She aimed her phone light at a nearby gravestone. Not the one she needed. She pointed the flashlight beam at a second one. Nope. Another tombstone and another. She crept along the line of markers, scanning each inscription.

Crack!

Li froze. It sounded like something or someone stepping on a dead branch. Was she being followed? She held her breath for a moment and listened. Nothing but the wind whistling through the trees.

“Get a hold of yourself, girl,” she muttered. “It’s a game. Just a game.”

She picked up the pace. Soon her quick walk had turned into a fast jog. But even at her new pace, the light of her phone caught the tombstone she was looking for.

Here lies Tamara Reyes
1923–1971

Li grinned. “Found you,” she said.

She inched toward the marker. The beam of light from her phone caught a dark shape on the grass. It was a wooden box about the size of a shoebox. Strange etchings snaked across the rosewood top. They looked like demon figures writhing in pain.

She texted a message to the game’s referee.

Crypt Keeper, I found a box. Now what?

Three dots appeared on the screen. Li tapped her foot, waiting for the reply. She wanted to get out of the dead zone as fast as possible. Ping.

Open it.

Li stared at the box. Something about it made her nervous. Why couldn’t she just bring the thing back so her teammates could open it with her? Safety in numbers and all that. But Li remembered that this was a solo mission. And she wasn’t about to quit.

She carefully cracked the wooden lid open.

A bony hand shot out of the box. Li screamed and dropped her phone. She scrambled backward, slamming her elbow against a tombstone.

The skeleton hand bounced up and down on a metal spring like a creepy jack-in-the-box.

Li focused on slowing down her breathing. When she was calm, she started sweeping her hands over the grass until she could feel her phone.

Nice one, Priya. What now?

A few seconds later, the response pinged on the screen.

Ha! Did it freak you? Look inside.

Li crawled across the grass to grab the box. A folded-up piece of paper was jammed into one corner. Li plucked it out, opened the yellowed paper and read the scribbled words.

I cannot rest until I am reunited with my beloved.

She flipped the note over, but the other side was blank. She shone the light on Tamara Reyes’s gravestone, noting the inscription at the bottom:

Loving wife to Denton Reyes.

Li skimmed the names on the nearby markers. None belonged to Denton Reyes. She headed to the next row.

Crack!

She scanned the cemetery for the source of the sound. Nothing. Li grabbed the box and scurried away, keeping low and out of sight. She wasn’t about to stay in this spooky place a moment longer. The wind blew against her body, almost as if trying to prevent her escape.