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Even the vin number was missing from the dash and filed off the engine. It was a dead end and he
dropped it when his fellow officers encouraged him not to dig too deeply. The only reason they gave
him was that very unpleasant things happened to cops in Sunnydale that let their curiosity get the
better of them. He decided to drop the case.
The morgue in Sunnydale’s only hospital was like any other hospital, in any other town, in any other
state, in any other country. There were shiny stainless steel gurneys in a cold room and each sheet
-draped body on each table had a little tag attached to the big toe with a bit of string.. The little tags
identified each body with a name and sex, date of birth and date of death. There were no pretty little
pink or blue cards. The pale cold headless body of the man had a little white tag that read John Doe, on
the tag with the date of death and nothing else. The pale sheet - draped body of the headless infant had
a little white tag that read Baby Doe and the date of death. That was all.
There was no autopsy. The next day John Doe and Baby Doe were transferred via hearse to one of the
many funeral homes in Sunnydale. They were placed together in a cheap pine coffin wrapped in
morgue sheets. Their heads were placed more or less where they would normally have rested. The top
of the coffin was closed with ten penny nails and a hammer and a number was sprayed on with a can
of paint. The coffin was placed in the back of a dump truck with other cheap coffins going to Potter’s
field, and finally covered by tarps. This was the last coffin in the load and the truck engine turned over
and moved out, making the last trip ever for the poor and unidentified dead of Sunnydale.
The truck made its’ way through the town on a normal day. It was nearing lunchtime and the road was
busy with cars. Here and there a young mother was pushing a stroller or leading a toddler by the hand.
The playground was full of children running, yelling and playing with joie de vivre. The truck rolled
on through with its’ anonymous cargo. All in all like it was a normal day in any other normal town,
any other normal state, in any other normal country.
The truck pulled up to a fence pitted and rusted with time, and the passenger door opened. The
passenger jumped down with a handful of jangling keys that were loud in the silence of the place. He
walked up to the fence and inserted the key into the rusty padlock and chain that held the dilapidated
gate closed, and cursed as he had to fight the lock to turn the key. Finally winning the war, he
victoriously snatched off the padlock and unwound the chain from the bars and opened the gate wide
giving the recalcitrant guardian a parting kick on his way back to the
truck. He climbed back into the passenger side and the truck groaned its’ way past the gate into the
bleak field.
Potter’s field had no headstones. It had stakes with sets of numbers identifying the number of coffins
buried underneath and the serial numbers of those coffins. There was nothing as dignified as a name.
There were thousands of rows of stakes in Potters field. There were no flowers or pretty granite rocks,
just splotchy splashes of weedy grass here and there, interspersed haphazardly with a low scraggly
bush or a struggling sapling, and bare dirt. The scraggly grasses further back were thicker and got
more untended as far back as sight could tell, until sight couldn’t pick out any stakes at all. The closer,
more recent rows were scraped bare earth.
The digging crews had already dug out a hole wide enough and deep enough for this load with a back
hoe, and were standing around waiting. The truck turned and backed up to the hole and the diggers and
the driver and passenger began to unload the truck dropping the coffins in the hole with a thump.
When the bottom of the hole was full they began another row atop that one and this continued until
they had the hole filled ten rows deep and six rows wide. When the last coffin was placed a man
climbed onto a bulldozer and began filling in the hole.
After the hole was filled he ran the machine over the hole packing the dirt and shoveled some more
onto the top and graded it smooth. The driver of the dump truck took the numbered stake out of the
cab and drove it into the earth at the foot of the hole and everyone picked up their own equipment and
loaded up in various trucks and vans and headed out of the cemetery like a bizarre caravan.
The gates were conquered and bound again on the way out and the distinct snick of the padlock and
chains could be heard. The cavalcade wound its’ way out of site and quietness fell like a lead weight in