Full Tilt

Except maybe the Amish, she thought—they seemed content.

Chrissie and Robbie had been together for two-and-a-half years. Now, as they sat in his father’s Ford Taurus waiting for the light, she contemplated the dilemma facing them.

She’d been accepted at a college in Florida. Robbie didn’t want her to go. He was getting a job at the prison and was talking about marriage. Chrissie loved Robbie but told him she was not going to stay and be a Rampart prison guard’s wife, working at the mall, driving her kids everywhere while trying not to hit the Amish buggies.

Chrissie wouldn’t be leaving for a couple of months, but Robbie avoided talking about it. He lived in the moment. That was fine, but sooner or later she would have to end it with him.

But not tonight. Not on his birthday.

The light changed and they rolled by the Riverview Mall. Its vast parking lot was deserted and dark.

“So, are you up for the boneyard, babe?”

Robbie was already guiding the Taurus along the highway out of town. The white lines rushed under them and she made a suggestion.

“Why don’t we go to Rose Hill?”

“Naw, we go there all the time.”

Chrissie felt Robbie’s hand on her leg.

“Come on. It’s my birthday.”

“But it’s so freakin’ creepy. Nobody goes out there.”

“That’s what makes it fun.” He rubbed her inner thigh. “I got the sleeping bag in the trunk.”

Chrissie sighed and looked out her window at the summer night.

“Okay.”

The headlights reached into the darkness as they drove beyond town. The Ford’s high beams captured the luminescent eyes of animals watching from the forests along the lonely drive.

After several miles, Robbie slowed to a stop and turned off the road onto an overgrown pathway. It was marked with an old weather-beaten sign that was easy to miss and bore two words: Burial Grounds.

The car swayed and dipped as he drove slowly over worn ruts until they stopped at a no-trespassing sign wired to a gate that was secured with a chain and lock.

“There, see.” Chrissie pointed. “We can’t get in.”

Robbie slipped the transmission into Park.

“Yes we can.”

He got out and went to the gate, his T-shirt glowing against the blackness. Moths fluttered around the headlights as he worked on the lock, and the only sound was the chorus of crickets.

Chrissie knew the area’s history. She’d written about it for a ninth-grade paper.

In the late 1800s, the state built a large insane asylum in Rampart. It had its own cemetery because locals didn’t want patients buried next to their loved ones. When the asylum was closed down forty years ago, all the headstones had been removed and grave sites kept secret to protect the families’ privacy. There was nothing there now but a stretch of green grass bordered by lush woods.

Robbie unlocked the lock, the chain jingling as he removed it and opened the gate. After edging the car through, he closed it.

“How did you open that lock?”

“Trev’s dad works with DOT and he told me that if you give that old lock the right twist, it’ll open.”

Robbie drove slowly along the wooded border of the graveyard, cut the engine and killed the lights.

Stars blazed above.

Guided by the light of Robbie’s phone, they walked to a remote section where the grass was like thick carpet. They unrolled the sleeping bag.

“Nothing around but the crazy dead under us.”

“Shh, birthday boy.”

Robbie slipped his hands around Chrissie’s waist then under her shirt and jeans. They kissed and as her fingers found his zipper she froze, pulled away and looked into the pitch-black forest.

“What is it?”

“Something’s out there!”

Robbie followed her gaze to flames, flickering deep in the woods.

“What’s that?” Chrissie held Robbie tighter.

“I don’t know. There’s nothing there for acres.”

“There’s an old barn the asylum used years ago, but—”

A faint, distant scream—a woman’s scream—carried from the fire.

“Oh, God, Robbie!”

“What the hell?”

More screaming, this time louder, pierced the night, raising gooseflesh on Chrissie’s skin.

“Help me! Please! Help me!”

Robbie grabbed Chrissie’s hand and started for the woods leading to the fire—but she yanked him back.

“Let’s take the car!”

“I don’t know if we can get through!”

“We’ll be safer in the car, Robbie!”

They ran to the car, dragging the sleeping bag.