AN EARLY GRAVE

Not all sins remain dead and buried.


AN EARLY GRAVE

AN ORIGINAL SHORT STORY

BY

CHARLES H. SCOTT

         Heavy snow falls at dusk from a low-ceiling of slate-gray clouds, blanketing the high Sierras cabin and surrounding mountainside in a blinding mantle of white.  A column of wispy smoke snakes out of the chimney evoking a picture postcard scene.  Except for the backhoe and a long, shallow hole beside cabin, that is.

         Outside, the cabin looks small.  But inside, it's large and spacious.  A warm feel emanates from high ceilings and pine rafters of smooth, polished and grainy woods.  The dead-eyed glare of animal trophies -- symbolic of the master's previous conquests and hunting prowess -- are mounted on all four walls.

         Eve Venerable, early 30's and stunningly beautiful, unpacks her vast wardrobe, carelessly hangs her expensive designer clothes in the half-loft bedroom walk-in closet.

         Clarence Clearwater, full-blooded Cherokee Indian -- a handsome, mountain of a man rummages behind downstairs wet bar.  He grabs a cold bottle of champagne from the refrigerator and two chilled glasses.  Clarence yells up the stairs, "When's Herbert getting here?"

         Eve leans across the balcony.  Her $10,000 breasts nearly tumble from a silky, too-small halter-top.  Her every move exudes the promise of forbidden sexual pleasures.  Eve replies, "Nine sharp.  He's nothing if not punctual."

         Clarence pops the cork.  He pours some champagne into the chilled glasses.  A second bottle sits on a sterling silver tray.  He carries the tray upstairs to Eve in the loft careful not to spill a drop as he climbs the stairs two at a time.

                Eve, now spread-eagled on her back, rolls over across the enormous bed, accepts one of the glasses with sparkling eyes and an inviting smile.  He takes the other and sets the tray and the unopened bottle down on the floor beside the bed.  They clink glasses, intertwining their arms, drinking from each other's glass as lovers do when alone and not expecting company.

         Once drained, they set the empty glasses on the floor.

         Clarence reclines on the bearskin rug.  With his huge hands he pulls her from the bed on top of him.  His hands roam freely all over her stunning body.  Eve deftly unbuttons his shirt as she runs her hands along the smooth, bronze and hairless skin.  She kisses him ravenously as her right hand unbuckles his belt.  Clarence hikes his hips up, slides his tight jeans down to his ankles and kicks the pants off causing Eve to giggle little school girl-like.  They lie there wrapped in each other's embrace.  Their breath comes to them in quick gasps, kissing with all the passion of the first or last time or as if sealing a secret lovers' pact.

         Clarence slowly kisses his way down Eve's heaving torso.  She groans tossing her head from side to side in syncopation with her pleasure filled moans.  Eve's face flushes from the heat of the moment's passion.  She's wet with anticipation of what's soon to come - in more ways then one.

         On a rural highway, headlights cut through heavy falling snow.  The road ahead is very treacherous.  Except for this car there isn't a sign of life anywhere around.  This particular Mercedes 500 SL's driver is Herbert Venerable.  He is dowdy, mid- 50's but looks considerably older.  Herbert does everything hard: work, play, drive, love and hate.  He epitomizes success; an A-type personality to the max.  A self-made man whose pedestrian tastes run more towards polyester than silk, he chain smokes non-filter Camels and has the most disgusting smoker's hack.

         Stock market report drones through Blaupunkt speakers.  An announcer reads the copy, "That's the latest from Wall Street.  In other news: On the international scene, Venerable Enterprises merged today with InVesCo forming a limited partnership specializing in international joint ventures."

         Herbert stubs out his cigarette into an overflowing ashtray.

         The announcer continues her report.  "Herbert Venerable, who will remain on the board of directors, opted for early retirement rather than remain as CEO and President, said an anonymous company official."

         Herbert turns the radio up.  A smirk spreads across his broad face.  The announcer drones on to a conclusion.  "Informed sources place the value of the deal at between 100 and 150 million dollars.  Completion of this major acquisition ends litigation filed several years ago by Venerable against InVesCo."

         Herbert slams his balled-up fist on dash.  "Hot damn!  Way to go, Venerable."  He gloats, "TWO HUNDRED MILLION.  Herbert, you're one hell of a negotiator.  I gotta hand it to you!"  He bursts into a paroxysm of coughing.  His coughing spasm causes the car to swerve across the dividing line.  But he quickly regains control of the road.

         Meanwhile, back at the cabin, smoldering embers cast flickering shadows on the walls.  Sensual, satisfied laughter drifts around the place coming from the bedroom, mixing with the sounds of lovers at play that swirl around the cabin.  Up in the loft, Eve and Clarence are on the bed bathed in the afterglow of their frantic sex.

         Eve breathes heavily.  "Ohhh, baby.  You're sooo very good."

         Clarence breathes in her aroma, "With you it's easy to be good.  And hard."

         "You always say, and do, the right thing," Eve whispers softly.  She nuzzles his ear, rolls over on top of him, ready for another romp.  With a sensual chuckle, she tells Clarence, "I just can't get enough of you."

         An alarm sounds.  She turns suddenly very business-like.  "Herbert'll be here any minute.  You better get ready."  Eve hugs him so tight he winces.

         Clarence reluctantly pulls away from her.  He jumps out of bed.

         Eve continues her scheming. "This is it."    Her eyes gleam as she contemplates her foreseeable future.  "Soon, we'll be together all the time."

         Clarence pipes up optimistically, "We could even go to Tahiti."

         "If he signs this deal -- and believe me he will -- he'll net 100 million easy.  We could go anywhere we want," Eve asserts.

         Their eyes light up with rapacious delight.

         "And if anything should happen to poor little rich Herbert ..." Eve's words trail off.

