O'Neill's Ghostories: Grace's Landing

Grace's Landing
from O'Neill's Ghostories

A s long as I live, I will not forget an incident that happened four years ago in June. Joyce, Grace and I were best friends. We were like sisters and almost always together. We even wore the same clothes and shared the same possessions, but things began to go wrong. Very wrong for sure when we decided to break into the cemetery late at night.

We were about the same age and quite playful. Strangely enough, the old iron gate was not closed. Nobody was with us. No boys. No adults. Only three of us. And we walked clean into the cemetery as if we had been invited.

We were greeted by the howling of a chilling wind that blew thick and strong on our innocent faces. We must have resembled sleep walkers, moving like programmed robots deeper and deeper into that surreal moonlit landscape.

When we passed a huge tree in the middle of the cemetery we met a girl called Cindy. She seemed the friendly sort. She wore a long nightgown, and from her shoulders flowed long black hair right down to the indentations above her waist. Although she had a pretty face, and an amazing figure, she was quite pale.

Soon we were talking quite a lot.

"I love to take stroll here," she said. "I've a lot of friends here."

I knew something was wrong, but still ignored the voice of reason calling out inside me. She took us to the bungalow where she was staying. The atmosphere inside the house was so creepy and damp we could hardly breathe. On the wall hung dusty photos of her and it soon became apparent she was the only one living there.

She grew to like us and wanted to take a photo with us. We agreed, politely. But when the camera flash had faded I felt something terrible was about to happen.

And I was right!

She suddenly laughed out loudly and screamed, "You three fools have fallen into my trap. I wanted you to join me here!" One of her bony fingers pointed into the lens of the camera while her other hand pointed toward the darkest hallway in the house.

We were so frightened by Cindy's sudden change we bolted out the door through the cemetery and toward the gate that we prayed was still open. I ripped my sweater on the branch of a tree and Joyce did a cartwheel over a headstone that seemed to have risen up in her path. As I reached down to pull Joyce back to her feet, Cindy shouted after us, "That's right! Run, run as fast and as far as you can!"

We reached the gate and thankfully it remained still slightly ajar. Wrenching it open just enough to squeeze through, we slammed it shut and ran to the street. As we looked back, we could see Cindy now standing on the other side of the gate. Her fingers gripped the heavy iron bars and she appeared to float above the lawn that carpeted the gravesites. Her lips were pulled back to her gums and she hissed, "Within four days, two of you will be trapped in this house with me forever."

After that she carried on insanely laughing. We hailed a taxi and returned home. Returned to safety, you might think, but no, that was not the end.

~~~~~

The next day the three of us went to the studio to have our photos processed. We remembered we had a photo taken with Cindy and quickly searched for it. We were shocked when we saw that the place beside Joyce, where Cindy had stood, was empty. Completely void, as if no one had been there at all.

Things began happen to Joyce. While we were crossing the road, a car came from out of nowhere, knocked Joyce into the trees next to the lawn, and then quickly sped off. Nobody had seen the car, only us, it was as if it had vanished into thin air. While waiting at the hospital I looked at the picture again. Joyce had disappeared from the photo, leaving Grace and I as the only "visibles" to been seen in it.

Joyce was in the bad state and the doctors could do absolutely nothing to help her. Well meaning as they were, they seemed like children trying to assemble a puzzle for the first time, and because fate can be an uncompromising beast, she died in the operating theater.

But now (as I wrote in my diary), Grace's image was becoming quite faint. We were both scared, really scared.

Grace said to me she was starting to hear Cindy's wicked laughter.

And Cindy spoke to her, "Grace, you will be the next . . . !"

One morning I received a frantic call from Grace's mum. Grace had been found dead on her bed. I rushed over. Grace was bruised all over and seemed to have struggled before she died.

She held tightly to a white piece of cloth.

It belonged to Cindy.

I was all about to leave when I saw Cindy standing standing at the staircase. I shouted at her but she only laughed. I reached into my pocket and glanced down at the photo again.

Grace had disappeared.

In the photograph I was standing all alone, and the background had changed from the house to that eerie cemetery.

I'm living in fear now. I wonder when my turn will come. Every night as I sit in my kitchen, lights dimmed, with only the ticking of the clock, I think of Joyce and Grace, and I dream they are crying out to me. Their cries are strained, their voices cracked, and they sound upset but ask me not to be sad.

They're sad because our friendship ended.

But I know, or at least I feel, they are waiting for me to join them.

And soon I will.

I am sure of it.