FICTION BY KEVIN LECOMPTE

Kevin LeCompte is a high school English teacher who loves stories of all genres, though he tends to lean towards horror probably because he grew up reading Goosebumps and Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. He loves to read obsessively and learn from the writers who are currently doing it the best.

Kevin lives in the suburbs of Chicago with his wife and three kids. His current goal is to build more of a writing resume before querying novels he’s written.

THREE’S A CROWD
by Kevin LeCompte

Walking through the woods was much easier than it had been two nights ago. This time, all they had to carry with them were shovels. And flashlights, of course.

Ben rested his shovel upon his shoulder, but Mitch held his up like a baseball bat. They’d talked in detail about their plan while driving over to the woods but hadn’t spoken a word to each other since they’d arrived.

Mitch broke the silence, but only in a whisper as he needed to make sure that nobody heard them out there. “Hey, you remember back in our freshman year? When we went on the Boy Scout campout and snuck out into the woods in the middle of the night to drink that rum you’d taken from your parent’s bar?”

Ben continued walking, staring straight ahead, not responding in any way.

“You remember that?” Mitch continued to whisper, but louder this time.

Ben nodded. Said nothing.

“That was a great night,” Mitch said.

They continued walking in silence for another minute or so. It was completely quiet except for the crickets that were not being shy on this particular night. They were really making their presence known. Mitch didn’t think he’d ever heard so many screeching so loudly. And it would continue that way for the rest of their trip.

They were getting closer to their destination now.

Mitch stared up at the sky through the trees as they walked, thinking there must be a bright full moon staring down at him. It felt like that kind of night, felt like something must be watching him from above—accusing him, judging him—preparing some terrible punishment for him to face after he’d died someday many years down the road.

But there was no bright full moon. There was barely a moon at all. A little slice of one maybe, a sliver of light did shine down through the trees. It just wasn’t the glare of a bright, full moon but rather the squinting sideways gaze of a waxing crescent moon.

“Hey,” Mitch said as he backhanded Ben’s arm. “You remember that time our teams both made it to the championship round of the Richton Tournament, you pitching against me in the ninth?” He laughed. “Crazy how life plays out.”

Mitch of course had taken his friend deep, a no-doubter to end the game. He’d spent all day long traveling down memory lane, recalling countless memories he’d made with Ben, and that one had crossed his mind a few times.

After a few steps, Mitch realized he was traveling alone and turned back to see what the deal was.

Ben stopped walking then just stood there staring at Mitch.

“Dude, why the hell would I wanna talk about any of this shit right now?” Ben asked, lifting his shovel up a bit as he did so. He teared up then, his pitch immediately squeaky high. “You fuckin’ kidding me? We’re going to dig up my fucking girlfriend and you wanna talk about scouts and baseball?”

“Shhh…” Mitch rushed back towards his friend. “Be quiet bro. You can’t have someone hear you saying that shit.” He glanced all around, shining his little flashlight along the ground to see if there were signs of anybody nearby, grazing his friend’s wrist as he turned around.

“Don’t fuckin’ touch me,” Ben whisper-shouted. “Let’s go get this over with.” He took off walking in longer strides now, having quickened his pace. Mitch followed, staying behind a bit after the outburst.

It truly had been an accident, what happened to Ben’s girlfriend a couple of nights ago while they were partying in Mitch’s basement. His parents had gone out of town for the week and there had been some drinking going on. There was a big party on Saturday with a good thirty people or so. But on Sunday, Mitch wanted a calmer night to cure his hangover so only invited Ben who just had to bring Tracey with him.

Yes, it had been an accident, a stupid accident but still an accident. It was after eleven by then and Mitch was drunk again. He shook his head now, recalling the moment he brought his father’s gun, a revolver which was originally owned by his grandfather, downstairs, wanting to show Ben since they had just been talking about shooting BB guns in scouts back in the day. It should’ve been fine except that drunken Mitch had thought it would be no problem to just toss the gun to his friend, maybe thinking it probably wasn’t even loaded or that you have to pull the trigger to shoot it and how can one possibly pull the trigger while catching it. Or maybe. Maybe he’d just tossed it because he was drunk.

