Chapter Text
The forest wasn´t that scary at night. Sure, it was dark and freezing and the leaves kind of sounded like they were whispering to each other in the wind, branches creaked, and she could hear the faint caws of crows and hoots of owls. But nothing that would…you know…eat me or try to possess me. That´s nice, right? Pretty save so far. Except for the fact that she was alone in a forest, at midnight, equipped with an Ouija board, some tarot cards and crystals she had thrown into her backpack and about to head to an ancient hidden cemetery. That´s where the safety ended. It ended with her as usual. Vivian´s phone had lost signal as soon as she stepped away from the man-made path and went further into the forest. The trees weren´t narrow and since she was still close to civilisation and the main road there weren´t many logs or stumps she had to manoeuvre around. Still, she had no clue where she was supposed to go. The craigslist post that got her here in the first place wasn´t very specific about where the hidden cemetery was. Google Maps wasn´t any more helpful and now that she lost connection it was completely useless. She was lost from the beginning and the earth was wet from yesterday´s heavy rainfall. It was supposed to be a full-moon night as well, but the clouds still clung to the night sky and veiled it in darkness.
Not knowing where to go, Vivian just went wherever her gut feeling told her to go, which so far only took her deeper and deeper into the forest. Using the flashlight from her phone she tried to neither step into animal poop nor fall over branches on the ground. So far, she did a tremendously good job at not doing either of these things. But looking at the ground so much made her lose her sense of direction fairly quickly. When she looked up for the first time in a while, she had no idea where she had come from. There where trees after trees before her, behind her, on her left and her right side. The path she left earlier was nowhere to be seen either. I´m lost, aren´t I? Shit, fuck, please don´t let there be cayotes out here. I don´t mind demons just please no cayotes or wolves!
There´s only one thing she hated more than being afraid of being eaten by hungry carnivorous animals, and that was having wet socks. She had barely walked for 10 minutes and was already squelching with every step she took. I´m doing this for scientific research. I´m walking around in a damn hoodie, some shorts and old sneakers for science. I´m freezing my butt off for science! I deserve a damn Nobel price for this shit, she thought and despite being uncomfortable (I should´ve packed a second pair of socks) her gut feeling told her to move forward so that´s what Vivian did.
Trusting her gut feeling turned out to be a bad idea. She had walked for a good hour now and still hadn´t found even a single gravestone. The lingering moisture had started to soak into her clothes, and she felt…moist. And not the good kind. Her feet hurt from walking on uneven ground and the deeper she got into the woods the harder it was to find a path around fallen trees and plants that looked somewhat poisonous in the bright lightning of the flashlight. Not that she was thinking about giving up but at this point she had to admit that she was absolutely and completely lost and there was no way she would find her way back home until sunrise. “No, this is fine. Everything´s fine. This is an adventure!”, she reminded herself and gained new spirit to move forward. When she took another turn at a tree that was definitely overgrown with poison ivy her phone´s flashlight started to flicker. Her first thought was: “Fuck YES! Ghosts!” but her second thought brought her back to reality: “Shit, my battery is dying!” She couldn´t just turn off the flashlight though. Walking in a very dark, very untouched by human´s part of the forest didn´t strike her as a particularly smart idea. Not that coming here without any preparation was a good idea to begin with. Granted, Vivian didn´t think it would take quite this long to find a cemetery so it wasn´t so much her fault for not coming prepared and much rather the cemetery´s fault for being so damn hard to find. But, as if her perseverance had to be rewarded, the light of her flashlight revealed what looked to be a gravestone not far from where she stood. Fired up from this discovery she ran towards it and, lo and behold, there it was: the hidden, and now discovered, cemetery she read about on craigslist.
She let her phone travel over the tombs, her eyes skimmed over what might be a bit over a hundred graves. All neatly aligned in a half circle. The graveyard was surrounded by trees but for some odd reason no tree grew in between the graves. They looked…untouched by time. Though some had parts broken off and lichen or moss covering them they looked like someone regularly came by and made sure everything stayed in place. Some gravestones even had flowers growing around them. At first the thought of someone still caring for all these long dead and forgotten souls warmed her heart. Her second thought was: shit, serial killer. Who, in their right mind would come all this way into the forest to water the flowers on a grave of a person they didn´t know? Suddenly, being eaten by cayotes seemed like a much better option, at least to her. Vivian decided that, if there really was a psycho serial killer waiting for some lost girl to stop by so he could kill her, she wouldn´t give him the a dvantage of seeing her from the other side of the forest and turned her flashlight off. She was very well aware of the fact that that was probably the dumbest decision she had made today because now she couldn´t see where she was even going but hey, at least the serial killer won´t be able to either. When she remembered the reason that got her here in the first place, namely trying to summon demons or talk to ghosts to prove once and for all if that shit´s real or not, she quickly rid herself off her fear of being killed by a creepy dude in the woods and looked for a place to set down her things. She decided on one of the graves in the middle of the cemetery. She had a good overview of the whole area from here (just to be sure) and it was also the only grave not made of stone. It was a simple wooden cross, no name on it, no flowers growing around it. The cross looked old and brittle from being exposed to the weather for many, many years. She wondered who was buried underneath her and if she would meet them today eventually. Vivian sat down on the ground with her legs folded underneath her and began to pull out her things from her backpack.
