The three of us had woken up hours later. It was seven O’clock by the time we could stand up. It must have been really strong and Ricky reckoned that we were lucky to be alive, and Greg and I told him not to get hysterical. He sat down for a while, talking.
“We should go to the police.” Ricky said straight away.
“Will they believe us though?” Greg asked, “We were walking into a tomb and some people knocked us out and left us alone? Not a chance.”
“What were they up to, knocking us out for no reason?” I put in. They both looked at me.
“I don’t- What’s that?” Greg pointed at my hands. I looked at them, and then I realised that I was wearing the gauntlets. I ripped them off and threw them down. Ricky pointed at my shoulder with a trembling finger, and I touched where he was pointing but couldn’t feel anything. My hands were still numb, which was why I hadn’t noticed the gauntlets. I looked and saw a dark cape pinned to my clothes. I also tore that away from my shoulders. We huddled around them.
“Do we keep them?” Ricky asked. He was trembling, as if we were looking at a hungry werewolf, not a bit of cloth and some gloves. But I knew there was more to them. I could feel it.
“No.” I said straight away, “How do I explain that we got them?”
“More important than that,” Greg interrupted, “How do we explain disappearing for six hours on your birthday?”
We thought hard, but couldn’t think of anything better than saying that we went for a walk and went too far and got lost. We stumbled out of the cemetery, still struggling to walk. We were on our way back to my house when a police car raced down the road towards us. It sped past us and screeched to a halt. We stopped as it reversed up to us. A police woman jumped out and ran up to us, already asking us a million questions…
*
How much more could I take? My parents were asking the three of us every question they could think of, until Ricky and Greg’s parents showed up and took their babies away with squealing wheels. Then they turned on me. It was ten O’clock, and I was shattered, despite my little snooze earlier. I had been taken to the police station, questioned relentlessly, taken home, used the loo, questioned relentlessly, ate some leftover dinner while been questioned relentlessly and then questioned relentlessly a bit more. It was agony. Finally, I had had enough, and yawned loudly, interrupting my parents in the middle of a question. They rushed me off to bed, no questions asked, except one or two more, and left me to sleep. I couldn’t sleep, tossing thoughts around my head. Finally, fell asleep.
That was when the nightmares started.
*
It was silent in the night. In the distance, police cars whizzed around after drunkards, but stayed away from me. The street lamps were all off, which was weird. I soon realised where I was headed. The cemetery. I felt my lungs clamp with fear. It went on like that for some minutes, the constant drumming of my fear, my feet pounding the ground. I tried to turn around and go home, but I couldn’t stop, or even slow down. The trees fanned out above me, their thin leaves rustling with every tiny pulse of wind. Everything seemed overly dark, as the moon had all but disappeared. It was awful, every house and wall on either side of me seemed to be trying to enclose me and prise the breath from my lungs. I would look at something and see nothing, look away but then see a rustle. I couldn’t move my head at all, only my eyes, so I would walk past something and suddenly be terrified that it would get me because I couldn’t see it. I don’t know how I coped with it all. In fact, I probably couldn’t. If I had had any choice in the matters I would have curled up in a ball and screamed until somebody found me.
*
I was back at the cemetery. I started to have stupid thoughts, wondering whether or not it was a dream. I seemed very conscious, and the wind had risen slowly, chilling me. I was so scared now that I could have dug my self a grave just to hide in it! My body was dragged forwards. I gave up trying to regain my free will, instead trying to wake up. I wished I could have pinched myself, just to be sure. I felt my self walking between graves crazily, momentum pushing my arms around in an almost comical way. It was as if every stone had some kind of gravitational field, pulling me harder as I went near them, which caused havoc when I walked in between them. But I could feel one powerful grave, even though I couldn’t see which one it was, I could feel it. I peered into the darkness, trying to suss out which one it could be. My heart nearly stopped when I saw that tomb. Now that I wasn’t gripped by some odd power, I could actually study it. It was all of stone, with some parts chipped off. Beside and above the heavy oak door were swirling carvings, like the tributaries of a giant lake, the lake here being a stone carved crown above the door. It must have taken a long time to do. A hell of a long time. As I got closer, I could see that these all carried on down the side. Then I began to realise that the chances were that I would end up back inside the tomb, a place where I didn’t ever want to go near whether I was awake or asleep. But I didn’t feel asleep. That was not sleep. I gulped, or at least tried to, attempting not to think about where I was headed. I was so close, my heart pounding, eager to leap out of my body. I was near the door, I was going to open it! But then I walked past it. I would have frowned, walking around behind it And then I stopped, dead still but for my heart and lungs. I was in front of yet another gravestone, on that said nothing, having been worn down by weathering. This was the one that had been emitting that strange power, reeling me in. I still couldn’t move at will. I felt my arms lift upward and my head tilt towards the sky, which suddenly clouded over. My mouth opened.
