Part Two

The branch bent beneath Honey’s weight and with a loud crack, it began to splinter. Its outer end caught in another tree on the opposite side and its underside came to rest on top of the row of spikes. After several terrifying seconds, it settled in that position, now tilting downwards.

“Are you okay?” Di called.

“That depends on your definition of ‘okay’,” Honey called back. “Because we’re not hurt, but I don’t think we can come back, either. And I seriously doubt if you can come to us.”

“Hold on. You are not leaving me here, in this creepy cemetery, in the dark and the fog and the cold, all by myself. That is just not happening, okay?”

“Well, what do you suggest?” asked Trixie.

“I don’t care if you think it’s not possible,” she answered. “I’m coming up.”

She pulled herself up into the tree, grunting with effort as she tried to pull herself over the broken part. A short time later, Di joined them on the branch, slightly scratched but otherwise unharmed.

“Let’s get out of here,” Di suggested, peering down from her perch. “It’s not that far to the ground.”

Soon, they had all managed to swing down from the tree.

“Let’s go!” Honey headed for her car. “I just hope they haven’t drained the battery, leaving the door open like that.”

“Ugh! What a mess,” Di added, looking in through the open door.

Trixie grabbed at Honey’s arm. “Wait! We’d better take a look around here, first.”

“What for?” Honey hesitated, halfway into the driver’s seat. “And do we really have time? They could come back any minute.”

“I just want to see if I can find what they’re using to block the phone signal,” Trixie replied, while poking around among the bushes. “Hey, do you think this might be it?”

She leaned down and flicked a switch.

“Yes!” Di cried. “I have two bars of signal.”

“Come on Trixie. I think they’re coming back!”

Trixie ran across to the car and tumbled in, pulling the door shut with a bang. Honey had the engine already running and she moved off, going slowly as there was nothing in the way of a road, or even a track.

“Switch off the lights!” Trixie urged, as a pair of headlights loomed out of nowhere.

“But they’ll hit us,” Honey argued, even as she complied. “There’s nowhere to go.”

The other car passed close by, but did not hit them or appear to notice their presence. Another followed close behind it, taking the same line through the scattered trees. Once they had gone far enough to be swallowed from view, Honey eased forward again.

“That must be the way out,” Trixie told her, pointing. “Oh, quick! They’re going to know that we’ve taken the car again any second now.”

They emerged suddenly onto the road and Honey turned to the right. Behind them, they could hear muffled voices, sounding annoyed. Then the annoyance turned to shouts of rage. A vehicle accelerated and they heard a violent scraping as it collided, perhaps, with a tree.

Di gasped. “They’re coming! Where can we hide?”

“The cemetery!” Trixie pointed, as the gates suddenly came into view. “We can drive in, this time. I’ll open the gates.”

Honey pulled in as fast as possible and Trixie jumped out. Opening the latch, she gave one gate a hard push. It was wide enough that she only needed to open one. As soon as Honey had the car through, she began to close it after them. She thought she heard the two cars coming before she had finished and ducked away, hoping it was near enough to closed that the occupants wouldn’t notice. One car sped past at an even more reckless speed than the first time they had seen it. Once it had gone, after she was sure that the other wasn’t waiting to trap her, she completed the job and ran back to Honey’s car.

“We can’t stay here; they might come back,” she told Honey. “Drive up the path a little way.”

“Okay, I guess. But I was kind of hoping never to come here, ever again.”

“I like it a lot better while we’re inside the car,” Di commented. “But I’d rather if those boys hadn’t been in here.”

“What do you mean?” Honey asked, risking a glance over her shoulder.

“The road, Hon!” Trixie shuddered. “We don’t want to crash into one of these graves – that would be a sure way of disturbing any ghosts there might be.”

Di echoed Trixie’s movement. “I really wish you hadn’t said that.”

“Well, I wish you’d answer my question,” Honey complained. “What have they done to my car?”

“Nothing exactly permanent, as far as I can see,” Di answered, but with a note of distaste in her voice. “They’ve just left some… things.”

Honey groaned. “I think I’ll get it professionally cleaned, once this is over.” She rolled to a stop. “Is this far enough, do you think?”

“Probably.” Trixie let out a groan. “You know what they haven’t left? My phone!”

“Speaking of phones, should we call the police?” Di asked, turning to hers. “I still have signal.”

“How will we tell them where we are?” Honey wondered, but then shook her head at her own lack of logical thought. “We’ll use my phone to find where we are and yours to call the police.”

