Welcome to Death

It was dark where they buried me. The cold, damp soil clung to my torn clothes as if it was terrified to let go. Worms and maggots wriggled their way through the dirt looking for any orifice to call their new home. My ears, my nose, my mouth. It was a bittersweet feeling to know that even after death, the body could still grow new life. Just not yours.

I had told myself that once it was all over, the pain would go away. I would finally be free as spirits were. I would get to move on and experience the afterlife. It’s interesting how people can convince themselves of delusions in moments of fear.

I heard the thumping of feet on stairs before I saw the ground begin to shake. I had always told him that the great force of his feet could cause an earthquake. He had laughed with me, his eyes twinkling as they always did, his arms pulling me closer for a kiss. It was only after death, that I finally understood what that twinkling truly meant.

Voices from above pulled me from my thoughts and I strained to listen.

“What are you doing home so late?” the mother asked. “And what is that all over your shoes? Boy, if you drag that mess through this house, I swear,”.

One would think there was more to that sentence, but there wasn’t. In all the time I had known her, she had never finished that threat. Him and I used to laugh about that. Now I wished she would do more than just finish her sentence. I wished she would make good on that threat.

“Yes mama,” he said, followed by the thud of boots hitting the floor. “I’ll clean them in the morning. It’s too cold out now,”.

I almost laughed despite my jaw being frozen open in an eternal scream. Of course, now he cared about the weather. He didn’t care when his hands were wrapped around my throat, my nails scratching his skin, begging to be let free. Nor did he care when he scooped the first shovel full of dirt on top of my body, my eyes still wet and my blood still warm. But when it came to cleaning up his own shit? Oh lord, have mercy on his soul. Not that he had one.

I could hear his bare feet pounding up the steps to his room, his door shutting. I expected to hear crying or screaming, at least the hitch in his breath that meant he felt something. Instead, he turned on his damn music. Too loud, just as he had always liked it.

I urged my icy body to move. To crawl up from the ground and emerge like a zombie in a cheesy horror movie. I wanted to storm into his mother’s house, my blood dripping all over her freshly cleaned floors, slam his door open and reenact my murder just for him. Though this time, he would play the part that I had never asked to play, the role I never wanted, and I would force him to feel the pain that I went through and so much more. I was filled with a fury I had never felt before, a passion like no other, and yet my body did not move. Rigomortis has an interesting way of halting people from getting their revenge.

It was then that I truly broke down. I was not coming back, not now, not ever, and there was nothing I could do about it for I was trapped inside my own body while my killer roamed free. I wanted to cry but my tear ducts no longer worked. I wanted to scream but I had long run out of air.

Death is not what people describe it as in the movies. It is the cold, depressing reality that everyone you have ever loved will move on without you. And in my case, they will move on without ever knowing what happened to me. It is not uncommon anymore for people to go missing. My story is one of thousands that will never be shown the light of day. I wonder if the others felt like this. Alone and afraid. And angry. So very angry.

And as the seasons changed and the search parties stopped and gave up, I wondered if I would ever feel anything else. The answer I found was no. Nothing stops the fury from boiling up in your chest. Not even death.

It was a pleasant summer night, many moons after my passing, when I first saw her. A nice breeze filled the air. One that simply chilled instead of freezed. She wore a dress just above her knees, the plaited purple fabric shifting in the wind in time with her hair. She was blonde, so blonde that it could not have been natural. Her hair reminded me of snow and I just knew that it would stain terribly. He held her hand in his, guiding her towards the field behind the house, his tone light and his smile warm. Perhaps a smarter girl would have seen past the ruse, but then again no one ever really expects people to be evil. They might be mean or maybe even cruel, but not evil. The eyes see only what they want to see. Soon though, I feared, her eyes would see nothing at all.

The pair gazed at the stars, embracing each other, in a way I remembered much too well. It wasn’t long until they began their acts of passion, encouraged by the darkness of the night where no one could see them but me. They kept quiet of course, his hand covering her mouth to muffle the sounds, gently until it wasn’t. She must have been thinking about how much he loved her when his eyes began to twinkle. It made the most sense afterall. If only I could have shouted to her, I would have told her that he is not capable of loving anyone. That the only thing he has ever truly loved is power. Maybe then, she would have gotten away.

It was easy to wrap his other hand around her throat when she was already underneath him, her screams lost in his palm as she realized what was happening. The knife gleamed in the moonlight as he pulled it out of his pocket, careful to only do so after he was confident that she did not have enough air to scream. It was not a particularly long knife, but it was long enough to hurt. It was enough to kill.

The awful squelching sound of her blood being ripped from her made its way past my dirt filled ears, turning her once white hair a terrible shade of pink as I knew it would. He could have stopped at one stab, but the fear in her eyes fueled his ego too much.

Eventually, he dragged her over to me, sitting her up and forcing her to watch him dig her grave as she bled out, too weak to do anything but continue dying slowly. Her mouth opened as mine had when he threw her into the pit, though unlike mine a noise came out. A high keening noise cut off by the sound of a shovel cracking skull. He cursed and waited for a sign that anyone had heard. Had he been a smarter man, he would have seen the slow lighting of a lantern brighten the ground, he would have heard the sound of a shotgun being loaded, but power makes people dumb. It is experience that makes people wise, and lord did his mother have a lot of it.

“Drop the shovel,” came the mother’s voice, the barrel of her gun aimed at his head, her eyes wide with shock but her hands steady.

He let out a choked laugh like someone had forced it out of him. “Mama what the hell are you doing? Put the gun down,”. He reached for the barrel but the mother was quicker. She smacked his blood soaked hands away with her weapon and recentered it back on his head. He backed away from her, shovel still in hand. “Mama you’re acting crazy. Maybe I should call for some help,”.

“I’m not going to play with you. Put the shovel down or I swear I will pull this trigger,” the mother said, inching forward. “I’ve known men like you and it has never ended well for them. What makes you think this will be different?”.

The twinkle in his eyes finally vanished as he realized just how serious she was. He no longer held any power, she was in control. And so he did the stupidest thing he could have done. He ran.

BANG!

The sound of his body hitting the ground was deafening, his head hit a rock with a wonderful cracking sound and his blood began to cover the ground. The ground that had just been covered in her blood, and before that mine, and before that who knows how many others.

The mother ran over to him, gun still raised, and gently nudged him with her boot. His body rolled at the small touch revealing his lifeless face, forever fearful. She let out a shaky breath and barely audible she whispered, “Please God, forgive me,”. And then she was running, her bare hands clawing at the dirt, lungs heaving, as distant sirens wailed. She pulled the girl to her chest, cradling her like a baby, her hands catching as much blood as they could, and though the girl’s chest looked broken, there was still faint movement there as her lungs worked overtime to keep her alive.

Soon, the sirens became closer, and the girl was rushed away. The mother watched her go before completely breaking down, after all it was her son that hurt the girl.

In the days following, the ground below the house was entirely dug up, and my body was unearthed. Much to my surprise, I was not the only body found. There were many of us. Each with lives taken from us and stories untold, finally being seen.

We were given proper burials with headstones so people knew who was underneath them. Those whom we loved were given the chance to mourn us and our souls were able to be free from our bodies. Many of the victims’ souls moved on to whatever comes next, but mine stayed put, waiting.

It was a cool August day when I saw her again, her spirit rising from the ground as her family weeped around her. Fear and confusion was etched across her face as she tried to hug them. To comfort them. It was then that I knew what I was waiting for.

She watched me as I made my way to her, her body rigid with apprehension until I stuck my hand out and uttered the first words I had said in a very long time.

“Welcome to death,”.