Idle Hands

Every family has stories. Stories of Christmases and birthdays. Funny stories and sad ones. Handed-down family history, if you will, and when we get together, we love to reminisce about them. About the “old days.” Some stories are unusual or even something scary that happened to one of our family members. Well, this is one of the latter, and if you’ll be patient, I think it will be satisfying and intriguing, maybe even chilled. Just trust me.

 This story was told to me by my beloved grandfather, whom I always called ‘Grandpa’. I was fifteen years old at the time. I adored my grandpa, and he felt the same as me. I followed him everywhere like a lost puppy.

On one of his visits, which was during the Halloween season, he told me a particularly chilling story about his teen years at fifteen. Grandpa loved to tell me scary stories and there was nothing I liked more. It was our thing.

I’m older now, and I have a husband and children of my own, but I wanted to relate this story to those who can appreciate the eternal love grandparents have for their grandchildren, and I promise you, if you stay until the end, you will be rewarded. My Grandpa’s story began like this:

  “Grandpa! I’m glad you came today. Do you have a story to tell me? Make it a scary one! Oh, I know! How about when you were my age, what did you do for Halloween?”

 “Well, let’s see... when I was fifteen...”

  “Grandpa!”

  “What? Oh, right! What did I do on Halloween when I was your age? I don’t know if you should hear this. I mean, it’s not pretty. It’s downright scary as hell!”

  “The scarier, the better.”

  “You might change your mind afterward.”

  “Come on Grandpa, quit teasing me and tell the story!”

 “Precious, truly, I’m not teasing. I don’t want you to have nightmares because of me. Besides, this is about teenage boys and when they’re by themselves, they use colorful language. Your mom and dad won’t be happy with me.”

 “I watch scary stuff all the time on TV and the internet. I don’t have nightmares and Grandpa... I go to school with teenage boys, I know how they talk.”

 “I see your point. Well, just remember, I warned you. Have I ever told you idle hands are the devil’s playground?”

  “Grandma told me that.”

  “Well, it’s true, as you’re about to find out, it was like this…”

  It was nineteen seventy-five, and I was fifteen years old. I had planned to go to a Halloween party with friends. But not everyone from my school had such plans. Some boys, a couple of them who were troublemakers in my school, named Paul and Ben, had schemed to go out and pull tricks, rather than asking for treats. What they thought of as fun, most considered as mayhem, cruelty, and plain old vandalism. I knew about it because they had bragged for weeks about the chaos they had planned.

 I wanted nothing to do with their plans because I knew they usually end up in trouble with parents, teachers, and the law. They weren’t bullies, Paul and Ben, just reckless braggarts. Perhaps they should have had some hobbies to keep them out of trouble.

 Paul was a lanky guy with a shock of light brown hair just past his ears—most of us had long hair in those days—and six feet tall. He was partial to muscle shirts when he wasn’t in school. I realize now how silly he looked being so skinny in a muscle shirt, but when you’re a fifteen-year-old kid, you look at and see things from a different perspective. Make no mistake, he could be bad and inconsiderate or just mean, but it was more to do with not thinking than being an evil soul, at least in my humble opinion.

Ben was a follower. I say that because wherever Paul went, Ben followed. He wasn’t a thinker either, nor a leader. If Paul did it, then Ben had to as well.

Ben was about five-foot-eight with an average build. He had straight dark brown hair and wore disco clothes whenever he could. I would have been embarrassed, but Ben had no shame. His entire goal in life was, as he put it, ‘To get as much—a bad word—as I can before I die.’

“What bad word Grandpa?”

“Never you mind, just listen to the story.”

“He said the slang for lady parts, didn’t he?”

“Umm... I don’t know, just listen to the story.”

This is why he always wore very spiffy disco clothes at school. Shiny polyester silk-like shirts, French-cut bellbottom pants, and black platform leather shoes. Out of school, he dressed like everyone else in nineteen seventy-five.

“Lady parts, I knew it!”

“Mikayla! Do you wanna hear the story or not?”

“Go ahead, Grandpa.”

“Thank you, dear.”

So, I was all excited about the party I was to attend. Especially since there would be girls there. I was girl-crazy, still am doncha know!”

“I’m gonna tell grandma.”

“She was the girl I was crazy about.”

“Grandma?”

“You betcha! That’s where I met her, at the party. She was dressed as Little Bo-Peep... wow! And here I was dressed as Count Dracula. The essence of innocence and the epitome of evil! I guess they go together, yin and yang, that sort of thing.”

“Anyway, I saw her across the room, sitting by herself. Well, your Grandpa’s no fool. I went over and introduced myself in a Romanian Dracula accent, ‘Good evening, let me introduce myself, I am Count Dracula.’ I took her hand and kissed it as you see in the movies, and then in my real voice, I introduced myself again. She laughed and said, ‘You’re pretty funny for a vampire.’ I told her it was a hormone thing I gonna have fixed, but now I’ve changed my mind. She thought that was hilarious.”

“It is pretty funny, Grandpa, and slick too!”

 “Yeah? Well, your grandpa has been around the block a time or two. Anyway, we hit it off right there and then. We were together throughout high school and after that, we got married. Your grandmother was always the love of my life. I used to smack her on the bottom and say, ‘Love you, babe’.”

That’s about as pretty as this story gets, and it goes downhill from here.

Paul and Ben were invited to the party too... but they chose wrong, literally. They thought a little criminal activity would be much more fun than some old, boring Halloween party. At least I got a wife out of the deal instead of jail.

“Is this the scary part Grandpa?”

“I’ll let you be the judge.”

Paul and Ben could always be seen in the neighborhoods and around town on their bicycles. Wherever they were, there was sure to be some kind of trouble. But this night was exceptional. They had a chaos spree planned all across the town.

“Hey man, you going to that lame Halloween party?” Paul asked.

“Are you kiddin’ me? Hell no, I’m hangin’ with you. What do you wanna do?”

“Check this out. Since we’re not going to a party, and we aren’t gonna get any treats, then I think it requires us to do tricks. Like we write stuff on people’s windows with soap, and we gotta toilet paper trees and houses. I mean, like it’s a Halloween law or somethin’.”

“Oh yeah,” replied Ben. “We could let the air out of people’s tires. Oh, and siphon gas outta’ cars.”

“What are we gonna do with gas? We’re ridin’ bikes!”

“Oh yeah, right. Well, what else then.”

“Haven’t you ever heard of flaming bags of poop on people’s porches?”

“Yeah, that’s good too!”

“We’re gonna start with soap, cars, and house windows,” Paul ordered.

So, they started down the darkest streets with their soap, writing curse words and insults all over the windows of cars and houses. They would write things like ‘A butthead lives here’ or ‘Only an idiot would drive a crappy car like this’ and much worse.

