text: Huck laid down in Elliot's grave and got comfortable in his bones. His heavy torso ground the decaying bones to dust. "Goodnight, Sweetheart," he said to the starless sky. "May the everlasting-" A scuffling reached Huck's receptors and the bonesman peered into the grave. His hood was pulled back and his full bodied ginger beard framed his aged features. He literally glowed from the lantern he had attached to his left shoulder. "Oh, Huck, not again," the bonesman drawled. "Hello, Bonesman," Huck said calmly. "Isn't it a nice night to sleep together with the ones we love?" "When people say that they don't mean this. How many times do I have to repeat myself?" "Hmm, perhaps once more." Huck laughed and crossed his ankles, placing his laced fingers behind his head. More of Elliot's bones cracked and ground beneath his weight. The bonesman sighed, stroking his beard. "Get out of the grave, Huck. You're destroying sacred remains." Huck hefted a bone, possibly a femur, and it disintegrated in his hand. "This? It's just dust, Bonesman. No harm, no foul." "If it's just dust, why do you keep digging up and lying on my skeletons?" "Yours, Bonesman?" Huck tsked. "These are my family. Not yours." "I have guardianship of all bodies delivered to my door. You get to pray at the headstones, but I get to ensure the remains stay buried. And unmolested." "I'm doing no harm that the earth won't do eventually. Let me lay with my sweetheart undisturbed." "No, Huck," the bonesman said roughly, slamming the butt of his shovel into Huck's chest with a hollow thud. "Get out." "Bah! Alright, alright, I'm moving." Huck slapped the wooden shovel handle aside and climbed up and out of the shallow grave. "Spoil sport." The bonesman immediately started to fill the hole that Huck had dug with his rapid hands, groaning and griping to himself. Huck watched for only a second before stalking off into the wistful night. So much for spending a long, quiet night alone with his sweetheart. Should he take care of the bonesman? Make him a grave somewhere near his beloved skeletons? No. He was a friend, or at least he was friendly. No matter how much he persevered in kicking Huck out of the graves he didn't deserve to take a permanent dirt nap. "Hey, Huck," the bonesman shouted through the graveyard. "Is this yours?" Huck narrowed his eyes and saw a metal object in the bonesman's raised arm. Was that a chalice? He strode over casually, like he wasn't fascinated beyond control, and held out his hands palms upwards. The bonesman handed him an iron chalice that was stripped off all jewels and embellishments. "This was Elliots," he gasped. "Someone has been grave robbing, Bonesman. You've got a much bigger problem than me lying in your graves. This was buried in a chest two feet under his remains. Stop burying him and help me dig instead." He tossed the chalice, now a worthless relic, over his shoulder and knelt in the grave. His hands moved at the speed of lightning, scooping and throwing dirt aside nonchalantly. "Woah, woah, woah," the bonesman said and slapped his hands with the head of the shovel. "Don't go desecrating any more than you already have. I have a reputation to uphold." Huck forced the shovel aside, but stopped momentarily and scooped up a handful of bones. They turned to nothing between his fingers and sprinkled the earth with a fine powder. "It was too late to try and protect these bones the moment you buried them," Huck said. "If you cared so much about them you wouldn't have placed them in dirt. Now help me dig or give me the shovel. This isn't good for my joints." He waved his dirty hands and they groaned in disgust. The bonesman thrust the shovel towards him. "I won't dig up a grave I buried. But I also know I can't stop you. Can I?" Huck laughed joyously and gratefully accepted the shovel. He got straight to work shovelling mounds of dirt haphazardly. "Mind the... oh never mind," the bonesman sighed, watching Elliot's decaying remains go flying into the crisp night air. After only a few seconds Huck hit something with a solid thwack. He scraped the remaining dirt aside and unveiled the majority of a wooden box. People used to be buried in these instead of their favoured belongings. That might have kept Elliot's bones from decaying so quickly. Oh well, there was nothing he could do as the last of the remains were swept aside. All but the skull were destroyed. Before opening the chest to see the damage he carefully hefted the skull and peered into the eye sockets. "Hello, Sweetheart," he whispered, "I'm just going to have a peek into your chest. Won't be long and then you can rest again. Sorry