Buried in Sunshine

by Matthew Fish

“He took the letters,” Emma adds.

  “Maybe that is something that they can work off of,” Dr Riley says as she gets to her feet. “Please just trust me.”

  “I do,” Emma says as she fights back tears. She suspects that Dr. Riley does not believe her—hell; she would have a hard time believing her own story given her history. She could not just let Brian Metcalfe get away with this though. “What is going to happen to me?”

  “They’ll probably keep you here for a few days,” Dr. Riley says as she folds her arms and looks down to the tiled floor. “With your history…they will probably want to monitor you for a time. I’ll do the best I can do to get you out of here earlier—but, if this thing with Brian Metcalfe doesn’t work, or we can’t prove that he was responsible…you can probably count on being here for three, maybe four days.”

  “I can’t be here that long…” Emma protests. She only has four days left. “Please believe me—don’t let him get away with it.”

  “I’ll do my best, I promise. Just be patient—be calm. Do not give them any more reasons to think that you aren’t okay. Relax. I know it is hard right now. I’ll go to the police now. You just rest.”

  “You promise you will go to the police?”

  “I will go right now.”

  “Promise me.”

  “I promise you, Emma.”

  “Okay…” Emma says hesitantly as she looks Julie Riley in the eyes. “I’ll be calm.”

  “Just get better,” Dr. Riley adds. “I’ll see you as soon as I can. Take care, Emma.”

  “Thank you.”

  As Dr. Riley leaves Emma begins to cry once more. She is worried that Brian was right—no one is going to believe someone who has attempted suicide before, and has had such a rich history of mental illness. The thought of him getting away with this act sickens her. If only she had gotten a hold of Ethan.

  The nurse returns into the room. She pushes some medication into Emma’s I.V. “What is that?”

  “Just something to keep you calm,” the nurse replies.

  “I’m calm…”

  “Something to help you sleep…”

  “I didn’t want it,” Emma says as her vision begins to turn blurry.

  “You’ll feel a lot better when you wake up in the morning,” the nurse adds as she walks out of the room and turns off the bright overhead lights.

  “Fuck you to…” Emma murmurs, however the nurse is out of earshot. The room feels like it is spinning. If this was supposed to make her feel better—it definitely was not reaching its intended effect. Emma felt nervous and shaky. However, her eyes felt heavy. Sleep came shortly after; however it was very forceful and unnatural. There was no calm lull, no drifting off into the night—instead; there was only a heavy oppressive feeling of being crammed into the realm of dreams.

  Day 4

  Chapter 5: Anger

  Emma’s eyes adjust to the dim light as she comes into consciousness upon a cold cut-stone floor. She is in a house that is unfamiliar to her. It is lavishly decorated with abstract paintings hung on deep brown walls. Emma gets to her feet, her body is sore. She looks down to her bandaged wrist, it aches painfully as she places her weight upon it.

  Emma attempts to gain her bearings in this strange house. She guides herself down a hallway, her hands pressed against the brown walls for support. She feels weak and dizzy—she feels drugged. A door opens behind her, flooding in hallway with bright light that burns her exhausted eyes. Emma turns to see who has entered the strange house. She takes a deep breath in and attempts to run as she sees Brian Metcalfe enter the hallway. He sets a briefcase down upon a marble table next to the door and heads her way.

  “Leave me alone…” Emma whimpers as she attempts to flee, but finds running impossible. It is as though the floor is made of sand and the hallway is tilted. Emma feels his warmth pass through her—as he, shockingly, passes right through her. He takes no notice of her. Emma’s heavy breathing begins to return normal as she begins to realize she is caught in one of her dreams. However, she does not understand why this one is so drastically different. All of her other dreams took place in the hallway beneath her house.

  Emma follows as best she can until she rounds a corner. She finds herself in a large room. An oak wooden writing desk sits in the center of the room atop a red carpet with an intricate black floral print upon it. A leather chair resides by the desk, a small golden lamp with a green top—like a banker’s lamp, sits atop the table along with a few silver pens. The room overlooks a magnificent garden. As Brian sits down upon the writing desk, Emma turns her attention outdoors. A woman is slumped over in a wheelchair in the sunlight just beyond the sliding glass door.

