The earth moved under their feet. They both felt it, though neither of them wanted to admit it. As they trudged uphill, the grassy knoll shifted and rocked underneath their well-polished shoes like a slow, deliberate earthquake. But they attributed it to nerves. Yes, nerves. It must be nerves.
“I’m really not looking forward to this. They hate us,” sighed Dan, knowing full well, at least he thought, the gravity of the situation he was approaching.
“I know,” Steve shrugged as his freshly-shaven face stared intensely at the ground, toward each and every step he took, “But we have to. And it’s the right thing to do,” now sounding as though he wasn’t only trying to convince Dan, but himself as well.
A brief but noticeably silence occupied the next few moments as they walked through the cemetery, wearing black suits and solemn, fearful faces.
Then, “It was an accident, Steve. Just a god damned accident!” A single tear dropped from Steve’s face as he glanced at Dan, then back at the ground.
Just three days before, Dan and Steve had been in a terrible car accident with what looked to be a typical Soccer Mom van. Yep, a good old 2008 Champagne-colored Mazda, loaded with the quintessential mother and father in the front seat. But “accident” was the operative word. Sure, it was an “accident”, but it was missing a descriptor. An “avoidable accident” would be more accurate.
You see, Dan and Steve had been making their way down off the mountain after a successful weekend on the slopes of Lake Tahoe, where they had encountered their fair share of black diamonds, snow bunnies, vodka shots, and, of course, let’s not forget the cocaine. Dan sure wouldn’t. Oh no, Dan would never forget the cocaine. This was the final “hoorah” before Steve started his first career job at his father’s company. He was playing with the big boys now, B.S. Business Marketing from Carnegie Melon in hand. But Dan wouldn’t let Steve grow up without a final weekend full of “frat boy shenanigans”, as Dan always so elegantly put things.
The morning before Steve and Dan were to drive back to Los Angeles, Dan had convinced Steve that they should both do one final line before making the eight hour drive back to the City of Angels. Hangover setting in and the weight of life starting to settle permanently, Steve didn’t take much coaxing. An hour later, bodies lay scattered across the mountainside road. Dan told the cops it was an ice patch. But Steve knew that was bullshit. He also wasn’t about to go to jail for the next 25 years for negligent homicide. So he kept his mouth shut, as he slowly died inside.
The passengers from one car had survived. The passengers from the other, well, they lay in the in the coffins ahead of Dan and Steve in the Berkland-Holmes Memorial Cemetery.
Steve was sharply brought back to reality.
“Steve! Are you listening to me? I mean, what do we even say to their kids?” Dan was becoming frantic. It was understandable. Deep down, they both knew that they had killed Tom and Melinda Dempsy. Parents of three. Avid church-goers. One doctor. One stay-at-home wife. One loving family, torn apart by some 23-year-old dipshits who thought the rules didn’t apply to them. But if they didn’t show up, what then? They might look like they had something to hide. They’d look like young punks who probably had a few beers before they hit the road. If only it had been just beers. “What do we tell them? Do we say, ‘I’m sorry’? How do you look these children in the eye, knowing that it’s your fault that they will never be the same, that you’re sorry and that everything’s gonna be alright? I knew we never should have even-”
Steve couldn’t stand it anymore. He reached his arms out toward Dan, causing a slight tear in the armpit of a suit jacket that was a 38 Regular, but probably should have been a 40 Long, grabbed Dan’s shoulders and said without noticing the rip, “It happened! Okay? It was an accident, it’s unfortunate, but it happened.”
Their walk through the graveyard seemed like an eternity before they finally arrived at the funeral, which had began five minutes prior. It was relatively early in the afternoon, however Dan and Steve almost simultaneously noticed that it had gotten quite dim, so dim in fact, that they could hardly see the crowd of mourners in front of them. They both gave each other a questioning look, but then shifted their focus on the memorial.
“It’s always sad to see the loss of such young and beautiful lives . . .” the priest continued.
Dan was feeling even more uneasy as he looked around. From the dark faces that he could make out, it seemed as though he and Steve had been shunned by the surrounding guests. Not one person had even looked at them, much less acknowledged them. He had anticipated anger and hostility, but complete dismissal of their very existence was quite possibly the most unnerving reaction he could have anticipated.
“Are you feeling okay?” Steve whispered. Steve himself had noticed the exile, but was doing the best he could to focus on the memorial, and not on himself.
“I don’t know, man. I just feel a little weird right now,” Dan whispered. His face had gone completely pale. Beads of sweat were forming just above his brow and upper lip.
“It’ll be fine. We’re doing the right thing. Let’s just get through this. Okay?” Steve asked harshly. But it wasn’t a question at all. He was fed up with Dan’s selfishness and would have liked nothing more than to tell him to shut the fuck up at that moment, but Steve was too respectful to cause a scene like that, especially since it was he himself who caused this wretched family get together. Besides, on the inside, Steve had the exact same strange feeling. It was a sort of emptiness, a hole somewhere inside of him, and it felt like it was only getting bigger. It was as though someone had taken one of those vacuum extensions that you use to get the crumbs between the couch cushions, and plunged it down into Steve’s throat. He was being sucked away by his own body.
“The two were inseparable. They had grown up together and remained close up until their very last moments. Deep down, I think we all have faith that they are together still, off of the mountain, in a better place.” continued the priest.
