Once Upon a Cemetery
This is one scary story, not for the faint of heart. For the full effect, turn off all the lights and get someone to moan eerily from a nearby room.
Thunder crackled in the darkness, followed closely by a flash of lightning. It's common knowledge that the speed of sound is slower than light, and consequently, the closer lightning strikes to a person, the sooner that person hears the resulting thunder clap. It was the nature of this storm that the lightning struck so close to a person, that he heard the thunder before he saw the lightning. This man was none other than one Wilhelm Van Zichtenhauser.
Wilhelm walked slowly through the graveyard, rain pouring over his yellow rain coat and hat. It was also the nature of this storm, that he was soaked to the bone even with all his rain clothes on. But Wilhelm was a resilient man -- he had lived a grueling life long enough that nothing short of a heart attack was likely to affect him. And he wasn't about to let just anyone come within a meter of his chest without making absolutely sure they had no intentions of attacking his heart. Someone in his particular line of work didn't get very far unless they were very careful about such things.
It wasn't so much that he had chosen his line of work, but rather that fate had placed it on his lap. In fact, it was as though he had been created for his job and his job had been created for him. It was a bit of a conundrum. But Wilhelm didn't bother thinking about such things. Someone in his particular line of work didn't get very far by thinking all the time. You had to trust your instincts; let your feelings guide you. Otherwise you were dead before you had time to scream.
Because Wilhelm was a grave-keeper.
Night after night, Wilhelm would saunter through the cemetery, keeping a wary eye out for miscreants, hooligans, and the occasional graverobber too. Their business should be taken elsewhere, and Wilhelm stuck to that motto with an iron fist.
Thunder rolled again, and lightning struck a particularly tall gravestone a few feet from where he stood. The grave-keeper paused. Something worried him. Something wasn't quite right. Something was going to happen, he just knew it. Things generally did, especially in spooky cemeteries during dark and stormy nights. He knelt down and placed his ear near the ground, listening for the tell-tale subtle vibrations of ne'er-do-wells running amuck across the grounds. He had gotten quite good at it over the years, developing a keen sense of hearing and a feel for it that even the flashes of lightning and rolls of thunder could not inhibit.
There was definitely something odd happening this night. It was something Wilhelm had never dreamed of encountering. Something he'd only read about in books. And it was close. Really close.
Wilhelm's head jerked up suddenly. A few inches from his face was a cat. It was not a particularly noteworthy cat on first inspection. It had some striping down its back and part of its left ear had been nicked off. It looked like your everyday, average stray cat. But Wilhelm was drawn to its eyes. They glowed red. The cat grinned. Wilhelm screamed.
"Hi! My name is Katzes! What's your name? Do you want to be my friend? Do you have a ball of yarn? I like yarn! Do you like yarn?" said the cat.
Wilhelm gibbered.
"I used to have a ball of yarn of my own," the cat continued, "but it got lost somewhere in the netherworld! It was blue! Blue is my favourite colour! What's your favourite colour? Do you like blue too? Are you sure you don't have a ball of yarn?"
The part of Wilhelm's brain that controlled his hands and arms came to its senses. He pulled out a ball of yarn from his coat pocket, which he kept there for special occasions like this. "You never know when a ball of yarn might mean the difference between life and an almost certain excruciatingly gruesome death." was one of his mottos.
"Oh wow! A ball of yarn! You're the best! Seriously!"
Katzes pounced on the ball and proceeded to bat it from paw to paw. She purred loudly.
Wilhelm took this opportunity to slowly inch backwards, away from the cat. Once he was far enough away, and after making sure Katzes was too preoccupied with the yarn to notice him, he made a sort of half-dive, half-stumble for the nearest gravestone. Leaning his back against it, he sighed with relief. That was far too close! "Nothing good ever comes from hyperactive female cats from the netherworld." was another of his mottos. He'd have to be much more careful than usual on this strange night.
The rain kept pouring. Another thunder/lightning combo shook the ground and splintered a neighbouring gravestone in half. Wilhelm had just about caught his breath from the recent fiasco with Katzes, when he felt a tap on his shoulder.
"Escuz me, but yur sitin 'n ma face...", a creepy voice said.
Ha! thought the grave-keeper. I'm ready for you this time, young hooligan! He grabbed the hand that was tapping his shoulder, jumped off the ground, and spun around, twisting the arm in the process. Wilhelm was hoping to catch his attacker off guard and give himself the advantage, possibly even disarming him of any baseball bat or other potentially lethal implement in the process.