         Clarence picks up on her thought.  "Everything goes to his grieving widow."

         "Exactly!"  Eve zips up his tight jeans nearly catching his private parts in the process.  Her mouth practically waters as she speaks, "Just think of what all that money can buy.  We'll never have to worry about being broke ever again."

         Herbert's car passes a dimly-lighted public phone booth -- an odd sight this far from civilization -- just before it turns off main highway onto a blacktopped road.  The frozen ground crunches under his tires as he passes under a stone archway that announces this as VENERABLE ACRES.  Herbert's car shoots thru and down a tunnel-like, tree-lined path.

         Inside the cabin, Clarence quickly buttons his shirt.  He slips shoes on his sockless feet.  "Everything's ready to go," Clarence assures her.

         "It better be.  Knowing Herbert, we only get one chance."  She leans over, kisses him hard on the mouth.  "Don't blow it, sweetheart," Eve commands.  She pats him affectionately on the ass.

         "What could go wrong?" Clarence asks rhetorically.

         From the look on her face that's just what Eve wonders.

         Clarence starts down the stairs.  He freezes suddenly as headlights sweep across room.  "Eve, he's here," Clarence announces in a whispered yell.  Clarence continues on down the stairs, disappears in stairwell closet behind the stairs.

         Upstairs, Eve swings into action.  She quickly hides the empty bottle she and Clarence drank from before rushing to the bathroom carrying the champagne glasses and the un-opened bottle.

         The master bath consists of a whirlpool, steam bath, detached sauna, enclosed shower, a sunken tub and an enormous vanity area all done over in contemporary acrylics and expensive imported Italian tiles.  Its modern design and feminine touch are in direct contrast with the old-time woodsy feel of the rest of the place.

         Eve places the silver tray and champagne glasses on the toilet seat.  She pops the cork, fills her glass.  She casually drops a capsule into the bottle.  She swirls the liquid in the bottle before pouring another glass which she sets on the opposite side of the tray.  She then hurriedly prepares a steaming hot bubble bath.  She enters the tub, slips under the water.

         Outside the cabin, Herbert's car stops beside a Mercedes 500S.  He gets out, shuts the door.  He points an alarm transmitter at car, presses button.  It chirps twice.  Lights flash.  Locks snap shut.  It's alarmed.  Trusting no one, his paranoid nature satisfied, he swiftly turns and heads uphill towards the cabin.  About half-way to the cabin, Herbert's attention is drawn to the backhoe next to a large, oblong hole dug beside the cabin.  He looks suspiciously from the hole to the cabin then continues towards front entrance, a frown upon his face.

         Herbert enters.  He swiftly shuts door behind him, crosses to a hutch where he places his briefcase.  He heads for the closet beneath the stairs to hang up his jacket.  "Eve!  Honey, I'm home," Herbert calls out.  He reaches for the closet door knob as he begins removing his jacket.  His hand twists the knob.  He opens the door slowly and ever so slightly.

         Eve shouts down from above, "In the bath, Herbie dear."

         At the sound of her voice, Herbert lets go of the knob, keeps his jacket on and heads up the stairs.  "Honey ..." Herbert puffs hard as he bounds up the stairs like a love-sick puppy after a week-long stay at the kennels.

         Eve luxuriates in the bubble-filled sunken tub, acting relaxed as if she's been in the tub for some time.  She resembles Doris Day in one of those wacky bedroom farces of the early 60's, all champagne and suds.

         Herbert's voice precedes him, "I've got a surprise for you."  Herbie sets foot inside, stands in the doorway's threshold.  The look on his face says it all: he worships her and the water she bathes in.

         Eve puts on her most convincing happy face.  Something she learned in a method acting class no doubt.

         "Miss me?" Herbert asks
.
         With heartfelt ambiguity Eve answers, "Did I ever."

         Herbert notices the 2 glasses of champagne, scowls suspiciously.  His face darkens with insane jealousy.  "Am I interrupting something?"

         She follows his gaze.  With a phony, seductive laugh she retorts, "Silly boy ... they're for us."  Reaching for a filled glass, she takes one and hands the spiked one to him with a coy smile.

                Herbert holds it with his right hand while his left remains behind his back.  He leans over, kisses her on the cheek she begrudgingly offers. 
Herbert raises his glass in a toast.  "To us."

                She holds glass in her left hand, forces a smile but he doesn't notice.  They clink glasses.  But this time it is without the thick air of passion of earlier that existed between Clarence and her.

         Eve nearly chokes on the words, "To us."  She downs her drink quickly, nervously.

         Herbert watches her as he sips his thoughtfully.

         A look passes between them.  Only a few feet apart, there's an undeniable and unbridgeable chasm between them; though each does their best to hide their awareness of this fact from the other.  Their arrangement is simple: he gives her everything she wants -- and she wants everything -- in return for her companionship.  They've had many similar silent, awkward moments lately.

         Herbert, ever suspicious, inquires, "What's with the backhoe and the hole beside the cabin?"

                Eve recites her well rehearsed line in a rush of breath.  "New sanitation laws require a back-up cesspool in case the plumbing freezes it won't cause a spill."

         Herbert considers this for a moment.  It's a reasonable possibility.  And much too logical for her to concoct on the spur of the moment he assumes.  So he accepts her explanation without another thought and quickly downs the remainder of his drugged cocktail.

         Eve deftly changes the subject.  "What have you got behind your back, Herbie dear?"

         Herbert sets his empty glass down on the rim of the Jacuzzi tub.  He pulls his left hand from behind his back.  In it he holds a softball-sized world globe encased in a plexi-glass case.  He picks up the silver platter and places the world on it, in effect, handing the world to her on a silver platter.

         "What are you up to now, Herbert?" she asks edgily.

         "I'm giving you the world, my dear."

