“Nothing good ever happens after sundown,” Avery mumbled.

“What?”

The suddenness of the voice ripped him from his dull reverie, and Avery returned at once to where he was now—biking down the streets of Widow’s Creek with his friends on a cool and dreary August night. He looked ahead at his three friends, all cycling much farther than him on their bikes. He’d fallen deeply behind.

It had been Ben who had called out to him, but Avery was too far away to respond. He peddled harder on his bike to catch up, zipping down Barlow Street, as houses were blurring by.

“Sorry,” Avery breathed, pedaling evenly beside Ben. “Did you say something?”

“I just didn’t hear you,” Ben replied. “You were too far away.”

“Oh—nothing,” Avery said. “I was . . . it’s just getting a little late. The sun is already setting.” He peered past the houses as they zoomed down the street, catching a glimpse of the sun as it disappeared behind the trees of the bordering forests. Long shadows were cast over the town like fingers, reaching to every corner.

“So what?” Harvey called from ahead. It had been his idea to hop on their bikes that evening and go out exploring, and for the most part they’d all been thoroughly it. Though by now, they had reached the point where Avery was deeply starting to miss his bed.

“Some of us like to sleep at night,” Avery told him.

“But it’s still summer!” Harvey cried. “It’s not like we have school tomorrow—we need to enjoy it! We’re FREE!”

His voice bellowed down the long street—they heard it a second time just moments later, echoing back at them, as if something on the other side was mimicking his voice. Avery winced, praying that no one would come out onto their porch, screaming at them to shut up. It was true, indeed—summer was still flourishing on its last legs, and school wouldn’t be starting for another week; they still had plenty of time. That being said, he’d rather not shout it from the rooftops.

“Speak for yourself,” Eddie told Harvey. “Mrs. Miller gave our class an entire packet to do over the summer. I’m still not finished with mine. I heard Jake Alvin saying he was going to throw a bunch of rocks through her window.”

Harvey scoffed. “I doubt that would do anything,” he said. “That hag’s house is already a piece of garbage anyway. Half of the windows are just boarded up because she’s too old to fix them.”

“She’s too busy remembering what it was like on the Titanic,” Eddie said. Both of them cackled like hyenas.

Avery and Ben chuckled along with them, though Avery wasn’t truly in a joking mood. His laugh felt weak and forced. He didn’t quite understand how it was funny when someone was too old to take care of themselves. He figured she probably didn’t have any family left, and that made him feel a little bad.

The four of them barreled past houses until they came to Merlot Avenue, then took a right and continued to speed along the asphalt. There was still a light summertime warmth in the breeze that blew past them, pleasant and satisfying, and the moon was risen high overhead, overlooking their quiet portion of Connecticut in its elegant, crescent beauty. Despite being with friends, the moon made Avery feel a little less alone. But he was right—it was still getting quite late.

“You guys think we should just start heading back now?” Avery asked. They’d been out biking for so long, his thighs were beginning to burn. He felt like they were training for the Olympics. “It’s not like there’s much going on tonight anyways . . .”

“So, you just want to give up and go home?” Harvey asked. “There are always weird things going on in this place! Remember last Halloween? With the kids at the lake?”

They all went somewhat silent at the mention of it.

Avery exchanged a light glance with Ben. He didn’t want to think about what had happened last Halloween. It had been the talk of their town for a number of months. He still vividly remembered seeing the missing posters for all the children, stapled and hung all over the place. He remembered seeing the photos of their bodies, splayed out along the shoreline, some of them even floating in the water. There had been eight of them total that night, down by the lake—four high schoolers and four middle schoolers. The thing that always bothered Avery the most was that only seven were found.

“Don’t be such a baby,” Harvey groaned.

Avery clamped down on his tongue.

“Almost getting killed isn’t going to make you popular,” Ben said. “It’s just going to make you dead.”

Harvey laughed. “Why wouldn’t it? That’s awesome!”

“It’s not going to get you a girlfriend, either,” Eddie added.

Harvey’s face dropped. “Shut up, asshole.”

Ben and Eddie laughed together. Avery wanted to laugh too, but the darker the night grew around them, the more his stomach flooded with what felt like churning chemicals. Too often had terrible things have happened to kids their age because they had gone out looking for things they shouldn’t have. Because they had been stupid.

And it was always after sundown.

Then Harvey seemed to have an idea. It was clear on his face; he always had a cunning glimmer in his eyes when he had these kinds of ideas. “What about the Matheson House?” he offered. “I heard that the guy who was trying to fix it up finally just gave up and—” He tied an imaginary rope around his neck, then tightened it, mimicking choking noises. “If you can believe it,” he finished.

Then Harvey began to grin wide. “What do you say we go take a peek inside that house? Go see what was so terrifying?”

“Are you serious?” Avery cried. He came to a hard, sudden stop on his bike, his tires screeching, and he almost fell face-first into the street. Everyone stopped too and stared at him.

“Well, yeah,” Harvey said, looking a little stunned. But it quickly turned into curiosity. “Are you really scared of a house?”

“The Matheson House?” Avery asked again. Everyone was staring at him, nodding in confirmation. He wouldn’t be caught dead in that place. “Did you all just forget about the terrible things that’ve happened there?” he went on. “It wasn’t just that guy—you know that. That place has a history of awful things happening there. Not to mention just how disrespectful that is. He could have been struggling.”

“Yeah,” Harvey said, sharing a look with Eddie. “That’s why we want to go. Obviously.”

Avery looked at Harvey and Eddie, who both seemed thrilled at the idea of taking a trip down Jackson Street. Then he looked over at Ben, who seemed rather indifferent about it.

“No,” Avery said simply. He kept his voice steady and firm. “If we’re going to that house, I’m not going. I’ll go home—I mean it.”

Harvey rolled his eyes. “Fine,” he said. “What about . . . Arabella’s Lake, then? There’re always weird things happening at that place—”

“Nope,” Eddie said beside him, shaking his head. “Not after last year—not after all those kids died. That’s not happening.”

“I second that,” Ben agreed, which Avery was extremely grateful for. “I’ve heard there are alligators in that lake, too. No chance in hell I’m going to that place—even if it’s not haunted.”

Harvey scoffed. “We can outrun alligators.”

“No, dude,” Ben said, shaking his head. “No, we can’t.”