The first thing she pulled out was a small black blanket. It was just big enough to be able to display all of her items and made out of soft velvet. Then she got out her rose quartz crystals and arranged them around the top edge of the blanket. She had brought seven in total; three in each corner and one in the middle, making sure that the flat side of each crystal was turned towards the middle of the blanket. She wasn´t entirely sure if that was the correct way to put them but it looked very pretty. Next, she pulled out a black candle and sat it down in the middle of the blanket. From her pocket she fished a box of matches, slightly damp, and lit the candle. Warm, golden light engulfed her and her surroundings and the smell of sulphur and smoke tickled her nose. It calmed her nerves and made her feel a bit more homely. She was kneeling slightly on the blanket and the wetness from the ground felt uncomfortable against her skin. She was freezing but the small candlelight gave her a sense of warmth. She silently thanked her past self for remembering to bring it with her in case she´d run out of battery. She turned off her phone´s flashlight and put it in her backpack. She continued only with the light the candle provided.
The next thing she got out of her backpack was a tarot card deck. She bought one at a flea market a few weeks ago and, as the old lady who she got it from told her to do, put it under her pillow before going to sleep. That´s where the cards had stayed until she changed her bedsheets yesterday. She had completely forgotten about them and most cards had fallen between the crack of her wall and the mattress. She wasn´t able to retain all of the cards but she hoped that she had lost only the bad ones. Her incomplete deck was put on the right side of the candle. The holographic patterns on the back of the cards almost seemed to move under the flickering light. The tarot cards and crystals, however; were only back-up plans in case her main event failed. Her Ouija board. It was bright pink, the same shade as her hair, and looked very much out of place, just like her. She had gotten it from a friend of hers after having a long (and drunken) conversation about whether ghosts exist or not. Her friend was on the sceptical side, but she was sure that there was something else out there. So, she was given the Ouija board and told to film her ghostly encounters tonight. Setting down the board suddenly made her remember this promise. But with her dying battery she wasn´t too sure if she wanted to risk having to find her way back with a dead cell phone when she finished her rituals. Her friend would just have to believe her words. If she, you know, got out of this forest again without being a) killed by a serial killer, b) eaten by hungry cayotes or c) dragged to hell by Satan himself. Out of all these options the latter one promised to be the only one she could get out of alive from. She was sure she could talk her way out of hell and, if not, she would simply annoy the Devil long enough until he let her go himself.
Now with everything somewhat in its designated place, Vivian fished out the last item: a pink planchette and put it in the middle of the board. She threw her mostly empty backpack somewhere to the side then she closed her eyes and tried to connect to the spiritual world. Her breathing evened out and she began to relax every muscle in her body, which was hard considering she was crouched over her Ouija board and twigs and leaves dug into her legs. But slowly, the world around her began to feel fuzzy. She still felt the dampness in her shoes but the discomfort of it was pushed to the back of her head. Instead, she focused on the smell of the forest, damp and crisp from the rain and the night. Her shoulders dropped and the tension she held in her face slipped slowly to the ground. Behind her eyelids she could see the flickering light of the candle. Once Vivian felt her heartbeat slow down, she opened her eyes again. Right in front of her was the sorry excuse of a cross. Compared to the other gravestones this seemed to be the only one that time was able to touch and it hadn´t been gentle on it. The horizontal bar was crooked and the whole thing seemed to lean slightly to the right. And now that she looked at it more carefully, she could see…scratch marks in the wood. A shiver ran down her spine as she thought back to the potential coyotes or other creatures that could´ve caused these indents and might rip her to shreds with the same claws. Oh, this had really, really been a bad idea. But Vivian was not one to give up this easily. She had yet to see even the shadow of a wild animal and until that happened, she would just concentrate on her breathing and keep as quiet as possible. So, once she had collected herself and stuffed her anxiety into the furthest corner of her mind, she began to speak in what was more breath than a whisper: “Is anyone here with me? Not just anyone, but I mean, like a ghost? It would be very nice of you to give me some sort of sign. Preferably the sort of sign where you move my hand on this board and talk to me. Don´t blow out the candle, please, thank you.” Her eyes stayed glued to the cross and she kept her