Blood Orange
“Honey, looks like an old deck or something was here,” my husband Blair called across the yard.
The days have been cooling down, so he decided to plant a blood orange tree I’ve had in a gallon sized pot for the past three years. Honestly, I’m surprised the poor tree is still alive. It almost died about ten times in the triple digit heat this summer, not to mention last summer.
I went across the yard to look as Blair continued to dig around the wood.
“Listen,” he said. “It sounds hollow.”
I grabbed a shovel and we both started to dig. The cats ran around excited and started to dig their own holes. The dog stood wagging her tail in excitement.
“With any luck this is treasure left by some gold miners. Imagine if it is filled with gold coins.”
“Promise me if this is coins you won’t tell anyone.”
Blair laughed. The box was at least 4 feet long if not longer.
“Maybe it’s a coffin,” I said, as a joke. It was a joke. HA HA.
“Stop for a minute,” said Blair as he sat down and reached into the hole, brushing dirt off of the wooden object. “Oh my god, it is a coffin.”
I looked into the hole and saw a window clouded with dirt. I turned on the hose and soaked an old rag. Blair took the rag and wiped off the window revealing a face.
It was a perfectly preserved man. His dark hair was brushed away from his surprisingly handsome face. He wore a suit with a cut that seemed to be from the 1850’s.
Blair started to say something, like ask what we should do, when the man in the coffin opened his eyes. I swear my heart skipped at least ten beats. Blair gasped. The man in the coffin smiled then showed a set of bright white fangs.
“Holy shit,” I said. “Where’s the lighter fluid?”
“No,” said Carl. “Someone will call in an illegal fire.”
“We’ll wait for tonight. It will be dark in a few hours.”
So we waited.
The next morning our neighbors asked if we’d heard the screams the night before. I told him that a bobcat was out in the oak forest behind our homes screaming at a coyote. It was an unearthly sound. Then I mentioned I needed to charge the battery in my game camera I have in the yard to catch photos of critters who pass through my yard. Nobody said anything else about it. I was walking my dog, and someone asked if I smelled smoke last night. I said I didn’t smell anything, but the idea of fire is always scary.
We filled in the hole and put river rocks over it.
“I was thinking about pouring a concrete slab over it,” said Blair.
“That would be something a serial killer would do. Let’s just leave it for now,” I said.
Later that evening I could hear the sound of rocks moving in my yard. I looked out and saw a coyote carrying off a bone. None the less, I made sure my chainsaw, was close at hand, just in case.
~ fin
Thank you for stopping by to read this tangled tale written this morning over half a cup of cold coffee. ~ Juliette aka Vampire Maman
Vampire Maman 