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Crunch.
Merlin gulped as he peered down, one eye open.
It was only a branch.
“You worried about bones, Merlin?” Will called out from behind Merlin, startling him. Merlin’s mobile, which was also acting as a torch, flung out of his hands and on to the soggy ground. He groaned and wiped the moisture on his baggy jumper.
His ideal Halloween consisted of a large bowl of buttery popcorn and a pile of Mars Bars, sitting in front of his laptop—alone—watching movies.
Not the scary ones. Then he couldn’t sleep for ages and he’d be scared of the dark for weeks.
Unfortunately, he’d made the mistake of telling Will that.
“We need to get a proper spook in your system,” Will had insisted, a downright maniacal grin overtaking his features.
Will had proceeded to drag Merlin out from their flat and into the frigid night air. The trick-or-treaters had already been tucked in, probably high on so much sugar they couldn’t sleep.
Merlin would rather be sleeping than wandering through a cemetery to find what Will had called, ‘a true Halloween experience’.
“Moon’s bright tonight, eh?” Will said, smacking Merlin’s shoulder, scaring Merlin for the umpteenth time in the past hour.
“Would you stop that!” Merlin hissed. “I nearly dropped my phone again.”
“Oh, shush. All part of the conditioning process, my friend.” Will giggled. “Don’t tell me you’re gonna run home next chance you get?”
“As if,” Merlin said. He spun around to glare at Will and poke him in the chest. “If I did go home, it would be because I’m bored, not scared.”
Will nodded dramatically, arms crossed. “Duly noted. Then I’d best show you…it.”
When Merlin raised an eyebrow, Will continued, “Legend says on a night like this, on Hallow’s Eve, a haunted tombstone in this cemetery has not just any name inscribed on it.”
Will started to tramp off into the night. His mobile illuminated his face like in a horror movie, and he spoke in an obnoxiously loud whisper. “It’ll have your name.”
“You’re having me on,” Merlin said, following after Will. He didn’t believe in ghosts, but that didn’t mean the stories didn’t freak him out. He shivered.
“Nope, I’m not. Jimmy said he saw it last year. Anyone who reads it sees their death date.”
“Was Jimmy so pissed he couldn’t see straight?”
Will huffed. “That’s besides the point! Can you just believe me and shut up? It’s just over there.”
Will pointed to a tombstone in the middle of the cemetery. It looked strangely out of place as it stood apart from the rows of graves, surrounded by short rose bushes on a hill.
Before Merlin could protest, Will sprinted up the hill. Merlin chased after him in his soaking trainers, muddy water splashing upon his trousers. Merlin could have easily overtaken him, but Will looked desperate and Merlin didn’t want to ruin his favourite socks any further, so he trailed behind.
Will finally stopped right next to the grave, gasping for breath. As Merlin looked down at him, feeling not impressed with the daft idea of a race, Will wheezed, “That was…more exercise than…I usually do. Damn it, this tomb is for someone named Cuthbert. Merlin”—he coughed—“did you keep up with—”
As Will glanced up, his eyes grew wide, looking at something behind Merlin.
“RUN!” Will screamed, gasping for breath as he staggered away like an old man about to die from exertion.
Merlin turned around and in the distance, he could spot a figure runs towards him at top speed, shovel glistening in the moonlight. He fumbled to turn off the torch on his mobile and shoved it into his pocket. If he ran using only the light of the moon, maybe he could slip into the cover of the trees.
Before Merlin could get away, his heart ratcheting in overdrive, he tripped over his own foot and landed—rather wetly, to his deep chagrin—on his knees in an enormous mud puddle.
Merlin scrambled to get up, his hands deep in filthy, ice-cold water, but he froze. The shadow loomed right before him, the shovel dripping with what looked like blood.
Merlin didn’t scream. He was bent over, freezing, face covered in droplets of water that felt like needles, his fringe dripping and obscuring his vision. Will’s cries of “MERLIN! YOU’RE DEAD, I’M DEAD, WE’RE ALL DEAD!” could be heard behind him, a surreal chorus of chaos in contrast to the silence that lengthened between him and the mysterious figure.
Only when Merlin finally stood, hunched over and dripping, teeth chattering, did the figure before him speak.
