Dig Ten Graves (6 page)

     He laughed.  He laughed right out loud.

     He was glad to be alive.

     It was such a strange, giddy feeling that he had to say it, had to say the words, even though nobody could hear it.

     So he said, “I’m glad to be alive, damnit.  I’m glad.”

     Chuckling, he flopped down easily in his beat-up old chair and turned on the lamp next to it.

     The electrical current that shot through Henry’s body was strong enough to kill him almost instantly.  He didn’t feel a thing.

Gator Boy

     Keegan had tied the rope himself, cinched it tight around the boy’s waist, had tousled the straw-blond hair and said
Okay, go get ‘em, boy
so he knew there was no one to blame for what happened but himself. The gators were just too fast this time.

     And he could say now that he’d had a funny feeling , had a sudden flash of dread as he watched Sammy wade out into the swampy water, watched the gators on the muddy isle perk up. But that could’ve been hindsight talking.

     They’d done it countless times before. The rope, the boy, the gators. Sammy would go out in the water, start splashing around, and it was never long before the gators got interested and came after him. And when they’d get close, Keegan would yank the boy back, right out of the jaws of death as it were, and as the boy scrambled up on the land Keegan would snatch up his bow and let loose with an arrow right into the gator’s head.

     It worked every goddamn time.

     And Keegan himself grew up doing it with his own Pop. His father had taught him how to cinch the rope tight, how to splash around in the water, how to get the gator’s attention. He had more than a few scars from his days as the Gator Boy—mostly on his legs and arms but one nice one like a jagged bolt running down his jaw.

     Keegan had learned from his own Pop’s mistakes. He’d learned the best ways to minimize the danger and keep his Sammy as safe as possible.

     Yeah, it worked every time.

     Except this time.

     The boy had yelled,
They’re comin’, Pa, they’re comin’!
but Keegan had allowed his mind to wander in that one split second, that most crucial second. And then the rope had slipped a little in his callused hands when he yanked on it. Those two things were all the gators needed.

    One of them got Sammy by the leg, dragged him under, the whole time the boy screaming
Pa, Pa, help me, Pa!
and then two more dove in on him and the water turned red as they tore him to pieces. And Keegan could only watch in numb horror as his son was devoured.

     He stood there on the shore forever and wasn’t positive exactly when the cops showed up. But one of them said to him,
You got scars, buddy. I guess you used to do the same thing as your boy there. And you got hurt more than once, by the look of it
.

     Numbly, watching the gators now back on the muddy isle, full on the flesh of his son, Keegan said
I really don’t mind the scars. They’re all I got left
, and the cops put him in the car.

Incident on a Rain-Soaked Corner

     Getting shot in real life wasn’t anything like what he’d read about in novels.  There was no ‘lancing pain’ or ‘sliver of fire’ along his torso.  There was nothing that specific.  What he felt was like someone had shoved him from behind, very hard, pushing him forward and off his feet so unexpectedly that he landed right on his face.

     A second later, he heard the crack of a gunshot, echoing up and down the empty city street.  At first, he didn’t feel anything, just a strange, scared confusion.  But then he realized that he couldn’t move and his back felt funny and then not so funny at all as the pain exploded and sent little telegrams to his brain and his brain read them, wrote appropriate responses and sent them back.  The responses were
Feel it now.  Feel the buzz saw along your spine, feel the sensation of having your nerve endings ripped right out and twisted by some ugly metal machine.  Feel it?  Good
.

     He lay there face-down on the sidewalk at the corner, unable to move or speak, and the rain plummeted out of a dark cloud-shrouded night. 

     His name was Bridges, and he’d been thinking idly about committing murder when he got shot.  Only idly, in the sort of off-hand way one thinks about how much easier it would make life if so-and-so was dead, or how that jackass who cut you off in traffic deserved to have a knife stuck in his eye.  Nothing serious or heartfelt.  He was simply fantasizing. 

     And the rain started to come down, and he wished he had an umbrella, and he turned the corner onto his street and someone put a bullet in his back.

     Face-down on the sidewalk, rain and blood puddling around his head, he finally realized what had happened.  He had no memory stored in his databank that correlated to it and that he could draw upon to work out what had happened to him, but he still knew, in a strange, disconnected way.  Someone had shot him in the back.

     The pain was already fading, which he was aware enough to realize wasn’t good.  As long as he felt pain, he would be okay.  As long as he could feel it, he knew he was still alive.  But the pain faded, and he clenched his fingers into claws and tried to grip the sidewalk. 

     “Help,” he said.

     He was on the corner, and both streets were silent except for the gentle wash of rain.  From where he lay, he could see the intersection, see water gurgling down the grate on the opposite side of the street.  The dim glow of the streetlight glimmered a weak hollow yellow, buzzing like a hive of bees in the rain.  He tried to lift his head, couldn’t. 

     “Help,” he said again, knowing there was no one to hear him.

     The pain was almost entirely gone now.  His whole body felt numb.  He couldn’t even feel the rain that pattered down on him.  I’m paralyzed, he thought.  The bullet tore into my spine and I’m paralyzed and I’ll never walk again.

