Grave Danger

The clock struck eleven, on the church overlooking the dark graveyard. The only other sound to breach the silence was the occasional breeze through the surrounding trees. The clear sky was dominated by the looming full moon which cast eerie shadows of the disheveled old graves that dominated the cemetery.

“What’s that?” I heard some rustling, like footsteps nearby.

“Relax, don’t be so on edge”, assured Louise, “as her hands held my face. “Less talk,more kissing,” she whispered as her lips met mine.

‘Crack’, I heard another sound, as though someone stood on a twig nearby, clearly audible in stillness of the night. I flinched; Louise wouldn’t let go.

‘Crack’, I heard it again. “That came from behind that grave!”

Louise, who had a morbid fascination of making out in graveyards, whispered, “Relax, it’s your imagination.” She stood up and walked to the behind the next grave and proclaimed, “Look there’s nothing here.” 

Suddenly, she fell and shouted, “Aurgh, it’s got me".

I leapt to my feet to jump to her aid as she sprang up laughing, “Joking.”

“Don’t do that”, I brushed back her long black hair, looked into her yearning brown eyes, and kissed her. She unbuttons the top couple of buttons on her black blouse, the same color as her jeans, pushes me against a tree, forces herself on me, and seriously starts kissing. After a while I whispered, “Shall we go back to my place?” Anywhere less creepy.

She nodded. We made our way through the cemetery gates, hand in hand, to the lane.

I looked across the lane to the dark spooky woods. The moon

provided just enough light to make out the path in the old badly kept woods.

We decided to take a short cut through the woods. Why? As we ventured into the woods it didn’t get any less unnerving.

“You like grave yards, don’t you?” I knew when we started dating a month ago that she had some morbid fascinations. “There’s something unnatural about it.”

“Death? Dying is that most natural thing.”

“Well I’ve never done it.”

“What”

“Died”

“What are you afraid of? Zombies coming out the graves”.

“No! You don’t find zombies in graveyards.”

“You don’t”, she looked at me with amazement, “Where do you find

them?”

“Town center. People aimlessly wondering around, transfixed, zombified by their mobile phones. There’re bumping into each other, into to lampposts, into to traffic.” 

We stopped, and shared a kiss. “I get the feeling we are being watched”, I said quietly.

“So, do I.” She wasn’t joking, “We are being followed”.

I gave a slight nod, as I looked around at eerie darkness, behind

the spooky trees.

“Let’s run to the field, hide and see who emerges,” she whispered.

We sprinted the final few hundred yards, and hid behind the wall. Through the gaps of the old wall we watched the exit to the woods.

We waited and waited. A woman with long blonde hair emerged from the woods, she looked barely twenty. She spotted us, and headed our way, but there was something strange about her. She wasn’t walking, she was hovering. She was transparent. Her agonized tortured face seemed to be trying to say something. ‘No, no, stay away’. Then she just disappeared before our eyes.

* * * * *

The following morning, I awoke after a restless night. Yesterday was certainly a Friday to remember. I glanced at my phone, it’s already eleven O’clock. There was a message from Louise, which read, ‘Dale. I have a friend, who wants to investigate the ghost. We have to go back tonight’.

I didn’t want to go back, but Louise used her unique charm to persuade me to join them. That evening I met Steve, who was overweight, with long unkept long, ginger hair, which matched his scruffy badly worn jeans and ‘T’ shirt. This man’s an expert?

* * * * *

This is not the way I want to spend my Saturday evening. Even though It was a clear, cool, moonlit autumn night, I’d rather be in the local pub, with the rest of our friends. We stood staring at the entrance to the woods, complete with flashlights. Steve was filming everything, with his mobile phone. Is that tree stump really that interesting?

“We saw the ghost here,” declared Louise.

“Cool”, responded Steve.

“We were followed from within the woods”, I added.

“Dude, we need to go back there.” Dude appeared to be his

favorite word.

Me and my big mouth. We ventured into the woods to the spot where kissed the night before. “Here”, she declared. The area was just as forbidding, the darkness still felt threatening.

“Did you hear any sounds before here?” asked Steve.

“No”

“Follow me”, summoned Steve, as he made down a narrow mud track that veered from the path. After a short walk we entered a clearing, with a large flat rock in the middle. On closer inspection we could see blood stains. “It’s a sacrificial altar.”

I’m sure I could hear movement from the woods behind us. Maybe it was just the gentle breeze, or my imagination in a desperate plea to go back.

“Dale! Three O’clock”, warned Louise.

I looked to our right. A figure in white was coming towards us. It was the same ghost, floating towards us, this time at speed. “Go, go now” she wailed as she passed us. 

“Dale! Three O’clock” repeated Louise.

On the main path I could just make out four…six figures, coming

our way.

“Into the bushes” I asserted pointing to bushes on the edge of the

opening. 

“How romantic” quipped Louise as we took cover.

From the path came thirteen figures wearing long black hooded cloaks, with a sheep in tow. They congregated in a circle around the altar, one in the center with a large knife. They watched as the sheep was bought to the altar. They made incomprehensible chants, until the center figure flung his arms into the air. Then there was silence, only the wind rustling in the trees could be heard.

Then the chanting started again as they quickly descended towards us. Should we make break for it? Before we knew it the bushes were surrounded. The chants grew louder, as their central figure approached the bushes. He was stood only about a couple of feet from my hand. He put his hands in the air, and the chanting stopped.

“Tonight, our god Odin will have three live sacrifices”, bellowed the central figure.

Then they all descended upon the bushes, and we were aggressively grabbed, by their multitude, and carried to the altar.

* * * * *

“Which of you is going to tell me, why you were in the woods tonight”, said the portly police sergeant, staring at the three of us.

The dull I interview room, was sparse, with only a table and chairs. The badly worn carpet, had seen better days, and the bleak graying walls hadn’t been painted for many years.

“Dude, we haven’t committed a crime”, murmured Steve.

“We were ghost hunting”, said Louise.

The sergeant took a deep breath. “What you’ve done is mess up a covert police operation. We’ve been watching them for weeks.”

“You’ve got your evidence. It’s on my phone”, Steve was slightly confused. “You’ve caught them."

The sergeant managed a smile and nodded. “We wanted the grand high priest. He’ll be long gone now”. He continues with, “We’ll need each of you to make a statement.”

Steve pondered for a moment before saying, “Officer, did you see the ghost on my video?”

The sergeant nodded, “Yes. She looks like Chloe Peters. Their last victim.”