The Locket

Madison swung away on her swing-set—back and forth—pointing her toes out and leaning back, getting higher and higher with each pass, her dad’s lawnmower humming along in the background. Her parents wanted to get rid of that old playscape they insisted she had outgrown, but Madison loved that thing, sometimes still spending hours at a time on it, swinging, sliding, climbing like it was her seventh birthday all over again.

The late morning sun broke through the trees, illuminating the healthy, green lawn that Madison’s dad Robert so assiduously and proudly cared for. He mowed in perfect rows, sometimes more than once to ensure the clippings were mulched from existence and the yard was completely flat and uniform, rivaling the greens of the most prestigious golf courses around and earning compliments from other lawn hobbyists in the neighborhood. 

Madison’s swinging slowed to a stop as she watched the speeding Lincoln come roaring through the fence, an explosion of broken pickets flying over the hood and into the air. The car bounced and swerved, tearing through the lush lawn, finally smashing head on into one of the large oaks on the property. The crashing steel and shattering glass breached the loud purr of the mower, snapping Robert from his robotic trance. He looked up and released the handle, cutting the engine. It took him a second to register what was happening, and when his brain finally sparked, his first instinct was to look for Madison who was safe and walking toward the wrecked car.

“Madison! Stay back, baby!” Robert said, watching the smoke rise from the busted front end of the Lincoln and hearing what sounded like a boiling tea kettle on the verge of combustion. He hurried toward the car as the driver-side door creaked open, and a man fell out onto the ground. The man crawled only inches with something clasp tight in his hand before his heavy head hit the earth and his grip released, blood seeping onto the freshly cut lawn.

“Holy shit!” Robert said as he raced to the driver’s aid. “Sir! Sir! Are you alright?” He nudged the man who lay motionless, a puddle of blood expanding around his head. He looked back to the house. His wife Samantha stood on the front porch with her hands on her head, eyes wide and mouth hanging loosely open. 

“Honey,” Robert said. “Call 9-1-1!”

When she didn’t move, he tried again. “Honey! Samantha! Call 9-1-1!”

Finally the words registered with her, and she raced inside for her phone.

“Help’s on the way, sir! Stay with—” Robert’s words were cut short by the woman in the passenger seat, her head hung low from a loose swivel. Robert walked from the man and peered inside the car. “My God,” he said, horrified by the amount of blood and viscous, lumpy fluids that had only moments prior been contained within her skull, now splattered around the cabin, still oozing from the gunshot wound in the side of her head. Chunks of burrowing windshield bulged from her face like blisters ready to pop. Robert gagged and turned from the vehicle, hunched over, fighting back the acid that tried forcing its way up his throat. With his hands on his knees, he caught his breath and wiped the excess saliva from his mouth. Madison stood completely still about twenty feet from the accident, quietly observing the carnage, her face lacking any expression, her ten-year old brain not developed or mature enough to process the horrific images.

“Maddy,” Robert said. “Go inside, now.”

* * *

It had been several days since the accident and things were beginning to normalize again. Robert put in an insurance claim on the fence that would be fixed the following week. He raked out the tire tracks in the lawn and re-seeded the bare patches. With a little time and some water, his lawn would soon be back to its lush, uniformed appearance. 

The brakes on the school bus squealed as it pulled up in front of their house. Madison and her older brother Maddox came off the bus, both hoisting their backpacks. Maddox walked directly to the house, intent on getting something to eat for his unceasingly hungry and growing teenage body and speeding through his homework so he could get online with his friends and shoot everything in sight. His life consisted of eating and gaming. School and everything else were just in the way. The screen door shut behind the determined teenage boy on a mission. 

Madison slowed as she walked past where the accident occurred, visions of the dead man’s and woman’s bodies flashing through her mind like a cursed old film projector. While her family seemed to have moved on from the traumatic incident, or were at least pretending, Madison couldn’t get the questions out of her head. Why did the man shoot her? How did they end up in our yard? She stopped where the man had crawled from the vehicle and bled out, still seeing remnants of the rusty color coating the ground, despite her dad having put the hose to it several times. The afternoon sun reflected from something in the dirt, the shimmery object catching her eye. She bent down and picked up the unfamiliar silver locket, looking it over, assuming the man must have dropped it as he fell from the car. She noticed a soft reddish glow leaking from the seam and wondered what could be inside. Maybe a jewel or crystal, she thought. Definitely something red and sparkly. She held the chain and tried prying the locket open with her fingernails, but it wouldn’t budge. The glow from within softly flickered—brightening and dimming, the locket like ice seeping into her fingertips. As if in trouble, she looked around for a moment to ensure there were no witnesses, before placing the locket in her pocket and walking inside the house and up the stairs to her room. She set the mysterious locket on her nightstand next to her bed, whatever contained inside still emitting a gentle ruddiness through the seam.

