“Okay, that should be everything.” I said to myself, pulling my dark hair out of my face and rushing to tie up my worn boots. Resting my backpack on my shoulders, I felt the pressure of 50 pounds of overbearing force weigh me down all at once. Even just standing with it was tiring, and the equally as heavy duffle bag wasn’t doing my arm any favors. I took a deep breath and told myself the drive and the hike up the hill would be quick, and I hopefully wouldn’t be carrying this dead weight for long. Roughly tossing my bags in the trunk of my beaten old BMW, I slammed it closed and entered the driver’s seat. I really should clean the inside of my car next, I noted to myself. My friend had texted me the address of the hiking trail earlier. It was rather secluded, and I prayed and hoped that I wouldn’t have trouble finding it as I deftly entered the address into my GPS and started down the road. As the asphalt turned to gravel and the gravel turned to dirt and I felt my seat vibrate under uneven terrain, I knew I was close. I carefully observed the line of trees, looking for an opening in the foliage. That was when I nearly hit my friend with my car. Abruptly, I slammed on the breaks and kept my hands on the steering wheel, catching my breath from the shock of the moment. It seemed she had waited for me at the entrance of the trail, which I was grateful for.

“Maybe tell me you’re waiting for me outside, I almost killed you!” I rolled my eyes.

“Sorry, I just didn’t want you getting lost.” My friend noted how I was struggling with getting what felt like a sack of rocks over my shoulder.

“Need help with that? I can carry the duffle and you can carry the backpack.” She offered.

“Yes, please. I feel like I’m gonna fall over at any moment.”

My friend grabbed my duffle bag and hoisted it over her. “You got everything, right?”

“Of course I do. I checked my list over four times already; it would be a total disaster otherwise. Anyway, let’s head up. I wouldn’t stay here for too long.”

“Alright.”

I nodded as she began to lead the way. For now, we were on even ground, and we were making a good pace without any kind of incline. In fact, without the added weight of the duffle bag, the walk felt quite nice and I managed to forget the gravity of our situation for a moment. My legs hurt a bit, but the sound of the rushing stream and the buds on the trees was invigorating after a long and brutal winter. We eventually passed someone else – an older woman who had stringy gray hair and a puffy vest on. She was walking a small dog, most likely a shih tzu, but I wasn’t entirely sure. I felt my breath hitch somewhat as my friend and I continued down the trail after they were gone.

“Coast is clear.” She said, picking up her pace as we continued along the narrow path. We passed a small bridge, and I could feel my heart working overtime as we started walking up a hill. I wanted to take a rest, but we couldn’t stop for a break, not during a moment like this. Not until we finished this and I returned home. How long was this going to take? I just wanted to be over and finished with this.

“Shouldn’t be much farther, I know the perfect spot.” My friend said, still ahead of me. Her voice wasn’t as tired as mine, and she was making progress with relative ease.

“Where? I don’t think I can keep going for much longer.”

“Off the side of the trail. Once we see a rock that looks almost like a croissant, we’ll walk through the forest for 5 or so minutes.”

“I’ve never seen a rock that looks like a croissant, but I trust your judgment.”

Five or so minutes was an understatement. It felt more like 20 as we finally reached the top of the hill and the ground evened out again. I didn’t see anything interesting at first; the rocks didn’t seem to have any unusual shape, nor was there anything else that marked a specific location. However, as we started walking downhill, again, I noticed what she meant. A tan, brown rock was partially buried in the sand, giving it a distinctive crescent shape.

“Holy shit, it does look like one!” I laughed, feeling guilty as this wasn’t exactly the best time to be making jokes. Heading off the trail and away from the clearly marked dirt path, we disappeared into the forest, walking over fallen branches and squeezing between bushes. Stepping over another strange looking rock, we reached a decently small clearing with nothing much aside from a mix of clover and grass.

“Here” My friend said as she marked a spot in the middle of the space with her foot. “You have the shovel, right?”

I opened my backpack, taking the tool out and slipping on a pair of gloves. “Yeah, there should be one in the duffle bag as well.”

Following suit, she took her own shovel and gloves out, and we started digging. It was easy at first, but as we dug deeper, the soil started getting harder. I knew that coming here and needing to dig a hole this large would be a lot of work, but I should have anticipated it would be a lot more difficult than I thought it would be. I looked at my friend, the dark circles under her eyes exasperated by the amount of energy we were using. It was only when I felt like my arms were going to fall off when we decided the hole was large enough and we stopped.

I laid my shovel down and wiped some sweat from my forehead. “Well, here goes nothing. Let’s just hope that we aren’t spotted.”

I peered inside my backpack, and felt a sense of dread as the victim’s severed head stared back at me with cold, emotionless eyes. I wish I hadn’t gotten so passionate that day. Maybe if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have grabbed the knife off the counter in a fit of rage after he admitted to cheating on me. I wouldn’t have dismembered his body and frantically stuffed it into two little bags. Maybe if I didn’t, I wouldn’t have had to scrub my hands until they stung from sanitizer and I wouldn’t have cleaned the house from top to bottom with bleach. I held back an attempt to vomit as we began dumping the contents of both bags into the hastily prepared grave. First the head, then the legs, then the arms. It didn’t matter how they were placed, they were all going to be buried anyway.

I looked at my friend, whose expression was unreadable, as if every emotion at once had hit her like a truck. I couldn’t tell if she felt the same sense of shame I did. Maybe she felt relief she was no longer an accomplice in my crime. She sighed a heavy sigh “It’s done. Let’s get out of here.” Her voice was monotone and expressionless as we covered the body with mounds of dirt, making sure nobody knew something – or rather someone was here in this place.

“Holy shit. I just did that. I just disposed of a dead body.” I whispered to myself, just enough to make out what I was saying. While the hardest part was over, I still felt my hands shaking. There was no way I’d be able to go on with the rest of my life without feeling the immense amount of regret that weighed on me just as the backpack had earlier.

The walk down seemed harder than the hike up. While the corpse was out of sight, it wasn’t out of mind. Getting questioned was still a possibility, and if I was caught, would I have the strength to defend myself and lie about who killed him? Could I play the part of the poor, innocent woman who was just trying to defend herself from her nasty, violent boyfriend? Or would I be stuck in prison for the rest of my life, forced to live the rest of my life with people who were considered society’s worst? As I made my way back to my car, the stench of death hit me again, and I began to cry.

“He didn’t deserve it.”

– Skyler Sharpell