The three of them catch the first view of the church they have bought as they pull up in Matthew’s old camper. It sits on the coast of an island dense with pines and meadows. The sky is thick with grey clouds and the air is humid and heady with the scent of wild grass and sea salt.
They walk around the church grounds, outlined by a crumbling red brick wall that has collapsed by one of the gates. The grass at the back of the church is higher than their heads and bars their passage. There’s a notice board by the front of the church, though all the notices have flown out of the broken glass panel or have rotted away in the wind and rain.
Crickets stridulate.
‘Do we have to get rid of the bodies ourselves?’ is Patrice’s first question.
Leon grimaces. ‘That’s what the contract said. We can hire someone else to do it, but I don’t know who’d take that job. Exhumation isn’t a common profession.’
‘But after the graves are gone, it’s all ours?’ says Patrice, looking at the long grass at the back, where he knows the graves wait.
‘It’s all ours now,’ says Matthew, pulling the bags from the boot. ‘But do you really want to be renovating next to a bunch of dead bodies?’
Patrice shrugs. ‘Doesn’t bother me.’
‘I think you are forgetting that this place is no longer sacred,’ says Leon.
‘So?’
‘So,’ says Leon. ‘The dead will be restless.’
Patrice raises an eyebrow. ‘Right.’
‘But you can’t argue with the price, right?’ says Matthew, placing the bags down by the front door. He pulls a set of keys from his pocket and smiles. ‘Fellas, welcome home.’
Paddy Dobson
14th June 2022