Halloween Dare

“Come on, take a risk!” He said from across the room. “Fine, I pick.... Dare.” I say after a minute. “I dare you, to spend the night in the graveyard.” “WHAT?!” I quickly stood up. Everybody in the room turned their head so their facing me. I take a deep breath, “I’m only doing it if someone else goes with me.” I didn’t think anybody else would offer. “I'll go.” My friend Jacob walked over to me and rested his hand on my shoulder. “Great so it’s settled, tonight you and Jacob are going to sleep in the graveyard.” Another boy says. I can’t believe college kids still do dares like this, ever since my mom found me screaming in the dryer, I had accidently locked myself in to I've been afraid of the dark, I still sleep with a nightlight even in my dorm room. "Tonight, can’t we do it Tomorrow?” I ask hurriedly. “No, it has to be tonight.” The guy who gave me the dare looked me dead in the eye and I felt a twinge of fear go down my spine. Halloween the spookiest night of the year, the day where the monsters come out, the day the thick fog rolls in. 

I never liked Halloween, I never had any interest in trick-or-treating with the other kids, nor did I want to dress up as a zombie or a police officer or watch scary movies with popcorn under the covers. 

I begrudgingly accepted the sleeping bag someone handed to me. “Why oh why had I come to this party!” I thought. Jacob gave me a reassuring smile; it helped a little. I tried hard to smile through my frown.  The group cheered as we walked out the door, but what frightened me the most was when someone yelled, “Watch out for the ghouls, or you might just become one!” I heard their childish laughter as we left and began our silly quest.  “We should be fine, it’s just one night.” Jacob seemed to be trying to convince himself more than me.  

 My apprehension grew as we walked towards the cemetery. Jacob noticed my obvious distress and he reached for my hand and squeezed. “Don’t worry we got this Ava.” Before I knew it, we were at the gate. I looked up to the old black sign that read City Graveyard. There was no turning back now. I heard the latch on the door click and the small door creak open. Jacob and I stood there in shock as neither of us had touched the door. I chuckled “It was just the wind... right?” I let his hand lead me through the gate, and hesitantly stepped through the passage and wondered if I would ever see this neighborhood again. We both whipped our heads around to the sound of the gate slamming shut. “Wind?” Jacob’s voice shook obviously frightened. We continued farther into the graveyard. I decided to look at the different gravestones to pass time, I found one that read:  

Julia Pattison 1209-1345 May she rest in peace, or pieces. 

“What the heck does that mean?” Jacob walked over to see what the fuss was about. “I don’t know but let's hope we don’t find out!” I tried my best to push it out of my mind until Jacob called me over. “Hey, can you try to figure out what it says?” He pointed to a dirty old sign that was falling apart. I brushed any loose dirt and dust off with my sleeve. I could only see one word fully: Coven. “But aren't covens usually for witches?” Jacob looked at me. I shrug “They said they burned or drowned witches during the Salem Witch Trials, maybe this is one of those graves” Jacob nods. "But why would the life span be so long?” The question remained unanswered as we stood staring at the sign each of us lost in thought. I guess the rest of the words on the sign based on the letters it gives me: Sacred ground of the midnight witch coven. 

I gape when I figure it out. “What? What is it?!” Jacob brings me back to reality. “i-it says that this is the sacred ground they buried the witches from the midnight coven in.” I whisper. I suddenly felt like I had several eyes focused on my back, so I whirled around to see only Jacob’s eyes in a daze that looked like fright.  “Well, were going to have an interesting story to tell our friends next week.” Jacob tries to lighten the mood. “I’m more worried we won’t get out!” I reply nervousness in my voice. 

We wandered the misty graveyard for the next hour perusing through the gravestones, stopping every now and then to read the epitaphs, in that time we discovered several more midnight coven witch headstones and realized we had a family of at least 12. “Maybe we should find a non-coven headstone to rest on.” I say with a nervous giggle.    

We sit there and talk for what seems like several hours until I finally ask, “Hey Jacob, what time is it?” “Let me check.” Jacob pulls out his phone. “It’s witching hour.” We lock eyes. I start to panic but I stay silent. I hear something scratching the side of the grave. “What is that?” I ask terrified. We both feel a thunk from beneath us. “I think it’s coming from INSIDE the grave.” Jacob stutters “We have to leave.” I start gathering my things. “NOW!” I exclaim when Jacob doesn't move. We scramble up our things and hustle towards the gate, I look back one more time to see a black figure that seemed to be rising from the grave we had just been at. I quicken my pace convincing myself it was a figment of my imagination. 

We walked for what felt like an eternity before realizing we were getting nowhere; it was as if the graveyard was shifting. I stand frozen in fear, we were trapped inside a graveyard. “Jacob, we need to hide.” I say thinking about the creature I saw. “Why would we have to hide?” It didn’t seem like he wanted to know the answer. “I saw something rising up from the grave we were sitting on, the one with the noise.” Saying it out loud made it even more terrifying. “okay, I think I saw a shed on the other side of the graveyard, let go there and hide.” We grasped each other's hand and sped towards the shed unsure of who was pulling the other along. We race through the Rickety door, and discover a room filled with sharp objects, we choose to crouch behind a piece of what looks like a table to hide. 

