Twice Buried, Once Shy

. . . tap, tap, tap . . .

He welcomed the soft earth when it became his grave, and when his flesh had rotted away, he thought he might be free, but no, his spirit was much stronger than the soft meat that animated his bones.

He vowed to dig his way out and get his revenge; he wasn't even sure why she chose to split his skull with that brick. He hadn't gotten far, before he realized he was impossibly wrapped in plastic—but his efforts had earned him little space to move his fingers. Now he could . . . tap, tap, tap . . . on the locket he had pulled from her neck; the locket with his picture and hers embedded in a golden heart.

She was gone now, he supposed, it must have been decades ago that she had buried him, and not even deep. From time to time he could hear the hikers coming through, and worse yet, he had heard her and her accomplice make love over his shallow grave the night they buried him.

. . . tap, tap, tap . . .

Lately, he heard new sounds, the sounds of machines, their grumbling voices prophesying—telling the tale of coming changes up above. Their voices so different from the quiet whispers of the rocks, the roots, and the earth itself. The earth had consoled him in those first days when he was bound—bound in the mud, the loam, the mire and the worms, the rocks as his bed. The earth revealed the burdens of immortality to him, as the shrews and moles burrowed through his bones.

. . . tap, tap, tap . . .

The machines would come, and the men would find him. He had promised himself it would be his secret: that wisps of his soul still hung on these bones. He wondered if they might pull him apart, piece by piece, and drop him in an evidence tray. Perhaps he would finally be free when his yellowed bones turned to dust in some dark drawer.

. . . tap, tap, tap . . .

The locket might lead them to her, he thinks, but to what end? She must be long buried too. Suddenly,he remembers her name: . . . Anna . . ..

. . . tap, tap, tap . . .

The machines are coming—he hears them grind into the earth—and for the first time in decades the dirt rests lightly on his chest. And they dig, and mumble their prophecy . . . and finally he is dumped into a pile of dirt, the plastic prevents his bones from scattering. A man notices he has found something unusual, and they are upon him with curious eyes, picking their teeth and smoking while they wait.

* * *

In the box, he has nothing to tap, and nothing to do. No loamy earth to tell him she'll hold him in her arms forever. Nothing. He sits for a decade on hard plastic, separated into dozens of pieces.

But finally . . .

They put him back in the ground, after all these years, snug in a new box. Some kind soul has given him the locket back. It is only hours before he realizes, he is not alone, and he laughs with his spirit breath spilling out of him as he realizes they have re-buried him next to Anna, in the graves they had bought together as man and wife.

. . . tap, tap, tap . . .

He can hear her frantic thoughts, the guilt, the anger. The earth does not console her, as it did him, oh no, on the contrary . . .

. . . tap, tap, tap . . .

"Anna," he whispers through the dirt, "Anna, I've been waiting so long, so long . . ."

And he whispers horrors to her, the horrors she'll face in the next century, and further still—for in their bond, fortified by murder, not even in death do they part . . .

THE END

Twice Buried, Once Shy has previously appeared at The Deepening and Macabe Cadaver