HARROWING HALLOWEEN

It was Halloween and I was thirteen. Life was supposed to be good that day. I mean adults would give you candy just for knocking on their door while wearing a costume. I was dressed as the Little Prince from the book of the same name, I was trick- or-treating alone for the first time in my life, and I mean that in two ways. My parents had decided that I was finally old enough to go trick-or-treating on my own, but what sucked was that this had to happen after we moved to a new town. If I had been back at home then I would have had a whole group of friends that I could have gone with, but instead I was here alone.

I was quiet in school. Back home I had made friends because we had all been in the same classes my whole life up to that point so I was able to warm up to my friends and come out of my shell. I hadn't had time yet so far this year at a new school to get comfortable and make friends. Most of the kids seemed nice, only they already had their groups of friends and I wasn't about to shove my way in the middle of those.

While most of the kids were nice, not all of them were. There was a gang of kids a grade older than me that were the school troublemakers. Most students at my new school seemed to not get in trouble, so the group of the bad kids seemed to take it upon themselves to cause as much trouble as possible to make up for the deficit. Even the smallest one in the group of five stood a head taller than me. At first no one seemed to notice me when I first started at this school for the new school year. I wished someone would. I got my wish because Henry's group of friends didI hadn't hit puberty so I still looked like my age whereas some of my new classmates were stretching out and had the scaffoldings of their future facial hair starting to sprout up. I was new and small, a perfect target for them.

Before that I had never been bullied before. The first couple of months played out like a greatest hits montage of cliche bullying events I had seen throughout my life on T.V. shows and in movies. They would steal my lunch money, slap my lunch out of my hand, steal my homework from out of my bag (I had started to rewrite my homework assignments so that what they stole was only a copy), and hunt me down before and after school. I would always try to run, but I rarely got away. The only way they were smart was that when they caught me they never did anything to leave too much of a mark on me. My dad was only an old fashioned type in how he believed that boys should handle their problems amongst themselves. Figures my dad would have progressive ideas about everything but bullying. My mom would have made too much of a fuss if I tried to talk to her about what was happening to me at school. I was tempted to tell her so that she could storm down to the school to put a stop to it, but I had heard from some of the kids around school, both victims and witnesses how they react to their victims when they try to seek out help.

I had gotten into a pretty good rhythm over the last couple of weeks of dodging my bullies as I grew accustomed to my new town. This was the longest I had managed to go so far without an incident from them so I was really thinking that tonight was going to go ok. I had a small guilty hope that maybe they would move on to some new primary target if I could just stay away from them long enough.

I was an hour and a half into trick or treating and my pillow case was already halfway full. I had been nervous about my candy haul this year because we had moved to a town in the middle of the woods. The houses were less numerous and the town was more sprawled out between neighborhoods, There was some foot traffic of other costumed kids out and on the prowl for candy, but not nearly as much as what I was used to. It seemed as though the adults at each house were just throwing handfuls of candy into my pillow case.

The town was sprawled out in a series of winding hills. The main roads meandered up and down those hills like a lazy coiled river, with most of the businesses on the main roadway and neighborhoods branching out into the woods like the leafs on a flower. Unlike back home in the middle of the desert where the city was beating back nature with each new housing development, here the town seemed to better integrate with nature. Depending on the curves of the main road, some off branching neighborhoods from different sections of the bends would curve towards each other. According to one of the tourist brochures I had skimmed over while waiting in line at a gas station on our way up here, the town was known for its hiking trails. Pockets of woods were left uncleared between such neighborhoods. They were left surrounded on three sides with roads and homes, like peninsulas of the forest.

I had followed the main road, walking down the side roads only along one side of the main road. My plan was to hit the houses in the neighborhoods on the opposite side on my way back home. My bag was starting to get heavy so I started to reach in and eat some of my candy. I had planned on going further, but My legs were starting to get sore and the thought of being back home to go through my candy sounded like a good one. Also I didn't want to tempt fate and risk running into my bullies.

I crossed the street and started down into the neighborhood. These were some of the biggest and most decorated houses I had seen so far. I was glad I decided to go down this street. I wouldn't have wanted to continue with my original plan and risk these houses running out of candy. Here was where my pillow case really started to fill up. By the time I reached the last house on the block I was starting to strain to carry my haul. I walked down from the last house, ready to head back home. The yard was decorated as a graveyard and had several fog machines that worked too well and obscured visibility. There was a low brick wall with wrought iron rails sticking out from it that wrapped around the entire yard. It really looked like a cemetary wall. The brick wall rose up into a gated archway at the path that had lead up to the house. I pushed through the fence and stepped out into the street. I was just a couple of steps out of the yard when I was shoved from behind. I ran with the sudden momentum for a moment and then stumbled down to the street. I tried to catch myself as I hit the ground. My knees and the palms of my hands were scraped by the asphalt. Candy spilled out of my pillow case but I was able to keep a hold of the bag.

Back by the gate I heard laughter that I had heard too many times before while I was in pain. "He really went flying didn't he?" Henry said.

"Yeah, that might have been a new record," one of his cronies laughed.

I groaned as I stood back up. I kept my eyes to the ground, not wanting to look my tormentors in the eye.

"We have been looking for you all night you little freak, and where do we end up finding you? In my own neighborhood trying to poach away our candy. What do you have to say?"

His neighborhood? If only I had stuck to the plan and kept on going, I could have avoided this pain. I had been in this situation too many times before. No matter what answer I gave it would be the wrong one. I glanced back and forth across the street, looking for someone, anyone to come to my rescue. The street was empty.

Too much time had passed since he asked me the question. The only thing worse than saying the wrong answer was not answering Henry at all. He seemed to not respond well to being ignored. He punched me in the gut, causing me to exhale in pain. "Answer me," Henry demanded.

"I didn't know this was where you lived," I wheezed out. Two of his goons held my arms as I gasped for air. He punched me again. And again. And again. Normally there would have been more banter between Henry and his friends as they tormented me, but tonight he seemed to be out for blood. All I wanted to do was curl up in a ball until this was all over and be back home. I didn't ever want to go trick-or-treating again. Henry was in the middle of a punch when the front door of the house I had just trick-or-treated at opened up. A couple dressed as vampires stepped outside. I prayed that they were leaving so that they would walk down the path and see what was happening and break it up. My hope died when I saw the spark of a lighter as they lit their cigarettes.

My bullies looked up at the smoking adults, and then they stepped a little bit away from me so that it didn't look like they were menacing me as much as they were doing. I could have tried to shout for help from them, but the yard was so big that I doubted they would really be able to hear me because of the distance and also the loud music would probably drown out my plea for help. I wouldn't find help in that direction, or probably from any other of the adults near by. I was desperate. There seemed to be more of a threat of violence tonight. Apparently they were not too happy that I had been avoiding them successfully for so long. They had grown accustomed to me not fighting whenever they caught a hold of me. I had learned not to fight back, it would always make things worse. That had been my default reaction whenever they caught me, but not this time. The two bullies who had been holding my arms while Henry punched me had let go and stepped away a little when the smokers had first emerged.

I took a step back just as Henry turned back towards me when the smokers turned back to go inside. "Hey, where are you going," Henry asked as I took one more step back. I didn't realize what I was going to do until I was already in the motion of swinging my pillow case at Henry. All I knew was I was sick of the months of fear and pain. I couldn't be a victim anymore. The candy smacked Henry right across the face as we was in the middle of another question. The surprised grunt of pain was beyond satisfying. Henry clutched at his face and said "you little fucker." Henry's cronies just stared as blood started to leak from some wound at the side of his cheek. I wanted to stand and savor Henry's moment in pain but I knew that this was my chance to get away.

