Short Story Writing - Becoming Active (1st Draft)

Becoming Active


“C’mon, my grandma hops fences faster than you.”
“Hey man these things take time alright.”
“Just hurry up fool. I don’t like being here.”
With one final swing of my leg, I was over the cement wall. I tried doing one of those graceful landings but it didn’t work out like I wanted it to. I ended up with a handful of grass, but as I stood up and wiped my hands on my pants, I finally got a chance to see what we were up against. It was one of those new autumn nights that still felt like summer, and the moon only somewhat lit up the sky, so I was only barely able to see the endless silhouettes lined in front of me.
“Man, there’s no way we’re going to be able to find it,” I said out loud. Rows and rows of gravestones were standing in front of me, barely visible under the moonlight.
“Yeah, I think we should just go back. This ain’t cool man. We didn’t even bring a flashlight.” Tyler said as he shivered in the night. He was furiously rubbing his arms, trying to warm them up. I felt a little bad for him, but his fault for not bringing a sweater right?
“Nah don’t think like that. And we didn’t bring a flashlight cause it’d only attract attention. So don’t worry. We’ll find it in no time yo.” Daryl was standing with his back facing me, surveying the area just like I was. He was being over-confident, but it was his fault we were here anyways so I guess its only natural he’d feel that way. You see, nobody else in our pledge class is doing what we’re doing right now. They’re all ready and done with all their requirements. Us on the other hand, we’ve got this little added on bonus to the things we gotta do. You see, we’re on a mission. To go into the cemetery, find the inscription on our founding member’s tombstone, and make it back out, all without being caught. This was the last step to our pledging process. After this, we’re going to become active brothers of the fraternity. We’re finally going to get to wear our letters, have access to all those crazy parties you only see in movies, and of course, get in with those cutie sorority girls. All we had to do was get the inscription and make it back to the actives waiting at the school.
The reason why we were on this completely random mission was because my pledge bro Daryl here, had gotten caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to be doing. Long story short, we were all busy partying it up for some random person’s birthday, and Daryl drank a smidge past his limit. He ended up making an ass of himself at the party, but worst of all, he threw up all over the president of the fraternity, who was graciously trying to take care of one of the pledges. Naturally, he got mad, and after almost beating him up a few times, he gave Daryl the task of finding the inscription on the tombstone. Originally, it was only supposed to be Daryl going into the cemetery to find the inscription, but after the president calmed down, he decided that going into a cemetery alone at night might be a little too mean. Also, there’s such a thing as risk management, so he didn’t want to risk him getting hurt or driven to madness by being left alone in a cemetery. So he decided to let Daryl choose two of his pledge bros to bring into the cemetery with him. Daryl choose Tyler because those two are like best friends and they got that whole bromance thing going on, and he choose me because I was the president of the pledge class and he was all like “C’mon Trev, you gotta step up for me man. You’re president so take one for the team aight?” Great right, because being president means sneaking into cemeteries at night. S’all good though cause he is my pledge bro after all, and that means a lot in our fraternity.
We just stood there for a little bit, with nothing but Tyler’s teeth clattering for noise, until Daryl started walking off on his own.
“Hey Daryl, do you even know where to start looking?” Not that I wanted to stay in that spot forever, but I wanted at least a clue on where we were going.
“Yee the actives told me that the inscription was on one of the tombstones inside the building with a giant cross on top of it. They also told me that its on Frank Bartle’s tombstone, so we gotta find that one.”
Those little bits of information were new to me. The name of the person’s tombstone we were looking for wasn’t really surprising. We had learned about that guy during the history lessons. Going inside a building for the inscription was a bit worrysome to me though.
“Wait, so we gotta actually go inside one of those mausoleums?” That whole thing really wasn’t flying with me. Not that I’m super scared of dead bodies or anything like that, but I’ve never been in one of those things and I really don’t want to be in one.
“Yeah man. Don’t worry about it though. It’ll only take like a quick second.” He had turned around now and was staring at both of us, as if the sight of his face would apparently instill confidence in us.
“Naw man, I’m not doing this anymore. I don’t wanna go in one of those things.” Tyler was wide-eyed. He had that tone in his voice where you could tell he’d be screaming right now if the setting wasn’t forcing him to be quiet.
“C’mon man just do it. It’ll be quick.”
“Naw fuck that, I’m going home.”
“Dude quit being a bitch and just do it.”
“No, no, you didn’t tell me we’d be going inside one of those things. You know I’m scared of ghosts man. Being here is already bad enough.”