“Maybe . . . we should just go home then,” Avery said at last. It sounded lame even to his own ears, but this wasn’t feeling like so much fun anymore. Now he just wanted to go home, to lie in bed. “We can’t really find something fun to do anyways, and my mom wants me to start going to bed earlier. To get ready for school.”

“Maybe he’s right, man,” Eddie said dejectedly.

“Yeah,” Ben added.

Harvey contemplated what they’d all said, his expression bearing nothing but disappointment.

But a new idea flashed over his eyes, like a glint of moonlight. He began to grin again—that wide, leering grin—and Avery immediately knew that he was going to hate this idea.

“I know where we can go,” Harvey said.

Nobody asked anything further. But it didn’t matter.

Harvey hopped back on his bike and said, “Follow me.” Then he began to peddle away into the darkness of Merlot Avenue, that leering grin still stitched along his lips, like a crescent moon.

When Harvey finally halted on his bike, they arrived at a pair of tall, spiked iron gates that rose to meet a great arch, the words WIDOW’S CREEK CREMATION AND CEMETERY printed within the iron. As if in an old movie, the moon was held high above, watching over them like a great big eye in the middle of the sky, and there was even a light fog encompassing the shallow hill which the cemetery sat upon.

“Absolutely not,” Avery said immediately.

“Oh my Goood,” Harvey groaned, throwing his head backward. It looked like he was complaining to the sky instead. “If you don’t want to do anything with us ever, then maybe you should just go home. We’re all going in, right?” Harvey turned to Eddie, who nodded almost instantly in agreement—then he looked to Ben.

Ben thought for a moment.

Then he muttered: “It could be kind of cool.”

Avery went silent. He could decently read the look in Ben’s eyes: he did want to check out what was in the cemetery. And even worse—there was a part of Avery that wanted to go check it out, a curious part of him that could never be completely silent to himself. But there was another part of him that wanted to make it out of this night alive.

And then there was the third, quieter part. The part of him that hated to disappoint the people closest to him.

Avery sighed, and said, finally: “Fine.”

“Hell yeah!” Harvey cried, then turned back to the entrance. “All right, now . . . who wants to go first?”

And almost instantly, before Avery could realize what was about to happen, Harvey, Eddie, and Ben all cried out in one voice together, as if it had been rehearsed beforehand:

“Not it!”

Avery stared at them all. “Come on,” he moaned. “That’s not even a little fair. I didn’t know that’s what we were doing!”

“You aren’t supposed to,” Eddie said. “That’s the point.”

“Yeah, exactly,” Harvey agreed. “It has to be a surprise.”

“You’re the one who wanted to come here so badly,” Avery told him. “Why don’t you go first?”

Harvey just shrugged. “Because I said not it,” he said, then slipped off his backpack, unzipped it, and began to hand out flashlights to all of them—handing the final flashlight to Avery. “And you didn’t, so . . . all yours, Aves. The ghouls are waiting for you.”

Avery’s brow furrowed. He snatched the flashlight from Harvey’s hands and turned to the gates.

It had to be at least ten feet of iron that stood between them and the cemetery. He was certain that anyone who tried to climb the fence and failed miserably would meet a grisly, extremely painful end. He stared up at the spikes on the fence, surrounding the cemetery, and could clearly see in his mind an image of somebody trying to climb over, losing their footing, and impaling themselves—at the very least, not leaving without a nasty set of scars.

And he was very determined, with all the power he had in him, to not make that himself.

Avery approached the gates. He wrapped his fingers around the handles, the coolness of the metal strikingly present against his nerves, and pulled—and to his desperate relief, they didn’t budge.

“It’s locked,” Avery said, feeling that relief flood through him like a warm shiver.

Harvey scoffed aloud, visibly racking his brain for a solution of some variety. Unfortunately, it didn’t take him long. “Then why don’t we just hop the fence? We’ve done it a bunch before at other places, this isn’t different at all.”

“It’s a lot sharper,” Ben said, studying the spikes atop the fence in the glow of his flashlight. “You could get really hurt by those.”

“It looks kind of wet, too,” Eddie said. “It rained this morning, didn’t it? That doesn’t look super safe—”

“Then we’ll be careful,” Harvey said. “Are we doing this or not?”

“You go first, then,” Avery said.

Harvey rolled his eyes, stepping forward. “You’re such a baby,” he said. He approached the fence, setting his foot atop one of the metal bars that ran horizontal along the length of it, and hoisted himself up. Then he began to climb, and climb—and climb—until he reached the top. He sat on the fence, resting between the spikes, staring back down at them with his pompous smile.

“See, that wasn’t so bad,” Harvey said, lifting one leg over after the other. He hopped off, landing on the gravel with a thud. “All right, which one of you losers is next? I’m not going in alone.”

A sigh came from Eddie as he stepped forward. “If I die here, I’m going to haunt all of you,” he said—then he lifted himself up along the fence. He began to climb, hoisted one foot cautiously over the other—nearly lost his footing—then sat gently once he reached the top. After a moment of catching his breath, he leapt to the ground.

“Come on, guys!” Harvey called. “If Eddie can do it, so can you. He couldn’t even finish the mile in gym.”

Eddie smacked him on the arm. “What the hell, man?”

“It’s true,” Harvey replied shamelessly.

Avery and Ben exchanged a look, trying to decide without words who would be going first. Unsurprisingly, they didn’t get all that far without them.

“I’ll do it,” Ben offered. “I can go first.”

Avery nodded. “Thanks.”

Ben nodded and faced the fence. He put his foot along one of the bars, hoisted himself up—and began to climb. Out of the four of them, Ben had always been the best in gym class—maybe even the best in the entire class. He ran the fastest, the longest; he could make it through the monkey bars without even breaking a sweat. Ben could even climb the rope all the way to the ceiling if he wanted to; he had done it before, and not just once. Ben made it to the top of the iron gate with ease, leaping to the ground, landing with an idiotic amount of grace. Then he looked at Avery through the bars.

“You got this,” he said.

Avery’s palms were sweating, but he nodded.