I turned and ran to the middle of the street. I had two options to get home, I could run back to the main roadway of the town to get home, or I could seek refuge in the woods. I knew that this neighborhood was one of the ones that extended deepest down into the woods. It actually stretched a good amount of the distance down towards my neighborhood. I could go deeper into the neighborhood and then run through the woods. Several neighborhoods would border the woods along my path so I could use those as way markers and if needed exit the woods into one of them and then continue on the roads to my home. The thought of the woods in the middle of the night on Halloween made my imagination run wild, but I was willing to face the abstract terrors of the woods if it meant I could avoid the tangible fear of Henry's rage.

I started to run deeper into the neighborhood. Henry bellowed behind me for his friends to not let me get away. The sound of them pursuing me gave me an extra burst of speed. I thought to maybe chance it and try and run to one of the nearby houses for help, but as I passed them I noticed most houses had bowls out front for the take one honor system. I didn't want to chance running to one of them only to have no one be home. The sound of footsteps behind me terrified me. It was hard to judge how far away they were because the streets were so empty that the steps seemed to echo loudly in the stillness of the night. I wanted to turn around and check to see how far away they were, but I didn't dare do it. Knowing my luck tonight I would end up tripping and ending the chase before I could even make it into the woods. Henry would occasionally yell at me in between breaths about all the things that they were going to do to me once they caught me. This was a mistake, it only strengthened my resolve not to get caught.

As Henry and his goons started to wheeze behind me I became more bold. My lungs were fire and my heart seemed to be trying to beat back the flames with its frantic tempo. The longer I evaded them the more bold I became. I shouted over my shoulder "I bet you hate all those cigarettes you smoked now that you can't even keep up to me." Henry's response was a bellow that sounded like it came from an asthmatic bull.

The neighborhood was curving south towards my neighborhood. Up ahead the curve became more pronounced. When I past the bend I saw the last section of houses and then the darkened woods behind them. I was so overcome with joy that for a moment I didn't pay attention to my senses. I heard several rapid footsteps coming from behind me. I sped up just as I felt fingertips brush along my back. "Fuck," I heard one of the goons cry as he became off balanced and tumbled to the ground. This time I took a moment to glance behind me. I saw the goon that almost grabbed me struggling to get up off the floor, and further back Henry and the others just barely making it around the bend.

I ran past the last house and plunged into the darkened woods. I was shocked at how quickly the street lights became obscured by branches. As the darkness swallowed me I was tempted to go back a little and hug the edges of the woods more so that I could use the light to navigate like planed. I stopped for a moment and was about to do just that when I heard my pursuers enter into the woods. There was no going back so I walked in what I hopped was the direction to take me home. I slowed down so as not to make too much noise. I was exhausted. I wanted to sit down and rest, but as long as I kept on moving I could get away from them. I heard them crashing along in the woods behind me. After about ten minutes of walking into the woods the sounds of their crashing around started to disappear.

Once I finally put the sound of their pursuit far behind me I finally allowed myself a moment of rest. My eyes had started to adjust to the gloom of the woods, and in the gaps of the canopy above me the full moon's light provided a little extra light for me to navigate. I saw a dead tree that had fallen onto its side and sat down on it. I caught my breath and let my heart rate lower. I was still scared to be in the woods after dark, each animal noise and crack of a twig sent a chill up my spin. The woods were also in a way peaceful, but I would have rather spent time in them in the light of day.

Once I caught my breath I stood up and looked around for which way I had been going. I scanned the woods, trying to figure out where I had even came from for that matter because the worse thing I could do was accidently head back the way I came and end up in Henry's not so loving arms. I spun in a circle, trying to suppress the growing fear of the knowledge that I was lost. Great, I am lost in the woods on Halloween. This could only end in two outcomes. either I'm going to be attacked by some monster that supposedly doesn't exist, or I am going to end up with having a search party come looking for me and I will be another one of those kids who gets lost in the woods. Whenever I had heard about kids needing rescuing I had always thought how stupid could they be. Now I was going to be one of them. A dark voice whispered in the back of my mind that what if I end up as one of those kids who is never found. I shuddered again and tried to ignore that thought. I had to make it out of the woods. I picked what I hopped was the right direction to either home or the town and started walking.

The only brightside to the whole thing I thought as I trudged through the woods was that Henry and his friends were the last ones to see me alive, and adults at the house party had seen me with them. If the worse did happen to me then maybe Henry would be convicted for my disappearance. With his permanent scowl I bet he would end up being tried as an adult. These thoughts of round about revenge and how satisfying it had felt to finally stand up to him were the thoughts that distracted me from how scared I really was. The deeper I went into the forest the thicker the trees became.

My exhaustion caught up with me as I struggled to move deeper within the forest. This was nothing like the tamed woulds near the edges of the town. There was no clear paths in between the trees. Roots tripped me up and bushes snagged against my clothes and scraped my skin. The trees grew so thick together here that I no longer had any moonlight to guide me. Now I wished I would have headed back earlier, back when the safety of civilisation had been just right behind me, but I didn't know which way that was.

I lost track of time as I trudged through the woods. I must have been wandering for at least an hour when I came to a point where the trees and bushes became impassable. I was determined to win against nature and I continued to push against the stand of trees that had been a solid line of darkness because they overlapped so much. I wiggled between two trunks and got down on my knees to pass under the brush when I noticed there was a opening leading under them that some animal must have made. It was a tight squeeze, but if I could ignore the occasional scratch on my back then I was able to make it through. The path twisted and curved, making its way in the spots in between the growth. I must have gone about ten feet when I felt something clammy and smooth under my hand. In this land of bristles and curves it's hard angles stuck out. I pulled it up from the dirt that it was partially buried under. It was a brick. Bricks meant buildings, which meant people.

I set the brick aside and continued down the hallow with a renewed haste, ignoring the scratches along my back now. Just a few feet away from the wall I found its source. Behind the wall of bushes was a brick wall. The hallow I had been crawling through lead to a hole in the brick wall. It seemed much brighter through that hole. The hole was too small for me to squeeze through. I ran my hand along the bricks and one of them wiggled from that light touch. I looked up to gage how high the wall was to see if I could climb it. My view was obstructed so I couldn't see how high the wall was. It had to at least be about 6 feet tall, which I could have climbed if it wasn't for all the plants crowding right up against the wall. I pulled the loose brick free and set it to the side of the hole. I repeated the process on the other side of the hole and found the loosest brick and pulled it free. I tried to spread out where I took bricks from in a hope to not make one spot of the wall too weak. I got the hole nearly big enough for me to slip through but then I couldn't find anymore loose bricks. I ran my fingers along the gaps in between them, seeking out a spot where the mortar had started to rot away. I started to feel desperate and claustrophobic. The trees and bushes seemed to press more firmly against me, as if trying to snare me before I could make my exit. I cried out when one of my fingernails snagged against the cool stone and broke. As I sucked on my finger to ease the pain I tried again with my other hand to find a loose brick, only this time I didn't let the panic affect my efforts. I found a brick right at the top of the hole and with some wiggling I was able to pull it free.

The hole still looked on the small side but I was pretty sure that I could fit inside of it now. I went in feet first. I slipped the bottom half of my body through the hole with little effort, but when I got up to my shoulders I got stuck. That moment of panic returned again. I pictured being the boy who was found stuck in a forest wall. I held my arms up and was able to start to wiggle through. It was a tight fit when I made it to my shoulders but I was able to make it through. I inched through it the rest of the way, careful not to disturb the wall and risk bringing it down on me.I made it through and sat up on the other side of the wall. The grass inside of here had grown in wild patches and chilled me as I sat in it. I had thought I would be maybe going under some type of hunters lodge wall or something but I was wrong. I was in a cemetery. The moon was in a gap in the clouds and shone brightly overhead. I stood up and took in my surroundings. The trees draped branches over the wall. The air was so thick with fog that made it hard to tell just how large the cemetery was. I could see several mausoleums scattered throughout the cemetery. Some were mostly obscured by the mists. A chill went through my spin as I looked at the rows of tombstones. Some where weather worn and knocked over. As much as I didn't want to be in the middle of the cemetery on Halloween, I knew had to go deeper inside of it. There must be a road or a path connected to the cemetery I reasoned, otherwise how could people come to pay respects to their loved ones?