         Eve appears more annoyed than pleased.  "That's very thoughtful of you, I'm sure.  But what does it mean?"

         Herbert's childish excitement can hardly be contained as he hands her the miniature world.  "Now we'll have time to do some of that traveling you been nagging me to do ever since we met."

         Eve holds the globe at arm's length as if it were a wriggling viper that could bite her.  "What on earth are you talking about?

         "My business ..."

         "Herbert have you been drinking?"

         Herbert has a look of delight even her unkind remarks won't kill.  "I sold the business.  I'm retired."

                Eve is, to say the least, lightning-struck by this announcement.  "You're what?"
         "Retired.  I walked away and left it all today."
                   
         Eve sits in the tub thunderstruck.  "To who?"

         "InVesCo.  A company that deals with international investors.  They offered me a lucrative, early retirement."  He is very pleased with himself.  "So I took it."

         Eve's mouth is agape.  "Why?  I mean, what are you going to do?"  She feigns concern.  "You won't know what to do with yourself."

         "We're going to see the world together," Herbert exclaims.

         It slowly sinks in.  Eve pleads, "Tell me you didn't really retire ...?"

         Herbert nods affirmatively.  "I did it for you.  For US."

         "For me?"

         Herbert tenderly takes hold of her hand.  "You always complained I spent too much time away.  That we never went anywhere.  Now I'll always be here.  With you.  Always."  This thought turns Eve green.  "I'll never leave your side again for as long as I live," Herbert vows.  He smiles broadly, so "in love" he's unaware of or oblivious to her reaction of abject horror.  He pours himself another celebratory glass of the spiked champagne, drains the bottle and tosses it aside.

         Suddenly, Herbert is wracked by a roiling cough.  His face reddens as his windpipe is temporarily blocked.  He loosens his tie so he can breath.  Eve, thoroughly disgusted, once again feigns wifely concern.

         A short time later in the loft, Herbert, still fully dressed, tie loosened, lies sprawled across bed.  He snores obnoxiously.  His lungs echo with emphysemic congestion as he lapses in and out of a dreamy stupor.  He mumbles.

         Eve whispers downstairs.  "Now.  Do it NOW."

         Clarence clearly is having second thoughts regarding his participation.  "I was thinkin'.  Maybe we should talk this through some more -"

         Eve cuts him off.  "We did.  We talked this over 'til I can't hear another word."  Deadly resolve tempers her words.  "Tonight's THE night."

         Clarence is on edge.  "I don't feel good about this."

         Eve stares daggers through his heart.  "Don't chicken shit out on me now, Clarence, or we're through.  Got it?"

         "What're we gonna do about his car?"

         "Push it into the gorge just like I told you.  No one will find it there.  Even if they do, they'll assume he slide off the highway and drowned in the river.  I'll return to the city tomorrow and report him missing."

         "What if someone sees me?" Clarence beseeches.

          "Who's gonna see you?" Eve demands of him with barely controlled rage.  "I don't care what you do or how you do it.  Just get rid of the car.  It's the only thing that can link us to his death."  She looks at Clarence, regards him pathetically before she hands him a heavy fireplace poker.

         Clarence takes it.  Measures it in his hands.  Gets the size and feel of it.  Pounds his open palm several times to know its sting before he heads up the stairs with grim resolve and heavy steps.

         Eve and Clarence march lock-step up the stairs and into the bedroom.  A look of fatal determination on Clarence's face.  One of a prisoner about to obtain her release from a life/death sentence on Eve's.  They stand over the drunken, sleeping hulk.  It is easy to sense how much Herbert disgusts her; reminding her of her alcoholic, abusive father perhaps.

         "Look at him, Clarence.  Herbert Venerable.  World-class dealmaker."  She literally snarls at the hapless Herbert.  "How you disgust me."

         Eve pushes the reluctant Clarence forward, propels him towards the bed and into action.  She watches as Clarence raises the fireplace poker over his head.  His muscular frame ripples with potential energy about to go kinetic.  He casts one last beseeching look over at Eve.  "Is this really necessary?"

         She only nods more resolved than before.  In the shadows, she sees him smash the poker down onto Herbert's head.

         Once.

         Twice.

         We hear a grunt from Clarence as he makes contact each time.

         An unearthly howl of excruciating pain emanates from Herbert.  His eyes suddenly open.  His hand shoots to wounded right temple where blood now gushes forth as if from an erupted slag dam.  Herbert squints trying to see his attacker through the veil of blood streaming down his forehead.

         Clarence raises the poker and hits Herbert again across the fore-skull.

         Reflexively, perhaps instinctually, Herbert shields his face with his forearm which absorbs most of the blow.  But Herbert, groggy from the long drive and drugged champagne, is clearly dazed and not in full control of his senses or the present state of affairs.  Herbert tries focusing on first Clarence and then Eve who is in a state of agitated excitement.

         Clarence stands frozen unable or unwilling to continue.

         Herbert looks to Eve with anguished eyes.

                She glares back at him, furiously.  She shoots Clarence with a sideways glance.  If looks could kill, Herbert and Clarence would both be dead!  Impatient for Herbert to die, Eve decides to take matters into her own hands.  Picking up the champagne bottle, she strikes Herbert across the back of his head.  She urges Clarence to resume his beating but he can't or won't.  So she bludgeons Herbert mercilessly with the bottle.

         Herbert attempts to fend off the blows but each one extracts a greater toll.  The drug has dulled his reflexes, diminishing his capacity to feel pain or defend himself.  Eve is fierce, unrelenting.  Attacking with a much too long-repressed rage, striking Herbert blow after blow until Herbert fights back no more.  Her last blow explodes the bottle into green shards of glass.

                Clarence gapes, horrified.  And afraid she won't stop with Herbert.

