Pudge jabbed his shovel into the frozen earth, letting out a sigh as it toppled over, clanking against the headstone.
"Will you cut the shit and just keep digging?" Derrick thrust his shovel back into the fresh grave, grunting as he heaved another scoop of dirt. Fisher's grave was a mess of mud and snow; recent visitors' footprints having left an outline of some macabre dance.
Pudge blew over his blisters, his cold hands as lifeless as the cemetery around them. He stuffed his hands into his jacket searching for a fix. Yellow pills, blue pills, a cigarette; anything to take his mind away from the cold. He came up empty, only finding a candy wrapper which he threw on the ground. His stomach grumbled. "I got blisters, D. Shit, how long do we have to be out here, man? We've been digging for over an hour already." His bloodshot eyes glanced around, shifting from side to side. "Fisher ain't even been buried for a day. We can come back."
Derrick paused, standing up straight. "Fuck your blisters, fool. Why don't you snatch us some gloves next time?" He leaned over his shovel. "And as for coming back? Bitch, do you think people will take kindly to a half dug up grave?"
Pudge swallowed and scratched at dry skin on his cheek.
"No is right. Now let’s just dig him up, grab the ice they buried him with and get out of here. We'll hit the pawns and then get you your smack."
Their eyes met; for a fleeting moment, the sliver of moon in the sky gave them an eerie glow before they sank back into dark skin and shadow. “And I get that hat, too,” Derrick mumbled.
Pudge picked up the fallen shovel and began to work at the edge of the hole near Fisher's headstone.
That hat...thought Pudge.
Fisher had appeared out of thin air one Sunday morning in the Westside Projects; in his tattered black jacket and wide brim hat, he stared out across the yard as the police recovered the bodies of six gang members who were murdered overnight. No one knew who he was or why he was there but he pretty much ran things after that. On several occasions, men from the city came into the Projects, poking fun at Fisher's strange old hat or his dirty clothes. Fisher called it trespassin'. And once you trespassed, you didn't come back. There were terrible screams on those nights. And the next day, another hood would be missing from his bed. The old folks whispered that the nights grew longer since the shadow of that wide black brim stretched across the grounds.
That is, until he died.
They worked on for several minutes until Pudge's constant fidgeting interrupted the silence. “D,” he said, sniffling, “did you hear how Fisher died?” Derrick ground his crooked teeth in silent annoyance.
"I heard Fisher got torn up real bad. Body parts all over the place and shit." Pudge pulled his sleeves back up over his palms to cover his wounds. "But, Little Mike said that one of Fisher's top men popped him." He made his hand into a gun and gestured towards Derrick. "POP. POP." Eyes squinting as if aiming down the sights. "Two in the head."
Derrick cocked his head to the side and glared at Pudge. "Are you done yet?" Embarrassed, Pudge hunched his shoulders, feeling goose bumps climb his spine. The wind picked up, ruffling Derrick's sweatshirt. "Get down here and help or you get nothing."
Pudge continued his ramble as his descended into the hole. "And then just yesterday," he cleared his throat. "Just yesterday, Matty comes over and says that he heard someone took ol' Fisher's big black hat." He shifted some dirt with his shovel. "That's right. Someone took that black hat right off Fisher's head and WHAM, Fisher hit the floor. Dead."
Derrick probed deeper, steam pouring from his mouth and nostrils. The strain of his grunts becoming louder and harsher.
"D, I'll help man, really." Pudge backed up against the side of the hole, ducking away from a cloud of dirt.
And still, Derrick pushed on, faster. His shovel cracked against Pudge's wrist, catching it as he threw dirt against the side. Pudge cried out, dropping his shovel, gripping his hand. Dirt flew into his eyes and he cowered in a corner of the savaged grave. “Watch out D!”
With a loud THUNK, Derrick's shovel found Fisher's casket. He let out an unnerving cackle as the wood splintered. THUNK, THUNK, THUNK, CRACK!
Pudge felt an immediate sense of dread emanating from the hole in the casket. It crawled up his legs and took hold of his stomach, squishing and squeezing it as he trembled.
Derrick crouched over the exposed casket like a predator making claim to a meal. Pudge wished he had turned and ran. Something was wrong with Derrick's eyes, as if he was no longer their sole owner.
Taken by madness, Derrick tore into the hole in the top of the casket with his bare hands. They were a bloody mess, pulped into glistening appendages that flopped into the opening as if floundering for air. A warm wetness crept down Pudge's leg as he closed his eyes in terror.
Derrick's head wrenched back and let out a scream that burned all thought and sense from Pudge's mind. Pudge fought to his feet, scrabbled up the side of the hole.
His lungs screamed for mercy, threatening to burst from his chest as he struggled over and down the hill, past the lone dead tree towards his abandoned building, his home. But he tripped on the way down, his momentum carrying him rolling, rolling through the snow to a stop, slamming his head against the iron rods of the cemetery fence. Through blurred vision he glanced up, back at the hill over which he had just come.
There, resting against the tree, stood a tall wisp of a man with a big black hat and a crooked yellow grin.
END
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