I thought about walking along the wall until I found the cemetery gate, but then thought against it. That way would lead me to the gate eventually, but what if I walked along the wrong wall and had to walk all the way around the wall until I found it? The thought of actually walking into the middle of the cemetary was the scariest one, but it would let me explore the cemetery the fastest and all I wanted to do was make it home. I walked cautiously as I left the old wall and went deeper into the graveyard. The last thing I wanted was to step on someone's grave. The fog seemed to get thicker the deeper into the cemetery I went. I tried to ignore all of the horror movies I had seen that had a scene in a graveyard and to keep a straight path, but there wasn't much of a defined path between the graves. Like how the town was laid out, the cemetery also conformed to the contours of the varied elevations it was built on.

I walked past the first monsolium and paused for a moment in front of it. The fog wound its way in and out of the bars to the locked gate, almost as if it was being generated from within. I shuddered again for what I figured wouldn't be the last time tonight and I moved on. The fog seemed to get thicker and the light from the moon had been growing weaker. I looked up and saw through the fog a thick amount of clouds approaching the moon. The clouds covered up the moon, causing a blanket of darkness to cover up the graveyard. The fog had been clinging to me, making my clothes stick to my body and left me damp so when I felt the first drop from above I thought for a moment that it was just more moisture from the fog. Then I felt another fat drop hit me. I looked up just in time to notice just how thick the clouds were and how they blotted out the sky. The rain clouds seemed to give up all pretenses of stealth now and the rain started to pour.

I ran down the faint path I had found, praying that it lead to the exit or to some kind of shelter. I passed another mausoleum and tried to open its gate, but it was held firm by a rusted old padlock. I shook the gate one last time in desperation but it wouldn't budge so I moved on. The rain was really starting to come down now, obscuring my vision even further. I held my arms my head as I ran and jumped between the graves. On the crest of the hill in front of me loomed a large dark shape. It was much bigger than all of the mausoleums I had seen before so I thought it might be a caretakers house. I sped up at the thought of shelter. I kept on slipping in the mud as the rain continued to pour down. I started to climb the hill and realized that the shape of the shadow was all wrong. It spread out into the sky from a base. It was a huge tree with branches sticking out in every direction. I summited the last third of the hill, already the ground was drier and less rain reached me through the outer edges of the large tree's canopy.

I made it to the tree and slumped against it. I couldn't handle anymore running or terror tonight. I closed my eyes for a moment and caught my breath. I listened to the sound of the rain thumping against the soft earth around me and rustling through the leafs above me. When I opened my eyes I was faced with yet another terror that night. There was a girl, standing a little ways to the side at the edge of the tree's canopy. She reached outside of its protection and rain started to land into her outstretched hand. She had a light glow around her, as if she had stepped in to replace the missing light from the void left by the moon being covered up by the clouds. She turned back and looked at me for a moment, before resuming her stare out into the rain. Her gaze had only held onto me for a moment before she turned her head away, almost as if I was of no consequence to her or just another element of the scenery. I tried to call out to her a couple of times but the words caught in my throat. There was no reason why she should be in the graveyard in the middle of the night. Well, I shouldn't be there either, but I wasn't luminescent. I told myself she couldn't be, but she had to be a ghost. I had thought tonight couldn't get any worse but I was wrong. I was scared by her presence, but also oddly comforted by her. She was so beautiful and while she seemed upset I felt like she wouldn't mean me any harm. She had long black hair, was wearing cut off denim shorts and a matching jacket. When she had glanced at me she had piercing ice blue eyes that seemed tired. She had to be in her late teens.

The ghost girl stepped out into the rain and it started to drench her. Who ever heard of a ghost getting wet? Maybe she was real. I stifled my fear and called out to her, "Hey! What are you doing standing out in the rain?" I asked.

The girl whirled around, causing her hair to whip around and shake out some of the rain water it had collected. "You can see me?" She asked.

"Yeah I can see you. You must be freezing in the rain," I said.

"Yes, I am," she said with a smile on her face. I questioned how wise it was for me to talk to her, this was the moment in ghost stories where the ghost would do some sort of ghoulish thing. She took a step towards me, back underneath the canopy of the tree, causing me to tense up. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a scrunchy and pulled her hair back into it. She walked the rest of the way up the hill to me. She still had a slightly transparent look to her, but her action confused me. It looked like something so natural and human. Who had ever heard of a ghost putting their wet hair up in a scrunchy?

When she was a few feet away from she she stopped. She was even more beautiful up close. I did my best to try not to stare, but it was hard to look away from the only source of light on a night that had been filled with so much darkness. "So, you really can see me?" she asked hesitantly.

"Yeah I can," I replied.

"You're the first person who has ever seen me," she said, seeming to still be working on exactly what to make of that fact.

I was still a little scared of her, but I decided to just ask and get it over with. I was too tired to dance around the question I had so badly wanted to ask. "Are you a ghost?" I asked.

Her frown made me wish that I hadn't asked her. "Yes, I am. I guess." She said. I didn't know what to say next. We both just stood for a moment, the barrier between life and death and the sound of the rain pattering were our only companions. "Are you scared of me?" she asked. There was so much vulnerability to her, it made it hard to be scared of her. What could a ghost possibly be afraid of?

"A little, I mean, you are a ghost," I said.

"And what's so scary about ghosts anyways?" she asked.

"While, ghosts are undead, haunt places, and can possess people." I said trying to remember all that I could from horror movies.

"First off, you are wrong on all counts, ghosts are not undead, undead are something that was living, died, and then came back to a sort of fake life. Like a zombie or vampire, so unless you want me to bite you you should probably not go around lightly calling someone the undead." I wished a beautiful girl like her would want to bite me. I had been having increasing thoughts like that as I started to enter puberty, sometimes I wished I could turn it off. Like when I would randomly get an erection in the middle of math class for example, or when I am lost in the middle of the woods and talking to a ghost. "Next, ghosts don't possess people, at least not that I know of, and If I could haunt somewhere else why would I be haunting a graveyard? Why would there ever be ghost sightings at graveyards? It's not like a lot of people die in graveyards," she said.

"You're trapped here?" I asked.

"Yep. I have been for years," she sighed.

"For how long?" I asked.

She gasped almost as if I just asked her how much she weighed. I guessed that it's a taboo to ask a ghost how long they have been dead for. "To be honest, I kinda don't know. Sense of time is kinda hard to keep track of when you are a ghost. I watched the water dripping down her body, causing her light blue shirt underneath her denim jacket to stick to her. "What are you staring at?" she asked.

"The water. If you are a ghost, then how are you wet?"

"Don't you know what Halloween is all about?" she asked me excitedly. I shook my head that I didn't. "During Halloween Spirits and ghosts are allowed to walk the Earth for a single night. I feel more myself than ever on these nights since I died. I manifest so completely that it is almost like I never died and I have my body back."

"That kinda sounds a lot like being undead to me," I said. She laughed the most beautiful laugh I had ever heard. She sounded so full of life, that I couldn't believe that she was dead.

"My name is Evelyn, What's your name?" she asked me.

"I'm Chris," I said.

"So Chris, what exactly are you doing out here in the middle of the night? You're a little too young to be out here on your own," she said. It was my turn to become withdrawn at a question. "Hey, I didn't mean anything by it. You will be all grown up in now time."

"No, it's not that. Its that tonight hasn't exactly been a good night," I said.

"What happened?" Evelyn asked. The concern in her voice was almost too much.

