You Shouldn't Have Come Here

by Jeneva Rose

“I just have a funny feeling about her,” Betty said. “Well, maybe that funny feeling is because you haven’t filled your prescription in the last two months.”

“Just wanted to know more about you and the ranch. Apparently, this girl was supposed to stay with you for a few days.” “Yeah, and I told him she never showed up.” I felt my jaw tighten. Betty wouldn’t even look at me. I couldn’t tell if it was because she couldn’t or she wouldn’t, and there was a difference.

“Him coming around is going to screw things up with Grace.” “I think that’s the least of your worries. In three days, Calvin, you better let that girl leave.” Betty didn’t look at me or say another word. She just walked to the back of the store and disappeared into the storage room.

into. I slid one out and fanned through the pages. A piece of paper fell to the floor. I bent down and picked it up. It was a receipt from a bookstore dated two days before I arrived. The total at the bottom was over five hundred dollars. And every book on the shelf was listed on it. An engine outside sputtered. I shoved the book back into its place and peered out the window. Albert’s station wagon crept slowly down the driveway. I let out a sigh, and my eyes flicked back to the bookshelf. It was all a lie, like Calvin had designed a set for my arrival.

“Calvin told me he didn’t want you coming around anymore,” I said. She clenched her jaw, moving it side to side. “When did he say that?” Charlotte raised her chin. She tried to relax her face, but there was so much tension in it. It was like she was going to explode depending on what came out of my mouth. I took another swig and glanced at her, choosing my words carefully—or carelessly, for that matter. “Last night,” I pointed the top of the beer bottle toward the field of grass beyond the barn, “when he fucked me over in that pasture.” Her face turned red like she was going to cry and scream at the same time. Before she could react, Calvin’s truck pulled into the driveway.

Her skin flushed as she glared at me. “I’ll show you a mistake.” It came off like a threat, but I wasn’t sure what she was threatening. I raised my chin. “What’s that supposed to mean?” “I slept with Joe,” she seethed. “Last night.” Charlotte pushed past me “And I told him everything!” My eyes went wide. “Told him what?” I yelled, reaching for her. My fingers gripped her arm, pressing into her skin. She swung her other arm, thrusting her balled fist into my eye.

I pushed her hard—too hard. She fell back onto the ground, her skull hitting the gravel with a thud. She laid there for a moment, stunned. When she sat up, Charlotte pressed her fingers against the back of her head and brought them in front of her face. There was blood. “Char, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.” I tried to help her up. She swatted my hand away and stood on her own, wobbly and unsteady. She touched the back of her head again and looked at her fingers. More blood.

“I’m done keeping your secrets.” “Secrets? What are you talking about? What did you tell Joe?” My hands ran over my face, pulling at my skin. I took a deep breath. She backed away as if she were afraid of me, afraid of what I would do. Then she turned and marched angrily back to her car, the back of her head saturated with blood from the gouge.

Her vehicle disappeared down the road, and my mind went back to her parting words. I’m done keeping your secrets. What did Charlotte know?

“I love you, Grace Evans. These aren’t the best circumstances to tell you this, but I do. I’ve fallen in love with you.” Parts of his face twitched. My silence was infuriating him, but he was trying his best to hide the anger. His best wasn’t good enough. When I didn’t speak, he cleared his throat. “And I don’t want you to say it back. I just wanted you to know how I felt.” He stood from the bed and walked to the door.

In two days, Grace was set to leave, and if she did, I knew I would never see her again. This town had a way of keeping insiders in and outsiders out. But I couldn’t let that happen. Grace belonged to me.

“I may have a lot of demons, but hurting women isn’t one of them.” Albert raised his eyebrow over his glass. “Demons?” I asked. “We all have them. Even you, I’m sure.” “Yeah,” I said, flipping a page. “Some people are just better at hiding them,” he said. The chair creaked with each rock.

“Shellfish, nuts, bees, eggs, strawberries. You name it. I can’t have it. That’s why my diet is a steady stream of red meat and booze. And that’s just fine by me.” Albert chuckled again. He set his empty bottle on the table beside him.

He shuffled down the porch, disappearing inside the house. No more than a moment later, Calvin’s truck rolled up with a police vehicle following closely behind. I knew this place was trouble. I felt it as soon as I stepped foot here.

