by John Everson
When he returned, he used the shovel to dig a shallow hole near the place where the ground was still streaked with glistening…blood? Pus? Gut slime? Whatever it was, the flies were loving it. He piled a small mound of earth to one side and then used the shovel to skim off the top of the ground where the intestines had lain. He dropped it into the hole, shovelful by shovelful, until it appeared that the area was clear of anything but dry sandy earth. Satisfied, he slammed the shovel into the ground in the center of the area, right about where the heart had been.
Instead of the shovel lodging in the earth and standing upright on its own, there was an odd cracking sound beneath the spade, and the shovel suddenly dropped a couple feet down below the surface.
“What the hell?” Mike said. The shovel lolled loosely to one side, the spade lost beneath the earth. He pushed the handle one way and then the other. It moved easily. There was apparently an empty space below his feet.
Mike pulled the shovel back up, at first gently, then with a bit more force and began to stomp his foot down on the ground around it. How far did the hollow spot extend? he wondered.
Without warning, his foot fell through the ground.
Mike yelled, and quickly jerked his leg back up. He was more careful then, and began to pile the earth from where his shovel and leg had broken through in a pile to the side of the area.
He didn’t have to dig very long before his shovel kept hitting something hard. Something that scraped. It sounded like hollow wood.
Five minutes later, he was brushing the dirt off the top of an old weathered piece of wood. He cleared off more than two feet of earth before he found the edges on either side. The wood angled and grew narrower near the top. It continued beneath the earth and Mike kept digging more and more out until he was sure. The shape seemed hexagonal, flat on top, with sides sloping wider before slimming back again after a point. There was no doubt in Mike’s mind as to what he had stepped in to.
“Fuckin’ A,” he breathed, and looked at his foot, as if to make sure that there were no bones still clinging to it.
He’d punched his shovel, and foot, into the rotted face of a coffin.
It occurred to him that there was likely a worm-eaten skeleton lying just inches below where his hand was clearing away earth. Hell, maybe the intestines and heart that hand lain on the dirt just above the coffin had been from the body buried inside it?
He jerked his hand back.
“Okay, no,” he said. “No, no, no. I did not sign on for this.”
Mike stepped back from the hole and shook his head. “Fuck this,” he said, and turned away. He marched to the exit with the shovel, intending to go to the truck, pack up, and never come back. Let Perry find some other sucker to work on this heap.
He marched across the newly cut ‘lawn’ in front of the porch to where the pickup was parked in a narrow lane that entered the forest. It was a little farther to walk from the worksite, but it kept the truck cooler than parking it in the direct sun in the clearing. He stopped just before launching the shovel into the back of his pickup.
Katie was sitting on the bumper of the back of his truck.
“Going somewhere?” she said. Her eyes met his, unblinking.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m going anywhere but here.”
She pursed her lips in a spoiled pout. “You can’t just abandon me here. I thought you were going to build me a haunted house?”
“I don’t need to build it,” he said. “It already exists.” He pointed at the old house behind them. “There are skeletons in the basement and monsters in the walls. My work is done here. I’m going home.”
Katie stood up from the bumper and put a hand on his shoulder.
“Please don’t say that,” she said. “My friends and I are looking forward to coming to the haunted house when it’s finished this fall. And….” She looked shy suddenly and her eyes moved to the ground, as she murmured, “I was hoping you’d show me how to build things.”
“What are you talking about?” he asked, looking back at the old house.
“My dad used to be pretty handy,” she said. “I loved watching him build stuff. I always wanted to learn how. I was hoping to watch you this summer.”
“So ask your dad to teach you,” Mike suggested.
“I can’t,” she answered, hanging her head. “He’s dead.”
“Oh.” Mike felt like a shit then. He always seemed to be able to say just the wrong thing at just the wrong time. “Sorry.”
He laid the shovel in the bed next to her and then walked to the driver’s side of the truck. He’d left his cooler inside and needed water. And then discovered he’d automatically locked the door when he’d gotten out this morning. Mike reached into his pocket to grab his keys, and a shiny strand of metal pulled out with them and fell to the ground. He bent over to pick it up; it was the locket he’d found in the house and shoved in his jeans the other day.
“You should put that on so you don’t lose it,” Katie said behind him.
He turned and she was holding out a chain around her own neck. “I have one just like it.”
Mike hesitated a minute and then followed her advice, slipping the chain around his neck. The locket slipped beneath his damp t-shirt and quickly warmed to his flesh.
“Since you’re going to be building stuff here all summer, I thought maybe I could kind of come by and help out,” Katie said. “Plus, I could keep you company. It gets lonely out here.”
Mike found himself nodding. It would make it a lot easier to work in that dump if there was a friendly voice nearby. Then he reminded himself of why he was outside. He shook his head.
“There’s a coffin in there.”
“Where?” she asked.
“The basement. I put my foot right through it.”
