Page 3 of All the Things We Buried

TWO

DORIAN

I could hear footsteps, but I saw no one, only the black phone attached to the wall, ringing relentlessly. Seven sharp rings pierced the silence before stopping.

The door creaked open, just a little bit, but enough, revealing wet footprints trailing across the floor. Something approached. I couldn’t move.

I lay helpless, my face turned toward the doorway with eyes wide open, saliva drooling down onto the pillow. Half my life had been wasted here, haunted by shadows, tortured by ghosts. I was no longer human, barely a plant misplaced in this haunted soil.

I wanted to escape, believing maybe this was my sign. Then I heard the soft laughter of children running down the hallway. Two little girls appeared at the door, slowly pushing it wide open.

“Why are you lying down, silly?” one asked.

Both girls wore identical white dresses with lace-covered bodices buttoned up to their thin necks. Their feet were bare, and their golden hair was golden, tied by black ribbons into a high ponytail. They were exactly alike, twins.

My throat tightened, and words stuck deep inside me.

The twins turned, clapping hands together playfully singing, “Eeny, meeny, miny, mo, mama’s gonna catch you if you don’t move. Eeny, meeny, miny, mo, don’t be slow, it’s time for you to go.”

Their giggles rang down the corridor as they skipped away.

Desperately, I shifted my right leg from beneath my left, attempting to get up.

But my weight betrayed me, sending me crashing onto the cold floor.

Luckily, the restraints binding my arms snapped loose.

I slid my free hand beneath my chest, dragging myself inch by inch toward the doorway.

“Hurry,” one girl whispered urgently. “They’re coming.”

Slowly, I raised my head, my eyes meeting hers. But there were no eyes, only smooth, white holes, empty as polished glass. No reflection, just lifeless holes staring back at me. She tilted her head, lips spreading into a creepy smile.

A chill crept beneath my skin, raising every hair on my neck. I screamed.

“Run, boy, run,” another girl shouted.

Her eyes were dark as coal, bottomless. As the girls clasped hands, the air grew cold. I could see my breath in the air.

Calling out every ounce of strength, I stood to my feet and ran, my legs moving faster than they ever had.

The end of the hallway shone before me; I grasped desperately at the handle, but the door was locked.

Two glass panes revealed my reflection, just an empty bearded face staring back.

I wasn’t a boy anymore, yet my mind was trapped ever since I was twelve.

A shadow crept up behind me. Panic crept down my spine, and I pounded the window relentlessly until flesh tore and blood spilled.

Glass shards burrowed deep in my skin, slicing through muscle and bone.

Pain flooded, and still, I smashed my fist against the glass until the window shattered completely.

Pulling my mangled arm through the opening, scarred and bleeding, I broke free.

I ran faster than ever before. I swore in that moment that every ghost, every shadow, every memory would burn alongside Gloomsbury Manor. And I would never go back to the asylum. It would all die with my cursed bloodline. It ends with me. No more screams in the walls. No more lives ruined.

I’m done being the haunted one.

A FEW MONTHS LATER

I hadn’t showered in over a month. My beard had grown, hanging down to the middle of my chest. The only thing keeping my bones from shivering into pieces was a blanket I’d dragged from a trash behind a pharmacy.

It smelled like mildew and burnt plastic.

But the nights were cold, even when the days cooked us alive.

We gathered under the old bridge like moths to a dying flame. There were five of us tonight—some familiar, some not. Nobody asked names. Names came with stories, and stories could get you hurt.

We passed around a can of beans, already half-warm from sitting near the fire.

The guy who brought it said he’d “gotten lucky.” Whether that meant shoplifting or begging, none of us cared.

When you’ve got nothing, generosity starts to feel holy.

Some shared because they believed it would circle back to them—karma, blessings, a cosmic IOU.

Others did it out of guilt. Me? I didn’t know what I believed anymore.

I was raised in a house that played hymns over speakers and locked the liquor cabinet even though the poisoned themselves every damn day.

We dressed in our Sunday best, spoke in tongues, and called it salvation.

But the hands that folded in prayer were the same ones that scarred my back.

The same voices that read the Bible abused my mind behind closed doors.

Maybe that’s why I ended up here. Maybe it’s the family curse no one ever talked about, just passed down in silence, bruises and nightmares.

Sirens in the distance cut through the hiss of the fire. Everyone stiffened. We had heard that sound before. Sometimes it meant trouble, sometimes it meant help. Depends on the cop.

Some of the guys even wanted to be picked up—three nights in jail meant three hot meals and a mattress that didn’t crawl.

Not me.

I hid in the shadows, clutching the blanket tighter and slipping behind a slab of broken concrete where the bridge had cracked years ago. I crouched low with my heart pounding in my throat.

A cruiser rolled up, headlights slicing through the dark, and the doors opened slowly. Two officers stepped out; one tall and built like a wall, the other older, wiry, mean-eyed.

The wiry one saw me.

I could feel it in the stillness. His flashlight scanned over me but didn’t stop.

He walked the camp first, muttering low and scanning faces. I waited. Tried to be small.

Then his boots turned toward me.

He crouched down, eyes level with mine. The flashlight caught on his badge, then on my face.

“What’s your name, boy?”

“D-D-Dorian.” My voice cracked like glass. Couldn’t control it. My tongue felt like it didn’t belong to me.