He gripped the bars with his damp hands and tried to lift himself up. At first, he had little luck—his hands kept slipping, he couldn’t get a decent grip with his feet—but he dried them across his pants, finding just enough traction, as well as enough momentary strength, to pull himself up off the ground. He lifted off, and then he was climbing, one foot carefully upon the bar after another. His arms began to burn, and his palms continued to sweat, but he couldn’t stop. Not with everyone watching him; certainly not with Ben watching.

And before he knew it, he was at the top. He sat along the fence, in between the metal spikes, and tried to catch his breath. His stomach felt like it was swirling with ashes. He tried to once again dry the palms of his hands on his pants, but it didn’t do much for long. Sweat just came back full force. He looked down at his friends.

Being this high up was far worse. His head sort of felt like it was spinning, looking down from ten feet up in the air. This brought more sweat, coating his palms—and more poison in his stomach.

“Come on, dude,” Harvey called. “Just jump, we don’t have all night. It’s not that high of a jump anyway.”

“Even I did it,” Eddie yelled.

But Ben met his eyes. “You can do it,” he said.

Avery took a deep breath, wiping his hands, and tried not to look down. That would only make it worse—if it could get any worse. It can always get worse, he thought. Still, he prepared his feet against the bars to leap, tried to quiet the storm in his gut, took a breath—

“BOO!”

And Avery lost his footing. His palm slipped along the fence, his shoe slid across the metal bar, and his shoulder collided with the spike from the fence. Pain ripped through him, burning, blinding.

Avery was falling—falling fast towards the ground.

Then he hit the gravel.

He heard a voice call out his name, but it sounded muffled, almost far away. All his breath had escaped him, and for a minute he thought he would die in this cemetery. No air would enter his lungs. He couldn’t move. He figured there were worse places to die, but he didn’t want to. Not yet. But soon the shock passed over him, and a large gulp of air poured into him like the breaking of a dam.

His vision returned slowly. Avery felt a pair of hands shaking him a little, trying to wake him. He began to cough, and when he looked up, he saw the blurry silhouette of what looked like Ben.

“Holy shit,” he heard Harvey’s voice breathe.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Ben cried. “He could have died! You could have killed him, dude!”

“I’m sorry!” Harvey said. “I just thought it would wake him up a little, y’know? Like, get his blood running, I didn’t . . . I didn’t mean . . . I didn’t think he’d fall.” He turned to Avery nervously. “I’m so sorry, man, I didn’t think that would happen, I—I’m really sorry.”

Avery looked around. For a moment it was blurry, but his vision was slowly coming back. Although something on him burned, but he couldn’t tell what. He managed to find his voice. “It’s . . . it’s okay,” he mumbled. “You’re right, I was . . . I was taking a long time.”

“Holy shit . . .” Ben gasped, staring down at his hands. Then he looked up at Avery. His face went pale.

“Avery . . . your shoulder,” he whispered.

Avery looked down at himself. His clothes were torn and bloody, and beneath that, he saw a large gash torn through his shoulder. Blood still seeped through the wound, painting his shirt and flesh.

Eddie gaped at the wound. “Oh, fuck.”

Once Avery had seen the wound, the pain had begun to settle in. A burning sensation spread throughout his arm, like fire growing and moving along his skin, searing around the wound. He started to feel lightheaded upon looking at it. He felt his stomach turn.

“It doesn’t look like it’s too deep,” Ben said. “It’s just a bad scratch, here—” He took off his sweatshirt and bit into the sleeve, tearing off a chunk of it into a long strip of cloth. Then he began to tie it around the wound. The pressure stung and ached, but Avery knew it was better than bleeding out. He had seen it in a movie once.

Harvey’s brow furrowed. “Where did you learn that?”

“I’ve been in Boy Scouts since I was about five—my dad’s idea,” Ben said without turning. “He’s really serious about this stuff. I guess it really does come in handy, huh Harvey?”

Harvey looked down at his shoes. “Yeah. I guess so.”

“Come on,” Ben said, helping Avery up to his feet. His head felt a little light still, but overall, he felt alright. The blood was starting to stain the makeshift bandage, but he knew it was better than nothing. The pressure even made the pain a little better.

“Let’s find a way to open the gate,” Ben said. “We’re going home. This is way more dangerous than it was supposed to be.”

“Yeah, alright,” Eddie agreed.

Harvey said nothing—but looked plenty disappointed.

Yet to their surprise, Avery was the one to say: “No.”

Ben whirled, confusion riddled across his face. “What?”

“We’re already here,” Avery said, and heard his voice grow cold. In truth, he didn’t really care anymore. “We’re already here, so what’s the point in leaving now? We might as well take a look around, while we’re still here, right?”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” Ben said.

“I didn’t either,” Avery told him. “But here we are.”

Ben seemed to shrink a little hearing this. He looked like he was going to say something but kept his mouth shut.

“Are you sure?” Eddie asked. “I know we thought this was a good idea at first, but if we get caught breaking in—”

“Who gives a crap?” Harvey cried, smiling once again—all was right with the world. “If Avery says we stay, then we stay.”

And Harvey began to stroll down the gravel path leading into the cemetery, Eddie following loosely behind. Avery spared a brief glance to Ben—then chased after Harvey and Eddie.

Reluctantly, he heard Ben follow a moment later.

The gravel path led through the cemetery, eventually giving into large clearings of grass as they reached the rows of dozens upon dozens of headstones. Most of them were covered in bouquets of flowers—some of them were still brand new, brought to the grave recently, still flourishing with life; Avery could have guessed some of these bouquets had been placed today. Others were wilted and becoming brown, the life nearly all but drained from their petals. Graves that hadn’t been visited in a long, long while, he thought. Maybe even forgotten.

On any other night, Avery would have been shaking to be in a place like this, at this ghastly hour; and upon thinking of it further, he realized he didn’t even know what time it was. He’d left his watch at home by mistake. But now, after having fallen into this place—when he didn’t even want to come here at all—and slicing his shoulder open, he could wander right into the Matheson House and not give a single care. Maybe even take a swim in the lake.

They were wandering through the rows, exploring all the names, the messages, the years of which these poor souls were born and passed, when Avery found a grave with Eddie’s name on it:

EDWARD GEOFFREY MILLER

SEPT 7^TH, 1914

MAY 13^TH, 1978

Loving father and husband

Of course, this wasn’t exactly him. The first name was absolutely correct, but Eddie’s last name was definitely not Miller, nor was his middle name Geoffrey. Of all names, his last name just happened to be Griffith. But the sight of the name on a headstone was surreal.

