12 Sep The Cemetery Run

“Of course, I’ve heard of it, but it’s fake!  There is no such thing as the Cemetery Run.”  Jake kicked a stone down the dirt path running between the school and the small playground at the edge of his neighborhood.  It smashed through the dead leaves lining the path and landed in the ragged brush to one side of the trail.  

“It’s not fake!” Ayden insisted, running ahead a few steps to recover the rock and giving it a kick himself.  Ayden was older, but he was also shorter and smaller than his friend.  Much to his dissatisfaction, most people assumed he was a year younger. Jake found this funny, but he knew that it upset Ayden so he made sure to stick up for his friend if anyone even tried to make fun of his height.  That was just what friends did. 

He might have been older, but Ayden had been pushing the Cemetery Run all day long, the ‘map’ making a frequent appearance to show off the alleged validity of his claim, but Jake had been hearing about the familiar legend his entire life, and he was too old to believe in that kind of thing anymore.  

“I got the map from Kacey last year.”  Ayden pressed.  “Remember, he came back from trick or treating with two pillow cases full of candy!?  Two!  He even brought them into school and gave them out.”  

Jake winced.  Kacey had been a good friend, the third to their trio, but he was gone now and Jake didn’t know exactly how to deal with the pain that caused him.  It was easier to pretend he didn’t remember their lost friend, but Ayden seemed to enjoy bringing him up.  The memories made him happy the same way they made Jake ache inside.  That day after halloween had been their last day with their friend.  

Jake let out a short sigh.  “Kacey’s dad took him to the rich neighborhood up north.  That’s how he got all that candy.”  That was Jake’s going theory.  He’d never really believed Kacey when he’d said he found the Cemetery Run, though he’d pretended to for his friend’s sake.  It was fun to pretend that magic was real, but Jake knew you had to keep reality and imagination separate.  

“You know that’s not true!”  Ayden kicked the rock hard and it flew off into the woods on the left side of the trail.  They definitely weren’t finding that again.  Ayden’s voice softened, a hint of desperation coloring the next words he spoke.  “Come on, we should at least try the map.  For Kacey.”

“Kacey was just pulling our legs.  You don’t really believe in magic, do you?  Do you know what will happen if we follow that map?”  The taller boy only gave his friend a second to answer before going on. “We’ll lose the entire night of trick or treating walking around in the woods.  Is that what you want to do?  How does zero pillowcases sound?  That’s what we’ll end up with if we do this.”  

Ayden’s expression crashed and Jake immediately felt a rush of guilt. 

“I just . . . “  Ayden’s voice was sad, and his eyes were just a bit glassy.  “I miss him, Jake.  He was so excited about this map.  I wanted to do it so we could kind of go on one more adventure with him.  I don’t even care if we really get candy or not.  We can get candy next year.”  

Jake had to turn his head for a moment, refusing to look at his friend as he rubbed his eyes.  “That’s stupid.  This is all stupid.”  He said, but he also knew that he was going to agree to do this thing.  He grabbed the map from Ayden and looked at it closely for the first time. 

There were two cemeteries in town, one at each end.  The legend said that if you entered the cemetery at the north end of town and found the secret trail out of the back side and followed it all the way around to the south cemetery, then left that cemetery through the main exit on a halloween night, you’d enter a version of the town where all the houses lined a single street, and every house gave away full candybars.  It was stupid and impossible, but the kids in town had been telling stories about the Cemetery Run for as long as Jake could remember.  No one really believed any of it was true, except for maybe the younger children, but Kacey had come to them just before he’d died and told them that he’d found the path.  He’d even had a map.  

Jake and Ayden had pretended to believe him, and he’d certainly had the candy to ‘prove’ what he’d said was true.  Jake hadn’t really believed him though.  When Kacey had said he wouldn’t be trick-or-treating with them that year, Jake had assumed that the other boy’s dad was going to take him to one of those mall trick-or-treat runs, but when Kacey had come back with so much candy, Jake had revised his theory, believing his friend had gone to the rich neighborhood, Evergreen Terrace.  He certainly didn’t believe that Kacey had found a magical path through the cemetery that had brought him to a secret candy street.  