         Eve stands over the bloodied and motionless body of her soon-to-be dead, buried and ex-husband.  Her breath comes in short gasps from the effort.  Her shoulders heave from the physical drain of her murderous exertion.  Otherwise, she is calm and collected and in control.  She sets the shattered bottle down on the night stand, a great weight off her shoulders.  In fact, a self-satisfied smile spreads across her composed countenance.  "Free at last!" she declares.

         Clarence, on the other hand, is beside himself.  Afraid of her violent outburst -- afraid of what she might do to him if he crosses her -- afraid it's too late to turn back now.

         "Thanks.  You were some fucking help," Eve bitches at him.

         "I never killed a man before," Clarence protests.

         "Well now.  There's a first time for everything, Clarence."  Eve takes the poker from him.  She looks around at the walls splattered with Herbert's blood.  "Let's bury him before he gets stiff.  We got a lot of work ahead."

         Clarence's gears are slipping.  He can't quite get his mind around what they've done here, while Eve acts like a stone-cold professional killer.  "You're a hard woman, Eve."

         Eve shoots him a self-explanatory stare.  "Believe me Clarence, you don't want to find out just how hard a woman I can be."

         Outside the cabin, on a side-yard hillside in the dead of night, Eve and Clarence struggle with Herbert's body.  Plumes of steam pour forth from their flaring nostrils.  Heavy snow falls obscuring their movements.  Beside the cabin, a shallow grave awaits Herbert.  It is, in fact, the very same hole Herbert asked her about earlier, the one dug with the backhoe ostensibly for the backup cesspool.  But now the truth comes out -- it was meant as an early grave for Herbert.

         Graveside, Herbert's body jerks spasmodically.  They look at each other in disbelief.  "He's not dead", Eve observes.

         The body twists and squirms forcing them to drop him on his head.  A dull, sickening thud and animal grunt of pain follows.  Herbert's face is now visible; it's twisted into a grotesque mask of fear, panic and hate.  He's somehow regained semi-consciousness but seems paralyzed, unable to move.  "Please stop," Herbert begs through muffled cries.  "Why are you doing this?"  He pleads for his life.  "Don't kill me.  Please?!  I'll give you anything -- everything you want."

         Eve and Clarence gawk at Herbert as he struggles desperately trying to free himself by force of his will.

         Herbert cries out as he struggles to his knees, "Oh God, help me!  Please, somebody.  Anybody!"

                Eve pushes Clarence at Herbert: "Just do it."

         "Go ahead and scream.  No one can hear you.  Even God himself can't help you now," Clarence pronounces bravely.

         Before Herbert can free himself, Clarence clangs him across the side of the head with a shovel.  Herbert's skull partially collapses.  His face fairly caves in.  Herbert's body pitches forward tumbling like a broken doll into the abyss.  Upon closer inspection, the hole is quite shallow; only deep enough for his body and several inches of dirt to cover it.

         Eve, never satisfied, remarks, "It's not very deep."

         "It's deep enough," Clarence responds.

         "I don't know --"

         "Eve, take my word.  It's plenty deep."  With a wicked smile, Clarence adds, "Besides, if that don't kill him, he'll soon die of exposure."

         Eve has an uncertain edge to her voice as she says, "I hope so.  But you don't know him like I do, Clarence."  Her eyes turn a bit wild.  "If he could, he'd reach right outta that shallow grave and pull us in after him."

         Recalling childhood Indian myths, Clarence can almost envision Herbert actually clawing his way out of the shallow grave.  The thought is very disquieting to him.  "That would be something to see," Clarence declares with false bravado.

         Together they roll his pudgy body into the shallow grave, thrusting him down into the darkness, plunging Herbert suddenly into an endless night.  Eve takes a handfull of dirt and flings it in Herbert's face.  A final insult.  Clarence turns several shovels full of dirt onto Herbert's face, suffocating any chance at surviving.

         "So what's next?" Clarence wonders aloud.

         "Call the police tomorrow from home and act like he never arrived."

         "That's it?" Clarence asks Eve.  Clarence shovels dirt on top of Herbert's pathetic, unconscious but still wriggling figure.

         "And that's that," Eve states emphatically as she claps dirt off her velvet gloves.  She turns, saunters towards cabin.  She stops, looks over her shoulder at Clarence.

         "Don't forget to ditch the car."

         "Why do I have to get rid of it?"  Clarence looks in car's direction.  "It's brand new for God's sake."

         Eve slowly returns to where he stands.

         He rocks back a bit on his heels defensively, expecting the worse.

         "Because you don't keep a memento of a murder, Clarence dear."  She slaps him hard across the face.  "And because I said so!"

         He holds his cheek as she returns to the cabin, leaving him to cover Herbert's body and ditch the car.

         Heavy snow continues falling throughout the night.

         Very early the next morning Eve loads up her car just outside cabin's entrance.  The frozen snow covered ground crunches under her shiny snake skin boots.  She's appears plenty warm and cozy in her oversized fur.  A self-satisfied smile spreads across her face as she prepares to leave the crime scene behind.

         Herbert's car is now nowhere in sight.

         Later on she is altogether loaded up and ready to go.  Eve doesn't so much as even glance back at the gravesite as she gets in her car and drives off.  She has indeed pulled off the perfect crime.

         The gravesite seems so serene you'd never know what sins the pristine blanket of snow hides.  Soon the falling snow will obliterate the fact that anyone had even been here recently.

         Eve's Mercedes sits parked outside the columned entrance to a Colonial mansion with rolling estate grounds late afternoon of the next day.  Inside, Eve speaks calmly into a hand-held cordless phone.  "This isn't like Herbert.  He's so predictable you could set your watch by his schedule."  She listens.  "He has been missing for more than 24 hours.  My God, what if he's had an accident and needs a doctor?"  She listens for a moment.  She nods her head yes to the other person's comments.  "I suppose not.  Let me know if you hear anything.  Thanks, Detective Davis."

