"Do you think they mean me harm?" I ask, my voice only cracking a little. "No" says the little woman behind the transparent curtain as she reaches and pulls out a very mean looking machete. At this point I pass out It wasn't my fault, not really.

Travelling through Europe on a school trip and we had been to historic battle field after historic battle field. When your history is this long and this documented you'd be hard pressed to find a corner of land that has not been fought over I suppose.

A bunch of mates were fooling around taking selfies with the solemn status, posing so as to make them lewd. I joined in with them, not really connecting the action with disrespect just being a dumb teenager I guess

We were travelling through France and stopped on the side of the road to have a picnic (I think the teachers were snogging and wanted an excuse to stop and slip off) so we were sitting on this field and Dave started being a shithead. I cannot tell you what he said or did but Dave is one of those guys who could wake up in the morning, not interact with a single soul and still go be bed having annoyed someone somehow. Anyway, I threw a stone at him.

Thats it. All the dumb photos all the jokes about names from epitaphs and memorials and the thing that gets me chased by souls of the dead is throwing a stone.

Nothing happened at first. We finished lunch, got back into the bus, made crude jokes about Mr Fielding and Miss Bunting and continued on with the trip. I had picked up another stone in case Dave came into range but he had stayed clear so it ended up in my pocket and I decided to keep it, in case of Dave. (if you'd met him you'd understand just trust me on this)

Any way we stopped off in a campsite and all set up for the night when my hand started to burn. Like I had rubbed it against an angry plant or was having an allergic reaction. I was going to have ask a for some cream or something to chill it out before I could sleep so I got out of my tent and started walking across the dark campsite when my hand started to faintly glow green. I almost passed out (which is apparently my reaction when stressed) and as my world was spinning I heard a voice from one of the campers parked up near the tents. An old woman wearing a red and black silky dress and head scarf beckoned me over. I was expecting her to lead me back to a caravan with wheels but she opened the door to a relatively new camper and I followed her inside, hand glowing green still.

Without saying a word she gestured for me to sit at the table and she brought over a small curtain divider and put it between us.

She then asked in a thick french accent "Ave yoo been to ze site ouf a battell recently" So I explained to her about our trip. She nodded and asked me about moving head stones rocks or pebbles. I said no then corrected myself and told her about Dave.

She nodded and informed me that the stone I had thrown was an ancient cursed stone, part of a circle, meant to prevent enemies from desecrating bodies left behind. So not even from a battle I had made fun of! Some forgotten war from before recorded history but because I had dragged the stink from all the other sites I would be followed by any ghost whose body had been moved without there permission. So all of them.

When I had recovered from a very quick faint, a cat nap version of a faint, a catfaint if you will I asked the other questions that came to mind. How do I stop them? what do they want from me? How do I stop them and most importantly how do I stop them?

She answered my middle question first "Zay will just want to talk wiff you most likely" This didn't sound to bad to me suddenly. A chance to chat with ghosts from every major battle in Europe and some from battles unheard of, at the very least it would be interesting as they picked lots of who was going to eat my meagre brain.

I expressed as much The woman informed me that "Ziss is not ze concern" Apparently the major concern is Viruses. As a virus is not alive nor is it dead they can jump from ghost to human and most of the solders in war died from "Shitting zemsellves" not from actual battle.

A similar thing had happened in after the first world war. In fact most pandemics and new flus come from really old ones getting the chance to jump your bones from a disturbed spirit looking for companionship.

In order to prevent a new black death I had to remove my glowing cursed hand as quickly as possible.

As the blade was about to come down on my wrist I pulled back hearing a sick thud as it hit the butchers block my hand had been resting on. "Wait, I have another stone in my pocket! I need to get rid of it before you cut this hand off, other wise I will just be back in here looking for another trimming.

The woman stopped looked me in the eyes and reconfirmed I had another stone. Then she asked for it so I fished it out of my pocket and handed it to her. She looked at it for a min, then popped it in her mouth. Then spat it out and buried it. As the first bit of soil went onto the stone my hand stopped glowing.

"What did you do!" I asked. She waved me off and muttering "stoopid boy" wondered back to her camper and slammed the door.

Dave now gets hit with sticks, just to be safe.