by Joe McGee
They hopped on their bikes and pedaled away from Parker’s house. Despite the clouds, the moon was bright, just the kind of moon Mr. Noffler had warned them about.
“Hear that?” Lucas asked.
“Hear what?” asked Parker. He listened a second. “Crickets.”
“Crickets,” said Lucas.
Parker remembered what Mr. Noffler had said.
When the moon is out and the crickets stop chirping…
“Never thought I’d be so happy to hear crickets,” Lucas said.
“Agreed,” said Parker. “And we won’t be needing our flashlights, at least.”
“Until we get inside that haunted manor,” said Lucas, shivering.
The moonlit night cast shadows over the tall pines that seemed to stretch across the empty streets like inky skeleton fingers. Somewhere a cat screeched, some dogs barked, and a raccoon rattling around in a trash can almost made Lucas crash into Parker.
The boys pedaled down the road out of town, where the woods got thicker and darker, and the houses and buildings all but disappeared. This was the edge of the wild, the road north into the hills and mountains. Parker’s plan was to sneak over the cemetery wall closest to the old windmill, away from anyone who might see them if they tried to climb the wall closer to town.
The sign was just up ahead, right past the old dirt road that cut up toward the Pine Knob Lodge Resort. It marked the edge of town, and anyone driving out this way would read, NOW LEAVING WOLVER HOLLOW, VERMONT, A QUAINT PLACE TO HANG YOUR HAT.
Parker and Lucas pulled off the road and peered into the shadows. This was where they’d agreed to meet Samantha von Oppelstein, but Samantha von Oppelstein was nowhere to be seen.
“Samantha?” Parker whispered. “Samantha von Oppelstein?”
Nothing. Only a low rumble of thunder. Even the bright moon could not penetrate the gloom of the forest. It smelled of dead leaves and damp soil. Any manner of creature might be lurking behind the trees, waiting at the edge of the darkness. Anything could rush out and suddenly be upon them: a bear, a wolf, a windigo…
“I knew she’d chicken out,” Lucas said. He dropped his bike near the sign.
“Boo!” shouted a voice from the darkness.
Lucas shrieked. Parker fell from his bike and landed on his butt in a pile of muddy leaves.
“You should have seen the looks on your faces!” said Samantha von Oppelstein, stepping out of the woods. “That was priceless.”
“Real funny,” said Parker, wiping the mud off his hands.
“Bring the salt, at least?” Lucas asked. He helped Parker to his feet.
Samantha von Oppelstein pulled a full container of salt out of her bag and shook it in the air.
“Nice badge,” she said. She pointed to the Midnight Owl Detective Agency badge on Parker’s shirt.
Parker smiled. He was very proud of the badges he’d made.
The boys left their bikes by the sign, and the three of them crept toward the tall stone wall that surrounded the cemetery. The moon hung in the sky like a pale, bloated spider over the rickety old windmill. Every once in a while, the giant wood fans would move just a little, creaking and groaning. Old Giroux, the cemetery caretaker, lived in a little cabin next to the windmill. The location of Bockius’s grave would be in the records, in that cabin. If they found those, and if the legend were true, they’d also find the haunted mustache.
“This wall is way taller up close,” said Lucas. “It doesn’t look so big from a distance.”
“I wonder,” said Samantha von Oppelstein, “if the wall is here to keep people out… or to keep things in?”
“Not cool,” Lucas said. “Not cool at all.”
Somewhere in the woods a wolf howled. The air held that brisk, fresh scent of rain even though the storm looked a ways off.
Parker was the better climber (he’d climbed the cargo net in gym class the third fastest), so he went first. He got up on top of the wall with a little boost from Lucas.
Samantha von Oppelstein went next, and then finally Lucas. Samantha von Oppelstein and Parker stretched their hands down and pulled him up. Parker tossed his bag down, and then all three of them dropped down into the graveyard.
The old gravestones poked out of the ground like chipped teeth. Here and there a faded statue of an angel or a large cross stood out. A cloud passed before the moon, and the cemetery was bathed in darkness for just a moment.
