Scoop and Toss

Jerome had never known how hard it was to bury somebody until now. At least, properly. He hadn't known PFC Murphy for long, but the kid deserved better than a shallow hole where dogs or wolves or whatever lived on this creepy ring world could get at him.
So the big man toiled away in the dirt. He was strong-- everybody had said so, so it had to be true. But even so, it was slow going without the proper tools. Murphy's handheld trenching shovel must have seemed like a spoon in Jerome's large hands. It certainly felt like one, with how little progress he was making.
The uppermost layer of dirt and sand parted easily enough when it met the shovel's blade. But underneath, the cool soil compacted upon itself, hardening it, and requiring all the more effort to break. When steel met rock, Jerome simply dug around and pried the stone free with his bare hands.
Scoop and toss. Scoop and toss. Over and over, inch by inch. When the muscles in his right arm ached and burned, he'd pass the shovel to the left and repeat the sequence. Scoop and toss. Scoop and toss.
A bead of sweat stung his eye, and Jerome tasted salt on his dry lips. Salt, and raw heat, whenever he drew in a breath. Jerome had grown too used to his thermal regulated armor. When was the last time he spent an afternoon outside, boiling beneath the sun? Likely when he was a boy, back on Arcadia, helping his Nan in the garden.
Arcadia wasn't like this, though, he thought, tugging at the collar of his crusted shirt.
His homeworld had hot and humid, yes, but lush and beautiful. This wasteland, however, was a drier heat than he had ever known. It left his lips cracked and bleeding and his mouth as dry as cotton and tasting of sand.
Water...
Trying to remember what a cold glass of the stuff tasted like only made his thirst worse. He may not have been able to squeeze water out of a rock, but at this point, Jerome was willing to try. Not like he was left wanting for rocks, after all.
His eyes fell on Murphy's body. More specifically, at the canteen that hung on his belt.
I already took the shovel from him...
But that was to help Murphy, not himself. Then again, how could Jerome help anybody if he died of thirst? 
He offered the boy a silent prayer, and relieved him of the canteen. The water was warm and had a strange aftertaste to it, but in that moment, it was sweeter than honey. And gone all too soon. Jerome shook the canteen hard, but no hidden second rush of water came. He would have wept, if he had the moisture to spare.
When he set the canteen aside to resume his task, he spied a cloud of dust in the far distance-- and felt an icy chill crawl up his spine. They were coming. The ones who had stranded Jerome here. The ones who had killed Murphy and God knows who else. 
He knew he should have stood up and ran. That's what his Staff Sergeant would have told him. But he didn't. Instead, he redoubled his efforts, stabbing and gauging at the earth with the shovel like a man possessed. The hole is already there, he told himself, I only need to carve it out. Free it from the earth. Scoop and toss. Scoop and toss. Don't look back. Don't listen to the screeching engines. Scoop and toss. Scoop and toss.
No matter what happened to him-- he would not let the dogs get at Murphy.
Category:The Weekly
Category:Short stories
Category:The Weekly Winners