We hear rustling coming from the bushes outside. I make a quiet sign over to Jacob fear riddled across my face. I strain my ears for any sound of movement. “La, la la la la la.” I hear a whisper croak attempting to sing to Ring-Around-The-Rosie. We hear footsteps near the shed. I peek around the side of the table. Trying to see what was there. “Come out children,” The Old hag looks me dead in the eye. She looks nothing like my childhood imagination, she has a long-crooked nose and her grey skin sags down her face revealing loose pieces of flesh resting on her bones, her eyes look hollow and dark. her legs have missing chunks, when she walks, she has a jerky movement. “I’m Hungry.” Her voice sounds like rocks rubbing together, I could barely make out what she said. I quickly hide behind the table again and motion Jacob to put his head by mine. “She saw us, were going to need to make a break for it okay?” I whisper with urgency. He nods. He starts the count down. “WAIT.” I blurt out. “What?” Jacob asks hurriedly. I hug him. “See you on the other side?” “Hope to see you to.” I take a deep breath. Three... Two.. One. 

“RUN!” I screech. I jump up and sprint for the door not looking behind me once. I charge past the witch and look for any place to hide and gain composure again. I find a few bushes a couple hundred yards away from the shack. Not a moment after I hid behind them, I hear a screaming plea for help. “Jacob.” Is the first word that pops into my panic-stricken mind. I leap up from my hiding spot and against every ounce of logic, I started running towards the screams. Dashing past the bushes and gravestones as fast as humanly possible. 

I slow down about 200 meters from the caretakers shed. I start to creep around making as little noise as possible in fear of being caught. I poke my head around the side of a tree in hopes of seeing nothing wrong. I start to hear a crunching noise as I scan the clearing. I trace the sound to a small shaded area about 50 feet from the shed. I notice a black shadow huddled over. I squint to try and see the figure more clearly. “Please let that be Jacob.” I think as I fail to see any more detail. As I turn around to head back to my hiding spot, I hear a crunch from beneath my feet. I wince as I look down and see a twig underneath my worn-out shoe. I Look behind me to see the black figure turning to look at me. The first thing I see is the dark creature of the night. I look to the left and see a limp body lying still on the cold ground of the night. “Jacob.” I stood paralyzed with fear. I look at the witch and this time I see her more clearly. Her bones are rotted, some have holes going all the way through. Her lips are thin and seem to stretch all the way to her ears, her ears nothing more than a hole with strips of skin hanging off the side of her head. She has short frizzy hair as black as the night matted down with dried blood. 

This time when I see the witch, her face is dripping with blood, she's holding something in her hand, a piece of skin, it’s pale and white, it does not belong to her. I switch my gaze back to Jacob, he has a gaping hole in his back, I could see the fresh white bone of his spine, the remaining skin a bright pink, the opening seemed to be drooling blood, I could see his tussled hair drenched in blood.  “J-Jacob!”i exclaim. “You promised we would live!” I wept. “He, He-YOU, this is all your fault.” I turn to look at the witch who’s looking at me with a smirk on her face as she licks blood off her fingers. “If you had just stayed in your story book!” I felt rage building up inside me as I started to walk towards her. I grabbed a stick as I prepared to whack the witch as hard as I could. “Then he would not be DEAD!” My voice cracked on the word dead. The witch looked unconcerned seeming as though I was not a threat. I raised the stick as I threw myself at her not thinking about the consequences slamming, the stick across her stomach. She didn’t flinch, not one acknowledgement that anything had touched her. I snapped out of my blind rage and realized that I had to run and get out or I would become her next meal. 

I started backing up slowly at first. The witch took a chunk of flesh from Jacob’s leg and sniffed it deeply. I watched her take a bite and grin revealing a row of sharp moldy teeth, that’s when I dropped the stick and ran. As soon as I realized the she-devil was chasing me, my run became a sprint towards the gate. Thankfully the witch’s barrier was no longer there. I gasped for breath as I reached the gate, grabbed the latch fumbling to get it undone. “Come on why is this so hard!” I yell shaking the latch. I check behind me to see the witch was catching up, she seemed to be floating just above the ground as she raced to kill me. I knew I was done for if I didn’t get the latch open soon.  

I start to loosen the latch as the enchantress starts to get within 50 feet of me. I yank the latch one more time, the gate swings open and I fall headfirst onto the pavement. I get up and keep running, I see in the reflection of a window the witch glaring at my back still inside the graveyard gates. “She can’t leave the graveyard!” relief spreads through me as I realized she could not get me anymore, I kept running making it to my mother's house tears streaming down my face in terror. My mother takes care of my injuries as I weep over the loss of my best friend. I wail about the terror this night has put me through. That night after I had calmed down a bit, I realized I was no longer just a college kid, after exiting the graveyard I was an adult, an adult that would never walk anywhere near a graveyard again.  

10 years later in my own apartment Halloween night, I have not left the house for the night of Halloween since I watched my best friend die. I will never forget the crunching sound when the witch was eating the body. Every Halloween I pace my house memories flooding back about the terrible night where Jacob met his fate. I get up from my spot on the couch to go to the bathroom when I hear the same scratching sound in the sink as we had heard from inside the grave. It was unmistakable, the Old hag remembered me, and she wanted revenge.