He loudly knocked on the door again. “Deal, Mr. Chen. I’ll give you the gun, but I want all the milk. Your girls can make their own. I also want some baby food, and diapers, too. And if you want bullets, I’m gonna need some of your rice. That’s a fair trade.”
Jake cringed when he realized he was racially profiling, assuming a Chinese family had lots of rice. He held his breath to see if Mr. Chen would come out smiling or spitting mad… or if he’d come out at all.
The door opened to a happy Mr. Chen. He expectedly held his hand out.
Soon, they were heading out again, away from town with a small stack of supplies. Tina stared down at the blankets in the bed of the truck that Jake had insisted they swipe on the way out of the drycleaners. She wished she didn’t have to be a part of their last errand before returning to Tullymore.
It was one that every one of them would regret until the end of their days.
36
“Dammit, Trunk!” Smalls yelled in a thunderous voice as he stepped to the edge of the grave and looked down. “You okay, Miss Edith?” he yelled down the six-foot deep hole.
Trunk scoffed. “That tough old bird is fine, Smalls. Shut the hell up.”
Edith landed bosom to bosom, staring directly into Mei’s solemn face. She scrambled to get up, and reached down to push herself off the dead woman. But feeling Mei’s body beneath her, she screamed and grabbed the dirt walls, digging in and crabwalking backward to the end of the hole, as far from Mei’s face as she could get. She kept going until her back was against the far dirt wall. She pulled her dirt-covered feeble legs up close to her body and jerked her filthy over-sized house-dress down over them until it covered her ankles.
She wrapped her arms around her legs that were violently shaking, her eyes wide open. She wasn’t afraid of Mei. She knew she was gone; harmless. She was afraid of what else might be in the grave: snakes, rats, spiders… she looked around in terror, imagining creepy-crawlies all over her.
Trunk looked at the phone, checking to be sure it still had a full charge, and dropped it into his pocket. He leaned into the grave and yelled down to Edith, “Just pretty her up, and then we’ll help you out of there.” He put his hand over his mouth, holding back his laughter. When he had control of himself again, he said, “Backfire’s gonna drop down your supplies now.”
Backfire lowered the box, and it landed in front of her, on Mei’s stomach.
The smell of early decay filled Edith’s nose and she heaved, and tried to hold back her retching. Her body lurched as she forced the bile back down her throat.
“Suck it up, Edith. You’re not coming out until Mei is picture-perfect,” Trunk said in a sing-song voice.
He walked away, leaving her to it. Over his shoulder, he called out to his guys, “Call me back out here when she’s ready. This might take a while.” He whistled as he climbed the porch and slammed the screen door behind him.
Tears welled in Edith’s eyes. They weren’t for her; the tears were for Mei. She wanted to just leave this poor girl in peace. She didn’t deserve to be made a mockery of. But, Trunk was a monster. She knew he’d do as he said. He’d proven that already. If she wanted out of this grave, she’d have to do this.
As Backfire and Smalls looked on, she took a deep breath and got up her nerve. She looked up at them and screamed, “I can’t do it with you watching. Give us some privacy,” she snapped. “I’m going to change her shirt.”
Smalls nodded his head once, and put one big meaty arm in front of Backfire, who was leering down into the hole, hoping for a show. Smalls pushed him back away from the grave, ignoring his protests.
“Let her be, you sick fuck,” Smalls said, and stood with his back to the grave, blocking Backfire from reaching the edge of it again. “Go tattle to your daddy, if you need to.”
Backfire huffed off. More likely to stuff his face or take a nap than to tattle. He was always looking for free time to slack off.
Smalls glared at the smaller man’s back.
Once he was alone with the women, he sat down in the nearby chair, where he couldn’t see them. “Miss Edith, I’m right here. Just yell if you need me,” he said.
Edith ignored him.
She started with the water and washcloth, squeezing the excess water out of the rag. She crawled up on her hands and knees across the top of Mei, and gently dabbed at the dirt on her face. Such a young girl… just a child, really. She never had a chance to make things right with her daughter either.
Suddenly, she remembered the picture of the little girl with the dark pigtails that they’d buried Mei with. She scooted back and wiped the dirt away from Mei’s arms. There was the picture, in Mei’s one hand, with the stump hidden beneath. She wiped the photograph against her dress, cleaning it off the best she could.
This had to be Mei’s daughter.
A tear rolled down her face and she sat the picture aside. All Edith and Elmer wanted when they buried this poor girl on their land, was to let her finally rest in peace, with her daughter in her arms. Soon, those three monsters would be down here pawing at her, posing for pictures.
She wrinkled her nose and curled her lip when she remembered Trunk’s instructions to leave off her bra. Would they touch her like that?
Edith couldn’t let that happen. Frantically, she worked to fix Mei’s hair and face. When she finished with that, she carefully pulled the pins out of her own hair, gently letting the long, silver strands down.
Now, she had a weapon.
She pulled on the girl’s arms, struggling to get her into an upright position while she sat across her lap, one leg on either side of her. Edith’s old legs were folded beneath her, pressed against the cold dirt. Her circulation wasn’t good at the best of times, and now, she could barely feel them. She grimaced at the sharp needle pricks that attacked her when she tried to unbend them.
Giving up on her legs, she pulled Mei’s arms out of her shirt, one at a time, and then gently pulled it over her head. She slipped off the dirty purple shirt and replaced it with the clean blouse from the box.
She left Mei’s bra on.
Finishing, she held Mei up while squeezing herself behind her, moving at a snail’s pace. Almost ready now, she pulled Mei against her, trying to cover herself completely up.
She leaned back, and put her arms under Mei’s—as though she were a puppeteer. “She’s ready!” she called up to Smalls. “I’m holding her up to get one good picture of just Mei before you all get down here with her.”
Smalls looked down and flinched. “Okay, Miss Edith. I’ll go get the boss.”
A few moments later, Trunk and Backfire followed Smalls to the grave; Trunk was distracted with turning on the phone and finding the camera app. He stepped up and looked down. “Where’s Edith?” he growled, turning on Smalls with fire in his eyes.
“She’s in there. She’s behind Mei. Said we could snap a good picture of Mei first if you wanted,” Smalls said.
Trunk looked again and laughed, now seeing Edith’s plump body behind Mei’s thin one. But her head was hidden. He shrugged his shoulders. “Sure. Good idea.” He squatted down and aimed the camera at Mei. “I still see you, Edith…” he said. Edith was too fluffy to completely hide behind a small girl like Mei. “You did a good job, though. Everybody say cheese…”
He snapped a picture and stood up.
Edith called up. “She wants to wave at the camera. Get a close-up of this,” she said in a muffled voice, the gruesome back of Mei’s head in front of her own.