Bury Me Low

ACT ONE

He had fucked her. That much was true. He would fuck her multiple times over the course of her life, and while her family knew, they did nothing to try and stop him. Her father had tried at first, finding a knife to the gut and a broken jaw to be the end result of such heroics. After he was let out of the hospital, he never tried to intervene again. He would look at his daughter with sorrow in his eyes before eventually leaving, stepping out of her life whenever she was twelve and never returning. Even though she hated him for it, she couldn’t quite blame him, either. If she had a chance to leave, she would take it, too. It was already too late for her, however, and she knew that. She’d known that ever since the first time anything happened. The first time anything nonconsensual happened.

So, if she had any sort of voice at all, she would not be here. Leave it to her family to force her to go to such a hellish function. The dress she wore was tight and uncomfortable, and even though she wanted nothing more than to stay out of everyone’s line of sight, she found herself nodding off sympathetic smiles and silent pities thrown her way. Disgusting. All of them. None more so than the corpse that lay innocently in its casket, however, eyes forever closed and forever unquestioned. She wanted to vomit. Her mind was in such a daze that she hardly realized when someone reached out to hand her what looked like a little black book. She shook her head while glancing upwards, noticing the man as her grandfather’s lawyer. The man gave her a smile, completely oblivious to the gasoline he was pouring onto the fire. Slowly, she reached out, taking the book without nodding or speaking, or even acknowledging the lawyer’s existence further. Opening the light flap to reveal a small statement written by her grandfather whenever he was alive, she almost doubled over in agony whenever she realized she’d been left twenty thousand dollars.

Twenty thousand, she thought bitterly. That sick son of a bitch…

It took her a moment to realize that her mother was now standing next to her, staring down with wide eyes at the statement that lay before them. The old woman’s hand gingerly touched her daughter’s shoulder, and, whether it was for her own selfish interest or not, she whispered, “You deserve it, dear.”

I deserve a lot more than this.

She slowly turned her head to gaze into her mother’s dull eyes, something about the lighting of the room and the plethora of people that made her stomach drop and her knees shake. She made a move to reply but found that her mouth no longer worked. Her breathing hitched. Her heart stopped. Darkness began creeping from the corners of her eyes until she was stuck in a fog. A fog that would transport her from her current reality and into some sort of nightmare.

ACT TWO

He was touching her again, and she was screaming. Crying. Kicking. Sobbing. Throughout the entire time, their unfortunate endeavor was underway, she never gave up. She would continue to fight because she learned very quickly that no one else would do such a noble thing for her. She could feel the cold ground on her back. Smell the old cigars and alcohol on his breath. She could taste the salt of her own tears as they cascaded down her face like a tragic painting. Pain. The only thing she felt in those few moments was pain.

And then she was back. She was back at the funeral home. Back in the room with her extended family. Back and next to her mother, who was cooing and pressing her to just take the money. She deserved it, just take the money. Taking in a deep breath, she turned on her heel, cutting her mother off mid-sentence and storming out of the building, all the way back to her apartment. Her phone had been ringing the whole time, but she never once stopped to answer it. Even once she was safely inside her home and locked in her own room, wailing and shouting and clawing at her own hair. She didn’t answer her phone for a long while, and she didn’t dare look back at the page inside that little black book.

ACT THREE

At first, it was small things. Lights flickering. Cold spots. The feeling of being watched. Nothing too serious, and simple things that she could just brush off as her own paranoia. When her mother finally stopped calling her, she assumed she should’ve been relieved, but she wasn’t. There was no closure to the situation. Nothing to keep her mother from nagging or scolding or tormenting her for leaving before the funeral even started. That was whenever she first noticed it; that sinking feeling in her gut. And that feeling lingered forever. Or, at least, it seemed like it to her. She couldn’t recall a waking day where she didn’t feel overcome with dread or fear, and the more time passed, the worse it got.

Her apartment smelled of cigars, even though she had cleaned it from top to bottom, scrubbing away at every nook and cranny to try and be rid of the foul scent. Things escalated quickly, then. Night terrors. Different than her normal nighttime misadventures, they left her feeling utterly hopeless and listless, unable to function for the remainder of the day. The feeling of constantly being watched changed to the point where she knew she saw someone standing in her doorway, they were just there. The night all hell broke loose was the night she finally decided to look back into that little book. Staring owlishly at the twenty thousand dollars that had been left to her, she found herself somehow glued to that paper, reimagining the life she once lived. No, the life that had been torn from her. The money had been left to her by the same man who made her life a living hell. The same man who had tortured her soul and left her body in tatters. There was no way she would ever do anything with it. She shouldn’t have even brought the book home with her.