Parker put his finger over his lips and pointed toward Old Giroux’s crooked little cabin sitting next to the sagging windmill. “I have to get in there to find where Bockius is buried. Otherwise we’ll be out here all night.”
Samantha von Oppelstein nudged Lucas. “Lucas and I will draw him out,” she whispered.
“We will?” Lucas asked.
“Yeah,” she said. “We’ll create a distraction.”
“What kind of distraction are—”
Before Parker could finish, Samantha von Oppelstein stood up, cupped her hands around her mouth, and hollered, “Boooooooooo! I am a haunted mustache!”
“Are you out of your mind?” Lucas asked. The front door of the cabin swung open, and a lanky figure stood at the threshold.
“Who’s out there?” called a gravelly, old voice.
“Just us mustaches!” Samantha von Oppelstein called out. She turned to Parker. “There’s your distraction.”
“Show yourselves!” Old Giroux hollered. He held a lantern up high and scanned the cemetery. “You’re in big trouble, whoever you are! Big trouble indeed!”
“Run!” Samantha von Oppelstein shouted, pulling Lucas along with her.
Lucas and Samantha von Oppelstein ran from the cabin, deeper into the graveyard, as Old Giroux charged out of his house.
Parker ducked down behind the tall gravestone of Wilfred Cooke, A KINDER FELLOW YOU’LL NEVER MEET, UNLESS YOU DIG DOWN ABOUT SIX FEET, and waited for Old Giroux to pass.
“Darned kids!” Old Giroux snarled. “You think you can outrun Giroux? I’ll show you what happens to trespassers in my graveyard! And on this night of all nights?”
Parker waited until Old Giroux was well past him before standing up and running toward the cabin.
“You’re going to wish that mustache got you, once I get my hands on you!” Old Giroux hollered at Lucas and Samantha von Oppelstein, stomping after them in his mud-caked boots.
Parker reached the open door of Old Giroux’s cabin, took a deep breath, and then slipped inside.
5
Old Giroux’s cabin was small and cramped. The heads of all the different animals he’d hunted adorned the walls, staring down at Parker: deer, wolf, elk, bear, badger. There was even a large boar with tusks so long, you could hang a hat on them, just like the town sign said. A quaint place to hang your hat. But Giroux’s cabin wasn’t quaint; it was creepy.
Open cans of beans and stacks of mail-order catalogs sat on the small kitchen table. An old television with an antenna squatted atop milk crates, and a hammock strung up in one corner appeared to be his bed.
It smelled like sweaty socks and spoiled milk. Parker held his nose. The wolf head’s eyes seemed to glow, and Parker swore that it was watching him.
“Look, I’m just getting some information, and I’ll be gone,” he whispered to the wolf’s head.
A bookshelf against the wall was filled with moss-green ledgers. Parker was willing to bet that those ledgers were exactly what he was after.
The floorboards groaned and creaked under Parker’s steps, and even though Old Giroux was not there to hear him, Parker could not help but cringe with every noisy step. The ledgers were lined up in long rows, arranged by years. Parker slid his finger across them until he found the ledger for years 1850 to 1900.
“Bingo,” Parker said. He slipped the book off the shelf and wiped away the cobwebs.
Somewhere out there Old Giroux was chasing Lucas and Samantha von Oppelstein through the graveyard, and it was only a matter of time before the caretaker gave up and came
back. Parker had to hurry.
He flipped through the pages until he found the year 1888. He traced down the list, month by month, until he reached October. There he was: Bockius Beauregard.
Parker slipped a pen out of his pocket, pulled the cap off with his teeth, and scribbled the burial plot on his hand: C113.
“See?” Parker said to the wolf’s head. “That was it. I won’t bother you anymore.”
A lantern bobbed along in the darkness, and Old Giroux’s muttering grew dangerously close.
“…think they can make a fool out of Old Giroux, do they?”
Parker had just slipped through the front door and around the side of the cabin when the old man appeared.
