Wormfood (19 page)

“Shake it off,” Fat Ernst commanded.

Junior didn’t do much except make fists, little grabbing motions in the air in front of his face, and blink rapidly.

“That must hurt like hell,” I said.

“Popped
your
cherry,” Bert said, and I guess that struck him as particularly funny, because he started giggling uncontrollably, and the lantern started to shake, throwing our huge shadows around the hole like lurching giants.

“Come on, come on,” Fat Ernst said. “We’re almost there. Quit fucking around.”

Junior blinked a few more times and shook his head, spraying blood all over the place. With a tremendous, “You fucking fuck!” he raised the crowbar above his head and brought it down on the coffin with all his strength. The impact left a slight dent and made a hollow boom, but that was all. This pissed Junior off even more, and he attacked the coffin in ferocious spasms, flailing away at it like an old blind woman trying to kill a rattlesnake with her cane.

Finally, he gave up, exhausted and spent. Blood was still running freely from his nose, but Junior ignored it and stared at the coffin like he was trying to scare it into opening. “Gimme that sledgehammer.”

Fat Ernst dropped it into the hole. Junior bent over the coffin, inspecting the dents and grooves that he had inflicted on the lid. Sliding his finger along the seam where the lid was cut in half, he found a small notch, a chip broken out of the surface. “There we go,” he whispered.

He caressed the notch, then gently worked the blade of the crowbar into the narrow space. “Hold this,” Junior said to me, indicating the bar. He held it upright, directly in the center of the lid, as if he was about to stake a vampire.

I did what I was told, firmly grabbing the cold steel with both hands, holding it snug into the little chipped space. If I had realized what Junior was planning, I probably wouldn’t have been so quick to grab the damn thing, because he stepped back, swinging the sledgehammer up and over his head. He said, “Watch it,” and smashed the hammer flat down on top of the crowbar in a tiny burst of sparks and stinging chips of metal. The jolt vibrated up my arms into my chest and it felt as though I had grabbed hold of an electric fence. I’m lucky I didn’t let go, and managed to keep the crowbar in an upright position, because the second blow came just as fast. I stepped as far away from the coffin as I could, holding the crowbar with one straight arm. Junior kept whipping the sledgehammer over his head and swinging it down, like he was working on a railroad, driving iron spikes into solid rock.

After about five or six blows, my hand went numb. It took a few seconds to realize that I wasn’t even holding onto the crowbar anymore, yet it was staying upright. Junior had managed to pound it almost an inch into the seam in the coffin lid. He kept at it, bringing the hammer down and grunting every time it smashed into the crowbar.

“All right, open wide for daddy,” Junior said as he straddled the coffin, crowbar between his legs, and grabbed the tool with both hands. “You like it, don’t you?” He screamed this last part out as he wrenched the crowbar forward, then back. It gave a little, but not much.

“You know you want it!” Junior kept screaming and spitting blood, but I guess the coffin wasn’t in the mood for sweet talk. That crowbar didn’t budge. After a moment, Junior said, “Bert, get your ass down here.” He looked at me, disgusted. “Unlike like the Amazing Human Noodle over here, I need somebody with a little weight, a little fucking strength.”

“You got it,” Bert said, and slid into the grave. Junior hopped off the coffin and told me to get on it. “Sit down, put your back against the wall, and push at it with your feet. Me and Bert’ll pull.” He positioned Bert at the head of the coffin and stood next to him. I braced my boots against the crowbar, spread my arms, put my hands flat against the dripping mud wall behind me, and got ready to push. On the other side of the bar, Bert wrapped his left hand over my boots. Then Junior encircled Bert’s hand with both of his fists, interlocking his fingers. “Now, when I give the signal, we’re gonna pop this old girl open.” He winked. “And that’s a goddamn promise.”

Maybe it was Bert. Maybe it was my legs. Maybe the coffin finally just succumbed to Junior’s romance. I don’t know. Whatever it was, when Junior shrieked, “NOW!” I kicked out as hard as I could and they jerked backward on that crowbar. I heard a deep, satisfying crack. The crowbar suddenly flopped over toward the Sawyer brothers, and they tumbled into the mire at the bottom of the grave. I looked down to see a long, ragged crack running between my legs, up toward my ass. This made me vaguely uncomfortable and I scooted off the top of the coffin right quick.

“Yes!” Fat Ernst shouted, clenching both fists.