  “Ethan’s mother…?” Emma says aloud as she paces to the window and gazes outward. The woman looks lifeless—her skin is a deep red. The sight of the woman reminds Emma of that dead black crow in her driveway. Emma turns to look to Brian as he reaches into his pocket and unlocks a drawer. He pulls it open and in it he places the letters that he had stolen from Emma. He is completely oblivious to what has happened just outside.

  Emma’s attention is turned back to the door as it slides open. There, smiling a thin and evil little smile is Alexis. She is holding the sliver knife in her hand.

  Brian turns and lets out a sound that comes off as something between a choke and a scream. “Emma… How did you get here?”

  “It’s Alexis.”

  “You’re in the hospital…” Brian says robotically, he cannot make sense of how he is seeing her as he attempts to sink into his chair in fear. “You can’t be here.”

  “And yet here I am,” Alexis says enthusiastically as she spreads her arms wide and jumps toward Brian who recoils and raises his hands above him to protect himself from any attack that he feels will soon come.

  “You don’t understand—“

  “I understand completely,” Alexis says as she inches forward. She playfully twirls the knife around in her hand. “I believe it is you that understands nothing—you know me right? I’m Alexis. I’m not Emma.”

  “You’re the same person…”

  “Can’t be though, can we?” Alexis says as she places the knife to her wrist and uses it to point out that there is no injury. “As I, as you can clearly see, am unharmed.”

  “How is this possible—are you a ghost?”

  “Are you implying that Emma is dead?”

  “No… I mean I had no intention of doing so. She was just getting to close…”

  “To the truth,” Alexis finished as she brought herself close to Brian.

  “What are you going to do to me?”

  “Nothing,” Alexis says as she tosses the knife into Brian’s lap. “Although I did wheel your wife out into the garden—it was a lovely day. We had a nice talk as we waited for you to get home…I may have left her in the sun a bit too long.”

  Brian looks out the window and finally spots his wife lying lifeless in her wheelchair. Brian begins to tremble in a mixture of horror and anger. “You murdered my wife?”

  “In a way she kind of did it to herself,” Alexis says as she turns her back to Brian and looks to the woman slumped over in the wheelchair. “I mean she just kind of sat there—it’s like she didn’t want to live anyway.”

  Brian grabs the knife in his lap and lunges at Alexis.

  “Stop…” Alexis says as Brian freezes a few inches from striking Alexis’s flesh with the blade.

  “Like I said,” Alexis begins as she forcibly pushes Brian back into his leather chair. She removes the knife from his hand and places one of the silver pens into it and squeezes his hand so he grips it tightly. “I’m not going to do anything to you—but you are going to do a few things for me.”

  “I never meant you any harm,” Brian protests as he shakes violently in attempt to free himself of whatever hold Alexis has upon him. “I did what I did to help protect you.”

  “So you only cut the wrists of the ones you care for…interesting way of showing affection.”
<
br />   “I protected—“

  “Silence, please,” Alexis commands as she nods her head and pulls a piece of paper from the drawer and places it in front of Brian.

  Brian attempts say something, but he cannot manage any words past his muffled lips. He picks up the pen and places it to paper.

  “Write about how you were the one who cut Emma’s wrist—in order to hide your affair from your family,” Alexis says as she reaches over and places her hand upon the locked drawer. With one swift motion she breaks it open, sending letters scattering across the room. “Write about how you just can’t go on living with the guilt that you have amassed over all these long years—finally—write about where the body is.”

  “Where the body is?” Emma asks, although no one can neither hear nor see her. Did this mean that Brian killed her stepfather after all? Emma felt that she should somehow stop this. She was slowly beginning to realize that Alexis was forcing Brian to craft his own suicide letter.

  Brian hesitates with the last part. He attempts once more to break free.