arms and fingers relaxed to make it easier for the ghosts to move the planchette. But nothing happened. Vivian let out a sigh. This whole idea of proving the existence of ghosts proved to be much more complicated than she had intended it to be. She was about to switch put the medium and maybe ask the tarot cards if she should continue or go home, when a soft breeze travelled through the trees and made their leaves rustle. It was as if someone had walked by and gently touched each branch as if to say hello. For Vivian, this was enough of a sign to continue with her Ouija board. She took another deep breath and loosened the muscles in her arm and asked again: “Are there any ghosts nearby? I don´t mean to disturb your slumber but I would seriously appreciate it if you could let me know of your existence somehow. I´m kinda trying to win a bet here so I would appreciate your cooperation. It´s cool if you don´t want to, I get it if you´re too shy but I swear I won´t ask any other questions, just…” and that´s when she saw it. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the shadow of a big, suspiciously coyote-shaped wild animal and she freaked. She jumped to her feet in an instant and was about to turn around and run for her life when she crashed head-first into something hard. Vivian let out a small yelp as she stumbled backwards and tumbled over her crystals, only missing the candle by a mere hair´s width. She somehow found her footing again before falling over the wooden cross and stood there, a little awkward, for quite a few seconds. She was half bent over with her arms stretched out in either direction and her face turned to the ground in front of her. There, right where she had sat not long ago, stood a pair of old leather shoes. One of the shoes had disconnected from the sole and revealed a set of human toes. For the first time in her life, Vivian was thankful to see naked, dirty, but very human-looking toes. Until she realised that she thought she had been alone all this time and that no mentally sane and normal person would go to an ancient hidden cemetery at this hour, unless they were planning something sinister. During her initial fright she had clasped onto the planchette that now dug into her skin where she was still holding onto it. It was a pathetic weapon, too small, too pink and made out of plastic with no pointy ends. She was truly, undeniably, fucked. She was going to get sacrificed to Satan or be buried alive under one of the gravestones or whatever sick plan this weirdo had planned, either way she was not going to make it out alive. Of that she was sure.
“Humans should not enter this place.” his deep voice rumbled through the quietness of the forest that surrounded them. Up until this point Vivian had kept her eyes on the ground, too afraid to be met by a horrifically deformed face or blaring red eyes. But something in his voice…he didn´t sound threatening, more like a teacher scolding his student for being late again. It was authoritarian but in a worn-out way like he was fed up with having to tell people to stop invading this place. It stirred something in her, the side of her that had talked back to her teachers and would pick fights with her friends just for fun. A side that told her to rebel against people she should respect. She wondered if this hidden secret graveyard actually was as hidden and secret as it had been advertised to be. Maybe, just maybe she had wandered into a scam and this was a perfectly normal burial ground that was guarded by a weird dude having to work the graveyard shift. Vivian´s fear subsided. She let her gaze travel upwards from the naked toes poking through the holes in the shoes that turned out to be thigh-high boots, ripped black pants clinging to his legs, to his chest she had so gracefully ran into from which a dirty white blouse hang, up to his face. He´s handsome, she thought at first. Sure, his face looked fallen into, like someone had punched both his cheeks and left a hole in them and he had horribly dark eye bags and somewhat sickish white skin but Vivian could see his strong jawline, high cheekbones and plump lips and his chest had felt muscular as if he had been working out. At least I´ll get killed by a good-looking serial killer. That´s something. Vivian realised that she had been blatantly starring at the guy for a solid minute and quickly averted her eyes when she could feel his piercing gaze on her. His eyes weren´t red or glowing though now she wished they were. They looked…dead. Like all the life had been sucked out of him and left him with a shallow shell that lacked warmth and sympathy. It was unsettling and Vivian couldn´t supress the shiver that ran down her spine. She blamed it on the cold wind and her wet socks. “I said,”, the man began to speak again, “humans have no place here. You must leave.” Vivian´s gaze had involuntarily drifted downwards again. It was only then that she saw the shackles on his ankles.
“Please tell me you´re not Satan”, she begged, a slight shake in her voice she inwardly scolded herself for. She didn´t want to seem afraid, regardless if the guy turned out to be Satan or just your regular ax murderer.
“That is none of your concern. Leave.”