Honey brought up the map and found the name of the cemetery while Di dialled and then explained to the operator what was happening. The other two listened and watched as she did so. At length, Di rolled her eyes.

“He’s put me on hold,” she told them. “They already knew there was something going on down here, but apparently it’s not very important to stop these boys – or to help us. They’ll come out sometime later and take a look, but we’re supposed to get out of here by ourselves, somehow.”

“You did explain–” Trixie began, then stopped herself. “Of course you explained. I heard you do it.”

“He just doesn’t seem very interested,” Di told them, rather apologetically.

Trixie straightened her shoulders. “Well, I’m going to make them interested. Boys shouldn’t be allowed to get away with stealing cars like this. And they could cause a serious accident, the way they’re driving in this weather.”

Somewhere behind them, an engine revved.

“That sounded kind of close,” Di noted.

“But is that because it is close, or does it just sound close?” Honey asked, even as she dropped her phone and began to edge forward once more. “Because I don’t know if I can tell the difference by sound and I certainly can’t see anything – assuming, of course, that there’s something to see – but even if there is, I can’t see it and I can’t see where we can go and I have no idea which way to head.”

Trixie picked up the phone and started trying to find a map of the cemetery itself. “Ugh! Suddenly, there’s no signal again.”

“My call dropped out, too,” Di added from the back seat. She turned around and peered out the back window. “I’m sure there’s a light there. They’re coming after us, I’m sure of it.”

“I kind of thought I heard both cars, but only one of them passed the gates. Maybe the other car went back to their phone-blocking-thing and they turned it back on.” Trixie leaned forward, trying to make out more details. “What do you think that is? Can we hide behind it?”

“I think it’s another mausoleum,” Honey replied. “As for hiding, well, I think we could, but I’m not at all sure whether we should because what if they find us there and there isn’t a way out?”

“Take that road!” Trixie pointed to the right, where the tree branches hung low.

Honey just managed to turn in time. “But what if there’s no way out of here?”

“Of course there’ll be a way out.” Trixie waved at the rows of graves they passed. “If you’re going to have a funeral here, you’ll need a hearse and they wouldn’t make them reverse out, would they? It wouldn’t be dignified.”

“Honey’s right. Maybe this cemetery is old enough to come from the days of horses and carts.”

Trixie glanced back to her. “I don’t think you even can reverse a horse and cart. Which would mean that they have to have a way out from every one of these roads.

“Well, this one doesn’t,” Honey answered. “We’re at a dead end.”

Diana groaned. “I really wish you hadn’t put it that way.”

Trixie gave each of her friends a helpless look. “Turn off the engine, Hon, and make sure all the doors are locked.”

Honey cast her a disbelieving look. “The doors have been locked ever since you got back in. And they were locked almost the whole time you were out, except for when I unlocked them to actually let you get in and out. And I’ve already checked twice since then. They’re really locked.”

“So long as you’re sure…”

A silence fell between the three after Trixie’s sentence trailed off. Every so often, they heard an engine sound. Once, they could faintly make out headlights flickering between the headstones, but those were swallowed up again without ever coming very close.

“How long do you think we’ll have to stay here?” Di asked in a low voice. “And how will we know if it’s safe to leave? They might be lying in wait for us down by the gates.”

“If we get phone signal back, that would be a good sign,” Trixie replied. “But even then, I’m not sure if that meant we were safe, or just that the batteries on their signal blocking machine had run out.”

“It was run by batteries?” Di asked, more hopefully. “Then, they probably can’t run it all night. I was thinking we might have to wait until it got light.”

“We might, anyway,” Honey answered, “because I feel relatively safe here and I’m not sure I’m willing to give that up for the chance–” She broke off as an eerie wailing echoed around. “What was that sound?”

Di gulped. “Do we believe in ghosts, or not? Because at this exact moment, I’m not sure that I can not believe in them.”

Trixie shook her head. “That’s a question for some other time. Right now, I think the question is: do we believe that those boys would pretend to be ghosts to scare us, and my answer to that is definitely a ‘yes’.”

“Oh, that’s such a relief,” Honey answered, “because you are so right: they really would, and they must be doing just that because they must have guessed that we’re in here somewhere, but they can’t find us.”

“They must be more stupid than I thought, if they think they can scare us out of the car,” Trixie commented. “But I guess it answers the question about whether it’s safe to leave yet.”

Diana sighed. “And I was hoping to get out of here sooner, rather than later.”

Outside, a male voice began to yell, “No! No!” in agonised tones.

