The Graveyard Night Watchman
As the sun rose over Shady Acres Cemetery, elderly women bringing flowers to their deceased husbands' graves found the cemetery lawn strewn with cigarette butts, empty beer cans, and used condoms. Police suspected local teenagers, who, having nowhere else to let off steam, somehow slipped past the barbed-wire fence surrounding the graveyard. But there wasn't much the police could do. They simply didn't have the manpower to guard Shady Acres, which was over 100 acres and over 10,000 grave sites. Senior citizens threatened to find somewhere else to be buried, so the cemetery management took action. They considered a guard dog, but the senior citizens balked. What dogs left on grass could be worse than what teenagers left. So the management decided to hire a night watchman, whose job would be to walk around all night, shining a flashlight and making noise to scare away potential trespassers.
One applicant was Horace Templeton. He was ex-military, which meant he knew how to secure a perimeter, so he was hired.
Horace liked walking through the graveyard in the middle of the night. The beech tree branches looked like black spiders against the dull red sky. The wind seemed to whisper his name. Every time a shadow in the moonlight twitched, his heart pounded. He loved the terror. He'd get heart palpitations and break out in sweats no matter where he was, whether there was something to be scared of or not. At least in the graveyard in the middle of the night he had ghosts and zombies to be terrified of, so he felt sane. Plus, as night watchman at Shady Acres Cemetery he didn't have to deal with people. Not living people anyway. He didn't get along with people. He had commanded a tank platoon in Iraq, but when he returned home to Illinois, he lost every job almost as soon as he got it. When people were dumb-asses, Horace didn't mind telling them so. He sold cars but was fired for yelling at the customers. He worked construction but told off the foreman the first day on the job. Horace refused to let himself be treated like shit.
The night watchman job, too, was far from perfect. They paid him only eleven dollars an hour and no health insurance. And there was zero prestige; he knew it was a job that a dog could do just as well. Horace considered taking a shit on the lawn to teach his employers a lesson about treating people right. He decided against it, though, partly because he had no toilet paper.
After working two weeks at the cemetery, Horace was sick of just walking around in the darkness, feeling useless and letting his racing thoughts eat him alive. Tonight, he was going to be useful, and have some fun as well. He turned off the flashlight. He hoped to lure in a trespasser.
The sky was cloudless but the crescent moon didn't give much light. Horace couldn't see his feet. The curved white marble tombstones lit his way. In the near pitch black, his heart pounded especially hard, and he loved it. Every cracking twig was a zombie, every whispering breeze a ghost.
After about half an hour walking with the flashlight off, Horace heard noises—thumping noises. He walked towards the sound. Along with the thumping, there was grunting and heavy breathing. Probably teenagers fucking in the grass. It was an expensive, soft breed of grass that wouldn't scratch bare-assed kids rolling around. Angry blood rushed to Horace's temples. When he was a teenager he suffered from grotesque pimple breakouts and never got laid, never even got a date. Now, acne scars pitted his face. He only got laid once in his life, and that was a one-armed hooker in Fallujah.
He approached the grunting sounds, stepping lightly in order to surprise the punk kids. Then, Horace realized the thumping sound wasn't fucking. It was a shovel jamming into dirt, then dirt clumping to a pile. In the faint moonlight, Horace made out a single person digging, much smaller than he was. The wheezing and grunting sounded female. Horace would have rather caught her with her clothes off, but catching a grave robber was cool too.
Horace turned on the flashlight and charged at her.
“Caught you!” he shouted.
She screamed and dropped the shovel.
“Don't shoot!” she screamed.
Horace shined the flashlight in her face. She was young, not more than eighteen or nineteen. Her wide blue eyes brimmed with fear. She wiped dark, stringy hair from her face and shielded here eyes from the flashlight beam. Her boots were caked with mud. Her gray sweatpants and sweatshirt were drenched with sweat, revealing round breasts and succulent hips. Horace felt himself getting an erection.
“What the hell are you doing?” Horace said.
“”I'm digging a hole,” the girl said, grabbing her knees and wheezing. She spoke well. She was probably rich.
“And why are you digging a hole?”
“I work here. I'm the gravedigger.”
“And you dig in the middle of the night?”
“It's too hot during the day.”
“Well, I work here too. I'm the night watchman. And I never saw you before.”
“I'm new. I just started.”
She picked up the shovel and shot him a nervous smile. Horace was pretty sure she was lying. Why would the cemetery hire a woman, not a man? And why would she be using that old shovel with the rusty blade and splintery handle?
