Of Bugs and Bones - shrimp

The musty scent of the earth hung heavily around Brigadier as he trod softly through the near-black cemetery. He relied mostly on memory as he passed by row after row of neatly maintained headstones. Flowers in various stages of life rested against many of them. He could not see them, as it was nearly midnight and the moon was just a sliver in the sky - but he could smell their decaying fragrance, adding a sickeningly sweet undercurrent to the heavy smell of ozone.

He passed these grave sites, not interested in whatever treasures they held. For one, they obviously still had loved ones who visited them, and for two, they were … fresher. Skin and meat would still be clinging to their bones. Rings would come away with strips of flesh, necklaces would be tangled in hair and sitting in pools of human soup. And the smell. No, Brig had learned long ago that it was best to go for the graves from the oldest part the of cemetery. He looked for the crumbling headstones, the ones that were so weathered he couldn’t read their names or when they lived. He looked for the slightly sunken earth that signified that coffin had collapsed against the pressure of the six feet of earth that buried it, exposing the bodies to bugs and bacteria that would effectively break them down to their base components. These bodies would be nothing but bone and hair, their valuables plucked from them with relative ease.

Brigadier’s eyes strained against the inky darkness, struggling against the lack of light. The regimented rows of headstones gave way to the haphazard placement of the past, signalling his passage into an older part of the cemetery. He could no longer be sure that the path he walked would be clear. He walked with his shovel out in front of him, a blind man with a cane. He carefully moved it left and right, skirting around objects he bumped with it. He held the carefully memorized map of the cemetery in his mind, calculating how far he still had until he ran into the tree that served as his landmark. Eventually, the sound of his shovel hitting wood alerted of his whereabouts and prompted the next part of his journey. He turned ninety degrees, and counted 200 paces, placing him firmly in the area of grave sites he had scouted during the day earlier in the week.

Brig held out a hand, feeling the vicinity around him. His fingers brushed against stone, still slightly damp from the light showers that passed through not too long ago. He knelt down, feeling the face of the headstone for grooves that would signify if he was on the right side or not. They were slight, but they were there. Brig set down the backpack slung over his shoulders, and plunged the blade of the shovel into the soft earth. He stepped onto it, making it take a bigger bite. He carefully scooped out the topsoil, and set it aside. He repeated this small ritual an innumerable amount of times, making sure he set the topsoil aside so he could replace it when he was done. This would cover his crime from any cursory glances. Not many people came this deep into the cemetery, not even the groundskeeper. They spent most of the energy on the more visited sections.

He worked in darkness for hours. The repetitive motions put him in an almost trance-like state. The soft slink of the shovel slipping into the earth, the burn of his shoulders, tipping the dirt behind him over and over and over. His mind wandered. It was unusually quiet.Normally, he had his brother with him, expediting the process and making it wholly less meditative, but tonight Lieutenant was nowhere to be found. Lieutenant hadn’t been around much at all lately. Brig tried not to think on that, tried not to dwell on the loneliness and betrayal he felt. Instead, he sunk his shovel into the earth more forcefully, cutting off that line of thinking resolutely. Unfortunately, instead of the soft slink, it was a rather loud echoey thud of metal against a hollow wood coffin. Brig cringed, but he was certain he was the only one around for miles. He gently moved his shovel to dig shallower, moving with increased vigor knowing that the end was near.