“If we come out of this with no candy, then you owe me two months of your allowance.”  Jake finally said with a sigh of exasperation.  To his surprise, Ayden jumped in excitement.

“Yes!  Three months even!  Promise!”  He held out his hand for Jake to shake.  

Realizing that he was not going to get any peace about this, and deciding that three months of Ayden’s larger allowance was a fair trade, Jake nodded and raised his hand to shake.  The two boys solidified their agreement, which left Ayden buzzing with excitement. Jake managed to find some happiness in his friend’s sense of adventure.  If nothing else, they would have an interesting story to tell to the other kids the following morning.  Maybe, in some way, Jake hoped it would help him deal with the knot in his chest that formed any time he thought about Kacey.  

The boys returned home to have supper with their families and made small talk about where they planned to go trick or treating for the night, not mentioning their true plans.  It was the second time they’d gone out on their own, so their parents weren’t too concerned. Finally, they gathered their things and headed out to meet at the graveyard.  They brought their bikes and parked them behind the large sign for the cemetery, hiding them in the bushes so they could recover them later.  Each of the boys had settled on a simple costume composed of dark clothes and cheap masks they’d purchased earlier in the week.  After all, the costume wasn’t the important part about the night.  Each of them also carried a backpack and two pillow cases.  One pillow case would go in the pack once it had been filled, and the other would have to be carried out.  This meant they’d have to walk the path – if it was even there – without the aid of their bikes.  They couldn’t ride bikes very well with a pillowcase full of candy hanging from one hand.  Well, they probably could, but it would be a hassle.  Besides, the stories always talked about walking the Cemetery Run, not riding a bike, so it seemed like the right thing to do.

“Where do we start?”  Jake asked in a whisper, looking nervously around.  He didn’t like getting in trouble, and he was pretty sure they were not supposed to be in the graveyard after dark.  There wasn’t a gate or anything to keep them out, but he was certain there should have been one.  

“We have to pass through a few of the grave sites before we get there.”  Ayden explained, setting out ahead of him.  “I checked it out earlier, so I know the way.  Come on.”  He led them up the path for a bit, and that rose over a hill before descending down into the valley that contained most of the graveyard.  The place was creepy at night, still and clothed in menace and the promise of a grim future that none of them could avoid.  It became increasingly creepy as Ayden led them off the main path and began bringing them to various gravestones.  

“Adelia R. Velary.”  He said as they walked through a stone arch that had been built over her grave site.  “She was the town’s founder.  Her husband received credit later on, but she actually was the first person to settle here, and Dad says her and her sister helped get this place started as more than just a single homestead.  They built a bunch of the original houses and buildings.”

“I didn’t know this came with a history lesson.”  Jake answered unenthusiastically.  

“It’s important to understand why the path works.  All of the places we have to go have to do with the founding of the town and with the people who were here before.”  Ayden explained, excited energy filling his voice.  “She is the most boring one, I promise.”  He led on as he spoke, and it wasn’t long before we’d reached another large grave site.  This one had a statue of a man in regal clothing rising over it.  

“This is Thomas S. Velary.  He got all the credit for founding the town, and later became Mayor after Adelia passed away under strange circumstances.  Almost everyone believed he killed her because she was so popular in town and they were going to make her the Mayor.  This was a big blow to Thomas’ honor as women just didn’t get put into positions of power back in the day. It was shortly after rumors of her being declared the town’s first Mayor started that she became ill.  No one saw her again until she died, and her family was so upset that they refused to let her be buried on the Velary plot, which is why he’s here, and she’s back there.  People eventually stopped talking about the two of them, and now you don’t hear much about Adelia anymore.”  Ayden finished his story, pointing back the way the two boys had just come.  

Jake couldn’t help but admit that was an interesting fact about his town that he hadn’t known.  Everything in town was named after Thomas Velary.  He’d only heard Adelia’s name once or twice in his life.  

