Not Just Illicit, Straight Up Illegal - Kristen Kim
Editor's Note: This was a submission for the 2016 Horror Fiction Writing Contest.
There’s something really romantic about making out with your leather-jacket-wearing boyfriend at midnight in the Arnold-Oak Revolutionary Cemetery on Halloween. Maybe it’s the chill of the air, or maybe it’s just how illicit it feels. Or maybe it’s just how illicit it actually is; it is literally illegal to enter the Arnold-Oak Revolutionary Cemetery after 7:00 PM. But anyway. It doesn’t matter. It’s romantic. You’re just going to have to take my word for it.
It’s almost kind of fun to feel your heart thump in your chest when something cracks behind you. What was that? A police officer? A deer? A ghost? Just the wind, you tell yourself. Just the wind. And you go back to shoving your face in the general vicinity of your motorcycle-owning boyfriend’s face, because this is what love is now, you know, just kind of shoving your face into the face of someone you promise you’re going to give a shit about in twenty years and you’re not actually going to give a shit about in twenty years.
I’ll bet I’m going to give a shit about William in twenty years. He swept me off my feet, you know? New kid in town, way more badass than the standard suburban number, actually showed signs of attraction towards me, all that jazz. And now, we’re like, making out in a graveyard, which is illicit and romantic.
This isn’t really the most illicit and romantic thing in the world, but who’s counting? No one has been for a while now, so let’s just pretend that this is something I’m having fun doing, letting this creep who honestly reeks of gasoline shove his hands into my hair and breathing his frankly terrible breath into my face.
Dear lord. This kind of thing was a lot more fun when I was a whole lot younger. I kind of wish Elsbeth was here, just to break up the tension. At least she didn’t smell like gasoline, even if it was 1785 and the idea of the modern shower didn’t necessarily exist yet. I wonder if William remembers her.
I’m getting bored.
I ease William’s face off of my face and back him up from me a little bit so he won’t start trying to gnaw on my mouth again. “Hey. Wills,” I say.
“Yeah, doll?” he says, and then gives me the absolute pleasure of watching his face turn ghostly pale as he assigns memory to the face he was just hanging off of.
God, he mouths, but no sound escapes.
I laugh.
He was never a fast runner, not even back when we played baseball on the town green as kids. I could run faster than him even then, and I wasn’t even supposed to run and get my skirts dirty. It only takes a few long strides to catch up to him.
He doesn’t bleed, not like I wish he would. Not like Elsbeth did. But I don’t give a shit, not really, because romance is pretty much dead anyway. Hasn’t really been alive since the eighteenth century, and even then, that’s just personally.
I leave William lying across an unmarked grave. I’m probably the only one who’s still alive to remember it’s there, and the odds are increased now that Wills is lying face down in the dirt.
I wonder if the Halloween party in town is still going on. It’s been a long couple of hundred years, and I really could really use a break.
There’s something really romantic about making out with your leather-jacket-wearing boyfriend at midnight in the Arnold-Oak Revolutionary Cemetery on Halloween. Maybe it’s the chill of the air, or maybe it’s just how illicit it feels. Or maybe it’s just how illicit it actually is; it is literally illegal to enter the Arnold-Oak Revolutionary Cemetery after 7:00 PM. But anyway. It doesn’t matter. It’s romantic. You’re just going to have to take my word for it.
It’s almost kind of fun to feel your heart thump in your chest when something cracks behind you. What was that? A police officer? A deer? A ghost? Just the wind, you tell yourself. Just the wind. And you go back to shoving your face in the general vicinity of your motorcycle-owning boyfriend’s face, because this is what love is now, you know, just kind of shoving your face into the face of someone you promise you’re going to give a shit about in twenty years and you’re not actually going to give a shit about in twenty years.
I’ll bet I’m going to give a shit about William in twenty years. He swept me off my feet, you know? New kid in town, way more badass than the standard suburban number, actually showed signs of attraction towards me, all that jazz. And now, we’re like, making out in a graveyard, which is illicit and romantic.
This isn’t really the most illicit and romantic thing in the world, but who’s counting? No one has been for a while now, so let’s just pretend that this is something I’m having fun doing, letting this creep who honestly reeks of gasoline shove his hands into my hair and breathing his frankly terrible breath into my face.
Dear lord. This kind of thing was a lot more fun when I was a whole lot younger. I kind of wish Elsbeth was here, just to break up the tension. At least she didn’t smell like gasoline, even if it was 1785 and the idea of the modern shower didn’t necessarily exist yet. I wonder if William remembers her.
I’m getting bored.
I ease William’s face off of my face and back him up from me a little bit so he won’t start trying to gnaw on my mouth again. “Hey. Wills,” I say.
“Yeah, doll?” he says, and then gives me the absolute pleasure of watching his face turn ghostly pale as he assigns memory to the face he was just hanging off of.
God, he mouths, but no sound escapes.
I laugh.
He was never a fast runner, not even back when we played baseball on the town green as kids. I could run faster than him even then, and I wasn’t even supposed to run and get my skirts dirty. It only takes a few long strides to catch up to him.
He doesn’t bleed, not like I wish he would. Not like Elsbeth did. But I don’t give a shit, not really, because romance is pretty much dead anyway. Hasn’t really been alive since the eighteenth century, and even then, that’s just personally.
I leave William lying across an unmarked grave. I’m probably the only one who’s still alive to remember it’s there, and the odds are increased now that Wills is lying face down in the dirt.
I wonder if the Halloween party in town is still going on. It’s been a long couple of hundred years, and I really could really use a break.