Gravedigger

Michael

He watched the body tumble down the stairs and all he could think was that it was not near as entertaining as a slinky. Just as the girl’s head hit the concrete floor with a sickening crack that had a disturbing sense of finality �" if she hadn’t been dead before, she certainly was now �" he began his slow descent. He moved with a sort of bored stiffness, absorbing the shock of each step with his hips. Every few seconds his eyes �" a cinnamon shade of brown, as though blood had begun to press its way to the front of his iris �" would flicker around the room.

            Michael scooped up the girl, throwing the body over his shoulder as easily as one might lift a kitten. Moving as though he was holding absolutely nothing, he looked around the cellar with a vague sense of curiosity. There was little to see. The walls were nothing more than grey cinderblocks with hastily made shelves drilled into them, covered by excess contents from the pantry. A single, uncovered light bulb hung from the ceiling, but Michael made no move to turn it on. Enough sunlight shone through the grimy windows to make moving possible, if not simple.

            Using his teeth, Michael unwrapped the granola bar he’d snagged out of a box, pitching the foil off into a corner. He chewed meditatively, wrinkling his forehead. Cranberry. What kind of person was so fucked in the head that they put fruit in a kids’ snack? Despite his reservations, he continued to eat as though he were a starving child handed candy.

            Michael moved towards the end of the cellar. With the squeak of rusty hinges, he forced the small door open. Sunlight flooded his face and Michael was forced to close his eyes until they adjusted through the lids. He shifted uncomfortably and attempted to stumble forward but succeeded only in smacking his shin off a shovel.

            Realizing the source of his injury would probably come in handy, he bent to grab it. The girl’s body tumbled to the ground. Michael sighed at the inconvenience and glared at the crumpled form. Adjusting his grip on the shovel, he grabbed a handful of the body’s clothes and threw her carelessly over his arm.

            Her long hair tickled his neck and her feet banged against his chest whenever he moved, so Michael was glad to drop her unceremoniously at the foot of a tree a few feet into the woods that bordered the backyard. It took him only a few moments to dig a roughly rectangular hole that was a foot or so deep. Digging it to the equivalent of a normal grave would have been easy, but Michael didn’t have the patience. Besides, there was another grave he knew he’d have to be digging shortly.

            He returned his attention to the girl. In the moonlight, she looked like a broken doll. Her delicate features looked like a little girl’s, despite being marred with blood and now dirt. With the toe of his boot, he nudged her away from the roots and watched her fall into her shallow grave. While he didn’t smile, he did feel a sick sense of satisfaction at the sight of the helpless body tucked in on itself.

            Michael scattered a layer of leaves and other forest detritus over the disturbed earth of the newly filled grave. He was turning to slink away when a twig snapped nearby. His head snapped to locate the noise, his eyes flickering madly. Every muscle in his body tensed, ready to snap the neck of the intruding �" squirrel. It was just a squirrel. Michael was sorely tempted to kill it just to calm down, but he didn’t care to risk getting any more blood on himself. There was nothing more conspicuous than walking down the street after dark with blood smeared down the front of your shirt. While it had taken many years, he had finally learned this lesson.

            So, with the woods’ squirrel population remaining at the same level, Michael set out towards the road. He ducked around a young a boy who had the air of someone who was in trouble for not being home when the streetlights went on and strode quickly down the street. Glancing over his shoulder as he turned the corner, he broke into a sprint.

            Great wrought iron gates rose before him. They were soon joined by matching sections of fence, separated by crumbling columns of faded red brick. Suspended over the gates was a sign that read St. Thomas Cemetery. Even though he couldn’t make out the letters in the dark, Michael knew it was the right place. Hans had gone over the plan dozens of times, drawing maps, marking the location on proper maps, escorting him on visits…

            Fearing that the gates would be too squeaky to open without the neighbours hearing, Michael approached the nearest section of fence. He grabbed it and shook, gently at first and then as hard as he could. While it swayed slightly it didn’t snap in his hands and seemed relatively stable overall. After searching along the swirls of metal, Michael found a foothold and scaled the rattling fence as though it were no more than a foot off the ground.

            With footsteps that were hardly louder than a breath of wind, Michael wove through the dirt paths worn into the grass by the feet of hundreds of mourners. Every now and again, he would stretch out a hand and run his fingertips over the weathered headstones.

As he walked over the graves of long dead people, he thought back to the great number of people he had put in the ground over the years. Some of them had proper burials. Even more had received similar treatment to the girl, their corpses hidden in shallow graves where nobody but he knew they were.

The smell of dirt was overwhelming and he turned to see a freshly dug grave. It wasn’t Hans’ but the tools that had been used to make it were leaned against a nearby tree. The tombstones were a maze in that area, so it would have been impossible to get any proper machinery in. Michael selected a new looking shovel and set off again in search of Hans.

After several minutes of looking, he found the site. A newly engraved plaque read Hans J. McKellan. Michael smirked. McKellan? Hans was no more Scottish than Nelson Mandela.

The shovel sunk into the earth with a familiar swish and Michael set to work, pitching dirt over his shoulder to land over a metre away. He leapt into the hole as he dug, and soon enough he was able to jump down onto the casket where his friend was lying. He crouched at the head of the box, feeling around the edge for the seam. His nails caught and he pulled upwards, sliding his hands to the middle as nails popped so that the entire top would snap down the middle like a femur caught between two cars.

Hans glowered up at him, looking every inch the corpse he was supposed to be. Michael held out a hand and pulled his friend upright. While Hans brushed himself off, Michael jumped out of the grave, sending a cascade of earth back down when he landed on the edge.

“You’re late,” whined Hans.

Michael stiffened and threw a glance over his shoulder, suddenly conscious of the smear of dried blood on his sleeve. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a similar smudge over the rise of his cheek. He licked his fingers and scrubbed at the mark as Hans clambered out of his grave.

He looked at Hans evenly, checking for outsiders every few seconds. It wouldn’t be a good idea to be caught robbing a grave with the person who was supposed to be in it. “I got…distracted,” he admitted.

“Perfect,” snapped Hans. “You always get distracted. Always. What was it this time? They look at you the wrong way? Did they hit on you?” He threw his hands into the air exasperatedly, dropping them to his waist again before pivoting. His toe gouged a circle in the earth as he tried to calm down. Eventually he began tapping his fingernail against his teeth until his mind stopped reeling. “Who was it this time?” he demanded once he had enough control to open his mouth to speak without swearing.

“Nobody of any consequence.”