The Short Cut

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When I was 14 years old I was dared, (by my friends), to walk alone through the local graveyard at night. Not wishing to appear cowardly in front of my peers, I foolishly accepted the challenge. Thankfully, I got through okay but it was a terrifying experience I will never forget. 

The following tale is loosely based on that fear inducing journey.

The Short Cut

A seasonal horror tale

1

Quentin Greely munched feverishly on an already severely bitten down fingernail whilst absently watching the film credits crawl slowly up the silver screen.

Not because he was particularly interested in discovering who did what in the movie but simply because he point blank refused to give up his seat in the Rialto cinema until the auditorium was totally quiet and people free! 

He preferred to wait like this in order to avoid being caught up in the noisy, bustling, sharp elbowed hordes rushing for the exits. Being content with his own company, he pretty much disliked crowds.

When all was finally quiet, he stood up, shrugged on his heavy army surplus greatcoat and sauntered nonchalantly up the empty aisle.

Strolling through the air warmed foyer at a casual pace, he politely bade the pretty young bubble gum chewing cashier a genial ‘good night’. She reciprocated with a quick and practised glossy pink lipped smile before dismissing him completely and forever from her thoughts. 

Pushing open the glass swing doors that lead from the foyer on to the high street, Greely stepped from the commodious warmth of the cinema out into the bitter wintry evening of a mid December night. 

A blustery icy wind blew fierce and cold in his face as he noted the moonless sky was becoming worryingly overcast with angry ink black clouds, heavy and pregnant with rain. 

Heedful of a potential downpour - and subsequent unwelcome drenching - Greely quickly pulled on a pair of grey woollen gloves, rammed his hands deep into his greatcoat pockets and set off at a fair speed in the direction of his home.

The freezing wind, keen and biting, whistled spitefully past his exposed and vulnerable ears rendering them numb and yet achingly painful.

Yanking up the thick collar of his greatcoat in a futile attempt at warming his chilled protuberances, he mentally cursed the arctic weather as he trudged swiftly along the frosty high street pavement passing brightly lit shops and stores - all of which had merry Christmas displays twinkling festively in their windows. 

Shrugging his shoulders forward, Greely bent his head down and stared at the frosty white pavement moving swiftly beneath his trainer covered feet. 

Being a great believer in "thought shortens journey's", Greely began to think, conjuring up mental images of whatever gave him most pleasure. 

And so it was that, as he turned a corner taking him out of the High Street into Casablanca road, he found himself contemplating his tiny but cosy, bachelor quarters situated at the very top of old Mrs Freling's three-storey boarding-house in Jeremiah Close. 

This was his happy place. It was where he felt most at ease. His special world that kept him a million miles away from reality.

In his minds eye he could see it clearly.

A basic square room, it housed a comfortable single bed that lodged beneath an ancient sash cord window. 

A coal effect electric fire was set in a Victorian style, green marble tiled fireplace and beside the fireplace, an overstuffed brown leatherette chair that enveloped Greely’s body so comfortably he would often swear that it must have been specifically designed just for him! 

In one corner of the room there stood a chipped and rather dilapidated looking red, Formica topped kitchen table with single matching chair - where he sat and ate all his meals - and, bordering the table and chair, an ancient two ringed Belling electric stove upon which he cooked them. 

Last, but by no means least, in the corner opposite the kitchen table, lived the oak, glass-fronted bookcase that housed his beloved books! 

Thinking deeply, Greely made an unconscious turn out of Casablanca road and into Goose Lane. 

Plodding mechanically along he now began to reflect upon his cherished books, totally oblivious to the neat suburban houses to his far left and the antediluvian moss covered wall of the town cemetery to his immediate right. 

Even the raw weather was temporarily forgotten as he savoured thoughts of the tales he'd read and those he'd yet to read. 

Greely had but two true passions in his solitary life and they were; 'books and movies'. But, only of a certain type!

Horror! 

Yes, Greely was totally obsessed with Vampires and Vampire legend, Werewolves, Ghouls, Zombies and Demons. 

He would happily scour bookshops, new and second hand for hour upon hour, endlessly searching for the definitive publication. Good, bad or indifferent, it mattered not to him so long as some mention of blood sucking, flesh eating fiends were made. 

And, if the Rialto cinema was showing a horror feature, Greely would very nearly have an orgasm! 

The film he'd just witnessed at the Rialto Cinema was - to the more discerning cinema-goer - nothing less than appalling and a complete and utter waste of time and money. 

