Unwelcome Visitors

"I can't believe I agreed to this," I grumbled, stumbling over the uneven ground.

My best friend, Lanie, skipped ahead as if we were at an amusement park. She laughed. "You're such a scaredy-cat sometimes, ya know?" The wrought iron gate to the cemetery creaked as Lanie pushed it open. "Come on!"

I hurried after her, pointing my flashlight this way and that. All I could see in the dim light were the silhouettes of gravestones. It was Halloween, and somehow Lanie had convinced me it would be a good idea to go spend the night at a cemetery. I foolishly mentioned the fact that there was a shortcut to the cemetery through the woods in my backyard.  So now here we were.

Lanie stopped suddenly and turned to face me. "Let's find someone who died, like, a hundred years ago," she said.

Before I could reply, she took off walking again, pointing her flashlight at each gravestone. I trailed behind her, reading the names as I passed. Henry Monroe, Born August 12th, 1926, Died July 17th, 1979. Loving husband and father. After that was a Mary Stiles, Born March 4th, 1982, Died April 24th, 2001.

"Hayley, come look at this!" Lanie exclaimed after a few more minutes of reading gravestones. She was standing in front of a very old, weathered looking headstone at the edge of the cemetery. The writing was so faded, it was barely legible. “Can you tell what it says?”

I knelt down in front of it and shone the light of my flashlight as close as I could get to try to make out the words. “I think the first name starts with an L,” I said. I used my jacket sleeve to brush dirt from the headstone to try to see better. “Lucy Harrison,” I read. “Born May 2nd, 1908, Died June 5th, 1918.” 

“She was only ten,” Lanie whispered.

Just then, I heard a loud cracking sound in the near distance, as if someone had stepped on a branch. Lanie and I quickly turned around, pointing our flashlights in every direction. No one was there.

“It was probably just the wind,” Lanie said, although her voice shook slightly.

She turned back to Lucy Harrison’s gravestone. The one next to hers said, Edith Harrison, Born December 20th, 1889, Died June 16th, 1918. After that was John Harrison, Born September 13th, 1887, Died June 20th, 1918. “Whoa,” I whispered. A whole family, all dead within the same month. “I wonder what happened to them.”

“Did you hear that?” Lanie asked at the same time. 

I turned to see her facing away from the gravestones again, pointing her flashlight toward the middle of the cemetery. I pointed my flashlight in the same direction, but I couldn’t tell what she was staring at. “I didn’t hear anything,” I said.

“I swear I thought I heard someone laugh,” she mumbled. 

I rolled my eyes, thinking she was just trying to freak me out. “Come on, stop messing with me.”

She looked at me, eyes wide. “I’m not. I swear.”

My heart started to beat a little faster, even though I still wasn’t sure if I believed her. “Well, maybe we should just go look around a little bit,” I suggested wearily. “Maybe someone came in after us and we just didn’t see them.”

We slowly started back down the path, gripping our flashlights tight. After a few minutes, we were back near the front gates. There were a couple more paths leading to different parts of the cemetery, but we didn’t see anyone anywhere. 

“I don’t see anyone,” I said. “Either you’re messing with me or you’re hearing things.”

Bang! A loud sound like a gunshot ripped through the air. Lanie and I screamed and shot closer together. “What was that?” Lanie cried.

I tried to catch my breath, my heart now pounding. “I don’t know,” I wheezed. 

Lanie grabbed my hand and started to pull me down one of the pathways that led to the middle of the cemetery. “It sounded like it came from over here,” she whispered.

I yanked my hand back. “Are you serious?” I demanded. “That sounded like a gun or something, Lanie. We should get out of here!” But she was already too far ahead of me. I groaned and stomped after her. “If we get murdered, it’s your fault!” I yelled.

Typical Lanie, always running towards danger instead of running away from it. Suddenly my flashlight started to flicker. I banged it against my hand, trying to get it to work, but it flickered a few more times before going out completely. 

“My flashlight went out,” I called to Lanie.

She stopped and came over to me. “That’s weird. Didn’t you just put new batteries in that before we left?”

I nodded. With the light from her flashlight, I took the batteries out and tried flipping them around to see if that would fix it. But as I shook the batteries out into my hand, Lanie’s light started to flicker, too, and then went out and everything around us turned to darkness. The only light was from the moon, but it was covered by clouds, so it didn’t illuminate very much. 

