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Now we’re back to offer our weekly free Thriller excerpt:
The Interview
by Christopher McDonald
And here, for your reading pleasure, is our free excerpt:
“What happened next, George?” Angelica inquired. “What happened when you left the office?” She was into the story now and stopped analyzing him. She got out of the chair and stretched. She poured more coffee for her and George.
“Well, I just began thinking of all the things I had gone through in that office. I began to notice how everyone was looking at me. It seemed that everyone knew already. The whole office looked at me when I returned to my desk… Thank you for the coffee, Dr. Williams.” George took the coffee in one hand and took a sip. He made a slurping noise when he sipped his coffee. “This is good coffee, isn’t it?”
“Yes it is George. What did you think about while you were collecting your things from your desk?” Dr. Williams took a sip of her coffee. There was no noise when she took a drink. George noticed and decided not to make a noise he next time he drank.
“When I got back to the desk I thought back on my life. I wondered if there had ever been a situation where I had ever felt worse.”
“Well, was there a situation where you had felt worse?” Angelica took another sip off coffee. No noise.
“Yeah, there is just one other time in my life where I felt worse. Not even the death of my parents can top this experience.” Dr. Williams noted the death of his parents on her paper. George began, “It was back in high school. I went to Cass Comprehensive High. There was a large group of friends that I hung out with. I had an incident with them that was worse than what I went through yesterday. I think that was the only time in my life. If that is, there was another time I can’t remember.” George paused to take another sip of coffee. No noise.
“What happened to you George?” Angelica asked.
“What happened that summer is buried now. We don’t need to dig it up.” George took another soundless sip of his coffee.
“George, this thing that happened in your past, may have some relevance to the case, and in my decision in diagnosing you. This thing in your past may have been something out of your control. Just give me a shot with this I may even be able to help you cope with the situation. That’s my job you know…”
“Ok. Ok. I’ll tell you if you stop babbling.”
“Thank you George.” She replied.
“There is a cemetery in the town I grew up in called Oak Hill. As kids, we were sacred of this cemetery. No one wanted to get near it after dark. It was the kind that was over a hundred years old and had lots of old tombstones and crypts. This place was at least a hundred acres or more. We all went in there during the day to just play around and see if anyone could conjure up some spirits or something. This was a large cemetery with miles and miles of graves and of course oak trees. This one had, for some strange reason, a large fence around it, and big cast iron gates that had huge locks on them. We all guessed that it was to keep the vandals out at night. The local police department closed the gates every night and locked them. There was even a sign as you went into the gate that said ‘Gate Closes at Dusk.’ There were always stories on how they locked them at night to keep the ghouls and goblins in.”
“Sounds scary George,” the doctor observed.
“Yeah, it was a frightening place. I had many nightmares about that place as a child. There were some friends of mine that talked about going on the grounds after dark. The sign on the inside gate read ‘Gate Closes at Dusk.’ There was no reason to go in, in my opinion.
One night after a football game the three of them asked me if I wanted to catch a late flick with them. Of course, I said, yeah, recognizing their popularity. On the way to the movies, we had to pass by the cemetery. It was still daylight then, and there was a good hour till dusk so they decided to drive through the cemetery. I was ok with it because I was only frightened at night. We drove through and around the bin to where I recognized the plot where my great-grandfather was buried. We drove to the other side where the other entrance was; there are only two entrances to the cemetery. We drove out and went to the theater.
When we got out of the movie, we went back to the school where all of the passenger cars were parked. I remembered looking up at the sky that night. I looked up in that open convertible at the beautiful moon. There was the largest most beautiful full moon that night.
When we made it back to the gate, it had been left open. The guys wanted to go in to be one of the only few to have bragging rights to the whole going in at dark thing. It had been dark for about an hour and thirty minutes now. I agreed with them just to not be the only one to be a bore or a party pooper, you know. Peer pressure can do marvelous things you know.” He took another drink of coffee with no slurping sounds.
“Yes George I do know the power of peer pressure.” Angelica drank more coffee and said, “Go on what happened when you got in there.”
