And finally...What You Do Can Come Back to Haunt You

What You Do Can Come Back to Haunt You by Susan Buffum, (2018)

They say that what you do comes back to haunt you.

It started with a parade of ants across the kitchen floor in the dead of winter. I’d never seen ants in the house, except in the late spring and early summer when they’d found their way inside looking for food.  There were never ants in the winter, only sluggish ladybugs and beetles that had found a way into the attic in the final warm days of fall and had made their way down through cracks and vent openings, lured by the warmth downstairs. But, ants? The sheer amount and variety of them was enough to make my flesh crawl.

I tried stepping on them, swatting them with rolled magazines, scooping them up on newspaper to throw back outside, but the crazy thing was, they didn’t die. They kept darting across the floors, crawling up the cabinets, meandering over the counters by the hundreds. I couldn’t even sweep them into the trash can.

And then I noticed the flies on the window. No, not just one window, but every single window in the house. I tried to swat them with a rolled up newspaper, but it seemed to have no effect on them. They flew all around the room, silent, no buzzing of wings. I frowned, puzzled and frustrated, not understanding what was going on.

I thought about calling Charlie, but he hated being bothered at work. I knew he had a big meeting with his boss today in regards to a promotion, so I certainly didn’t want to disturb him if that meeting was presently going on.  I would have to handle this crazy invasion of insects on my own.

And then something struck my cheek. I looked down at my shirt and saw a bee walking around near a button. I hate bees. Instinctively, I made a quick brushing gesture to urge it off of me, but my hand seemed to pass right through it. It flickered like an old film strip image then reappeared as if my hand had merely gone through the projected image. How weird, not to mention troubling, was that?

I looked around to see if maybe Charlie had set up some sort of video system that was projecting all these holographic insects throughout the house, but I didn’t see anything unusual. However, something near the fireplace caught my eye. I made my way over there, black dots flitting through the shafts of sunlight on silent wings all around me. Mosquitoes, a horsefly.

I made an involuntary sound of shock and disgust as I realized what it was writhing over the hearth and in front of the wood pile. Earthworms. Nothing is creepier to me than an earthworm. Nothing could be more horrifying to me than finding a writhing mass of worms in my living room! Or so I thought.

I backed away from the glistening mass of worms and yelped as a small brown rabbit hopped past the coffee table. Looking around, I spotted a number of squirrels, chipmunks, and even a possum—a few in the dining room, some running up and down the staircase, others casually strolling from room to room. “Get out of my house!” I shouted, feeling a rush of panic and adrenalin surge through me. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what was happening, what was going on this morning.

I fled upstairs past a squirrel that just sat on its haunches and stared at me. I think my foot went right through him, since he didn’t move to get out of my way. It reminded me of the squirrel I’d hit on Jameson Point Road. It had sat in the road just like that, staring me down. I’d been going a little too fast, hadn’t had time to react and had run it over.

I had run over a few chipmunks, a few other squirrels, and once, at dusk, a rabbit that had appeared out of nowhere. I hated it when I ran something over. It was physically wrenching to me to kill anything really, but sometimes it just happened. Squirrels darted into the road and then couldn’t seem to decide what to do, which way to go. By the time they formed a plan, it was too late. They were flattened on the pavement.

The worse thing I had ever killed on the road was…no. I was not going to think about that!

This was ridiculous. Ladybugs, beetles, flies, ants, worms…and now a butterfly sitting on the frame of the mirror in the bedroom.  A robin perched on the headboard of the bed. That reminded me of the time when a robin had flown across the street, not high enough to avoid a collision with the windshield of my car. I could still see its startled black eye staring at me through the glass speckled with its blood as the airstream had lifted it off the windshield wipers, sliding it up the windshield and then over the roof of the car.

My rational mind was struggling to come up with an explanation for what I was seeing, for what was happening in the house and rapidly failing at its task. There was no rational explanation for these insects and animals to be here like this. These could not be the ghosts of every bug and creature that I had ever stomped on, swatted, crushed with a magazine or newspaper, run over in the street accidentally. How could it be that? But I couldn’t think of any other explanation.

And then spiders began dropping from the ceiling. I fled the room in horror. As much as I was afraid of worms and bees and flies, spiders terrified me even more.