“That’s funny Grandpa.”

“Not if it’s your car or house. They rode around many neighborhoods doing this.”

“Hey Paul, I’m gettin’ tired of soapin’ windows. Let’s do somethin’ else.”

 “I got one of those Schrader valve tools. You can take the whole valve out. They won’t be able to keep any air in their tires if we take the valves out!”

 “Oh man, that’s funny as hell! Let’s do it!”

 They went from car to car throughout the neighborhoods, taking the valves out of valve stems. Folks had flat tires and when they tried to pump them up, the air just came right back out.

 When they were tired of those dirty deeds, they stopped at a little all-night gas station, contemplating what rotten thing they would do next. They sat under the harsh light of a streetlamp straddling their bikes, rolling them forward and back while discussing their plans for more mayhem, each idea worse than the last.

 “Check it out, Ben, looky what I got.”

 “A dozen eggs! Ha-ha-ha. This should be a blast!”

 “Yep, but a dozen ain’t gonna go far, so we use only one egg per car.”

 “I say we do the front windshields. It’ll smear all over.”

 “That’s the idea.”

“And... I saved the best for last. We’re gonna go to the south side of town to the cemetery. We’re gonna shove some headstones, maybe even find some headstones of people we hate. They’ll have to go all over the graveyard and set’em back up!”

 “Oh yeah, on the other side of the four-lane highway... State Road 32.”

 “That’s the one buddy. We’ll call it a night afterward.”

So, the boys rode off into the darkness of the narrow neighborhood streets, looking to egg the nicest cars. They didn’t want to ‘waste’ their eggs on junky, dirty cars. For each of their dirty tricks, they picked a different neighborhood, so few of them remained unscathed.

“Woo-hoo, a very nice Mercedes-Benz. It’d be a shame if an egg landed on it. Whoops! It did, right on the windshield. Too bad. Ha-ha,” laughed Paul. But as soon as the egg landed, it set the car alarm off, and the owner came out.

“Hey, you little creeps! I’m calling the cops!”

“Oh crap! Go, let’s get out of here!”

They dropped the eggs in the street and peddled as fast as they could.

“We gotta hide, man! Where we gonna go?” asked Ben.

“Use the alleys. We’ll go to the old train bridge outside of town. The trains don’t run there anymore. We can hide under it for a while. It’s dark as hell, they won’t be able to see us, even if they check there.”

So, they rode like mad to avoid the police. They took streets and alleys that were seldom traveled all the way to the outskirts of town. Now the outskirts were no place for two young boys to be. Nothing good ever happened there in the dead of night, and these two weren’t the only criminals to seek refuge in the area. There were criminals of a much more violent nature. 

And that I believe explains other things which happen there. The ghosts of murder victims are claimed to haunt the area, looking for revenge for their slaying. It’s a perfect place to hide a body. The bridge area is chock-full of tall weeds, trash, old tires, and God knows what else. Certainly, there are snakes and other wild animals that make their homes among the rubbish and dense brush.

  “Do they get killed there?”

  “Now who’s telling the story, Mikayla, you or me?”

  “You, Grandpa, tell me the story.” 

They hid their bikes in the weeds, crouched down, and discussed what they would do next if the police didn’t come in half an hour.

 ”Look man,” Paul pointed out, “we gotta stay here for a little while until things cool off, and then we’ll get going again. The fun ain’t over. This is just a minor hiccup.”

  “We almost got caught!”

  “No, we didn’t; he said he was going to call the police. By the time he could have made the call, we were already long gone.”

  “What if they come looking for us out here?”

  “For egging cars? I bet they won’t bother. Even if they do, they can’t see us in the weeds.”

  “Lights! Car lights are coming!”

  “Damn, I figured they wouldn’t come all the way out here just for Halloween pranks. It ain’t like we killed or attacked somebody.”

 They got as low as they could in the weeds. There were two cars… it was the police! They shined their spotlight around the bridge, but not the weeds and trash. The officers parked their cars and got out.

 “David-45 dispatch. We’re on scene at the old railroad bridge on Johnson Road. Looks clear, we’re gonna check it out.”

  “Clear David-45 at 01:15 hours.”

  “Whadaya say, Bill? Feel like wading in the weeds?”

 “You’re outta your mind if you think I’m gonna go in there! There’s old tires full of mosquitoes, snakes, raccoons, rats, and God only knows what else. I’m not goin’ in there for Halloween pranks, you and I both know we did ourselves as kids. I’m not gettin’ rabies, tetanus, or some kind of damn plague from all the bugs in there!” 

“Yeah, screw this. I haven’t even had dinner yet. Let’s mark back in service.”

“David-45 dispatch, we’ll both be in service. Unable to locate.”

“Clear David-45, you’re both in service at 01:27 hours.”

          

Paul and Ben were hiding in the weeds and shaking like dogs in a freezing snowstorm. They were only relieved to see the police get back in their cars and leave.

“Holy hell, that was close!” exclaimed Paul. “I thought they had us. I mean, I figured we were headed to juvie.”

“Did you hear what the cops said? There’s all kinds of snakes and raccoons in this garbage. Let’s get out of here, get our bikes, and go back over to the bridge for a little bit.”

“Well, what are we gonna do next?”

“I got lunch bags, and there’s plenty of dog poop around. I also have a little can of lighter fluid and a Bic lighter. What do you think we’re gonna do next?”

“Oh man, burning poop!”

“No, shit!”

“Yes shit, dog shit.”

“This is gonna be funny as hell.”

“All we gotta do is get a stick, put dog poop in the bag. We close up the bag and pour a little lighter fluid on it, and light it. Then we ring the doorbell and run like hell.”

Just then, as Paul was explaining their next nefarious activity, they heard a car driving toward them, but there were no lights. They could hear car tires rolling on the dirt and gravel but saw no car. It sounded as though the car was right in front of them. They heard car doors opening and closing. Someone in a muffled voice, probably gagged, begged, and pleaded. Then a loud gunshot rang out! After this came the sound of walking and something heavy being thrown into the weeds. The boys looked over at the weeds, but there was nothing there. The next sounds were of car doors opening and closing and then a motor revving as the car sped off. During this entire time, the boys saw nothing, yet it all sounded as though it occurred right in front of them!

“What was it, Grandpa? Why didn’t they see anything?”

 “You’ll just have to wait to find out.”

 “Phooey.”

 “You’ll see honey.”

 “Holy crap! What the hell was that? What was that?” Paul cried out.

 “Uh… Paul... my dad says more than one murder victim was dumped out here a long time ago.”

 “You mean… ghosts?”

 “What would you call it? What else could it be?”

 “We didn’t see any…”

 “We didn’t see any... what? We didn’t see any... what, Paul? Paul?”

