Day #6, Midnight – by Elizabeth Averay
A bell tolls in the distance. It must be midnight, the Witching Hour. Time for ghosts and ghouls to roam. A time when nightmares are at their scariest.
For me, it’s the start of my work day/night. What do I do, you ask? I’m security for the local cemetery.
They have been plagued with vandals knocking over tombstones, breaking monuments, and graffitiing everywhere. Then there are the satanists who break into crypts and take the skulls of the dead within for their perverse rituals.
I have been employed to stop these machinations by any means necessary.
Tonight is my first shift. I mean to start hard and get harder still with any wrongdoing I come across.
The first three hours are quiet, peaceful. Then movement in the shadows on the edge of the graveyard catches my eye.
They know I’m here, and why. They scurry to and fro, spread out, trying to keep me away from the replaced headstones.
But I have a surprise for them. I don’t have to be there for the fun to start.
I let them shepherd me to the other side of the cemetery where they try to attack me; with no effort at all I knock all three assailants out and tie them up and drag them to a pit I’d dug earlier: throw them in just as my surprise really starts up.
Two loud bangs followed by shouts of horror, followed by a strobe light show, topped off with all the sprinklers turning on full blast. Eight teens run from the cemetery covered in mud and quick dry plaster dust thanks to the sprinklers activating the plaster.
I inspect the site. Nothing touched. Everything is as it should be.
Back to those in the pit, I wait until they wake up, then I pour water in so it is two feet deep. The kids are yelling at me, screaming that I’m crazy, psycho, and my favourite: ‘Wait ‘til I tell my parents about this!’
I look down at them with a raised brow. ‘Oh, really? You going to tell them what you doin’ here? That three of you were gonna beat up one security guard so your friends could destroy the restin’ places of their ancestors? I think not. Now, don’ worry – I’ll be lettin’ you out when I’m good an’ ready.’
Leaving them still yelling, I walk the perimeter of the graveyard and spot an open crypt. ‘Right, you little buggers.’ Stomping up to the crypt door – no stealth, I want them to know I’m coming – I shove the heavy iron door inwards, expecting it to squash one of them. Only for it to swing completely open and crash into the cold stone wall with a resounding crunch and echo through the emptiness of the crypt.
They bluffed me. I can’t believe I fell for it!
Blinding pain, followed by nothingness…
I come to on a dirt floor. Spikes have been hammered through my hands and ankles into the compact dirt beneath. I can’t move without extreme pain radiating from my limbs. Turning just my head I see lines drawn in the dirt and black candles scattered around, offering faint illumination.
Two figures step into view, wearing floor length cloaks as black as the candles and one carrying the skull of a moose, antlers still attached; the other, an odd-looking book.
They set their items down, motioning to the others who are out of my sight to gather in a circle with me in the middle. A slow chant starts up, building in volume as they all join in.
Close by, a bell tolls. It’s midnight.
I’ve done a great job so far.
The one that carried the skull in produces a knife from inside the robes and moves toward me. Plunging the knife into my chest, sawing away at my breast plate, is the last thing I’m aware of before passing out…
Waking with a start, I look down to see my chest has been opened, the flesh peeled back to reveal the bloody cavity beneath. The satanist is holding my still-beating heart above their head.
I look in terrified amazement at my heart and wonder that I’m still alive. My heart is lowered down to just above my chest, still beating, then with a quick jab it shrivels and my sight fades…
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