They scurried back to the headstone.

The frozen ground at the base of the stone seemed suddenly to have gone all brittle. One of the boys felt the ground crack beneath his right foot. With a jolt, he sank ankle deep in the earth. When he tried to pull his foot out, it wouldn't budge. It was only then that the honor set in.

"C'mon, hurry up," his companion groused. He had his back braced against the stone.

The second youth refused to move. He just stood there, his foot stuck up to the ankle in a gopher hole. When the boy at the grave marker glanced up, he found that every last drop of blood had drained from his friend's face. A look of fear like none he had ever before seen in his young life had flooded the boy's features.

The silent youth's lower lip stuttered in place. It was as if he were trying to speak but couldn't.

With an angry expression the second boy straightened. "What's the-" He sniffed the air. "Dammit, did you piss your pants?" he demanded.

Before his friend could manage to respond, the angry youth felt the earth grow brittle beneath him. His own foot abruptly cracked through the frozen surface. The first hint of concern had barely brushed his soft features when he felt something cold and unseen wrap around his ankle.

It felt like a hand.

His face grew ashen. He tried to scream but no sound came. And suddenly the world turned upside down and the two boys were flipping backward onto the frozen ground.

The boy with the spray can glanced over once more. "What the hell's wrong with you fag-"

The words died in his throat.

As the three boys watched, frozen with fear, the ground before the haunted headstone cracked and split apart. Clods of hard-packed dirt fell away. And with an unearthly silence that seemed to dull the beating of their very hearts, a dark figure rose slowly up into the chill night air.