William Forstchen - One Second After

For an old man in the advanced stages of cancer, there would be no medicine. That had to be rationed now to someone who “stood a chance” or who, in a colder sense, could be of use. If the old man were not dying at home his would be a body whose departure would free a bed in a hospital flooded with the sick and injured. In a starving community his would be one less mouth to feed, even though his last meals were from a can poured into a feeding tube… but even that can of Ensure was now a meal, perhaps for an entire day, for someone else.

Tyler was dead, and there was a war, though it did not in any sense seem like a war that any had even conceptualized this way… and he was dead as surely as millions of others were now dead or dying after but ten days… as dead as someone lying in the surf of Omaha Beach, the death camp of Auschwitz, as dead as any casualty of war.

Frightened for a moment, John looked back at Jennifer, who stood in the doorway, clutching her grandmother’s side. The last of the ice had given out two days ago, the bottles of insulin now immersed in the tank of the basement toilet to keep them cool. And there was a flood of panic in John. He knew, almost to the day, how much insulin was left.

He caught Jen’s gaze; the way he was staring at her granddaughter, she pulled Jennifer in tighter to her side.

He turned back to look at Tyler.

“I think we should pray,” John said.

He went down on his knees and made the sign of the cross. “Hail Mary, full of grace…”

It was close to sunset. To the north the hills, so affectionately known to all locals as “the Seven Sisters,” were bathed in the slating golden light of evening. Beyond them was the massive bulk of Mount Mitchell, its slopes green as spring moved steadily upwards towards the summit. “I think that’s deep enough, Ben,” John said.

Ben looked up from the grave he had been digging for the last three hours, helped by John’s students Phil and Jeremiah.

Charlie had been right. The golf course was the ideal spot for the new cemetery, the earth easy to dig. Over twenty other graves had been dug this day or were being dug now. The seven who had died in the elementary school during the night, five others who had died during the day… and three suicides, though one minister had tried to protest that decision that they be buried in what was now consecrated ground. That protest was greeted with icy rejection from Charlie, who was now a former member of that congregation. There had also been two more heart attacks, four more elderly from the nursing home and perhaps most tragic of all, the Morrison family burying their seven-year-old boy, who had had an asthma attack.

John tried to block out the screams of the mother as the dirt was shoveled into her boy’s grave.

Reverend Black drew away from the Morrison’s and came over.

“Ready, John?”

John nodded.

Richard Black looked exhausted, eyes bloodshot. The Morrison boy had been part of his congregation, a playmate of his son’s.

John looked over at Jeremiah and Phil and nodded.

The two boys went to the car, opened the backseat, and struggled to pull Tyler’s body out, wrapped in a quilt. He was already stiff with rigor mortis. They carried him over and stopped by the side of the grave, looking down, and John realized no one had thought about how to put the body into the grave.

Always bodies had been in coffins, concealed mechanical winches lowering them in a dignified manner. Jennifer broke away from her grandmother’s side, hysterical, and ran away. John looked at Elizabeth and she turned to chase after her sister.

“I’ll help,” Rich said. He eased himself down into the grave, Ben joining him. They took the body from Phil and Jeremiah and maneuvered it down, then pulled themselves out.

John found himself suddenly wondering why the old tradition of a grave supposedly having to be six foot deep existed. Fortunately, this one was maybe three and a half, four feet down and easier for the reverend to get out of.

Tyler rested in the bottom, face covered but bare feet exposed, and it struck John as obscene for him to be exposed thus, but there was nothing to be done for it now.

John looked at Jen, who stood at the head of the grave, almost serenely detached.

“I don’t know the Catholic rite,” Rich said. “I’m sorry.”

“I don’t think God or Tyler minds,” Jen said. “You’ve been a friend and neighbor for years. I think he’d want you to do this for him, for us.”

Rich opened his prayer book and started the traditional Presbyterian service for the dead.

Finished at last, he went to Jen, hugged her and kissed her on the forehead, then did something John had seen only once before, at a Jewish funeral years before. Rich picked up the shovel from the pile of earth, scooped up some dirt, and then let it fall into the grave.

The time John had seen that, it had shocked him, the funeral of the wife of a beloved grad school professor. The rabbi had thrown a shovelful in, then the husband, then family and friends, had done so also, filling the grave in while John’s beloved professor stood silent, watching the coffin disappear and the earth finally being mounded over. It was such a sharp, hard lesson about mortality, the returning of dust to dust, when compared to the “American way,” of concealing death in euphemisms, with green Astroturf to hide the raw earth, and the backhoe carefully hidden until the last of the mourners had left.

That set Jen off and at last she collapsed into tears.

Rich looked at John and handed him the shovel. Though it was agony, both physical and emotional, he knew he had to do it. He filled the shovel, turned, hesitated, then let the dirt fall, covering Tyler’s face.

Light-headed, John stepped back.

“We’ll take care of it, sir.”

It was Jeremiah.

John nodded and handed the shovel over.

He walked away, heading towards the park. Jennifer and her sister were in the playground, Jennifer sitting on a swing, her big sister sitting on the ground by her side.

Jennifer looked up at his approach. Elizabeth stood up, tears streaming down her face, and came up to his side. Is it over?”

“Yes.”

“I thought I should stay with her, Dad.”

“You did the right thing.”

“You’ve got to talk with her,” and Elizabeth’s voice broke. “She’s thinking about…” Her voice trailed off. “Go take care of your grandmother.”

“Sure, Dad.”

He went up to the swing and looked down at Jennifer. “You ok, sweetie?”

She didn’t speak, head lowered. She had brought Rabs along and was clutching him tight.

John fumbled, fighting the fever, not sure what to say, afraid of what might be said.

“Remember when I used to push you on this swing?” he said, filled now with nostalgia for that time when Mary was still alive and they’d bring the girls down here to play, to feed the ducks, and, while Mary still had the strength, to walk around the lake.

He got behind Jennifer, reached down with one hand to pull the swing back.

“How about we do it again? I’ll push to get you started.” And with that she was off the swing, crushing herself against his side, sobbing.

“Daddy, when will I be buried here?” He knelt down and she wrapped her arms around his neck. “Daddy, don’t bury me here. I’d be afraid during the night. I always want to stay close to you. Please don’t bury me here.” He dissolved into tears, hugging her tight.

“I promise, sweetheart. You have years and years ahead. Daddy will always protect you.”

She drew back slightly and looked at him with solemn eyes, eyes filled with the wisdom of a child. “I don’t think so, Daddy.” That was all she said.