Phantoms and Fangs

Three

"I can hear you ya know." More twigs snapped the moment Reyna shouted in their direction. "It's really not cool to throw rocks at people, especially in a creepy graveyard." A soft chiming noise sounded from Reyna's phone, a sound she has never heard while streaming before. A single donation had come in from someone watching her stream. 50 dollars with a single sentence attached. 'I triple dog dare you to find the person who threw the rock.'

"Ooooo a triple dog dare, and a donation, I guess I have to go find this mysterious cretin." The stream was unsettling to look at while Reyna poured over the comments, relishing the questions and praise, like a meal from a Michelin star restaurant. Green hues covered her phone screen making the graveyard seem so bright, and oddly cheerful. The moment she took her eyes off the screen to resume walking towards the snapping sounds, the camera picked up a blur of motion.

Reyna smirked and twisted one of her lip piercings, the hooligan was still hanging around. She sauntered over to where the blur was while answering some of the questions in the chat. More and more people kept joining the stream, 347 people were currently watching. This was the highest viewership she had ever had.

Reyna kicked around some of the decaying leaves scattering twigs around her before shouting. "I know you're out there, I already caught you on camera. There's no point in hiding." She may have gone out to find some sort of monster, but being taunted in a graveyard by some delinquent was still good content.

Her comment was met with a bell-like chuckle. It would have been a beautiful laugh, if it wasn't coming from an unseen figure in a dark graveyard. Reyna kept fidgeting with her piercings, she knew someone was just messing with her. But Conner going missing here and some stranger taunting her to go further into the graveyard could be connected.

She didn't have time to think more about it before another chime sounded from her phone. Someone had donated again including the comment '100 dollars to go find that person.'

Reyna huffed out of her nose, "Make it 1000 and you got a deal." She thought to herself, there's no way someone is going to spend that much money to see some stranger run through a graveyard looking for someone else. She was wrong. The 1000 dollar comment popped onto the screen seconds later. Her jaw dropped pondering, who the fuck has enough disposable income to burn 1000 dollars on an amateur ghost hunter.

"Alright boss, you got it. Let's go find ourselves a graveyard ghoul." Reyna was giddy. She had never had so many viewers in her life, and someone just fully paid for her rent and groceries for the next month. At this point there was hardly anything that could make her turn tail and run from the graveyard.

There was a thin packed down trail of weeds leading Reyna through the winding graves. Something rustled through the leaves up ahead of her, making her pause briefly before moving forward. She scanned the area ahead of her with the flashlight that had otherwise been used to make sure Reyna didn't trip over something and break every bone in her face when she inevitably fell. There was an oddly shaped bump about 20 feet in front of her. Unease gripped her stomach again as she slowly stepped towards it.

She had to cover her camera when she came close enough to see what it was. "I really don't want my stream to get shut down so I'm going to cover the camera. It's kinda super gross but there's a dead deer on the ground. I don't think I'm gonna keep going this way. Getting murdered in a cemetery by coyotes or wolves is not on my bucket list." Blood caked the dead bucks neck. Sticky burgundy clumps of hair covered the majority of the poor creature's body. The smell was awful, like a wet dog made of pennies. And the chunks of flesh taken by scavengers and whatever killed it sent a spike of nausea to Reyna's stomach.

She spun on her heels deciding dead animals should be where she draws the line. She could still film her way out pretending to search for that weird person hiding in the woods and then end the stream when she got close to her bike. It's the perfect plan, she would still be satisfying her viewers and getting away from the icky dead deer.

Walking back in the direction she came somehow made Reyna feel more uneasy. It seemed like the path she was on had changed winding through trees and stones she had never seen before. The dim light the moon gave off was growing dimmer, clouds obscuring the glowing crescent.

"Oh boy, this is definitely not the way I came from." Reyna whispered when she stumbled upon an ivy covered mausoleum. She checked her phone looking at the surge of comments in her chat. 'She got lost in a graveyard?? LMAO', 'Go in there!!', 'Anyone else want to know what that deer looked like?'. Absolutely nothing helpful in the slightest. Right before she turned to try to retrace her steps again she heard that smooth bell-like laugh again. So much closer than it was earlier.

"Can you stop laughing for 5 minutes, or are you just some creepy asshole getting off on me being lost?" The chuckle ended. Reyna shook her head twisting her piercings trying to shake off the anxiety clouding her decisions.

The iron fence blocking off the entrance to the mausoleum creaked. It swung slightly in the breeze like a hand waving her closer. Reyna sighed, "I know you're there, just save us all some time and come out already this is stupid." No one came out of the small stone building.

"This might be the most stupid decision I've ever made." Reyna said more to herself than the 1248 viewers on her stream. Each step towards the mausoleum sent a jolt of adrenaline through Reyna's body. She tried to force some confidence back into her body through sarcasm. "Oh wow you've evaded me, I have absolutely no idea where you went. Gasp! What's this? An open door, there's no way a creep would go in there."