Beneath The Ground They Live

Albert picked up the shovel laying on the grass, gripped the handle, and forced the tip of the blade into the ground.

“Didn’t you hear what the realtor said?”

“All I heard were ghost stories."

“She said we can’t plant anything on the property. No trees. No flowers. Nothing. Didn’t you hear? I thought you were going to start listening more.”

“Listening to you maybe. Not some realtor. Besides, I want to plant everywhere on the property. That’s why we bought a house with such open land. To plant.”

He dug and looked at Fiona and then he dug some more, the blade burrowing further into the earth with each stare. The sun fell behind them. The shadow of the house stretched over the property.

Behind Albert sat a wheelbarrow full of trees from the nursery they’d stopped by on the way up to the house. Each tree labeled with a plastic tag. Saucer Magnolia, Shadblow Serviceberry, Kanzan Cherry. When the hole was large enough, Albert picked up one of the trees and examined it. He thought about where he wanted to plant each tree. One right here in front of the house so that he could wake up each morning and look outside the bedroom window and watch his work grow with each passing year. Three by the fence that formed a perimeter around the property. Another near the other side of the house that could support a swing when the grandchildren come to visit.

“Do you even know if those things are native to this area? How do you know they are going to survive? Did you do your research Albert? I bet you didn’t,” Fiona said.

“What did she say anyhow? About why we can’t grow anything.” 

“Said you can’t grow anything in the ground because it all dies. Doesn’t matter the weather, doesn’t matter the seeds, doesn’t matter what you do. It’s going to die,” Flora said.

“I don’t remember her saying that,” Albert said.

“Course you don’t. You might only be sixty years old, but my mother hears better than you and I know she doesn’t have long left. Hell, she still tells stories of when she voted for Woodrow Wilson.”

Albert cleared away the debris from the hole. Cold air consumed his lungs. Sweat dripped down his back. Behind the leaves and grass and rocks, an eyeball peered up at Albert. Albert covered his nose. Felt this morning’s egg rising to his throat.

Using the shovel, he cleared the leaves away from the eyeball. There, amongst the wet dirt was grey fur smudged in blood. Tail curled up. Feet clinched. Eyes open.

‘The hell you looking at over there?” Fiona said.

“Don’t come over here,” Albert said.

“What is it?” Fiona said.

Fiona walked over to Albert. Her face turned white. 

“I said don’t come over here,” Albert said.

“Then tell me what it is,” Fiona said.

“Family of dead mice,” Albert said.

“I think this whole tree planting thing is a bad idea,” Fiona said.

The wrinkles of Fiona’s face grew as she spoke. He despised the wrinkles on her face, not because of the way they had turned her smooth skin into something he didn’t recognize, but because he knew he was responsible for every wrinkle and valley that comes with stress and anger and resentment.

Still, he wanted these trees and he wanted the house behind it. Wanted to turn this property into his dream. The place he told himself he would get night after night on the shipyards while Fiona helped the kids with homework or read to them or gave them baths or whatever else it took to raise the kids he barely knew.

A car drove up the road that lay adjacent to the wooden fence that lined the property. Dust kicked into the wind. It had been three days since they had moved in, and yet Albert hadn’t seen a single car.

Fiona smiled at him. The same smile she had when she said yes to their first date on South Street. The same smile she said yes to when she agreed to marry him. The same smile she gave when they found out they were having a child nearly forty years ago. But Albert wondered if now that smile was simply memorized. Devoid of meaning. A natural impulse like closing your eyes when you sneeze.

Albert couldn’t see who was inside the car. Doubted it was anyone that they knew. But inside the car, he could see that whoever was watching them had binoculars, seemed interested in what he was doing.

“I’m begging you Albert,” Fiona said.

“Begging me for what?” Albert said.

“Please, do not plan those trees,” Fiona said.

“Why?” Albert said. "This is our land. We paid for it. We can do whatever the hell we want with it and I don’t really care what you or some crazy realtor says.”

“It’s just – ”

“It’s just what Fiona?” Albert said.

Fiona pulled the shovel from his hand. She placed the mulch back into wheelbarrow and pushed it away from him.

“You must be out of your mind,” Albert said, taking the shovel back from her.

When Albert was done wrestling the shovel from her hand, Fiona walked back toward the house. She shut the door. The tea kettle screamed. After a few moments, Albert followed her back inside, poured himself a cup of tea, and sat next to him at the table.

“I got a feeling that if you go out and plant those trees something awful is going to happen to us,” Fiona said.