     He started crying, soundlessly.  He kept crying until he realized that being paralyzed was probably the least of his concerns.  Wheelchair for the rest of his life?  Someone else to cook for him and clean for him and wipe his ass for him?  That was nothing.  He’d been shot and he was alone on the corner and he was going to die.

     “Ah,” he said, his voice a hoarse whisper.  “Ah, Christ please.  Someone help me.”

     He heard footsteps coming from up the street he’d been about to turn on to.  Steady, sure footsteps, and someone whistling cheerfully in the rain.

     His heart leapt in his chest, and the pain surged forward like a racehorse.  He tried again to lift his head, without success.  He gathered what little breath he had and said, “Please.  Help.”

     The footsteps kept coming, closer to where he lay, and he had an awful thought: what if the person keeps going?  What if the person has his head down against the rain, is looking nowhere but straight ahead, and doesn’t see me?  Or worse, what if the person sees me and just walks on, like one of those horrible city people you always read about who just doesn’t want to get involved?

     Or worse yet, what if it’s the person who shot me?

     But no, it wouldn’t be the person who shot him.  This person was coming from the other direction.  The footsteps kept coming, the whistling louder and louder, and again Bridges said, “Help.”

     The footsteps stopped very suddenly and the whistling died.  Bridges tried to call out again but couldn’t.  The footsteps resumed, a bit more slowly, coming closer, until a pair of expensive shoes appeared in front of him and stopped.  Bridges could see the shoes and the pant legs and the bottom part of a dark raincoat.  His fingers scrambled weakly on the sidewalk toward the shoes.

     The shoes stepped back a little, and a voice that seemed to come from miles above said, “Well.  You don’t look so good, friend.”

     It was a deep, confident voice, like the voice of a really good telephone solicitor.  Bridges said, “Ah…” but couldn’t manage anything else.

     The pant legs went up slightly and the stranger crouched down on his haunches.  Bridges could see the open raincoat now, the well-made suit and tie under it.  He tried to roll his eyes up to see the face but couldn’t manage it.

     “What happened to you?” the man said.

     “Sh… sh…”

     “Shot?  You’ve been shot?”

     “Ah.”

     “Well,” the man said.  “That’s pretty goddamn interesting.  It’s not often you stroll around the block in the rain and come across someone who’s been shot.  Wouldn’t you say?”

     “Help,” Bridges wheezed.

     “What’s that?” the man said.

     Bridges squeezed his eyes shut.  “Help,” he said.

     The man chuckled.  He actually chuckled.  “Help what?”

     Bridges was confused.  He couldn’t think straight.  Did this stranger just
laugh
at him?  He was sprawled out on a sidewalk in the rain, a bullet in his back,
dying
for Christ’s sake, and this man
laughed
at him?

     He said, “Please,” but the word was barely audible even to his own ears.

     The stranger said, “I’m just kidding.  You need help, like medical help, right?  You’re asking me to, I don’t know, call an ambulance or something.  Right?”

     “Please.”

     “An ambulance, or the cops.  Because if you don’t get medical attention right away, well, you aren’t going to make it.  Right?  You could die, any second now.”

     Bridges moved his fingers, trying to reach out and grab hold of the man’s pant leg.  He couldn’t muster the strength.

     “And here I am,” the man said.  “Yakking away while your life bleeds away in the rain.  What sort of Good Samaritan am I, huh?”  And he laughed again.

     He moved a little closer, close enough that he shielded some of the rain from Bridges’ head.  He said, “Wow.  This is really something.  Here I am, walking along, and
bam
, outta nowhere, I stumble across a guy dying from a gunshot in the back.  I mean, what are the odds?”

     Bridges didn’t know the odds, and he didn’t care.  He was beginning to suspect that this stranger wasn’t going to help him.

     “So, where’d they get you?”  Bridges felt the man’s fingers on his shoulder, probing.  He felt the fingers travel down his back and come to rest on the place where the bullet had entered.

     The man pressed hard on the spot.

     “Right here?” he said.

     The pain came roaring back, and Bridges cried out weakly and nearly passed out.

     The man let go of the spot and gently slapped Bridges on the head.  “Don’t black out,” he said.  “You do that, you’re not going to wake up again.”

     Bridges couldn’t think through the pain.  Every part of him was clenched—his fists against the sidewalk, his eyes squeezed tight, his teeth scraping against each other.

     After a long moment, the pain started to recede again and Bridges was sobbing.  The stranger crouched there, not moving.

     “Wow,” he said again.  Then, “Hell of a night, huh?  They say it’s supposed to rain all night.”

     Bridges said, “Wh…”

     “Still, it’s good for the trees, right?  We haven’t had a good rainfall in weeks.  It’ll really cool things off, I hope.”

     “Wh… why?”

     The stranger said, “Why?  Is that what you just said?  You really need to speak up, did anyone ever tell you you mumble sometimes?”

     “Why?”

     “Why, well.  That’s a good question.”

     “You… you sh… you sh…”

     “Shot you?  Me?  No, I was just passing by.  Funny how things like that will happen sometimes.  I don’t even know you, buddy.  Why would I shoot you?”

