Louise

Down the road about five miles from the big impressive cemetery
there's a pauper grave yard. There's probably twenty five, people
buried there. No large tombstones here you may see a home made marker
or two. The only reason I noticed it was how very strange it looked,
sitting in a cotton field that was neatly cared for everywhere except,
one area that was nothing but tall grass and weeds. That's Sandy Ridge
someone said nobody's been buried there for years.
The house
we rented when we moved here sets across the highway and down the road
about a mile from that paupers, graveyard. I couldn't get used to how
dark it can get in the country on a cloudy night. And for some reason I
kept waking up, not resting well at all. Going to the sink for a glass
of water one night, I happened to glance out the window and watched in
amazement as white and blue hazy looking lights were coming from the
graveyard.
The lights were coming from the ground in several
places and seemed to be going toward the back of the graveyard as if
they were gathering there.

I went to wake Charlie to
show him the lights and by the time we got back to the kitchen they
were gone. Aw Louise, you were dreaming or you imagined it, you know
your always imagining stuff. I'm going back to bed. I gotta, get up
early in the morning.

The lights kept appearing from
time to time I got up nightly to watch for them, every time I saw them
it was a cloudy night and very dark outside. I told everybody about
what I saw seems nobody had seen them but me. One night as I watched
these lights I decided to drive down there to see just what it was, but
I wasn't going to get out of the car.

As I got
closer the lights seemed to get more hurried and started dancing
crazily, as if they were running away. I parked the car and watched for
a few minutes suddenly they all disappeared except one blue light that
was coming toward my car. I made a fast u turn and sped away, looking
in my rear view mirror I saw that the light was following me and
getting closer. That's all that I could remember when I woke up the
next morning parked on the side of the road about forty feet from my
driveway.
My feet were muddy up to my ankles and there were
cuts on my face and arms as if I had been running through tall grass. I
had no explanation for any of this. I went to the police and told them
about the lights and everything I could remember. Okay Mrs. Riordan,
we'll check into it might be kids, playing pranks. I didn't see any
lights, that is I don't think I did for a long time, I am not sure of
anything anymore. My nerves are shot and the medication I'm on keeps me
asleep about half the time.

One day I woke up and
decided that I didn't want to live like this anymore, and flushed my
medicine down the toilet. That's when the voices started. Louise the
voices said, please help me get out. Hurry please. It was then that I
knew what I had to do. It was broad daylight, I pulled my housecoat
tight around me and followed the voices. I walked down the highway
crossed the ditch, and went into the graveyard.

I
was instantly surrounded by something that I could not see, it pushed
me toward the back of the graveyard thru the tall grass, and threw me
down on top of a grave that was still fresh. Dig, Louise the voices
said, I could hear something like scratching on wood coming from
underneath the ground, I dug furiously with my hands.
The
knock on the door sounded like an explosion to Charlie, who was finally
sleeping after three nights of walking the floor and sitting by the
phone waiting for Louise to call, or the police to call with some word
of her. When he opened the door, he knew it was bad
news.

We've found your wife Mr. Riordan, in the
woods behind Sandy Ridge hanging from a tree by the belt from her
housecoat and it gets even stranger I'm afraid, there was a new grave
back there that had been dug into, as if someone were trying to dig it
up. Mrs. Riordan,had mud up to her shoulders and all over her
housecoat. I don't understand what your telling me officer, I don't
know myself Mr. Riordan but there was a wooden marker, sticking up on
that grave and the name on it was Louise no last name just
Louise.