I dug the grave. I always did. He said it was one of my jobs.
I liked most days I got to be outside, but not that day. He sat on a tree stump with that shotgun across his lap. He pointed it at me and asked if I thought I was faster than buckshot. It was like he was daring me to try.
It wasn’t the shotgun that kept me from running. It was Kevin. He was still locked in the basement. If I didn’t come back, he would be all alone.
I got winded and leaned on the shovel to catch my breath. A dirt clod zinged me in the back of the head, and I fell to my knees. “Stop being lazy!” he yelled and threw more clumps at me ’til I staggered up and started digging again.
“Damn useless boys is what you two are. You got one simple job—keep the young ’uns I bring ya alive and quiet ’til I’m ready for ’em. If you can’t even get that right, why do I waste my time feeding ya and keeping a roof over your stupid heads?”
Another dirt clod pegged me between the shoulder blades. I kept digging as fast as I could as he ranted. “Now I’ve got to go back out huntin’, and it’s your damn fault. It’s getting hard out there with damn cameras everywhere. Even on those damn cell phones people carry. They take videos with ’em, and the police can look at ’em later and see ya even when people don’t remember you were there. Didn’t use to be that way, but that’s what I have to deal with and all cause you two ijits can’t keep a boy alive.”
When the hole was deep enough, I rolled the body of that little kid into it. He landed all twisted, but he was facing up. It was like he was looking at me as I started shoveling dirt in as fast as I could. I was pushing dirt so hard and so fast, and I got dizzy—lack of food, I guess, and I fell in the hole. My face was right against that kid’s face.
He kicked a bunch of dirt on my head and yelled, “Maybe you should just go right ahead and dig two more holes so I can put you and your damn useless friend in ’em and be done with both of ya. Dumbass useless brats.”
I scrambled out of the hole and went back to work. When all the dirt was piled back in that hole, he jammed the shotgun in my back and marched me over to the shed to hang the shovel back up. Then he walked me back through that house to the cellar door. I waited while he unlocked the padlock, and then I started down the steps. He shoved me really hard in the back, and I rolled head over heels to the bottom. Kevin helped me sit up and whispered about how crazy he was getting.
That was Kevin and me from the very first day he got there, years and years earlier. He was a tough little kid from the beginning. He didn’t sit around bawling like the others. He sure didn’t just curl up and die like some of them. We played checkers with pebbles and a board drawn in the dirt. We read the few books we had down there, stuff kids had with them when they got taken. He invented a game with that dictionary we found, asking each other the meaning of the next word. We shared our food rations with each other and told each other our real names, though he was smart enough to embrace Kevin as his name. We shared stories about our lives before we got there.
I always knew he liked Kevin better than me. Every time that damned door opened, it was Kevin’s name he called, not mine, and I often wondered why. I didn’t care, but I was thankful, at least until that door would shut and the darkness enveloped me. Then I would sit in the shadows with my ears peeled for every creak, or groan, or scream. I prayed for the sounds to stop, but when they did, I dreaded the silence even more. I stared up the steps at the locked door, waiting, dreading as much for it to open as for it to not.
And then the door would open, and my friend would stumble down the steps. I would wrap my arms around him, hold him, let him sob against me.
And then one day, the door opened, and Kevin hung his head and started to stand up. But he didn’t call Kevin’s name. He shoved this new sniveling little kid down the steps and told us to welcome our new brother. That hadn’t happened in a long time, but Kevin was happy because that meant his name wasn’t always called. And when that kid left, another new kid came. And another after that one.
For some reason we never figured out, he let both of us live. We tried to take care of the kids he brought, we really did, but most only lasted a few months. Long stretches would pass where it was just Kevin and me, but he mostly left us alone down there. He said we were too old. We could hear him coughing and wheezing, getting drunk and stumbling around. Those were the best times, when it was just us, but it never lasted, because he would go hunting again. Then he would tell us we needed to do a better job with the new one.
And the latest one had only lasted a few days. We’d failed.
We were sitting there, whispering, when we heard a hiker coming through the woods. We looked at each other all wide-eyed. We knew if the guy had emerged from the woods a half hour earlier, he would have seen me digging that grave.
Kevin whispered, “Will he see it?”
I shook my head, “Shouldn’t. I spread leaves over it.”
I scrambled up onto Kevin’s shoulders and peeked through the window. Between the two of us, we had become tall enough to get a look at the outside world that way, and we took turns climbing up like that.
“What’s he look like?” Kevin asked.
