Long Way Home
By
18lzytwner
Chapter 1
Ben Updike watched as the funeral for the dearly departed Mrs. Bernardini finished up. The grave had originally been dug to accommodate multiple coffins, which had made preparing things for the beloved Grandma a little tricky. Mr. Bernardini had died five years ago and because he was already there, only the first few feet of the grave was dug with the backhoe. Not wanting to unearth the poor man from his resting place or to violate the local health codes, Ben and his fellow gravedigger, Mohammod Yilmaz, had gone the last few feet by hand with shovels. That way they could guarantee that they were leaving at least three feet between the top of Mr. Bernardini's coffin and the bottom of Mrs. Bernardini's coffin.
"All right guys. Go ahead and lower her in. The family didn't want to stay and watch," Funeral Director Casey Barreto told them.
"I think that's the hardest part," Ben admitted. He'd been present at many funerals and the ones where the person's coffin was lowered in with people there usually turned into a lot of bawling and out loud reactions. It was like a delayed reaction – up until that point a person could convince themselves that their loved one wasn't gone. Once they saw the casket being lowered the realization that the person was never coming back hit like the force of a semi-truck.
"Allah'ın selamı ve bereketi onun üzerine olsun (Peace and blessings of Allah be on her)," Mohammod said. He said that at every grave, even if the person wasn't Muslim. Ben had often wondered why his coworker had taken this job. Ben was not overly religious, sure he celebrated Christmas and Easter, but he hadn't stepped foot in a church in decades. Mohammod went to his mosque on the regular and prayed five times a day. Then one day the Turkish man had told him that he took this job to offer his comfort to those who had lost and to comfort the dead. Whether they believed in God, Allah, HaShem, Budda, or any number of other deities, were like Ben or even an atheist, Mohammod said they all deserved to be blessed and deserved to have an easier trip to whatever afterlife they believed in. Ben thought this was surprisingly relaxed considering what he'd heard about Islam. That's when his coworker reminded him that the only infidels there were, were the ones who twisted Allah's and Muhammad's words for their own purposes.
"Slow and steady for Mrs. Bernardini. We have another funeral in an hour and I don't want anyone wondering why we aren't ready to bury Mr. Vargo," Casey reminded them.
"No problem," Ben promised. Casey walked away to leave them to do their jobs.
"Who wants to go at the head?" Sam Pogue wanted to know. They needed four people to lower the casket and Sam and their other colleague, Brian Simiskey, had waited for the family to leave before they arrived.
"You and Mohammod take the head and Brian and I will take the legs. We don't want to drop her. Mr. Bernardini is already down there," Ben reminded them as they took the straps they needed to lower the casket down and placed them under poor Mrs. Bernardini.
"Easy does it then," Brian winked. They had to make their little inside jokes. Without them the job would get to you quickly. Before they lowered the coffin, three of them lifted it up a little to make sure the sides of the grave had held and no one was going to tumble into the grave with Mrs. Bernardini.
"Hang on. Didn't we pack the ground down yesterday?" Mohammod asked. He had knelt to check and now as he stood and handed over his flashlight to Sam, he was concerned. The three other men gave him a weird look before each moved around to get a look at the open grave below. The dirt on top of Mr. Bernardini had been disturbed.
"Could the sides have caved in a little?" Sam asked as they set Mrs. Bernardini back down on the supports. It was not an uncommon occurrence with such a deep hole. Multiple burial spots were often dug nine feet deep so that coffins could be stacked with some room between them. The ground should have compacted over the last five years since Mr. Bernardini's funeral but the rain from the last three days made everything wet and not easy to deal with.
"That would be a big negative ghost rider," Brain shook his head – from what he saw the side were intact.
"It could have been a squirrel digging around in there. They love that big old oak tree," Ben gave them a look. The tree was only about ten feet away and squirrels were always burying nuts around the cemetery.
"It would have to be a pretty big squirrel," Mohammod said.
"He's right," Sam agreed. Ben huffed and decided they better leave the coffin on the supports and check out what had happened. He told Brian to get the backhoe. They would use that to lift the coffin and then get a better look at the grave.
"What the hell is going on here?" Casey Barreto demanded as he stomped over to the grave to confront his employees.
"We've got a situation in the grave. The dirt is loose on top of Mr. Bernardini. We have to make sure before we set the Mrs. down that everything is kosher," Ben told him. This made Casey frown as Brian and the backhoe arrived. They used chains under the coffin to lift it and then Brian carefully moved the late Mrs. Bernardini off to the side. The last thing he wanted was to tip the coffin and have the poor dead woman tumble out.
"Get the ladder," Casey ordered someone, anyone. Sam ran off and fetched it from a work shed.
"I'll get down there," Ben said as his coworker arrived with the ladder a few minutes later. Carefully, Sam and Mohammod placed the ladder in and secured it. Ben heaved a sigh and carefully began the climb down. Not wanting to get off the ladder, Ben moved his flashlight around to see what they were dealing with. He knew that he was going to have to get into the dirt once he got closer.
"I'm leaving the ladder," he announced. He carefully moved his foot off the ladder and he slowly sank into the wet dirt. When he placed his other foot off the ladder, a long leg bone popped up, hitting him in the leg. Ben screamed.
To Be Continued…
