Indeed…my mythos—the ongoing Labyrinth saga, about which much was revealed here. The second half of this story is certainly not for the uninitiated. It is decidedly mythos heavy. There are references to various novels and stories, characters and villains. If you are indeed new to my works, then an explanation is probably in order. The Labyrinth is a dimensional shortcut between worlds, universes, and realities, and is only accessible to those who know how to open the doors. Glimpses of this mythos wind through everything I’ve ever written. Every novel, every novella, and every short story contains a hint of it. Yet, I’ve purposely tried to keep those links vague, so that new readers can also enjoy the stories and books. You shouldn’t have to read Terminal to understand Ghoul, or The Rising to enjoy Kill Whitey. And yet, for the hardcore fans, the folks who read everything I write, the mythos is there—and they love it. Indeed, they want more, as evidenced by the preponderance of threads on my message board and Facebook and Twitter in which people ask for more.
This was my gift to them. It’s a love letter to one of my favorite vices (tequila) and a thank you to some of my favorite people (my readers). I hope that you enjoyed it. This novella was first published as a beautiful limited edition hardcover by Bloodletting Press. It also appeared in my short story collection Unhappy Endings, which is now out-of-print.
BURYING BETSY
We buried Betsy on Saturday. We dug her up on Monday and let her come inside, but then on Wednesday, Daddy said we had to put her back in the ground again.
Before that, we’d only buried her about once a month. Betsy got upset when she found out she had to go back down so soon. She wanted to know why. Daddy said it was more dangerous now. Only way she’d be safe was to hide her down there below the dirt, where no one could get to her without a lot of trouble. Betsy cried a little when she climbed back into the box, but Daddy told her it would be okay. I cried a little, too, but didn’t let no one else see me do it.
We gathered around the spot in the woods; me, Daddy, Betsy, and my older brother Billy. Betsy is six, I’m nine, and Billy is eleven. Betsy, Billy and Benny—that’s what Mom had named us. Daddy said she liked names that began with the letter ‘B’.
Betsy’s eyes were big and round as she lay down inside the wooden box. She clutched her water bottle and the little bag of cookies that Daddy had given her. The other hand held her stuffed bear. He was missing one eye and the seams had split on his head. He didn’t have a name.
We closed the lid, and Betsy whimpered inside the box.
“Please, Daddy,” she begged. “Can’t I just stay up this once?”
“We’ve been over this. It’s the only way to keep you safe. You know what could happen otherwise.”
“But it’s dark and it’s cold, and when I go potty, it makes a mess.”
Daddy shivered.
“Maybe we could let her stay up just this once,” Billy said. “Me and Benny can keep an eye on her.”
Daddy frowned. “You want your little sister to end up like the others? You know what can happen.”
Billy nodded, staring at the ground. I didn’t say anything. I probably couldn’t have anyway. There was a lump in my throat, and it grew as Betsy sobbed inside the box.
We sealed her up tight, and hammered the lid back on with some eight-penny nails. There was a small round hole in the lid. We fed a garden hose through the opening, so Betsy could breathe. Then Daddy got his caulk gun out of the shed and sealed the little crack between the hose and the lid, so that no dirt would fall down into the box. Finally, we each grabbed a rope and lowered the box down into the hole.
“Careful,” Daddy grunted. “Don’t jostle her.”
We shoveled the dirt back down on her. The hole was about eight feet deep, and even with the three of us it took a good forty minutes. Her cries got quieter as we filled the hole. Soon enough, we couldn’t hear her at all. We laid the big squares of sod over the fresh grave and tamped them down real good. Made sure the hose was sticking out at an angle, so rainwater wouldn’t rush inside it. When we were done, Daddy gathered some fallen branches and leaves and scattered them around. Then he stepped back, wiped the sweat from his forehead with his t-shirt, and nodded with approval.
“Looks good,” he said. “Somebody comes by, there’s no way they could tell she’s down there.”
He was right. Only thing that seemed odd was that piece of green garden hose, and even that kind of blended with the leaves. It looked just like a scrap, tossed aside and left to rot.
“And,” Daddy continued, “it will take a long time to dig her back up. It would wear anybody out.”
We walked back up to the house and got washed up for dinner. I had blisters on my hands from all the shoveling, and there was black dirt under my fingernails. It took a long time to get my hands clean, but I felt better once they were. Daddy and Billy were already sitting at the table when I came downstairs. I pulled out my seat. Betsy’s empty chair made me sad all over again.
Dinner was cornbread and beans. Daddy fixed them on the stove. They were okay, but not nearly as good as Mom’s used to be. Daddy’s cornbread crumbled too much, especially when you tried to spread butter on it. And his beans tasted kind of plain. Mom’s had been much better.
Mom had been gone a little over a year now. Didn’t seem that long some days, but then on others, it seemed like forever. Sometimes, I couldn’t remember what she looked like anymore. I’d get the picture album down from the hutch and stare at her photos to remind me how her face had been. And her eyes. Her smile. I hated that I couldn’t remember.
But I still remembered how her cornbread tasted. It was fine.
I missed her. We all did, especially Daddy, more and more these days.
After dinner, Billy and me washed the dishes while Daddy went outside to smoke. When he came back in, we watched the news. Daddy let us watch whatever we wanted to at night, up until our bedtime, but we always had to watch the news first. He said it was important that we knew about the world, and how things really were, especially since we didn’t go to school.
Just like every night, the news was more of the same; terrorism, wars, bombings, shootings, people in Washington hollering at each other—and the pedophiles. Always the pedophiles... A teenaged girl had been abducted behind a car wash in Chicago. Another was found dead and naked alongside the riverbank in Ashland, Kentucky. Two little boys were missing in Idaho, and the police said the suspect had a previous record. And our town was mentioned, too. The news lady talked about the twelve little girls who’d gone missing in the last year, and how they’d all been found dead and molested.
Molested... it was a scary word.
Daddy said it was all part of the world we lived in now. Things weren’t like when he’d been a kid. There were pedophiles everywhere these days. They’d follow you home from school, get you at the church, or crawl through your bedroom window at night. They’d talk to you on the internet—trick you into thinking they were someone else, and then meet up with you. That’s why Daddy said none of us were allowed on the computer, and why he didn’t let us go to school. Child molesters could be anyone—teachers, priests, doctors, policemen, even parents.
Daddy said it was an urge, a sickness in their brain that made them do those things. He said even if they went to jail or saw a doctor, there weren’t no cure. When the urge was on them, there was no helping it. Unless they learned to control it, and even then, there weren’t no guarantees.