One of my best friends is suicidal, and this story is dedicated to her. I wouldn't know what to do if she died, but that gave me this idea.
Songs used: It will Come Back-Hozier
()()()
Through the cold
I'll find my way back to you.
()()()
When we were twelve my best friend Lia's cat died. It's name was Clark, and she cried for hours.
It was me who broke down and told her about the Pet Semetary, the one in Ludlow, Maine. I had always been a sucker for anything horror, and the idea of a place where you buried the dead, and they returned, was enchanting to me. I'd read up about it as much as I could, but there wasn't much to be found on the internet. I told her, and it wasn't far from where we lived.
We got her older brother Kenny to drive us. He waited in the car while we did it, getting high with his girlfriend.
Of course, I wasn't very smart then. Lia was a spoiled brat, and within ten minutes she handed the shovel to me and asked me to do it. Our other friend, Ellie, was there, but she was a small girl and kept to herself. We weren't close when we were twelve-just associates, both friends of Lia's. It was me who buried the cat.
Clark was buried on a Friday night, and then Kenny drove us to Dairy Queen for blizzards and we made the two hour drive home.
Saturday night there was a scratching on my window, the familiar meow of Clark.
"Go to Lia's," I said, never an animal person. But Clark was persistent, clawing at the screen of my window. Briefly I wondered how he'd gotten up here, considering I was on the second floor.
It was November and the air was lightly chilled-I was worried he hadn't eaten, was probably cold, and my sympathy got the best of me.
I let him in. He was mine now.
The first thing he went for were my eyes, clawing at them as if he wanted to take them out of my head entirely.
I suffocated Clark with my pillow. I locked him in my closet, praying he wouldn't come back again, and had Lia over the next morning to tell her.
"So it worked?" She asked. "He came back?"
"Yeah, to me! Because I buried him." I exclaimed.
"We can bring him back again, can't we?" Lia grinned.
"No, we can't. Or at least I can't. Leave me out of this."
Lia asked Kenny to take her back to the semetary, to rebury the cat, but he refused.
"Let it rest," He told her. "We'll get you a new cat."
Clark was buried in Lia's backyard.
()()()
They could get Lia a new cat, but they couldn't get us a new best friend.
July 5th, 2014 was the night Ellie killed herself, slitting her wrists in the bathtub. I thought it sounded like a giant cliche, but that's how things like that become cliches.
I cried for four hours straight and refused to eat for a day. I heard Lia was worse.
We were seventeen now, and over the years the three of us had become closer. We mistook Ellie's depression for her retreating back into herself, becoming shy like she used to be. She could still make us laugh, she was still a sweet girl, and for the longest time we thought nothing was wrong-until it was too late.
Lia and I didn't speak for a week, not until the funeral.
"You know what we have to do, right?" She said, looking at me urgently.
"What?" I asked. She'd never been religious, but maybe she wanted me to light a candle for Ellie, to say a prayer in her name or something. I'd never imagined this.
"Take her to the semetary."
"No," Was the first word out of my mouth.
I didn't have a choice. Lia showed up at my house that night in her dad's truck, Ellie's body wrapped in sheets and thrown in the bed. My boyfriend Tex was over, and he came along too.
()()()
The walk to the semetary wasn't far, but what came after was a long and hard hike. Lia led the way, shovel in hand, and I followed her. Tex was in the back, carrying the body.
"Does she smell?" Lia asked him, the first word she's said to him all night. "I tried to spray her with some of my perfume, but it was hard to cover up."
"Death usually is," I rolled my eyes. "Lia, this is a bad idea."
"What, you think it won't work?"
"It'll work," I shook my head. "But not in the way you think it will. There've been stories about this-whole families slaughtered, because someone tried to bring back a person. They come back different."
"Ellie's always been different." Lia shrugged, denial written all over her face.
I grabbed her arm, pulling her to face me. Her eyes were red and bloodshot, her hands shaking-she hadn't slept in a while.
"They come back mean."
Lia looked at me, anger in her eyes. She yanked her arm away.
"You never liked her, Lauren. She was always my friend, never yours. You don't want her to come back so you can have me all to yourself!"