 “Oh shit! The weeds! Look at the weeds! Do you see it?!”

 In the trash choked weeds hovered an image, an apparition of a human. It seemed to be made of a mist which swirled and wavered slightly as if it were only partially in our reality.

 “That’s a… it’s a… it looks like smoke in the shape of a man!”

 “Let’s get the hell out of here!”

 The boys beat feet the hell out of that awful place as fast as their bikes would carry them! The first neighborhood they came to from the train bridge, they stopped to rest and collect their thoughts.

“Did you see it? Did you see that, Ben? Oh my God, what was that thing?”

“That thing was a ghost! It’s just like everyone says, murder victims haunted the place or at least one of them for sure!”

“I’ve never seen a ghost before. My mom and dad always say there’s no such thing.”

“That’s kinda dumb. If they believe in heaven, what is it they think goes there?”

“Then why is the guy there in the weeds instead of heaven?”

“Who knows? Maybe he was also a bad guy and is afraid if he goes into the light he’ll end up in hell, so he stays here. I mean, didn’t it sound like a Mafia murder?”

“Well, whatever the reason, I ain’t goin’ out there ever again! I wonder if those cops ever saw anything out there?” 

“I’m not gonna ask them, are you?”

“No, at least not right now.”

“Are we still gonna do the dog poop in a sack?”

“Yeah, but that was freakin’ unbelievable!”

 “Why are you shivering, Mikayla? Did it scare you?”

“No, I just need my blanket. Grandpa, is this a true story?”

“It really happened when I was fifteen. Just ask older folks around town. I think a lot of them should know the story.” 

The boys stood around discussing the unbelievable events their ears had just witnessed for several minutes.

“I thought people see ghosts, not hear them, or at least they see and hear them,” Paul continued.

“Well, what about moaning in haunted houses? That’s not seeing a ghost, just hearing.”

“Oh yeah, I guess you’re right. Well, anyway, that scared the shit out of me!”

 Ben, scouring the ground for doggy doo, asked, “Speaking of that, you think this is enough poop for one sack?”     

 “Paul, did you hear me?”

 “What?”

 “You think this is enough dog poop?”

 “Yeah, that’s good enough. See that big old car? You know an old person lives there. It’s a grandpa car. We put it on his doorstep. He’ll stomp on it. It’ll be great!”

So, our two idiots took their sack of poop, poured lighter fluid on it, and walked up the steps to the old man’s porch, lit the sack on fire, and rang the doorbell. And, of course, they were right. He came to the door, saw the bag on fire, and stomped on it… barefoot!

“Ha-ha-ha-ha, that’s the funniest shit I ever saw! Get it? Funniest shit?” laughed Paul.

 Ben could not respond because he was rolling on the ground laughing and holding his gut. The old man, confused, said, ‘What the hell? What the hell is this?’ as he lifted his barefoot and saw dog crap smeared all over it and between his toes.

 “You know what, Ben? I’d say that guy was ‘hopping mad’!”

 “Yeah, he really stepped in it that time!”

 And of course, Paul and Ben continued to laugh, rolling on the ground and holding their sides. The old man hopped inside his house, cursing the two morons hiding in the bushes.

 The next brilliant idea these two had was to get a small firecracker and stick it in a neighborhood cat’s butt and light it. Of course, being the two little jackasses they were, they envisioned the cat running down the street screeching.

“I’m not gonna say any more about it because I genuinely hate people that abuse animals, and I don’t want you hearing what Grandpa says when he’s really mad!”

“I don’t know which is funnier,” said Paul. “The eggs on that rich guy’s Mercedes or the flaming poop.” 

“The old guy stepping in flaming dog shit was pretty damn funny. It might be a draw. So, what’s next?”

“I got big M-80 firecrackers!”

“Gosh, and gee-willikers Paul, whatever shall we do with those?”

“So many mailboxes, so little time.”

Sporting devilish smiles, the boys got back on their bikes and headed towards the south side of town to State Road 32. They came up to the highway and got off their bikes to run them across. As they crossed, a car with no headlights on barreled down the road at seventy mph.” 

“Holy shit, that was close! Goddamn, asshole almost clocked us both!” Paul yelled.

“He’s probably shitfaced too!”

“At least we made it across. That idiot is gonna kill somebody, himself, or both.”

“Seems really quiet in this neighborhood, ya know? Ain’t no dogs barking, no raccoons in trash cans, no crickets.”

“So?”

“So, I’m just sayin’ it’s weird.”

“Bet you won’t think so when we start lightin’ these M-80’s off!”

They came upon a row of mailboxes next to the street. And decided to each put an M-80 into a mailbox and pedal away fast.

 “Light the fuse,” instructed Paul. “toss it in the box, and shut the lid. Okay, one, two, three, toss it in, let’s go!”

They waited for the explosions… BOOM-BOOM! The mailbox doors flew open, one coming completely off. Laughing, they pedaled away on their bikes and stopped at the corner.

 “Holy shit, that was loud!” Ben yelled.

 “Hey,” said Paul. “Where’re all the people? Why aren’t they coming out? Why aren’t their lights coming on?! Those were loud enough to wake the dead.”

 “What’s the deal, man? They can’t all be asleep! That should have woken them up.”

 But no one came to their door or window. No one stirred, not even one tiny animal.

 “What gives?” Ben asked.

 “Must be something toxic around here, and they had to abandon the houses.”

 “Then we better leave. I don’t wanna get poisoned. I saw that kind of stuff on the news.”

 “What kind of poison, Grandpa?”

 “Well, now that’s the surprise, isn’t it?”

 “Whadda we gonna do next?” asked Ben.

 “My grandma lives on this side, and her next-door neighbor has a mean cat. The damn thing tries to attack me every time I come over. I’m gonna throw my jacket over it and stick this little firecracker up its butt and light it. Friggin’ cat won’t bother me again.”

The boys rolled up in front of Paul’s grandmother’s house, looking for the cat.

“There it is!” pointed Ben.

“Nah, that ain’t it. That’s a black cat. This cat is yellow and orange, a tomcat.”

“Nobody is up over here. Not even a porch light.”

“Well, I know for a fact, there ain’t no chemicals spilled over here. My grandma would have told us all. Besides, she would have had to move in with us.”

“Yeah, that makes sense. Anyway, we don’t want to wake up your grandma. She’d probably know it was us that blew up the cat’s butt.”

“I didn’t think of that. She’d hate me for sure. She loves cats. Well, not her neighbor’s cat. She knows it attacks me. Damn cat.”

“Oh good, they didn’t hurt the cat, even though it’s mean.”

“Well, dear, animals can sense evil. Maybe it was only mean to Paul. Are you trying to drag this story out, Mikayla? Wipe that silly grin off your pretty face so we can continue with Grandpa’s story.” 