  “Write it down,” Alexis says as she places her hand on Brian’s shoulder and squeezes firmly.

  Brian, without any other choice, does as he is told. Once finished, he sets the pen down and picks up the silver blade.

  “Don’t do this Alexis!” Emma shouts.

  “Ironic that you are going to kill yourself with the same knife you gifted to my mother…well, a little, isn’t it?” Alexis says as she gestures for Brian to continue.

  Emma attempts to reach out and to stop his hand, but finds that she is nothing more than a ghost in this world. She cannot interact—only watch as the events unfold before her. “Alexis…this is too far. If you can hear me at all, please stop. This… I don’t want any of this.”

  Brian places the blade sideways against his wrist.

  “You’ve been watching too many movies,” Alexis says as she grasps Brian’s hand and points the blade parallel to his wrist. “You cut up and down, not across…”

  “No!” Emma shouts once more as she attempts to grasp unsuccessfully at the knife.

  Brian begins to cut into his own flesh as tears stream down from his eyes. Blood rushes forth from the wound in a heavy spray. Alexis jumps atop the table and watches intently as the life slowly fades from Brian’s eyes. He slumps back in the chair as his eyes roll back in his head.

  Emma turns towards the red front door as it bursts open. Ethan’s voice can be heard down the hall. “Dad…We’ve got to get the hospital—they say that Emma—“

  “Don’t hurt him,” Emma pleads.

  “Sleep…” Alexis whispers as Ethan falls to the floor, his head striking the stone surface. “Or knock yourself out…either way works for me.”

  “No…” Emma sobs as she begins to cry. She looks at the gruesome scene and falls to her knees. Because of her—because she refused to keep Brian’s secret she has wrought an unimaginable pain upon Ethan.

  Alexis smiles as she looks upon the chaos she has caused. She then opens the backdoor and disappears into the sunlight.

  “The body,” Emma whispers as she wipes away the tears from her eyes and attempts to get to her feet. “So… he did murder my stepfather—where is the body…?”

  Emma takes a step forward and the whole house begins to shudder. The stone ground begins to crack beneath her weight like a thin layer of ice on a frozen lake. Emma reaches her hand out in an attempt to read Brian’s final letter—just before her fingers come into contact, the entire floor beneath her shatters away like fragile glass. Emma falls down into an endless darkness. Her hand still outstretched as though she still holds onto the hope that she could reach that letter. She feels herself all onto something sharp. Broken pieces of concrete are lying around her stained in blood. She attempts to move, but finds that her body is broken. She takes a deep breath in and holds it as the pain sears through her body.

  “Wake up…” Emma repeats over and over as though the words will help her free herself from this terrible nightmare.

  With a jolt, Emma awakens in her hospital bed. Her restraints are gone. A hot breeze blows into the room. Emma looks to the window and sees Alexis sitting on the open window sill; her dress is stained with blood.

  “What have you done Alexis?”

  “I’ve freed you—“

  “Did that really happen?” Emma asks as she attempts to recall every detail of the memory.

  “I have to give you quite a bit of credit,” Alexis says as she smiles. “You really pushed him to desperation. Without that, I don’t think we could have uncovered his dirty little secrets. You’re not weak after all.”

  “I should have never taken it so far…”

  “It was anger—it gives us strength. Let’s us do what we need to be done.”

  “I’m not like you,” Emma protests as she buries her head in her pillow. “I don’t want to be like you.”

  “You’re more like me than that weakling Elizabeth—you’re so much like me you’d be amazed. It felt good, didn’t it? Confronting him, showing him no compassion at all—I loved the part where you told him to go to hell.”

  “Where is Elizabeth,” Emma asks.

  “Gone,” Alexis replies as she looks out the window. “You’ve got me. You don’t need her.”

  “I hate you,” Emma whispers.

  Alexis laughs as she brushes a hand through her windswept hair. “After everything I have done for you?”

  “You’ve turned me into something I never wanted to be.”

  “I turned you into what you have to be,” Alexis says in stern tone. “You wanted answers—you’ve got them. You want to spend your last days in here?”

