Better Left Buried (28 page)

Her gut told her he was murdered.

The rain had slowed to a drizzle by the time either Brea or Jaxon spoke.

“You okay?” he asked, leaning up on his elbow.

She nodded, feeling both satisfied and fragile. He’d been gentle, careful, and stopped the second she so much as winced.

“I am
.” As first times go, she couldn’t have asked for someone more caring.

“You still want to drive?” He traced her jawline with his fingertip and
kissed her. “Looks like the rain’s almost over.” He sat up and his confident easiness made her feel less self-conscious.

“Sure?”
Her answer came out more like a question than a statement. She reached for her clothes in a wet pile on the floor, banging her elbow on the door and her knee on the back of the driver’s seat. Her shirt and pants were soaked, wrinkled from being in a ball, and there was no way they were going on easy.

“Wait a minute. Hang on.” Jaxon reached
into the back for the bag he said was for when he either didn’t want to go home or for when he wanted to go to the gym. “These won’t be warm, but they’ll probably work.” He handed her a pair of drawstring shorts and a dry t-shirt, taking a pair of jeans and a shirt for himself.

She leaned forward and ran her hand along the seat behind her.

“What are you looking for?”

She shrugged.
“My socks?”

He found one, but the other had disappeared.

“Here. You’re going to want dry ones anyway.” He handed her a pair of black socks that hung an inch over the edge of her toes. She slipped into the outfit he’d given her, smiling at just how bad the fit was and laughing when she bumped her knee, elbow, and head a second time.

“You’re
really bad at this,” he said, laughing.

She smirked and rolled her eyes. “I’m not used to dressing in the back seat of a car.”

“One of the many things I love about you.”

Love.
She could have sworn her heart stopped when he said it.

“Now I really feel like a goof.” The shorts hung past her knees and if it weren’t for the drawstring there was no way they’d stay up. “These fit you?” She couldn’t believe there was
that
much of a size difference between them.

“They’re a little big, but they’re basketball shorts. They’re supposed to be roomy.”

She cinched the strings until the waistband folded up like an accordion and put on the shirt. The cotton smelled like him and she inhaled deeply, an action she knew she’d repeat over and over again that night. She stepped into her wet sneakers, which almost instantly soaked her dry socks, and climbed into the driver’s seat. Jaxon dressed in seconds, clearly better at back seat changing than she was. She tried not to think too hard about that as she familiarized herself with the foreign third foot pedal.

“Ready?”
He climbed into the passenger’s seat and wiped the fogged windows with his damp shirt.

She nodded, putting her left foot on the clutch and feeling a dull, reminding ache
between her legs. “Ready.” It was a day of firsts.

“Okay. You’re going to push the clutch in with your left foot and turn the key. Keep your right foot on the brake.”

The clutch was harder to push than she expected so she adjusted the seat to sit closer. “Got it.”

“Now’s the hard part.”
He turned on the defrosters and the headlights, catching the attention of a teacher heading toward the faculty lot. “You’re going to put your foot on the gas and as you push the gas pedal down, you’re going to let off the clutch.” He made a corresponding motion with his hands—one pressing down, the other lifting up.

Sounds easy enough.

She lightly pressed the accelerator and not so gently lifted her foot off the clutch. The Jeep bucked and lunged, shaking the car violently before stalling it.

Jaxon put on his seatbelt and tightened it. “Okay. Let’s try that again.
Harder on the gas, easier on the clutch.”

Brea
tightened her own seatbelt, restarted the Jeep, and tried again. She hit the gas harder as she felt the clutch grab and the Jeep shot forward a few feet. She jerked the wheel and Jaxon laughed.

“Thank God the parking lot is empty.
One more time.”

Brea
told herself third time was a charm, and to some extent it was. She’d managed to drive in first gear for about twenty feet, but stalled again when she couldn’t get into second.

“I can’t do this,” she said.

“Yes you can. It’s not hard. You just have to get the feel of the clutch. Try again. You feel that little kick at the end? That springiness?” She nodded. “When you feel that, press the gas.”

She did what he said and this time, managed to shift to second. She kept her eye on the tachometer, watching the RPMs rise, and shift
ed into third around 3,000.

“See, you’re getting it. Now stop and start back up again.”

She took a lap around the abandoned senior lot. “I don’t want to.” First gear was her nemesis.

“I can’t let you drive on the road if you can’t stop and go again.”

Technically he shouldn’t let her drive on the road at all, but his was a loose interpretation of the laws of permits and licenses. She applied the brake and shifted back into first. The Jeep bucked and sputtered, but she saved it and managed another lap.

Jaxon held his stomach
, puffed out his cheeks like he was going to be sick, and laughed. “See. I told you that you could do it.” He made a circle in the air with his finger for her to go again. He gripped both sides of his seat for effect.

She took a deep breath, emboldened by her increasing ability, and went again, only this time the shifter stuck and made a terrible noise
when she tried to ease into second. She pressed the clutch again, then the brake, and the gas. Suddenly nothing made sense. She couldn’t remember how to shift, but kept trying anyway.

Jaxon laughed, her panic apparently hilarious, and took his cell phone
from the center console.

His moving around was getting her flustered and she stalled out again.
“What are you doing?”

“Calling my father to tell him to let the mechanic know I’ll be in for a new clutch.”
He was laughing so hard he was crying.

She couldn’t be mad, not with him so hysterical. She applied the emergency brake and made a motion with her hands like an umpire
calling “safe”. “That’s it. I give up. I’m done for today.”