          

The boys pedaled out of the neighborhood and rounded a corner to the next one.

“Uh oh,” cautioned Paul. “I see two big dogs, Rottweilers, I think. They could bite us in two if they wanted.”

Two huge black and brown Rottweilers sat on a lawn staring at the boys and making a low, growling sound, watching every move the boys made.

“Uh… Paul? They don’t look real happy to see us.”

“Just slowly pedal away from them.”

“Where do we go?”

“Away from them! Follow me.”

The boys began ever so slowly to pedal away from the dogs. Paul thought if they just left slowly and ignored the dogs, they might be safe. But the huge animals watched the boys for only a few seconds, then lifted off their haunches and trotted after them.

 “Oh shit, Paul, they’re following us! Now what?”

 “Pedal as fast as you can, damnit! Now!”

 The boys pedaled faster than they ever had in their lives! But the two ferocious dogs kept up right behind them. They pedaled until they thought their lungs would burst! They could hear the dogs’ large pads hitting the ground, chasing them. Suddenly, the sound was gone.

 “Ben! Where did the dogs go?!”

 “Hellifino. I turned around to look after I didn’t hear them behind us anymore, and they were gone!”

“They could have killed us if they wanted to. If they had gotten ahold of us, we’d be dead for sure!”

 “Yeah, you don’t mess around with Rottweilers. Where the hell are we at, anyway?”

 “Close to downtown, I think. Let’s go see what’s going on there.”

 Now the boys headed down a silent, dark street toward the center of town. The wet, black pavement reflecting the moonlight coming through the trees as they headed for every water puddle in the roadway. They arrived downtown, where they were confronted with an unsettling view. It was clear something was very wrong.

 “Paul? You ever seen the lights out downtown?”

 “No.”

  “You ever seen downtown with not a single soul on the streets or sidewalks at any time of the day or night.”

 “No, Ben, I ain’t.”

 “Paul?”

“What?”

“I’m gettin’ scared. What the hell is this shit?”

“I don’t know. It’s looking like we’re in a nightmare.”

“Well, I wanna wake up!”

“Me too, Ben, me too.”

“Paul?”

“What?”

“Listen! Do you hear a truck?”

“Yeah, it sounds... it sounds like it’s gettin’ closer.”

“Look! Here it comes. What is… what the heck is it? It looks like a milk truck from the 1950s… Fletcher’s Dairyland Best Milk & Cream.”

“That’s gotta be like a restoration kind of thing. My grandpa was a milkman, and Fletcher’s is the dairy he worked for. They haven’t delivered milk for a long time. They don’t have milkmen anymore.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen that. Companies do car and truck restorations as a sales gimmick… nostalgia stuff.”

“I betcha that’s the deal. Hell, that truck looked brand new.”

The boys crossed the town, taking note while they had a reasonable explanation of the milk truck. It still didn’t explain a dark, abandoned downtown save for one old truck.

“The sooner we get out of here, the better! Too freakin’ weird,” said Paul.

Just then, they heard the clip-clop of horse hooves on bricks or pavement. They looked down a dark alley from which the sound came. They could see a horse with black leather tack walking toward them, but there seemed to be another unrecognizable sound accompanied by the horse’s hooves. The boys waited and could see as it reached the end of the alley; it was the wheels of a horse-drawn insulated wagon. On the side of it, was painted Reid & Sons Icehouse.

 “Okay, this just got officially twilight-zone bullshit. That… is the iceman. He sells enormous square blocks of ice for people’s ice-boxes,” said Ben. “I mean real ice-boxes, not what your grandma and grandpa call a refrigerator. There is no Reid and Sons Icehouse. It burned down before we were born. They never rebuilt it.”

 “Let’s get the friggin’ hell out of here! I just wanna wake up damnit!”

The boys pedaled out of downtown toward another neighborhood of old homes. They came upon a little bungalow which, at any other time, would look cozy and inviting. It was anything but in the twisted moonlight of this eerie Halloween night. Nothing appeared normal to Paul and Ben. Where were the trick or treaters, they wondered? Where was anybody?

 “Paul, why is there a guy using an old manual push mower in front of that little cottage house in the middle of the night? And why is it not making any sound?”

 “Why is any of this, Ben? This night is crazy! Hell, look! He’s grinning and waving at us as if he does this kooky shit all the time. Must have a case of shit-for-brains.”

  “Well, at least he can see us, that’s somethin’ ”

  “Is it me, or is there something on the ground skittering? Little things, rats maybe.”

 “I don’t see any rats, Paul, just… what was that little black thing across the street?”

  “Uh-huh, you see it too! Thousands of them! It looks like little black rats or something, they just… skitter.”

 In the moonlight, they caught a glimpse of one of the little black things.

“That ain’t no rat Paul, they’re… they’re… they’re huge cockroaches! Huge goddamn cockroaches!”

“Go! Let’s go!”

A sick, crunching sound could be heard as their tires rolled over the giant bugs. Green goo squirted out of the huge cockroaches as they crushed beneath the bicycle tires.

“I think I’m gonna throw up once we get out of here.”

“They musta come up from the sewer! Sick man!”

“Let’s just head down Main street to get out of downtown.”

“It just keeps getting weirder and weirder,” Paul said.        

As they pedaled out of downtown, Ben spied a billboard advertisement. But something was wrong with the timing of it, more than a decade off, in fact. 

“Uh, Paul, why is there a billboard with a Studebaker on it? They don’t make Studebakers anymore, do they?”

“See the new Studebaker Avanti at your dealer today? What the hell?! They went out of business when I was a toddler! I’ve officially lost my damn mind!”

“I see it too, Paul. I know what an Avanti looks like. My dad built a model of one a few years ago.”

But the strangeness didn’t end there for them. It continued to spiral into a dizzying array of signs that things were wrong. Very wrong.

“Look across the street! Really? A radio repair shop?” There’s nothing to repair anymore except for really old tube radios. It ain’t like they’re everywhere these days.”

“Maybe that’s what it’s for, for people who still have those tube radios, you know, they look like furniture? They probably sell transistor radios too and TVs.”

“Okay, I’ll give you that one. My grandpa still has one he listens to. He bought it during World War two.”

 “There is one other thing… please tell me if I’m wrong. Look in the window. What’s missing?”

 “Well, maybe the TVs are in the back.”

“That’s not what I mean. Where are our reflections in the glass?”

The color drained from their faces. The moonlight was coming from behind them, so they should have seen their shadows at the very least. There was no explanation why they didn’t have a reflection.

“I think we’re in some kind of time warp, Ben. I mean, what else could this be? It’s insane.”

The boys heard a strange sound, like stiff paper making a crackling noise or a popping campfire, coming from somewhere near the ground.