And suddenly, only one thing became real. The buckle was close now, close enough to smell, close enough to taste, close enough to touch. All of our aches and pains and blisters, the rain, the mud, all of it faded into the background, became unimportant. Junior worked the crowbar around in the crack, slamming it back and forth like a mandesperately trying to churn smooth butter out of cheese. The opening got wider and he worked the crowbar down the coffin, trying to crack the lid in half lengthwise.

The whole lid split right in half. The bottom half wouldn’t open much because at least three feet of the coffin was still buried under the mud wall, but Junior pried open the top half enough that he could force his fingers inside and pull. It swung open with a groan from the mud-caked hinges, but it was open, by God, a quarter of the lid pried up and waiting.

Nobody said anything. Fat Ernst lowered the lantern down into the hole and Junior grabbed it, held it over the open part of the coffin. Bert stood at the head and I stepped closer, joining Junior along the side of the casket. Junior tilted the lantern sideways to get light into the ruptured coffin. “Huh,” he said. “I guess these things leak.”

The coffin was full of black water.

“Who gives a fuck,” Fat Ernst hissed down at us, on his knees at the edge of the dike. His hands kept fluttering around, as if he were a puppeteer and could control us by manipulating the strings. It didn’t work though; nobody in the grave moved. “Holy fuck, just reach in there and grab it!”

“I ain’t sticking my hand in there.” I thought this was one of the most intelligent things Junior had ever said.

Fat Ernst nearly had a fit. “If I woulda known that I hired a bunch of pussies …” He gritted his teeth. “Just reach in there and grab it!” he shouted, high and shrill, with one pudgy finger stabbing violently toward the coffin. “Hey, boy!” The stabbing finger found me. “You. You reach in there and grab it. Do it, and … and I’ll double your share.”

Well, there was no way I was going to stick my hand in there, not for any amount. Before I could say anything, Bert shrugged, said, “No big deal,” and reached into the black water, holding his cast away from the coffin. His eyes rolled back and crossed as he felt around inside the flooded coffin.

“Good job there, Bert. Glad at least one of you has a set of balls,” Fat Ernst shouted happily. “Keep going, boy, you’ll know it when you find it.”

Bert pulled his hand out of the coffin and we all tensed. But he merely inspected a glob of fatty tissue curled in his palm. He rolled it between his thumb and forefinger, sniffed it, decided it wasn’t important, and flung it away. Then, without hesitation, he plunged his arm back in there, concentration etched into his face.

“Find anything?” Junior asked.

Bert shook his head. “Old Earl didn’t make it in here in one piece, did he?” he called up at Fat Ernst.

“No, no, he didn’t,” Fat Ernst said. “Thanks to you knuckleheads, he ended up in the ditch.” He chuckled. “He wasn’t exactly in the best of shape when they fished him out.”

I couldn’t help myself and asked, “What’s it feel like, Bert?”

He thought hard for a moment, the tip of his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth, like a pink, blind animal that’s cautiously testing the wind before venturing out of its burrow. “Gooshy,” he said finally. He pulled his arm out one more time, but this time he was clutching a black cowboy boot full of water. He tipped the boot up, pouring the water into the mud around our feet. “He’s … he’s all mixed up.”

“You just keep going there, Bert. It’s in there. I know it,” Fat Ernst said.

Bert jammed his arm back into the water, felt around for a minute, then reached in deeper, until he was practically bent over double, water up to his shoulder. He grunted, trying to push his arm farther. His eyes narrowed. “I think I got it!” Bert dragged a dripping pair of jeans and a thick leather belt out of the coffin. Sure enough, that gold and diamond belt buckle was clutched in his left hand.

But it was the worms that caught my attention.

Two of them, both as plump as Fat Ernst’s cigars, hung off of his left forearm, twisting and undulating, slowly chewing into the soft flesh up near the elbow. I don’t think Bert actually felt the wormson his skin until he saw them, but when he finally did see them, he freaked. He shrieked and scrambled backward, kicking away from the coffin, and dropped the jeans and the buckle into the mud. Junior went after him, trying to help.

“Get the fucking buckle!” Fat Ernst screamed.

While Junior was busy pinning Bert’s left arm in the mud and grabbing at the worms, I scuttled over and managed to grab the buckle, a heavy goddamn thing, before Bert’s kicking legs drove it even deeper into the muck.

“Oh, thank Christ!” Fat Ernst breathed. “Give it to me.” He reached out toward me, leaning closer.

