The family of four had stalled their car on the side of the road, with nothing but the old pauper’s cemetery for miles. They had been trying to get as far away as possible, out of the city, out of the state, wherever they could get to. So when their car stalled, they walked. Eventually, they came upon the old pauper’s cemetery, empty but for the gravedigger. He was almost as old as the county itself. He knew everything, as old people tend to. He watched the family, cautiously, as they approached. A mother, a father, a sullen teenage girl, and a ten year old boy with vacant eyes and blood on his face. He pulled his sleeve across his mouth, smearing it. (link-reveal: "The old gravedigger bristled.")[The family grew closer as the gravedigger’s shovel sank into damp soil. His eyes slid, unseen by the family, to the old mausoleum on the edge of the property. The air was thick with distant humming, something hovering unknown just beyond the horizon. The old gravedigger watches the boy as the family draws closer still. He stares, studies, the blood dark on his lips, cheek, sleeve."]
The mother approaches the gravedigger, young boy in tow, tugging at her elbow. There is a flicker of recognition in the mother’s eyes, and the gravedigger wonders if she’s a local. If she knows.
The mother asks where the nearest gas station is. The boy stands. Stares.
[[take a risk->shoot the boy on sight]]
[[play it safe->give them directions to the gas station]]The old gravedigger stares back at the boy. Again, his eyes slide over to the old mausoleum and linger there. If the boy does not get to the gas station, if he is stuck within the county lines, the inevitable can wait just a little bit longer…. The old gravedigger can have just a little more time before he does what must be done. So he pulls a revolver, rusted an ancient, from his overalls, levels it on the young boy with the blood on his face, and fires.
[[do the right thing->Tell the rest of the family to leave.]]
[[be selfish->Take them to the old mausoleum.]]Voice hesitant and gruff with disuse, the gravedigger directs the family to a gas station at the county line. He avoids the young boy's eyes, only looking at the mother as he speaks. He hopes she knows this is a warning.
The family walks away.
[[be selfish->The gravedigger approaches a phonebooth]]
[[be selfess->The gravedigger walks towards the mausoleum.]]The boy lays dead on the ground, the blood from the gunshot blurring into the blood already oozing from his lips. The daughter is startled, crying. The father is screaming. The mother’s eyes are vacant, other than something that almost looks like understanding. Lowering his revolver, the gravedigger stares. In a voice that hasn’t been used in years, he tells the family to leave. To get over county lines and keep going.
[[Feel remorse]]
[[be desperate->Beg them]] The gravedigger does not give them time to protest before pulling the mother by the arm. The others will follow her. As the boy remains dead in the grass, the gravedigger moves the others towards the old mausoleum. He wants them to understand. The mother understands. Her eyes water with tears, but he can feel the county in her skin. She knows. He leads them down the seemingly endless stairs in the seemingly endless dark. At the lowest level of the mausoleum, the oldest crypt in the pauper’s cemetery, a young woman lies still on a stone table. No one but the gravedigger knows if she is dead or sleeping.
[[value honesty->Tell the truth]]
[[value freedom->Escape]]The gravedigger tells them the truth. The truth of the county and the secrets it hides beneath its soil. He pushes the revolver into the mother’s hands. She knows, she must. He can smell it on her like the smell of death in the crypt’s ancient dust. He asks her, voice rusted with disuse, trembling with honesty, to shoot the woman and then shoot him. Take this burden from his tired, ancient hands. (link-reveal:"He begs, he pleads, he cries.")[The mother’s eyes shine with understanding and she nods. The gravedigger takes the still woman’s hands. The mother fires once. Twice. As the family ascends the stairs of the crypt, all across the county, bodies with blood soaked jaws fall to the ground.]
The gravedigger’s deep voice sounds like no more than mad ramblings to the family of three who had so recently been four. The father yells at them to run, to turn up the stairs and head for the light once more. The gravedigger lets himself fall to the floor of the ancient crypt. He levels the revolver at the still woman on the table, but he doesn't shoot her. He cannot shoot her.
