Lucretia and Saxon stood in the open crypt door looking out across the silent moonscape. Silver light glinted off marble gravestones, winking like Earth bound stars. Lucretia luxuriated in the night air, so crisp after the dank tomb. Saxon squeezed her hand, gentle, cold, tingling with something like life. There was a word for it, but she’d forgotten so many words over the long years of death. They were like moths, flitting too erratically to be caught and then ending all hope by flying straight into the fire. Saxon needn’t speak to her, his body, the proximity or distance of it, the language in his eyes, told her everything she needed to know.
Neither of them moved from the crumbling stone doorway. Something had changed. With eyes well accustomed to the dark they followed the rise of the cemetery hill to its border. There was a road beyond the poplar trees where there had once been only a field. Had it been that long since the last time they mustered the energy to rouse themselves? Cars, faster and shinier than either one of them remembered them being, raced past like light-taloned falcons. Saxon leaned into Lucretia.
“This world never stops,” his voice cracked through years of silence.
“Well, we’ll have fun anyway. Don’t worry.” Lucretia took a step over the threshold. Her foot landed in the soft grass. Saxon pulled her back.
“What if they see us?” He whispered in her ear. Lucretia laughed.
“They’ll be terrified and never come this way again.” She pulled Saxon from the doorway. He was much taller than her, broad and healthy. He’d died in a farming accident. “Don’t ruin tonight with your whimpering, Saxon. We don’t get this often.” Saxon tossed his dark hair back, revealing the caved in skull that had killed him.
“I guess it could be fun to scare someone.” He flickered. Lucretia knew it was his energy. Saxon had been buried with so much of it unspent. She twirled her white burial gown under the moonlight, the skirt unfurled like an Easter lily. She stopped and gathered up the fabric.
“Let’s go see the road.” She ran, her bare feet leaving glowing footprints in her wake. Saxon ran beside her, trailing his fingertips on headstones as he passed them.
The road was only a two lane highway, nearly deserted at this hour. A low metal railing separated it from the graveyard. Lucretia walked along the hard blacktop, cringing at the feel of it under her feet. Saxon had been buried in shoes, his loafers were slick and loud on the pavement.
“How long before a car comes, do you think?”
“Not long,” Lucretia twirled again, it was nice to have been buried in such a pretty dress. She’d fought the consumption for two years, so much of her life had been spent in nightclothes, she’d nearly forgotten what it was like to be beautiful.
“Afterwards we’ll lie in the grass. I long to,” Saxon said, loosening his tie. Lucretia nodded. Saxon was part of the earth, more so than Lucretia. She’d always been sickly and was rarely allowed outside. She didn’t feel the need to touch the soil like he did. She wanted to touch one of the great machines, though. Could she stop one, little Lucretia who’d died before she could even be wed? How would her will to do so manifest? In a great light, resplendent with all the hopes that somehow still burned in her heart? How would she look to the living? Would she look the pile of bones she must surely be? She laughed at the thought of her skinny bones rattling along the black, curving road.
“What?” Saxon looked up from the rock he was kicking. His blue eyes pierced the night with a wounded glow. Lucretia took his hand.
“We’re going to be so good at this.”
“You think?” He smirked. He was older than she, he’d had a wife and a baby on the way when he’d died, but she liked when he smiled like a boy. They were related somehow, she supposed, they’d both been buried in the family crypt. They both had the same blue eyes, lighting up the night like conjoined fireflies.
“We’ll be beastly, Saxon, like we never could have been alive.”
“Yes.” He nodded, the light in his eyes deepened, his smile faded. Lucretia spotted headlights sweeping along the road.
“Oh, Saxon, look! Someone is coming!” They stood in the road, hand in hand. Lucretia let the vibration of it rumble and roar through her. Beside her Saxon drooled, light from the headlights caught the gossamer drip of saliva and held it for a moment. Lucretia’s head snapped up, mouth open too wide, a grin ripping her face.
The squeal of brakes was like a stray balloon, gone so high so quickly and nothing you could grasp. Lucretia wished she could take the sound back to the grave with her, let it bounce around her casket and set her bones trembling forever.
The car passed through them in a hot, cloying breeze. Lucretia watched the man inside pass through Saxon, his mouth wide open, as if he were tasting her companion. Lucretia whirled around to watch the machine slide into the field on the other side of the road. Weeds scraped at its sides and undercarriage, pulling it to a stop. The glistening beast hissed and creaked. Saxon smiled.
“Huh.”
Lucretia glided forward, watching through the back windshield for any sign of the man she’d seen. It was like the little window in the lid of her coffin, and she was waiting to see if he would rot or scream. Saxon reached the car before her and stood outside the driver’s window. Lucretia joined him and bent down to peer inside.
The man held a bright light to his ear, he was talking into it. Blood flowed from his head. Lucretia put her palm against the window, the glass was smooth and cold. If she pushed a little she would go through. She closed her hand, her fingernails scraped against the glass. Saxon laughed beside her. The man lowered the light and turned his head. Blood covered half of his face, his eyes were like moons. Lucretia pressed her lips against the window. The man scrambled backwards to the passenger seat and pulled the door handle. The door creaked as it opened and he swung his feet out of the car.
Saxon stood waiting there.
“No.” the man turned to climb back into the driver’s seat. Lucretia pushed through the window, climbing on all fours through the car toward him. The man faltered and slipped, falling out of the car and onto the ground. Lucretia and Saxon reached for him.
“No! No!” He screamed. The sound filled Lucretia with shivers of delight, she’d never dreamed their waking could be so wonderful. The pulse of his life flooded her. Saxon grinned dumbly, a fierce light in his eyes. He reached for the man’s neck, Lucretia reached for his heart. She pushed, her hand slid into his chest. The man screamed and screamed, these were new words Lucretia could take back to the crypt with her: the screeching of tires and screams of the terrified. Words that would never leave her. His heart jumped under her hand as she wrapped her fingers around it. Saxon’s grip was cutting off the screams, but the heartbeat pounding against her palm filled her head. She gritted her teeth and squeezed harder, she’d never been strong, but soon the heart spasmed and went limp.
“I do love a good lie in the grass.” Saxon lay with his crushed skull cushioned on a clump of crabgrass. Lucretia licked blood from her fingers.
“It is a lovely night.” She offered Saxon her hand, he licked it clean.
I love them 🥹
Wow so good! I love their detached playfulness. ✨