“Holy crap,” Ben whispered, coming up behind him. “I think this is Mrs. Miller’s husband’s grave.”

Eddie came over to see what they were looking at, and his eyes widened. “Whoa,” was all he said.

“No way!” Harvey called. He was two rows away and raced over as soon as he heard the news. “Is it really?”

“I think it is,” Avery said, feeling terrible he hadn’t remembered. “He died early last year, remember? We had a substitute for, like, two months.” He also remembered how someone had been so awful as to write the words no one will ever love you again! on her chalkboard once she eventually did come back. Avery hated her as much as anyone, but that?—that was much too far. He had lost family members before. He couldn’t imagine losing the person most important to him.

“That’s crazy,” Eddie said. “We should try to find the rest of you guys. I don’t wanna be alone in the afterlife, you know.”

Harvey’s eyes shone like he’d won the lottery. “This is why you’re my best friend,” he said. “That is an awesome idea.”

They split up immediately and spread out through the graveyard, though it didn’t take long to find the next name. It was a row down from the first one they’d found.

“Holy shit,” Harvey whispered, looking at the grave before them. His face looked overly grim. “I died, man.”

The headstone before them read:

HARVEY STEPHEN PAULSON

APR 20^TH, 1889

APR 19^TH, 1972

Beloved Teacher at Widow’s Creek High School

“I can’t believe you died a day before your birthday, man,” Eddie said, shaking his head. “That’s just sad, you were so close. You just had to make it one more day.”

“Shut up, dude,” Harvey cried, shoving him aside. “If it was really me, I would have made it to my own birthday. That’s just dumb.”

“He probably died of a stroke, or something,” Ben said. “That’s not something you can just avoid, dumbass.”

“Oh, yeah? Watch me,” Harvey sneered. “How about we find you guys now and try to guess how you died. Huh?”

“I haven’t been able to find mine,” Avery said.

“What?” said Harvey. “How is that even possible? There’s no way that you’re the only ‘Avery’ that’s lived here ever.”

Avery just shrugged. He’d been looking this whole time, and he hadn’t been able to find a single one.

“Maybe you weren’t looking hard enough,” Harvey said, then he turned to Ben. “Your turn, then!”

“Actually, I already found mine,” Ben said, though a little dimly, and flicked on his flashlight. “Come on, follow me. It’s this way.”

They made their way through the cemetery together, following closely behind Ben, their flashlights like little lighthouses shining into the night. He led them to a large stone building—a mausoleum, Avery recalled. It almost looked like those structures they read about in their history class, the ones they’d built during the days of Ancient Greece—or maybe Rome? It looked to be made of a kind of marble, towering above them with stone pillars that stood proudly out front. There were two large black doors that were sealed shut.

At the top of the mausoleum were the words:

IN REMEMBRANCE OF

BENJAMIN GEORGE BRANCH

OCT 5^TH, 1845

JUN 27^TH, 1922

Forever in our hearts, our wonderful founder and mayor

“Holy crap,” Harvey said.

“I was named after him,” Ben said, though the words seemed to have no meaning to him. “My parents love this town, but I think it was mostly my grandmother’s idea. She’s been here since the town was first built. I think she even met him once.”

Eddie turned to Ben, staring at him with a very serious expression, and said, “Thank you for all your hard work, Mister Mayor.”

Ben snickered and pushed him away. “Oh, shut up—I don’t care. I could’ve been named after someone famous, like John Wayne—or somebody cool. Instead, I got some random guy that founded a town nobody in the entire world even knows exists. Yippee.”

“I don’t know,” Avery said. “Being named after our town founder sounds pretty cool to me.”

“Maybe to you,” Ben said. Then he took a look around, observing the dark cemetery. “We should probably get going.”

“Have you ever wondered what was inside these?” Harvey asked, studying the outside of the building.

“Not really,” Ben said.

“Not once,” Eddie agreed.

“Never,” Avery added.

But—not hearing a single thing they had all said—Harvey began to climb the steps of the mausoleum.

“Harvey?” Ben called, his voice holding a cautious edge. “What’re you doing, man?”

Harvey turned back to them—and once again, he had that sharp grin stitched on his face. The grin that told them he was up to no good. His eyes gleamed eerily the moonlight.

“I wanna see what’s inside,” he said.

“Are you crazy?” Ben reprimanded, but he didn’t seem to need an answer. “We can’t go in there, Harvey! We shouldn’t even be here in the first place!”

“But it’s a public place, isn’t it?”

“Not at night! We could get arrested for this.”

“We can’t get arrested,” Harvey said incredulously, approaching the black doors. “We’re kids. They legally can’t arrest us.”

“It’s called juvie, dumbass,” Ben snapped. “Remember when Jake went because he pulled a knife on that kid?”

“We’re not going to juvie . . . not if we don’t get caught,” Harvey said. He stood before the doors, outstretching his hand to them. “You really don’t want to see what’s inside?”

Eddie glanced at Ben. He seemed a little curious.

“Harvey,” Ben pleaded. “Let’s just go home.”

Harvey seemed to think about it—then he touched the tip of his finger against one of the doors.

Avery looked uneasy. “I don’t know if this is a great idea,” he said. “I mean . . . do you really want the ghost of the town founder to haunt you forever?”

Harvey shrugged carelessly. “Maybe I do,” he said. Then he put his palm against the door. “What about you, Avery the Brave? What do you say? Shall we take a peek inside?”

While Eddie seemed quite interested, Ben met Avery’s eyes. They were wide and cautious, pleading for reason. It was true, they could get into a ton of trouble for this. He knew this very well, he wasn’t stupid. But . . . he had to admit that a part of him had always been curious about what was inside these buildings.

And they had already come this far.

“Why not?” Avery agreed.

And he began to climb the stairs.

Harvey laughed wickedly. “You might just be my new best friend, Aves.” He paused. “Sorry, Eddie.”

A sigh came from Ben and Eddie. Then they both followed them up the stairs. All four of them stood stiffly in front of the doors, waiting for someone to take the initiative.

“Would you like to do the honors?” Harvey asked Avery, in a rich gentleman’s voice.