“Scraggly beard but not like a mountain man. Purple T-shirt, fancy hiking shorts, boots, and a real bright bandanna tied around his hair.”
“College boy,” Kevin said mockingly. The man hated all sorts of people and bucketed them into groups. Guvment people. College boys. Rich pricks. Tourists. And he could say it in a way you just knew how disgusting they were.
“Yeah, exactly. He’s got a fancy-looking backpack and all sorts of gear. Looks rich.”
“What’re they saying?”
“Getting directions. Said he got lost off the Appalachian Trail.”
“Wow.” Kevin was quiet for a second. “It must be close.”
“I guess.”
“That means maybe others aren’t too far.”
I looked down at Kevin and realized he was getting himself all worked up. I should’ve noticed. If I had, I could’ve stopped him from yelling, but I didn’t, and the next thing I knew, he was shouting, “Down here! Help! Help! We need help!”
I jumped off Kevin’s shoulders and grabbed him. “What are you doing?” I hissed.
“It’s our only chance,” he replied. “We can get away. Go home.”
The hiker must’ve heard him, ’cause he leaned down and looked through the window right at us. His eyes grew wide, and he asked, “What’re you two doing down there? You okay?”
I tried to grab Kevin and stop him, but he answered anyway, “We’re kidnapped. He’s holding us. You gotta help us get out of here. Please! Please!”
“Kidnapped? Really? Who—”
I’m not sure if I saw the ax or heard it first, the glint of the blade coming down or the sickening wet noise as it sunk into his brain. The guy’s eyes rolled up in his head, and he fell against the glass, shattering it. Blood dripped down the wall inside. He coughed and sprayed blood. And then… he stopped. Blood ran down his face and dripped off his chin, puddling on the floor in front of us.
We saw the boot come down on the back of the guy’s shoulders. He pulled the ax out with a horrible sucking sound even worse than when it went in. He wiped the ax off in the weeds and sank it back into a log on the woodpile being built for the coming winter.
I wish he had kept the ax. It would have made things go faster. We heard the sound of his boots clomping across the floor over our heads. He ripped open the door and stomped down the steps. Maybe we should have rushed him, tried to get past—maybe we would have made it. But we cowered.
I stood with my hands out in front of me, begging him not to kill Kevin and pleading for his life.
He backhanded me. The ring he always wore caught my ear. I felt it rip down the side of my face, to my lips. The skin flapped down around my jaw. I watched a tooth fly through the air and bounce off the wall. The world swam, and I fell backward onto the ground. Before I could move, he kicked me hard in the stomach. I curled up as he kicked over and over.
Kevin shouted at him to stop, and he grabbed his arm and pulled him off-balance, but just for a second. And then I heard the crunch as the man’s fist shattered Kevin’s nose. Kevin screamed, a muffled wet sound, but then I heard him get hit two, three more times. Kevin fell to the floor, blood dripping from his nose and mouth, his eyes rolling back up into his head. The man kicked him in the ribs, and Kevin coughed, splattering us both with his blood.
I tried to beg, but my jaw wouldn’t work. Blood was running down the back of my throat. I pushed up to speak, and he smiled. The sick bastard smiled at me and raised his foot, a mud-splattered boot with a steel toe and heavy tread. He slammed it hard on top of Kevin’s head, flattening it. My friend’s eyes bulged as blood was forced out his nostrils. Those big boots slammed into him over and over.
And then it was done. He leaned over me, grabbed my hair, and pulled my head up. I cringed, sure I was about to feel the last fist of my life. He leaned into my face, the stench of his breath overpowering me. His spittle flew as he whispered, “This is all your fault, boy. Your job is to make sure they follow the rule—never let them see you. Including this one here. I’d let him live all these years for you, and this is how you repay me. You ungrateful little shit.”
He dropped my head back onto the dirt. One of Kevin’s teeth was in front of my nose. I remember being amazed at how long the root was.
He stomped back up the steps and opened the door. Before he closed it, he said, “Look at the mess you made.” And then he shut the door and snapped the lock closed.
It was almost dark outside, and I could barely see Kevin, so I dragged myself across the floor and asked him if he was okay. When he didn’t answer, I wrapped my hand around his. His fingers were icy cold, but his eyes were fluttering. He breath was ragged, whistling in and out. I think he tried to speak, but I couldn’t understand him. Or maybe I imagined the whole thing. We lay like that, face-to-face, even after his eyes dimmed and his breathing stopped.