It's a little shop. It sits down a shadowed, winding side street and people don't really notice it when they pass. The lights are almost always off.

You enter it on the way home from work one day and as soon as you step over the threshold a feeling you can't quite describe washes over you, like walking through the door is a trap. You shake your head, almost laughing at yourself. The air is icy and stale and damp. The products are old and... indescribable: trinkets and small wooden carvings, notebooks, keys, mirrors; they would all be considered antiques anywhere else, but here they rot and they whither.

You do not notice the man at the till, if man is the right word at all. It's trying so hard to be human, it copies the gestures but they appear clunky and delayed. Eventually, when you are about to leave he speaks in a voice that isn't, see anything you like?

You turn around, jumping slightly at the noise. Unsure if he was always there or if he simply appeared from the shadows.

You shake your head, mouth dry and fear beginning to grow in your stomach. He smiles like he expected nothing else, and gestures for you to come closer. You approach, wondering why every cell in your body is screaming at you to run.

Slowly, from under the till he pulls out a doll and places it gently on the counter, how about this? The doll is perfect, small and beautiful, nothing like the other items left to decay. You swear its eyes are almost... alive.

Shadows begin, slowly, to reach out from the walls, from the corners of shelves, out from under the tables. They have thin, sharp fingers that move in jolts stopping and starting, always coming closer, closer.

You don't notice. Your eyes are still on the little doll. A small step forwards, you’re almost touching the fabric of its dress. The shopkeeper smiles his not-quite-smile and waits, patiently, for you to speak.

“I want to--” you don't know what stops you from finishing the sentence. The air is tight around your throat and the longer you stand there the more you feel like... like prey. But the doll is so beautiful, you want it. You need it. The man’s smile widens, yes?

And then you realise.

His mouth doesn't open when he speaks.

You stumble back, breath coming in sharp, painful gasps, “I’m sorry… I - I have to go”

His smile barely falters.

It's all you can do to stop yourself from running as you leave. You hear as the door swings shut behind you,

Come back soon.

It was dark and foggy as Alice Milla left Angie's place to walk home with a near empty wine bottle. It was late at night, aound midnight, when she walked out the door. The drinks she just had, only four glasses of white wine, made her a bit tipsy and Angie made her promise that she would not drive, but just walk home. It was just a short seven minute walk after all, if she cut through the cemetery. So she promised and left with Angie passed out on the couch. Alice would have stayed if it was the weekend, but she had to work tomorrow, and getting ready for work, which started at 9:30 am that next morning, was bad enough with a hangover. So she decided to walk home. She did not have to drive, since the elementary school she taught at was also next door.

"Oh, don't worry Angie," Alice slurred to herself as she walked on the wet grass of the cemetery. "You deserved better than him, he had bad breath, and, and stuff." Angie had just broken up with her boyfriend, he techniccally did the breaking, and this breakup was the reason for all the drinking. Alice started reading the headstones as she walked by them. John S. Deer, April 1845- March 15th 1890. Mary L. Deer, January 14th 1846-December 12th 1893. Mary A. Deer, April 19th 1860- June 11th 1900. Michael Y. Deer, November 17th 1861-August 24th 1916. Each of these headstones were the standing up kinds; their shape and the fog made them look like short people watching her as she walked by them. Lucy M. Deer, October 12th 1900- October 13th 1900. Alice looked again. This was a shorter headstone next to Michael's headstone, unlike the others that listed long bible verses, this one had only a small line.

"May my sweet little angel rest in peace knowing how much she was loved by all. She was taken from us all too soon," Alice read aloud, slightly sluring the words. "Oh, oh how sad" Alice sat down in front of Lucy's head stone and cried, she couldn't help it.

The cold woke Alice up, shivering she rubbed her legs and arms after getting up. She been using the headstone, Lucy's headstone, as a pillow. "Sorry," she muttered as she started to get up. Due to the cold, and how much she had had to drink, she needed to hold onto Michael's headstone to stay standing, her legs were quivering. She looked around, trying to get her bearings. Next to where she had been sleeping, lay her wine bottle. Alice leaned over, still holding onto Michael's to steady herself, and picked it up. She quicky took the plastic cork off, tossing it carelessly behind her. "Rest in Peace Lucy," she said before draining the rest of the bottle. She had only finished it for a moment before she puked it all back up, including the 4 cups of wine she had back at Angie's and the cheese and crackers that she had with those cups. The puke went all over Lucy's headstone, and on the ground directly in front of it. Alice finished a few dry heaves before walking off, saying a quick apology as she headed home with the empty bottle in hand.

She had gone walked past a few more headstones when she heared it. Rustling, like something small digging out of the ground, was coming from behind her. Leaning on another headstone, Alice turned to look behind her, but the fog covered everything. She could not see more than a few feet in front of her. Still, she could hear the rustling. Straining her eyes for any movement, Alice held up the glass bottle to use as a weapon. "Whose there!"

Besides the continued sound of digging, there was not reply. Alice started walking again, backwards so that she was facing the sound.

Alice passed a few more graves, seven of them, before the sound stopped. Alice stopped walking and turned gripping the bottle with both hands. Her heart pounding in her chest.

For a moment, there was peace and then a baby screamed. It was a scream of such agony, and angry that it made Alice jump. Deciding that she did not want to be anywhere near this baby, Alice quickly turned back around and started to run. However, she had only gone a few steps before her feet slipped on the wet grass and she fell. Her head hit a headstone, and she blacked out.

Alice woke up too dazed to move. Her head was thumping from the hit, but she also had pain from her stomach. She had shattered the wine bottle as she fell on top of it. The glass cutting into her chest and stomach. The fall also made her vomit again, and her head was in a pool of it. Groaning she turned her head, looking back. There was movement behind her. The fog made it hard to see anything, but there was something small and dark crawling towards her. It was whimpering. Alice started to scream.

Alice did not make it to her 9:30 am class the next day.