The morning was bleak and gray, the sun obscured by a thin layer of misty clouds. The threat of snow hung heavily in the air as Kier fought against the frozen ground. He slammed the blade of his shovel into the earth again. Kier’s boss wanted the grave dug before noontime though, so he didn’t really have any choice other than to be out here freezing his butt off.
     
Kier didn’t understand what the big rush was for. Sure, Vanessa’s death had shaken up the whole town and everyone wanted it just to go away but rushing things like this didn’t seem to him like it helped anyone. In fact, this way, Vanessa wasn’t even going to have a funeral and only he would be there as her small box of remains was lowered into the soil, assuming he could ever finish digging the damn hole. She’d been a beautiful lady when she was alive even if she had always kept kind of to herself. It seemed to him she deserved better than this.
     
There hadn’t been much left of Vanessa by the time Luke had gotten done with her. Luke had apparently stabbed her to death with a silver knife then cut off her head, hacked her body up into pieces, and was caught chucking it piece by piece into their fireplace when Sheriff Jones arrived at their house that evening to check on them, after old man Hall had ridden into to town complaining about all the noise coming from next door. Kier supposed no one would ever really know why Luke had done it or what had driven him so mad because the story said Sheriff Jones had never given him the chance to explain. What the sheriff had seen inside the blood-splattered walls of their living room had been so hideous that he drew his revolver and shot Luke dead on the spot. Thank God the town’s other home had gotten Luke’s body, Kier thought. The town was so small he rarely ever had to dig two graves in the same day, and on a day as dark and cold as this one Kier figured it would have killed him too.
        
Kier gave up for the moment and sat down beside the box containing all that was left of Vanessa in the world. He needed a break and hoped that maybe the sun would decide to burn through the clouds before he started back to work. He removed a tin of tobacco and some rolling paper from the pockets of his jacket and lit up. As he stuck the match across the top of Vanessa’s box a bloodcurdling scream came from inside it. He rolled and leapt to his feet away from the box, staring at it in horror. “No! No more fire! I promise I’ll be good!” Vanessa’s voice wailed.
     
Kier shook his head, wondering if he’d lost his mind. “To Hell with this,” he muttered and turned to head back towards his boss’s office in the church below the graveyard. The man could come up here and dig the damn grave himself if he wanted it done badly enough, Kier swore silently. Suddenly, out of nowhere, Luke was standing there, blocking his path down the hill. Luke’s skin was so pale Kier could almost see through it. The front of Luke’s brown shirt was stained red and the gaping hole in his ribs oozed pus and thick, half-congealed blood.
     
“Luke?” Kier stammered, blinking in disbelief and taking a retreating a step from the man.
     
“Hello, Kier.” Luke spoke with a hollow, freezing voice. “I’ve come for my wife.”
     
“Uh... You... You can have her,” Kier said and took off screaming towards the church, leaving his shovel in the dirt and giving Luke a wide berth as he dodged around him.
     
Luke laughed as he watched the skinny man scamper away, then he knelt beside the box and easily ripped off its nailed-shut lid with his bare hands. Vanessa’s head stared up at him with fear in its eyes.
     
“Its okay honey,” he whispered, rubbing at the twin holes on the side of his neck. “I understand now. Hell, I don’t know how you controlled your hunger as well as you did, it feels like it’s eating me up inside.”      

Vanessa smiled as he scooped up her head from the box and tucked her under his arm. “We’d better be getting back home now, honey. Looks like there’s snow coming and the cattle needs to be fed.”