The Hundredth Step - By Josh
Being a night guard at a cemetery sounds easy. Keep vandals out. Walk the grounds. Stay awake until sunrise. The darkness might get under your skin, but darkness cannot hurt you.
At least, that was what I believed before the cemetery gave me a reason to fear October 19th.
This began ten years ago at Carpenter Cemetery in Brazil, Indiana—a place most people call the 100-Step Cemetery. Locals whisper that anyone who climbs its staircase at midnight, counting every step aloud, will meet the shadow of the cemetery’s first caretaker at the top. He does not speak. He does not need to. Instead, he shows you exactly when—and how—you will die.
I thought it was nonsense. Every town has a haunted place, and every haunted place has rules designed to frighten teenagers.
But these rules were unusually specific.
Here is the version I had heard:
The Urban Legend
The Midnight Count: Climb the long staircase at midnight, counting every step aloud, and the ghost of the cemetery’s first caretaker or undertaker will appear at the top.
The Vision: The figure will silently reveal when and how you are destined to die.
The Descent: Count the steps again as you walk down. If the total matches your first count, the vision was false. If it changes, the prediction will come true.
The Punishment: If you try to cheat by walking up the grassy hill instead of using the stairs, an unseen force—often described as a phantom hand—will knock you down and leave a red welt or handprint on your back.
I did not understand why those details mattered until the night something in the cemetery decided I would follow them.
I took the night-guard job because I needed money. Debt had begun to feel like deep water, and I was running out of strength to stay above it. The work sounded simple: patrol the grounds, chase off trespassers, and keep kids from damaging the headstones.
For the first few nights, nothing happened.
Then the cemetery began to notice me.
I would catch movement at the edge of my vision—a tall shape slipping behind a monument, a shadow crossing the path where no tree stood. Whenever I turned, there was nothing there. Soon, I began hearing voices beneath the wind. They never spoke loudly enough for me to understand them, but they always seemed close.
Close enough to be standing just behind me.
I could not wear headphones. If someone entered the grounds, I needed to hear them. So I walked each shift listening to those faint whispers follow me from grave to grave.
The money kept me there.
One bitterly cold night, I saw a cloud of breath drift past my shoulder.
Then another.
Then another.
They appeared one after the next, matching my pace, as though someone invisible were walking directly behind me.
I stopped.
The clouds stopped.
I spun around. The path was empty.
That was when I finally lost my nerve. I shouted into the darkness and told whatever had been following me to stop hiding.
For several seconds, nothing moved.
Then a figure unfolded from the shadows between two headstones.
It raised one arm and pointed toward the staircase.
“If you want me to stop,” it said, “climb the stairs.”
I shook my head. Since taking the job, I had never once stepped on them. Whenever my patrol brought me near, I walked along the grassy slope instead. I did not believe the legend, but I had no desire to test it.
The figure disappeared.
Not walked away. Disappeared.
Over the next few nights, the cemetery became unbearable. The whispers rose into murmurs. Footsteps followed me along empty paths. Shapes stood between the trees and moved whenever I looked away. Each night, they came closer.
When I finally shouted for them to leave me alone, the same figure stepped from the darkness.
Again, it pointed at the stairs.
Again, I refused.
This time, its head tilted.
“If you won’t do it,” it said, “I’ll make someone else do it.”
A branch snapped in the woods.
A boy came crashing through the trees, stumbling into the open as if something were chasing him. He ran straight toward me and begged for help.
At least, I thought he was a boy.
He said his friends would not stop chasing him until he climbed the stairs and counted every step. As he spoke, I saw the shadowy figure watching from between the graves.
It was smiling.
The grin was far too wide.
“I’ve never counted to one hundred,” the boy said. “Will you help me?”
Every instinct told me to leave. Instead, I heard myself say yes.
We stepped onto the staircase together.
“One,” I said.
The boy repeated it behind me.
We climbed slowly, counting into the dark. With each step, the cemetery grew quieter. By fifty, the wind had died. By seventy, I could no longer hear insects. By ninety, the only sounds left were my breathing and the boy’s voice at my back.
Ninety-eight.
Ninety-nine.
One hundred.
I turned around.
No one was there.
The staircase stretched empty below me.
Then I remembered what was supposed to happen at the top.
Across the hill stood a man holding a lantern. Its weak light outlined his body but never touched his face. I called out, telling him the cemetery was closed.
The lantern went dark.
He was gone.
I searched the hill, half convinced the boy had fallen, but there was no sign of him. No footprints. No broken branches. Nothing.
I decided to leave by the grassy slope.
The moment my foot touched it, something struck me between the shoulders.
I hit the ground hard. A searing pain spread across my back, hot enough to make me scream. When I looked down toward the foot of the hill, the first figure was waiting beside the stairs.
“Count as you go down,” it said, “and this will all stop.”
I crawled back to the staircase and began to descend.
One.
Two.
Three.
I kept my eyes on the steps, afraid of what might be behind me. Then, without warning, the cemetery vanished.
I saw my own body lying in the woods. It was mangled beyond recognition, torn apart as if by an animal. A park ranger stood nearby. I could not see his face, but I heard him speak.
“October 19th.”
The vision released me.
I was back on the stairs.
The figure stood inches from my face.
I could not move. I could not breathe.
“Ten years,” it whispered.
Then it vanished.
I forced myself down the remaining steps, counting each one. When I reached the bottom, the total was one hundred—the same as before.
The figure appeared beside me one last time.
“There you go,” it said.
After that, the cemetery fell silent.
I never saw another shadow. Never heard another voice. I kept the job for five more years, eventually convinced that matching the count had spared me. Then I changed careers and became a game warden.
That was five years ago.
Yesterday, a child disappeared from a campsite. My team is leaving on a search-and-rescue mission this morning.
Last night, I dreamed of the cemetery.
The caretaker stood at the top of the stairs, his lantern hanging at his side.
“Ten years,” he said.
I woke at 3:00 a.m., drenched in sweat. The room was dark except for the glowing numbers on my clock.
Below the time was the date.
October 19th.
Now I remember every detail of the vision: the trees, the torn body, the ranger standing over it. I know what may be waiting for me in those woods.
But there is still a missing child out there.
I have decided to go.
If you never hear from me again, then the count did not save me.
It only told me how much time I had left.
I was wrong.
At 4:17 this morning, the search team sent me the missing child’s photograph.
It was the boy from the stairs.
Same pale face. Same dark eyes. Same small, frightened smile.
The photograph was taken yesterday, but the report says he vanished ten years ago.
Before I could call anyone, another message appeared on my phone. No number. No name. Just a picture of the cemetery staircase.
Someone was standing at the top, holding a lantern.
It was me.
Beneath the photograph were three words:
BRING HIM BACK.
I tried to refuse the mission, but my radio crackled before I could speak. Through the static came the boy’s voice, counting backward from one hundred.
He is at ninety-three now.
With every number, the handprint on my back burns hotter, and another memory disappears. I can no longer remember my mother’s face. I cannot remember where I live.
But I remember the cemetery.
I remember the stairs.
And somehow, I know what will happen when he reaches one.
They will find a body in the woods, mangled beyond recognition. They will call it mine. My family will bury it. Everyone will believe I am dead.
But I will still be standing at the top of those steps, lantern in hand, waiting for the next person desperate enough to count.
The boy just said, “Two.”
There is someone outside my door.
He is smiling.
One.