“Now it gets really interesting.”  Ayden chirped excitedly, leading them on into the back of the cemetery where there were a great many unmarked graves.  He carefully counted them as they passed until they reached one that looked no different than any of the others.  “We need to step over this one.”  He explained, doing so as he turned to wait for his friend.  

Jake looked down at the little stone, gave a shrug, and then joined Ayden.  “What was so special about that one?”

“The Velary’s made this a town, but they weren’t the first people to live here.  There were a group of folks here already when the settlers came. The people living in the woods.  They had no ties to any of the natives as far as anyone knew, but they were wild and strange.  Some people claimed that they were people of the woods, like they were part of nature here.  Grandma said they were fairies.  I don’t know if I believe any of that.”

Ayden continued.  “Adelia was friends with them, but after she died, the people were gathered up and put in the hospital in town.  Back then it was an asylum.  The town’s people believed that these strange folks were witches, or that they were demon possessed.  Some, like Grandma, believed the whole fairy thing.  No matter what they were, they were magic, and this land rightfully belonged to them.  They were tortured to death and killed at the asylum, and then later their bodies were buried out here because there were enough of Adelia’s friends left alive to make sure they received at least that much.  This grave belonged to their elder, a woman just called Old Raven.”  Ayden finished his story, and then began to walk straight towards the back fence of the Cemetery.  

“I don’t know how Kacey figured any of this out.”  Jake sounded uncertain as he spoke, and indeed his confidence at the night was feeling somewhat shaken.  He hadn’t expected weird stories to go with their journey.  

“Probably the same way I did.”  Ayden said with a shrug.  “Some of it is written on the back of the map, and he would have talked to the older people in town, read books in the library, and I bet you anything he made his map based on one someone else had drawn.  I made another copy of it myself and left it in my room.  It just felt like the right thing to do.”

“Well, where are we going now?  I can see the fence from here, and there isn’t a path through it.”  Jake didn’t want to talk about leaving extra copies of the map around.  That felt like admitting that  maybe what they were doing was dangerous and someone would need the map to know what had happened to them. It felt like tempting fate, but that was probably just because it was dark and they were in a cemetery, and Jake was scared.

“Just wait.”  Ayden said, still striding towards the fence.  He stopped when he arrived, and Jake stopped next to him, about to open his mouth and mention that they’d just reached a dead end, but then he saw that they – in fact – had not reached the end.  There was a place where two panels of the fence didn’t meet, and behind that place was a dirt path that led out the south side of the cemetery, cutting straight through the woods there.  

Jake swallowed hard and Ayden jumped excitedly from foot to foot.  “We found it!”  The older boy announced with excitement.  

“It looks like we did.”  Jake replied unhappily.  This wasn’t just a coincidence. The map had brought them to a gap in the fence.  That made sense.  There had to be something here, or the map would be a complete waste of time, but this was no doubt a gap that they could have found during the day if they wanted, and not just on a Halloween night.  Jake found some comfort in telling himself this.

Ayden was already on his way through the gate, turning on his flashlight as he went, and Jake had to rush to catch up.  He’d brought a head lamp, and he clicked it on as he joined his friend on the hidden trail at the back of the graveyard.  The path that opened up before them was just wide enough for them to walk side by side.  It was a well beaten and packed route, though it was rutted and broken by tree roots in places, making it just dangerous enough that running down it seemed like a bad idea, especially in the diminished light.  The trees on either side of the path hung overhead, blocking out the view of the sky as though they were ashamed of the strip of dirt that ran beneath their boughs.  It made it feel like the boys were walking through a tunnel.

Jake was surprised more people didn’t talk about this path.  A straight walking path down the east side of the town was convenient, even if it did run parallel to the road.  Someone had to be using it because the ground was rough, but free of weeds and brush.  

“I wonder where it goes.”  Jake mused, which earned him a glare from Ayden.

“We know where it goes.  It goes to the other graveyard.”  Ayden seemed confident in this, but the angle of the path just didn’t seem to allow for that.

