Page 7 of Eternally Yours


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“Trust me, Maria. I know my parents.”

She nodded. “But you have to admit, this would make a far more interesting gap year essay.”

He laughed.

“So you’re older than me,” she said. “You graduated.”

“You haven’t?”

“I still had two years. But I wasn’t going to make it on time anyway. My parents skipped out when I was a kid. I lived with my grandma, but she died. That’s who I was burying when I ran into you.”

“That’s...” He blinked a few times, sadly, she thought. “How did she die?”

She shrugged. “She was old. She died in her sleep. She never had to suffer, or go into a hospital. So I guess she was lucky.”

“Not you though. Left without her.”

“It wasn’t going to be so bad. I was going to fly under the radar for two more years, just long enough so they wouldn’t shove me into foster care. Then I was going to go back for my GED.”

“And now what?”

“What do you mean, ‘now what’?” she asked. “Now nothing. I’m dead. I eat the dead. And apparently if I don’t want to do that anymore, I get to turn into Sasquatch.”

“Asasquatch,” he corrected. “There’s only one original.”

“I hate you,” she said, and he laughed.

“I know. And you have every right.” His eyes moved back to the cemetery, over the old grave markers. “Do you notice anything strange about this graveyard?” he asked.

“Not really.”

“Look closer. There aren’t any families. Only individuals. No one’s related.”

She peered through the dark. He was right. Many had died young, in their twenties and thirties. But even more had died in their fifties or sixties. A few even into their eighties. But none were buried beside spouses or siblings. There were no family plots.

Maria got up and walked to the cemetery entrance. There was a concrete pedestal and an engraved plaque.

“Holy shit,” she said, and heard Ethan call out, “What?”

“They’re all sole survivors. Of a plague. Every person in this cemetery lost their entire family to it. They elected to be buried here with other survivors, because their families’ bodies were burned and placed in mass graves.”

“You really do take me to the loveliest places.”

Maria ran her hand across the plaque, still overgrown with dead winter vines. “It’s not so bad,” she said. “They were all alone in life. Now they’re alone together. How did I never know about this place? It’s so...” She looked around in the dark, able to see with her dead eyes better than any alley cat. The graves didn’t look sad to her anymore, or neglected. They looked like they were huddled together.

“Given any more thought to finding me a new body?” Ethan asked. “There’s still time.”

“Sure. I’ll just dig up one of these guys. They’re so old and rotted away that when I sew your head on them you’ll look like a lollipop.”

He chuckled. “You’re a sick girl, Maria.”

“Let’s go. These people shouldn’t be disturbed.” Shereturned to him and picked him up, smoothing the hair back out of his eyes. “Where to next?”

He chose the river, for the sound of the water. They walked and laughed like old friends, and no one seemed inclined to bother the girl cradling the strange bag in her arms and talking to it.

But they couldn’t forget the dawn. Ethan teased her about finding him another body. A nice boy freshly dead, with broad shoulders and a six-foot-two frame. She told him he’d look ridiculous on a body like that. And that he’d be far too tempted to eat it.

Besides, they were too close to sunrise. There was not enough time left to find someone and dig him up. To sever his head and sew Ethan’s on in its place.