Ghosts

Luke slipped through the gap in the cemetery gates, and paused to get his bearings.

I must be mad, he thought,creeping around the cemetery at night. On Halloween too. Yet he didn’t make any move to leave. Passing through the cemetery was the quickest way to get back home. He would just go straight through and exit through the small gate on the other side. He could scale the garden fence, slip in the back door, and go to bed, and nobody would be any the wiser. He could that way avoid running into Darren and his gang again. In theory, a brilliant plan. In practice, crossing a graveyard, in the dark, on Halloween, when the moon was full, wasn’t so easy.

“It’s just a commercial holiday. It means nothing. Nothing at all,” he whispered to himself. He squared his shoulders and set off across the grass towards the opposite wall.

Why did this stupid place have to be so big? he asked himself as he walked across the grass. There were no lights in the cemetery, the only illumination coming from moon. He tried to keep his eyes on the ground in front of him, but he couldn’t prevent his eyes from wandering. The tombstones were dim shapes in the moonlight. Suddenly, he froze. He thought he saw movement under one of the trees.

“Don’t go there,” he said to himself. “Just keep on walking.”

But still he found himself veering off to the right. The trees were growing next to the fence. And there was nobody there, only two graves with recent tombstones, a few wilted flowers lying on top of then. He was leaning down to read the inscriptions when somebody spoke behind him.

“Come to flower our graves? How sweet.”

Luke spun round so fast he almost fell over. Two girls were standing just behind him. They were probably a few years older than he was, and looked as if they were on their way to a party. One of them was tall, with wild, fiery red curls, and wearing a black dress with a corset, a long, floaty skirt, and silly little puffy sleeves.The other was shorter, with wavy blond hair. She was dressed in a very short green shift that ended mid thighs. The ragged edges on the sheer material looked as if it had been ripped. She was barefoot, yet she didn’t seem cold at all.

“Don’t do that to people!” snapped Luke. “I almost had a heart attack.”

“Oh, in that case we’ll never do it again,” the blond one said.

“Never, ever, ever,” the redhead agreed. “Ever. We wouldn’t want you to have a heart attack, would we, Nora?”

“Of course not.” The blond, Nora, shook her head. “We don’t want any harm to come to you, Ali and me. None at all. ”

“I mean,” Ali the redhead said, looking at Nora. “It’s not as if he ever hurt anyone, is it?”

“Well, even if he did, that no reason for us to hurt him. Us or anyone else, for that matter.”

“Of course not. Even though, I don’t think anyone has ever died following a scare. Well, if you’re under eighty that is.”

“Well he is under eighty. So he’s quite safe. At least I think so.” Nora looked puzzled.

“I think we can be pretty sure that he’s safe. He doesn’t look as if he’s over eighty. No wrinkles or grey hairs.”

“No, you’re quite right.”

Luke stared from one to the other. Their dialogue was making his head spin. He couldn’t work out whether they were taking the piss or not.

“So we can scare him as much as we like then,” Nora continued.

“Oh absolutely. It won’t kill him. All it will do is make his heart beat a little faster. It won’t harm him all.” Luke felt a chill as Ali said this. Her voice was cold and slightly sinister. Her earlier light and jovial tone had vanished.Her eyes were boring holes into him. Nora had also moved so she was blocking the way back to the path.