"Nothing happened-" I started to say when she reached out and squeezed my hand. Her hand felt warmer then I was expecting, it was a little cold but that was most likely from her being out in the rain. It didn't feel like an inhuman chill. Evelyn seemed just as shocked that she had touched me. I thought about it for a moment. I had just met Evelyn so it would feel weird to tell her my problems. I had gotten so used to not being able to tell anyone about what I was dealing with at school, but then again, here I was talking to a ghost, who was somehow holding my hand. I thought that maybe I had to start to rethink what I believed to be weird. "Ok," I said, and then I told her everything. I thought that it would be hard opening up to her, but once I decided to confide in her it all came pouring out. She would squeeze my hand at the more difficult parts of retelling what Henry and his friends had been doing to me for the last 3 months. It was hard to think that so much torment could happen in such a small amount of time. I told her about what happened tonight and my mad dash through the woods, which lead me to stumbling upon this old graveyard. I had spent most of the time staring down at the ground while I told her my story, I just couldn't bring myself to look her in the eyes during it. It was hard to recall the ugliness of the world while staring at someone so beautiful.

"I'm sorry you had to go through that tonight. But I have some good news for you," Evelyn said.

"Yeah and what is that?" I asked.

"You're only a couple of miles from the town. If you go east of this tree then you will find the gate and a path that leads to town. It is just a couple miles away from here." Evelyn said.

"Thank you for telling me that, but It doesn't exactly help me out now." I said.

"I was bullied too," Evelyn told me.

"You were?" I asked.

"Yeah I was. A lot of the other girls in school picked on me because I was different. Because I listened to different music and dressed differently. They would spread rumors about me behind my back, would not so accidently bump into me in the halls at school. From middle school on they would make my life a living hell. I thought that all I had to do was make through highschool and then go off to college and everything would work out fine. I even had a full ride scholarship to ASU thanks to having one of the best GPA's in the school. Not having much of a social life did help with that. I was so close to getting out of this crappy little town, and now it seems like I am stuck here forever," Evelyn said. Well talking she had drawn her knees up and had her arms wrapped around them. She looked back out towards the rain and I thought I might have seen a tear tracing down her face.

I thought about how sad it was that she had died right when she had been so close to going out and living her life. Death was still an abstract concept to me at that point. I knew that people died, that everyone eventually died, but I hadn't had someone in my life pass away yet. Talking to someone who had already died so early in her life made me realize just how unexpected life could be.

"Hey you're shivering," she said as the sound of my teeth chattering was the only noise besides the rain falling.

"I'm freezing," I confessed.

"Here," she said and held her arm up. I hesitated to move in closer to her. She sighed and scooted right next to me, pressing her side to mine and wrapping her arm around me. I was surprised by her warmth again, I thought ghosts were supposed to be cold. "Better?" she asked.

"Yes, thank you," I said and leaned my head against her shoulder. The rain started to fall even harder, and then I saw it start to fall in white clumps. It was snowing, the first snowfall I had ever seen.

"You know, there have been others who have shown up here on Halloween." She told me.

"There have been others?" I asked.

"Yeah, several times some dumb teenagers would show up her to drink, make out, or try and practice witchcraft," Evelyn said the last word with an eye roll. Odd that a ghost didn't believe in witchcraft. "I yelled and screamed right in front of their faces to get there attention, but they couldn't see me. When I touched them my hand would pass through them and they would just shudder. After the first few years of this happening I had given up on being seen again by anyone else, let alone touched again by someone." She rested her head on top of mine and drew me in closer. So warm I thought. She sighed, "You are so warm. When I saw you I thought you were just some other dumb kid who showed up here on a dare."

We sat there for a few minutes, listening to the rain and enjoying each other's warmth. Questions raced through my mind, I didn't want to ask her anything too painful and cause her to withdraw into herself again. As I looked out at the cemetery I noticed something. "How come there aren't any other ghosts wandering around?" I asked.

"Just because I am a ghost doesn't mean I know all about them, but if I had to guess, it is because of how we live in a small mostly peaceful town. This graveyard is full and isn't used anymore. I was the last body buried here. Mostly the oldest families have plots here. If I had to guess, its because the other people who were buried here died peacefully or didn't have unfinished business. Why stay around here when they could move on," Evelyn said.

"Like go to heaven?" I said.

"That might be where they go," Evelyn said skeptically.

"You don't believe in heaven?" I asked her.

"Not particularly, just because I'm a ghost doesn't mean I suddenly became a Jesus freak." My mom had been dragging me to church every Sunday my whole life. I liked the idea of heaven, but wasn't sure how much I believed what my Mom had been trying to instil into me. The thought of there not being some from of after life was a nagging fear that I had always had. I hadn't been expecting to get into a theological conversation with a ghost. It sounded like the set up to a joke. I wanted to change the subject and thought about what she had just said. I didn't want to ask how she died even though that was one of the most pressing questions I had. There was no way that question would be received well.

"So, do you have unfinished business?" I asked her.

Evelyn sighed and said, "a whole lifetime of it, and a lifetime that didn't come to be."

"Like what?" I asked.

"I wanted to become a world famous writer and journalist. I wanted to travel the world, writing stories that would make people and places better off after I had left them. I wanted to write a book that would speak to people and help brighten their world. I wanted to do so much, but now I will never get a chance to."

I told her how I wanted to be a writer too. I had seen my parents my whole life come home exhausted from work with nothing to show from it but a paycheck. I wanted to be able to create stories and worlds and be able to share them with other people. The thought of doing any other job sounded horrible to me. I asked her what were some of her favorite books and she asked me what mine were. Luckily I had been reading ahead of my grade level for years and had managed to read some of the same books for school that she had. We talked about which ones we liked and didn't like. The world around us seemed to blur as I became so focused on listening to every word she said. It felt so natural talking to her, that I didn't want to miss a single word of what she said.

We talked for hours. As I warmed up I started to drowse off when Evelyn was in the middle of talking about her favorite book series. I strained to stay awake and listen to her, but the day was catching up to me and I started to drift off. I woke up at some point to someone nuding me awake. I ignored whoever was nudging me. The cold air nipped at me, but I had found somewhere warm and just wanted to burrow back into that warmth. I had been having the strangest dreams and I wanted to return to them. My body was sore all over and I just wanted to escape from the pain back into my sleep. "Wake up," said a voice that was both familiar and unfamiliar I cracked my eyes open and then was shocked awake. The girl from my dreams was standing above me. She looked semi transparent. I must have slept most of the light away because it was now the post storm predawn grey. The sun would be rising soon.

"You're real," I said.

"Yeah I am. It's almost sunrise. Halloween is over," Evelyn said.

"Your leaving?" I asked. I had already grown attached to her in just one night.

"Yes and no. I will still be here, sometimes, only you won't be able to see me. If you go down this path behind me then you can find your way home," Evelyn said and pointed me in the correct direction.

"Thank you Evelyn for last night. I'm really glad I got to meet you," I said.

Evelyn smiled," I'm glad you showed up last night. I don't know how much longer I could go without talking to someone." Evelyn leaned down and planted a kiss on my forehead. Her lips pressed against my skin felt warm, but then as the sun started to rise the pressure and warmth from her lips disappeared and was replaced for a moment by a cool sensation that sent shivers down my spin. "Good bye," Evelyn whispered. I opened my eyes and she was gone. I looked around for her, thinking still that maybe she was alive and was just hiding behind a tombstone somewhere. After I didn't see her I knew that she was really gone.