She shrugged. “We are standing next to a cemetery. Maybe whoever lived here just buried one of their own close. Or…maybe they built the house over part of the cemetery. Maybe that was here first and there are a bunch of people buried down there.”
She stopped and gave him an evil smile. “Think of all the ghosts there might be in your haunted house!”
Mike shook his head. “That’s exactly what I’m afraid of.”
She tilted her head and made a sad face. In a slightly mocking voice she asked, “Ahh, are you afraid of the scary ghosts?”
“Yes,” he said. “I mean no, I’m not afraid of ghosts, but I don’t want to be working around a bunch of dead bodies.”
She shrugged. “I don’t think they come out much during the day when you’re here.”
He couldn’t help but laugh at that.
“So what do you say?” she asked.
“About what?”
She fingered her necklace and asked, “Will you show me the ropes?”
He hesitated, and then thought of his rent bill. Maybe he could handle this place if someone was with him. And he had to admit, he welcomed the opportunity to have the chance to spend time with her.
“I guess so,” he said. “But that depends what they decide to do, now that I found this coffin. That may stop the whole project.”
“Why?” she asked.
“If they decide to excavate the whole basement to look for other coffins….”
She shook her head. “Why would they do that? The bodies are buried, if there are any. And you’re probably going to put in a floor down there anyway, right?”
He shrugged. “Part of it.”
“There you go,” she said. “Better to build right over the coffins than disturb them, right?”
“I’ll have to check,” he said. “That’s not my decision to make.”
“Can I see it?” she asked.
“The coffin?”
She nodded.
“Yeah, I guess so.” He led the way back to the house. Katie followed a step behin
d.
“I didn’t think girls were into coffins,” he said.
She didn’t answer.
When they reached the short staircase down, he turned and said, “It’s down here.”
But she wasn’t behind him.
“Katie?” he called. The clearing between him and the truck was empty.
“Right here,” she said. He jumped. She had slipped ahead of him and was standing on the first stair down. “What are you waiting for?”
Her head disappeared down the cellar entrance. Mike shook his head and followed her down.
The damp stink of the place got to him instantly and he grimaced. “This place reeks,” he complained.
“You just need some candles,” she said. “Or incense. That’d fix it right up. Where’s the body?”
“Over here,” he said, and led her across the sandy floor.
When they reached the spot, she bent over and looked down at the hole in the ground. “You can’t really see anything,” she complained. “I thought you’d dug the whole thing out.”
He shook his head. “Were you hoping to see a skeleton?”
“Kinda.” She grinned. “Do you have a flashlight?”
“Are you serious?” He laughed.
She met his eyes but didn’t say anything. She wasn’t kidding.
“Hang on,” he said.
Mike walked to the end of the basement and lifted the work light from the nail he’d pounded into the ceiling joist. He lifted the next lamp as well and dragged the extension cord and lamps over to the hole his foot had broken through. The jagged splinters of wood suddenly shone in sharp relief to the dark space beneath. Katie got down on her knees and peered into the hole.
“All I see is dirt,” she said.
“What did you expect?”
“Well, it’s a coffin,” she said. “There ought to be…bones.”
“Maybe it was a small body?” he suggested.
Mike crouched next to her and looked into the space as well. He could see the bottom of the coffin, and a scattering of dirt where the cave-in had occurred. But she was right. He couldn’t see anything else in the space, even if he angled the light right or left.
“Hang on,” he said, “I’ll be right back.”
Mike returned from the truck a minute later with the shovel he’d just put away. Then he began to clear more of the dirt from the top of the coffin. It only took a few moments to fully clear the upper third of the coffin. Most of it appeared to be buried less than a foot or so below the surface of the earth. Mike’s foot had plunged through the old wood right about where the ribcage of a normal-sized body should have been.
He turned the shovel upside down then and used the grip of the handle to punch through the coffin lid next to the original hole he’d stomped. A couple of plunges cracked off another foot of rotted wood and the whole upper part of the casket was soon visible in the harsh light of his lamps.
He stopped after a couple more stomps and stared into the hole.
“Huh,” he said.
The coffin was clearly empty.
“Well, that’s disappointing,” Katie said.
“And weird,” he said.
She nodded agreement. “That should make you feel better about digging up bodies down here, though.”
“Yeah,” he said. And then he put the spade into the earth and began digging around the outside of the coffin.
“What are you doing?”
“What are we doing,” he corrected. “I’m not going to leave a big hollow spot under my basement floor. This thing’s coming out of here. And since you’re my new apprentice, you’re going to help me move it.”
* * *
Once Mike trenched around the old coffin, they lifted and walked the rotting thing to the far side of the basement and set it down against the wall. “I’ll let Perry decide what he wants to do about it,” he said.
Then he filled in the hole in the earth, scooping soil from all around the area to even out the surface.
“I signed on to this project as a carpenter, not a gravedigger,” he complained.
