The Fear Zone

by K. R. Alexander

  “That must be it,” Kyle says excitedly.

  Deshaun doesn’t look like he wants to go over there. Neither do I.

  “Come on,” Andres says. He takes my hand reassuringly; his palm is warm, and it roots me down, helps me keep away some of my fear. My best friend is here. Nothing bad can happen.

  If only I actually believed this.

  We trek over to the candle, our feet crunching way too loudly on leaves and branches, and it’s only when we reach the light that I realize it’s coming from a pumpkin. Its face is carved with jagged teeth and fierce eyes, and even though I’ve seen literally hundreds of carved pumpkins, this one seems … worse. Alive. Like the flame behind its eyes is breathing an evil life into it, like it’s watching our every move.

  It sits atop an old tombstone. There aren’t any names engraved in the surface—it’s been worn smooth by rain and wind and time. But someone has recently come and vandalized it.

  Carved in the stone are the words:

  Then, spray-painted on top in red, in the exact same handwriting as my note, are two words:

  and an arrow pointing toward the freshly churned dirt at its base.

  Something has been buried here. And I know in the darkest pit of my gut that we are supposed to dig it up.

  “Okay, guys,” I say. I look around; the four of us all stand silently around the grave, none of us moving or making a sound. It’s so cold now that goose bumps cover all of my skin, and so quiet I can hear Andres’s breath at my side. His hand still holds mine, but even though his hand is warm, it’s starting to shake. “We came to the graveyard. We saw the creepy note. Can we go home now?”

  Because now that we’re here, it’s clear that no one else is showing up. There isn’t a hidden crowd of upperclassmen among the tombstones waiting to jump out and prank us. There isn’t a party happening in a nearby mausoleum.

  There is just the four of us and this creepy grave and a silence deeper than death and a warning that I desperately want to heed. The last thing I want to do is disturb this grave, and it looks like everyone else is on the same page. Even Kyle’s excitement is diminished; he keeps staring at the tombstone, his pale face even paler in the ghostly glow of the candle.

  “Yeah,” Kyle says. “I think we should go.”

  “Already?” comes a voice from behind us. “But we haven’t even gotten to the good part yet.”

  I turn my head slowly, but I know who it is before we lock eyes.

  Caroline.

  Caroline is literally the last person any of us wants to see, as is made clear by the glares everyone casts her way when she walks up, swinging her flashlight around like this is her party. April’s fists are clenched tight at her sides.

  “Caroline,” April growls. “Is this your doing?”

  “Maybe,” she says with a smug smile. “Why, are you scared?”

  “No,” Kyle says. “Just annoyed. Why’d you drag us out here in the dead of night?”

  A shiver rolls down my spine at the word dead. I’ve never liked graveyards; all those dead bodies buried only six feet below me. Waiting. Decomposing. Watching. It makes my skin crawl. I move closer to April and tighten my grip on the bat; it’s not Caroline I’m worried about, but all the things I can’t see.

  Caroline just rolls her eyes at Kyle’s accusation. “I didn’t, moron. I had nothing to do with this. I just saw you sneaking off and decided to follow you. What are we doing out here, anyway?”

  No one says anything, but then she catches sight of the marked tombstone. Her eyes practically light up, glowing as fiercely as the pumpkin’s.

  “Oooh,” she says. Her voice wavers theatrically, like a ghost’s. “So creepy.”

  She takes a step closer to the tombstone. In that moment, Kyle steps closer to me. His body practically radiates heat, and I want to lean in. I am so. Cold. And it seems to be getting colder by the minute. The sky is crystal clear, though—no storms anywhere. Maybe that’s why it’s so chilly out here; there isn’t any cloud cover to keep in the heat.

  I’m not currently worried about the weather or the chills on my skin or even the way April shakes beside me with anger or cold. My eyes are glued on Caroline. Whether she had something to do with all of this or not, her being here is not a good thing. If we make it out of the graveyard without Caroline insulting April, it will be a Halloween miracle. Plus, I don’t trust the way she’s eyeing the freshly churned grave.

