Bad Decisions

“Come on Ella, how bad could it be?” 

I consider this question, imagining and envisioning this crazy plan of my sisters. She may be younger than me but most of the time she is the boss. In most situations we do things her way despite my countless protests. But this request, this question I can’t possibly say yes to.

“No Julie, there is absolutely no way in hell I’m sleeping in a graveyard at night, let alone on halloween,” I say plopping down on the red beanbag facing her bed.

She stares me directly in the eyes, digging deep into my soul, “Come on Ella, nothing bad can happen. The worst thing that could possibly occur is that those creepy Malvane twins come to smash graves again.”

I roll my eyes and sigh, “Why can’t you ask that friend of yours, Jessica?”

“Because, Ella, I want to do this with my sister. I mean we do everything together and nothing bad has happened. Why can’t we just do this?”

I flip my head forward allowing all my brown hair to hang, I grab the smooth thin hair and spin it into a bun, buying myself some time to answer this question. It is true that despite the craziness of Julie’s past plans none of them have gotten me hurt, but this is different right? I mean she expects me to sleep in a freaking graveyard, on top of the bodies of numerous dead people. “No, Julie, this is different you're asking me to sleep in a graveyard, on top of dead people, how does that not freak you out?”

I watch Julie chew on her lip and think. I look at her, my sister already 17, her blue hair is untamed as always and the tie dye of her sweatshirt brightens up the rest of her outfit with her black leggings and black smartwool socks. She sighs and responds, “Look, we’ve always done everything together and you know I love spooky things, I think it would be fun and besides Mrs.Keen lives right near the graveyard and if anything happens we can just run over there, please, Ella, please!”

I think it over for the last time. It is true that the local grandma figure Mrs.Keen with her warm chocolate chip cookies, cozy blankets, and numerous guest rooms lives right near the graveyard, there if anyone ever needs her. 

Before I can even think much about it I answer, “Fine, Julie, fine. I’ll sleep in the stupid graveyard with you, but after you have to do my chores for a week, no actually two weeks, deal?”

She nods and jumps up in excitement. She leaves my room most likely to go pack. When I woke up today, on October 31st, of course I knew it was halloween but I was not expecting to have to sleep in the place where my grandma is buried, but with a sister like Julie you shouldn't wake up expecting any less.

In less than three hours after calling my best friend Lily to tell her about Julie's whacked up plans, Julie and I are on the road heading towards the graveyard, a tent, blankets, and other supplies in the trunk of my subaru. Not even my favorite Dwayne Johnson motivational speaking videos could hype me up enough for tonight. I would rather be watching my three year old cousin do her hour long “ballet” dances than go and sleep on dead people for the next 6 hours if I can even sleep that long in this creepy graveyard. Before I can even think again why I’m doing this I’m pulling into the parking lot next to the graveyard, all the black and gray stone barely visible in the 6:00 darkness. The sun is gone but a small sliver of orange in the sky. It’s freezing here in Vermont and the thought of bears coming to greet us while we’re sleeping in our tent in a  graveyard is a thought I don’t welcome kindly. Weighed down by the tent and food cooler I can barely walk let alone stop myself from tripping over rocks. Julie picks a place next to the black gravestone of a certain Samuel L. Merth, born October 31st, 1884 and deceased on October 31st,1984. Before I can even feel the suspiciousness of that exact date, Julie is ripping the tent from my arms and setting it up. I pull a fleece sweatshirt out of the drawstring bag I was carrying on my back, my toes and fingers are icicles but the thought to bring gloves was completely pulled from my mind whilst packing due to the immense amount of fear clouding my mind at the time. Julie finished getting the tent set up and I slipped my grey vans off and jumped in. I whisper an apology to Samuel Merth who I happen to be laying on before ripping three thick, furry blankets out of the grocery store reusable bag we brought along. 

Julie and I settle into our somewhat cozy arrangement, wrapped up like pigs in a blanket trying to avoid the cold, crisp air of the night. “You know, Julie, this wasn’t such a bad idea.”

Julie smiles and I smile back and we go back to eating our thermoses of mac n’ cheese made by our mom. It tastes like home and it almost feels like it too. The lantern across from us makes Julie's face look like she just finished doing a bad self tan job and I can’t help but laugh. Julie scoops a spoonful of mac n’ cheese into her mouth and notices me laughing at her, “What?”

