Richard Laymon - Tread Softly

"Hell, let 'em satisfy their curiosity, Alice. You said yourself they won't find anything."

"That's right," she said. "They won't. But if they want to waste their time and energy, far be it from me to stand in their way."

"Atta girl."

She gave him a quick, humorless smile.

"Don't stay too long, kids," Dad said.

"We'll catch up as soon as we can."

Heather gazed at Nick with wide, frightened eyes. "You gonna dig it up?"

"Probably nothing there but an old shoe," he told her.

Rose narrowed her eyes. "You'll be sor-ry," she said in a singsong.

Both girls turned away and hurried to catch up with their mother and father.

"You want to stay?" Scott asked Benny.

The boy made a face as if he'd been invited to taste a worm. "I don't want to see any stiffs," he proclaimed.

"I don't blame you," Karen said.

Scott turned to her. "Shall we be off and leave Burke and Hare to their grisly chore?"

"I'm with you."

The three of them started up the trail, leaving Nick and Julie by the grave. "Mission accomplished," Julie said. Nick grabbed her pack while she slipped her arms out of the straps. "Thank you, sir," she said, then took it from him and set it down. He swung his own pack to the ground. "I've got a little shovel in here someplace," she told him, propping her pack against his. Crouching, she slid a plastic clamp down its tie cord and peeled back the cover.

Nick stepped behind Julie as she rummaged inside. Her T-shirt clung to her back with sweat. The tint of her skin was visible through the fabric. So was the narrow white crossband of her bra, and the thin straps running up to her shoulders. He could see the bumps of her spine pushing out the material and remembered the way her nipples had shown last night. Hey, you can look at me all you want. I was looking at you.

"Here we go." She stood up, a green plastic trowel in her hand.

"Perfect," Nick said.

They stepped over to the mound. "Where'll we dig?"

"In the middle?"

"Good a place as any." She smiled, looking a bit nervous, and knelt beside the border of stones. Nick stepped around her, and dropped to his knees. Her shoulder brushed against him as she reached out with the trowel. Using its edge, she scraped away a layer of pine needles to expose a patch of earth. With its point, she scratched out a pair of crossing lines. "X marks the spot," she whispered. She pushed the plastic blade into the soil, and hesitated. "You don't. you don't really think anyone's down there, do you?"

"Naw."

"Me either." She pried out a heap of dirt, and dumped it next to the small hole. "I mean, who'd bury someone out here?"

"I don't know." Nick's mouth was dry. His heart beat fast. He didn't know whether he felt so tense because of the grave or because Julie was so close to him.

"What if we do find a body?" she asked, frowning at the tiny hole.

"It's unlikely."

"It's possible, though." She turned her face toward him. Her eyes were so blue that even the white seemed to have a faint bluish color. There was a smudge of dirt on her cheek. Her tongue curled out from a corner of her mouth and caught a trickle of sweat. "It is possible," she said.

Nick felt breathless. "Yeah," he managed.

"Oh, what the hell." Her face turned away, and she reached out with the trowel. Its tip hovered above the hole, quivering slightly. She sighed. "You know, I'm not sure this is such a hot idea after all."

"We don't have to do it," Nick told her.

"We said we would."

"That doesn't matter."

"They'll say we chickened out. Not that I give a rat's ass what anybody says, but… I don't know, if there's a real live actual corpse — "

"A live corpse?"

"Okay, a dead one. It'd be sacrilegious to mess around with it."

"Not to mention gross."

She laughed softly. "Yeah, that too." She looked at him again. Her eyebrows lifted. "What do you think?"

"Let's forget it."

She shook her head a bit. "This is really weird. I mean, we both know there's nobody under here. So what're we afraid of?"

"I don't know."

With the edge of her trowel, she brushed the small pile of soil back into the hole. She patted it down. "There you go, Digby. Rest in peace."

They stood up. Julie brushed dirt and pine needles off her knees. "I guess that's that," she said.

"Guess so."

They returned to their packs. Nick watched her crouch down to put away the trowel and close her pack. Like before, he stared at the way her T-shirt clung to her back.

I'm a chicken, all right, he thought. If I weren't a damn chicken, I would've kissed her.

Do it now.

No. I can't. I just can't.

"That's quite a scar you've got there," Flash said, taking a trail cookie from the bag in Karen's hand. The scar was a pale horseshoe on her forearm. "How'd you pick it up?"

"A car accident," she said. She looked away quickly, and offered a cookie to Benny, who was sitting at the other end of the fallen trunk. "Want to pass them around?"

Benny took the bag. "Was it a bad accident?" he asked.

"Very bad," she said.

Benny got up from the log, and gave cookies to the others sitting on the ground against their packs. There was an uneasy silence. Flash bit into his cookie and chewed. Obviously, he shouldn't have mentioned Karen's scar. "I've got a couple of doozies myself," he said. He started to tug his shirt out of his pants.

"Arnold ," Alice said in her warning voice.

Ignoring her, he pulled up his shirt. He stood up and turned so Karen and Benny could see the small puffy crater in the flesh just above his hip. Karen wrinkled up her nose. Benny looked impressed. "That's from an AK-47 bullet I caught in 'Nam." He turned around. "See there? That's the exit wound."

"How'd it happen?" Benny asked.

"Well, your dad and I were on a strafing run when I caught a SAM. A surface-to-air missile. Knocked me right out of the sky. I hit the silk — ejected, you know — and found myself behind enemy lines." His head suddenly felt light. He let his shirt fall, and took deep breaths, fighting the dizziness. "Anyway, I spent nine days alone in the jungle. working my way south, dodging pa — " He blinked. Benny's silhouette was surrounded by a brilliant blue-silver halo. Shit, he thought, I'm gonna… He staggered backward, sat down heavily on the log, and lowered his head between his knees.

"Are you all right, honey?" he heard through the loud ringing in his ears. Alice. "I knew he shouldn't get started on that. He tries to put on that it was a big adventure, but — "

"Stop," he mumbled.

"Well, you shouldn't have brought it up."

He felt a hand on his back. "Here." Scott. "Drink some water."

Flash nodded. The ringing faded. He raised his head, and blinked. His vision seemed okay again. The girls, beside Alice, were staring at him with wide eyes. Alice was frowning. "Just a little dizzy spell," he said. "Probably the altitude." He took the canteen from Scott, nodded his thanks, and drank a few swallows of cold water.

"Maybe you'd better lie down," Alice suggested.

"I'm fine. Think I'll just. " He gave the canteen back to Scott and stood up. He still felt shaky, but the dizziness was gone. Walking carefully, he made his way to the shore of the lake. He stepped out on some low, flat rocks. Crouching, he dipped his hands into the chilly water and splashed his face.

Damn, but he'd made a fool out of himself back there. Should've known better.

He heard the crunch of footsteps behind him. Scott stood on a rock to his left. "You okay?"

"Shit."

"What was it, the sweats?"

"Yeah. Happens now and again. Shit, you'd think fifteen goddamn years'd be enough to get over it. The damn thing's fucked up my whole life."

Scott tossed a pebble into the water. It made a soft plip. "I guess none of us got out of it unscathed. I have plenty of bad times myself, and I wasn't even shot down."