A Grave Encounter

Abbey paused at the cemetery’s high-gated entrance, shivering with cold and the tiniest hint of apprehension.

This is crazy

, she thought.

I should just leave and come back tomorrow. It’s already getting dark

. She turned west and briefly admired the sky, streaked with brilliant pink and orange as the sun disappeared over the horizon. The cemetery was wreathed in shadows, the little light left barely penetrating the thick cover of trees, which were just beginning put on their autumn colours. There wasn’t a soul in sight.

Soul,

she thought.

Ha, ha.

The night was silent, except for the distant shouts of kids trick or treating.

While Abbey was not a superstitious person, she couldn’t help but feel a bit spooked entering a dark cemetery, particularly on Halloween night. But her best friend, Monica, had been killed in a car crash two years ago today. Abbey had avoided this task all day, depressed, but finally guilt had forced her to come. She didn’t believe Monica’s spirit or soul or whatever was here, but she did believe cemeteries were therapeutic for the living and she wanted — needed — to pay her respects to her departed friend. And anyway, there was nothing to fear here, tonight or any other night; she had read that graveyards were actually the least likely places to be haunted, since spirits trapped on earth tended to hang around places that were significant to them in life. She figured that made a lot of sense.

Gathering her courage, Abbey went through the gates and walked briskly along the cemetery’s well-tended paths, admiring the gleaming headstones as she passed them. The sounds of life faded quickly; Abbey’s footsteps were loud in the cemetery’s deep silence. She found Monica’s grave easily enough. Her wealthy family had provided an impressive monument to mark it, the kind with a photo of the deceased encased in glass. A white guardian angel sat atop the glossy marble stone.

Abbey knelt on the damp ground before her friend’s photo. The words of the only prayer she knew ran through her head: Our Father, who art in Heaven … “Monica, I miss you so much,” she whispered. She wrapped her arms around herself and rocked gently back and forth. Monica, in the photo, was smiling softly, her head tilted and her eyes shining. She seemed to be watching Abbey, listening sympathetically. Abbey was ambivalent about the photo; she wasn’t sure if it was comforting or eerie.

Abbey couldn’t help but think about the night Monica had died. It was the second-last year of university. She had been driving home with her boyfriend, Greg, after a night of costumed carousing with friends. Typical Halloween partying. Greg was, not surprisingly, completely wasted. Monica had been the self-appointed designated driver. In fact, she had dropped Abbey off at home not more than twenty minutes before the crash. Abbey had watched Greg, dressed as Zorro, playing with his plastic sword in the cramped quarters of the Volvo’s front seat. Monica had been annoyed, angry even, and kept yelling at him to sit still and behave himself.

When they got to Abbey’s apartment building, the girls had embraced, Abbey in her pixie costume, and Monica in a gorgeous velvet gown, a nineteenth-century noblewoman to complement Greg’s Zorro. Then Monica had gotten back in the car and driven away. The day of Monica’s funeral, a grief-stricken Greg had described to his friends what happened next.

He had continued his antics and they began to argue in earnest. He remembered dragging the blade of the plastic sword across her neck and playfully threatening to cut her throat if she wouldn’t put out when they got home. “Very funny, Zorro,” she’d said, then, “God, you’re such an ass.” He began groping her, kissing her neck and fumbling at the gown’s bodice. She kept pushing him away, but he wouldn’t stop, and, thus distracted, she had missing a curve in the road. The little car flew through the guard rail and rolled twice down a hill, stopped only by a collision with a tree. The driver’s side had been crushed, and Monica was pronounced dead at the scene. Greg escaped with a concussion and a broken wrist.

In the aftermath, Abbey had been furious with Greg. Whenever he entered a room, she’d leave, often in tears. She refused to talk to him about it. She couldn’t bring herself to forgive him. Their friends had naturally sided with Abbey, and slowly Greg had been pushed out of their little social group. Within a few months, he disappeared from campus. It seemed he’d either transferred or dropped out entirely. As far as she knew, nobody had seen him in nearly a year and a half.

Abbey, kneeling at the foot of Monica’s grave two years later, found herself telling Monica about Greg’s ostracism from his friends when he’d needed them most. She thought about him often, wondered if he was okay and if he’d ever gotten over his own obvious and powerful guilt. “But I’m still furious with him,” she insisted. “I haven’t forgiven him.”

The wind picked up then, and Abbey huddled into her sweater and considered leaving. Then she heard something, a stick breaking under a foot, maybe. She peered anxiously into the gloom, looking for movement. Goosebumps raised on her skin from both cold and fear. She sensed the presence of someone, couldn’t help but wonder if the presence was alive… or not. “Is someone there?” she called. She moved closer to Monica’s headstone, crouched behind it and peeked around it. She heard rustling, like footsteps in grass. “Hello?” she called, her voice quivering.

“Mon, I’m sorry, but I gotta go,” she gasped. She got to her feet and started to run for the path. Footsteps behind her — she was being chased! “Oh, God,” she cried.

Something grabbed her arm and pulled her to a stop. She screamed.

“Shhh, Abbey, it’s me, it’s okay.”

Terrified, Abbey turned and looked at the man who was still holding her arm. His features slowly resolved in the gloom. Greg. He released her, and she stared at him, trying to catch her breath.

“Why would you do that? Why wouldn’t you answer me?” she demanded.

“I’m sorry. I just ... I didn’t know if you’d want to see me.”

She gazed over his shoulder at the little angel sitting on Monica’s headstone. “I’m going to go now. Leave you alone with her.”

“Please don’t. Stay with me,” he pleaded.

Abbey stepped towards him, trying to make out his expression. “Why?” she asked suspiciously.

