“Hey guys, get over here. You gotta see what I’ve stumbled upon,” Leo yelled.

“Keep your pants on, Leo,” Dwight yelled back as he and two other schoolmates headed over to where Leo was standing.

Donny was the first one to reach Leo. “Jesus, what is that thing?” he asked.

“It looks like a trough of some sort,” Jeff said when he caught up to Dwight and Donny.

“Or a grave or tomb,” Leo said, affecting a spooky tone.

“It’s not a grave,” Jeff said. “If this was an old cemetery, there would be other graves, but there aren’t any others.”

“So what is it then?” Leo asked. “It’s about the dimensions of a grave.”

Donny picked up long, narrow tree branch he found on the ground, stood over the opening, and started poking at the ground in the hole. “What the hell are you doing, Donny?” Dwight asked.

“I want to see how deep it is and if I hit anything solid, like a casket,” Donny said.

Just as he said that, a cold, smoky mist started coming up from the hole. The four boys stepped back and watched in horror as the mist thickened and took on an almost human-like shape. The boys would have run, but they were unable to move, as if frozen in place.

“Who dares disturb my slumber?” a deep, haunting voice that seemed to be coming from the mist asked.

“We didn’t mean to, sir,” Leo said. “We didn’t know this was your resting place.”

“Silence!” bellowed the voice. “You have awakened me after more than a century of the restless sleep of the undead! You shall pay with your lives!” Then the smoke took on a blood red hue.

Dwight grabbed Leo, Leo grabbed Jeff, and Jeff grabbed Donny. “Run!” Dwight shouted as the boys took off running.

What they couldn’t hear as they ran for their lives was the laughter of their schoolmate, Billy, who was hiding behind a tree. “It’s amazing what you can do with a smoke machine, a microphone wirelessly linked to a speaker by bluetooth, a light bar, and a remote control device,” he chuckled.

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Written for this week’s Thursday Photo Prompt from Sue Vincent.