“Well, nothing we got to the other side and the gate was closed, so we decided to go back around the long way to get out of the place. We got to side we had entered, and there was a police car pulling out of the place with a locked Gate. He must have been locking the other side while we entered this side. And when we took the long way around he locked the only other entrance and exit to the place.”
“Oh my god, George,” Angelica said.
“Yeah, we were in some deep shit. I was about to die of fright. Here we were in a cemetery at night with two locked gates and a twenty-foot tall brick fence. I didn’t know what to do. Everyone around me tried to act cool, but it was obvious that they were scared shitless. The sign on the other side of the gate read gate opens at dawn and closes at dusk. All we could do is pace outside the car and yell at each other about whose fault this whole thing was.
I said to the other guys, ‘we need to stop blaming each other and devise a plan to get out of here. There is no good going to come out of yelling at each other.’ After I said this, we decided to walk the fences’ perimeter and find some way of getting over it.”
“How did that go? There must have been some animosity still in the group.” Angelica asked.
“There was some hostility still among us but we all left anyway to find a way out. We left the car at the gate so that if anyone were to pass by the road they would hopefully look for the people the car belonged to.
Although we thought this would be a good idea, we soon found that there was a little light and a long ways to walk. There were several times where we all had to stop to check out if we could climb a tree to get to the top and over the fence. The trip had to have been six or seven miles around the perimeter. We only found one promising spot where we could have had a chance to get over. The bricks as I said were twenty foot tall from the inside. Where we found a spot where a crypt and a tree helped us climb to the top of the fence. When we got to the top, we looked down to find the twenty-foot drop and another thirty-food cliff.
There was nowhere to go. We walked the rest of the perimeter back to the car and began to panic. Ron, the guy that owned the car, took it and slammed it into the Iron Gate resulting in a busted front end. The gate sustained no damage. This was the moment where we realized that the gate was meant to keep someone in and not vandals out. There were several points in the night where we were convinced that we were not getting out alive.”
What happened during the night that would convince you that you would not get out alive? This situation sounds like there are some conditions of the night that were dangerous.” Angelica pointed out.
“Oh yeah, there were. There were many things that happened to us before we blacked out.”
Dr. Williams jotted down many things in her notes while asking questions. “You blacked out? How do you mean?”
“Well, about half way through the night I can’t remember anything that happened. I lost about a week. I woke up in the hospital, or came to is more like it. My parents were there and said that I lay there all week in bed with my eyes open. The doctors described it as a type of catatonia.”
“Wow… so tell me what happened that you can remember?” Dr. Williams was still writing this whole time on her pad.
“Well, where do I start? I guess from when we got back from our long walk around the perimeter. We got back in the car and began to ram it again. I guess we rammed the gate another four times before the power died, and the headlights went out. Shortly after we got out of the car it began to smoke. I guess it was from the steam coming out of the radiator. I told the guys that we must have busted it ramming the gate.
We all just stood there next to the car and tried to figure out what to do next. Dustin asked me for the time. I was the only one there that had a wrist watch. It was midnight. We all could not believe it had gotten that late. We also realized that we had just broken the car at the gate on a road least traveled. We also came to the realization that this one-horse town closes down at eleven o’clock. The only store that even stayed open that extra two hours was Wal-Mart. I lived in a very small Podunk town that even today Wal-Mart closes early. I think it is the only Wal-Mart in the company that isn’t open 24-hours.”
“So you were stuck, for the night that is.” Dr. Williams observed.
“Yep, we didn’t get out until the gates opened by the police six hours later. I can only remember about another hour though. This was the longest hour of the night it seemed that we were in there for six days inside of that one-hour. It was like we had entered a time warp inside of the Oak Hill Gates.
We all stood outside the car planning our next course of action. We all agreed that once we returned to school on Monday that we would be famous not that we had accepted that we were to spend the night in there. I must have been the only one in the group that thought this was not a cool thing. But I guessed that this type of thing is what made these boys so popular. I was truly scared shitless. My stomach was doing cartwheels. Dustin the leader of our posse said we should roam the cemetery and look around. So we did, and this is where things begin to go wrong.”
“Wrong, how so?” the good doctor interjected.
