defiance. A quick glance up told me we were fixing to die. The snow was thickening as it fell, ominous in its approach.
No chance of making it back to the mausoleum, not that it would protect us anyway, I surveyed the garden for something to hide under. There was nothing. My heart sank and joined my balls, which were hiding deep inside my ass. Not ready to die, I looked around one last desperate time and noticed a sheet of plywood on the ground just a few feet from us. Suddenly remembering why a board would be there in the middle of the garden, I sunk my hand into the flab of Marvin’s arm and dragged him along behind me.
There, I lifted the plywood up and breathed a relieved sigh as I saw the open grave beneath it. No time to worry about kindness, I shoved Marvin into the hole, tossed my luggage in, then jumped in after. Marvin landed with a pained grunt. Whimpers and quiet sobs followed as I straightened the board to make sure it covered the hole completely. Though I knew it wouldn’t hold up against the snow for more than a minute, it was something.
A quick look around the grave told me it wouldn’t be empty for long; the storm was running a two-for-one sale. Not interested in dying, and even less interested in dying with Marvin, I kicked my brain into high gear. There had to be a way out.
Suddenly, a light came on.
It was Marvin’s flashlight, but I had an idea too.
“Is there anyone buried on this side?” I asked the groundskeeper. Still obviously terrified, the bitter stink of urine wafting up inside the confined grave, Marvin didn’t answer.
Our lives on the line, I couldn’t wait for him to get it together. I ran my hand along the grave wall and the moist dirt crumbled beneath my fingers. It was all the encouragement I needed. Like a dog, I sunk my hands into the dirt about halfway down the wall and started digging. It gave way easily; at first.
Handfuls of dirt flew between my legs as I tore into the wall, but the further I got, the harder it became. Knotted roots ran through the dirt, the tangled mess compressed together by time. The wall came away in solid chunks, each inch giving way slower and slower.
Above us, I could hear the snow sizzling against the board, a quiet creak accompanying it as it settled thick overtop. Desperation setting in, I channeled every ounce of energy I had into my hands, willing my magic into being.
Nothing happened.
Continuing to dig, I pushed harder, wishing I had time to ingest another vial of Lucifer’s blood. Too late for that, I scoured the depths of my will and scrounged for every ounce of power I could find. At last, a dull flicker of energy came to life at my fingers.
I nearly soiled myself in relief.
Aided by the wispy strength of my magic, my fingers tore through the wall like a bulldozer. Dirt fell away in massive clumps, crumbling into a pile around my boots. Marvin scrambled to avoid being buried, getting to his feet in a sudden rush of activity.
“Touch that board and I’ll kill you, Marvin,” I told him without even looking. I heard him thump down behind me, his sobs beginning anew.
There was a sharp crack that sounded above us, just as my hand smacked against the solid wall of a concrete liner. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a white flake flutter down into the grave; our grave.
Our time was up.
“No!” a voice in my head screamed. More afraid than I’d ever been, I couldn’t imagine being eaten away piece by piece, the fall devouring me until I existed no longer. Driven by my terror, I snatched up Black’s stiff arm and swung it at the wall of the liner.
It crashed into it with a resounding thud, knocking a fist-sized chunk of old concrete off and splitting the liner to its lid. Marvin screeched behind me and began to thrash about, but I didn’t look back. I knew what happened when the smell of seared flesh stung my nose, so I put everything I had left into the next swing. With a solid boom that rang my ears, the arm shattered the liner wall, its rebar reinforcement sagging under the weight of the concrete.
Safety but a second away, the smell of old death rushing out to assail my nose, I dropped the arm and grabbed onto the rebar frame. Pulling with all my weight and strength, remnants of my magic fluttering at my hands, the frame buckled with a loud squeal and collapsed at my feet. The liner’s decayed occupant glared at me through cavernous sockets.
No time for the dead, I spun and grabbed Marvin just as another couple of flakes ate through the plywood and fluttered down. One struck my arm, but I ignored it as I hauled Marvin bodily into the liner. He squealed like a stuck pig when he saw the body, but he didn’t resist. He’d gotten it at last.
Barely able to fit him in alongside the corpse, I pushed until Marvin was packed in tight, and then crawled in right beside him. I reached out and grabbed my stuff and pulled it close to my chest just as the board gave way above.
A poof of white fell into the hole, disintegrating everything it touched, the light of Marvin’s flashlight extinguished permanently. My breath froze in my lungs as the silent flakes fell less than a foot from my face. I didn’t dare move for fear of rolling out, my position tenuous at best. I didn’t even want to risk breathing, but I could only hold my breath for so long.
Several minutes crept by and the snow continued to fall. I could see the ground on the far side of the grave being devoured by inches and I knew the earth above us was experiencing the same. I could only hope we were deep enough.
Far from religious, for what I imagine are obvious reasons, I said a quiet thanks to no one in particular that the snow fell straight down. Under its assault, the bottom of the grave just outside our hidey hole sank deeper and deeper. Uncomfortably wedged in as I was, I hoped the storm wouldn’t last so long that it reached the water table. It’d really suck to survive the storm only to drown as the water filled the void.
Fortunately, that wasn’t case. After an excruciating fifteen minutes, every tentative breath feeling like the last, the storm slowed, and then crept to an end. The snow disappeared as though it had never been. Darkness returned to chase away the preternatural light. I waited a few minutes before I thought about moving, just to be sure.
When I finally found the courage, I crawled out of the liner and tumbled into the now deeper grave. It was close to three feet lower than it had been before the storm. The walls on both sides had been chewed down about that much as well.
My stomach lurched as I examined the earth above our sanctuary. There was maybe an inch or two of ground left over the concrete liner that had rested above our heads. Had the storm lasted another five minutes, it would have killed us where we lay. Cold sweat tickled my scalp as I thought about how close we’d come to dying. I couldn’t keep the smile off my face.
Then that’s when reality sunk in. The clouds had gone on for as far as I could see, in every direction. Nestled in the middle of town, the cemetery was surrounded by houses. As lucky as I had gotten, only because I knew what the storm could do, there would be thousands of people who didn’t make it. My exhilaration died with the thought of their end.
Trying not to vomit, I tugged Marvin out of the liner before helping him out of the grave. I gathered my stuff and climbed out behind him, my eyes not believing what they saw. My first choice of hiding places, the mausoleum had vanished, no trace of it left. Had I gone with my initial instincts, there’d be nothing left of me either.
The maintenance garage across the road was missing as well, in fact, so was the road. The ground level lowered by several feet, there was nothing but darkened dirt. There were no trees, no grass, no anything, just a blackened crater in place of what used to be the cemetery. Under the gentle light of the moon, it looked like an alien planet, barren and hostile.
Marvin hadn’t moved since we’d climbed out of our hole. He just stood there, a puppy dog look of confusion on his round face.
No words of wisdom to help him cope, I told him the only thing I could think of. “Go home, Marvin.”
We both stood there for another few minutes, just taking it all in. What had existed but a half hour before, was now gone forever. Wiped away without mercy, it was just plain not there anymore. In its place was a vast swath of emptiness.
When the nothingness became too much to bear, we both staggered off in different directions. He headed for home, or so I imagined, and I wandered off to find a teleporter to take me back to DRAC.
