Top of the Heap

By Nathan Robinson

I open my eyes and the dead smile back with bare teeth. In the fresh, sparse daylight I can see the bodies beneath me. I want to reach out and touch their faces, close their beseeching eyes. I recognize a few of them. Some I don’t, either through decomposition or the fact that I didn’t dump them here. Marcone has a lot of guys and a lot of enemies, so a few strangers sit down here with me.

The thought of food rumbles my stomach, making it ache. I keep my eyes up, away from the bodies, I look up the throat of the shaft, towards daylight, towards hope.