Beer and Halloween

It was three days before Halloween. Jake and Darren were sitting in Jake's living room watching a movie and drinking beer. That was their favorite pastime.

Jake stopped just before taking another drink and looked as though he had just the greatest thought in history.

"You know what would be fun to do on Halloween?" he asked.

"Scaring the crap out of trick-or-treaters?"

"Well, yeah, that would be cool but I was thinking of getting drunk and spending the night in a graveyard."

"You are a special kind of stupid, aren't you?"

"It would be creepy fun," Jake said.

"It might be at that," Darren said. "Aren't you afraid of ghosts?"

Jake laughed. "I ain't afraid of no ghost. Besides, I don't believe in ghosts."

"Me either, but, okay, let's do it. You can bring the beer."

They discussed which cemetery they would go to and decided on an old one a couple miles from town on a gravel road. It hadn't been used in decades. It had to be a creepy place.

At dusk on Halloween night they left Darren's apartment in Jake's car with a case of beer in the back seat.

As they neared the cemetery the headlights went out.

"Did you do that?" Darren asked.

"Why would I?"

"To make it more creepy, maybe."

Jake shook his head. "Must be a loose connection somewhere," he said. We are only about quarter of a mile away. I think if we take it slow, there's enough light to see. There's a full moon coming up."

When they reached the cemetery they found a place to sit a little way from the tombstones.

"We don't want to chance sitting on someone's grave," Darren said.

They sat drinking and telling stories until the full moon rose up in the sky. In the light of the moon they walked around looking at the tombstones. They were very old, dating back to the nineteenth century.

"What was that?" Jake asked as he stopped in his tracks.

"Just some critter moving around in the bushes. Did it scare you?"

"Not scared, just startled. It's so quiet here and creepier than I thought it would be."

"Dead people don't make noise."

They laughed and walked on to a section of the cemetery that was set off a little way from the main part. Here there were tombstones that were very old and very strange. Some were broken and the inscriptions faded and worn. Others had names but no dates while a few said things like WITCH, EVIL, and MONSTER.

"Who were these people?"asked Darren. "And why don't they have names?"

"I don't know. Maybe they were bad people like murderers or witches."

They stood there looking at the tombstones for a few more minutes trying to imagine how bad a person would have to be to not have a proper grave marker.

"Let's have a beer in their honor, whoever they were," Jake said.

They sat between the witch and the monster and popped open a couple cans. As they started to drink, they noticed movement in the treeline.

"What's that?" Darren asked as he looked up and down the treeline.

"I don't know. Are there any bears around here? Maybe it was a deer."

Whatever it was stopped moving and all was deadly quiet. Too quiet.

"Now it's getting creepy," Darren said. "There is absolutely no sound coming from anywhere."

A shadowy figure appeared between them and the trees. It didn't move or make a sound.

"Come have a seat and a beer," Jake called to the figure. He was getting a pretty good buzz going.

"What are you doing?" Darren said. "We don't know who or what that is."

"Who are you?" Jake directed at the figure. There was no answer. "Probably just the shadows playing a trick on us."

Darren stared at the shadowy figure and saw that it had started moving toward them. "Shadows don't walk," he whispered.

Jake looked up to see what Darren was talking about. His face got very serious. "Who are you? What do you want?" he asked.

Darren was moving away slowly and Jake was about to follow him as the figure moved closer.

"I don't know who you are or what kind of trick this is, but it's not funny," Darren said.

"Why are you disturbing our rest with your presence?" The voice came from the direction of the shadow but they couldn't tell if it came from the shadow.

"I think it's a trick," Jake said as he started to get up and investigate.

A voice that seemed to come from all directions at once roared, "GET OUT!"

They wasted no time scrambling to their feet and starting to run. After stumbling over and into more than a few tombstones, they reached the car.

Darren dropped the keys and had to feel around on the ground for them. Once inside, they each took some deep breaths to calm down. As they pulled out the headlights were still not working, but came on as they passed the same place they had gone out on their way in.

"I could use another beer," Jake said.

"You want to go back and get one?"

"No, I don't think so."

Darren kept checking the rear view mirror to make sure no one was following them. Once a motorcycle came up behind them a little fast and Jake got nervous. All he could see was the one light in the mirror.After it went around them, he gave a big sigh.

When they finally stopped in front of Darren's apartment building, they took a minute to calm down before they got out. As they started walking to the building they both looked over their shoulders to make sure no one followed them.

At the cemetery the shadow that had appeared to Jake and Darren was joined by more shadowy figures.

"I guess they won't do that again," the first shadow said. They all laughed as they floated around the cemetery.

Back at Darren's the two young men were talking about what had happened to them. They were still shaken.

"What the hell was all that?" Jake asked.

"You still don't believe in ghosts?"

"I think it was a trick by someone who was there first and we spoiled their fun. We were just scared because we were drinking."

"Want to go back?"

"Not until morning, I need some sleep."

In the morning they found the empty beer cans they left at the cemetery in Jake's back seat.

"I told you it was a trick. How would a ghost know where we are?" Jake said.

They drove back to the cemetery. As they walked through in the daylight they saw no signs of disturbance. They walked back to where they had seen the shadowy figure and searched the treeline. There was nothing.

They started back to the car. Darren stopped suddenly in front of the old stones.

"Jake, take a look at this," he said.

On one of the tombstones DARREN was inscribed. On another was JAKE.

They both paled and ran to the car.