The Eerie Night

Frank was sitting at his table when the phone rang.  He had just taken his last bite of cinnamon toast. Washed it down with some milk from his Jackalope mug,  and answered the ringing phone.

“HI Frank, its George, we got a call from the boss. She has an assignment for us. She wants us to start right away. How soon can you be at my place? ”

Frank sighed. He had planned on spending a relaxing evening listening to some good music while working on the 1000 piece puzzle that he had. It was a picture of a a myriad of different colored balloons soaring in the bright blue sky.  A boy and his dog were lying on the lush green grass staring up at all the balloons. It was a challenging puzzle, but he was getting there. One piece at a time, and a lot of patience.

“I will be there in about 30 minutes. What kind of assignment is it?” Frank asked.

“I will explain when you get here, but bring your shovel.”  and with that George hung up. Frank stood there for a few moments wondering where they could possibly be going, and why he needed a shovel.

He walked over to the stereo and waited for Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” song to finish playing before he turned it off.  Then he walked outside to the shed to get his shovel. He had several to pick from. A lot of them were pretty worn, so he just grabbed the blue one and headed to his car.

It was a half hour exactly when Frank pulled into George’s driveway. George came out, right before Frank honked the horn.

George opened the door and sat down. He turned to face Frank and said, ” So you aren’t afraid of the dark, right? ”

Frank rolled his eyes, ” Of course not! What are the plans?”

“We need to go to a cemetery on Eerie road.”

“A cemetery? Why?” asked Frank as he started driving.

“There is a fake headstone there and once we remove the headstone, we need to dig down about 6 feet to find something that the boss thinks is very valuable. The boss thinks there either is some stolen jewels or stolen cash to be found. She said she got a tip from someone about it. She couldn’t reveal the name of her informant.

They drove in silence for a little while, each one was thinking about this strange assignment.

“Have you ever seen a cemetery on Eerie Road before?” George asked.

“Not that I can remember, but I don’t travel that road a whole lot.”

“Well guess we will soon find out.” said Frank and George agreed.

“Oh look, there is the sign. A small field laid ahead with the sign, “The Cemetery”

“Hmm…I see that they worked real hard on coming up with a name! So how do we tell which is the fake headstone?”  George asked, as he parked on the gravel road.

“Look around George, I don’t think it will be too hard!”

They both had quizzical expressions on their faces as they looked around and only saw one solitary grave with a simple headstone. It read “Here lies….”

“So looks like they put as much thought into this headstone, as to the sign. Who tipped our boss off again? is this really real?” Frank asked.

“Well No, the headstone is fake, remember? And she wouldn’t reveal the name of the informant.” replied George.

“Yes, I know the headstone is fake, I mean does she really know that there is treasure under this headstone?”

“Lets start digging and find out!”

They dug and dug and dug as their arms grew tired and the night got darker.

“Whoooo Whooooo” broke the silence of the night as Frank and George both jumped! George looked and saw the owl’s eyes shining out of the tree.

Than a gray cat with emerald green eyes brushed up against George’s leg, making him stumble.

“Frank, dig faster! I am ready to find whatever treasure there is and get out of here.”

They kept digging in silence for a little while and then Frank yelled.

“My shovel struck something hard! I think we found it.”

“Can you scoop it up with your shovel?” George asked.

“I think so, its rather heavy, but its a small box.”

Soon Frank had it out of the hole and they sat down on the ground to open it.

Marbles came spilling out everywhere as Frank and George looked at each other. They both had the same look in their eyes, having the truth dawn on them. Their boss couldn’t reveal the name of the informant because there had been no informant, it had all been a set up! They hadn’t even thought about the date. It was Halloween! Their boss had succeeded once again at pulling one over on them. Now they had an overflowing box of marbles and one mighty big hole that they had to fill back up!