
"Where is it?" Kyle whispered.
"Over there." Jerry pointed with his small flashlight. "Why are you whispering? It's just a graveyard. Ain't nobody here." Jerry laughed. "Come on." He shifted the nylon bag he carried from one hand to the other. "Hurry up! It's almost midnight."
Kyle's sneakers slipped on the dewy grass as he followed Jerry down the last hill in the cemetery. The moon appeared as a slit in the night sky. Dark clouds occasionally floated out of its way, and a sliver of pale yellow mixed with the blue-black night.
Kyle watched Jerry walk off into the graveyard. He wanted to call out to him, tell him that this plan was ridiculous, it would never work, and they shouldn't have snuck out and come here. On Halloween night they ought to stay home, watch monster movies, and eat candy, not creep around in a secluded graveyard and try to talk to a dead man. One of the older kids at school, probably Blair, had given Jerry the idea to go out to Kropsy's grave at midnight on Halloween.
Kyle ignored the sick feeling of dread in his stomach and followed Jerry through the shadowy darkness. Maybe Jerry knew what he was doing. After all, he was thirteen, and two years older. This was only supposed to be a game to see what happened.
A field of headstones stretched before them. The white marble markers, old and worn, were sunk into the ground and leaning in different directions. Kyle knew they had to be in this section, the neglected part of the cemetery, for tonight's purpose.