Dr. Hang’s heart jumped filling his whole body with pure adrenaline, the light squeezed out of his hand when he tried to turned it on and immediately he caught it in the middle of the air swallowing.
-Wh… who is it there? – He tried to yell but a knot in his throat cut his voice.
The shadow walked towards him and his shaking hand tried to point the light at it but a beam of light blinded him first.
-Are you Dr. Hang? – Oscar, the 67 years old keeper, knew about the Doctors’s tradition and from time to time he used to play some jokes at them, sometimes, he even joined them to go to pick the coat he had done the favor to hang up on the top of the old tree at the end of the Graveyard.
He’d never forgot the time when, after only a month from having started at his job as a graveyard keeper, a Doctor gave him the scare of his life when they found eachother in the middle of the Cemetery.
-Oh! Thank God! Are you the keeper? – Dr. Hang asked relieved covering his face of the light. – I almost messed up my pants. -He tried to joke to calm himself.
He walked towars the light beam and Oscar turned off the light.
-The tree made you get over the grass? – The wind made Oscar’s voice hard to listen.
-Yes, a few steps and it’d have fallen all over me. – Dr. Hang felt the wind pushing him when he stepped over a rock making him stumble for a moment.
The branches, the plants and the clouds were moving violently everywhere around.
-Would you mind telling me how do I get to the common pit? – Dr. Hang’s voice was more relaxed with the keeper’s presence now.
-You gotta continue towards the statue over there next to the crosses, and then go straight from there all the way to the rigth, two hundred meters but you gotta take the bridge otherwise you’ll be going back to the main road. – Oscar explained him with a deep voice and the most serious face Dr. Hang had ever seen. He already knew the rules of their tradition as well.
-Come on, it’s not true I can’t go back to the Main road is it? – Dr. Hang asked with a worried smile.
-If I’d told you the things I’ve seen here you wouldn’t believe me. I gotta go now, I have to get the axe to chop that log outta the way. – He turned away with out even changing his expression and started walking with the light off in the creepiest walk, letting his arms and legs swing like he wouldn’t care anything. Just a few steps further Oscar started whistling a scary tune not worried at all, making Dr. Hang’s felt chills all over his body.
-What the fu…? – He asked himself lowering the tone of his voice from a whisper to silence.
The Highgate was already a scary place at day, even more at nigth and his keeper seemed to Dr. Hang the weirdest subject ever. Oscar’s figure disappeared at the distance in the shadows, between the plants and some scary looking trees without any leaves.
Dr. Hang turned on the light and started walking towards the statue freaked out by what he had just experienced. Oscar’s whistle’s sounded low in the distance. Just a couple of meters away from the statue next to the crosses the light started to flicker turning off out of the sudden.
His heart started rushing as well as his breathing one of the naked trees started moving and creaking violently with the wind making him take two steps back. Oscar’s whistle had already stopped a few minutes before and suddenly a loud pounding boomed everywhere and nowhere, making Dr Hang. jump and his heart feel like coming out from his mouth almost like it has exploded in his chest. A knot in his throat followed by the chills ran through his whole body in one second and he felt how the color ran out from his face making him pale. Silence. The air stopped for a large moment and suddently one, two, three, four new loud pounding boomed all around.
Ache 