“I don’t want to be alone. And I thought maybe we could talk.”

She hesitated, glancing towards the entrance, then back to Greg, who looked hopeful.

“Please?” he said.

Wordlessly, she brushed past him and returned to Monica’s grave. They stood side by side, staring down at Monica’s smiling face, frozen forever at the age of twenty. Abbey had missed her friend most acutely at graduation a few months ago. They would have graduated together; they’d already had plans to take a trip to Ireland together right after school ended. Abbey glanced at Greg.

“I didn’t know you came here,” she said awkwardly.

“Well, I do. Whenever I’m in town. You?”

“Only on the anniversaries of … well, you know. Did you transfer schools?”

“Yeah. Actually, I dropped out for the rest of that year, so I’m a year behind. I’ll graduate from Western next year.”

“That’s good.”

They lapsed into a long silence. Greg knelt and bowed his head as if in prayer. Abbey hesitated, then knelt beside him and bowed her head as well.

“I don’t blame you for hating me,” he said. “I never forgave myself, either. It’s my fault she’s dead. Do you know how hard it is to live with that?” His voice was tight, like he was choking back tears. He did not look at her.

“I don’t hate you,” Abbey protested weakly. “I was just so angry that she was gone, and it was easy to blame you, because you survived.”

“I loved her, I really did.”

“I know you did. So did I.”

Greg reached out and took her hand. Abbey’s first impulse was to snatch it back, but she looked at him — he was staring at the photo in the headstone and his face was scrunched up with the effort not to cry — and felt a stab of sympathy. Instead of taking her hand away, she squeezed his. That’s when she became aware of a strange warmth surrounding her. She felt Monica’s presence, and it was overwhelming. “Greg, do you feel that?” she gasped.

Greg looked at her and his face went slack. “Monica?” he whispered.

And then they were kissing, and it was Abbey, but it wasn’t. She was aware of what she was doing, but she wasn’t sure it was entirely of her own volition. She cupped his face in her hands and intensified the kiss, deepened it by opening her mouth and drawing his lower lip between hers, running her tongue across it. He groaned and tangled his hands in her long hair, pulled her closer.

As she shifted to press against his chest, she was amazed to feel her labia slide together, already slick with desire after only a little kissing. She reached for his crotch, needing to find out if he was in the same condition. He was. She found his cock fully erect and straining against his jeans. She whimpered and reached for his belt. Never had she felt such intense sexual urgency. While she worked at freeing his cock, he slid his hands under her sweater, pushed up her bra, and cupped her heavy breasts. He kneaded them, stroked the achingly hard nipples with his thumbs.

She pressed herself into his hands, then tugged her sweater over her head to give him free access. She felt warm despite the evening’s chill. Finally, she wrapped her hands around his erection, slid one hand down to fondle his balls while the other started up a rhythmic stroking. He fell back, leaning against Monica’s headstone, pulling Abbey with him. When his cockhead was slick with precum, she lowered herself to take him into her mouth.

He hissed his pleasure through his teeth and moaned softly, overcome by how good her suckling felt, by how she took him as deep as she could then slid her tongue around, rubbing it along his length. God, it had been so long … But he wanted more of her. He pushed her away and stood to shuck off his clothes. She quickly followed suit. He pulled her against him, naked breasts to naked chest, and ran his hands over her back.

“Are you cold?” he asked.

“No. Are you?”

“No.”

They knelt together, kissing, and he eased her down so she lie on her back beneath him, Monica’s grave their bed. Strangely, the ground felt warm, as though it had somehow retained the heat of the long-gone sun. It also felt soft, comfortable, with no errant rocks or sticks poking into her back.

He entered her slowly, breathing heavily against her neck. She wrapped her legs around his waist and pushed up to meet him, gasping as he bottomed out. He felt so incredibly good inside her. She felt her pussy contracting around his cock, caressing him, holding him in. She couldn’t remember the last time sex had felt so good. Maybe it never had.

“Greg,” she moaned. “What are we doing?”

“I don’t know. I don’t even know who I’m making love to.”

“I think it’s both of us. I feel her. Can you feel her?”

“Yeah, she’s here. She wants this. I sensed her in that first kiss.”

“Then let’s not disappoint her,” Abbey said, rocking her hips. He picked up her rhythm, at first slow and easy, but quickly speeding up to a frantic pace. The mating instinct took over and he pounded mindlessly into her, their bodies slapping together, his balls banging against her ass with every thrust. They grunted and groaned, harsh, urgent noises that fuelled the frenzy.

“Monica!” Greg cried as his semen finally surged through his cock. He emptied himself into Abbey while she pulsed around him. Exhausted, he collapsed on top of her. As he regained his senses, he realized that he had called the wrong name and he began to apologize. She hushed him with a gentle kiss.

“It’s okay. She’s here. She made this happen.”

With those words, they became acutely aware of their surroundings. For the first time, they felt the chill of the wind cooling their sweaty bodies. The ground was suddenly hard and cold and scratchy under Abbey’s bare back. They got up, found their clothes, and got dressed. Instead of feeling awkward, they were comfortable with each other, at peace. They didn’t leave right away. Greg leaned against Monica’s headstone and settled Abbey between his legs. She leaned her back against his chest and he wrapped his arms around her. At long last they talked, healing old wounds. They spoke of forgiveness, and discussed spending some time together to figure out if there could be something between them.

The warmth returned, embracing both of them for several long seconds. Abbey felt a thrill of joy that wasn’t entirely her own, so intense it brought tears to her eyes.

“Greg?” she gasped when it passed.

“I think we’ve made her happy,” he answered.