But not to Quentin Greely! 

" BLOOD OF THE VAMPIRE DEMON " gripped and enthralled him from start to finish. In fact, during some of the more graphically gruesome scenes, he was literally on the edge of his seat, eyes wide and unblinking, taking in every gory detail of torn flesh and crunching bones! 

With mouth agape, his large sweating hands clenched and unclenched in what can only be described as pure unadulterated pleasure! 

So involved was he, both physically and mentally, he never once heard the sporadic, ribald, and somewhat coarse comments, yelled out by a group of high spirited youngsters sat just three rows down from his position. 

But then, nothing short of a nuclear bomb could have ruined Greely's enjoyment!

2

Halfway down Goose Lane came the turn off into Cemetery Walk, aptly named as it did run up to and through, the town cemetery. 

During daylight hours, Greely found the 'Walk' to be a pleasantly peaceful and extremely convenient short cut home. But, when darkness fell and invisible owls hooted eerily from within the darkened branches of the tree-lined graveyard path, Greely couldn't help but visualise the murky cemetery to be simply swarming with vampires, over run by zombies, and literally teeming with all manner of vile flesh eating creatures.

Despite common sense telling him that such creatures did not truly exist, Greely was so fearful of his somewhat over amplified and ghastly visions, he found himself utterly incapable of summoning up the requisite courage to make use of the Cemetery Walk short cut at night and so tended to avoid it like the plague! 

The numbing weather appeared to grow even colder as Greely approached the corner of Cemetery Walk; the fierce cutting wind seeming able to penetrate his bulky khaki greatcoat with consummate ease, nipping at his pallid flesh and causing his tall, angular frame to shiver and shake uncontrollably. 

Dismally, he paused on the corner, stamping his frozen feet and flailing his arms about like a demented windmill trying desperately to generate a little heat. 

With teeth chattering like castanets and his eyes - stung by the uncaring wind - watering copiously, Greely glanced across the street at the houses opposite perceiving Christmas trees twinkling with brightly coloured lights, bedroom and living room lights blazing like beacons of warmth and comfort and chimneys belching the smoke of crackling fires burning brightly and merrily in their grates. 

Shaking his head Greely sighed as an overwhelming sense of envy engulfed him. He wished, with heart and soul, that he could be home right now, slumped in his fireside chair, the electric fire full on, with a hot steamy mug of cocoa in one hand and a good, bloodcurdling book in the other. 

Heaven! 

Averting his wistful gaze, he wiped his weepy eyes with a gloved hand and sniffed back the liquefied mucus that was threatening to vacate his large hairy nostrils and run down on to his upper lip. 

Sighing deeply, Greely now contemplated the long freezing walk still ahead of him. 

To get home by his normal night time route, he would obviously have to circumnavigate the cemetery. 

That would mean walking a quarter of a mile further down Goose Lane, then a right turn into Fircone Road, another half mile before turning right again into Copper Valley Avenue and then, yet another quarter of a mile before the left turn into Jeremiah Close. 

The idea of walking another mile in such bitterly cold weather did not bode well with Greely, as he stood on the corner, sniffing and shivering violently. 

The only alternative was, of course, the shorter, half mile Cemetery Walk route which would cut his journey time significantly. 

That route, however, also did not bode well. 

It did not bode well at all! 

Under normal nocturnal circumstances, Greely would never have considered taking the short cut - not in a trillion years. But the climate was so intense and severe and his body so ached with cold he was at least, (on this one occasion), prepared to weigh up the options. 

It now came down to choices and decisions. A case of which of the two was the lesser evil? Taking the lengthier route and remaining in a state of refrigeration for a longer period? Or the shorter, albeit terrifying, route through the cheerless, unlit graveyard?

Bending his thin frame forward, Greely peered indecisively along the foot-way of Cemetery Walk, through the open rusting iron graveyard gates at the obscure and somewhat forbidding path he would have to take should he choose the short cut. 

His watery eyes were unable to penetrate far into the black shroud beyond the gates but he could just discern several grey tombstones, protruding from the earth - like so many rotten teeth in a dark cavernous and iniquitous mouth - close to the well spaced trees. 

Greely shivered involuntarily. But this time, not with cold! 

Folding his arms protectively across his bony chest, he turned and looked along the well lit and somewhat comforting Goose Lane as the Arctic wind increased its onslaught and began to bite more harshly and hungrily at his body. 