I followed the path she had pointed out to me and followed it to the gate out of the cemetery. The gate was small and had been located nearly behind a pair of mausoleums and a hill that obscured it from view. I would have been looking for it for forever If I had kept on searching for it during the night. I tried my best to avoid the mud as I followed the path, but most of the snow had melted and turned it into a mini swamp. Whatever mud I hadn't gotten on my outfit last night seemed to be in a hurry to cling to me and give me an even coat of mud. It was slow going and I didn't make it back home for two hours.I showed at my door covered in mud looking like I was a swamp monster. My parents had been worried sick about me. It was the first time I had ever been out late, let alone been gone for an entire night. My parents were a mix of relieved and angry at me, so it was hard to handle their moods as they swung back and forth between those two extremes. I had a suspicion that if I would have stayed out a few hours more they probably would have been so relieved to see me that I wouldn't have gotten into any trouble at all. When they asked me where I was I told them a partial truth, I mentioned how I had ended up lost in the woods, but not about who had caused me to run to them in the first place. I was grounded for a month which wasn't much of a punishment because I spend most of my time in my room anyways. Henry actually ended up worse off than I thought he would have. When I had hit him in the face a large sucker had smacked against his face, causing one of his teeth to cut right through his cheek. He had needed a few stitches. I thought it was great that I had gotten the best of him but it was probably best I was grounded for a month because he was even more after me now.

Start of part 2 still age 13

I spent a lot of that time thinking about my encounter with the ghost girl Evelyn. I tried to tell myself that what I had seen had just been a hallucination caused by the stress of that night, but it had all felt so real so unless I was full on crazy I didn't think that it had been my imagination. I had tried to look up online what had happened to Evelyn, but with just her name I wasn't able to narrow down what had happened to her. I knew it had to be something tragic, but I guessed that it hadn't received much attention.

Once my month of being grounded was up I went back to the graveyard. I started to search around for a tombstone with her name on it so that I could see the date she was born and died on and also any other info that might be on her tombstone. I had gone with high hopes that I could get it accomplished in just a few hours. I had severely underestimated the size of the graveyard and just how worn out most of the graves had become. The walk to the cemetery and back had eaten up so much time that I wasn't able to find her tombstone on the first day. The next day I returned with a printed out map of the cemetery I had been able to find on the town's website. With the aid of the map I began a more thorough search so as not to accidentally miss her grave. I was able to search through nearly half of the graveyard before I had to return home. If I was late then I would be grounded again and my search would have to be postponed yet again. It felt weird being in the cemetery during the day. It almost seemed like I was there during its after hours. I still had a weird feeling being there, but it was also in a way peaceful knowing that I was the only living person around.

I had to wait for an entire week of school before I could resume my search again on the weekend. It was one of the slowest weeks of my life. I had never been one to believe in anything of the occult. I still struggled to come to terms with what happened that night, so I wanted to try and find proof that Evelyn was real and that I had really seen her. I still had a fear that maybe I was crazy, but the research and searching helped put me more at ease. At least if I could prove that Evelyn was real I could know that I wasn't crazy. That friday after school I had been planning on heading for the graveyard right from school, but Thursday night my parents told me they had a date planned for friday night and had gotten me a babysitter for after school on Friday so I was forced to go straight home. I paced around my house, pent up with so much energy that I couldn't relax in my room. All of that pacing was a good thing because I must have walked up and down our stairs over 50 times; I tired myself out and fell asleep early.

I woke up early on saturday. Today was the day. As I walked down towards the cemetery I resolved again to ask my Dad for a new bike, I had outgrown my last one and it had broken before the move so we threw it away. There was a strong wind that day that was blowing on my back, almost nudging me forward. When I made it to the gate of the cemetery I peered through it to see if anyone else was there, but like the last couple of times I had been there it was empty. I pulled against the rusted black iron gate, opening it with a loud creaking sound. The wind whistled through the trees around me as I walked back towards the section of graveyard I had left off at last time. I wanted to rush my searching but didn't want to risk overlooking her grave.

Two hours later and I still hadn't found it. I searched through the whole graveyard and hadn't been able to find her name. With each incorrect tombstone I grew more and more anxious. The fear that I had maybe imagined it all after all first started to gnaw at me and then devour as I checked off the last section as being cleared. It wasn't there. I started to walk back towards the entrance, ready to return home and face what I was. I was crestfallen at first, it had been scary to see a ghost but had also made me feel like maybe I was special, especially after Evelyn told me that no one else had been able to see her. Henry had finally caught up to me last week and he hadn't gone easy on me. If it wasn't for the fact that it was during school and he had a limited time to exact his revenge I would have probably needed stitches too. I started to get angry at thinking about him. Why did he have to pick on me so much? What was his problem? A part of me wondered if he was mistreated at home, and another part of me hoped for it. My anger built up. I walked down the path and saw a small outcropping of stone sticking up out of the dirt to the side of the path and it was partially covered up by weeds and dandelions. As I passed it I wound up and kicked it as hard as I could. My foot burst out in pain as I came into contact with something much more solid than just a loose stone.

After recovering from the pain I bent down to see what I had kicked. I had to brush aside some dirt and weeds that had overgrown a stone plaque that was set into the ground. I saw the name. It was hers. Evelyn Brown, born 1975, departed 1994. There was a rose engraved into the top of the stone. There was a few old preserved rose petals that must have been there for years. I stared down at the stone, not knowing to do now that I had found it. There was that small sense of relieve at knowing that I hadn't snapped last month and imagined her, but then that meant that she was real, and she really had died before her life could begin. The original plan had been just to find her name, birth date, and death date, and now that I had that info I should head back home or to the library to start trying to track down more info about her, but I couldn't just leave her. Her grave was in such a state of disrepair that I just couldn't leave it like that.

I reached down and started to clear away the brush, snow, and dirt. The weeds bit into my hands as I pulled them free of the cold Earth. After 20 minutes my hands were simultaneously numb from the cold and also sore from pulling up the resistant weeds. It was a cold December day, I hadn't brought a thick enough jacket with me because I wasn't accustomed to actual cold winters her and had underestimated the weather. I was sweating from exertion and freezing even more. Once the grave was clear I stood back up and reflected on my work. It looked a lot better than what it had before, if only I had some flowers to decorate it for her. I felt a chill that didn't feel like it was caused by the cold air. A tingle went across my skin, causing it to break out in goosebumps. I had heard of this feeling before, the cold feeling when a ghost was nearby. I felt a familiar presence I had felt on Halloween night.

"Evelyn?" I asked and looked around me. The cold spot enveloped me and the air dropped even more degrees. I looked around to see if I could see her. I thought for a moment that maybe I could see a figure at the edge of my vision, but when I would turn to look at it the figure would disappear. "Thank you for looking after me on Halloween. I don't think I would have been able to make it through that night if it wasn't for you." I felt a cold caress up my cheek and stop just below the black eye that Henry had given me just a few days ago. "Yeah Henry finally caught up to me for me fighting back on Halloween." I felt that coldness press against my cheekbone, easing the pain slightly. "I have to be heading back home soon, before it gets too late. I promise I will be back to visit you." I walked towards the cemetery gate, and the cold spot followed me, like Evelyn was walking me out to the gate. "Good bye," I said and walked back out into the woods. I had grown used to the coldness of her presence and missed that chill.

I made it home just as the sun was going down. During dinner my mother fussed again over my black eye but said that it should be healing up soon. Once dinner was over I rushed upstairs to my room so that I could look up Evelyn again now that I knew a little more about her. With her full name and the year of her death I was able to look up what happened to her almost instantly, and instantly I regretted doing it. Evelyn had gone missing on her way home from school. People searched for her for 3 months until her body was finally found. She had been raped and murdered. There had been a few suspects, but all of them had proven to be innocent so who did this to her was still a mystery. I read through the newspaper articles as they unfolded, following the case as others would during the time it had happened. While searching through the articles I saw a picture of Evelyn and her family standing in front of their house. It had undergone a few renovations since then, but there was no mistaking it, this was the same house I was living in now.

