6 Digit Passcode by Abigail Collins Page A

arms?
    Quickly, I unfold the sheet in my hands and throw it over her. The darkness of her skin, now more ashen than black in color, rises through the cloth, and I can still make out the silhouette of her sunken eyes and jutting bones from underneath it.
    I pull a pair of gloves out of my pockets and slide my hands into them. I can’t bear to touch her, even through the sheet. I fear that the stains she would leave on my hands would never wash out.
    “I’m sorry, Mama. I’ve got to move you. I don’t know what will happen when I do, but it’s better than being stuck in here, isn’t it? I’m so sorry. I should have done this a long time ago, but I was too afraid.”
    I swallow down a lump in my throat, but it rises again just as quickly. Taking great care not to damage any part of her, I roll my mother over until the sheet is wrapped around her on all sides. I can still feel her body through it, but less so than I would have without such thick gloves.
    Surprisingly, the thing that bothers me the most about having to carry my mother’s body down the stairs and outside is how easy it is. She’s so light, it’s no different than carrying Fray to bed when he falls asleep on the couch. But the sensation of her bones shifting and her skin cracking is enough to balance out the ease of lifting her body in my arms.
    I push the door open with my hip and lay the body down on the porch, on a bench behind a layer of wooden fencing that will hopefully shield her from the prying eyes of any neighbors looking out their windows.
    Of course, me taking up the shovel I left outside and using it to dig a hole in the middle of the yard is more than enough to cause a scene should anyone see it. Thankfully, it seems that the entire neighborhood is holed up in their homes, fast asleep or otherwise occupied.
    The air is crisp and the ground is dry, which makes digging into it that much harder. I’m glad that it isn’t frozen solid, but I’ve never been very strong, and I have to hurry so that I can get back to Crissy’s house before anyone notices I’m gone.
    There are blisters between my fingers and along my palms by the time I finish. Wiping sweat from my forehead, I throw the shovel to the ground and lean down to catch my breath. The air out here is fresher, but I think I brought some of the stench from inside with me on my clothes.
    I will never forget the sound that my mother’s body makes as I lower it into its shallow grave. The bones crack, the skin snaps, and her head rolls back with a sickening creaking noise. She’s so broken. But maybe she was already broken, even before she died. She wouldn’t have told me if she was, so I have no way of knowing.
    Just as I am about to begin shoveling loads of dirt back over her, I notice something sticking out from beneath the sheet. One of her arms have come loose, her thin wrist displaying prominent veins in my direction, her hand stretched out and half-open, like she’s reaching up to me. But that’s not what draws my attention.
    In her hand, barely visible through the layer of blood and torn skin around it, is a piece of paper. It’s graying, worn and dirty, but when I reach down and gently pull it from my mother’s grasp, I see that it is filled with words, and that all of them are still legible.
    I stow it in my pocket for the time being and resolve to read it once I’ve finished with my current task. I’m curious, but it’s more important to hurry so that I don’t get caught than to stop and read with the sun due to rise at any moment.
    Once the last of the dirt is poured in and leveled off, I step back and regard my work. It’s obvious that the ground has been disturbed, and I’m sure that whoever sees it will know right away that a body has been buried here. But at least they won’t know that I did it. And now that it’s over, it feels like a weight has been pulled off of my chest. I only wish I could have done the same for my father.
    “Goodnight, Mama.”
    The note