October 2nd
School ended for the day, and the students who were going to make up the cast and stage crew for ‘October’s Shattered Graves’ gathered in the band room right down the hall from the auditorium.
Doug Roberts walked into the room with his buddy, Kevin Maida. Kevin dressed in an oversized flannel button up shirt and faded blue jeans. The two of them had been friends since middle school. He and Doug set their backpacks down in the corner, and joined the rest of the students who were all sitting around in chairs, chatting with one another.
Doug looked around – Mr. Murdock wasn’t there yet. He looked over at a small section of chairs that were occupied by Charlotte Sheldon – a gorgeous girl who was out of his league – and her two friends, Samantha Weber, who was equally as pretty, and Jasper Finch – a junior who seemed to get along better with the girls than the guys for some reason.
The band room doors busted open and Mr. Murdock came in, in a huff. He appeared to be short of breath and was sweating. He quickly gathered his thoughts, and grabbed everyone’s attention.
“Alright, guys. Sorry I’m late. I just received some news that I have to attend to, but before I leave, I’d like to talk about the play – written by our very own, Doug Roberts,” Murdock said, pointing at Doug.
The room applauded softly and Doug stood up.
“Doug, if you could just quickly speak to the group about what you’re trying to accomplish, we can get moving.”
Doug cleared his throat and looked out among the fifteen or so students. Speaking in front of groups was not his idea of a good time, and his shaky voice proved he was uncomfortable. “I wrote ‘October’s Shattered Graves’, as a tribute to the people who were killed last year by the Harvest Slasher. In a nutshell, it tells the story about five Innocent Souls, whom a man named Dev Liles, kills. A year later, they return from their graves to haunt Dev, and torture him with visions of Hell, as well as the shattered lives of the families in which he’d destroyed. It’s basically a redemption story.”
The idea behind the play seemed to go over well with the students. Mr. Murdock, once again, took center stage.
“We are looking for a one night only performance, on Halloween night – very fitting if you ask me. Tickets will cost $10 a person, and all the proceeds will go towards a scholarship in the victims’ names. I have assigned everyone their roles, so I suggest you start learning your dialogue tonight, and we’ll begin some early rehearsals this Friday after school. I’m going to need the stage crew to start coming in tomorrow after classes are finished to start creating the sets. There will be bedroom setting, a city street setting, as well as a cemetery one. So please, use the next few minutes or so to get to know your cast mates and the crew!”
Mr. Murdock grabbed his briefcase from against the wall, and left the room almost as quickly as he’d arrived.
Doug and Kevin looked around and everyone was starting to chat and introduce themselves with one another.
“Did you suggest me to Mr. Murdock for the Dev Liles role?” Kevin asked.
“Yeah,” Doug said. “I figured with all the Facebook stalking you do to half our class, you could pull off a psycho-creep perfectly.”
“Um, excuse me, but you’re the one who is constantly hopping onto Charlotte’s page with the mouse cursor hovering over the ‘Add as a Friend’ button,” Kevin said, glancing over in Charlotte’s direction. “Why don’t you just talk to her, man?”
“She’s out of my league, dude. Plus, we have nothing in common.”
“Well, I think you do actually. You wrote this play, and she answered the call sheet. She obviously wants to be in it.”
“Well, what I am supposed to say to her?”
“Just say you appreciate her interest in the play, or something. You’re going to have to do it sooner or later.”
“You’re right.” Doug stood up and saw Jasper Finch break away from the small group.
“Now’s your chance, dude,” Kevin said, giving Doug a small nudge in Charlotte’s direction.
Doug stumbled for a moment, and slowly made his way to the two girls. He stood over them and saw they were skimming through a copy of the script. Charlotte’s character’s name was highlighted throughout the pages. She and Samantha looked up at him.
Charlotte smiled.
“You wrote this script?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Doug responded. “Did you like it?”
“Loved it. I think it’s a great idea. People are going to love it. You have some serious talent, Doug,” she said, still smiling.
Doug looked at Samantha, who was missing her smile.
“I liked it too. That’s why I auditioned. But I guess Libby Hatcher was a better choice – a freckled, fat, loser. Is that what you imagined the character to look like?” Samantha was rude. Doug had not known that about her. He didn’t know anything about their group of friends, aside from the fact that they hardly ever interacted with Doug’s crowd.
Doug stood there, not sure how to respond after Samantha’s buzz-killing remark. The girls were quiet, and Charlotte shot him one last forced smile before he awkwardly walked away.
4:45 PM
Doug was at his house, upstairs in his bedroom on the east side of Stewart Hollow. He was at his desk, typing on his computer below a collage of movie and music posters.
Lying on his bed was Kevin, strumming an unplugged electric guitar.
“You think we could be the next great rock band?” Kevin asked, talking to himself more than he was to Doug.
Doug, busy typing, blandly responded. “Sure, why not. I’ll write the music and you play the guitar.”