Unbearable as this icy weather was, Greely knew there could really be only one choice of route for him... The long one! 

The graveyard was a definite... no - no! 

He would rather risk death by hypothermia than face walking the dark shrouded pathway on the other side of the cemetery gates! 

Finally happy with his decision, he set foot for home. 

He was just about halfway across Cemetery Walk when the dusky, painfully swollen clouds above him finally ruptured and it began to pour heavily with cascading streams of icy rain. 

Greely halted his homeward advance and, unable to believe his luck, stood, in utter dejection and disbelief, as voluminous drops of water smacked viciously against the road and painfully upon his bare, balding head. 

He could have just about put up with the cold. 

But icy rain as well! 

Shit, no... 

With a sinking heart, Greely finally had to concede that fate had almost certainly intervened and a choice of route had more or less been denied him. 

Logic dictated that there was really only one possible route he could take now!

A route where spreading green leafed branches extended from tall trees and arched across a path forming a natural canopy. 

The one route that would afford him at least some protection against the deluge. 

The short cut along Cemetery Walk!

3

Instinctively heaving his already sodden greatcoat over his soaking wet head, Greely lumpily swallowed his terror as best he could and, heading for the cover of the trees, ran swiftly along Cemetery Walk and through the iron gates into the dismal and dank smelling graveyard. 

The only small crumb of comfort for Greely was that, although the rain was now simply thundering down, it was hardly able to penetrate the thick leafy awning that towered some fifty or so feet above him. 

Only a few isolated drops succeeded in worming their way through, only to suicidally plummet, then spatter on to the graveyard path. 

Feeling just a mite gratified, Greely released his greatcoat allowing it to slowly slide from his head down on to his narrow shoulders. 

Despite the fact that the cemetery gates he'd just passed through were no more than a few paces away and could be easily reached and exited within seconds, Greely immediately began to feel horribly vulnerable and therefore wasted no time in scanning, with wide staring eyes, (and a generous portion of nervous trepidation), the gloomy, and distinctly sinister, leafy tunnelled path that lay before him. 

He didn't like the look of it. 

He didn't like the look of it at all. 

Not one little bit! 

What if there really were flesh eating, blood sucking zombies, skulking in the shadows or crouching behind the gnarled and muscular trunks of the trees? 

Christ! 

They could be watching him right now! 

Watching and waiting. Willing him to foolishly enter their domain. Hungrily craving his flesh and his blood. 

He was sorely tempted to remain where he was. 

After all, he reasoned, the trees afforded adequate shelter and, rather than risk a terrifying and potentially dangerous journey through the fearsome graveyard, he could wait out the rain storm and then resume his journey homewards along the comparative safety of Goose Lane. 

But it was on the cards that the brutal downpour would last out this cruel and bitter night and he was, even now, seriously chilled to the bone and shivering furiously. 

If he could just find the courage within himself to ignore the fact that he was in this shadowy necropolis of the dead. 

If he could just listen to the voice of reason and convince himself that zombies and vampires did not actually exist. 

If he could just concentrate his thoughts on normal everyday matters - such as his boring shelf fillers job at the local hypermarket - then, with luck, he just might make it through physically and mentally unscathed. 

Of course, that was a helluva lot of 'if's'. 

Concluding he at least had to try, he steeled himself for the attempt by taking several deep breaths and then, forcing himself to concentrate intensely on his shelf filling duties, valiantly set off along the tarmac path of Cemetery Walk. 

He was about half way into the leafy stygian tunnel when the rain abruptly stopped. 

And so did Greely! 

Without the thunderous roar of the rain, the cemetery had instantly become ominously silent. 

This was a shame since, on the face of it, he'd been doing extraordinarily well, just plodding along, eyes fixed upon the graveyard path, subconsciously keeping to the centre in order to maintain a fairly safe and equal distance between him and the vast numbers of grim and grey tombstones situated either side of him. 

With tremendous fortitude - and to his credit - he'd successfully managed to block out any frightening images attempting to enter his usually receptive mind, giving only positive and agreeable thoughts uninhibited access. 

At least he had! 

Up until the rain had left off. 

The persistent roar of the torrent crashing against the leafy boughs above him had been strangely comforting, and had undoubtedly aided his concentration. 

But now, apart from the odd few drops hitting the path with a faint, rhythmic and melodic plopping sound and the soft but haunting voice of the wind blowing cold and mournful through the clicking branches above him, all was quiet. 

