so slowly. C’mon, sucker. My turn.
He stood up straight, exposed fully in the moonlight. The shadows slipped away on the ground, hiding among the tendrils of tree roots and the slippery puddles of mud and decaying flowers.
The Grave Digger stood erect and started to peer around the cemetery, his back to Greg.
Greg took his opportunity. He bolted for the man standing there with the rock raised over his head. The roots tried to hold him back, making it harder for him to run, but he was determined to settle the score—he wasn’t going down so easy and not to a quack like the Grave Digger.
He felt like his heart was going to explode, the blood, pumping those drugs through him, was pulsing—thundering in his ear, and despite being utterly terrified, for a moment he felt really good.
The Grave Digger’s floppy hat bobbed as he looked up, as if he was listening.
He’s going to hear me…
The man began to slowly turn about, trying to pinpoint the sound, trying to discover the direction of attack.
He’s gonna hear me…let him.
Greg raised the rock and then crossed the final few steps between them, the roots still pulling at him…
The Grave Digger turned.
…and he brought down his arm, watching the stony surface in the moonlight air flash across his vision.
The Grave Digger had turned too much and the rock came down on his shoulder. The impact was so hard that Greg could feel it all the way to his elbow—it rattled his entire forearm and caused him to flinch. The dirt that worked its way past his lips ground on his teeth.
The Grave Digger went down with a grunt, swinging his shovel off of his shoulder…
Greg ducked.
…and it to sailed over his head.
The Grave Digger landed hard on the ground, and Greg readied for another blow, and the shovel clattered to the ground, giving him confidence in his next blow with the rock, he pulled back and prepared to strike.
The Grave Digger’s feet shot out and made firm contact with Greg’s knee and sent his leg shooting out from under him and tossed him off to the side in an awkward, nearly unnatural spin, collapsing him to the ground in a rough heap. His rock quickly went out of sight.
The Grave Digger was ready and got to his feet as soon as Greg hit the ground. His shovel was quickly returned to his hand and he brought it down on Greg’s other leg. The flat end made contact and knocked his kneecap from the side; the impact set it out of joint, and immediately fiery sand was cascading down his entire leg.
He cried out in pain and the Grave Digger raised his shovel yet again, ready for another blow.
Greg pulled a hand away from his throbbing knee and pulled on the handle of a nearby rake, swinging it around towards the Grave Digger.
The rake made firm contact with the leg, and the shovel bounced off the ground inches from his head. The Grave Digger dropped the handle and Greg swung with the rake again, hoping this time to get a little farther.
The Grave Digger dodged the next blow, but stumbled over a headstone and was sent reeling backwards.
Greg painfully maneuvered his kneecap back into its proper place, trying to hold back a scream of agony for no reason but for pride.
He had dropped the rake, and began to crawl away carefully, trying to get out of range of any further attacks until he could get back on his feet. He had to get away; he had to escape the madman…
The Grave Digger was already back on his feet and had reached over to grab the rake that Greg had dropped, and he lifted it with both hands. It was a rake made for breaking up hard soil, and the long, crooked points were like a clawed hand ready to strike.
When they did, they landed in Greg’s thigh. They went halfway through and it only took a second for him to realize what had just happened, for a scream broke through his lips and his skull exploded with the white heat of agony.
The Grave Digger pulled it out quickly, which sent a whole new flare of pain running through Greg’s body, like a sick shock treatment, and he tried to crawl further away.
The moon ducked again, hiding its eyes from the carnage.
The ground gave away beside Greg and he fell into a hole, by the time he felt the thud his body had already processed what was happening—he was falling into a deep hole and there was only one kind of deep hole in a cemetery.
His blood froze.
He opened his eyes and turned his face away from the soil, and found the rectangular opening in the sky above that was his way out. The hole was deep, about five to…
Five to six feet.
Above him he heard grunting, and he heard something moving…something grinding. Dirt began to fall into the hole in bits and pieces and then large chunks.
He turned over so he was facing up right as a large square block of stone came falling into the grave…
Greg screamed.
…and right onto his legs, crushing them beneath its weight.
