The Things We Bury Never Truly Die

The first time I saw my sister after her funeral, she was standing in our kitchen, making coffee.

It was 3:17 in the morning.

I knew the time because I'd been staring at the clock for hours, unable to sleep. It had been exactly eleven months since the accident, and I still couldn't close my eyes without hearing the police officer's voice.

I'm sorry. There were no survivors.

But there she was.

Same dark curls. Same crooked smile. Same faded blue sweater she'd stolen from me years ago.

"Morning, Laura," she said, reaching for the sugar.

My fingers went numb. The glass of water in my hand slipped and shattered against the floor.

She turned around.

"What's wrong?"

I couldn't breathe.

"Barbara?"

She smiled. "Who else?"

I stumbled backward, gripping the doorframe.

"I thought you were dead."

Her smile disappeared.

For a moment, neither of us moved.

Then she looked down at herself, as though noticing something strange about her own body.

"Dead?" she whispered.

My eyes filled with tears. "We buried you, Barbara. I watched them lower your coffin into the ground."

She stared at me.

Then, slowly, she shook her head.

"No," she said. "Laura, that's not possible."

"Why?"

Her voice trembled.

"Because I remember burying you."

The kitchen fell silent.

Somewhere upstairs, a floorboard creaked.

Barbara's face went pale.

"Laura," she whispered, "don't turn around."

But I already had.

Standing in the doorway was our mother.

She looked exactly as she had the day we buried her, three years before the accident.

Except now, she was smiling.

"Oh, girls," she said softly. "You're remembering again."

And behind her, from the darkness of the hallway, came the sound of dozens of footsteps.

Our mother sighed.

"I really wish you'd stop digging your way out."

The Things Beneath the House

I couldn't move.

My mother stood in the doorway, wearing the same yellow dress she'd been buried in. Her hair was neatly pinned back, and her hands were folded in front of her.

She looked alive.

But something about her smile was wrong.

"Mom?" I whispered.

"Hello, sweetheart."

Barbara grabbed my wrist.

"Don't listen to her."

Our mother's smile widened.

"Now, Barbara. That's no way to speak to your mother."

The footsteps behind her grew louder.

One step.

Two.

Three.

Then they stopped.

"What's happening?" I asked.

Mom tilted her head. "You've been remembering things you shouldn't."

Barbara tightened her grip on my wrist.

"Laura, we need to go. Now."

She pulled me toward the back door, but before we could reach it, Mom spoke again.

"Do you really want to know what happened the night of the accident?"

Barbara froze.

I turned around.

"Tell me."

"Laura, don't," Barbara begged.

Mom took a step into the kitchen.

"Eleven months ago, you and your sister were driving home from a party. It was raining. The road was slippery."

I remembered that.

The headlights.

The sharp curve.

Barbara screaming my name.

Then darkness.

"You hit a tree," Mom continued. "The car caught fire. By the time the ambulance arrived, it was too late."

My throat tightened.

"So we both died?"

Mom nodded.

"Then how are we here?"

Her expression softened.

"Because I couldn't bear to lose you."

The kitchen lights flickered.

"After I died, I discovered something beneath this house. Something older than the town itself. Something that could bring people back."

Barbara shook her head.

"That's not what happened."

Mom's smile vanished.

"Barbara."

"No." My sister stepped in front of me. "You don't get to lie anymore."

She turned toward me.

"Laura, listen carefully. Mom didn't bring us back."

A cold sensation crawled down my spine.

"Then who did?"

Barbara's eyes filled with tears.

"You did."

The floor beneath us trembled.

I stared at her.

"What?"

Barbara swallowed.

"You don't remember because she keeps taking your memories."

Mom's voice became sharp.

"Enough."

But Barbara kept talking.

"After the accident, you woke up in the morgue. You were alone, Laura. You were terrified. And you wanted me back so badly that you started calling for me."

"Stop it, Barbara!" Mom screamed.

"You called for three days. And something heard you."

The lights went out.

For one terrible second, the kitchen was completely dark.

Then a voice came from beneath the floorboards.

Laura.

It sounded like a little girl.

Laura, you promised.

I stumbled backward.

"What is that?"

Barbara was crying now.

"The thing that answered you."

A long crack split the kitchen floor.

Something underneath began scratching at the wood.

Mom dropped to her knees.

"Please," she whispered toward the floor. "Not yet."

The scratching stopped.

Then came three slow knocks.

Knock.

Knock.

Knock.

Mom looked up at me.

For the first time, she looked genuinely afraid.

"Laura," she said, "how many people have you seen in this house tonight?"

I frowned.

"You. Barbara. Me."

Mom closed her eyes.

"Oh, God."

"What?"

She began to cry.

"There's only supposed to be two."

Barbara released my wrist.

I looked at her.

Her face had changed.

Not dramatically. Just enough that I noticed her eyes were darker than before.

Almost black.

"Barbara?"

She smiled.

The same crooked smile.

The one I'd recognized the moment I entered the kitchen.

"Don't look at me like that, Laura."

I backed away.

"Who are you?"

She laughed softly.

"You called me."

The floorboards beneath her feet began to buckle.

"You cried for your sister. You begged the darkness to give her back."

Her smile stretched wider.

"So I came."

Mom crawled toward me.

"Laura, get away from her!"

But the thing wearing Barbara's face was already moving.

Its hand closed around my wrist.

The skin was ice-cold.

"Do you want to know the funniest part?" it whispered.

I couldn't speak.

It leaned closer.

"Your real sister never died in that accident."

My heart stopped.

"What?"

"She survived. She woke up in the hospital three days later."

Tears blurred my vision.

"Then where is she?"

The thing smiled.

"She's been trying to get into this house for eleven months."

Suddenly, someone began pounding on the front door.

"Laura!"

A woman's voice.

My sister's voice.

"LAURA, DON'T OPEN THE BASEMENT!"

I looked down.

The kitchen floor was splitting open.

A staircase was appearing beneath the broken boards, descending into a darkness that seemed to stretch forever.

And from somewhere deep below, hundreds of voices began whispering my name.

The thing holding my wrist bent close to my ear.

"Too late," it said.

Then the front door burst open.

A woman stood there, soaked from the rain, with a long scar across her forehead.

Barbara.

My real sister.

She was holding a photograph.

In it, two little girls stood beside our mother in the garden.

I recognized Barbara immediately.

But the other girl wasn't me.

I stared at the picture.

"Who is that?"

Barbara looked at me with absolute horror.

"Laura," she whispered, "that's the girl who disappeared from this house twenty years ago."

My mouth went dry.

"That's impossible. I'm nineteen."

Barbara shook her head.

"No."

She turned the photograph over.

Written on the back, in our mother's handwriting, were five words-

LAURAINA LADY, AGE SEVEN. 1998.

My name.

My face.

Twenty-eight years ago.

And suddenly, I remembered something.

Not the car accident.

Not the funeral.

Something much worse.

I remembered the basement.

I remembered my mother locking the door.

And I remembered the little girl on the other side, crying and begging me to let her out.

Because I wasn't the girl in the photograph.

I was the thing that had taken her place.

And somewhere beneath the house, the real Laura had finally woken up.

Part 2 editor.reedsy.com/s/Ni9IlFd