“I don’t want to,” said Mary.
“Well, you have to,” said Bird.
He turned and moved steadily toward the next home in the row that lined the backbone of this small town. He entered and the door swung shut behind him.
Mary went back into the building with the kitchen and she grabbed two plates from the table. She came back outside and when Bird finally emerged with a fresh body, another boy, this one just slightly younger than the rest, she whipped the first plate at him and struck him in the hand.
“Ow.” He dropped the body and turned and she moved closer and whipped another plate at him.
“Stop,” she yelled. “Stop, stop, stop,” as if she were whipping an endless supply of plates at him, but she was only spinning her hands out in front of her and screaming.
“I can’t,” he said.
“You have to,” she said. “I do not want to see them.”
“You have to,” he said. “We have to do something with them. We can’t leave them stuck up in their houses like this. They’re rotting on their dinner tables. They’ve wound up in the most horrible arrangements.” He was crying and gripping the young corpse again. This time, Mary let him drag it past.
She would not help him move the bodies. Instead, she agreed to dig. Finding a shovel wasn’t hard. She took the smallest and newest looking one and set to digging a few hundred feet from the stables at the far edge of town. Beyond that, there was only desert. A sun, all but risen. Looming red rocks like giants coming to crush them for all the damage they’d done.
She was not able to dig very much of the hole at all before a break was necessary. It was hardly big enough to bury a hand. She’d brought the wine out with her, some of the bread, and a chicken leg. She did not want to go back down that road any more times than was absolutely necessary. She did not like the wine but drank it down because she knew that it was supposed to be good for upset feelings and stomach trouble. She’d already had to dig several small latrine holes, in addition to the large one she was working on. She felt like something was eating away at her insides. She did not enjoy the idea of eating, but knew she needed to. It would be the first bit of food she’d managed all day, and she was working hard and needed the strength. To get the wine down, she held her breath, took it into her mouth, then swallowed hard and fast. Then she shoved a chunk of bread into her mouth to sop up the taste. She followed that up with a bit of chicken and the taste was nearly gone. The wine was unpleasant and burned in her gut. But it was settling her a little. She noticed that when she turned her head, it took a moment for her to realize she was looking back at those rocks in the distance. Each new vision took a moment to snap into place. It was a decent feeling, but she did not exactly like it.
“You have not finished even one hole,” said Bird.
She’d seen him coming, but had not lifted herself from the dirt to take up the shovel.
“It is hard to dig a hole the size of a body, and you want me to dig twelve.”
“Fifteen,” said Bird.
“But I don’t even want to dig twelve.”
“You’ve got to, Mary.”
“I need help.”
“But you won’t help me move them.”
“So dig with me then move them and I will go to bed. I can’t stand today and I can’t stand what you have done.”
“What have I done?”
“You have made this place horrible and made me feel frightened and taken away my sense of security in our building with the kitchen while we wait for Martha.”
“Martha is not coming back.”
“Yes, she is.”
“That man killed everyone, Mary.”
“So?”
“Not one of them survived.”
“Stop it, Bird. We survived.”
“Because we were hidden,” he said.
“I’ve been looking,” he said, “and I’ve found no one.”
“I cannot dig fifteen holes,” said Mary.
“Then I will dig them,” said Bird.
He took the shovel from where she’d set it and he bent toward the small hole she’d started. She drank more of the wine. He plunged the shovel into the dirt and leveraged it against a bent leg to extract the shovel-full. Again and again, slowly, he unearthed handfuls of dirt. A considerable amount was lost back into the hole, but he kept at it and it began to make a distinguishable difference.
After an hour or so, he had nearly completed a hole long enough to set a body in, but far too shallow for it to stay set. Mary was still to the side of the grave. The chicken and bread were gone. The wine too. She was alternating between sitting and watching and resting on her back to stare at the clouds moving past.
“You could get a second shovel,” said Bird.
She lifted her palms and showed him that they were spotted with blisters.
He lifted his palm and showed her the same.
“We cannot dig fifteen holes,” she said.
He nodded. He was sweating and sore and there were still more houses to check, more horrors to discover.
“We could dig one big hole,” he said. “We could put them all together.”
Mary liked it. Both as an idea, the whole town together like that, and because it meant the level of the digging left to do was greatly reduced.
Bird found her a second shovel and they set to widening the hole. She wrapped her hands in the hem of her dress. Bird removed his shirt and wrapped his wounded palm in it. It was already bleeding slightly, and it stained the shirt as he worked. He seemed less and less present to Mary. More and more focused elsewhere.
“Do you know any digging songs?” she said.
He shook his head.
“I know a working song,” she said, “but not a digging song.”
He nodded, plunged his shovel into the dirt and pressed it with his foot. Things were coming up more easily now. The air was cooling off too, which made it only slightly more pleasant to work.
She sang her working song and a few minutes passed more easily. The song was about farming, but there was a little bit in there about the earth and working the dirt and the sun bearing down on you.
Later in the afternoon, the clouds moved in from over the mountains. A light snow began to fall, but it melted as it pressed into the ground. They would dig and dig, then take a break. Bird fetched water from the well and wine from the kitchen, at Mary’s request. He set the bottle in the water in its bucket, and carried a loaf of bread in his armpit. The snow kept falling. A thin blanket covered the bodies of the townspeople. Bird felt better already, to see them covered so peacefully. He recommitted to their plan, which was beginning to feel less and less possible.
He gave Mary the wine and bread and re-wrapped the shirt around the palm of his hand. Mary sat down to enjoy all he’d gathered and he set back to work.
“We are doing the right thing,” he said.
“Do you think they will come back to haunt us?” said Mary.
“Maybe if we had left them in their houses like they were,” said Bird.
“Maybe,” she said.
“Do you believe in ghosts?” she said.
“Yes,” said Bird.
“Why?”
“Because it is better to believe in them and never see one than not to believe in them when one decides to set upon you.”
“You are forever concerned with protection,” said Mary. She began to laugh. She was brutally exhausted and giggling.
“It’s my hope to be prepared for whatever it is that comes at me next.”
“Do you think your arm will come to you as a ghost?” said Mary. “Do you think one morning you will wake and find it there, settled into place as it once was, only blue or white and sort of drifting between this world and the next?” She laughed again. She drank and ate.