The Man They Buried Was Still Alive

Chapter 1 - The Watch In The Rain

Emily Carter held a black trash bag in one hand and lifted her other arm against the wind.

A man collapsed out of the darkness.

He fell forward, covered in mud and rain, one wounded hand clawing at the doorframe. His knees hit the wet stone with a heavy thud.

Emily screamed.

“Oh my God!”

She stumbled backward, nearly dropping the trash bag. The man tried to lift his head, but his strength failed. His body pitched forward, face first toward the ground.

Emily ran to him.

“Sir, are you alright?”

The man looked up at her.

Without answering, he reached into the inside pocket of his ruined coat.

Emily tensed.

But he did not pull out a weapon.

He pulled out an antique pocket watch.

The chain slipped into her palm with a delicate metallic sound.

“Do you recognize this?” he asked weakly.

Emily stared at it.

Her breath caught.

“This belonged to Mr. Ashford,” she whispered.

The man slowly gripped the doorframe and forced himself to stand.

His eyes lifted toward the mansion as if he owned every stone in it.

“It still does.”

Emily stepped back.

The watch nearly slipped from her hand.

“But Mr. Ashford died ten years ago.”

Before it could fall, the man caught it.

His fingers closed around the case with strange tenderness.

Then he looked up toward the second-floor windows, where one room glowed with warm yellow light.

“They buried the wrong man.”

A door opened upstairs.

The sound was soft.

But the man heard it.

His eyes hardened.

Emily looked from him to the stairwell beyond the kitchen.

“Who are you?”

He did not answer immediately.

Footsteps moved above them.

Then he said, in a voice low enough to freeze the rain outside:

“Arthur Ashford.”

Emily’s whole body went cold.

Arthur Ashford was the dead owner of the mansion.