"Don't be such a child!" I screamed, not caring who heard me. Let the residents hear, let them come and stop us. I wish someone would. "I want her back just as much as you do, but I don't want her like this."
There was a silence, the sound of Tex catching up to us, Ellie in his hands. She'd been starving herself these past few months, which was lucky because Tex wasn't exactly a big guy, and it made it easier for him to carry her.
"You weren't there when Clark came back, Lia." I shook my head. "He was always a gentle cat, always good to me. He tried to hurt me, and not just scratch me or bite me, he tried to claw my eyes out. Lia, Clark tried to kill me."
"And instead you killed him. Again."
"I'm not burying her." I said finally, shaking my head.
I winced, plucking Ellie from Tex's arms and passing her to Lia. Let her carry a hundred pounds of dead weight up to a burial ground, and maybe she would be discouraged. Maybe a little hard labor was all it took to end this cycle.
"I'm going to wait in the car then," Tex shrugged, walking back towards the path.
"And I'll be with him." I nodded. "When you're done, then we'll leave."
I loved Ellie with all my heart, and I'd do anything to bring her back-but not this. Whatever came back, it wouldn't be Ellie.
()()()
There was knocking on the drivers seat window.
Tex and I must've fallen asleep waiting for Lia. It was nearly dawn when I opened my eyes, and Lia still wasn't back.
But Ellie was.
She stood outside of the window, hair falling out and matted. Her teeth were more rotten than I remembered and her skin was coming out in chunks. She looked like she'd been dead for longer than a week. Her eyes were the most vicious shade of yellow, and her mouth curled up in a snarl. Her fingernails were the longest they'd ever been, probably because this was the longest she'd gone without biting them.
Despite how decayed they looked, her teeth looked sharper somehow.
This was not the Ellie I remembered.
"Open up and drive me home, Lauren." She grinned, her dry lips cracking under the pressure of smiling.
My heart sunk, and I shook Tex awake.
"Make sure the doors are locked," I mumbled. "Where's Lia?"
"She's waiting at home. I told her to take a bus or something, that I'd come hang out once I was done with you two. From what she told me, Laur, you haven't been a very nice friend. I think it's about time you paid for that."
"Fucking shit," Tex groaned. "Where's the keys?"
"Lia must still have them." I said, searching the car frantically for a spare. My hands shook-my whole body did, really. "I didn't bury you, Ellie! You're not mine."
"Oh, but you were my best friend, you and Lia. It's only fair that I pay you a visit too. Now, are you looking for these?"
My heart caught in my throat as Ellie's bony hand rose, revealing a set of keys to the truck.
She could've gotten in the whole time. She just wanted to play with us a little.
Ellie laughed dryly as she unlocked the door, her fingernails breaking.
"Oh, Lauren, how I've missed you." She grinned, grabbing onto my feet with strength the old Ellie didn't possess. Tex grabbed hold of my hands, trying to hold me to him. With one swift yank she dragged me out of the car, onto the grass on the side of the road.
"Tex!" I hollered.
"How about you and I play doctor, huh Lauren? Like when we were kids?"
Tex was frozen with fear. He stood beside the car as Ellie dragged me into the woods, towards the Pet Sematary. And in the broad daylight, too. I should've known the people of Ludlow wouldn't help-they knew how the grounds worked, the ones you resurrected were your own to put back down again.
"Hairdresser, maybe? I always did have sloppy aim though, I might get your ear instead!"
"Let me go!" I squirmed, but there was no use. I knew what was coming.
"I've got it, how about we play locksmith?" Ellie grinned, pulling up my shirt and smiling at Lia's car key-never before had it seemed so sharp. "I'll stick the key into the hole, and you tell me if it fits?"
I screamed as she jammed the key into my belly button, cutting a line up to my neck.
"Then again, doctor sounds just as good. Maybe I'll show you what they did to me at the morgue, huh?" She grinned, yellow eyes glinting in the sunlight as I began to bled out, a cat named Churchill buried four feet beneath me.
()()()
Leave it to the land, this is what it knows.
Honey that's how it sleeps.
()()()