Last summer, I went on an archeological dig an hour's drive away, one of the first controversial digs of the old Iowan Indian burial mounds. In one particular spot of mud, I fished into it with my hand and pulled out what looked like a gold coin.

What I was supposed to do was hand over any findings to the group leader, but I decided to pocket it for myself.

The rest of the dig went quite well; we found a few arrow heads and bits and pieces of Indian corpse, but apart from that, nothing especially valuable was officially found. Upon returning home, I phoned the head of the local museum, and found that he would buy the coin off of me for a few thousand dollars. Not much, but still worth stealing. He said I could swing by the museum at 8:00 sharp, tomorrow morning.

Hanging up, I leaned back into the recliner and grabbed the remote. The TV comes to life, and the sounds of the usual raunchy late night comedy echo in my basement apartment.

But tonight, I feel like watching something else, so I change the channel.

This time, an overwhelming atmosphere of ferocity comes down, and the monitor displays the mutilated face of a man long dead; a man still walking the earth through a sheer willpower more deep than death itself.

All this, I get from a single moment of staring into the lifeless, angry face on the screen.

"Return the coin," it says with an eerie, crackling voice. The lights flicker, and an old glass of milk falls from the table, shattering across the floor. "or heed the curse."

"What a stupid show," I say as I turn off the TV.

I wake with a start in the chair. I'm no longer leaned back, and more objects have fallen off of their ledges. Must have been a rat. After cleaning up the mess, I quickly change clothes and help myself to a cup of coffee, arriving at the museum at exactly 8:00.

"Curse? What a stupid show." My rotting, red hand wraps around the brass handle of the door, a finger falling off as I turn it. "Mister Burm?" I call out, "I have the coin!"