Page 16 of Crucified By the Dark
“Big enough to hold a body, and deep enough to keep it there,” Morry said. Judd snorted a laugh as he lit up a smoke.
Okay, maybe he was wrong about living another month. “Wow, that was fucking comforting,” he mumbled just as the first drop of rain fell and hit him on the back of the neck.
Jeremy looked up toward the sky, and more hit him in the face. Great. Just fucking great. He was panting hard by the time he was done digging what he assumed was a grave. Jeremy’s hands were bleeding, his clothes dripping, and he was soaked to the bone. His muscles shook, and he didn’t think he could dig another scoop of the heavy, wet dirt. It rarely rained out in the middle of the desert, and they picked the one night of torrential downpours. Murphy had a fucking sick sense of humor.
His hands ached and he knew that he’d created blisters, broke them open and was bleeding on the handle, yet she wouldn’t let him stop.
“Okay, you can get out of the hole now. That’s big enough,” Morry said.
Jeremy looked up at the tall sides, and a shiver traveled down his body. Panic and fear gripped him by the throat once more when he realized just how deep he was. The hole was pitch black, the glow of headlights only skimming the top. He spun in a circle, his heart beating harder with every second now that he wasn’t focused on digging.
“Can you help me get out,” Jeremy asked and held his hand up for help.
“No,” Morry said. He couldn’t see her expression but could picture it as clear as day.
“What do you mean, no?”
“The word no means the same thing it always has. No, I’m not helping you. Get out of there on your own if you want to live,” Morry said casually. Like they were having a coffee over breakfast.
Reaching up, he placed the shovel on the ground outside the hole, then grabbed the edge of the dirt wall. Jeremy jumped to pull himself out, but the dirt gave way, and his shaking muscles couldn’t hold him as he fell to the bottom.
Jeremy’s heart pounded out of his chest, and he grabbed a handful of his shirt as the terror pressed in on him like something was sitting on his lungs. For just a moment, he had imagined Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole fromAlice in Wonderland. He was pretty sure he’d already fallen and landed square in the middle of the Queen of Hearts’ court.
“Please help me. I can’t do it,” he yelled, getting on his knees. Jeremy held his hands together and begged her to rescue him as the demons in his mind attacked.
“Look at me,” she ordered, and even overrun with terror, his eyes lifted to her dark shadow. “You can get out, and you will,” came Morry’s voice. “Or you’ll die out here in the middle of the desert, and the birds will pick at your bones. Now move it. Get out of that hole and save yourself because no one else is coming for you. Only you can save you.”
He had no idea if she was telling the truth—that she really would leave him here to die—but something told him that he couldn’t take the chance. Jeremy slowly stood whimpering as the pain lanced through every muscle and making them want to seize in place. The rain pounded hard on his back as he hunched over with his hands on his knees. Each drop felt like a brick and made him wince. Everything screamed in agony, and he felt his mind wanting to shut down and give up.
A shadow moved above him in the headlight beams, and he squinted at Morry squatting at the top of the edge. “You planning on dying down there, kid?”
He glared up at her, hating every fucking thing about her and this place. “Fuck you,” he yelled. “And fuck this place. I hate it. I want to go—” He stopped. He was about to sayhome,but he had no home. This place was all he had.
Morry slowly clapped her hands, and the sarcastic gesture was not lost on him. It only pissed him off more. “Well, at least you have some fight left in you. Not much, though. Maybe you were right to threaten to jump off that building.”
She stood back up, her face once more hidden by the shadows. “Look around you, Jeremy. This is where you were headed, anyway. One day, one month, maybe a year, was all you had. Begging for money, getting high, fucking strangers, and stealing….” She waited until he looked around at his dark surroundings, the reality slowly seeping in.
“You stabbed someone who had been a friend and gave you food. Did you think you were going anywhere but in the ground or behind bars for life? You’re lucky you didn’t kill her. If you had, Dean would’ve already put you in a hole just like this.”
The rain chose that moment to come down so hard that he could see it bouncing off her boots. She never flinched while his body shook uncontrollably.
“You did things you never thought you would do all for the sweet, sweet score.” She held her arms out wide. “Really, all I’m doing is speeding up the process because this six-foot hole in the ground is what you were secretly chasing in the first place. Wasn’t it?”
“You don’t know anything,” he said, but she’d hit way too close to the mark.
Jeremy was so caught up in his addiction that he would’ve done anything—had already done things he never wanted to mention again—to get his hands on the next hit. Jeremy hated that Morry was calling him out like this. In the back of his mind, he’d already given up. He was just going through the motions until he got away from here and found his next fix. Each time there was the chance he may not wake up, and each time that he did, he was both saddened and relieved.
“Keep telling yourself that, Jeremy. Maybe one day you’ll believe it. Here’s the deal, you have five more minutes to get out of the hole. If you don’t, Judd and I are heading out of here. I’ll give you this one piece of advice. Try using your head. You’re smart. So start acting like it and stop acting like the victim. This is your life. You get out of it what you put in.”
Her boots sloshed as she walked away, the sound somehow loud over the thundering rain pooling at the bottom of the hole. Jeremy turned in a slow circle, his brain on the verge of a complete meltdown. He fought the screaming in his skull and pushed it to the side. Jeremy was still circling when he spotted the shovel still sitting on the ledge of the hole. An idea came to him. He reached up and grabbed the wooden handle, his palms screaming as he gripped it tight.
Ignoring the throbbing in every part of his body, he slammed the shovel home into the side of the dirt wall and dug out a large chunk. Tossing it aside, he repeated the action a couple of feet up and again for another. He laid the shovel at the top of the hole, and this time, when he placed his right foot into the first space and pushed, he kept his footing. His left foot found the second space and then the third, and before he knew it, he was kneeling at the top.
“Fuck yeah,” he screamed at the top of his lungs with the victory.
Morry walked over. He half expected her to shove him back into the hole again, but instead, she knelt and offered him a bottle of water.
“Life is never easy, Jeremy. There is always someone or something that’s going to try to hold you down. You need to learn to climb and push and scrap, even when you think you have nothing left. That’s the only way you will battle your addiction for good and defeat anything else that comes your way.” She smiled, stood, and offered her hand. “Come on. You earned yourself a hot shower and a meal.”