Deathly quiet! 

Greely didn't like this quiet. 

It was eerie and, well, intimidating; threatening... 

Scary!

4

For the first time since entering the graveyard, Greely felt an uncomfortable but overpowering desire to look about him; to check carefully on his surroundings. 

The first thing he noted, with a growing unease, was a thin wispy layer of whitish mist beginning to cover some of the graves just beyond the trees. 

Warily, he studied the mist as an owl let out a spooky hoot somewhere in the distance. 

Inevitably, the mental barrier he'd successfully constructed in order to hold back and resist unwelcome images began to crumble, and his head immediately started to fill with undesirable thoughts. 

How many times, he contemplated reluctantly, had he read in a book, or witnessed a scene of this ilk at the cinema? 

Why, only tonight in " BLOOD OF THE VAMPIRE DEMON " there had been just such a scene. 

Greely shuddered involuntarily and swallowed a painful lump as a rather revolting and gruesome part of the film, apropos dead people crawling from their mist covered graves and subsequently devouring a young man alive, clawed its way into his mind. 

It was, at this moment in time, and considering his situation, a review he could well have done without! After all here he was, alone in a dark and dismal graveyard surrounded by, he gulped, dead people! Granted, he couldn't see them, hidden as they were by six feet of earth, but even so, a multitude of the deceased were definitely, incontrovertibly sharing this graveyard with him! 

Now the worms of fear began to wriggle and writhe inside his stomach as the terrible vision of that unfortunate young man being oh so slowly - and graphically - eaten by an entire army of rotting, maggot infested creatures, played over and over again in his head like a crazy looped video. 

In a frantic attempt to stifle this macabre scene, Greely pondered on just how far the exit gates were from his present position. He quickly estimated that he was a little over half way. Less than 1000 metres to go and he would be out of this hellish place and - more to the point - safe. 

The wind seemed to be gathering strength, whipping the trees and inciting the mist to eddy and swirl eerily around the dismal grave stones. 

Greely eyed the mist with a growing mixture of misgiving and dread consternation, wishing with his entire being that he'd now taken the longer, but far more agreeable, Goose Lane route home. 

Desperately trying to rebuild his mental barrier, disregard the ghostly mist and expunge the horrifying image of those filthy cinematic zombies, Greely cautiously set off along the dark pitched path. But, try as he might, the barrier doggedly refused to be reconstructed and the bloodthirsty scene positively declined to be erased. 

To make matters worse, the fearsome blanket of spectral mist thickened and drifted across the graveyard path slowly enveloping Greely from his damp and frozen feet right up to his trembling knees as the relentless wind blew keen and icy through the branches of the trees. 

But he hardly felt the cold now. 

It was the Phantom-like mist that now held his anxious attention. 

No longer able to see his feet through the ever thickening mist, his imagination jumped into overdrive and he began to feel unpleasantly exposed and terribly helpless. 

He could now quite easily envisage vast quantities of dead, fleshless, malevolent beings silently crawling and squirming invisibly beneath the misty carpet toward him, mercilessly seeking out his unprotected ankles, in order to grip and to grab and to pull him down with their cold bony fingers, and thereafter to viciously tear and rip at his living flesh with their long taloned fingernails and sharp yellow teeth.

Just as they did to that poor unfortunate young man in; "BLOOD OF THE VAMPIRE DEMON” 

Believing - as he now did - that his next step could, quite possibly, be his last, Greely’s entire body tingled and quaked with foreboding as every single stride forward became an escalating nightmare of absolute terror. 

Nervously, his eyes darted from left to right, constantly seeking any abnormal disturbances in the rolling mist that just might indicate the approach of some murderous and hideous dead thing. 

Near to breaking point, he hesitantly followed a bend in the path. 

And, to his utter and joyful relief, he discovered salvation beckoning in the form of the exit gates some two hundred metres distant. 

And beyond the gates? 

The lighted windows of houses shining warmly and brightly. 

Just the sight and homely normality of those dwellings boosted Greely's morale one hundred per cent and, as the gates drew ever closer he became less and less afraid. He even began to admonish himself for ever being frightened in the first place! 

He had not, after all, been pestered, delayed or even slightly attacked by vampires, zombies or indeed any representatives of the living dead!

How utterly stupid he'd been. There was absolutely nothing to fear in a graveyard! Dead people couldn't really move, and even if they could, they'd have one helluva job shifting six feet of earth without the aid of a shovel, now wouldn't they? 