Looking back, Jake could see straight down the way they’d come, though he was losing sight of the graveyard they’d just departed as it grew too far away to see in the darkness beneath the trees, even with their flashlights turned on.  The light seemed to have difficulty penetrating this pervasive void, like the dark was hungrily chewing away at the cones of light projected from the flashlight and headlamp.  Jake shivered a bit, and picked up the pace he was walking.  

“This place is creepy.”  Ayden commented, which Jake took some small comfort in, since that meant he wasn’t the only one who was afraid.  

Something stirred in the brush off to one side and both the boys pulled up short, freezing in their tracks as their lights shot in that direction.  The brush was still gently moving, but there was nothing for them to see.  Jake found himself suddenly overcome with the feeling of being watched.  

“Maybe we should go a little faster.”  He said, and then quickly added.  “You know, so we have time to go trick-or-treating when we get to the other side.”  He didn’t want to seem like he was as scared as he was.  In that moment, he couldn’t remember having ever been more afraid.  The fear was backed by the feeling of being a fool.  In the morning the memory of all of this would just embarrass him.  

Ayden was nodding his agreement.  “Yeah, we don’t want to not have time to get candy once we get there.”  He began to jog, and as Jake joined him, the jog soon became a run, dangerous path be damned. Before they knew it, both boys were barrelling down the Cemetery Run as fast as their legs would take them.  

Eventually they reached a hill in the path, a great round gnoll that seemed perfectly circular, and the trees actually opened up above it so that most of its circle was wide open to the moonlight.  It was clear and bright there, and the stars seemed like sharp pin pricks of eternal light peeking through a black shroud. It should have been a welcome change to the deep void they’d crossed before, and yet it was a cold, unnatural light, one that clung to the skin like a funeral shroud. 

The path went around the gnoll in both directions, but the boys were still running and they charged over the top and almost tumbled down the far side before reconnecting with the path that kept going straight back into the woods.  For some reason, even though it was better lit, neither of the boys had any desire to stop atop the hill.  It felt wrong there.  Jake was almost relieved to be back on the trail again.  On multiple occasions he thought he saw someone or something staring at him from the sides of the path, tall dark things with bright shining eyes that were watching the boys charge their way towards whatever might lie ahead of them.  By the end of the run, Jake had convinced himself that there was something chasing them through the dark.  He looked back multiple times, and each time he thought he saw it loping after them just at the edge of the light from his head lamp.  He was so focused on this terrifying pursuit that he didn’t even see the metal fence coming at him until he ran into it at full speed, knocking himself down as Ayden came up behind him.  

There was a latched gate in front of them, and beyond that a graveyard. Ayden began to fumble with the latch as Jake scrambled back to his feet, but the shorter boy’s fingers seemed dumb, like they didn’t want to communicate with his brain.  

“Hurry up, it’s right behind us!”  Jake found himself shrieking, his voice higher than normal.  He could hear the strange “thump-thump-thumpthump-thump” of the unknown thing coming down the path after them.  The pattern of its feet were all wrong, and he didn’t dare to look back and see why. He just had to wait for Ayden to press the latch button down and pull the trigger on the handle, but it felt like it was never going to happen.  Jake closed his eyes, not wanting to know what was going to catch them from behind.    

The latch popped with a click and the two boys broke through and slammed it in their wake, backing away from the gate as though the small iron fence might do anything at all to protect them, but when they looked back down the way they’d come, there was nothing chasing them.  In fact, there was no path at all, just a small clearing at the back of the cemetery.  This had Jake thinking again.  Had the path ever turned while they were on it?  How had they ended up at the other cemetery, and shouldn’t it have taken longer?  His pulse was racing in his ears, and he felt shaky.  

“I wish we hadn’t done this.”  Jake said, and his voice was as unsteady as the rest of him felt.  

“This is for Kacey.”  Ayden said, but he didn’t sound as certain as he’d been before either.  “Come on, the monster . . . it wasn’t real, right?  That was just our imaginations.”