Either way, it happened so fast. Fireworks went off then Tracey was on the ground and there was blood everywhere, and even now, Mitch felt horrible for the fact that his very first thought—sure, a million came flooding in right after—but his very first thought was just a thank god that they were in the basement and on the tile and not up in the family room where there was carpeting. Blood can be cleaned off tile, but not off carpeting.

They reached their destination now, Tracey’s unmarked grave. He was positive they had reached it because he could hear the frogs, which meant they were by the creek. Mitch knew that she was buried close to the creek but not too close, in between two trees, each of which had moss growing along their bases. It seemed memorable enough without standing out all that much.

Besides, two nights ago, when they’d had to somehow navigate a way to drag two shovels, flashlights and a body with them, they’d simply run out of strength and energy and would settle for any location.

“This is it,” Mitch said to a still silent Ben. Ben had wanted to call the cops, call her parents, call 911 at first actually, having clearly been in shock and lost his mind as he seemed to think that somebody might still be able to help her, save her life.

But Mitch had insisted that she was gone, that they had to be smart and not let this ruin their lives as well. All he knew was what his father always said to him, had preached to him for years now, telling him to make sure he didn’t screw it up, that he kept his eye on the ball and on the prize that would come with it, and more recently, to make sure he never did anything to lose his full ride baseball scholarship to Arkansas, that once he was in the majors and getting paid, that his father would sell the company and they could spend a lot more time together.

So now here they were, standing over this grave, and Mitch again felt like a jerk for the thought that was running through his head, that he just wished Ben had made a smarter decision like he had, which was to dump his girlfriend before going to college.

Tracey was older though, already a college girl, so maybe his friend just saw it all differently. The two of them had met in a tattoo parlor, as crazy as that sounds. He was getting a tattoo of the comedy and drama masks on his arm, and she was getting a butterfly on her wrist. They just happened to have been sitting close enough to small talk and get to know the basics of one another while getting their tats and the rest was history.

Mitch felt that sick feeling starting to trickle down into his stomach as he recalled the few times he’d heard Ben call Tracey his little butterfly. He imagined he called her that often though he didn’t really know that for sure.

“Let’s go,” Ben said. “I need to get this over with.”

The two of them got to digging and it was a lot easier than Mitch had expected, much easier than a couple of nights ago that’s for sure. He supposed it made sense. The earth was all loosened up still and was coming up rather easily.

Ben jumped and freaked the hell out of Mitch in the process. His friend had turned all the way around in an instant, jumping up then twisting and landing facing the other direction, facing behind them. “The hell was that?” he whispered. “You hear that?”

Mitch grabbed his chest, took a deep breath, then shined his light back that way. There was in fact a rustling sound, and for a moment he thought maybe that was it, that maybe a cop was about to crawl out from behind a tree and point his gun at them, screaming for them to put their hands up. Or perhaps some nice old man would step out from behind a brush back there a ways, walking his dog, becoming a witness, them needing to make a rash decision and add somebody else to the hole they were digging. Well, re-digging, technically speaking.

Instead, a little fox came sniffing around the side of a tree just a few feet away from them. It made Mitch snort a laugh, but it also helped release all that tension in his body, let his shoulders drop back down, his chest start expanding again as he remembered to breathe. “See, it’s just a fox,” he said to Ben. “A cute little guy actually.”

Ben didn’t seem satisfied. Kept waving his light around, clearly still searching for something, not settling on the fox being the source of whatever he’d thought he’d heard.

Mitch put his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Seriously. Relax man. Let’s get back to this.”

“I can smell it,” Ben whispered. “I can for sure smell it.”

Mitch, who was about to get back to digging, turned back towards his friend, sniffing the air as he did so. “Smell what? I don’t smell anything.”

