Page 3 of Beneath the Dirt

“Because you made me who I am.”

“A villain?” She pants as I continue to thrust into her, rough and attentive.

“No, little sister. The ending you deserve.”

“Memoriesare like quicksand. They suck you in with their nostalgia. Giving your heart something to cling onto. But eventually the lie fades and reality takes you hostage, making you a victim of the truth you spun, just to live another day pretending to be whole.”

— A.H. Charon. The Horrors We Endure. New York: Charon Press, 2024.

News Report

“Good evening, I’m Joan Lantz reporting for Channel Seven News here with my colleague Victor Price. Reports have come in about a missing person who was last seen making a purchase at the Halloween Shop on Main Street. You can find their name as well as what they were last seen wearing on the bottom of the screen and on our website. Please, if you have seen or have any information that can help local authorities locate them, don’t hesitate to call the number provided. As many of you know, our small town of Mort, New York has been the decade-long target for a string of unusual disappearances. With yet another disappearance, it is not ruled out yet that it could be linked to the Samhain Killer. The pattern appears to be the same, and since it’s been a year since the last disappearance that sadly turned into the discovery of Pastor Rainey’s wife, found mutilated in a cornfield near their home, authorities are asking that if you are out celebrating, please be extra cautious of your surroundings.”

“Yes, and to add on to what Joan has just reported, I would advise against any and all travel near Summerland Drive, while you’re at it. Call me superstitious, but if we are to admit that our town is cursed, I think it’s safe to say that place is the epicenter of our undoing.”

“Sadly, Victor, I would have to agree with you. Stay safe everyone, and for those brave enough to still celebrate, have a Happy Halloween and Samhain.”

One

“Stay away from her,”Dad warns, handing me a set of keys. “I mean it, stay the hell away from her,” he reiterates his point, unknowingly aware of how his warning torments me. I wish it were that easy. I wish staying away from the girl whose room is across from mine—who took on our last name when her mom married my dad—was that easy. But nothing with my stepsister is ever easy; not dealing with her and certainly not avoiding her.

He glances at the keys he just gave me. “And she’s not to have access to those under any circumstances.” There’s more venom in his voice than there usually is when he’s talking about Araceli. I wonder what she did this time to have him practically vibrating with anger—not like that’s a difficult task. Whenever Dad is outside the church walls, he’s anything but the godly and jovial pastor he pretends to be. Unlike Araceli, I learned early on that to exist under his roof and to avoid his temper, it’s easier to die unto oneself. Kind of how he preaches about what we should do towards God. Except he isn’t God. He’s a tyrant. Which Araceli would argue to be the same thing.

But in order to survive in this house, I learned a long time ago that you must deny yourself of whatever it is that makes yousomething he can’t understand. The wrath that comes with his fear is a punishment most could never wrap their heads around, so it's best to play his game, if for nothing else, but to gain some semblance of peace. Something I clearly need to teach Araceli.

“Got it.” I slip the keys into my back pocket.

A whiff of tobacco blazes past my nostrils as Dad moves past me. A slew of bad memories filter through a part of my mind I’ve tried to keep suppressed, but the stench is too strong, and the wounds, incapable of healing, make my mouth move faster than my mind can stop it. “Back to smoking?”

Dad grabs his bible, chuckling at my question. “Something like that,” he replies, cryptic…cold. His boots thud against the floorboards as he heads to the front door, though he stops near me first. “I wouldn’t be forced to pick up bad habits again if you kids had an ounce of respect for me.”

More words—obscenities mostly—swirl through my mind, wanting to be let out of the floodgates of my mouth, but I keep it closed. It’s not worth it. So, I suppress it. Just like I do every fucking thing in my life.

Suppress my thoughts.

My words.

My needs.

Mydesires.

All of it is kept locked inside the torture chamber that is my mind and body. All so I keep this man in front of me happy. All so I continue to feed into the illusion of being the respectable pastor’s son that I’m tired of being.

“I mean it. She isn’t to get ahold of those keys or access to—” he’s interrupted by his phone ringing, and the shift in his demeanor as his thumb slides on the screen to answer is striking.

The confident line his shoulders made as he stood upright just moments before are now stiff and full of apprehension. “Yes?” he answers, voice stern and uncomfortable. “That’s impossible, it’s my property.” Confusion mars his face as a sigh leaves his lips. “I can’t tomorrow; it’s the—” he stops talking, abundantly awarethat I’m listening. He clears his throat, adjusting his tone. “Just hold on one second,” he says to whoever is on the other line. He places the mouthpiece to his shoulder, averting his gaze back to me. “I mean it, Harlan. Over the next few days, it’s paramount that we don’t feed into the cries of the enemy.”

My eyes strain from how hard I’m trying not to roll them. For a second, I’m not sure if the enemy he’s referring to is the Devil or Araceli.

He continues talking to me through a hushed whisper, clearly not wanting whoever he has on the phone to hear. “Stay away from her. Don’t give her the keys and don’t you dare allow her to fill your head with her lies.”

I nod, this time mouthing to him, “Got it,” but Dad’s attention isn’t on my face any longer.

His gaze has traveled down to my wrists. The healed white lines burn beneath his judgmental stare, even as they are concealed under my long sleeves. “She’s done enough damage already,” he scoffs with disgust. It’s comical how he thinks Araceli’s presence in our family is capable of causing such damage—as he puts it. He blames her for everything, ranging from why I resorted to inflicting pain on myself to why I got kicked out of college. None of it, with the exception of the getting kicked out part, is her fault. She may have asked me to get her the pills, but I was the one who agreed. She didn’t force me to do it, and it wasn’t her fault that I went about it wrong, got caught, and then expelled before I could drive back home and give them to her. I was broken long before she came into our lives. Now, he just hates that he has two broken souls to deal with and has to put his theology degree to work.

“Whatever,” I mumble, knowing he can’t hear me. His attention is back on his phone conversation. He resumes speaking, hushed, into his phone as he leaves to head to the church he had built on the other side of what is now our property. For years, the lot on the other side of the graveyard that separates the desolate acreage we live on remained abandoned. Until Dad found a wayto scrounge the funds to purchase it, turning our home into the birthplace of his pride and joy. Sacred Promises Church.

Relief spreads through my every vein, just like it always does when he leaves. Finally, I can breathe. I stand and wait for his silhouette to disappear as it blends in with the dusk skyline before I head to where I know Araceli is.

---