“Well, just sit back and keep your mind open. This gets choppy and weird. You know I told you that the cemetery was named Oak Hill right?” Dr. Williams nodded “Well it consisted of many hills with Oak trees covering the hills. The graves were arranged on the hill on built up leveled off spots. Rock walls held up these plot areas. From the bottom of the hill, it looked like a short fat pyramid. To get to the top of the hill you had to cross many large grave plot areas. Many people on these hills erected large monuments and tombs above ground. And also many people just were buried with a large marker stone or headstone.
We all decided to take a walk up the first-hill close to the entrance of the gate. We started up stopping to look at some names on the graves also to look at dates. We had a decent time going through the plots looking at names. We got to some areas that that were very educational.
Close to the top but not quite to the top we noticed graves got older, much older. The one that made us stop and reflect for a while was a grave with no name just a year of death and the cause of death. The headstone very simply read here lies the female witch hanged 1799 at Oak hill cemetery.’.” Dr. Williams took her eyes off here paper for this one and stared blankly at George. “Yeah, it creeps you out too huh? Here we are stuck at a place used not only to bury the people of the town, but also used to hang the criminals.
Everyone looked at each other shrugged it off and began to climb to the top of the hill. This particular hill was the oldest and largest with a very old oak tree at the top. We continued to the top looking at the stones on the way up we saw many more and criminals and witch trial stones. We also passed on the way to the top a large obelisk labeled here lies Judge Jones 1810. I thought it was kind of strange all of these people sentenced to death by Judge Jones surround him on the hilltop he laid.
After what seemed like an hour we finally reached the top and Dustin asked for the time again. I looked at my watch, and it hadn’t moved. It still read 12 o’clock. Dustin just cursed my peace of shit watch. I couldn’t figure it out; it was a new watch I had just gotten for my birthday. So we were timeless and didn’t know what would happen next. From the top of the hill, we could see many other hills like this one throughout the cemetery. All were smaller than this one. We all sat on the ground under the great Oak tree of the cemetery. Joe pointed out that this is where many of those people we passed on the way up had been hanged. We all had a full body cold chill come over us.
At the top of this hill is where we found a little glimmer of hope. We could see most of the cemetery well the full moon lit most of the grounds. There was this large area in the rear next to the far wall that was dark. Now I’m not talking a shadow over the area I’m talking D.A.R.K. dark. Dustin noticed this area first and pointed out that someone was down there. Whoever was in this dark portion of the cemetery had a light. It looked like an old lantern for mining or something we could not make a person out because of how dark it was. He would have looked like an ant anyway.
Dustin yells at the top of his lungs down to a glimmer of light, ‘Hey you there we need help.’ There was no response no one yelled back, but the light seemed to move to the right some as if moving from one grave to another. We all agreed that someone else must have been trapped in for the night as well. So we began to run and run quick. The one or two miles from the hilltop down through the valleys between the hills alone the curvy roadways to the darker portion of the cemetery. Once we started to approach the dark portion we noticed it getting darker. Like the darkness started to expand to meet us on the way to the man. All while running we all were yelling at him to help us “Hey you there Sir.’ The man did not turnaround as we got within a football field’s length of him we all stopped. We were inside the darkness now, and the man appeared to be digging.
‘Hey, you dude can you help us?’ Dustin just yells out at the man. I told the group that I thought he is a grounds keeper, and that he was digging a grave. The man was dressed in blue jean overalls with a dingy shirt under them. He looked as if he had a hunch in his back from doing this job for many years. He wore old leatherwork boots with the laces undone on them. He also had a lantern made of cast iron on a large hooked stick stuck in the ground next to the grave. He had a large shovel and dug one scoop at a time.
We all looked at each other and noticed that about a hundred yards from him was a stone hut with one-window and a door, and there was a light on inside. We all agreed that this was the grounds keeper and chief gravedigger. And the hut with the light on was his office of-sorts. Dustin told us that we needed to go talk to the gravedigger and see if we could use the phone in his hut. I objected and said that we needed just to go to the hut and use the phone this man wants nothing to do with us obviously, or he would have answered us by now.
