A Good and Useful Hurt

by Aric Davis

  The shopkeeper unlocked the case and took out a closed silver knife. He passed it to Mike. “Go ahead and fold ’er open.”

  Mike used the hole in the blade to push it open with his thumb. The knife snapped to attention. The blade curved slightly toward the tip, and the back inch of the blade had deeply grooved serrations.

  “How much?”

  “Seventy.”

  “That’ll be fine.”

  “You want the box?”

  “No. I’ll be alright without.”

  Mike could hear the south in his voice now; he was slipping back quickly. Was that normal or just another unintelligible part of the trip? The whole thing felt like delirium.

  “Well, with your trenchin’ shovel, knife, and matches, you’ll be looking at $85.60, tax included.”

  Mike took his wallet from his jeans and slid over five twenties. That left him with just two more, plus the change. Deep water for being out of state, but it didn’t concern him in the least. Things would either work out or they wouldn’t, and he didn’t give much of a damn either way. The shopkeeper handed him his change. Mike put the bills back in his wallet and the change in his pocket. The knife went in his pocket as well, the matches in the backpack with the paper and granola bars, and the shovel over his shoulder.

  “You stay safe out there, fella.”

  “I will, thank you.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Mike left the store to the fully risen sun. The weather was already turning hot, and he lamented the need to wear the sweatshirt everywhere. It seemed the only option if he were to retain any kind of anonymity. This was a small town, and word would travel fast. The death of one who had left would be the talk at the water cooler or farmer’s market for a while, and a stranger’s appearance, especially a stranger with some of the same proclivities for decoration as the recently deceased, would seem a bit too odd of a coincidence.

  Mike formally passed into Mount Olive at about noon. He’d known he was getting close because the speed limit had dwindled to twenty-five miles an hour, and when he saw the stoplight he knew he’d hit the epicenter. There were three options: continue ahead, or turn left or right. Asking directions seemed too much of a risk; he’d already seen more than one set of blinds part as he walked past houses that looked unoccupied. He put his hands on his hips, thought for a minute, and went right.

  The shovel was wearing a groove in his right shoulder when he turned around after about three miles. What town there’d ever been there had dried up. He spun back, this time walking straight through the intersection in what would have been a left turn on his first approach. That one took longer to die off, but it did, without offering up what he was looking for. The sun was starting to fall, and he’d drunk all the water and eaten two more granola bars. He was dog-tired when he got back to the intersection.

  He took the last path and almost gave up after a mile. The town petered off even more quickly than it had traveling the other two directions, but he continued, and a mile or so later it paid off. The houses, always sparse and spread out, tightened up. He was across the road when he spotted the wrought iron fence. He knew what it surrounded immediately. Such things have only one use. This one was no different.

  He slept for a few hours, hidden about fifteen feet from the road amongst the trees. It was an easy sleep to fall into, but it was not intentional.

  When he woke, the world was black. Mike had forgotten about true dark; city living had taken that away from his memory. Now he remembered all about it. He scrambled out of the trees as quickly and safely as he could, but he still managed to scratch his hand pretty well on a broken branch.

  There was no more artificial light by the road than there’d been in the trees, but here the moon provided some illumination. He put the shovel on his shoulder, ignored the ache from his legs as best he was able, and ran across the road.

  The cemetery was small, and it only took about five minutes to find the loose earth with no marker. There were no flowers, either, and Mike thought that was unfair. Deb had enjoyed flowers. Mike ran his hands over the newly turned sod and began stacking the chunks of replaced grass next to the grave. When they’d all been moved and piled neatly, Mike looked at the shovel. He turned his head to the road and then to the sky. With nothing on this earth to lose, he began to dig.

  The dirt came out easily. He piled it on the side of the hole opposite the sod, and he was happy to see that bits of clay and dirt littered the ground around it already. Maybe no one would notice his visit. The moon seemed to brighten as he worked, until it was almost a giant torch set in the sky. He knew it was just his eyes adjusting, but it was still appreciated. The air was warm enough, even at night, to feel the dirt cooling as he got deeper. Finally he was in the hole, digging up and out.

