Miller's Lane (standard:horror, 1044 words)
Author: kendall thomas	Added: Oct 30 2002	Views/Reads: 3453/2259	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Hitch-hiker gets stranded.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story


The old man started off, calling back with a warning over his shoulder. 

“Whatever you do don't stop for anyone or anything.”  His voice faded
out as his bent figure disappeared over a rise. 

No problem, Jimmy thought;  I can easily make three miles in an hour. 
But there's no need to hurry; I can take my time. 

Ghosts!  What a joke.   Old fool. 

He pulled his knit cap down over his ears and started off. 

A large crow flapped noisily from a limb nearby and flew off over the
trees . . . vanishing into the gray sky. 

Through the clouds in the west a dull, silvery glow, nestled against the
horizon.  The traffic, which had been sparse to being with, dwindled to 
nothing leaving him alone against the approaching night as a deepening 
quiet settled in over the mist-covered trees. 

The drizzle became heavier as time wound on; the wind began to swoosh;
thunder rumbled far off; lightning began to flash, and night came more 
quickly than he had thought. 

He slipped on his poncho and started looking for shelter before all
light was gone. 

It was then that he saw the iron gate of the cemetery.  Two hunched
gargoyles stared down from high, stone pillars, their huge, blackish 
wings half unfurled. 

In flashes of lightning he saw the name ‘Selma' wrought out in an iron
arch that extended between the two guardians. 

Back beneath swaying branches, tombstones and crosses, statuary and
sepulchers flickered into existence for an instant and then 
disappeared. 

One of the tombs, he saw, had a covered porch.  He could get beneath it
out of the rain. 

The iron gate was open and seemed not to have been moved for a long
time; vines were intertwined in its bars while weeds grew thickly at 
its base undisturbed. 

Following a winding path, Jimmy reached the tomb and, once under its
shelter, leaned with his back against a sealed door more tired than he 
realized. 

Suddenly, a hand stuck out in a flash of lightning and touched his
shoulder. 

He could just make out the figure of a woman.  He jerked a small
flashlight out of his pocket and shinned it on her. 

“Jesus!  You scared the crap out of me,” he exclaimed. 

Her smile was liquidly sly, cold and unsettling, but she was pretty
enough.  Strangely though, she was wearing only a thin, wet dress, and 
her hair dripped in lank curls to her shoulders. 

A hiker like himself, he guessed.  Probably on drugs. 

“I saw you coming up the path,” she said.  “Didn't mean to startle you.”
Her smile seemed to mock him. 

“Aw, that's all right ; it's just that I was talking with some old man
back on the road, and he was warning me about ghosts.  Kinda silly, but 
I guess that was on my mind.” 

She smiled again, that cold smile.  No doubt she was thinking him a fool
like the old man.  Jimmy was grateful for the darkness that hid the 
blush he knew must be on his cheeks. 

“Why don't you come with me?” she said, after a moment.  “There's a
group of us farther back a ways.  We have a tent set up.  You can spend 
the night with us.”  She laughed tauntingly and stepped back, slowly, 
pointing the way.  “And I can guarantee you that there are no ghosts.” 

Then, under her breath, she murmured softly, too softly in the wind and
rain for him to hear: 

“But there are vampires.” 

fini 


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