The Widow's Share

 

Joe

Joe lived for the rush of robbing people. The risk, the thrill, the nervous electricity that crackled through him before every job—it was better than sex. Sometimes the anticipation alone was enough to get him hard. He’d been a thief since he was fifteen, and now, at thirty, he considered himself untouchable. Never caught, never even close. The king of thieves.

He worked alone. Always had. Gangs were for amateurs who got sloppy, ratted each other out, or made stupid mistakes that led the cops straight to your door. Solo was cleaner. Solo was perfect.

He still smiled when he remembered the safe in that rich woman’s house. She’d been so proud of it, bragging to her friends at the dinner party he’d crashed with a fake invitation. Thought she was clever hiding her cash behind a steel door. Her mistake? Using her kid’s birthday as the code. Four digits. Child’s play. He’d walked out with a hundred grand that night and lived like royalty until the money dried up.

Now he sat at the bar of Le Cercle, an upscale place where only the wealthy and careless came to drink. He nursed a whiskey, ears open, eyes scanning the room like a predator. This was how he hunted—listening to drunk rich idiots spill their secrets.

He signaled for another drink, flashed a lazy grin at a petite brunette a few seats down. She ignored him. Fine. He wasn’t here for company.

Then he heard them.

Two men, a few meters away. One was crying—dressed head to toe in black, face red and swollen. The other kept patting his back.

“Calm down, Roy. It’s done. God knows best,” the comforter said.

“How the fuck does He know best, Peter?” Roy snapped, voice cracking. “She was twenty-nine. Twenty-fucking-nine.”

“I know, man. I know. She was my sister.”

“And she was my wife!” Roy sobbed. “Lisa…”

Joe’s ears pricked up.

Peter lowered his voice, but not enough. “Did you really have to bury her with the cash, though? A whole box of it?”

Roy shrugged, wiping his nose. “That was her share from the Dubai deal. She wanted it with her. Said it made her feel safe.”

“You should’ve given it to Janet. She’s the next of kin.”

“Janet got the house and the cars. Lisa got the money.” A bitter laugh. “Guess it doesn’t matter now.”

Peter shook his head. “I still don’t get why people bury folks with valuables these days. Like the dead need a fucking retirement fund.”

Joe went very still.

A graveyard job.

Low risk. No cameras. No witnesses. Just him, a shovel, and a coffin full of cash.

He felt the familiar heat coil in his gut.

Lisa. Husband: Roy. Fresh grave. Probably still settling.

He drained his glass, left a crisp $50 bill on the bar—more than the drink cost, but he was in a generous mood—and walked out with a smile sharp enough to cut glass.

Tonight, he decided, he’d pay his respects to the late Mrs. Lisa Roy.

And collect what was owed to a king.

Joe was buzzing with delight that night. He checked his tools, clapped his hands together, and hummed a cheerful little tune. Spread across his bed was a collapsible shovel that could be taken apart and packed neatly into a bag. He kissed his hammer and chisel, remembering how they’d never once let him down. And I’ll never forget my crowbar, he thought, sliding a hand under the bed to pull it out. He wiped the dust off the cold iron and grinned wickedly. “Oh, baby, you’ve got a heavy night ahead. I know you can handle ten graves if I need you to.” He laughed with childish glee.

Next he lifted his night-vision goggles. He’d decided long ago that a single flashlight would only invite questions from anyone who might be watching. No, the goggles would let him work in perfect silence and darkness.

He flopped onto the edge of the bed, staring at the empty space where the money would soon be stacked, and slapped his knee. “Damn, I almost forgot!” He leapt up, crossed the room, and rummaged through the mess in his wardrobe until he dragged out a battered black rucksack. “Yeah, baby, time to pack a real haul.”

Back on the bed, he sat cradling the bag like an old friend and let his mind drift to the future: retirement, a quiet life, maybe something legitimate for once. Then he smirked. “I could buy a cheap little motel off the highway… turn it into my own private enterprise.” He chuckled low in his throat. “Once a thief, always a thief.”

