By: Jeremy R. Rutherford
"Push, Sarah..FUCK! STOP CRYING!" "I ca-can't st-stop, stop yelling at me, Brian" "She doesn't understand", he thought as the fear raced through him, like some liquid injection, cold and sharp in his veins. He could hear his heart, a rapid drumbeat of a thing. Sarah sat down in the dirt beside the road, the headlights from the car spearing through the dark, highlighting the blood splattered and streaked on her arms and chest as she continued to sob.
The little girl had just ran out in front of the car. Sarah had been driving, talking away at him as he was trying to shake off the whiskey he had downed at the bar. He looked up for just a moment, suddenly sober as something pale and white flashed in front of them. A whip of long brown hair, followed by a small impact and the car rolling over something twice.
Sarah had stopped then, quick enough to throw him against the dash because he had forgotten his seatbelt. Then she turned the car off, started screaming and opened the door, quickly running behind the car. He heard her stop screaming, looking back through the window, he saw her just standing there in the red glow of the taillights. She walked to the side of the road and vomited, bending over, she threw up again. "Christ..she hit somebody!" He thought, little pricks of panic racing down his spine. The whiskey still slightly casting it's spell over him.
He had known better than to let her drive, but had allowed it anyways, she was too nervous at night and not in any shape to drive either and now this shit. He opened the door, staggering for a moment. He had hit the dash pretty hard when the car stopped. Walking around to the back of the car, he just stared at the body of the girl and the blood streaked and pooled around her. There wasn't any saving her, the body was broken and twisted out of shape, her head and neck were at the wrong angle.
"Give me the keys, Sarah!" "Why?" "We have to do something, this is bad and I don't want to go to jail, do you?" She handed him the keys. "No. What are we going to do?" He looked at her. "Get rid of it, there are trash bags in the trunk. Unless you would rather call the cops?" She went silent, looking sideways and down at the body.
He opened the trunk of the car and groped in the dark till he found the box of black trash bags. Putting the keys in his pocket, he knelt down, pulling one out. Using the edges of the bag, he slid it underneath the body. Looking at the feet, he saw that the girl had lost one shoe, the sock red with blood. "Get her legs, Sarah." "NO! I'm not touching her! SHIT!" "DAMN IT, YOU RAN HER OVER, YOU ARE GOING TO HELP ME WITH THIS, SARAH! Now..get..her..feet with one of these bags." He held one out to her, his hand shaking. Sarah took the bag, sobbing as she pushed it under the girl's legs. He cinched his bag tight and then hers over his, then rolled the body out of the blood, covering it in another layer of bags. "Get me the blanket out of the trunk. GOD! We would have been home by now, I should have just driven!"
He looked at Sarah, the blood was all over her arms and chest, then looked down at himself, it was the same. She grabbed one of the blankets and handed it to him. He rolled the body into it and picked it up, throwing it roughly into the trunk and closing it. "The coast is just up the road. that is where we will get rid of this and you are not going to speak of this again to me or anyone else, are you?" "What? We have to talk about this at some point!" "No, we don't, not at all, just shut up about it."
He wiped his hands on his already bloodied shirt and went to the driver's side. "Get in, before someone else comes by here." He waited till she got in and shut the door and took off, the tailights moving, fading into the dark. "She couldn't have been more than thirteen, Sarah, christ..thirteen and we killed her." "I killed her." It was a short, flat statement. Sarah did not speak again, she stared out the window, her hands rubbing, wringing frantically like two small birds trying to fly without success. He looked into the rearview mirror and saw only the dark behind them. The coastal road sign came into view as he drove, he turned to the right and followed the small winding road down.
He was focused on the road when Sarah spoke again. "Did you see that?" "See what?" "I don't know, it looked like someone standing by the road." He looked again in the rearview and his blood ran like fire for a moment, racing through his chest. "I don't see anyone." But he did, for a moment, he thought he saw someone sitting in the backseat, just a glimpse, then it was gone.
"Has to be the whiskey." He muttered and then shook his head, moving along the road in the dark. He thought he heard a child's laughter tittering faintly, then heard it again. "Do you hear that?" "Hear what?" Sarah looked at him, her mascara making her face a mess. "I swear I heard someone laughing." "No, it's probably just your nerves, Brian."
He turned left off the road and parked the car in front of a scenic turn-off. The lights illuminated the guard rail, he could smell the salt in the air, about two hundred feet straight down, the waves crashed against the rock cliff. He went to the back and opened the trunk, grabbing the body with both arms, seemingly heavier than before. He laid it down in the road. Sarah's eyes went wide. "What are you doing?" "I already told you. But, you are going to do it, not me." "What do you mean?" "I don't care if you have to push her over the railing or along the ground. But you are getting rid of her, not me." She looked at him and started crying. He had yelled at her again and she had sat down in the road, crying harder. "So you are going to make me clean this up for you? Fine..screw you, Sarah. Screw you and this whole mess." He picked up the body, somehow one small arm had gotten loose, the hand swinging out lifelessly, fingers trailing against him.
He walked to the railing and threw it over. The body fell, bouncing twice off the cliff, everything came loose and though some trick of the light, before he heard the splash, the girl seemed to look up at him. Her mouth gaping open, her hand outstretched, It looked like she was screaming with no sound as she fell into the darkness.
"Come on, let's go, I need to sleep. Sarah, get up!, quit sitting in the dirt." He held his hand out and she took it. He looked at the front of the car, there was nothing there at all to show that something had even happened. But, stuck in the grill, was a small brown teddy bear with a pink ribbon tied around it's neck, the kind a child would sleep with to protect from the monsters. It had stayed there through the drive, inexplicably. He walked over and grabbed it, pitching it over the edge as well. "Not a word, I mean it, Sarah. We are going home."
He heard it again, a quiet laughter in his head, but shook it off and started the car. Turning back the way he came, he drove up the road in silence. He could smell the salt from the ocean and it was cold in the car. He kept driving, taking solace in the sound of the tires pulling him away from the road and the lights showing him the way home.
They pulled into the drive, as he shut the car off, Sarah, still not speaking, slammed the car door and ran into the house, leaving the door open. He muttered, shutting his door and locking the car. He walked calmly into the house, shut and locked the door. He laid down on the couch and sank into a troubled sleep, dreaming of water, laughter and blood.
Sarah frantically ran upstairs, stripping off the bloody clothes and drawing a bath, she got in quickly, scrubbing furiously, trying to get the blood off. She was rinsing off, soaking, when she heard it. Small, tittering laughter. Her heart froze, she opened her eyes. Muck ridden footprints trailed from the open bathroom door and floating in the water was a soaked brown teddy bear with a pink ribbon.
Beside her, above her head, a pale white hand, small and smelling of salt, pushed down, the last thing she heard before the water closed over her head was a liquid, slow voice that said "Down, deeper than the water flows."
He woke up to the smell of salt and a cold, wet sensation against him. He looked up and saw a nightmare, a twisted form bloody and waterlogged, one arm hanging loosely. Sarah was naked, lying against him, her chest facing his. A small brown teddy bear with a pink ribbon tied sat on the coffee table across from the couch, sagging to one side, water pooled and dripping off the edge. Her head lolled back, not looking at him. He looked up and the nightmare tittered with that same laughter again. Sarah's head rolled bonelessly forward, she looked up, opened her mouth and black, thick worms wiggled and flailed there. She said, "Down, deeper than the water flows." Then kissed him. The nightmare girl tittered and as he screamed, water filled his lungs, he choked on a wet, squirming mass and the world went dark.
- Fin -
