Grave Return by Andrew Kurtz

She'd wept for an hour after it slipped, thirty-two years of marriage swallowed by the drain's dark throat. Three days since they'd buried Gerald, her dear husband.

The basement flooded at midnight.

The smell hit her first. Ruptured bowel and cemetery mud.

Gerald stood chest-deep in black water, bloated to splitting. Thick ropes of dark blood unravelled from his abdomen, threading through the water like ink. His jaw hung loose, cheek peeled back to the molar. One eye socket wept something yellow.

The ring sat in his rotting palm.

She recognised the gesture. The same trembling offering from the altar.