After several hours of reading from off my computer screen my eyes became too strained to continue. I put my computer into rest mode and closed the notebook that I had been taking notes in. I hid the notebook under a stack of school books. I felt like it would be too hard to explain why I was taking notes about a girl who had died years ago. That night I lay in bed with all of the information I had just acquired swirling through my head. I had thought over the past month that maybe Evelyn had died in an accident like a car crash, but knowing what really happened took away the thrill of meeting a beautiful ghost girl now that I knew how her life ended. I had been doing research on ghost sightings and most things I read pointed to ghosts being people who can't move on because they had unfinished business, like what Evelyn had said. Evelyn's murderer had never been found. Maybe that was her unfinished business, and if I were to just find who did it then I could help her move on. My imagination ran wild with the idea of being the one to solve this dead end case. I would have an advantage over other investigators, I could talk with Evelyn to piece together what had happened to her. I started to fall asleep, even then thinking that the idea was just a child's fancy, but when I woke up the next day I felt more resolved then ever to solve the case and help Evelyn move on to whatever came next.

Part 3- The Investigation age 13

I spent the next three months obsessed with Evelyn and solving her murder. I gathered as much info as I could from off the internet and the old microfilm on file at the library. The librarian had been curious as to why I would want to learn about such a morbid thing. The first lie that sprung to my mind had ended up being one of the best ones; I lied and said that I was working on a school project. I would visit Evelyn's grave at least once a week, sometimes more. Sometimes I felt her presence, but most times I didn't so it was just me there talking to her grave stone. I told her about my family and school. I would ask her questions about herself, even though I knew that she couldn't answer me, I just didn't want the conversation to be so one sided. Henry was still giving me problems, but I had gotten better at evading him. I knew that I was going to have to face him eventually, but I was scared, I had already been beaten by him so many times before, it made it hard to have hope that I could win against him. Talking to Evelyn really helped me, especially when I felt her coldness around me. I fell into a routine of going to talk to Evelyn when ever I needed someone to listen to me or just to get away. I knew how crazy it was, but it helped me out when I felt like I had no one to turn to.

Next Halloween rolled around faster than I expected. I had been preparing for it for weeks but it still caught me off guard. I was looking forward to getting to actually see Evelyn again and talk to her in person. I figured that this halloween should be like last year's where she would have a tangible body again, but at the same time I doubted that this stuff was an exact science.

I snuck out of my house after glancing up and down the street for Henry and his goons. This past year I had avoided him at all costs, but when he did catch me something had changed. I could no longer just let them do whatever they wanted to me and I had started to fight back. One common way I had read to deal with a bully is to just stand up to them, show them that you are not afraid and will not be an easy target so that they move on and leave you alone. That wasn't the case with Henry. He seemed to respond to a call to a challenge and seemed even more focused on me. I tried to fight back, but his goons would always jump in to take away any chance I had to defeat a bigger opponent. Over the summer I finally hit my growth spurt, this combined with how much I had been riding my new bike across town and the weight lifting class I signed up for this year helped me to get into fighting shape. When I didn't see any signs of my tormentors I rolled my bike out of our garage and started down the path I had walked down so many times before.

Night fell heavily as I plunged into the woods. A year ago the gloom would have scared me, but I had grown used to the woods and no longer feared them. After getting lost in them the year before I had taken an interest in woodland survival and I was starting to get the basics down. If I found myself in that position again then I wouldn't be caught unaware.

I hid my bike in some bushes next to the gate. Fog poured from out of the cemetery like it was the origin point for all of the fog throughout the world. When I set foot inside of the gate I instantly broke out in goosebumps. Even with all of the times I had visited the cemetery over the year, coming during Halloween just felt more eerie. I did my best to walk through the cemetery with confidence, the last thing I wanted was for Evelyn to see me scared again. I liked to think that I had grown a lot in the past year, and if I could only see her once a year then I wanted to make a good impression. As I walked past the two knolls and mausoleums that blocked my view from the cemeteries lone tree on its hill I couldn't help but have a moment of doubt. What if Evelyn didn't show up this year? If she had moved on then I could handle all the waiting being for nothing? What if she just didn't want to see me? The old fear of the whole thing being in my head began to resurface, but I dismissed it, If I really was crazy enough to have all or part of it be hallucinations then there was nothing for me to do about it now. Talking to and visiting had been the only thing that kept me sane over the past year, if that made me insane then I guess I will take on that label.

I turned the corner and saw the tree looming up above the fog, it looked like it was on an island in a sea of fog, and on that island, waiting for me, was Evelyn. She was leaning against the tree with her arms crossed, looking right at me. I faltered for a moment in my walk towards her, she was breathtaking and looked even more beautiful than I remembered. I did my best to regain my natural stride as I walked to her. As I walked up the hill and up out of the fog Evelyn said, "It's about time, I've been waiting for you."

"You have been?" I asked.

"Yes, I was worried you were not going to show up." she said while looking past me.

"Sorry to keep you waiting," I said as I went up the last couple of steps up the hill and met her by the tree. She looked down at me, but not as much as she had the year before. Maybe after one more year of growing I would finally be her height, or maybe even taller than her.

"You've grown," she said looking me over. I felt embarrassed by how focused her gaze was on me.

"Yeah, hit my summer growth spurt," I said.

Evelyn sat down with her back to the tree and patted the ground next to her for me to join her. I did so. We were sitting with just the barest amount of space in between us. I could feel her body heat radiating off of her. It felt weird to feel her body heat after filling her cold presence frequently for the past year. We sat in silence for ten minutes. There was so much I wanted to ask her and talk about with her, I knew this night would be my only real chance until next year's Halloween, but it also felt nice just to sit and enjoy Evelyn's presence. I didn't want to rush her, so I was willing to wait until she broke the silence. "So... I saw my gravestone," she said.

"Oh?" I asked. Along with keeping it clear of weeds and cleaning it off I had started to bring flowers to her grave about once a month. I had just brought her a new set of flowers just a couple of days ago.

"Thank you for taking care of it for me. It looks a lot better. "I like roses but..." she said with a smile.

"But what?" I asked with a pretend exasperated sigh.

"Hibiscus flowers are my favorite flower," she said.

I laughed, "Ok I will remember that for the next flowers I get you." I grumbled about her not being able to smell them anyways so what was a difference.

"But sometimes I can," she said.

"What?" I asked.

"While I almost can. Being dead most of the time means that all of my senses are dead. I don't get to feel anything, taste anything, or smell anything. Sometimes I can hear the world around me but it sounds muffled and is hard to make out the words. All I can really tell is that someone is talking to me because I get that same feeling that you get when you hear your name whispered across the room when all other words are jumbled up together. Even rarer I get to actually see the world around me, but it looks just like how it does now, full of fog and darkness. Even during the rare day my senses are awakened. And even rarer then sound or sight, then the ability to actually get to move around my surroundings, is the sense of smell. I still remember the first time I came out of the grogginess of death to the smell of flowers for the first time in years. I know it sounds corny, but for that moment I forgot that I was dead."

"What about the sense of taste?" I asked.

"That has never happened before, thankfully. I don't exactly think I would want to taste anything in this graveyard," she joked.

"So right now you have all your senses?" I asked. We hadn't really talked about this last year and I was dying to know more about how she experienced the world.

"Yeah I do. They are probably about the same amount of sensitivity as when I was alive, but since i'm not used to them everything I experience feels so overwhelming," Evelyn said.

"How would chocolate taste to you?" I asked her.

"Probably orgasmic," she said instantly. After a moment she realized what she had said and started to laugh at what she said. I unzipped my backpack and reached into it. I pulled out a huge bag full an assortment of candy that I had picked out. "That is way too much candy," Evelyn said.

"While, it is Halloween after all. And besides, it's not like you have to worry about getting cavities," I pointed out.

"Good point," she said and reached in to grab a handful. I watched as she unwrapped a mini hershey's bar and tried to delicately take a bite out of it, but once she nibbled off the first piece her eyes went wide and she shoved the rest of it into her mouth. As she sucked on her finger to get the bit of chocolate that had melted on her finger she finally noticed me watching her. "What?" she asked.

"Nothing, I guess you were not kidding about how you would react to eating chocolate," I teased her.

