CHAPTER TEN
( bury the dead )
"ABOUT DAMN TIME!" JJ exclaimed frustratedly, both he and Pope rising from their seats in his messy, unkept yard when Aurora and John B finally came waltzing up; laughing to each other as they dug silver spoons into an ice cream carton in her hands. The condensation from the outside of the cardboard container ran down Aurora's fingers; both of their lips lined with the evidence of the frozen, chocolatey substance. While they seemed to be amused with something, Pope and JJ were not. "What, did you stop to get ice cream while your old pals here just sat at our meeting spot wondering if you two were behind bars?!"
Pope knitted his brows. "Where's Kie?"
"Probably grounded for eternity." Aurora dismissed. "Want some ice cream? We brought extra spoons." she offered, holding out the utensils.
"It's pretty melted, but it still tastes good. Even though it's dairy free." John B added through a mouthful, almost incoherent as he struggled to keep the liquified ice cream in his mouth.
JJ paused briefly before giving a shrug. "Yeah, sure."
His anger vanished entirely and he headed for the summertime treat.
"Wait, can you explain to us what happened, please?" Pope shook his head, thrown off by the scene.
"Ummm... yeah." Aurora nodded, wiping her lips with the back of her hand before addressing John B and JJ; who were plopping down criss-cross-apple-sauce on the dirt to share the ice cream. "You two stay here. Pope, come with me." She grabbed the boy's arm, pulling him a little ways away before ditching the slap-happy act.
"What's going on? Why are you two acting drunk and weird?" he whispered with furrowed brows, looking at the now, visibly stressed girl.
"Okay A— we're not drunk. B— John B is kinda losing his fucking mind right now, so I'm trying to act like nothing's wrong and make him feel better." she breathed out, wiping away glistening sweat from her forehead.
"What happened after JJ and I left?" he questioned, the girl annoyedly swatting at the gnats around them.
"Basically, I shattered Shoupe's damn windshield with JJ's stupid fucking ball, got arrested, watched Kiara and John B..." she faltered slightly. "...get arrested, and then Mr. C paid our bail fees. He's pissed, Kiara's pissed, John B's pissed. Everybody's pissed."
There was a beat. "I'm sorry we left you." he said quietly, guiltily.
Aurora jarred her head back. "I'm not." she told him honestly. "Don't be sorry. Seriously. I wanted you guys to leave. Better if not every single one of us was arrested."
There was a brief moment of silence, JJ and John B's chatter audible in the near distance. "Hey, I rescued this though." he smiled, retrieving her poetry journal from his back pocket.
Her eyes widened at the sight before she let out a heavy breath of relief, a wave of solace rushing over her. "Thank you, oh my God, thank you." she groaned happily, Pope chuckling as she took it from him and littered the journal's cover with kisses. "You always have to save this thing for me." she laughed, looking back up at him with a smile.
He grinned. "Wanna go eat some melted down, dairy free ice cream?"
She chuckled at him with a nod, the two wearily beginning to join their friends once more.
༻✧༺
AURORA LAID ON HER BELLY, SPRAWLED OUT ON THE FAMILIAR COUCH BY THE FRONT DOOR OF THE CHATEAU. She had the disheveled house to herself for a few hours while John B was at work, and she was spending her time procrastinating journeying to her own home in order to scrounge up the money she would need to pay to the cops.
So, instead of actually facing her problems, she did what she always did— she wrote.
She wrote hard and fast with whatever came to mind. Weights floated from her shoulders, the world sent back into orbit. Unfortunately it wasn't long before the same old load was dropped unforgivingly on top of her again, brought back by the unexpected slamming of the front door.
There was a transient moment during the millisecond it took for her to scramble hastily to her feet and whip fearfully around that Aurora was certain the two men from yesterday had returned. This was it. She wasn't going to drown beneath the HMS Pogue only to have JJ do fake CPR on her lifeless body, she was going to be murdered in cold blood by two ruthless killers her friend was being targeted by.
