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"Sean, this is
insane." I whispered as loudly as I thought I could without waking
the rest of the house. "What if we get caught?"
He did not answer my protest, choosing to simply press
forward to the top of the stairs and then downward, step by creaking step,
me behind him, a shadow in the dark. We were dressed for outdoors, the
very last place I wanted to be on this Halloween with twenty-three minutes
to go before the witching hour.
"Sean!" I insisted, as his one hand wrapped around
the doorknob and the other slipped the dead bolt. "We're going to get
caught!"
This time he reacted. He turned around to face me without ever
letting go and whispered angrily, "Stay, then. You're too young to be
doing this anyhow. Wasn't my idea for you to come along."
His dismissal cut me like an icicle knife. He was right. When
the guys first started talking about this trip up to the cemetery, I had
immediately volunteered. I was very eager to be more than just Sean's
little brother. I wanted to be respected on my own. Truth be known though,
what they were planning scared me far worse than just being in the town
graveyard at midnight.
"Let's go," I whispered resolutely. I was still
skeptical, but Sean was going to be there, so how bad could it be? I
closed the door softly behind me, then crossed the porch quickly to catch
up.
It was a frost on the pumpkin kind of night. What little wind there was
rustled the dead leaves on the trees and stirred the dead leaves on the
ground. I was cold deep in my bones, the chill of the dark being as much
from fear as from the moving air.
On Elm Street, Sean's friends, Ricky and Chris joined us. We were exactly
halfway between the safety of my house and the terror of a midnight
graveyard. Ricky was the oldest in the band and played base. He lit a
cigarette.
"Couldn't lose the midget, eh?" Chris observed, as Ricky blew a
cloud, half smoke, half breath. He tossed me a disparaging glance. I
returned a silent middle finger back to him. Chris was a really good
drummer. Most of the time he tolerated me, but more recently, ever since
the band started on this graveyard thing, he'd been leaning on Sean
to leave me home.
"You let me worry about the midget." Sean retorted, irritated at
having to defend me. "He's my responsibility."
We came out onto Main Street, breaking into a jog. The need for speed and
stealth was twofold. The town cops usually hung out near the pizza
parlor, and the last member of the band would be waiting for us at
the bottom of Graveyard Hill.
I got winded pretty quickly, then caught a stitch in my side and had to
stop. Sean made the others slow down to wait for me, bringing muffled
howls of protest from Ricky and Chris both. Finally Sean growled at me,
"Get a move on. It ain't that much further."
He was right. Less than a hundred yards away, leaning against the only
streetlight on the block, Frankie the Mouse waited impatiently. Frankie
played synth and piano like he'd been born with them attached to his
hands. He could sing like the King, himself when he felt like it. Of all
Sean's friends, the Mouse tolerated me most. He did that by simply
ignoring me completely.
There was a brief exchange between
them, then they all took off. pain or no pain, I sprinted to catch up.
Nobody was going to leave at the bottom of Graveyard Hill alone.
By the time I finally I made it to the top of the hill, everyone else was
already over the gate and inside the cemetery. When I got to where they
were, they were sitting in a tight circle around a small stone marker
imbedded in the ground. One of each of them was positioned at each main
point of the compass. Sean got that part off the Internet. I sat down cross legged
behind and to the left of Sean, in the "mascot spot," as he
called it. I was shaking so badly my teeth were chattering.
"Got it?" Sean asked the Mouse.
"Yep." He answered simply, and pulled a box out from under his
Parka. "If my mom finds out I took it, she'll kill me."
"You sure you know how to use
it?" Queried Chris.
"I said I did, didn't I?"
Snapped back the Mouse. That pretty much quieted the conversation.
Frankie set up the Ouija board, right there, on top of the grave. They
four all grabbed hands to make a circle. Then Frankie started to
chant in a language I didn't understand. After a moment, he
switched to English, saying, "Listen spirits to my plea. Send the
ghost of Elvis Presley to me."
I know what you're thinking. Elvis died in Memphis. There was no way his
ghost was going to come all the way to Jaffrey, New Hampshire just because
we wanted him to. Well, that had been my argument too, but I didn't get a
vote because I wasn't in the band.
Silence fell like a hammer on glass. Nothing stirred. The wind died and I
felt sure I was going to. Suddenly, from behind where Sean and I sat, a
footstep crunched on gravel. I turned around and peered into the darkness
in time to see a shadowy figure come around from behind one of the
mausoleums. It was dark and stooped and it shuffled the way the zombies
did in the movie Army of Darkness.
"Cripes!" Frankie, yelped, " I did it! It's Elvis!"
That figure didn't look fat enough or skinny enough to be any Elvis I'd
ever seen in movies or on TV. It walked stiff-legged and shuffling like
Frankenstein. It freaked me out completely.
"That ain't Elvis." I screamed, "It's a
monster!"
Without waiting for a reply, I leaped to my feet and bolted for the gate.
I'd have made it too, if something hadn't grabbed me.
They were everywhere, coming from every direction at the same time. They
captured us all within in three heartbeats, despite speed and panic being
on our side, but not without a fight. It was chaos. We were yelling
and they were yelling. Then, I heard one of them say loudly, "You
have the right to remain silent. . ."
The one that had hold of me from behind, spoke in in perfect English. He
began, "You boys better have a good explanation for being here.
. ." But I didn't get to hear the rest. My body went limp and every
thing went dark.
*
* *
We each received 100 hours of
community service from the Juvenile Court for being in the graveyard after
midnight. Something about a town ordinance having been in effect since
1839.
Frankie got grounded for swiping the
Ouija board. Our dad yelled at Sean for two hours for sneaking me out of
the house, then yelled at me for an hour more for following him. Ricky and
Chris had to spend three Saturday mornings clearing leaves and brush from
the cemetery. One of them had kicked a town cop on the leg, raising a
bruise, but he couldn't remember which one, so he charged both of them
with resisting arrest.
Strangely, though they asked
why we were there that night, nobody believed the truth, so Sean finally
made up a story about them initiating me into the band. That did not
pacify my parents very much, but otherwise, they bought it, hook,
line and sinker.
To this day, Ouija boards give me
the creeps
(c) 2001 by Bob Liddil.
All Rights Reserved
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