Some Things Should Stay Buried by David Calbert
Splinters slid into Andrew’s calloused palms as he drove the shovel deeper into the dirt. Loose clods and torn-up grass formed mountains around him, curled tree roots vibrating with the force of his work.
Andrew hunched in a hole almost four feet deep, battling against hard pack. Years had pressed the deeper layers into a clay shell. He warred with it. The shovel blade peeled back one layer at a time, the soil coming away like stale bread crust, maddeningly slow.
On his brow beads of sweat gleamed like worthless pearls in the moonlight. He’d already tossed aside his denim coat, and now he paused to pull the white cotton shirt over his head. He’d lost a lot of weight. The narrow joints of his body fit together like a poseable wooden mannequin. He’d been strip-varnished by his grief.
The shirt flew like a surrender flag, stained dark and tattooed with brown handprints. He had to finish this tonight. He’d already waited far too long.
Nessa’s earth clotted voice called out to him.
Drew, you left me! You left me to rot!
There was a hollow thwump as the shovel struck the lid. Andrew fell to his hands and knees, clawing at the cold ground, dirt jamming up under his nails and threatening to break them off at the cuticle.
She was so close…
A bright beam of light flooded the hole and a voice shouted, hoarse and adrenaline tight.
“Get on outta there!”
Andrew’s spine locked up as panic gripped him. He stood up slowly, his throbbing hands held up above his head. When his eye-line rose above the flashlight’s beam, Andrew saw a gray-haired man in a plaid shirt and jeans. There were dark smudges on the knees and a worn pair of work gloves stuffed under the belt.
“I already called the cops,” the caretaker said. He had a plain face, tan and leathery from working outside. White flakes of skin sloughed from a sunburnt nose the red of a cherry tomato. Andrew searched the man’s blue eyes, hoping to find mercy. All he saw was fear.
“Please,” Andrew said.
“What the hell are you doing?” the man asked. The flashlight lowered, splashing its light over the damage Andrew had caused. It lit up the path behind him. The irregular rows of half-moon shapes were cast into long, insane shadows. In the dark, you could hardly tell they were gravestones.
Andrew opened his mouth, then closed it again. He tried to think of a way to tell this man how he and Nessa had once been happy. How a thing broke through their bedroom window one night. A thing with dead eyes and a mouth like a black hole, yawning so wide it seemed to bend the light; a terrible event horizon not even souls could escape. How, after the horror, Andrew threw himself into researching what had taken his wife. How, a year later, he discovered that the thing had been carrying a contagion and that Nessa might not be resting in peace at all. How he began hearing her voice, night and day, calling to him, begging him.
Why did you leave me Drew?
Eventually, Andrew’s answer came in the form of his shovel, picked up and thrown like a javelin. The caretaker tried to jump aside, but he was too old, too slow. The blade glanced off the side of his head with a muffled sound and he fell over, his front half hanging over the lip of the disinterred grave. The flesh above the man’s right ear split open in a deep gash. His flashlight rolled out of a limp hand, and the light fell into the hole, shining off the moldy wooden lid.
Andrew panted, swaying on his feet, breath burning in his thin chest. His body felt near the tearing point, like a plastic bag pulled into warped translucence. He wanted to lay down, to let the ground cool his flushed face. But he would not allow himself to rest. Not yet.
Solemnly, he bent over and pulled the lid up. As it rose, Andrew realized that he hoped for putrescence. Had hoped for it all along. Decay would mean the voice in his head was a figment, a noise produced by the jagged pieces of his broken heart grating together. It would mean that Nessa was at rest. Knowing that, maybe he too could find some kind of peace.
The hinges gave a final shriek as the lid reached the end of its axis, allowing the flashlight’s beam to fall on an unblemished, moon-pallid figure. Nessa’s head cradled on the white satin pillow, her serene face looking the same as it had the day he’d lowered her into this hole.
Andrew reached out, fighting, and losing, a compulsion to touch her cheek. Red dripped onto her forehead. Looking up, Andrew saw blood pulsing from the wound in the caretaker’s head. It ran in a stream down into the grave and onto Nessa’s perfect face.
He watched as a spot landed on the corner of one full and rosy lip. He watched as her eyes popped open, like some internal power switch had been flipped on. They were dead, the color of white mold growing over spoiled meat. He watched as her mouth yawned impossibly wide, opening into an endless dark tunnel.
Nessa’s hands clamped over his arms, iron-strong and tight as vices, and Andrew felt a new hope flare up inside of him. He hoped that he would hear Nessa’s voice, not in his head, but out loud, coming from inside that black hole. A sign that she was still in there, waiting for him.
Andrew closed his eyes and hoped.
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