Albert topped up her tea, kissed her on the forehead, and told her that nothing bad would happen. Then he walked outside and planted the first tree.

                                                          ***

For the next week, Albert planted trees around the property as Fiona watched him from the window. With each tree planted, he regained a sense of purpose. A sense of belonging to the land. A sense that his dues slumming in metal and coal and dirt at the shipyards may have been worth it. A sense that the last chapters of his life would be written with the love of his wife and the love of his children and grandchildren. 

But when he arrived home each night, Fiona would sit at the coffee table, her hands trembling, a look of fear in her eyes. She’d tell him that the phone would ring, and when she picked up no one would answer, or if someone did answer, they would tell her that someone beneath the ground was coming for them.

Fiona showed Albert articles on the computer. Article about people who had lived on these lands in Pennsylvania for centuries. How they prayed to the land and no one else. How they worshipped the land and kept it free from anything that would grow except what was already there. This, they said, was to keep it whole and free from sin.

Every time Fiona approached him, Albert grew angrier. At first, he’d only tell her she spent too much time reading blog posts about fantasies from the 1500’s or 1600’s or whenever these stories took place. That somebody was just playing a prank on them. That none of this was real or true, until one day, Fiona woke Albert in early morning, and told him that she saw one of the tree’s roots rise from the ground, and that the root looked like that of a human hand, and the hand seemed to be waving at her. Albert fought his instinct to tell her that she was crazy, mainly because that’s what he’d been telling her all along. Instead, he decided to entertain her idea of driving back into the city for the weekend. But as Albert walked out of the house in the morning to smoke, he saw a crowd gathering on the road.

Their eyes narrowed as Albert approached. Perhaps they were angry about the trees. A young man held a bible as tears dripped down his face. Next to the boy was an older man, perhaps the father. He wore a camouflaged hat with tobacco dripping from his chin. There were others in the crowd, too. People Albert had seen at the grocery store. People Albert had seen at Church.

“You can’t leave here,” a man said. He wore blue jeans and a plaid shirt and held a cigarette on the blackened tips of his fingers. “Not after what you done. You going to have to stay.”

“And who the hell are you?” Albert said.

“I know you are knew to the area, probably moved here from some big city and you look down on us, but I’ll be damned if you put this entire town in jeopardy.”

“Get the hell off my property,” Albert said.

The man looked down at his feet. “Technically, I’m not on your property.”

As they spoke, Albert could hear the sounds of engines rumbling on the road, and the chatter of people lining up on the fence as though some county fair were organized.

“We can’t let you leave,” the man said. “Any by the way, my name is Gabriel. Like the angel.”

“Mind explaining to me why you won’t let us leave,” Albert said.

“You done a really bad thing planting here.”

“I can do whatever I want.”

“Sure can. But there are going to be consequences too.”

“And what consequences are those?”

“There are those who live beneath this land. They don’t like this land to be disturbed or molested. And that’s what you’ve done.”

“So?”

“We here in this town honor those who live beneath the ground because they keep us safe from all the things outsiders worry about. Murder, disease, you name it. We’ve all lived here in this town longer than you can imagine. Seen wars and famines that you only read about in history books.”

Albert laughed in the old man’s face. Who the hell was he to tell him where to plant. What kind of fairy tale crap was this man selling. Whatever it was, Albert didn’t believe it. Not for a second. How dumb could these people be to believe such garbage. In that moment, he regretted buying the house. Wished they had taken their time and really looked. But the deal on this house had been so good they were told time and time again that passing on this house would be a terrible mistake.

“I don’t know what country folktales you all believe in, and frankly I don’t care. Don’t think for one second I’m scared of you or whatever posse this is. My wife and I are going leave and there’s nothing you can do to stop us.”

Gabriel laughed. “There is no way we can let you leave. Not now.”

“Why is that?” Albert said.

“If we let you leave, everyone in this town will die. But if you stay here, behind this fence, only you and your wife will die.”

Behind the old man, he could see people lining up with hunting rifles and shotguns. They greeted him with a smile on their face, but still he could see that they were not going to let him leave. Behind him, he could hear his wife calling him back inside.

As Albert walked to the house he wondered, what exactly lived beneath the ground.

A month passed. He and Fiona did everything they could to leave the property. They had tried to sneak out at night. Tried telling Gabriel that Fiona was feeling ill and had to go to the hospital. Tried calling the police, but Gabriel had figured out how to cut the phone lines and the power and the electricity. Every week, one of the people from the town would buy them food and water and cheap paperbacks.

