The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

Daughter of the Wheat
by Christina Persaud 

Alyssa didn’t want to be back here, searching for the bodies of her parents. Eleven years ago, they left her to wake alone and wonder where they’d gone. Some speculated they had shot each other, claiming the backs of their heads looked like open pomegranates drying in the sun. But Alyssa never saw proof of that. The thing was, the Fosters knew their young daughter would be the first to find them. Their gift to her, one of very few she could remember, was in shielding her from such pain.

Initially, the couple was reported missing. Alyssa was questioned again and again by various child specialists and detectives working on the small town case. People started looking at her differently. At first, she thought it was pity, but there was a tinge to it. A fear. She couldn’t imagine anyone blaming her for her parents’ disappearances. Was she such a terrible twelve-year-old that people felt it reasonable to point fingers at her? It didn’t seem fair. But then, when the police said they found evidence of foul play, Alyssa’s heart skipped a terrible beat. They said someone had tried to use bleach to get rid of the blood stains smeared on the ground as if bodies had been dragged to the door leading to the fields, but they didn’t manage to get all of them. That was the detail that bothered Alyssa the most after all those years.

Alyssa felt her stomach gurgle and nausea attempt to overtake her body. The farmhouse, with its cobwebs and stale, dusty air, sat mostly dark. Earlier that day, she had placed flashlights and candles in various rooms and hallways. After setting up cameras and recorders, putting batteries in the EVP reader, and checking the laser grid (which she spent far too much on), Alyssa didn’t have much to do but go over the facts of her parents’ cold case and wait. She sat by the window in her father’s moth-eaten armchair, occasionally glancing outside as evening fell. Across the fields that once harvested wheat, tall weeds grew in its place.

Midnight struck at a quarter past six. Alyssa was sure of it. Her watch and computer read so. She wasn’t the least bit sleepy. Yet, the grandfather clock in the living room struck twelve times, and the sky changed. Alyssa looked around, feeling both familiarity and dread. Her childhood home was still that, but it would also never be the same. Going through the house, she turned on her spirit detection tools and sources of light. In the kitchen, she grabbed the EVP recorder from the counter.

“Mom?” Alyssa asked. The device was on but not making much sense. Radio frequencies spat back static, garbled nonsense, and partially formed words captured by radio waves. Alyssa walked back to the living room.

Her father’s chair moved. She saw it with her own eyes.

“Dad?”

“…I’m here.”

The EVP flew across the room. Alyssa wasn’t thinking when she threw it. Fortunately, it still worked, but she held the EVP so tightly, she might have broken it simply with her grip.

 “Dad? Is mom with you? Are you safe?”

She brought the EVP to her ear.

The grandfather clock rang again. Midday. Through the windows, the sun was high. Alyssa felt drawn to feel it on her face.

Opening the front door, acres upon acres of wheat swayed in the summer breeze, the crop serenading like rolling, ocean waves.

Alyssa stepped off the porch. Barefoot, her toes dug into the earth.

The wheat parted, wanting to show her the way. She stepped into the path. Ahead, there was movement  in the field – two other paths converging to meet hers.

The EVP recorder in her hands shrieked and shouted. Her parents’ voices called out. They were somewhere close, yet distant. She pressed forward. Maybe her parents were nearer than she imagined. Maybe they had never left! Alyssa felt a lump in her throat and a desperate longing.

The EVP sputtered as if about to die. Alyssa hit it, bringing it back to life.

“don’t… Alyssa…”

She broke into a sprint. Her parents were close. She could feel it. She didn’t need the EVP reader anymore. And as she ran, shedding daze and hurt and confusion, she offered it to the stalks who stifled the last words she’d ever hear –

“Not this way.”

.

 

Fiction © Copyright Christina Persaud
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com.