-Author's Note: As the description indicates, I recently re- watched the episode 'The Tale of Old Man Corcoran.' Upon re- watching it, and reading comments from some other fans, I came to realize that one of the characters in that episode almost certainly had an ulterior motive that the episode didn't really explore. So, I was inspired to write this fic, an epilogue- of- sorts to the episode which opens the morning after the episode ends, to help show that and provide a little more closure. Enjoy!

The next morning,

Jack and Kenny were finishing up their work cleaning out their garage. Out of nowhere, Kenny spoke up:

"Hey, Jack," he said.

"Yeah," his older brother responded.

"I was thinking a lot about last night," Kenny said, "And about the last several nights, in fact, and something doesn't quite add up."

"Just ONE thing," Jack said, "I still can't quite put everything together about what happened! There's a LOT of things that don't add up for me about those kids and that cemetery!"

"Yeah," Kenny said, "But, as Old Man Corcoran was leading us out of the cemetery, he said that other than Marshall McClain, each of the dead kids in that group was first found dead somewhere in the cemetery near Marshall's grave. He said that's why he really doesn't like people hanging out in that part of the cemetery at night, especially kids."

"Yeah, I was there, I heard him," Jack replied, "What's the big deal about that?"

"You remember, right before Old Man Corcoran got to us," Kenny went on, "Marshall was trying to get us both to hide in that grave that turned out to be his? It was an open grave then, but when Corcoran came to us, it was filled."

"That was really weird," Jack said, thinking about it to himself.

"It gets weirder," Kenny said, seeming to get more intrigued by the second, "You remember that Marshall wanted us to get into that grave, but right before that, when we were in the other grave that Cissy Vernon was hiding in, she yelled at us and did all she could to get us out of it! That doesn't quite make sense."

"Well, yeah," Jack admitted, "But, Cissy was always mean and grumpy to us right from the start, so of course she wouldn't want to share her hiding spot with us! The girl had a chip on her shoulder the size of the Grand Canyon!"

Kenny smiled at this, and said, "Maybe, and maybe not. I mean, it's weird that Marshall was flat- out open and inviting of us getting into his grave while Cissy didn't want us in hers. Also, Cissy was the one who first told us that story about Old Man Corcoran being a ghost and out to kill trespassers."

"That WAS weird, too," Jack said, "Corcoran was strange and not the friendliest guy in the world, but he wasn't a killer ghost. So, Cissy lied to us about Corcoran?"

"Uh- huh," Kenny said, "But we found out last night that there WERE ghosts in the cemetery, just not the ones we thought."

"But," Jack said, "How does all that about Cissy and the graves and Corcoran connect?"

"That's what just came to me," Kenny said excitedly, "I got to thinking, Corcoran said Marshall was the first of the kids to die, and all the other kids' bodies were found near his grave when they each died, and when we were walking to the cemetery woods with them, they mentioned that Cissy was the most recent member to join them before us."

"That's right," Jack answered, as that occurred to him, "So, then, I guess that means she was the last of them to die."

"Yep," Kenny said, "So I got to thinking, and I realized we REALLY dodged a bullet that night, though we didn't realize it. So, Marshall dies first. Maybe he doesn't want to 'Move on' to the next life or whatever because he died so young, so he's not ready. But, just being stuck as a ghost alone makes him really lonely. Marshall wants friends he can hang with and play with forever, or at least until he's ready to move on."

A look of realization dawned on Jack's face. "He lured each of the other kids to the graveyard," he said, "Saying he wanted to play hide and seek with them, then killed them so they'd come back as ghosts too! What about the graves?"

"I'm thinking at some point, after they'd started to really trust him," Kenny replied, "Marshall would invite the kids to hide with him in his grave, then kill them there somehow so that their spirits would be kind of bound to his."

Jack shuddered and said, "That explains why he offered to let us hide in that grave. Though, if the other souls were all bound to his, why was Cissy so different from the others? Marshall wanted us to join the group, but she seemed pretty darn clear she didn't."

"I don't really know," admitted Kenny, "My only guess is, since Cissy hadn't been dead as long as the others, she might have had more traces of the person she used to be inside her, so maybe she didn't want anyone else to have to go through what she and the others were going through."

