What We Have Become
When Keeno came home that night, I knew our lives would never be the same.
There was dirt under his fingernails, and his face was smeared with blood. His eyes had that thousand-yard stare I knew all too well.
After the accident, we had tried so hard and so long to put our lives back together, and, in a single night, our efforts were gone.
It was thundering outside, and Keeno had been caught in the storm and was drenched head to toe. He had tracked in water and mud. Blood dripped steadily from a deep cut on his arm.
“Where’s Jonno?” I said timidly, and I immediately regretted asking.
It was a stupid question that I knew the answer to. But I needed to see that it was done.
Keeno gazed at me with those dark, empty eyes until I looked away.
I forced myself to stare at the mess on the floor. I felt lightheaded, and I swayed, but I managed to stay upright.
Breathe, I thought. Breathe.
Without a word, Keeno went upstairs, and I mopped the floor.
I washed away everything: the mud, the rain, the dark splatters of blood.
I left the blood for last.
By the time I had finished, the floor gleamed, but everything still felt dirty.
In the bucket, the water had turned pink, and in the suds, I could make out Jonno’s face.
I woke up before dawn the next day. The sky was the color of a fresh bruise. I watched the horizon as it burned. Orange, yellow, and red.
Keeno was still sleeping when I left the house. Good, because he wouldn’t like where I was going or what I was about to do.
But, I thought sadly, that was the old Keeno. The new Keeno wouldn’t care.
It was a beautiful summer morning. You couldn’t tell it had stormed all night.
I crossed the field, a knot tightening in my stomach. I patted my tote bag for the 100th time. I had brought everything, of course, but still, my anxiety flared.
I had never done anything like this before, and even though Iris had reassured me, I had my doubts.
“I’ll help,” she said, smiling. “No worries.”
My heart pounded as I passed her small cottage. It was dark inside.
Iris wouldn’t be able to help me or anybody else again. And that was my fault.
There’s a clearing in the woods where the sun never shines. Its silence is deafening, and the air is heavy and makes it hard to breathe.
Here, time stands still, and nothing grows—a terrible place.
I could never stop the dread that crept through my skin and seeped into my bones. I always felt as though I were being watched.
Keeno had done a good job of burying Jonno.
You wouldn’t be able to find his grave unless you were actively looking for it. We knew nobody would.
Jonno had no family, no friends, and no acquaintances.
The only ones who knew of his existence were me, Keeno, and Iris.
None of us would tell.
There is no grass here, just hard compacted dirt. The trees, however, are in full bloom; their leaves hung like shrouds.
And then there’s the sundial. Old and made of stone, it’s weathered by the elements and worn by the passive of time.
“What’s the use of this here?”Keeno said the first time we stumbled into the clearing.
He frowned as he looked up at the trees that blocked everything.
“It’s so dark. There’s no sun to make it work.”
“Maybe it’s for decoration?” I said nervously. “I mean, it is nice looking.”
Keeno grunted in response, and we left soon after.
Although we didn’t say so, the sundial unsettled us.
Keeno had buried him close to it, just as I had told him.
I put down my bag and took a deep breath. Be strong, I thought. Be brave. It’ll be okay.
I closed my eyes as I salted the earth. I prayed to the unknown gods, the old and the new.
I prayed until my lips went numb and my voice cracked. So I drank some water and prayed some more.
I hoped Keeno had listened to me.
“Bury him standing, right side up.”
He just looked at me with wide, incredulous eyes.
“I mean, that’s what Iris said,” I said nervously.
Keeno opened his mouth to speak. He hesitated.
“What?” I prompted.
“Won’t,” he paused again and licked his lips nervously. “Won’t that make it easier for him to get out? If- if he comes back?”
“Iris said he wouldn’t. She said this was the only way.”
“Yeah? Well, what does she know? Iris is dead.” He said flatly.
I felt a panic attack coming on. I had been having them a lot lately. Not even medication could help. I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply.
In my mind, I saw Jonno buried beneath my feet. His arms were rigid and pressed tight to his body. His eyes were open and full of dirt.
I felt him staring up at me with that crooked half-smile.
I shuddered at the sudden chill in the air.
When I left the woods, it was raining. The wind pushed me along like a hand on my back.