Avery approached the doors—and without waiting, he took the handles and tried to pull them open. The doors unlatched with ease, and he froze. He hadn’t actually expected them to open. If the cemetery was locked, why not this?

“Looks like somebody forgot to lock up,” Harvey said eagerly. “Someone’s getting fired tomorrow.”

“We really should just turn around,” Ben protested.

“Yeah, I guess we should . . .” Harvey said. “After seeing what’s inside, of course. Open up, Aves!”

Avery glanced over at Ben, but he didn’t meet Avery’s eyes. Then he turned back to the doors and pulled them open. Inside the stone building was nothing but a stone coffin, covered with a layer of dust, mold, and grime. Along the four walls were four crosses pinned against the stone. That was all; nothing else occupied the room.

“This is it?” Harvey asked, his shoulders falling.

Ben scoffed. “What did you expect?”

“Yikes,” Eddie muttered. “Whole lotta nothing.”

Even Avery was a little disappointed.

A heavy huff of breath came from Harvey. He stepped forward and entered the mausoleum, approaching the stone coffin. Ben hadn’t even cared about trying to stop him.

Harvey stared down at the coffin.

Then he began to slide the lid off.

“Dude!” Ben shouted. “What the hell are you doing?”

Avery and Eddie stared at Harvey but didn’t dare try to stop him. They were far too stunned that he would try something like this.

“I just wanna . . .” The words disappeared in Harvey’s throat as he forced more effort to slide the lid off the coffin—but it didn’t seem to budge. “I just wanna get a good look at old Ben Senior in his grave—maybe shake our founder’s hand, y’know?” Finally, the lid gave, stone scraping against stone. A moment later, it was halfway off.

“That’s a crime, Harvey!” Ben snapped. He charged at Harvey—but started just a second too late.

Harvey gave one final hefty push against the lid with all he had. It groaned, sliding all the way off, falling. It shattered upon the floor, dust flying into the air. He took a breath, waving the dust away to clear, and stared down into what lay inside the coffin.

“Holy shit,” he breathed.

Avery, Ben, and Eddie all raced up behind Harvey to look at what he was seeing. It struck them to their core; they were all just as shocked as he was. Inside the coffin, there was no skeleton, nothing that would indicate their late founder had ever been buried there.

Instead, there was a hole in the ground—and a ladder.

Where the bottom of the coffin should have been instead was an opening giving into a long, descending set of ladders, lowering down into the earth. It went way, way down, eventually giving into endless darkness. The four of them exchanged a long look.

Then Harvey did something none of them would have guessed he would do—he grinned. “The night’s not over yet, fellas,” he said, his flashlight bursting into life.

Ben threw back his head. “Harvey, I swear to God—”

But Harvey wasn’t waiting for anybody’s permission anymore—nobody’s but his own. He hopped into the grave, aimed his flashlight into the abyss, and began to descend down the ladder.

“Are you babies coming with me, or what?” Harvey’s voice came up at them, echoing from the darkness.

“We can’t just let him go alone,” Avery said.

“Maybe we should,” Ben scoffed.

“We can’t,” Avery insisted.

“He shouldn’t have gone in at all!” Ben replied. “We shouldn’t even be here at all. You didn’t even want to come here!”

“Oh, that matters now?” Avery retorted.

Ben’s face fell. “Avery, it always mattered—”

“It doesn’t anymore,” he said. “I’m not letting him go alone. You can stay up here with Eddie, if you want.”

“Should we have somebody stay up here?” Eddie asked, shifting uneasily. “Just . . . to keep watch? In case the police come looking for us, or something?”

Avery and Ben exchanged a look.

Finally, Ben sighed. “Only if you want to stay up here alone.”

“With the ghouls,” Avery said.

“And the spiders,” Ben added.

Eddie looked at them, casting a brief glance around the graveyard. Then he turned back to them and said: “I’m haunting you all.”

Harvey’s voice came, booming: “You coming or not?”

Ben turned to Avery. “After you,” he said.

Avery nodded, and the three of them climbed into the grave one after the other—which on its own was a freakishly surreal experience—and began to descend the ladder, into the depths of the darkness.

Inside, as they had expected, was nothing but a void.

And it had gone on endlessly for a long, long time. For a while, Avery feared that it would never end, that they would be descending forever, down and down and down for the rest of time; that they’d get lost and would never be able to come up again—that, just maybe, they would even end up in Hell. And to some extent, he still held that fear in his uneasy stomach. What if someone closed the coffin over them, and they became trapped down there, unable to open it from the inside? What if the security guard remembered to come back and lock the mausoleum, sealing them inside forever?

But his fears soon silenced. The ladders finally came to an end—instead replaced with a long hallway.

“It’s never over,” Avery mumbled.

They held their flashlights out before themselves as if in defense from the dark, creeping down the stone hallway, which seemed to go on for what felt like a mile. Pretty soon they would be needing new batteries. Their flashlights were beginning to dim, and more than once Avery managed to step on Harvey’s heels.

“Would you quit that?” Harvey snapped, flashing an aggravated look back at him.

“It’s hard to see!” Avery cried.

Harvey scoffed and continued forward. They went on for a while in that manner, stepping against one another’s heels, unsure of where or when the hallway, and the darkness, would end. It had only begun to occur to Avery that perhaps this was just a tunnel which simply had no end. He had been just about to suggest that they turn around, head back up the ladder—right before he’d been proven wrong. They found something that utterly baffled all of them.

At the end of the hall was an old, rotting wooden door. Pinned on the door was another cross, hanging from a nail.

Harvey glanced back. “Shall we?”

Avery felt something uneasy about this door. Something about it didn’t quite feel right. There was a thick cloud in the air, not one that could be seen, but one that could be felt; it was an odd feeling of dread, of his heart pounding just slightly too hard, too fast. His palms were sweating again, even though it was rather cold in the tunnel, and he could hear the blood pounding in his ears.

“Maybe . . . maybe we should go back,” Avery said.

Harvey whirled around, his eyes alight with shock.

“What?” Harvey cried. He switched between staring at the door, then at Avery incredulously. “Are you serious? But we—we’ve come all this way! We can’t turn back now, not when we’re right here!”

“No,” Avery said, shaking his head. He felt his heart pound in his chest, like it was trying to escape. He felt short of breath, like it had all been stolen from his lungs. “No, there’s . . . there’s something wrong with this place. We need to leave.”

