Death is a Salesman
A dark flash fiction
Walt’s never around when I need him. Radio says the Third War’s coming. Walt and I’ve already discussed a bunker. He’d got plans drawn up for the backyard. After twenty-five years, you’d think he’d give me a say.
Our woods down the valley, that’s where I want it dug. Near the river, and filled with cottontail burrows and deer roamin’ wild.
‘Those creatures will become diseased from the fission debris, Nancy. Their bodies will be irradiated and we’ll end up cancerous if we consume them.’ He always talks like that, does Walt. I reckon it’s on account of carrying around encyclopedias all day. ‘Besides, my one and only sunshine, why not stay next to the home where we’ve built our years of memories.’
Sentimental sonafabitch.
I steer the digger to our woods. S’trouble when your husband’s a traveling salesman. Weeks on the road and too tired to get shit done when he’s home. I’ve outlined the bunker with stakes and rope, done the math, even though that’s his strength, not mine. Walt’ll complain when he sees the location but secretly be pleased he don’t have to do it.
The bucket arm claws a scoop of loamy dirt. He’s been ever more tired of late and I worry when he’s gone. You get loonies out there. Maybe I’m just getting old but things seem to be worse on the road now.
These days, mind, everything seems to be getting worse.
The digger claws deeper. If the world’s going to be irradiated, me and Walt could be alone a very long time. I think I’ve measured the foundations right. Living space and one bedroom and one spare, in case we get to hatin’ on each other as all couples do sometimes.
In the clearing where I’m working is a leaf covered bank. Crocus shoots reach, glossy-green above last fall’s colors. They’ll flower purple and yellow soon, just like my body blooms when me and Walt get to hatin’.
The blooms fade but the words don’t and sometimes Walt has too many of those. They build up inside him until they break his banks. Jagged floes of them, churning up boulders and muck and reshaping me like the river’s channel in winter.
I quit the engine. The soil I’ve dug breathes decay and life. I circle it, appreciatin’. That’s when I see lines of white and grey poking from the mud. I grab my shovel and slide dirt away.
Bones.
I know my body parts from butcherin’ deer. A fibula and tibia. But these ain’t deer bones. More shoveling and the first body appears. Long hair tattered like an abandoned rag doll's. She’s slender apart from the chest bumps. The second body’s wearing a flowery dress.
I read some book in school about a salesman. Miss Hickman said it was a classic. Don’t recall him being a killer but salesmen must lead interesting lives if some writer thought to tell about them.
I never knew Walt’s eye to stray. I’m his one and only sunshine and he tells me that every day we spend together. Especially after a hatin’ day.
I sit in the shade a while and look at Walt’s secrets laying on the exposed earth. Then I set the digger back to work. I lose count of bones and half-rotted bodies as I heap them in one grave.
On the third day, when I’ve finally gotten back to digging foundations for the bunker, I hear his voice calling me from up at the house.
S’trouble with salesmen. No set hours to count on.
I yell back so’s he knows where I’m at. He appears through the trees in his work suit. I wonder what he wears when he kills them.
He kisses me on the mouth.
‘My one and only sunshine,’ he says.
My fingers curl around the shovel.
He glances round the clearing, seeing all my work. He opens his mouth again but no words come out.
I swing the shovel two-handed. The cutting-edge catches him under the chin, almost decapitates him. He slow-motions backward onto Girl in the Flowery Dress, his throat a wide, scarlet grin. I heap the first shovel load of dirt on and wish them a long and happy dead-life together.
The bunker’s coming along real nice now with more than enough space for my needs. On fine days, I sit up on the crocus bank, among the cottontail burrows, and watch the deer roamin’ wild.
Read more flash fiction from Alex Kilcannon