Her tense muscles slackened when she saw John B in the door way, tilting her head back and letting out a relieved groan. The relaxation was brief, however; the girl furrowing her brows with a slight frown when she realized he shouldn't be home this soon. Her gaze returned to him, not liking what she saw one bit.
She blinked at his appearance, the boy in a thin button down open in the front; his thick locks of honey hair pushed away from his forehead either by the gale outside or his own two hands. His whole face and body were tarnished with dirt, his hazel eyes sunken in exhaustion; palms, knees and elbows all scraped and oozing blood.
"Fuck, John B!" she exclaimed, eyes widening as she marched expeditiously over to examine him; scanning him in disbelief. "What in the fuck happened to you? You look like shit!"
"Gee, thanks Rory." he mumbled tonelessly.
"No, seriously. What happened? Are you okay?" she questioned urgently, taking root right infront of him; grabbing gently onto his arm and lifting it slightly to inspect all of his cuts and scrapes.
"Oh, nothing much. Just got electrocuted after being fired from my job and chased down by two guys who want me dead." he deadpanned apathetically.
"Electrocuted?!?" Aurora shouted, eyes bulging even further.
"Rory, can you just..." he closed his tired eyes with a small sigh, not sure how to best articulate his request.
"What?!" she pried, their moods, volume, and vigor greatly uneven with one another.
"Can you just take it down a notch, please?" he requested passionlessly.
"Yeah, sorry. That's fair." she breathed out in a quieter voice, stuffing her hands into her back pockets as her eyes shifted momentarily to the literal garbage piled by their feet. "Are you okay though? Like really?"
"Breathing." he answered blandly.
There was a beat.
"You got fired?" she winced, the same drained and empty look washed over his features during their whole conversation; the boy barely even looking at her. "Why?"
"Sarah Cameron."
"I'll kill her." she immediately shook her head, her intensity helplessly spiking once more as she began what could have been an endless ramble of outrage if John B wasn't quick to cut her off. "I'll kill her dead! That bitch is gonna be six feet—"
"It's over." he muttered, monotone.
Aurora paused, forgetting all about stupid, almighty Sarah Cameron for a moment. Her vitality fizzled at once, a different kind of concern spreading across her features as she glanced up to the crestfallen boy, who was still not making eye contact with her. He only stared dejectedly at her ankles.
"What's over?" she asked softly.
Despite the fact he'd been using the same tone and expression for everything he'd said since his arrival, there was something different about the two broken words he had just thrown out into the open space between them; it's over. Something much heavier.
"Our pointless treasure hunt, Rory." he spoke solemnly.
She deflated a little. "Oh."
"I gave the compass to Peterkin. I give up."
The straightforward statement shocked her to her core. He gave the compass to Peterkin? He gives up? It was the most un-John B thing he could say, and contradicted everything he stood for over the last nine, grueling months. Her mind reeled sadly— if he had given up on their whole foolish game, he had given up on his father too.
"I'm sorry, John B." she whispered quietly, knowing good and well a lot more was going through his head that what met the eye.
There was a lapse of silence before Aurora stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him; the right side of her face pressed up against his dirt and sweat ridden chest. His feeble hug back was delayed, the boy never thinking too hard into the gesture or even bothering to switch his eyeline down to her; embracing her back more of an automatic response.
Suddenly, his demeanor seemed to change; the Routledge son glancing around the grubby, bedraggled residence from above Aurora's head. She pulled away and watched him closely as he inhaled deeply, then let the same gulp of air escape through the unamused trilling of his lips; nodding for a moment.
"What?" she queried.
Her friend finally met her gaze. "I'm taking you up on your offer."
"What offer?"
He simply nudged an empty beer can with his foot, Aurora's glancing down to the floor and then back up to him in disbelief. He shot her a weary smile with a shrug. "Let's burn this shit."
༻✧༺
AFTER HOURS OF COLLECTING AND DISCARDING OF THE TRASH THAT WAS PRACTICALLY ENVELOPING the Chateau, blaring music from the house and occasionally getting into garbage fights once his mood had lightened, Aurora and John B had established two enormous mounds of waste just beneath the wide, towering tree in his front yard. One pile was flammable, and one pile was not.