“Don't they have machines now that can dig graves?” he asked.
“Don't they have machines that can be night watchmen?” she asked him. “Security systems, alarms, something like that?”
Angry blood pulsed to Horace's temples. He knew his job didn't require an actual person, but he hated to have it pointed out. He shined the flashlight down at the hole, a grave-sized rectangle about a foot deep. On one end was a white, round-topped gravestone. Bouquets of blue and yellow flowers rested against it. On the tombstone was carved a small cross. Underneath the cross it said Morris Jackson, born January 30, 1935, died July 12, 2010. He died about a week ago. The blue and yellow petals of the flowers were starting to wilt and fall. Horace was pretty sure the man had already been buried. He shined the flashlight back at the girl's face.
“I never heard of a woman necrophiliac before,” he said.
She wrinkled her nose. “That's disgusting,” she said. “Even if I wanted to, how could I? He's dead.”
“Rigor mortis,” Horace said. “There's a reason they're called stiffs.”
“Look,” the girl said, straightening her back, “the truth is that I work for the police. We need to check this man's DNA, so I'm digging him up. It's for evidence reasons.”
“You look a little young for a policewoman.”
“I'm a genius—I've always been a child prodigy.”
“You're a prodigy and they have you digging ditches?”
“Everyone has to start at the bottom.”
“Okay,” Horace said. “That's easy to check.” He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and flipped it open. “Let's just give the police a call and see what they say—see if they corroborate your story.”
“Wait! Stop!”
His thumb hovered over the button.
“I'll tell you the truth,” she said, voice cracking, eyes filling with tears. “I have an eating disorder.”
Horace grit his teeth as bile climbed up his throat.
“I don't believe in eating disorders,” he said. “Don't blame your personal weaknesses on imaginary diseases.”
She stared down at the shovel. Horace squinted at her. She didn't look like she had an eating disorder. She wasn't too skinny or too fat. She was just right.
“What eating disorder do you have anyway?”
“Cannibalism.”
Horace's heart pounded, and not in a pleasant way. He forced himself to hold the flashlight steady, though his hand wanted to shake. He tried to pretend he thought she was joking, though he was pretty sure she wasn't.
“That guy's been in the ground for at least a week,” he said. “Those flowers are wilted. His body's probably half rotten, crawling with maggot.”
“I like my meat a little gamy,” the girl said. Her face was expressionless—stoic.
The flashlight beam shivered. The girl lifted up the shovel. Its rusty tapered head glinted in the faint moonlight. Horace tried to finish dialing 9-1-1, but the phone tumbled from his trembling fingers and landed in the grass. He told himself to run, but his legs didn't obey; they turned to jelly.
“Die!” the girl screamed.
She swung the shovel at his head. He blocked with the flashlight, which stopped the shovel blade from taking off his head but flew from his hands, spinning and flickering light. It crashed into a gravestone and the light extinguished. Before his eyes could adjust to the moonlight, the flat edge of the shovel clanged into his head. His legs gave a rusty tingle and collapsed. He fell on his back, the wind knocked out of him. The stars were blurry and wobbly. The shovel's tapered head pressed down on his abdomen, to the left of his naval. The girl set a mud-encrusted boot onto the shovel blade's shoulder.
“Suck my dick,” she said.
She lifted her other leg off the ground, bringing down her full body weight on the shovel—all 120 pounds or so. It was enough to do serious damage. The shovel blade cut through his shirt. Cold metal pierced his abdomen, tearing open his insides. Wetness spilled onto the grass, soaking his back. Smells of vomit and feces filled the air. Horace screamed in agony.
“Fucking whore!”
He tried to sit up, but was pinned down.
“Cocksucker!” she screamed. “You stink like shit!”
She twisted the shovel. Horace nearly passed out from pain. He punched her ankle and she slipped off the shovel. He grabbed her sweatshirt, pulled her forward, and punched her in the chest. She flew back, emitting a banshee scream and clumping to the ground.
Horace yanked the shovel from his gut and staggered to his feet. The girl tried to crawl away.
“You're gonna die, you slutty little whore!” Horace roared.
He raised the shovel high above his head and charged. He was about to swing it down at her, but he tripped on something and crashed to the grass. The shovel bounced out of his hand. He tried to stand, but his feet were snarled. He looked down at them. His ankles were tangled in ropey cords that slithered from his pierced abdomen. The cords were his intestines. He screamed.
The girl was holding the shovel again.
“I'll give you one thing,” she said, “you got guts.” She laughed at her own joke.
