Grave Digger

Gary Tsusz loved playing in the dirt as a kid, plunging his hands into the soil and feeling the textures between his fingers, discovering creatures and creepy crawlies under rocks that would slither this way and that as he tried to pick them up. He loved when his mother would act disappointed in him for getting so dirty and had to clean out the grime under his fingernails. A burden-less child as most kids were and only too happy to be told to go outside and play; make-believe being a prerequisite of childhood at that time. 

So it was not a huge surprise when, as an adult, Gary found a job that suited his childlike desire to keep playing in the dirt: a burial ground custodian at the local cemetery. To the town folk of Sauquoit, he was the grave digger, and he loves his job.

Never an easy task, digging graves, but as the temperature drops day by day, the colder ground becomes and the more resistant the dirt becomes as if the earth refuses to take anymore bodies until it can digest the ones already in there. 

Most of the post-life bodies will go into the cooler or their cremated remains will go home with the family. Gary always thought of it as a bartering system although he didn’t know why. A restless brain in a mindless job. No wonder so many zombie movies take place here, he thinks to himself! 

Sometimes Gary would ask Felix MacArthur, the Funeral Manager, if he could sleep there. Felix, aging at a decent speed, lived on site and keeps a decent stockpile of alcohol and food which Gary would chip in for and enjoy. Occasionally they’d hang out as friends, but Felix was more closed off and Gary was uninteresting. Still, it was better to drink with someone than no one. And by the time Gary would finish this grave he would be too exhausted to walk home. This was becoming the case more and more. It was too cold to be walking and a warm bourbon was just what his aching bones would need later tonight. 

This evening is special as it’s the last body of the season. Leather gloves on, he digs his way down to the center of the earth, each layer changing in color and texture the deeper he goes, slamming the shovel into the earth, over and over, old and new scents waft in the air with the dust. He likes being the last personal touch, the final gift on this earth to everyone that died: his sweat, his blood. When the time comes that he can’t do that anymore, well, he didn’t really like thinking about that.

He was nearing four feet down and already exhausted and his back is hurting and the cold makes it worse. If he doesn’t hurry he won’t get out in time to watch whatever garbage Felix is watching and even though he won’t be invested he’ll still have to ask him a million questions about why so in so is pretending to be in love with other so and so. Love makes no sense.

The shovel bounces off something. Not a rock, metal on stone sounds harsh, grating to the ears. Maybe an old root from a tree no longer alive? The failing light makes it harder to see in front of him so he climbs up his ladder a little ways and flips on his lantern, grabs a small, well-used garden trowel to poke around and see if he can uproot the problem. He feels for an edge of the root but there isn’t one. He jams the trowel into the ground and it goes right through, disappearing. Gary, not expecting this accidentally let go of the trowel and hears the thump of it stopping not far down.

Pulling the lantern closer he sees a dark hole in the soil caused by the trowel and dirt is slowly trickling in. 

“What…” Gary takes his gloves off and touches the soil around the hole and runs his fingers along the new edge.

If you asked him at the time he wouldn’t have had a good answer as to why he put his hand in the hole. Or why he didn’t put his gloves back on to do it. He would probably think it’s his personal connection to the earth that drove him to it. But in all reality he did it because even at forty-nine years old, he’s still a child. 

As his face gets closer to the opening he recoils in disgust. There is a terrible smell emanating from within. He gags as he imagines the microscopic particle entering his nostrils and resting in his lungs. An overactive imagination will convince him he’s going to die from whatever he just inhaled. The voice of reason typically comes later. But his eyes do begin to dilate slightly and a calm washes over.

Used to the smell now, he reaches a finger into the darker spot of the ground, his hand not really sure what he expects to find. When you dig in the earth, you expect earth, not empty pockets. His fingers pinch the ends and roll pieces of dirt and wood around. The dirt is wet, almost muddy. Unconsciously he dips his hand down to the wrist inside the hold. The light outside is so faint that his hand looks like it’s been lopped off. He feels something on his finger, right above his knuckle. He turns his hand around to better grab at whatever it is. Curiosity and cats and whatnot. 

He finally grasps the object but it’s stuck on something. A forceful yank, relieves the object from it’s obstruction but as he yanks his hand back to see what he was holding his hand catches the edges of the hole and scrapes his knuckle.

Pain. Not horrible pain, but a little pool of blood bubbles up. He pays it no mind and instead focuses on the broken chain in his hand which holds a flat stone about an inch and a half wide and a half inch tall. On one side is a name Anna carved ornately. He turns it over and etched into the other side is one more word: Witch.

