The Glaring - Beginning of Chapter 4

 

Idling in Becca’s driveway Friday night, I wedged the sleeping bag between my knees and the front seat of Andi’s brother’s station wagon.  Given Andi’s revelation, I’m not sure why I didn’t leave all my stuff at home.  As my grammy says: hope springs eternal. “Maybe if you didn’t have six dogs—”

“Five.” Andi shot a look over one shoulder.  “We put Mashed Potatoes to sleep, remember?”

“Okay five dogs, maybe you wouldn’t get fleas every forty-five seconds—”

“It wasn’t the dogs.  It was the guinea pigs.”  She spun back around and dug in her fanny pack.

I heard the crinkly sound of a candy wrapper and blinked.  “How does that even happen?”  I peered at Chris over the pile of backpacks.  “Do they just let the guinea pigs run wild?”

Her gaze riveted on Twilight, Chris shrugged.

Andi waggled a Twizzler over one shoulder.  “Rarely.  When we do, they always end up in the walls.  My mom is bombing the house tonight.  It’ll be fine by tomorrow.”

Chris flipped a page and snagged a twizzler without looking up.  “Yeah, that’s a gamble I’m not willing to take.”

Since yesterday, I’d been stupidly excited about our graveyard visit and the sleepover at Andi’s.  Now that Becca and Chris were allies, the evening had potential to be epic.  In a blatant play for sympathy, I heaved a heavy sigh.  “So are we just going to cancel?”

“Cancel what?”  Clutching a Hello Kitty sleeping back to her chest, Becca peeked in through the window.

Andi leaned into the driver’s seat.  “Hey Becca.  This is my brother Kevin.”

“Hey.”  Kevin smacked his gum and flicked the purple, fuzzy dice hanging from his windshield.  “We got fleas.”

Becca’s thick, chestnut-colored brows made a perfect vee. “What?”

“Andi has fleas again, so the sleepover is ruined.”  I sounded like a pouty preschooler, but I kind of didn’t care.  I was seriously bummed.  “Chris’s parents are out to dinner and my little brother is having a slumber party with his idiot friends so…”

Becca shrugged.  “Wanna just come here?  I’m sure Mama wouldn’t mind.”

Chris tore herself away from the vampires.  “Really?”

Becca grinned.  “Sure.  I mean if you can stand sleeping in a construction zone.  Bring your stuff inside and I’ll double check, but I’m sure It’s okay.  Mama’s cool that way.”

We ran our stuff into the house and dumped it in the entryway.  Becca yelled to her mom over the screeching whine of some power tool, and her mom stopped drilling or sawing or whatevering long enough to reply, “Sure, Baby.  Whatever you want.”

If anything, Becca’s house in the evening was even creepier than it was in the full light of day.  Certain I must have imagined that shadow in the upstairs window, I’d tried not to think about it again, but the memory shoved back into my mind.  I and shot a glance up the stairs, shivering.  “Where will we sleep?”

“My room upstairs is plenty big.  We found some neat stuff up there I’ll show you later.  Ellen is coming too, right?”

Chris tucked the book into her backpack and, nose-wrinkled, surveyed the dim and dusty entryway.  “She’s meeting us at the cemetery.”

“Coolio.”  Becca switched on the outdoor light with a chuckle.  “Better get a wiggle on.  Don’t want to arrive a minute late and miss the whole thing.”

Kevin pulled up next to the cemetery gates where Ellen sat on a bench.  Her face hidden behind a wall of reddish hair, she was bent almost in half, picking at her fingernails.  When she heard the car, she jerked up and waved, smiling a big, relieved smile.  Even though we never make fun of her, I think Ellen is secretly convinced one day we’ll all just stop talking to her and she’ll be left alone on the bench—literally and metaphorically.  She can be annoying, but we’d never do that.  Not without a good reason, anyway.

Ellen slung her backpack over one shoulder and tucked her hair behind both ears. “Where’s all your stuff?”

“We have fleas again.” Andi grabbed the tote with Ellen’s pink sleeping bag crammed higgledy-piggledy inside.  “We’re going to Becca’s instead.”

“Beccas house?”  Ellen bounced on scuffed, purple ballet flats and beamed.  “Awesome sauce!”

Beets Cove was socked in by fog from October to March, but tonight was clear, though the clouds were low and heavy.  A salty gust flipped the red and orange leaves upside down, and I had the weirdest feeling a thunderstorm was coming.  When the wind died, the night was muggy and dead still.  We walked under the gate through air that felt more like soup than oxygen.

