Chills of Thrill

Disclaimer: This is not a horror story.

"Nice night, isn't it?" Kyle asked. We were lying among the leaves, staring at the full moon. The leaves surprisingly felt soft. The wind gently blew against my face as I slightly sat up. I straightened my short, bright red hair, pushing the leaves off my head. The headstones surrounded us, watching our every move. The chirping of crickets relaxed my dark soul as I embraced the nature around us. I loved it here. It gave me peace and comfort. It reminded me that my loved ones were with me.

During our stay here, Kyle and I would spend a whole hour reading epitaphs. It wouldn’t hurt to take a peek at how these people lived. I wonder what my loved ones would write about me when I die? Hopefully, they’ll add an Edgar Allan Poe quote or something like that.

What’s a good camping trip without packing some grub? Kyle and I brought a couple of club sandwiches with a couple bottles of beer and a bag of chips. For dessert, we packed some strawberries with some whip cream to go on top. We also brought some blankets and pillows, which weren’t even useful. The leaves could pass off as pillows easily. As for the blankets, I could handle the cold just fine.

We weren't supposed to visit after hours, but who's going to stop us? Kyle and I had to hide behind one of these trees so no one would see us.

“I can’t believe ­­Joel dared you to spend the night here,” Kyle scoffed.

“More like, I dared myself.”

Last night, Kyle and I went to this Halloween party, which was held at a bonfire. It wasn’t much of a party, though; more of a hangout. Just like me and Kyle, Joel, the host, had always been more of a misfit than anything, so he invited his closest friends to hang with him. We still dressed up a bit to set the mood. I dressed up as a witch and Kyle dressed up as Freddie Krueger. We played some lame games including “Pin the Nose on the Pumpkin”, “Apple Bob”, and of course, “Truth or Dare” with a Halloween twist.

“Kyle,” Jenny began, “truth or dare?”

“Truth,” Kyle simply said.

“Really?” Jenny asked, slightly surprised. “Okay. What is your most embarrassing Halloween moment?”

Kyle sat up as he pondered the question. “I would say throwing up on my third-grade crush’s bucket of candy or hitting a teacher with a stick instead of the pinata.”

Every one of us chuckled as we reminisced to those times.

“You only have to choose one, dummy,” Jenny said.

“Fine. The first one.”

After a few more rounds, it was my turn.

“Alright, Lisa,” Joel started, “truth or dare?”

My smile widened, hoping that Joel would assign me a riveting challenge.

“Dare,” I stated.

“I dare you to spend the night at…any place you choose. But it has to be spooky.”

There was a brief pause among us.

“That’s it?” I crossed my arms.

“Yeah.”

“Can you give an example of something spooky?”

“Like, say, an abandoned church or something.”

“How about a gravesite? Specifically, the Green Waters Cemetery?”

The fellow guests around me gasped.

“Ooh, bold tonight, aren’t we?” Joel flashed me a smirk.

“Are you sure about that, Lise?” Jenny asked.

“I’ve never been surer in my twenty-three years of living. Also, I don’t buy into that ‘haunted’ crap. I’ve been visiting there for years.”

“But legend has it that if you camp there, especially on the eve of Halloween, you could disappear into the darkness,” Joel informed me.

Chills ran down my spine. However, they were not chills of fear, but rather chills of thrill.

“So, when do I start?” I asked eagerly.

Joel was taken aback from my excitement. However, he answered. “Whatever is convenient for you.”

“I’ll start tomorrow.”

Another gasp from the visitants.

“Dude, are you stupid?” Kyle hissed at me.

“Maybe.” I smirked.

“What’s wrong, Kyle?” Chaz laughed. “Scared your girlfriend’s gonna be possessed?”

Kyle shot him a glare. Then, he looked at me. “Lisa, you’re not going there by yourself.”

 “Why? You think because I’m a woman, I can't handle myself?” I snapped.

“No, but-”

“Why don’t you go with me, then? If the ghosts come, you can fight ‘em off with your Nerf gun.”

Kyle rolled his eyes at the taunt, then shrugged. “Fine.”