about your body, but I'm sure you don't need it anymore." He placed the skull outside of the grave and used the shovel to pry the box open. "My God," the bonesman cried. Huck stared flabbergasted at the living, breathing, pulverised man that was curled up and bleeding inside of the cramped chest. He was wearing poor man’s garb and had only exposed hands, neck and face. All of his visible skin was yellow and pocked. Huck didn't know what to say or do. This wasn't Elliot's treasure obviously. "He's alive," the bonesman said, stating the obvious. "We have to get him to the hospital. Who knows how long he's been suffocating and bleeding out in there." "Don't touch him," Huck instructed, using the shovel handle to block the bonesman from entering the grave. "Look at his pallor. He's sick." "He's been buried alive! Of course he's sick." "It's not just that. He looks like he has Biter's Sickness. No wonder they buried him here. They were doing their fellow men a favour." "Biter's Sickness? You mean the Kissing Vampires Disease?" Huck laughed and appeared to roll his eyes, even if he didn’t actually have eyeballs. "Nobody calls it that anymore, Bonesman. That nomenclature fell away with your generation’s decline. It’s simply Biter’s Sickness now. And whoever this man is, he has it. Look at the pustules and the pallor of his skin. I think that we should close the lid and bury him. Right now." "We can’t just leave a man in need to die alone buried in the ground," the bonesman refuted. "If you won’t help him then I at least will." "You’ll die. I might as well just bury you in the ground now." "Then you must do this. Have some human compassion." "I can’t. Not for a man who was stealing from my beloved." Huck gazed at Elliot’s skull and sighed mournfully. So recently he had been within reach, and now he was just that last piece of bone. What a great loss. What tragedy. He wanted to lie down in his bones again and soak into their memories together. Damn the bonesman for dragging him out of the grave and ruining his melancholy. "He was your beloved?" the bonesman enquired. "Then who are all of the other people in this graveyard to you? Why have you dug up and laid in all of their graves too?" "Practice," Huck stated matter-of-factly, glancing at the bonesman’s inquisitive face. His features appeared to morph. The corners of his lips went up, his eyebrows went down and he bared his teeth. He was furious. "Practice!" The bonesman yelled. "You've desecrated my graveyard to practice lying in a particular grave?" "You say that as if it wasn't important that I get it right," Huck argued, throwing a glare. "Elliot deserved that I figure out a way to dig him up without destroying his bones. Everything was right until you kicked me out of the grave." "But why? Why do this at all?" Huck gestured at the man in the box. "I think we're forgetting something. Let's bury him before you catch what he's got and then we can talk all about this." The bonesman grumbled and snatched the shovel that was still pointing in his direction. "We are not doing this, Huck. Pick him up and I'll walk a few metres ahead of you until we get him medical attention." "No," Huck said and slammed the chest closed, immediately starting to scoop in the loose dirt from all around him. The bonesman, the wily old goat, stepped into the grave, his heavy boots making the lid of the chest creak and crack though he didn't fall through it. He kicked Huck's hands until he stopped his efforts. "Stop that," Huck cried, greatly offended. "You'll catch the Biter's Sickness if you keep fooling around. This is no joke." "I don't care," the bonesman said stiffly. "I'll risk catching my death to protect my fellow man. Even if he does turn out to be a grave robber." "Huh? I don't understand you, Bonesman. Is this some mad human trait? To throw your life away for a stranger?" "How do you not have that coded into your central being? To be alive is to care for our kin. Surely you care for something enough to risk yourself protecting it." Huck dusted his hands and stared straight ahead into the bonesman's eyes. He was so powerful in his stance for someone who's livelihood required man's death. But did Huck feel any of what he was asking? Did his programming allow such human compassion? He felt something for Elliot, but would it have been enough to pressure him into sacrificing his own life? Probably not. But it did bring him back night after night to lay in the graves of men he would never know. "No, I don't," Huck said finally. "My own safety and survival comes first and foremost. It would be a poor design to be otherwise. Humans are