I ran as thunder rumbled and lightning streaked across the sky. The storms had been fierce this summer, and the area was prone to flooding.
In the wind, I heard Jonno call to me. His voice was low and pleasant. My heart beat fiercely.
“Sun,” he said. “Sun, please. Why won’t you come save me? This isn’t you; we both know that. Why, oh why, did you kill me?”
Hot tears streamed down my cheeks, mixing with the icy rain.
I tried to shut him out, but his voice grew louder and cruel.
“You bitch.” He rasped. “You slut.” Dirt distorted his voice. “You think this will help you? Do you think I will stop? Tell me, what happened to that old witch? Her blood was so very sweet. You know you did it, right? You killed sweet Iris.”
Thoughts of Iris flooded my mind. Her warm smile and her smooth umber brown skin. She had the prettiest eyes I had ever seen.
The last time I saw her, they were glassy and filmed over with blood.
I didn’t stop running until I was home. Jonno’s hoarse laughter followed me the entire way.
And through the door, he said clearly, as though he were standing on the other side.
“I will kill you. You are already dead. I. Will. Kill. You.”
Pine Hills
We have to rewind a bit—press pause. Restart.
I don’t want to, but I have to, even though remembering hurts.
We moved here two years ago, nearly six months after the accident.
We didn’t hesitate to dip into our meager savings. It was barely enough, but we refused to touch his college fund.
It was hours away from the suburban life we had once loved.
The town of Pine Hills was small, with lush green fields and quiet temperance.
The abundance of land meant that the houses were significantly spread apart, unlike the closeness of the cul-de-sac we left behind.
When we met our neighbors, they were kind and welcoming. They must have sensed the pain we carried. Loss tainted us.
The old farmhouse we bought had been “renovated,” while it wasn’t falling apart, it needed a lot of work.
It would keep us busy for a while, which is what we needed.
After the accident, life became unbearable.
Everything reminded us of him—every crevice, every corner, every wayward toy we found stuffed between the couch cushions.
Our neighbors in the old town were sympathetic but also curious. They subtly tried to pry every gory detail from us.
What killed us were the kids. The kids he had once been friends with. It hurt to hear them play, laugh, and age.
Everything our son would never do again. Death immortalized him.
The move was hard, but the right decision. Our grief was still raw, and healing was slow.
I was so happy to see the haunted look in Keeno’s eyes fade.
We learned to love one another again.
We shared a bed for the first time in months, and when Keeno touched me, my skin broke out in goosebumps.
We cried out as we shuddered together.
I had missed the warmth of us.
We lay our roots down that summer.
We cleansed ourselves in the rain.
Every night we counted the stars, and every morning, we watched the sky burn.
During the day, Keeno worked on the house with the help of some men in the neighborhood. Keeno has always been a loner, but with them, he never stopped talking and laughing.
I cleaned our house feverishly and tried to make it our own.
It’s funny because, between me and Keeno, I was the sociable one.
But for now, I wanted to be left alone, so I went on a lot of walks.
I liked to explore, and there was so much to discover.
I felt an implicit attraction to the woods that loomed in the distance, directly across from our house.
To reach it was a trek, especially in the summer heat, but I always did so determinedly.
It looked normal enough, but I never went inside far.
Its trees dwarfed everything and looked as though they scraped the sky.
I listened to the songs of the birds and cooed at the sight of a doe, followed by her skipping fawns.
I love animals, and I took as many pictures as my data allowed.
At the woods’ entrance was a sky-blue cottage—a garden with the most beautiful flowers I have ever seen surrounding it.
There were golden marigolds, tempestuous dahlias, and roses with soft petals. I thought they would melt at my touch.
The owner of the house was a woman around my age.
She had smooth bronze skin and big brown eyes. Her black micro braids were streaked gray and fell to her waist.
Her smile was wide and comforting, and I admit I had a tiny crush on her.
She was radiant.
The first time we introduced ourselves, we didn’t shake hands. Instead, she pulled me into a hug.
She smelled like soil, and there was pollen on her fingertips.
“I’m Iris,” she said, beaming at me.
“Sun,” I replied, embarrassed. There were tears in my eyes. I couldn’t remember the last time I had been hugged.
“Sun,” she said thoughtfully, as though she were tasting my name.
