AHMM, December 2006

by Dell Magazine Authors

  WITH MINE OWN HANDS THIS GRAVE I DIG by Brian Muir

  He only had a vague idea of where he was. He'd paid little attention to the roads on the way out, still in a daze over recent events. He wasn't certain of the time either, but knew it had to be after one A.M. That's when he'd hefted the body into the trunk of the car.

  On hands and knees in a grassy clearing between towering fir trees, he looked up but couldn't see the moon, only bright stars, powdered sugar dusting a crow's wing.

  A chorus of crickets, a million strong, sang a metronome from dark hiding. The wind was high, shushing treetops like waves lapping a distant shore.

  In his hurry to leave he'd only grabbed a small garden trowel from her garage instead of the shovel. With the trowel he'd been able to dig up the first clumps of dry earth and weeds. Grass roots popped and crackled as he pulled them free.

  But the smooth-worn wooden handle snapped off the trowel, and the spade head proved too difficult to wield, cutting into his palms with every shove he exerted.

  He flung it away—krang!—off a dead stump into a thicket of black vines.

  Using bare hands, he clawed furiously at topsoil, guessing at how big the hole should be, cursing under his breath as he once more widened his dig parameters.

  * * * *

  She was a small girl, more delicate than those he normally dated. He preferred larger women, brusque and domineering, a challenge for him to control.

  But Caroline was different. Petite but perfectly proportionate figure, oval face, and wide, deep green eyes. Her tiny mouth was like kissing two soft berries.

  However, it wasn't her beauty that allured him. He'd been with many pretty women before, though most of the Amazonian persuasion and of compatible hot-tempered bent.

  What's that they say about opposites? He was a red state conservative, she a blue liberal; he a baptized Catholic, she a practicing Buddhist. He liked veal and Randolph Scott westerns, for her it was sushi and The Simpsons, those incessant reruns and Homer's obnoxious “D'oh!"

  Is that why I killed her? he wondered.

  No. That only played a small part, that and more. And so much less.

  * * * *

  He scooped more dirt, cold and moist, hunched over the hole like a terrier burying a bone. Raw fingertips struck imbedded stone, shooting a splinter of pain up his right arm. The dimming flashlight beam revealed the nail on his middle finger was peeled back, dangling from a cuticle edge. Wincing, he slowly pulled it all the way free, sucking cold night air between clenched teeth. Underneath the nail, the flesh pink and stinging.

  He closed his eyes to the pain, remembering one of the Psalms, “Bow down thine ear, O Lord, and hear me..."

  Fortified, he resumed digging, dirt packing under his nails until fingers felt like plump hot sausages on the ends of his hands. But he put the pain at the back of his mind and kept digging. He had to.

  There was no other choice.

  * * * *

  His brother had told him it would never work. “Man, she sure is cute,” he'd said. “But the two of you are too different. I know you. Careful, bro."

  Caroline's brother Dex had voiced similar objections, not liking her new beau from the start, warning her about a perceived brooding intensity.

  But they'd proved their brothers wrong, enjoying each other's company beyond the physical. She taught him to appreciate Midwestern art, and he shared with her a love of history, telling her one of his favorite stories, about the Shimbara revolt of Christian-converted samurai in seventeenth-century Japan.

  When they weren't talking history or art, they were laughing at their differences, even joking about them, swelled hearts forgiving sharp-tongued barbs.

  Yes, they'd proved their brothers wrong. At first.

  Then the sheen of their shared interests began to dull while the barbs between them stabbed more sharply; physical affection waning as swelled hearts atrophied, like air hissing from ripe red balloons.

  Caroline began spending less and less time at his place, making excuses to avoid dates. He knew what that meant but didn't want to think it was happening to him. That happened to other guys.

  So he reached out one more time, for dinner, earlier that evening. Not to reconcile, for they'd never officially broken up. More to know the reason why.

  Things felt so good before, so right. Could that ephemeral thing be recaptured and allowed to blossom? He wondered if perhaps there was something about himself that he could change to make things work.

  Or maybe something that Caroline could change about herself.