“You look wet.”
Before Merlin could think about the fact that he might die, that this man (judging from the low voice) might kill him with a shovel if he made the wrong move, he snorted. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
Great, Merlin thought grimly. This is it.
Cause of death? Shovel to the head on Halloween.
Merlin could see it now. He would become nothing but an urban myth and good, old Will would write a book on it and make loads of money.
Bastard.
“Let’s see,” the man said, taking off the hood that had covered his face from the moonlight. One hand still gripped the shovel, which had not blood, Merlin realised, but mud on it. “I could tell you that you need to leave right now because otherwise, as the one who keeps watch over this place, I’ll turn you in.”
“Shit. You’re the gravedigger?”
“I prefer the term ‘cemetery worker,’ if you don’t mind.” The man leaned his arm on the top of his shovel and sighed. “Kids these days like to muck up the area on Halloween. Morgana had me draw straws with the others. They’re gallivanting the town as we speak. And here I am, finding kids like you who have nothing better to do than make more work for me.”
Though the man wore a thick, black jacket, Merlin could tell he had muscle. Definitely enough to crack his head open with a shovel. He reminded Merlin of the logger that turned out to be a serial killer in the movie Will made him watch before they got here, which made Merlin half-wonder if Will had planned all this.
If anything, a gravedigger was the perfect shovel-murderer.
But for some reason, this man pushed all his buttons and Merlin once again didn’t stop to think before he spoke.
“You’re calling me a kid? I’m not much younger than you,” Merlin said, jutted his chin out. Maybe the guy was ten years at the most older than Merlin, who was still in uni.
The man scoffed. “You’re young enough that I pity you for not having more fun on a night like this.” He noticed Merlin’s soggy trousers and jumper. “You must be freezing.”
“Not really,” Merlin said. “I’ve got wool leggings on underneath.”
Oh god. He should not have said that. That sounded lame. But he should score maturity points for not completely freezing his arse off, right?
Some staying-alive points would be good, too.
The man laughed, clear and bright and not at all insane-sounding. After Merlin shot him a dark look, he smirked. “You can’t tell me your hands aren’t cold, kid. They’re practically blue.” Before Merlin could react, he reached out to gently hold one of Merlin’s hands.
Merlin looked at the man’s jaw, lightly dusted with fine blond hair, and his blue eyes with little crow’s feet. He looked like the kind of bloke Merlin would spot at a party and proceed to simply drool over without making a single step towards because he was too much of a coward.
At this point, Merlin was leaning towards less of the run-away-from-the-shovel-murderer plan and more towards the he’s-so-out-of-my-league-but-let’s-try-anyway plan.
“As I thought. Just like ice.” The man let go of Merlin’s hand and riffled into his jacket pockets.
“I’m not ‘kid’,” Merlin said. “I’m Merlin. I have a name.”
“Well, Merlin, I didn’t think I needed to know your name, to be honest. Thought you’d run off like your friend at the sight of me since I’m here after hours.” The man was still digging in his pockets, pulling out receipts and tissues which he only stuffed right back in.
Merlin sighed, exasperated. Had this bloke lurked around the cemetery for so long he’d forgotten how to act like a normal human being?
“What’s your name, then?” Merlin asked.
The man grunted at that before shoving a plastic pouch in Merlin’s hands.
“Hand warmers,” the man said. “Useful on a night like this.”
“Thanks,” Merlin murmured, surprised that a man he’d thought would kill him with a shovel and bury him only five minutes ago was giving him something as frivolous as hand warmers so his hands wouldn’t get cold.
He almost felt warm already.
An idea popped into Merlin’s head. He searched the front pocket of his trousers and pulled out a Mars Bar. “Equal exchange,” he said, motioning for the man to stick out his hand.
The man looked thoughtful for a moment before taking it. He ripped open the wrapper with his teeth and popped it into his mouth. “I’m starving. Thanks, ki—Merlin.”
Merlin smiled. “You’re welcome.”
A bloodcurdling scream could be heard from behind the line of trees. Probably just Will thinking the man would kill him next. Or Will might’ve seen his own shadow, Merlin thought wryly. Will had seemed more scared than Merlin when the gravedigger ran at them.
