Free Southern Fried Rat and Other Gruesome Tales by Daniel Cohen Page B

twelve, Charity Hawthorne's bony hand will reach up from out of the grave, grab you, and pull you under."
    Pete said those last words with such conviction that Joe shuddered slightly. But he was committed, trapped, by his own bragging.
    "Piece of cake," he repeated, but with somewhat less assurance than before.
    "You can do it tonight," said Pete. "We'll all go to the graveyard with you. But we'll only go up to the fence. You'll have to go in by yourself. Maybe we don't believe in ghosts either, but we don't like to take chances." The others in the group nodded in agreement.

    Joe really didn't believe in ghosts. And he was no coward. On the other hand, he was not nearly as brave as he pretended he was. Like most of us, he was afraid of ghosts, even if he didn't believe in them. The idea of going into a graveyard at midnight, kneeling down, and plunging a knife into a grave made him more than a little nervous. Just to make things worse, it started to rain. Joe hoped the others would call off the expedition. Of course they didn't, and at eleven thirty they were all at his front door waiting for him. Joe put on his rain sticker and went out.
    "We had better hurry," said Pete. "If we get there after midnight, Charity will be able to get her hand out of the grave."
    At the entrance to the graveyard the others stopped. "You'll need this," said Pete, handing Joe a flashlight and a large, old-fashioned dagger. "Now, don't waste any time. If you get there late it might be dangerous. We wouldn't want to be responsible in case anything happened to you."
    In the dark and rain it was harder for Joe to find the grave of Charity Hawthorne than he had expected. And by the time he spotted the one grave that was set apart from the others he could already hear the church clock striking midnight. He rushed to the grave, fell to his knees, and plunged the dagger into the wet earth just as the final stroke of midnight died away.
    Thank God I was in time, he thought. Now I had better get out of here.
    He tried to rise but found that something was pulling at him, holding him on the grave. It's the hand of Charity Hawthorne! he thought with horror.
    Outside the graveyard, Pete and the others were having a good laugh.
    Of course, there had never been a ghost, or a Charity Hawthorne. Pete had just made the story up because he was sick of all of Joe's bragging. When Joe returned and they told him about the joke, everyone would have a good laugh.
    But Joe didn't return, and after about half an hour they began to wonder what had happened. So they went into the graveyard to look for Joe. He was still there, right on top of the grave where he had knelt. He was dead. In his haste. Joe had plunged the dagger right through the bottom of his rain slicker, so when he tried to get up, it seemed as if someone were pulling him back down to the ground.
    Poor Joe had died of fright.

The Dinosaur in the Swamp
    Johnny lived in a little town in the South. He was like most of the other kids in the town except that he was known to have an exceptionally active imagination. He would wander off for hours, and then he would come back with the most amazing stories about having been kidnapped by gypsies or meeting a flying saucer or something wild like that.
    Johnny's mother wasn't terribly surprised when one evening Johnny rushed into the house shouting, "Mommy, Mommy, I saw a dinosaur in the swamp!"
    "That's nice," said his mother. "But I hope you didn't play with it. Dr. Brown says that dinosaurs have germs."
    Johnny was rather disappointed at the cool reaction, because this time he wasn't making up a story. He really had seen a dinosaur in the swamp.
    Johnny tried to tell other people in the town. The reaction was just about the same. Some said, "You should stop telling big lies like that." Or, "Sure, sure you did." Others just snickered and walked away. Now, Johnny was more than disappointed, he was humiliated and angry. He decided that he was going to show everybody in