“Do you hear that, Ben?”

 “Yeah, sounds like a… a fire, maybe.”

“But there was no fire in sight.”

“Uh… Ben? That’s no fire; look at the sewer grate!”

A slithering black sand came pouring out of the street’s sewer grate toward the boys and over the cockroaches they previously were fleeing. As the black sand passed over the pile of dead roaches, it either ate them or dissolved them, for after the sand had left, there were no dead roaches in sight!

“Oh my God! Did you see that? Did you see that freakin’ thing, Paul? It ate the roaches!”

“It’s coming! It’ll do the same to us! We gotta go buddy, right now!”

The crawling black sand came ever faster after the boys. The more it ate, the faster it was. 

In their panic, the boys didn’t pick a direction. They simply pedaled as fast as their legs would carry them. Now they found themselves back downtown. Back in the worst part of their nightmare. They had to go somewhere to get away from the black crawling sand, but where? They’d be dissolved alive, just like the piles of dead roaches if it caught them.

          

“It’s getting pretty scary, Grandpa.”

“Do you want me to stop now?”

“No! I just meant it was getting good.”

“Oh, I see. Okay then, on with the show.”

“Where the hell are we going, Paul? Why are we back downtown?”

“We’re going to the hardware store. I can get in the back door. I’ve done it before.”

They rode their bikes to the back of Newberry’s Hardware. Paul jumped off his bike and kicked open the old wooden door. They brought their bikes inside and slammed the door closed, piling heavy items against it, hoping to keep the black sand out.

“Paul, did you see? Did you see the sand get bigger when it ate the roaches?”

“Yeah, and it got faster too!”

“It’s like living black acid! What the hell else is in the sewer?!”

“We ain’t gonna stick around long enough to find out if I can help it.”

“What are we gonna do?”

“We wait until it’s gone.”

“Well, shit, who knows how long that’s gonna be?!”

 “If you’ve got a better idea, I’d sure as hell like to know what it is.”

 “No.”

The two sat on boxes of bolts, and lawnmower parts contemplating their next move. Ben put his face in his hands and rocked back and forth, while Paul scanned the area around him for anything they could use for a weapon or protection.

 “Ben, it’s gonna be okay. We’ll get out of here. We just have to figure out a way.”

 “Yeah? Well, I’m not so sure. I’d rather be shot in the head than get dissolved by that… that sand.”

 “Me too, but that ain’t gonna happen. We gotta think. We gotta be smart.”

 “How long before that shit is fast enough to outrun us on our bikes? Did you think of that? What else, besides us, is there for it to eat? Rats? Garbage? Dead birds? We’re screwed, blued, and tattooed if we don’t get out of here soon.”

 “Okay then, pull yourself together. We need to look for anything we can use against it. Chemicals, sheets of metal, fire maybe, and something to carry with us.”

  As they were discussing all this, a noise came from a corner in the stockroom.

 “Hey,” Ben whispered. “Did you hear that?”

 “What?”

 “Over there, in the corner. There’s somebody over there.”

 “Who’s there?!”

 “I think it came from under the pile of hoses.”

 “You… you better come out before we beat your ass!”

 “Paul! We don’t know what’s under there!”

 The boys edged closer to try and find out what was hiding under the hoses.

“It moved!” Ben exclaimed.

“Hey, you… under the hoses; we know you’re there. You might as well come out.”

The pile moved again, but this time hoses fell off the pile. A little boy with dirty blond hair and filthy clothes, about eight years old, cautiously came out from under the pile as the rest of the hoses fell onto the floor.

“He was hiding too, huh, Grandpa?”

“Looks that way.”

He stood there next to his former hiding place. The little boy shook and whimpered, looking at Paul and Ben with eyes wide.

“What’s your name, little boy?” Paul asked.

“T...T...Tommy.”

“How did you get here?”

“I dunno.”

“Well, where are your parents?”

“I dunno.”

“Where is everyone else?”

“I dunno.”

“Did something bad happen downtown? Why is everyone gone?”

Tommy shrugged.

“So you don’t know anything at all about what is going on?”

Tommy thought for a minute.

“It’s always dark. And there’s a monster.”

“A monster? What kind of monster?” Ben urged.

 “I dunno. It’s scary.”

“Well, how’d you get into this store?” asked Paul.

 “The basement window.”

It was the window the boys had seen from the outside, but it was only big enough for a small child to crawl through.

“I was scared of the basement, so I came up here. My mommy said to never go into the basement to get away because there’s no way out.”

 “You have a smart mommy. I don’t think I ever thought of that.”

“How are you getting something to eat?”

 “I broke into the candy machine, and the drinking fountain has water.”

 “Does the monster know you’re in here?”

 “I dunno, it never comes here.”

 “Where does it go?”

“Sometimes it slides on the street. Sometimes it crawls in the grass.”

 “What does the monster do?”

 “It slides and eats stuff. It ate a squirrel. The squirrel tried to get away, but the monster crawled over it, and it was gone.”

“Have you been anywhere else downtown?”

“I wanted to go to the grocery store, but I’m too afraid. The monster will get me.”

“We’re gonna figure out a way to escape,” assured Ben. “When we do, do you wanna come with us?”

 “The monster will get us!”

“We can’t stay here forever. We’ll starve, and the monster will probably find us here.”

 “How will we get away?”

“We’ll have to figure it out.”

The boys had to put together a plan to escape. The first thing they thought of was to go to the roof of the store and scout the area out to see if they could spot the monster, as Tommy called it, and possibly see where it was. They climbed the stairs to the loft above the stockroom and found the roof hatch. Using a pair of bolt cutters, they cut the lock off of the hatch door. As quietly as they could, they hoisted themselves onto the roof and stayed low, and crouched at the edge.

“Do you see anything?” inquired Ben.

“It’s hard to tell with no streetlights and considering the thing is black, like the pavement.”

“We can hear it, remember? It makes a crackling sound.”

They listened for several minutes.

“I don’t hear anything,” remarked Paul. “And I sure can’t see anything.”

“Tommy stuck his head up through the hatch.”

“Sometimes, the monster just sits and waits for something,” Tommy whispered. 

It was then Ben heard a crackling sound.

“Oh shit, you hear that? It’s down there,” Ben whispered.

“I can’t see it.”

“Neither can I, but we know it’s down there… somewhere.”

“We’re gonna have to get closer to see it. We’re gonna have to go downstairs and look out the front display window.”

“What if it can see us?”

“It doesn’t have eyes, how could it?”

“Well, it stalks its prey somehow.”

“Vibration. I bet it feels vibration.”

“Let’s get downstairs and find out if we can see it.”

 “By the way, Tommy,” Paul asked. “How long have you been here?”

 “It seems like forever.”

