Second Funeral

I grabbed the hammer in my right hand and snatched up a handful of nails in my left. My hands trembled so badly I could barely steady the first nail long enough to drive it into the wooden plank.

Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!

Each strike of the hammer against the nail echoed the thumping of my heartbeat. I knew I had to work quickly. The animal tranquilizer I’d stolen from the veterinarian’s office wouldn’t keep it immobile for long.

When the last nail was gone, I let the hammer fall from my hand. It thumped into the soft dirt under my feet.

The trip to Haiti had been for naught. That voodoo witch doctor had lied to me. The resurrection spell he’d provided re-animated my dead wife’s corpse, but it didn’t bring her back. Not the way I’d wanted. Whatever it was that had returned to me was something horrible. I realized only now that what was dead must stay dead.

I sucked in air and filled my lungs and let it out with a loud “Whoosh”. I was out of time.

I bent low and lifted the oblong pine crate up on one end and moved it over onto the ropes I’d laid out. I repeated the movement with the lower end until the ropes I’d rigged with pulleys hanging from the tree above were firmly underneath. Then I pulled hard and hoisted the makeshift coffin into the air and pushed it over the hole I’d dug.

It was taking too long to lower the crate. I thought I felt stirring inside. I’d dug the grave six feet down but I wasn’t sure if that would be deep enough. I prayed that it was.

When the box settled on the bottom, I quickly tossed the ropes in on top of it. Grabbing the shovel I started to scoop the freshly turned dirt from the pile next to the grave. As the first shovel full of dirt hit the box below, I heard a loud moan. The second shovel full landed and was followed by a powerful bang against the boards. The tranquilizers had worn off.

I shoveled faster.

~V