“Maybe he’s right,” Ben agreed. “This doesn’t feel like a good idea anymore, Harvey. This feels like something we shouldn’t touch.”

“Yeah, man,” Eddie said. “I don’t think we should be here.”

Harvey stared at all of them, dumbfounded, but seemed to know he was outnumbered. He sighed heavily, looked at the door, old and rustic, and then looked at his friends.

“You all really think we should just leave?”

They nodded.

“Fine,” Harvey said. “Let’s go, then.”

They all looked relieved as he agreed, and they turned around to head for the ladder. Avery, for one, couldn’t wait to be back up on the surface. He missed the fresh air and felt like he was going to vomit. He missed the feel of the sun against his skin, when it finally rose.

Then they heard a doorhandle creak.

The four of them snapped to the sound. At the end of the hall, the door sat ajar, only a sliver open.

“Harvey!” Ben snapped.

“I didn’t do anything!” Harvey said.

The door began to creak slowly, like an opening mouth. Harvey stepped forward first, followed by Avery and Ben, and then Eddie. And even though it could be closed again, a part of them, deep down where their darkest, most shameful thoughts lurked—that part didn’t want the door to be closed. As much as they knew they shouldn’t peek inside, they couldn’t help it. They wanted to see what was inside.

The door drifted wide open, groaning as they approached, as if it were welcoming them inside. And inside, once again, was nothing but blackness. And cold—so very cold, clinging to their skin even through their clothes, spreading gooseflesh along their bodies. They were like scared cats as they pressed into the room, their backs arched like a puppet had pulled a string within them, the hair along their skin raised. Harvey ignited his flashlight—the room illuminated by only just barely enough. It was a small room, smaller than the mausoleum on the surface, probably smaller than Avery’s bedroom. There was almost nothing in the room.

Nothing except for another coffin. A wooden one.

“That’s him,” Harvey breathed. “It has to be.”

“Should we . . .” Avery began. There was a swelling in his throat, as if he were about to cry; but it wasn’t sadness. He felt his heart beating as if it would burst, felt his chest swell with dread, like a balloon. There was something off about the cold that filled the room, like a malignant fog. He swore he could almost taste it in the dusty, enclosed air. They weren’t supposed to be there.

“We shouldn’t,” Ben said.

And nothing else.

Harvey approached the coffin slowly, warily. He seemed nervous to Avery, perhaps because this was possibly where the real Benjamin Branch, founder of Widow’s Creek, might lay to rest. Inside could very well be his remains. It could be his bones.

Harvey swallowed, looking down at the wood coffin. He placed his hands on the lid, grasping weakly—then he began to lift. The wood creaked, moaning, ruining the hideous silence. The lid opened slowly. They all approached, keeping their distance, yet curious all the same. They waited for Harvey to look first.

Harvey peered inside.

His face paled. It filled with frozen fright.

Inside the coffin lay a body, just as they had expected to see. The only problem was that it wasn’t dead.

The gaunt face, its eyes and mouth closed, was pale and sullen, the bones underneath nearly visible through the skin. The scalp was smooth, the skull almost sharp; the ears pointed like wings. It wore no clothes, with its entire anatomy exposed, rotting and wilted; the body was slender, awfully disproportioned, and just as pale as the face.

And it was still alive. The chest rose and fell in subtle waves. The breathing came in husky snatches of air.

“What the hell is this thing . . .” Eddie whispered.

No one could supply an answer. Whatever it was, as human as it looked, something about it didn’t quite look—human. Looking upon it brought an uneasy feeling to Avery’s stomach.

“Maybe it’s an alien,” Avery muttered mindlessly. He wasn’t even sure if he’d truly said it out loud.

Harvey stared down at it. He stared long and hard, his eyes frozen on the thing in the coffin; but he said nothing. His jaw sat open, as if on a broken hinge, but the only sound that came from his throat was his quiet breathing.

“We can . . .” Harvey began. He swallowed, and in his beady eyes, frozen wide open, there was nothing. “We can leave now.” He reached to close the lid, grasping the wood.

But the eyes opened.

They all jumped back, leaping away from the coffin. They stared at the open eyes, holding their breath tightly. The eyes on the creature were bright yellow, almost golden. The pupils were thin and sharp.

The body then rose, slowly, sitting up in the coffin.

It turned to look at them.

Avery couldn’t pry his gaze away from the creature in the coffin. His heart thrummed relentlessly; his chest expanded with terror and the breath that he wouldn’t let free—he couldn’t. The creature’s rotten old face didn’t seem to hold any sense of humanity in its features. It looked at them not as if they were people, but if they were only things; it almost seemed to look through them. The creature sniffed the musky, thick air. Its nostrils flared.

It looked at Harvey, almost curiously. Then it flicked its golden eyes to Eddie. Then over to Ben.

Then Avery.

And the gaze lingered on him.

Avery felt his sweat, cold and frigid, dripping down his back. He stared into the creature’s eyes, yellow and sharpening, and piercing in its gaze. It only stared back at him—and then he felt a dizzy, tingling sensation that swept over his body, through his muscles. He sensed his friends back away slowly, inching towards the door.

But Avery didn’t move.

“Avery,” Ben whispered, his voice hoarse, afraid to rise too loud. “Come on—let’s go.”

“I can’t,” Avery said.

“Avery, come on—”

“I can’t.”

The creature put a hand on the edge of the coffin. It began raising itself up, tilting its head to stare at Avery. It sniffed the air once more. Then its eyes widened, and the pupils sharpened, its gaze locked him. Its lips parted, and Avery’s stomach churned. The teeth on the creature looked as sharp as those of a wolf, and just as awful. They were jagged, uneven spires of teeth, a rotten brown-yellow, and far too long.

It began to climb out of the coffin.

“Avery,” Ben pleaded. He was against the door with Harvey and Eddie halfway out, trembling in fear at the sight of the demonic thing crawling out of its coffin. “Please, move. Avery, please!”

“I can’t,” he whispered back. He really couldn’t move, no matter how hard he tried. It was like he wasn’t in control anymore, like sleep paralysis. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t move. In his mind, he moved—but his body stayed put, not listening to him anymore. He felt the balloon in his chest about to burst, his palms nearly dripping, his throat swelling, tightening. He felt tears spilling down his cheeks as the creature stepped out of its coffin.

