Evelyn's Tale

-Twenty-

31st October, 1944

It was raining. Again. But even the cold and rain wasn't enough to dampen Evelyn's spirits. She was pretty much on cloud nine. Ever since that night just over a week ago when Liebgott had finally revealed his innermost feelings to her, she'd had this excited flutter in her stomach constantly. The insides of her cheeks were sore from where she had to bite on them almost all of the time to stop herself from smiling too much. After all, she didn't want anyone else to catch wind of what was going on. Not only because they were all so damned nosy and if one of them found out then it would spread like wildfire through the rest, but because she and Lieb could get into a lot of trouble or even be kicked out of the military. It was proving rather difficult to stay away from each other and talk no more than they usually did so as to avoid any suspicion. What was more difficult was keeping their hands off of each other when they finally were able to talk. There were always people around, and in the last eight days, they had managed to get probably five minutes alone. But they were the best five minutes of the entire week.

"Ev, are you ready?"

Evelyn blinked. Babe had his face right in front of hers and was looking at her expectantly.

"Huh?" she frowned.

"I knew you weren't listening," he sighed exasperatedly. "We're about to start the stories."

It was Halloween and a small group of them who weren't on patrol were gathered in a little stone outhouse. It was almost crumbling down around them, yet it still provided a welcome shelter from the cold and rain outside as long as nobody sat too close to the walls where the water was leaking through. Malarkey had decided that seeing as it was Halloween it was the perfect night to tell a few spooky stories. Evelyn wasn't exactly sure that she believed in all of that but it was a little bit of fun, and something to take their minds away from being on the front lines for a short time. Once he was certain that Evelyn and everyone else was comfortable and ready to listen, Malarkey began.

"So, when I was about nine or ten my Dad and I were driving home from my Grandma Malarkey's. She lives in the middle of these woods which are really creepy. Anyway, it was late at night and the rain was pouring and the wind was howling. Now it's about eight miles from my Grandma's into town, most of which along winding lanes. So you can imagine our surprise when we saw a young woman standing on the side of the road, all alone. She was soaking wet and we knew we couldn't leave her out in the middle of a storm on her own. So she climbed into the back of the car and we carried on home. We tried talking to her a few times, but she didn't really seem to want to answer. After a few attempts we just carried on in silence. Anyway, when we got into town my Dad turned around to ask where she wanted dropping off and she was gone."

"You're shitting us," Skip snorted, clearly disbelieving of the entire tale.

"I swear to you on my life," Malarkey answered, deadly serious. Evelyn could tell he was being truthful with them because she had noticed that whenever Malarkey was lying or trying to twist the truth a little, his eyes would look subconsciously to the left and his eyelashes would flutter more than usual. "My dad and I were pretty shaken up so we stopped at the bar for a whiskey to calm our nerves. Well, my dad had whiskey, I had to settle for a root beer. When we told the bartender what had happened, I expected him to think we were absolutely crazy, but instead he told us that years ago right on that stretch of road, a young girl had been hit by an automobile and killed. Apparently we weren't the first people to have picked up the mystery woman. We never saw her again but let me tell you, even now when I'm on that stretch of road it puts the creepers up me."

Evelyn felt a shiver run right up her spine at the chilling tale. Beside her, Babe smirked at her unease.

"Ok, ok, I got one now," Shifty spoke up quietly. Evelyn was genuinely shocked that Shifty would have something to say about this subject matter. He was so level headed that she wouldn't have imagined for a minute that ghosts and ghouls were something he believed in. "We grew up on a farm. My grandfather built it with his own two hands and it was on land that had seen many battles during the Civil war. When I was eleven, I recall vividly one night being asleep in the room I shared with my brother and sister. The toilet is in an outhouse, but Pa didn't like us going out there at night on our own, so we used a chamber pot instead. I was trying my best to fall back asleep after using the chamber pot, but for some reason I just couldn't. As I lay there listening to the sounds of crickets chirping through the open window, I heard another sound along the hallway. It sounded like footsteps. Heavy footsteps, like someone was wearing boots. At first, I wasn't too alarmed because I thought perhaps it was Pa. The footsteps stopped after a little while, and I managed to drift back off to sleep. But what must have been a short time later, as it was still pitch dark, the bedroom door creaked open. I opened my eyes expecting to see one of my parents but instead I could make out the shape of a man who most definitely was not my Pa. In fact, he looked to be wearing a uniform of some kind, much like that of a confederate soldier, and even in the darkness I could feel his eyes riveted to me. I dove under my covers, completely terrified. A minute or two later, I heard my sister crying and when I peeked to take a look at her, she too was looking at the figure in the doorway. As scared as I was, I knew that I had to be brave for my sister so I crept over to her bed, but in that moment the figure began to move closer and closer until-"