I walk toward the shed with the sensation that I am watching myself do this. It feels surreal. Not me. This can’t be me. Can’t be my life. The closer I get to the shed, the more certain I am that I cannot go inside.
No choice.
I rest my hand on the butt of my weapon, and I step inside. The interior is shaded from the sun; it’s dark and cool inside. I reach up and pull the string. A single bare bulb flares to life overhead.
No mud. Nothing appears out of place. My gaze darts around the room. It’s about fifteen by twenty feet, with a nice long worktable in the center. Shelves line three of the walls. Tools hang from pegboard along the fourth wall.
My gaze settles on a pale shadow on the pegboard. The place where a shovel once hung. My gut tightens.
Okay. There was a shovel. Apparently I did do some digging. My palms burn, reminding me that there was never really any question. I walk back outside and wander around the yard, widening my search for a chunk of mud or some muddy tracks. If I dug something up and then walked back to my car, based on the mud on my shoes and jeans, I had to have left a trail.
I see a blob of mud in the grass. Then another and another. I follow the random trail until the mud splotches become bigger, closer together. The path leads me to the tree line and then disappears into the thick undergrowth.
I have to look carefully to find the broken sprigs of greenery, the bent limbs of wild shrubs, but I locate the path I obviously took. As I wade through the brush, my clothes getting damp from the moisture clinging to the leaves, I see where larger limbs have been broken from bushes and small saplings. I couldn’t have wreaked that much havoc just walking or running past. I inspect a fractured limb. This was broken off at my shoulder level. Why would I feel the need to tear off limbs and sprigs of shrubs?
I must have totally lost my mind.
Fear knots in my belly. I am, I decide, slipping over some edge that I cannot see.
About twenty yards into the woods, I find a small clearing. The missing shovel lies on a mound of dirt that has been exhumed fromthe center of the clearing. At the head of the open hole is a rusty metal cross that has obviously been here for some time. My knees threaten to give out on me.
The hole in the ground takes up most of the cleared space next to the mound of dirt. The shape is undeniably the proper size for burying a body.
I shake my head. This cannot be. But the cross—my gaze touches the rusty metal again. My heart thumps harder and harder and I can’t breathe.
I stare into the hole, where the missing tree limbs and sprigs of brush line the bottom. My next breath is a struggle. “Just get it over with,” I mutter.
Holding on to a sapling, I ease down into the waist-deep pit. Whatever else happens, I have to know what I put in this fucking hole ... or whatever was already here. I reach for the limbs, toss the first one and then another out of the way.
I remove another handful, and there, on the ground in front of me, are bones. A skeleton. Terror lights in my chest. It appears to have been wrapped in a pink blanket. The band of slick pink nylon that served as a border is all that remains of the covering. The rest has decomposed and vanished into the earth. But the bones are there. Splattered mud is stark against the white shape that lies almost fully intact like the skeletons you see hanging in a science classroom.
I blink, take a step back. My backside hits the ground behind me as I stare at the bones.No.No. No. This can’t be.
Not an animal. Human bones. Bones that have been buried for a very long time.
Horror burns through my veins.I know these bones.
Nooooreverberates around me like the wind, buffeting my being. I jerk my head up to see where the soul-shattering sound is coming from, and it is only then that I realize the screams are coming from me. I scramble out of the pit, my head spinning.
The next thing I know, I’m running ... running toward the house. I rush inside, fly up the stairs, mud on my shoes causing me to slip. I scramble onward, toward my room. I need to be in my room—the one where I slept my whole life. The place where my history is documented from birth until just before my father died when he hung a photo of the two of us above the lamp on the bedside table.
I remember that day as clearly as if it were yesterday.
What is happening to me?
I stare at the photo, our smiling faces. This is who I am. Whatever is wrong with me, isn’t about that ... can’t be about my family. I close the door, sag against it to catch my breath. When my body stops trembling, I look at the wooden doorframe to my left and the tick marks my parents posted there each time they measured my height from the time I was old enough to stand on my own. Happy laughter echoes in my head. My mother and I twirling around the room.
This is my room ... my space. My history. My life.
I go to the bookcase above the desk where I did homework as a kid. I grab a photo album and stare at the pictures of my parents and me. My muddy fingers flip through the pages. I stare at photo after photo. It’s all there. All the memories in my head are right here on these pages.
The pain shears through my head, and I stagger, close my eyes.
Not again.
The stabbing pain intensifies. I squeeze my eyes shut more tightly. Drop the photo album and stumble to my bed. I curl up on the soft, familiar comforter and pull a pillow over my head.
If I’m very, very still ... keep my eyes closed tight ... maybe it will pass.