He kicked at the mist boyishly as he walked, watching it undulate like rippling waves on a silver sea. Oh yes, his cup of confidence was now truly over flowing. 

Happily believing that he'd made it through the feared and sombre graveyard safely, he was quite suddenly overcome with a blood rush of bravado. 

Boldly swaggering to within a few feet of a grey and weathered, lichen covered gravestone, he glared at it, smiled impishly to himself and then slowly raised two stiff fingers in a gesture of irreverent defiance." Fuck you! ", he whispered mischievously. 

Content with this brave and assertive action, he strode manfully toward the gates. 

It was when he was some fifty or sixty yards short of the exit that he thought he caught something moving, disturbing the mist close to the last tree on his right. 

With a pounding heart and his new-found courage cracking significantly, he stopped and carefully studied the area, earnestly checking for any sign of further movement. 

There appeared to be none. 

Breathing a heavy sigh and almost crying out loudly with relief, he marched purposefully towards the gates. 

5

He was just about opposite the last tree on his right, when his foot connected with a soft object lying unseen beneath the mist. 

Greely's heart grew legs and jumped high with fright as a ghastly moaning sound drifted up from the depths of the mist. 

Stuffing a woollen gloved hand into his mouth to prevent a threatened scream from escaping his lips, he quickly stepped back a pace as the dreadful moaning, coupled with a kind of a terrible breathy gurgling noise continued. 

Utterly convinced that some kind of undead abomination was skulking in the mist and that he was almost certainly in mortal danger, Greely's mind was thrown into a whirlpool of panic and indecision. 

Should he stand perfectly still and silent in hopes that whatever was making that God awful noise would simply just go away and leave him alone? Or should he make an escape attempt? 

It was a heart stopping wail that decided him. Summoning up what little courage he had left, he began to tiptoe slowly in a wide circular direction past whatever was lurking in the mist, very carefully placing one foot silently in front of the other. 

He'd managed only two soundless paces and was halfway through his third when the icy wind abruptly whipped up the mist forcing it to scurry from the path like a thing possessed. 

And, for a few brief and terrible moments, Greely was given the unwelcome opportunity of confronting the object of his fear. 

With terror stricken eyes he beheld a hideous skeletal thing draped in a saggy and wrinkled dark grey skin. Blood red malignant eyes glowered hungrily at him from dark sunken sockets whilst it wheezily disgorged a putrid yellow and viscous substance from its vile, thin lipped mouth. 

Worst of all, Greely observed, with heart stopping horror, it's foul bony animated fingers were slowly moving toward him. 

Frozen with fear, Greely's mind had the opportunity of recording every revolting detail before the mist returned and all but hid the loathsome zombie-like creature from his sight. 

Never had he known such throat tightening terror. Never had he been so intensely afraid. He was convinced now that it could only be a matter of seconds before the creature was upon him, tearing his living flesh asunder. 

Feverishly, he looked towards the exit gates. There was deliverance. A half a dozen long strides and he would escape this living nightmare. Just half a dozen! 

He had to at least try… or die! 

He'd barely decided to cut and run when, to his utter shock, he felt the deathly cold touch of bony fingers snaking around then tightly gripping his right ankle. 

His stomach turned Olympic somersaults and his heart skipped several beats as the vision of what was soon to become of him compelled his bowels to evacuate freely and noisily into his, 'clean on today', ‘Y Fronts’ and nearly caused his mind to snap like an over stretched elastic band. 

Screaming in terror, he instinctively stamped his left foot hard down on to the arm of the hellish abomination that held him. 

A deafening howl of pain and rage shattered the peaceful stillness of the graveyard as Greely felt the awful skeletal fingers loosen. 

Seizing his chance, he forcibly wrenched his ankle away and bolted hysterically towards the exit gates as fast as his excrement filled underpants and terrified jelly-like legs would allow, screaming at the top of his voice.

6

Behind him, in the graveyard, the mist stirred as a very pale and extremely intoxicated Claude Capstick, the 65 year old resident gravedigger and well-known whisky lover, hauled himself up and sat in his old, wrinkled and loose fitting dark grey raincoat nursing a painfully bruised left arm. 

Vigorously rubbing a red and sunken, drink sodden eye with a thin bony finger he muttered angrily that a man ought to be allowed to spew up in peace wivout 'aving 'is arm stamped on by some soddin' maniac like that one runnin' out of the cemetery gates making enough noise to wake the bleeding dead!