Porthole

The Graveyard [269] (430 words)

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It was too warm under a blanket of snow so I cast it off and decided to take a walk, the ice dripping off the trees as I passed.

It was refreshing.

I went looking for Delicia. She usually hung around the crypts to keep warm and out of the way of the wintry blast.

I could keep her warm if she'd let me get close enough.

She could be as cold as a witch's...

I stumbled over a fallen headstone and almost landed on Old Harold's grave. I smiled. We had had good times together but apparently I was still too hot for him to handle. Even his ghost moved to the other side of town to avoid me.

What can I say! My grandfather was one handsome demon and as a boy everyone would exclaim how I looked just like him. They would back off scorched when they tried to give me an unwelcome hug.

*laugh* Old Widow Walker loved to pinch all the young boys cheeks. She only tried once. She isn't buried around here. Told that preacher nephew that she would haunt him if he planted her next to her brother George.

Now George. Deader than dead even when alive, and as much fun then as he is now. I see his ghost occasionally passing through the tavern. He wants to hang around the living, hoping that he eventually gets a little something. Never did while he was alive no matter how much he boasted.

*sigh* I knew their truths. But look at me now, just another corpse trying to cool off. How did I die? Well... I'd let Delicia tell you if I could find her.

She told me once that no one believed in demons any more and that when the last believer died I would too.

I really wanted to roast her for saying that but all her witchery couldn't stop that truck sliding through the red light. Oh well. I do miss her.

She seems to be the only one left who knows I'm still here sizzling. Everyone else just blames the accidents on the weather or bald tires. I'm the one who melts the snow then with breath as-cold-as-hell refreezes it into black ice! I get no credit.

Ah... there she is. If it were a bit colder maybe the snow between the gravestones wouldn't melt where I place my feet. So hard to move quickly with mud sucking me back into the graves. Well, she's seen me, grabbed her broom and caught a breeze outta here.

Maybe the next sub-zero night.

© Kåre Enga [177.269] (25.october.2020)

For: "WEIRD TALES CONTEST "