Christian and Jenna Matteos never planned to spend their wedding night in a graveyard. But at 11:46 PM, their cherry-red sedan sputtered to a dead stop on a forgotten stretch of rural Maine road.

“Car’s dead,” Christian muttered, turning the key again. The engine only groaned.

Jenna, scanning the dark through the windshield, stiffened. “Christian… read that sign.”

The rusted metal posts marked rotting wood letters:

PINECROSS BURIAL GROUND — EST. 1832
BLESSED ARE THE SOULS WHO REST HERE

Before Christian could respond, a sound drifted across the cold night — a single, faint wail. Not like a human cry, but something hollow and wrong, stretching too long to be natural.

It came again. Closer.

From between crooked headstones, she emerged — a tall, wasted figure draped in burial rags the color of grave mold. Her hair streamed behind her like strips of seaweed. Her mouth hung open, a black maw pouring out a scream that seemed to vibrate inside their skulls.

Jenna backed toward the car. “That’s a—”

The banshee’s voice ripped into their minds:
Blood of the murderer… you carry it still.

Christian froze. “Murderer? I—”

Your grandfather’s grandfather, she hissed. He stabbed me, drowned me. My child died in my womb. The river carried my body, but my scream stayed. I cannot rest until I end the bloodline.

Christian’s breath came in short gasps. “This— this isn’t real—”

The banshee’s mouth widened far beyond the limits of bone, and the scream became a force. Jenna’s knees buckled. Blood welled in her ears. Christian clutched his head.

She lunged, her hands plunging through Jenna’s chest like mist — and when she pulled back, she was holding something slick, red, and writhing. Jenna’s eyes went wide in horror, mouth frozen in a silent scream as the banshee lifted the still-beating heart to her lips. She bit deep, black ichor running down her chin as she consumed it.

Jenna’s body crumpled to the grass, her face locked in a mask of terror.

Christian tried to run, but the banshee was already on him. Her fingers slid into his ribcage without breaking skin, her nails curling around his spine. She yanked hard, pulling free not bone, but a faint, glowing shape — his soul, thrashing and screaming in silence.

He watched himself from above, his body falling limp to the ground. The banshee cradled his soul like an infant, her voice soft now: At last, the murderer’s blood is gone. My child may rest.

Then she opened her mouth impossibly wide and swallowed him whole.

The cemetery went quiet.

By sunrise, the car was gone. The grass where the Matteoses had fallen was blackened, as if burned from within the earth.

Locals say the banshee is gone now, her vengeance complete. But on certain cold nights, when the moon is thin and the wind dies… people claim to see a pale woman holding a ghostly infant, smiling.

And if you look too long into her eyes, she smiles wider — and you feel her fingers in your chest.