“Her perfume,” Ben said, still waving his light all around, searching for something, for someone? “I heard her whisper to me, tell me she loves me, and now I can smell her.”

Mitch raised his head up, took a good whiff of the air again, and didn’t think he really smelled anything, but it was hard to tell for sure. This time of night, out in a forest, there were all kinds of scents in the air.

He shook his head and got back to digging, giving up on his friend for now as there was a lot of work to be done here and Ben seemed to be lost completely. Mitch hadn’t been sure, but now he was more convinced. “It’s not ghosts we should be worrying about right now. It’s people. Cops. Witnesses.”

His friend had been making him nervous the past day or so with his texts and phone calls, what he’d claimed to have said to the cops and Mitch had begun to realize that his friend was not going to be able to do what was necessary for them to get through this situation.

Mitch did feel bad about Tracey, certainly wished that the whole thing had never happened. Hell, he’d felt truly saddened, sick to his stomach for sure, as he stared down at her still body lying in his trunk. She must’ve bled out almost completely by then because he could see exactly where the bullet had gone into her head, and it was no longer bleeding. It was right in front of ear. It had made another hole just an inch or so away from the hole she’d heard sounds through her entire life, heard her parents and siblings speak to her, tell her they loved her, heard Ben call her his little butterfly probably way too many times than Mitch even wanted to know about. Where she’d heard birds chirping and children playing, heard leaves rustling through trees just like Mitch heard now.

He’d wrapped her head in a couple of plastic bags right about then, a couple of nights ago that is, just to make sure no blood spilled out on the drive out to the woods. He’d also glanced down at her claddagh ring, tried to take it off even, considered clipping her finger when he couldn’t but then decided against it as he didn’t want to make his friend any more upset. But it frustrated him because it was always some ring or necklace or some stupid little thing in the person’s pocket that got the killers caught in those true crime documentaries.

Mitch stopped digging. He had hit something solid, and it seemed like they were probably at the right depth now. Ben had just recently joined back in, working hard in fact, working quickly.
In his most recent call, just a few hours ago, Ben had told Mitch that he was going to come clean with the cops, that it was the right thing to do and that he just couldn’t lie to Tracey’s parents anymore. He just couldn’t.

Mitch had succeeded in calming him down, told him that he’d come up with a plan to make this right, well, as right as it could be, all things considered, that they just had to go dig the body back up and bring it out into the open and write a suicide note.

After some coercing, Ben had agreed.

Still, there was a lot of work to be done. The hardest part was still ahead of him, Mitch considered.

They were getting around to the nitty-gritty now, having found her body, working around her limbs a bit so it would be easier to reach down under her, lift her up, pull her out of her grave then find her a new one.

Mitch smelled something sweet then too. It may have smelled like perfume. He took another whiff, accepted that it did smell differently than it had a few minutes ago but also accepted that it must just be coming from the grave; that the smell had been on her when she’d been buried, that the dirt must have kept the scent trapped down there and they had released it just now. Still, he did shine his flashlight around just to be sure, feeling a speck of uncertainty clinging to his chest and the heart within it.

Something felt off, and Mitch knew that was bound to happen, so he focused on his breathing, like his coach had taught him to do right before stepping up to the plate. He stepped back a bit, stretched his neck from side to side, waved the shovel back and forth, trying to relax. He thought about what his father always told him, to not screw up his opportunities, to take advantage of the gifts he was given, and more recently, to make sure he kept his scholarship, got good grades and made his mother happy, whatever the cost.

He took a couple more steps back, knowing he needed more space, needed to swing big to make it a no doubter. And then he did.

He swung hard but closed his eyes, which was not good at all, but he just couldn’t help it. His swing was already on line though so it didn’t matter.

He smacked the back of his friend’s head with the back of the shovel, and it sounded more like a bat hitting a ball than he would’ve expected. It was wet then though, like he’d hit a water balloon and it had splashed all over his face.

He wiped the blood off, along with the tears, as he recalled kneeling down next to his friend’s cot at camp a few years ago, asking him if he’d brought what he said he would, the booze from his parent’s bar, before the two of them snuck off into the woods to make a terrific memory.