  That had been a mistake, he now realized, to present it to her in that way.

  * * * *

  A drop of sweat clouded one eye. He wiped it away with the back of his sleeve, realizing he couldn't see his hands. He had dug nearly two feet deep. Far but not nearly far enough. So much more to dig.

  He propped the flashlight on the lip of the grave, wedging a rock under it so the dying beam angled down into the hole.

  On the back of his hands, blood and dirt mingled, encrusting black. Fresh blisters popped. Cut by sharp rocks, his fingertips bled afresh, beading maroon in the jaundiced flashlight beam.

  Why did I throw that spade away? Stupid, stupid.

  If only he'd been driving his truck tonight, full of his contractor's tools (and a sturdy shovel), but he'd tried to impress her with his new car.

  The result being no shovel, a busted spade, and much more digging to do.

  * * * *

  "It's over, honey,” she said.

  "You want me to go, but you still call me honey? What's that all about?"

  "It's my nature. It doesn't mean I secretly want you to stay. It means go. Please. Honey."

  This time, the “honey” was crystallized.

  "I just want—"

  "I know what you want. You want to know why. You want i's dotted and t's crossed. You want things to follow a plan, like the blueprints for one of your construction jobs."

  She left him pondering that as she stepped to the kitchen to remove a wailing teapot from the stove. She returned with the pot and cups on a tray, set it on the coffee table in front of him.

  "But a relationship doesn't always come out according to plan. You can't fix it with the swing of a hammer, honey."

  "Don't talk to me like that. I'm not a kid,” he said.

  "I'm sorry, that's not the way I mean it to sound, but let's not overcomplicate this. We had our bells and whistles at the beginning; that's why it was so nice."

  "Nice?” He was stung.

  "It was great.” She meant it.

  But he wasn't appeased.

  "It's just that I have to do my own thing, follow my own path, and it's not with you. Like those samurai you were telling me about, the ones who converted to Christianity. They went against tradition and put crosses on their helmets and carried rosaries. That was the path they had to follow. They had to do their own thing.” She poured tea in both cups.

  Do their own thing? Fuming, he couldn't believe he was listening to this patter.

  She continued. “Most people with our differences couldn't even share a drink without clawing each other's eyes out, but we did. And we had fun. Two human beings enjoying each other for a little bit of time in this insane, mixed-up world. Can't you be happy with that? Satisfied with that? Please?"

  She laid a soft hand on the back of his wrist. Intended as a warm gesture, but in his current emotional state it struck him as patronizing.

  "Stop talking to me like I'm a third-grader with a crush!"

  He jerked his arm to flick her hand off like a summer yellow jacket. But his swing knocked the lip of the tea tray jutting over the table edge.

  The tray clattered to the floor. Cups and saucers went flying. The pot twisted in the air, ceramic top separating, expelling umber liquid in a glittering hot arc.

  It splashed Caroline in the face, scalding her soft pearl skin. She clutched her cheeks, screaming with lungs more powerful than her frame. A horrific
wail louder than any sound he'd ever heard.

  * * * *

  Head lowered, he started to cry, shoulders heaving with sobs. On his knees, waist deep in the hole, his huge hands rested on his thighs, palms up as if in supplication, the skin of his fingers tattered, the whorls of his identity shredded.

  He didn't think he could dig any further, he was so tired. His fingers only scraped hard earth, dirt and pebbles spilling back into the hole.

  The flashlight beam finally winked out, leaving him in darkness, perhaps a foretaste of his own stygian doom.

  He couldn't believe he'd let it get this far.

  Overreacted. Should have had better control. She didn't mean it. I deserve this.

  He lifted his head, took a breath. Opened his eyes to the stars above.

  Help me, God. Help me. It was nothing more than a selfish prayer, one for his own immediate welfare. But he wasn't strong enough to be anything but selfish.

  He grabbed the flashlight. Shook it. Its beam fluttered, so dim he could stare right into the lens, but good enough.