He grabs the lantern quickly and holds it near to the hole and puts his face close to it. His eyes adjust and he sees two vacant eye sockets looking at him from an upside down skeleton. 

Gary falls back and scrambles to the wall of the grave. “Felix!” He shouts but there is no answer. He shouts it one more time but Felix is inside the house, watching tv. 

Slowly he crawls back on his knees to the hole of what he now realizes is the head of a casket. The rest of it still firmly entombed in the earth facing away from him.

He sees near the hole something he had accidentally brought out when he yanked his hand. There’s a piece of paper. 

The fear of accidentally exhumed a body, especially one that shouldn’t be here lingers. The fear of exhuming a witch though…

What will I tell Felix? Will he think I messed up? That I dug up someone whose family will sue us. Or did I discover something amazing and he’ll try to steal the glory and fame I deserve for toiling all day?

He stares at the paper for what seems like an eternity, unblinking.

“Gary.” He hears, whispering from everywhere and nowhere. He looks around and sees nothing. 

“Hello” he replies to the air. But the air isn’t listening. Moments go by and he realizes it’s dark and he’s scared and hungry and now making shit up in his head. He reaches for the paper.

It’s old and falling apart. Careful not to damage it as he frees it from the ground. The paper is folded in fourths. Unfolding it causes pieces of it to flake off and he curses himself for having such callused hands. Finally he gets it open and pulls the lantern close. 

A sketch of a beautiful woman with x’s scratched across both of her eyes. With his free hand he traces the outline of her face as if to caress her. Unreadable wording beneath her face draws his gaze. He brings it close to his face to see more clearly but what he believed was a tiny scratch on his knuckle is now covered in blood. His eyes go wide and blood is gushing, saturating the ancient paper and the ground. That putrid smell again bursts from the ground and he runs straight for the ladder, missing his footing a few times and trying not to touch his hand to anything. Atop the grave he runs towards the funeral home. He burst through the front door.

“Felix!” He yells. “Felix I got an emergency!” His hand covered in blood and oozing puss and the pain causing drool to spill out of his mouth when he shouts.

Felix comes out of the living room and stops at the site of Gary. “What is it,Gary? Are you okay?” His voice is always calm and sounds like an old man giving advice to a toddler.

“I’m bleeding bad. Help.” Gary pleads.

“Where?” Felix asks. 

Gary, clutching his bloody hand with his other holds it up to show Felix the gore. 

Felix looks at it and then to the ashen face of Gary who is looking away. 

“This isn’t funny Gary.” He says dismissively to Gary. “I was comfortable.”

“Comfortable? But my hand…” Gary says, looking at it now and is stunned into silence. 

“…is fine.” Felix says. “There’s nothing…” Felix grabs his hand and turns it this way and that. “…nothing I can see. Is that a, a sliver?”

“The blood…” Gary looks at his hand and there’s nothing but a tiny bump, no bigger than a mosquito bite. “There was blood everywhere.” His voice trails off as he turns his hand in front of his face, as if the blood may have been hiding.

“I think it’s time to call it a night, Gary. Go warm up.”

“Warm up? Warm…” Gary tears his eyes away from his hand to look at Felix. Felix’s face, so expressive in his dissatisfaction a moment ago, has been replaced by a desiccated visage caked in grime and blood. Gary’s words fail him and terror washes over his eyes. His lips pull back in a grimace and he screams.

“What?” Felix asks.

“No!” Gary final got it out before running back into the living room and locking the door.

“What has…” Felix walks to the door and tries to open it, unsuccessfully and then knocks. “…has gotten into you?” He tries in vain to open it a few more times. “Gary this isn’t funny anymore.”

Gary is pacing. He looks down at his hand. The bump that was gushing blood one moment is no more than the size of a mosquito bite. The itch he scratches as if trying to get the blood to show itself again. 

He squints down at the mark and sees what does in fact looks like a sliver. With his hand as calm as he can make it he tries to push the sliver out with his thumbnail but before he can make any progress the sliver moves deeper, tunneling on the back of his hand.

Scared and without thought he bites down on the sliver but gags the moment he does. The smell is atrocious, as if his hand were rapidly decomposing. 

A breathy-whisper of a voice pushes into his ears, past the rush of blood creating a cacophony of horrible swishes with each pump of his heart. “Gary.” It says softly. “Help.” 

