At the Top of the Hill

To the top of the hill we go,

our dead follow in tow,

we bury them deep and sing,

so their souls remain within,

we cry and grieve and scream,

to appease the deads dream,

the reaper gets his fill,

At the top of the hill.

Jeremy awoke, startled. A flittering thought in his head and it was gone. Thunder rumbled through the house; wind and rain smacked against the window, as though it was trying to break its way in. Must have woken me up, Jeremy thought. He pulled himself out of bed; eyes glued shut, he stumbled around at first, making his way to the bathroom.

Turning on the light, he cursed. The sudden brightness hurt, blinding him for a second. Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he glimpsed a movement. He turned to see it. But was greeted with his face staring back at him. It was the mirror, he realised. Turning off the light and walking out of the bathroom, he heard a voice.

“Daddy,” whispered his daughter, catching him off guard. She was standing in the hallway, gripping her one-eyed teddy bear close. Jeremy recovered from his initial shock and bent down.

“Lucy, what are you doing out of bed?” He asked gently, giving her a stroke on the shoulder.

“I got scared, daddy,” came her meek response, her eyes darting downwards.

“Oh princess, it’s okay,” Jeremy hugged her tight and rubbed her back. “We all get scared sometimes.”

“Can I sleep with you and mummy tonight?” Lucy asked and Jeremy wanted to say yes, but his wife Elaine had decided to nip this kind of behaviour in the bud. She’s too old for this now, she had told him and he had agreed. Still, it was one thing to agree, but her desperate face tugging on his heartstrings made it hard to say no.

“I’m sorry sweetie, but you’re just gonna have to get through tonight on your own.” Lucy looked crestfallen and Jeremy felt guilty, but she had to grow up. “It’s just a little thunder Lucy, it’s not going to hurt you.”

“No daddy, the thunder didn’t scare me,” and Jeremy furrowed his brow, confused.

“Did you have a nightmare?”

“I don’t know,” Lucy’s voice quivered a little bit, “I think I heard singing.” She clutched her little bear closer to her, burying her face in its head.

Singing? Jeremy thought, why did that ring a bell. He was too tired to think.

“I don’t like it here, can we go home yet?” Jeremy echoed his daughter’s feelings, he didn’t feel comfortable either. He had never liked this place. Nor the people who lived here.

His mum and dad had been venomously vile people. He thought back to his time in this house, their home. He remembered going to bed hungry. Being struck with a cane. Spending days in the basement. Suffering and pain. All because he was not who they wanted him to be. He had never felt their love. And this place felt as empty and cold as his parents had always been. A shiver ran down his spine. The only happy memory had been leaving. And he had never looked back.

“Okay princess,” he said, turning his attention back to his daughter. “We can sleep in your room, I don’t want to wake mummy up.”

Together they crawled into the guest bed where Lucy had been staying since they arrived two days ago. The double bed enveloped her tiny body as she cuddled up to Jeremy and soon enough she was fast asleep. Jeremy was not.

He thought about what had scared his daughter. Singing? He pondered, why did that feel so familiar to him? It didn’t take long, but in chasing the thought it had disappeared, and he turned his thoughts to leaving as quickly as they could.

He had only heard about his parents’ deaths in the last week. There was no love lost, they were dead to him long ago. Still, it had taken quite a few months for the attorney to track him down. His parents had died as they had lived, bitter and alone. And now he was in charge of clearing out their house. He had wanted to come alone, but Elaine had insisted on them all coming. I know what that place is to you, she had said, you won’t want to be alone when you get there. He had conceded and she was right. He hated being here.

As the low light from the clouded sky peaked into the room, Jeremy awoke. He must have drifted off, but what time was it? And what was that singing? He stretched, getting out of bed and feeling the tiring effects of the midnight interruption. Slowly he made his way to the room he was staying in and took out clothes from his suitcase. Do not unpack a thing, he had told the girls. Dressed, he wandered down the stairs to hear Elaine humming a tune as she cooked breakfast. It wasn’t one she normally hummed.

“That’s new,” he remarked, as he wrapped his arms around her from behind and kissed her cheek. She turned and smiled at him, kissing him back.

“Hmm, yeah, I don’t know, think I heard it on the radio,” she shrugged and turned back to cooking.

“I wanna be out of here by tomorrow,” Jeremy told her, “Lucy was scared last night, and, well, you know my feelings about this place.” Elaine handed him his breakfast and nodded in agreement.

