“We’re almost there,” he says, low and deep, causing me to shiver. I nod in response, and he pulls back to give me a smile of encouragement. I focus on his words and his mouth. How he says his s’s. The way they come out different and thicker than anything else he says. I think about his eyes and how kind they are or how concerned he can be. What they looked like when he jumped from the cliff and came up out of the water, his head emerging and eyes seeking me out to grab me and hug me to him while he yelled in excitement.
I think about his promise and hope that after tonight he still feels the same way.
Cline slows the truck down to a crawl, and September turns from the front seat to look back at me, her gaze darting to my hand in Elliot’s for only the smallest of seconds before she speaks. “Do we park here? When I looked it up, all of the sites I saw said that if the people in the neighborhood catch you they’ll call the cops.”
I look around at our surroundings and point beyond a stop sign. “Park in that church lot. Seems like a good place to be if we’re going to be trespassing in a cemetery, right?”
Cline mumbles something, pulls in, and then puts the truck into park and waits. I look at the map I found and take a deep breath before letting go of Elliot’s hand and getting out. Illuminated by only a street light, the map is lightly drawn, and I have to squint to see which direction it’s pointing us to. With one flick of my wrist, I have the streets aligned and every nerve in my body is on high alert.
“It’s this way,” I say, turning to the group as they stand behind, waiting for instructions. “I’m ready whenever you are.”
The night is eerily quiet as we walk the length of the darkened streets of the neighborhood from one stop sign to the next. The sound of our footsteps is near deafening, and I almost want to tell everyone to tiptoe just in case anyone is out on their porch this late at night with a shotgun. I’m not a runner, but I will run from guns, ghosts, and zombies.
“Is it this fork … or this one?” Cline asks, holding up the map and shining his phone light on it. There are two splits off of the main neighborhood road, and the map doesn’t exactly differentiate between the two.
September speaks up, pointing her finger to the left. “I’m going to assume it’s the split with all the scary fog and no light coming from it and not the one where you can see houses and stuff.”
“Shit. She’s probably right.” Cline huffs and pulls her to his side. “I cannot believe none of us brought a gun. Or a knife. Or nunchucks.”
“What would you have done with nunchucks?” Elliot hisses at him in the darkness.
“ Hit them in the balls,” Cline loud-whispers back.
We are almost to the location now, and just as we near the end of the road, a chain link fence comes into view.
“Damn. There’s a fence. Guess we have to turn around and leave now—“ Cline begins to turn just as Elliot lifts his phone again, using it as a flashlight straight ahead. Like some sort of sick joke, there is a massive hole cut right in the middle of the links. Fog is still rolling out of it, and right as I step off of the asphalt onto the grass in front of the opening, the temperature drops a few degrees.
“Nope. Not worth it. This is some voodoo shit right here, Byrdie. Is that really a cemetery we’re supposed to cross?” Cline’s eyes are silver reflections of the moon as I step through into the cemetery.
“We have to cross a bridge, too,” I call over my shoulder.
“Fuck. No.” I can hear him saying it, but he’s right behind me, following and pulling September along with him. She’s whispering something to herself, and after a second, Elliot is directly by my side.
“What is she saying?” I ask him when he gets close enough.
“She’s reciting The Lord’s Prayer,” he answers back before he stumbles a bit and stops cold. “I’m sorry. That was a grave. I stepped on a grave. Fix it.” His eyes are huge.
I push the little cement piece back into place and do a curtsy. “Our apologies.”
“That’s not how this works!” Cline is freaking out behind us, and suddenly I feel his hand on my shoulder, pushing me forward as he pulls September along, and Elliot is running alongside all of us. There’s a sound in the trees to our right, and he quickens his pace before moving his girl next to me and shoving us both in front. With one final nudge, we’re in the trees, and Cline is fumbling for a flashlight on Anderson’s keychain.
“We have got to come prepared next time,” he says through gasps of breath. The light from the tiny flashlight hits the small curved bridge that my mom had written about, and he mutters for us to keep moving, so we do. Within minutes, the trees suddenly grow sparse, and the night sky appears once more, the moon in full view above our heads.
There, right in front of us, surrounded by nothing but tall, thick grass, is the biggest tree I have ever seen in my entire life. At least, what’s left of it. The roots are enormous, exposed and expanding fifteen feet or more in each direction. It’s just as my mom had described it, though older and more worn. The top is gone, but still stands almost ten feet tall. The base looks like you could fit furniture inside of it and hang a television … make it a living room. At least the kind of living rooms we’re used to seeing at college.