Miscellaneous

The family cemetery had been a pleasant, small, neglected garden of tangled rose bushes and ragged cedar trees and cyprus, the simple, flat stones rising out of uncropped sweet-smelling wild grass. Until the intruders showed up. Mark and his friends, Johnny and Jacob, were bored and decided to go to the cemetery by Jacob's house for a little late-night fun. Gang symbols litterted that old gravestones and plants were kicked aside. Suddenly, as police sirens began to scream nearby, the three boys took off. Johnny fell first, his foot stuck in a rose bush tainted with paint. He cried out but Mark and Jacob kept running. Soon, Jacob tripped over a stone and went flailing straight onto a cedar tree. Then, he groaned and fell backward, as the wild grass engulfed him in their arms. Mark jittered and his breathing become strained. A horrible feeling of dread bubbled in his throat and onto a bush in front of him. After that, Mark rambled from side to side, scrambling for protection. With no other ideas, he climbed up a tree and sat perched like a bird, waiting. After a while, the cops came by with Johhny and Jacob in tow, hanging thier heads and cursing into the night. When he was sure that coast was clear, Mark began climbing down. As soon as he moved, the tree shivered as if cold and Mark plummeted to the ground with a smack.