Dustin, the apparent group leader just, said ‘Look dude he is obviously an old man and just can’t hear us. He will understand once we get closer and tell him our story. Now come on we can’t do anything until we go talk to him. I know he will help us.’ So we all walked the short distance to the grave keeper. As we approached the man, we noticed he must have been working for some time. There were three graves he had dug in a row, and he had just begun on his fourth.
We finally got up to him to see his face and if you didn’t find him creepy yet you will now. He was old, and I’m talking late 50’s to a teenager this was ancient. His face pale his hair was, long, stringy, and grey. It looked as if he hadn’t washed it in a couple of years. Dustin said in a loud voice ‘Sir; we got locked in here tonight. Can we use the phone in your hut to call our parents to come get us?’ The caretaker just kept digging as if he hadn’t heard a thing. I remember the sound of the dirt sending chills up my back as his shovel sliced into the earth.
Dustin, getting a little frustrated, goes over and stands in the grave in front of the gravedigger. I yelled over to say I don’t think that’s such a good idea. He lowered his head to say ‘can you hear me?’ The man didn’t flinch he just dug more and more. Dustin then taps him on his forehead and said ‘I know you can see me dude. What the fuck is wrong with you?’ When there was no response from the man digging, I suggested we just go over to the hut and call he obviously didn’t give a shit that we were there.
We left the man to his digging and walked to the hut where the light was shining bright inside. Before we went inside we looked in the only window in the hut. Joe had to wipe the dust off so that he could see in. it was like a little house there was a fireplace with a fire burning, a cot to sleep on, and a little kitchen area with a sink a mirror and toilet. There was no one inside, so we let ourselves in. there was a strange musty smell as we went into the hut. There was no phone that we could see and no other doors or windows.
We started to look around to notice the little details of the hut.” Dr. Williams flipped the page over and began writing on a new page. She also picked up the recorder to make sure it was still recording. “We noticed things like the wood next to the fireplace and books on the table. The books we found were strange. There was a textbook on human anatomy and books on autopsies.
While examining the books, we found a critical item under them. It was a newspaper that was dated in 1801 and looked like a new paper though. We were paralyzed in fear to what we saw on the front page. Dustin dropped the autopsy book on the floor to give a loud bang. We all jumped at this noise. ‘No fucking way. There is no goddamn way.’ Dustin yelled out. On the cover of the paper was a picture of us. All four of us were pictured on the front. Also, there was a title equally disturbing. I will never forget it ‘Sentenced to hang’.”
“Wow…. That would scare me to death. What else did it say?” Dr. Williams asked while pouring more coffee.
“Well, here’s the thing. It said that Judge Jones the grave we passed on the top of the hill had convicted us of Loitering, Breaking and Entering, and this is the kicker vandalizing the Oak Hill Cemetery with some unknown horseless buggy contraption. As I read this aloud to the group, our jaws dropped. The paper stated that we were to be hanged at dawn of that very day only in 1801.
Now Doctor, just sit back, there is more unbelievable shit. We all started pacing the small hut cursing all sorts of obscenities. As you can understand, after seeing that paper were scared to death. Johnny who was the quieter one of the group pointed out that there were four graves that man was digging and that there were exactly four of us. We all paused and looked at one another. Shaking my head in disbelief, for whatever reason, I finally looked at my watch again. It was 12:15 only fifteen minutes had passed since we had left the car. Dustin just said that my watch was just slow the battery had gone dead.
As we were pondering over the battery in my watch and wondering what to do next, the door to the hut opened. It was a man digging the graves. In the most horrifying voice, something like how the crypt keeper on that show, Tales from the Crypt, would say it. ‘You boys don’t go too far now. The plots are almost ready for you. The dawn is coming, just you boys wait.’ Then came the cackle. It would have sent chills up the back of an infant. As he made this horrifying cackle with his green teeth showing we all at once pushed the old man out of the way and ran out the door. As we ran, we could hear that horrible cackle in the background echoing through the cemetery.
We ran and ran until we couldn’t run anymore, and we were all out of breath. Huffing and puffing gasping for air. Joe said, ‘What the fuck. What the hell is going on here? Judge Jones’ grave is at the top of that goddamn hill, what the fuck are we going to do.’ By this point, I have to admit we all were shaking and scared for our life. ‘We have to go somewhere so we can think.’ Dustin told the group. So we went behind the nearest crypt and sat down to catch our breath and think about what to do next.”