“Yeah, she told me this morning, ‘don’t be mad at daddy, mummy, it was all me’” Elaine imitated Lucy’s voice extremely well and Jeremy laughed. “But if you want to be out by tomorrow, today is gonna be a lot of work.” Elaine reminded him.

A lot of work is an understatement, Jeremy thought as he finished his breakfast. The house felt like a punishment. One final chance to hurt him in a way only they knew how. The piles of junk they had built up over the years, it was awful. He stood up and moved to the living room, he shook his head in despair as he looked at the cabinets and cupboards. They were filled to the brim with ornaments that made his eyes sore and books so big that the bible seemed a quick read.

“Better get to work,” he mumbled to the empty room, and he started to open the cabinets, pouring as much into black bags as he could. Some of it was probably worth a lot, but he didn’t care. Then he stopped.

One of the cabinets had photos. Examining them, he was brought back to memories of his childhood. The pictures were of the house over the many years of its history. His ancestors had lived here for centuries, no one had ever moved. Except for him. Looking over them he could see the changes; the small but subtle differences that led to what it was today. In every photo the family stood in front of it, smiling proudly. And, in the second to last one, were his grandparents, frailing with old age, smiling decrepitly. His parents in front of them and he, a young child, stood doing his best to seem happy.

He thought back on his grandparents. Their deaths had become a distant memory, but now it was coming back to him. Slowly. They had not been so horrible to him as his parents, in fact, he recalled feeling an attachment to them.

“Daddy,” Lucy cut his thoughts off and he threw the rest of the pictures into the bag. “Can you come and play with me?” She asked.

“I’m sorry Lucy, I have to get all this work done so that we can leave.”

“But,” she cuddled her bear close to her again, “I don’t feel safe playing alone here.” God, Jeremy thought, last night really got to her.

“What about mummy?” Jeremy suggested, and Lucy nodded solemnly as she wandered off to find her mother.

Jeremy put the black bag down and went to the phone. He called the number for a hotel not far from them and booked a room for the night. The plan had been to stay in the house to save money, but he didn’t care about that anymore. He just wanted out.

“DADDY!” Lucy’s scream was horrendous. Jeremy dropped the phone and ran. He came into the kitchen where Elaine was just as startled.

“What’s the matter, honey?” His wife was trying to comfort their daughter, but as Elaine drew closer Lucy backed away. Her face in shock. When she saw Jeremy, she ran over to him, hugging his leg with all the strength she could muster.

“What’s wrong?” Jeremy held his daughter and looked at Elaine. Her face was a picture of confusion.

“Daddy… She was…” Lucy was trembling. Her finger, pointed at her mother, was shaking. “She was humming the song,” she whispered. Jeremy wasn’t sure if his daughter had gone mad, or if he had.

“Lucy, what song?” Elaine was exasperated.

“The song, last night, I heard it,” Lucy was so torn up, she had begun to cry.

Something was tugging at Jeremy, something he had forgotten. Something he had lost in all his time running from the family.

“Pack everything,” Jeremy told them, “we’re leaving. Now.”

The girls didn’t waste time, everything was starting to feel off. They didn’t have to be told twice.

They were in the car in 30 minutes. As Jeremy drove off he glimpsed back at the house, noticing the hill that lay behind in the garden. He felt a call to it but shrugged it off. Speeding away, he decided he would never go back.

When they arrived at the hotel, they settled into their room and Jeremy looked out the window. The view would have been beautiful were it not for the dark, clouded sky. The countryside was amazing. But the many hills that lay in view brought his mind to the one in the house’s garden. And then the flashback started.

He recalled his younger self, following his parents up the hill. They were singing a song. That song. As they dragged his dead grandparents to the top. Together they sang as they dug their unmarked graves.

Returning to the present, the singing stayed in his head. Like an earworm. Over and over again it played. He shook his head to throw it out, but it came back stronger. At the top of the hill. It ended, and then it started all over again. At the top of the hill. Thinking in between became hard. At the top of the hill.

“What’s wrong?” Asked Elaine, and Jeremy snapped out of it.

“I think I know what’s happening,” he said, but his logic defied it. It didn’t make sense.

“What do you mean?”

“The singing. Your humming. It’s a song from my childhood,” Jeremy couldn’t believe the words as he said them. “We sang it when my grandparents died. It was a burial rite. A tradition,” and now, with the memory back in Jeremy’s head, the panic set in. His parents had been cremated before he’d even been contacted. “Elaine, I was meant to bury my parents to that song!”

Elaine looked at him funny. “I think you need to rest,” she told him.