Fiona had stopped talking to Albert after the first week she realized that everything out of her mouth had been an “I told you so,” or “how the hell could you have allowed this to happen.” Whatever the version was, it made Albert feel as though he were a complete failure. And he was, he reminded himself. They were in this town because of him and they couldn’t leave this house because of him. He wondered if Fiona still loved him, and if she did, why? Why did she stick with him after so many years of him not being around? Why did she stick with him after the kids stopped talking to him? Why did she still love him so faithfully after he stopped talking to all of his friends because work got so busy or because he got tired. But even now, Fiona seemed to be teetering, just as everyone else in his life had.

Albert sat down with the last box of crackers when he felt the ground move beneath him. Fiona sat across the table from him. Her skin looked withered her frail, and he hadn’t realized until now how much weight she had lost. He looked around the kitchen table, and didn’t realize until now that he had few pictures of his children. How he had longed to fill this house with new memories. How he wanted to fill the kitchen Island and the antique bureau with new memories, and now he wondered if that moment would ever come. Still, even with her weight loss, and even with the men staring at them from the doorway, Albert knew he loved Fiona. Had loved her ever since he had laid eyes on her. And he knew nothing would change that.

The ground shook. The kitchen table rocked. Coffee spilled onto the splintered floor. He had never experienced an earthquake, but he was convinced that this was it.

“It’s happening,” Fiona said.

“What’s happening?” Albert said.

“The people below,” Fiona said.

“Oh stop,” Albert said.

“They are coming,” Fiona said.

“It’s nothing but a little earthquake.”

For a moment, Albert wanted to believe what she was saying. After months of listening to all the stories about people from beneath the earth coming up to feed on those that the society deemed unnecessary or replaceable. The stories of the prisoners in the 1800’s who were sentenced to death by walking through a tunnel that led to these “below-ground” beings. The stories of the deformed creatures who appeared out of wells and caves and fed on small dogs and demanded sacrifices if the townspeople were to remain safe. Perhaps Fiona’s stories were rubbing off on him, or perhaps he was just going crazy.

Albert peered out of the window. Outside, the roots of the trees were rising from the ground. The people were leaning into the fence, screaming and praying. An awful stench rose from the air.

“They are coming Albert. They are coming they are coming they are coming,” Fiona said.

“No one is coming,” Albert said.

Fiona pulled Albert’s collar. She pointed toward the window, her finger slapping on the stained glass.

“Do you see it now?” Fiona said. “Do you?” Her voice was full of desperation and fear.

Albert stared outside. Watched at the roots rose from the ground. First on the tree by the window and the porch. The roots no longer looked like that of a tree, but something more deformed. Something more human. Outside, the screaming and the chanting grew louder. The ground continued to shake.

Albert grabbed Fiona’s hand. He pulled her toward the stairs. Once in the bedroom, he shoved the bureau and the chairs toward the bedroom door. Then he walked toward his bedside table, opened the drawer, and pulled out his .38 special, and the box of bullets.

Fiona stood by the window, looking down as Albert loaded his revolver.

“They are on the porch,” Fiona said.

As she spoke, Albert could hear the sound of the front door opening. He knew it wouldn’t be somebody from the town. It had to be one of them. Whoever lived beneath the ground coming to get them. Why he didn’t know and didn’t really care.

“I don’t think that’s going to hold,” Fiona said.

“It might not,” Albert said. “But we have to try.”

Albert locked the door and then barricaded themselves in the bedroom. He shoved the bureau and the nightstand and the bookcase in front of the door. Then, he pulled Fiona down to the ground and they lay down underneath the bed.

The box of bullets lay next to Albert.

“That’s all the bullets you have?” Fiona said.

“All we’ve got,” Albert said.

Albert fed the rounds into the chamber. He felt the cold metal on his fingertips. He massaged the trigger. He aimed down the sites, knowing that in a few minutes that door would open.

Quietly, they sat. They could hear the door downstairs opening. They could hear footfalls in the dining room and the living room.

“I’m sorry,” Albert said. “I’m sorry I brought us here and I’m sorry I wanted to plant those damn trees.”

Fiona rubbed his forearm. She smiled at him. “You remember how to fire one of those things?”

Albert looked at Fiona and Fiona looked at Albert. Looked at each other in a way they hadn’t looked at each other in quite some time.

The footfalls climbed the stairs. He could hear sharp nails on the banister. Heaving breathing outside the door. An awful stench seeped from outside the door.

Albert looked at Fiona. “Yes, I remember how to use it.”