Trixie squeezed her eyes shut. “That sounds kind of genuine. But I don’t think we can do anything about it. Either they’re trying to trick us again – which is the most likely, I guess – or there’s someone worse than them here, too, in which case, we can’t really help. And I hate not being able to help.”

An engine revved and tyres squealed, not sounding very far away, but they saw no lights. A crashing noise made them jump and metal screeched. The yelling increased in intensity, now two voices jumbled together.

“Are we sure that’s fake?” Honey asked, wringing her hands together. “Because it doesn’t sound fake.”

“Well, their first crash – the fake one – didn’t sound fake, either,” Trixie argued. “And while I can’t really tell what their plan might be, I think it’s nearly certain that they’re trying to trick us into revealing ourselves, which is the last thing we want to do. But if we really want to be sure, I guess I could sneak out and take a look.”

“By yourself? You’ll get lost, for sure,” Di answered. “And if we go with you, we’ll never find the car again, either, and we’ll be stuck in this stupid cemetery for all eternity. And I’m starting to feel some sympathy for ghosts – which I’ve never had before – if this is what happens to you, that you just have to stay in one place and never leave and every time it looks like you’ve found a way out, you end up back where you started.”

“I don’t suppose it matters, now.” Trixie made a disgruntled noise. “Listen.”

“I don’t hear anything,” Honey replied, a few moments later.

“Yes! That’s the point! Whatever they were doing, they’ve stopped it, now.”

They listened some more.

“So, can we leave? Or is this another trick?”

Honey groaned. “It’s probably another trick.”

“Oh! But I have signal again!” Di told them. “Should I try calling the police back? Or is there someone else who can help us, do you think?”

“Try the police first,” Trixie suggested. “I can’t think of anyone near enough to do anything, other than call the police on our behalf.”

“Well, if they don’t come down here and arrest these boys soon, that’s what I’m going to do,” Honey promised. “They’ll be sorry they didn’t take us seriously.”

They stopped talking while Di had another conversation with the police operator and explained the situation all over again.

“Oh, are they?” she asked, at length. “Okay. We’ll go and look. Thank you for your help.”

“What is it?” Trixie demanded, almost before she finished speaking.

“There’s a police cruiser in the cemetery right now,” Di explained. “Apparently, they’re actually looking for us.”

“Well, that sounds promising.” Honey started the engine and peered over her shoulder, trying to get a view behind her. “I don’t suppose one of you wants to get out and direct me? I can’t see a thing.”

Trixie unlocked her door and jumped out. In a few minutes, Honey had reversed back to the place they had gone under the trees and turned back the way they had come. Trixie got back in and pointed.

“Maybe that’s them over there. Lets go and see.”

A dull glow, slowly moving, indicated the presence of some other person. They reached a division in the road and took the branch to the right, which seemed closer to the right direction. Almost at once, they met the police car.

“Saved!” Honey breathed. She lowered her window as she pulled up beside it, straying onto the grass to do so. “Good evening, officer. We’ve been having some difficulties and I hope that you can help us.”

“Are you the ones who called us here?” he asked.

Honey nodded. “Our phones weren’t working earlier, and then we found what was doing that and turned it off, then we called and I think they must have turned it back on again, because we got cut off, and then later we think their battery went dead because we called again just now and the operator told Di – she’s the one in the back seat, who did the actual calling – that you were here looking for us. And we’ve been hearing all kinds of weird sounds, so we thought the boys were still here, too, but we can’t tell in all this fog, and I really think someone should stop them driving that way, before someone gets killed.”

“Wait a minute, ma’am,” he asked. “Start at the beginning.”

Honey hesitated a moment, then spoke slowly. “Well, first, it got too foggy to drive, so I pulled up outside the cemetery gates – only, I didn’t know it was a cemetery at the time. Then, two cars went past terribly fast. Then we heard a bang and thought they’d crashed. So we went to see if anyone was hurt, but we couldn’t find them – we went on foot, I mean, because it was too dangerous to drive. Then we came back and found the car gone. And then we went through the gates looking for a house, but we got lost in the fog, but we found where the car was, by looking over the wall, and we took it back while they – did I mention the four boys? – the four boys went out in two cars to try to steal another car, but they didn’t get that one – oh, and we turned off their machine that blocked the phone signal; and I forgot to mention that Trixie’s phone was in the car when we got out, but not when we got back in – and then they started chasing us, so we hid in here and there have been all sorts of terrible shouts and crashing sounds, but we don’t know where they are now.”

“What do you mean by ‘shouts and crashing sounds’?” he asked.