“Then, it’s settled!” Joel declared. “Oh, and you have to have proof that you stayed overnight.”

“No problem.” I grabbed a Kodak camera from my bag and waved it in the air. “I’ll just do a little vlogging and capturing.”

And here we are: Green Waters Cemetery. So far, I haven’t witnessed anything “haunted” yet. Despite the hearsay, I could stay here all week. Just to escape from reality. Hell, I wouldn't even leave. This could be my new home.

But if it were haunted, I wouldn’t mind playing around with the spirits for a bit. It would be nice to see my grandfather again.

My little sister would not stop blowing up my phone. She has been so worried about my well-being all day. Poor thing.

“Lisa, I’m not kidding! You and Kyle need to get out of there right now!”

Her good-for-nothing boyfriend, Jack, kept trying to calm her down, telling her that there was nothing to worry about. Why the hell was he still in our house, anyway? I never liked him the first time I met him. He was too shady for my liking.

"Meems, relax," he said in the background. "I'm sure they're fine."

After hanging up on the little turd for the last time, I set my phone on silent and laid my head back down against the leaves, allowing the sound of nature lull me to sleep.

~

“Lisa, wake up. Lisa!”

I groaned, waking up to Kyle shaking me.

“What?” I mumbled. I opened my eyes as I lifted my head from the pillow and pulled the blanket off me.

Wait. Since when did I use a blanket and a pillow? How much beer did I drink?

“This isn’t funny!” he hissed.

“What are you-” I looked over to him and chuckled. The poor guy had whipped cream smeared across his face. The chuckles turned into bursts of laughter. “W-Why is there whipped cream all over your face?”

“You tell me!” he yelled.

I stood up and reached a finger to take some of the cream off his face and taste it. “Mm. This would definitely go well with the strawberries.”

“Very funny.”

“I didn’t do this, though.”

“Dude, you were drunk. It had to be you.”

I shrugged. “I wasn’t that drunk.”

“Well, if you didn’t do this, who did?”

Again, I shrugged. I grabbed my camera from my bag and began to take a few shots of the site.

“Hey, Kyle!” I called out. “Take a shot of me next to my grandpa’s grave, would ya?” I gave Kyle the camera as I skipped over to the tombstone.

“Say ‘cheese’,” he instructed flatly.

“Cheese!” I placed a hand on my hip and smiled for the camera.

After a few shots, I rushed over to Kyle to see the picture. “How does it look?”

Kyle looked down at the camera, narrowing his eyebrows. I walked over to see what he was staring at. I also shared the same look as I scrutinized the photo. What stood next to me was a figure only a few feet taller than me. He had his arm around me, smiling widely at the camera. The man had balding greyish blonde hair. He wore a polyester vest with a pair of plaid pleats. The chills returned, this time of fear and despair. My breaths became shaky as reality began to hit me hard in the face. The man that stood by me was a man that I loved.

Grandpa.

Kyle looked up at me with a concerned look. “Lise?”

I ran over to a tree and started sobbing. I hated crying, but seeing my grandfather, I couldn’t control it.

“Grandpa,” I whispered. More tears ran down my cheeks as I looked at the photo.

“Yes, sweetheart,” a soft voice said. “I’m right here.”

I didn’t bother to turn around. I was too grieved to.

I sniffled, wiping my eyes. I couldn’t feel him, but I knew he was holding me. It all made sense now. The fact that the blanket was covering my body and the pillow on my head when I awoke; the fact that Kyle automatically had whipped cream all over his face. Grandpa did it all. I turned around to see where he could be. It was probably pointless because he was invisible. To my surprise, he wasn’t. He was standing right before my eyes. I reached out to touch him, but I couldn’t feel a thing.

“I miss you,” I whimpered.

“I miss you too, sweetheart,” he whispered. “And I love you. Tell everyone I said ‘hi’.”

And with that, he faded into the night, leaving me with a grieved heart. Sobbing even more, I slid down against the tree and put myself into a ball.

I felt a hand rubbing my back. I looked up to see Kyle smiling with reassurance. He brought my head to his chest as I continued to sob.