 Paul looked askance at Tommy but said nothing, although he thought it a rather strange answer.

 “What’s ‘askance’ Grandpa?”

 “It means he looked at him cockeyed. Like he said something weird and didn’t understand it.”

 “Oh, okay.”

 So they went downstairs on the sales floor to find out if they could see any trace of the monster through the front window.

 “I don’t go near the front window,” Tommy uttered. “It’s too scary. It might find me.”

 “Okay,” said Paul. “You stay away from the window, we’ll take a look.”

 “I don’t see any… wait! What is that near the curb in front of the barbershop?” Ben asked.

 “Looks like a blacktop patch to me,” replied Paul.

 “I think it moved. Look! See, it moved a little!”

 Paul craned his neck a little and squinted his eyes, watching for a few moments what he thought was nothing more than an asphalt patch.

 “Eww, it’s undulating or breathing, I think.”

 Tommy carefully came up behind the boys to see what they were looking at.

  “That’s the monster. It will eat you.”

  “Have you seen it move before?” Paul questioned.

  “When it ate the squirrel, it moved up and down and made the crackling sound you said you heard.”

“How long do you think it will sit there?”

“I dunno. When I see it, I hide so it can’t find me.”

“If we went out the back door, would it know; would it come after us?”

“I dunno. I never tried it. I waited until it’s gone.”

“I got an idea,” said Ben. “What if we throw something far away off the roof and see if it goes after it. We could see how fast it is and how far it can go.”

“It’s your idea, you test it. Tommy and I will watch from down here.”

“Tommy,” Ben asked, “What do you think about my idea?”

“I didn’t do it because I can’t throw far.”

“Well, then I’m gonna try and see what happens.”

Ben climbed the ladder in the stockroom up to the roof hatch. He grabbed a handful of nuts and bolts to throw as far as he could. He tiptoed over to the edge of the roof and spotted the black sand monster. Counting to himself: One, two, three!  Ben threw the nuts and bolts like a fastball. The monster undulated and crackled as it slithered faster than any snake could. Damnit! ‘That thing’s too fast’, he thought. Ben returned to the sales floor where Tommy and Paul were waiting.

“Shit! It’s not gonna work. Did you see the damned thing move? There’s no way, especially with Tommy. I wouldn’t be surprised if it could keep up with our bikes.”

“Tommy, are you sure there’s not another way out of here?” Paul asked.

“There’s a big hole in the basement with pipes and stuff. It’s really dark.”

“Let’s go see this big hole.”

They went down to the basement to look at what Tommy called a hole. There along the far wall, toward the street side, was an arch with pipes for plumbing, gas, and other utilities.

 “Ben! You know what I think this is, it’s a tunnel. A lot of cities have them. Tunnels which lead to other stores and building basements. If we want out of here, we should check them out.”

  “What about our bikes?”

  “If these lead out of the city, we won’t need them.”

  “That’s a lot of walking.”

 “I’d rather walk than get dissolved alive, how bout’ you?”

 Ben nodded yes.

 “Tommy, you gotta come with us. We can’t leave you here by yourself,” Paul announced.

 “But what if there are monsters in there?”

 “If there were, don’t you think they would have tried to get you by now?”

 “What about the monster outside?”

  “We saw it come out of the sewer ourselves. We already know where it came from.”

 “Time’s wasting, we need to go,” Ben implored.

 The three of them reluctantly headed down the pitch-black tunnel with only flashlights taken from the hardware store. They brought extra batteries in case they got lost and had to turn back. Paul grabbed some spray cans of carburetor cleaner and lighters to use as a make-shift flamethrower weapon in case they ran into… something else. 

 Walking along in the dark tunnel ducking spider webs, bugs, pipes, pipe hangers, assorted abandoned tools and equipment, they kept silent as possible to listen for any sign of danger. Now and then, they came to an old, rusted steel door leading to one of the buildings along the way. Some tunnels branched off the one they were following, but Paul kept them on the original path because, unless it changed, it was in the direction out of town they wanted to go. They had walked about a quarter of a mile when…

“Have you noticed?” Paul gulped. “There’s no graffiti down here.”

“Pretty weird, no one’s ever marked it up.”

“Tommy, how are you doing?... Tommy?... Tommy!”

“Tommy, where are you?” Paul yelled.

“Where the hell is he?”

“Tommy! Tommy, where are you?”

But there was no sign of Tommy, nor did he answer.

“Where was he at?” Ben looked around.

“He was right behind me. I could hear his steps!”

“Oh shit! You think the monster got him?”

“We would have heard it.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“There’s no way he would have turned around and gone back by himself.”

There was no trace of Tommy. The boys looked for anything he may have dropped or any clue of what happened to him. They called for him, but there was no answer. How could a little boy just disappear so silently?

“We have to find him. We can’t let him fend for himself.”

“That means we have to go back and look for him,” explained Paul.

“How about this? If he’s not back at the store, then we have to push on.”

“Back at the store? Are you serious?”

“Do you want a clear conscience or not?”

“You know, I… screw it. Let’s go back to the damn store!”

Neither of the boys wanted to turn around and go back, but what else could they do? How could he be gone without a trace or even the slightest sound? Had he turned around and started walking back, he would have made a noise. But the boys had to at least try.

 “This is bullshit, Ben. Why did the little shit do this to us? Why didn’t he at least say he wanted to go back?”

 “What if he was grabbed?”

 “By what?! We would have heard that too. You can’t just grab someone without making any noise.”

 “Let’s just go. The sooner we get back to the store, the quicker we can get out of town.”

 “Fine, but I don’t have to like it.”

 The boys reluctantly began trudging back down the tunnel, when they came upon another tunnel off to the side. There, in the side tunnel, only two feet in was a little boy’s tennis shoe. It hadn’t been there very long, as it was still clean and fairly new.

“Did something grab the little boy, Grandpa? Is he alive?”

 “You’ll have to wait and see now, won’t you?”

 “Oh yeah, sorry, Grandpa.”

 “It’s okay, honey.”

 Neither of the boys wanted to go back, but their conscience wouldn’t let them go on without looking. But now the game has changed. It was Tommy’s shoe. Did he lose it and couldn’t find it in the darkness? No, that can’t be right. Tommy had a flashlight, too. Besides, he would have said something to the boys about it. No, something bad happened, but is he at the store or down the side tunnel? The boys knew the likely answer, even though they didn’t want to think about it. They shined their flashlights down the side tunnel. The darkness seemed to swallow up the light after only a few yards. Nothing could be heard but drips of water hitting the wet floor echoing off the cement walls. Spray-painted in red above the entrance were the words ‘Stay Out, Do Not Enter!’

“Oh, holy shit, Ben! Look…’Stay out, do not enter!’ this is the first and only graffiti in this tunnel we’ve seen.”

