The Horror in the Burying-Ground

In the fading New England village of Stillwater, the dead are supposed to lie quietly. But when a violent drunk collapses and is mistakenly declared dead, and an undertaker experimenting with strange embalming fluids meets the same fate, the earth refuses to keep their secrets buried.

At the heart of it all is Sophie Sprague—fearful, isolated, and trapped beneath the shadow of her brutal brother Tom and the unwanted attentions of Henry Thorndike, the town’s unsettling undertaker. When both men are laid to rest in a hurried double funeral, their passing stirs whispers through the town. Henry’s dying plea—“I am not dead… do not bury me!”—is brushed aside. But that night, Sophie hears voices rising faintly from the burying-ground, voices that call her by name… voices that accuse.

Meanwhile, Johnny Dow, the simple-minded boy who assisted Henry, roams the graveyard claiming the dead are trying to speak—and that they are not done with Sophie.

Written by Hazel Heald and H. P. Lovecraft, The Horror in the Burying-Ground is a chilling tale of guilt, rumor, and premature burial—where the line between conscience and the supernatural blurs, and the past refuses to stay underground.

Narrated with atmospheric tension by Phil Thompson, this classic short horror story delivers creeping dread the way only early 20th-century New England terror can.