Horace pedaled his feet, trying to kick off his intestines. He kicked off his shoes in the process. The girl lifted the shovel high and approached him. Horace slipped his legs out of the intestines and tried to scurry away. The girl hooked the shovel blade through a loop of Horace's intestines and gave it a twist. Then she held the shovel high above her head and ran, pulling an intestinal cord after her.
“Seeya later!” she cackled.
Horace's intestines spilled out like thread from a spool. He grabbed hold but they were too slippery. They slid like water through his fingers. The tapered shovel head glinted in the moonlight, ten yards away and getting farther. Horace ran after her.
“Stop!” he screamed.
But of course she didn't.
Horace dodged headstones and pursued her, but she was faster than him and kept increasing the distance. Soon he would run out of intestine. In Iraq he saw plenty of men get most of their guts blown out and still live to tell about it, as long as they didn't lose all their intestines. Horace would have to sacrifice some of his intestines to save his life. He gripped the slippery cords in his hands and tried to tear them. They wouldn't tear. The cords slid between his fingers no matter which way he twisted them.
Suddenly Horace's knee smashed into a headstone. He gasped in pain and tumbled to the ground. The glinting shovel head disappeared in the darkness, and Horace's guts kept spooling out. He brought the slippery intestine to his mouth and sank his teeth in. Vile liquid squirted into his mouth. The taste was somewhere between puke and shit, which indeed it was, since it was midway between stomach and bowels. Horace wanted to faint or throw up, but forced himself to keep gnawing.
The intestinal cord snapped loose. It went slack and stopped spinning out of him. He started retching. Around him, the white tombstones were spinning. He collapsed all the way down, his face pressing into the soft cool grass. He wanted to sleep, but the girl was still there with the shovel. Get up, he told himself. His body wouldn't obey.
“I'm impressed,” the girl said, now standing right above him. “You're clever. I'll give you this—you've got brains.”
She pressed the shovel's tip against his right temple. He tried to raise his head, but the shovel pinned his left cheek to the grass. Horace grabbed the splintery handle and pushed, but it did no good. The girl pressed a muddy boot down on the shovel's shoulder. The shovel's cutting edge sliced Horace's flesh. Blood poured into his eye. Excruciating pressure squeezed his skull, which felt about to pop.
“Get off!” he screamed.
“Die!” she screamed.
She stepped on the shovel with her other boot as well, now bringing down her full body weight. The pressure increased on Horace's skull. He couldn't squirm away or lift her off him. He'd have to go the other way, down into the dirt. He pressed his forehead into the grass and lifted his chin, so the shovel pressed down on his skull at an angle.
The shovel slid down his skull, scraping under his scalp from the right temple to the crown of the head. There was a screech like nails on a chalkboard. The shovel jammed into the earth, pinning down his scalp. The girl fell forward off the shovel and gasped. Strands of her sweaty hair slapped Horace's face. He punched her in the jaw, and she crashed back against a tombstone.
He pulled the shovel loose. There was the smell of bone powder, like a dentist's drill. He pressed his hand to his head. The exposed skull plate felt smooth as ivory. Keeping a tight grip on the shovel, he staggered to his feet. His heart was pumping hard—the ecstatic elation of battle when adrenaline suffused every pore. Blood trickled into his eyes. He blinked it away and smiled down at the girl. The moonlight showed her terrified face, blue eyes bulging from their sockets. Horace shook his head like a wet dog, sending blood droplets spattering. Then he lifted the shovel blade up toward the moon.
“Stop!” the girl begged. “Don't do that!”
“You're in the right place to die!” Horace said. “I'll dig you a hole and roll you in!”
He swung down the shovel at her face. She blocked with her hands. The shovel chopped off a few fingers and crushed her face in. She screamed but all that came out was a warbling sound, the sound or gargling blood. Horace chopped with the shovel again and again until nothing remained of her head but a dark soup of blood and brain matter.
He dropped the shovel and staggered toward the street. He needed an ambulance. He pressed one hand on his gut to hold in his intestine, dragging a long cord of it behind him. His other hand held the loose flap of flesh to his skull. No matter how tightly he held it, blood continued to flow.
He staggered past tombstones and crouching shadows. The wind whispered his name. An agonizing terror seized him. He was filled with rage because his heart had to suffer such shocks for only eleven dollars an hour and no health insurance. He decided to quit. Tonight would be his last graveyard shift at the graveyard.
