Cara slammed the door of the car and buckled her belt. "I can't believe I let you talk me into this," she said, looking at Jeff with a peevish expression.

"Come on, darlin'," Jeff said, taking his hand from the wheel and squeezing Cara's hand. "It's all in the name of science, all in the name of research."

"So was the so-called gas pill. Jeff, this is absolutely nuts! Do you realize what we could be doing? We could be sitting at home, eating a nice dinner and watching a movie on TV. But instead you insist on driving off somewhere, and for what? For some stupid idea that will probably get us nothing for our time."

Jeff started the car and backed out of the driveway. He steered around a large puddle of standing water in the road. "Cara, you didn't have to come along, you know. I told you to stay home, as a matter of fact. You didn't listen, so as far as I'm concerned, you have no right to complain." He said this gently, without antagonism, just a gentle reminder of the way things were. Cara quieted. "I had to come along; somebody has to make sure you don't do something stupid. Hey, were exactly are we going to do this ghost watching?"

"We're not "watching," we're listening," he tapped the tape recorder between them on the seat. "Electronic voice phenomenon. We're going to see what we can hear. But if we should see a ghost, so much the better."

Cara shook her head and patted him indulgently on the thigh. "Whatever you say, Great One. I'm just the little wife, right?"

"Oh, Cara, please," Jeff said, checking for traffic at the intersection of Miles and 6th. "Your position could be worse."

They drove through the darkening streets of Oaksville, only passing two or three cars hurrying home for dinner. Clouds were gathering in the sky, and low ominous rumbles of thunder echoed off the building walls, like the growls of some discontented beast who was being shaken awake from a long sleep. A few drops of cold rain spattered the windshield. Great, Jeff thought. I'm going to spend the night in the rain. Wonderful.

Finally, they left the city behind and turned off onto a dimly lit country road. "Where the hell are we going?" Cara asked, looking over at the looming trees at the side of the road.

"There it is, right there, Mountain View Cemetery," Jeff said, pointing to a sign barely visible amidst a clump of ivy.

"You mean that we're going to spend a night in a cemetery? Just to record a tape?" Cara asked indignantly.

"That's right," Jeff said, grinning happily. "I finally managed to get the night off, and this is what I'm going to do -- ghost-taping!"

"Hardly my idea of a good night off," Cara muttered. Jeff and Cara, married for two years, worked at a manufacturing plant that made computer chips. Cara worked in water treatment, while Jeff worked on the wafers. They both worked graveyard shift, and they had spent many happy nights on break in the lounge, talking of life and the ways of the world. Finally, on their off days, they began meeting, and two years ago they were married. They both hoped to be able to quit the long 12-hour graveyard shifts and move onto something more lucrative and fulfilling, but it hadn't happened yet. Despite the common public misconception, jobs in the computer industry were coveted and extremely hard to come by. So, at least for the foreseeable future, they were stuck right where they were.

Now, Jeff parked the car in a stand of alders and began setting up his equipment. He'd brought along a quarter-speed tape recorder from a company in California, one which could fit up to four hours on a single side of a 110 minute tape. With it, he hoped to be able to record voices of the dead, voices the human ear was otherwise unable to detect. He'd first heard about electronic voice phenomenon, or EVP, on a late-night radio show, and was instantly taken with the idea, much to the consternation of his wife Cara. "Jeff, it's just a bunch of people filling up empty time slots on the radio," she would say, rolling her eyes as she looked over his shoulder at the internet site or publication he happened to be perusing at the time. "You don't really expect to find anything, do you?"

"It's the joy of exploring the unknown, Cara. Stop being so closed-minded," he would reply absently. "You're taking the flat earth point of view."

"Well, Jeffy, here's something that's not unknown--your little hobby has eaten up five-hundred dollars already. If you don't stop, we're going to starve to death and end up with those spirits you keep going on about."

So now here they were, two months and about a thousand dollars later, in Mountain View Cemetery. Jeff had decided upon the night in the cemetery idea a week ago, after purchasing the tape recorder and a few tapes. He hadn't told Cara about it until just now. When he'd said he was going out, she'd instantly informed him that she was going along, citing that they didn't get to spend nearly enough time together due to their work hours. And now, here they were.

