She

"I'm not afraid of the cemetery. It's the only place she doesn't follow me." Kyle is plagued by a ghost. She wants revenge, but what for?

The lights flicker. I pull my pillow over my head and jam my ear buds more securely into my ears so I don't hear the screams.

Every night at eight screams echo through my apartment. No one else hears them but me. They follow me everywhere except the cemetery.

I'm not afraid of the cemetery. It's the only place she doesn't follow me.

It is her screams. Nonna warned me of them, saying the screams had plagued her as well. "But somehow I made her go away. I had just had enough and told her so."

"What did you say, Nonna?"

"I said, 'Enough, Dana."'

The next day Nonna was found dead at the bottom of Skull Chasm, her neck broken. Nonna is buried at the local cemetery.

OK, I've had enough.

"ENOUGH DANA!"

It's the first time I've said that. The screams end abruptly. I slowly roll down the covers of my bed. A blood red eye is hovering above me. I scream myself as a clawed hand swoops towards my mouth, but freezes as Taja opens the door.

Taja is the only one who knows about the screaming. Instinctively she is clutching the gold cross hung on a chain. There is a single scream that echoes, but the hand is gone.

I sit up, breathing hard. Taja comes into my room and sits on the edge of my bed. She is wearing a pink dressing gown with a grey nightie underneath.

"Kyle..?"

"I said it." I still can't believe it. Taja frowns slightly.

"Wha-"

"I said enough Dana." Taja's face is blank, then horrified.

"Come with me," she says.

"Taja...Taja!" I exclaim as another black tree branch hits me in the face. I had just enough time to pull on a grey sweater over my blue-and-white PJs, and maroon slippers. Taja is still in her dressing gown.

"Where are we going?"

"To the cemetery," she replies, not taking her eyes off the dark trail in front of us. Her hand holding the torch is shaking.

We reach the cemetery. Taja's hand is shaking more.

Hill's cemetery is set on Suicide Cliff. Taja leads me to the edge and points with the torch.

"Look." I read the engraved writing: Dana Edwards, 1829-1845. Hill's founder's daughter. Gratefully killed in a shooting by Joseph Williams. I gasp.

"Joseph was my great-great-grandfather! And why does that say 'gratefully'?"

Taja is facing away from me, hands on her shoulders. She had given me the torch to read the headstone.

"Because everyone hated her." Taja chokes. She sounds like she is crying and when I turn her towards me I see tears gathered at her chin.

"She played with fire and was friends with the devil!" She says. "SHE WAS JUST A LITTLE GIRL!" She screams. "And then he had to go and kill her. Cut my life short, he did."

"Taja..." She looks up at me. "Did you just say...my, life?"

"Yes," she says, but she sounds different. Younger. "Killed me when I was fifteen." I stagger back.

"You're-You're..."

"Yes, Kyle, I am Dana. Now, run." I sprint. I drop the torch and blindly make my way towards where I think the entrance is. But she appears in front of me. Instead of Taja's thin face, tanned skin and thick black hair, standing in front of me is not a thirty-year-old, but a fifteen year old with blue eyes, a round face and brown hair.

"Do you know why they call this Suicide Cliff?" I skid to a stop and realise that I am teetering on the edge of the cliff.

"No, why?"

"Because I do this."

She pushes me.

Author's Note

What did you think of the dialogue?

Reviews

[Zubi]

oooooh spooky! I love it!