  He pulled free the rock he'd partially unearthed, raised it above his head with both hands, and slammed it down as hard as he could. Its broken edge a cutting implement, hacking at packed earth, breaking it away in dark chunks.

  He tossed them out of the hole and shoveled deeper, ever deeper.

  * * * *

  "Stop screaming!” he barked.

  But she wouldn't, still clutching her burned face, where translucent blisters clustered like insect eggs. She took another deep, wracking breath, her small chest swelling like a bellows. Then she screamed again, piercing the night.

  "Knock it off!"

  Something out of the corner of his eye. He glanced out her side window through diaphanous curtains as light flared in a window next door, a silhouette growing as it neared the rectangle frame.

  He ducked away from her window, gripping her by the arms, pleading.

  "Caroline ... be quiet!” A reprimanding whisper.

  She struck out blindly, clawing his face with her nails. One jabbed him below the eye, causing him to yelp and lash out defensively.

  It was more a shove than a blow, making her stumble backward, her body twisting, one foot caught under the coffee table. A snapping of bone, perhaps ankle or vertebrae, and her torso bent awkwardly, skull striking the hardwood floor like a dropped honeydew.

  A gurgle deep in her throat, then the screaming stopped.

  He gasped, bending to check her, but froze halfway, a street mime watering an invisible plant. There was nothing he could do for her, broken like a crash-test dummy.

  He considered his options, didn't like any. Glanced over his shoulder at her window, the one looking out upon the neighbor's house.

  Turn out the light? No, too suspicious. Especially following an abruptly silenced scream.

  He straightened himself, turned, and walked past her window, laughing and talking as if in mid conversation. “Stay right there, hon. I'll get it,” he said, or words to that effect. Playing a role, overacting like a ham in an Equity showcase.

  He didn't dare look out the window as he passed, fearing the nosy neighbor might still be watching.

  He ducked and circled back around the room in a crouch, back to the scene of the accident, which is how he was thinking of it. But he knew he had killed her, simple as murder, because ten minutes ago he'd been angry enough to do it. He'd wanted to do it, which made it worse—a mortal sin—an old catechism lesson echoing up from the deep black waters of his past.

  Body first, then the cleanup.

  It sprung into his mind unbidden, but welcome nonetheless. No time for soul-searching, no time to contemplate the long-term spiritual ramifications of his actions. Not now.

  She was dead, that was that.

  He was at fault; if not completely, then partially. But looking at her scalded face, her twisted body, he realized this could be considered an accident only in a most morbid comedy.

  Deal with the body. He would keep himself free from the laws of man so he may atone with his Maker at a later date. Yes, that was it.

  Roll her up in the throw rug? No, someone might notice it missing. There was no blood, none that he could see, no reason to get rid of the rug.

  Tentatively, he felt under her head, only a lump on the rear of her scalp, but no cuts. Those big green eyes of hers, staring up at him.

  He flinched, backed away. Grabbed his jacket off the coat rack, laid it across her face and shoulders.

  Wincing, he disengaged her pretzeled ankle from the leg of the coffee table, cursing her for being barefoot. Her flesh was already cool to the touch.

  He thought for a moment. Caroline had no garage, but she did have a fenced-in back yard. He could possibly back his car up to her rear gate and...

  Yes, it might work.

  First he went out to her back porch and disconnected the motion detector lamp. Now the small back yard was murky and quiet but for a dog down the block, yipping at a possum.

  He hustled back through the house, once again passing the side window, this time chuckling with appropriate body language, nothing as bad as daytime soaps. He didn't know if the nosy neighbor was still watching and he didn't care anymore, his concern focused elsewhere.

  He went out to his car and drove the other way down the block, the long way, to avoid the nosy neighbor's house. He pulled into the alley that cut behind the row of homes and killed his headlights.

  The alleyway was paved but not well trafficked. Weeds grew along the edges. On one side was a weathered wood fence, on the other a high hedge.

  He parked with his trunk only feet away from Caroline's back fence, but he'd forgotten to unlock the gate and would now have to spend more precious time walking down the alley, up the street to her front door, then through the house to unlock it. Or drive around again, no less suspicious.