  “What do you think is in here?” she asks. She kneels down and runs her hands over the dirt. Then she looks back at us, her eyes spearing April. “Maybe it’s a body. Some Halloween murder.”

  “Don’t talk like that,” Kyle says. “That’s just morbid. This is all some stupid prank. At worst, there’s going to be a plastic skeleton in there.”

  Caroline’s grin turns into a sneer.

  “That sounds like a challenge to me. Why don’t we dig it up and find out?”

  April squeezes my hand tighter and leans in, making a noise in the back of her throat so quietly I barely hear it—a tiny squeal, like that is the very last thing she wants to do.

  “We’re leaving,” I say. I look to the boys. “Are you guys coming?”

  Deshaun nods, but he doesn’t move. He looks to Kyle, who’s staring at the grave—or, more particularly, Caroline—with tight eyes.

  “What’s the matter?” Caroline taunts. “Are you scared? You wanna run home with the scaredy-cat? Oh, wait—what did we call you, April? That’s right. A scaredy-fat.” She starts saying the insult over and over, singing it like a terrible nursery rhyme while the jack-o’-lantern smiles wickedly above her.

  “Come on,” I say. “We don’t need to stick around and listen to this.”

  I start to turn, but April doesn’t move. She’s looking at Caroline with the exact same expression as Kyle, and it’s then I realize what it is: not just anger, but refusal. A refusal to be bullied.

  April lets go of my hand and stalks forward, kneeling down by Caroline’s side.

  “Last one to find the body is a rotten egg,” April says, her voice low.

  She begins to dig.

  For a moment I just stand there, staring at April as she fervently tosses dirt to the side—but not, I notice, at Caroline. Even now, when she’s risen to Caroline’s bait, she doesn’t stoop to her enemy’s level of cruelty. Caroline starts to dig as well, shoveling aside huge chunks of dark earth with her hands.

  I look to Deshaun, and then to Kyle. I don’t know what I expect from them. Maybe for Kyle to take the lead and lift April off the ground and drag her away, maybe for Deshaun to tell them both that this is stupid and we should leave.

  But they don’t do either of those things.

  Instead, they share a look.

  Kyle shrugs. Deshaun drops his head in defeat.

  Then Kyle goes over to the other side of the grave and begins to dig as well.

  Deshaun looks to me, defeated, and that glance tells me everything—neither he nor I wants to be here, neither he nor I wants to do this, but our friends are all in, and that means we are as well.

  Besides, no one here wants Caroline to think she’s won.

  Deshaun and I drop to the ground beside the others and start to dig.

  The dirt is cold and wet under my hands, and after a few handfuls I realize there are rocks mixed in the black soil; they cut at my skin, but I don’t stop. I don’t know what comes over me. It’s not just wanting to look cool, not just wanting to support April. I know in this moment that I am supposed to be here, digging up a freshly churned grave, beside my friend and some relative strangers. We’re all supposed to be here.

  We’re all supposed to be doing this.

  It almost feels like we don’t have a choice.

  Like it’s fate.

  We dig for what feels like hours, until I’m coated in sweat and the night no longer seems cold and we’ve unearthed at least a foot of dirt. We are all hunched over, reaching down deep, pulling up chunk after chunk of soil.

&nbs
p; Then two things happen at once.

  Caroline yelps out that she’s found something.

  And the light

  in the pumpkin

  burns out.

  We all stop, the spell broken. We kneel there and pant and stare over at Caroline, who clutches something small in her hands.

  “What is it?” Kyle asks. His voice is raspy, like he’s just run a hundred miles.

  Caroline doesn’t answer. She stands up and walks away from the grave and the tombstone and the pumpkin, staring down at the box in her hands. I can barely see her silhouette in the darkened moonlight. I glance over to April. She stares at Caroline with anger clear in her eyes. Anger that Caroline won.

  Whatever it is that she won.

  April pushes herself to standing and we all follow, wandering over to where Caroline stands. I look just in time to see Caroline pocket something. Or maybe that’s just a trick of the shadows. Before I can say anything, she turns around and tosses what she found to April.

