Entry #43

“The Body On The Grave”
by Melissa Merriman


Evil didn’t creep in with the night, Jana thought. It swept across you like the clouds of an incoming storm.

She stared up at the fast fading sky. The ends of her hair lifted gently in the breeze. Cold caressed her cheeks.

It was only a matter of time. There was nowhere to hide. She had come to the cemetery to wait. A symbolic jab. Death finding her at death’s door.

Jana gazed down at the tombstone. ‘Jed Curry’. Her husband. Soon, she knew she would join him in the chilled earth. She felt it.

“You should have left well enough alone.” She thought of the old book they’d found at the flea market.

‘Conjurations’.

Jed thought it was funny.

“That’s not even a real word,” he’d said. “I bet there’s a great chicken soup recipe in here somewhere.”

That night, he’d brought out the book and read a page out loud. Thunder had sounded in the distance.

“Stop, Jed. Leave it alone.” She’d been frightened.

“It isn’t real, Jana. It’s a game. The storm is a coincidence.”

But, it hadn’t been. Something had come for Jed that night. She’d found his body the next morning, twisted, grotesque. The shadows had followed. Now, they would come for her, too.

A screeching sound rose from behind her, building gradually. As the evil embraced her Jana cried out Jed’s name.

The storm swept out with the morning sun leaving a dim light shining down on the body on the grave.

[Melissa Merriman is a Horror Writer who recently won First Place in the 'From The Asylum' T-Shirt Contest. She has a story coming out in July in Apollo's Lyre Ezine and her novel, 'Emily's Rage', placed in the finals of the PPW Frontiers in Writing Contest in June 2006.]