“Charlotte came here looking for trouble. She was drunk and belligerent. She told me . . .” Grace paused. “She said she slept with Joe. So, if you want to arrest anyone, arrest her for drunk driving and being the town whore.”

I shook my head and turned to Grace. “Thank you for standing up for me.”

I thought now would be the best time to tell her the truth about everything, but the thought passed quickly. Things were getting better, and I didn’t want something silly like the truth ruining it, so I just smiled and joined them.

“What about you? Biggest regret?” “I don’t have any,” she said. “Bullshit.” “No, it’s true, I don’t have any. If it was good, I enjoyed it. If it was bad, I learned from it. I can’t go around regretting the things I’ve done that made me me.” She lifted her chin.

“I guess it don’t matter whether you’re good or bad because I can’t regret you. Well, according to your logic.” I grinned, shooting her a quick glance before staring at the setting sun.

She laughed. We were back to day six, like day seven hadn’t happened. We were flirting again. We were actually talking. I think she could see it—a future with me. I’d shut out the rest of the world just to be with Grace Evans.

Charlotte’s words swirled around my brain. I hope Joe keeps you here permanently.

“Did he tell you about our parents?” I nodded. “I heard about the fire.” Joe laughed again, a forced and terrifying laugh. “There was a fire in this family long before there was one in this house.” I leaned forward in my chair. “What . . . what do you mean?” “Our father wasn’t a good man. He was abusive, a drunk. Calvin got away for a few years. I was happy someone finally got out of this town. I stayed and worked this ranch every day. But I kept my distance from him. That left only one person in this house for my dad to abuse: Mom.”

“Just welcoming you to the family. I want you to know what you’re getting into. We may have escaped our father’s abuse, but we didn’t escape his genetics.” Joe smiled.

breaking into several pieces. “I never remembered driving the night Lisa died.” He gazed up at the ceiling like he was trying to conjure up a memory. I furrowed my brow. “What are you saying?” “I remember going out with Calvin and Lisa. I really didn’t want to because I’d worked twenty-four hours straight between the ranch and the auto shop. I just wanted to sleep, but it was his birthday. We took my truck to Pine Tavern. That’s the last thing I remember.” “So, you must have fallen asleep on the drive home,” I said, inching away.

He stared into my eyes, moving his jaw side to side. My back pressed against the wall. It was as far away as I could get from him in the small kitchen. Charlotte’s words sprung to the front of my mind again. I hope Joe keeps you here permanently.

“Maybe. But Char told me something that makes me think otherwise. She said she s...

“You shouldn’t have come here, Grace.”

“I’m saving you, Grace,” he said. “From Calvin.” My mouth dropped open, and he finally let go of my ankle, allowing me to scramble away.

“It should have burned down the first time,” he said. I tried to look him in the eyes, but it was like he was looking right through me. “How could you say something like that, Joe?” He opened them a little more, making it clear he could see me. “The fire didn’t kill Mom and Dad. Mom killed Dad and then killed herself.” “No, they died in the fire.” I shook my head. “You’re lying.” I heard the screen door close behind me and quickly glanced back. Albert scurried out of the house. “No, I’m not Calvin. Looks like you and Mom have something in common.”

“You’re lying,” I said in disbelief. “You know I’m not the liar in the family.” He shifted his stance, trying to stand upright on his own. But his body slumped to one side. “You are. There’s a darkness here. Can’t you feel it?” Joe stagged past me, through the living room and toward the front door. “I know you can feel it, Calvin, because it’s in you too.”

“It’s just better you leave. I’ve got a sixth sense for trouble, and this ranch reeks of it.” He squinted his eyes, punctuating his warning to me.

I needed to know what was down there. I needed to know what he was hiding.

The next one was Calvin, Joe, and an older man and woman. The older man was unusually large with a stern face full of frown lines. The older woman was petite and beautiful with long brown hair. She wore way too much makeup—more than she clearly needed unless she was trying to cover something up. A forced smile was plastered across her face. These were their parents.

Summer of ’04. Calvin, Joe, and Uncle Albert. I slid the photo into the back pocket of my jeans. Albert was Calvin’s uncle. He lied to me. He wasn’t his Airbnb guest, not some guy passing through. He was family. Why would he lie about a thing like that?

Each page was filled with names and dates. I quickly gathered that the dates were check-in and checkout times, beginning one year ago. I found the last page and ran my finger down it, reading the names. Cristina Colton stuck out because the rest before it were all male names. Then Kayla Whitehead. I remembered Calvin’s words: I don’t really get any female guests.