  Mike thought about a lot of things while he worked, mostly about Deb, but also about Sid, Lamar, and Becky. He thought about Jack and wondered what his old mentor would have to say about seeing his prodigy in the act of disinterring his lover’s body. Mike wasn’t totally sure that Jack would have approved, but he thought it was a pretty good bet he would’ve at least understood. Jack had known that magic could still exist, he had said as much all the time, and what better attitude to have for one who lives by art? Jack believed in such things because he was the magician to thousands of sailors. They came to him fresh-faced boys just out of boot, and they left feeling like a bit more of a man, a man who could make his own decisions regarding such things.

  Mike dug and dug and dug. The hole grew around him, and Mike descended slowly into the earth past his ankles, his knees, and finally his shoulders. He pulled dirt out faster and faster as he worked, utterly unaware of the time, but cognizant that it would be finite, and how awful would it be to get this far only to fail? He fought the earth like a pugilist firing fists in the championship rounds of a title fight. He battled the blisters and his back and the dirt and the clay. His body was screaming, wet with sweat, muddy earth everywhere, dirt in his shoes and his hair, and then:

  Tock.

  Mike felt the shovel collide with something, and he dragged it across the surface. He was there. Exhaustion caught up to him then, but he shrugged off its thick waves and resumed clearing the coffin. When it was as bare as he could get it, he clambered with difficulty out of the hole. He grabbed the backpack and slid back in. Dirt, too much, came in with him, and he removed it again.

  If he’d had a hammer it would have gone easier, but he hadn’t thought that far. He hadn’t thought about this part at all, about what he’d do if there was a lead or cement lining over the coffin, or about family mausoleums, or whether or not anyone else had died in Mount Olive recently. Mike pushed it away as best he could and used the shovel to crack open the coffin. The wood was cheap, Mike figured pine, and it parted without difficulty. Beneath the wood was a bag.

  Mike used the knife to cut open the bag. He did it without thinking, because he knew if he thought, he wouldn’t have done it. He spread the bag’s plastic with filthy fingers that rained dirt onto its contents. He twisted his shoulder to allow the descending moon’s light into the hole, the coffin, and the bag. It was Deb.

  She looked awful. Mike knew this was how it would be, but to him she was still beautiful, even through the awfulness. Someone had removed all of her piercings, even the two small dermal anchors from her forehead. Her face was covered in thick pancake makeup, and her dress was high enough in the neck to cover the tattoos there. She was Deb but she wasn’t, at least not after being buried in a way that was so foreign to how she’d lived. For a time unaware of it himself, Mike began to weep.

  He talked to her while he worked, saying anything he could to keep his mind off of the task at hand. He freed her left arm; it felt altogether too light and whippy. Her hand was covered in a small white glove. He tore the glove free and laid it on her chest. Mike unfolded the knife and said, “Deb, I’m so sorry.”

  The weeping was wracking him, and his back spasmed with each cough. His hands we
re steady, though, even if the rest of him wasn’t. He cut into her finger, the ring finger of her left hand, and realized after the first incision that he would have to joint the bone with the tip of the knife as though he were carving a bird. When it was done, he dumped out some of the matches, put the finger in the box, and then the box and knife back in the backpack. He threw the backpack up first and then the shovel. He folded the bag back together and then unfolded it again. Mike kissed her on the lips and patted her forehead. He closed the bag and then the coffin as best he was able.

  It took three tries, but he managed to get out of the hole by kicking his feet into the dirt wall. As he filled it in, morning was beginning to chase the night. There was no traffic.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  Mike woke where he’d slept the night before. He was close enough to the tree line to see the cemetery, and though he saw no one, he moved back further into the woods. His back had more to do with the waking than the sun; it was screaming at him, and his arms weren’t much better. He ate the last granola bar and walked deeper into the wilderness.

