tell everyone we had to send her away to school. Bad behavior. That sort of thing. No one will question that.” 

I hear the shovel and dirt raining down on the lid of the casket. Tiny gaps in the wood of the lid allow specks of dirt to fall through and onto my face. Suddenly, the dirt stops falling onto my face and I hear the sound of sirens getting louder and louder.