The Three Times We Buried Grandpa by Matt Bliss

The Three Times We Buried Grandpa by Matt Bliss

“My deepest apologies sir, but there’s been a mistake.”

“What do you mean a mistake?” I asked the man standing at my door.

“It appears there was an issue with the funds for the services,” his tone still somber as it was that morning.

“Well,” I said, “I’m sure my sister and I can gather up whatever money is needed and—”

“I’m sorry, but that won’t be necessary. There was another, sir, who did have the funds required, and the plot was given to him instead.”

I shook my head. “What do you mean? He’s already in the plot—we buried him this morning. How can you give it to someone else when—”

The man stepped aside to show the casket behind him on my driveway.

“YOU DUG HIM UP?”

“If you are able to acquire the funds necessary for any future plots, please give us a call. Until then, I’m terribly sorry for your loss.” He turned and circled a gloved finger in the air. The three muscly-armed men behind him nodded and slammed the rear of the truck shut before jumping inside.

“Wait!” I shouted as they pulled from the drive. “You can’t just leave him here!” But they were already gone.

I stopped at the edge of the casket and eyed my reflection its high-gloss finish.

Shit, I thought, Grandpa would be so pissed.

#

I honked the horn again, this time really laying on it.

“Nikki!” I yelled out the driver’s side window. “Get in the damn truck already!”

“No! I told you,” she glared at me from the doorway with hands on her hips, “I already did it once today. I’m not doing it again!”

“Do you have any idea what I had to go through just to get him in this stupid truck?”

“I don’t give a shit! It’s your problem—they left him at your house.”

“And he’s also your grandpa, and you’re my sister, so suck-it-up buttercup and get your ass in the truck. You’re helping me!”

She blew out a breath between pursed lips before slamming the door and climbing into the passenger seat.

“So,” she looked like she might punch me, “what’s the plan, smart guy?”

I stepped on the gas, spinning the tires on gravel until we got back on the road. “The plan is to haul ass to this other place, somewhere we can afford, and get him in the ground… again.”

“Okay… so why did you need me?”

“I need help moving him. That thing weighs a ton! Besides, I need you to look up other places on the way in case this spot doesn’t work out.”

“Why wouldn’t it work out?”

I took a corner a little too fast and flicked my eyes up to the mirror—he was still back there.

“I called around a bunch of places before I got you, and this was the only one I found that had a spot available. Unless you’re a billionaire or something, these days it’s almost impossible. But, there’s only one left and it’s first come first serve.”

She thumped her head against the window. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

I looked in the mirror again—half expecting to see the lid open and Grandpa’s dead gray hand reaching out. It would be just like Grandpa to climb out and tell us what a shit job we were doing.

“Why can’t we just torch him,” Nikki said, “like they do to everybody else now?”

“Grandpa left very specific—”

“Yeah… I know. I was just saying.”

A light turned red and I slammed on the brakes a little too hard. We both winced as the casket slid in the bed of the truck until slamming into the cab.

“I still don’t get why we’re doing this. Grandpa was a prick,” Nikki said.

“I know, but he was all we had. I sort of feel obligated to at least try.”

“We did try, and they sent him back. Tell me that’s not karma for all the crap he put us through growing up.”

The light turned green and I stepped on the gas. She had a point.

“The way I see it,” I said, “we do this one last thing, and then it’s done. We’ll have a clean conscious and he’ll still be dead.”

“My conscious is clean, screw him! Give it some time and I’m sure you’ll feel the same way.”

I looked back to the mirror and the casket behind me. I had no idea how I was supposed to feel.

#

“Sorry, we just sold the last spot,” the man said, looking more like a bouncer than a mortician.

“What? No, I just called and—”

My grip slipped and the casket fell to the ground with a resounding bang that somehow knocked the lid open. All of us looked at Grandpa’s frozen scowl—it wasn’t all that different from when he was alive.

Nikki slammed the lid shut with a forceful knee.

“Like I was saying,” the bouncer continued, “we sold the last plot only moments ago.” He looked down at the casket and back at me. “I’m terribly sorry for your loss.”

“Why do they keep saying that?” Nikki asked.

“I don’t know, just help me get him back in the truck.”

“We’re going to burn him now, right?”

“No, I promised him I’d do this. I have another idea.”

#

The dirt was soft and easy to dig into. Hell, it had been dug up and replaced twice at that point. Nikki and I kicked spade after spade into the soil and scooped it away.

“Is all this effort really worth it to you?” Nikki asked between the grunts and gasps of her shoveling.

“Yeah, but it’s not about him. I feel like I need the closure. It’s like the end of a chapter in a really, really bad book. I figure if I just do this one last thing, maybe I’ll be able to move on. Put that part of my life behind me.”

Nikki flung another shovelful over the edge. “I felt that way when I left home. I mean, that’s why I left in the first place. Being back here, now, It’s bringing it all back. By the way, your really bad book wasn’t half as bad as mine.”

“Oh please, you left. You have no idea of what I had to put up with after you ran out.” I wiped the sweat from my face with a grimy hand and looked at her. “I wish you would have taken me with you.”

Nikki stopped digging and looked away. “I’m sorry. I wanted to, but… I just couldn’t.”

“Well, it least you pissed him off good doing it.” I let out a brief laugh, “You shoulda seen it!”

We both stopped to smile for a moment.

“I missed you, little bro,” she said.

“You too sis.”

The next spade struck into the casket of the poor bastard who stole the spot. Relieved to be done digging, we didn’t bother to pull him out. Instead, we dragged Grandpa’s casket over until it dropped on top.

“Good enough for me,” I said and Nikki nodded approvingly. We started shoveling the dirt back on top, which only sucked a little less than digging it out.

“I hope he’s down there watching us right now,” Nikki said spitting into the hole.

“Frankly, I’m surprised he hasn’t come back from the dead to ‘discipline’ us for doing this yet.”

Just then—you know that part in movies where someone says, “at least it’s not raining,” then it rains? That’s what happened.

First, we heard the thumping.

I froze, watching the half-buried grave. The thumping grew louder. The dirt moved with something from below and the hinges creaked. I stepped back, watching in wide-eyed horror as Grandpa pulled himself from the grave.

“After everything I’ve done for you,” he said in a croaking breath, “and this is how you treat your grandfather?”

My heart jumped in my throat, choking me with each hurried beat. He crawled to me—hand over hand—dragging his soiled gray corpse.

“I knew you were good for nothin’ boy, like your no-good father who left you!”

The sight of him and his growling words paralyzed me. I was a child again, waiting to be punished.

He rose to his feet on twisted legs.

“I’ll fix you, boy. Don’t you worry, you’re coming with—”

The shovel came down edge first like a hatchet, splitting his head in two until stopping in his jaw. Nikki pulled at the handle. His dentures clattered against the metal spade as it released with a spray of dark matter.

Grandpa’s body fell limp and sagged to its knees. It wavered only a moment before slumping back into the grave.

Still in shock, I looked over to Nikki and she threw the shovel at me.

“You know what they say,” she said with a smile, “the third time’s a charm!”

—

Matt Bliss is a writer currently living in Las Vegas, Nevada while he slowly releases cosmic monsters on the unsuspecting public. He has contributed stories to various publications including Scare Street’s Night Terrors, Chimera from Lost Boys Press, and other published and forthcoming works. If you can’t find him haunting the used book section of your local thrift store, you can always find him on Twitter at @MattJBliss.