“Whoa… Whoa… Whoa….” Dr. Williams started in. “What you are telling me is that your face was on the paper. The paper dated 1801 right?”
“Yeah, that’s right. Our face shot, or mug shot if you will. It was drawn but an exact likeness to all four of us. Under the picture was our name. We knew that something was going on. Even if this was a prank, and it would have been a damn good one, how would someone know that by chance we would drive through after the movies? It was an impossible scenario.”
“So you guys just ran out of the grave keepers hut and stopped behind a crypt? If you ask me, this sounds somewhat strange.”
George sighed. “So you don’t believe me?”
“I do but it’s hard to believe that this actually happened. If you say, it did then, I have no other choice, but to believe you. Did the other guys see the same thing in exactly the same way you did?” Dr. Williams returned to the notepad and began to jot some things down.
“Yes we all told the police afterward the same thing.” George took another drink of coffee. This time he forgot and made a slurping noise. He realized it once he heard it and tried to correct it mid sip.
“Well then, what did you do next after you guys stopped behind the crypt?” As she spoke, she changed the tape in the recorder and flipped to a new page on her note pad.
“Next we just talked and tried to calm down. Joe started to breath really hard and took out his inhaler to calm his breathing. I asked the guys if they just experienced what I just did. Dustin said, ‘You have to be shitting me. Was that really us on the paper?’ I just said yeah I think so.
Dustin told the group that we had to find some way out of here before dawn came. I, of course, agreed to this and just wondered how. I asked what the group thought we should do to escape the walls of the cemetery. No one had an idea on how we could do that. The car had been busted at one of the gates. We had walked the perimeter of the grounds and found no way out without killing ourselves.
John said, ‘We can’t just sit here all night let’s get up and walk around and keep moving so that creep can’t find us.’ I agreed with this and suggested that we go to the top of one of those hills to keep an eye on that grounds keeper. We all agreed with this, so we started up the nearest hill. We did not take the time to read stone names because of how creeped-the-fuck out we were. I can only say that once we got to the top I thought we would have some sort of relief from the situation. That wasn’t the case.
Once we reached the top of this hill there was one of those big oak trees we all stood under. We immediately located the man digging a grave with his lantern next to him. The grounds keeper was shoulder high in that fourth and final grave. We watched for a good while until we saw him throw out the shovel. It landed on the mound of dirt next to the last grave.
The old man climbed out and appeared to stretch and moan. We all stood single file next to one another watching him and only him. Then there it was again. That hell sent laugh. He was cackling again. Cackling while looking straight at us his finger extended toward us. He then took his pointed finger and slowly pointed to the neighboring hilltop. There
at the top of the hill was a crowd of people standing under the tree. There was one man in front of them all wearing a large black robe. He was dressed in a judge’s robe.
The next thing we saw was horrifying. It was Joe being dragged kicking and screaming to the noose. We all gasped and looked at one another to only discover that Joe was missing.” George then adjusted in his seat and cleared his throat. “Dr. Williams make no mistake as sure as I am standing here today that was Joe on that other hill top kicking and screaming.”
“Ok, hold on a minute. I thought you told me that you all had the same story to tell the police.” Dr. Williams sounded a bit on the confused side. “So if Joe was to be hanged here how does he tell the police this story?”
“Joe told the same story up until this point he even described them dragging and him yelling for help. He couldn’t remember any more after that point though. His memory of the experience stopped there. The three of us that was left recalled the event after that, but his blackout started there.”
“Ok then… I guess continue.” She said with a sigh
“We all witnessed them wrap the noose around his neck and pull him up high on one of the branches. He shook like a fish on a lure. After about a minute he stopped shaking and just as quick as we had seen him appear among the crowd yelling we saw him vanish off of the noose and off of the hilltop entirely.
We all looked around to see if he had all of a sudden joined us, but no it was only Dustin, John, and I left on our hilltop. The next thing I can remember is that fucking cackle ripping through the air again. We all looked back to the grave site again to see the man who dug the graves in the first place laughing and filling the first grave in. ‘Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh, my fucking god… Joe is dead. Dustin spoke for the whole group with that one.