“Little fuckers!” Junior hissed through clenched teeth, a squirming worm between his fingers. He flicked it into the mud and stomped on it. Bert yanked the undulating second worm out of his left arm and wiped it on his cast.

“Give it to me!” Fat Ernst was really reaching now, still on his knees but leaning way over the edge, stretching his arm out to me. I turned to him, an automatic response, and lifted the buckle toward his hand.

A sound caught my attention, a sort of deep, groaning sound that seemed to come from far away.

Bert suddenly screamed, slapping at his cast. I turned and saw that the worm had squirmed its way between the flesh and the plaster, at the inside of his elbow. He whipped his arm out, catching Junior right in the nose. Junior went to his knees, fresh blood pouring from his nostrils. Bert clawed at his cast, whimpering at first, then flat-out screaming when the groaning, sucking sound got louder and louder. I turned, got a quick flash of the bulging mud wall, and suddenly understood.

I whirled around and scrambled onto the coffin as the whole west side of the grave collapsed, snuffing the light out, Fat Ernst riding the crumbling wall of mud on his knees all the way down. Junior yanked Bert out of the way as a tidal wave of water exploded into the grave and I found myself clawing and kicking at the mud attacking me, fightingmy way to the east wall. The water swirled and surged up underneath me, lifting me toward the canopy. I kicked out even harder, thrashing and fighting the quicksand muck. Somehow, I managed to find the edge and pull myself out of the rushing, boiling water.

I rolled down the other side of the dike and got twisted around. In the darkness, I wasn’t sure where I was at first, whether the grave was behind me or in front of me. I’d been too close to that lantern for too long and, as a result, couldn’t see much of anything for a few minutes. The lantern had been at the bottom of the grave and was long gone. There was just rain, mud, and water. I felt something, looked down, and could just make out a few tired glints from the buckle still clutched in my right hand.

By then my eyes were starting to get used to the darkness, and I could see the canopy and the surging, swirling water where the open grave had been. I heard someone coughing on the other side of the canopy. “Holy Jesus,” Fat Ernst coughed weakly. He gagged again, spitting into the water. I saw his shadow wearily climb onto a faint gray shape in the night—the slab.

Everything was getting clearer; my night vision was kicking back in. I saw Junior’s back as he crawled out of the water and onto the slab. He rolled around on his stomach and peered back into the water. “Bert!” he called out.

I heard vomiting off to my right. Junior scrambled over to that end of the slab and reached out, grabbing Bert by his hair. Fat Ernst suddenly sat up and shouted, “Who’s got the buckle? Oh, sweet Jesus, one of you fucks please tell me you’ve got it.” Junior pulled Bert onto the slab, pounding on his brother’s back. Bert kept vomiting and I wondered how he’d managed to swallow that much mud.

“Oh fuck, oh fuckohfuck.” Fat Ernst started weeping. “Please, please tell me somebody got it.”

Bert suddenly twitched, kicking his long legs out in the mud. “I … I think that thing just crawled up under my cast,” he said in a quiet voice.

I looked down at the buckle clenched in my right fist. The diamonds managed to catch whatever light had filtered through the thick clouds and rain and glittered seductively in my hand. I suddenly realized that I could just run. Keep the buckle for myself. Just turn and run like hell and disappear into the darkness.

But then what? Where would I take it? I couldn’t get to Sacramento to a pawn shop. I couldn’t exactly march into the town bank either, drop the buckle on the counter and demand to be paid for it. And it wasn’t like Fat Ernst wouldn’t know who had taken it. He’d hunt me and the buckle down and probably kill me without thinking twice about it. I didn’t have much of a choice.

“I’ve got it,” I called out. If I gave it to Fat Ernst, at least I had the possibility of getting a little cash out of it.

“You do? Oh, thank Christ. Give it here. Hurry!”

“It’s in my arm …” Bert started to cry and snot ran across his lips, leaving clear, glistening tracks in the mud on his face.

“Not yet. I want to make a deal first,” I said, trying to keep my voice strong, and unclipped the buckle from the belt and jeans.

“What kind of fucking deal? Just bring it over here and we’ll talk.”

“I want a bigger share. Five hundred bucks. That’s fair. If this thing’s worth fifteen, twenty grand, then you can pay me five hundred easy. If you don’t think that’s fair, then I’ll just toss it back into the grave, and you can fight those fucking worms for it,” I said, tossing the wet jeans back into the mud. I realized that might have been the longest speech I had ever made to Fat Ernst.