Ben held out Tommy’s shoe.

“This is his shoe Paul; we both know it. We have to at least try.”

“Yeah? What if ‘trying’ gets us killed?”

“Then our worries will be over,” Ben said with a grin.

“Very friggin’ funny; you should go on stage. Let’s get this over with. I’d like to tan his little hide for doing this to us.”

“Let’s hope that’s all it is.”

“If it isn’t, then I’m running like lightning out of this goddamn tunnel and go the way we were going until I’m out and you better keep up!”

“I’ll be right behind you.”

“Does it seem darker than our tunnel?”

“Yeah… air seems like...like it’s thicker or something… harder to breathe, I guess.”

Their footsteps reverberated inside the tunnel. It was impossible to tell whose footsteps were who’s due to the constant echo of every noise. Without saying a word, they walked for half a mile down the tunnel when they heard a little boy’s voice! The boys froze in their tracks.

“Holy shit Ben, did you hear that?”

“Tommy!”

“Is it Tommy… or something else?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, what if he’s dead and something is mimicking his voice?”

“Wow, you have a helluva imagination.”

“Yeah, well, you’ve seen the same weird shit I have all night.”

Again, they heard Tommy’s voice way down the length of the tunnel.

“We have to find him,” stated Ben. “Tommy!” Ben shouted. “Tommy, where are you?”

There was no answer.

“Tommy! Come to the sound of our voice. We’re close to the beginning of the tunnel. We’ll wait for you!” yelled Paul.

The boys waited for a minute, listening for the sounds of Tommy coming down the tunnel, but there were no sounds or flashlights shining.

“Maybe he can’t walk, Paul.”

“Then why doesn’t he yell back?”

“Well… maybe he can’t hear us either.”

“You can hear a rat fart in this place!”

 “I don’t know, but we can’t leave him down there.”

 “Shit! I don’t like this...at all!”

The boys continued their trek down the dank tunnel, hoping for some sign of Tommy. This time, they thought they heard him call Ben’s name.

“Did you hear him? He called me! Tommy! We’re coming to get you, don’t move!”

The boys traveled for a quarter of a mile farther into the tunnel, but still no Tommy.

 “Okay,” Paul said. “He can’t be much farther than this, and why in the hell isn’t he calling us anymore?”

“Maybe he’s injured and weak.”

“I’m freaking out. This is not right.”

 “I’m down here, you guys,” Tommy finally responded.

 “See Paul, he’s close.”         

“Can you guys see me?” Tommy asked.

“Not yet,” replied Ben. “We’re coming!”

“That’s good,” said Tommy.

“Uh, yeah… we’re almost there.”

“Wait there,” said Tommy.

Tommy’s voice changed. It sounded lower.

“I’ll come to you.”

Tommy’s voice got even lower, sounding almost like a man’s voice.

“I’ve been waiting for you. You’re on my playground. Who did you think the monster was?”

Tommy’s voice was now deep and evil as something not of this Earth.

“I just love the smell of your fresh souls, ha-ha-ha-ha. You two idiots are coming with me!”

There in the tunnel, glowed a bright red-orange, huge, devil-like demon, hunching over, filling the tunnel staring at the boys. His gigantic claws scratched at the concrete walls, digging large gouges in it, making cement dust fall into the water on the floor he was standing in. Ben remembered what a priest had told him in grade school; anyone can make holy water by asking God to give His blessing to it. Ben said a silent prayer, asking God to bless the water the demon was standing in. It let out a roar that no man has ever heard! It echoed throughout the entire tunnel system. They could hear nothing but the screams of the demon’s pain.

The boys ran faster than they ever had in their brief lives. They made the turn in the tunnel that led out of town. Finally, they came to the end of the tunnel and another steel door. The door opened into the basement of a box factory on the outskirts of town.

“What the hell are you waiting for? Open the goddamn door!” screamed Paul.

“Wait! I need something to draw a cross on the door!”

“What the hell for?!”

“Do you want it to follow us and take our souls?”

 “Well, hurry the hell up, damnit!”

Ben found a partially burnt wooden pallet and ripped off some blackened pieces from it, drawing a large black cross in charcoal on the tunnel side of the door as a seal. They quickly passed through the door and jammed a steel bar against it before running through the factory. The boys saw steps leading upstairs and fled out an exit. They kept running until their sides hurt and came to a stop in a run-down neighborhood near the industrial area of the city. Seeing a sagging chain-link fence around an old boarded-up house, Paul and Ben collapsed with their backs against it, huffing and puffing, trying to get their breath back.

“What the hell was that thing?” Paul blurted out.

“It was no little boy; it was a demon… or some kind of devil from hell.”

 “What are we gonna do? I mean, usually, I have the answer, but you seem to know more about this shit than I do.”

“I just remember stuff from Sunday school. I’m no expert at all.”

“Well, put your thinking cap on; what else do you remember from Sunday school?”

“We talked about Christian cemeteries once. Something about the sanctified or holy ground. A church cemetery is a holy ground. They bless it before they place the first body in it. Same for a church building. They bless the land before they turn the first shovel full of dirt.”

 “You think we should head to the graveyard we were gonna go to before? I mean, just to be safe until the morning light.”

“I’d feel better, I know that.”

“Let’s go then.”

The boys trudged on through the night lit only by the moon, which at times was covered by a thick layer of clouds and revealed once more as they passed. At ease a little now that a sanctuary lay ahead of them, they joked a little.

“I know one thing, next Halloween I’m not doing shit! My ass is staying home!”

“Same here. I’ll come over, and we’ll play board games or crap like that. Hell, I’d even bob for apples!”

The boys laughed at their jokes a little and sighed. They deserved at least that respite, considering the hellish nightmare which had befallen them.

It was a long walk to their awaited sanctuary. Their dilapidated surroundings didn’t help quicken the pace any. House after abandoned house, windows broken, doors ajar, partially boarded up hovels unfit for a wild animal. The only residents left were very old and poor folks who could afford nothing else, and homeless drug addicts, and the inevitable raccoons taking up residence in the shanties.

“Geez, this place is a shithole. Like the shithole of all shitholes. I feel like we could get rabies just walking through here,” Paul remarked.

“I came here only once. I was with my grandma, and she got lost.”

“What a shitty place to get lost!”

“You’re tellin’ me! I thought she was gonna have a stroke before we found our way out!”

The boys were getting close to their graveyard sanctuary and could see the ornate fencing that surrounded it.

“Look! You see, the fancy iron fence?” Paul asked.

“Where?”

“Three blocks down, on the other side of the road.”

 “I think that’s it. I remember an iron fence and a gate.”