His nerves screamed—his legs burned as if they were on fire. The cracking sound confirmed that they had been broken. The grinding squeal of bones rubbing against bones, snapping against each other from strain, joined by the wet crunching that came with it assaulted his ears, and he could hardly distinguish it from his own scream. The cry of his bones was just as great as the cry from his throat.
He ran out of breath and fell back, and managed to muster up enough air to scream again in pure, unadulterated agony.
“How does it feel, Greg?” The Grave Digger looked down into the grave. His floppy hat fluttered in the wind, a dim silhouette against the black/blue night sky.
The moon dared to peer through cloudy fingers.
“How does it feel to you now? Strange how things are reversed aren’t they?” The Grave Digger chuckled darkly.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Greg managed through clenched teeth. His lip was bleeding, he had bitten through it and coppery fluid flowed into his throat.
“Maybe you need a reminder.” The man reached to the side of the grave and tossed in an ill clothed dummy. “Go back ten years.”
The dummy clattered beside him.
Ten years? No. No.
He looked to the side and saw that it was no dummy, but it was a loosely held together skeleton. It’s cackling jaw hung agape at him. Rotted eye sockets glared with the same intensity as the angel—“Worm meat” —but with a far more ominous tone.
“I know you remember, Johnny.” The Grave Digger said.
Greg looked at the skeleton, unbelieving. “That can’t be him…”
“Good guess. It’s not. This is just a little something from the lab at the college. They won’t mind if I borrow it for a little object lesson of my own.” The Grave Digger chuckled again. This time it was a knowing chuckle.
Greg’s spine chilled. “Who…Frank?”
The Grave Digger was silent.
“Frank? For cryin’ out loud, what are you doing?” Greg couldn’t believe it.
“Only what I have to, Greg.” Frank—the Grave Digger—said quietly. “Only what I have to do.”
“Frank, what are you nuts? What have you done…why did you…”
“Because I can’t live with it any more, Greg. I can’t live with what we did!”
Greg searched himself for a logical statement, something that would get him thinking rationally. Nothing came. “What we did was a long time ago, Frank. We were different people back then…”
“I know we were!”
“…that doesn’t mean it defines who we are right now.”
“It does, Greg. What we did back then…it…I see his face every day. In my dreams, when I’m awake. I still see him! He looks so afraid…so cold…”
Greg flared in anger, “He touched your sister. Isn’t that enough good reason for you?”
“Not to kill him. Not what we did.”
Greg was silent. There was nothing to say, and his legs were still screaming from under the stone. He didn’t
dare move unless he disturbs them and bring out more agony. Anything but that.
“I have to fix it.” Frank said.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Frank…but whatever you’re…”
“Justice has to be done.”
“…thinking about doing, don’t do it. We can say this was an accident, we can get past all of this, we can put it behind us.”
Not a chance.
“No, we can’t, Greg. There’s only one way. And it starts with you, just like you did Johnny. Just like that.”
Greg’s throat swelled in fear, and he felt it all go dry. Desert dry. No. Oh, please no.
Frank picked up the shovel.
“No! Stop it, Frank!” Greg began.
He scooped up some dirt.
“No!” Greg began to hyperventilate; his breath grew asthmatic and uncontrollable. Blood was hardly pumping—fear wrapped a cold, dead hand around his heart and squeezed tight.
Frank threw the first scoop in.
“NO! FRANK STOP THIS RIGHT NOW!”
Frank threw another one in.
“FOR CRYING OUT LOUD STOP IT! STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT!”
Another scoop and another scoop.
“YOU GOTTA STOP IT! YOU CAN’T DO THIS FRANK YOU CAN’T DO THIS BE REASONABLE BE REASONABLE!”
Frank kept scooping, one after the other, his floppy hat began to collect sweat.
No no no no no no no no no!
Greg began to scream. And scream. And sob. And scream. But it did no good. It needed to be done.
Frank kept going, one scoop after the other, he whispered to himself. “Be sure your sin will find you out. Be sure your sin will find you out.”
Greg was going to be worm meat. Dead as a doornail. Johnny was dead to begin with, and they would complete the cycle.
Soon Greg could no