It was a late summer night, definitely past curfew, and I was hiding behind a large, twisted tree next to a dilapidated tombstone. I was about fifteen at the time and still relatively afraid of the dark, but I didn’t want to show any fear around my older brothers’ friends. You see, we were all playing ‘Ghost in the Graveyard’. If you’ve never played this creepy children’s game, it’s basically like hide and go seek tag in the dark. Usually contestants play it in their own backyard, but we decided to spice it up a bit and head to an actual graveyard. This graveyard was about two miles from our house and posed as the perfect venue for our activities.
This time, Kent was the “ghost”. His job was to find us and stop us from reaching the base, which in this case, was the gate to the graveyard. Kent was a character. He was the MVP of his soccer team, voted most-likely to succeed, about to graduate with honors, but man, was he a pig. I loved him, but he was a total pig and everyone who knew him wouldn’t disagree. He really just had no filter and had developed a strong reputation throughout the years for speaking out-of-turn a little too often.
“Gotcha!” My heart dropped as Kent grabbed my arm and pulled me to the ground. He found me. I was bummed.
“Am I your first victim?” I whined. “I thought this was a good spot, too!”
“Nice try, Grace… just kidding! That sucked! Worst spot ever!” He laughed, loudly.
I was annoyed, but I could hear his friends snickering in the distance in their own shitty hiding spots. I giggled as he took off.
“1, 2, Kent is coming for you…” He terrorized in a melodic tone.
Just then, I heard someone scream hysterically, but it was followed by a bunch of laughter. Kent was chasing after this goth girl that had come along. She clearly didn’t fit into the group, as most of Kent’s friends were total jocks, but this was his best friend’s new girlfriend. Her name was Samara. I heard that she used to practice witchcraft at lunch and do tarot readings for her friends during assemblies. As weird as that all was though, she seemed fairly sweet and happened to be the only one that actually acknowledged me when we arrived earlier that night. I had nothing bad to say about her.
Finally, Kent tagged her, but not before yelling something so unnecessary that even my eyes widened.
“Promise not to perform a hex on me?” He chortled and then smacked her back, attempting to tag her, but actually just forcing her off balance. She hit the ground and looked up at him.
“You better watch your tongue.” She snapped.
“Okay, okay that’s enough.” Samara’s boyfriend came out of his hiding place and helped her up.
“What? It was a joke.” He reassured, but you could tell he was still laughing.
“Alright, fun’s over.” His other friend stepped out from behind a rose bush and grabbed a blue backpack from the grass. “Let’s go. It’s getting late anyway.”
I knew this was going to happen. He always pushed the envelope a little too far. With everything.
“Where’s my flippin’ soccer ball?” Kent asked. “I had it earlier.”
“Dude, I’m sorry, but I got to go. I can help you look for your ball tomorrow, but it’s too dark and there’s like no moon tonight.” His friend apologized.
“Just go. I’ll make Grace look with me.” He pinched my arm, playfully.
His friends hopped on their bikes and began peddling down a shortcut through the woods. About ten minutes went by. I was pretty tired at this point and really didn’t feel like looking for my stupid brother’s soccer ball anymore, but it was his prized possession and there was no way he was leaving without it. I certainly couldn’t leave without him. I was just an innocent young girl and we lived in an area in the country with lots of crime. It was also extraordinarily dark and we were still about two miles from home. Literally the only amenities in the immediate area were a church, a graveyard, and a desolate cornfield.
“I’ll start scrounging through this ditch. I can barely see, but it’s worth a shot!” He yelled. “You just wait right there.”
He could tell I was becoming antsy as I glanced back at the long, quiet road in anticipation of our future-trek. I could see porch lights to houses all the way at the end, but just barely. The rest of the road was absolutely barren. I felt shivers go down my spine as a gust of wind blew in. It smelled… sweet. Strangely sweet.
Then it began. It started off very, very quiet.
“I think I found it!” He yelled. “Never mind, it’s a weird decorative bowling ball. Who decorates a tombstone with a bowling ball?” He snarked.
“Hey, Kent. You hear that?” I yelled over the trench-like ditch.
His head popped out.
“What?” He shouted back, annoyed. You could tell he thought he was on the right track to finding that dumb soccer ball.
