Sam and Colby: The House

39

"Okay, so the map," Sam said. We were sitting in the car, parked in the house of horror's driveway.

"Yeah, I've got it on my phone," Colby said. He opened his photos and pulled up the picture he'd taken of the ceiling.

"It'd be cool if he, like, labelled the roads," said Sam.

"He's got some landmarks on there," said Jake.

"The first one says MM shop. What's that mean?" asked Corey.

"Probably Muerte's Magic," I said.

"Oh shit, you right," said Corey.

"Back to the death store we go," said Jake. We went and parked the car in the shop's parking lot, then looked at the map again.

"It says to just go straight back for a little bit," said Colby.

"There's no road," said Jake.

"Guess we'll have to walk from here, then," Sam said. We all got out of the car and walked past the shop to the thin gravel trail leading back.

"Oh, god damn it. We have to go to the cemetery, don't we?" Corey asked. I suddenly remembered the giant cemetery that was located not too far behind the shop.

"Looks like we have to go through it, actually. We won't have to stop in it," said Colby.

"Do you guys think this is where Ed is buried?" asked Jake.

"If this is the Plainfield Cemetery, then yes it is. There's also graves here for his mom and Mary and Bernice. Not that there was much of any of them to bury," I said.

"Great. Fucking great," Corey whined.

"Oh, get over it," said Jake.

"It's not like it's dark out or anything," said Sam.

"It might be by the time we come back. This map is going to have us go pretty far if it's to scale, and we have to do it on foot," said Colby.

"Great," Corey said again, sarcasm dripping from his words. We made our way up to the tall, rusted black gate guarding the cemetery, a sign hung on the front of it.

"Historic Plainfield Cemetery closed for the season. Will reopen on November 1st," I read.

"I bet they close it for Halloween," said Sam.

"Probably. Gein's grave is unmarked now because so many people came in to vandalize it because they hate him so much," I said.

"Can you blame them?" asked Jake.

"I get that the guy was awful, but he's dead. Not much disrespecting a rock will do," said Corey.

"Should we just come back on Friday?" I asked.

"Come ba—do you have no faith in us?" Colby asked. "We're climbing the gate."

"This thing is like ten feet tall and has absolutely no footholds. How do you suggest we get over it?" I asked.

"Like this," Jake said. He swung back his leg and then kicked it up, breaking the rusted padlock that had been holding the gate shut and locked.

"I... wow. Okay," I said.

"That was impressive, dude," said Corey.

"As I always am," said Jake, bowing.

"And he's back," said Colby with a laugh. Sam and I did a quick look around the area to make sure no one would see us breaking in, then all quickly slipped through the gates and did our best to set the busted padlock back in its spot so it at least appeared to be doing its job. We started through the cemetery.

"This is the most unorganized graveyard I've ever seen," said Jake. He was right. There was no method to the placement of anything, no paths or walkways for us to take in order to avoid walking over any graves.

There had to be at least 100, if not more, headstones rising up from the ground. They were all pretty old looking, to the point where I wouldn't be surprised if the place was no longer used for newer deaths. The headstones were mostly made out of marble. I could tell due to how mechanically weathered they all looked, the soft rock worn down by time and natural elements.

"Hey, is this it?" Sam asked. I looked over to Sam who was about ten feet to my right. He was pointing his camera down at a small slab of white rock, blank except for the year 1984 written on it. The grave to the left of it read 'Augusta Wilhelmine Gein', the one on the right reading 'Bernice Worden'.

"Looks like it, yeah," I said.

"Jesus Christ, who the fuck decided to bury the guy in between two of the people he hacked up?" asked Corey.

"It makes sense that he's next to his mom, especially considering how much he was obsessed with her, but yeah. It's a little fucked they put him next to one of the women he brutally murdered," said Jake.

"No kidding," said Colby. We all went quiet for a few moments, staring down at the grave of the man who had done such godawful things.

"It's weird," said Sam.

"What is?" asked Colby.

"I don't know, just that he has a grave here like everyone else. It's like no matter what you do in life, you'll end up in the ground with a rock on top of your casket and that's it," said Sam.

"I feel that. It is weird," said Colby.

"You know, I actually think it's a really important thing to realize that," I said.

"What?" asked Corey.

"Why?" asked Jake.

"Because. We get, like, 80 or 90 years to do whatever until we end up in the ground just like everyone else," I said.

"And that's an important thing to realize because...?" Colby asked.

"Because life is all we get, you know? Ed is an example that we get to do whatever we want with our lives. If we want to spend our time on earth killing people and turning them into weird household objects, then we can. Preferably not anything of that sort, though. I just mean that in the grand scheme of things, life is short. We have the power to make such a big impact on this world and it's unacceptable to me to not try my best to take advantage of that. One of my biggest fears is dying without having significantly changed something in the world. Even if it's a small impact, I want to leave something behind that makes this world a better place.

"We're given the opportunity of life and we get to do literally whatever we want. Of course there's consequences for certain actions, but no one can stop us from doing something we really set our minds to. I want to live a super full life and do a bunch of crazy shit and experience true happiness and laugh too hard too often and fall in love with nature and myself and others," I said.

"And we want to do all of those things with you, princess," Colby said, giving me a hug from behind and resting his chin on my head.

"I love you. All of you," I said.

"I love you, too," said Colby.

"So do we," said Corey.

"Once our mom, always our mom," said Jake.

"Alright, let's go follow this creepy ominous map now, yeah?" Sam asked.

"Yeah," I said.