[[the curse remains->the beginning]]Overwhelmed with remorse, the gravedigger makes his way to the old mausoleum. He has misstepped. He must fulfill his duty and make amends. The boy would have always died, of course. There was no helping that. But there was no need to frighten the family. He opens the gate. It is not locked. No one but him would ever venture there. The stairs wind further down than seems necessary. It is dark, but he does not need light to see where he needs to go. An ancient crypt lies at the bottom level of the old mausoleum. A young woman, sleeping, waiting, lies on the table. The gravedigger strokes her face. He tucks her hair behind her ear. He whispers something that, if it could have been heard by another living being, might have been ‘I’m sorry’. He fires the revolver, and the woman sleeps no more.
Unseen and unheard, all across the county, faces with bloody mouths fall slack.
End.
The gravedigger begs the family to leave. The mother is silent, and the father is still screaming. The daughter is still crying. Minutes that feel like hours pass, and the screaming father cannot be persuaded to leave. With a sigh, the gravedigger picks up his revolver. He fires. Once, twice, three times. He kills the mother last. He watches her eyes as she falls to the ground. He thinks she might nod before her skull opens up like a blossom and she hits the floor.
As he sinks the shovel into damp soil for a new grave, he hears a car backfire in the distance.
[[the curse lives->the beginning]]On the edge of the county line, a rotary phone rings in an almost abandoned gas station. A man with blood stained hands answers. He is almost as old as the gravedigger. Almost, but not quite. The gravedigger tells him about the family, about the boy with the blood soaked jaw. The man nods. He puts his hand on a holster by his belt. The family will not get far. He has done this before. It is not a solution, but it will give the gravedigger more time. Time is all he has.
[[follow your heart->Descend]]
[[do the right thing->Wait]]The gravedigger moves towards the mausoleum. He moves quickly, but only because he must. He must reach the oldest, deepest level of the crypts before the family reaches county line. Before the boy leaves the border of this place for the next. It is his duty, it has always been his duty. He reaches the bottom of the stairs. On a stone table, in the dark and choking room, a young woman lies. The gravedigger strokes her face. If anyone could see him, they might have called his eyes tender. He puts the gun to her temple.
[[honor your duty->Shoot her]]
[[be true to your feelings->Admit defeat]]The gravedigger turns towards the mausoleum. With each step, he seems to grow lighter, more resolved. He moves down the stairs with purpose. He abandons his gun and his shovel, soaked and rusted and scarred with blood and years, in the grass outside. He reaches the deepest, oldest depths of the mausoleum. At the back of the crypt, a young woman lies on a stone table. She is waiting, not dead or sleeping.
(link-reveal: "The gravedigger lies down on the table and takes the woman’s hand.")[The family approaches the county line.... The whole world holds its breath as the tires push over the border between this place and the next.... The young boy’s eyes glow.... The young woman’s eyes open.... ]
The family drives out of sight. The boy with the bloody mouth stares out the back window at the gravedigger. The mother reaches back from the passenger seat. She turns him around. She meets the gravedigger’s eyes, and he knows she knows what is coming. Knows that she knows fate has simply been pushed back, not avoided.
[[the curse persists->the beginning]]A sob breaks up through the gravedigger’s throat as he fires the revolver into the young woman’s skull. She does not bleed. There was nothing left of her to bleed. The room seems to start to crumble in on itself, space folding itself away.
The little boy, just at the county line falls to the ground. So do thousands of silent bodies with bleeding mouths.
The gravedigger puts the revolver in his mouth. He fires.
End. The gravedigger’s hand twitches. He cannot force himself to pull the trigger. It is his only duty, his only purpose, but he cannot pull the trigger. He kisses the young woman, still sleeping dead or waiting, on the forehead. He leaves the crypt. He leaves the mausoleum. He sinks his shovel into the dirt as the family of four drives over the border of this place and another.
[[the curse tries again->the beginning]]