This is a novel I've started. I hope it's okay to use a novel instead of a short story. Also, is commercial fiction a no-no in this class? If so, I'll need to submit something else.
Sugar Mountain , Tennessee November 16th, 1991
BRUTAL
PROLOGUE
They bury her father in an unmarked grave.
At . Underneath a moonless sky. Far away from prying eyes.
Pines trees loom overhead, dark and silent watchers standing sentinel. Her mother wields the shovel, tears streaming down her face, her jaw tight. She hefts the garden tool and stabs it into the snow-dusted earth. The spade connects, biting with a sickening sound.
The girl in the mismatched clothes holds the flashlight. Her shirt is yellow plaid, her pants purple and pink paisley; on her feet she wears blue Hello Kitty slippers. She can hear her own guttural sobs; taste the saltiness of sorrow on the back of her tongue.
She is only ten but she has already seen too much death. Gramma and Grampa. Aunt Sissie. Her cocker spaniel, Cheesy.
Now this.
Her father lies at her feet. His ashes nestled in a small, tidy box. She doesn’t really believe it’s him. But the label on the box, printed in big black letters, reads: Richard Dean Pierson. What isn’t printed on the box is the name they’ve been calling him on the television and in newspapers and tabloid magazines.
Mass murderer.
They say he climbed into the clock tower at Prescott University
But she doesn’t believe that either.
Her mother slings rich black soil over her shoulder. It scatters through the air. The girl tastes dirt and she blinks, wipes the earth from her eyes with a sleeve.
“Hold still,” her mother says. “I can’t see if you bob the light around.”
It’s cold. The wind blows through her thin blue jean jacket. She shivers and sniffles and stands in the snow trying hard not to move while her mother digs her father’s grave deep in the pine forest.
Her mother is crying and cursing. Digging and slinging. Intent on her morbid task.
The girl wants to ask questions. So many questions, but she doesn’t dare. She opens her mouth to ask the question—
Don’t ask. You know what’ll happen.
—when the sound of a twig snapping fractures the night.
Down goes the shovel; up goes her mother’s head. The look on her face is one of pure terror. “Turn off the light,” she whispers urgently. “Hurry, hurry.”
Frantically searching for the cut-off switch, the girl fumbles the flashlight, drops it to the earth. It shines a piercing yellow beam throughout the darkness, a signal, a beacon to their enemies—come and get us, we are here.
Her mother kicks the flashlight into the small hole she’s just dug, reaches out, and grabs the girl’s hand. “Run,” she says. “We have run to the car as fast as we can. Run and don’t look back.”
“What about Daddy?” She whimpers, looking back over her shoulder at the lonely white box on the cold, snowy ground.
“It’s too late for him.” Her mother jerks her forward. “Just run.”
But running through a dark pine forest is not easy. The trees are dense. The needles prick, sting. Pine cones slide beneath her Hello Kitty slippers. She stumbles, goes down on one knee, but her mother yanks her up. Pain shoots through her arm and it feels like it’s being ripped from its socket.
She risks snatching another look behind them, wondering what demons nip at their heels. Shadows. Movement.
“Spooks,” her mother mutters. “Ghouls.”
Ghosts? They are being chased by ghosts?
Real fear pulses through her now. Her mother’s terror, the pain in her arm, the shadows converging, all coalesce. Her heart hammers. Her mouth goes dry.
And she just runs. Powered by instinct and self-preservation. Miraculously, she doesn’t hit any trees. Her mother’s footsteps crunching in the snow, the panting sound of her labored breathing echoes behind her. The girl is tired and scared and she doesn’t know what to think. What she wants to do is sit down and sob her eyes out.
But she can’t do that. Not with her mother hissing, “Run, run faster.”
Run.
They make it to the blue Oldsmobile parked on the side of the road at the edge of the forest. The girl can’t help herself and she looks back one last time.
Nothing, no one.
“Mama,” she says, “there’s no one following us.”
“They hide were you can’t see them. Get in, get in.”
She looks at her mother and for the first time doubts her. Her mother fumbles in her pocket for the keys, drops them in the snow, picks them up again and manages to get the car doors open.
“Get in, get in.”
The girl just stands there.
“Hurry, hurry, they’re coming.”
Is her mother crazy? Insane? A mad woman? The girl feels a little crazy herself, but she gets into the passenger seat.
Her mother starts the car and it jumps into gear. “Put your seatbelt on.”
She does it. Her arm burns and her heart thumps and she just knows big trouble is coming. She can feel the dread building, thundering, galloping…thud…thud…thud.
The Oldsmobile’s tires screech and spew gravel as her mother bumps up on the road and makes a wild U-turn. Except for the snow, the night is completely black. Her mother’s breathing is raspy.
“Mama, aren’t you gonna turn on the lights?”
“No, no, this way it’ll make it easier for us to escape.” Her mother steps on the gas and the car shoots forward like a Six Flags ride.
The girl clutches the dashboard and prays simply—please, please. But her prayers have gone unanswered for days now. Tonight is no different.
Her mother careens around a curve in the road and then, behind them, headlamps shine. “See,” her mother whispers. “I told you. They’re coming.”
The Oldsmobile is a rocket, blasting through the night. Dangerous on a winding mountain road.
The girl is terrified. “Mama, slow down.”
But her mother does not. She takes the next bend at an out-of-control pace. The car fishtails in an icy patch.
And then they are airborne.
The girl screams as the car leaves the road, flips over into the ditch. Rolls once, twice, and then comes to a suddenly silent shuddering stop.
She’s upside down, suspended to the roof by her seatbelt. But below the girl, her mother’s seatbelt isn’t on. Her head slumps against the steering wheel, the horn honks long and mournful. Her mother doesn’t move.
“Mama?”
Her mother doesn’t speak.
The girl smells gasoline. Her heart chugs so fast she thinks it’s going to pop from her chest. Her fingers fumble for the seatbelt latch. The collision has knocked the car window out. There’s glass everywhere. And blood.
So much blood.
Is she bleeding? The girl doesn’t know. She feels stunned and cold all over.
Outside the car she hears noises, voices. They are coming. The spooks, the ghouls. She has to run, has to get away.
But what about Mama?
Just then big hands came in through the shattered window. Reaching for her.
She screams. Fights.
“It’s okay, it’s all right. You’re okay. I’ve got you.” It’s a man’s voice. Low and deep.
“Daddy?” she whimpers and settles down, stops fighting. “Daddy is that you?”
She’s pulled from the car and sees her rescuer for the first time. It’s not her daddy. Disappointment tastes like pennies in her mouth. But it’s not a ghost either.
It’s a cop. With a gun and handcuffs and a cop hat. No, not a cop. It’s the cop. The one who came to their house to tell them about Daddy.
“How?” The girl asks, unable to finish the rest of the sentence. How did you get here? How did you know where to find us? How did you know we needed help?
It’s as if he hears her silent questions. He pushes a strand of hair from her forehead, and looks deeply into her eyes as if he knows everything there is to know about her.
“Because,” he murmurs, “We are all connected.”