“What? What?” He started gesturing with his hand for me to explain my disruption. Then, as if something had snapped in his spine, his gait straightened entirely. His posture was immaculate, his eyes dilated to the size of his irises, and he turned his head to face the sound he so obviously heard now.
It was the sound of a very eerie, slow ice cream truck. It was tinkering its way down the asphalt directly towards us. Something felt very off. Why was there an ice cream truck out this late? Why was it driving this slowly past a graveyard? More importantly though, why was my brother walking towards it?
This ice cream truck did not seem friendly, yet he seemed drawn to it like a moth to a flame. The music emitting from this vehicle sounded like the melody of an ice cream truck, but it also sounded as if it were coming through distorted speakers. It appeared to be disguised in bright colorful lights to cover up its rusted, worn exterior. Had this vehicle just been rescued from a junkyard?
“Kent! Stop! What are you doing?!” I begged, pulling on his sleeve, but he just ignored my pleading and kept on his merry way.
The ice cream truck finally came to a slow screeching halt directly in front of the graveyard gate. I stood back a good distance and observed as my brother swooned at a beautiful young woman in the driver’s seat.
“Hello,” she began, “Would you like to try one of our new flavors?”
I felt very uneasy now. This was not normal. Anyone in their right mind would be questioning the intentions of this late-night ice cream truck driver, but not Kent. He was at that age though, you know, where his eyes were constantly glued on female counterparts.
“Yes, please.” He said, elated.
I rolled my eyes.
She turned around and began scooping something from a large tub, then finishing up, she handed him a tall cranberry red ice cream cone.
“This one’s my favorite.” She smiled. “And for you?” She fixated her eyes on me. It felt like she was looking into my soul, like she could hear my thoughts. Her eyes looked completely black, like there were no whites to her eyes. I wondered if Kent noticed this as well.
I stammered, “Uh, I’m good, thanks!”
She backed away from the window of her truck and my brother yelled, “How much do I owe you?”
“That one’s on the house.” She smirked and put the truck in gear. She hit a button by the steering wheel and the music began playing very eerily again. She smiled and waved as she pulled away, but I noticed something strange in her smile. Her teeth almost appeared to be a golden brown, like little roasted mini-marshmallows. I quickly shook off the discomfort and turned to my brother.
“Well, you don’t have your soccer ball, but you do have some weird random ice cream.” I patted his back as he went in for his first lick.
His tongue scraped up against the scoop of red ice cream, his eyes rolled back in his head, and immediately, he began screaming. I didn’t know what was going on.
“What? What?! Are you okay?!” I stammered, grabbing onto his arm.
The ice cream seemed as if it had been sewn to his tongue. He began pulling the ice cream off of his tongue, gripping the cone tight, but it just wouldn’t budge. At this point, I began panicking too. I glanced down the road in the distance and found that the creepy ice cream truck from moments before had somehow completely disappeared. It wasn’t driving fast and the road was a straight-away, so it was quite odd we couldn’t even see it in the distance anymore.
“Just relax. Everything’s going to be okay.” I reassured him. Then he looked at me with tears in his eyes and almost impulsively proceeded to rip the ice cream out of his mouth. Unfortunately, this plan didn’t seem to be optimal, as with it came the whole top half of his tongue.
“No!” I yelled, but it was too late. He had succeeded in removing the ice cream from his tongue, but blood was now dripping from his mouth. You could see the inside of his tongue stuck to this ball of red goo and could barely make out where the ice cream started and his tongue ended. I took a step back in shock. At this point, Kent’s whole body went limp as he hit the grass. I tried to catch him, shaking in fear, but he was a very big guy.
Questions and fears began filling my mind. Where did that truck driver go? Who was she and what did she feed my brother? Why was she out this late?
I got down in the grass and began vigorously rubbing Kent’s shoulders.
“Wake up! Kent, please! I need you right now! Please be okay!” I begged, hysterically.
I didn’t give up though. Mustering the energy to pull his torso upright, I began patting his back, incessantly. I felt the blood from his lips dripping onto my collar bone as I was holding him, but I could barely see anything through my tears. Glancing around, I noticed the suspiciously red ice cream cone, but it was now melted all over the dirt path.