He was older—late fifties, maybe. Gray hair tucked under a low-brimmed hat, skin lined with desert years and dried-out patience. His eyes were almost black, empty of warmth. He shifted a toothpick from one corner of his mouth to the other with a slow, deliberate movement. Like a clock ticking.

“What are you doing out here?”

I opened my mouth, stopped, and tried again. “N-Nowhere to go.”

He didn’t laugh. Just stared at me.

“You should come with me,” he said, stretching out his hand like I was a stray dog. “Can’t sleep out here forever.”

I pulled back, teeth clenched. I’d heard that tone before—something gentle stretched over something cruel.

“I can offer you a job,” he added. “But you gotta get cleaned up first.”

A job. I nearly laughed. I’d never held one, never finished school. I barely knew how to read a clock without picturing the hour hand as a knife.

What kind of job would someone offer to someone like me?

He stepped in closer. Too close. His fingers clamped around my arm and pulled me upright. No struggle.

He leaned in, close enough that I could smell stale coffee and whatever brand of power he thought he owned.

“Take the offer,” he whispered, slipping something into the pocket of my coat. “Or I’ll book you with enough years to rot.”

I didn’t have to look. I knew what it was. The plastic crinkle of a sealed bag. Something white. Something illegal.

I could already see the headlines. Local youth found with controlled substance. Another homeless freak. Another nobody buried by the system.

I nodded. Just once. Slow.

I got in the car.

The seat was cold against my thighs. The door clicked shut behind me like a cell door. He reached into the console and handed me a sandwich, wrapped in wax paper, then handed me a bottle of water.

“I’m not a bad guy,” he said, watching me take the food. “I’m just trying to help.”

That’s what every bad guy says.

He turned the key, and the engine started.

“I just need you for something. Something small. Something good for both of us.”

I bit into the sandwich. It tasted like dust and mustard.

“You’ll stay with my brother,” he said. “He’s a mechanic. Got a workshop. You can sleep there.”

I nodded again. Still chewing.

He kept talking, but my brain was drifting, already counting what else I could get. When hunger wraps around you long enough, it becomes the only God you pray to.

Ten minutes later, we pulled into a gas station off the highway. A rusty truck sat by the pumps, engine still on, with its windshield fogged up.

“That’s him,” the cop said. “Go on.”

I opened the door.

My momma once told me: Don’t ever take food from strangers. Don’t get in their cars. Don’t drink their water.

I’d done all of it. Maybe I was just desperate. Or maybe part of me stayed behind that night, and the rest was still trying to catch up.

As I stepped out, the station lights flickered above me, buzzing, blinking. The air turned cold, and my knees wobbled.

I saw him.

Ian.

He stood by the truck, still as stone. Same face I remembered, but hollow now.

His skin was bone-pale, stretched too tight, his eyes two holes, empty and staring straight through me.

He didn’t speak. He didn’t move. Just stared.

Like he wasn’t really there. Like he was caught in between now and somewhere much, much colder.

He was warning me. I blinked once, hard. And my eyes shut.

Dark fell upon my eyes, and memory slipped its hand around my throat, taking me when I was four.

The cold floorboards of Gloomsbury Manor creaked under my bare feet. The air in the house had that strange, old smell, smell of damp wood and dying things. A scream rang out from the basement.

It wasn’t Mom.

It was higher. Younger. Full of pain.

I froze, my heart beating so fast. Then Ian appeared in the doorway. He was breathing fast. He grabbed my wrist without a word and yanked me toward the bed.

He pressed his finger to his lips. Shhh.

Then pointed. Under the bed.

I didn’t ask questions. I dropped to my knees and crawled into the dust under the bed. Ian went under the other bed across the room just as the screaming stopped.

Only silence followed. But it didn’t feel empty. It felt like it was listening.

Then came the sound, faint at first. A dragging. Like bare feet across old wood. Slow. It wasn’t walking.

It was floating.

Closer.

And closer.

I could just see the thing’s feet: too large, swollen, bruised, toes curled like they’d been frozen. They hovered inches above the floor. Just hanging there. Then they stopped. Right next to my bed.

I clenched my fists so tight my nails bit into my palms. The air turned cold.

Fingers crept over the edge of the mattress. Long. Too long. Joints bent like branches. The nails were thick, yellow, and cracked down the middle. One of them dragged slowly across the wooden frame, making a sound that pierced the marrow of my bones.

And then…

A face.

It dropped down in front of me—upside down, grinning, watching.

The skin was sloughing off in patches, purple veins spider-webbed beneath the eyes that were white, blind, and yet seeing everything. Its grin stretched too wide, yellow teeth jagged, gums blackened like they’d been burned.

It was smiling. Smiling just for me.

I couldn’t scream. My breath caught, choking in my throat.

I blinked.

And it was closer.

I screamed.

Everything after that was a blur. Ian rushed, grabbed me by the ankle, and dragged me out from under the bed like he was saving me from drowning. I thrashed, still screaming, but the room was empty.

That thing was gone.

Ian knelt beside me, his face pale and scared, but not at what he saw. At what I had seen.

He looked at me like I was broken.I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t make a sound.

Just stared at him, my voice still trapped in that place beneath the bed.

I was cursed. Cursed to see the things no one else could. Cursed to remember what everyone else forgot.

Or maybe I was meant to carry the dead with me.

Or maybe I was already dying, piece by piece, soul first, right alongside them.