* * *

Madison woke the next morning to yelling coming through the walls. She couldn’t make out the words, but she didn’t need to. Her parents were obviously upset and arguing about something. She looked at the clock showing it was before six a.m., let out a frustrated sigh, and fell back into the pillow that felt cold and damp. The sheets were also damp. Madison had apparently sweated half her body weight throughout the night, the mattress and pillows nothing more than a big sponge. The yelling continued as she covered her ears. Her parents didn’t fight very often—actually they hardly ever fought—but sometimes they could be so stupid, she thought. Annoyingly stupid.

Madison tried closing her eyes and catching that last half hour of sleep before having to get up for school, but it was no use. The assault from the other room was too much. She threw the blanket off and got up from bed, noticing the shiny locket she placed on her nightstand spread open. Weird, she thought. She wasn’t able to pry the thing open yesterday, yet there it was. She anxiously picked it up to see what was inside. There was no glow, no jewel or crystal, nothing. Just an empty old locket. 

The front door of the house slammed shut, vibrating the walls. An aggravated Madison looked through her blinds to see her dad rev up his truck and back out in a rage. What is wrong with these people?

* * *

Madison felt off all day at school, like she was watching her classmates from a distance. Her normal happy, boisterous self had been replaced by a quiet, annoyed child who just wanted to get away from there, away from everywhere and everyone. Madison’s best friend Sofia tried engaging with her, but Madison offered nothing more than one or two word replies, uninterested at best.

That evening was more of the same from her parents. Constant bickering and yelling over this and that, capped by Maddox’s in school suspension for getting in a fight. That seemed to send them over the edge as both parents stormed out of the dining room in opposite directions, their plates half eaten, obviously too angry to be in the same room with Maddox or each other. Cabinet doors slammed from the kitchen as curse words flew around the house like wildly-thrown daggers. Madison couldn’t deal with these idiotic people any longer, taking only a few bites from the chicken and macaroni and cheese that tasted awful and was hard to swallow before stomping up the stairs, slamming her door, and locking herself in her room. She lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling and the spinning fan, frustration percolating through her tensed fists. She couldn’t pinpoint or focus on any particular thought as her mind spun round and round and round with the blades of the fan until she finally fell asleep. 

* * *

The next morning, Madison really didn’t feel well. She didn’t get much sleep, the deadly accident haunting her dreams along with some other strange images she couldn’t quite place. She remembered an old woman in a long, flowing, dark red dress from her dream, but couldn’t recall any facial features other than her deep-set black eyes like two infinite tunnels. Madison felt uneasy as something turned over in her belly and her pores released more sweat upon the already drenched sheets. She held her hands to the sides of her head that throbbed from her first headache, a new sensation she would rather have not discovered.

There was banging from the hall.

“Maddox!” her mom said. “Get your ass out here, right now! You don’t talk to me that way!”

The yelling and banging intensified the pounding pain in Madison’s head. She covered her ears and rocked back and forth, wishing she could get far enough from her terrible parents and annoying brother to where she’d never have to see or hear them again. She was beginning . . . to hate them.

“Now, Maddox! You little asshole!” 

Maddox yelled something back. Then came heavy clomping up the stairs.

“No, Robert,” Samantha pleaded. “No!”

Then there were two loud bangs that shook the house followed by the door slamming against the wall and yells between her brother and dad, while her mom begged, “No—No—No!”

A heavy thud in the hall silenced her mom’s pleading, followed by a loud slapping sound that could only be her dad’s hands or fists pummeling her thirteen-year old brother. Maddox cried and squealed like something from another planet as the pounding continued for what seemed like forever. Then it all stopped, except for her mom’s panting and whining and her dad stamping down the stairs, the door slamming on his way out. Madison peeked her head from her room, seeing Maddox’s game system smashed on the floor, and then her mom’s troubled face, wide eyes angry and full of tears.

An unknown rage grew in Madison as she closed her door, the only release being a cracking scream at the top of her lungs that lasted several seconds.