“Did you see the people in the woods?”  He didn’t want to ask, but Jake wanted to know if he was losing his mind.  

Ayden shook his head ‘no’ far too quickly.  “No, there wasn’t anything in the woods.  We just scared ourselves, like when we used to read those scary story books late at night when we had sleepovers.  It was all just our imaginations.”

Before Jake could protest any further, Ayden jumped in again.  “We’re here now.  We might as well keep going.  I can’t see the way back through the woods, and I don’t really want to go back that way anyway.”

Jake opened his mouth to object, but then realized that there was nothing to object to.  They weren’t going back, even if they could find the opening.  Jake was never going down that path again.  Not for anything.  That only left them with one way, and that way was the way that Cemetery Run wanted them to go.  “Yeah, fine, let’s get this over with.  I just want to go home.”  

The walk through the second cemetery was so unremarkable that Jake let himself imagine that everything was back to normal.  Perhaps, he thought, he’d just not noticed the turn in the path that took them around the town, and their running had moved them more quickly down its length than he’d realized.  If he accepted that, then the world was still a place where monsters weren’t real, and neither were magic paths through the forest.  

The problem with this theory, however, was that it fell apart as soon as they left the cemetery and found themselves on a long, straight street that seemed to go directly through the center of town, but one that couldn’t exist.  They should have come out a few blocks away from Main Street, but instead they exited onto a road that identified itself as “First Street,” which should have been the road in front of the school.  This one, however, was long and straight, and both sides of the road were lined with houses.  The houses looked kind of familiar.  They were the right types of homes for their town, but anytime Jake thought he was seeing someplace he recognized, it felt like there was always something that made the house wrong.  One house looked like Sarah’s, from school, but it was painted the wrong color, and had a detached garage.  Another had an extra floor that it shouldn’t have had, and there were two houses that shouldn’t have been anywhere near one another.    

In the front lawn of the nearest house were two wooden, hand-painted signs.  The first of them read; “All of our gifts and goodies are yours, take what you’d like from our porch lit doors.”  The second followed, reading; “No tricks, no lying, no sticks or stones, our sweets are yours for sinew and bones.”

“This has to be it.”  Ayden said, his voice nervous and excited.  If he’d seen the sign, he didn’t seem as weirded out about it as Jake felt.  

“I don’t know about this.  There aren’t any other kids here, and that sign . . . ”  Jake trailed off quietly.  The place was so very still.  No cars moved, and no one left their houses.  There were no other trick-or-treaters anywhere.  It felt eerie. The younger boy was still worrying over this when he noticed that Ayden had moved on without him and was approaching the first house, the one that looked like Sarah’s and had the sign in the yard.  He walked right up to the door and knocked.  Jake jumped forward, joining his friend on the stoop even as he contemplated suggesting they both start running away.  Whatever was happening, he didn’t want to be alone.  He grabbed Ayden’s arm to pull him back, but then the door opened and someone stepped up to the entryway with a bowl of candy and Jake froze in place.  

The bowl was huge, and every single treat in it was a full-sized bar.  

“Trick-or-treat!”  Ayden announced.  

“…or-treat.” Jake joined in a bit late, stunned as he was by what he was seeing.  This definitely wasn’t what he’d been expecting.  

Ayden reached out and took a candy first, but Jake followed quickly, both of them choosing a full size bar from the bowl before saying ‘thank you.’  The man said nothing, just pulled the door shut and then the light on his porch went out.  He still had a full bowl of candy, but he’d turned out his light as though he was done for the night.  

“Come on, let’s go to the next house!”  Ayden was off in a second, delight on his face.  

Jake took a moment to look over at the sign again.  It was a strange choice of Halloween decoration, but Ayden didn’t seem worried.  Maybe, Jake thought, he was just letting his nerves get the better of him.  This whole situation was magical and strange.  He might as well embrace it, especially if that was what Ayden was going to do.

