Page 20 of Follow Her Down
Red Hands thinks he’s revealing truth.All I see is another mask—the one worn by the monster hiding behind a gas station counter and leering smiles.
Time to peel it back.
9
Sera
I’mburiedalive,andit’s the most peaceful I’ve felt in years.
Dirt fills my mouth, gritty between my teeth.My lungs burn for air they can’t have.I press my palms against the wooden ceiling of my coffin, feeling splinters drive under my fingernails as I claw at it.The pain is exquisite, real in a way nothing else has been sincehetook everything from me.
I should be screaming, though no one would hear me six feet under.Instead, my lips curve into a smile around the soil in my mouth.
This is where I belong.
The thought arrives with perfect clarity.Down here in the dark, with the earth pressing in from all sides, I am exactly where I should be.Not hunting.Not hiding.Not pretending to be someone I’m not.
Just buried, waiting.Just becoming something new beneath the surface.
My fingernails peel back as I scrape harder at the wood.Blood mingles with dirt.The pain sharpens everything—my thoughts, my purpose, my hunger for what comes next.
I wake not with a gasp, but with a smile and a thin sheen of sweat coating my skin.
The bedroom is dark, but not as dark as my dream.My sheets are damp, twisted around my legs like restraints.For a moment, I lie perfectly still, letting the feeling of being buried linger in my muscles, in my bones.
Then I hear it.
Scratching, faint but persistent, like fingernails dragging across old wood.It’s coming from below, from the sealed basement door I still haven’t opened.
I’ve been in this house for nearly a week now, and each night, the sounds from the basement grow more insistent.Sometimes it’s scratching.Sometimes it’s a low, rhythmic thumping, like a heartbeat.Sometimes it’s a whisper so quiet I can’t make out any of the words.
My shadow daddy visits me most nights, his presence slipping through vents and under doors.Sometimes he brings me to shuddering orgasms with his cold touch or another wine bottle or my loaded gun.Other times he just watches, a deeper patch of darkness in the corner of my room.
The scratching grows louder, more frantic.Then, suddenly—
KNOCK.
One hard, deliberate sound that absolutely does not come from the basement.It echoes through the house, bouncing off walls and settling in my chest.
The front door.Someone is at my front door at—I check the clock—8:17 in the morning.
I slide out of bed and pull on an oversized T-shirt that barely covers my ass, but I can’t find my panties.Oh well.
I do find my gun, though, and I carry it with me.
The scratching from the basement has stopped.The whole house seems to be holding its breath, waiting.
I pad barefoot down the stairs, my free hand trailing along the banister for balance.The knocking doesn’t come again.
At the front door, I hesitate.Through the peephole, I see nothing.Just my empty porch, lit by the rising sun.No figure waiting.
Still, I lift my gun, unlock the door, and open it a crack, tense and ready to slam it shut again or start shooting, just in case.
The porch is really empty.
Wait, no, not quite empty.
On the porch sits a black velvet box, about the size of a shoebox, tied with a crimson ribbon.The bow is perfect, each loop symmetrical, as if someone spent a long time getting it just right.
