The photo was faded from dirt, tears, and the iron grip of the pale faced owner dressed in black. Her hair was still as beautiful as it was the day the picture had been taking, though, and her eyes were kind despite the sassy tilt to her head. It was directed at him for taking so many pictures that day. That detail made him smile again.

     It started to rain, so Andy stuffed the photo into his jacket pocket, "You've gotta stay dry, Isabelle."

     "What in the hell are you doing?" Who must have been the grave tender asked him.

     "It's not what you think! I would never rob her!"

     "Then why in the hell are you halfway done digger her hole up? She was only buried yesterday, for god's sake!"

      "The hole's for me. I promised her forever!!!"

      Understanding dawned on the grave tender's face. After all, he had seen more than a few gaunt grievers acting crazy, "Son, slow down and think. This isn't what she would want, now is..."

      The shovel came down in a solid motion that the grave tender often thought he would need to use, but there was no defending himself. The metal sent his mind spinning in circles and forced his body to the cold ground, but not before his head slammed into the side of a nearby gravestone.

Andy held the shovel blade at the man's neck, and to his credit, he did hesitate. With a solid stomp, as if simply starting another hole, the blade of the shovel slid into the undertakers throat and into the dirt behind.

The rain made the rest of the digging much easier, and Andy was soon in a hole six feet under beside his Isabelle's coffin.

It took a minute to find the coffins latch in the pouring rain and a minute more to unclasp the dirt clogged contraption. The coffin itself opened with ease to reveal a treasure lit by the only stream of moonlight breaking through the clouds.

The first thing he noticed was that her eyes were shut, "aww, sleeping so peacefully."

The first thing you and I would have noticed about her eyes was that they had sunken into her sockets, and the stitching was starting to pull loose.

Only then did he notice the smell. The smell of her innocent strawberry perfume.

To anyone else, it would have failed to mask the other smell. A smell comparable to a freezer fully stocked with meat that has been off for a week too long.

Her long and flowing hair, a bright strawberry blonde even in this dark place. Soft and delicate.

Delicate and brittle, breaking as he ran his dirt stained fingers through the strands and across her cheek, down to her lips.

Her soft and ruby red lips. He pressed his against them one time. A simple yet euphoric movement that usually made two hearts flutter.

But her heart didn't flutter, and her lips were not soft. They had hardened and started to flake. She wouldn't have kissed him back even if she was alive. Her lips wouldn't have parted, because of several stitches inside her mouth to keep her jaw from going slack three days ago at the open casket funeral.

He continued to gaze into her face long into the morning. The blush that turns her angular and fierce cheeks into soft and cute red spots on her face had always aroused him as calmed him at the same time. He needed to be by her side when she was flustered and adorable.

But she wasn't flustered or blushing. She had a pale and hardened complexion brought about from the chemicals trying to hold her face together, but slowly failing to fight the decay. It was a stern look that told him he should leave.

He placed her picture against the wooden box and lay next to her as the storm picked up. Before long, the dirt had slid back into his hole. He lay still, even as his lungs filled with dirt, and no one was ever the wiser by morning.

    Except for the grave tender, of course.