Rubber City Ruins

by Tara Summerville

  12/20/2015 The news station said to bring dead family members to some strange address out in the middle of nowhere for a mass cremation. A lot of people on the cable news networks are saying that the cities are doing this because they don’t want the virus contaminating the soil and the water supply. Fuck them, I buried Rick in the backyard anyway. The ground was a little frozen so it’s not a really deep grave… but Rick deserved more than to be heaped in a big pile of bodies and set on fire. I haven’t cried since he died yesterday morning. I cried when he was dying… but after watching footage of all of the looting and the burning bodies… I’m thankful that Rick was able to get on out of here before it got worse. Who knows, maybe I’ll be the next to go. I really hope it’s soon.

  Anna stood at the kitchen sink and stared at the window like she often did at the end of a particularly hard day. She would pour herself a glass of water from the faucet and focus on all the birds and the squirrels that had gathered around her bird feeder that hung off the old maple tree. Much like she had done in the past, Anna opened the kitchen cabinet and pulled down one of her glasses and turned on the faucet. Nothing happened. The glass fell from her hands and made a loud thud against the metal sink.

  “Maybe I’m a ghost. Maybe I’m a ghost and there’s some unfinished business that I have to find.” She reached up her hands and ran them along the edges of her face. “I don’t feel like a ghost.” And she didn’t believe in ghosts.

  Under the empty bird feeder was exactly what the author of the journal had described: a shallow grave. It was long and rather narrow for a grave.

  ‘I bet he’s not even out there.’ She thought. ‘He can’t be dead… he can’t be. I didn’t even see him die. It’s not true. It’s not true.’

  She ran out of the side door and into the backyard. The ground was muddy and wet as if it had rained the night before. If he had really been buried in the middle of December, where was the shovel? Circling the maple tree, she scanned the yard to see if it was buried in the overgrown grass. She looked in the garage, and in the storage shed, and around the front of the house. A satisfied smile slid across her face as she realized that it might not be true. How could he be buried without a shovel? Did they even have a shovel? They always hired a landscaping company to work on their yard in the spring; it was quite possible that they didn’t even have one to begin with. She went into the storage shed and came out with a metal rake, which she used to shift around in the dirt and made no real progress in digging. Dropping to her knees she began to dig with her hands like a dog, pushing small piles of dense dirt through the bridge her legs made. It was only after a few manual digs that she remembered the gardening kit she kept in the basement. It was on sale at the end of summer one year, and she had bought it with the intentions of starting a small vegetable garden the following spring. The kit, which contained a hand shovel, sat beneath the basement steps it pristine condition.

  The basement, much like the basement at the school, was flooded with beams of natural light from the glass block windows that ran along the ceiling. She took the flashlight that sat on the top step in case she had trouble seeing in the tight space under the stairs.

  It smelled damp and moldy like it always had. The cool air felt good against her skin and she wiped away a line of sweat that had formed at her hairline with her fingertips and wiped them on her pants. The light from her flashlight bounced off the puddles of condensation that had formed on the uneven and cracked concrete floor.

  “Oh…” She sighed in disappointment as her flashlight landed on a large and rusted shovel. As she walked over to pick it up, the light caught something familiar in the seldom-frequented corner of the basement where the treadmill lived.

  She dropped her flashlight on the floor and it flickered off.

  There was a body propped up against the back wall. The body wore her favorite pajamas: the purple ones with the yellow ducks on them. The body wore only one of her filthy brown moccasin slippers; the other foot wore a neon cast. The body had shoulder length wavy blonde hair just like hers.

  Anna held a frightened breath inside her chest and neared the body. The face was badly decayed and dried sheets of skin clung to bone. The body wore a silver wedding band with a princess cut diamond ring. Anna looked down at her hand at the exact same ring set on her hand.

  A loud ringing crescendoed in her ears and her body jerked as what felt like a magnetic pulse ran from the base of her skull and into her shoes, and she crumpled onto the damp basement floor.

  Chapter 6

  One of Anna’s earliest memories was going to the funeral of her great-grandmother. She never knew her or anything about her before hearing of her passing. It was late after school on a Thursday evening and Anna was playing ‘Connect 4’ with her aunt, who had been watching her until her mom got home from work. Anna can remember turning to see her mother walking through the drafty front door and looking so very sad. Her mother sat down at the table and explained to her that they would be going on a little road trip to a funeral. Anna was 6 at the time, and was learning about death and the traditional death rituals for the very first time.

  “Sometimes, Anna, when we get older parts of our bodies stop working. And when that happens, we go to sleep for a long time.” Her mother explained, brushing a long strand of blonde hair away from Anna’s face. “And when someone goes to sleep for such a long time, we can’t see or talk to that person anymore. So, all of great-grandma’s family is going gather this weekend to go to a funeral. Do you know what a funeral is?”

  Anna shook her head.

  Her mother sighed. “It’s where loved ones gather to say goodbye.”

  Anna stared into the carpet, unsure of what she should say. Her mother wasn’t acting like her normal goofy self, and it scared her a little.

