Content warning: Suicide, murder, school shooting, cannibalism
Ana and Brett lived in the neighborhood. They loved going for early evening walks through the historic cemetery. Brett read all the plaques describing the deeds of the long deceased, conveniently ignoring the slave owning truth of who they were 150 years ago, while Ana smelled the flowers and took pictures of the overgrown trees that were trying to take their homes back from the corpses intruding on their roots. They walked through this cemetery all the time, but they always made it out before sunset. Ana didn’t necessarily believe all the neighborhood rumors about ghosts and spirits but she still got a bad feeling when the sun began to drop below the ridge across the valley.
Tonight seemed different, the air crisp with the Fall cold rolling in over the Summer heat, leaves crunching beneath her black Converse while Brett read some plaques that he hadn’t noticed before. The fog began to roll in while the sun lazily dropped beyond the horizon. Ana stepped on leaves as Brett read. He had found a particularly brutal plaque about a long gone doctor who years after his death a secret surgical studio had been discovered in his basement.
“Ana, come check this out? I can’t believe I haven’t read this before.” Brett beckoned at his girlfriend who had been staring intently at a twisted tree.
“Ana, can you come here?” He said sternly.
She glanced up from her own strange find in the seemingly familiar cemetery.
“Yeah, sorry, this tree is just… darker than the others somehow.”
She read the plaque, hand over her open mouth as she read what the police found in the deep darkness of this doctor’s house.
“What the hell Brett, why would they put such disgusting information on these? I thought these were about what people did for the town, not the disturbing things they did with incurable patients!” Brett and Ana eyed each other before looking around, worried about how dark it seemed to have gotten.
They thought they knew every part of this cemetery. They had favorite gravestones that Ana would take artistic pictures of, but everything felt… different. The paths had gone from well paved gravel to mangled rocks and dirt. Trees all around them were split, branches cracking and falling to the ground, and the earth cracked open, fog lifting from the depths. Ana jumped at an eerie sound that echoed behind her.
“What the hell was that?” She held close to Brett as he reached for his headlamp.
“Shit, the batteries are dead. I thought I put fresh ones in.” She sensed an uncharacteristic shakiness in his voice.
Another sound, crunching, and what sounded like giggling coming from behind them again. They both turned around just to face more fog and gravestones.
“Let’s go this way” Ana picked the most promising path out of the unfamiliar maze. They were finding more and more plaques with disturbing stories.
A police officer who had lost his mind and murdered three pedestrians before driving his cruiser into a lake.
A mother who drowned her children and then hung herself, all buried together.
A young girl who fed her parents broken glass and chugged a bottle of antifreeze before the police showed up, they were not buried together. She lingered on this one, Ana could almost smell the antifreeze as she read the heartbreaking details of the family’s tragic end.
Every story was gruesome and they all ended in suicide.
“Brett this is starting to freak me out, how do we get out of here!?”
“I don’t know, my phone’s not getting any service and I can’t see anything through this damn fog. How is it so dark already?”
Their conversation was cut short by another giggle, coming from behind a group of gravestones. These stones were dedicated to a priest who turned his church into a gas chamber and his congregation into nothing but fertilizer for this dark corner of the cemetery.
“Did you see that!” Ana stammered, pointing into the fog.
“What!? There’s nothing there!”
“I thought I saw… I don’t know… a little girl.”
“What would a little girl be doing this far out this late at night Ana?” His voice had gotten meaner, he would act like this sometimes when Ana’s free spirit got too free for him.
“I can’t explain it Brett, but I saw her. I’ve been hearing giggling too”
“You’re just seeing things because you’re scared and freaking yourself out” His tone had changed to an almost fatherly tone. He loved to be right and make Ana feel small.
Ana just stepped forward unhooking herself from his tight grip. She started walking down a different path and Brett reluctantly followed. He wouldn’t admit to Ana that he was afraid, he always had to be the brave one.
“How long have we been in here?” Ana asked, checking her phone which mocked her fear with nothing more than the black mirror of a dead screen.
“I have no idea, seems like hours, I’m getting hungry.”
As Brett spoke they found a plaque dedicated to a family of cannibals who would hunt down young campers in the woods by their house. They all died when the mother decided she had had enough. She burned the house down with the whole family in it.
“Still hungry?” Ana said pointing to the brutal image of the family tied down to their chairs, faces melted away as the house burned around them.
“How did they even find a picture for this?” Brett took an uneasy step backward and tripped over a root, or did the root reach up and grab him?
“Ahh! FUCK, I think it’s broken!” Brett cried out holding on to his ankle. Ana knelt down next to him, she was only in her first year of pre-med but even she could tell his agony was an overreaction.
“Babe, you’re fine, it looks like you just twisted it.” She kindly said with a hand out to help him stand up.
“How the fuck would you know! You’re only 3 weeks into school, you don’t know shit!” Ana was taken back, Brett could be somewhat controlling but he had never snapped at her like this. There was something different about him, he seemed angrier, scared, and cruel.
“Brett, let’s stand up, you need to walk it off.” Brett slapped her hand away as Ana tried to help him.
