A Halloween Tale

There was a certain small town in Maine which had grown round an old cemetery. As it took a long time to walk round the cemetery if one wanted to go to the opposite side of town, it was not uncommon for late night revelers to take a short cut through the cemetery. Tom worked the late shift at the local coffee shop and normally finished past midnight and would cut across the cemetery to get home.

One autumn night, it was particularly dark and there was some ground fog rolling in from the sea. Tom was making his way across the cemetery but he was finding it difficult to see well in the dark and fog and he kept bumping into gravestones. He was halfway across when he suddenly fell into a deep hole. He was stunned for awhile but as his eyes got accustomed to the dark, he quickly realised he had fallen into a newly dug grave.

He tried jumping and catching the edge of the grave so that he could climb out but the sides of the grave must have been at least eight feet deep and he could not jump that high. He tried doing a running jump but he still could not jump high enough. After trying for about twenty times, he got tired and sat down at the side and prepared to wait till morning when the groundskeeper would most likely find him. Before long, he dozed off.

About an hour later, he was awakened to the sound of drunken singing. It was a late night reveler taking a short cut through the cemetery. However, before Tom could call out, the man fell into the very same hole. From where he sat, he could barely see the man but he could hear the man get up and brush the dirt from his clothes while cursing under his breath. He then heard the man attempt to jump and catch the edge of the grave as he had and he also heard him fall heavily to the ground again.

After hearing the man try a few times and fail, he could tell that the man was beginning to panic. Therefore he reached out and put his hand on the man's shoulder and said " You're not getting out of here tonight."

The next thing Tom knew, the man screamed, jumped straight up in the air and was gone!