“Down. Just keep moving.”
“So you started with your wife,” I said. “Why all the others?”
“It’s kind of like dating, Del. You go out with one girl for awhile and you get tired of her, so you find someone else. That was part of it. The other part was the challenge of preservation. Over the years there’ve been such advancements in chemicals and whatnot I decided to try different experiments in the treatments. I know this isn’t going to make you feel any better, but I’ve been keeping a detailed journal of all my experiments… obviously not to be released to the world until after my death, but I wanted some good to come out of this, other than my own personal pleasure and satisfaction. To the left past this tree coming up.”
“Why Alyssa, Nolan?”
“She was perfect. I would see you with her around town. I couldn’t wait to get at her. Imagine, to preserve that kind of beauty forever.”
“So you sent the letter and the postcard.”
“Yes. But she wrote them. It was her handwriting. All part of the plan. I mailed them when I was out of town at conventions. It had to look like she had run off.”
“That was a mistake, Nolan. What you didn’t know is that Alyssa ended our relationship.” He looked at me with an odd expression. “I was too embarrassed to tell you or Lew. The letter came three weeks after she dumped me. It never made sense as to why she would’ve sent it.”
“No matter,” said Nolan. “But I’m glad you told me this. I don’t feel as bad now. She was already out of your life.”
“Not really. She’s been in my heart ever since. I could never feel anything for another woman…or trust one because I was afraid she’d take off. You killed a part of me, Nolan. I feel like this is the second time I died.”
“What do you want me to say, I’m sorry? You made a choice to hang on to a fantasy. You ruined your life, not me. Go past that tree stump.”
“What kind of pleasure did you get doing this for all these years? Jesus, Nolan.”
“You have every right to ask that question, Del. But when you look at the nature of our business, especially my end of it, there isn’t much difference between a beautiful young woman if she’s alive and sleeping or dead and appears to be sleeping. Over the years, I’ve come to think of myself as a man with five wives who never grow old and fat, who never cheat on me or talk back or make me hate myself. My women never go out and buy expensive dresses or run up credit cards or get wrapped up in their own careers. My wives stay home. I always know where they are. Okay. Stop here. Turn around.”
Nolan handed me the shovel.
“Start digging, Del.”
Chapter 25
The dirt piled high and thick upon me. The deafening silence of the grave was all I had left. I heard the pounding sounds of what was unmistakably the shovel smoothing out the dirt three feet above me. He was done.
I knew it would only be a matter of seconds before whatever air was filtering through the dirt and somehow making its way into my lungs would stop. I didn’t understand why I was still breathing, but I didn’t waste a moment dwelling on it. In his mind, I was dead or would be shortly.
I wondered if he was getting nervous or anxious about getting caught, or if he had enough of a conscience to feel any sadness or guilt over what he had done. But there was no time to waste on what was going on in his mind. Breathing was uppermost in mine.
My nose was now completely plugged with dirt. I knew that trying to inhale one more time would be foolish. I also knew that my only chance to keep breathing would be to somehow get the duct tape off of my mouth and there was only one way to accomplish that. I would have to chew through it from the inside and I’d have to do it fast. The problem was getting my teeth in a position in which they could start tearing away. To accomplish this I had to use my tongue as if it were a crowbar, pushing against the tape and trying to make enough of an indentation for my teeth to have a shot.
I couldn’t do that. He had applied the tape so tightly that I couldn’t even force my lips apart. This time for sure I thought death would come and something inside of me welcomed it. I was tired of fighting. But some other mechanism within, maybe the survivor instinct we all have locked away, wouldn’t let me give up. Almost as if it had a will of its own, my right arm began to lift its way up through the dirt that was still being shoveled onto me.
It inched along slowly. Too slowly. I wanted to help it along, but I was petrified that any kind of sudden movement might disrupt the manner in which the dirt was settling. My lungs ached. I strained for air. There was none left. I could feel myself blacking out. My arm made its way from my side to my lower abdomen, then in jerky, half-inch-at-a-time movements that made me feel like a mime, across my stomach and chest, up to my mouth where my fingers took over and with an unsteady motion carefully peeled back enough tape to enable me to breathe, barely.
I was careful not to open my mouth completely. Before I did, I turned my head to the left, hoping there would be less of a chance for dirt to slip in. I didn’t waste a second wondering if it was safe to breathe. I just did it. And I was alright. Where seconds before I was welcoming death, I suddenly welcomed life, even if only for the next few minutes. Or seconds.
I felt something on my right cheek. It was moving slowly. Something small and round. And cold. Not so much cold, but…wet. And it was moving, no…slithering at a painstakingly slow pace across my skin. It didn’t take long for me to realize that it was a worm.
A grub. Probably no bigger than a nickel. I wasn’t even dead and the elements were already after me.
There were two overriding questions on my mind: would I have the strength to dig my way out and, if I so, how long should I wait before trying? What if Nolan was still there?
I knew that the longer I waited the greater the risk that the air filtering through the dirt to my nose would be cut off. My only hope was to get out fast and the only way to accomplish this was to muster up every ounce of strength and in one frenzied effort, dig my way out.
I raised my right hand and began clawing. I could feel some of the dirt that was on top of me slide under my back, creating a kind of cushion. The sensation was much like being buried in the sand. If I hadn’t been so weakened from the beating he’d given me, I might’ve had a better chance. And if there was more air I might’ve had the strength to give it a couple of more shots.
But I’d been in the ground too long. The air was gone, the dirt was too heavy and even though it was less than three feet from the surface of the grave, it was too far to go. So I stayed there, giving up, knowing this was it, feeling horrible that I couldn’t do anything to help Quilla, feeling somewhat relieved to know what had happened to Alyssa, but nauseated at the way she had died. My thoughts turned to Gretchen. She would go on searching for the mother who had indeed been killed twenty-four years ago. I quickly calculated in my head that Gretchen’s house in Croybridge was about a ten minute drive from Nolan’s.
I closed my eyes. I felt myself blacking out. Alyssa’s face flashed before my eyes for a moment, then Gretchen’s. As I lay dying, my last thought was of Gretchen and what might have been. Once again I had only the promise to hold on to. Then I heard a muffled voice and the unmistakable sound of dirt being moved.
“I’m coming!” said the voice, which I couldn’t place. “I’m coming!”
Suddenly I felt a slight wisp of air on my face. I breathed in. Then another. I breathed in again. Then another and another and another and the voice became clearer and I was able to recognize it.