The loud clunk of the shovel shook samantha back to reality. Eliot stood, grinning like a madman, she offered a hand to Sam to help her climb out and the three of them gathered at the edge of the pit. The hole extended roughly seven feet across, and was wide enough for someone to stand beside the coffin that lay below. Eliot lowered herself down into the trench, it was a little less than six feet deep and her brown eyes just barely rose above the dirt.
Eliot called up to the surface, “Sam sweetie? I’ll take that bag now.”
“Oh yeah!” Sam had nearly forgotten the heavy backpack she had cropped beside the headstone, “Here you go.”
Eliot opened the bag revealing a wide arsenal of tools; she sorted through them, considering each in turn, until she decided on a hefty looking crowbar. She inserted the end of the crowbar into the edge of the coffin and, with a few minutes of labored grunting and a few choice curses, managed to crack open the casket.
Sam did her best to avoid the foul air, but even covering her face proved useless, the smell seeped into her every pour; a damp smell not unlike freshly tilled earth. Though the smell was not particularly offensive, samantha couldn't help but to retch at its grisly source. Time had not been kind to the corpse of Mrs. Julia Moore, her bones lay haphazardly in the casket, stained dark brown from years of decay. Her jaw had long since fallen loose from its socket, giving Julia a wide inhuman smile. She gazed out from the pit her hollow eyes fixed upon Sam standing high above her.
Eliot had bugun her work in the tomb, her nimble fingers sifting through dirt and filth, picking out the small specks of silver and gold. A pair of earrings, two wedding bands, a bracelet, and various other trinkets that had been buried with the deceased. It didn't take long before eliot was confident she had picked the coffin clean, she carefully packed her winnings and heaved herself back up onto the surface.
“Good haul.” she said, wiping dirt off of her hands. “Hey Jake I said good haul!”
Jake had wandered off to smoke a cigarette but came trotting back when he heard the good news “Damn El you work too fast, my arms are still sore!” he knelt down to retrieve his shovel, and began refilling the grave. Sam didn't move, paralyzed she gazed down at the now closed coffin, Julia’s skull still dancing in her vision. She couldn't help but wonder, how long until she looked like that creature in the box? How long before some ill mannered person pillaged her carcass for treasure, would they find anything of value anyways? Eliot grasped Sam’s shoulder, pulling her back to the task at hand
“Are you alright?”
“Yeah fine.” and she was digging again. Carelessly dumping shovel after shovel of dirt into the hole. It took much less time to fill the hole than it had taken to dig it, but to Sam, lost in her miserable thoughts, it felt like hours. They were nearly finished when they heard a strange muffled voice coming from Eliot’s bag, she dug through it for a moment before retrieving a walkie talkie, old and about the size of a brick with the weight match. Jake and Eliot both tensed at the worried tone in the speaker's voice.
“El? Come in El!” the voice squeaked.
Eliot yanked out the antena and shot back through gritted teeth “what is it Nate? You know I hate it when you talk like that it freaks everyone out!”
“You should freak out!” whined Nate, “El the cops are here.”
Eliot”s face turned pale. “Cops?” she asked.
“Yeah that's what I said. And you're damn lucky I found a good place to hide the van.”
Eliot breathed a small sigh of relief “meet us at the gate in seven minutes. No sooner.”
With a click she shut off the walkie-talkie and stuffed it into her bag. She turned to face Sam and Jake, her fierce eyes darting between them as she gave orders: “Hoods up. Ditch the shovels. Stay low and above all, keep your lips shut.”
The three of them set of towards the gate, ducking between headstones, eyes peeled for.. For anything. A spot of light in the distance. No two lights. Taps on the shoulder This way. Come on, this way. They scurried off the path and ducked behind a large monument, waiting with bated breath for the lights to pass. Two men strolled out from the shadows walking leisurely down the path, their gold badges gleaming in the moonlight. Jake and Sam cowered behind the stone cursing silently, but Eliot had brazenly poked her head out to study the men. She watched them walk by, listened to their conversation: “so your kids in the second grade this year again huh?” “yeah we had to hold him back, his teacher said he would do better with a little..” their voice trailed off as they walked out of sight. Eliot sighed and smiled “just a routine check, come on let's go before they realize we’re here.
They had almost made it to the gate before they heard a policeman shout from behind them. Before Sam could react, Eliot and Jake had her by either arm dragging her down behind a large bush near the gate.
Sam hissed under her breath “what the hell was that?”
“They found the grave, and now they’ll be looking for us,” said eliot, “ now shhhhh.”
Jake took up the job instead “where the hell is nate?”
Eliot checked her watch, “He’s still got forty-five seconds now please shut up.”
They shut up, instead fixing their attention on the flashlight beams coming closer and closer. No longer lazily pointed at the ground, they darted between trees in search of trespassers. Behind the bush it was dead quiet, except for the soft ticking of Eliot’s watch, and the sniffling sneeze Sam was desperately trying to conceal. The police were about 50 feet away by now. the light of their flashlights washing over the bush every now and then, but spotting nothing.
“See anything?” asked one of the cops.
“Nah there’s no one here. Lets just say we checked the place out and leave it”
“Fine by me” they turned to walk away.
They were nearly out of earshot when Sam couldn't hold it in anymore. She sneezed.
Three sets of hands clasped over her mouth.
“Bless you.” said one of the officers.
“Wasn't me,” said the second officer, “I thought that was you”
They shared a moment, looking at each other, until it finally clicked. Sam, Jake, and Eliot tumbled out from behind the bushes, scrambling to the gate just in time for a large black van to come screeching around the corner. It fishtailed of the gravel road, peppering them with pebbles, as Nate the driver lunged to open the sliding door. “IN IN IN!” he yelled and they obeyed. The door slammed and took off down the road.
The van skidded wildly as Nate hammered the gas, it tore down the dirt road leading southwards out of the cemetery. Not even twenty seconds passed before the police cruiser, siren blaring and lights flashing, came barreling out of the gate in hot pursuit. There were no seatbelts or in fact even any seats in the back section of the van, and the poor passengers were at Nate’s mercy as he zigged and zagged down bumpy country road. Each turn and swerve sent them tumbling into the walls of the van, and into each other as they raced towards denser city blocks. Nate was desperate to find some way to lose the police, who had undoubtedly called for backup by now. He thought he had lost them at one point, when the cruiser careened into a recycling bin, but moments later the lights were back on his tail.
Finally, after a half hour of pursuit Nate brought the van to a stop in a darkened parking garage, sirens could still be heard in the distance, but it seemed they had managed to shake their pursuers.
Nate let out a long sigh, “everyone alright back there?” he asked.
Eliot, Sam, and Jake merely panted in response, they were covered in bruises from head to toe, Jake had received a black eye from a collision with Sam’s knee and it was starting to swell nastily.
It was Eliot who broke the silence, her voice shaky “Sam you absolute idiot..”
Sam glanced up at Eliot with a guilty expression, but she was shocked to find her with a mischievous grin back on her face. “You sneeze like a grown man” she teased. And doubled over laughing. Jake couldn't resist, he was laughing too. Soon euphoria took them over, wheezing and howling over their harrowing escape. When Eliot deemed it safe she instructed Nate to take them home. There was an abandoned firehouse at the edge of town that they used as a hideout, and the four of them spent the night, sharing several bottles of wine and passing between them the glittering treasures they had toiled for.