His course set, he ran to catch up with his friend, and soon enough they were bouncing from house to house all along the street.  Every house met them the same way.  Someone would come to the door with a large bowl of candy, they would take what they wanted, and then the door would be shut and the porch light would turn off.  Jake was into a rhythm with the process when Ayden stopped them.  

They were on their second bags already, their backpacks bulging with their first loaded pillowcases.  “You know, I was thinking maybe we should just go now.”  Ayden’s words surprised Jake.  He’d been the one to get them really going on this.  The sudden change in mood earned some immediate ire from his younger friend.  

“You were the one who charged into this whole thing, and now you just want to stop?  We’re not even halfway through our second bags yet.”  Jake countered, shaking his partially empty bag for emphasis.  

“I know.” Ayden said softly.  “But…”  Jake could tell his friend wanted to say something, but there was a hesitance about him that he couldn’t really remember Ayden ever having shown before.  Ayden always knew what he wanted, and he was very clear about it.  This gave Jake pause.  

“What’s wrong?”  He asked, allowing much of his earlier anger to drift away.  “Did something happen?”

For a moment it seemed like Ayden wasn’t going to respond, but finally, after looking back at the last house they’d been to as though it might be listening to them, Ayden gave in.  “I saw Kacey at the last house.”

A chill went up Jake’s back and he involuntarily took a step back from Ayden as though the older boy had just slapped him across the face.  “What do you mean you saw Kacey?”  He finally managed to ask.  

Ayden had turned firmly back in the direction of the last house now.  “He was in the living room, behind the woman who came to the door.  He was sitting on the couch watching tv or something.  I didn’t think it was really him when I first looked, but I couldn’t take my eyes off of him.  I know Kacey.  I’d never forget him, and that was him in there.” 

“That’s impossible, Ayd.  He got lost in the woods and . . . you know.”  They didn’t talk about it.  The  parents had all told their children that Kacey died of ‘exposure’ from being out when it was too cold, but enough kids had heard the truth being whispered by their parents to put it all together for themselves.  Kacey had been attacked by an animal, a cougar.  There’d been a big hunt afterwards and they’d killed the animal that allegedly did it, but the kids weren’t supposed to know about it.  

“I’m not making it up, Jake.  I saw him. I swear on my life.”  Ayden’s voice was particularly passionate, but Jake just couldn’t accept it.  It was too impossible.  

“Alright, but I want to see him.  I’m going to . . . “  Jake couldn’t believe he was about to say this, but the words came unbidden.  “I’m going to go back and look real quick.  I’ll peek in through the window.  We can go home after that if you want.”

Ayden looked nervous, like he was on the edge of running off on his own.  “I don’t know if we should do that.  I feel like . . . maybe this place is bad.  Really bad. We should just get out while we can.”

“I have to go look.”  Jake insisted. “You can wait here.  I won’t be long.”  Before his friend could try to stop him again, Jake started walking back towards the last house they’d visited.  With the lights out, it seemed easy enough to sneak up to the property without drawing attention, but Jake still couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being watched.  It had felt like that ever since they’d come here.  Things were too quiet.  Still, he was committed now.  He crossed the small front yard and went to the window that would be looking into the living room of the house.  Inside the house, the lights were mostly off, making it almost darker in there than it was outside.  Fortunately there was a single light on in the kitchen, which was just beyond the living room area and this allowed Jake to look inside.  

The room through the living room was dark and empty.  Nothing was moving.  Jake frowned and was about to leave the window and try another when he noticed that there was a shape on the couch to one side of the room.  He hadn’t noticed it at first because it wasn’t moving at all, but soon enough he could make out the silhouette of someone sitting on the chair in the dark room, apparently staring at the TV, though the TV wasn’t turned on.  Jake squinted into the dark, waiting for his eyes to adjust more.  

Kacey’s features drifted into view slowly as Jake’s eyes adapted.  He wasn’t certain at first, but after a few more moments of really staring, he was positive he was looking at his friend.  Kacey, though, wasn’t staring at anything.  His eyes were wide and dark, and he was just sitting in the empty room.  This was too impossible.  There was just no way this could be happening.  That meant all the adults in town were lying for some reason.  Kacey couldn’t be dead.  