“We’ll, we’d need a bassist and a drummer,” Kevin said, strumming harder. “And some groupies.” He stopped strumming and looked over at Doug. “Like Charlotte.”
Doug swung around. “Alright, I knew that was going to come up.”
“It was weird, man. Awkward too.”
“I know. That doesn’t mean you have to keep talking about it. It was a fluke. I’ll get better with talking to her. That Samantha girl threw me off.” Doug turned back and continued typing.
Kevin sat up, setting the guitar on the bed. “What are you typing?”
“The sequel.”
“For ‘Shattered Graves’?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?” Kevin stood up and looked over Doug’s shoulder. Doug turned the monitor off so Kevin couldn’t see.
“Because I have more ideas. I’m thinking about writing a feature length script, and maybe trying to get it made into a movie next year when I’m in college.”
“Don’t you think that’d be a little – disrespectful?” Kevin asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, a high school play is one thing – we’re remembering the deceased. A movie though, would be a little much.”
“Just let me write, man. That’s all I know. Shouldn’t you be starting to learn your lines? Dev Liles is not the type of character you can just perform. You have to get inside of his head.”
Kevin backed away as Doug turned the screen back on. “Alright then, my scripts at home. I’ll see you at school tomorrow, man.”
“Uh-huh,” Doug said, diving back into this script.
5:50 PM
Harper Cole sat at the dispatchers’ desk at the Sheriff’s Department. She was in her mid-twenties, with short blonde hair and wore more make-up than she should.
The phone rang at the desk, interrupting her from her Cosmo magazine.
“Sheriff’s Department.” She answered in her typical high-pitched voice that sounded more normal coming from a teenager. She listened to what the caller had to say, and then responded. “Sure. Hold one second please.”
Harper put the call on hold, stood up and walked back towards the offices.
Sheriff Carter sat at his desk. Deputy Dart was showing him photographs taken at Noah Swan’s house. Dart held one up of the muddy footprints.
“They came back as a woman’s size 8 – an office shoe,” Dart explained. “There were no fingerprints, so the killer obviously used gloves of some sort. There were no witnesses, no known enemies, or anything. They think it happened around midnight.”
“Great,” Carter said, taking a deep breath.
“We don’t know for certain that this has anything to do with The Harvest Slasher, Sheriff. For all we know, it could be just another hoax – like that poem we received on November 1st last year.”
“This is not a hoax, Dart! There’s a man dead, and bloody words written on the wall talking about Kelly Rodgers. It’s connected.” Carter sat back in his seat. “I’m just not sure how, yet.”
There was a knock on the door. Harper stood before the Sheriff and his Deputy.
“Sheriff, there’s a man on the phone for you. Line 1,” she said.
“Who is it?” Carter asked.
“He said his name is Bud Lockwood,” Harper said with an upward inflection at the end, not sure if she got the name right.
Dart looked at Carter, confused. “The groundskeeper at the cemetery?”
Carter was just as confused. He picked up the phone and answered line 1.
“This is Sheriff Carter.” Carter listened to Bud Lockwood. “Okay, thank you Bud. We’ll be there.”
Carter hung up and looked at Dart. Harper still stood in the doorway.
“What is it?” Dart asked.
“Something’s happened at the Hollow’s End Cemetery,” Carter said, blown away by what Bud Lockwood had told him.
The red-orange sun was starting to set to the west, as Sheriff Carter and Deputy Dart followed Bud Lockwood through the Hollow’s End Cemetery.
Bud was a middle-aged man, balding and heavy, but tall. He wore old, dirty clothes with his pants being held up by worn suspenders.
“I found it like this when I was doing my trash pickup rounds. It’s terrible to think someone would do something this unsettling around this time of year, you know?” Bud explained.
“Did you find any shovels or any other digging equipment?” Carter asked, as the three of them cut across the graves and over the winding hills in the cemetery.
“No shovels. Only footprints,” Bud said.
“Footprints?” Dart looked at Carter.
They arrived at a tall, cracked headstone. The name on the headstone was that of Kelly Rodgers. Sitting below the stone was a dug up grave. The rainwater had melted down the sides of the muddy hole, where a broken casket sat – empty.
Carter stared down into the muddy grave. He was terrified. It appeared someone had dug up the grave, smashed in the top of the casket, and removed Kelly Rodgers’ rotting corpse.
Dart felt sick. He backed away, trying to regain his composure.
Carter looked at Bud. “You said you found footprints?”
Bud pointed down at the muddy banks around the grave. There were footprints embedded in the mud – a possible women’s size 8.
“I remember the day we buried her,” Bud began. “Not many people came. Her family didn’t want anything to do with it after what she had done.”
Dart rejoined the two men in looking down into the hauntingly empty grave.
Bud looked at Carter, who was speechless. “It’s almost like Kelly Rodgers has come back from the dead.”