Story 1118: Dead Man’s Lullaby

The graveyard behind Saint Gallow’s Church had always been quiet. Too quiet.

Jasper Crane, the gravedigger, often heard things beneath the soil—soft thuds, faint weeping, and, lately, something far worse:

Singing.

It happened at dusk, when the sun bled over crooked tombstones. A lullaby, old and broken, drifted up from the oldest graves. No birds answered. No breeze stirred. The earth itself hummed.

He first heard it while burying a child named Isadora. The moment her coffin touched the dirt, a voice rose from below—soft, male, off-key.

“Sleep, sleep, don’t wake the night…

The worms will hold you warm and tight…”

Jasper froze. His shovel slipped from his hands.

There was no one there.

From that night onward, the song returned each evening. Some nights louder. Sometimes joined by a faint humming chorus. Other gravediggers quit. The priest turned to drink. But Jasper… he stayed. He couldn’t explain why.

Until one evening, he followed the song.