The cemetery was off-limits at night. Everyone in Accrington knew that. Of course, there had never actually been an example of someone being [i]punished[/i] for being there after hours. Nor were there guards posted at the gate, which didn't even have a lock. There was no need. Everyone simply obeyed this rule, and that was that. Well... [i]almost[/i] everyone.

Stanley Humber was not the rebellious type. He considered himself a good, honest man, and if you asked anyone else in Accrington, they would more than likely agree. This would be after an expression of pity flickered across their faces. [i]Stanley's a good lad,[/i] they'd say with nod and a hint of a grimace, [i]Such a shame that business with his wife. Neither of them deserved that.[/i]

As such, it would be some wonder to them if one of the other citizens of Accrington were to find out what Stanley was up to every Wednesday night. Days at the mill were long. It was rather common for Stanley to be up before the Sun and home after it had set. As such, there wasn't time during the day for him to visit the cemetery. As such, the young man had built up the questionable habit of taking a dim lantern and passing through a thin part of the hedge that bordered the back of the cemetery in the middle of the night.

Tonight the air was still and the sky was clear. Stanley hadn't even bothered to bring his lantern with him. Though the cemetery's position on the edge of town afforded Stanley privacy from prying eyes, even with the lantern, he felt as if everything was lit well enough tonight that he wouldn't need it. The walk to the cemetery proved as uneventful as ever.  No creatures stirred in the woods that bordered the cemetery. The windows of each house were dark, the inhabitants fast asleep. As usual, Stanley would be the only one in town having a rough Thursday morning due to lack of sleep.

Stanley slipped through the gap in the hedge, having turned it into an art form after so many times doing it before. The first several times he had tried, the hanging brambles and branches had given him cuts and scratches that had been difficult to explain away. He weaved his way through the headstones, feet moving across a well-memorized path. At last, he came upon one that looked just like all the others. Dark, roughly hewn, and sticking out of the ground at an angle. The only thing that set it apart from all the others was the name etched into it.

[b][i]Amelia Humber[/i][/b]

Stanley usually began by murmuring a prayer, asking for leniency when it came to his inability to let the dead go. Tonight, however, when he closed his eyes and bowed his head, he could not find it in himself to pray. After a few brief moments, Stanley opened his green eyes and frowned, fixing his dead wife's grave with a certain insecurity... as if seeing it for the first time. It seemed alien to him for some reason that he couldn't put a finger on. It wasn't until recently that he had stopped crying when he came here. Now this? Was he beginning to move on? For some reason, that thought scared him. If he moved on, he would forget her. He didn't want to forget her...

Suddenly, a warm breeze cut its way through the cemetery. It was unpleasant and without warning, causing leaves to rip from their boughs and streak through the air in the dozens. What had been a windless evening was now being enveloped by a tempest, despite the sky being cloudless. Then, just as soon as it had come, the breeze ceased. The leaves picked up by the wind fell to the ground almost directly in a most unusual display. Stanley's brow furrowed at this strange occurrence, his head turning this way and that as if to find a reason for it.

A few moments passed. In this time, Stanley had turned from Amelia's headstone to look up towards the house across the lawn from the nearby church. The mysterious wind did not seem to have roused the vicar. Though unsettling, Stanley felt as if it was nothing more than a strange happenstance and that the night could continue without another thought being put to it. He turned back to his wife's grave....

And there she was. Standing right in front of him as pale and lifeless as she had been on the night of her passing... yet very much [i]there[/i]. 

"Stanley." she whispered in a voice as cold as death.

Stanley let out a scream of surprise and fear, feeling as if his heart had stopped in his chest. He jumped back from the image of his deceased lover, catching his left foot on the exposed root of a nearby tree. This caused him to fall backwards, the world turning upside down. Before he could break the fall with a backwards-thrown hand, his head struck the ground with a thud and everything went black.