They stood side by side before the incendiary mass of junk, the beachy wind tugging at their clothes as John B eyed the final object he held out in front of them; the one bulletin board the intruders had spared. It contained various messy jottings and scattered photos, all part of Big John's multitude of notes, ideas, predictions and plans for the Royal Merchant.
The girl opened her mouth, prepared to tell him he was allowed to keep one memento from his father's hunt for sunken treasure— it was what Big John had dedicated his life to, after all. But before she could say anything, he cast it into the pile; immediately striking a match and tossing it indifferently into the trash. The flames rose with the wind's help in seconds, John B fueling them with a big red bottle of lighter fluid.
"Bury the dead." he muttered under his breath, imperceptible to Aurora, who stood with her hair being swept to the side by the gale; observing the flames get higher and higher in the light of day.
Inevitably, both of their eyes were on the bulletin board; that object having been the most haunting thing for John B to dispose of. The photos shriveled up in the heat, shrinking into themselves as their ink melted speedily away. The letters and notes took a little longer to perish, their ends quickly burning up; the blaze scarfing them down as they morphed into a mere pile of black ashes.
And then, almost as if the flames froze in the exact spot where they danced, everything changed when Aurora's gaze landed on the upper corner of the bulletin board. Her heart lurched in shock.
"Holy shit." the girl breathed out in an exaggerated manor, a small smirk stretching slowly across her face as she blinked in awe; some sort of trance confining her from movement.
"What?" John B questioned confusedly, snapping her out of her daze. Her eyes nearly popped out of her skull, the smile and wonder shattering from her features as she realized the flames were still actively killing the salient find.
Without thinking, she reached urgently out for the object— ready to plunge her arm directly into the fire when John B grabbed her shoulder and yanked her backward; the girl's humongous eyes not leaving the blaze he was now keeping her from.
"Rory!! What in the hell are you doing?!" he shouted, his face furrowed in alarm and confusion as she fought against him to reach it.
"GET THE BULLETIN BOARD OUT! GET IT OUT! NOW!" she shrieked, pointing frantically at the rapidly deteriorating item from over his shoulder; the two wrestling against each other.
His head whipped over his shoulder to scrutinize the blaze for a moment, soon brutally shoving the girl down into the dirt before lunging for a stick to pull it out with; completely unaware as to why she had instructed him to do so.
"Ow!" Aurora groaned aggravatedly, glancing at her scratched palms from where she sat unhappily on her bottom. With a frustrated huff, she clambered back to her feet; dragging her hand against her sweaty forehead. "What the hell was that for?!"
"Oh, I dunno! Maybe because you apparently have a death wish to die in a fire?!" he yelled back angrily, hastily stomping his foot on the bulletin board to rid it of it's flames; the bottom of his dirt-stained white shoes now charred. Eventually, the damaged object was in the clear. "Why did you need this?!"
"Because!" she puffed, her sweaty chest rising quickly up and down as she marched over to the board and squatted down next to it; her index finger landing on one of Big John's signature R's. With her finger still pressed into the nearly burnt up piece of paper, she looked up and over her shoulder; the Routledge boy's entire demeanor drastically shifting as it dawned on him. "Redfield isn't a place..."
"It's a person." he gaped breathlessly, finishing her sentence; big eyes glued to the board. "Redfield isn't a... HOLY SHIT!" his hands flew to his head in disbelief, the boy letting out a thrilled howl as he jumped crazily around in awe and excitement. "REDFIELD ISN'T A PLACE, IT'S A PERSON!"
Aurora was grinning like a fool, still staring up at him from the ground; her heart soaring in happiness at the sight of his own. "You were right you crazy son of a bitch!"
Still hooting in glee, he hooked his hands under her armpits and scooped her from the ground; the girl letting out a hearty laugh as he slung her around in joy. "You incredible genius!" he praised her. "I knew I kept you around for a reason!"