  “Hey,” her mother pulled her chin to hers, “It’s just a normal part of life, hun. Plus, it means we get to go on a little road trip to Michigan and stay in a hotel.”

  “Really? We get to stay in a hotel?”

  Anna’s mother smiled in relief. “You betcha.”

  As years passed, the details of the road trip and their stay at the hotel had faded. The funeral, however, was something that Anna would never forget. It was as if she had crash landed on a strange planet where everyone acted stiff and couldn’t talk to each other like normal. Typically, adults would see Anna and bend down to her level and ask her questions and tell her how pretty she was. At the church, it was like she was invisible. After everyone sat in the uncomfortable wooden pews, people would walk up to the podium and talk about things, but it was as if it was in a foreign language. Anna didn’t pay attention to the bible verses that were being recited, or the sad organ music playing gently in the background. She watched as people cried, as people fought back tears, and as people stared uncomfortably into their laps. She hated that the room was so sad, and wished for something to happen that would make everyone happy. In her childlike mind, she had never witnessed anything other than a happy ending. All those people were sad because the casket sitting on the center stage-according to what her mother had told her- contained her sleeping great grandmother.

  ‘Just wake up… please… just wake up…’ Anna thought, hoping her intense focus and willpower would magically make her grandmother wake up.

  She closed her eyes tightly.

  The lid of the coffin flung open and the congregation let out a collective gasp. Slowly, the woman in the coffin sat up, adjusted her glasses and looked out into the crowd.

  “I feel so much better and not dead after all!” The old woman said as she began to climb out of the casket. All her family, including Anna’s mother, rushed to the front of the stage, cheering and laughing and helping her step down out of the casket. They hugged her tightly and---

  “Come on, kiddo.” Anna’s mother gently shook her forearm.

  Anna opened her eyes to find the casket was still closed and the crowd was slowly shuffling its way outside. She looked up at her mother whose eyes
were red and swollen, but she was still able to deliver her a comforting smile.

  “We’re almost done here, we just got to go back to Uncle Jim’s house for dinner. That should be a lot more fun than this.”

  As Anna grew older and the details of death began to fill in, the memory of waiting for her great-grandmother to rise up out of her casket was just a reminder of how harsh and painful life could be. She was only six, but she suddenly realized the true cost of relationships. For their entire lifetime, people go to great lengths to form deep and profound bonds with other people. They depend on those relationships to navigate their way through their own lives: to celebrate the good times and to help one another through the bad. Each individual plays a significant role in the lives of many people. Then one day, they’re just gone, and the warm and squishy body that was the recipient of so many hugs is drained and stuffed and stored underground, never to be seen again.

  When she was 12, both of her parents died in a car accident. Her memories of their tandem funeral were just a blur of adults in sheer stockings and stiff suits. The influx of people in and out of her life over the subsequent year desperately tried to fill the sudden void of both of her parents. Much like the funeral in Michigan, she refused to believe that they were going to be gone forever. She never got to see their dead bodies, and the people from her mom’s soap operas came back to life all the time. People often commended her for how well adjusted she was to the loss of her parents, but in reality, she went about her life waiting for them to come walking back into the door at any minute. Even as she matured and learned how the world really worked, she still carried the childlike hope that her parents could still come home.

  Chapter 7

  Anna awoke to the sound of crashing pots and pans. She sat up, looked around, and realized that she was laying on the couch in her living room next to the unlit Christmas tree. She jumped up when Cole appeared in the doorway from the kitchen.

  “Oh good. Good, good, good. You’re not dead.”

  “What are you doing in my house?” She sat back down on the sofa and cradled her pounding head in her hands.

  “I sort of… followed you here.” He raised his eyebrows and squinted, as if awaiting a verbal reprimand.

  Her head hurt too much to be upset, and his presence felt rather comforting considering everything she had read in her journal. “What were you looking for in the kitchen?”

  “It’s just… I mean, I… I… I have been alone for so long and you don’t know what it’s--- oh. You don’t care that I followed you?”

  “It’s fine. You seem harmless enough. Besides… if you decided to murder me and wear my skin as a pelt it wouldn’t be the worst thing that could happen to me right now.”

  “Whoa… I would never do that.” He sat down on a chair across from Anna. “So… What happened here? Why were you passed out on the basement floor?”

  Anna lifted her head from her hands. “I was passed out on the basement floor?”

  “Yeah. What happened?”

  “I… I don’t know.”

  “Well, what’s the last thing that you remember?” Cole sat on the arm of the couch and adjusted the brim of his baseball cap.

  “I was looking for a shovel---”

  “A shovel? Why a shovel?” He interrupted.

  She walked over to the kitchen window and pointed out into the yard. “See that mound of dirt there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I have reason to believe Rick is buried there.”

  “Rick… that’s your husband, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m sorry, Anna.” He wasn’t surprised by her admission. “I know you were hoping he would be here. How did to learn that he was out there?”