“You probably should go help your friend,” the man suggested, tilting the handle of his shovel to point at the approaching figure. “He probably thinks you’re about to become another body in this place.”
“MERLIN!” Will screeched from afar. “I’M COMING, MATE! BASH HIS HEAD IN!”
“Yeah,” Merlin said, his heart fluttering in his chest. He didn’t want to leave at all, to be honest.
If he had his wool leggings, hand warmers, chocolate, and an interesting bloke to talk to, who could ask for a better Halloween?
“Tell your friend that he shouldn’t be slinging you along on midnight trips like this,” the man said. “It’s dangerous.”
“How do you know it was him that came up with this idea and not me?”
“Well,” the man drawled, throwing Merlin a wink which may have changed Merlin’s outlook on life (from typically bleak to utterly fantastic), “beside the point that you two were as loud as dying cats, you don’t look the type.”
“Really?” Merlin said, breaking out his reverie. “And what type am I? The type of guy who shuts himself in his room, read books, and has never had a date in his life?”
Merlin winced at his honesty, wishing he could take back the words. He was too quick to defend himself. The remnants of how he survived his teenage years still lingered. That time in his life when doubt had won over every hope he’d had of finding a boyfriend.
The man looked startled for a second, and then shook his head. “Sorry, Merlin. I didn’t mean it like that.”
Merlin felt a blush and looked down to inspect his wet trainers. “No, it’s fine, I should’ve known,” he mumbled.
The bloke was just humouring him, trying to be nice, and he’d clammed up inside his shell.
A pathetic too-young-for-blond-gravediggers shell.
The man took a deep breath. “So, Merlin. I should introduce myself and stop being a presumptuous git. I’m Arthur,” he said and his lips tilted into a lopsided grin that took Merlin’s heart by surprise. “Equal exchange.” Arthur reached down and slipped his hand into Merlin’s. When he squeezed Merlin’s hand lightly, Merlin had the sudden urge to just wrap himself in Arthur’s arms.
Merlin let out a shuddering breath before releasing his hand from Arthur’s. “The balance has been restored,” he said before he could think of something smooth, sagely nodding his head.
They both looked at each other for a moment and then started laughing.
Arthur sighed after their laughter died down. “You really are odd, Merlin.”
Merlin squinted his eyes and before he could protest, Arthur hastily added, “No! I…like it, actually. It’s quite refreshing and—er—cute.” Arthur scrunched his face like he couldn’t believe he said all of that, and frankly neither could Merlin.
“Oh. Um. Okay,” Merlin said, mentally kicking himself for another dull response. Though he had just been called cute by a handsome man.
Merlin bit his lip as he looked at Arthur and Arthur him. A strange sort of calm stretched between them as they listened to Will approach, who moaned words of encouragement to fend off the ‘insane gravedigger’.
Will was still walking towards them at an exhausted drag like a zombie hit by a tranquilliser.
Merlin needed to get to Will before the idiot ruined the moment and started attacking Arthur. “I’d best be going…”
When Merlin turned around to walk away, he paused.
See you around?
Merlin couldn’t say that. Not if he planned to make frequent visits to the cemetery, which would be painfully obvious and creepy.
“Happy Halloween, Arthur” Merlin said, letting a grin take over his face.
“Happy Halloween, Merlin,” Arthur said, smiling back and sending a thrill through Merlin.
Perfect.
*
As they walked home, Will poked and prodded, wondering what happened while he was wandering amongst the tombstones, doing what, in his words, was ‘a valiant rescue operation’.
“Was he cute?” Will said.
When Merlin didn’t say anything, Will went berserk.
“He was, wasn’t he? God. Here I thought I was trying to save your poor misfortunate soul from being tragically torn from your body when you were actually flirting?”
“Shut up,” Merlin muttered, thankful that the clouds were covering the moon and obscuring his raging blush.
“I’m never going to forgive you, Merlin. I nearly pissed my pants out there. Wait. Hold on, I think I did…”
Merlin tuned out Will the rest of the way, his hand clutching on to the unopened hand warmers in his pocket, basking in the memories of what he had no doubt would be immortalised in his mind as his best Halloween ever.
That one Halloween I fell for a gravedigger.