"The Dirt" by Shelly Lyons

Greeta’s hollow eyes scraped across the darkening horizon until Jekobe nudged her aside so he could put the board back on the bathroom window.

“Wind is picking up,” he said.

She wilted to the floor and squeezed the clover-shaped locket around her neck. Greeta then pressed it to her lips to stifle a sob at the memory of what it once took from them and what it now wanted again.

Her little squeak drew Jekobe’s gaze down to his wife, on the floor curled around the base of their toilet. Husband and wife listened to silted winds drawing closer and to the radio choir on the other side of the bathroom door.

“You must get up.” His tone, as beaten as the bathroom with all its rust and dust and dirt, always the dirt.

She fought a dangerous impulse to toss the locket into the toilet and pretend it never lit up, never chose them. Chose her.

Jekobe extended a sooty hand. “It falls to you.”

She unfurled sloth-slow and set her hand in his—filth in filth, bones in bones. They worked in dirt, breathed in dirt, scrubbed it off their hands, washed it from their clothes. Some nights Jekobe shuddered awake to tell her of his nightmares about the dirt raining on their bed until it buried them. Greeta often imagined mud cakes filling her lungs.

“Blessings to the remainders,” she murmured as he pulled her to standing, eyes averted from the shiny aluminum locket and the pink glow spilling from its interior. Such a lovely color in a world devoid of colors, she’d thought when first it lit up, when she didn’t understand the significance of its glow. The Landlords encouraged mothers to place photos inside, but Greeta feared they might increase their odds of being chosen, so left it empty.

It chose them anyway.

“If I could take your burden, Greeta—”

A soft knock on the door startled them both.

“Obie needs to wee,” came the voice of Judeeth, their eldest.

Greeta yanked her arm free from Jekobe. “Just a moment.” The draw of her thin shoulders laid bare her misery, but her face settled into a neutral expression. She tucked stray hairs behind pins and tucked the locket into the bodice of her housedress.

“I will not choose,” she said.

Quick as a bog ghoul, Jekobe seized her shoulders. “We are not so proud we don’t obey.”

She slapped his face, leaving a handprint in the grime. “Understood.”

Greeta opened the door and entered the living area, a space without embellishment. A table for eating, chairs for sitting, the Text for learning, and radio for music and worship. Her children had gathered around the radio. Five-year-old Obie, aiming his glorious dimples at her, danced from foot to foot. “‘‘mergency, momma! ‘mergency!”

“Obie, you may go now.” Greeta tousled his unruly hair as he zipped by, bare feet slapping the floorboards until he slammed the bathroom door closed behind him.

Her gaze fell on her older children. Sixteen-year-old Judeeth, a beauty with raven hair and hazel eyes—they kept her hidden from the carnal attentions of the Landlords. Tomash had grown tall and strong enough to work alongside his poppa. Luzzi, a miraculously plump mischief-maker who read the Texts with fluency at eight years old, finished winding her yarn ball and set it in the basket.

“Momma, are you sick?” Judeeth asked.

“She’s better now,” Jekobe answered. “Right, Momma?”

Greeta put on a smile. But her womb pulsed rhythmically as memories of the children’s first steps, first words, the joy and mess of their arrivals—even poor Kellan’s—flew through her head like a picture show.

Then the gate outside squeaked open.

“Who wants to play a game?” Jekobe asked the kids. His face beamed with theatrical enthusiasm.

“Let’s wait for Obie,” Judeeth said.

Not my baby, thought Greeta.

Porch stairs whined under a great weight followed by a dragging noise advancing to the door. The family stood rooted to their floor. Waiting.

Every creek brought Greeta visions of Kellan, poor Kellan—eyes dark with terror and betrayal, the shriek that never escaped his mouth...

Jekobe clapped his hands. “The game has begun! Isn’t it thrilling?”

Each child cast a suspicious glare at the door.

“Exciting, yes, Momma?” Jekobe’s eyes bored into Greeta’s until she nodded.

Tomash switched off the radio. Its silence amplified the thrum of blustering wind, and worse: a host of sharp objects raking back and forth across the door.

Winds circled the house, rattled the walls. Tomash and Luzzi clung together. Judeeth rose from her chair, head pivoting between the flush of the toilet and pounding so forceful the front door bulged inward.

Greeta’s sternum grew hot as the locket came more fully alive.

Jekobe’s lips pressed into Greeta’s ear. “Let us be clean, Greeta.”

Another reel whirred to life, this one showing the times when the children were proud or disobedient. Judeeth’s defiance. Luzzi’s mischief. Tomash bullying his sisters. Obie’s—no. She refused to see Obie.

“Momma,” Jekobe prompted in a cheerful voice. “The children wish to play the game.”

“We do not, Father.” Judeeth’s voice rose an octave.

Judeeth always questions our authority.

Greeta pressed the burning locket against her chest until her wound reopened. “Judeeth, will you open the door, my love?”

“No, Momma.”

“Open the door, Judeeth.”

Her eldest stamped her boots, eyes ablaze with defiance. “I do not wish to play. Luzzi does not wish to play, Tomash does not—”

“I do! I do!” Obie toddled to the door, and before Greeta or Jekobe could react, his grubby little hand swung it open.

In a great roar of weather, of hunger, of violent extinction, of a feeble little scream muted by the churning dirt, Greeta’s heart broke and her chest erupted in flame.

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Shelly is a Los Angeles townie who writes screenplays and dark fiction. Her stories have appeared in several anthologies, including The Dead Unleashed, Peculiar Monstrocities, and Just a Girl: A Badass Women of Horror. In 2023, Ghoulish Books published her first novel, LIKE REAL, a sci-fi body horror rom-com. Find her on TikTok as @dollterror13, on IG as @mizlyonshere, and on Facebook as /mizlyons.

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