Greywood

Chapter 01

The moon was starting its ascent into the sky by the time my friends and I crept under the chain link fence and into Ole' Walsh's Graveyard. Cayetana was up front, holding an LED lantern which, in retrospect, would've given away our location to the groundskeeper quickly. But she placed her free hand over it to dim the light as a precaution as we ducked low enough behind gravestones to reach the mausoleum at the center. We rushed inside the stone structure, me giving the surroundings a quick look around before turning and nodding at the other two.

Cayetana dropped the lantern down gently and the three of us quickly put down our backpacks and pulled out our usual materials: a plaid blanket to lay on, a bag of popcorn, a few sodas, and, new for this occasion, a ouija board that I had scored at the most recent community yard sale.

Sitting down, Cayetana swiped a hand over her brunette and blonde dyed hair, before wiping her hands on the pink American Eagle hoodie that she wore. Her jeans had holes at the knees to give them a 'gently used' look and she folded her legs underneath her to get into a more comfortable position. Finally settled in, she looked at both me and Benji before smiling and announced, "I now call the Greywood Academy Charter: Supernatural club into session!"

"Did we have to do this in the graveyard?" whined Benji. He sported a white long sleeved henley, loosely buttoned down that gave a peak to his fit physique matched with a pair of dark jeans. Unlike Cayetana and I, he fidgeted where he sat, shadows playing upon his Asian features in the lantern light. Even at school he was completely against the idea of coming to the graveyard, but that was common for him since, despite his rather imposing build, he was quite the gullible coward. "I can think of many things to do on a weekend and angering the dead isn't one of them!"

"We're not going to anger them," I comforted, shuddering a bit in my school windbreaker from the cold of the night. I was sitting between the two of them, legs criss cross and my head resting on my left hand. "We're just going to see if this thing really works."

"And," started Cayetana, taking the chance to toss some popcorn into her mouth, "if it does, I'm sure the dead here would like some conversation. They're probably excited and want to talk to people since they've been dead for like..." she turns and looks at one of the plaques on the wall and tries to do the math in her head.

"Fifty two years," I finished for her, eyeing the plaque that she was.

"Yeah! That's a long time to not talk to anyone."

"Or," countered Benji, "they're enjoying their rest and don't want anyone disturbing them!" The frown on his face continued to deepen and Cayetana and I just laughed.

"It's ok, lil Ben-Ben," Cayetana cooed. "If you're so scared you can just leave me and Ky here to try ourselves. But you know what that would mean?"

"Yeah, yeah," he sighed with an exaggerated eye roll. "I'd owe you guys a week of lunchroom fries."

"Fries do sound good right about now, don't you think, 'Tana?" I snickered.

"Yep. Run along Ben-Ben."

"I'm staying! I'm staying!" he huffed and opened one of the soda cans before taking a few gulps. "Someone has to make sure you all don't get into trouble."

"Sure sure," I rolled my eyes.

This wasn't the first time we had snuck into the graveyard for our club meetings. It was actually Benji's idea which he meant as a joke during one lunch period when Cayetana shared to us her plan to start the supernatural club. He hadn't intended for the two of us to completely buy in on the idea and has been horrified each time we made our near monthly appearances into the mausoleum. So far we hadn't been caught but there were a few occasions where the groundskeeper came in and we had to hide behind the mausoleum sarcophagus to avoid any trouble.