This is a bad idea.

Chanyeol’s as nervous as the horses, snorting and stomping in the rolling fog. Innumerous eyes, unseen and unblinking, glare from the shadows. He’s not sure if he’s grateful for the mist or not. Invisible or obvious enemies?

He jumps when his companion touches his arm, nearly falling from his seat. “Hey!” Baekhyun flinches but recovers with a laugh. “What’s with you? Why are you so jumpy?”

“I have a bad feeling about this,” Chanyeol admits. Hunkering in his seat, he looks over either shoulder and even leans forward to try and see through the gloom. Their lamp light barely reaches the horses’ rear ends.

“Well don’t. It’s fine!” Baekhyun smiles into the dark, a tightness around his eyes smoothed by dim light. “Nothing to worry about.”

“Where are we even going?” Chanyeol had assumed they were going to Baekhyun’s home to study or something, maybe go for drinks. They’ve been driving for at least an hour. No one else is out; they’re smartly snug indoors.

“I needed your help with something.”

“Sure, but what? And why at night?”

“You afraid of the dark?”

“Not usually…”

“Just relax. We’ll be in and out and back home again in no time.” Night sounds fill the static between them. Crickets and tiny frogs that never seem to be where they sound like. An owl hoots mournfully from a tower. The oil lamp creaks gently as it sways with the coach, off-beat from the clattering horse hooves.

Chanyeol opens his pocket watch—a congratulatory gift from his parents for entering medical school—and snaps it shut without checking the time. He wishes he was in bed. From the lack of lights, he assumes everyone is asleep.

Baekhyun slows the horses and stands, squinting but likely not seeing anything. He sits with a triumphant sort of snort, however, and turns the horses around so they face back the way they’d come. “We’re here,” he declares, hanging the reins and leaping from the seat.

A little less gracefully, Chanyeol follows. “Where is here?” He frowns when passed a flat-bladed shovel. Baekhyun takes its twin and lifts the lamp. A few steps away is an iron fence leading to a stone pillar that rises and falls over in an arch. A sign names it as a cemetery.

Realization snaps into a logical story all at once. The lack of lights and uneven track is due to following back roads outside town. Few people live out there. The bell is a church standing in the middle of the cemetery, where dead are buried. Their class had been be the lack of subjects for dissection and study for a while; the professors’ demonstration had been put on hold twice already, for lack of cadaver.

Baekhyun’s already pushing the gates open. They should squeak but don’t, swinging open silently to respect the resting places of the residents.

“Don’t worry,” he whispers. “The caretaker’s an old man who should be out for a couple drinks by now.”

“How do you know?”

“I suggested it and recommended the pie, as well.” It isn’t reassuring. Chanyeol doesn’t want to go. He could drive back to town and join the old man in a drink and some pie, but he can’t leave Baekhyun. Walking is an undesirable option but still a possibility.

Baekhyun’s waiting, though, with the only lamp. Chanyeol chews his lip and wills his feet to walk.

“Look for mounds.” Mounds mean fresh graves. While people are buried at any time, in nearly any weather, their plots are scattered. It isn’t a system of burying people in rows in the order they pass on, showing no consideration for the later scavengers.

Snuffling noises draw out goosebumps along Chanyeol’s arms. It’s not just eyes following him.

“Baek, we should leave.”

“Don’t be such a fraidy-cat,” he teases, although he jumps with Chanyeol at the animalistic wail. “It’s just a dog!” He assures them both. “Some stray. Let’s get on with it. I’m getting cold.”

Chilled from his own nerves, Chanyeol hadn’t noticed the cool temperature. For fog, it must be colder; it’s common in autumn. Even beneath his thick over coat, he feels the needles of wind pricking him and eyes the lamp anxiously. Its globe protects it, but it dances wilder as though trying to escape to protect itself.

Chanyeol follows Ba