“Very reassuring, thank you. So, what are you then…exactly?”, she waved her hand from his head to his feet. Her curiosity had reawakened and gave her new confidence. After all, the reason she came into this forest in the first place was to find ghosts or demons and now she might stand right in front of one. Besides, he seemed to be chained up somewhere so realistically he wouldn´t be able to run after her for long. He sighed before he answered in the same exhausted, lifeless way he had said everything else: “Some days I am Death but today I am just here as an advisor, to tell you not to meddle around with forces you´re not familiar with. You could call something way beyond your powers.”
“Answering questions is not really your thing, heh?” Vivian felt like being a little cocky shit right now. The fact that creepy dude had shackles on his ankles gave her way too much confidence for a situation like this. She barely paid attention to what he said, simply wanting to talk back and get the guy aggravated enough to reveal if he was of supernatural origin or not. If he was, he might end up bursting the chains and kill her but at least she then could die with the knowledge that ghosts were real. And if he turned out to be a normal guy that somehow had ended up being chained to a graveyard in the middle of a forest…well, there was probably a good reason for that. Either way, for Vivian it was a win-win situation. It would make a good story.
The man sighed again, closing his eyes for a moment. Vivian could tell he was trying to compose himself. For the fraction of a second Vivian felt a twisted sense of triumph. Like she had achieved something by annoying a ghost/demon/personified-version-of-death-but-only-on-weekdays. “Wolf” was all he said. Vivian cocked her head to the side in confusion. He opened his eyes. “What you saw in the shadows was a wolf.” Yellow eyes glared back at her with an intensity that made her blood freeze and boil at the same time. Vivian could just about choke back a scream when she hastily fished around for the backpack and ran like she had never ran before. She barely heard the deep growl that followed after she passed the last row of gravestones and stormed into the forest.
The next morning she woke up with a sore throat and a splitting headache. The yellow glowing eyes of…whatever it was that she had encountered that night had followed her into her dreams. She barely got any sleep tonight. She couldn´t really remembered how she had gotten home. All she knew was that she ran and ran and ran and prayed to every god she could think of to somehow make it home into one piece. She had been in too much or a hurry and was way too frightened to get her phone from her backpack and turn on the flashlight. And she´d been too scared the light would make her an easier target, like a flashing arrow pointing directly at her. But she had found her way home. Somehow. Now, however, it was time to get ready for university. Classes sadly didn´t stop just because you encountered a possible demon the night before. So, Vivian dragged herself out of bed. Her steps were heavy and every muscle in her body was protesting. She really wished she could stay home just this time, but it was almost exam week and she had already missed quite a few lectures this semester. She simply couldn´t afford missing yet another one no matter how much every fibre in her body screamed at her to get her ass back under the warm blankets.
Once she reached the bathroom and took a look in the mirror she reconsidered her decision of going to uni. Her body was a mess. During her escape she lost one of her shoes tripped over multiple exposed tree roots and other things she wasn´t able to see in the dark. There were scratches on her face and legs from where she ran into branches or fell down and bruises littered the rest of her body. Her hair was an absolute frizzy catastrophe and she still had twigs and leaves in it. She looked…rough. The way you´d expect someone to look if they got scared by a supernatural encounter in a deep dark forest in the middle of the night. So, really, it shouldn´t shock her as much as it did. With a long and sorrowful sigh, she pulled her short hair in a bun (or something resembling one) and started to sort out the rest of her appearance. There wasn´t anything she could do to hide the cuts on her face except put bandages on. The only ones she could find in the cupboard, however, where ones with Star Wars characters on them. She had no idea who bought them or why they were in her house but Vivian decided to just go with it and stuck them to her face: one over her nose, one on her right cheekbone and another one too close to her throat to not let another wave of dread wash over her. There was no time to put make-up on if she wanted to at least catch the last half an hour of her first lecture so she quickly went back to her room and put on the first clothes her hands could grab. The weather had gotten nicer compared to yesterday, there was no need for an umbrella or a raincoat. But it was still cold outside and Vivian was glad that she had apparently pulled out her warmest hoodie (an obnoxiously neon pink one with little white ghosts printed all over it) and a pair of washed out jeans, the only pair she owned that wasn´t ripped. Since she had lost one of her favourite sneakers, she opted for black combat boots instead and off she went to pursue her education.
Vivian made it to her second lecture only by a whisker. The first one she of course missed because her bus was late. Today was one of her busier days and she wouldn´t be home until late afternoon. Plenty of time therefor to meet up with her friends in between lectures and ask them for their notes. Problem solved. As soon as her lecture was over she texted Olivia to meet her in front of the building. As soon as Vivian saw the curly hair of her friend walk around the corner she started waving at her. She had a lot to talk about and since they shared the class she had missed today it would be a great opportunity to ask the girl for her notes. Once Olivia was standing in front of her, a cup of coffee in her hand, she mustered Vivian from head to toe, her face showing an increasingly worried expression the more she took in Vivian´s appearance.