I stood up, blinking rapidly as my eyes adjusted to the darkness. I could only see a few feet in front of me. “Did you bring an extra flashlight or batteries?” I asked, gesturing to the bag Lanie had over her shoulder. 

Sighing, she opened up her bag. “No, I just brought blankets and bottles of water and snacks. I didn’t think we’d need batteries.”

Just then, I heard what sounded like rustling leaves. I looked around, squinting to try to see better. The sound of a cracking twig came from behind me and I whirled around. I was facing the direction of the Harrison’s graves, where we were a few minutes ago. Someone was standing there, in front of the headstones. However, something about the figure was strange. It was almost translucent; solid, but almost see-through at the same time. 

Lanie noticed me staring, and followed my gaze. “Who is that?” she whispered. “He wasn’t there before.”

I shrugged and, for reasons I couldn’t really explain, I slowly started walking towards him. Lanie reluctantly followed. I stopped when we were a few feet away. I shook my head, thinking my mind had to be playing tricks on me. The closer we got to the man, the more transparent he became. I could see the woods that lined the cemetery through his old fashioned looking jacket. He wore plain slacks and a tattered cap on his head. He definitely wasn’t modernly dressed.

“H-hello,” I stammered. 

He turned and looked me up and down and then turned his gaze to Lanie. After a moment, he turned away. And then, in a slightly raspy voice, he said, “You shouldn’t be here.”

A shiver went down my spine. Lanie and I exchanged a worried look. “Why not?” Lanie said.

Before he could answer, another loud bang sounded from somewhere close by. It was immediately followed by a faint sound of giggling. Lanie and I whirled around, trying to figure out where it was coming from. A faint orb-like glow was coming from the middle of the cemetery. I watched as it slowly rose into the air and, after floating there for a few moments, it shot towards the woods and disappeared. I turned back toward the man, but he was gone. 

“Where did he go?” I shrieked. 

Lanie didn’t respond, but instead was standing there wide-eyed, her mouth formed into a tiny O. I looked around, trying to find a logical explanation; someone had to be pranking us, or our imaginations were running wild on Halloween. That was all. People didn’t just disappear. As I was scanning the ground for signs of foul play, something near John Harrison’s headstone caught my eye. A word was scratched into the dirt, like it was written with a stick. Leave.

A sound escaped my throat, a mix of a whimper and a scream. With a shaky hand, I pointed it out to Lanie. She grabbed my arm. “We need to get out of here!”

We started booking it toward the front gates. Halfway there, my foot caught on something and I fell to the ground. I tried to reach out my hands to break my fall, but ended up landing on my right shoulder. Pain shot through my arm, and Lanie quickly turned around to help me up. 

“Are you okay?” she cried.

I nodded, wincing as I stood up. I noticed Lanie wasn’t looking at me anymore, but instead she was staring behind me past my shoulder. I turned around to see what she was looking at. Three figures were standing in the same spot where I had seen the orb-like glow. Their faces were indiscernible and, like the man we saw earlier, they were translucent. When they moved, they seemed to silently glide along the grass. It took me a moment to realize they were gliding right toward us.

Lanie grabbed my arm and began to pull me backwards. Stumbling a little, I turned and ran after her toward the front gate. We finally got to the front, but the gate was closed and locked, even though I was sure we had left it open when we got here. Lanie grabbed a bar in each hand and started to shake them, frantically trying to get them open. After a moment, she gave up and turned to face me.

“What do we do?” she demanded, tears in her eyes.

Heart pounding, I turned around to see how close the figures were, but they were gone. I attempted to slow my breathing and calm myself down. That’s when I noticed something on the ground a few feet away. I walked over to it. More writing was etched into the dirt. Leaving so soon? As soon as I finished reading the message, a creaking sound came from behind me. I turned around and saw the gate to the cemetery ajar, when it was locked just moments before. 

Without questioning it too much, I grabbed Lanie’s hand and we ran as fast as we could through the gate. Once we got far enough away, we stopped to catch our breath. I leaned over, resting my hands on my knees and breathing hard.

I looked over at Lanie. She was looking back toward the cemetery, panting slightly. “That was insane,” she murmured, talking so quietly that I wasn’t sure if she was talking to me or herself. 

Nevertheless, I nodded in agreement and grabbed her hand and we began the walk back home.