Wrong

A short story. Part of the Monday Morbs series.

Last week, I fired up my desktop computer for the first time in over a year and found this in my short stories folder. I vaguely remember writing it a couple years ago, so I cleaned it up a bit and decided to share. It’s not as prosaic or chock full of flowery imagery as my other pieces, but you gotta work with your narrator…

Also, let it be known, White Knoll didn’t actually win the Division 1 championship that year. That detail is a complete and utter fabrication.

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“But you can’t go!”

“I don’t have a choice! My parents call the shots, you know that. Dad got the transfer. Besides, they don’t wanna stay in this town anymore. Not after…”

He doesn’t understand. If he goes—if he leaves me here—I’ll be all alone. I know he hears the desperation in my voice as I continue to plead with him. I hate the way it sounds, the way it cracks. It’s broken and raspy, and my vocal cords ache as I force the words from my throat. “Your parents don’t know the whole truth! They don’t know about me! If you’d just tell them—”

“NO!” he shouts, and I flinch at the sudden outburst. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to—but Carter…you know I can’t do that.”

There’s more he wants to say; I see it in the way his mouth opens and shuts one, two, three times before he rubs a hand down his face and grabs the collar of his “AAAA Division 1 Football Champions” t-shirt. I never got mine.

“I just don’t know what to do,” he says with a heavy sigh and plops down on the edge of the bed.

“Matt,” I whisper, watching my best friend recoil as I inch toward him—a sight I know I’ll never get used to. “Matt…where will I go?”

He looks up, and I can tell he’s trying to hide the visceral reaction my appearance triggers every time his eyes fall on me.

“You could always go home,” he says, as if it were the most obvious solution to our problem. “Your parents would probably be relieved—happy, even!”

The suggestion isn’t just ridiculous, it’s impossible, and Matt should know better.

“I can’t do that to them. They don’t need to see me—” the rebuttal catches in my throat. I know what I want to say, but I rephrase. I’ve found it’s easier on both of us when I avoid certain words. “They deserve to remember me the way I was.”

His eyes are downcast again, and I can feel the guilt rolling off him in waves. He should have expected there’d be consequences, but he’s young and stupid and didn’t think things through. Not that I blame him. There’s every chance I would have done the same had our roles been reversed. Matt and I have been friends for so long—from pre-k all the way through twelfth grade. Well, most of twelfth grade. I missed a good chunk of our senior year and didn’t get to graduate with him last week. But I watched him walk across the stage and accept his diploma, and for a moment, I thought he was going to throw up all over his garnet gown and honor cords.

They played a memorial video before the final singing of the alma mater.

“Though time will bring forth changes,
Wearing garnet, silver, and blue,
Puts you in our hearts forevermore,
White Knoll High, we love you!”

The words weren’t sung with their usual gusto. Too many tears.

“Matt, you can’t leave me! Not like this! I didn’t ask for this!” I’m shaking, a mix of anger and fear coursing through my body. It is my body, as much as I hate to admit it. It is my flesh, my fingers and toes, my arms, my legs, my face—though disfigured and torn. The car crash did a number on me.

“Carter, please!” He’s on his feet again, yelling, pacing back and forth in front of me, pulling at his hair like a madman.

I take a step back toward the closet. I’m safe there. No one looks in the closet, and there’s a secret door in the back that leads to the basement, where I stay.

“Hey, hey,” he says, adopting a soft, reassuring tone when he notices me backing away. “It’s okay. It’s all gonna be okay, yeah?”

I want to believe him. I want to believe it will all work out like he promised, but I’m not an idiot. He and his parents are moving away. He can’t take me with him, and I can’t go home. I have nothing; I am no one…not anymore.

The sinking feeling returns—the one I felt when I first opened my eyes two weeks ago. I remember the look on his face that night: equal parts horror and disbelief. Hearing me call his name, watching me stand on my own two feet again—it had been too much for him. He hit his head on a tombstone when he fainted, and as I read my own name etched deep into the marble, I understood.

Then, I saw the items scattered around my grave: some kind of urn, a jar of what appeared to be blood, bones laid out on an old beach towel, strange runes inscribed with mysterious symbols. Taking a step back, I noticed the discarded can of white spray paint and the elaborate sigil he’d painted on the grass—a sigil now broken and marred by my ascent from the ground below.

The shock I felt in that moment brought me to my knees. I remembered the headlights approaching us, too fast and in the wrong lane. I heard the squealing tires, the smashing of glass and metal. I remembered the silence that followed and the mind-numbing terror I’d felt upon waking up trapped in a wooden box. I had died and clawed my way out of my grave at the beckoning of some dark, unspeakable magic. Matt had brought me back. He said he couldn’t bear to live without me, couldn’t find the strength to go on without his best friend. But I saw the way he struggled to meet my eye, how he’d flinch and suppress a shudder whenever I drew near. Without saying a word, he confirmed my greatest fear.

I came back wrong.

Graduation was rough. Even though six months had passed, the class of 2007 continued to mourn my loss. My teammates, the cheerleaders, the marching band—they all wish I had been there. They had no idea I was. Skulking in the shadows at the back of the auditorium, I watched the ceremony, I sang the alma mater. I imagined walking with the rest of them, not as I am now—half-living, half-dead, still rotting away—but as I was: young, hopeful, full of promise. I will never be that way again. They played the video in my memory: photos of the life I once lived, a reminder of what has been ripped away from me. If he had just left well enough alone—left me at peace—I wouldn’t feel this pain, this bitterness, this rage. I could have remained a beautiful memory forever.

“You should have left me there. I didn’t ask you to bring me back.”

“I know,” he says, tears streaking his face. “But you don’t know what it was like, Carter. I planned it all out. It took six whole months, but I made it happen. I just didn’t consider the possibility that you’d—I mean, I thought you’d be—I thought you’d look—”

“ALIVE?” The walls shake with the force of my cry. Matt shakes too—quivers where he stands—and averts his eyes. “Look at me.”

He doesn’t.

“Matt, look at me.”

He won’t; just stares at the floor instead.

“LOOK AT ME!”

A sob wracks his body, and he sprints from his bedroom. I see the slamming door for what it is: an attempt to trap me in there, a pitiful countermeasure to keep me from following him. My best friend, my only friend, the one person I have in this world has abandoned me. Matt is gone, and his parents are at the movies watching some stupid rom-com I can’t remember the name of. I am alone in this house. But this is not my house, this is not my home; and soon, Matt will move away, and it won’t be his anymore either. For two weeks, I have lived here, confined to his basement and closet, but that time has come to an end—our time has come to an end.

I leave the room the right way—the way I used to—for the first time since my return. I recognize the pictures lining the walls in the hallway and the grandfather clock at the top of the stairs, but they seem foreign to me now, as if I’m seeing them from the wrong side. There’s no sign of Matt in the living room or kitchen, but the side door is wide open, letting in mosquitoes and flies and the humid summer air. He must have forgotten to shut it in his moment of panic. That’s okay. I’ll close it behind me when I leave.

The sky is black, and shadows stretch and grow where the streetlights can’t reach. I look down at my wrist to check the time but remember I wasn’t buried with my watch. It doesn’t matter; time is for the living. The manhole cover on Jessamine Street is heavy, and I haven’t tried to lift anything since I came back—since I came back wrong. It takes several minutes of struggling, but I manage to move it pry it loose and slide it to the side. As I clutch the service ladder and I begin my descent underground, I keep telling myself…this is where I belong.