I keel over laughing, it’s not even that funny but the fact that we’re out here at night, on halloween, in a graveyard, on the body of a man who died at exactly 100 years old is just so surreal to me. Julie keels over laughing too and for one peaceful moment we’re just two sisters, having fun in a graveyard on halloween night, two sisters against the world. We sound like hyenas, I’m worried Julie’s asthma will start to act up. All of a sudden I feel a rumble in the ground. I stop laughing and gasp for a bit of air, so utterly scared I can’t even grasp air. The ground continues to rumble and Julie starts to notice it too. I unzip the tent, my fingers fumbling from fright and cold, our fun moment turned frightful. The ground keeps rumbling as if an elephant was walking right next to us. I grab Julie’s hand and rip her out of the tent causing both of our thermoses to spill mac n’ cheese on the blankets. The spilt mac n’ cheese is the least of our problems as I drag Julie behind me and away from the graveyard. The ground continues to rumble making it so hard to keep going. Rocks split out of the ground. My body feels an adrenaline rush similar to the beginning of one of my cross country races. We finally get out of the graveyard and we keep running toward Mrs.Keen’s house, the gravel making my bare feet ache. “I shouldn’t have taken my shoes off,” I think to myself. The regret of this night floods me as I continue to run, splitting through the cold night air. By now we are far enough from the graveyard that I am comfortable with stopping. I halt to a stop as an unprepared Julie trips over her own feet and makes us both tumble to the ground. My face hits the ground hard causing my front tooth to rip through my lip. Blood drips from my lip as Julie rolls off of me. I roll over until I get to the side of the road, out of the danger of cars. “Holy shit, what was that,” Julie says, less questioning and more astonished. I somehow manage to sit up and notice the rips on my hands and the dirt and blood on my sweater. I shrug as a meager answer to Julie’s question. It's so dark I can barely see Julie’s face or where we could possibly be. “I shouldn’t have said yes, this wouldn’t have happened if i hadn’t said yes,” I spit at Julie, blood dripping from my lip onto my open hands.

Julie starts to cry, “I’m sorry, Ella, okay?”

I immediately feel bad for yelling at her. I take a deep breath and hug Julie close. “We need to leave now,” I tell her.

“We can’t, where are we, where is your car,and where is the graveyard?”

I start to sob uncontrollably so mad at myself for not shutting down this stupid plan. Julie and I have both been to this graveyard on numerous occasions to visit our Grandma and yet neither of us can tell where on earth we’ve ended up. To make matters worse our phones are both in the tent and I left my watch charging at home. Before I can get too deep into the rabbit hole of fear I hear a rustling from the left of me. I look at Julie who I can barely make out in the darkness and ask, “Did you hear that?”

“Yes,” she responds fearfully. I grab her and pull her more towards the right since the sound I heard was from the left. I can’t help but think how my lack of confidence and my being a pushover got us here. What sensible people make plans to stay in a graveyard? I could’ve said no but I didn’t want to disappoint Julie after she’d been disappointed by others so many times. Years ago she had two best friends, they were inseparable the three of them. Julie was so happy until they made plans one night and invited her saying they were just going to go to dinner and then dairy queen for dessert. Those bitches though, they took her to the train tracks out on Lincoln Street and left her there. She had been so excited, so ecstatic for that night but what ended up happening? She had to call me and I had to be the shoulder she cried on at 10 at night on the dirty train tracks. That was the day I said I would never disappoint her. “Ella?”

I turn towards Julie’s voice, “What?”

“You zoned out, we need to get out of here the noise, I keep hearing it, I think someones coming.”

“Okay, let's go this way,'' I say, pointing towards the right. I grab her hand for a sense of security and we trudge quietly to the right. For all I know we could be in someone's yard or we could be in the woods. I thought I was running towards Mrs.Keen’s house but now I’m starting to have doubts about which direction I actually started running in.

We walk endlessly until we can’t hear the rustling noise anymore. “We need to stop,” I say. “We’re getting nowhere.”

“Alright, let's feel around for a place to sleep,” Julie responds.

After feeling around for a bit, trusting the tips of my fingers to find me useful shelter, we have managed to find a rock to lay behind. We lay next to each other hugging for warmth, praying no bears or drunks or other people will stumble upon us in the night. “Ella?”

“What,” I answer. 

“We should take turns keeping watch, just in case.”

“Your right,” I respond. “I’ll take first watch, try to get some sleep okay?”

“Okay, I love you.”

“I love you too,” I respond. It's freezing as it is October in Vermont. I still can’t believe the horribleness of this situation, I can’t even be sure If we’ll end up alive. 