WheeeHeeHeeHeeHeeeeeeeee ripped through the air of the night sky as he filled in the grave where Joe must have been. With that last laugh, we all in unison turned to run. We ran as fast as we could without stopping at the gate opposite where are car was. Without hesitation, we began to beat on the gate yelling for someone to save us. I mean we were beginning to go horse we were yelling so much. I found a loose brick on the column holding one side of the Iron Gate up. I grabbed it and began to beat it against the iron making a clanking noise. All the while we were hearing the echo of the gravedigger.
We all began to wear down as the adrenalin flow began to slow. I rested my head against the gate and began to pant from fear. ‘We are not going to get out of here alive are we?’ Dustin asked. My response was just I don’t think so…
As we rested against the gate hoping that someone would pass by to yell at when we heard a voice. This was a new voice. It was a grungy smoker’s voice. It was very deep and robust. ‘Hey boys you’re a-goanna be late for the next hanging.’ We look over to the column where I had pulled the brick from was. There is the judge figure from the other hilltop was standing there. He placed his green-tinted hand with long yellow fingernails on my shoulder. He had a greenish tint to the leather skin on his face. His robe was all dusty and musty smelling. It was like he had just been dug up for this freak show. We all jumped back and began to scramble.
I did the only thing I could think of at the time.” Dr. Williams readjusted in her seat as to be getting anxious. “I yelled out at the group to follow me. I ran to the next hill to find something to hide behind. I could tell that this hill was closer to the gravedigger than the gate was because we could hear his laughter getting louder, that horrible cackle. I found a rather large crypt to hide behind. It was a family crypt or a mausoleum; I can never tell the difference. The name over the stone door read DEVOROUX. The only thing I could think if at this point was to get inside.
The door was solid stone with Iron hinges holding it to the rest of the building. There was a latch mechanism that held the door closed. I finally figured out to twist the handle so that it unlocked the door from inside (there were two rods that held the door closed when you twist the handle on the outside the rods drew inwards and allowed you to open the door).
Once we reached the inside of the crypt I did a quick look around inside, there were two-stone sarcophagi on the floor. One had the bust of a lady on the top and the other had the bust of a man. Right before I closed the door behind us John yelled ‘Wait.’ I turned to look to see that John was standing between the two sarcophaguses alone. ‘Where is Dustin?’ he asked. I then realized that he must not have followed me. Instead of shutting the door, I looked out to see if I could see Dustin. He was nowhere in sight. I stepped out, and no one was in sight. Not the judge not anyone.
Of course, we still heard the occasional laughter from the man filling in the grave (By this time he must have been done). We decided not to lock ourselves in the crypt but to go out and find our apparent group leader. We found that going to the top of that hill was the best way to spot him. On the way up we could see the man who had filled in the grave standing there with his lantern, grinning an evil grin. I looked at John and said ‘What if they have Dustin now.’ He just responded with a sigh.
After walking a couple more steps, John had a somewhat good idea. ‘Let’s go to the other side of this hill to see if they have him on the hanging hill.’ I agreed rather than spend all of our time climbing to the top. Sure enough, we started around the base, and there was someone hanging on the noose looking very similar to Dustin. He was already dead; we had missed the show while in the crypt. The deed was done. As before the boy on the noose vanished, and just as before we heard that horrid laugh start up again. The man who once dug four graves was filling in his second one.
It happened to John the same way, and I was the last one. There was nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. We were just picked out of thin air and hanged then buried. The cops that opened the gate went looking for us when they saw the busted car. They found us all under that great oak tree covered in Georgia red clay. We were all unconscious. We were taken to the medical center in town and monitored until we were awake. We woke up in the order that we were taken, and all had the same story to tell the police.
So I think you will think twice before asking me what was going through my mind again.”
“No George I won’t, this was quite a helpful story. Did you relive the whole thing before you left your desk with your box of stuff?”
“Nope… I was just comparing what had just happened to me to that incident. That night in the graveyard is still on the top of that worst things ever list. I gathered my stuff in my XEROX paper box and walked to the elevator to go home.
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