                Eve jams the antenna back into the portable phone as if putting an end to the conversation and the subject.  "Everything according to plan.  Herbert would have been so proud of me," she beams.

         Four months later outside the high Sierras cabin it's a rainy, dismal and dreary morning, spring thaw just beginning.  Creek and stream beds flow with the run-off of melting snow, water for the desert communities of Los Angeles and Southern California.  The backhoe is gone.  Rain has caused the hillside behind the cabin to erode, flooding the cabin with a thick sludge of rock and mud.  But no one is there to notice or care.  So the hillside slides away until the mound where Herbert was buried has given way to rivulets of muddy water running down the hillside.  The tip of one of Herbert's wingtips, in need of a polish, protrudes from the damp ground.

         Not much else has changed.

         Underground, it is dark, dank and claustrophobic.  But enough light seeps through to dimly see.  All of a sudden, Herbert's eyes pop open.  Everything is blurry and out of focus.  His eyes are covered with a thick film.  There's a heaviness in his chest.  A sense of suffocation and anxiety grips him.  His nostrils flare, filled with the musky scents of the dank, musty earth.  Disoriented, he turns his head trying to see.  All around him is nothing but darkness.  The only light issues from the faint phosphoric radiance of his body's slow but steady decay.

         In the blink of an eye, Herbert realizes where he is.  The horror of his predicament grips him, makes it difficult for him to catch his fetid breath.  In a panic, he tears at the dirt.  With gangrenous fingertips, he scratches and claws his way ...

         ... ever so slowly ...

         ... until, all of a sudden --

         A rush of light fills the darkness.  Herbert, covered with caked mud, pulls himself deliberately up and out of his premature inhumation.  Not surprisingly, Herbert appears gaunt.  The tips of his fingers and nose are eaten by decay.  Moss has taken root in his concave skull.  His hair is matted against the side of his face and caked with burnt umber thawing blood.  The wound oozes as it thaws.

         All around him are the signs of spring's rejuvenating powers.  Hibernating plants and animals make their first forays into the post-winter world.  In a very real sense Herbert too has been rejuvenated, arising, as it were, from an early grave.

         He takes a deep breath, glad to be alive, sort of.  As the haze clears from his eyes and head and reason visits him once more, it is replaced by an intense murderous and revengeful intent.  He can see the undeniable truth of his circumstance.

         "I guess Eve doesn't love me anymore."

         A few minutes later, Herbert staggers into the cabin.  Despite all that's befallen him, the look on his face says he's not prepared for what he finds.  It looks as if the place has been looted it's that thoroughly trashed.  A river of mud has flowed through leaving a thick residue of silt and sand in its wake.  The walls are covered with moldy, rank smelling animal heads, remnants of his moribund existence.

         "That fucking bitch!" Herbert curses aloud to himself.

         Herbert surveys the dismal scene with mouth agape, swollen tongue protruding past purplish, necrotic lips.  He rummages around the rubble for the phone.  Instead, he finds the wall socket ripped out.  Wires dangle from a gaping hole in the wall.  All he can do is shake his head and cry.  Salty tears dissolve a narrow swath of mud as they run down his cheek.

         Later that same night at the roadside phone booth, Herbert leans with his back against the closed doors.  His wallet lays open to the calling card on the little metal shelf.  He holds receiver waiting for the call to connect.

         It rings and rings.  Finally, the machine clicks on.

         Eve's voice is alluringly sexual, "Hi there, it's Eve.  I'm not in right now or I'm busy and can't come to the phone.  Your call is important to me, so please, take your time and leave me a detailed message and I'll get back to you very soon.  I promise."  With a sexy giggle, she finishes.  "Bye bye for now."

         Herbert waits for the beep.  He opens his mouth starts to leave a message, thinks better of it, then hangs up receiver without saying a word.  He contemplates his predicament for a moment then grabs the thin phone book hanging underneath the shelf.  Opening it to the C's, his finger runs down the column before stopping on Clearwater, Clarence.

         Herbert punches in the number.  It rings several times.

         A tired-voiced woman answers.  "Yes?  Hello?"

         "Is this Clarence Clearwater's residence?" Herbert inquires.

         "Yes.  But he not home now."

         "Do you know where I might find him?"

         "Clarence ... he not home now."

         "Yes, I understand he's not home.  Do you know where he is?"  Herbert presses her, "It's a matter of life and death."

         "He hang out at the Dew Drop Inn on the old highway," the tired woman's voice sounds faltering.

         "The Dew Drop Inn?  Out on old highway 125?"  Herbert speaks into receiver, "I know right where to find him.  You've been most helpful.  Thank you."

         Herbert hangs up.

         He walks down the deserted road as if he hasn't a care in the world wide web of human intrigue. The wheels are already turning in his devious mind as he formulates his diabolical plan.

         The Dew Drop Inn is a typical, country roadhouse, roadside bar.  Out front are several pick-up trucks with loaded shotguns mounted on gun racks.  Also there, conspicuously incongruent with the surroundings, is a newly-painted Mercedes 500SL.  Even with the expensive new paint job it is unmistakably Herbert's car.

         Inside an old jukebox plays a scratched Patsy Cline recording of "I Fall To Pieces" thru tinny speakers.  The hour is late and only the hard core drunks remain hunched over their liquid amnesia.  Slouched over the bar fisting his long-neck beer, Clarence spaces out on the bottle's label.  His digital watch beeps twice on the hour.  Clarence snaps out it.  Drains the dregs of the beer and throws some change on the bar as a tip.  He stands up.  On unsteady legs, he exits.

         A few minutes later outside the Dew Drop Inn Clarence staggers towards the Mercedes.  He makes several unsuccessful attempts to insert the key in the driver's door as he doesn't know the security code combination.