I ran down the hallway and into the den, flinging the door shut behind me…and there he was, the man in the royal blue track suit. I skidded to a halt just a few feet into the room. He was seated in the chair at the computer table. Slowly, he swiveled toward me, giving me a gruesome grin as he awkwardly pushed himself up and out of the chair, he in his muddy, blood-stained attire. I could see the impression of my car’s tires running diagonally across his upper body and his legs. “No,” I said.  His face was surprisingly undamaged, but there was something wrong with it. I had thrown my jacket over his head that night so as not to have to look at him as I’d dragged him into the woods at the side of the road, hauling him to the edge of the ravine, and then using my feet to shove him over the edge so that his body rolled down into the ferns and low-lying brush below. I’d snatched my jacket off his head just before his limp, heavy body had flopped over the edge. “No!” I cried as he silently shambled nearer.

Reaching behind me, I blindly searched for the door knob. A shiny black beetle scuttled from between his lips. He grinned again and more insects—beetles, ants, flies, and squirming, disgusting maggots tumbled from his mouth, falling to the floor. I managed to find the door knob, twist it, and pull the door open a few inches. I was in the way. I had to step toward this horrible apparition in order to get the door open wide enough to escape the room. His dead white hand, the bloodless flesh abraded down to bare bone in places, reached for me. I thought he’d be like everything else in the house that I’d seen, that his hand would pass right through me, but it didn’t. I actually felt the brush of his cold flesh against my hand. “Susan,” he said in a sibilant voice, a snakelike hissing of the consonants of my name. “Ssssusssan.”

I screamed, shaking his hand off. “Stay away from me! Get back!” I walked backwards out into the hallway.

“Ssussssan…why?”

Why? I had been seventeen-years old, driving home from a friend’s house. Her parents had gone away for the weekend. There had been a party, beer and boys. I had stayed far later than I’d said I would. I knew my parents were going to be furious and would ground me. I was trying to get home. I was dizzy from the beer, trying hard to steer a straight path and not cross the double lines. I’d come around a corner, taking it too wide, over correcting, and he’d been right there in front of me. All I’d see was the bright blue of his track suit before I’d been jolted by the thud of striking him, knocking him down, the sway and thump as the tires had rolled over him.

I’d slammed on the brakes, jumped out of the car, and there he’d been, lying in the road. I’d thrown up and nearly fallen over, feeling sick, suddenly sober and scared. It was dark, a car could have come along at any moment, although none had passed me yet. I hadn’t been able to look at him. I’d removed my jacket and thrown it over his head, then crouched down and wrapped it quickly around his head. He’d groaned a little. “I’ll just move you off the road,” I’d said.

I’d struggled and strained to lift his upper body. He was limp and heavy. I tugged and heaved, getting him into the woods. I was just going to leave him there, but then I thought that the police would find him, that they’d find evidence on him linking him to my Dad’s car. Adrenalin gave me the strength to haul him deeper into the woods, to the edge of the ravine I knew was there. Colter Brook ran through the ravine. I’d hike there a lot when I was younger, but now it was posted No Trespassing. Kids hung out at Starbucks or Panera now.

I’d dropped him at the edge of the ravine, tugged my jacket from around his head, then sat on the ground and used both feet to shove him over the edge, listening to the crashing of his body as it had rolled down the embankment and settled into the ferns and brush below.

I’d gotten home without further incident, thrown my jacket in the washer, woken my father, shaking and crying, telling him that I’d struck a deer on the road and damaged his car. I’d told him that the deer had leapt off into the woods, but I thought it would die of its injuries. He’d shaken his head, told me accidents happened with wildlife all the time, asked me if I was hurt, and then sent me to bed, telling me he’d call to report the accident to the insurance in the morning. He’d take care of it.

And now, as I backed further along the hallway, it all played again through my mind like a vivid film loop. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!” I cried, throwing my hands out to try to stop him, but he kept lurching toward me on his damaged legs. “Stay back!”

I’d reached the stairs and turned to run down them, but I felt a shove in the small of my back. I screamed as I went flying forward and then downward, crashing onto the stairs, thudding down them, landing in a broken heap at the foot of them. My thoughts were chaotic, stumbling in those final moments of my life, but I thought I heard a voice outside my head say, “What you do, it will come back and haunt you.”