She playfully shoved me. "Shut up and eat your candy," she said. We sat together discussing what we had gone trick-or-treating as and the years we had gotten our best hauls of candy. Apparently, she had a history of dressing up as a witch or vampire. I teased her about dressing as a witch since she had mocked witchcraft last year. "I just like the costume ok," she said as she defended herself. As much as I had other pressing questions, I didn't want to rush her into them and just enjoyed the sound of her voice and how animated she got when talking about those good moments from her past.

Evelyn asked what happened last year after I had wondered back home the day after Halloween. She nodded knowingly as I talked about how upset my parents had been. Evelyn told me about how strict her parents were and how she rebelled all the time against them. "I knew that they were trying to protect me and that they loved me, but at the same time I just needed my space to be my own person. You know?" Evelyn said.

"Yeah I do." The conversation stalled for a moment. "So you said you wanted to be a writer?" I asked.

"Yeah, I used to carry around a notebook in my jacket pocket at all times in case I had a sudden urge to write or saw something I wanted to take a note down for. I used to write the worst most sappy poetry ever," Evelyn said.

"I bet it wasn't that bad," I said.

"Believe me, if I had my notebook on me and showed you then you would definitely not think that after reading just a couple of them." Her smile withered from her face and she tensed up.

"What's wrong?" I asked her.

"Well, it's weird but, these clothes you see on me, they are what I was wearing when... I went missing, not what I was buried in, and everything I had in my pockets then are still here strangely." She reached into one pocket and pulled out a tube of red lipstick and lip balm. From her other pocket she pulled out her key ring, and from one of the bigger pockets in her denim jacket she pulled out a pen and pencil. "That day, I had my notebook right here in this pocket, but its gone," she said.

"Maybe you dropped it?" I asked her.

"I don't think so," Evelyn said.

A thought bounced around in my mind, and it took me a moment to be able to say it. "Maybe whoever..." I couldn't bring myself to say kidnapped and murdered you, "maybe they took it from you," I said.

Evelyn thought it over for a few minutes before responding. "I guess that could be a possibility, but why would he take that from me?" Her voice cracked as she finished her question, as if after all that her killer had done to her, that was the thing that had been the most indecent.

"Do you have any idea who killed you?" I asked.

"No. Memories are almost like senses for me, most of the time I can't really remember anything, but every now and then a memory will rise up from the darkness of death, only its stronger than just a memory, its like I get to relive it. But anything from that day seems to stay in the darkness."

Now it was my turn to think for a couple of minutes. I wondered how much of it was her not remembering what had happened to her, or how much was it her not wanting to relive that tragic day. I couldn't say that I blamed her for wanting to avoid reliving such a painful experience. I stared at the mist as I thought about what to say next. When I finally looked at Evelyn again I noticed that she was shivering. "Here," I said and started to take off my jacket.

"I'm fine," Evelyn said, but I had already finished taking off my jacket. "I mean it," she said.

I draped my jacket across her front so that it wrapped around her. "Too bad, it's already off so if you don't wear it then we will both freeze for no reason," I said. Evelyn smiled and stopped protesting as I finished draping it across her.

I had already pressed as much as I was willing to about her murder so I changed the subject to the next thing I had been wanting to talk to her about. Books. I had spent the last year trying to read through as many of the books she had spoken foundly off as I could. I spent the next hour talking back and forth about the merits of the different books I had read to connect more with her. After 30 minutes the night's air became even more chilly and I started to regret giving up my jacket. No one ever mentions how cold chivalry could leave a guy. I tried to suppress the chattering of my teeth as Evelyn asked me about what I thought about the ending to The Chronicles of Narnia but she heard them strike against each other as I started to answer. "Take your jacket back, you're the one who is going to freeze," she said.

"Nope can't do it," I said.

"Fine, then come here," Evelyn said. She held out her arm and the jacket. I scooted over and joined her in the warmth of my jacket. Once I was settled she leaned her head down against my shoulder. "This is nice," she said.

"Yeah it is," I agreed. She nestled her head more then exhaled. Her warm breath grazed across my skin, causing me to break out in goosebumps. I sat for a few minutes enjoying her warmth, when I heard her breathing change. She let out a faint snore that I found adorable. I leaned my head down on hers and closed my eyes. The next moment I opened my eyes I realized that I must have fallen asleep while I was sitting with her. I checked my watch and saw that it was close to midnight. My parents had given me a later curfew this year but I should have been home by now. They had gone to a Halloween party so if I was lucky maybe they were still out. After what happened last year I was lucky they had let me go out at all. As much as I wanted to stay here with Evelyn I couldn't chance being out all night again. I knew I would have to rush to get home, but I couldn't bring myself to leave Evelyn just yet. One more minute wouldn't matter. Five minutes later I finally started to pull myself away from Evelyn.

"Where you going?" Evelyn asked as I stood up.

"I have to get home, it's almost midnight," I said.

"Oh, dam. Can't have you getting in trouble again," Evelyn said after a big yawn. She stood up and stretched. It took her a moment to notice the small amount of droll she had that was drying on her chin. She tried to wipe it off without me noticing it. "Here," she said as she tried to hand me back my jacket.

"No it's ok, you can keep it," I said.

"Your going to freeze on your way home," Evelyn said.

"It's not that cold out, and maybe it will motivate me to get home faster. I want you to hold on to it for the rest of the night, that way the only thing you get to feel tonight doesn't have to be freezing. I can get it back from you next year," I said.

"Ok," she said. We started to walk towards the gate. I had told myself going into this night to savor every moment of it because it would be a year before I would get to see her again. I walked with my hands in my pocket, partially because of how cold it was and also because I didn't know what to do with my hands. While, I did. I wanted to try and hold her hand, but I wasn't brave enough to try. We walked closer together then the narrow path called for. Every few strides our arms would touch. I spent the whole walk psyching myself up for trying to make my move and hold her hand. I felt like I was pretty close to doing it when we passed the two hills and mausoleums and made it to the cemetery gate faster then I wished. Maybe if the walk had been longer I would have found the courage to hold her hand, to express the feelings that were confusing and only grew stronger after seeing Evelyn again on that night. "While, here is where I have to leave you," she said in front of the gate.

"I wish I didn't have to go," I said.

"I know, me too," Evelyn said. The next thing I know she had her arms wrapped around me in a tight hug. I was startled for a moment, and then returned the hug. She felt so warm and solid in my arms, so alive. It was like she belonged to be in my arms, even if there was no way we could belong to one another. The hug lingered and I didn't interrupt it. Even with being in a hurry, I wasn't about to be the one to break it. Finally after a couple of minutes Evelyn released her physical hold on me. "See you next year?" Evelyn asked.

"Of course," I said and gave her a quick hug before walking out the gate.

Before I could take a step Evelyn grabbed my hand and placed something in it. "Here," she said.

I opened up my hand and saw that she had given me the black hair band I had seen her tie her hair up with last year. "Thank you," I said in reply as I slipped it down around my wrist. Once I got started down the path on my bike I looked back and saw Evelyn staring at me while holding the gate with her face pressed partially through it. I shouldn't have looked back. It made it even harder to rush home, knowing that I was only putting her further behind me. As I pedaled recklessly down the path I kept on thinking about her looking at me through the gate or up alone sitting by her tree on the hill. Thinking about her left me with too many wishes that were impossible to come true.

I made it home with just enough time to start and fast forward a horror movie half way into it and spread out the candies Evelyn and I had eaten onto the coffee table just as my parents pulled up and walked through the living room. Other than the comment my mom made about the mess I had made they didn't notice anything amiss. I had timed it perfect to get the most time possible with Evelyn while also make it home on time.

