Jesus christ. Don't let that be what I think it is. What I fear it is. Why, oh why had I ever left the road? How the hell could I have been convinced to walk all the way down here to this?

It hadn't seemed like a good idea when the five of us came out this far out of Castletownbere at all. Especially since it was nearly midnight. On an unlit road. With my pals acting like utter idiots, what with the drink on them and all.

I'm glad I don't drink. Then I wouldn't have such bright ideas as to come down here, to the Glebe graveyard, the oldest and spookiest graveyard of Castletown. The one with the headstones overgrown with weed and letters wiped away from years of frost, wind and rain. Even during the day, it was able to break me out in goosebumps. The way the shadows trailed across the ground gloomily, even on the brightest day of the warmest summer. The way you could actually see – yes, see! - the skull of one unfortunate man (or woman maybe) whose grave soil had caved in from the 150 years of weathering.

No doubt about it. The place gave me the creeps. And it takes a lot for me, the avid Stephen King fan. The one who had an entire collection of the classic horrors on his DVD shelf.
'All that rubbish'll rot your brain away' my Mam always says. Ah, feck'er. She just doesn't understand my nature.

I guess you could say I'm a scaredy-cat at heart, even with my horror/thriller inclination. I'm always the first to watch 'em but I would shit meself if anything out of the norm ever happened. But no one would know. To my friends, Andy Dunne (that's me!) was a rock hard horror fan who could spit silver bullets at werewolves and stake vampires with ease.

Now, shivering with cold (despite it being August) I'm with Tommy, Mark and Jess out in the pitch black wilderness of the countryside. Walking up a rudimentary road to a cemetery which hasn't received new burials in over 100 years. What a way to spend my Friday night. With three people pissed out of their brains and me shivering seemingly from the cold (which was actually a factor) but the real reasons lying elsewhere.

My friend Tommy Sullivan is walking ahead of me, trudging heavily on the gravely path, which is doing nothing for my nerves. Jess is by his side – they're going out – and Mark, who's my best friend, is here by my right hand side. He looks as shit-scared as me, truth be told, but we say nothing, just keep on walking.

Mark's not a drinker either but he knows better, like me. Now, we're coming up to the little turn to the left before the large house which adjoins the Glebe itself. I tell ya, I'm more terrified than I've ever been in my life. Tommy is laughing and jostling Jess and alternatively kissing her and hugging her with his arm around her waist. The other one holds a pint, complete with glass from McCarthy's pub back in town. He's guffawing like he hasn't a care in the world and like he comes up to haunted graveyard daily, or should I say nightly.

Pretty soon we stop and look up to the house, the way people sometimes stop together out of impulse, not out of any command or group decision. The large house beside the graveyard is empty. No cars are in the driveway and the lights are all turned off, save for the porch one. It looks like there hasn't been life inside it for an eternity. The thought that there's no one around for maybe a kilometre or more is racking my nerves. My heart is beating uncontrollably but I know I have to go on, even though I'd run the fastest my legs could carry me if I could get my own way.

Tommy looks to his left, where the ancient tombstones lay and the ruins of a Protestant church lie in tatters. He looks back to us and smiles.
“I heard a story one time lads. Wanna hear?” he boasts loudly.

I would do anything to hightail it out of here without hearing his tale. I always hated spooky tales being told on a dark night and especially those ones that were true or sounded true. They were the worse ones.

“Go on, humour us” says Mark, smirking. I can sense he is just as scared as I am but doing his best to hide it.

“Well, one time my Mam told me there was this guy coming out here late at night like we are now. And he hears this screeeeamin' noise coming from just down the road from where we are. And he runs out of there pissin' himself, like.”

He lolled his head back and roared laughing. Jess just looked at him uncertainly and tightened her grip around him. She's his girlfriend. Hopefully she can do something to get us out of here whilst preserving his dignity.

“Tommy, I don't really like this.” she looked at him pleading. He just leaned in for a kiss. He thinks he's great.Typical him.

Me and Mark stood frozen to the spot though. For in the cemetery itself, we can hear cracking. A crackling noise like a twig breaking. A noise not very quiet and not very far from where we are. We are absolutely shittin' it.

Tommy looks up from kissing Jess, like he's noticed it too.

Suddenly, we hear the ungodliest and most bestial thing. There is a long screeeeeech. It is coming from down the road. It is not human and not animal. It is other-worldy.

Then we see it.

We see what Tommy and Jess can't see. We see what's behind them.

A figure is trudging towards them. It ambles like a drunken paraplegic. It has a face, dear God, the face.

It's not very far from them but we still have the advantage.

We run as fast as we bloody well can out of there. I can feel my head pounding with the blood rush. Mark is beside me too, just as determined.

It's about a quarter of an hour before we make the main road into the town and the Garda vehicle picks us up, paralysed from the exertion and from the fear of what we have seen.

EXCERPT FROM CORK ECHO, AUGUST 11 2008:

Castletownbere – Gardai from Castletownbere and from neighbouring communities such as Bantry are investigating a bizarre discovery-murder in the outlying catchment area. It appears the entire skin of a local teenager, identified as Thomas Sullivan of the town (age 17), was found dangling from the tree of a local disused cemetery. The skeleton of the aforementioned was discovered scattered across the grounds of the Glebe. Gardai are hesitant to release details of their findings, but they speculate a Satan-worshipping cult may be involved, as was the case with skinned animals in other parts of the country. Any witnesses are asked to come forward to Castletownbere or Bantry Garda stations with anything they may have heard or seen from the area on the night of Friday last.

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