She was still laughing— and dizzy from the circles he'd been roughly dragging her in— when she was dropped back onto her feet; the boy taking off for the dirt driveway.
"Get in the Twinkie. Now, come on!" he urged her, a string of amazed giggles escaping her lips as she abided; chasing hurriedly after him.
༻✧༺
BY THE TIME THE TWO HAD MANAGED TO ROUND UP THE REST OF THE SHIT SHOW— KIARA HAVING TAKEN a lot of extra convincing from John B— the sun had set and they now ventured in the dark on their quest. Dry, dreadful heat filled the van; the lovely breeze from earlier having vanished as the still summertime weather frizzed their hair and dampened the underarms of their shirts.
Driving down a long, winding road to a destination only Aurora and John B were aware of, JJ held up a freshly rolled joint from his spot in the back; requesting for 'permission' to smoke it, though they all knew he would regardless of what they said.
"You mind if I just relax on this one? It's been a long day, and a lot of weird stuff has gone down... I'm just gonna lay low." His features, glistening with sweat in the bright moonlight, lifted as he suddenly offered it to Aurora and Pope next to him; as if to be polite. "Oh, did you two want any of this?"
"I keep the signal clear." Pope held up his hand.
"Rory?" the blond's gaze switched to her.
"You already know the answer, JJ." she sighed disappointedly, not bothering to look his way and engage in his antics; arms crossed as she sat squished in between the two boys.
"Okay, guys." he argued. "Do you understand that your problem is that you don't get creative?"
"JJ..." Pope warned exasperatedly, trying to circumvent what was bound to happen if he carried on. It was a tale as old as time. Aurora had a short fuse when it came to this, and JJ took pleasure in pressing her buttons. The two had been fighting the same fight since the day he had met them.
"If you and Pope got creative, then—"
"Getting creative." she scoffed, shaking her head and angrily running her tongue along the inside of her bottom lip. "What a shit way to decorate what it is you're actually doing."
He grinned a shit eating grin, lifting the blunt and waving it before her smoldering eyes, as if to taunt her. "Come on, you know you want—"
"Fuck off, JJ." her head snapped over to him, the look in her dark eyes and the tone of her voice fatally serious.
The playfulness on his face faltered slightly, the boy retracting his hand and shrugging his shoulders as his mischievous smirk grew a little smaller. "Jus' saying..."
"Look, I-I know I was wrong about the lighthouse, okay?" John B cut them off, putting their sibling-like bickering to an end as he glanced momentarily over his shoulder; hands remaining fastened to the wheel. "And-and pretty much wrong about everything else, but I-I was right about one thing, okay? My dad is trying to tell me something."
Pope raised a skeptical brow to Aurora, as if to ask the dependable girl if there was any truth to his statement this time or if he was simply just concocting again. She sent him a certain nod with an unwavering smile, the boy blinking in surprise for a moment. He turned his head to gaze back out the grimy window of the Twinkie, an ounce of concern spiking in him as John B turned into a cemetery.
His eyes drifted back to Aurora, who was no longer looking at him, but ahead; a distracted smile pulling at his lips as the gentle moon illuminated half of her face. She was so beautiful. Beauty aside, however, she still seemed to to have some sort of steadfast belief in whatever escapade John B was leading them in this time. Pope took a deep breath, looking away from her and nodding to himself as the car rolled to a stop.
If Aurora trusted it, so did he.
The five friends hopped silently out of the van and into the eerie environment, John B flipping his lantern on as JJ did the same with the headlamp secured around his skull; the last three switching on their generic, handheld flashlights as a mass of cicadas harmonized around them.
"Come on, hey! Come on!" John B rushed them in a hushed tone, conducting them all forward as he led the group with impatient strides.
"I'm coming!" Kiara answered in vague annoyance, tripping on the twigs that crunched beneath their feet. "This place is scary." she added unhappily.
Aurora skipped a few steps ahead to join her side and intertwine their fingers, soon steadying her flashlight's beam back to the ground to guide their path. "I'll kill any bad guys who come near you." she joshed, a small giggle escaping Kiara's lips as the girls playfully swung their arms while they walked; their hands still interlocked.
