A young boy stumbles onto a family secret thought to have been buried forever.
Mound of Secrets
The constant rain soaked his t-shirt and made it cling to his slight frame. His heartbeat faster than it ever had and his hands ached from the unusual labor. Mikey took a break and surveyed the work he’d just finished. Light from the lamppost illuminated the backyard and as he looked down, decided the hole was sufficient.
During the hour he’d spent digging, reality would sometimes creep into his mind and make him shudder with revulsion. But what was done was done and he knew he would have to finish it. It still amazed him that a simple conversation with his best friend Bobby had led to such a life altering experience.
Mikey knew Bobby would never understand the need to act on the information he’d been given. Mikey and his parents lived in the upstairs of a double. His grandmother lived downstairs and that fact had defined his young life for as long as he could remember. Kids in the neighborhood had taunted him over his grandmother for years.
The younger kids would simply call her a freak or sometimes elephant woman. Older kids made more of a joke about her. ‘God must’ve been having a bad day’ or ‘Mother Nature with PMS’ were their favorites. Mikey wasn’t sure what PMS was but it didn’t matter. Two weeks ago Mikey heard a story about his grandmother that he never had. Not about God or Mother Nature or bad luck. It was about a grandfather nobody ever talked about.
Bobby and Mike were walking home from school like they’d been doing since first grade when Bobby told him the story. “Hey, I almost forgot. My Mom dragged me over to my Grandpa’s last night.”
“That sucks.” And Mikey meant it. Just thinking of the sweaty, prune-faced old man made him feel sorry for his friend.
Bobby shrugged. “Well, at least he was interesting this time. Drunk as usual but my Mom mentioned your name and Grandpa started saying all this crap about your grandparents.”
Mikey’s eyes narrowed. “Like what?” Curious but at the same time wondering if every adult in their run down neighborhood drank.
Bobby gave a crooked smile and said, “Grandpa said a long time ago your grandma was a hotty.”
Mikey wrinkled his nose. “That’s gross, man.”
“Shut up there’s more. He said a bunch of people used to hang out at this club. Guess the club burned down a few years ago. Anyway, your grandma was part of this group. Her and grandpa dated for a time but then she fell for some drifter that rolled into town.”
“What drifter?”
Bobby punched him in the arm. “Your grandpa, you ass. Listen, Grandpa said they got married not long after they met. But in a few months, your grandma stopped coming to the club. Seems your grandpa liked to slap her around. Went on for years until one day she came into the club. Looked real bad. Grandpa swore it looked like every bone in her face was broke.
“Supposedly she sat at the bar, drank five shots of whiskey, looked at Grandpa and said, ‘This is the last time’, got up and left.”
“So she threw him out. Big deal.”
Bobby shrugged again. “That’s the official story. Grandpa doesn’t think he ever left town. Told me he went over to the house that night to check on her. But she wasn’t in the house so he went around back. She was behind the garage with a shovel patting down a mound of dirt. Grandpa asked what she was doin’ and all she said was, ‘fertilizing’.
Mikey was shaking his head. “Bullshit. My grandma didn’t kill anybody.”
Bobby smiled. “Just telling you what I heard.”
They had reached Bobby’s house by then. Saying good-bye, Mikey walked one more block to his house. But as he walked up the drive, he could hear his parents fighting. His dad hadn’t worked in almost a year, which just added to the problems even Mikey could see were already there.
Instead of going into his grandma’s door though, he walked behind the garage. An alleyway ran behind their yard and he had to be careful none of the area gangs were walking through. It seemed clear so he stood behind the garage staring at the small mound. He really thought Bobby’s story was bullshit but a part of him wondered if that spot had become his grandpa’s final resting-place.
And the part about Grandma getting beat up so bad would explain a lot about her looks. Eyes that just seemed awkward, a nose not quite centered, a chin that seemed to get lost in her neck. Angry voices from his house filtered down and he knew then that if the story was true , he knew exactly what his grandma’s life had been like.
Mikey thought about what Bobby had told him almost every night for two weeks. By the forth night he decided there was only one way to know for sure. He just couldn’t imagine asking his grandma, though he figured she’d probably tell him. And his mother wasn’t really an option either. She had to be around by then but still, how much could she really know? Which left him with the only logical solution. Dig up the mound.
The rain had slowed to barely drizzle but a brisk wind had developed and Mikey shivered. Reality came to him for a moment and he stared at the hole. A laugh escaped from his heaving chest. Digging up the mound had been his only goal. Uncover the truth for once and all. He’d hid the shovel in his room a few nights before so he wouldn’t make any noise finding it in the garage late at night. He’d waited two days for this night.
Mikey’s parents had argued all night and finally at three in the morning, it was finally quiet. Either his dad had passed out or just given up but either way the time was right. The storm was creating great clasps of thunder that would cover his footsteps and nobody would hear him leaving the house. But as he tiptoed down the hall, he stopped at the doorway to the living room. His mother lay on the couch and instantly, a picture of his grandmother came to him.
He never tried to imagine what she would have looked like the night she showed up in the club. But one look at his mother gave him a pretty good idea how battered his grandmother would have been. Anger swelled inside him and a need to protect her surged though his body. His sense of smell must have heightened twenty times the norm because suddenly he was aware of it all. The odors of sweat, whiskey, and blood mingled together. And above those he noticed the other scents.
The smell of fear and of anger were so prevalent it choked him. Fresh air became a necessity and he headed downstairs. The idea of his father doing what his grandfather supposedly did physically sickened him. His stomach was still rolling when he reached the back porch. And there, sitting in one of the folding chairs was his dad. Slouched back, legs extended, and smoking a cigarette. Mikey still didn’t remember consciously making the decision, just acting on the sheer hatred that enveloped him. The shovel came down squarely on his father’s head and he watched him crumble to the floor. He hit him a few more times just to make sure he was dead and then began planning on how to move the body.
Within twenty minutes, he’d tied rope around his dad and dragged the body behind the garage and began digging. After taking the much-needed break, he pulled his father’s body over to the hole and pushed. His biggest concern was that a gang would walk down the ally and see him but his luck held until his tenth shovel of dirt. That’s when he heard the distinct snap of a twig.
His whole body froze in motion; his heart pounded against his chest and it felt as if his throat was closing in on him. Slowly, he turned his head.
“What are you doing?” His grandmother. No expression on her face. A simple question.
“Fertilizing.” A simple answer.
And then he saw what she was holding; a shovel. Without another word, she walked over to the dirt pile and began throwing dirt in the hole. In that one instant, Mikey knew the truth was not nearly as important as family secrets.
I have to agree with both Shirley and Karla with this one, you do have a knack for the chilling written word. For a mystery story this does have a lot of horror elements.
damn, girl, keep me hooked with your chilling prose! this is terrific, scary in all the right places, creeps like spiders crawling up the spine *shivers* BRRRRRRR!
simple answers...for not so simple secrets--BRAVA!
Six straight men in the cast plus free Tex-Mex food? My friend Lida Rose sure knew how to persuade me. I signed on the dotted line and dusted off my dance shoes. I knew Bad Business on the Brazos would have them rolling in the aisles and standing up
The third book in the funny Silver Sisters Mysteries series. The twins and their 80 year-old mother and uncle get into trouble sleuthing in Sin City.
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