Honey’s brow creased. “Someone kept shouting ‘No!’ over and over. And we thought we heard a car crash into something. Oh, and before that was a kind of wailing. And later there were other voices shouting, but we couldn’t make out what they were saying.”

His expression shifted very slightly. “You think there was someone else here?”

“Unless it was ghosts, which I don’t normally believe in – though, right now, I’m not so sure – then, yes, there was definitely someone else here. And they didn’t sound very far away from where we were, which was just up there a bit, under some trees.”

“Excuse me, officer,” Trixie put in. “I think I can see something over there, through that gap – something on the ground.”

“Stay here. Switch off your engine. I want to talk to you some more before you leave,” he directed, then moved his car so that he could get out.

They watched the two officers weave their way between the graves to the shape that Trixie had spotted, and then further on to something shrouded in the mist. The man who had spoken to them crouched down to examine something, then shone his light onto the surrounding headstones. He visibly stiffened on seeing the nearest one.

“What’s going on over there?” Trixie wondered. “He looks kind of angry.”

“I think we’re about to find out,” Di answered. “He’s coming back.”

“It’s an offence to waste police time,” the man snapped at Honey, when she opened her window once more.

Honey’s mouth opened and closed. “Officer Kravitz,” she addressed him, having read the name off his name tag. “I have told you, first, that I witnessed dangerous driving by possibly underage drivers; secondly, that my car was stolen and I had to recover it myself; thirdly, that these people are using a device to block phone signals; and fourthly, that the people who did these things were probably quite close by. In what way does this constitute wasting police time? And you’d better have a good answer for that, because believe me, I am going to cause a lot of trouble if I don’t get a reasonable response to these problems.”

He remained stony-faced. “The joke is not funny.”

Trixie huffed in exasperation. “What joke? As far as we’re concerned, there is no joke.”

“Step out of the car,” he directed. “You can all go over there and see.”

They shared a look and Trixie shrugged and got out. The other two followed suit, with Honey making doubly sure that the car was locked this time and that she had a firm grip on the keys.

They made their way over to the place that Trixie had pointed out, where a bag lay, then further on, where they looked around in confusion. The two officers stood a short distance away, watching.

“I don’t see anything funny,” Di commented, in a small voice. “It’s just kind of weird.”

“Did someone try to bury a jacket?” Honey asked, looking at the thing Trixie had seen. “Why would they do that? And whose jacket is it?”

Trixie turned to the headstone which had caused the officer’s anger. “Can you turn a light on this, Hon?”

Honey used her phone’s light to illuminate it, but it offered few clues. The headstone belonged to a teenage boy who had died about twenty years before.

“Is that today’s date?” asked Di, pointing to the death date. “Or yesterday’s?”

“Yesterday’s,” Honey confirmed. “Yesterday was the twenty-first anniversary of the day he died. And he was fifteen years old at the time – about the same age as those boys we saw.”

Trixie frowned. “There’s nothing really to indicate, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d died in a car crash. Maybe there’s some kind of local legend about this? You know, a ghost story about this boy?”

Di shivered. “Is he supposed to come back on foggy nights, do you think? Maybe he lures girls out of their cars to their deaths.”

“That kind of fits us, but what about the part-buried clothing?” Honey wondered. “How does that fit in?”

Di shivered some more. “If you impersonate the ghost, to try to scare girls, he drags you into his grave?”

“And leaves only your clothes behind? Honey shook her head. “It’s not exactly standard urban legend, but I guess it could work.”

“Someone has done some weeding lately,” Trixie commented. “That’s why there’s some bare earth. And I think they laid flowers, but they’ve been kicked away, or something. They’re over there. I think the dirt on the clothes is probably accidental. Something happened here – some kind of altercation, maybe – and one of the people got his foot into this bare patch and kicked up some dirt; you can see part of his footprint.”

“Oh! Is that some more clothes?” Honey asked, pointing her phone light at the next row over. “Where are all these clothes coming from?”

Trixie froze in the act of walking over there. “These clothes still have someone in them! I think it’s one of those boys!”

“Stop right where you are,” Officer Kravitz ordered, even though none of them were moving.

He walked over there himself and bent over the prone figure.

“Call for an ambulance,” he told his colleague, who nodded and complied. “The three of you, return to your car and wait there.”

With one last glance, they set off in that direction. With still one row of graves between them and their destination, Trixie stopped and gripped Honey’s arm.

“There’s someone next to the car,” she whispered. “What are they doing?”

The figure looked straight at them and began to advance.

“What do we do now?” asked Di, her voice soft, but crackling with fear.

Continue to part three.

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