Grotesque Paradise

My back was nearly broken when I finally straightened it. “Fooohhh!!” exclaimed Shane. “This took forever. And it looks pretty comfortable and more fun you know a camping in the middle of a Grotesque Paradise” Shane and I were known to be brave little kids, but when Shane said “Grotesque Paradise” I had the pinch that he said to satisfy himself, because, though brave, had never been dared to camp in the graveyard, and when Halloween was a night away. It was all because of my cousins who were spending there a week at our house had dared us to do when we, me and Shane, lost the game of TRUTH AND DARE.

As I thought all about it I looked at the panorama around me. Heaps popping out of the ground at every step, while the smell of rotting bones, filling the air, made my nose itchy.  And I thought of two hands popping out of the ground and grabbing my feet and start to pull me downwards………..No, no, no. This was impossible. Just my stupid thoughts.

Just then Shane called from behind, “Hey, it’s ready. We can go in now.” I took a deep breath, nodded and turned.

Our tent was wide enough to give us a comfortable night and not force us to kick and punch all night and cursing each other for more space. We placed our sleeping bags at each corner of the tent. I had been very tired and crawled in my sleeping bag and closed my eyes.

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Creeeaakk-creak. Filllitt flltttt. Creeaak-creak. Fllittt flllttt!!

“Shane, Wake up! What was that? My eyes had sprung open like a mousetrap, only in reverse. The tent door was flapping wildly. “Shane! Are you awake?” he turned, cumbersome in his bag. “Shane! Wake up!” I shouted in a hushed whisper.

“Whilmbldlreeslrlrthtsd” he mumbled. I was shoving him now.

“Come on Shane. Wake up!”

Whhhhggg!” he replied. This was hopeless. Finally, his eyelids rose painfully open, slowly flapping resistantly. “Whadayuowant?”

“Did you hear that?”

“What?” The distant sound of creaking was piercing the night’s eerie symphony. Flit-flit and thunk, thunk, thunk. It’s coming down from the graveyard.”

“Graveyard? What graveyard?”

“You moron!” I growled. “We are in the graveyard!”

“Yea, yea.” He shot bolt upright, definitely wide awake now.

“What the heck is it?” I could have sworn that whatever was out there must have heard our heart thumping in our chest. The door spoke furiously, angrily. My heart raced like a rock concert. “There it is again!” I exclaimed, without caring for how loud my voice was.

“What do you think it is,” asked Shane quietly as he didn’t want to be heard. “Maybe it’s the man that you told about before we slept………..the one who suicided here, in this graveyard,”

“Shhhh!!Don’t say that, it was just a rumour I heard about.”

“But what if it is?” He said strained and swallowing dry air. The noise changed slightly, and came closer to our tent, the trees still creeak-creaked and groaned in the distance. Suddenly the sound stopped and the thunk, thunk-thunk’s started again. They were coming toward us and definitely sounded like foot-steps. However, strange and irregular, as if the man or whatever had a stagger. We his right down in our sleeping bags, waiting for a crazed attack on our defenceless fort. It seemed to take forever. 

We waited………………….still waiting if anything appeared……………………………………………nothing…………………………..but now the voices had turned to groans as someone cursing. That was it. I was too curious. We couldn’t just sit in the tent and wait until whatever it was would appear and attack us when we were not prepared.

I looked at Shane. He was like a pale corpse. I slowly whispered to him.

“We’ve got to sneak out and see what is out there and if it is dangerous then we’ll find our way but we can’t just sit here like that.”

Shane nodded and slowly we both took our torches out of our camp bags. We creeped out.

As we stepped outside we saw the spooky scene again, rotting bones, oozing water bubbles from the puddles that were there. We slowly moved.

Shane stepped on a fallen leave and I shouted on the sound, Shane jumped and cupped a hand over my mouth and whispered angrily, “Shut up!! We have to be very carefu-------“His voice was cut in between as again we heard the same sound thudding in our ears. I nodded and he removed his hand off my face and I exhaled heavily. Rumours started to fill our brains. We were moving as we stuck with glue.

“Should we turn on the torches?” I asked.

“No. whatever it is, we have to catch it before it catches us.”

Following the voice, we had nearly come to the boundary wall of the graveyard (also known as the back wall) and then we saw it----------a black figure. We exchanged horrified glances. Our steps froze. It was very still, not moving a single limb. Slowly, my grip tightening on my torch, we moved towards it.

We were now inches away from the black figure, I looked at Shane and he nodded. I reached out my hand and pulled down the clock and giggled as I was much revealed as it was just an ordinary clock hanging on a stick, revealed, I looked at Shane and said, “It’s just a simple clock.”

But Shane was pale. “What’s wrong, it’s just a clock and nothing more,” he shook his head and said, “But it does belong to somebody. When we came here we went all around it but we didn’t see it there, did we?”

My words choked. He was right. It was not here before and whom does it belong to?

Then we heard sounds of soft footsteps and somebody shouted, “AAAA! NOW I GOTTCA!! NOWHERE TO RUN NOW! HAVE YEH?”

We both screamed and turned, before thinking we leapt at the person and put him to the ground and sitting on him, we slapped and punched blindly. I could’ve sworn that I was never that scared when the man shouted from beneath us, “OOAAAAYYY!!STOPP!!WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU DOIN’ HUH? GET OFF ME!!!”

We both halted as he spoke. We looked down and saw a face looking down and recognized it straight away, “THEO!! YOU FREAKED US OUT!!” I shouted.

“What were you doing behind us in such a ghastly way?” Shane enquired.

“If yeh get off me I’ll tell yeh!!” he groaned under our weight. 

We moved back and helped him up. Now we were looking at Theo, the keeper of the graveyard. We had forgotten that he camped in the graveyard too, so he could check around on any harms or problems occurring in the graveyard

Now he was sitting with us in our tent and munching on one of our cookies. “I was fixing one of the broken stones on the grave when I saw you and I grew suspicious and thought what I shouldn’t have thought and leapt upon you but retorted on me!” he explained.

We both were delighted and Theo promised to keep the secret of the way we were freaked to avoid anyone making fun of us, bidding him goodbye we once again hopped in our sleeping bags, wished for a peaceful night and dozed off to sleep.