Fiction

The Girl and the Grave

Enter at your own risk

Photo by Masoud Razeghi on Unsplash

“It’s fine,” I said, “Otherwise we have to walk all the way around.”

“Yeah, it’s already dark. My mom is going to be mad,” Jack said.

“Exactly, it’s dark and you want us to walk through a cemetery.”

“Nothing’s going to happen,” I said.

“Need I remind you what tomorrow is,” she said.

“Halloween,” Jack said, “I don’t get the big deal.”

“Because it’s Halloween and now you want to walk through a graveyard.”

“I really think cemetery is more respectful,” I said.

“Shut up,” she replied, “either way I’m not going in there.”

“You know you’re kind of cute when you’re scared,” he said.

“I swear to god I will break your nose.”

“Okay, okay, you two,” I said, “let’s just get home.”

Jack and I entered the old cemetery. It really was quite creepy. The leaves were brown and falling, crunching our feet. It was now fully dark and a foggy gloom permeated the place.

“You’re really going through there?” she asked.

“You coming?” I asked.

“Well I’m not walking all the way around by myself,” she said.To be fair I couldn’t blame her. The road around the cemetery was long and dark, and mostly wooded, at least the shortcut had some lights.

“Well hurry up,” Jack said.

She jogged to catch up. “I hate you both right now you know that.”

“We do,” we said in unison.

A black cat ran across the sidewalk.

“Oh come on guys,” Melissa said.

“What?” Jack said smiling, “It’s just a black cat on the night before Halloween.”

But then we heard the cat screech behind one of the mausoleums.

“What was that?” Jack said.

We dashed over there, but there was no cat to be found.

“I don’t get it,” Jack said, “it was right here.” There was hardly any light as the mausoleum blocked the street light. Jack used the flashlight on his phone while Melissa and I searched around.

“Do you hear that?” Melissa asked.

“Hear what?” I asked.

“Someone’s whispering,” she said looking around the other side of the building.

“I don’t hear anything,” I said following her.

“This is getting weird,” she said, “we should have just taken the longer route.”

“Hey!” we heard Jack yelling.

When we got back there was no one there.

“Jack?” she yelled.

We kept calling his name.

“You two better not be pulling some kind of prank.”

“We’re not doing anything, I swear.”

We looked around the place, not finding a trace of Jack anywhere.

“Try calling him,” she said.

I did so and a second later we heard his buzzing not far away.

Melissa picked up Jack’s phone, “Okay I’m starting to get scared.”

“I’m sure he just dropped it.”

“Should we call the police?”

I nearly laughed, “and say what? Our friend has been missing for ten minutes?”

We kept looking around. The sidewalks zigged and zagged across the grounds and we covered half of them looking for Jack.

“What was that?” Melissa asked.

“What was what?”

“Something was literally just walking there.”

“I think you’re seeing things.”

“I think we never should have come here.”

“I know.”

“Oh god do you feel that?”

“Feel what?”

“Something cold just touched me.”

“No, I don’t feel anything.”

I looked past her to the far side of the cemetery.

“What?”

“Oh jeez, it’s Jack. He’s over there. He must have been messing with us. He just walked through the exit. I bet he’s heading home to leave us here looking.”

“I’m going to kill him.”

“Yeah I wouldn’t want to be him right now.”

We hurried to the other side of the graveyard. Melissa was starting to calm down saying all the things she would do to Jack once we caught up with him.

Just as we left I looked over my shoulder to see the spirits as they gathered. One held Jack, keeping his mouth covered.

Carefully so Melissa didn’t see, I mouthed, “Thank you.”