He wanted to lie down and gather his strength, but he knew if he did he would never get up. Keep going, he told himself. His legs gave out under him and he collapsed. The grass felt soft under his face. He would just rest for a minute, he decided. He needed to gather up his strength. Then he would get to the street and find an ambulance. He closed his eyes.
A few hours later, the sun rose and elderly women with bouquets entered the cemetery. They screamed and dropped their flowers. Lying on the lawn were two bloody, mutilated corpses.
One applicant was Horace Templeton. He was ex-military, which meant he knew how to secure a perimeter, so he was hired.
Horace liked walking through the graveyard in the middle of the night. The beech tree branches looked like black spiders against the dull red sky. The wind seemed to whisper his name. Every time a shadow in the moonlight twitched, his heart pounded. He loved the terror. He'd get heart palpitations and break out in sweats no matter where he was, whether there was something to be scared of or not. At least in the graveyard in the middle of the night he had ghosts and zombies to be terrified of, so he felt sane. Plus, as night watchman at Shady Acres Cemetery he didn't have to deal with people. Not living people anyway. He didn't get along with people. He had commanded a tank platoon in Iraq, but when he returned home to Illinois, he lost every job almost as soon as he got it. When people were dumb-asses, Horace didn't mind telling them so. He sold cars but was fired for yelling at the customers. He worked construction but told off the foreman the first day on the job. Horace refused to let himself be treated like shit.
The night watchman job, too, was far from perfect. They paid him only eleven dollars an hour and no health insurance. And there was zero prestige; he knew it was a job that a dog could do just as well. Horace considered taking a shit on the lawn to teach his employers a lesson about treating people right. He decided against it, though, partly because he had no toilet paper.
After working two weeks at the cemetery, Horace was sick of just walking around in the darkness, feeling useless and letting his racing thoughts eat him alive. Tonight, he was going to be useful, and have some fun as well. He turned off the flashlight. He hoped to lure in a trespasser.
The sky was cloudless but the crescent moon didn't give much light. Horace couldn't see his feet. The curved white marble tombstones lit his way. In the near pitch black, his heart pounded especially hard, and he loved it. Every cracking twig was a zombie, every whispering breeze a ghost.
After about half an hour walking with the flashlight off, Horace heard noises—thumping noises. He walked towards the sound. Along with the thumping, there was grunting and heavy breathing. Probably teenagers fucking in the grass. It was an expensive, soft breed of grass that wouldn't scratch bare-assed kids rolling around. Angry blood rushed to Horace's temples. When he was a teenager he suffered from grotesque pimple breakouts and never got laid, never even got a date. Now, acne scars pitted his face. He only got laid once in his life, and that was a one-armed hooker in Fallujah.
He approached the grunting sounds, stepping lightly in order to surprise the punk kids. Then, Horace realized the thumping sound wasn't fucking. It was a shovel jamming into dirt, then dirt clumping to a pile. In the faint moonlight, Horace made out a single person digging, much smaller than he was. The wheezing and grunting sounded female. Horace would have rather caught her with her clothes off, but catching a grave robber was cool too.
Horace turned on the flashlight and charged at her.
“Caught you!” he shouted.
She screamed and dropped the shovel.
“Don't shoot!” she screamed.
Horace shined the flashlight in her face. She was young, not more than eighteen or nineteen. Her wide blue eyes brimmed with fear. She wiped dark, stringy hair from her face and shielded here eyes from the flashlight beam. Her boots were caked with mud. Her gray sweatpants and sweatshirt were drenched with sweat, revealing round breasts and succulent hips. Horace felt himself getting an erection.
“What the hell are you doing?” Horace said.
“”I'm digging a hole,” the girl said, grabbing her knees and wheezing. She spoke well. She was probably rich.
“And why are you digging a hole?”
“I work here. I'm the gravedigger.”
“And you dig in the middle of the night?”
“It's too hot during the day.”
“Well, I work here too. I'm the night watchman. And I never saw you before.”
“I'm new. I just started.”
She picked up the shovel and shot him a nervous smile. Horace was pretty sure she was lying. Why would the cemetery hire a woman, not a man? And why would she be using that old shovel with the rusty blade and splintery handle?
“Don't they have machines now that can dig graves?” he asked.
“Don't they have machines that can be night watchmen?” she asked him. “Security systems, alarms, something like that?”