  “It’s a stupid box,” she says, her voice oddly tight. “Just a stupid box.”

  With that, she pulls a flashlight out of her pocket and flips it on. Then she stalks off into the dark graveyard, leaving us all behind.

  We gather around April and stare down at the item in her hands. Deshaun turns on his phone’s flashlight and shines it down.

  It’s nothing.

  I mean, it’s something, but it’s not anything worth burying or bringing a group of kids out into the middle of a graveyard for.

  The lid of the small tin box is painted, though faded from years and years of neglect. I can barely see what it is, but it looks like …

  “A clown,” April mutters. I catch her eye. She clearly does not want to be holding this.

  She flips open the lid of the box with trembling hands.

  It’s empty.

  There’s not even dirt inside. Just a dull silver interior rusted with age. Nothing else.

  “Is that it?” Kyle asks, disappointed.

  We don’t say anything. We just stand there in a circle looking down at April’s hands.

  We’re waiting for something else to happen. For this to mean something.

  I have to admit—I kind of feel disappointed, and I don’t really know why.

  Finally, April sighs heavily and tosses the box behind her.

  “Come on, guys,” she says. “Let’s get out of here. I’m freezing.”

  “Shouldn’t we maybe keep that?” Deshaun asks, waving his flashlight in the direction of the tossed box.

  “I don’t want to have anything to do with it,” April says. “In fact, I want to pretend tonight never happened.”

  “Fine with me,” I say.

  Kyle nods glumly. We’re about to leave this all behind us when Deshaun’s voice stops us cold.

  “Guys,” he says, his voice wavering.

  We turn.

  His flashlight illuminates the grave. Not the pit of earth we dug up. The tombstone itself. The one that had been graffitied with the words FIND ME only moments before.

  No longer.

  “Who did this?” April asks. She reaches out and grabs my dirty hand. Her palm is slicked with sweat.

  “I don’t know,” I reply.

  Kyle takes a step forward, like he’s about to reach out and touch the tombstone, before stopping himself. He shakes his head.

  “Maybe someone came while Caroline distracted us,” he says.

  “I didn’t hear anything,” Deshaun says. “We would have heard the spray paint.”

  “Maybe …” Kyle whispers, but he doesn’t finish the sentence, because it’s clear that any excuse he has is as impossible as the last.

  There was no one else out here.

  Just us.

  Just us.

  And yet, someone or something came along and changed the words on the tombstone.

  The three new words send terrible chills through my bones.

  I can’t begin to believe what we are looking at.

  YOUR NIGHTMARES BEGIN.

  YOUR NIGHTMARES BEGIN.

  The words echo menacingly in my head. Someone came out and painted them on the tombstone. Someone crept in behind our backs. But how? Deshaun is right—it’s so quiet out here we can hear the wind rustling leaves. There’s no way someone could have painted it without us hearing it. And even if they had, where did they go? We look around the graveyard, but no one and nothing is out there. I can’t even see Caroline anymore.

  We’re alone.

  “This is a sick joke,” Kyle mutters. He doesn’t sound happy about it.

  “What do you think it means?” I whisper. I don’t know why I ask—I don’t want to know the answer.

  “I think it means some high schoolers think they’re pretty funny,” Kyle says. “Come on. Let’s get out of here before they come back and try spray-painting us.”

  He turns from the grave and begins to walk away. Deshaun doesn’t move, and neither do Andres or I. I share a look with Andres. I knew we shouldn’t have come out here, I want to say. In that moment, I want to yell at him. Because coming here was all his idea. Because I would have happily stayed at home and not had anything to do with the stupid note and this stupid prank.

  Caroline’s taunts are still ringing in my ears, louder than the words painted on the tombstone. I want to throw something. Break something. I want to scream and cry and kick.

  I do nothing.

  It’s only when Andres touches my arm that I realize I’m clenching my hands, white-knuckled and shaking.

  “He’s right,” Andres says, looking after Kyle. “We should go.”

  “Yeah,” Deshaun says. “I’m freezing.”

