The grave that moves at night

 


The Grave That Moves at Night

By Faraz Parvez
(Professor Dr. (Retired) Arshad Afzal — Former Faculty Member, Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah, KSA)

In the far-flung outskirts of Lahore, beyond the crumbling brick walls and the lazy canals where buffaloes swam in the heat, there stood a graveyard the elders called Maqbara-e-Sukoon. “Graveyard of Peace,” they called it — though no one had felt peaceful there in over fifty years.

It was said that one grave in Maqbara-e-Sukoon did not stay in its place.

By day, it looked like any other — a simple mound of earth, a weather-worn headstone with no name, only the word “Ajeeb” (strange) carved crudely into it. But at night, villagers claimed it shifted. Sometimes to the left. Sometimes to the far right of the graveyard. Sometimes it disappeared entirely, only to return by dawn.

The elders swore this was no illusion — footprints would appear around it in the morning, as if someone had been pacing.

The Dare

One hot July evening, four friends — Bilal, Sajid, Waseem, and Rahim — sat at the tea stall, drenched in sweat and boredom.
“I say we find out the truth,” Bilal announced, his eyes glinting.
“You’ve lost your mind,” Waseem scoffed. “People who go there at night don’t come back the same.”
Rahim laughed. “If a grave can move, maybe it’s looking for a better neighborhood.”

By nightfall, they carried lanterns and a phone camera, slipping past sleeping dogs and rusting gates into Maqbara-e-Sukoon. The moon was fat and orange, and the air smelt of dust and something faintly metallic — blood, perhaps.

They found it easily — the nameless grave with Ajeeb carved into the stone.

The First Movement

At first, nothing happened. They sat in a semicircle, trading jokes and waiting. Then, around midnight, Sajid whispered, “It’s leaning.”

And it was. The mound of earth seemed to sink on one side, as if the ground beneath was shifting. The headstone tilted forward… and then the entire grave slid, soundlessly, two feet to the left.

Rahim screamed. The lantern flickered violently. Waseem stumbled back and tripped over another grave. Bilal, shaking, pulled out his phone to record.

Then the earth began to split.

The Unseen Occupant

From beneath the shifting soil came a slow, rhythmic thumping — thud… thud… thud. It grew louder, faster, like something pounding from inside. The grave slid again, dragging its headstone across the ground like a broken limb.

“Run!” Bilal shouted — but they didn’t. They couldn’t. Their feet felt rooted in place, as though the grave had tied invisible strings around their ankles.

The earth erupted, and a skeletal hand emerged — not bleached white, but blackened, burned, the flesh still clinging in strips. It clawed the air, then the soil, dragging the rest of the body upward.

The face that followed was not a skull, but a half-rotted visage with eyes still intact — eyes that were open.

The Curse

The corpse — if it could be called that — rose halfway from the grave, turning its gaze on each of them in turn. The voice, when it came, was like wind through broken glass.

“Where is my rightful place?
Who dares sit where I cannot rest?”

Rahim sobbed, “We meant no harm—”
“Lies,” the figure hissed. “You came for sport. And now you will move, as I must move.”

The ground beneath them softened. All four began to sink, the soil sucking at their legs. They screamed, flailing, as the grave slid away again into the darkness — and they slid with it.

When the villagers found the grave the next morning, it had moved to the far edge of Maqbara-e-Sukoon.

Four new graves stood beside it.

The Aftermath

No one visits that part of the graveyard now. Children are told to avoid it. The tea stall closed down, the owner refusing to talk about “those boys.”

And yet… every few weeks, the nameless grave is seen in a new position. Sometimes there are fresh footprints beside it. Sometimes, there are four.

Why We Tell These Stories
Our world is full of tales that test our courage and blur the line between the seen and unseen. The Grave That Moves at Night is one such tale — a reminder that some curiosities are best left unsatisfied.

Visit farazparvez1.blogspot.com for more stories that pull you into strange alleys of the imagination — and leave you wondering if you’ll ever find your way back.


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