‘Yes! No. Yes. I don’t know.’ Mike exclaimed, clearly confused.

‘Come on, it’s going to be loads of fun’ Louis urged him, excitement visible on his face. ‘It’ll be the best adventure and the best Halloween in the history of civilization.’

‘What? You think just visiting a graveyard and burying skulls between other graves is a form of entertainment? It’s disrespectful.’

‘Hah! Disrespectful?’ Louis scorned. ‘It’s a graveyard. I’m sure the dead people won’t mind. And we’ll go far away where no one will know us. We’ll use our bicycles.’

‘It’s going to be cold’ Mike added.

‘We’ll wear extra jackets then.’

‘But we’ll have to dig a lot.’ Mike complained.’

‘Well, it’s going to be fun anyway.’ Louis shrugged. ‘Fine.’ Mike gave up. ‘What’s the plan?’

‘Okay, so on Halloween night, we’ll sneak out of our houses, and get all the digging tools we can from our houses. I have been making different types of skulls at home. We’ll take them and ride our bicycles to the furthest we can get and find a graveyard. We’ll dig between graves and bury three to four skulls in each. We’ll put a skull on top of each grave and come back home. In the morning, when people will see the graveyard, they’ll be spooked out and think that that graveyard is haunted. It’s going to be really fun.’ Louis insisted, then added. ‘I mean what could go wrong.’

***

I watch as they enter the graveyard. I’m surprised and scared at the same time. What were two boys doing on Halloween night? I am furious at the sight of them, stamping around the graves as if they own that place. Has someone ever heard me stamping around? I walk as quietly as a well……ghost?       What are these boys doing now? I can see both of them, whispering to each other. Why are they jumping over graves? It’s disrespectful even if no one is inside them. Shall I do something to stop them? They don’t even realize whose graves these are. I must stop them.

***

They entered the graveyard.

‘Are we too loud?’ Mike asked, whispering.

‘No we’re just tiptoeing’ Louis whispered back loudly.

‘Shh…Shhhhhh……. Okay.’ Mike hushed him as they climbed over graves to select a place to start digging.

It was very dark, and the night was whispering at them to turn back. Only if they weren’t so deaf.

‘Come on, let’s start from here.’ Louis spoke softly, pointing at a space between two graves.

Mike shivered and jumped as Louis’s feet rattled against a bone. Mike clapped his hand to his mouth to stifle himself from screaming.

‘What’s a bone doing here?’ he choked, on the edge of tears.

‘Shhh…… don’t be a coward. It must be a dog’s or a cat’s. come on.’ They started their digging, Mike glancing here and there every now and then, to check if someone was approaching them.

Soon, they were done digging the first grave. Louis took out three big skeleton faces and threw them in the grave. In the darkness, they looked like devils which could have come in people’s dreams and make those people never wake up. After glancing at them, they started throwing back the mud and digging the next grave.

***

This is enough. I will teach both of them a lesson, none would be alive to learn. I head forward, ignoring the fact that they can see my footprints in the dirt. First, I make for the arrogant-looking boy. The one with the excitement on his face, the one who is digging swiftly. I promise myself that I’ll make him suffer.

***

Louis looked up just in time to see a bone hurtling towards him. Shocked, he had barely moved an inch that the bone hit him right in his forehead, sending his world spinning. He dropped his spade with a thump and sat down hard on the sand.

Mike gaped at Louis’s forehead, which was blood red, and screamed. At once, something dragged him forward by his feet and he fell on his back. Before he could do something, he saw Mike being beaten up by a bone which was floating in the air while beating Louis. He screamed again.

***

I beat the arrogant boy by the one while the other one yells continuously. I wish he will stop. He’s very annoying. Besides, I wish he knew no one would come to his aid. I finish the first boy off and throw him out of the graveyard with one twist of my hand.

***

Mike couldn’t stop screaming. Louis was tilted in the air, and as he watched, was thrown over the fence near their bicycles. Mike tried to get up and run but he slipped badly on his back again. He was almost sure it was broken. He knew he was done for. This was the worst nightmare. Ho couldn’t die now. Not yet. Something knocked him on his forehead and he blacked out.

***

The other one, the scaredy-cat, is gravely injured. I carry him outside more carefully. I do not know why but I don’t feel like killing this one. I get back to the graveyard, proud of my performance. My family will be proud.

***

Actually, today is my duty to guard our graveyard. People around here think human beings are buried here. How wrong they were, they don’t realize. Little do they know, that this graveyard is ours. Of course, when ghosts die, they perish. They don’t exactly have leftover body or bones to bury. But out of respect, we dig a grave a grave when each ghost dies and then we bury simple skeletons in it, that we carve ourselves, like people put flowers on their loved ones’ graves. Every day, a ghost has to protect the graveyard from humans, and today was my duty.

I wonder what does boys were planning, but whatever it was, thanks to me, they didn’t succeed in it.

***

It was the morning after Halloween when some people discovered two bicycles and two boys in front of a graveyard. One of the boys were dead and the other was dying. His last words were, ‘Stay away from this graveyard. It’s haunted.’

With that, he took his last breath and died, leaving the people with just a haunted graveyard and his last words.