Luke and three normie teenagers headed to Shadyside Cemetery in Simon’s truck, but not before stopping by his house to grab a couple of shovels his family owned.
It was a fifteen-minute drive to the cemetery, which was completely dark. They got out of the truck and entered the cemetery, passing through an old sign and rusty metal gates.
The only things lighting the way were the silvery glow of the moon and the flashlights from their phones.
“What do you think Connor and everyone else would say if they found out Tuesday is grave robbing?” Simon asked Kate. The two of them walked side by side, while Tuesday and Violet walked a few meters ahead of them.
“They’ll say it’s our fault and that we’re a bad influence. Most likely, they’ll beat you up,” Kate replied with a slight smile.
“Hey, why just me? Besides, Tuesday’s the crazy grave robber here. I didn’t think she was into conspiracies and stuff,” Simon said.
Farther ahead, Luke and Violet were walking together and chatting.
“How did you get this list?” Violet asked, referring to the list of elderly people who had supposedly died of natural causes.
“A bit of research. It wasn’t too hard,” Luke answered vaguely. The list was made by Wednesday, although at first, it hadn’t seemed like something important since she hadn’t suspected anything unusual about these deaths.
“Here we are, the first grave,” Luke said, stopping and shining his flashlight on a tombstone that read Mary Brown, 1948-2018.
‘We’re seriously doing this…’ Simon and Kate thought as they watched Tuesday slam the shovel into the ground and start digging. Violet helped her.
Simon and Kate watched the scene in disbelief. It was strange to see a girl with a Disney- princess-like appearance digging up a grave under the moonlight.
“That name sounds familiar. I think my parents knew her,” Kate said, referring to Mary Brown.
Luke and Violet worked quickly, though Luke greatly reduced his real strength-he could’ve finished this in no time, but that would’ve been suspicious.
Simon volunteered; he couldn’t just let Tuesday get her hands dirty alone. He had to prove his worth. Kate joined in, too.
Finally, they reached the coffin. Luke, with his abilities, had already verified there was no body in the coffin. His theory was correct.
But why were these people, who were closer to the harp than the guitar, being abducted?
“Are we really going to open this?” Kate asked, hesitating at the thought of opening a coffin that could contain a rotting corpse.
Simon and Violet fell silent, unsure. This was the hardest part.
“If you’re all a bunch of pussies, I’ll open it,” Luke said, clicking his tongue.
Without waiting, he slid his fingers under the lid and, with a decisive motion, lifted it, causing it to fall to the side with a dull thud.
Violet, Simon, and Kate leaned in to look inside.
There was no body.
Instead of a corpse, the coffin was filled to the brim with compact, dark soil, as if someone had dumped a garden sack inside.
Violet stepped back, her eyes wide as she tried to process what she was seeing. “This can’t be… This confirms my theory. Something is happening in Shadyside!”
“Why do you sound excited? This is sick and terrifying…” Kate said, covering her mouth as she stared at the coffin.
“Wait, don’t jump to conclusions so fast… This is weird, yeah, but it’s just one grave. Who knows what happened here? There could be a logical explanation,” Simon said, refusing to believe there was a conspiracy.
“Pick a name from the list of someone whose funeral you actually attended. We’ll dig up the grave, and you’ll see there’s no body,” Luke said, handing him the list, which now had a bit of dirt on it.
Simon hesitated as he took the list and read through it. After a few seconds, he said, “Mr. Garcia. He died less than a year ago. I attended the funeral with my brother.”
“Perfect. Let me guess,” Luke said, crossing his arms. “The coffin was closed, wasn’t it?”
Simon nodded slowly, his discomfort obvious. “Yeah… but that doesn’t prove anything. There are closed-casket funerals all the time.”
“Sure,” Luke replied, his tone almost mocking.
Kate looked at Simon with a mix of disbelief and fear. “Are we seriously doing this again? This already feels like a bad horror movie.”
While they debated, Violet couldn’t take her eyes off Tuesday. There was something strange about her demeanor. Not only did she seem completely unfazed by the macabre situation, but there was a faint glint in her eyes, as if she were enjoying all of this.
They quickly closed the coffin and refilled the hole with soil.
After that, they searched for Mr. Garcia’s grave, who had died at 68 years old. The process was quicker this time since the group took it much more seriously-especially Simon and Kate.
The result was the same: a grave with no body, just soil. Simon dug through the dirt, trying to find something, but there was nothing-just dirt.
Luke wasn’t satisfied with two graves. He made the group dig up three more graves, a process that took a lot of time since it was no simple task. However, no one cared. Each empty grave they found proved that something sinister was happening in their town.
“Convinced, Simon?” Luke asked, crossing off the fifth name on the list.
Simon didn’t respond, but his conviction was written all over his face. He was now questioning what the hell was going on-who had taken these bodies, or worse, whether these elderly people had ever truly died and had instead been abducted while still alive. “We need to call the police,” Kate said in a serious, trembling tone.
“We’re not doing that, because, trust me, if someone has been staging fake funerals, that person or group has the entire system in their pocket,” Luke replied.
Kate frowned, not fully understanding. “What do you mean by that?” she asked, glancing at
Tuesday.
“Think about it. These people were declared dead. They went through autopsies, funerals- the whole official process. That means doctors, coroners, and even the police must be involved. If we go to the police with this, the only thing we’ll accomplish is getting labeled as crazy-or, worse, they’ll want to silence us for knowing too much,” Luke explained. ‘Wait… Maybe that could be good bait to draw out the criminals?’ Luke thought. If the enemies tried to silence them, they’d be in for a surprise when they ran into a psychic with a triple aura hidden in his backpack.
“Are you saying the entire police force and the coroners are in on this?” Simon asked.
“I don’t know. But it’s a possibility. If someone’s covering up these disappearances, or if the dead were never really dead, the people responsible for issuing those death certificates must be part of it,” Luke replied, though he wasn’t entirely sure. Maybe everyone had just been deceived, and the police and others weren’t actually corrupt.
Violet, who had been silently observing, nodded thoughtfully. “That makes sense. If we go to the police, we’re basically admitting that we know something corrupt is happening. They probably won’t believe us-or worse, they’ll come after us.’
“Yeah… which is why it’s better to keep quiet for now and keep investigating. At the very
least, we need to figure out if there are corrupt cops or coroners involved,” Luke said.
For now, he preferred that these normies stayed out of trouble and didn’t get involved in
something they couldn’t handle.
With that, they returned to the van in silence, each lost in their own thoughts.
Before leaving the cemetery, Luke extended his psychic domain beneath the remaining graves
to check for bodies. It was a much faster way to confirm things.
They hadn’t been able to dig up all the graves on the list, as it would have taken too much
time, and dawn was less than two hours away. As expected, they were just graves filled with
dirt, no bodies.
Now Luke was 100% sure that something bad was happening here-and maybe these criminals even knew about his parents’ arrival over a decade ago.
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