weird." "Humans are versatile. Adaptable. We are above all else protectors. Whether it's for friend or foe we will do whatever it takes to preserve life." "I remember a time when your kind brutalised and murdered animals. How does that fit with your proclamation?" "Let me take this man to safety and we can have a conversation about the ethics of killing animals versus killing men." "Hmm," Huck drawled. "No. By keeping him contained I’m preserving the life of my friend. You." "Oh, Huck. We are not friends. You’re a nuisance who I have to keep driving out of my graveyard. Our relationship begins and ends there." "Rude." Huck laughed. "After everything we’ve been through together." The bonesman grinned. "You’re a wily one. Too bad you won’t win me around to leaving this man in here. Now get out of my graveyard and leave me to worry about what might happen alone." Could Huck live with allowing the Biter’s Sickness to potentially spread? Was this one grave robber’s life worth that risk? How would he feel if the bonesman died because he allowed him to expose himself? Surely none of that was his concern. However, the man could help him hunt down the other grave robbers who had stolen Elliot’s treasure. Perhaps he should let him out. Even just to ask him some questions. "Get out of the grave, Bonesman," Huck said. "This man knows who robbed my Sweetheart." The bonesman glared at Huck for a few quietly tense moments and then stepped up and out of the opposite side of the grave. "Don’t hurt him," he said. "I won’t. He’s probably hurting enough as it is." Huck stepped into the grave and opened the chest. He took a close look at the man trapped inside and was fairly certain that he wasn’t going to get any answers out of him. The Biter’s Sickness had claimed his life. "Well shit." He slammed the lid and started using his hands to fill in the grave once again. "Hey!" the bonesman said. "Not again." "He’s dead. Unless you want to come down here and get real close to confirm it, then it's time we buried him six feet under." "Hmm, I believe you. But I can’t just have an anonymous man buried in someone else's grave. We’re going to have to move the chest out until I can find him a new plot." "No way," Huck said, still scraping in mounds of dirt with his bare hands. "Elliot won’t mind, seeing as it’s only his skull going back in here anyway." "His family will not be happy when they come to claim his treasure in fifty years if they find a skeleton instead of trinkets." "I’m his family and I won’t be coming back after this. Let the man lie." After there was a few inches of dirt covering the chest Huck picked up Elliot’s skull and placed it at the head of the grave. He knelt in the dirt and went to start talking, but saw the bonesman shuffling around restlessly. "Do you mind?" he said. "Can I have a little privacy?" "I’ll be back to make sure you filled in the grave correctly," the bonesman said and departed with the shovel left stabbed upright in the dirt. "Sweetheart, I’m sorry this didn’t work out right. I waited so, so long to ensure that everything was right. I let the passage of time pass me by, practicing for our moment together. That second that I first laid down in your bones was everything that I could have asked for. If I could dream that would have been what I would dream of. After having you alive again of course. "So, once again this is goodbye, My Love. I had a whole other speech prepared to mark the occasion, but that’s rather ruined. So I will leave you with these last few words. I love you. I always loved you. I will hold our memories in my core forever. Goodbye, Elliot." If Huck was able to cry he knew that he would have wet tears staining his face. Instead he simply felt morose as he sprinkled two handfuls of dirt onto the skull and then got out of the grave. It only took him several minutes to fill the hole and then he stood back and surveyed his handiwork. Because he had thrown the dirt out haphazardly there was a few inches missing and there was nothing he could do about it. The bonesman approached and placed a hand on his shoulder. "It’s never easy to say goodbye to the ones we love," the bonesman sighed. "What would you know?" Huck replied shortly and walked away. "Hey, Huck. What about the answers you promised me?" "They’ll have to wait, Bonesman. I have treasure to find." "You didn't even check the man you buried for clues. What chance do you stand?" "How many grave robbers do you think there are around here? It won't be hard to find a few very specific trinkets for sale." "Well then, good luck, Huck." "I don't need luck, Bonesman. I have all the time in the world.