“Liv, my best friend, my queen, my womanly knight in shining armour, how art thee on such a splendid day?”
“I can send you my notes later today now tell me what the fuck happened last night and why you didn´t text me back when you obviously did not get mauled to death by cayotes or dragged to hell by demons.” Olivia handed her her coffee cup.
Vivian sighed. She must be a more pitiful sight than she had thought when even her best friend skipped her usual scolding for missing a class and gave her coffee without complaints. She flashed Liv one of her blinding smiles, all teeth and sparkling eyes and shrugged her shoulders. “Well, I guess I met a ghost? Or demon? Or a spirit of death part-timing as an undertaker...” She trailed off, making it seem like she stopped to take a sip of coffee. Vivian didn´t feel like elaborating or going into details when the mere thought of those yellow eyes still gave her the creeps. Was it just her and her poor clothing choices or did it suddenly get colder? That encounter really scared her more than she wanted to admit out loud and she supressed a shiver. Olivia´s eyes almost bulged out of her head she could hardly keep her voice down when she asked: “Did that thing do that to you? Did it touch you? Are you sure it wasn´t just a freaky dude playing a sick joke on you? Have you thrown salt over your shoulder?” Olivia got interrupted in her rambling by another one of their friends, Denise. “Jesus Christ Vivi, what radioactive bird made a nest in your hair today?” The brunette girl gesticulated at Vivian´s face. Denise´s hair was pulled back in a braid around her head with little glittery stones poking out and deliberately placed lose strands of hair framing her doll-like face. Vivian subconsciously touched her own mess of a hair and pulled out a shrivelled up oak leaf. Where…? “She got jumped by a ghost or someone playing a prank.” Olivia eyed Vivian again. She was still frowning and kept her arms tightly around her corduroy jacket. Vivian put the oak leaf in the pocket of her hoodie and spoke: “No, listen guys. It´s…I went to this cemetery, right?” Both girls nodded. “And I put down all of my thin…ah shit I left them there fuck I need to get them back! Anyways, I put down my things and started doing the seance…” “Did you put your crystals down the right way?”, Olivia interrupted. “Yes, no, I don´t know just let me finish, okay?” Vivian shook her head and then continued, moving her arms around dangerously fast while still holding the cup of coffee: “So I did the Ouija board thing and suddenly I see this weird dark shadow that looked like a…”, She remembered the words of the man “What you saw in the shadows was a wolf”. “Like a…wolf I guess, I´m not sure. I wanted to go back home to not get, you know, eaten alive or something, and I ran into this dude´s very firm and muscular chest and he starts telling me to leave and how this is no place for humans and that he´s Death but not today, today he´s just an advisor”, she did a bad impression of his voice, “anyway, so, I thought it would be a good idea to listen to him and I calmy walked back home.” Even to her the last part sounded incredibly unbelievable. She cringed once she realised that her friends would see right through her lie. She took another sip of coffee, almost emptying the whole cup. Denise was the first one to speak up again. She was the more logical and composed one in their friend group and also the one that gifted Vivian the Ouija board. “I don´t know what´s more ridiculous about your story; this weird man-tiddy guy or that you honestly think we´re going to believe you listened to him. Look, it was probably just the guy who told you about this graveyard in the first place. Be thankful he obviously wasn´t a serial killer and only wanted to scare you. Get your stuff back, that board was expensive and I don´t want it to rot in the woods.” Denise rolled her eyes and regarded Vivian with a look that could only be described as disappointed mom. “I´d still throw some salt and cast some protection spells just in case.” Olivia pointed out, looking a bit more apologetic than Denise. “The fuck is salt going to do, Liv? She needs a shower and a good grooming to sort her hair out.” Vivian sighed. She suddenly emphasized with the spirit of death or whatever the man was. People could be absolutely insufferable. “No, listen, guys. I know it sounds weird but the guy had shackles around his feet and glowing yellow eyes it was super creepy!” Vivian tried her best to make her friends believe her. But she knew that without proof Denise would never trust her word and Olivia would only do so out of pity. And as if on cue, Denise asked: “Do you have proof?” Of course, Vivian didn´t so she shook her head. It wasn´t her fault her battery had been nearly dead. Besides, she would have been way too scared to film anyway once the man had appeared. But no one needed to know that part. Denise shook her head again. The thin strands of hair around her face swayed softly from side to side. Vivian became self-conscious about her own again. Denise spoke again: “Just…get the Ouija board back. Maybe you´ll see the guy again? If he still has glowing eyes you can take a picture of him. I have to leave you two now, don´t text me unless it´s a photo of that dude, hm?” Denise gave her another one of her disappointed mom looks and went her way. Olivia still looked apologetic. “I don´t think it´s a good idea to ask for a selfie with the devil, real or mythological.” She said. Vivian agreed. It didn´t strike her as a smart idea. But neither had it been to go to that place the first time. How bad could it be to go there again? This time maybe in proper clothing and with a working phone. And during daytime, preferably. If he really was a ghost then maybe he wouldn´t be there during the day. And demons only appeared once you called on them, right? So really, there was nothing to fear for Vivian. And yet…maybe she would do some research first. Go against her instinct and actually prepare instead of diving in head first. With a quick goodbye the two girls went their separate ways. She had handed the coffee back to Olivia who took it despite it being almost empty. Vivian had to catch a boring lecture about the history of the Anglo-Saxons and she suddenly wished she had indeed been eaten alive by wolves or cayotes.