  Stupid. Rushing things, not thinking it through.

  He glanced to Caroline's other neighbor across the alley. The upper floor looked down on her back yard, but the high window was dark, and he prayed it would stay that way.

  A prayer to not be discovered. Is that a proper thing to ask of the Lord? He wondered.

  He backtracked down the alley, this time on foot, and walked down the block. Ignoring baser instinct, he kept his pace at a casual clip, as relaxed as he could under the circumstances, figuring it would be more suspect if he were to be jogging in street clothes at this late hour.

  I've walked in this neighborhood before, they've seen me. This is normal, isn't it?

  Just get it done. Get it over with.

  Back into the front door and through the house, this time avoiding the side window.

  He leaned over, gripping Caroline under the arms and dragging her out of the living room, through the kitchen to the back porch. Draped over her face, one lapel of his jacket dragged the linoleum, leaving fine, gray dust on the makeshift shroud.

  He left her by the back door and walked swiftly through the darkened back yard to the high gate. He slid back the locking bolt and swung the door open as quietly as he could. Digging keys from his front pocket, he unlocked the car trunk. It lifted like a hungry, toothless maw.

  Back through the yard to the porch. Propping the door open with a paint can, he lifted dear dead Caroline into his arms, thankful she was so light and petite and not like the Valkyries he normally favored.

  But she grew heavier with each step across the yard, her corpse conspiring with gravity to deter him. Or perhaps it was the dead weight of his guilty conscience.

  As he laid her into the trunk, one of her feet caught on the lip. He wrestled to free it, banging his head on the trunk lid. He swore under his breath.

  He looked down at her childlike form and reached in to tuck a coattail under her pale white arm. Then he slammed the trunk shut.

  Once more through the yard, the back porch, the kitchen. He glanced at the clock, the wings on the rooster just shy of one A.M.

  He wondered if he shou
ld straighten up the accident scene now or when he got back.

  His question was answered as he entered the living room and found someone waiting for him.

  * * * *

  He gave up with the rock, heaving it out of the hole with leaden arms. The moist dirt was softer down here. He could scoop it out by the handful, with all the strength his arms had left, that of cooked noodles.

  He had to keep digging. The hole wasn't nearly big enough. Not nearly deep enough.

  The flashlight propped on the lip of the grave, its beam so very dim, finally expired for good.

  It hardly mattered. His eyes had grown accustomed to the limpid ray. Even in complete forest dark he could still make out his lumpy, mud-covered hands. Clump by clump they extracted, inch by inch. But he was so weak, so very weak, his arms quivering and nearly useless.

  She didn't deserve it, not at all. I've been so stupid.

  He lifted more out of the hole. His arms now felt like anchors, in each palm a tablespoon of dirt weighed three tons.

  He set the dirt on the edge of the grave, and half the pebbles tumbled back in.

  Car headlights suddenly flared in his face, stinging his dilated pupils, the ache thudding off the back of his brain.

  It was his own car, still parked nearby, engine off.

  "Hurry it up,” said a voice, like ash scraping off burnt toast. “I don't want to kill the battery."

  A figure approached; a giant dark thing in the headlight beam. Kneeling at the edge of the grave, it looked down at him, face a mask of controlled rage.

  It was Caroline's brother, Dex. A pistol in his hand.

  "I have to use that car to get back home. I'll dump it later. Somewhere far away, the airport's long-term parking or something. Maybe a Wal-Mart or Home Depot.” An ironic grin, barely discernible in the sharp contrast of halogen and ink-dark night.

  * * * *

  Dex stood over the busted tea set. Gun pointed gut-level.

  "Where is she?"

  It was over, it was done. He couldn't fight it.

  "In the car,” he'd said. “The trunk."

  Dex's shoulders slumped, resigned yet not surprised.

  "What are you doing here, Dex?” he said weakly, as if hiding in the back of a dark closet.

  "Guy next door called me when he heard the screams. He's a friend of mine. I told him to keep an eye on Caroline. I never liked you. I never trusted you. Never did."