“Arise!” I screamed, at shouting louder than I had ever shouted in my life, and there was a huge flash.
*
My head hurt really badly. I woke up and rubbed it. I ran my hand through my hair, and it completely spiked outwards, as if I’d been zapped while I slept.
“Grrr…” I mumbled, not looking forwards to combing it. I stood up and rubbed my eyes, stumbling into the bathroom. I splashed water on my face a few times to wake me up. I looked up at the mirror and did a double take. I knew that I had a bed head, but this one was extreme! It was all completely straight, in all directions. I had never even known I had so much hair. It looked like a dark brown mess. Strange, it was normally somewhat lighter, but it looked almost black. It reminded me of in cartoons like Tom and Jerry when Tom would get zapped and his hair would go out on end. But this didn’t happen in real life, did it? If there was enough electricity going through a human to cause whatever happened to me, I’d be dead. I frowned, thinking. Then I remembered the night before, and I gasped, reeling back. I had been dragged out of bed and into the night. At first I had thought it was a dream, but it wasn’t long before I realised that it wasn’t. I was taken to a grave, directly behind the tomb of Aage. I raised my arms, looked up and was hit by lightening! After that, all I remember is a hand in the ground, with flashing sparks dancing along the rotted flesh. I shuddered. Was it something to do with when I went missing? Should I tell somebody that I suspected that my grandparents had knocked me out for a couple of hours to do nothing but dress me up in the garments of a dead man? And that after that I went to cemetery at night and couldn’t control myself? They’ll think I’m a liar and an idiot who can’t tell the difference between sleeping and being awake. Greg and Ricky, then. But they will think that I was traumatised, which was a perfectly reasonable idea. What about that freaky hand? If that was still there, I could use it as proof that I had really been there and hit by lightening. But first things first, I needed to sort out my crazy hair do! I turned on the shower and got undressed, anticipation beginning to settle on my poor head.
*
I could feel Autumn coming on, but to be honest, I didn’t care much, because it meant I could go to school and see Clara again. I was so empowered by her, I wish the sensation would go away. I don’t have anything impressive about me. I wasn’t clever (To do homework for her), I wasn’t sporty (something she seems to love about boys is how well they can kick a ball) and I had next to no sense of humour. I sighed. I had bigger worries than Clara. Like kidnapping and being hit by lightening. I came around the corner and entered the cemetery, an involuntary shiver jostling my spine. I looked towards the tomb and was shocked to see a mob of people crowding around the space behind it. I couldn’t exactly prove anything to Greg and Ricky if they find the hand and rebury it! I started running, hoping for the best. As I got closer, I realised that people were shouting, not as in:
“Oh no, a dead guy has come out of the ground and his hand looks freaky,” But as in:
“This is outrageous, we should lock this place up at night!”
I reached the crowd and started jostling through, worming between angry adults and confused children. When I pushed through, I saw something that I could never have expected. There was no hand anymore. Instead, there was just a big hole and the top half of a broken coffin. There was nobody inside.
“I bet it was the organs they were after!” Somebody shouted.
“Don’t be stupid, they need to be fresh to be transplants, this one’s been here for years!” Another voice retorted.
“What about looters?” The first cried, obviously ruffled.
“Who steals a corpse?” A new voice yelled.
“Oh pack it in, I’m only trying to help!” He spat, scowling. I wasn’t sure he wanted to be stood next to an open grave with such a rowdy crowd pushing each other. I shoved his way out to think about my options, when somebody tapped me on the shoulder. It was a man of about six-foot who wore an old, blue pinstriped suit, gloves and a wide brimmed hat. His head was pointed down, the huge hat hiding his face. He even had a ridiculously large collar turned up.
“Yes?” I asked politely, trying to see under the hat.
“Are you Logan Carter?”
“Yes.”
“My name is Reynald, I believe we met last night.” He said, lifting his hat by a fraction, revealing a grey, peeling chin. It was the exact hue of the hand I had seen last night, and I realised that I was talking to a dead man!
“You had better come with me,” He said, putting a guiding hand on my back and gently pushing me away from the crowds. I considered shouting for help, but I had seen a good few horror movies, or at least enough to know that it was never smart to make a sudden move around a zombie.
Please feel free to critique with whatever you want to point out. The more reveiws the merrier(unless it means that It's awful, but I really don't mind)!
