Grave Robbers

“Which one?”

I was surrounded by stillness. A hush pervaded the air with a sense of tranquility, but it didn’t reach inside of me. Darkness hung over my heart like the forest beyond the desolate cemetery in which I stood. I thought of the letter that had brought me here. I thought of the instructions within, and the long line of letters and instructions that had come before. Weariness spread through me, soaking all the way down to the core of my being.

“Iz, which one?” Tobias repeated, prodding my shoulder with the handle of his shovel.

I blinked myself back into the present and answered with a fortitude I didn’t feel. “James McDougall.”

Tobias and I maneuvered between the headstones. Most of them were made of wood so old and discolored they looked as if they had been stained with the blood of the departed lives they represented. I wondered if anyone remembered those lives. How long ago had the last bouquet of flowers been lain? The decrepit condition of the abandoned cemetery made me wonder.

We found James McDougall’s headstone near the middle of the graveyard. Skewed by time and uneven ground, the marker looked as if it had been thrust carelessly into the dirt by someone as irreverent as Tobias and I were about to become. I pushed aside the thought. I needed to focus on the job. “The ground doesn’t look disturbed.” I kicked the dirt at the base of the headstone. The grass was discolored, almost gray, all throughout the cemetery. Including around this headstone. I searched for cracks in the dirt to indicate that someone had recently dug in this spot, but found none. Were we here to steal a body, I wondered, or to collect something that had been placed here by one of ‘them’? Toby had received the second half of our joint instructions. Mine had been limited to the precise location of where we were to dig. We weren’t allowed to discuss the contents of either of our letters. We used to do it anyway; now I just didn't care. “What if this is some sort of a trap?” I asked.

“What kind of trap?”

I shoved my spade into the ground in answer. I didn’t know. All I knew was the letter. The letter directed us to dig. And you never disobeyed the letter.

Tobias thrust his shovel into the ground after mine, and together we began to dig up the dirt surrounding the grave marker. The sky was overcast and the air mild, but the exertion began to wear on us and before long I was wiping sweat away from my forehead with a blistering palm.

“Water?” Tobias offered.

I nodded and gratefully accepted the plastic bottle he offered me. I took several gulps, then got back to work.

It took nearly an hour to dig deep enough into the soil to be able to pull up the stake-like part of the headstone that was buried beneath the ground. We laid it carefully aside, then began unearthing the dirt beneath the headstone. Each thrust of my spade felt like a stab of condemnation. My mind refused to rest. How had I gotten to this point in my life? Robbing a grave for an unknown purpose? Following orders without explanation, like a puppet on a string? I thought back to a simpler time in my life, before I had been pulled so deep into the mire that I couldn't get out again.

Blackmail is a powerful tool. The thing of it is that it starts out small. The first time you find yourself in a mess, it’s like puddle you can’t step away from without exposing your wet feet to the world. If someone wants you to pay a price in exchange for their silence, you agree willingly. What’s five thousand dollars in the context of a scandal, or worse yet, jail time? Nothing. So, you pay the money. Except it doesn’t end there. It escalates. From more money to small favors to big favors, that original puddle becomes an ocean of regret so deep and loaded with indiscretions that you wonder why you ever thought twice about coming clean the first time. Back when you had a choice.

Except maybe I did have a choice. The blackmail had long since been eliminated, and in its place, I actually got paid for the favors I performed. I was now a full-time marionette. It was a job, but one that came with conditions. Like threats of eliminated loved ones or exposure of past crimes should I decide to quit. Still, sometimes I wondered. Sometimes I planned. I had begun to set aside small amounts of cash for myself, dreaming and scheming of the time when I could maybe, just maybe, break free.

“How’s Jason?” I asked suddenly. My depression of spirits hung low, and I needed a change in the direction of my thoughts.

Beside me, Tobias seemed to stiffen. He paused a moment, then continued shoveling aside hunks of dirt. “He’s fine.”

“Is he in school right now?”

“Yep.”

“Are you okay?” I glanced at Toby, and paused to lean against my shovel, breathing heavily.

He didn’t stop working. “I’m fine. Just hot.”

I got back to work. The oppression hovering in the air apparently wasn’t restricted to just me.

Without the obstruction of the headstone, we made good time. Before long Tobias’s shovel connected with wood, and I squatted to break away clods of dirt with my hands. Tobias knelt as well, and soon we had unearthed an entire casket. I swiped dirt and sweat off my brow and felt for a latch. Toby stood and watched as I worked. Finally, I managed to lift the lid on its hinges and stood in order to pull it fully open. The crumpled remains of James McDougall greeted me. I breathed heavily. “What are we supposed to do with him?”

