Requiem by Sam Sisavath

Author:Sam Sisavath [Sisavath, Sam]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Road To Babylon Media LLC
Published: 2017-11-25T05:00:00+00:00

Thirteen

For the second time in as many days, Ana was digging a grave for a stranger when Wash came out of the barn and walked over to her. He passed the house, still being consumed by flames that probably wouldn’t stop for another hour or more. The only reason the fire hadn’t ravaged the rest of the property was the lack of grass in the clearing to feed it. That hadn’t stopped the heat from spreading across the yard anyway, warming up the property significantly enough that Wash considered taking off some of his layers.

Ana tossed the shovel away when she was done, then sat down at a nearby tree to drink from a bottle of water. Her face, like her clothes, was sprinkled with fresh dirt. Their four horses lingered nearby, grazing on the greens that connected the woods to the mostly dirt-floored property.

“I’m getting sick of digging graves for people,” Ana said. “I wish I could say I haven’t done it before, but that would be a lie. But then, who hasn’t dug their share of graves?”

No one, Wash thought. Absolutely no one that I’ve met in six years.

Ana wetted a rag to wipe at her face. “What did you find?”

Wash handed her the photo album he’d discovered on the floor on the second floor of the barn. It was an old thing, frayed at the corners, with the words Terry Family Album scrolled in careful cursive across the label. Ana turned the first page and paused at a Polaroid of a family of five that took up the entire sheet—a father, his wife, and their three children, one of whom was the girl who had killed herself less than an hour ago.

“No one can stop him,” the teenager had said. “Not even Dad. Or Billy. Or Pete.”

It hadn’t taken much to figure out who was who. Dad, Mom, Billy, and Pete. Wash had flipped through the album but hadn’t lingered on any one of them. He didn’t like looking at pictures of the dead; they reminded him too much of all the people he had lost.

“Did you find out her name?” Ana asked.

Wash shook his head and sat down next to her under the shade. “Not yet. It didn’t look like she’d been inside the barn for very long, though. Maybe less than a day before we showed up.”

“You think she was the one who set fire to the house?”

“Who else could have done it?”

Ana didn’t answer and continued turning album pages. The family at Thanksgiving and Christmas, the kids dressed up in costumes for Halloween over the years. The girl grew up before their eyes, so vibrant in all the pictures that she practically glowed. It didn’t even look like the same person who had just shot herself in front of them less than an hour ago.

“She said ‘him,’” Ana said quietly. “You know who she was talking about, don’t you?”

He nodded, but kept quiet.

“He’s gone now, but he says to tell you he’ll be waiting in Texas,” the girl had said.

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