Picnic at the cemetery

PICNIC AT THE CEMETERY

Crosses, crosses, crosses, crosses, crosses all around.

No, this is not a room in a mental institution. This is the room of a 19-year-old girl, Katie, a former student at the pedagogical institute. Soon it'll be three years since she left home. She doesn't see anything anymore, she doesn't know or draw, she is afraid to put down her pencil and push away a piece of paper. Afraid because she can remember everything. It's been a long time since then, but when she closes her eyes, Katie sees it again, every last detail, as if it happened yesterday.

In her school years Katie was a reserved and romantic girl, hard to get along with people, but when she entered the institute, she found it surprisingly easy to get along with a group of guys who called themselves goths. Rob, Leisy, and Stan wore black clothes, did specific makeup, loved everything mystical, and, of course, liked to spend time at the cemetery.

Katie didn't really like that kind of time, but Leisy, her only friend, was in love with Rob. She tried to please the goth guy, painted her face, and showed fun around the grave crosses. But she didn't dare go to such picnics without support. So she took a friend with her. Katie enjoyed all these costume outings, and she was happy to help Lacey keep up her stormy romance with Rob. Katie remembers that fateful day well. It was Lazy's birthday and the guys decided to celebrate it in an abandoned cemetery near the dormitory.At first it was business as usual: they drank wine and had fun, talking about how beautiful death was. Katie was against starting fires on graves, but no one listened to her. Everyone but her was excited about the idea and even saw it as a very good sign. Against all logic, the first toast was not to the birthday girl, Lazy, but to death and its eternal search. The guys drank, made fun of the dull classmates, discussed their favorite music and movies. Katie felt good in this company, although she would have preferred to sit with her friends on the couch rather than in the cemetery. Suddenly Stan, who was already drunk, began to hit on Kathy. Although she was attracted to him, she didn't want to start a relationship when she was drunk.

Katie didn't expect such a reaction. Stan wasn't used to being rejected, he just went ballistic. He started breaking crosses and desecrating the graves of the dead. Katie hoped that Rob would calm down his friend who had lost his common sense, but contrary to the girl's expectations, he joined Stan's vile antics. But the worst part was that Lacey was backing them. Katie didn't expect that. She tried to calm the raging company, to explain that they had long since crossed the line, but this only served to inflame her sober friends. Katie couldn't count how many graves they'd desecrated, how many crosses they'd burned, and she couldn't decide what to do.

On the one hand, she wanted to go back to the dormitory, crawl under the covers and forget this evening like a bad dream. On the other hand, she wanted to stop this mess.

She looked at her friends again and realized that they wouldn't listen to her, so she took the keys to her room and went home. But the road, which had seemed so easy and cheerful during the day, now looked very scary. It seemed to Katie that she could feel someone's eyes on her, she could feel someone's presence, and it was so scary that for a moment she thought she was lost. It was pitch black in the cemetery, and there was a grave chill. Katie almost ran. In her fear, she wished only that this terrible evening would end as quickly as possible. Suddenly someone grabbed her arm. The touch almost made her heart stop. A chill ran through her body. Katie felt creepy. The strange man ordered her to go back to her friends and talk them out of the cemetery so as not to disturb the dead. Katie ran back as fast as she could. When she got back to her friends, she honestly tried to calm down their noisy company, to convey the words of the mysterious man. But their fun was in full swing, and no one paid attention to Katie's words. Katie realized that she could not influence the situation and returned to the dormitory.

She was cold and scared. To quickly forget all this horror - the girl went to bed. But it was not so easy to fall asleep. A strange man from the cemetery kept appearing in front of her eyes. That night was the worst night of her life. The man reproached Katie that she did not save her friends from death. He threatened that now they will all regret the events of that night.

In the morning she was awakened by the screams of Stan and Lazie. Katie didn't immediately realize what had happened. Layzie was sobbing very loudly. It turned out that their friend Rob had gone missing the previous night. Where he is and what's wrong with him is not-known. Barely dawned, the friends woke Katie up to go on a search together. On the way to the cemetery, Lacey told Katie that last night they had been alone with Stan for a while, went out for a chat, and when they came back Rob was gone.... His friends would later find him hanging in the cemetery...

The police determined it was a suicide. Why did he do it? What drove him to kill himself? Neither Rob's friends nor the police had any answers to these questions. The community said that lately Rob had been ranting about the dead and the charms of death. But he was a goth, so such talk was no surprise to anyone. Could anyone have thought then that all this talk of suicide was not just idle talk? After Rob died, it took Lacey a long time to recover. Wouldn't eat or talk. Wouldn't get out of bed and stare at the same spot. Katie tried to bring her to her senses, to make her think, to talk to her, but it was no use. And on the ninth day after Rob's death, Lacey threw herself out of the dormitory window and crashed to her death. She left a short note: "I'm happy because I'm going to a place where I'll be loved forever."

After the death of her best friend, Katie began to suffer from anxiety and hysteria. She knew what her friends had died of, knew she could have kept them from dying, but did nothing about it.

Six months later, Kathy was informed that Stan had been killed in a car accident. Hysteria was replaced by the realization of the irreparable: Katie realized that she could not change anything. The same fate awaited her. The girl had no strength to fight it... That's when she started to draw crosses. Crosses that filled her whole life. Over and over again she relives that terrible night searching for her destiny. Rob, Stan, Lazie. All would be alive if it weren't for her.

Katie knows that sooner or later she will choose the same path as her friends and maybe then this nightmare will end. She went to the window more than once and tried to imagine how it will be. Only she felt sorry for her parents. For now.

But Katie realizes that soon enough fatigue will overtake this

pity and then she'll take her final step...