At the window he scans across the the field of graves softly lit by a fingernail of a moon. Steam rises from the ground, a sight not unfamiliar to Gary but eerie all the same. Zeroing in on the open lot he spent all day digging, a lantern working as a lighthouse for souls pulls his eyes. 

Here is where he can help. He can free Anna. 

“Gary this is crazy” Felix’s voice shouts through the door while pounding on it.

Her words caress his mind. 

He didn’t know Anna but knew he had to save her. That only he could.

“I’m getting the keys, Gary.” Felix says as he walks away. “Locking me out of my own home” he mutters as he goes but Gary doesn’t hear him. He keeps his eyes on the window as his hand unlatches and slides it open. 

Racing towards his newly dug grave he slides towards the opening as if sliding into second base. His feet dip over the side and he lands with a thud on the dirt.

“I’m here” he pants. “I’m here. I’ve got you.” He breathes heavily, not used to running.

Picking up the shovel he had left, starts slamming the point into the exposed coffin. Over and over until the ancient casket had been decimated. Sitting there was the locket he had initially recovered. He picked it up and kissed it before placing it in his pocket. 

Now the hard part; removing her from this not-so-shallow grave. He placed his hand inside searching for the shoulders to grab and pull, but she was so light that when he pulled he felt like he was pulling air. 

Inch by inch he began to see her, not as a skeleton, she was Anna, flesh and blood. Her beautiful hair fell across his hands, he face, immaculate. She may have just died today. She may not be dead at all he thinks! 

“Anna?” He says to her sleeping eyes that flutter under his breath. 

She draws a breath, shallow, and says in the faintest voice “Fire.” Before sleeping once again.

Gary stands up, holding her in his arms and very carefully ascends the ladder and begins walking to a building separate from the funeral home. “I will save you.” 

Inside the funeral home, Felix has found his keys and unlocks the door to his living room and was confused when he didn’t see Gary. A breeze blows through the open window, the blinds that destroyed from Gary squeezing through. Out in the distance of the graveyard Felix eyes a distraught figure running towards the crematorium with his arms curled as if holding someone. Felix, blames the scotch from earlier in the evening and shakes his head.

The crematorium resembles an ancient pizza oven suffering from neglect. The gas and fire of the oven have been on all day, and it is his job to turn it off at night, but tonight he’s been distracted. 

Gently he places her sleeping body on the table and he holds onto her hand like a loved one at the side of a hospital bed, waiting for the medicine of the fire to work its magic. He feels the ridges of her fingerprints on his, movement in his hand. 

A knock on the door. “What are you doing in there?” Felix shouts through the wood. He looks through a crack in the aging doors where the edge meets the frame. Squinting, he can see Gary standing over the metal table that slides into the fire. He’s watching Gary talk to the table as if he were talking to someone. Felix yanks and pulls at the door frantically but unable to budge it. 

Gary point of view shifts. He’s now watching all of this from his own private viewing room in his head. He can see it all happening in real time but the actions of his body are not his to command anymore. He is a spectator, along for the ride. He watches as he climbs onto the table and cries for someone who isn’t there.

He doesn’t remember getting on the table. He pulls and pulls but his head doesn’t budge. The tender feeling for Anna is gone and he feels two heartbeats out of sync drumming and pulling. It’s like being trapped in a room and trying to remain calm which just makes the anxiety worse. He sees himself stuck in her coffin and panics silently and now all he can feel is the pain in his hand from the splinter.

His mind now races around hers, swishing around memories like soap in water and bubbles. But her memories are all horrible. The last of which is her burial in an unmarked grave. Her picture with a list of crimes is put in with her. She was still alive. She deserved to be buried alive. He watches someone scratch out her eyes on the paper before someone actually cuts out her eyes. 

He feels the first flames lick his head as he was slowly—so slowly slid into the oven by an unknown force. 

Anna appears above him contorting his own mouth into a smile. The actual, physical pain is there but he is trapped as if given half of the anesthesia at a hospital before surgery. He screams in his head but it gives no relief. The pain she causes cannot be measured as his flesh bubbles and pops. His body slides in completely to this womb of fire and his eyes turn to melted jelly and burst, but his view was never from his eyes so he is forced to watch his own death and his last thought before this “show” cuts off is “I want my mother.”

Helpless to do anything but watch and weep in the silence, Felix sees before him a textureless woman step into being, a shapely shadow coming to life. She moves with grace in her lack of modesty as she moves to the oven to see Gary to hear his last scream which gives her complete form. She admires her hands and makes a small gesture with her fingers and the double doors open, exposing Felix still bend over from where he stood.