Page 44 of Beneath the Dirt

My blood turns cold.

No. He couldn’t have been here.

I look to the window, the only glass that isn’t shattered in the entire bathroom.

If he were here last night, that means that my dream wasn’t a dream… and that the pills are losing their magic. They aren’t helping me like they used to.

But why now?

What the fuck does he want from me?

Why can’t he let what happened go?

I have.

Why. Can’t. He?

Still trying to process this, I reach for my necklace, but as my fingertips graze my neck, all I feel is fire. Ripples of flames dancing like they did the night of the haunt. Thirteen years ago. On Halloween. I close my eyes, taking a deep breath in, but my feelings have now escalated to a vision of Harlan on his knees. Licking me. Fucking consuming me. His tongue so deep inside of me that he was practically choking.

My pussy pulses at the memory.

No.

I can’t do this.

I reach for my chain, needing to feel the pentagram in my grip, but my palm is empty. My lids jolt open, I peer down, and there’s no pendant… no necklace to be found.

You motherfucker.

He not only broke in, he ruined my bathroom and took the only thing I have left of my mother.

Finally entering the conversation, I interrupt Beth’s spiral.

“I need to go. I’ll be in touch, okay? I need to go home.”

She hesitates, confused. “Home? I thought you were home.”

No, and that’s the fucking problem.

“Are you…?” Beth begins, but I hang up the phone and go to grab my car keys from the kitchen.

As I reach for them on the countertop, I see an aged newspaper article next to the bowl I keep my keys in. My stomach drops the closer I inch towards it. Its headline glaring at me.

“Local haunt closed after multiple reports of … “

I stop reading, taking the article and crumpling it though as I do, something sticky and red steals my attention on the backside. Slowly, I turn it over and flatten the scrunched paper.

Another message. This one undeniably Harlan’s doing. Clearly, he took the olive branch I tried to extend to him and saw it as a sign to mess with me. Something my church boy would never do, but I suppose, as much as it pains me to admit, his dad got one thing right in his Devil’s Night service all those years ago.

“All it takes is one moment of temptation. Just one taste of what the enemy has to offer and even the best of men can be transformed into the evil incarnate.”

I was the enemy. The taste Harlan needed to take all that was good in him and throw it all away. Not to be like me… to be worse.

I throw the newspaper article in a ball to the ground, becoming incensed all over again. This is not what I had in mind when I wrote him that letter. I reached out to put an end to the divide that has grown with each passing year. I don’t understand why he’s still so angry. Did he seriously think that because we shared a moment, a fucking hot one at that, that I would be his forever?

That night at Heathen’s Cross, the drugs, all of it, was just a temporary escape. I didn’t literally mean that I would escape with him like he wanted forever. At least for me, the one silver lining is that his dad offered me a way out, to go live with my grandparents, and now that they’ve passed this house I’ve built my life in alone, is mine.

I don’t need him.

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