"No worries," said the Stranger to Godric. "You just go ahead and take five or six steps backward and then stand still. Everything will be good after that. No trouble."

Godric obeyed in silence.

"And whoever it is down there in the grass," continued the man, "You just stay down there. No sudden movements. Either of you."

"Okay," Walter mumbled from someplace behind Godric.

Unlike the Rifleman, this Stranger stunk of deodorant and could speak. His shadow sprayed across the ground, and he let the shovel fall from his hands and it bounced off a tree with a clank. Any bullet he fired would be a real slug that would rip a genuine hole into Godric's chest and organs.

The Stranger looked back to the fire, yelled, "Keep digging. It's under control."

A large and gaudy medallion with some kind of figure etched into it gleamed out of the half unzipped jogging suit over his chest.

"Fine," came the response from within the hole. A new clump of dirt came flying out from under the fire and into the trees.

"Was it only the fire that brought you?" the Stranger asked.

"Yes," Godric said, only then realizing that he had dropped his little fire extinguisher at some point in the confusion, before saying, "Was that guy with you? Where'd he go? What even was all that?"

"What guy?" said the Stranger, but he didn't wait for an answer. Instead, he asked, "You live in one of those old houses across the field, right?"

"Not me."

"Him?" the Stranger glanced down into the grass as he said it.

"Probably," muttered Godric.

"Probably doesn't cut it with me," said the Stranger. "You his buddy?"

"No," said Godric.

"Then what the fuck are you doing out here in the middle of the night?" his voice lowered into an almost growl, and the revolver bobbed.

"I was star gazing."

"In the rain?" he said even though the rain had shrunk to a drizzle.

"I thought it would clear-up," Godric almost whispered it. The Stranger was silent, still peering, and Durst knew he was trying decide if Godric was a threat to whatever he was trying accomplish.

A crash of wood and metal came from the hole, and then a second, followed by a voice, "I think we've got it! It's deeper than they figured."

The Stranger smiled—there was a distinct relief—and he shouted back at the hole,

"Weight?"

"Heavy as fuck. A team lift for sure."

"Uncover it as much as you can! I'll be there in a minute to help get it out."

"Right!"

The Stranger looked back towards Godric, and said, "You in the grass, get up on your knees! I want to see your face."

There was a rustle—Walter had obeyed. The Stranger nodded.

"I like things nice and easy," said the Stranger. "I've got two hundred and fifty pounds for each of you—just to walk right on back to wherever you came from with tight lips. You already called emergency, right?"

"Yes," said Walter.

"Then they'll be here soon," he sighed, "Distract them for as long you can, and then when the police come you can tell them I was a pudgy five-foot-six Pakistani named Sanjiv. That sound good for two hundred and fifty?"

"Well..." started Walter.

"I won't do it," said Godric.

"You're gonna fucking do it," The Stranger's voice went hard. "I'm a greedy fucking man. I don't make such an offer lightly and can't stand to be disrespected for it."

"I won't—" Godric began, but stopped.

Something red and grey glimmered between the tree trunks, rushing up to the Stranger. Grass crunched, Walter flinched, and then screamed, "Beside you!"

The Roundhead.

A broadsword's slash met the Stranger's turn and the revolver cracked off a shot.

Gleaming like the flames behind the blade entered the side of his blue suit and left as easily—no slashed flesh—no intestines spilling out with gouts of blood falling to the soil as the Stranger screamed and crumpled down into the hole.

At the same instant the revolver had been only a pace from the Roundhead's chest—it would have been difficult to miss—but there was no wound there. No rend in the breastplate.

The Stranger gasped and backed into a tree—The Roundhead darted away, grabbing the flintlock pistol from his belt before revolver cracked off twice more. There came a silent puff of white smoke too, yet even neither man had been his for these efforts.

"What the fuck!" a head popped up from the cusp of the hole. Looked similar to the Stranger—a brother? But the Stranger was still staring at trees the Roundhead vanished between, clutching the medallion in his free hand.

"The fucking medallion!" mumbled the Stranger, breathless, he was running his finger over the etched figure on that dangling metal in circles. "I thought the fucking medallion was supposed to keep them away!" Sweat poured down his face—Godric and Walter all but forgotten. "Didn't the man say that? Didn't he?"

"Hey!" said the other in the hole.

"What?" the Stranger barked back.

"Listen you idiot! We're out of time!"

There was a dog barking nearby. Heavy feet plowing across the meadow. Godric glanced at the source—a thin old man in a bathrobe with a hunting rifle jogging to them in the blue glow. He was coming from the direction of the first house Godric had pounded on the door of.

The roar of fire sirens began to wail over the wind too, just a murmur then, brewing to a shout with every second.

"Grab it!" The Stranger roared to the other.

"It's too fucking heavy!" the other shouted back, face contorted with anger. "We won't make it to the car in time! It'll slow us down—they'd catch us, easy. God, you always fucking do this!"

"Fuck!" the Stranger roared it—truly roared it. It was enough to stop the old man in his tracks—he was still at least twenty yards away and dropped to a crouch, but didn't shoulder the rifle.

"Why'd you have to shoot off your fucking gun you fucking idiot!?"

"Start running!" said the Stranger. "I'll follow!"

"You're the one who's telling the man he's gotta do plan B! Not me!"

"Fine!" hissed The Stranger.

The man in the hole dropped his shovel with a clang and sprung from that pit, sprinting hard to the far side of the meadow, away from the sirens. The Stranger dug into his pocket and pulled out two small roles of banknotes. He pelted them at Godric and Walter.

"Remember what I said and do what I fucking told you!" he roared again. "I'll remember your fucking faces if you don't! The both of you! If you gyp me I'll fucking come for you I fucking swear!" he took off after his companion at an impressive sprint that easily closed the distance, and before another minute had passed both slipped into eternal shadow.

Godric entered the central island of trees. The cold from the flames gripped him all the harder then, and it occurred to Godric with what haste and fury the two strangers must've been digging, to have worked up a sweat in cold like this.

The hole they'd dug was four feet wide. The bizarre freezing flame floated above it and didn't seem to have been disturbed by the digging. It hung in the air, spraying out a deeply blue light. Enough to read by.

The excavation itself was several feet deep. On the edges sat little alcoves into which the Strangers had stuffed partial skeletons as they uncovered them. Numerous skulls watched from these. Even more stood piled near the lip of the excavations far side. None had been crushed by the shovel either, nor broken by careless hands. They'd treated the remains with a peculiar care unusual for grave robbers.

Doubly so since these bones were not their goal. The item they'd discussed and been forced to leave behind was a large, ornate chest of lacquered wood. Sat at the centre of the hole, only the top half protruding from moist dirt.

"Hello!" called out Walter. Durst turned, several police were filing out of the trees.

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1309 words.

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