  He saw no life, save for flora and the occasional bird, but the sounds of the forest were all about him. He would stop on occasion to pick up any substantial fallen lumber, keeping his eyes peeled for what he’d need to get a fire going. When he saw the small circle of blackened rocks, he took it as a sign and dropped the armful of sticks next to it. He wandered all around it, finding more branches, some as thick as his arm and taller than him. When the small pit was as full as he could hope to get it, he knelt next to it and began twisting the pages that Becky had printed for him, dropping them amidst the logs.

  Mike slowly opened the box of matches and saw the finger, but he was not repulsed as he’d been scared he would be. It was nothing more than a part of what he was doing. He struck two of the matches alight on the side of the box, and when they flamed up, he placed them under some of the papers. Within just a few minutes the larger pieces started to take. Next, Mike knocked the remaining dirt from the shovel. The smoke from the fire was acrid, and he thought again of water, but he pushed it from his mind. He put Deb’s finger on the blade of the shovel and extended it over the fire.

  It smelled at first, sour against the sweet odor of the burning wood. Mike watched the finger slowly blacken, sitting next to it with his legs crossed and moving the shovel as the flames grew and waned beneath it. The finger curled, almost as though Deb had been making a fist, and soon the blackened flesh began to retract from the bone.

  It took almost two hours for the burning flesh to begin to turn to ash and separate. First the tip of it fell off as the bones, flesh, and cartilage lost their connections. The skin flattened and burned, leaving behind the charred bones and tendons.

  Mike had to look for wood three more times to keep the blaze going. He managed not to sleep, but his body was begging for it. There was no food, no water, and nothing to do but gather wood and wait. Finally, at dusk, Mike pulled the shovel from the fire. The handle was ruined from the heat, and Mike was scared the weight of the spade would send the ash and bones scattering into the fire. He set the shovel on the earth and stared at the black and gray ashes and the three small and blackened bones.

  Mike took the small case he’d brought with him in the backpack along with the knife over to the shovel. He opened the little plastic box and took a plastic-lined towel from it. Somewhere in the distance a dog cried to the moon. Using the knife, Mike scraped ashes onto the towel, and then he opened one of the little bottles of ink he’d brought with him. He slowly poured a bit of the ashes into the little bottle of ink. The rest of the ash and the bones he scraped into a much larger bottle, which he returned immediately to the case. Next, he tore open a small tube of ointment and squeezed it onto another plastic-lined towel. He set that towel on his lap and then pushed one of the small ink cups into the ointment to steady it. He shook the small bottle with ashes and ink, and then squeezed ink into the cup. Last, he took the liner needle from the case and broke it free from its sterilization bag.

  Mike had never wanted tattoos on his hands or neck. Such artwork could be far too alienating, in his opinion, and it was an opinion that had been shared by his mentor. In fact, the entirety of this trip would have been impossible without the ability to pass incognito. Nonetheless, he used the needle dipped in the ink to stipple shade a small heart onto the webbing of his left hand, between his index finger and thumb.

  The design took shape slowly, first just a few loose dots and then building to looking almost as though he’d done it with a tattoo machine. It wasn’t as crisp, but it was right.

  He took a moment to admire his handiwork and then repacked the backpack. He left the shovel, but took the knife and tattoo equipment with him. Delirious from the work of digging and everything else, it was still time to leave, and that was just fine with Mike. He walked back to the road. His back was kinked and his body sore all over. His throat ached for water and his stomach was in revolt for food, but just looking at the little tattoo made Mike feel better. Not as good as seeing Deb again would soon feel—not even close to that—but the tattoo still made him feel better.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  That had been sweet. There was just no other way to describe it. The tattooed bitch had been some serious action, and even though there was no need to go find another, Phil was ready for the sheer joy of it, ready for Shawna and the baby. Even a week later the tattooed cunt was a pleasant memory, a solid, good swirl of pleasure mixed with pain. She had moaned under him, he’d heard it! There was no denying that. He had made her enjoy being fucked while she died.