I was glad she didn’t ask what it was short for, as others often did.
“Just Sun,” I said, shrugging.
She smiled again. “Beautiful.”
Yes, she was.
As the days went by, we grew close. We would talk for hours, and sometimes I helped with the garden.
“I guess you could say I’m a spiritualist,” she said one day as we kneeled in the dirt. “Or you can say I’m a witch. I think that’s what they call me around here.”
She laughed at the look on my face because I had heard that.
Keeno had even warned me to be careful because of what he had heard.
I thought he was jealous of our blooming friendship. I knew he didn’t like how much time I spent with her.
Anger had flared inside me, but I tamped it down.
“I am always careful,” I replied cooly. “I know how to handle myself.”
It was frosty between us for the rest of that day—only thawing when Keeno pulled me to him and whispered an apology.
I understood his worry because, as idyllic as it was here, life was very hard.
I had frequent breakdowns, and panic attacks left me breathless.
But Iris was lovely, and we were friends. When I was with her, I was happy; she suppressed my constant racing thoughts.
Whenever I left her, she always called to my retreating back.
“Be careful, Sun, and always believe what you see. It’s always the truth.
It was odd, and I didn’t understand. I chalked it up to her ethereal demeanor.
I promised I would, even though it bothered me.
It almost sounded like a warning.
It was, and I didn’t listen.
If only I had taken her seriously. If I had kept my promise, would this outcome be different?
I will never know.
I chose not to believe in the shadows or the wraiths that stalked the night.
And by the time Jonno appeared, it was too late.
The Shadows
Keeno started seeing the shadows after he killed Orion died.
It was a gradual descent into madness, and in his eyes, I saw the ghost of our son.
He and Keeno reached out to me with wraith arms. They tried to pull me in with them.
Keeno would talk about the shadows in hauntingly stark detail.
The elongated shape of their bodies and their slouching gait.
“Black,” Keeno once told me flatly. “Blacker than anything I have ever seen. Some of them are red, but most of them are black. And some of them have eyes, but,” he swallowed a lump in his throat.
When he spoke again, his voice was strained. “It’s like an absence of color, you know? Holes. Like some kid forgot to color them in. And their mouths.”
He fell silent, his eyes unfocused. He was far away, and I couldn’t reach him, no matter how hard or how much I prodded him.
He would say no more.
I was cooking dinner one day when in my peripheral vision, I saw somebody staring at me from the hallway.
Keeno, I thought, absent mindlessly focusing on the spaghetti. Spaghetti was his favorite. Maybe he would actually eat today.
“Hey, bae,” I said without looking up. “Hungry?”
Silence filled the room. I didn’t even hear the usual plodding of feet as he walked to the table.
I looked up, and then I froze.
It wasn’t Keeno.
It was a black, tall, and slouching figure. Its arms were so long that they scraped the floor.
Black. So black that even in the hallway’s darkness, I saw it clearly.
Its “face” looked like scribbles, and its mouth and eyes were stark white.
In shock, I could only stare, and its mouth widened, revealing sharp red teeth.
It’s smiling at me, I realized. It’s fucking smiling at me. Its mouth jerked and twitched; it looked like the static on a TV.
I dropped the spoon I had been using, and it clattered onto the floor. Thick red sauce splattered everywhere. It’s the same color as its teeth, I thought wildly.
In numb horror, I watched as it walked toward me. I had goosebumps, and every hair on my body stood on end. The air crackled with electricity as it came closer. Its teeth dripped red.
Red, red, red.
“What’s wrong?” A voice said from behind me, breaking my trance.
I jumped and grabbed a knife off the counter. I whirled around.
Keeno.
His eyes fixated on the knife inches away from his throat. His mouth fell open in shock, and he held up his hands, but he didn’t back away.
“Sun,” he said slowly, “please put that down, Sun. You’re okay. Put the knife down and tell me what’s wrong.”
It took me a while to calm down. It hurt to breathe, but eventually, I lowered the knife, and Keeno pulled me into his arms. I sobbed.
“You’re not crazy,” he murmured into my hair. I heard the relief in his voice as though this event proved he wasn’t crazy either. “You’re okay. You’re not alone..”
I loved and hated him at that moment.
Why hadn’t you died instead? I thought.