Kayla had been a guest just nine weeks before me. My eyes moved down the page and when I got to the last row I gasped. The words were written neatly with a heart over the letter i. The check-in column had a date. The checkout column didn’t. The final name on the page was Bri Becker. Calvin lied about her. She was here, and according to this guest book . . . she never left.

I picked up the small handgun and turned it over and over again. I set it back down, and my fingertips slid over a large hunting knife. The blade was curved, and the handle was wooden. It appeared homemade. I held it, studying it closely. There was a red tint to the edge of the blade as if it weren’t cleaned properly the last time it was used. I backed away from the table with the knife in hand and quickly ran up the stairs, closing and locking the basement door behind me. I slid the knife and photo under the mattress and crawled into bed. I could feel my heartbeat everywhere in my body—from my feet to the back of my head.

“The house is evil. It infects everyone,” she said just above a whisper. “Nothing good happens here.” “Betty, are you okay?” She didn’t react. She just continued whispering. “You shouldn’t have come here because now I’m not sure you’ll be able to leave.”

When I reached for the lock, it was then that I noticed what Calvin had done. The handle had been installed the wrong way. Instead of locking others out, it would lock me in. It was no longer a bedroom. It was a cage.

My goal was to look nonchalant—like I wasn’t waiting for her—but I’m sure it was plastered all over my face, written in Sharpie: I NEED YOU HERE WITH ME NOW.

The more time I spent with Grace, the less I seemed to know about her. She was a peculiar woman, and she was clearly hiding something. I suppose we all were. But living alone on a ranch with only animals to talk to, you learn what the animal will do before it does it. And at the core, we’re all animals.

He let out a heavy sigh. “I’m sorry, Grace. I lied about Albert. He’s my uncle, my degenerate uncle. And I’m just embarrassed of him. He shows up every few months and crashes with me, picks up some of his stuff from the basement, and then he’s gone after a few days. I just didn’t want you to associate him with me.”

He held the notebook out. The words Calvin’s Guest Book were on the cover. “Here,” he said. I flipped quickly to the last page that had writing on it. Dragging my finger down the list of names, I found the last one. The paper read, Kayla Whitehead. I remembered seeing her name, but Bri’s was last. I flipped several more pages. They were all blank. No, her name was here. Bri Becker with a heart over the letter i. It was here. I saw it with my own eyes. Check-in date. Checkout . . . never.

Calvin may have been telling the truth about Albert—or Uncle Albert, for that matter. But he wasn’t telling the truth about Bri. I saw her name. Checkout . . . never. She was still here. I could feel it.

Turkey vultures scattered from the trees above, flying in all directions. The beehive receptacles were knocked over. Albert laid on his back, his mouth gaping open. Vomit dripped down the side of his face which was swollen like a balloon blown up past its capacity. His eyes, although open, were barely visible due to the inflammation. His skin was red, blotchy, and covered in hives. Chunks of flesh were missing; most likely the turkey vultures had got to him first. His clothes were damp, and the bees were still buzzing around him, crawling over his flesh, in and out of his mouth, over his glazed eyeballs.

I was going to make something fancier like steak or shrimp for Miss Grace, but I didn’t want to have to run into town and leave her alone. Plus, I was scared she’d find a way to leave while I was gone, and I couldn’t have that.

What was going on behind those blue, blue eyes? Was Grace thinking about leaving me?

I hoped he hadn’t done something to it. I watched him closely while he prepared the meal, just in case. It was obvious who he was, and I knew I had to be careful.

He ate slower than I did—purposefully, I assumed. He was trying to savor every moment he had left with me. I was just trying to get through dinner so all of this could be behind me come morning. I wasn’t interested in getting any closer to Calvin. I’d gotten close enough, maybe almost too close.

“They think he was drunk, stumbled down there, and well, it was an accident.” I raised my brow. “But he was allergic to bees. Why would he go back there?” Calvin leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. “How’d you know that?” “I saw his medical bracelet and asked him about it. He told me he was basically allergic to everything.” I leaned back in my chair, matching his posture. “He was.” Calvin shook his head. “Something like this was bound to eventually happen.” I swallowed hard. It was a strange thing for Calvin to say. “Don’t you think it’s odd he went back by the bees?” He wiped at his eyes. I didn’t understand why he kept wiping them; they were dry. Had been all day.