Post by Hannah H on Jul 14, 2022 9:45:09 GMT -5
Pretending to be a ghost gets lonely.
I’ve been crouching behind the same gravestone for the last twenty minutes, which is twenty minutes too long, if you ask me. I’d much rather be searching for real ghosts instead of impersonating one.
I shiver as the wind whips through the cemetery and zip my jacket straight to my nose. The sun set over an hour ago, but the moon provides just enough light for me to peer around the headstone. Mom’s dark form treks into sight, leading a pack of lumbering shadows.
Finally. I duck back into position, hidden behind a crumbling gray tombstone so weathered that the words have worn away until all that’s left is L…I…A…R.
Poor guy. Not exactly the way I’d want to be remembered.
If I listen closely, I can just hear Mom’s voice, the sound hollow and tinny through the megaphone. “This way, folks…that’s right, past the oak tree…”
Mom’s dressed like Morticia Addams, her face powdered pale white. Stringy black hair hangs down to her elbows, and she sweeps it back over her shoulders. “Now don’t stand too close. The ghost of Tom Brown has been known to wail when death is near and I…I think I hear something.” She pauses for dramatic effect.
Crap, that’s my cue. I pull my knees from the sucking grasp of mud, inch as close to the headstone as I can, and let loose my most murder-y wail. I wince. Usually my ghost-voice is spot on, but tonight it sounds more like a wolf’s howl than a dead guy calling from the beyond.
That’s not good. If any of the customers get wise, Dad will not be pleased.
Luckily, we’ve got a few chickens on this tour. A man clutches the arm of the dark-haired woman beside him, his eyes shifting through the empty cemetery. “Did you hear that?” he murmurs, moving closer to her.
The woman shrugs out of his grasp, rolling her eyes. “Get off of me, Alan.”
I crouch behind the tombstone and hunch my shoulders, careful not to be seen as the tour group trudges past.
“Now, in this corner of the cemetery we’ll find the buried remains of Felicity Gale, a woman bludgeoned to death in her prime…”
Without meaning to, I find myself counting the customers. …Two, three, four.
Only four?
“And now, ladies and gentle-ghouls, our final stop on the Spooks and Specters tour of terror…”
Sixty seconds later, I stand up. My joints crack from disuse as I shake out my arms and neck in a boneless dance. The cemetery always empties out this late into the evening, which leaves me time to do the only thing I want to do.
Ghosting hunting.
“Riley?”
My spine stiffens as if reinforced with steel. I know that voice. I turn around slowly, wishing with every fiber of my being that I could just sink into the ground and disappear.
Behind me stands Sarah Clarke.
I’ve been crouching behind the same gravestone for the last twenty minutes, which is twenty minutes too long, if you ask me. I’d much rather be searching for real ghosts instead of impersonating one.
I shiver as the wind whips through the cemetery and zip my jacket straight to my nose. The sun set over an hour ago, but the moon provides just enough light for me to peer around the headstone. Mom’s dark form treks into sight, leading a pack of lumbering shadows.
Finally. I duck back into position, hidden behind a crumbling gray tombstone so weathered that the words have worn away until all that’s left is L…I…A…R.
Poor guy. Not exactly the way I’d want to be remembered.
If I listen closely, I can just hear Mom’s voice, the sound hollow and tinny through the megaphone. “This way, folks…that’s right, past the oak tree…”
Mom’s dressed like Morticia Addams, her face powdered pale white. Stringy black hair hangs down to her elbows, and she sweeps it back over her shoulders. “Now don’t stand too close. The ghost of Tom Brown has been known to wail when death is near and I…I think I hear something.” She pauses for dramatic effect.
Crap, that’s my cue. I pull my knees from the sucking grasp of mud, inch as close to the headstone as I can, and let loose my most murder-y wail. I wince. Usually my ghost-voice is spot on, but tonight it sounds more like a wolf’s howl than a dead guy calling from the beyond.
That’s not good. If any of the customers get wise, Dad will not be pleased.
Luckily, we’ve got a few chickens on this tour. A man clutches the arm of the dark-haired woman beside him, his eyes shifting through the empty cemetery. “Did you hear that?” he murmurs, moving closer to her.
The woman shrugs out of his grasp, rolling her eyes. “Get off of me, Alan.”
I crouch behind the tombstone and hunch my shoulders, careful not to be seen as the tour group trudges past.
“Now, in this corner of the cemetery we’ll find the buried remains of Felicity Gale, a woman bludgeoned to death in her prime…”
Without meaning to, I find myself counting the customers. …Two, three, four.
Only four?
“And now, ladies and gentle-ghouls, our final stop on the Spooks and Specters tour of terror…”
Sixty seconds later, I stand up. My joints crack from disuse as I shake out my arms and neck in a boneless dance. The cemetery always empties out this late into the evening, which leaves me time to do the only thing I want to do.
Ghosting hunting.
“Riley?”
My spine stiffens as if reinforced with steel. I know that voice. I turn around slowly, wishing with every fiber of my being that I could just sink into the ground and disappear.
Behind me stands Sarah Clarke.
