The Brink by Austin Bunn Page A

might find another tool he wanted.
    Graham noticed a trowel in an empty flowerpot. It had a sparkly red handle. Marlena had bought it for Em, her very own trowel , to encourage gardening, though Em preferred to do anything but. Now that he thought about it, where had Em been yesterday? Or the day before? Graham’s thinking hit the wall of her routine: school, dinner on the couch, then up in her bedroom, earphones in, computer on and trilling. When did she look up long enough to get pregnant? God, he barely knew her.
    He took the trowel grimly, knowing a bad decision the instant he gripped the handle.
    He chose a spot near the pine tree, screened by the fence from the rear alley. The ground was dense and dry—Graham had to jab with two hands. The dirt made a pitiful pile until he reached sand a few inches down. He could hear the shepherdnext door snorting in Aaron’s yard, pacing the fence line. Don’t bark, Graham willed. Don’t.
    He’d done this once before. One summer in high school, he buried the family cat, a beloved throw pillow named Moe that had never quite understood that the road outside the house was a goddamn killing field. He buried her in the ground and surprised himself weeping inconsolably at the graveside, kneeling against his mother’s leg and discovering it was sweet and perfumed and cluttered the grief. The next summer, their neighbor set a fence and drove a backhoe into the ground right through the plot. That would not happen here.
    Finally, a hole opened up. Deep enough, he thought. Graham set the bag in the hole and tucked the extra plastic in. It occurred to him that inside the plastic, nothing would rot. Generations on, you could dig this thing up and know just what was inside. He got the pitchfork from the garage and jabbed into the bag. The tines struck soft matter and he willed himself to think no further. Then he kicked dirt on top and tamped with his foot, delicately. He promised himself he would never tell anyone where this was. This was the absolute final time he would allow his eyes to fall on this spot. He was murmuring a half-remembered prayer when his cell rang inside the house.
    It was Marlena, at the library. He found himself at the counter, phone in hand, unable to answer. If he moved, if he answered and so much as spoke the events of the last fifteen minutes aloud, a crack would spider its way through theirentire lives. No one could know. If he called the police, Emma would go to jail, or he would. That is what happened in an area like this, where the pro-life ads on billboards—fetuses, forty feet tall!—promised good lives and loving parents to every single baby if you would just allow them into the world.
    He let the air run out of his lungs. The phone went silent, and in the silence, he discovered he needed Marlena to know. She would know which lawyers to call, how to sit Em down and not destroy her. She worked at the branch library. She could parry anything.
    She picked up at the first ring.
    â€œI found something,” Graham said. “In the basement.”
    Marlena sighed. “Did the sewer explode again? Because we’re staying at a hotel this time.”
    â€œNo, it’s not the sewer. You need to come home right now.”
    â€œTell me what’s going on.”
    He looked out through the kitchen window. A strange shape moved out by the pine tree. Dirt kicked up in the air. He saw the shepherd’s black muzzle nose the grave.
    â€œGet home,” Graham managed to say before he hung up.
    As soon as the screen door slammed behind him, the dog turned and gripped the ground. A low growl escaped from its tawny throat and then a single bark ripped through the air. Graham froze, empty-handed. Schatzi’s black eyes did not waver.
    He could see the trench at the far end of the fence where it had, finally, dug underneath. He had to get the dog back on other side, either through the door or the gap it had made.Aaron would hear