On impulse Jake raised his hand and knocked on the window, unsure what he really expected from this action.  What he didn’t expect was for Kacey’s neck to snap around like it was on some kind of hair-pin trigger.  The two dark pits of his eyes had something in them that reflected silvery light out as they came into line with Jake’s gaze.  Jake’s heart leapt in his chest and he almost let out a scream, and then the boy inside the window smiled.  The expression started off small, but it got bigger and bigger and it seemed to be tugging at his face in an impossible way, drawing his skin so tight that it just seemed like it had to rip.  

Before he knew what he was doing, Jake was sprinting away from the house.  He didn’t even stop when he reached Ayden, and that seemed fine because Ayden picked up with him and then both boys were running down the street as fast as they could manage.  

“What did you see?”  Ayden managed to get out between panting breaths.  “Was it him?”  

“It looked like him, but I don’t think it was him.  I think it was something else.  Something bad.”  Jake got the words out over his own heavy breathing.  The road they were on seemed to go on forever, but neither of the boys was willing to stop running.  They kept on pumping their legs as hard as they could for as long as they could.  There was a strange moment of disorientation, like a dream in which you fall and are startled awake, and then they were suddenly on grass, running for the exit of the northern graveyard instead of charging down the road.   The town was there.  The proper town.  The houses looked right, and there were side streets.  It might all have been some kind of dream, but they still had their bags of candy.  

Ayden and Jake stood panting at the side of the road.

“We got our candy and made it back.”  Ayden said, though he didn’t sound happy about the fact.  

“Yeah, that adventure is over.”  Jake added.  “Let’s just go home and be done with this.  I . . . don’t think we should tell anyone else.”

“But, look at all of the candy . . . “  Ayden started, but then he seemed to think twice about it and he nodded his head. “Yeah, you’re right.  We won’t tell anyone else about this.  Let’s just get home and get some rest.  I’m exhausted.”

“Same.”  Jake agreed, and with that they returned home for the night, though both boys couldn’t stop themselves from constantly checking over their shoulders.    

That night Jake kept dreaming that Kacey was sitting outside his window, whispering through the glass for Jake to let him inside.  

“Jakey.  Jake.  Hey, Jake.  It’s your buddy, Kacey.  Let me in.  You got your candy, now they want their bone and sinew, Jakey.  Come on, let me in.  It won’t hurt for long.”  Kacey’s voice was empty and scratchy, like he’d been hollowed out and the sound was rising up from a dry and tattered throat.  

Four times Jake woke from the nightmare, and each time he forced himself to check his window, just to see that no one was outside.  Of course no one was outside his window.  He was on the second floor, and it was a straight drop down to the ground below.  

By the time the sun was finally up, Jake was more than relieved to be waking up to go to school.  Normally it was one of his least favorite places to go, but the nightmares had been enough to make him welcome the idea of being surrounded by other kids.  Besides, he wanted to talk to Ayden and see if he’d had the same kind of night.  As Jake put on his shoes he looked at his bags of candy.  He hadn’t even touched them yet, and honestly he didn’t want to.  The thought of eating that candy made his stomach turn.  He wished he’d just left it on that cursed street and not brought it with him at all.  

“You got your candy, now they want their bone and sinew, Jakey.”  The words were still haunting him, echoing through the back of his head in dead-Kacey’s sepulcher voice.  

Jake rushed out of his house and headed for Ayden’s, but to his surprise, Ayden’s parents said that he was already on his way to school.  He’d left even earlier than Jake had.  Jake cursed to himself as the door to his friend’s house shut and he turned and started off towards school on his own.  Clearly something was wrong with Ayden too.  He was never up early.  

Jake found Ayden in the lunchroom, talking to a handful of their mutual friends.  Everyone was gathered around him and Jake could tell that Ayden was telling them about what had happened last night.  It was the same kind of excitement that Kacey had gotten the year before.  

