"Horrors! 1 - A New Life (none of the Horrors! are by me)"
By NudeBeach (https://pastebin.com/u/NudeBeach)

URL: https://pastebin.com/Bc47f8Q2
Created on: Thursday 11th of August 2016 02:13:00 AM CDT
Retrieved on: Saturday 31 of October 2020 03:55:09 PM UTC


A New Life
by William Rotsler
 
They buried me at midmorning with an appropriately low-key funeral. After everyone left, Cardiff came back and spat on my grave, muttered a few things, and left. The gravediggers tapped down the loose earth and laid one of those turf mats of real grass, and watered it in the late afternoon. Nothing much else happened until moonrise.
Then I arose.
It's not easy these days - steel coffin, six feet of earth (even freshly spaded), groggy condition. But then I always am groggy when I revitalize. I've done it enough this last century.
It used to be so easy. People didn't travel much. Go three, four, five days away and you were unlikely to run into anyone who knew you. If you wanted to go back years later, for whatever reason, like property, or just because you liked the place, you went back as your own son or grandson.
Or you could just wander off into the forest, leave a bloody cloak to be found, a torn boot. "Gone to America" was a handy rumor years later. In America, you'd "go west." It was easier then. No ID, retinal photos, fingerprints, paperwork. It keeps you on your toes, planning ahead, doing your homework.
Each of us works out our standbys. Lost at sea. Gone to war. Unrecognizably burned body. Explosion. Faked kidnapping. Unexplained disappearance. We all have ways.
As usual these years, I'd planted the rumor of being buried with considerable personal jewelery. That explained the ruptured grave, though it didn't really explain the absence of a body. But after a couple of days people usually stop looking.
Now I can start a new life. Just as soon as I settle this thing with Cardiff.