Andrew Klavan - The long way home

It was easy to get inside the house. The heavy front door was locked, but there were plenty of other doors that were open. We found a big empty room-a parlor- on the second floor and set ourselves up in there. Then we took a look around so we could take some pictures.

The place was pretty spooky, I have to say. The rooms were mostly empty, but now and then you'd find an ancient sofa or a dresser or something-just standing there alone in a room as if it was waiting for someone to come in and use it. The windows were all broken so the wind came through, making the dust shift on the floors and the spiderwebs wave back and forth in the corners. There were these creepy noises, too, every once in a while: little footsteps. Mice in the walls. That's what we told ourselves anyway.

But it wasn't until the night came down that the real, serious creepiness set in. The house sort of settled around us then, making all sorts of little creaks and pops that sounded like somebody walking around. The mice went crazy, running here and there in the walls. Some even came out and we would jump when we saw them suddenly scampering past the doorway. The wind picked up. It played in the branches outside, making the trees whisper and groan as it went past.

But the spookiest thing of all was the graveyard.

In the upstairs parlor where we were, there were two big windows on one wall, the panes half-broken. When we went to stand in front of one of them and peered out through the jagged shards of glass, we had a full view of the McKenzie family cemetery in the back. It was a scary sight to see.

The night was clear, but there was only a sliver of a moon. At first, when we looked out, all we could see were the trees, their great spread of naked branches black against the starlit sky. The grass below them was in deeper darkness. But after only a moment or so, our eyes adjusted and the shapes of the graves came clear.

They were mostly headstones, about a dozen of them. But there were also a few obelisks here and there. Then, off to the right, there was a statue, just one statue, all alone. It was a statue of a woman with a sort of hood over her head, a cowl. You couldn't make out her face in the dark at this distance. But she was making a gesture with her hand, reaching out as if trying to stop someone from leaving.

"Look at that," said Rick quietly. "Weird, huh?"

I used my flashlight to try to pick out the statue's face. The light just barely reached her, but its faint ray brought her figure out of the darkness so that it seemed more real somehow, almost alive.

"Stop doing that," said Josh.

I turned the flashlight off quickly.

"She looks like someone she loved just died," I said. "She looks like she's sort of reaching out because she wants to stop him from leaving her and moving off into the land of death."

"Okay," said Josh. "Now that's the single most frightening thing anyone has ever said."

"Maybe we should stop standing here looking at her," Rick suggested.

"Yeah," I said.

"Yeah," said Josh.

We moved away from the window, back into the room.

We took a few more pictures to prove we'd been here and everything. Then I made some recordings, talking about what it was like to be in the house and how spooky it was. Then we passed the PSP around for a while until the batteries started to run low. Finally, the best idea seemed to be to get into our sleeping bags.

Lying in the bags, we went on talking for a while, but only for a while. We were all getting tired and the thing was, none of us wanted to be the last person left awake. That would've been too much like being alone. None of us wanted to be alone in this place.

Luckily, I was tired and I fell asleep pretty quickly.

Unluckily, it didn't last.

After about an hour, I suddenly found myself wide awake without knowing why. Had I heard a noise? I propped myself up on my elbow and listened. Nothing- well nothing, that is, except for the whispering wind in the trees and the creaking of the house and those quick little footsteps in the walls.

I used my flashlight to check my watch. It was about one fifteen in the morning. I quickly passed the flashlight beam over Rick and Josh. They were fast asleep, totally unconscious, their mouths wide open with soft snores coming out of them.

My heart sank. I felt totally alone.

All right, I told myself, don't get stupid. There are no ghosts here. That's just a superstition. That's the whole point of the project, right?

Right. I lay down again, pulled my sleeping bag up around me. I listened to the house creaking and the mice running and the trees whispering and a low groan that was almost lost in the wind…

I sat up quickly, my heart hammering hard.

A low groan? What in the world was that?

For a long moment I sat completely still, tense, listening as hard as I'd ever listened in my life. There was nothing. The creaking, the mice, the wind… There wasn't any groan. There couldn't have been any groan. I began to convince myself that it was just my imagination.

Then I heard it again. A deep, complaining moan. It was coming through the window. It was coming from outside. It was coming from the direction of the cemetery.

I stopped breathing. Long seconds passed. I told myself I was imagining things. I told myself to lie back down, to close my eyes, go to sleep, forget about it.

But there was no way. No way.

I worked myself out of the sleeping bag and stood up, my flashlight gripped tightly in my sweaty hand. I'd taken my sneakers off before getting in the bag. I slipped my feet back into them now, though I didn't go to the trouble of tying them. Picking my way with the flashlight, I moved carefully to the window.

The moon had gone down. I could just barely make out the shadowy fingers of the tree branches against the starlight, but below, in the cemetery, the darkness was almost complete. My eyes strained as I tried to pick out the stones and obelisks and the statue. I could trace their shapes only faintly in the deep shadow.

There were no more groans. Only the wind. The stirring of branches. The rattle of leaves.

I was about to turn away. But before I did, I raised the flashlight and shone its beam out into the night.

The dim ray picked out a headstone not far from the house. I shifted the flashlight to the side and another headstone became visible, then another. Finally, the light rested on the black base of the statue. I raised it slowly and the mourning woman in her cowl came into view.

I gazed down at her where she stood ghostly and pathetic and still.

And slowly, I became aware that there was another figure standing just behind her.

It was a vague outline beyond the reach of the light. The figure of a man standing motionless, his face upraised and turned toward me. It was a weird, empty face. It seemed to have no features. It seemed to gleam bizarrely in the darkness.

My heart sped up. I started to move the light to get a better view.

Suddenly, a hand grabbed my shoulder. I cried out and dropped the flashlight. Its beam rolled crazily this way and that around the room.

"What're you doing?"

It was Rick, standing behind me.

"Oh! Oh!" was all I could say. My heart was pounding so hard I thought it would explode.

"What?" muttered Josh from his sleeping bag-and both Rick and I jumped, startled by the sound of his voice.

"There's someone…" I managed to whisper finally. "Someone out there."

"Out where?" Rick whispered back.

"In the graveyard."

Rick had his flashlight too. He shone it out the window. "I don't see anyone."

"By the statue. Just behind it."

"There's no one there."

I looked. He was right. The figure was gone.

Josh had his sneakers on too now. He joined us at the window.

"What was he doing?" said Rick.