“He’s dead. Dead. Never to rise again.”
“What a pity. He was such a nice man.”

Walking towards the graveyard where the infamous William Lanney lay, I felt chills run up and down my spine about what was to be done tonight. The payment was good, yes, and the principle behind the idea was reasonable, but the action I was about to take, and the actions of my brother too, gave me the willies.’

A noise was heard, somewhere in the bushes to the left of us, and another to the right. The tension was forever rising.

The sound of shovels clacking across the cobbled pavement awoke me from the trance like state fear had put me in. “SHHH, we cannot afford to make this much noise.” The shovels were quickly picked up, and so was the pace.

Turning onto the base of the twisting, turning path, leading up to the dreaded place, we were suddenly in full view of the town below us. If we were seen, and caught, we would be persecuted.

Twice, we almost turned back, and, standing at the bottom of that steep hill, the temptation once again almost broke the two of us into crying babies. But we pressed on.

“Do you have the sack?” I heard from somewhere to my left, “Yes, it is tucked into my pants”. I checked, just to make sure. There it was, the horrible hessian bag, waiting to serve a terrible purpose.

At that, we began the climb. The darkness made it difficult to see the edges of the small pathway, and, three times, I stumbled over the roots of large trees in the earth. A frightening gust of wind blew from behind, scaring us into moving faster. We began to run, tripping and falling the whole way. Suddenly, the large cemetery gates rose before us, and once again, that foreboding feeling came upon us.

Having visited before, at night too, we knew exactly where his grave was. At the top of a small mound of earth stood his freshly placed cross.

Getting to work before the nerves got the better of us, we began. The cross was thrown across the dewy grass nearby, making a loud thump as it landed. Using the shovels, we quickly began digging, spreading the reddish dirt everywhere. The smell of freshly moved earth rose to meet us, and another smell, of something older, almost like off meat.

A hand was spotted in the minimal light, well what was left of it, and tugged upon until an entire arm was free. This was placed into the sack with haste, it is not a pretty sight to see. Another piece, this time a kneecap, was seen, and this too was placed into the bag. At last, the piece i had been dreading, the head. Cavities where the eyes had once been, and an earth worm sliding from the open mouth, his face stared at me. I turned away. I could no longer look. A ripping noise warned me that my brother was taking this piece too, and I ran to the nearest headstone and threw up.

One noise warned me that we were no longer alone, and a beam of light swept across the seemingly empty graveyard. I fell to my hands and knees, and behind me, I heard my brother do likewise. The light clicked off, and it was then that we ran. We ran and ran, to the nearby bush, for what seemed like an eternity. In actual fact, it was probably only three seconds.

Hiding deep in the bush, we set up camp. There was no way we could get down the hill in time, and so we had to stay the night. The shovels were left at the graveyard, but the peices of the man were in the hessian near my feet. I felt I could sense his spirit watching on, full of hatred and anger, but all I could do was move away from the sack.

Upon waking at daylight, I must have drifted to sleep, we both began to make our long trek down the hill to where we would meet the scientists. Then, and only then, would this terrible adventure be over. We walked for hours, happy now to avoid the path that so safely carried us to the top of the hill.

Finally, we broke through the trees into the light of the day. A shout was heard, and we turned, expecting to welcome the sight of the four scientists who had hired us to do such a job in the name of knowledge. The shock of seeing so many people pushing towards us, yellign the name of the black man we had just dug from his grave, stopped us dead in our tracks.

Wide eyed, and opened mouthed, we stared on as they ran. Handcuffs dragged our hands behind our backs, and the bag of bones dropped to the ground with a dull thud. I looked down to the ground, to see the head of William Lanney, the only black man in town, staring back at me.