Murder in the Graveyard (a Halloween inspired spooky short story)

It was dark tonight; darker than usual. The mist and fog clouded around me as I walked through the lonesome graveyard. My boots crunched leaves and twigs with every step I took. The wind blew through the looming trees that surrounded me. I shivered as I drew my black coat closer around me.

Strolling through this eerie graveyard was the last thing I wanted to do but I couldn’t stay inside with my abusive and drunk father. He’s unpredictable while drunk, but I'd rather not stay and find out what would happen. I don't want to end up like my mother all those years ago.

Maybe I would visit her grave while I'm out here.

I passed by endless gravestones, rows and rows of different tragedies.

It hadn't been long when I heard a shrill scream that broke the silence. It was high-pitched and spine-chilling. It frightened me to the core.

I should have run, I should have ignored it and turned around but I didn't. The scream came again, then pleas for help and hysteric sobbing. I had a terrible feeling in my gut but I kept walking as I followed the sorrowful yowls.

Suddenly, I could make out two shadowy shapes through the fog. I crouched behind a gravestone and peered through the darkness. A woman was crawling on the ground while looking behind her frantically. She was trying to get away from someone. The tall figure caught up with the woman and grabbed her ankles. She tried to fight but failed.

I should do something. I kept repeating that to myself yet I was frozen behind the gravestone. I felt like a scared child again; hiding behind the wall as I had watched my father beat my mother to death.

My pale fingers gripped the stone as I watched what was unfolding in front of me. The man had pinned the woman down to the ground. He was yelling something. She was crying and wiggling. He threw some punches. Then the worst came. The man picked up something from the ground. I couldn't see what it was but I soon figured it out when he brought the sharp edge down onto the woman.

She cried and yelled. Then came the gurgling and choking sound as he continued to bring the ax down on her. I was paralyzed. This shadowy man was murdering the mysterious women and I was powerless to help.

Sometime during it I shut my eyes, not being able to watch anymore. I still heard the sound though. I couldn't tune out the noise of bones crunching and flesh being chopped as he axed the woman to death. At one point I thought I could still, barely, hear her faint and withering cries. With the amount of times he tore into her flesh I didn't think she could still be alive.

Suddenly the noise stopped and I knew she was dead. There was a thud as the man threw the weapon onto the dirt. I dared myself to look. He wiped his forehead and I saw him spit at the barely recognizable body.

"Shouldn't have tried to escape bitch."

His voice was gruff and heartless. There was no hint of remorse.

The man leaned down and grabbed the end of the mutilated corpse then started carelessly dragging it. He eventually disappeared into the shadows along with the freshly chopped woman and ax. I stayed crouched behind the gravestone after he was gone. I was too frightened to move. Her screams were playing in my mind like a broken record. I couldn't get the sound of the ax coming down onto her flesh out of my head.

Eventually, I stood. My legs were wobbly and numb. I walked towards the spot where it happened. Even in the dark, I could make out the blood. There was so much blood. It stained the ground and filled the atmosphere with a strong metallic smell.

I gagged.

Tearing my eyes away from the spot where she was brutally murdered, I turned away. I walked, feeling numb. It wasn't until I got to the front door when the guilt came.

I let another woman get killed right before my eyes without even trying to step in to help.

I'm a murder. I killed my mother. I killed that woman. I'm a disgrace. A coward.

I unlocked the door and ran to the bathroom. I stared at myself in the mirror but I couldn't recognize myself. I squirted soap onto my hands and washed them. Then again and again. I scrubbed until they were red.

I shut my eyes. All I could see was her body. His shadowy figure. It was replaying itself in my mind.

Before I could stop myself, my fist balled and struck the mirror. I didn't bother to clean the blood and glass off my hand as I went into my room and shut the door.

I tossed and turned in my bed, sleep wouldn't be something that came easy. My eyes kept going towards the window; paranoia struck me. The man, what if he finds me? I kept expecting him to bust in and bring the same ax down onto me.

When I did finally fall into a restless sleep, I dreamed of the woman and my mother. Their corpses chased me and screamed into my face. Blood ran down their bruised and beaten flesh. The night terror followed me into the daytime.

The next day, people were talking about the murder. They had found the body. It was dumped into a ditch. It took a while for them to identify the woman because they had said her body was so mutilated it barely looked like a person.

When I had gone into town, I heard people talking about it. I felt like they knew what I had done.

I couldn't sleep the next night either. When I did, I had night terrors about the woman and the man with the ax.

When I was awake, I felt as if he would find me and make sure that I never tell his secret.

I hear her screams when I'm awake and when I sleep. The guilt gnaws at me. It tears me apart. It's all I think about. I can't eat or sleep, I'm slowly losing my mind. I'm on edge. I know he's coming for me.

Days passed and I hear they're finally having a memorial service for the woman who they had identified.

Her name was Shelby Brooks. She had been missing for two weeks. She was only twenty-three. Four years older than me.

They were burying her body in the same graveyard in which she was murdered in. Located right behind my house.

Often now, I can see her walking among the gravestones. Although I’m used to it since I sometimes see my mother.  It’s so vivid to the point where I think they’re real. I once saw her mutilated corpse standing among the stones; watching me.

When I’m alone in the small haunting house, I can hear sorrowful moans and footsteps. I hide in my room, frightened to death. I never know if it’s my mother or Shelby Brooks. Or even worse, the man with the ax coming to kill me.

Going insane and not being able to stop it is one of the worst forms of torture and pain. The guilt and terror that I feel is slowly eating me from the inside. I’m going to break. I’m a fragile glass waiting to shatter.

It happened one day when I was home alone and kept hearing footsteps and crying. I saw shadows crawling among the walls and I swore I heard a door open and shut.

I peered out the window into the darkness and thought I saw someone or something lingering by the shed. When I went outside and shined the flashlight onto it, nobody was there. I did find an ax though. As I picked it up, I heard heavy footsteps and shallow breathing.

I froze and panicked. It was the man with the ax. He finally found me and he was going to kill me. It all happened so fast. Icy fingers gripped my bare arm. Terrified, I swung around and whacked the shadowy man with the ax. My body was trembling. My legs were going weak.

Blindly, I kept hitting the man with the sharp edge of the ax. I wouldn’t let him kill me just like he had killed Shelby Brooks.

I kept swinging the ax down onto the body until I couldn’t swing anymore. The man wasn’t moving and I knew he was dead.

Curious to see the face of the mystery man, I found the flashlight that I had dropped and shined it onto the body.

Shock coursed through my shaken body, I stumbled and fell backwards. I felt sick. The man that I had just blindly murdered was my father.