About The October Country

Ok, so basically, the October Country is a collection of short stories all individually creepy and haunting. So far I'm up to page 150 and my favorite short story so far has to be the second chapter. It's about this woman Marie and her husband Joseph. They're on a vacation to Mexico on the Day of the Dead. The chapter starts out with them visiting a Mexican graveyard. The gravekeeper shows them several bodies hung up without a grave since their family cannot pay the fee to bury them. Marie counts the bodies as Joseph talks to the gravekeeper. All the bodies have different emotions and expressions on them.
One of the bodies is one of a woman who had this condition which makes her seem dead. This time, her sisters thought that she was really dead and had her buried. They paid 20 pesos and left her in the graveyard. A year later, the gravekeeper lifted the cover of the grave and found what happened. Shortly after being buried, the woman had woken up and had beat, scratched, and clubbed with her fists at the cover of the coffin. However, this only used up her precious air and the woman later died of suffication. Her face of agony and fear is still imprinted on the rotting corpse.
It turns that the fee for a permanent bureal is 100 something pesos, apparently something that the people of the town cannot pay. Temporary bureal for a year is 20 pesos.
After visiting there, the couple goes into town for the festivities of the day. Joseph buys two candy skulls to give to his friends at home, he has Marie hold them. In a daze, Marie drops the bag the breaks the candy skulls. Joseph is a litle angry at first but they go to eat enchiladas. Still creeped out by the "mummies", Marie refuses to eat anything. Joseph eats all of the enchiladas, and still not satisfied, he takes out one of the broken skulls and starts to eat it as well, commenting on how sweet it was. Marie noticed the name written on the skull. The name was Marie.
The next day, the couple prepares to leave Mexico when the car doesn't start. Joseph take the car to a mechanic. The mechanic says that it will take them at least 3 days before the car can be driven. Now panicked and desperate to leave Mexico, Marie asks if the mechanic can just use one day. Joseph says that it is not possible. Back at the hotel that they were staying at again, Marie has nightmares of the graveyard and it's "mummies". Unable to sleep, Marie begs one thing of Joseph.
"Promise me, if anything -happens, if anything happens to me , you won't let me be buried here in the graveyard over those terrible catacombs! Promise me so I can sleep. I can sleep only if you'd say you wouldn't let me be put there. I don't want to be put there."
Joseph promises and gives a laugh, saying how ridicious it is. And as he says this, a trickle of blood runs from Marie's clenched lips, her breathing now fast and rapid. Marie finally goes to sleep...
The next day, Joseph goes home. He pets the seat next to him...
...which is empty...