Jeremy took a moment and tried breathing deeply. Eventually, he nodded and collapsed into the hotel bed. As he closed his eyes, all he could hear was the singing.

Waking up, it was dark. Mad and possessed. That’s how he had felt. But the singing had stopped and normalcy returned to him. He looked over and saw his wife asleep next to him. The urge to use the bathroom drove him out of bed. The light flickered on and his eyes screamed from the sudden change in brightness. Finishing off, he absentmindedly washed his hands and splashed water onto his face. Looking up, he froze.

The face staring back at him was not his own. It was one he despised. The cold, dead glare in the eyes of the man who had made his life so miserable stared at him. They pierced into his soul. Jeremy went cold. He splashed water over his face again and again. Every time he looked up though, his father stared back at him. The singing returned, filling his head as he stumbled out of the bathroom.

He looked at the bed and it was empty. Someone was standing in the room, but it wasn’t Elaine. The sick twisted figure moved towards him as he recoiled in horror. I’ve gone mad, the panicked thought raced in his head. His dead mother cocked her head to the side, examining him.

“You always were a pathetic little worm,” came the venomous voice, followed by a shrill laugh. “Look at you now.”

Jeremy blinked his eyes frantically. Wake up, he screamed internally, wake up!! But nothing would wake him. He began to slap himself, hoping the pain would bring him back to reality. Nothing.

“Wake up!” He meant to scream, but it whimpered out of him.

“Little child, so pathetic and useless,” his cruel, lifeless mother closed in on him.

“Get away,” he moved backwards, knocking into a table. “Get away from me.” Still, his mother kept coming. Creeping towards him. He fumbled around behind himself until his hands curled around an object. He didn’t know what it was. He didn’t care. As his mother got closer he went for her. The force, driven by fear, was immense.

A hollow thunk and his mother lay face down on the floor. Blood seeped into the carpet.

“Daddy?” Lucy was rubbing her eyes and then she saw the body on the floor. “Mummy!” She screamed as she raced over to the corpse.

“That’s not mummy, princess,” Jeremy was relaxed now, “it was a bad woman.”

“No daddy!” She sobbed, “It’s mummy.”

But Jeremy wasn’t listening. He had started thinking straight again and he began to pick up his mother.

“What are you doing, daddy?!”

“We’re going to bury my mum at the top of the hill” Jeremy replied and, nonchalant in his demeanour, began to walk down to the car. “Come on, Lucy.”

Still distraught, Lucy tried desperately to talk sense into her father, but nothing was reaching him. And then they were in the car, driving through the winding country roads back to the house. As Jeremy pulled onto the drive he turned to his daughter.

“Do you remember the song, Lucy?” And Lucy shook her head, she was terrified. Jeremy nodded and began to sing.

“Shut up!” She yelled, covering her ears, “shut up, shut up, shut up!!” But Jeremy pulled her hands away from her ears as he continued to sing.

“You have to know this, Lucy,” he explained, “we’re going to sing it as we carry my mum’s body up that hill.” Jeremy pointed to the ominous hill that stood by the house.

“But that’s not your mum, daddy! It’s mine!” She was tearing up, trying to snap her dad out of his weird trance. Jeremy returned to singing. Grabbing his mum’s body from the boot of the car and picking up a shovel.

“Sing with me, princess,” he said, as they began to walk up the hill. Lucy tried to resist, but anytime she stopped, Jeremy would stop walking. There was nothing she could do.

They sang the words as they walked. They sang the words as they dug. And they sang the words as they buried the body at the top of the hill.

Hoping her father would snap out of it now, Lucy tried to talk to him. But he was mindlessly digging a second hole. Still singing.

“What are you doing now?” Lucy asked desperately, and the word daddy no longer passed through her lips, for this was not her father.

“This one is for me,” he told her as he smiled into the unfilled grave. He passed the shovel to Lucy and jumped in. He closed his eyes, feeling peaceful. “Now fill it in Lucy, and don’t forget to sing”

Lucy was shaking and she screamed at her father to get out of the hole. But he remained unmoved.

“This is the family tradition, princess, I was meant to do it but I forgot. Now we have to pay the price.” And Lucy couldn’t help herself but sing as she threw dirt onto her father.

Once he was buried, Jeremy snapped back to reality. Panicked, he tried to escape but the dirt was too heavy. As he choked on the soil, all he could hear was his daughter singing.

To the top of the hill we go,

our dead follow in tow,

we bury them deep and sing,

so their souls remain within,

we cry and grieve and scream,

to appease the deads dream,

the reaper gets his fill,

At the top of the hill.