Something didn't feel right, though. Wilelm stared down at his hands. He was holding a hand that was attached to an arm that was attached to ... nothing. He really had disarmed someone. The irony was lost on him, however, as the creepy voice spoke once again, emanating from a battered head that was just now poking out of the ground by the gravestone where Wilhelm had been sitting seconds earlier.
"You idiot! I just had that one sewn back on last week!" said the zombie.
Wilhelm screamed.
"It's reasons like this that I hate humans," mumbled the zombie to himself. "I mean, I was merely coming up for a nice evening stroll, and what does he do? He rips my arm off!"
"Yes, well, look... I'm terribly sorry about all that," stuttered Wilhelm. "If I'd known you were a zombie I'd have been more careful and..." Wilhelm trailed off, weakly.
"Yes?" said the zombie.
"Well...."
"Do go on."
"Look. I'm really sorry. Is there any way I can make it up to you?"
"You really think you can make up for ripping a chap's arm off? Do you know how hard it is to find a good seamstress with no qualms about working for dead customers?"
Wilhelm recalled one of his mottos. "If you value your brain, don't get on a zombie's bad side." Wilhelm thought all sides of the zombie looked pretty bad, but took the motto to heart in any case.
"Yes, well. I daresay things have got off to a rather poor start. I'll do whatever I can to make amends. By the way, my name is Wilhelm," he said, hopefully.
"Very well. My name is Simon. I'd shake your hand, but you seem to be shaking mine already."
Wilhelm looked down at his shaking hands and the disembodied arm that he still held. He hurriedly thrust it back at the zombie, mumbling another apology or two.
Simon the zombie stood for a minute or so, staring ponderously at Wilhelm. Wilhelm started to fidget.
"I guess the only way you could possibly make up for this unfortunate incident, is if you became my friend," said the zombie, finally. "I have a rather hard time making new friends. They all seem to run away as soon as they can. But I see young kids together all the time, laughing and having a jolly good time. I want very badly to have a friend too. Will you be my friend?"
But Wilhelm hardly heard Simon. Already his mind was racing -- thinking up an elaborate scheme to escape from the zombie, and get himself home. And after that he would quit this job, pack his bags, and move to Antarctica. There couldn't be many cemeteries there.
"Well?" asked Simon.
"I'm sorry, what?"
"Will you be my friend?
Wilhelm remembered his brains and how he rather enjoyed having them. "Yes, alright," he said, quickly.
Simon's face lit up, or at least as much as a zombie's face can considering how grey it is to begin with. "Wow! Really? Thank-you! Say, now that you're my friend, do you want to play a game?"
"Ummm... sure," said Wilhelm, thinking it wise to play along for the moment.
"Golly! You're the greatest! Okay, there's this one game I see kids playing all the time. It's called 'Cat and Rat', I think. One person -- the cat -- counts to a certain number, while all the others -- the rats -- run and hide. Then, once the cat is done counting, he tries to find all the rats."
Ah! Just like hide-and-seek, thought the grave-keeper. This is perfect. I'll play a couple rounds so he won't get suspicious, and then I'll run away.
"Okay. You be the rat first," said Simon. "I'll count to fifty. Ready? One... Two... Three..."
Wilhelm ran into the darkness until the rain drowned out all noise of the zombie's steady counting. His mind was working overtime, calculating how easy he should make his hiding spot for Simon to lower his guard. Once Simon's guard was lowered, he'd be able to run away, but in which direction? Where would he find the most shadows to cover his retreat? Wilhelm found a large gravestone that would do for a suitable first hiding place. It was at this point, and during all this unnatural thinking (unnatural for Wilhelm, that is), that he forgot his most important motto. He crouched behind the stone, making himself as small as possible.
He didn't even have time to scream.
ROOOOAAAAAAR!!!!!
With all the ferocity of a starving, rabid hyena, and all the inevitability of a freight train, Katzes jumped out of the air and swallowed Wilhelm whole, bones, clothes and all.
"Well, that's unfortunate," said Simon.
The funeral was held a week later. Wilhelm's friends buried what remains they could find in a sunny corner of the graveyard. On his tombstone, under his name, they had delicately carved his most important motto. It was how he would have wanted it.
R.I.P.
Wilhelm Van Zichtenhauser
1863 - 1920
"When you're traipsing through a graveyard
And you meet a scary cat,
You should get the hey away, and really --
Don't act like a rat."
THE END!
Click here to hear Wilhelm scream.