  That, Phil figured, was just how perverted people like that were, these sickos who had a bunch of that shit all over them. They just liked the pain—they loved it, even when they were getting what they deserved. It was pretty fucking unbelievable. He’d raped her every which way to Sunday, and like they’d said in the frat, no holes barred, and the slut, the tattooed bitch, had loved every second of it.

  She was a fun party in the dreams, too; the shit was almost indescribable. Still, he was excited for the next project.

  The tattooed bitch hadn’t even been the target. Some white trash blonde had turned into the goal after the bullshit at the house, but when he’d seen that decorated slut, he knew he had to have her.

  He’d waited in the Ford, ready to follow her, but when the blonde cooze and the nigger both left in cars, the tattooed bitch just trotted up a circular staircase to an apartment over the little AIDS vending service they were running. This was going to be easy, he thought. And it was.

  Phil grabbed the truck keys off of the counter and left the house. Shawna and her little brat might not be there, but it didn’t mean he couldn’t hang out there. It would still be a kick to walk around, even if they weren’t home.

  The last two had been random, and that had been fun, but this was going to be fun in a whole new way, a new adventure, and something the news folks were going to have a field day with. It was time to change things up. Phil drove to Shawna’s house, parked the truck a block away like usual, and walked to it.

  He let himself in through the sliding back door like he always did, lifting it to disengage the shoddy protection the lock provided. He walked through the kitchen smelling the ghosts of them. Phil wandered into the bedroom, still exactly how it had been when he’d left it the last time. A part of him wished he could be here waiting when they got back, but it just wouldn’t be safe—far better to come to them at night when any eager parent or family friend helping them get settled would have long since departed.

  Phil took notice of a framed photograph on the nightstand, Shawna, Tasha, and two white-hairs, probably Shawna’s parents. He gave it a look, smiled, and set the photo down. Tough times coming for you guys.

  Walking through the house was a turn on, even without them. Phil could feel himself growing in his pants as he walked through the baby’s room. He’d never messed with a kid, and didn’t plan to this time, but who knew? The idea o
f leaving the kid alive was more appealing, but his baser instincts could take over at any time. The erection tugging at his jeans, Phil began to unbuckle his jeans as he went back to get the picture. It would be as good a spot as any.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  The bus trip back was faster, but the bus was fuller than it had been on the way there. Mike had to sit next to a young goth kid dressed all in black with black eyeliner. Mike didn’t think the boy to be much older than eighteen, if he was even that. A half an hour into the trip and with his stomach finally sated with food and drink, Mike thought he might actually be able to fall asleep. It wasn’t to be; the kid wanted to talk.

  “So where you headed, man?”

  “Grand Rapids.”

  The kid blinked; he had no idea what Mike was talking about.

  “In Michigan. Where are you going?”

  “Chicago. My cousin’s gonna let me stay with him. Should be pretty awesome.”

  “Cool.”

  Mike went to turn away, but the kid spoke again. “Is that a new tattoo on your hand?”

  Again Mike thought about how he’d always felt about hand tattoos, and how Jack had always spoken of them. They just revealed too much to people you didn’t need knowing it.

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s pretty cool. When I get to Chicago, my cousin’s gonna hook me up with his buddy who tats.”

  “Does he work in a shop?”

  “No, he does ’em in his kitchen. My cousin says he’s awesome.”

  That was when Mike strongly considered telling the kid to find another seat. This was exactly the kind of assholery people who just didn’t get it always wanted to talk about, usually even if they knew you tattooed. Hell, sometimes in the studio, while they bitched about how high your prices were. Instead, though, something seemed to insist to Mike that he do the opposite. In fact, the wrong words altogether fell from his mouth. “What’s your name?”