User blog comment:SOMEGUY123/300 Word Long Stories/@comment-4715955-20150224024851

The Shortcut

Stacy's parent's were renowned fundamentalists: they didn't want her missing church on Sunday, they had to screen every friend she wanted to hang out with after school, and they definitely didn't tolerate their daughter staying out late. Theater practice got out later than usual one evening, and Stacy panicked when she stepped outside and saw the sun setting. She'd lost track of the time! Her dinner was probably getting cold, and her parents getting more furious by the minute.

Faced with the choice between her parents' wrath and taking a shortcut through the city cemetery, Stacy chose the latter without hesitation. Everyone waved goodbye to each other as they dispersed, taking their own routes home in groups of two and three. Stacy asked those she was closes with to join her on her walk, but they refused to take the cemetery route. Stacy sighed and walked swiftly down the cemetery path alone.

Stacy wrapped her coat around her body as the winter air nibbled at her skin. It was only Six PM, but it was already dark as night in the cemetery: the gravestone shadows were long and black, and almost resembled human shapes, as if they were cast by invisible specters watching her as she passed. She was beginning to regret her decision, half-expecting hordes of dead hands to rise out of their graves and grab at her skirt. When she saw another girl on the path ahead of her -- roughly her own age, if not a bit younger -- she sighed with relief and ran to join her.

"Thank goodness I'm not alone," Stacy laughed as she walked beside the girl. "The cemetery freaks me out enough during the daytime!"

The girl laughed. "I know, right? I used to feel the same way when I was alive."