Twist Of Fate

Fifty Six

The tombs are illuminated by the silvery moonlight peeking through the leaves on the trees. The midnight air is cool and fresh, a welcome change from the relentless heat that suffocates me by day. I pick my way carefully between the graves, stepping over headstones and dodging weeds, keen not to be heard. The grass swishes softly beneath my feet, damp with condensation that deadens the sound of my footsteps. Beyond the graveyard is nothing: a dark void that seems to have swallowed all traces of lights of the village beyond.

The route is familiar thanks to my visit a couple of weeks earlier, although everything feels different by night. The shadows cast by the moon are long, black and empty; the silence is deafening, every movement is magnified. The atmosphere is heavy; loaded. I quicken my pace, eager to reach my destination, afraid to linger. 

A faint noise ahead in the distance causes me to stop dead in my tracks and strain over the thrumming of my heart. After a few moments of silence I conclude my imagination must be playing tricks on me; not entirely unlikely given my surroundings. I take another couple of steps but the noise can be heard again, a little louder this time, directly ahead of me. It is a low, ghostly moan, from the depths of someone's throat, that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Deathly still, I glance left and right. I do not want to see the source of the sound, no longer do I wish to continue. I must leave, before anyone realises I am here. The moan sounds again, closer still; a long, gutteral sound that surely cannot be human. I turn and run. 

Dashing down the path, my feet pounding on the tarmac, my breath coming in short bursts, I near the end of the row and turn left towards the church beyond which lies the exit and safety. Just ahead of me I can see a gaping hole in the ground, dark and forbidding. An open grave. Next to the grave on the grass, just at the edge of the path, lies a dark figure. A low wail emanates from it, carrying on the gentle breeze, that terrifies me to my very core. The figure begins to move, as though trying to get up. Behind it a church bell tolls; a single, ominous ring, vibrating through the air.

I let out a whimper as I skid to a halt before turning and running in the opposite direction towards the rear of the churchyard. There is no exit this way but I know I can run along the entire perimeter wall and emerge by the main entrance. But barely have I taken two steps and the figure materialises out of the darkness ahead of me again, still in a heap on the ground but now extending a limb towards me and several feet closer than before. The bell tolls again.

I scream, but the sound is instantly swallowed into the night. I turn to my right, desperate to escape, but no sooner am I running from it, I am running to it again. Its hollow wail reverberates around me, drowning me, suffocating me, as every way I turn it is in front of me still, gravitating inexorably closer, its appearance becoming clearer, its arms outstretched. 

"No, no, no!" I scream, holding my own arms in front of me to keep it at bay, but still it advances, its gurgling howl forming a coherent sound that cannot be my own imagination.

"Chloe..." Its words are stifled by a third, sinister toll of the bell, followed by another, and then another.

"No!" I scream again, fighting thin air as the shape rears; a man stumbles to his feet and into a patch of moonlight. His face is illuminated only briefly but enough for me to see the blood on his skin, the decomposing flesh and the side of his head caved inwards as though bludgeoned with a blunt and heavy object. 

"Help me," he moans, staggering towards me, arms still extended, mouth gaping open. His hair is matted with congealed blood. "Don't leave me here..."

I stumble backwards, tripping over my own feet in my haste to get away. I land softly on my back, cushioned by the long, wet grass and immediately flip onto my front and scramble to my knees, clawing at the earth beneath me to put some distance between him and me. 

"Stop running, Chloe," he wheezes in my ear as his ice cold fingers close around my wrist, his glassy skin taut and thin and beginning to rip at the knuckles. 

My nails dig desperately into the dirt but to no avail. He pulls me closer as my screams ring into the night, lost in the tintinnabulation of the church bells that drown out his sickening lament.