Final Rest Cemetery

“In the graveyard? That’s not what I had in mind when you said, ‘somewhere spooky,’” Anne complained, shifting her sleep-away bag to the other arm.

“Did you think they were gonna let us spend the night in the haunted house?” Hazel retorted. “Besides, the haunted house isn’t scary anyway,” she added, turning back to the locked gate.

“I thought it was,” Anne mumbled under her breath.

Hazel ignored her comment and began to climb the fence to Final Rest Cemetery. Anne whined but began to follow her friend.

The two had met in the first grade, six years before, when Anne had shrieked upon the sight of a spider on the floor and Hazel had fearlessly crushed it beneath her shoe. They were instantly best friends and had been inseparable ever since.

Once Hazel reached the top of the fence, she hopped down and instructed Anne on how to climb over the top. Once Anne was safely on the ground, she followed Hazel to find a spot to set up sleeping bags.

“Well this’ll be a great story. ‘Hey Mom, did I ever tell you about the time I told you I was at Hazel’s house but was really in a graveyard?’ She’ll have my head for this. Didn’t you think about the consequences before you demanded that we spend the night before Halloween in an old, stinky graveyard...” Anne kept talking, but Hazel tuned out her ranting, interrupting only to say she’d found the right spot.

“It’s level, and big enough for both of our sleeping bags,” Hazel said flatly when Anne asked why she chose that specific spot.

“But… it’s surrounded by graves,” Anne said, glancing around as if she were trying not to offend any of the buried bodies.

“We’re in a graveyard. What did you expect?” Hazel quipped. Anne sighed and reluctantly unrolled her sleeping bag. The girls had come in their pajamas, teeth brushed and ready for bed. Hazel didn’t admit it, but even she was uncomfortable changing in a graveyard.

They laid out their sleeping bags and went to sleep in the whispering wind.

“Hazel?” Anne asked, barely audible.

“Yeah?” she responded groggily.

 “Do you see that?” Anne whispered, and Hazel realized Anne was sitting up. Hazel lifted her head, resting all her weight on her elbows.

“I don’t see anything. Why?” Hazel asked curiously. She had never seen Anne like this before.

“I see something moving on the other side of the graveyard,” Anne said, terrified. Hazel laid back down.

“Probably just the wind,” Hazel said quietly, already drifting off again.

But what the girls didn't know was that every year at midnight, on the night before Halloween, something very strange happened in that graveyard.

Hazel woke up to a sound she’d only ever heard twice before. The first time was in fifth grade, when Anne had a panic attack after she failed a math quiz, and the second time was in sixth grade when Anne had gotten stung by a bee, which she is highly allergic to. The sound, Hazel quicky realized, was Anne’s asthma inhaler.

Hazel sat up frantically, to see Anne in the dark, with one hand holding the inhaler, and the other pointing to where she had seen something move earlier that night. Anne reached out with her free hand and grabbed Hazel’s wrist, let go, and pointed desperately to the other end of the graveyard. But Hazel didn’t see anything, so she ignored Anne’s shaking hand pointing, and pulled out a water bottle from her backpack and thrust it into Anne’s lap, she gargled the water and spit it out without taking her eyes off the spot. Hazel scanned the area, looking for movement when she saw what looked like a deformed person take a long stride across the graveyard.

Towards them.

“S-see?” Anne choked out, able to speak again.

“Anne, get up. We’re leaving, right now,” Hazel said, her voice sounding calmer than she felt. Anne obliged, and the two girls thrashed in their sleeping bags until they had unzipped them, and they grabbed their stuff and ran towards the gate. They ran as fast as they could, barely able to hold their stuff. Anne dropped her water, slowing until Hazel shouted at her to keep running. They made it to the fence, and Hazel gave Anne a boost, and then began throwing their belongings over the fence. Anne hopped down and almost screamed when she realized Hazel wasn’t following her. In fact, Hazel was gone.

“Hazel!” she hollered. “HAZEL!” she climbed back up the fence. She heard a cry, a scream that could only be from Hazel. Anne ran blindly in the dark, following her best friends voice.

“Anne! Anne, help me!” Hazel cried when Anne got closer.

But something stopped Anne in her tracks. The dirt above a freshly buried coffin began to shift. It shook and trembled, and a pale, grey hand shot out of the dirt. The hand reached around, until it gripped the tombstone, and another hand shot out, grasping the tombstone, pulling and straining against it until a person rose out of the loose dirt.

The woman was old, probably a little over eighty. Her hair was thin and grey, and her pale skin glistened in the moonlight. She lunged at Anne, who burst forward with a new resolve to get to Hazel.

Anne had no idea she could run so fast. She tore past tombstones and memorials, nearly tripping on hands of the undead.

“Anne!” Hazel called. Anne came into view of Hazel, who was being dragged by the ankle towards an empty grave, where two more of the undead waited with shovels. Hazel thrashed around, reaching for the hand that tightly clasped her ankle, but she was just a few inches short.

The grave drew closer and closer to Hazel, and her heart beat faster and faster. A zombie launched itself towards Anne, moving with remarkable speed and agility. Anne saw a particularly sharp stick and lunged at it, barely escaping the zombie’s open hands. She took off towards the zombie dragging Hazel, jumping in front of it. The zombie stopped, and Anne thrust the stick into its chest. The thing howled, and both of its hands went to the stick, freeing Hazel.

Hazel scrambled to her feet, and they sprinted towards the closest exit. The zombies surrounded them, but they burst up the fence, barefoot and in pajamas. The zombies reached, but it seemed they couldn’t climb fences as well as the girls, because they fell after they got a couple feet in the air. Anne and Hazel didn’t stop once they got over the fence, they ran all the way to Hazel’s house, opening the door and sneaking upstairs to Hazel’s room, panting as they fell onto the large bed.

They avoided graveyards after that.