This is Jacob Chip.

He worked as a labourer in the American town of Conquest.

In 1863, at the age of 61, he died. The Official Record lists the cause of death as a “Nightmare or Fit”.

But he actually died peacefully in his sleep. The nightmare began when he awoke from death with a mindless hunger for human flesh.

His bunkmates were all youthful men, and they managed to subdue him without harm to themselves until a doctor could be called. Jacob, for his part, thrashed and gnashed and made it very difficult for the doctor to examine him. When the doctor finally managed to hold his stethoscope to Jacob’s cold chest- he heard rattling, strained breathing, but felt no pulse.

The doctor felt his own pulse in his throat as he realized that the struggling man under his fingertips had died some time ago.

He had heard rumours of this, outbreaks in the diseased, cramped quarters of boats heading for America- Plague Ships that had officially “Resorted To Cannibalism.”

More recently, in the fetid combat of the civil war, strange talk of “an animated rigor mortis” and “Death Fits” or a “Possessive Fever”.

He never believed it was real.

He had the young men drive a railroad spike into Jacobs mouth and out the back of his skull. Jacobs nightmare ended, but they also drove a wooden spike through his unbeating heart for good measure, and then burned his body while reading from the bible.

Jacob doesn’t know that any of this happened. He went to sleep and morning found him watching the sunrise from orbit. Jacob had never seen anything more beautiful, and he knew right away that he was dead.

He remembers none of his nightmare.

Which is probably for the best.