Mitch gulped as he got to work tossing the dirt down onto his friend, his friend and his friend’s little butterfly. That sick feeling ballooned in his stomach now, a much different feeling, growing rather than trickling down, ready to burst.

But then he thought about his parents and pictured the years to come because that’s just what he had to do right now, accept that life is full of sacrifices, that hard work pays off and that he had a bright future ahead of him as long as he didn’t do anything stupid to screw it up.

He heard a rustle behind him, turned back, light in hand, shovel heading up into the air in case he needed to kill a cop or an old man walking his dog. He stood there feeling like he should laugh again as the fox played at the foot of a tree. He didn’t though. Didn’t laugh. Just turned back and continued filling the hole.

He drove the shovel into the dirt, went to stomp on it to drive it down deeper but stopped and abruptly stood still. He’d heard something scraping across the ground just behind him then, slowly raised his head up as the rest of his body froze. He couldn’t imagine what could possibly be moving around behind him and thought that maybe he didn’t want to know.

He waited for a moment, hoping the sound would stop so he could slowly turn around and laugh at some simple, non-threatening explanation as to what the sound had been. It didn’t stop though.

Mitch shivered as he turned just in time to stare in disbelief at the other shovel which was being dragged across the dirt. It vanished into the darkness behind the tree line before he could make out who was dragging it. He clawed at his chest as confusion and anxiety boiled up from his bowels.

“Hello,” he whispered, then swallowed the lump in his throat. He spoke louder, “Who are you? What do ya want?”

There was no reply, but he could still make out the sound of the shovel dragging around somewhere out in the woods. He smelled something then, that perfume scent again it seemed.

That’s when someone grabbed his ankle from behind.

He jumped away, freeing himself from the grip as his flesh tingled with a chill so deep it felt like a blast of winter had washed over him. Though nothing prepared him for what he saw peeking up at him from the hole in the ground, the source of the hand that had grabbed him, painted fingernails smeared up with dirt attached to slender fingers and mud-caked hands.

But the worst was the eyes, the dark dead eyes that just stared at him peeking out from the hole in the ground.

His throat clapped out a scream then, fast and loud, guttural. A longer scream erupted from within him as he backed up slowly, wanting to run, needing to get away, but so taken aback by the impossible sight before him. He knew who it was, but his mind couldn’t wrap around it.

She crawled up out of the hole, rhythmically but with purpose, not taking her eyes off him for a moment. Her clothes were tattered, blackened by dirt. Her hair wild, all frizzed up around her face like gray cotton candy, a spider web blowing with the breeze. She continued her way towards him, quickening her pace.

He turned and ran, whimpering his way into the woods which were inexplicably filled with a heavy mist now. He slowed, confused, gradually came to a stop as he glanced all around. He heard whispers everywhere, heard the shovel dragging in circles around him. He spun, growing dizzy, nauseous, panicked. A whisper in the wind crept up close, just behind him, and he felt warm breath upon the back of his neck, felt the tingle crawling up his spine in response.

He jumped, spun around but saw nothing, nobody. It all grew quiet then. Silence replaced the whispers, the wind, and the scraping sound of the shovel dragging across the ground. He stood, breathing slowly, afraid of his own breaths, glanced around again but didn’t catch sight of anybody. He turned and walked slowly continuing to survey the area back from where they’d dug the hole. When he turned around, a shovel smacked him square in the face.

He lay on the ground quietly, not moving at all. Resting peacefully, it seemed.

The little fox obviously couldn’t tell you what it saw happen next any more than the crickets or frogs would be able to. But if they could, they’d tell you that a young woman dragged a young man across the forest floor then pulled him into a hole in the ground.

They’d go on to say that the woman then picked up where the young man had left off, tossing dirt over three dead bodies now. She had a ring on her finger with a heart on it, a butterfly on her wrist, and a hole on each side of her head, right in front of her ears.