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Sapper’s SCREAM
by Mike Voûte
Them bones
Sapper's job was spotting the excavator with a shovel-
So now, little red flags marked the 'no-
And the rain. That asshole Jim, in the back-
Sapper absent mindedly jabbed the shovel some more at a pile of dirt that’d just
slid down from one bank. Life sucks, he thought, and he just shrugged an OK up to
Jim. Like a hawk on a snake, the huge bucket swooped over Sapper and dived in. There
was a loud “thump” as the backhoe bucket went in a little deep-
Oh, yeah... Jim was already smirking through the glass front of the cab-
But minutes passed, and there was no hiss of water or jutting pieces of broken pipe. Sapper mopped his forehead...Phew! "Just a rock, I guess!" he yelled up the embankment over the machine's idling snarl. Jim did an idiot's salute with a middle finger. Sapper ignored him and poked the shovel into the bucket a few times just to be sure. Then Sapper sucked in his gut in a huge gulp.
It was no rock. Cut in half, the spine and femur of a skeleton were showing, glistening white, out of the teeth of the bucket. And the other half? Leering at Sapper out of the dirt just below.
Above him, Jim didn't even blink. The operator powered down the machine and jumped out onto a tread. Hands on hips, he looked down at Sapper and began to smirk. "Looky what we got here..." Then Jim guffawed loudly as he watched Sapper retch at the sight of the aged human bones sticking out over the edge of the steel teeth. "Looks like he didn't quite make it home, Sap," he gibbed. "The Pub is a ten kilometre walk from here!"
"Have a little respect, would’ya?" Sapper recovered weakly. Backing away, he felt an unease fill the air. "Bury that again."
"Yeah, sure." Jim became instantly serious. "Huh. Wouldn't want them archaeological guys grindin' the job to a halt. 'Cause, you know what happens after that, dont'cha... layoffs."
The machine operator and Sapper finally found a common ground on one thing-
Still, continuing the dig was spooky as hell... especially when yet another skull came up, right at the end of the day. Sapper’d just climbed out of the excavation for the water jug, when he heard Jim call out. "Hey, hey... another one! Check it out, Sap!"
Jim bumped past Sapper from the cab and skiied down the rubble to have a look. Picking up the grinning death's head, he casually tossed the skull up to Sapper. "Here... catch!"
"Whoah! We shouldn't be doing that, Jim!" Sapper fumbled the thing badly and the skull bounced off the excavator's treads with a crack, rolling back down to the edge of the hole. "Quit it, will ya?"
"Aren't you the grumpy one?" Jim puffed out as he crawled back up the embankment. He gave the skull a small boot back into the excavation and acquiesced, "Never mind, I'll plant it good and deep."
"You got that right!" Sapper exclaimed. "Out of sight, out of mind!"
The operator climbed back up to the cab and revved the machine a few times. In
seconds the skull was deep under the dirt and Jim shut the hoe down for the night.
A huge silence boomed into the air,while Sapper contemplated the new mound down in
the hole. He shook his head; "I suppose we better tell Bruce about it tomorrow. He
gets the big bucks to worry about manager-
"Yeah, maybe,” Jim grumbled. “Tomorrow. More important things are on... brewski's waiting. I can just taste that cold lager now. Ya goin' to the Pub, son?"
"Nah... got dinner waiting. See you tomorrow!"
"Whatever. See ya tomorrow-
"Yeah, good stuff, that!" Sapper nodded gleefully. "Pop them eyes wide open..."
Both men shuffled away along the raw road-
JEES!! Sapper felt a slow freeze crawl up his legs and he burst out of the trailer
door in a cold sweat. For the love of-
He ran headlong away from the shack in panic and tripped over a hose, folding directly
into the excavation like a long-
They were all DEAD! Sapper screamed again and ran to the edge of the hole, scrabbling in the loose dirt with his fingers, trying to climb out. He kept sliding back down, now sure that the other's fate was also his... just moments away.
The End
Sapper let out a hot breath of relief. "Oh, MAN! It's... it's OK now. But, Bruce?"
"Damn!! Bruce??" Jim only just now noticed the manager sprawled out on the dirt. He waddled clumsily over and started to pull Bruce roughly to his feet. "How much of that whiskey did you put in, boss?"
"Oww... Hey! Watch the arms, will you?" Bruce jerked awake like Dracula from a coffin. "Ohhh... I shouldn't have used the coffee from yesterday..."
"Ya put the whole bottle in this morning, didn't ya?"
"No... I didn't... really. I heard somewhere..."
