Sack Time

By David Gianatasio

I froze atop Reed’s Ridge, my feet fused into the cracked earth.

About a quarter mile below, two men in overalls approached along the unpaved path that wound among the sagging cornstalks.

They were hulking. Chrome-domed and bearded. Broad-shouldered. 

I’d never seen them before. But I’d heard of them.

The one on the left held the sack.

My gut clenched and sweat pooled beneath my arms, refusing to drip freely. I licked my lips, though they were already moist. I struggled to move, but my muscles wouldn’t budge.

The wind shuddered and the stalks hissed like snakes. Rust-red leaves slashed the sky.

“You never know when,” my mother told me long ago. “But one day, they might put you in the bag.”

She sat at the kitchen table, fumbling with a clay bowl and some peas. Mom’s hair hung in greasy strands and her eyes were unblinking, wild.

I plopped down on the floor, gripped a dusty orange ball, and listened quietly.

“They don’t come around often. Once or twice in my lifetime, that’s all. Me and Ginn were playing by the old mill. We weren’t much older than you are now. And the bag men came. Big and bald. They bagged Ginn and took her away.”

Mom stared past me, at the scarred oak wall, and her fingers made knitting motions.

“They may never come for you. You may never see it happen. But remember: You could wind up in the bag.” 

She tilted her head and spat, “The smell. It never goes away.”

Now, I heard the clicking of boots on twigs and gravel. The sound rolled like thunder in the wind.

How would it feel inside that bag? Warm? Cold? Like a tomb? Or a womb?

Where did they take you? Beyond the valley, past the ruined river?

They were nearly upon me. Boots, click. Tongue, lick.

The sack was dull red on the outside — the colour of leaves or dried blood.

I shut my eyes tight — but the men kept walking, brushing my shoulders as they passed me on either side.

I fell to my knees and watched them go. They were jogging, then running, toward Old Fred, who tramped through the husks at the bottom of the rise. 

The men called his name and raised the sack high. A stench of bitter sap and burlap seared the air.

Since that day years ago when they took Fred, the scent’s stung my nostrils. Some nights, I cough until I cry.

The world’s dim as always. I keep looking over my shoulder whenever I walk outside.

And the stink never goes away.

About the Author

David Gianatasio's fiction has recently appeared in Space & Time, New Myths, Altered Worlds and elsewhere.

His latest story collection, The World Ends Every Day, dropped in 2024 from Anxiety Press.