Its arms were long and slender. Its hands reached out, the fingers ending on sharp, unnaturally long claws, as it glared at Avery, baring its wretched teeth like a wild, starving animal. It smelled the air once more. The pupils were razor thin. With suffocating fear, Avery realized that it was staring at his shoulder.

His bleeding shoulder.

A growl, like a deep and hungry rumble, rose from its chest.

Then it lunged, and the creature landed upon Avery, throwing him to the ground. His head slammed into the stone floor; his vision blurred at once. He heard his friends scream. The sound was far, far away.

Its fingernails dug into his skin, latching onto him.

Then the teeth in his neck.

His flesh ripped and tore. It brought forth the burning, blinding pain, a fire rushing through his neck, into his shoulder. He began to scream, a throat-ripping cry of agony. His head began to lighten. His vision blurred further, descending into darkness.

Then the pain ceased. The air filled with the cry of the creature, a sound that cut through the fog of Avery’s lightheaded mind. He tried to focus as well as he could. He felt the blood dripping in a warm pool down his neck. The wound stung and burned furiously.

The creature stumbled around, clawing at its back desperately. It whirled, and Avery saw something was embedded into its body, deep and mercilessly. It was a cross—the one that’d been nailed against the door. The wound around the cross sizzled and hissed.

It looked as if it was burning.

A body appeared over Avery then, and though his vision was too blurry and weak to focus, he could tell it was Ben. He felt Ben’s arms grab him, lifting him up, helping him stumble towards the door. Eddie and Harvey helped him out—Eddie slammed the door shut—and then they were heading down the hallway. He heard the screeching cries of the creature from beyond the door, but it was growing farther away as they ran down the hall, heading for the ladder.

Everything was growing farther away. The sounds. The smells. The feeling of his friends carrying him. All of it grew further away, as if he’d been ripped from his mind, taken away.

And then it all went dark. An endless nothingness that went on forever. As if he’d drifted off to sleep.

He wasn’t sure how he had made it up the ladder, but when he awoke, if he ever did really awaken, Avery was sitting against a gravestone.

His head was foggy, and his neck and shoulder burned as if they were on fire. But the pain was dull; it was there, and he was sure of that, but it felt distant, no longer at the forefront of his senses. Everything seemed to be dull right now. Even the chill of the midnight summer breeze.

He could barely feel it upon his skin.

“Avery,” Ben’s voice came, though it sounded far away, yet close by at the same time. Though his vision was disoriented, Avery saw Ben kneel in front of him as he lay back against the gravestone. “Avery, can you hear me? Are you awake now? You were out for a while.”

“That’s a lot of blood . . .”

This sounded like Eddie’s voice. Avery looked up. Eddie was standing a foot or two away from him, staring down at him with wide eyes. Avery looked down at himself to see what he meant.

His clothes were covered in blood. It was as if they’d been dyed, flowing from a slowly drying trail that spilled from his neck. His skin was stained dark red. When his hands went to his neck, he felt a dozen small marks across his flesh, a handful of deep incisions. His face felt a little fuzzy. He still felt so dizzy. The wound was still burning, as if he’d been stung by something—or like he was standing a little too close to an open flame.

But he felt so, so cold.

“I’m so sorry.”

This voice had been timid, afraid to speak too loudly. But it was neither Ben nor Eddie. It was Harvey. He stood the farthest of them all, nearly five feet away from the three of them, gripping a gravestone for balance. His face was pale, his eyes bulging and red. They were filled with tears.

“I’m sorry,” Harvey whispered, his voice husky from screaming. “I’m so, so sorry. I didn’t think . . . I didn’t . . . fuck—” His hands covered his face, tears spilling down his cheeks.

Ben didn’t say anything to him. He stared at Avery, fear clouding his eyes like cataracts. “Avery, please,” he pleaded. “Say something.”

Avery looked up at him, forcing his eyelids to stay open. He swallowed down a dry throat, his lips cracked. His tongue felt like sandpaper sitting in his mouth, and he couldn’t wet it. He had no spit.

“We have to get him out of here,” Eddie said, approaching Ben. “We have to get him to—to a hospital, or something.”

“And tell them what?”

“I don’t know! But he doesn’t look good, Ben. He’s lost a lot of blood. He could die from that.”

“We don’t even know what that thing was,” Harvey muttered, his arms now crossed over his chest. He hugged himself tightly. “What are we going to say when they ask us what attacked him? We weren’t even supposed to be here! We broke in!”

“You just now realized that?” Ben snapped.

“If we tell them what we saw down there, they’ll say we’re crazy,” Harvey went on. “They could send us to Amherst, the nuthouse! Or worse, it was some . . . some insane government thing we weren’t supposed to find.”

“We could say we were in the woods,” Eddie offered. “We could say it was a bear that attacked us. Or a wolf, or . . . I don’t know, maybe we didn’t see what it was? It was too dark?”

The three of them went quiet.

“The hospital,” Ben said, taking a deep breath, standing. “We’ll say we were in the woods. We didn’t see what attacked us—it was too dark—but it looked like a bear. We just need to get Avery there—now.”

“Yeah, okay,” Eddie said.

Harvey nodded in agreement.

Avery felt Ben’s arm wrap around him, lifting him to his feet. He felt like he was floating. Everything felt far away, almost a little fuzzy. His vision was beginning to clear now, only little by little. Ben had one arm around him, and Eddie had another, and together they kept him lifted on his feet. They helped him stumble through the cemetery, heading for the gates. His eyes drifted closed, unable to remain open.

Then a warmth touched Avery’s cheek.

He tilted his head. The warmth was coming from Ben, from nearby his head, as they carried him through the cemetery. It was a pleasant warmness, and it felt so relieving, so satisfying. He felt it slowly clear his head, as though the fogginess were dissipating, blown away by the wind. It was a pulsing, growing, intoxicating feeling. Like rolling waves of pure ecstasy.

He was so cold.

The cold reached all across his body, like he’d been plunged in an icy bath, unable to shake off its frigid embrace. It worked its way into his bones. It crawled along his skin; it made his muscles ache terribly. Avery felt like he was shivering. He wanted it to stop. He prayed that the aching, the freezing, it would all just stop. He’d do anything to make it stop.