         "Here, let me help you, pal," a strangely familiar voice says from the shadows.  Clarence attempts to hand the stranger the keys but he falls against the car and then slightly backs away.  The helpful, friendly stranger enters a security code.  The door latches snap open.

         Clarence, his eyes partially closed, says, "Thanks a lot, mister."  Clarence starts to get into the car when he's cracked across the back of his head with a blunt object.  Not hard enough to kill but certainly hard enough to knock someone Clarence's size unconscious.  Clarence crumples to the ground in a twitching heap.

         Herbert looks down on Clarence, his would be killer.  Now the hunter himself is hunted.  "Herbert, you've bagged your biggest trophy yet," he muses out loud.  He lifts Clarence up, no small feat considering their relative sizes and conditions, drags him around the front of the car and drops him into the passenger seat.  The depths of his hatred fortifies his physical strength.  Herbert takes the keys out of Clarence's closed fist.  He goes around the back and gets in.

         They drive off into the shadows of the gathering gloom of this night.

         On a country highway later that same night Herbert's car snakes its way up into the mountains.  Clarence is still out cold.  Herbert, a twisted smile on his rotted lips, contemplates what he has in store for poor Clarence.  He takes joy in the simple pleasure of being able to drive again and the thought that he's gotten a second chance at life and extracting the revenge he now lives for.

         Atop a dark, foreboding mountaintop, Herbert stands on the edge looking out over the precipice.  He pitches a rock over the edge, waits for the sound of it striking the Earth.  It comes from far off and faint.  He seems awfully composed for a man about to kill another man, as if it were just another business transaction.

                He turns and walks over to the car where Clarence is just regaining consciousness.  The car idles fast as if someone is steadily depressing the accelerator.

         As his senses return, Clarence discovers his predicament.  Held to the driver's seat with duct tape his hands are super-glued to the steering wheel.  And his forehead is taped to the headrest so that he faces straight ahead with limited peripheral vision.  He can't move a muscle without causing himself considerable pain.  From the corner of his right eye, he sees Herbert lean through passenger window.  This grotesque specter of his crime returned to haunt him makes Clarence's eyes go bestial.  He squirms like a lab animal receiving electrical shocks from sadistic co-eds.  His cries are muffled by three layers of duct tape covering his mouth.

         Herbert addresses Clarence as if they're old and dear friends.  "Clarence my old friend how good it is to see you again."  He shakes his head from side to side as he speaks, "I'm afraid I made the mistake of grossly underestimating you.  I had no idea just how handy you really were."  Herbert can't suppress a derisive laugh.  "Leave it to Eve to find some little way you could help her out of a dreadfully difficult situation."

         Clarence looks straight ahead.  He sees the car perched on the crest of a precipice ready for a terminal plunge.  His eyes go wilder.  His struggles take on an overwhelming new urgency.

         Herbert continues toying with the terrified Indian.  "Clarence ... Clarence ... Clarence, you poor dumb bastard."  Herbert's twisted smile turns into a mad-dog snarl.  "She used you like a condom and threw you away when she was done, didn't she?"

         Herbert nods in answer to his own question.  "But she let you keep the car," he shakes his head.  "That's not like her.  It's so -- out of character."  Herbert steps back, admires the car.  "Good paint job.  Must have cost a couple grand."  Herbert backtracks, "Or did you decide that one for yourself, to keep it and paint it?"  Herbert snaps his rotting fingers.  "That's it, isn't it?!"

         Clarence's desperation rocks the car from side to side.

         Herbert boldly lights a cigarette as he nonchalantly walks behind car then leans in driver's window.  "What have you got to say for yourself, Clarence?"  Herbert roughly tears the tape from Clarence's mouth, ripping some skin off as well.

         Clarence gasps for air.  Herbert blows smoke in his face.

         Clarence proceeds to plead for his life.  "Let me go, please.  It wasn't my idea.  I didn't want to do it.  She made me.  You know how she is."

         Herbert turns his head to glare at Clarence with his one good eye.          "I see.  So you didn't really mean to hit me in the head with that shovel, I suppose?"  Herbert pauses a beat for emphasis.  "And dropping me on my head, rolling me in a shallow ditch and throwing dirt in my face, was that an accident too?"  Herbert guffaws a sadistic laugh.  "My, my -- you sure are accident prone, Clarence."

         A feral-eyed Clarence offers his explanation.  "By then it was too late.  I had to, don't you see.  Or she would have killed me too!"

         Herbert smiles understandingly.  He now knows all too well what Eve is capable of.  "So she's to blame.  It was all her idea.  She made you do it."  Ever the dealmaker, Herbert asks, "What'd she offer you?  Love?  Money?"

         Clarence is in a state of scared truthfulness.  "She promised we'd be together ... that we'd travel around the world, buy a deserted island somewhere.  Leave the world behind -- live like shipwrecked lovers."

         Herbert stifles a snicker as he coughs out cigarette smoke and inhaled dirt.  "Such romantics, you two.  But to do that, I had to be ... euphemistically speaking ... "done away with" or "gotten rid of" as it were.  So you decide to bury me alive in the dead of winter.  Out of site; out of mind; out of luck."

         "We thought you were dead.  I swear it."

         "Oh, I believe you, Clarence.  And that was your mistake.  You didn't finish the job while you had the chance," Herbert shakes his head sadly as he says this.  "Clarence -- you've been had.  Did you really think she was gonna split two-hundred million dollars with you?"

         Clarence rapidly disintegrates before Herbert's eyes.

         Herbert's curiosity gets the better of him.  "How much?"

         Clarence looks puzzled and terrified.  He can't answer.

         Herbert continues abrasive as pumice, "How much did she pay you?"

         Clarence attempts to answer but his tongue is twisted with fear.  Chokingly, he stammers something incoherently.

         With calm intensity, Herbert demands to know.  "Tell me.  Or I'll kill you right now."

