The flowers were the last thing he loaded. He poked his finger into the soil in the pots. It was wet. These plants were probably sprayed down every hour to keep them looking fresh. His windows were heavily tinted but the flowers would probably end up half cooked before the afternoon was over. He made a mental note to water them in a couple of hours and run the AC if the vehicle got too hot.
He stopped by another box store and bought work boots, mosquito repellant, a long sleeve shirt, gloves, a cheap, camo-colored ball cap and a new pair of blue jeans. Then going to the grocery department he bought a half dozen varieties of junk food and six large Red Bull energy drinks. His third stop was at a hunting and fishing store where he bought a LED head-light and a lantern that deflected light down and around, not up. Making sure he had enough spare batteries for his needs, he moved on to his final stop on his shopping spree, a luggage store in a mall where he bought the biggest suitcase he could find. He hoped he would need it.
By the time he was finished in the last store he swore to himself that he would never again subject himself to the busy crowds of petulant shoppers. Or to the friendly, though insincere, sales clerks. Wendell was not an enthusiastic shopper. To him, every purchase was a grudge purchase.
The only uplifting factor was that the shopping experience had left him fed up enough that he thought he could have a successful afternoon nap. And that might help him a lot, later on that night.
X X X X X
He timed his return to the graveyard to be there at eleven o’clock. A hundred yards before the entrance, he reached under the seat and flipped a switch that killed all his lights including brake and back-up lights. Inching forward up the path he pulled deep into the grove of pines. Beneath the pines it was hopelessly dark. Going by memory alone, he felt his way through the pines until he finally emerged into the cleared meadow that was the graveyard. Gratefully he shut off the engine. Snapping the cap on one of his Red Bulls, he spent the next ten minutes sitting and waiting. When he was confident that no one had seen him arrive and that his eyes had adjusted to the darkness he put on the head-light he had purchased at the hunting store and cautiously opened the driver’s door. None of the interior lights came on which pleased him. Wiring a kill switch into the lighting circuit was a precaution he had taken at the motel. He moved around to the rear door and flicked the button for his head-light. It lit up the area directly where he was looking, leaving his hands free. He extracted one of the tarps which he placed carefully beside the grave he had selected. The night was very still but he secured the corners of the tarp with four small rocks.
Then he began to dig. The ground began as a thin layer of topsoil that turned almost immediately into a sandy loam. He was careful to separate the different layers into two distinct piles, putting the topsoil on the bare ground and the sub-soil on his tarp. When he began to sweat, he also began to attract insects and took a quick break to douse himself liberally with mosquito repellant. His hole was only a foot deep and he knew that digging would get more difficult as he dug deeper. Two and a half hours later, having only rested once for another drink and a candy bar, his shovel hit different material. He began scraping carefully and confirmed the fact that he had hit wood. He felt a moment of elation that was quickly dashed as his foot penetrated the ancient planks. He shuddered at the thought that he had just stepped into a coffin and admitted that he was glad that he had purchased work boots that protected his ankles. Moving his feet to the outer edges of the hole he scraped away the remaining layer of dirt. Then, working on his hands and knees he pulled away a few pieces of rotting boards and found himself staring at a skeleton.
As he had lain in bed in the crumby motel room, planning this adventure, he had imagined what his feelings might be when this moment occurred. Would he throw up? Would he feel elated? Would he scramble out of the hole in terror? What he hadn’t imagined was the scientific coolness he now felt, free of any revulsion. He studied the bones, and poked at the soft, crumbly soil that encompassed them. Fine grains of sand, mixed with black peat from the rotting wood. He pulled off a few more pieces of wood that crumbled in his hands. He had exposed roughly two thirds of the skeleton before he climbed out of the hole and retrieved his camera. Keeping as low as he could, to avoid the flash penetrating the surrounding pines, he snapped a series of pictures, recording the placement of the bones.
Placing the open suitcase on the opposite side of the grave to the tarp, he began to carefully exhume the skeleton, thankful that he had purchased gloves. When he had finished with the bones he ran his hand through the loose soil at the bottom of the pit, searching for some memento that might have been buried with the corpse. His efforts were rewarded by finding a small piece of iron that he thought at first might have been a belt buckle. Then his hand touched something much more solid. He brushed away the soil with the fingers of his gloves. The shape was odd. Then he remembered a shape he had seen in a museum and again in countless movies and books.
“I’ll be damned,” he mumbled out loud. For the first time that night, he felt a pang of guilt as he began to extract the object from the earth.
“Probably will be. I certainly think grave robbing qualifies as an act for which good ol’ Saint Peter might consider signing a rejection slip,” said a voice from above.
Wendell Forbes jerked his head and looked up. He saw a bright light and panicked momentarily before he realized he was looking at a man’s shadow, backlit by the moon. From Wendell’s perspective at the bottom of a grave looking up, the man above looked huge. He tried to focus but his thoughts were bouncing off the walls of the grave like pop-corn in a glass pot. Who was this? …. a relative or neighbor? …. the police? …. a ghost? … God? …. The image looked more like the devil himself.
Still in a crouch at the bottom of the grave, his hand tightened around the object he had come in contact with. When he stood he did it stiffly but at the last second straightened and pointed it at the image, backlit by the half moon.
“I suspect mine is a bit more reliable,” said the voice calmly.
Wendell looked down at the earth encrusted, black powder pistol with it’s odd shaped hand grip. He felt foolish for even bothering to point it at someone.
“This one’s probably worth more,” Wendell snorted, disgusted at himself.
“You may have a point there, but I’ll keep mine pointed at you anyway. My guess is that you came here to steal something. Please enlighten me.”
Wendell weighed his options and realized he had none.
“I came for the skeleton,” he admitted.
“Really. What exactly do you want with a skeleton?”
“Medical research,” lied Wendell.
“Interesting. But a bit unorthodox, don’t you think?”
“I needed an old one because of the DNA.” Wendell had always been told that a half lie was less detectable than an outright lie.
“Well, far be it from me to interrupt such a commendable, scientific study.” The sarcasm drooled off the stranger’s tongue.
The stranger pushed with his toe against the suitcase that had been spread out open at the edge of the grave.
“Just put that hardware in the suitcase, along with the rest of your souvenirs.”
It was un-nervy