"This is sort of eerie," Cara said, glancing about at the silent cemetery. In the fading evening light, the grove of alders they stood in seemed to loom over the narrow footpath, their branches looking like skeletal fingers stretching out to seize unwary travelers. "Jeff, are you sure this is a good idea? I mean, there's nobody here but us."

"What's the matter, Cara? Getting scared?" Jeff said, slinging the tape recorder by its strap as he set off for the main body of the cemetery. "You can take the car and come and get me in the morning if you wish," he added, offering her one more chance to back out.

"Don't be an idiot," Cara said, hurrying to catch up. "I was just making a passing comment."

Suddenly, Cara shrieked. "Jeff, look! Oh Jesus, look!"

Jeff spun. "What is it, Cara, he said rushing back to her. "What's the matter?"

"It was watching me! Cara was gazing with wide eyes at the bushes adjacent to the path they stood on. "There were yellow eyes in the darkness, big yellow eyes watching me! Oh, god, I--"

Jeff peered around at the shadows, but he didn't see anything. "Cara, calm down! he soothed, putting his arms around her. "Cara, Cara, where did you see these eyes?"

And then Jeff saw them. And realized what they were. "Baby, they're only the reflections of the street lamps off the trees. Do you hear me? Street lamps."

Cara settled down, wiping her nose on her sleeve and sniffling. "Oh god, Jeff, I'm sorry. It's just the atmosphere, the -- whaddya call it -- ambience of this place. I guess it set my nerves on edge."

"Don't worry about it, darling. Cemeteries do that to you. God, you nearly scared me out of 30 years' growth."

Cara took his hand, squeezing it apologetically as they began walking down the path between the tombstones. "where exactly are we going?"

Jeff glanced around at the tombstones, which leaned drunkenly at odd angles like old teeth jutting out of dirty gums. "I don't suppose it really matters one way or the other. How about right here?" And he settled onto a tombstone and turned on the tape recorder.

"Ok, this is Jeff Loker, in the Mountain View Cemetery. It's December 22nd, and the time is--" he checked his watch "--about 8:00 PM. What we're going to do here is attempt to receive signals from the other side, from the dead. If you can hear me, please tell me. We may not be able to hear you with our ears, but the tape here can pick you up. I'm going to set the tape recorder on the ground and let it run. Just say anything you want."

Jeff did just that, setting the machine next to the tombstone and rising. "Well, I guess we'll see what-- Cara! Hey Cara!" But of Cara Loker, there was no sign.

"Cara, where are you?" Jeff shouted desperately.

"Over here, stupid, make like a lamp and lighten up. I'm just checking out some of these tombstones while you do you're thing."

"Goddammit Cara, you keep scaring the hell out of me. Come over here. It's getting dark and I don't want to lose you out here."

"Fine, all right, whatever you say, great--"

She stopped. "Cara, what is it?" Jeff was beginning to feel a definite sense of unease. Stop it, he told himself. This is real life, not a horror movie, and no ghouls are going to pop up out of the ground at your feet. Still, he checked over his shoulder, and nearly screamed aloud before he realized what he was seeing was a gnarled tree.

"Jeff, came Cara's voice out of the darkness, C-come over h-here. Now."

His sense of unease building, Jeff started toward Cara. He cried out as his foot snared in an upthrusted tree root and he toppled to the ground. For one wild second he thought of hands reaching out of the ground, hands with no flesh on them and dirt in the joints. Then he came to his senses and, cursing the groundskeepers and wiping dirt off his face, Jeff picked himself up and headed for Cara again.

She was squatting down before a pair of tombstones, gazing at them with a fixed expression of horror, her mouth locked in a silent scream. "Babe, what's the problem--"

And then Jeff glanced at the tombstones. In the fading light, he could just make out their inscriptions:

In memory of Jeffrey M. Loker, 5-19-1972--12-22-2001

In memory of Cara L. Shipton, 6-22-1972-12-22-2001

"Jeff, that's us," Cara said weakly. "Those are our exact birthdates. And December 22nd--my god, that's today!" Jeff, what the hell is happening here?" her voice was rising hysterically. "What have you gotten us into?"

