Prologue
There's something about the first time you encounter a corpse that stays with you for a long time. The first dead body I ever saw was a young woman, freshly buried. She hadn't even started decomposing yet.
Those are the worst ones - the ones that have already started to decay.
It takes an awful long time to dig up a grave. There's a reason they use backhoes now - it's really freakin' hard to do it otherwise. It nearly took all night, and that was with me and one of the Boss's other hires working nonstop. When we finally got down to the casket I almost passed out. The Boss helped me out of the hole and the Lady jumped in. She cracked open the box and got to work.
I remember wondering if I should check the headstone, find out just who this was. Then I remember thinking that maybe it wasn't such a good idea that I know the name of the person whose grave I just defiled. Might have taken a toll on my conscience.
The Lady took the girl's hands, and gently pulled off a few gold rings and a bracelet. She took a locket off of her neck and carefully removed the earrings. Then she stopped. She sort of tilted her head and stared at the girl for a while. I started to wonder if she knew this person - the Boss had assured me it was just random, when I wondered just whose grave he would like to dig up. Maybe he lied?
Then something weird happened. Eventually, I would get used to that - weird things. You would think someone who was digging up graves was already pretty open minded but... anyway.
The Lady set her hand on the corpse's cheek. I swear (on my mother's grave, hardy har har) that it's were closed before, but when I looked down their it was like they'd been open all the time. And even though it was dark - pitch black - I could tell, somehow, that the girl's eyes were blue. Almost electric blue, like a neon sign. And then it faded, and I couldn't see anymore, and I could tell her eyes were closed. The Lady closed the casket and climbed out of the hole and divided up the jewelry and five hundred bucks between me and the other guy. She told us that we didn't have to fill in the hole and then she and the Boss walked away.
There's something about the first time you encounter a corpse that stays with you for a long time. The first dead body I ever saw was a young woman, freshly buried. She hadn't even started decomposing yet.
Those are the worst ones - the ones that have already started to decay.
It takes an awful long time to dig up a grave. There's a reason they use backhoes now - it's really freakin' hard to do it otherwise. It nearly took all night, and that was with me and one of the Boss's other hires working nonstop. When we finally got down to the casket I almost passed out. The Boss helped me out of the hole and the Lady jumped in. She cracked open the box and got to work.
I remember wondering if I should check the headstone, find out just who this was. Then I remember thinking that maybe it wasn't such a good idea that I know the name of the person whose grave I just defiled. Might have taken a toll on my conscience.
The Lady took the girl's hands, and gently pulled off a few gold rings and a bracelet. She took a locket off of her neck and carefully removed the earrings. Then she stopped. She sort of tilted her head and stared at the girl for a while. I started to wonder if she knew this person - the Boss had assured me it was just random, when I wondered just whose grave he would like to dig up. Maybe he lied?
Then something weird happened. Eventually, I would get used to that - weird things. You would think someone who was digging up graves was already pretty open minded but... anyway.
The Lady set her hand on the corpse's cheek. I swear (on my mother's grave, hardy har har) that it's were closed before, but when I looked down their it was like they'd been open all the time. And even though it was dark - pitch black - I could tell, somehow, that the girl's eyes were blue. Almost electric blue, like a neon sign. And then it faded, and I couldn't see anymore, and I could tell her eyes were closed. The Lady closed the casket and climbed out of the hole and divided up the jewelry and five hundred bucks between me and the other guy. She told us that we didn't have to fill in the hole and then she and the Boss walked away.
