Paranormal Anthology With a TWIST (14 page)

“I don’t understand what you’re saying,” Jill cried in
frustration. “Don’t you get it? I don’t know what you’re saying!”

The little girl pointed toward Whitney and the gate.

Jill followed the girl’s gesture and saw Whitney paused by the
closed doorway.

Goodbye
, Whitney said
softly, her words carrying through the graveyard.

As Jill watched, a second ghostly figure phased through the
wrought-iron fence. The translucent figure of Jake stepped to Whitney, pulling
her in close. Whitney laid her head on Jake’s chest and cried heavily. Jake
held her for a long moment before they turned and walked through the closed
gate together.

“I… I don’t understand,” Jill said quietly.

The little girl reached toward her. When her spectral hand touched
Jill’s skin, her flesh exploded with a deep-freezing cold.

Remember
, the little girl
whispered, her words suddenly audible as she spoke.

Chapter Three

Jake and Jill walked toward the jeep, trailing behind Whitney and
her boyfriend. As Brent reached the door, he tripped on his own feet and nearly
fell to the concrete, catching himself at the last minute on the jeep’s door
handle. Whitney and Brent exploded with laughter as they climbed into the front
two seats of the car.

Jake slipped his hand in Jill’s and felt her sweaty palms. “You
don’t have to do this, you know?”

“Yes, I do,” she replied. “I’m going to make sure that asshole
loses.”

The pair climbed into the back of the open-topped jeep as Brent
started the engine and pulled out of the parking lot.

Brent and Whitney lost themselves in mindless conversation,
leaving the rear of the jeep in a dreadful silence. Despite her bravado, Jill
was petrified of spending the night in Creepy Cemetery. She didn’t put stock
into the rumors of the cemetery being haunted, but the ambiance of the
graveyard was enough to put her ill at ease.

Jill associated the graveyard with a morose sense of sadness;
knowing that those buried within had been forgotten not just by the city, which
refused upkeep on the cemetery, but even by the families of those who had
passed. In all her months of driving by, she had never seen a single wreath or
flower set in honor of those within.

“You’re drifting,” Jake said suddenly, drawing Jill from her
morbid introspection.

She looked up to see Brent turn the jeep back into their lane.

“Thanks,” Brent called back over his shoulder before returning to his
conversation.

“Are you sure you’re okay to drive?” Jill asked, realizing that
was a question better posed at the beginning of their trip.

“It’s only a couple blocks and we’re already halfway there,” Brent
replied. “I’m fine.”

“He’s fine,” Whitney echoed.

Jill looked over to Jake and met his soft gaze. She drew
confidence from his chocolate eyes and the gentle upturn at the corners of his
mouth.

“Don’t worry,” Jake said. “If you get too freaked out, you have
your cell phone. Call me and I’ll come pick you up.”

He leaned in closer, whispering so that only Jill could hear. “If
we’re really careful, we could even drop you back off before sunrise and just
lie to these two idiots.”

Jill smiled and laughed softly to herself. As much as she had
always loathed the idea of dating a fraternity guy, Jake had a maturity that
broke through her preconceived notions.

She leaned in and kissed him firmly on the lips. He leaned into
her embrace and, for a moment, they lost themselves in one another. As they
separated, Jake’s smile grew wider.

“What was that for?”

“For being such an amazing boy…,” Jill began. A splash of
headlights broke her train of thought. She looked up and stared into the
approaching headlights of a truck.

“Look out!” she screamed.

Brent’s head snapped up from where it had been drooping. Seeing
the headlights, he jerked the steering wheel to the side but grossly
overcorrected. The jeep swerved back through their lane and onto the sidewalk
in front of the cemetery.

Jake’s hand fell protectively across Jill’s chest a second before
the jeep struck a lamppost. Colliding at nearly fifty miles an hour, the jeep
spun. Momentum carried the jeep over on its side, where it rolled across the
grassy embankment.

Jill felt herself lift from the seat as she was thrown through the
open roof of the jeep. She struck the concrete first against her shoulder,
which gave way with a sickening crack. Her head followed suit, striking the
hard ground.

Her world exploded into a rainbow of colors. She could hear the
snapping of bones as she rolled limply away from the wreck—but her mind
no longer associated the ruin with her own body.

She bounced across the ground before coming to rest against a
rusted iron fence. Her right arm was twisted awkwardly behind her and a red
haze covered half of her vision. Each breath through her broken ribs felt like
a hot knife being pulled across her chest.