The rest of the day went smoothly. Despite feeling oddly cold from time to time (she blamed it on her nightly adventure and being overtired) and a few occasions where she thought she saw a black shadow behind a bush, she managed to get home earlier than expected. Back home her real mom gave her an earful for sneaking out at night and losing her shoe but she had prepared a hot bowl of soup for Vivian for which she was eternally grateful. Her mom also mentioned something about “stop smearing your witch stuff on the bathroom mirror” but Vivian barely heard her over the bliss that washed over her as soon as she tasted the soup.
Once she was in her room she began to brainstorm. Her nightly adventure had left her with too many questions. Why did the guy wear shackles? Why did he warn her about wolves? Were there even wolves in that part of the forest? Was he maybe just a strange ecologist being fed up with kids fucking up the eco system? But why did his eyes glow yellow? Maybe he was a werewolf ecologist? Her headache started again. Ugh, this is too much, she thought and decided to take a shower to clear her had and get rid of the headache.
While she was lathering up her bruised body and wincing at the pain when soap got into her cuts, she still couldn´t stop thinking about the man. She wished she could think about his chiselled jawline or his defined cheek bones or his muscular chest, instead she was occupied with trying to figure out if he was a werewolf, Death, Satan, or something else she hadn´t thought about yet. It was a mood killer. She began to absentmindedly doodle on the fogged-up shower wall. Her brain felt fried. It had been an exhausting day and the lack of sleep she got this night didn´t help her concentrate either. She wished for Olivia to show up and buy her coffee again. Making a cup herself felt like too much work right now. Vivian took a look at the doodles she drew: wobbly ghosts and some hearts and…please retrieve your items where did that come from? She must have subconsciously made a memo to herself to get her things from the graveyard. Well, that had to wait until the weekend. She needed to figure out what that guy was before she sat another foot into these woods. So, she exited the shower and fell straight into the cushiony comfort of her bed.
Nothing much happened the following days. She went to Uni, her mom kept complaining about her drawing weird things on the bathroom mirror she couldn´t remember drawing, and Olivia kept buying her coffee, god bless her. She was half-listening, half trying not to fall asleep in her lecture about Anglo Saxon history for the second time this week. Sometimes she hated herself for choosing to study History instead of something more interesting, like Japanese or Numismatics. But here she was. The professor told them about a paper they had to write on one of topics from the list she handed through the rows. Once the piece of paper landed on Vivian´s seat, she mindlessly skimmed the topics and put her name under Burial Rituals. It was the least boring one out of all the options that she could choose from and promised to involve at least some indirect ghost stories. Once the lecture was over, Vivian was free to go home and definitely not work on that paper. Fate, however, worked against her that day. The bus she took home was not only late, but they also got stuck in a traffic jam. Faced with unbearable boredom and unable to listen to music since she forgot her headphones at home, Vivian decided to start taking up her research on the creepy dude from the woods again. Her search history was full of are werewolves real, are werewolves a kind of demon, ghosts in shackles, demons in shackles, recent serial killer activities, how to know if someone is a serial killer or not,…she had reached her limit yesterday but she needed to push past it if she wanted to figure out his existence after all. The bus was slowly moving down the street. She´d probably be faster at home if she walked. But she didn´t feel like exercising today so she stayed in the cosy warmth of the vehicle. Her research went about as fast as the bus. It was growing increasingly frustrating. Vivian eventually came to the conclusion that she had hit a dead end and was better of leaving it alone for a while. But she was still bored so she decided to do some research for her paper instead. Most of it was unsurprisingly boring. It had been common to burn the bodies of the dead and keep them in fancy urns, special people got barrow burials or ship burials. And as churchyard burials started to become fashionably at around 1650, so did gravestones. It took until the 19th century for inscriptions to include a few words about the deceased. She wondered how old the cemetery was that she went to. Judging from the state it was in, not that old. But the person on the internet claimed that it was at least from the 18th century if not older. Vivian was more inclined to believe what she saw with her own eyes. She continued to click on some links and fell deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole that was ancient burial rituals of the Anglo Saxons. After a while (the bus had come to a full stop again), she stumbled upon a page about old English folklore. That was more up her