8456893456983

“Buried that deep, and after two years? Are you saying that you did?”
Dan didn’t reply, so John addressed the hole again, but without conviction this time. He stood for
a few seconds with his back bent as if he still meant to use the spade, then straightened and drew back
when Dan shone the penlight into the little excavation they had made. “I can’t,” he said. “I thought I
could, but I can’t. Not with . . . that. My arms feel like rubber.”
Dan handed him the light. John shone it into the hole, centering the beam on what had freaked
him out: a dirt-clotted sneaker. Working slowly, not wanting to disturb the earthly remains of Abra’s
baseball boy any more than necessary, Dan scraped dirt away from the sides of the body. Little by
little, an earth-covered shape emerged. It reminded him of the carvings on sarcophagi he had seen in
National Geographic.
The smell of decay was now very strong.
Dan stepped away and hyperventilated, ending with the deepest breath he could manage. Then he
dropped into the end of the shallow grave, where both of Brad Trevor’s sneakers now protruded in a V.
He knee-walked up to about where he thought the boy’s waist must be, then held up a hand for the
penlight. John handed it over and turned away. He was sobbing audibly.
Dan clamped the slim flashlight between his lips and began brushing away more dirt. A child’s t-
shirt came into view, clinging to a sunken chest. Then hands. The fingers, now little more than bones
wrapped in yellow skin, were clasped over something. Dan’s chest was starting to pound for air now,
but he pried the Trevor boy’s fingers apart as gently as he could. Still, one of them snapped with a dry
crunching sound.
They had buried him holding his baseball glove to his chest. Its lovingly oiled pocket was full of
squirming bugs.
The air escaped Dan’s lungs in a shocked whoosh, and the breath he inhaled to replace it was rich
with rot. He lunged out of the grave to his right, managing to vomit on the dirt they’d taken out of
the hole instead of on the wasted remains of Bradley Trevor, whose only crime had been to be born
with something a tribe of monsters wanted. And had stolen from him on the very wind of his dying
shrieks.
13
They reburied the body, John doing most of the work this time, and covered the spot with a makeshift
crypt of broken asphalt chunks. Neither of them wanted to think of foxes or stray dogs feasting on
what scant meat was left.
When they were done, they got back into the car and sat without speaking. At last John said,
“What are we going to do about him, Danno? We can’t just leave him. He’s got parents.
Grandparents. Probably brothers and sisters. All of them still wondering.”
“He has to stay awhile. Long enough so nobody’s going to say, ‘Gee, that anonymous call came in
just after some stranger bought a spade in the Adair hardware store.’ That probably wouldn’t happen,
but we can’t take the chance.”
“How long’s awhile?”
“Maybe a month.”
John considered this, then sighed. “Maybe even two. Give his folks that long to go on thinking he
might just have run off. Give them that long before we break their hearts.” He shook his head. “If I’d
had to look at his face, I don’t think I ever could have slept again.”
“You’d be surprised what a person can live with,” Dan said. He was thinking of Mrs. Massey, now
safely stored away in the back of his head, her haunting days over. He started the car, powered down