What Happened Next
Ahead
of them, the graveyard slowly came into view. Though it was near midnight, the
full moon filtered through the branches of the oak trees, and illuminated the
cemetery in silver and gray. As they neared the cemetery, Mimi, who had been
walking fast, gradually slowed. Steve slowed too, until they were walking with
tiny steps through the menacing iron gate.
Nothing
moved. The old oak trees and their bare black branches were eerily still. The
only sound was of their sneakers crunching through the leaf litter. In the cold
light of the moon, the graveyard looked oddly peaceful. Then, startlingly
close, a barn owl hooted. They both jumped.
It
was Steve who spoke first. “Come on, Mimi, let’s go. There’s nothing here.” He
said. He felt a strange, panicky urge to be far away from here, to be sitting
in his cozy room with a cup of cocoa in his hand. The dark sky seemed to have a
physical weight, pressing in on him.
Mimi
looked at him, face wide and pale like the stark moon above them. “It was your idea to be here. We’re not backing
out now.” Her voice was hushed. They were both whispering, though there was no
one else there.
Steve
was nervous, but he didn’t want to sound scared in front of the girl he liked.
“Fine, then.” He had an idea. “Where’s the tombstone they found your
grandmother in front of? Let’s go look at it.” He said with false bravado.
“Okay.”
Mimi said. She started striding to the other end of the cemetery, and Steve
hurried after her.
The
back of the cemetery wasn’t so well-tended as the front. Withered tufts of
weeds poked up around the gravestones, and dead leaves lay thick on top of
them. Mimi stopped in front of a large, crumbling tombstone at the very end, in
a hidden corner. “This is it,” she said. Steve reached up a faintly trembling
hand, and brushed the oak leaves aside.
“Edna
Parker,” he read aloud. “Died in 1888.” He was getting more and more nervous.
Knock it off, he told himself. There’s nothing here. All of a sudden, there was
a rustling noise behind them. They both jumped, turning around fast. There was
nothing there. “Let’s go, Mimi.”
Steve said. He could no longer disguise the fear in his voice. Mimi shook her
head. She was staring at the ground in front of the tombstone. Steve followed
her gaze. The earth was turned up. It looked fresh.
“Something
was dug up here,” Mimi said, eyes wide and scared. Steve wanted nothing more
than to run. But Mimi reached out her hand, and scrabbled in the freshly turned
dirt. Her fingers touched something cold and hard. She unearthed it. “It’s a
wedding ring,” she said. They both stared at the plain gold ring, glinting
ominously in the moonlight.
Then
a hand reached out of the dirt, and grabbed Mimi’s wrist.
They
both screamed, shrill and high. Steve stared in horror at the hand. It was
dark, scabbed, and seemed damp. He turned to run. Mimi’s voice stopped him.
“Steve!”
she cried piercingly. “It’s pulling me in!” Steve stood there, hesitated for a
long moment. Mimi’s legs were braced against the gravestone. Her calves were
quivering with the strain. “Steve!” She screamed, and her voice was pure
terror.
Steve
reached out a hand to help the girl he liked. He took hold of her other hand,
and yanked hard. The hand was supernaturally strong. He grunted with effort,
mind blank with horror, breath coming in little puffs of adrenaline. Finally,
Mimi came free. They both stumbled backwards. Dark, rotting fingers were still
fastened to Mimi’s wrist. She shrieked and shook them off. Beneath the grave, a
fingerless hand was grabbing at the hole, a dark arm snaking out, bracing
itself. It was trying to climb out. Without another thought, they ran.
They
didn’t stop running until a block away from Mimi’s house, its silhouette
looming familiar and comforting against the blue-black sky. They slowed to a
walk and then stopped, collapsing to the ground, gasping for air. Mimi’s white
porch, glowing faintly in the darkness, was only a few feet away. Neither had
looked back-they did so now, watching the horizon nervously. No dark, shambling
figure appeared. They both breathed a sigh of relief. There was silence for a
few, eternal minutes. Then Mimi spoke. “Steve, about what happened back there-”
Steve
cut her off. “It was nothing. Nothing happened.”
Mimi
gave him an incredulous look. “You can’t be serious! You’re going to pass
that-that thing off as some juvenile
prank? Steve, it was real. I felt it.”
“It
was some teenagers, playing around. They probably wanted to scare us.”
Mimi
stood in outrage. She glared at him, eyes suspiciously bright. “I can’t believe
you. After all we’ve seen, after my poor grandmother and this,” she flung out her wrist, exposing bruises already darkening
the pale flesh, “you’re just going to pass it off as a prank? Just going to go
home and forget about it?”
Steve
regarded her silently. His face was grim, and shadowed with fear. When he
spoke, his voice was weary. “Yes. I am. And you know what, Mimi? You should
too.”
Mimi
gazed at him hopelessly. For a moment, she looked as if she was about to cry.
Then her face hardened, and she raised her hand, as if to slap him. Steve
closed his eyes, waited. And spoke. “Mimi…I’m sorry.”
Something
in her broke. Her face crumpled, and then she turned and ran for the door. It
slammed shut as lights upstairs went on. Before it closed, Steve thought he
heard a single, anguished sob.
Steve
stood there, alone, as the night wind blew flurries of dust around him. He stared at the light in the bedroom window and swore in self-disgust. There was an unnamable feeling mounting in him, a sour draught of bile rising in the back of his throat. It choked him. A small, niggling part of him thought it might be shame. He quashed it. Then he turned, and began the long walk home.
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