 Now Paul and Ben were getting excited. Once they reached the cemetery, they felt they would be safe. Just in case the thing in the tunnel came after them, it couldn’t step one foot onto the hallowed ground of the graveyard. They still had three blocks to walk past more of the same dirty little broken-down houses, but they’d be there soon. As they approached the last block, they noticed a gray, dirty house with missing siding and only dirt for a lawn with an old couch sitting in the middle behind a rusted chain-link fence. There was one light on inside and the sound of a radio playing old music from the 1950s. 

As they approached the corner of the fence, a huge brown pit bull lunged at them, showing its teeth, snarling, and foaming at the mouth! They took off running as fast as they could until they realized the dog was not running after them.

 “Holy shit!” Paul yelled. I thought that damn dog was going to friggin’ eat me!”

 Eyes wide and panting heavily, while holding his hand over his heart, Ben couldn’t speak for several moments.

 “I think I’m gonna have a heart attack before all of this is over! Shit!”

And then the boys spotted the large iron gate with the sign atop it.

 “Thank God, Ben! There it is. The gate to Our Lady of Lourdes Cemetery. I think we gotta climb over. The gate is locked.”

 “Yeah, no problem after what we’ve been through.”

 They climbed over the stone pillars which were attached to gates and hopped onto the grounds. Big smiles on their faces, they relaxed for a few moments before walking farther into the graveyard.

 “You know, no one is going to believe any of this. Not even our parents. I’m not telling a living soul.”

“I’m with ya buddy. I know exactly what they’d say, ‘That’s a good story boys, now tell us what kind of trouble you really got into,’ and then the yelling would start, ending with me cussing them out.”

“Yeah, and the kids at school… we’d be the laughingstock! And then the fistfights would begin. I’d punch the first kid who called me a liar right in the mouth.”

“So, as far as we’re concerned, none of this ever happened. If we talk about it, it’s only between you and me, okay?” asked Ben.

“Damn straight!”

“I don’t suppose you have your flashlight, do you?” Ben asked.

“Paul checked himself over to see if he still had his flashlight, but he couldn’t find it.”

“I must have dropped it way back there.”

“Me too. I was hoping you had yours.”

“I still have some lighters in my pocket, why?”

“So we can see the gravestones.”

“I’m not going on a sightseeing tour of this place. I just want somewhere safe until the sun comes up,” declared Paul.

“I know, I was just thinking it’s starting to sprinkle, I felt a few drops, and thought we could use a little light.”

“Okay, yeah, you might be right. Here, you can have one of them. It’s full.”

It drizzled, and then within a few minutes, it poured rain.

“We need to find someplace to get out of the rain, or we’re gonna end up with pneumonia,” announced Ben.

“There’s a new grave over there with one of those awning tent things. We could get under it. At least it’ll be dry under there and on the ground.”

“Good enough for me. Let’s make a run for it!”

 The boys ran for the blue awning which had been erected for a new grave.

 “Holy crap!” said Paul. “I’m soaked!”

 “Me too, at least it’s not cold, or we’d be in real trouble.”

 “I guess we can sit down. It’s dry under here.”

 “I wonder who just got buried?”

 “Who cares? As long as it ain’t us. Sorry, ma’am or sir. No offense meant. We’re just kids trying to stay alive and dry.”

 “You think they heard you?”

 “I hope so. I really mean it. I’m not trying to be offensive or make light of it.”

 “Damn, I hope it stops raining soon. I don’t want to stay under this tent forever.”

 And it did stop raining within fifteen minutes as they sat on the dry ground. Now they were ready to leave. Hanging around someone’s grave isn’t the most comforting thing, after all. The boys stood and stretched, brushing themselves off as they did so.”

 “Where do you wanna go? I don’t know if there is a place here where there are no graves, but we can walk around and see. Maybe there’s a bench we can lie on and get some sleep,” offered Ben.

 “Might as well, but this is weird. I’m not really tired or anything.”

 “Me neither, I was just thinking in case you were.”

 “Let’s go.”

 “Hold on a minute. I just wanna see the name on the plaque they use until there’s a gravestone… hey, there are two graves here,” said Ben.

 Ben took out the lighter that Paul gave him and flicked it. He adjusted the flame so he could see better. He bent down and placed the flame next to the plaques. Ben screamed almost as loud as the demon and fell backward onto the ground. Paul spun around and saw Ben as he recoiled in horror onto the pile of freshly dug earth.

“What the hell is the matter with you! Why are you screaming?”

Ben continued to scream.

“Nooooo! It’s not real! No-no-no-no-no, it can’t be! I’m here! I’m right here! I’m right here. It’s a lie, a goddamn lie! Nooooo!”

“Ben! What the hell are you doing! What’s wrong?!”

Ben, still lying on the ground and sobbing and screaming, pointed to the temporary name plaques for the graves. Paul pulled out a lighter and flicked on the flame. He bent down near the plaques to read the names. ‘Paul Butterfield April 23rd, 1960 - October 31st, 1975’ and ‘Ben Eisner September 24th, 1960 - October 31st, 1975’.

Paul stood there speechless, staring at the plaques, staring at their own graves. Ben continued to sob and wail on the ground, repeating ‘No!’ over and over.

For several minutes Paul stood, staring, not moving, not speaking, like a statue. And then he screamed at the top of his lungs.

“That drunken BASTARD! That dirty, drunken BASTARD! The car with no headlights flying down the goddamn highway. That stupid, drunk bastard hit and killed us!”

And then Paul let out a primordial scream which rivaled the devil himself! So loud, the birds roosting in the trees, thousands of them flew out of the graveyard!

          

Now every year on Halloween, Paul Butterfield and Ben Eisner repeat the night they died into eternity.

“Mikayla, why are you hiding under the blanket? I thought you watched scary stuff all the time?”

“Oh Grandpa, that was the scariest story you ever told!”

“Well, whatever you do, don’t tell your mom and dad, they’ll have my hide!”

“I won’t, Grandpa. I’ll just say you tell me funny stories.”

 “That’ll save me a-talkin’ to by your mom. I used to tell her stories when she was a little girl, and sometimes they gave her nightmares, but she always asked for the scariest stories. She’s just trying to protect you because she loves you. But always know your grandpa loves you forever! Even when you’re a little old lady, your Grandpa loves you…into eternity.”

 “I love you that much too, Grandpa!”

 “Give Grandpa a hug and a kiss because it’s time for me to go and time for you to go to sleep. Until next time, my precious little princess.”

 “Bye, Grandpa.”

  “Mikayla, who are you talking to?”

  “I was just listening to a story, mom.”

 “A story? From who?”

 “Grandpa! Grandpa was telling me a new story.”

 “Now, Mikayla, you know better. I loved him too, he was my daddy, but Grandpa is gone. We all miss him terribly, but he’s not with us anymore.”

 “I know, but he’ll be back. He always tells me stories.”