This was just too bizarre. What possible reason could anyone have for wanting them dead? And why didn’t the culprit simply kill them both? Why just her and not him? The only plausible reason Dan could conjure up was that someone wanted him to suffer the most horrible death imaginable. But who could it be? Who hated him that intensely? For the life of him, he couldn’t think of a single person.

The cramped space of the casket not only restricted his movement, but lying so close to a fresh corpse made his stomach churn. Claustrophobia scratched at the doorway of his sanity like a ravenous rat. He felt bile working its way up his throat.

His loose grip on nausea slipped and he began heaving. Although his stomach was empty of food, foul smelling stomach acids emptied over Stacy’s head and hair. The liquid poured over her dead face like a hot, miasmic soup. The overpowering stench sent his stomach heaving again, but he was already evacuated. His tears seemed to continue without end.

Dan hated himself for defiling Stacy’s corpse. Even worse, he feared his desecration was not yet over. His bladder aggressively demanded relief. The intense vomiting left him weak; he had no strength to fight the urge any longer.

He didn’t even bother to unzip. He simply released his bladder and relieved the pressure, feeling a warm, wet patch spread across his crotch and down his leg. Stacy’s thigh became soaked as well.

Dan could hardly breathe. The aroma of urinary fumes mixed with the stench of vomit. This, combined with the smell of blood and dead flesh, sent Dan to the brink of insanity.

Horror stabbed through him like a monstrous knife when he heard Stacy speak to him. Without a doubt, his mind had snapped. At best, he probably had only a few minutes of air left. He would spend those few minutes with the knowledge that he had gone stark raving mad.

“God, what’s that smell?” The voice was audible. Stacy’s corpse mocked him. His world had become an asylum of insanity. He swallowed involuntarily in fear and tasted the putrid vomit coating his mouth.