GRAVEDIGGER

A Story by Danny Zil

You don't want this guy diggin your grave, way out in them dark woods.

GRAVEDIGGER

Just shovelled the last of the soil on the grave when the rain started. Came on real heavy, like. Kicked some rocks an branches over the spot then grabbed ma flashlight an took me under a big beech tree for shelter.

Just gone midnight. Darker ‘n hell out there. Had brought me a flask from the still. Cousin Otis is off tendin it now. Lit a smoke an sat down ‘gainst that big ole beech trunk. Heavy rain didn’t touch me none. Nipped off a hit from the flask an looked over at the grave.

That makes it number five by ma reckonin.

They’ll never catch me. Ah’m real careful, like. Known all these woods since Ah was a kid. Know just exactly where to hide those graves so nobody’ll ever find them.

Been a gravedigger all ma life, see. Diggin them six feeters for corpses. Bothered me at first. Then you get used to it. Then it’s just a job. Like a fella goin out to a store job or fact’ry work.

Then Ah became a corpse maself. Rich drunk b*****d mangled up mama an ma boys one nite drivin back from his rich man’s club. Nearly ripped the pick-up in half. B*****d walked away from it. Mama an the boys didn’t. Buried ‘em maself. Shoulda buried me too. Walkin corpse is all that Ah am now.

Just carried on workins. What else could Ah do? Then Ah got the idea. Overtime, some folks might call it. Only this was different. Unpaid overtime, more like.

Decided Ah’d surely change some of them rich dogs. Change them when they least expected it. When they thought everythin was goin fine. Just like Ah did afores mama an the boys were tore from me.

Was careful how Ah picked them. Watched them awhiles, like, waitin to move in when they was alone with nobody round. Lift one a coupla times a year in different towns all over the state. Use that stun gun cousin Otis gave me then bring the bodies back to these here woods.

Third to go down was that drunk b*****d that wiped out ma fam’ly. Saw him at his rich aunt’s funeral. Rich friends made sure he didn’t do no time. B*****d was drunk again. Hangin round with all them other rich dogs, all slav’rin over how much they’d got comin in the will.

Well it wasn’t money he had comin. It was me.

“Now we’re the same, boy,” Ah said to the him when Ah stood on his grave, way out in these dark woods. “Ah lost it all. An now, so have you.”

Only it weren’t that easy for him to be dyin. Or that pleasant.

Durin the day Ah buried dead folks, see. On special nites, Ah buried them when they was still alive. When they came to, they was in a nine feeter.

Cousin Otis helps with the graves an the bodies. He don’t like them rich dogs neither. Specially after they took the farm off him. Worked it all his life he did, man an boy.

Now he works on them.

He likes to fool around with the bodies afore we bury them. Ah gen’rally leaves him to it. Long as they’re goin down is all Ah cares. An they’re goin down for sure.

Just like her. Out there in the grave. Take her awhile to go Ah reckons. Still, she’s got that torch to see where she’ll be dyin. In the extra three feet at the bottom. With that solid wood board above her. An six feet of cold dark earth above that.