“Leave me alone! It’s your fault we’re stuck in here! I didn’t even want to go for a walk today but you insisted because you wanted to prance around a bunch of gravestones of dead losers!”
“Brett, I’m just trying to…” She was cut off by an ear piercing shriek from the distance.
They both held their hands over their ears and closed their eyes. The sound attacked their senses from every angle. Ana opened her eyes just long enough to see something dart behind a gravestone. Were those pigtails?
The sound came to an abrupt stop and Ana stood up. Brett still sat on the ground complaining about his ankle
“It’s broken! I have to go to the hospital!”
while Ana took in her horrifying surroundings. All around them, on every gravestone, were weapons. A noose on one, a rifle on another, a knife, a bottle of pills, a lighter and a can of gasoline, instruments of death that all these poor souls had used on themselves.
“Brett, I need you to stand up, we have to find a way out of here. NOW!” Ana pulled at him but he refused to make an effort.
“Fuck you, I’m staying and you can figure out how to get us out of here.” Brett crossed his arms and leaned against the homicidal mothers gravestone.
“Fine Brett you can just stay here and get killed by whatever fucked up ghosts are haunting this place.” Ana began to storm away from her beaten down beaux when he cried out,
“Wait, don’t leave me here!” Brett hobbled over to where she stood and grabbed her arm for stability.
Ana sighed with frustration and relief. He was really pissing her off but she couldn’t leave him alone in these clearly haunted woods.
“Wait, what the hell is going on!” Brett stumbled as he finally took in the sight of all the weapons.
Ana didn’t respond, she just kept moving. She walked down another path but it just grew deeper into the woods, rounding more and more heartbreaking and terrifying gravestones.
A cab driver who had kidnapped and killed 20 women, eventually swallowing a bullet to make the voices stop.
A 13 year old boy who brought a semiautomatic weapon to class, managed to kill two of his teachers before a ricochet bullet got him right through the eye.
Ana didn’t want to read anymore but all the weapons on the gravestones made her curious. Brett just screamed for help.
“HELP!!! SOMEONE HELP US!!” He shouted into the dense fog, with no response except the occasional giggle. Ana was determined to escape this other worldly hellscape full of violent murderers but she felt so weak.
“Why hasn’t the sun come up? It feels like we’ve been in here all night.” She spoke to no one in particular considering Brett was a rambling mess that she was dragging along. She started to walk down another path when the loud shriek bit at their senses again.
She dropped Brett and he squealed, tucking his head between his knees and crying. Ana crouched down and held her ears just hoping it would end. When it was over the fog had cleared to reveal a tree. Hanging from the tree, was a noose, and below that, gravestones.
Here lies Ana Sumner
1992-2021
She took two lives that day
“Ana, what the fuck does that mean! And why does this gravestone have my name on it! Ana, ANA!!!” Brett screamed, his finger shaking towards the other gravestone.
Brett Landers
1994-2021
He should have ducked
Brett was panicking now, screaming and blaming Ana for everything. He seemed to have forgotten about his “broken” ankle as he ran away from her into the fog. Ana just stared, not knowing what to think when she spotted the little girl again. This time she wasn’t running or trying to hide, just standing there, her eyes fixated on Ana.
“Hey, are you ok, what are you doing out here?” Ana knelt down to speak to this strange quiet little girl. She was wearing a pink dress with a deep blue stain down the front of it, curled pigtails hung messily down in front of her face. She opened her mouth to speak but what came out was a deep scratching like rats stuck in a well. The girl stood there, mouth agape with nothing but that hoarse screech coming out.
The antifreeze, Ana remembered.
When Ana didn’t think she could take it much longer the girl closed her mouth and lifted her arm. In her hand she held a hammer.
“Are you giving this to me?” Ana asked gently, still speaking to this ghost as if she were just a child. The girl began to open her mouth again and not wanting to hear that painful sound Ana reached out and grabbed the hammer. The girl giggled and skipped away.
“I told you this was all your fault!” Ana turned around to stare down the barrel of a gun, probably the cab drivers. Brett stood on the other side, shaking with the confidence of a man not in charge of his own mind.
She didn’t think when she swung the hammer, the only sound in the graveyard became the bone cracking thud when it lodged in his skull. His knees buckled, his mouth opened but no sound came out, just velvet red blood. He fell sideways pushing the backside of the hammer deeper into his brain. His body thrashed and shuddered for a few seconds while Ana watched in horror.
His still and bloodied head rested on Ana’s lap. Lifeless, vacant eyes, leering up at her.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” She whispered over and over again, her tears rolled down to his face, clearing a path through the blood. She had stopped trying to pull the hammer out, she didn’t want to hear that skull cracking sound again. She sat like this for hours, still waiting for the fog to clear.
Ana couldn’t see beyond the tree or their two gravestones, she felt like this was the last place left in the world. Gently and with a steady calm, Ana stood up. She laid Brett’s mangled head down and covered the wound with mud. She didn’t want her eyes to rest for eternity on such a violent scene. She took her shoes off and set them carefully next to her gravestone, the marble was cold beneath her bare feet. She steadied herself on the rough rounded top and reached for the noose. The last sound Ana heard before stepping off the stone, noose around her neck, was the happy giggle of the little girl.
Inherent Fear 