Cemetery Road

The Mazda windows were fogged up. Christie and Matt were making out at full speed. When they had pulled into the Waycross, Georgia, cemetery and parked under a Spanish moss-laden oak tree, the first thing Christie noticed outside the car window was a headstone that read June B. Higginbotham, 1909--1989.

“This place is creepy,” she told Matt. “I feel like someone’s watching us.” He just laughed.

“Honey, this is the safest place in town if you want to know the truth.”

“Maybe you think that,” she said. She couldn’t, however, resist Matt’s charms and candy breath and tongue. He was the best boyfriend she’d ever had and she didn’t intend to lose him. After they’d got in the back seat, he began caressing her and she began dreaming of their idyllic life together in the future.

“What was that noise? Someone’s out there!” she said after a while. Her body tensed.

“It’s a tree branch, honey,” Matt said. “It’s brushing against the windshield a little. The wind, nothing else.”

A few minutes later, both heard a thump on top of the car. They froze.

“And that?” Christie asked, poking Matt in the ribs.

“I’m not sure,” Matt answered. “Like a thump.”

Christie held Matt’s chin in one hand and looked into his Sinatra-like blue eyes. “I know it was a thump,” she said. “I’m asking what caused the thump.”
“I’d better get out and look,” Matt said.
“Maybe you’d better,” Christie said. “It wasn’t a pine cone, that’s for sure.”
Matt defogged the windows with a cloth he kept in the glove compartment then opened the door on his side and stepped out. He looked on top of the car. With the speed of something like a sleek impala, he jumped into the driver’s seat and switched the car engine and lights on. The Mazda backed out from under the tree and sped away. Matt noticed someone had half-closed the entrance gates when they approached them. Instead of stopping, he swore under his breath and drove right through them. Fortunately, they were aluminum gates painted black and not genuine wrought iron gates.
A relieved Christie, buttoning up, climbed over the front seat and sat in the middle near Matt.
“I told you someone was there,” she said in tears. “I was right, wasn’t I?”
When Matt pulled the Mazda to the curb in front of Christie’s house, she spoke again.
“I’m not getting out of this car until you tell me what you saw,” she said firmly. “What was it on top of the car and don’t say bird shit.”
“Okay, okay,” Matt said. His body still trembled slightly. He hugged Christie and caressed her face. “If you want the truth, it was a squirrel. A bloody, decapitated squirrel.”