Were it not for the anxiety intensifying inside him, Mason might have felt sleepy at the whish of the windshield wipers on his car. They swept gushes of rain from the glass with every swipe, clearing only a small portion of his view. The headlights did the rest, beaming through the darkness and the downpour. All the while, Diane was on his mind.
She better be safe, or I don’t know what I’ll do.
He continued to follow Bill’s car, unsure of exactly where they were headed. They had already stopped at Bill’s to collect the shovels, so Mason simply followed like a blind sheep, eagerly awaiting the opportunity to put his mind to rest.
They crawled the car through an open junkyard. There was nobody around to monitor their movements, which might have been Bill’s initial reason for choosing this location in the first place. They drove through soaked gravel to reach the back of the enormous yard. When they finally stopped, Mason got out and made his approach. The rain didn’t bother him.
“Right in front of the car,” Bill said, getting out and taking the shovels from the trunk.
He handed one to Mason, then moved around and began to dig. He didn’t say anything else. Was guilt or impatience to blame? Whatever it was, Mason didn’t have time to worry about it. He slipped off his coat, dropped it onto the car’s hood, then began digging.
The storm made it both easier and harder. The dirt shifted with almost no effort, the shovel sliding into it like a hot knife through butter. The terrain fought back, however, quickly filling the new hole with filthy water. It took away whatever patience Mason had left, forcing him to work faster and harder, shoveling like his life depended on it. And he supposed it did—if they found Wendell’s body in here, they would know it was a copycat roaming free, and perhaps there was a chance Diane would come out of this unharmed. On the other hand, if it were empty, they could safely say this was the end for all of them.
They kept digging, letting out little grunts of pain now and then. The wood began to blister Mason’s hands, but he didn’t care. The pain in his palms was nothing compared to what he would feel if something happened to Diane. How could he ever forgive himself for that?
Finally, they struck something solid. Mason froze, his eyes flickering up at Bill. Bill set down the shovel and jumped into the hole, quickly placing a foot on either side of the wooden panel and reaching in to lift it.
“What is it?” Mason asked. “You gave that son of a bitch a casket?”
“No. I just threw an old door from the trash pile in there.”
“Why?”
“So I could remember we’re in the right place if something like this ever happened.” He stopped struggling and turned for a moment, rainwater splatting into his eyes. “Give me a hand down here, would you?”
Mason didn’t hesitate. He dropped the shovel and slid into the watery hole, mud caking him from head to toe. There was little room to maneuver, but he found purchase two feet from Bill. They placed their hands under the wood, counted to three, then heaved. The hole fought back like an impatient child, turning sloppy under their efforts and weakening their footholds. The men pushed on, lifting until they turned the door upright and heaved it out of there.
What they saw turned Mason’s biggest nightmares into a reality.
“It’s…” He couldn’t say it. Didn’t have the nerve. All he did was stare down at the impromptu grave, up to Bill’s equally terrified expression, then down at the grave again. If this wasn’t a confirmation that Marvin Wendell really was alive, what was? It took everything he had not to roar his incomparable frustration out to the dark night, finally given no option but to accept that his past had truly come back to finish him off.
That the grave was empty, and Marvin Wendell really was alive.