This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/ritaculous on 2024-10-15 23:11:23+00:00.

This story probably requires some backstory: years ago, back when the town was first founded, one of the buildings, the schoolhouse, actually, collapsed during a town meeting, and killed several people. The town was too new to have a proper graveyard yet, so they buried them in the forest towards the edge of the town, planting a maple tree at each grave. Obviously, that was almost a hundred years ago, but the forest still stands there. The town has kind of developed around it, but no one, not even the big corporations that have moved in, have suggested building there.

It’s something of an open secret. No one in the town really speaks of it, and it’s not in any of the history books. My history teacher told me back in middle school that if the town acknowledges it, then they have to change the zoning and junk. Everyone knows about it though, which leads me to what happened tonight: the first senior guard night.

It’s a tradition dating back to just about the day they rebuilt the school, if the rumors are to be believed. The senior class goes into the woods, starting with the first frost, finds the graves, and stands vigil over them. Tonight’s not exactly a full moon, but the forecast is predicting nonstop rain after tonight.

It was chilly, and the leaves that had fallen were crunching underfoot as we made our way into the woods. Spotting the graves was like second nature to us, who’d grown up in the shadow of the trees. The trick is to spot a maple tree of about the right age, and then check underneath for a divot in the earth. As the bodies decomposed, the earth caved in on them, leaving pockmarks in an otherwise smooth forest.

The town is small now, but it was straight up tiny then, and there are more students than there are graves, meaning some of us have to double up. I’d volunteered to take Jaden, the new kid as it were, with me.

He tromped next to me, all but pouting at being stuck with me. He’d been hoping to have one of the girls take him with her, but no such luck. Tonight was too important for flirting.

I was trying to explain everything to him - the history, the tradition, the rules - but I could tell he wasn’t listening. He kept pulling out his phone, even though we didn’t have service, and then tripping because he wasn’t watching his feet.

I wanted to groan, but I held myself back. I mean, it was annoying, but he had just moved here. The fact that he’d agreed to do it at all was a win.

I spotted the grave ahead in the pale light of my flashlight, and nudged him to get his attention as I stopped in front of my -our - grave for the night. As I shed my backpack, I heard the rest of our classmates getting into position all around us, nothing but the sound of footsteps in the dark.

“Excuse me?” I recognized the voice from a few trees over. “My lighter isn’t working. Can someone help?”

“Give me a moment,” I called back, dropping my backpack and digging through it. My brother had told me to pack multiple ways to start a fire, and I remember being glad I had followed his advice as I pulled out a book of matches from my front pouch.

Next to me, Jaden had shifted uncomfortably, and I had barely looked up as I reassured him. “I’ll be right back. You’ll be fine.”

Bentley was crouched down over her grave, frantically flicking her lighter. She flinched when I came around the corner, but relaxed when she saw it was me.

“I know my lighter was working back at the house, but I can’t get my hands steady enough to light it,” she smiled shakily.

“No worries.” I squatted down next to her. “Where’s your candle?”

“Right here,” she held out a large glass candle with a picture of sheets on line on the front. “My mom packed me like seven extra. She’s worried about me.”

I gave her a tense grin as I struck a match. “My family is the same way. I don’t think any of my candles smell this good though.”

She gave me a small grin in return. “Right, you guys are super traditional. Well, I’m better than Caleb. He brought tea candles.”

“Tea candles?” The flame danced for a moment at the end of the match, before catching the wick alight. “Those aren’t going to last the whole night.”

She clutched her candle in both hands, looking relieved now that it was lit. “He brought like, two whole bags. He’s not too worried.”

I gave her my matchbook as I stood up, telling her that is was a good idea to have another way light her candle, just in case.

“I wish we could have teamed up,” she’d mumbled as I headed back to Jaden.

(That last bit isn’t too important to what happened, I guess, but I am not leaving it out.)

Back by our grave, Jaden wasn’t too happy,and I sighed before going about setting us up, too. According to my watch, we had 18 more minutes before midnight.

