Free Comes the Blind Fury by John Saul

Sally repeated. “What’s that?”
    “I want to go to school there,” Jeff said placidly. “At the Institute of Oceanography.”
    “How boring,” Sally said airily. “And it probably isn’t any different from the Point. I can hardly wait to get out of here.”
    “You probably won’t,” Jeff teased. “You’ll probably die here, like everybody else.”
    “No, I won’t,” Sally insisted. “You just wait. You’ll see.”
    The three of them were walking along the bluff. As they drew near the Bensons’, Michelle asked Jeff if he wanted to come home with her.
    Jeff glanced at his house and saw his mother standing at the door, watching him. Then he shifted his gaze, passing over the old cemetery, and coming to rest on the roof of the Pendleton house, just visible beyond the trees. He remembered everything his mother had ever told him about the cemetery and that house. “I don’t think so,” he decided. “I promised Mom I’d mow the lawn this afternoon.”
    “Oh, come on,” Michelle urged him. “You never come over to my house.”
    “I will,” Jeff said. “But not today. I—I just don’t have time.”
    A glint of mischief came into Sally’s eyes. She nudged Michelle with her elbow.
    “What’s wrong?” she asked, her voice carefully innocent. “Are you afraid of the cemetery?”
    “No, I’m not afraid of the cemetery,” Jeff snapped. By now they were in front of his house, and he was about to start up the driveway. Sally stopped him with her next words, though she directed them to Michelle.
    “There’s supposed to be a ghost in the cemetery. Jeff’s probably afraid of it.”
    “A ghost? I never heard that,” Michelle said.
    “It isn’t true, anyway,” Jeff told her. “I’ve lived here all my life, and if there was a ghost, I would have seen it. And I haven’t, so there isn’t any ghost.”
    “You saying so doesn’t make it so,” Sally argued.
    “And you saying there is a ghost doesn’t make it so, either,” Jeff shot back. “See you tomorrow.” He turned and started up the driveway, then waved back at Michelle when she called a good-bye to him. As he disappeared into his house, the two girls continued their walk, leaving the road at Sally’s urging, to follow the path along the edge of the bluff. Suddenly Sally stopped, grabbed Michelle with one arm, while she pointed with the other.
    “There’s the graveyard! Let’s go in!”
    Michelle looked over at the tiny cemetery choked with weeds. Until today, she had only glanced at it from the car.
    “I don’t know,” she said, peering uneasily at the overgrown graves.
    “Oh, come on,” Sally urged. “Let’s go in.” She started toward a place where the low picket fence surrounding the cemetery had collapsed to the ground.
    Michelle started to follow her, then stopped. “Maybe we shouldn’t.”
    “Why not? Maybe we’ll see the ghost!”
    “There’s no such thing as ghosts,” Michelle said. “But it just seems like we ought to leave it alone. Who’s buried there, anyway?”
    “Lots of people. Mostly Uncle Joe’s family. All the Carsons are buried out here. Except the last ones—they’re buried in town. Come on—the gravestones are neat.”
    “Not now.” Michelle cast around in her mind for some way to distract Sally. She wasn’t sure why, but the graveyard frightened her. “I’m hungry. Let’s go to my house and get something to eat. Then maybe later we can come back here.”
    Sally seemed reluctant to give up the expedition, but at Michelle’s insistence, she gave in. The two girls continued along the path for a while, in an uneasy silence that Michelle finally broke.
    “Is there really supposed to be a ghost?”
    “I’m not sure,” Sally replied. “Some people say there is, and some people say there isn’t.”
    “Who’s the ghost supposed to be?”
    “A girl who lived here a long time ago.”
    “What happened to her? Why is she still here?”
    “I don’t know. I don’t think anybody