But that pulsing warmth. It felt like laying under the sun; it felt like sitting before a fireplace. It felt like untethering from the cold.

Avery looked up at Ben, almost lazily, his head lolling on his neck. The warmth was coming from him, emanating from him.

It came from his throat.

He felt his eyes focus then, and everything else seemed to blur away, as if he could only focus on this. Avery felt a giggle in his chest that grew and grew, growing uncontrollably, rising like bubbles he couldn’t contain. If he was laughing, he wasn’t aware.

“Avery, you okay?”

It was Ben who asked, but Avery hadn’t noticed. He wasn’t listening anymore—he couldn’t listen anymore. All he felt was the warmth. And the cold. The awful, incessant, unending cold that penetrated his body.

The warmth would set him free.

He felt himself draw closer to the warm pulse, as if he were a magnet. Ben stared at him, pulling away.

“Avery, what the fuck?” he said, taking a step back.

But Avery wasn’t there.

He shook Eddie off, shoving him away. He stepped towards Ben, lifting his feet which felt like they had iron weights attached to them. He felt so weak, so cold—so thirsty. His throat felt like it was filled with glass. His tongue felt thick and dry, like sand in his mouth. He felt an irritation that festered within his chest, like a mold that spread and spread. The cold reached all across his shivering body, but his face was hot with anger.

“Avery, what are you doing?” Ben asked.

Avery’s head lolled on his neck. He felt his hands twitch at his sides, urging to grasp something. He felt his chest bubble with a laugh.

Then he lunged towards Ben.

Ben hadn’t had enough time to react before Avery descended upon him. The two of them went flying into another gravestone, and Avery threw him to the ground, grabbing him by the wrists. Ben screamed, trying to fight back; but Avery found a frightening strength then, rising from somewhere within him. He gripped Ben’s wrists so tight his nails dug into the flesh. He heard screaming that wasn’t Ben’s, coming from somewhere far away, distant yet near. But it was nothing to him. The heat called to him. It belonged to him. It was whispering something only he could hear.

A pair of hands fell upon him. A flash of anger burst in his chest. He threw his arms back, sending the pair of arms, and the body along with it, flying backwards. He heard a loud thud. And a sickening crack.

Then Ben’s fist collided with Avery’s jaw.

Avery stumbled back, falling off of Ben, who scrambled away, backing into the gravestone. He looked as if he were trying to become part of the stone. His eyes bulged in their sockets, about to pop.

“Avery . . . I’m sorry,” Ben cried.

Avery stared up at him. He felt no pain from his jaw. But he felt that flash of burning fury, rising from deep in his stomach, up into his chest. His face burned, while his body felt frigid. The cold was unforgiving, mercilessly tearing into his muscles.

The warmth would make it all go away.

He leapt towards Ben—his hands going to his throat. They squeezed with all the strength he had. Ben’s face began to turn red. His hands clawed at Avery’s, striking him across the face. They slapped him, pulled at his hair. But Avery didn’t feel any of it. What he felt was the anger, hot across his face. A flash of fury burst in his chest, like he’d been stabbed with a hot poker.

His grasp tightened. Then he pulled back, and with a scream, he thrust the body in his grasp into the gravestone before him.

There was a shattering crack.

The body went still.

Things went silent then, as silent as the night. The body lay before him, the eyes motionlessly open, blank with emptiness. It was unnaturally frozen in the last moment it had lived. Then it slumped over on its side.

A red smear was streaked across the gravestone.

The scent traveled up to his nose. It wormed into his brain. A tingling sensation flourished through his nerves.

Avery touched it. It came away, upon his fingers, and he put it slowly to his lips. He smelled it—sweet, saccharine, flooding his brain with joy. He touched it with his tongue. The feeling of it spread out across his tongue like a wildfire, electrifying the corners of his mouth, flooding with saliva. Some of it spilled through the corners of his lazily opened jaw. But it wasn’t enough. It just wasn’t. He needed more; much, much more.

He tilted the body’s head to the side. To his dismay, the warmth of the throat was gone. It had become as cold as him.

He heard rugged breathing behind him.

Harvey stood paralyzed, five feet away from him. His face was pale as someone sick with death, his eyes wide enough to swallow the moon. Terror was frozen upon his face, possessing him. His jaw slack. His body trembling. He glanced over to his left, only slightly.

Avery followed his gaze. He saw another body a few feet away, laying against another gravestone. There was a dark red mark smeared against that one, as well, trailing down to where the head of the head of the body lay.

Harvey turned back to Avery. Then he took a step back. And another. And then another—but he couldn’t seem to fully turn and run. He opened his mouth, but no sound came from it, not even a scream. Only a quiet exhale, as if his lungs were simply emptying themselves. His hands rose before him, but they didn’t seem to know what to do with themselves. Avery stood to his feet, feeling stronger, lighter. The ache in his muscles had diminished, the fog in his head cleared a bit. But not entirely.

He stepped forward.

“Stay the fuck away.”

Harvey’s voice was sharp, demanding. His hands outstretched before him now, as if to keep Avery away. Irritation consumed him at the sound of these words, like a strike across the face.

He approached further.

“I said stay away!” Harvey cried. He tried to step back, then stumbled over something on the ground—a large, loose stone—and came crashing to the ground. “Avery, please, get the fuck away from m—”

Then Avery descended upon him.

He fell atop Harvey, gripping him around the wrists, pinning him to the ground. A wave of insurmountable strength rushed over him, and Avery put all his weight against the body underneath him. Harvey screamed below him, thrashing with all his might. But it would never be enough.

Then Avery’s hand curled around Harvey’s throat. The screams turned into choking, swallowed back into the throat.

He felt the warmth underneath his fingers.

Avery inspected it, feeling the heat against his cheek, like sitting before a fireplace. Emanating from Harvey’s throat, the dull waves of pleasure and satisfaction. Avery’s vision began to blur. He felt dizzy. Harvey began to cry, the tears streaming down his cheeks, falling into the grass.

“Avery, please—”

Avery’s hand clamped over Harvey’s mouth. No sound escaped. Sobs choked back into his throat. The warmth spread out underneath his fingers, calling to him, drawing him close, as the face disappeared.

“Don’t be such a baby,” Avery whispered.

And the screams, which silenced soon enough, began.