Somewhere from within her confine, the water in her bathroom sink started running. Flustered and caught off guard, she made her way to shut off the faucet, finding the water steaming aggressively by the time she reached the small room. Turning it off and glancing up briefly at her foggy mirror, she could only stifle a scream whenever she saw the silhouette of a man just behind her. Her back burned for a split second as she was seemingly pushed into the glass, shards spinning out of place and digging into her skin, nearly gauging her left eye. She whipped around, her lower back pressing uncomfortably into the sink, and gawked at the smoky figure before her. It was him.

This is impossible, she thought, barely able to make her mind work fast enough to dash out of the bathroom and towards the front door, not wasting a second of her time. And then she felt his hand. It was the same rough grasp that he’d held her in so many times before, and it was unmistakable. He was mad. No, he was beyond mad. He was enraged. His grip was unfaltering, keeping her in place and only steps from the door. She wished and fought and struggled with all of her might, finding that her skin was starting to burn uncomfortably at his touch. She screamed, trying to gain the attention of her neighbors or someone outside. The fear that congregated in her chest was greater than she had ever felt before; greater than whenever he was alive because if he was here now, it didn’t matter if he was dead or not. He would always find his way back to her, and that was what terrified her the most. The burn grew to an unreasonable extent, causing the skin around his hand to become red and agitated. Sweat slivered down her body, dampening her clothes as she continued to fight. He reached forward, clasping her neck and holding her still, finding the horror in her eyes to be absolutely exhilarating.

She was on fire. At least, that was what it felt like. She could smell her own flesh burning combined with the scent of cigars and old nightmares. Her flesh seemed to be dripping down her body, leaving her muscles to tear apart at the flames licked around her bones. Her eyes had been moist with tears at first but were now dry and wide, her corneas turning to puss and slowly dripping from out the back of her skull. She wanted to scream, now, more than anything in the world. Louder than she had ever screamed before. But she found she could not. She shouldn’t have been surprised, and maybe she wasn’t. Maybe she was just disappointed. Disappointed that she never got to be anything more. That she never escaped this demon that still tortured her, even after death. Disappointed that she never got the chance to have the life she wanted. Her heart was slowing down dramatically, now, and she felt like she should’ve been dead a long time ago. She wished that were true even more whenever the man began to pull her close, and the suffocating fire finally blew itself out.

ACT FOUR

“You deserve it, dear.”

She looked down at her mother, her chest rising and falling rapidly, her skin unreasonably numb. Her eyes were wide and scared, and she looked around the room, overcome with confusion and something else she couldn’t quite describe. Relief? No, no it didn’t feel like relief.

“Wha…”

“Listen, Ava. I know he hurt you. I know you don’t want to be here. But with this money… I don’t know.” Her mother sighed, rolling her shoulders. “Maybe you could finally live the life you want. The life you deserve.”

“Mom-” Ava cut herself off. Her mother stiffened. The air around them grew cold despite the sweat beading down her body. Ava’s mother seemed to examine her daughter for a moment before shaking her head, obviously understanding that she was disoriented and massively displeased. She offered her daughter a smile. A smile that made Ava’s skin crawl. It wasn’t sincere. It wasn’t real. It wasn’t her mother. She swallowed thickly, said her goodbyes, and left, never looking back.

She felt her mother stare her down the entire way out.

Years passed, and Ava was able to find a life for herself far away from her family. Far away from her previous nightmare. She got married and had a daughter of her own, and she cherished the child with everything that she had. As the years passed and the days shortened, Ava found herself cashing a very important check to fight off the plethora of medical bills that had seemed to pile up throughout her entire house. Of course, at first, she was hesitant, remembering what had happened to her whenever she was just a young woman. She fended off those pesky thoughts, however, acknowledging that those times had passed, and those old wounds had scarred over. It was done. And so one could imagine her daughter’s shock whenever she found her mother dead, sprawled on her own bed, her eyes white and her mouth agape, with the scent of cigars lingering around the doorway. Despite her mother’s untimely demise, her daughter was able to move on, having been left her poor mother’s house and possessions, along with memories of love, care, and praise.

The sun was shining on the day she found a little black book sitting patiently on the mat outside her front door.