“Serves ’em right if the mustache gets ’em,” said Old Giroux. Parker hurried away from the cabin, back toward where he and the others had split up.
“Psst, Parker,” said Lucas. “Over here.”
Lucas and Samantha von Oppelstein were crouched down behind a statue of an angel.
“Get it?” Lucas asked.
“C113,” said Parker. “Good job, you two.”
“I know exactly where that section is,” said Samantha von Oppelstein. “It’s in the back corner of the graveyard. Come on.”
Samantha von Oppelstein led Parker and Lucas through the cemetery. Despite the bright moon, both boys stumbled several times on broken and half-buried gravestones. But not Samantha von Oppelstein.
“I know this place like the back of my hand,” she said.
Thunder rumbled overhead, and a jagged arc of lightning flashed across the sky.
“Where’s your mustache?” Lucas asked Samantha von Oppelstein.
“Oh yeah!”
She fished around in her bag until she found it.
“Mustache on a stick,” she said. She held up a long stick with a mustache attached to the end and waved it in front of her face. “I can’t stand that sticky mustache tape.”
Section C was darker and gloomier than the rest of the Wolver Hollow graveyard. Tall trees blocked out the moon, and the shadow of the windmill fell across the old graves.
Parker shone his flashlight along the stones.
110… 111… 112…
“One thirteen,” said Parker. His flashlight lit upon the cracked and chipped tombstone that read: BOCKIUS B. BEAUREGARD. 1827–1888. RIP. “There he is.”
“Told you,” Samantha von Oppelstein said.
“Told us what?” asked Parker.
“That there was no mustache,” she said. “The only thing I see is some old dead dude’s tombstone and two wannabe ghost hunters.”
“Detectives,” Lucas said. He straightened his badge.
“Whatever,” said Samantha von Oppelstein. “Are we done here? Are you convinced?”
“No,” Parker said.
“No?” said Samantha von Oppelstein.
“Maybe it only comes out at midnight,” Parker said.
“Parker, we can’t wait until midnight!” Lucas said. “There’s a curfew!”
“We’re already out past curfew,” Parker said.
“Your mom will figure out that we’re not in your room!” Lucas said.
“Or maybe there is no mustache,” Samantha von Oppelstein said. “Just an old superstition.”
The crickets stopped chirping.
“Parker?” Lucas asked.
Parker’s flashlight flickered and went out.
“Lucas?” Parker said.
“If you’re trying to scare us, Parker, it’s not working,” Samantha von Oppelstein said.
“Stupid flashlight,” said Parker. He smacked his flashlight in the hope that he could get it to turn on.
Clouds passed before the moon again, and everything went dark. They could hardly see their own hands in front of their faces.
“What’s that?” Samantha von Oppelstein asked.
“What’s what?” Parker asked.
“Something moved,” she said.
“Lucas, was that you?” asked Parker.
“I didn’t move,” said Lucas.
A violent crack of lightning struck a twisted old cypress tree about twenty feet from them, and lit up the entire graveyard.
Parker tried to speak, but the words refused to form in his throat.
Lucas’s eyes widened, and his face paled.
Samantha von Oppelstein slowly turned to look over her shoulder.
The haunted mustache hovered a few feet off the ground, caked with crumbling grave dirt and glowing with a pale blue light.
Samantha von Oppelstein grabbed both Parker’s and Lucas’s wrists.
The mustache started to drift toward them.
That’s when Lucas screamed.
That’s when Parker’s mustache peeled off and fell to the grass.
That’s when the mustache lunged.
And that’s when the three of them turned tail and ran.
6
“Follow me!” Samantha von Oppelstein screamed. She did not bother to wait and see if the boys listened. But Parker and Lucas didn’t need to think twice about it. They darted after her, and the mustache chased after them.
They ran. They ran as fast as they possibly could, not daring to look back. One misstep and they might trip and fall, and the last thing they would see would be the mustache from beyond the grave smothering their face.
The clouds raced across the sky, and the heavens trembled with booming thunder and peals of lightning.
Samantha von Oppelstein stopped in front of a small stone crypt with narrow iron doors.
