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One Summer Night

The fact that Henry Armstrong was buried did not seem to him to prove that he was dead: he had always been a hard man to convince. That he really was buried, the testimony of his senses compelled him to admit. His posture -- flat upon his back, with his hands crossed upon his stomach and tied with something that he easily broke without profitably altering the situation -- the strict confinement of his entire person, the black darkness and profound silence, made a body of evidence impossible to controvert and he accepted it without cavil.

But dead -- no; he was only very, very ill. He had, withal, the invalid's apathy and did not greatly concern himself about the uncommon fate that had been allotted to him. No philosopher was he -- just a plain, commonplace person gifted, for the time being, with a pathological indifference: the organ that he feared consequences with was torpid. So, with no particular apprehension for his immediate future, he fell asleep and all was peace with Henry Armstrong.

But something was going on overhead. It was a dark summer night, shot through with infrequent shimmers of lightning silently firing a cloud lying low in the west and portending a storm. These brief, stammering illuminations brought out with ghastly distinctness the monuments and headstones of the cemetery and seemed to set them dancing. It was not a night in which any credible witness was likely to be straying about a cemetery, so the three men who were there, digging into the grave of Henry Armstrong, felt reasonably secure.

Two of them were young students from a medical college a few miles away; the third was a gigantic negro known as Jess. For many years Jess had been employed about the cemetery as a man-of-all-work and it was his favourite pleasantry that he knew 'every soul in the place.' From the nature of what he was now doing it was inferable that the place was not so populous as its register may have shown it to be.

Outside the wall, at the part of the grounds farthest from the public road, were a horse and a light wagon, waiting.

The work of excavation was not difficult: the earth with which the grave had been loosely filled a few hours before offered little resistance and was soon thrown out. Removal of the casket from its box was less easy, but it was taken out, for it was a perquisite of Jess, who carefully unscrewed the cover and laid it aside, exposing the body in black trousers and white shirt. At that instant the air sprang to flame, a cracking shock of thunder shook the stunned world and Henry Armstrong tranquilly sat up. With inarticulate cries the men fled in terror, each in a different direction. For nothing on earth could two of them have been persuaded to return. But Jess was of another breed.

In the grey of the morning the two students, pallid and haggard from anxiety and with the terror of their adventure still beating tumultuously in their blood, met at the medical college.

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'You saw it?' cried one.

'God! yes -- what are we to do?'

They went around to the rear of the building, where they saw a horse, attached to a light wagon, hitched to a gatepost near the door of the dissecting-room. Mechanically they entered the room. On a bench in the obscurity sat the negro Jess. He rose, grinning, all eyes and teeth.

'I'm waiting for my pay,' he said.

Stretched naked on a long table lay the body of Henry Armstrong, the head defiled with blood and clay from a blow with a spade.

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Average: 5 (2 votes)

Comments

Submitted by admin on Mon, 11/14/2005 - 15:34

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I thought this story was really well done. I thought that Ambrose did a good job of painting a picture in your head without overdoing it. Ambrose did a real good job of making a surpirse ending; I didn’t expect Jess to do that. I thought he would be attacked or disappear or something. I don’t think the story should have fallen under the category of horror. It did have some elements of horror such as Henry being buried alive and then grave robbers digging him up, but the ending didn’t horrify me. The ending did just the opposite; I found it very amusing. I think this was more of a humourus story than a horror story.

Submitted by admin on Mon, 11/14/2005 - 15:37

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This story was not very good. It was kind of like a modern day Frankenstein. It also took a really long time to get to the action of the story. Then it lasted for about three lines. It was very dissapointing to myself as the reader. To have an ending that took about thirty seconds to read.

Submitted by admin on Tue, 02/14/2006 - 12:13

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What would be the real scary story here is if Mr. Bierce takes the advice of the posts here in his "future works". That would be terribly frightening considering he would have to come back from the dead to do so. He was a 19th century author. Know your authors, people.

Submitted by admin on Wed, 08/23/2006 - 03:34

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i thought this story was very boring, it had a lack of interest and you could have done better. terrible, and its under the wrong heading. i have some advice for you: keep up the work rate, though start fresh, and completely different, you have potential, now let it grow into something worth reading.

Submitted by admin on Thu, 10/26/2006 - 02:08

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This story was okay. I think that the language was
good, he wrote this very well, and carrying his
purpose out was pretty well executed. However, I
think that it was a bit gruesome, and I found
absolutely nothing funny about it. I have a feeling
he did not mean it to be so, and I think that he
meant for this story to be viewed as a horror story.
In that aspect, he did very well. Most horror stories
are mostly build up, because that always makes it
more dramatic at the brief ending. It isnt in my
tastes, but it is not a bad read all in all.