* * *

Within a matter of days, the house that had been home to so much love was now filled to the brim with an overwhelming hate. Spite and anger bled from the walls. The lawn that Robert spent so many tedious hours perfecting was now untrimmed with new weeds reaching toward the sky, sucking the life from St. Augustine. No one in the house spoke to each other, other than verbally assaulting or yelling in passing. Maddox stayed locked away in his room, nursing the beating at the hands of their father. Samantha did her best to stay preoccupied with reality TV or romance novels, but even the fluffiest, emptiest forms of media made her blood boil, sending her into random bouts of screaming and shouting obscenities at anyone within earshot. Robert would make his presence known by slamming every door in his path and calling his wife every name in the book from the other end of the house, loud enough for everyone to hear, even their elderly neighbors over an acre away. The Clemons, who lived next house over, were beginning to worry but weren’t the nosy type so felt it best to mind their business and keep to themselves. They assumed whatever was going on with the nice family next door who they’d known for years would work itself out.

* * *

That night, Madison again dreamt of that old lady in the long flowing red dress. There was something weirdly comforting about her, despite not possessing any facial features other than her eyes that were two endless black holes. Weird or not, Madison embraced any comfort she could get, which was a welcome escape from the anger she felt for her horrible parents and loser brother. She climbed from her bed and followed the old woman down the stairs and out of the house. Outside, Madison looked back and forth, surveying the yard for the woman who had suddenly disappeared and then reappeared next to the shed. She was facing Madison. How’d she get over there? That’s when Madison noticed there were no feet below the red dress. As if being summoned, Madison walked over to the woman who moved into the shed. Madison followed, noticing her dad’s mower that he loved more than his own children, and the gas canister next to it. A sudden rage filled her along with a fiery desire to burn that damn mower, destroy it to hurt her asshole father. The old woman had no mouth to smile but Madison could feel her smiling. The woman drifted softly and slowly toward the house and around it. Madison circled the house with her. Tortured screams and cries for help echoed in the distance which seemed to please the old woman, which pleased Madison.

* * *

Madison opened her eyes to the violent popping of the fire that had engulfed the house in a blinding blaze. The sounds of sirens grew louder and louder until they were splitting the air, and flashes of red and blue lit up the sky like the fourth of July. Countless uniformed men and women ran every which way, a blurry ocean of first responders.

“Little girl!” said an approaching voice. “Are you okay?” The man turned and called out for a medic. He then faced Madison, placed his hands on her shoulders, looked directly into her eyes, and compassionately said, “You’re going to be okay. I promise.” 

Madison watched vacantly as the reaching fire consumed her house and everyone inside. With her stupid parents and idiot brother out of her life, she believed what the young officer said. She would be okay.

* * *

The man with the fluffy blonde hair—Trevor—opened the car door for Madison who climbed in. He and the slender, dark-haired woman called Beth couldn’t stop looking at each other nor control the giant grins on their faces. Once in the car, between smiling at each other, they’d both sneak peaks at Madison through the rearview mirror.

“We’ve waited a long time for you, Maddy. Can we—can we call you Maddy?” Beth said.

Madison hated the idea of being called Maddy, but she nodded anyway to play along.

“Well, Maddy,” Trevor said from the driver’s seat, looking back through the mirror. “We’re new to parenting, but we are going to do this together. And I promise . . .” He looked over to his wife. “We promise . . . that we are going to do our absolute best to give you the best life possible.”

Madison stayed quiet, blankly staring out the window at the passing buildings and cars, her previous life getting farther and farther away.

“Do you like horses?” Beth asked, overly excited. “Because we made your room look like a horse stable, full of horses and sunshine.” The woman smiled but then doubted herself when Madison didn’t answer. “Well . . . if not, we can change it, right, honey?” she said, looking over at her husband. “We can change it.”

“Yeah, of course,” Trevor said. “It’s your room, Maddy. So whatever you want is what we want.”

Madison continued gazing out the window, the sun warming her face. This was the first moment since the fire where she wished she could see her parents again, her brother. She felt something from deep inside, trying to surface. She almost . . . missed them. Within a matter of seconds, those feelings were gone, pushed back inside and locked away.

“Hey, Maddy,” Beth said. “That’s a beautiful locket you’re wearing. Who gave it to you?”

Madison stayed quiet.

“I bet there’s something really special inside it,” said Beth. “You can tell us about it when you’re ready.”

Madison rubbed the locket that hung from her neck, feeling the smooth cold texture, the red glow from inside a soft flicker that chilled her fingertips, comforting her.

About The Author

Matt Micheli placed 5th in the Ghost & Horror Short Story Contest, October 2021, with his award winning story The Locket. Matt won the $20 cash prize and publication in Indie It Press’s forthcoming Anthology, 2022: COURAGEOUS CREATIVE.