Katie smiled from where she sat nearby. “You do what you gotta do,” she said.
“Well, what I gotta do is get a shitload of work done,” he said.
“I’m here to help,” she offered.
“That’s great,” he said, as he tried to quickly do some math in his head. “But I can’t really pay you much. This contract is a one-man job. And they got me cheap.”
She shook her head. “I don’t want money. I just want to watch what you do. And I might not be able to be here every day or anything. But I’ll help when I can.”
He nodded. “Fair enough. But I’m going to tire you out while you’re here. It’s a lot easier to carry wood with two people than one.”
“Most things are easier with two people,” she said.
Mike thought of his recent history with Mia and frowned. “I wouldn’t know about that.”
“Maybe I can show you then,” she suggested.
“We’ll see,” he said and looked at his watch. Somehow the afternoon had moved on, and it was already past four-thirty. “Right now, I’d like to get some things ready for tomorrow. Because it’s quitting time.”
“What do we need to do?” she asked.
“While you’re here, I’d like to move some boards inside so I can start right in tomorrow morning.”
She agreed, and together they carried stacks of 2x4s and some 2x6s into both the basement and the first floor. At some point, Emery had shown up and helped with the carting. When they were finished, Mike’s forehead was dripping with sweat and Emery’s normally pale face looked flushed, but Katie looked none the worse for wear. She smiled as he put his hands on his thighs after moving the last load and took a deep breath.
“You look like you could use a drink,” she said.
He nodded, too hot and tired to speak.
“Did you bring a cooler today?”
He nodded again. “Yeah, in the bed of the truck,” he said.
“Meet you on the deck?” she said, and disappeared out of the room.
* * *
“They say that the woman who lived in this house was a witch,” Katie said.
Mike tilted back a Pabst Blue Ribbon and shook his head. “Yeah, I’ve heard that,” he said. “Not surprised. I don’t know who else would choose to live out here in the woods.”
“Oh, come on,” she said. “Back then, this whole area was woods. But the woman who lived here, they say she killed her husband in a ritual to gain power over life and death.”
“She sounds lovely,” he said.
Katie shrugged. “He was an asshole anyway.”
“Why, did you know him?” Mike asked with a smile.
Katie’s face looked odd for a moment. Then she laughed. “No, of course not. That was like, fifty years ago or something. But they say she had his baby and he treated her bad and then killed her baby in a fit of rage. So…she took his energy for her own.”
Mike emptied the last drops of the can before crumpling it in his hand. He tossed it to the side, and after a moment of consideration, pulled another from the cooler and popped the tab. He offered it to her, but she put out a hand and raised her can in the air. “Still working on it,” she said.
He leaned back against the gray wooden siding of the old house. Katie shifted her position and a moment later, rested her head on his shoulder.
Mike tensed a little, but then went with it. He slid his back down a hair against the house and slowly moved his arm until his hand gripped her shoulder, pulling her closer. She sighed and took a sip of her beer.
“It’s so peaceful here, isn’t it?” she asked after a minute.
The sun had disappeared behind the house and the upper leaves of the forest before them glowed wit
h the rays of the setting sun. Bird noise colored the breeze that shivered through the trees, making the leaves shimmer with light and shadow.
“Yeah,” he said. “You almost can’t hear the turnpike back here.”
“It’s like a secret place,” she said. “Hidden from the world.”
Mike nodded. “It won’t be hidden for long. This fall there will be lines of people from the turnpike to this house.”
She pulled closer to him. “Well, for now, we can enjoy it like it’s our own secret place.”
Mike felt the buzz of his second beer beginning and looked down into the girl’s face in the crook of his arm. She didn’t look away.
Part of him wondered exactly what was happening here. The other part was an opportunist. Mike bent down and kissed her.
Katie’s lips were cool and moist and he felt his entire body relax as her tongue slipped into his mouth.
What the hell? a voice in his head asked.
Another voice countered. Shut up and kiss her.
Soon he was lost in her mouth and her touch. His beer can rolled across the deck, nearly empty, and he used the freed arm to slip around her, drawing her closer. Never mind that he was sweaty and probably smelled like shit. She didn’t seem to mind and he wasn’t going to miss the opportunity for the first real taste of a woman since his wife had left him months ago.
Maybe she was too young. Maybe it was wrong. He didn’t care about anything but the soft touch of her lips against his, and the feel of her skin as his hand slipped inside her shirt and rose up toward her….
“No!” she said suddenly, and broke the kiss, moving away from him across the deck.
“Not here,” she said. “Not now. I’m sorry.”
She got up and ran down the steps to disappear into the trees.
Mike picked up her beer, with beads of sweat running down the can, and downed a slug. It was still mostly full, and cold.
The forest was silent, except for the evening hum of crickets. Once again, he was alone. Just when it had felt good to be near someone again, he’d fucked it up.
He guzzled the rest of the can and closed his eyes before the tears came.