“What are you doing?” Parker asked. “We have to run!”
“It’ll catch us,” she said, tugging on the chain around her neck.
“These things are locked!” said Lucas.
“Key,” said Samantha von Oppelstein. She held up the necklace. A single key was tied to the end of it. She slipped the key into the keyhole and twisted. The door unlocked with a heavy thunk, and she and Parker pulled the doors open.
“Hurry, hurry, HURRY!” shouted Lucas. He shoved Parker and Samantha von Oppelstein and fell in behind them. Parker yanked the doors shut just as the mustache reached the crypt, and Samantha von Oppelstein twisted the lock back into place.
It was pitch-black and damp. The crypt had no windows. The dead didn’t need light. Nobody said anything for a few minutes; they just listened. At first there was nothing, just the sound of their own labored breathing. Something scurried across the stone floor, and Lucas and Parker stumbled back into each other with muffled shrieks.
Then they heard it. Something tap, tap, tapping at the door.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
It went on like that for what seemed like an eternity while the three of them huddled in the darkness.
“Does anyone have a working flashlight?” Parker asked.
Both Samantha von Oppelstein and Lucas said no. They’d dropped theirs when the mustache first appeared.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
“Believe me now?” Parker whispered.
“Is this really the time to say ‘I told you so’?” Samantha von Oppelstein asked.
“Will you two cut it out?” Lucas asked.
Something heavy banged against the door, and all three of them screamed and jumped together.
Another bang, and another.
The iron doors rattled on their hinges.
The banging became a hammering, and the very crypt seemed ready to cave inward.
And then… it stopped.
Just like that, it stopped.
They listened in silence, waiting for that awful banging to continue. The only sound that came was that of their own rapid breathing and whatever was scurrying around the floor of the crypt.
“Rats,” Samantha von Oppelstein said.
“Rats?” asked Lucas. His voice became three pitches higher.
“On the floor,” she said.
“How do you know?”
“And how did you have a key to this crypt?” Parke
r asked. He shook something off his foot that squeaked and skittered to the corner.
“My great-great-great-grandfather is in here,” she said. “I come here a lot to—”
“Write poetry,” Parker finished.
“Think,” she said. “I like to talk to him.”
“Guys, I… I think it’s gone,” Lucas said. “Listen.” No banging, no tapping. Just the three of them and the rats.
“Now what?” asked Samantha.
“We wait,” Parker said. “We just wait until dawn, and it’ll be gone. We can stay in here and avoid having our lips eaten, and tomorrow we can tell everyone that we saw it.”
“No way,” said Lucas. “No way, no way, no how. I am not spending the next who-knows-how-many hours stuck in here, in the dark, with Samantha’s dead great-great-great-grandfather and a swarm of rats. I can’t stand rats.”
“So you’d rather have your face eaten by that ghost mustache?” Parker asked.
“Maybe my great-great-great-grandfather doesn’t want to spend the next few hours with you, Lucas,” Samantha von Oppelstein said.
“And besides,” said Lucas, “if we don’t get that mustache to Hill Crest Manor, it’ll just come back next year, and I don’t want to spend every October 19 afraid that a haunted mustache is going to come looking for me while I sleep. You saw that thing. I’m going to have nightmares!”
“He has a point,” said Samantha von Oppelstein. “Restless spirits have long memories. It might come looking for us. That’s what the book said, anyway.”
“We have the Handsome Hank’s,” Lucas continued. “We have the salt, and we certainly have the mustache…. Now we need to do what we came here to do.”
“Okay,” Parker said. “We’ll do this.”
“Are you sure?” Samantha von Oppelstein asked.
“Yes,” said Parker.
“Are you sure you’re sure?”
“Yes!”
“Okay,” she said. “Here we go….”
Samantha von Oppelstein undid the latch and pushed one of the doors open just a few inches. A cool, crisp October breeze swept into the crypt.
“Crickets,” Lucas whispered. “The crickets are chirping again.”
Samantha von Oppelstein pushed the door open a bit more.