     “Crazy…”

     “Me?” the man said, laughing.  “No, I’m not crazy.  I’m just a normal guy, like you.  Or at least, I assume you’re a normal guy.  But I could be wrong.  Normal guys, as a rule, don’t get shot, do they?  You must’ve pissed someone off pretty good, that’s all I can figure.”

     “Help me.”

     “I am helping you.  I’m keeping you company, aren’t I?”

     “Call… call ambulance…”

     He heard the stranger let out a thoughtful breath.  “No, I don’t think I’ll do that, buddy.  No ambulance for you.”

     Bridges said, “Wh… why?”

     “Oh, just because.  See, I’ll tell you a secret, Mr… what’s your name, anyway?  Oh, never mind, it’s not important.  I’ll tell you a secret.”

     “Please.”

     “Hey, you plan on dominating this whole conversation?  I let you talk, now it’s my turn.”  He cleared his throat.  “See, it’s like this.  Me, I get up every day at seven.  I have a cup of coffee while my wife is still in bed.  I take a shower, I shave, I get dressed, and I go to work.  Just like everyone else.  I work all day for a boss I hate, see.  I sell advertising space, if you wondered, but it doesn’t really matter.  Whatever job you have, you’re doing it for someone else, aren’t you?  In any case, I sell ad space all day long, and some days I do pretty well and other days are a wash-out.  I get off at five and I drive home through rush hour traffic and my wife usually has dinner ready, and even though her dinners are barely edible, I eat.  While I’m eating, I have to sit there and endure a bunch of mindless small talk about my day and her day.  Then I help her with the dishes and I sit down in front of the TV and watch it until ten or so.  And then I go to bed.”

     He didn’t say anything for a moment, as if expecting Bridges to comment.  A soul-crushing despair had opened up in Bridges’ heart and he couldn’t say anything even if he’d wanted to.

     The man said, “But here’s the thing.  Here’s the thing, buddy.  Some nights, I get up in the middle of the night and I put on my coat and I go for a walk.  Just around, you know, up and down the street.  I walk and I think, and it makes me feel better.  Even when it’s raining like right now, it always helps.  I walk and I think about killing people.  You know, just snuffing them right out.  I think about stabbing someone or choking them to death or putting them in a wood chipper.  Just anybody, you know?  Not my wife or my boss or whoever.  Just anyone.”

     Bridges moaned.

     “I’m still talking,” the man said.  “Don’t interrupt, okay?  I was saying, you know, fantasizing about killing someone just makes me feel better.  Ie fe>/ve never actually done it before, mind you, and more than likely I never will.  But thinking about it, God, it just cheers me right up.”

     He shifted on his haunches, and the rain shifted too, angling in so that it pelted Bridges directly in the face.  The edges of Bridges’ vision were dimming.

     The man said, “So imagine my delight at finding you out here tonight.  I didn’t have anything to do with you being shot, but regardless, it’s almost like a little slice of my fantasy world just appeared out of nowhere.  And the weirdest thing?  I had the crappiest day today, you know?  I mean, it was worse than usual.  Way I figure it, God put you here on this sidewalk, dying with a bullet in your back, so that I would have the strength to go on.  God is good, isn’t He?  He’s always there when you need Him.”

     Bridges could only see the man’s shoes and pant legs now.  He felt his life slipping away from him.

     The man laughed again and said, “Those must seem like pretty hollow words to you right about now, huh?  I guess He’s not always there for everyone.  He’s not doing much for you, for instance.  Ha.”

     Bridges felt the man’s hand on his back again, slapping him heartily on the hole where the bullet had entered him.  It didn’t hurt at all this time.

     The man said, “The funniest thing about it, to me?  You’ll never even know who shot you, or why.  Right?  I mean, was it someone you crossed?  Someone you did something to, and you don’t even remember?  Maybe from years ago.  Or maybe it was someone who was going to rob you, but then got scared and ran off.  Or maybe it’s nothing like that.  Maybe it’s just some random nut.  Just some guy with a gun, wanting to shoot someone.  And if that’s the case, who can blame him?”

     Bridges said, “Bastard.”  The word came out without hesitation or struggle, which was good, because it would wind up being the last thing he ever said.

     The man said, “Bastard?  Hey, those are fighting words, mister.  You wanna piece of me?”  And then he laughed.  “I’m kidding again.  You can call me whatever you want, that’s okay.”  Then, “Tell you what.  I’m on my way home now.  I should be there in about ten minutes.  When I get in, I’m going to have a drink, maybe read a little bit.  And then, just for you, I’ll call the cops and tell them I thought I heard a gunshot.  That sound okay?  I’ll tell them I heard shooting, and that they should probably check it out.  They’d more than likely find you right away.  Okay?”

     Bridges didn’t say anything.  The man’s words sounded far away and the imperative to listen to them not near as pressing as before.

     “It’s the least I can do,” the man said.   “After all you’ve done for me.  Thanks, buddy.”

     Bridges’ eyes were closed now, but he heard the man stand up, pause for a moment, and then the footsteps were moving away again.  He heard them receding down the street, and he heard the soft patter of rain, the gurgling of water rushing down the grate.