  Anna opened her mouth to explain the journal that provided the details of how she buried her own dead husband. But if it was a truth that she was having trouble accepting, how would a stranger react to such a fantastical story? “It’s not important. I was looking for a shovel to confirm if it was really him.”

  “Wait… you were going to dig him up? Ick- that’s creepy.”

  “I know how it sounds---”

  “It sounds pretty messed up.”

  “No one asked you how you felt about it. In fact, I don’t remember inviting you inside.” Her tone became defensive as she walked away from the window and back into the living room.

  “I’m sorry,” Cole responded as he followed her. “You said that you were looking for a shovel so you went down into the basement?”

  “Yeah… there wasn’t one in the garage or in the storage shed. I remembered a small gardening kit I kept down in the basement. While I was down there I saw the large shovel we typically kept in the garage. I walked over…” A faint ringing began to grow in her ear again. The more she tried to remember, the louder it became, and the more her head began to throb. “I can’t remember what happened. The next thing I know I’m here. And you’re digging through my kitchen cabinets.”

  “Sorry about that. I was checking to see if you had any bottled water.”

  “I always just used my reusable bottle that I filled with tap water.”

  Cole got up from the couch and began to walk around the room. He plucked a few books off of her anemic bookshelf and began to leaf through them. Unimpressed, he slid them back into their respective positions and worked his way to the Christmas tree. “I like your tree. It reminds me of the tree we had at our house.”

  “Thanks.” Anna got up and plucked a rocking horse off of the tree. “But it’s usually decorated better than this. I don’t know what these ugly popsicle Santa Claus’ are doing on here.”

  “You don’t remember hanging them?”

  Anna paused and thought about her answer. “Nope. I don’t.”

  “So… let me get this straight.” Cole shifted his weight to his back leg. “You woke up in the middle of nowhere and made your way back to your home. The last memory that you had was when the world was still in order… and that was at least 30 years ago?”

  Anna walked into the back office, came back into the living room and handed Cole her notebook. “You’re going to think that I’m out of my mind. But I found this. And it’s the reason why I suspect Rick is buried in the back yard.”

  Cole opened up the journal at the beginning and began to read. “It looks like a normal diary. Who’s is this? Is this yours?”

  “Yup.” Anna took the journal and flipped to the page where she talked about going in for a CAT scan. “This is the last journal entry that I remember writing. I was going to the hospital for a CAT scan, and then Rick and I came home and celebrated.”

  Anna waited as Cole read the entry.

  “After that day, the next thing I remember is waking up in Wooster. But the thing is…” She flipped to the next page, “This journal keeps going. It talks about a virus. It talks about my brother dying of that mystery virus. It talks about Rick getting sick, and about burying him. It’s all in my handwriting, and it all sounds like stuff I would say.”

  Cole didn’t speak, he just sat down on the couch and continued reading the remainder of the entries. “And you’re positive that this is your handwriting?”

  “Yeah, that’s mine.”

  “...And you don’t remember writing any of this?”

  “I don’t remember writing it… I don’t remember living it…” Anna paced in front of the living room window wringing her hands. “It makes my stomach churn. I don’t know what is happening to me. I feel like I’m going crazy.”

  “I don’t think that you’re going crazy… but this right here is weird.” He slapped the journal against his knee. “So, what are you going to do? Are you going to stay here?”

  “Of course I’m going to stay here. This is my house.” She stopped her pacing to look around the room. It felt like a tomb of the life she was pulled from. Rick’s coffee mug sat on the end table, and his jacket lay next to hers on the armchair. His magazine subscriptions were shoved under the coffee table and were
spilling out onto the floor. Their shoes were still lined by the front door- 1 pair of Rick’s and 6 pairs of Anna’s. “But… I don’t know… I can’t… I can’t stay here without Rick. And I want to find out what happened to me and my memories. I don’t think I’m going to find any more answers here.”

  A wide smile spread across Cole’s face. “You think that your memory has been wiped?”

  “I… I don’t. Why are you smiling?”

  “It’s like something out of a spy novel. Or science fiction. I’ve been so alone and so bored. This is going to be exciting.”

  “What makes you think that you’re tagging along?” Anna was hoping that he would want to come, but she was annoyed by his presumption.

  “Can I come?”

  “I guess… but I don’t even know where to start looking.”

  “How about your last memory? You said you got some sort of scan at a hospital.”

  Anna drew her hands up to her mouth. “You think that the doctor had something to do with it? Because now that I think about it… that would kind of make sense. The whole ordeal was strange.”

  “What made it strange?”

  “They had the CAT scan machine in the basement… but maybe that’s typical for a hospital. I really wouldn’t know. The nurse acted strange, and so did the doctor.” She dropped her hands from her face. “There wasn’t anything that stuck out as strange… It was just a feeling that I had.”

  “We can start from there. Do you know where he lived?”

  “No, but I think I kept his business card in my purse.” Anna walked into the kitchen and found her purse exactly where she always kept it on the chair. She opened her wallet and pulled out the card. “I suppose I couldn’t really call him at home.”