Dan was visibly sweating through his shirt at this point, and was beginning to breathe audibly. He glanced over to see Steve, who, despite his best efforts, was feeling the same way. It was a fever and chill at the same time. It was nausea without the diarrhea or vomit. It was a hangover after a bachelor party. It was getting the wind knocked out of you. It was getting a $35 bank overdraft fee on a $2 purchase. It was everything and nothing all at once. And it was unbearable.
‘This can’t just all be in my head,’ Steve thought impatiently, unable to hear a word the priest was saying anymore. Still, not a single person had so much as craned a neck or shifted a glance in Dan or Steve’s direction. This would have surprised Steve, considering the fact that they were both breathing as loud as a couple in bed on their honeymoon, but for the intense agony that he and Dan were going through at that moment.
Suddenly, the darkness began to subside. ‘It’s only 3 pm, it never should have been dark in the first place,’ Steve began wondering if this was all just some dream. Maybe it was all a dream. Maybe they never actually hit that Mazda van while taking a turn at 78 MPH when the sign just before them had said “SHARP TURN – 35 MPH”. Maybe it had all just been the worst, most realistic nightmare he ever had. But Steve knew that wasn’t the case. That hope right there … That was the dream.
Steve turned to Dan, “Something seriously strange is going on, I think we should get out of here.”
“You read my mind,” Dan was clutching his stomach. His face was white with pallor, like you would expect a vampire’s to be, if any such thing had ever existed. Steve suspected that he didn’t exactly have a Caribbean tan at that point, himself.
The darkness that had shielded the faces of the audience was subsiding more and more every second. Before it had basically been a sea of black, but now, things were slowly becoming clearer. Much clearer.
As Dan turned to leave, he realized Steve was not with him. Not just yet. No, Steve seemed to be mesmerized by something in the audience, or someone.
“Hey … Isn’t that? Is that your dad? And-” he could see clearly, but it was disbelief that slowed his speech, “And your sister? What are they doing here?”
Dan turned back to his original position and peered through the crowd where Steve was pointing. His eyes trained through the still dimly lit audience around them. Finally, he caught a glimpse of what Steve had seen just moments before. It was most definitely his father and sister. And sitting next to them was Dan’s mother and stepfather.
If it were possible for Dan’s face to become any whiter, it happened at that moment. His feet stumbled momentarily, even though he hadn’t been moving. His eyes were locked and for a moment, it seemed as though he was frozen where he stood. Steve’s eyes were fixed sharply on Dan, trying to gauge his reaction, although it was still hard to think with the increasing torment that was occurring within his body.
Finally breaking the stillness, Dan tried to wave at his family to get their attention. No luck. Unbelievable. There was no reason that his family should be unable to see them. Quite frankly, Dan was making an ass out of himself with large, waving gestures during a private family funeral. But what the hell was his family doing there?
After a few failed attempts, Dan turned to Steve, “I’m gonna go see what they’re doing here,” Dan said hastily and almost in a questioning tone. But Steve was already in yet another trance as he gazed in a different direction this time. Now he was locked into the face of Tracy, his college girlfriend of two years. She had been crying, he could see clearly. Her soft, youthful lips quivered as her eye makeup ran down both cheeks and blended into the black dress where they were falling.
Suddenly a loud noise from Dan broke the silence. “Steve! What the hell is going on man?!” Dan was no longer even attempting a hint of subtlety as he shouted back in Steve’s direction.
Suddenly the brightness of the day increased again and had now reached the normal clarity of a February afternoon in Los Angeles. Steve’s eyes widened in horror. He and Dan stood in crippling fright, terrified at what had just been revealed to them.
“And as we keep the bodies of Daniel Smith and Stephen Roberts here on earth, we send their spirits to the great beyond,” finished the priest, “Ashes to ashes and dust to dust. . .”
In a single moment, as if frozen in time they looked at each other, then around at the audience, now easily able to see that it consisted of all their closest family and friends. Their respective graduation pictures sat atop the coffins that were now being lowered into their graves. Some began crying audibly as everyone else sat in silence.
As the coffins lowered, the surface of the earth shook, no longer in small sways as it had before, but sharp tremors that brought Dan and Steve both to their knees. The sky instantly shifted from a bluish-yellow to cavernous black, with only a glow of light around the funeral’s attendees. Steve and Dan’s stomachs simultaneously dropped as if they were back on Colossus, their favorite roller coaster at Six Flags, which they had visited regularly as kids. Those were simpler times. Easier times. When, instead of drugs and women it was cartoons and candy. He didn’t know how, but Steve knew that Dan was going through the very same thoughts in his head at that moment. Then Steve’s ribs began to hurt, and he remembered throwing the game winning touchdown pass to Dan in the Southern California Division One championship as seniors, just before he had been tackled by the 328 lb. Samoan everyone called “The Volcano.” That was the first night Steve tried cocaine. It was Dan’s third. And then he got to try a few more things with the head cheerleader.
Just then, Steve’s nose began bleeding. He looked over at Dan, and found that his was a gusher, already reaching his shirt. The earth was now falling away around them. They couldn’t see it. But they could feel it.
At this point, the 48 people at the funeral of Daniel Smith and Stephen Roberts had all but disappeared. All but five. From the corner of Steve’s eye, he saw the mother and father from the accident, with their three children, walking away from the funeral. Strolling, in fact. The children skipped and tagged each other as they ran and disappeared over the grassy knoll. Steve and Dan both turned full attention to the final earthly vision they would ever see. At that moment, both the father and the mother turned around and locked into Steve and Dan’s eyes, somehow simultaneously, and gave an eerie smile of satisfaction. Steve and Dan looked at each other for a moment.
And then, nothing.
