A Friend is Buried

This is the very first post of a new venture—an improvised, interactive story that I'll be writing with input from you, Dear Readers. I'm not entirely sure where it will go, because I'll have only half a grip on the wheel. It is exciting.

The story starts below. There will be two options at the end. Readers at the BENEVOLENT SPONSOR tier and above will be able to vote on how we proceed. When the voting has settled, I'll write the next segment, heading in the direction you chose.

Let's go!

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CHAPTER ONE.

In the muddy slush at the side of a forest road, three men stood around a grave-sized mound of freshly-turned earth, their backs hunched and heads lowered in the reverent way men might stand around a grave, because a grave is exactly what the grave-sized mound was. Their breath and the steam from their sweaty collars were snatched away by a cutting winter wind. Before them, the grave was encircled by stones of even size, as was custom, with a gangly spruce sapling planted right in the middle of the mound, as was also custom. Nearby, their car idled off the side of the road, keeping itself warm and shielding the grave from the blowing snow that threatened to cover it all too quickly, giving the men perhaps a few more moments together with their dead friend.

Beneath the earth, beneath the frail sapling, lay Ranulf. The men joked about how he would have been angry at them for leaving the car idling, the kind of joking that feels good, because it lets you cry a little bit around the edges.

When the men’s sad laughter died out, the only sound was the car turning over, a low throbbing noise, reverent in its own way. Ranulf had named the car “The Traveller,” and having it there, warm and bright, felt to the men like a part of Ranulf was still with them. The car was shaped like an angry slipper; a low, muscular thing with a long front end and a cargo bed in the back. Goblin blood discoloured one of the headlights, giving The Traveller the look of a bruised eye. In the rear bed, the men’s dulled swords and dented armour were almost covered in snow.

When the grip of the creeping snow closed around the first of the stones in the circle, the shortest man, Faris, took it as a sign to move on. He turned from the group and wedged his shovel into the back of The Traveller.

The tall man, Susa, knew they had done what they needed to do, said what needed to be said, and they could continue on with clear consciences. Still, only reluctantly did he turn from Ranulf’s grave. Without thought, he pulled his hood low, to hide it from sight.

Eyman was the last at the grave. Quietly enough that he might have been talking to himself, he asked, “who will drive?” 

Faris said, “he gave the keys to you.”

Eyman shrugged as if to say, how is that of any consequence? Though he knew exactly what what it meant when Ranulf had pressed the blood-spattered spare key for The Traveller into Eyman’s hand.

“That is how it is done,” said Susa.

Each of the men knew how to drive the car, and did so in turn. They had to. It was smarter and safer that way. But that did not mean that every member of the party was The Driver. It used to be Ranulf. Now it was Eyman, and they all understood that he must be the one to guide The Traveller away from Ranulf’s final resting place. The pressure of it made him sick with anxiety while Ranulf’s death made him sick with grief at a time when he only had energy for one of those things.

Susa took the choice in stride. If Ranulf had chosen him, he would have accepted the role the same way he did anything—stoically—but he had not been chosen, and he did not see it as a loss.

Faris had been jealous at first. Eyman was his younger brother, so he was not used to conceding anything to him, not titles, not opportunities, not breakfasts nor lunches nor suppers nor desserts. But he loved and respected Ranulf, so honoured the decision.

Eyman shivered. He had only asked who will drive because that was how he inched toward the real question, which he did not want to voice: who would ride with him in the front, and who would ride in the bed? The Traveller did not have room for three in the front, especially not three as large as those men were. The bed was not uncomfortable—Ranulf had long ago installed seats back there—but it most certainly was not heated. It would have been fine if there were still four of them. Whatever the weather—the icy lash of winter wind, the misery of the soaking rain, the intensity of the burning sun—it was bearable if you had a brother to share the trial with. But now their even-numbered party was odd, they had just spent seven exhausting hours digging a grave out of impenetrable winter ground, and  Eyman’s first choice in his new role as The Driver would be, “who do I relegate to several more hours alone in the cold?” 

To Be Continued…

( Chapter Two > )