“Man ain’t no such thing as ghosts. C’mon it’ll be fast.”
“I really don’t wanna do it though.”
“C’mon you’re my pledge bro. You want me to cross right? Do it for me.”
“Ughh fine. It better be fast though. I don’t wanna be making friends with the dead in there.”
“Fosho fosho. Lets do this.”
I just stood there watching this little argument unfold, all while thinking “yep, bromance.” I understood where Tyler was coming from though. Not that I believe in ghosts or anything, but I didn’t wanna risk anything happening. I mean, there’s hella ghost stories are out there so at least one of em has to be true right? We started walking again though, heading towards the one smaller building off in the distance that we all kind of figured was the mausoleum. It wasn’t long though till Daryl started messing around and going “wooooooo I’m a ghost!” and waving his arms in front of Tyler. Daryl got a good laugh out of this till Tyler once again threatened to go back home and then they went through that whole argument again.
It was ridiculous walking through the cemetery with barely any light to guide our way. It was hard enough trying to avoid stepping on the tombstones that were embedded into the ground. It was funny watching Tyler step on them though. Every time he’d step on one, he let out a small gasp, cross himself, and quickly walk away. I thought that guy was an atheist also, but oh well. We were tripping over all the flowers that were left on top of the graves too. The cemetery would have been pretty colorful if not for the absence of light, cause it seemed like there wasn’t a grave without some kind of flower on top of it. I always thought it was kind of weird to leave flowers on a grave anyways. I always thought flowers were a sign of life, and we’re leaving them on top of dead peoples graves? Feels kind of messed up to me.
As we got closer to the mausoleum, it felt like it got colder and colder. I don’t know if its cause the night was still growing or if I was just scared, but even I started shivering along with Tyler. Daryl was leading the pack, walking with that swag like he didn’t care where he was at the moment. I don’t know if it was all just an act, but he was doing a damn good job at keeping his cool, unlike me and Tyler. I was trying to keep myself distracted from thinking about all the worst case scenarios, so I started looking at some of the names and dates on the tombstones. I felt bad for Tyler cause the guy seemed like he’d already gone through every worst case scenario at least twice in his mind, so I broke the silence to help him take his mind off things.
“Man look at some of the dates on these graves. These people have been dead for hella long now. Look at this one. He died in 1917. That’s like ancient. I wonder what these guys did when they were alive.”
“Why don’t you start digging and ask them then?” Daryl wasn’t really the one I was talking to but hopefully our conversation would distract Tyler a bit, at least till we got to the mausoleum.
“Man, I’m just saying though. Look, he even has flowers on his grave. He probably still has family alive somewhere. Don’t you think that’s kinda cool?”
“Yo there’s flowers on every grave. I bet you nobody’s been to visit these graves in hella long. The people that work here probably put them on every grave so none of them look bad.” To prove his point, Daryl went and intentionally stepped on the small bouquet of flowers that was closest to him. I could hear the poor flowers squish underneath his shoe. Tyler didn’t take to kindly to any of this.
“Man what are you doing?! You’re disrespecting the graves!”
“It don’t matter. Not like these were put here by any loved ones anyways.”
“You don’t know that! Man c’mon, I’ve seen scary movies that start like this.”
“Yeah, well I’ve seen scary movies that start out with the main character waking up in the morning. Do you see me scared of waking up? Naw, so quit trippin.”
By this time, we’d made it pretty close to the mausoleum. We were finally able to see them cross on top of it, and it was a lot smaller than I expected. From Daryl’s description, I was expecting one of those huge crosses with Jesus all laid out on it, but instead it was just one of those foot long things that didn’t look special at all to me. The mausoleum itself wasn’t all that impressive either. It looked like a bigger, glorified version of a doghouse. There weren’t any windows at all, and the only doorway was a small cut out section of the cement. The only thing marking the mausoleum was a small, engraved metal sign hung next to the doorway that said “Bartle.” We all figured we were at the right place, but nobody made a move into the mausoleum. We all stood there for a second, looking in the dark doorway, hoping that someone else would volunteer to lead the way. Finally, Daryl broke the silence.
“Alright guys, lets go in and do this.”
“Hell no. You see how dark it is in there? You really think I’m going in?” Tyler wasn’t having any of it. He wasn’t even trying to be quiet anymore.
“Hey shut up. Being hella loud. And don’t worry about it being dark. I got my lighter so I’ll use it once we’re inside.”
