The headmaster's golden peach

”So, you want to join our club?”

The oldest of the four boys surrounding Charlie gave him a scornful look and then took a puff of the cigar in his hands.

”You see, we don't allow cowards in our club. Are you a coward Charlie?”

He blew the smoke right in Charlie´s face and the awful smell made him wrinkle his nose. Charlie was just about to answer no when a cloud covered up the moon, taking away the only light source in the little tree-house, and the instant darkness made him choke on his words. One of the boys lit a match.

”We need to be convinced that you have the courage enough to fit in, and that's why I have a test for you. To join our club you must go to the cemetery, tonight, and bring back the golden peach from the grave of the old headmaster.”

Charlie was confused about the task. Bringing back a peach? How hard could it be? He quickly accepted thinking that soon he as well will be a member of the notorious club, the one every child in school talked about. As Charlie was about to leave the tree-house the oldest of the boys spoke again.

”Oh and if I were you. I would watch my step. You never know what could be laying around.”

He took another puff of the cigar and blew out the smoke with a sneer on his face and the others boys started to laugh spitefully.

The fog and the lack of light made it hard to see more than a few yards ahead and a slight shudder past over him as Charlie opened the gates to the town's cemetery with a creaking sound. He peered at the path in front of him, trying to make out which way to go, and decided to keep walking straight forward. As soon as he started walking Charlie acknowledge that the temperature dropped and after just a few yards he started to shiver with cold and cursed himself for not bringing a jacket.

Trying to remember on which side of the cemetery the headmaster's grave was, Charlie didn't pay attention to the ground below him, and therefore screamed out loud when an old and broken branch touched his left leg. After he had calmed down he laughed at himself for being such a chicken and continued walking along the path. Though he couldn't entirely get rid of the feeling of fear.

The path ended at the town's church and Charlie felt uneasy by how dark the big building appeared in the night. Quickly he turned to his right and started to walk through the gravestones. He couldn't help to give the church one short glimpse over his shoulders, and the sight made his heart skip a beat. The stained glasses with beautiful coloured illustrations of angels were covered with a red substance. At the same time a perceptible smell of iron spread through the air and Charlie started to feel sick. He closed his eyes for some seconds and then opened them again. The red substance was gone and so was the smell. The only thing to be seen was the amazing handwork of the artist who painted the windows. As he continued walking Charlie tried to convince himself that it had only been a trick of his mind, but the nausea wouldn't go away.

The night was strangely quiet and the lack of sounds made Charlie hesitant. Not even the sound of the wind blowing in the trees was heard. But something even more peculiar than the absence of noise was the darkness. He hadn't noticed it before but it had became much more darker than it had been when Charlie first entered the cemetery. Considering he had only been walking for somewhat ten minutes, he felt more and more uncomfortable with this task. Maybe he should just go home and forget about the club? He shook his head in frustration, the words of the boy ringing in his ears.

“Are you a coward Charlie?”

No! He said to himself. I'm not a coward, and it's bloody childish to be afraid of the dark. Determined to prove, not least to himself, that he was a boy with courage Charlie went down the lines of graves and headed to his left. He didn't stop walking until he saw the reason for being there that night. Shining with a bright light, which was hypnotizing for the viewer, the golden peach stately rested on the top of a big and grey gravestone. The perfection of the item made Charlie astonished and he couldn't take his eyes of it. Slowly he went forward, all the time gazing at the peach, without thinking about anything else but that little piece of gold. As he came closer he automatically reached out his right hand, longing for touching its' bright surface and feeling the weight of it in his small hands.

When he was just a few centimetres away from touching it with his fingers Charlie stopped. He took the time to let his eyes study the beauty of the small sculpture, remembering every detail, so that he would never forget the look of it. With a slight trembling hand, Charlie reached out the last bit of the way and let his fingers close around the golden peach.

For some time he just stood there, focusing on the feeling in his hand, and didn't take notice of what was happening around him. Then suddenly, like someone had whispered them, the last words from the boy in the tree-house crossed Charlie's mind.

”Oh and if I were you. I would watch my step. You never know what could be laying around.”

Charlie's eyes dropped from the peach and down to the ground beneath him. He was standing right on top of the grave, but it wasn't dirt or grass underneath his shoes. It was human bones. With a terrified scream Charlie tried to run away but his hand was stuck to the item on top of the gravestone. He started to panic and desperately tried to pull away his hand but it was like trying to rip of a leg using a spoon. A noise of a branch breaking made him freeze in his attempt to free his hand and slowly, with his heart beating faster than ever, Charlie turned around.

The sight that met him leaved him paralysed with horror, his mouth wide open in a silent scream as the creature in front of him slowly came forward. When the hideous being from hell was just a few metres away Charlie's mind came back to him and he once again tried to run away. Suddenly two skeleton hands crawled up from the pile of white bones and effectively held down his feet so that he couldn't move his legs. With his heart filled with fear Charlie started to cry violently as the creature came closer, with pieces of meat and blood dangling from it's human mouth. There were no eyes, only big black holes, and Charlie felt his heart stop when the creature reached out a white and dreadful hand and started to tear his clothes apart. The last thing Charlie saw before he fainted was the word 'Headmaster' written in gold on the ragged and old jacket loosely covering the creature's upper body.

The next morning the church verger was out on his daily round looking after the graveyard. When he reached the old headmaster's grave he sighed with irritation. Once again someone had painted a thin and white line in the stone underneath the engraving, just the same as the other lines next to it. The verger shook his head and continued down the path of graves to do his job.

“Youths” He said to himself. “No respect for the dead.”

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