I turned off the movie and swept my trash off the table into a trash bag. Once upstairs I slid out the small lock box I keep under my bed and unlocked it. Here was where I kept all of my newspaper clippings and notes related to Evelyn and her unsolved case. I pulled out a small journal that I had started to use to keep track of when I would sense Evelyn while visiting her. I did this to see if there was any patterns to her manifestations so that if anything I did seemed to draw her out more. I also recorded them to hope that maybe my ability to see her was getting stronger. So far I hadn't found a pattern and my sightings of her were just as sporadic as ever. I had something better to write down this time. My meeting with her again in her full manifestation. I started to write In the blank pages I had left after I had written down last year's encounter with her. I filled pages in one long string of writing before I had to pause for a moment to figure out what to write next, I knew what I was doing with investigating her murder and being so obsessed over the details of tonight were odd, but if no one else was going to help her move on then I had to help her. Also if I was only going to get one night a year with her then I planned on making the most out of that night and remembering as much of it as I could. Once I was done I placed the journal and the hair tie into the box. I fell into a deep slumber.

Year 3 after second sighting.

I now had a new focus for my investigations. Evelyn's missing notebook. I thought it would be weird for Evelyn's murderer to have held onto her notebook. I knew that a lot of serial killers liked to keep trophies from their victim, but a lot of investigators were under the impression that this had been more of a crime of passion. One of the key suspects had been one of the more popular boys in her class, Ryan Fuller.. Several classmates when interviewed about him had said that Ryan had been infatuated with Evelyn for years. He would repeatedly ask her out and to every school dance but she always turned him down. One reason often given was that she was too busy on studying to have time for a boy. Many thought that Ryan had been rejected one time too many by Evelyn and had finally snapped. He was the first person I had suspected when I first started to study Evelyn's disappearance. Maybe, If he had seen her always writing in her notebook he could have grown angry with it, so when he had kidnapped her he had gotten rid of it before he had dropped off her body in the woods. If that was the case then I doubted I would be able to find her notebook randomly in the middle of the woods or road.

I needed some fresh air and to go think somewhere. I needed to get out of the town for a while. I rode my bike out of town and down the narrow roads. Traffic was almost nonexistent and there was just enough room at the shoulder of the road when cars drove past me. I followed the road for five miles before I turned down the game trail I sought. Twenty minutes later after hiding my bike in some bushes I was in a small clearing of trees. This was the sight were Evelyn was found by some hikers. I walked around the clearing, recalling crime scene pictures I had scene. This was another detail that had always come up that drew a lot of attention. There wasn't much around here but trees, so this was a weird place for Evelyn to turn up. She had been found placed right in the middle of the clearing; she wasn't even hidden at all. Investigators believed that Evelyn's killer wanted her to be found so they picked an open area. I knew now from Evelyn that this had been one of her favorite places to go. It was just far enough to where she wouldn't be bothered by others, but also close enough to where she could get there in a hurry. She told me this was the best place that she used to do her writing.

After searching around for the notebook and finding nothing I laid in the center of the circle, where the grass was the plushest. I closed my eyes, enjoying the slight warmth from the sun and took a much needed break. I had wanted to be revolted by this place, the scene where Evelyn's body was found, but the beauty of this spot seemed to rally and try to dispel the dark blemish that had been forced onto it. After a cat nap in the sun it was time to return home. It seemed my teachers' trick this Halloween had been to assign us extra homework that I hadn't started on yet. I had a theory that they tried to assign just enough homework to keep us too busy to vandalize their homes, but not so much that students would target them for vandalization do to being assigned too much homework. It must be a fine balancing act if that was what they were going for.

I started pedaling back home, my hands and face quickly became numb by the cold air I cut through. I rounded a blind bend only to see a beat up black truck barreling down the middle of the two lanes. It was Henry's truck. When they saw it was me on the road they started to swerve back and forth across the lanes, but always when they were on the same side of the road as me the truck would linger, as if they meant to run me down. Henry closed the distance, lingering even longer on my side of the road and reving the trucks engine. He swerved away when we were about 20 feet from hitting each other, I thought that was it, Henry had his fun to try and scare me, but then as we were about to pass each other he turned his wheel sharply. I turned my bike to side and threw myself off of the road. As I hit the shoulder of the road and started to roll down it I heard the crunch of metal and the bang of air as my bike's tires popped. Henry and his gang laughed as they drove away. Henry honked the horn as they disappeared down the bend.

I lay at the bottom of the trench in a small pool of stagnant water. Half my body felt like it was on fire, so they cold water helped to sooth the pain of the budding injuries. Luckily nothing seemed to be broken. I was pretty scraped up from hitting sticks and rocks on my way down. I sat up and listened, wondering if they planned to come back. Henry had always been sadistic, but this was a new level of violence, even for him. He could have killed me. Once I had my wits about me I stumbled to my feet. One of my ankles protested when I put too much weight onto it. Hobbling up the slope took a hell of a lot longer than it did for me to roll down it. Once I made it to the top I looked over my crumpled bike. The damage wasn't as bad as it had sounded below, but it wasn't going to be rideable. The back wheel was bent inwards to that it kinda resembled the curves of a fortune cookie. I picked it up and started the five mile trek back home. It was slow going and I didn't get home till nearly 10 pm. By that time I was frozen over and exhausted. I managed to sneak up to my room and clean up without my parents seeing me, and then I fell into my bed and slept.

Christmas eve? Of second year age 15? woul

On the morning of Christmas Eve I set a couple dozen of hibiscus flowers on Evelyn's grave. Winter was hitting hard and even with all the layers of clothes I was wearing I still felt the sharp bite of the snow and wind. As I was leaving I thought I saw a figure standing in the snow off to the side of my vision. Evelyn looked like she was wearing my jacket still. I had thought I would find it by the tree or her grave when I came back to visit, but it had been gone. I turned my head towards Evelyn but like always she disappeared before I could focus on her. "Merry Christmas Evelyn, I will see you next Halloween," I said. I waited around for a response, even through I knew I wouldn't get one.

The rest of the year went by in a blur as the start of the second semester started with several large projects and papers being assigned. Evelyn and the mystery of what had happened to her were always at the back of my mind, but I had to keep those thoughts on the back burner and focus on my school work. When summer finally came around I couldn't have been more ready for it.

I had resolved to spend that summer to solve Evelyn's murder and free her soul, but I hit nothing but dead ends. Now I knew how time consuming doing investigations could be and it made me rethink some of my earlier thoughts about how ineffective the police department had been. The killer really covered his tracks. The only thing that I discovered that even stood out a little bit was on one of the times I visited what I had taken to calling Evelyn's clearing. It was one of my favorite places and I would go there to read or rest when I was getting frustrated with my lack of progress in solving what happened to Evelyn. I was laying in my usual spot in the grass when something caught my eye. I noticed out into the trees there was an odd growth. I got up and walked towards it. Old branches and bushes had been placed here to form a blind that overlooked Evelyn's clearing. I thought for a moment that maybe a hunter might have set it up to watch for game in the clearing, but that made no sense. This spot was too close to the Town and the road, there wouldn't be any game here. New plants had started to sprout out and up from the bottom of the blind. I walked around to the entrance of the blind and crouched down to see inside of it. The opening at the front gave a perfect sightline to where I had just been laying. I got chills at the thought that someone could have been watching me without me knowing it. It was used to watch Evelyn I realized. After that the clearing no longer felt relaxing and I couldn't go there without feeling like I was being watched.

******************

My first three years of highschool went by in a flash as I struggled to make friends, keep up with my school work, and to try and help solve my best friends murder. Sure she died before we became friends, but that didn't make it mean any less. During Halloween of my Junior year I finally worked up the courage to confess my feelings for Evelyn. I thought she felt the same way about be, but instead she just got mad. "Chris, you can't love me, I'm dead. You already spend too much time visiting me and trying to figure out what happened to me. Eventually you are going to have to move on and leave me here," She said. I tried to argue with her about how much I cared about her, but she wasn't having it. We ended up sending the rest of the night in an awkward silence, as any conversation we tried to have just died off. By confessing my feelings for her I had ruined what we had between us. When Evelyn said goodbye that night she said how much she cared about me, but I had to find a real girl to fall in love with. I spent the rest of the school year sulking and coming to terms with what had happened.