Joe opened his door without a sound, the hinges greased days ago for this exact moment. Midnight air slid in like a blade. He leaned out, eyes straining into the black, and when the street gave back nothing but dead windows and the faint smell of frost, a thin, hungry smile cut across his face. Still, he took no chances. Rubber-soled boots carried him from shadow to shadow, each footfall swallowed before it could betray him.

He slipped down the back alley that stank of rotting leaves and cat piss, then over the low wall into the graveyard. Moonlight bleached the stones the colour of old bone. Joe scanned every crooked row of headstones, every sagging angel. He picked up a loose stone and hurled it against the iron gate. The gong rolled out and died. Nothing moved. His grin stretched wider, almost painful. “Fresh grave,” he whispered, tasting the name like candy, “Lise Roy.”

Two hours of prowling among the dead. His breath fogged, his fingers numb fingers aching inside the gloves. At last he found it: a raw mound of earth still soft at the edges. He spat a curse at every corpse that had forced him to hunt so long. “People dropping dead any damn time they please, making an honest job impossible.”

He laid his tools in a neat row, practiced line. The shovel bit grudgingly into half-frozen ground. Each thrust sent a jolt up his arms. Cold sweat soaked his back, but he refused to strip off even a layer—no fibres, no evidence. Fifty-five minutes of hell, muscles burning, until the blade rang against wood. He laughed under his breath, scraped the last dirt away, and climbed out to fetch chisel and hammer.

He paused at the edge of the pit, looking around at the silent stones. “Quiet as the grave,” he muttered, savouring the old saying, then dropped back down into the hole.

The lid fought him. Nails screeched. He wedged the crowbar, heaved, swore. Nothing. He was reaching for another tool when a voice—soft, close, female—slid into his ear.

“Need a hand?”

Joe screamed a strangled, airless sound and spun. A woman stood at the lip of the grave, barefoot in a thin white dress that the moonlight turned transparent. Her eyes were huge, black, unblinking, reflecting nothing. He ripped the night-vision goggles off; the world snapped into cold silver, and still she did not blink.

“Who—who the hell are you?” His voice cracked like thin ice.

She tilted her head. “Do you really want to know?”

“No!” He tried to back away, but his boots were glued to the coffin lid. His legs would not obey.

“You woke me,” she said, almost kindly. “I only came to see why.”

“I—I’ll go. I’m sorry, I’ll leave right now—”

“Why rush off?” She descended the earthen wall without using her hands, dress never stirring. One heartbeat she was above him; the next she stood an inch away. Frost bloomed where her bare feet touched the soil. “You came for the Widow’s Share, didn’t you?”

Joe whimpered. “Please… don’t hurt me.”

“Oh, I will hurt you.” Her smile was small, neat, and terrible. “You wanted to rob my grave, Joe.”

He hadn’t told anyone his name.

“Lisa?” The word left his throat as a sob.

Her laugh was the sound of soil makes when it settles over a coffin. “I do get bored down here. The last one only screamed for three days.”

A hot flood ran down his leg; the sharp smell of urine rose in the frigid air. He tried the sign of the cross, but his arms hung dead.

Another shape peeled away from the darkness behind her—an older woman, face sagging, teeth black and broken, eyes milked over with death.

“That’s him,” the newcomer rasped, pointing a skeletal finger. “Stole the hundred grand from my safe. Gave me the heart attack that put me here.”

Lisa turned to Joe, eyes shining with childish glee. “See? Auntie’s still cross.”

Joe’s mouth worked, but no sound came. The ground beneath the coffin softened, turned liquid, cold, hungry. Fingers of earth curled around his ankles and pulled. He was dragged down through splintering wood, through the satin lining that smelled of lilies and rot, down into a darkness that had teeth.

The last thing he heard was both women laughing together, a sound that followed him all the way into the suffocating black, where something much older than graves was waiting to play.

And somewhere far above, the wind moved across the empty hole, and the shovel lay forgotten on the frost, already turning white again, as though no one had ever been there at all.