The world floated in her vision. In the great distance, she could
hear a blaring horn. The headlights flickered across the gap like sunlight
filtering through the ocean, dissipating as it grew closer to where Jill rested
against the cemetery fence.

Voices carried like whispers across the chasm of reality. Jill
tried to call out to them but she felt her lung collapse from the exertion.
Each breath became even more labored and her body more oxygen starved.

Flashing lights joined the distant headlights, spilling over Jill.
The noises rose in a crescendo of unintelligible sound.

Ghostly figures approached her, silhouetted by the filtered
headlights. As they reached out to her, Jill let out a silent sob and her world
grew dark.

Anthony lives in Cronulla, a quiet beachside suburb of Sydney. His
first published work of fiction;
I SPIDER
is available on Amazon.com. Any resemblance to characters depicted in this
short story, living or living dead is purely coincidental.

Blog:
www.ispiderbook.wordpress.com

I Spider:
www.amzn.com/B0088FAR9I

Every house in the perfectly manicured street is the same. They
differ only in the pastel shades of the paintwork on their perfect,
weatherboard facades. It is a beautiful summer’s day in the heart of suburbia
as Ted Jones walks out his front door, dressed in a suit and carrying his
briefcase. Ted is a zombie. He walks with a typical zombie gait. Ted walks to
the front yard and picks up the newspaper. He sees his neighbor Dave Thompson
over the top of his neatly trimmed hedge. Dave is also a zombie.

“Mornin’ Ted.”

“Mornin’ Dave.”

“What about those Yankees then?”

“Can’t pick it.”

As Dave says this, he picks at a nasty sore on his cheek. Ted
gives Dave a wave and they both hop into their respective cars and back out of
their driveways at the same time as all of the other cars on the street do.

The front door of the Jones household opens again and Katie Jones
comes out, pushing a pram with a one-year-old baby zombie in it. Beside her is
her five-year-old daughter Shelley. Both Katie and Shelley are zombies.

“My front teeth are loose, Mum,” Shelley lisps as she wobbles the
entire top row of her unsightly teeth.

“Somebody might be getting a visit from the tooth fairy tonight,”
Katie replies.

All of the other zombie mothers walk out onto the sidewalk and
form a convoy up the street. Each woman has a pram containing a one year old,
with a five year old walking beside it. They all smile and wave at each other.

Jill Thompson’s five-year-old son has removed his nose and is
looking at it as he walks along beside her.

“Ohhh… That’s disgusting, Jamie—stop picking your nose.
You’re too old to be doing that,” Jill admonishes as she looks around to make
sure none of the other women have noticed.

In the school playground, all of the women gather around and chat
as the young zombies begin lurching and limping about, playing games. Several
of the boys are crowded around a circle drawn in chalk on the playground. They
are playing marbles.

“That’s not fair.”

“That’s cheating.”

The boys are upset because a child’s thumb has fallen off,
flicking into the center of the circle and knocking a marble out.

“Young Nathan had his swimming carnival last Tuesday. You should
have seen the condition of the water in the pool. It was disgusting,” Daphne
states.

“Soup?” Katie asks.

“More like porridge.” She laughs at her own joke.

“I hate those public pools—they’re dreadful. They must be a
health risk,” Jill says.

Two children run by passing a head to each other as though it is a
football.

“Oh, did I tell you that Ted and I went to that new restaurant
called
MORT
last night?” Katie asks.
“Very posh—they even had chicken on the menu.”

At the word
chicken,
all
of the women collectively scrunch up their faces and say, “Eeeeeewwwww.”

“That’s disgusting. Who would eat that?” Daphne responds.

“My mom used to eat crumbed chicken,” Jill remarks.

“Eeeeeewwwww.”

“It’s just not natural,” Daphne exclaims.

“I’ll just stick to crumbed brains, thank you very much,” Jill
replies.

At that moment, the school bell rings and all of the children
stagger off to line up in front of their respective classrooms. As the women
leave the school in single file to return to their homes, they are unaware that
a young, well-groomed man is following them at a distance.

It is a beautiful afternoon when all of the cars in the street
return and drive into their driveways at the same time. Ted Jones hops out of
his car and waves over the hedge to his neighbor, Dave Thompson.

“Dave.”

“Tom.”

At that moment, a well-dressed young man on a pushbike rides past
with a bible under his arm. He is not a zombie—he is a Mormon. The Mormon
turns around and gives Ted a menacing look but Ted does not notice him.