Ghost In the Graveyard | COMPLETED

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"No Answers" by Amber Run

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Tuesday: October 11, 1994
11:14 PM

The night I died wasn't dark and stormy. It was calm, quiet, and there were more stars in the sky than I'd ever seen. A cool breeze washed over me, blowing my long, chocolate brown hair off my shoulders. I breathed in the crisp fall air. Something about this time of the year just made me feel good.

The full moon above poured its light onto the wooded graveyard before me. I only ever came here when I needed to think. None of my family was buried here. No one had been buried in Maple Grove cemetery in over twenty years. There was a new cemetery closer to town, so this one only rarely received visitors.

I pedaled my bike deeper into the graveyard, leaves crunching under my tires as I turned around sharp corners. It wasn't hard to get lost in here, since it was so winding and spread out and wooded with trees and bushes and hills. I got lost a few times when I first discovered this place, but by now I could navigate it easily, even in the dark.

I always came for the freedom, the fresh air, and the chance to think. But tonight, it felt different. Wrong. Naturally, graveyards give people an eerie feeling, but this was so much worse, as if the feeling had been amplified. The hairs on my neck stood on end, and I could feel the goosebumps on my arms even though I had on a heavy gray sweatshirt and my dad's green raincoat.

Then I heard it. A sound like a laugh, disguised by the wind. It caught me so off guard, I didn't turn in time and crashed into a headstone. I was sent flying forward, rolling to a stop in the wet grass.

I sat up quickly and looked all around for the owner of the voice, but I was alone. Had it been my imagination? Maybe I was just on edge after my phone call with Jason. It definitely unnerved me.

Jason was my boyfriend of over two months. We weren't serious, and only ever kissed twice. We were always too busy to see each other. He had football practice every day after school, and I had basketball practice at six-thirty. The relationship was doomed from the start. The only time we saw each other was passing by in the halls at school.

He's the one who called me tonight just after my family finished up dinner. I was in the middle of scraping leftover mashed potatoes off my younger brother's plate when the phone rang. I was surprised to hear Jason's voice, and I didn't remember giving him my number.

He called it off. Said he'd been thinking about it and thought it'd be better that way. But I saw this coming the moment I caught his hand interlocked with Sarah's. He didn't know I was there, passing by quietly and swiftly as I made my way to chemistry. Honestly, it didn't pain me seeing him like that. I wasn't feeling hurt that he broke up with me. If anything, it felt like there was a weight lifted from my shoulders.

I pulled myself up from the wet ground, brushing the mud and dirt from my pants. I plucked a few leaves from my hair and brushed my fingers through it to comb the snarls out as best I could. I stepped around the headstone to retrieve my bike and apologized to whoever was buried here. I couldn't read the name on the stone, too dark to see.

From the corner of my eye, I saw it in the trees. An orange flicker of fire danced against the few dying leaves that were left holding on to their branches. I couldn't see the fire itself, hiding behind a hill out of my sight, but I'd take a bet that was where the laughter had come from.

I left my bike and tip-toed as quietly as I could around graves and down the road, but it was nearly impossible to be stealthy with the leaves crunching under my feet. I climbed up the hill and peered over, and I suddenly felt like my heart was in my throat. The sight ahead horrified me, and it didn't take the wind to chill me to the bone.