The wail of a far off lion made the Kiara girl gasp frightfully again. "John B, what are we doing?"
"Shh! Shut up!" he hissed, his attention hyper-focused on one thing and one thing only.
"Rude." Aurora jokingly pursed her lips.
"So, you know how you're trying to remember a song, and you can't remember who sings it?" he spoke quickly, his mind in a state of overdrive; going a million miles per hour.
"Yeah." Kiara hummed, Pope and JJ hanging behind the three in the front.
"So Redfield, this whole time I thought it was a place, right? But it's not a place." He finally came to a halt, holding up his lantern to an old, humongous tomb crawling with dead vines; illuminating the bold letters spelling 'Redfeild' that were etched into the stone. "It's a person."
"Voi-effing-la." JJ's mouth was slightly agape, eyes not leaving the tomb; all of their lights now shining on the word.
"See, my great great grandmother, Olivia...Redfeild. It was her maiden name. Rory figured it out."
"Nice job, Nancy Drew." JJ nodded approvingly without ever glancing over to her.
Pope furrowing his brows at the blond boy incredulously. "You know Nancy Drew, but not something like Moby Dick?"
"Yeah, cus' Nancy Drew is hot."
"Nancy Drew isn't hot!"
"Bro, yes she is!"
"Knock it off and help me with the door, come on." John B directed them, the two dropping their insignificant scuffle at once.
"Alright." Pope stated, JJ and Aurora lending a hand alongside him. "Go."
"1,2,3!"
The second the four pushed with all their might against the door, small amounts of dust and cement crumbling down onto their heads, they knew it was not going to budge. It didn't stop them from continuing to nearly break their backs attempting to manhandle the great, unmovable door though.
"Are you pushing?" Pope groaned doubtfully.
"Yeah, I'm pushing." John B strained through gritted teeth, all of them grunting and holding their breath as they continued to shove helplessly against it. "Come on!"
"Here, I got it." JJ tried to help.
"This door is like 700 pounds man, it's not gonna budge!" the Heyward boy panted.
"We didn't come this far, to get this far, alright? We got this!" JJ wheezed as they all continued to overexert themselves.
"Inspirational." Aurora huffed sarcastically.
Commotion ignited amongst them when a viciously hissing snake emerged from the crack in the door, everyone leaping instantly away. Their exclamations overlapped as they all drew back from their mission, the unsettling creature slithering swiftly down the stone and into the grass.
"Fucking fuck! Shit! Hell fucking no!" the Jennings girl violently cursed.
"That's a moccasin alright!" JJ declared, the blond finding himself childishly excited at the snake's sudden appearance; the boy halfway following it on the balls of his feet. "Ye olde Dr. Cottonmouth! Death in tall grass!"
Aurora flinched where she stood— which was far away from the large reptile— when JJ crouched to the ground and began aggressively barking, yes barking, at the animal.
"JJ, shut up! Shut up!" Kiara commanded in anger, irritation stirring in everyone's chests as he continued to woof obnoxiously.
Pope seized his shoulder to meet his gaze. "You're gonna wake the fricken dead, man!" he shook his head anxiously.
"They're afraid of dogs." JJ breathlessly shrugged, motioning causally over to the snake that had almost crept entirely out of sight. "Everyone knows that, man."
"Who told you that?" Aurora inquired, brows deeply furrowed as she stared irresolutely at him with crossed arms.
"It's true!" he defended himself, snapping his attention away from Aurora when John B waltzed back up to the tomb; urgently placing a hand on his shoulder to stop him. "Wait, wait! Hold on!"
"What?" John B asked, patently over his best friend's tiring actions.
"If there's one, there's probably dozens." he informed, causing a mild uproar from the rest of the Pogues; all of them doing what they did best— talking over each other.
"What?"
"All around."
"Can you stop!? You're scaring me!"
"Guys, just chill for a second."
