Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-34596229-20180502134951

The dare that Jason had agreed to seemed so simple and childish during the day. But come midnight, the same dare turned scary. Jason was to visit the neighbourhood cemetery at three am and spend at least fifteen minutes there. How were his friends going to believe that he did it? They asked him to shoot a video on his phone, and that would prove the time of his adventure. Jason could have manipulated the time on his phone and shot the video before midnight, but he wasn’t the brightest bulb in the box.

Jason reached the cemetery and was surprised to see there were cars parked at the entrance. The graveyard was gated, but wasn’t locked. He pushed the gate and it opened with a creak. As soon as he set his foot in the graveyard, his bravery was replaced with fear. It was spooky. Gravestones lined the eerie graveyard. Some recently placed, whereas others, cracked and crumbling. Mould covered the engravings dedicated to the dead, trees leaning towards the stones, branches reaching out to each other. Spiked, black fences surrounded the graveyard almost like it was a prison.

The smell of old stone filled the dry air, weeds covering the graves of the dead, loved ones long since stopped visiting. Gravel paths weaved through the maze of graves, allowing passer-bys to pay their respects to the people lined up in the earths embrace.

The thought of turning around and running home did cross Jason’s mind, but he didn’t want to chicken out. He would lose his respect in the gang. Mustering all the courage he was capable of, he took out his phone and started the camera in recording mode. His phone indicated the time was 3.04am, that meant he had to stay in this godforsaken place till 3.19am.

He thought of roaming around a bit to show his friends that he wasn’t scared. He even thought of narrating and making snide comments alongside the recording. But he knew his voice would shake, just like his hands were shaking, which he was going to attribute to the freezing weather. So, he just kept moving forward with his mobile held in front of him.

He must have walked some twenty steps when he began to relax a bit. His hands had stopped trembling and his nerves were calming down. Just then he heard a rustling noise, followed by a thump and crunching noise behind him. It sounded as if someone came out from behind the trees and stepped on dead leaves. Jason jumped at the sound, and lost his balance and fell. His cell phone hit the ground with a bang.

Jason didn’t try to get up, he just held his breath and didn’t move. Even in the freezing cold, he could feel the sweat drench his skin and the thumping of his heart against his chest. His fingers were curled into a fist, nails digging into his palm. Hesitantly, he turned to look, expecting the worst.

What he saw made him laugh out loud. Lying on the ground behind him was a broken branch. He felt like a fool to have thought that the dead had come for him, to drag him to their grave and eat him alive. He had been watching too many horror flicks lately. He got up, dusted the back of his trousers, picked up his broken cell phone. It had gone dead and wouldn’t start, so Jason decided to head home. There was no point hanging around there with no video to show for. His irrational fear had cost him his cell phone. If his friends were going to call him chicken, so be it. He had had enough for one night. He went the way he came in.

He reached the cemetery entrance, the gate was open since he hadn’t closed it after getting in. This time he did. It closed again with a creak. As soon as Jason had closed the gate and turned around, he felt a tug around his neck. Someone had gotten hold of his jacket hood and was pulling him. He tried to run, but that only made the grip around his neck tighter. Panicking, he clutched his throat and instinctively turned to look at his predator.

As he was turning to look behind him he saw what was staring at him from the parked car. It was the devil himself. He was featureless with hollow eyes, white as a sheet. His mouth was open in a scream, and he was grinning at Jason. All life ran out of him.

Alan Wiffen read in the newspaper the next day that a boy of fifteen years was found dead at the cemetery entrance. His jacket hood had got stuck on the sharp point on the metal lattice of the gate. But that is not what killed him, he died of a heart attack. Alan felt surprised that even fifteen-year olds die of heart attacks. He was hoping the scene was clear now, since he had his car parked just beside the cemetery entrance.

If only Alan Wiffen knew that it was the Scream Mask that he kept rested on his car window to spook people, had given Jason a heart attack. 