Angry blood pulsed to Horace's temples. He knew his job didn't require an actual person, but he hated to have it pointed out. He shined the flashlight down at the hole, a grave-sized rectangle about a foot deep. On one end was a white, round-topped gravestone. Bouquets of blue and yellow flowers rested against it. On the tombstone was carved a small cross. Underneath the cross it said Morris Jackson, born January 30, 1935, died July 12, 2010. He died about a week ago. The blue and yellow petals of the flowers were starting to wilt and fall. Horace was pretty sure the man had already been buried. He shined the flashlight back at the girl's face.
“I never heard of a woman necrophiliac before,” he said.
She wrinkled her nose. “That's disgusting,” she said. “Even if I wanted to, how could I? He's dead.”
“Rigor mortis,” Horace said. “There's a reason they're called stiffs.”
“Look,” the girl said, straightening her back, “the truth is that I work for the police. We need to check this man's DNA, so I'm digging him up. It's for evidence reasons.”
“You look a little young for a policewoman.”
“I'm a genius—I've always been a child prodigy.”
“You're a prodigy and they have you digging ditches?”
“Everyone has to start at the bottom.”
“Okay,” Horace said. “That's easy to check.” He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and flipped it open. “Let's just give the police a call and see what they say—see if they corroborate your story.”
“Wait! Stop!”
His thumb hovered over the button.
“I'll tell you the truth,” she said, voice cracking, eyes filling with tears. “I have an eating disorder.”
Horace grit his teeth as bile climbed up his throat.
“I don't believe in eating disorders,” he said. “Don't blame your personal weaknesses on imaginary diseases.”
She stared down at the shovel. Horace squinted at her. She didn't look like she had an eating disorder. She wasn't too skinny or too fat. She was just right.
“What eating disorder do you have anyway?”
“Cannibalism.”
Horace's heart pounded, and not in a pleasant way. He forced himself to hold the flashlight steady, though his hand wanted to shake. He tried to pretend he thought she was joking, though he was pretty sure she wasn't.
“That guy's been in the ground for at least a week,” he said. “Those flowers are wilted. His body's probably half rotten, crawling with maggot.”
“I like my meat a little gamy,” the girl said. Her face was expressionless—stoic.
The flashlight beam shivered. The girl lifted up the shovel. Its rusty tapered head glinted in the faint moonlight. Horace tried to finish dialing 9-1-1, but the phone tumbled from his trembling fingers and landed in the grass. He told himself to run, but his legs didn't obey; they turned to jelly.
“Die!” the girl screamed.
She swung the shovel at his head. He blocked with the flashlight, which stopped the shovel blade from taking off his head but flew from his hands, spinning and flickering light. It crashed into a gravestone and the light extinguished. Before his eyes could adjust to the moonlight, the flat edge of the shovel clanged into his head. His legs gave a rusty tingle and collapsed. He fell on his back, the wind knocked out of him. The stars were blurry and wobbly. The shovel's tapered head pressed down on his abdomen, to the left of his naval. The girl set a mud-encrusted boot onto the shovel blade's shoulder.
“Suck my dick,” she said.
She lifted her other leg off the ground, bringing down her full body weight on the shovel—all 120 pounds or so. It was enough to do serious damage. The shovel blade cut through his shirt. Cold metal pierced his abdomen, tearing open his insides. Wetness spilled onto the grass, soaking his back. Smells of vomit and feces filled the air. Horace screamed in agony.
“Fucking whore!”
He tried to sit up, but was pinned down.
“Cocksucker!” she screamed. “You stink like shit!”
She twisted the shovel. Horace nearly passed out from pain. He punched her ankle and she slipped off the shovel. He grabbed her sweatshirt, pulled her forward, and punched her in the chest. She flew back, emitting a banshee scream and clumping to the ground.
Horace yanked the shovel from his gut and staggered to his feet. The girl tried to crawl away.
“You're gonna die, you slutty little whore!” Horace roared.
He raised the shovel high above his head and charged. He was about to swing it down at her, but he tripped on something and crashed to the grass. The shovel bounced out of his hand. He tried to stand, but his feet were snarled. He looked down at them. His ankles were tangled in ropey cords that slithered from his pierced abdomen. The cords were his intestines. He screamed.
The girl was holding the shovel again.
“I'll give you one thing,” she said, “you got guts.” She laughed at her own joke.
Horace pedaled his feet, trying to kick off his intestines. He kicked off his shoes in the process. The girl lifted the shovel high and approached him. Horace slipped his legs out of the intestines and tried to scurry away. The girl hooked the shovel blade through a loop of Horace's intestines and gave it a twist. Then she held the shovel high above her head and ran, pulling an intestinal cord after her.
“Seeya later!” she cackled.