“No alright. Why don’t you just go in by yourself? It’s your fault we’re here in the first place.”
“Naw man we stick together as a team. We came here as one, and we’re gonna go in as one. C’mon man, do this for me.”
“No man, it ain’t my fault you bitched out at the party and threw up on the president.” These guys were starting to get loud, and from what Tyler just said, I knew it was about to get louder. Daryl didn’t like talking about that night, because he felt he had a certain reputation to uphold. Before that incident, he used to brag about being able to hold his liquor and that he was one of those “I’m the life of the party” kind of people. Ever since that night, he’d been real touchy when it came to discussing parties in general, much less what he did that very night.
“Hey fuck you. First of all, you were supposed to take care of me, and you didn’t do that. Too busy talking to those girls to help your bro out. No, no, don’t tell me to calm down. You wanna talk about it, we’re gonna talk about it. You were the one pouring me hella shots also. This is your fault also so don’t bitch out on me at the last second.” Daryl was almost screaming at this point. Tyler wasn’t helping the situation at all. I couldn’t even get a word in with these guys going back and forth. A quick flash of light shut us all up real fast though. We all simultaneously looked towards the light and we could see it moving far off in the distance.
“What’s that?” Tyler whispered.
“It’s someone with a flashlight, and hes walking over here I think.” I said.
“Alright come on go in we gotta hide.” Daryl was behind us, trying to push us into the mausoleum.
“Wait no lets just run.” I could hear Tyler’s shoes scraping on the grass as he tried to push back against Daryl.
“No they’ll see us. Just get in!” With one final push, we all found ourselves surrounded in darkness.
“Ok just breathe guys.” Daryl was trying to calm us down.
“Light your lighter. Light your lighter!” Tyler whispered frantically.
“Naw, they’ll see the light.” I was staring out the doorway at the small speck of light that was moving in our direction. I kept on hoping that it would suddenly veer away from us, but it never did. Instead, it just kept on growing bigger and bigger. We all stood in the mausoleum, peering out of the doorway and trying to breathe as silently as possible. We watched as the speck of light turned into a moving spotlight, and then finally into a shadow carrying a flash light. It got to the point where we thought the person was going to come into the mausoleum, but after scanning the light around for a little bit, they turned and went the other direction. We all breathed little sighs of relief as we saw the light fade away into the distance. We waited until we were sure it was absolutely gone until we dared to speak again.
“Alright, lets do this and get the hell outta here. I’m gonna light my lighter alright.” We heard a few clicks and saw sparks fly, and all of a sudden the room was lit. The inside of the mausoleum shocked us all. The walls were lined with what looked like file cabinets. Each one had a name on it and a date, along with a golden colored handle. The floor was black and white tiled, but it felt like we were walking on carpet with all the dust lining the floor. Other than a small opening for air in the ceiling, there weren’t any other openings in the mausoleum.
“Oh my god we’re surrounded by death. Look, they all have handles on them.”
“You ain’t down to open one though.”
“You’re ruining my life Daryl.”
“Haha fine then start looking.” The three of us started scanning each little cabinet, looking for the name we needed.
“I think I found it.” Tyler’s shaky voice felt like a miracle to me. “See look, Frank Bartle. Born 1853 and died 1938.”
We all looked in Tyler’s direction and saw exactly what he saw. The name was right there, printed on the door of the cabinet in large golden letters.
“Do you see an inscription?” I asked.
“Its small. Daryl, shine the light right here. It says ‘The end of an adventure is never more important than how you get there.’”
“Deep stuff. Alright got it memorized? Now let’s get out of here.” Daryl flicked off his lighter and walked towards the doorway. “There’s nobody out here. Let’s go.”
We ran for it. We didn’t care how loud we were or who’s graves we were stomping all over. We made it back to the cement wall in no time, and we all hopped over onto the sidewalk below. Good thing it was in the middle of the night because we didn’t even look both ways when crossing the street to get to the parking lot where our car was parked. We all took a second to catch our breath inside the car before we all started smiling and poking fun at each other.
“Tyler you act just like a girl.”
“Pshh whatever. Least I didn’t throw up on the pres.”
“Hey don’t start that again.”
Daryl smiled one last time and began driving towards school.
“Y’all ain’t down to party tonight though.”

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1st draft. Not all too good in my opinion but this was the easiest story ever for me to write. To be honest, I got tired of writing those stories with meaning behind every word and I just wanted to have a little fun so this is what arose. Hope you enjoy and any constructive criticism is appreciated.