The only thing we’d told Jaden to bring besides his coat was a candle, but he told me he hadn’t. “My mom told me I wasn’t allowed to be out here in the woods with a lit candle. She said if it was that important I could play a video of a candle burning on my phone.”

Rolling my eyes, I dug out two beeswax candles from my backpack and passed one to him. He protested, but I promised I wouldn’t tell his mom, and he finally went quiet. I didn’t have a second candle holder, so I instructed him to hold it tilted away, so the dripping wax wouldn’t land on him, and got us both lit.

All around me, little pinpricks of light flares as everyone finished getting ready.

The forest was eerily still as the last few minutes crept by.

I didn’t have to look at my watch to know when midnight hit. A low moaning swept through the grass, and even through my many layers, I felt a chill take hold. Any conversation that had been going on died, and we all braced ourselves for the night to come.

Well, almost all of us. “The heck?” Jaden muttered.

Then the wind started up, rustling through the leaves that hadn’t fallen yet, before building in strength, tearing at our clothes.

Through it all, my candle flame never wavered, pointing straight up.

“Dude,” Jaden was up in my face now, candle dangerously close, “what the hell is going on?”

I shoved him back, harder than I meant to, “I told you! These are graves! Graves outside of a cemetery!”

It was clear that the importance was lost on him.

Just as suddenly as the wind arose, it stopped, and mist began to rise.

“Cemetery, graves, whatever, they’re consecrated,” I started whispering, low and fast. “But they couldn’t do that with this one, because the priest died in the accident too. Which means that these graves are left without any protection.”

Jaden gave me a horrified look. “Protection from what?”

I didn’t have time to answer him as the screaming started. First at one side of the forest, and then the other, until the whole woods was filled with it. It sounded like my classmates, but I knew it wasn’t them. I could still see their lights, shining clearly through the mist, through the trees.

One particularly clear scream sounded just like Bentley, and Jaden jerked away from me, towards her. I tried to grab at him, to keep him from stepping off the grave, but stumbled against him as he stopped abruptly.

The two of us tumbled down, and I saw his candle hit the ground a moment before mine did.

Outside of our hands, they immediately went dark.

The forst froze into painful stillness. The cold that I’d felt creeping up my coat seized me fully, and I could /feel/ someone - something - hovering over Jaden and I.

I knew it was all my fault. I was supposed to protect Jaden, teach him about tonight, but instead I was the very one to shove us into danger.

I hunched over him as best I could, even as I felt claws of pure ice slide straight through my coat, to my skin.

“I! I am the gaurdian of the lost graves!”

Bentley’s voice, thin and shaky, rose up through the night. “And so long as my fire burns, you will not touch the lost souls here!”

The claws hesitated, but didn’t stop, and I shivered uncontrollably. I knew that when they reached ky heart, it would stop.

“I am the gaurdian! Of the lost graves!” This time it was Caleb’s voice, Caleb with his twenty lit tea candles, shouting out into the night.

The claws slipped past a rib, and I shuddered as they began to move /in/ me.

All around us, voices flared up, my classmates shouting to hold back the darkness as well as they could, trying to help me in the only way they could.

It wasn’t enough.

Beneath me, Jaden moved, and I pulled back. If this thing got through me, he was next. He needed to get away. Maybe he could make it to the safety of Bentley’s candle before I died.

Jaden was fumbling, and it wasn’t until he grabbed my hand, wrapping it in his own that I realized what he was doing. The candle, he’d gotten his candle back, and now it was clasped between our hands

I was shaking so hard, I could barely control my movements, but I reached into my pocket and yanked out the match book I’d used to light our candles earlier. I dropped it, unable to stop the tremors, but Jaden must have felt it fall on him. He let go of my hand, momentarily, and a teardrop of light bloomed suddenly in front of me, almost in my hair.

Like it realized the danger it was in, the creature moved faster, and my breath plumed as I started breathing frost.

The flame danced, but caught the wick at the last moment.

“I -we!” Jaden’s voice trembled, not unlike the candle we clenched in our hands. “We are the gaurdians of-”

It took all my strength of will to breath out the n…

Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1g4l74d/if_you_die_make_sure_you_get_buried_in_a_real/