Horace's intestines spilled out like thread from a spool. He grabbed hold but they were too slippery. They slid like water through his fingers. The tapered shovel head glinted in the moonlight, ten yards away and getting farther. Horace ran after her.
“Stop!” he screamed.
But of course she didn't.
Horace dodged headstones and pursued her, but she was faster than him and kept increasing the distance. Soon he would run out of intestine. In Iraq he saw plenty of men get most of their guts blown out and still live to tell about it, as long as they didn't lose all their intestines. Horace would have to sacrifice some of his intestines to save his life. He gripped the slippery cords in his hands and tried to tear them. They wouldn't tear. The cords slid between his fingers no matter which way he twisted them.
Suddenly Horace's knee smashed into a headstone. He gasped in pain and tumbled to the ground. The glinting shovel head disappeared in the darkness, and Horace's guts kept spooling out. He brought the slippery intestine to his mouth and sank his teeth in. Vile liquid squirted into his mouth. The taste was somewhere between puke and shit, which indeed it was, since it was midway between stomach and bowels. Horace wanted to faint or throw up, but forced himself to keep gnawing.
The intestinal cord snapped loose. It went slack and stopped spinning out of him. He started retching. Around him, the white tombstones were spinning. He collapsed all the way down, his face pressing into the soft cool grass. He wanted to sleep, but the girl was still there with the shovel. Get up, he told himself. His body wouldn't obey.
“I'm impressed,” the girl said, now standing right above him. “You're clever. I'll give you this—you've got brains.”
She pressed the shovel's tip against his right temple. He tried to raise his head, but the shovel pinned his left cheek to the grass. Horace grabbed the splintery handle and pushed, but it did no good. The girl pressed a muddy boot down on the shovel's shoulder. The shovel's cutting edge sliced Horace's flesh. Blood poured into his eye. Excruciating pressure squeezed his skull, which felt about to pop.
“Get off!” he screamed.
“Die!” she screamed.
She stepped on the shovel with her other boot as well, now bringing down her full body weight. The pressure increased on Horace's skull. He couldn't squirm away or lift her off him. He'd have to go the other way, down into the dirt. He pressed his forehead into the grass and lifted his chin, so the shovel pressed down on his skull at an angle.
The shovel slid down his skull, scraping under his scalp from the right temple to the crown of the head. There was a screech like nails on a chalkboard. The shovel jammed into the earth, pinning down his scalp. The girl fell forward off the shovel and gasped. Strands of her sweaty hair slapped Horace's face. He punched her in the jaw, and she crashed back against a tombstone.
He pulled the shovel loose. There was the smell of bone powder, like a dentist's drill. He pressed his hand to his head. The exposed skull plate felt smooth as ivory. Keeping a tight grip on the shovel, he staggered to his feet. His heart was pumping hard—the ecstatic elation of battle when adrenaline suffused every pore. Blood trickled into his eyes. He blinked it away and smiled down at the girl. The moonlight showed her terrified face, blue eyes bulging from their sockets. Horace shook his head like a wet dog, sending blood droplets spattering. Then he lifted the shovel blade up toward the moon.
“Stop!” the girl begged. “Don't do that!”
“You're in the right place to die!” Horace said. “I'll dig you a hole and roll you in!”
He swung down the shovel at her face. She blocked with her hands. The shovel chopped off a few fingers and crushed her face in. She screamed but all that came out was a warbling sound, the sound or gargling blood. Horace chopped with the shovel again and again until nothing remained of her head but a dark soup of blood and brain matter.
He dropped the shovel and staggered toward the street. He needed an ambulance. He pressed one hand on his gut to hold in his intestine, dragging a long cord of it behind him. His other hand held the loose flap of flesh to his skull. No matter how tightly he held it, blood continued to flow.
He staggered past tombstones and crouching shadows. The wind whispered his name. An agonizing terror seized him. He was filled with rage because his heart had to suffer such shocks for only eleven dollars an hour and no health insurance. He decided to quit. Tonight would be his last graveyard shift at the graveyard.
He wanted to lie down and gather his strength, but he knew if he did he would never get up. Keep going, he told himself. His legs gave out under him and he collapsed. The grass felt soft under his face. He would just rest for a minute, he decided. He needed to gather up his strength. Then he would get to the street and find an ambulance. He closed his eyes.
A few hours later, the sun rose and elderly women with bouquets entered the cemetery. They screamed and dropped their flowers. Lying on the lawn were two bloody, mutilated corpses.
posted by Benjamin Fishbein at Sunday, October 24, 2010
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