"I wouldn't either," Jack said, "I mean, playing hide and seek in a cemetery at night might be fun the first few times you do it, but after that I'd bet it gets old in a hurry, not to mention creepy, and they all have to keep doing it each night forever! After I die, I'd much rather go to Heaven."

Kenny nodded and said, "So would I, and I bet Cissy felt the same way."

The full gravity of all this at last hit Jack. His mouth dropped open until it was almost wide enough to fit a tennis ball in, and he said, "Cissy acted rude and nasty to us so we wouldn't feel welcome with them and wouldn't want to join them! Then she made up the story about Old Man Corcoran being a ghost to try and scare us away! She did all that because she didn't want us to share her fate! Cissy was trying to SAVE us!"

"I'd say she DID save us," Kenny added, "If it weren't for her, we never would've found Corcoran or even heard of him, we would have gotten in the grave with Marshall eventually, and we'd be ghosts too!"

"She may have seemed not to like us," Jack said soberly, "But she cared enough about us that she helped to save our lives and our souls."

"What do you want to do about it?" asked Kenny.

"I think I have a couple ideas," Jack responded with a small smile.

The next day after that, Kenny and Jack arrived at the cemetery shortly after school, Jack carrying a small bouquet of lilies. When they entered the cemetery, Old Man Corcoran initially seemed quite skeptical of letting them back in, but when Jack explained that they wouldn't cause any trouble and they just wanted to respectfully lay flowers on one of the graves, the old caretaker stepped aside and let them in with a nod.

Inside the cemetery, it took the two brothers just a couple minutes to reach the rather simple- looking grave they wanted to visit (They had, after all, been unwittingly standing in it just two nights earlier), and they looked at the inscription on its headstone:

Cecilia Ann Vernon

Dearly Loved Daughter

April 8, 1979- November 20, 1992

"Cecilia?" Asked Kenny incredulously.

"It makes sense that she wanted to be known by her last name," Jack said, thinking it over, "She was a tomboy, so a name like 'Cecilia' probably sounded too girly for her tastes, and being called 'Cissy' for short was probably just as bad, if not worse."

Then, the two brothers silently stood at Cissy's grave for a couple minutes, before Jack knelt down and laid the flowers in front of her grave.

"Thanks, Cis- I mean, thanks, Vernon," He said softly as he got to his feet.

"When we first moved here," Kenny said, "I didn't think we'd ever make any new friends. But, we ended up making a great friend without even realizing it. Thanks, Vernon." He then knelt by her grave, removing a pencil from his pocket. He knew that vandalizing graves was wrong, and in a cemetery with spirits as restless as this one it could be suicidal, but he figured Cissy wouldn't mind in this case. Next to the word "Daughter" on her headstone, he wrote in pencil "And Friend." As Kenny got to his feet, Jack put a supportive hand on his shoulder, and the two brothers turned around, quietly leaving the cemetery. Had they turned back around, they'd have gotten one last shock from their whole ordeal; When they were almost out of sight, an apparition appeared next to the grave, out of thin air. It resembled a thirteen- year- old girl wearing white jeans, a t- shirt, a plaid jacket, and a blue baseball cap worn backwards. Cecilia "Cissy" Vernon looked much the same as she had the last couple times the brothers had seen her, other than one difference: Rather than her face bearing the grumpy scowl she often had when interacting with them, she now had a lovely smile, the smile of a soul at peace. She remained there for a few seconds, then disappeared without a trace.

Kenny and Jack thought about tracking down Cissy's parents and telling them what had happened, but decided against it; They knew her parents would never believe them, and hearing about it also might further upset them. They decided the best thing to do was to just let the Vernons continue to mourn their daughter in peace and privacy. One thing they DID do, though, was convince a local minister to come to the cemetery and say a quick blessing over her grave and the graves of the other kids. Marshall, Cissy, and the other ghost kids were never seen again after that. Kenny and Jack got used to their new hometown, and soon each of them made plenty of good friends there. However, as long as they lived, they never forgot the first, greatest friend they made there, and knew that wherever she was, she wouldn't forget them either.

The End