Before Jeff could answer, a high cackling laugh echoed out of the darkness, followed by a hideous animal grunt. Both of them screamed in unison and spun around to see what had made such an awful noise.

There was nothing. Absolute silence reigned once more.

They drew together and put their arms around one another. "What the hell was that?" Jeff said in a plaintive little voice. This was a very bad idea, he thought hysterically.

Cara started to say something, but before she could get a word out, a rock came flying out of nowhere and flew a scant inch past her face, followed again by that high laugh, this time from a different direction.

They whirled, but no one was in sight. "Who the hell is here," Jeff shouted into the darkness. The last of the daylight had faded out, and the Mountain View Cemetery was shrouded in total darkness, the stars being obscured by clouds. But out of the darkness came the most blood-curdling shriek either of them had ever heard. It rose and rose, and then changed into that high shrieky laugh. And in that laugh was total insanity and blood lust. It conjured up images, unbidden, of massacres and maniacs who put their mother's heads into the collection plates.

"Who is here," Cara shouted, clinging to Jeff's arm. "Where are you," she shouted again, as another rock flew at them, catching her ear a glancing blow. Blood dripped down her face and caught in a curl of her hair, hanging like a demented dewdrop.

"I don't know who's doing this, but I'm going to find out," Jeff said, pulling from a deep reserve of inner strength and starting off into the darkness, extracting a flashlight from his jacket pocket. "Probably some stupid kids."

"No, no, don't leave me all alone out here," Cara said, running to catch up with him and seizing his hand. "Why can't we go home? I' can't stand--"

But she was interrupted by a rock flying at them. Before she could duck, the rock smashed directly into her forehead. Without a sound, she crumpled to the dirt and lay still. And once more, that hellish, inhuman laugh echoed off the tombstones and filled Jeff's head with murderous images. And Jeff was horrified to note that it was much, much closer than it had been before.

"What the hell is happening? Where are you?" And then Jeffrey M. Loker began to scream. For right in front of him, and to the accompaniment of that demonic laugh, Cara, his beloved Cara, was being torn apart. Animalistic grunts and groans came from all sides, and horrible ripping and chewing noises issued from where Cara lay. But what undid Jeff was the fact that the creatures, whatever they were, were totally invisible. His wife was being torn apart by invisible entities.

As he watched, still shrieking, Cara disappeared, until there was only a red spot on the ground. The sight of that final cataclysmic red spot where his wife had lain seconds before broke his paralysis, and with a shriek, Jeff turned and rushed off, dodging among the tombstones, attempting to escape the monsters, what ever they were. His breath came in short sharp gasps. Incoherent thoughts flitted through his head, but central among them was the need to get away from whatever hideous hell creatures he'd invited.

He ran, the shrieks and growls getting closer all the time. A painful stitch gripped the muscles in his side, causing him to run slightly bent. And it was that stitch which was the death of Jeff Loker. For in that bent position he didn't see the rock hurling out of the darkness ahead of him. It smashed into his head, not hard enough to knock him unconscious, but hard enough to knock him off his feet. And then the creatures were on him.

His screams were cut off as a snarling mouth chewed off half his face. His last thought was, Oh my god, they are human! They are hu--

And during this murderous scourge, the tape rolled on. Rolled on. And on..

"All right, Billy, let's unload this ol' lawnmower. Gotta do the city's work, you know," Johnny Champ said, opening the passenger door of the city truck. "Don't think we've done Mountain View for--" he counted on his fingers --"four weeks yet."

"Yup, that's about right," Billy Prisco agreed opening his door and getting out. "Hey, who's car is that, do you suppose?"

Johnny spat some throat juice and came around the truck to see. "Dunno, but I like that bumper sticker." It was a picture of an ashtray made to look like a toilet. "Park your butt," was written beneath the picture in bright red letters.

"That's funny," Billy said, lowering the tailgate of the big truck. "Ain't never seen a car in this cemetery before."

"Y'know, neither have I. Wonder why that is."

Billy stopped and turned. "You mean you don't know?

Johnny pulled on his work gloves. "Know what"