Bury Me(21)

He continues moving down the hall until he’s toe-to-toe with me, and I stand my ground, refusing to move or let him intimidate me even when the smell of his sweat makes me gag. Ike leans down until his mouth is right next to my ear.

“You might be able to fool everyone else, girly, but I know what you did. I know what you are.”

I grit my teeth when he pulls back and laughs, his hot breath reeking of onions as it puffs across my face.

“What I am is someone you should stay far, far away from,” I tell him with a smile, cutting off his mocking laughter.

The confidence on his face vanishes, and I smile even wider when I watch his Adam’s apple bob as he swallows nervously.

The pounding of footsteps up the basement stairs is the only thing that could make me move from where I’m standing. I might not fear the disgusting man standing in front of me, or the one stomping up the stairs, but that doesn’t mean I’m an idiot. With a glance around Ike’s giant body, I turn and run around the stairs toward the front door.

I hear Ike laugh behind me as I quickly yank the heavy door open.

“Run away, little girl, run away! There’s nowhere you can hide now!” Ike shouts, his laughter back as I race down the steps and out into the pouring rain.

My eyes open slowly and I sit up, rubbing the sleep out of them. For the first time in the last few days, I actually remember my entire dream, instead of bits and pieces that don’t make any sense. I don’t wake up covered in sweat, fearing the things I dreamed that I couldn’t remember. I still don’t understand what my memories are trying to tell me, but at least I have another piece of the puzzle to add to my growing pile of mismatched pieces.

Flinging the blankets off of me, I pause as I stare down at the dark blue comforter my mother must have put on my bed when I was in the bathroom, cleaning up for bed. I’m sure it was her way of making amends for what happened, but it didn’t work. Acknowledging my hatred of a stupid color of a blanket doesn’t make up for the knowledge that I officially cannot trust either one of my parents.

Jumping out of bed, I pull open my bottom dresser drawer and yank out the one pair of jeans I own that I found in the back of my closet yesterday when I tore my room apart. Grabbing the pair of scissors sitting in a plastic cup on top of the dresser, I quickly shear off the stiff material from the upper thigh down. I pull the newly cut jean shorts up my legs and under my nightgown, immediately loving the way they feel. With the scissors still in my hand, I take them to the waist of my tank top gown, cutting an uneven line around my body until the bottom lacy half of it flutters to the floor at my feet. Slamming the scissors down on the dresser, I pull the rubber band out of the end of my hair and roughly scrub my hands through my scalp, untangling the braid my mother put in yesterday morning.

When I’m finished, I look at myself in the mirror and finally smile at the reflection staring back at me. The top of the nightgown that is now a tank top is made of flimsy cotton material and if you look hard enough, you can clearly see my breasts through it. The now tiny jean shorts make my bare legs look a mile long, and my thick black hair hanging in loose waves down my back makes me look wild and older than my eighteen years. Turning away from my reflection, I pad softly across my hardwood floor, quietly open my door, and listen for any sounds of my parents. As much as I want to continue pestering and arguing with them until one of them finally breaks and admits something truthful to me, I’m more concerned about my dream and figuring out all of the events surrounding what happened that night.

When I hear nothing but silence upstairs, I move through the living room and down to the first floor. At the bottom, I walk around the banister and head in the opposite direction of the front door. When I get to the back of the stairs, I walk to the door hidden against the wall underneath them. Glancing quickly around me to make sure I’m alone, I take a few seconds to stand here quietly and listen for the sounds of someone approaching. When I hear nothing but the ticking of the old grandfather clock at the opposite end of the hall in the artifact museum, I move forward and stare at the door that leads to the basement—the first stop on the tour of the prison. It’s the one that equally excites and scares people at the same time. Basements in old buildings are always scary, but a basement in an old prison where solitary confinement was located and lots of unspeakable acts were inflicted upon prisoners, some fatally, is chilling.

I know the basement is mostly empty, and the temperature drops a few degrees as soon as one gets to the bottom of the steps. It’s pretty common for that to happen in a room located underground, but there’s something different about the air down there. It’s even colder than it should be and every once in a while, visitors walk through an extra frigid pocket of air that can never be explained since the basement has no windows. I feel like some part of me has never liked the basement just like that same part of me supposedly never liked going into the cell blocks, like my father said. Then there’s the other part, the one screaming to get out, the one who feels freer with her hair down and out of a stuffy dress, who wants to go down there, who feels something pulling her in that direction, just like in the cell block.