         Clarence hears the unmistakable sound of the hammer of a gun being cocked back for firing.  Clarence stammers out an answer, "Two-hundred fifty thousand."

         Herbert slowly straightens up, walks around the front of the car, smokes his cigarette as he regards the car's new paint.

         Clarence tracks him with terrified eyes.

         Herbert again leans in the driver's window.

         "Not bad.  She got off cheap."  Herbert twists the knife.  "But I would have offered at least 10 times that not to consummate the deal."

         A doubly pained look comes to Clarence's face.  Full of fear, Clarence probes, "What are you going to do?"

         "You wanted the car.  You shall have it."  An evil smirk spreads across Herbert's grotesque face as he sneers down on the hapless Clarence.  "Or should I say: it shall have you."  Herbert reaches in, disengages the emergency brake.  His hand moves slowly towards the headlight switch which he pushes.  "You should see where you're heading," Herbert cackles.  The headlights flash on.  He then reaches towards the automatic gear controls.

         Clarence's eyes are wide open, his ears pinned back against his head with fright.  He spots the brick taped to and pressing down on the gas pedal.

         Clarence's voice becomes frantic, pleading, "Don't do it.  I'll do anything you ask, please, just don't kill me."

         "Of that I have no doubt," Herbert coughs out a smug laugh.  Two-hundred and fifty thousand and a new car for my life.  That's the bargain you struck.  And I plan to execute the deal in full."  Herbert turns the car phone on.  He punches a number.  The sound of the tones dialing can be heard.

         Clarence is red faced, at his wits end.  "God damn you!"

         Herbert is calm and in full control as he flings Clarence's earlier words back into his face, hatefully.  "Even God himself can't help you now."  With that, Herbert puts the car in gear and steps back.

         Clarence is full-on losing it now.  "YOU BASTARD! I swear I'll KILL YOU - I'll KILL YOU -"

         The car picks-up speed as it streaks for the jagged cliffs.

         "Scream as loud as you like, Clarence.  There's no one to hear you."  Herbert coolly lights another cigarette, walks away indifferent.

         Manicured gardens that line the circular brick driveway look at this same time overflowing with expensive cars.  Off to one side, a large servant's quarters faces the enormous main house.

         Inside the mansion a formal party is in full swing.  Eve, dressed in an expensive, famous designer evening gown that highlights her substantial attributes, mingles amongst her guests.  She is the center of attention.  The life of the party.  She obviously enjoys the benefits of her own initiative.  Her beauty is even more radiant than before.

         A servant says something to her.  He points to a phone in the foyer.  Eve takes her leave and heads in that direction.

         Herbert's Mercedes with the doomed Clarence behind the wheel but definitely not in the driver's seat, bounces as the car picks up speed.  Herbert has by now disappeared in the darkness.  Only the advancing headlights cut through the black night.  Abruptly, the headlights take a leap off the edge of the mountain, arcing into a precipitous plunge and disappear.

         Back at the mansion foyer, Eve lifts the cordless phone to her ear.

         "Hello, this is Eve."  She listens intently.  "Speak-up.  I can't hear you."  She is now more than a bit annoyed.  "Is somebody there?  Hello?"

         Clarence and the car hurtle towards the rocky, jagged slopes.  A blood-curdling death scream ends when the car smashes on the rocks below.  It bursts into flames lighting up a small portion of the horizon with its brilliant orange fireball.

         Eve hears what sounds like a distant, muffled scream soon followed by an explosion.  Then the line goes dead as does Clarence.  Eve looks quizzically at the phone.  She motions to the servant, hands him the phone.  "If they call back, tell them I'm not home."

         Eve rejoins her guests, dismissing the incident immediately.

         Along a deserted country highway, Herbert sees the flash of light from over the cliff.  "So long, Clarence."  With an evil and sadistic chuckle, Herbert remarks, "Eve's waiting."  Herbert turns, heads into the darkness.

         In the early hours of that next morning, the party's over.  All the beautiful people are gone.  Only Eve is left behind.  And Eve sits slouched over the dining room table, all alone and very drunk.

         A door opens and closes.  Footsteps echo across the Venetian tile floor.  Herbert looks at her for a long time.  A mixture of heart-felt feelings and hatred shows in his eyes.  He takes a big sigh.  "Eve, honey ... I'm home dear."

         Eve stirs from her somnambulant melancholia.  She looks up, gasps, and throws her fist before her mouth as in an old horror film when she sees Herbert's deformed features.  "Oh my god!" Eve cries out, shocked and surprised.

         "Why Eve, aren't you glad to see me?"  He steps over to confront her.

         "No.  It can't be you.  You're -" Eve can't quite bring herself to say it.

         Herbert finishes her thought.  "Dead?  You thought I was dead."  He sighs, takes a moment to compose his thoughts, actually becoming philosophical.  "Not quite.  To paraphrase Mark Twain: "Rumors of my untimely demise have been greatly exaggerated."

         Herbert moves purposefully at her.  Naked animal terror is reflected in her eyes as she falls back into the living room.  He pursues her.  "Why did you do it, Eve?  Why?  What did you want that I couldn't give you -- or wouldn't let you have?"

         Eve continues backing away from him.

         "It was Clarence's idea.  He made me do it," Eve hysterically asserts.

         "Clarence made you.  Now really, Eve, that's just what I thought you'd say."

         "I had no choice.  Don't you see?  You gotta believe me," she pleads.

         Wordlessly, Herbert walks menacingly towards her.

         Eve recoils as she backs away, glancing around for a safe retreat or at least a weapon to do the job right this time.

         "Clarence, huh?  Well, I talked to him already."

         "He told you, didn't he?"

         Herbert responds in an even toned manner.  "He told me ..."

         Herbert continues advancing, takes on a more threatening air.