  “I’m going to stop it.”

  “So naïve,” Alexis says as she shakes her head. “Even that empty-headed waif Elizabeth knew that there was no stopping it.”

  “Elizabeth is by far a better person than you are.”

  “Ungrateful as always,” Alexis says as she throws her hands up dramatically. “I’ll see you soon—we still have business. Anyway, enjoy your freedom.”

  Emma watches as Alexis jumps out the window and disappears.

  Just as Alexis disappears, Dr. Riley enters the room. Following behind her is Justine Celeste. Emma is surprised to see her here, she wonders for what reason Dr. Riley had chosen to bring Justine along.

  “Emma…” Dr. Riley says as she places a hand to Emma’s forehead and caresses it with her hand. “How are you feeling?”

  “I’m better—I noticed I’m no longer restrained…”

  “I am so sorry that I doubted you for even a moment,” Dr. Riley says as she nods. “You were right, you were completely right.”

  “Brian Metcalfe…?” Emma asks apprehensively. She has a feeling she already knows his fate.

  “He took his own life after leaving a note,” Dr. Riley says as she places a comforting hand upon Emma’s shoulder. “He terrible about what he did—his hurting you, was the last act of a very guilty…desperate man.”

  “He’s gone,” Emma says softly. She knows for certain now that everything she saw was true. As impossible, and terrible, as it all was—it was all true.

  “There’s something else,” Dr. Riley says as she takes in a heavy breath. “Your stepfather wasn’t driven off, nor did he commit suicide. Brian killed him and buried him beneath concrete in a greenhouse a short distance away from your home.”

  “He lied to me,” Emma says as a touch of disbelief taints her voice. Of course he had good reason to. It was just that, he seemed so sincere. There was no sense of dishonesty that Emma could find in his defense. “How did he die?”

  “The police are investigating it further—and the body is in pretty bad shape so I don’t think that we’ll know for a while.”

  “Emma?” Justine says as she meekly steps forward.

  “Justine…” Emma says with a nod. “It’s good to see you.”

  “We thought that it would be a bad idea for you to return to your home today,”
Justine begins as she approaches the bed. “I’d like to invite you to stay over tonight—and then you could go back tomorrow if you wanted. Just so that you’ve have someone to kind of take care of you.”

  “Is that what you want?” Emma asks.

  “Oh, of course,” Justine says as she smiles, “I don’t really have many friends—any that are… I don’t really get visitors. I think I would really like it.”

  “Yeah,” Emma says softly as she attempts to sit up in the hospital bed. “I would like that.”

  “Emma,” Dr. Riley says as she shakes her head and lets out one of her typical sighs. “I’m so sorry. I should have never doubted you.”

  “Thank you for going to the police. Thank you for keeping your promise.”

  “It was pretty terrible there,” Dr. Riley says as she looks to the open window. “It is way too hot in here for this—it’s supposed to hit a hundred and fourteen with the heat index today.”

  “What about Ethan?” Emma asks as she remembers him hitting the floor. “Is he alright?”

  “He passed out from the sight of finding his family…” Dr. Riley begins as she looks saddened. “His mother didn’t make it—at some point, maybe after finding her husband dead—she wheeled herself out into the yard and allowed herself to die of heat stroke. He’s probably pretty shaken up.”

  “I wonder if he hates me.”

  “I bet he wonders the exact same thing of you,” Dr. Riley says as she pats Emma on the shoulder. “Give him some time.”

  “Can we get out here?” Emma asks as she turns to Justine.

  “You’re good to go,” Justine says as she smiles. “We’ll just step out and let you get dressed and then we’ll head back to my place.”

  “Sounds good,” Emma says as she painfully shifts herself in bed and places her bare feet against the cold tile floor. “Thank you…both of you.”

  “It’s good to have help,” Dr. Riley says as she turns to Justine. “We’ve all been through rough times—it’s the people that we surround ourselves with that help us get out of the bad times.”

  “Thank you for being here for me,” Emma adds.