Chestnut Hill Burial Ground was at the very end of Main Street on the edge of town.  Grassy and manicured in the center but wooded and scraggly along the edges where some of the oldest graves were, it was cut into a steep hill.  I have no idea why people in the olden days thought it was better to bury their loved ones in the side of a hill than in a flat grassy field.  Maybe they thought they’d be less at risk of getting washed out of their graves in a hurricane.  Or maybe all the fields were already occupied by cows and puritans.  The graveyard was chock full of coffins in every square inch.  No more room at the inn.  Everyone I ever heard of dying was buried out in Oaklawn by the highway where Andi’s brother Kevin mowed the grass in the summer.  Come to think of it, maybe those olden days folks were on to something.  I’d rather be spend eternity somewhere with a view of the bay than the Denny’s off exit seventeen.

We stood in a line beneath a wrought iron, curlicued arch that looked like it belonged on a castle grounds and stared up the winding path.  It meandered over the hill to a flat circular area where war veterans gathered on Memorial Day and the 4th of July to run a flag up the pole and play Taps.  Darkness was falling fast, and tall, skinny streetlights like ornate black Q-tips flickered on, dotting the way.  I’d never been in the cemetery after dark.  I’d barely been in it during the day except for a few trips during elementary school to gawk at the graves of Revolutionary War heroes.  New England is bananas for the Revolutionary War.  The place was rumored to be haunted, but then again what cemetery wasn’t?  

Andi glanced at her watch.  “Mickey says it’s 6:12. We better go.”

Shoes crunching in a sound like crocodiles eating gravel, we started up the path.  Whether out of respect or unease, we were atypically quiet.  Everywhere I looked, tombstones of every shape and size dotted the hillside.  We were surrounded by the dead.  Ornate marble angels stood alongside simple, unadorned graves.  Perfectly rectangular stones surrounded pointy white obelisks in ruler straight lines, while others jutted randomly askew, broken, and jagged as shark’s teeth.  How sad it must feel to have your gravestone crumble, and no one come to fix it.  I half expected to spot shadowy figures weeping ghostly tears while trying to put the pieces back together.

The path was steep, and I leaned forward, my breath coming a little faster.  Andi and Becca pulled ahead, but Chris, Ellen and I lagged a little.  I wasn’t worried.  We’d make it to the top before Daniel started.

Wind rustled dead leaves, and I heard something behind me.  I pricked up my ears.  A series of quick steps sounded, light and scritchy.  My skin went clammy, and my chest tightened.  Having not actually made Daniel pee himself in the cafeteria, the Osties must have shown up to finish the job.  I clenched my fists, overcome with a sudden urge to punch someone.  I nudged Chris. “Do you hear that?”

“What?”

“Foosteps.  Behind us.”  Chris started to turn, and I grabbed her arm and shushed her.  “Just listen a sec.  I bet it’s Tracey and those guys.  They probably want to prank Daniel.”

Trying to quiet my own footfall, I listened again.  Sure enough, a faint crunch crunch crunch came from down the hill.  I shot Chris a glance.  “Do you hear that?”

She scowled.  “Not cool.”

“What should we do?”

Before I knew what was happening, she whirled.  “Hey!”

Ellen froze, hands on her thighs, breathing heavily.  “Hey what?  Ready for a break?  I have jolly ranchers in my bag.”

I spun too and scanned the bottom of the hill.  The cemetery was empty.  Squinting hard, I looked again.  “Do you see them?”

Chris shook her head.

“See who?” Ellen panted.  

I shuffled to the left, certain I’d spot Tracey or Michelle hunkering behind a mausoleum. “The Osties.  I heard them on the path behind us.”

“Really?  That’s mean.  And kinda weird, even for them.”  Ellen slipped off her backpack.  “My stuff is too heavy, I’m just gonna leave it.”  She slung the bag onto a rectangular stone, embedded in the grass.

“They must be hiding,” Chris said.  She dropped her hands to her hips and glared daggers down the hill.

Nothing moved below.  Not a single leaf.  Not a blade of grass.  

A shiver tickled up my spine.  “You heard them though, right?”  

She nodded.  

“You’d think we’d see them.  Or hear a maniacal laugh.”

“Hey look at this.  Becca!” Ellen pointed to a pristine white monument surrounded by smaller stones.  “It’s the Foggs.”