The Grave Digger (A Short Story) Read online

E DIGGER

  BY MICHAEL WRIGHT

  Copyright 2011 Michael Wright

  GREG KING could still feel the effects of the drugs that ran rampant through his system. His blood pumped them through his body; they rode on the waves of platelets that were rocketing through his veins as he tried to run in the cold night.

  He was at a loss for breath, and he was sure, sanity. The cold air bit at his every pore that was slowly excreting sweat, covering him in sticky, scared moisture. The gray moon exposed his every move to any who would care to scrutinize a distressed figure running through a near empty graveyard in the dead of night, being chased by a madman.

  The fuzziness was on both sides of his vision, causing everything around him to dance in frightful distortion. The lights, the dark, all of it, messed up in his head, as it put through a perverted kaleidoscope turned on its head. He was sure that he was already dead and running straight to Hell—through that final dark corridor of the damned. But his ragged breathing and jackhammering heart told him otherwise. He was living, and in so many ways that was worse than being dead.

  He was alive, but someone wanted him dead. That someone was going to kill him for sure.

  His lower leg bumped a headstone, knocking him off-balance and sending him reeling to the left, trying to dodge the other headstones that might come up in his path, but he knew it was impossible to dodge them all and another one came at him from the left and twisted his ankle at an odd angle—he struggled for balance.

  No! He fought to right himself, feeling all ability slipping ever so slowly from him, finding it harder and harder to keep balance. I will not go down that easy. In so many ways he knew he was already as good as dead.

  The headstones, like conspiring enemies crowded around and tried to trip him up. The snakelike tentacles of tree roots reached out of the dead ground and snatched at his toes, tearing at him through the soil, trying to kill him just as much as the man who had drugged him and brought him to the graveyard—the man who dug graves.

  He struggled against them and managed a few more steps before he bumped into another headstone that sent him plummeting to the ground. The cold air rushed past his ear as he descended, the moonlight catching it all as he fell, the trees with their thick roots mocking him.

  Greg felt his face make contact with cold earth and scraped his jaw from the dirt, trying to sit up, his thick hair brushed against a headstone directly in front of him that he had missed hitting by mere centimeters. Dirt caked up in on his chin, and cool mud from the previous afternoon’s rainstorm had left in a large puddle gathered on his whiskered jaw.

  He looked up into the face of a child with stone features. The fangs flashed with the terrible eyes and a twisted face, it whispered to him. “Early bird gets the worm, and early worms get you!”

  Greg pulled back in horror for a split second before he realized that the statue had not said a word. It was a raspy voice calling out into the graveyard—

  The Grave Digger

  —that said the words.

  Early worms get you? He wondered what the devil that was supposed to mean, but he didn’t have time to think about it as he ducked down by a headstone that was cold as slick ice. He looked at the grave, and read the name for just a moment, for no reason but to satisfy his sick curiosity.

  James Holman 1973-2006

  Beloved Son, Husband, and Father

  He saw a shadow move in the light. There was a large light attached to the small shack he had woken in and escaped from by the fence of the cemetery. Amongst piled shovels, rakes and leaf blowers, there was a naked bulb hanging from a base on the wall, and the light combated with the moon for brightness, it was cut just enough by a man moving about among the headstones—the man who was trying to kill him…the man who dug the graves.

  “You’re as good as worm meat right now…” The voice continued. “And when I find you it’ll all be over. No more secrets, Greg, no more secrets.”

  Greg curled tighter against the headstone, trying as hard as he possibly could to muster enough resolve not the move in the slimy darkness that surrounded him—anything to not be seen by the man with the shovel.

  He stole a peek around the headstone and saw the man stalking in the opposite direction, the shovel propped over his shoulder, and the droopy, wide-brim hat hanging low. His compact frame was outlined by a thick trench coat. It rustled as he moved, and his large working boots squeaked from the moisture that had seeped into them early that evening.

  Greg pulled back behind the headstone of dear Mr. Holman and looked ahead of him at the large, winged statue in front of him.

  The moon dived behind a cloud.

  The statue stared down at him, it’s long hair flowed back into it’s robes, and the hardened face was staring at him but was raised in the direction of the Grave Digger, as if taunting him, going to report him immediately to the Grave Digger.

  “Worm meat.” He could hear it say.

  Greg shook his head again. Those cursed drugs.

  He tore his gaze from the guardian angel back to the child that glared at him beneath heavy brows, and sneered at him evilly. He tried not to look, but he couldn’t help it.

  “I know you’re out there!” The Grave Digger yelled. His voice heavy with effort, as if speaking was hard manual labor, “And I know that those drugs I slipped you haven’t worn off. You won’t get away so easily, you’re gonna slip up and I’m gonna find you. You’ve gotten away with this long enough—it’s time to end this.”

  Greg swore to himself silently. What’s gonna end? C’mon! He shifted again against the headstone, trying to get a little more comfortable, all of the good it did.

  He stole another peek and then slithered his way to the next headstone. Wet, wilted flowers were there, rotting in the rain and lack of care, the beautiful smell was in direct contrast with the thick smell of wet dirt and moss. He caught another whiff of the flower scent and noted that it resembled his wife’s perfume, the situation made it a twisted parody of a moment when he enjoyed a dinner with his beautiful wife, smelling her flowery perfume by candlelight instead of wilted roses by clouded moonlight.

  The slime of the mud oozed around his fingers, the cut grass blades that swam up around his hand were like tiny spiders wriggling around his hand…or a corpse rising up to take a snatch at his throat.

  He listened to the squeaky boots drifting in the opposite direction, and wished that he could just escape that very moment—that he could just run away and put the whole thing behind him like a bad night with too much pizza before bed.

  If only living nightmares were so easy to forget.

  Greg slipped around to another headstone, taking a quick peek behind him to see if he had left any obvious signs. The guardian angel—“Worm meat”—glared back at him, but there were no obvious clues left. He just might make it out if he was careful enough. If he was not, then there was really no hope for him.

  The drugs buzzed in his mind, his vision was still trying to twist into a new realm of being.

  The moon snaked out of its hiding place.

  Greg didn’t dare move from his.

  He felt the icy sweat drops drip from the end of his nose, and he realized that his breathing was under control, even though his heart was thundering.

  The slippery shadows moved as he crouched there, frozen. The moon had just rearranged his hiding spots, and had given the Grave Digger more ability to see. The squeaky boot continued to move, drifting from place to place searching out his prey.

  Greg looked over and saw the man leaning down, his shovel over his shoulder still, peering behind a headstone.

  Greg pulled back quickly, and felt a rock move under his han
d, cold and dead. Dead as a doornail.

  Marley was dead, to begin with. He tried to understand why the Dickens line had so suddenly come to him. But found no answer aside from his memorizing it in junior high and the tense situation he was in.

  Greg tried to shake the drug fuzziness from his mind.

  He felt around the rock and realized it was at least as big as his hand…and an idea began to play at the edges of his mind.

  He pulled the rock up out of the ground and realized he had just moved up on the food chain. The coarse rock dug into his palm and he wrapped his hand tighter around it and brought his hand to the ground, forcing dirt deep under his fingernails, the tiny grains pushing against the soft, tender flesh.

  He slowly slid up around the gravestone, and saw the Grave Digger lurking around the distant headstones, peering behind them, waddling to the side in his squeaky work boots.

  Greg slid up from his hiding place, a sick grin beginning to form on his face. He swore again to himself silently, and crept forward, ever