  My rage makes me so hot I can’t feel the cold, but I know Andres is right. Just as I know Kyle is right. This was all a stupid prank, and Caroline was just being her usual horrible self, and the sooner I am home and in bed, the happier I will be. Because then I can pretend tonight never happened. I can pretend Andres and I went to bed after watching stupid movies and eating too much candy and popcorn. I can pretend this was all a bad dream.

  But first, I’ll need to wash the dirt from my hands.

  And get that clown out of my head.

  “Do you think we should cover it back up?” Deshaun asks, gesturing toward where I threw the stupid tin.

  I shake my head.

  “I want to go home,” I say.

  Andres squeezes my hand.

  We follow Kyle back down the hill and out of the graveyard. I don’t look back. Not once.

  Not until we reach the gate, when I can’t take it anymore—it feels like I’m being watched—and I look over my shoulder.

  There is a light in the cemetery. Candlelight. Jack-o’-lantern light.

  The pumpkin has been relit.

  And I swear, in the darkness, I see a shape illuminated in the harsh orange glow.

  A figure.

  Waving at us as we flee.

  Not just a figure.

  A clown.

  By the time I’ve made it home, I’m shaking. And it’s not from the cold and it’s not from my shock at seeing stupid April and her stupid friends in the stupid graveyard.

  It’s from the stupid tin box.

  I storm into my room and slam the door. I don’t care if my dad hears me. It’s not like he’s going to come in and yell at me. I could throw a party in here and he wouldn’t care, just as long as he thought it was something that made me happy. If it was helping me cope.

  Please.

  I rip off my coat and throw it in the corner, two small pieces of paper crumpled and clenched tight in my palms.

  Someone is messing with me.

  Someone is trying to play a prank.

  Well, I’m not going to fall for it. No one messes with me. No one.

  I thump down in front of my bedroom mirror and stare at my reflection. My eyes are red. Was I crying?

  No.

  Definitely not crying.

  It was just the cold air. Th
e wind.

  The anger.

  I bet April had something to do with this. Her and her stupid friends. They’re the ones who dragged me out to the cemetery. They’re the ones who wrote the note and planted the box.

  But how did they know?

  How did they know?

  I unclench my fists one at a time and drop the crumpled papers on the floor in front of me. For a while I just stare at them, my breath hot in my chest. I can’t believe someone would try to pull this.

  She’s going to pay.

  They’re all going to pay.

  I reach out and grab one of the papers. My hand trembles. From anger. From so much anger.

  It’s the note I found in my locker this afternoon. A handwriting I can’t place.

  No one else calls me that. No one else has ever heard that name besides my dad, and there’s absolutely no way he wrote this note or had anything to do with tonight.

  I stare at the note for a long time.

  I want to burn it. Bury it. Rip it into a thousand pieces.

  Instead, I pick it up and crumple it once more, then toss it in my trash can.

  The other …

  I stare at the other piece of paper for a long time. Until my eyes hurt and I swear I can hear my dad snoring in the other room. Until it feels like the shadows are closing in and my room is shrinking and I’m falling, falling …

  Then I shake my head and force myself to stand, grabbing the paper as I go.

  I yank open my nightstand drawer. Toss the paper inside. Slam it shut.

  I turn off the lights.

  Close my eyes.

  But even as night closes in, I still see the image bright as day.

  The photo I should never have found in the graveyard.

  The reminder of what should have been buried a year ago.

  I normally don’t have any trouble falling asleep.

  Clearly, Kyle doesn’t either, and tonight’s no exception—he’s snoring on the floor beside me, one arm flung over his head. He passed out a few minutes after we got home. He didn’t want to talk about what happened in the graveyard. I couldn’t blame him. I didn’t want to talk about it either.

  Trouble is, not talking about the events doesn’t mean I can stop thinking about them. Almost an hour after Kyle passed out, here I am, lying in bed and replaying everything on loop, trying to find the moment when someone might have come in and spray-painted the tombstone. Trying to understand what—if anything—Caroline found in the tin. Trying to figure out why, of all places, it had to have been the graveyard. As if the person leaving the notes knew.