Beneath

Inspired by Guy de Maupassant’s “Was it a Dream?”

Tired of the face mask, talk of plague, social distancing and the other various ways to avoid one’s neighbor, I drove to Virginia City with three one-fifth bottles of rot-gut, for I wished to become drunk and falling down. My destination being where all eventually fall, the cemetery at the end of town, before it reaches the city’s limits as coming from Reno.

It did not take long to park my vehicle, walk beyond the wooden sidewalks, past the sheriff’s station and fire department and up the slight rise leading to the resting place of those who’ve lived, worked and died in the historic town. And once there, I entered the gates of Silver Terrace.

Inside, I cracked the first bottle and sit on the ground near the 1886 grave of a baby marked three days old. By the time I’d finished, I was well on my way to blinding intoxication.

With the second of my fifths soon laid to waste, I was no longer able to safely walk, so I contented myself to sit on the hill and look into the darkness of Six-Mile Canyon and at the few lights showing life still clung to the ancient mining town. Finished with the third bottle, I passed out.

There I slept till three, when I became aware of movement. I opened my eyes and watched as several figures moved towards the entrance.

“Zombie apocalypses,” I though, still drunk.

I watched, listened and soon heard screams of terror, the crunch of loose gravel, a revving vehicle engine and the sound of it as it raced away.

The cemetery fell quite again, save for the dragging, and sliding of old creaking bones.  Fearful, I closed my eyes, then faded to sleep, only to wake from a solid thump to the bottom of my left boot.

“Were you here when the taggers struck?” asked the caretaker.

“Yes,” I answered.

“You must’ve frightened them away before they could do more damage.”

I said nothing, for aside from the vandals, only the bodies beneath know the truth.