Page 1 of Tantalized by the Cursed Statue

Nathaniel hurries through the cemetery, his heartbeat pounding in his ears loud enough to drown out the sound of crickets and the dead leaves rustling in the trees. It’s past midnight and completely dark. Only the shaky light from his phone flashlight keeps him from tripping over the headstones.

He has to laugh at himself. Why is he so jittery? He’s a grown twenty-three-year-old man.

Until he can get over his fear, he’s going to keep forcing himself to cut through the cemetery every night on his way home from work.

But as Nathaniel nears the huge, shadowy structure that is buried in a tangle of trees, he doesn’t feel brave at all. His mouth goes dry, and his breath quivers with those annoying hitches.

Without even meaning to, he glances at it . The big marble figure. That’s a huge mistake.

Because it’s looking at him.

It sees him.

His stomach leaps up into his throat. Alarm bells shriek inside his skull; he can’t think through the noise.

No, he’s not going to freak out. Even though his feet want to run away as fast as possible, he makes himself walk. Walk and breathe.

He’s just going to walk past the huge, terrifying statue.

Night after night, it stands guard in front of the run-down, ivy-covered mausoleum. Nathaniel will not look its way again. He knows what the statue looks like; he’s seen it before many times.

He will not shine his flashlight in its direction to see the cut abs and defined musculature of the marble. The noticeable bulge of its groin. And those creepy, lifelike eyes that always seem to be looking directly at him.

“Nathaniel.”

He lets out a screech and runs like mad. He doesn’t stop running until he’s all the way home.