alley. Vivian began reading about corn dollies, hobgoblins, Will-o´-the-wisp and…big black dogs. They had been omens of death for many centuries in many folklores around the world and most were regarded as sinister. The Wikipedia page listed numerous stories and sightings of these demonic dogs but one in particular caught her attention. The guy on craigslist who advertised the graveyard said that there used to be a church next to it but it got destroyed during the war. For some reason, the graveyard stayed untouched. And one of the creatures featured on the list was called a Church Grim. A black dog, depending on the mythology, either being buried alive under the cornerstone of a church so that its ghost would guard the churchyard, or in place of a human when they opened a new churchyard as they believed that the first person buried would have to guard the churchyard and guide the spirits to the underworld. It said nothing about shapeshifting into a subjectively good-looking man, but the site did mention it could take on the form of other animals, and what was a man but an animal? The more she read the surer she grew that she had figured out what that man was. It perfectly fit with what she saw even though not all sources mentioned the same things. Some said the Church Grim had glowing eyes, some simply referred to it as a slightly bigger than normal dog, others insisted on it only being able to walk inside the church building, but most agreed on it being chained to the churchyard with no way to get to heaven. It was a sad fate. If that really was what the man was, Vivian felt for him. How long had he been stuck to this graveyard? It must´ve been incredibly boring. To her knowledge, the graveyard was no longer in use and the church was long gone. So, really, the poor guy was bound to this place for nothing. There was nothing for him to protect anymore, nothing to guard and no one to lead into the light. With a newfound determination, Vivian called for the bus driver to let her out, and off she was, running home again.
Once home, she quickly grabbed her backpack, her power bank for her phone and an extra jacket. She needed to confirm her suspicion about the man being a Church Grim and nothing would be able to stop her this time. Not her fear nor her dying battery. It was still light outside though that was about to change in about an hour or two and dark clouds clung to the sky. Vivian decided against an umbrella, her jacket had a hood and she wore her combat boots again. She´ll be fine. And once again she went down the path to the forest and walked deeper and deeper into it, following her gut instinct and the visible trail she had left on her first visit.
This time it didn´t take her as long to find the graveyard. She soon found the first gravestones and shortly after the opening was in front of her. The twilight and fog that had started to creep around the ground painted a different, more eery picture of the graveyard. Sure, when Vivian was here during the night it had been creepy as fuck. But she was more scared of what might be lurking in the shadows than of how spooky the cemetery was. This time though, it looked like Zombies and Vampires might jump out of their graves at any moment. Vivian shivered despite having put on her jacket. She´d been feeling chilly a lot lately and wondered if she was coming down with a cold or if she should have followed Olivia´s advice and thrown some salt over her shoulder to get rid of ghosts that might´ve latched onto her. It was too late for that one now. So, she went straight towards the wooden cross to retrieve her things and call upon the possible demonic dog. She wondered if she should whistle for him but before she could even finish her thought, a shadow scuttered through the fog in her direction. Vivian was usually very good at keeping a straight face but when a large, black wolf sat in front of her, she could almost hear her jaw drop to the ground. The wolf, or dog was almost as tall as her when it was sitting down. The edges around his body seemed to blur into the air and fog around him, giving him a ghostly appearance. His eyes were still glowing yellow, but it was a softer glow this time. Maybe because she hadn´t yet pissed him off enough to get angry with her. Vivian´s heartbeat almost stopped when the apparition started to wobble intensely and in a swift motion turned from a dog into a man. He looked exactly like last time although more like part of him was made of fog and the rest hadn´t yet decided if it wanted to be flesh or not. His clothes were hanging off him in shreds but his face was still handsome. His oddly silver hair clung onto his head with as much motivation as his clothes. Like it was put there and forgotten to be taken off and started rotting at some point. Vivian tried to collect herself. She felt as if her mind had split from her body and went on a crazy acid trip only to crash back into her and leave her with some very weird and disturbing images. Ghost dog, ghost dog, he´s a ghost dog oh my god but he´s also a man oh fuck, was the only thing circling around her brain. It wasn´t immensely helpful in a situation like this. The ghost dog/ghost man pointed towards where her things laid scattered about. It was a wordless demand