Jaxon set
his hand on her bare leg and his attempt at a reassuring smile came off as a grimace. “But you were getting the hang of it.” His tone said she definitely wasn’t and the following burst of laughter sent her over the edge.

“Okay, that’s it. I quit. I officially declare myself meant to drive an auto
matic.” She turned the key to “Off”. “And I’m making a new rule: one new thing a day. You got me?” She was trying to sound serious, but was laughing, too. His mood was contagious.

“Oh, all right. You’re off the hook for now.” He
kissed her cheek. “I’ll take over this once, but next time you’re driving.”

She smirked and kissed him back. “We’ll see about that.”

Harmony replaced the master bedroom bedding with fresh sheets and blankets from the linen closet; ones which somehow managed to escape the dust, mold, and moisture, but smelled decidedly earthy. She should have done it earlier because whatever had been on the other ones irritated her nose and throat. She took some ancient expired cold medicine and fell asleep faster than she had in years.

“Hurry, come on.” Her father waves for her to run to him.

“Tom, I said ‘no’.” Her mother stands
on the front porch with her hands on her hips. “She’s been a handful all day. The last thing she needs is sugar to rile her up.”

“
Pleeeeease.” She tugs at the hem of her mother’s sauce-stained apron, begging to go.

The
Camaro’s red paint sparkles in the sunlight, a cool breeze raining red and yellow leaves from the tree it sits parked under. The air smells of dirt and the garden overflows with mums. It’s fall. From the pumpkins carved on the porch, near Halloween.

“What if I let you come, too?” Her father winks, his lewd expression and eyebrow wagging the closest a man might have to a ‘come hither’ stare.

“Oh, you’ll ‘let’ me, huh?” Her mother throws his words back at him with a coy smile. “I have too much to do, Tom.”

“Then let me take her. We don’t get nearly as much time together as I’d like.” Her fath
er opens the passenger’s side door, pushing aside the straps of a pink booster seat. “It’s the last day of the ice cream year, hon. Let the kid have some sprinkles.”

“Sprinkles!
Sprinkles! Sprinkles!”

“Fine, okay.
But just a kiddie size, Tom. She needs to eat dinner.”

Harmony
couldn’t run to her father fast enough.

Bang!

A
slamming door pulled her back from the first good dream she’d had in months. She looked around the dark room, wanting to be that happy little girl again instead of whatever dark thing she awoke as. The cold medicine magnified her temporary confusion about her unfamiliar surroundings.

“Hello?” She fumbled with the box of strike anywhere matches on the nightstand and lit the nub of
the emergency candle she’d been reading her mother’s journal by.

B
ang!

Harmony
hung her bare feet over the side of the bed, feeling for the slippers she had found in the closet and had  been wearing ever since. Her big toe caught on the matted fur and as she maneuvered her foot into it, she knocked the left shoe under the bed.

“Great
.”

She held the candle close to the ground, lifted the bed skirt
, and quickly grabbed the slipper. There was nothing under the bed except for dust, hair, and a baseball bat on the other side. She scurried around the bed, grabbed the bat, and checked the time on her cell phone: 2:34.

“Shit.”

An intruder was the least of her problems.

She set the bat
against her shoulder, holding the candle in her other hand as she crept down the dark hallway.

“Hello?” It had started
raining again, the sound faint on the tarp that was already leaking. “Is somebody here?”

The front door swung in on its hinges, having been boarded up only from the outside.

Bang! Bang!

She walked
to the door, the floor giving more with each step, and slammed it shut.

Bang!

She wouldn’t believe it if she hadn’t see
n the knob turn by itself. She sniffed the air, which smelled of burnt wood, like a camp fire, but that was impossible.

T
here was nothing close by except razed land and construction.

The sound of heavy breathing filled the air, louder than
the rain on the tarp and loud enough to be heard over the banging door. Dust and mold swirled in the candle’s glow.

“Hello?”

A cloud-like apparition stormed through the front door and charged a second vague form standing in the kitchen. A third, much smaller ball of white light and outstretched hands, scurried down the hall fast enough that Harmony felt a breeze on the back of her legs.

She couldn’t will herself to move.

“Hello? Someone please answer me.”

None of the three forms acknowledged her as the violent scene played out.
She assigned roles to each ball of energy: Charity, Tom, and young Harmony.

A struggle ensued, her mother
fought off her father, clawing and scratching at his face. Little girl Harmony cowered in the corner, screaming into the wind.

The clock on the wall said 2:34, the time the fight had broken out.

Harmony set down the candle to cover her ears. “Please, no.”

Her father moved forward, the pointed shape of a
blade extending from his hand. He buried the knife into her mother’s side.

“Stop!”
Harmony’s screams meant nothing. She didn’t exist in their world.

Her mother forced her father backward, pushing him far enough that Harmony could have reached out and touched him. The basement door swung open and several loud sounds followed. Her mother stood in the doorway, staring down into the darkness. The little girl clung to her, pleading. Harmony forced herself to move, standing behind the white energy and shining the candle light through them. Her father lay lifeless at the bottom of the stairs. Tears streamed down her cheeks. She wept
as she remembered the night she had forced herself to forget.

“Mom, no.”

There was no use protesting. Residual hauntings were unalterable; tragic energy played out on a never-ending loop. This particular night, no doubt, had replayed in that house for years, most likely why her mother had run from it.