"Ahhh, man," Sapper put in with a grimace, "you tried the 'coffee maker still'?? You've been brewing that slop all night, haven't you? And I drank some of it and everything! Serves you right..."
Together, the three men boosted each other up the slope of the hole and with Sapper's support, weaved to the trailer. Sapper was getting just a little annoyed now.
"So let me get this straight. You two've been boozing for the last hour? And me working like a slave! And, very funny, you guys... Ha ha!"
The manager looked at him darkly. "Yeah, well Sap, I've been getting up bleary the last couple of mornings. Why not start with a little jolt to get us through the day, OK?"
"Well, it works like a champ, boss-
"No, thanks..."
The men wallowed up the stairs to the construction trailer with Sapper just a little
slower to walk in. Through the window, Sapper could see the skeleton, now plainly
a plastic mock-
By Mike Voûte, July 2007
At least Sapper's body wasn't shoved into some tiny hole in the dirt of a lonely hill... wasn't that exactly what he'd wanted? Certainly, when the pub chatter ran to one's final days, Sapper Daly had raised his glass high and promised, "No tiny box is goin' to bury Sapper, boys! It'll take more'n that to get rid of the likes of me!"
And so, Sapper spoke Destiny's name.
"You know what I mean! Artifacts! So if you find more, don't just bury the goddam things again! Get back in here and carefully mark down what you find and where. I've let the local authorities know and they're letting us handle it... for now. But we need to identify everything. The whole project follows the plumber down the manhole if we don't comply with some basic rules here. I want you to work efficiently but carefully."
Typical managerial gibberish. Bruce’d blow the end-
A whack on their backs, an atta-
"C'mon, man! Get serious," Sapper grumbled in disgust. He began to delicately
dig around the area for more bones. There were an aweful lot-
"By your command..." Jim intoned mechanically. Cradling the remains in his arm, he headed back to the construction shack. " “Back in a flash, Sap. Don't get scared down there, OK?"
"Yeah, right. Whatever..."
Sapper continued to jab around half-
Inside the trailer, there were two skeletons now. But... where the hell was everyone??
Sapper called out, “OK, joke’s over-
A rattle from the skeletons snapped Sapper’s head quickly around. Once again, thin
arms banged bones together and jaw-
Sapper was locked in place... he couldn’t even inch towards the door. Meanwhile,
Bruce's creepy, bony hands were now gripping his shoulder-
"No, Bruce! You can't bury me here!!! No... nooooo... you can't put me down there!!!"
"No?” the ‘Bruce’ skeleton snapped. “WE didn’t have a choice, and neither do you.”
“NOOOOOOO! Never! I don’t deserve to die!” Sapper could barely stand, and Bruce began to tow his paralyzed body out of the door. “No, Bruce, you can’t DO this! I’m scared to death of tight places! You can’t entomb me in that hole!!! HELP! Oh, God, HELP ME! ANYBODY? SPIRITS PROTECT ME!!! OHHH...”
At the words, what once had been Bruce jerked as if lightning hit him. His grip faltered and fell away. “You dare to call them? Well, OK, Sap... as you wishhhh. They will help you. But, as it seems, they demand a price."
There came a great rumbling and heaving as sandstone slabs moved and fell into
the sea in the distance. At the same moment, Sapper sank away into the sand outside
the shack. His screaming faded into silence but, it would seem, not from sight. For,
Sapper’s head and body had became one with the island... but not buried-
But the next morning, Bruce already seemed to know everything. The smell of strong coffee and whiskey permeated the construction trailer; Sapper and Jim sitting across the table from the manager with heads supported on elbows, steaming mugs at the ready, and all quite amused. The first cup was strong... really strong.
"OK, look, you guys," the manager began the morning tailboard. "Managers like the common sense approach, see? Everything you find..." Bruce frowned to stave off the snickering from the operator.
Well, Sapper got to the construction shack and saw no one. In fact, it was quiet as hell. No laughing from inside, not even a snide remark as he stomped up the stairs.
Probably busy studying all the bones... not. Probably passed out from the grog. Sapper
reached up to the door and banged it open. No one was inside the trailer... just
a skeleton standing, maybe, six feet tall not far from the door. Of course. The boys
were playing a little joke on him-
The insanity lasted only a few moments longer.
Sapper suddenly noticed Jim dragging himself up; a zombie, shaking his head. As his eyes focused, the machine operator shook his head vigorously. "Hey, Sap..."
Sapper snapped out of it. "What? What the HELL??"
"Phew, I feel terrible," the ex-
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