“It’s going to be okay,” I mumbled through my weeps, “just relax.” Honestly, at this point, I think I was actually just trying to calm myself down.
Finally, after about five minutes of sincerely devastating pleading, he came to. I was really losing hope there to be honest and was so relieved, I didn’t even know what to do with myself. He looked up at me and tried to say something, then realized his tongue was still partially gone and almost passed out again. I had to talk him through this moment. You could tell he wanted to sob, but it hurt too badly.
“Come on. Let’s go.” I helped him up, but he kept his head down. Not only do I believe he was absolutely sickened by the hanging flesh in his mouth, but he also seemed emotionally defeated.
We started our way down that long, black road to home. The porch lights in the distance were still bright with tiny lights. I could hear Kent whimpering between each step, but I desperately wanted to get home. It still felt unsafe, like something bizarre was out, waiting for us, watching for us.
Just as we were passing the church, I began to hear the faint ringing of ice cream truck music again. My heart sank into my throat. We were still about a mile away from home. I swallowed deeply and looked at Kent. He looked at me and, in unison, we grabbed each other’s hands and began sprinting down the road with no words exchanged. Bugs were buzzing past my ears as we made our way under a bright street lamp and zipped through a 4-way intersection. I could hear the music following us, but we were both too afraid to look back. We hung a left and were now facing our old, little home.
We barged our way inside, panting and covered in sweat, glanced at the clock, and noticed it was midnight. For some, getting back this late wouldn’t matter too much, but for us, this was bad news bears and we knew it. I turned around and immediately locked the door. Kent peered through the blinds, looked at me, and shook his head, indicating they were gone.
“Who is it?!” My dad bolted in the kitchen with a SPAS-12.
My brother and I were still leaning up against the door, breathing heavily in fear. My dad immediately saw the blood on Kent’s shirt and called our mom in.
“Cheryl! Come look at this!” He yelled, desperately.
My mother came out in a moo-moo with tight hair rollers in.
“Oh my gosh! Honey! What happened?!” She cried in fear.
My brother tried to answer, but half his tongue was still missing and somewhere out on the pavement with that melted ice cream, but how could I tell my mother that? She’d never believe me.
“I- wa- ah-…“ Kent tried muttering the explanation out, but he just couldn’t form the words. He teared up, as trying to pronounce any consonant hurt him.
My mother turned to me at this point and started shaking my shoulders. “What happened to my son?!”
I stopped her and started spilling the beans. I told them everything.
“Who told you to say all this?” My mother started, “I bet it was those bad eggs he’s been hanging out with! Who did this to him?!”
She didn’t believe me.
My dad jumped in, “That sounds like the legend of the Cold Stone Witch.”
My mom was not happy with his ghostly acknowledgments and shouted, “That’s an urban legend! It’s not real!” She finished, “Someone clearly played a prank on my poor baby!”
“Cold Stone Witch? Tell me more!” I shouted.
“Legend has it that the Cold Stone Witch will come out after curfew and lure bad children in to teach them a lesson.” My father replied, “But it’s all just hocus pocus.”
We all jammed in the car and sped to our small town’s E.R. My mom took out a piece of paper and a pen and tried to get my brother to write down what had happened as she obviously didn’t believe me. All he wrote was: ‘She’s telling the truth.’
When we had taken him to the hospital that night, the doctors tried performing surgery on his tongue, but the muscles seemed to have developed atrophy almost immediately upon severance. He was unable to talk for a number of years and was even put through speech therapy to try to recover. I don’t think he ever will though, not fully anyway.
Don’t think he wasn’t affected mentally by all of this either. He was distraught, never the same again. He used to have such a vibrant, carefree personality, but not anymore. He was now very quiet most of the time, even though he had learned to talk again with the limited amount of tongue he had left. He rarely expressed himself and seemed driven to long-term depression.
I’m sharing this experience here in hopes I can prevent this tragedy from happening to anyone else. I am thirty now and have three beautiful children. Some may say I have a chip on my shoulder, but, I do have three simple rules.
I never allow my children to go out past curfew.
They are not allowed to play ‘Ghost in the Graveyard’ anywhere, at any time.
Ice cream trucks are absolutely forbidden, lest they wish to face the wrath of the Cold Stone Witch.