Unforeseeable Events

Midnight in the Graveyard of Good and Evil / Ashley Part 7

When Christina and I got to the graveyard, the others hadn't arrived yet and she was scared out of her mind. I walked through the old iron gates and got a little rust on my favorite flannel shirt. "Get the hell in here, you weenie!" I yelled at Christina.

Christina entered through the rusty iron gate and I demanded, "Take my picture! I'm feeling flawlessly photogenic tonight and I'm wearing my favorite lipstick, Blood Transfusion Crimson." I flashed her a white toothed smile and growled. I struck a pose with both hands curved into claws high above my head and one foot raised like the Karate Kid. Christina snapped away, capturing the shadowed headstones behind me as well as my threatening posture.

Suddenly she ducked. "What's that!" 

I didn't crouch in time and felt something graze the top of my high, messy blue-tinged bun. I screamed and Christina echoed my panicked cries. "It's a bird! A huge, mother-of-all-birds sized bird!" She yelled.

"Have you noticed how dreary this particular midnight seems? Must drearier than most midnights." The bird spoke eloquently, with a British accent reminiscent of Dan is not on fire's.

"Don't look now, but I think that bird's been watching too many YouTube videos." I whispered into Christina's ear.

"I was speaking in this accent many years before people starting their own YouTube channels." He didn't squawk like other birds or repeat the same phrase over and over like Nana Betty's parrot, who only swore because she has such a potty mouth.

"By the way, where are the others?" The raven asked.

"They should be here by now. Sarah texted me about five minutes ago and told us to meet her here." I started to worry.

"Why aren't they here?" Christina looked ghastly pale and corpse-like, as if she were scared to death. "I'm going to try calling Sarah." She whipped out her cell phone and tapped Sarah's number. No answer.

"Maybe she has it on silent."

"Silent as the grave..." the strange bird intoned. He flapped his wings and they were so big the air stirred my hair.

We all stopped and just listened, including the mysterious raven. Finally he spoke. "In life I was called El Trasho. I was the most talented graffiti artist in the New England area, but my life was cut short one tragic night, on the third floor of the library. That heinous old woman who hung herself in the closet up there won't leave me alone. She's trying to send me to the other dimension but I'm not ready to go yet. I have unfinished business here, in and around the library."

I forgot to be scared for Sarah and the others. "What kind of unfinished business?"

"Well, recently a young man named Alex started working at the library as an IT assistant and someone followed him here. A little girl called Avery and Bertrude, the evil dead librarian is trying to send her into the other dimension also."

"Avery was Alex's little sister. She disappeared from her sixth birthday party and her body was found in a nearby lake the next day." Geez, there seems to be a whole team of ghosts hanging out on the third floor of the library.

"What exactly is the other dimension?" Christina asked.

"I'm not really sure, but I caught a glimpse one night when Bertrude pushed me really close to the edge. It's shiny, and blue and colder than you can imagine."

"Don't you mean Gertrude, not Bertrude?"

"I'm afraid not. Her name is actually Bertrude. No wonder she was so miserable in life that she hung herself. And she's equally, horrifically miserable after death. Violent and evil."

"Ashley," Christina said, "text Reilly and find out where they are. They should be here by now. Knowing Sarah, and her sense of direction and lack of listening skills, they're at the wrong graveyard."

I texted Reilly and got a response immediately. "We're at the grave of... Arielle, read me that headstone."

I could hear Arielle reading the words loudly in the background. "Here lies the mortal remains of the meanest woman ever to stalk this earth. Angelica Extravaganza Michelle Defeelgoodkangaroo. She kicked kittens and puppies out of her way with those horrible, pointed toe boots. Everywhere she went, children cried, flowers died and normal, sensible adults would hide.  Stay underground, you creepy old witch." 

"Geez, Reilly, what does her stone look like?" I asked.

"It's a beautiful angel wearing a crown woven from resurrection ferns, with bat wings and furry toes."

"Sounds like part angel, part gargoyle and part hobbit." I added.

"I know where that is; let's go! I'll lead the way." The raven swooped up into the air and we followed, on the ground, of course.

"It's all the way over on the other side of the cemetery, at least a quarter mile." He squawked down at us.

"I hate walking." I yelled up at him. "I never walk anywhere except for down to the store on the corner to buy gummy frogs."

"Suck it up, girlie." The raven croaked.

So we trudged through the graveyard, passing by statues of praying children, weeping women and an actual Civil War soldier in a dashing cape and high boots. Finally, I spotted what looked like a bobbing flashlight beaming in our direction from a distance.

"Oh my gosh!" Christina yelled out. "Look! There are two gravestones with the name Sarah Ogilvie Taylor!"

"Maybe one is a daughter who was named after her mother."

"No, they have the same birth date and death date!"