By morning my body was rigid from the cold and I was awoken by the sound of Julie rustling around in the leaves. “Good morning sleepyhead,” Julie says.

I groan and roll over keeping my eyes closed so that I can envision that I’m at home tucked tight under my blankets, the full day just waiting for me. I open my eyes and sit up. A sharp pain shoots up my back most likely from sleeping on the hard ground that was sealed by frost in the cold October night. I wince in pain and shiver. “This sucks, this just freaking sucks,” Julie whines. I don’t say anything, I completely agree but deep down i’m still a little mad at her for dragging me along to sleep in a graveyard at night. I’m mad at myself for saying yes still, I just keep going down the same rabbit hole of regret. I would rather be doing anything else even something I hated right now rather than being in the middle of the woods, my cold,iced hair sticking to the back of my neck making it impossible for me to stay warm. Julie takes the elastic from her wrist and hands it to me noticing my hair struggles. I take it and nod at her as a thank you, not ready to speak just yet. I pull my hair into a ponytail as my stomach makes an audible groan. I finally decided to speak despite the struggle of pulling apart my cold chapped lips to form words, “What do we do?”

Julie looks off into the distance, undoubtedly thinking about the hot coffee she could be drinking if we were at home. Her expression is one of dismay and disappointment, most likely at herself. “I’m so sorry, El, I still can’t believe I brought you out here.”

I take her hand and squeeze as though to tell her that I forgive her. She smiles a small amount and shifts in her spot. “I’m so hungry and cold and dirty and I just want to go home, “she sobs. Her head falls into my lap and I stroke her hair. We sit here like this for some time, thinking about all the choices we could’ve made that wouldn’t have led us to where we are now. “No, we are not going to let this beat us, come on we’re going to try to get home,” I tell her, hardly believing the brave sounding words coming out of my mouth. 

After brushing off the dirt on us we stand up and start to walk in the direction we believe is the correct one. “Hey, Ella,” Julie says somewhat timidly.

“Yeah?”

“What do you think we heard last night, you know that rustling?”

“I don’t know. It was probably just one of the local drunks or something, there always wandering around at that time of night,” I responded.

Julie nods and asks, “Why do you think the ground of the graveyard was rumbling?”

I’ve been thinking alot about this question. The idea that it was the dead body of Samuel L. Merth kind of freaks me out and in no way can possibly be true, I mean ghosts aren’t real, are they? Instead of telling Julie all that I just tell her, “I don’t know, maybe we were just hearing things.”

“Oh my god, no way!”

I turn back at Julie’s exclamation, “What?”

I follow her finger which is pointing at a small shack to the left of us. Julie starts to run and I shout after her, “Julie, don’t we don’t know what that is!”

She doesn’t answer and keeps running. She’s always had the no fear mindset but I can’t let her do this, something about that cabin isn’t right. Her blue hair bobs as she speeds up towards the cabin. Fear makes my stomach drop somehow and I don’t know why because there are no visible signs that should make me feel this way. I can’t let her get to that shack. But by the time she reaches the shack I'm still relatively far behind. I can barely scream her name before she swings open the door to the shack. She runs in and I speed up because I just know something bad will happen. Her screams pierce the air for what feels like minutes before a loud thump signifies that her body has hit some sort of ground. “Ella!”

Her screams make me vomit with regret. Dogs bark and other audible animal sounds come from the inside of the shack and Julie’s screams pierce the air louder but by the sound of that drop there is no way I can get to her. I fall to the ground vomiting and crying. I scream her name though I know it makes no difference. The sound of the animals is louder and her cry has become a faint whimper. I cry for an endless amount of time. If I was only not such a pushover, If I could only have said no to this whole stupid plan. If I had run faster I could’ve saved her. This whole miserable day shows how stupid I can be. If Julie didn’t have such a childlike, angelic way of seeing life maybe she wouldn’t have run from me and towards that shack, maybe she wouldn’t have gotten eaten alive. The thought makes me wretch once again the burn of vomit stinging the back of my throat. Tears coat my face. I already miss her so much. Her whimper died off a bit ago but I know that her body, or what's left of it remains at the bottom of that shack. I can’t be without her and maybe I don’t have to. Without thinking my plan through I stand up and wipe away my tears. I sprint to the door of the shack and look down the deep hole where the wild animals still growl. I scream as I let myself fly through the air. This moment is the last one between life and death. The difference between yes and no. This will be my last bad decison.