“You’re full of shit!”  A kid named David was saying.  “The Cemetery Run is a story for little kids.”

“It’s real!” Ayden insisted.  “Jake and I were there last night.  We got so much candy, and we could have gotten even more if we’d brought more bags.”  

David spotted Jake and waved him over.  “Well, is it true?”  He asked. 

Jake wasn’t sure what to say exactly.  He and Ayden had agreed not to tell anyone about it, and yet here Ayden was telling everyone, but Ayden was also his best friend, and he didn’t want to just leave him out to dry.  “Yeah, it’s true.”  

David scoffed anyway.  “No way.  Did you bring the candy to prove it?”  He asked, and as I was shaking my head no, Ayden was opening his backpack.  He dumped full sized candy bars out onto the table and all the kids gathered around.  

“Holy shit!  Can I get some?”  One of the kids asked, and Ayden just nodded.  Soon enough kids were taking candy and copies of the printed out map that Ayden had made.  Jake stayed silent until everyone besides he and Ayden had left.  

“What are you doing!?”  Jake snapped at his friend quietly so as not to create a scene. “We said we weren’t going to tell anyone.”  His anger was tempered by the fear left in him from his nightmare, and the sense that everything was going wrong.  

“Yeah, I know, and I’m sorry, but I had this dream last night, Jake.  Kacey was in it.  He came into my room, and he told me that if I didn’t give kids copies of the map, that he was going to let the things from the forest into my room, and they were going to take my bones.”  Ayden’s hands were shaking.  Jake believed him.  It sounded far too much like his own dream.  The things from the Cemetery Run wanted more children.  Jake realized he would have done the exact same thing that Ayden had done if he’d had that kind of dream.  “I don’t think it was really Kacey.  It was something else, something wearing Kacey.” 

“I know.”  Ayden said, voice shaky.  “What do we do now?”

Jake only had one answer to give.  “I don’t know.” 

The day seemed to go by in a blur.  Before Jake knew what was happening, the light was already starting to fade from the day and supper was over.  He wanted to ask to go over to Ayden’s house, but it was a weekday and there was no way he was going to be allowed to sleep over on a Thursday night.  The dark crept in, and Jake did everything he could to secure his room.  He locked his window, drew the curtains closed and hung silver spoons from the curtain rods.  He’d heard silver was bad for monsters in general.  After that he tied wire around the latch to make it extra difficult to open.  The window taken care of, he locked his bedroom door, and set his desk chair against the handle, and then he was as secure in his room as he could make himself.  

He curled himself up on his bed and waited.  He was exhausted but the last thing he wanted to do was sleep and let something get into his room and get him.  He’d stay up as long as he had to until he figured out this situation.  

The hours ticked by, and Jake kept himself upright in his bed, his eyes struggling to stay open as the night passed.  He watched the time.  It felt like his clock was moving in slow motion now that the night was here.  All day time had spun by so fast it felt like he couldn’t keep track of it, but now it crawled painfully slow.  Jake watched as 11:59 rolled over to 12:00am.  It was midnight.  

That was when the clock started to blink.  12:00 am.  The numbers popped in and out as though the power had gone out, but all of the other lights in the room were still on.  Jake sat up straighter in bed, his fingers tightening on the baseball bat he’d brought into bed with him.  

“Who’s there?”  He asked, expecting nothing from the empty room.  

“You locked your window, Jakey.”  The hollow version of Kacey’s voice rose up in the room, seemingly coming from everywhere at once.  “Who are you trying to keep out?”

“You.”  Jake answered, standing up on his bed, bat in hand.  “I’m keeping you out.”

Laughter sounded in the room, and it came from everywhere, as though the room was full of other presences.  “You can’t lock a door on guests, Jakey, and you’ve already invited us in.  You took our trade.  Fair is fair.”

“Please leave me alone!”  Jake whimpered into the night.  

Something moved beneath the bed.  “Oh no, we can’t do that.  We need your bones and sinew, but don’t worry.  It won’t hurt for long.  It will hurt forever.”