         Eve turns to run but falls over an ottoman in her haste to escape.  She scrambles backwards on her hands and ass crab-like.  Hysterically giggling from terror, Eve again asks, "He told you it was all his doing, didn't he?"

         Herbert looks down on her.  "He told me alright.  He said it was your idea from the start.  That you made him do it.  You paid him to do it."

         Eve doesn't know what to think.  Her head swims.  "That bastard!  He's lying!"

         Herbert has a private chuckle.  This terrifies Eve all the more.  "That's exactly what I thought.  But don't worry, dear, he won't lie about you ever again."

         Afraid to say it, Eve ventures to ask, "Is he ...?"

         Herbert shakes his head yes.  "He begged most profusely for me to spare his miserable little life.  A luxury, I might add, neither of you afforded me at the time."

         Eve is unwinding fast.  "He's dead?"

         Herbert nods with grim satisfaction.  What's left of his slowly decaying lips peel back forming a hideous sneer that is malevolence personified.

         Eve continues sotto voce, "Oh my God.  How!?"

         Herbert answers acerbically, "Didn't you get his call?  Too bad.  He so wanted to say good-bye."  Herbert explains, "He became one with my Mercedes at the bottom of a 200-foot cliff."

         Eve repeats herself, "Oh my God."

         "God couldn't help him.  Nor you!"

         Eve looks squarely at Herbert.  He's never looked more repugnant or repulsive to her and try as she might she can't hide it.

         Whatever tenderness there was in Herbert's eyes for her has been replaced with the single-minded purpose of his murderous revenge.  "My darling Eve," Herbert says through clenched teeth, "You have no idea what it's like to wake up and discover you've been buried alive."

         Eve becomes obsequiously apologetic.  "I'm terribly sorry, Herbie.  I truly regretted it."

         "While that's mighty big of you, I'm afraid it's just not good enough."

         An interminably tense moment of silence passes.  And then the chase is on again.

         Herbert forces her towards the couch.

         Eve trips over a rug, falls backwards onto the love seat.  He overshadows her, his threat of violence omnipresent.  He lunges for her, grabs at her and rips her expensive dress as she attempts to hurdle the love seat.  Her heel wedges in a couch cushion.  She twists her ankle falling over the back of the love seat.

         Herbert calmly strolls around through the shambles to where Eve crouches on the floor like a wounded animal.  He towers over her.  She cowers beneath him.  "Why, Eve?  Why'd you do it?"

         Eve couldn't say even if it would save her life.

         "You could have had anything you wanted," Herbert states in a pained voice.  "Houses, cars, jewels."  Bitter tears sting his rotting flesh.  "I could even forgive you your sordid little affair with Clarence the ranch-hand if you'd only be with me too."

         Eve looks for a way out.  There is none apparent.

         "I worshipped you.  And you repay me with deceit and attempted murder."  Herbert is pathetically vulnerable.  "I loved you!"

         Eve is ready to say or do anything to postpone her gay of reckoning for her hour of judgment has surely come.  "Oh Herbert dear, it's not too late.  I can change.  You'll see.  Just give me another chance.  I'll be a better wife, I swear.  You'll see."

         Herbert shakes his head emphatically from side to side.  "You'll never change.  You're just like me.  As long as we're alive, we'll cheat, lie, steal -- and yes -- even commit murder to get what we want."  Herbert faces a sad realization, "You won't live with me ... and I can't live without you."  Herbert fixes a cold, deadly stare on Eve.  It sends a million jolts of fear thru her system.

         Very distraught, tormented beyond human endurance, Eve clutches for any sign of hope.  "What're you gonna do to me?"

         "Give you a chance to beg for your life.  A chance I didn't have."  He says teasingly, "Maybe I'll take pity on you."

         A faint glimmer of hope registers in her eyes which he quickly extinguishes.  After a sufficiently dramatic pause, Herbert lowers the boom.  "But I doubt it."

         Herbert suddenly moves at her.

         Terrified, Eve crawls desperately across floor on her hands and knees, staying just beyond his reach.  Until she's cornered.  Her wide eyes fill with abject horror beyond measure as he again grabs hold of her by her dress.  It rips apart in his grasp.  A nearly naked Eve now struggles on her hands and knees, clutching the carpet, trying to put another foot between her and the relentlessly pursuing Herbert.

         With a fiery look of molten steel in his eyes, Herbert's a bubbling furnace of rage ready to engulf her.  "You had to know I'd come back for you - after you!" Herbert states as he breathes wheezingly.  "Nothing this side of Hell could have kept us apart."

         She scrambles to her feet, dashes for the front entrance.

         Herbert picks up a hand blown crystal ashtray, flings it at her head.

         It strikes her on the right temple.  She immediately goes limp.  Eve slams into a marble-top table.  The hurricane lamp is knocked off.  It crashes to the floor.  Flames ignite the curtains into a rapidly spreading conflagration.

         Herbert races to her side takes her in his arms.  Herbert is instantly calm, almost passive.  "Eve, when I said "`till death us do part'", I meant it with all my heart and soul."

         Finally, all the rage that has animated his being in this post-mortem drama is gone.  Remnants of his once boundless tenderness for her have returned to his eyes.  But now they are sad, burdened with the pain of unrecoverable loss.

         Instead of rushing outside with her limp body in an attempt to save her life, he carries her to the love seat in the middle of the burning room.  He knows they are both beyond redemption and deserve each other in the truest since.  Herbert lovingly lays her down then sits himself, holding her head in his lap.  With the fire racing out of control all around them, Herbert raises her in his arms for one final embrace.

         "Eve, my love," Herbert whispers in her ear, "I'll see you in HELL."

         With this, Herbert leans over, collects his due with a last kiss as the flames dance across and swirl around the room, consuming everything in their path, including the star-crossed lovers.


THE END