It all went to shit that March. Orion had been dead for exactly four months. I often thought of him being hit by that truck.
His body torn to pieces and his guts strewn all over the highway.
It should have been Keeno, I would think savagely. Why hadn’t Keeno been the one to die?
I felt guilty thinking that, but deep down, I meant it.
It was technically spring, but a late winter snowstorm hit us. It made my heart ache. Orion had loved the snow.
I was walking to the living room with a hot cup of tea when suddenly something pushed me so hard I slammed into the wall.
Pain exploded in my shoulder, and hot tea spilled everywhere, scalding me.
I screamed in fear and pain, but before I could comprehend anything, I was picked up and carried outside to the cold. I kicked my feet wildly.
“Let go!” I cried, terrified. “Let me go!”
They were strong, though, and cradled me easily like a baby. I cried and stared up at the black sky.
There were no stars, only a yellow sickle moon. Fat snowflakes fell swiftly and stung my bare skin.
They shoved me into a car, and I screamed. Surely, one of our nosy neighbors would hear me, but nobody came.
A rough hand clamped over my mouth.
“Shhh,” a familiar voice said. Keeno. It was Keeno. Relief and then anger flooded my body. “Stay here.”
He hesitated at the front door and then ran into the house.
The seconds felt like minutes, and the minutes were hours. I shivered. I was freezing in my pajamas and slippers. My shoulder throbbed.
And then he was back carrying bags. He backed out swiftly, and we were gone. I had plenty to say to him and let out all the anger and confusion that had been brewing inside of me.
Keeno listened silently. His face was blank and fixated on the icy road.
We wound up at some hotel in the next town over, and again my anger burst out.
Again, Keeno listened.
When I was done, he said quietly.
“There was a shadow behind you, Sun. The one you saw before. That-that’s one of the really bad ones.”
He swallowed, and tears welled in his eyes. “It was trying to pull you in. It was going to take you from me. I can’t lose another piece of my family. I need you. I love you. Do you believe me? Please?”
His eyes bore into mine, and for the first time in months, his eyes were clear of the pain and guilt. The twin ghosts that had been haunting him.
I didn’t know what to say, fuck; I didn’t know what to think.
I was shivering again, but this time it wasn’t just the cold. Yes, I believe you; I wanted to say, but I couldn’t.
I couldn’t because if I believed, I would become just like Keeno. I had to be strong.
Keeno looked at me for a long time. His eyes were full of pain.
“You know, Sun, because you’ve seen them too. You know I’m not crazy, and you know I’m not wrong. You’ve seen them.”
I stayed quiet.
He turned away and went outside to get the rest of our stuff from the car.
I knew he was telling the truth, and I had seen them. But if I said it, I would also become lost, and I needed to be strong for both of us. If we were both swallowed into madness, what would we become?
In bed that night, I couldn’t sleep. I stared up at the ceiling.
It was an abyss of eternal blackness. No shadows, no eyes full of static, and no snake-like arms trying to pull me in.
My shoulder throbbed, and not for the first time; I wondered if grief was driving us insane.
I nearly jumped when Keeno spoke. I thought he was asleep.
“Do you blame me?” He said, his voice thick and strained. “Do you blame me for Orion? Do you, Sun?”
I nearly said yes, but stopped myself just in time.
“No,” I lied. “No, I don’t.”
There was silence, and then Keeno began to cry. Hoarse, body-racking sobs that made my heart hurt.
I realized then that I didn’t blame him.
But it was hard for me to know that if he hadn’t let Orion change the tire, then he would still be here.
So I blamed him, but it wasn’t his fault.
I wrapped my arms around his trembling body and kissed his neck.
I was finally drifting off to sleep when Keeno said softly.
“You don’t have to be strong all the time, Sun. It’s okay to not be okay.”
Before I let the dark take me, I replied,
“I love you, Akeeno.”
The weeks after that were terrible. Everything escalated.
Day by day, Keeno’s eyes grew darker, and he saw the shadows everywhere. After nearly strangling me while I slept, he started sleeping in the guest room.
And then he tried to kill himself, so we moved to Pine Hills.
Everything was fine for a while. I could finally breathe.
Then the shadows came back and devoured Keeno.
They won’t stop until they take me too.