to collect them. But Vivian didn´t feel like complying. She had questions to ask and possible selfies to take. So, she finished putting her mind and body back under control and cleared her throat. But the ghost beat her to it: “Take your things and leave. I will not repeat myself. Human´s should not enter this sacred space and much less should they clutter it with their useless magic tricks.” The useless magic tricks part hurt Vivian´s ego. She had worked hard on understanding how crystals and Ouija boards and tarot cards worked. Granted, she had forgotten most of it already but the essentials had stuck. Multiple sources claimed that is was more than humbug and actually worked. And the proof stood in front of her. Dead as ever and yet still somewhat alive. Vivian needed to quench her curiosity so instead of taking her stuff and leaving, she took a step closer to the man. “Are you a Church Grim…sir?” She wasn´t trying to fight with him, she wanted answers so she opted for at least being polite while invading his privacy. The only reaction she got, however, was a raised eyebrow. Vivian tried again: “Look, I know you want me to leave and I will. If you answer my question.” She made an effort to sound self-assured but the shake in her voice might give away how aware she was that she had lost out to him and was at his mercy. The potential Church Grim eyed her suspiciously. He kept his arms firm around his chest and seemed to take her apart piece by piece in his mind. She felt oddly naked under his stare. Like he could look inside of her, past her skin and right through her core. As if all her thoughts had been laid bare in front of him. It was severely unsettling and Vivian didn´t like it one bit. The longer he scrutinized her with his gaze, the more agitated she grew. Her eyes might not start glowing yellow, but something must have given him to understand that his starring was highly unwelcome. He let his gaze travel right past her into the forest. He still wore a sceptical look on his face but he seemed to brood about something. A deep fold appeared on his forehead and he started chewing his bottom lip. Vivian was fascinated how…human he looked in this moment. There was nothing left of the wolf that had appeared before her just mere minutes ago. Then his eyes landed on her again, cold and judging, but human. No trace of the yellow glow of the wolf´s. After regarding her one more time, he gave a quick nod. Nothing more. Vivian realised it would be hard to get any information out of him but she could be very stubborn and persistent if she wanted to be. Since the Grim didn´t seem to be in the mood for talking or giving elaborate answers, she stuck to simple yes or no questions.
“Was there a church before?”
A nod.
“Are you looking after this graveyard alone?”
Another nod.
“Is it very old, like 17th-18th century old?”
He shook his head, silver hair swooshing from one side to the other.
“Younger?”
Another shake followed by a quick nod to the side. Older, then.
“Are you bound to this place? Can you leave it?”
A bitter expression came over his face, but it left before Vivian could be sure to have actually seen it. He shook his head. Vivian wasn´t sure if it was an answer to the first or second part of her question. So, she decided to be bold.
“Is there a way to free you?”
This time he definitely started scowling at her and she could see a flicker of yellow return to his eyes.
“You should leave now. It´s getting late and the woods are no place for girls like you. Don´t forget your stuff again.” His gravelly voice resonated deep within her bones and he started turning around and walking away. But no matter how frightened he made her feel, she needed answers. And proof.
“Wait!” She fished her phone from inside one of the pockets in her jacket. “I didn´t mean to offend you. I was just curious, that´s all.” Once the Church Grim turned around again, she waved her phone in front of his face. “Do you know what this is?” The oh so familiar fed-up-with-your-bullshit expression returned to his face and he looked about ready at least bestow her with a nasty curse that would make it impossible for her socks to ever feel dry. She took it as a yes. “You see, my friends made me do this. Well, one of them. She doesn´t believe in the supernatural and I wanted to prove it to her. Last time I didn´t quite manage to get a picture, sooo, could I take one now?” She put on her best puppy dog eyes, they usually worked wonders on Olivia and even Denise succumbed to them from time to time. But this one seemed to be a harder nut to crack. He was about to turn around again when the sound of wings could be heard from the forest. It sounded like a million birds started taking flight at the same time but there was not a single bird for miles around. The man gave her a pointed look again. “You´ve overextended your welcome. You need to leave now. And don´t forget your useless clutter.” And with that he disappeared into the fog, back into his shadowy wolf form, to hide in the shadows. Vivian was dumbfounded to say the least. But she could hardly argue with the guy now and the sound of flapping wings grew closer and louder by the second. So, hopefully for the last time, she stuffed her items into her backpack and made a quick getaway.