Tobias didn’t answer.

“I figured maybe there were some valuables on him or something, but it looks like he was barely buried with his clothes on.”

My question was answered with silence.

And in that dead silence, I heard the cock of a gun.

I whirled around and nearly stumbled into the open coffin behind me.

Tobias. Holding a gun. Pointed at me. I felt something cold like dread slide through my stomach, but I froze the feeling and tried to steady my thudding heartbeat. “What are you doing?” My voice was even but wary. I stared at him, my chest still heaving with the exertion of the dig. “Why do you have a gun?”

Tobias swallowed visibly, his Adam’s apple convulsing. In the silence that followed, my brain tried to tell me that he carried a gun for protection, that he had gotten it out upon hearing a noise or seeing something. That he did not really have the gun aimed directly at me. I waited. For an excuse or an explanation. For anything.

He offered nothing.

“What are you doing?” I repeated, my voice holding a slight tremor. “Toby, put that gun away.”

“I need you to get in the coffin.”

My jaw dropped, and the metallic taste of fear leaked into my mouth. “What?” I tried to laugh, to tell myself he was joking, but my throat stumbled around the attempt and ended in a choking noise.

His eyes held pain, but he didn’t budge. “I’m so sorry, Izabella.”

Panic began welling up inside of me, clawing for handholds, reaching for a way out. My eyes searched his and hysteria edged my words when I spoke. “You’re not making sense, Toby. What are you talking about?”

“The grave, Iz. Get in the grave.”

“No. I’m not going to.”

“I really don’t want to use this gun.”

“Then don’t. What are you doing? Please, just talk to me!” Tears sprang to my eyes and my body was shaking so hard I thought my teeth were going to start chattering.

“Get in the grave.”

“No, I won’t! Not until you tell me what’s going on!”

“Get in the grave!” he shouted. Spit flung from his mouth, and he shook the gun at me, rage pulsing at his neck.

“No!” I screamed back at him, all of my confusion, agony and betrayal converging into that one word.

His fingers repositioned themselves around the gun so suddenly I jumped, but nothing happened. He didn’t pull the trigger and the anticipated bullet didn’t come. He tilted his head downward and to the side, using his outstretched arm to wipe away the sweat glistening on his face. When he looked back up at me, I saw that his eyes were rimmed with the red of regret. “Please, Izzy.” he whispered.

I closed my eyes. “Just tell me why.”

The hand that held the gun began to shake. Toby’s face contorted with pain and his voice broke. “They look my son. They took Jason, and they won’t give him back until you’re in that grave. I wish there was some other way, but there isn’t.”

The world was silent. Horror and disbelief emanated from me. I could feel the magnetic pull of the grave. Tears slid down both cheeks as I stared at Tobias. They knew. They had discovered the money I had set aside, the careful plans I had been laying. They knew I was looking for an opportunity to leave, and they had elicited Tobias’s help to put a stop to it. I opened my mouth to say something, anything, to change Toby’s mind, but nothing would come. Nothing would work. He would never choose me over his son.

Toby shut his eyes as if trying to block out the sight of my terror. “Please, Izzy.” He whispered. “I can’t lose him.”

My voice was broken and thick as I tried to respond, shaking violently and breathing so hard I felt like I was moaning. “I don’t know if I can do this. You know I would do anything for Jason, but….. I just don’t know if I can.”

Tobias opened his eyes, slowly. They were drowning in anguish, but the tears were gone. In their place was a resolve that turned me to gelatin. “You don’t have a choice.”

It was my turn to close my eyes. In the darkness behind my eyelids, I saw flashes of my life. The decisions I had made. The hurt I had caused. The lives I had cost. I saw Tobias, in the same boat as me. I also saw Jason. I didn’t have a son. Toby did. I didn’t have a purpose. Toby did. If it was either him or me, I knew who I had to choose.

“Okay.” I opened my eyes and whispered the one word. Tears rolling down my dirty face, I turned and stepped into the coffin. My body, hot and sweaty just moments ago, felt cold and clammy now as I lay backward into my grave. Toby loomed above me, his face wet and his hands shaking as he bent toward the lid of the casket. “I’ll come back for you,” he whispered hoarsely, as the lid of the coffin slowly shut out the light until just a sliver remained. “I’ll come back and dig you out, I promise.”

I closed my eyes as blackness covered me like a sheet, snuffing out all hope. Tobias wouldn’t come back for me; he couldn’t. It was either me or his son, and he had made the right choice.

As the first shovelful of dirt sounded against the top of the casket, I let out a breath and told myself to smile. I had just saved a life.