"But we have to," Lacey said. She realized with a start that their roles had been reversed. "Why don't we dig the hole—the grave—first, and then ... and then we'll do it together."
Carole stared at her. "You'll help me?"
"Yes." Lacey nodded, hoping she was making a promise she could keep. "For him. For Uncle Joe."
They began to dig, together at first, then taking turns as the grave deepened.
Lacey was waist deep in the hole as the sun began to emerge from the sea. She pointed to the loose sand sliding down the walls around her.
"If that keeps up we'll never make six feet."
Carole sat to the side, taking her turn to rest. "We'll do the best we can. We need it deep enough to discourage any wild dogs from trying to dig him up."
The exertions of digging plus her earlier concussion had started blinding bolts of pain shooting through her head. That, the beating she'd endured, and the lack of food made the work agony, but she'd keep on digging till nightfall and beyond if it meant putting off what they had to do once Joe's grave was ready.
"All right," Lacey said. "We'll go down another foot, then—" She stopped as she caught a sharp, pungent odor. "What's that? Something burning?" A puff of white smoke wafted past her. "What the hell? It almost smells like—"
"Oh, dear God!" Carole cried, scrambling to her hands and knees. "Father Joe!"
Lacey looked and saw her uncle lying in the full light of the rising sun. His exposed skin was smoking and bubbling.
"Shit!"
She scrambled out of the grave and grabbed his arm, then released it in a spasm of revulsion. The flesh felt like hot wax. She looked for a place to hide him from the sun. With the light shining at this low angle, the only shady spots here were the narrow bands behind the pilings, nowhere near enough to shelter him.
"Quick!" Carole said. "The grave!"
She grabbed Joe's sheet-wrapped feet and started dragging him toward it. Lacey helped. Seconds later they tumbled him into the opening. He landed on his back, out of the sun, and immediately his skin stopped boiling. But the odor of burning flesh still rolled off of him.
"Look at him," Lacey whispered. "Look what it did to him."
They crouched and stared at him. The still-smoking skin of Joe's face and chest and upper arms was dead white and rippled and pitted like a bad stucco job.
Finally Carole said, "Why did we do that?"
"Do what?"
"Protect him from the sun."
Lacey saw what she meant. "You mean if we'd left him there, the sun might have done the job for us?"
Carole shook her head. "I don't know, but that's what seemed to be happening."
"Are you saying we should drag him out on the beach and just let him . . . what. . . boil away?"
That struck Lacey as a greater defilement than driving a stake through him. Almost like setting him on fire.
"I don't know," Carole said. "I used to be so very sure about some things, especially this sort of thing. Now ... I don't know."
Lacey glanced again at her uncle's body, appalled by his ruined skin, and noticed something. She squinted into the shadows of the grave, still not sure.
"What is it?" Carole said.
"Look at his throat. Wasn't it all torn open a few minutes ago?"
Carole slapped a hand over her mouth. "Oh, no! It's happening already!"
"What?"
"The change! He's turning!"
"How do you know?"
"Because Bernadette. .. because I've seen it before. As they turn, the death wound heals up as if it never was."
Lacey grabbed Carole's flashlight and fixed the beam on Joe's throat. The area where it had been torn open was thickened and puckered, a different kind of scarring than the rest of his ruined skin. "That doesn't look healed up to me. Looks more like its been fused or ..." What was the word? "... cauterized."
"He's turned, I tell you." Carole looked around, then picked up Joe's big silver cross from the sand. "Watch."
As Carole leaned into the grave and pressed the cross against Joe's chest, Lacey winced, expecting a puff of smoke and who knew what else. But nothing happened.
"That's strange," Carole said. "It should have burned him."
"Which means he hasn't turned."
"Yet," Carole's eyes took on a haunted look. "This doesn't let us off the hook, I'm afraid."
Lacey glanced over to where the stake and the maul rested on the sand.
"What if.. ." Her thoughts were scattering like a startled flock of birds. "What if the sun burned it out of him?"
"Burned what out of him?"
"Whatever makes you turn undead. Look, it cauterized his wound."
"And all his exposed skin as well. He would have . . . dissolved out there if we hadn't pushed him into this hole!"
She had a point. Joe had looked like he was melting, but Lacey wasn't giving in. She had this feeling ...
"Okay, but what if he was out there in the sun long enough to kill him—I mean, to burn off whatever was going to make him undead and leave him really dead? It's possible, isn't it?"
Carole sighed. "Possible, I suppose. But I've never heard of anything like that."
"There must be tons we don't know about these creatures. If you agree it's possible, then why can't we leave him as he is and just fill in his grave?"
Carole shook her head. "We need to be sure. We owe him that."
"All right then ..." Her mind ranged over the options, anything but jumping into that hole and driving a stake through that limp body. "How about we come back here at sunset? If he's not dead, we'll be waiting when he starts to dig his way out, and we'll. .. stop him."
"You want to risk that?" Carole said, eyeing her. "It will be harder, but we can stop him as he's crawling out. Just remember, it will be much worse to have to stake him while he's moving."
Lacey wrung her hands. "I know, I know. But I've got this feeling we won't have to."
"This is nothing but wishful thinking, Lacey."
"It's more than that. Please. Do it my way, just this once."
Carole sat silent for a long moment, then, "All right. I just hope we don't regret this."
Her tone was wary, but Lacey thought she detected a hint of relief.
"We won't. I've got—"
"A feeling. So you said." Carole grabbed a shovel. "But swear to me you'll be back here with me before sunset, and that we'll watch over him all night until dawn." "I swear."
Carole nodded and started shoveling sand back into the grave.
"Wait," Lacey said. "Let me cover his face."
She slid into the hole, careful not to step on him, and tugged up the sheet so that it covered her uncle's face.
As soon as Lacey crawled out, Carole started shoveling again. She couldn't seem to wait to cover him.
"Shouldn't we say a few words over him first?"
Lacey didn't want a prayer, but she thought they could at least say something about the man he was and the life he'd led.
Carole looked at her. "Not yet. Not till we're sure he's at rest. Truly at rest. Then we'll give our eulogies."
- 8 -
He awakens in crushing darkness, a damp, dusty sheet pressed hard against his face, pushing at his eyes, an anvil resting on his chest.
Air! He needs air!
Then he realizes that he doesn't. He feels no urge to breathe, no need. Why not?
Where is he? More important—who is he? The answer is there, just beyond his grasp. Reaching for it, he tries to claw at the entrapping sheet but his arms are pinned to his sides by its enormous weight. He worms one hand up across his chest to where he can grip the sheet. He pulls it down—