Soon his barking resumed, John B getting right to the chase and ceasing his reckless behavior at once this time around. "Stop barking at the snakes!" he growled in frustration.
"Look, John—" Pope started.
"I'm just making sure it's clear!" JJ poorly tried to justify his actions.
The Heyward boy turned to him once more in exasperation. "Shut up!" he spat in outrage, fed up with his friend before meeting John B's gaze again; the one who he was trying to address. "John, look."
"It's a snake." JJ muttered under his breath, kicking a small rock with his shoe.
"I know it is, buddy." Aurora sighed, patting him on the shoulder before tuning into Pope and John B's conversation; all of them close together now.
"We're not gonna get in there, alright? It's not budging. We should probably just go."
"I can get through."
The frantic, chaotic, exhausting energy around them vanished at Kiara's softer statement. All eyes landed on the curly-haired girl who was eyeing the massive tomb up and down, her flashlight pointed to the tippy top of the stone door they had been unable to move.
"What?" John B faltered, caught of guard by her words for a moment before he began to object. "No, no, no, no. You think you're gonna fit through the hole? That hole?"
"Look, this is about your dad." she turned to him, the two locking eyes as the others watched in anticipation. "And honestly, I really don't believe in it, but... you deserve to know the truth." There was a beat, Kiara soon shrugging and heading up to scale the door. "I'll do it."
"No, no, no—"
"You aren't doing it, Rory." the Carrera cut her off before she could volunteer to take her place, aware she was just unhappy with the idea of Kiara practically offering herself up to the alleged moccasins.
"Why the hell not?" the girl swung her arms to the side, staying behind as all of her friends tore down the thick, dried up vines to clear the area for Kiara. "I fucking love snakes!"
At this, they all paused, turning around with unimpressed looks; knowing she had just lied through her teeth.
JJ took a breath, scrunching his face obnoxiously before letting out a high-pitched whine. "Fucking fuck! Shit! Hell fucking no!" he mocked melodramatically.
"Okay, my voice does not fucking sound like that." she pointed an accusing finger, laughing in spite of herself.
"You're way shorter than me, Ror. You're not gonna reach." Kiara shrugged.
"I'm gonna boost you." JJ declared, squatting down and leaning his weight against the door; pushing his sun bleached locks away from his eyes in preparation to help the girl. "I've seen it in the movies several times. Ready?"
"Remind me what we're looking for?" she queried timidly.
John B didn't bothered to look at her when he answered, still holding back a curtain full of wild vines from the entrance. "You'll know when you see it."
She paused for moment to ponder his incredibly vague and unhelpful response, soon handing her flashlight off to Pope as she climbed onto JJ's thighs. The boy complaining how she blatantly ignored his instructions and disregarded his 'on the count of three.'
She grunted as she weaseled her way in, eventually disappearing from their view and landing on her feet on the other side. "Okay, flashlight?" she requested, voice echoing in the old tomb.
"Yeah, here." Pope slid one through the door and passed it off to her, the light shining through the cracked sliver.
"You alive? You got like a-a heartbeat, and everything?" John B stammered.
"Any bad guys for me to kill?" Aurora added.
"So far." her resounding response came. "And no...no bad guys."
"That's good, that's good." the Routledge boy murmured.
Aurora was pressed up against him to capture a view of her own, just as eager to stare into the tiny hole as he was; their eyes battling to make sense through the darkness they could see.
"Yup. Uhhh... I need more light."
"Yeah, yeah, here. Yeah, I gotcha."
He extended his arm through the hole, both now able to clearly see Kiara walking in a slow line directly in front of them. To their surprise, however, she entirely ignored the lantern she had solicited. Instead, her wide gaze was fixated on something ahead, just out of their vision.
"Did you find something? Is there gold?" JJ asked eagerly, having seen the same questionable look on her face that John B and Aurora had.
"Oh my God." was the girl's only response, her words laced with sheer awe.
author's note!
ten chapters in and I've only covered the first two episodes 🫣
hope everyone is enjoying so far!!
word count 4,709