“Silas…”
The voice was eerie, barely above a whisper.
Jake paused, his sneaker poised above a grave as he stood in the middle of Dusk Cemetery.
It was nearly midnight and he’d grabbed the wrong flashlight before
sneaking out of his bedroom window. It had run out of juice halfway
through the graveyard, and he’d been blindly stumbling around ever
since.
The moon was full, but it was frequently obscured by heavy cloud cover
and he had to wait until another patch moved through to see very well.
He wasn’t scared, so much. Jake had a special relationship with
graveyards, and this was far from his first time at the rodeo. Still,
it was the first time a headstone had ever talked to him.
The voice grew louder.
“Silas…”
It was a female voice, sounding dark in a way
a ghost might: dark and deep and frosty.
He risked another step, letting the moonlight guide his path. It
was a big cemetery, and well-maintained as cemeteries go. There were
headstones everywhere, some leaning, some taller than Jake.
“Silas…”
Jake turned to the left to follow the sound. It was coming from a
massive tombstone two feet taller than he was, and three feet wider.
He pointed the flashlight at it, but the beacon was dim, even after
he banged it three times on the palm of his hand.
Then, suddenly, it lit, falling upon the dead soul’s name: “Rose
Colder.”
It was there on the grave stone, but the flashlight flickered out
just before he could read the dates.
“Silas…” came the eerie voice again, so close he could hear
the ghost’s lips smacking.
But, wait. Did ghosts really have lips to smack?
Jake parted his own lips and spoke for the first time since walking
into the graveyard. “R-R-Rose?”
He hadn’t meant to stutter, but he couldn’t help it. He heard
a rasp, or a cough, and then the crunch of dry leaves behind the headstone.
“Silas?” was the reply, and then the rustling of cheap plastic
against flesh. The clouds broke, the moon shone down, and a giant, yellow
monster reared from behind the headstone, smiling.
Smiling?
“Gotcha!” said the beast, in a boastful, girlish voice. It was
a girl, a giant girl, a living girl in a big, yellow raincoat.
“W— who are you?” Jake stammered, trying
to hold his ground. He had to look up a good four inches to see her
face.
Her eyes glittered beneath her short, greasy
hair. She was heavy, but with her big smile and that cheerful way about
her, she
looked more nice than scary.
“I’m Tank,” she said proudly, inching closer to him with big
black and white sneakers crunching over dry, dead leaves. “Who are
you?”
“Jake Weir,” he said, relieved he didn’t stammer that time.
“And who…who’s Silas?”
“Don’t you know?” she asked, sitting down on one of the large
marble slabs that surrounded Rose Colder’s grave. She patted the one
next to him, and he sat, too.
He didn’t know why, but even in a graveyard, even after pranking
him in her big, yellow raincoat that made her look like a linebacker
for an NFL team, this “Tank” girl didn’t scare him.
Much.
“No,” he replied.
Tank frowned. “Rose Colder,” she explained, “snuck out at midnight
to meet her boyfriend, Silas Miner, in this very cemetery over a hundred
years ago. But Silas’s Dad didn’t approve of his son dating a commoner,
so he kept Silas from seeing her and sent a couple of local thugs to
teach Rose a lesson. When the thugs showed up, Rose fought back…and
lost. They buried her here, and legend has it that every night, at midnight,
she rises from her grave to take revenge on the men who ended her life.”
“So…so that’s why you were calling me Silas?”
Tank nodded, and then slugged him on the shoulder. “What are you
doing here, anyway?” Jake shrugged. He didn’t really want to tell
her.
She pulled a flashlight from her raincoat pocket and flicked it on,
right in his eyes. “Hey!” He held up a hand to shield his face.
“Wait, hold up.” Tank pointed the beam up. “What’s that on
your hat?”
Jake blushed. He’d grabbed the hat at the last minute, not thinking
about it. He had so many of them, and they all looked alike: black ball
cap, neon green writing that spelled “Paranormal Properties.”
“You…you work for that TV show? The ghost
hunting one?”
“You know about it?” Jake was surprised. They’d just gotten into town, and
his parents hadn’t even filmed an episode here yet. That’s what
he was doing out in the graveyard at midnight, trying to find something
extra special for a new episode.
Of course, they’d kill him if they found out, but he figured it
would be worth it if they finally got more than a handful of people
to watch.
“Know about it?” Tank shouted. “I watch it every week! You know,
the live feed on the web page. We don’t have any local channels that
play it.”
Jake beamed in appreciation. “Cool,” he said.
“So,” Tank urged, nudging his knee with her own. He noticed she
was wearing plaid pants under her yellow rain coat. “Do you work for
it or what?”
“My Mom is the host. My Dad is the cameraman.”
Tank gasped and shoved Jake with each word. “No. Way! Get. Out.
Of. Town!”
She stopped shoving him and stood up instead, yanking him by the sleeve
of his T-shirt. Dragging him from the cemetery, she said, “I love
your Mom. You have to tell me all about her.”
“Where are we going?” he asked, finally regaining use of his feet
and catching up to her.
She saw him at her side, looked down and let him go. “There’s
a diner around the corner, open all night. I’m buying you a hot fudge
sundae and you’re going to tell me all about what it’s like to have
famous parents.”
“Famous?” he chuckled as he followed her past the cemetery gate.
His Mongoose bike was sitting there, dry and rusty, just where he’d
left it.
“Sure thing.” She reached behind some bushes and lifted out a
green ten speed with just one hand.
They mounted their bikes and, now that he was looking for it, Jake
saw the neon sign for the Dusk Diner just around the corner. Yet, something
was still bugging him. “Hey,” he said, “what were you doing in
the graveyard at midnight?”
Tank shrugged. “Couldn’t sleep.”
“So you went to a cemetery?”
She shrugged again, pedaling off. While
struggling to catch up, Jake heard her say, “Hey, I met you, didn’t
I?”
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