Submitted by admin on Mon, 01/22/2007 - 17:38

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its supposed to be a HORROR but there is nothing scary about! its very boring and there was too much description on things that were not important and the main part of the story was well too short compared to the very long, and boring,build up. :(
3.5/10

Submitted by admin on Mon, 03/19/2007 - 12:43

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Have any of you idiots trying to give advice to this aspiring writer taken the time to read his bio to see hes been dead for nearly a century? The guy was a classic writer. He wasnt a Poe or a Dickens, but he doesnt need advice from you. You might learn a thing though from him.

Submitted by admin on Fri, 08/24/2007 - 12:55

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This story seems undeveloped. Almost like it was just a warmup before a bigger story. It seemed to have no meaning to it just a bunch of lines.
Although he IS dead, I think this is a story that he did not do well. i tend to like Poes horror better

D10

Submitted by admin on Tue, 09/18/2007 - 10:26

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Like any good story it has a nice twist. It is not horror in the scary sense, but you have to imagine the fright of the three men as Henry sat upright. But then the turn of events, as in an opening sequence of Six Feet Under, the presence of Jess, with his goods, wanting his compensation. I loved the line about the cemetery not being a populous as one might think.

Submitted by admin on Thu, 09/20/2007 - 10:28

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I thought this story was an excuse for someone to become a writer. The story was predictable, mainly toward the end. Many people that left comments thought it was good, but i think otherwise. I didnt find the sotry scary or anything. If the story maybe had more info and a better climax or the if writer just spent time working on it, it probably would of been better.

Submitted by admin on Fri, 10/05/2007 - 10:22

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I thought this story was actually alright. The first paragraph wasent to exciting, but usually starts of storys are slow. The last paragraph grabbed my attention more than the first paragraph.It seemed like a short sample of a real story he wrote or somthing. He had a good story but it wasent scary, but usually a lot of these storys arent.

Submitted by admin on Wed, 11/07/2007 - 12:07

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I thought this story wasnt a bad story, but wasnt all that exciting. It had one suspense part to it, which even that wasnt all that good. They seemed to jump around from the graveyard, to the school, then suddenly back to the graveyard again like magic. I think that this story shouldnt even be considered horror because even a young kid wouldnt be the least bit scared by it. All in all it was a fair story, but it could be improved, although the description that the author used was pretty great.

Submitted by admin on Mon, 12/10/2007 - 09:38

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Well heres my opinion bout this wonderful story. I enjoyed it and just because there wasnt any bone chilling, some type of axe murdurer going on it doesnt mean its not a horror story. Anyways you all shouldnt criticizzzzz a person when they have wrote a story and you havent... Ive spoke my mind so...PEACE

Submitted by admin on Tue, 03/25/2008 - 14:31

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"He rose grinning, all eyes and teeth." Makes sense as it was probably dark and that was all you could see of him; him being a coloured an all....

The depiction of the negro in this story perhaps could be construed as problematic.

Submitted by admin on Tue, 05/13/2008 - 12:34

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The writing style was a bit different when this writer was alive. Back in the day people used to know what all those big, scary words meant. And really, how many of you are going to keep giving poor Mr. Bierce writing advice? HE IS DEAD. Besides, if you cant spell it, dont use it to criticize someone who can.

Submitted by admin on Thu, 08/28/2008 - 11:21

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Ol Jess was one practical man. Pay him to do a job,
and the job is done, whatever it takes. Doesnt even
charge extra for service above and beyond...

Ambrose Bierce just gets better with age -- not HIS,
but mine. Been reading him forever.

Submitted by admin on Thu, 09/18/2008 - 04:51

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A very good story which leaves space for the readers imagination.
I could not believe many of the comments - they seem to say more about the immaturity of the people commenting than they do about the writer.
Long words? Hello!!

Submitted by admin on Tue, 09/30/2008 - 04:48

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Big words? Gosh. Thats worrying because I didnt remember anything of the such.

However - and maybe this is a sign of the times and how writing has now progressed - the story is great and then completely crammed at the end. Its like it was a Ye Olde Writin Comp with a certain amount of words and a time limit and he ran out of both.

Hence, again, I am not following the lemmings simply because he is a known author.

Crammed, disappointing ending that detracted from the entire tale.

If this were a piece done now then this construction would be marked down.

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