by Ron Ripley
“Beware of the Man though, for He is a deceiver, and one who will seek your end with all of His abilities.”
Brian looked up at John and saw the man’s face was grim, his mouth set in a hard line. The scar had gone a deathly pale and Brian saw the murder and hate in the man’s eyes.
“My Emily is trapped here,” John said softly.
Brian could only nod his agreement.
“Read on,” John said tightly.
Brian flipped the page and saw a drawing.
“It’s a map,” Brian said, showing it to John.
“Looks like a path through the graves to the crypt. And there’s something written at the bottom. It says, ‘Follow the path and stay in its center. The dead will reach for you, but along this way, you are safe.' ”
Brian turned to the last page.
“In the desk, you will find two keys. One for the outer door of the Crypt, and one for the inner door you shall come upon. Leave each unlocked as you pass, lest you become trapped, if you must flee.”
“This,” John said, “sounds absolutely terrible.”
Brian turned back to the map, looked at John and said, “I couldn’t agree more.”
Chapter 7: Running for It, 8:50 AM, May 2nd, 2016
“Are you ready?” Brian asked him.
John looked at the younger man and laughed. “Hell no. Feels like something’s biting my leg and trying to work it right out of the socket.”
“You’ll make it?” Brian said.
John gave him a hard grin. “Yes, I’ll make it. Don’t worry about it. At least now I know what to expect. Let’s do it.”
“Okay,” Brian said. He took hold of the doorknob and swung the door wide open.
A flesh-biting cold came sweeping into the office. It set John’s teeth on edge, and he shivered.
“Damn,” Brian said in a low voice. “This is bad.”
“True,” John said.
Brian led the way out with the map in his hand. He glanced at John and said, “Alright, John, follow me.”
John kept close to the man, who took a few steps, referred to the map, and then proceeded a little more.
On either side of them, John observed the headstones. They were spread out a little further than the others, and luckily so. On the other side of the cemetery’s wrought iron fence, the fog moved, curling in upon itself as it traveled along the length of the metal barrier. Yet the fog never crossed to mingle among the markers.
From each stone, the dead peered. Men and women. Children, too. Various ages and different shaped faces. Yet, all of them bore expressions of malice and hate. Their dead black eyes remained fixed upon the men and John felt uncomfortable. The slightest misstep, just an inch or two to the right, John realized, and the dead would grab him. His leg ached steadily, and the thought of another cold-burn like it pumped fear into his stomach.
And what would happen if Brian couldn’t get to you in time? John asked himself. What if the next one was quicker, stronger than the first? What’s waiting for you in those stones?
For a moment, he wondered what it would be like to join Emily in her cell in the cemetery. He remembered her gentle touch, the smell of her hair, the way she would smile.
And then he saw the hatred in her face. The black eyes which had once been green.
His stomach threatened to revolt and cast up the oatmeal he had eaten for breakfast. With a dry mouth and a mutinous gut, John continued to follow Brian’s slow and steady lead.
Time passed slowly, and while it felt as if an hour or two had fled by, his watch revealed it was only nine when they reached the crypt. John had never seen it. Never bothered to. Neither he nor Emily had been one to enjoy a stroll through a cemetery. Occasionally, they would visit her parents’ graves, place flowers there and trim back some errant grass. But, it was a place of burial and sadness.
Especially when he had said goodbye to Emily.
A hand lashed out at John’s foot, and he pulled it away quickly. He nearly tumbled but managed to keep his balance.
Brian stopped and looked back, concern on his face. “You okay?”
John nodded and caught his breath.
“Constance Woolson, here,” he said, gesturing towards the headstone whose owner had tried to snatch him. “Seems like she wanted me to visit.”
“Told her no?” Brian asked.
“Yup,” John said.
“Good, let’s get away from them and into the crypt,” Brian said. He rolled the papers, stuffed them into a back pocket and fished out his keys. “Ready?”
“Let’s go,” John said.
Together they passed through the last of the headstone gauntlet and walked up to the crypt’s door. It was a massive, iron affair with a couple of hinges as long as John’s forearms. Brian pushed aside a small keyhole plate, slid the key in and turned it until the lock’s tumblers fell into place. The hinges groaned, and the door swung outward easily.
Once it was opened completely, the two men stood and looked into the darkness beyond.
“Don’t suppose it has lights, does it?” John asked after a moment.
“Probably not,” Brian said.
“Hell,” John said, “this just keeps getting better and better.”
“Evidently. Think we should wait until we absolutely have to go in there?” Brian asked. “I mean, the dead aren’t exactly leaving their graves just yet. We may have a little bit of time.”
Before John could agree with Brian, a noise interrupted him.
A laugh. A high, shrill laugh.
Both of them turned around and looked behind them, off towards the center of the cemetery. At first, John couldn’t see anything other than the trees and the grass, the headstones and the thin road.
Then, without a word, Brian pointed.
John followed the line of sight and felt his heart skip more than a fair share of beats.
The laughter hadn’t come from one person, or even two people. But four children, ones of various ages, had stepped out onto the road. Three were boys, and one was a girl. They were all dressed in what must have been their Sunday finest, although those Sundays had probably occurred shortly after the end of the Civil War. Their skin, John saw, was as gray as the hand which had grabbed him near the gate.
And their eyes just as black.
A foul, nose-burning stench came racing along the cold air to him, and John took an involuntary step backward.
One of the boys laughed, and the children began to run towards them.
Brian grabbed hold of his arm and yelled, “Inside! Now!”
John nodded his agreement.
Chapter 8: Inside the Crypt, 9:03 AM, May 2nd, 2016
Brian let go of John, turned around, took hold of a small handle and pulled on the door. Normally, he would have wondered about a handle on the interior of a crypt, but now he was thankful for its existence.
The dead children, their hair a polluted brown and free in the air, shouted and laughed as they gained ground.
Brian finally managed to get the door closed, and the happy laughter of the children transformed into shrieks of rage. They came to a stop just outside and screamed at him. Wordless sounds full of a deep and chilling hatred.
“Watch your eyes,” John said, his voice coming from the left in the utter darkness of the crypt.
Brian closed them.
There was a roll and a snap and John said, “Okay.”
When Brian looked, he saw John held a lighter above his head. It cast a small circle of light and as John turned, it illuminated an old flashlight the size of a car battery as well as a hurricane lamp. The items stood on a small shelf cut into the earthen wall.
Brian brushed some webs off the flashlight, hit the switch and was pleased to see it spray light across the crypt.
Although what it revealed quickly tempered his happiness. Row upon row of stone markers were set into the sides of the crypt. Hundreds of them. Each bore a number, and nothing more.
Brian saw that the ceiling was
arched, cobwebs thick in the barely penetrated darkness. At the far end of the flashlight’s range, he caught sight of a second door. It was smaller, much smaller than the one which they had entered. From what he could tell, it too, was made of iron.
The air around them was heavy and cold.
“I think we should get to the second door, sooner rather than later,” John whispered.
Brian nodded.
John took the hurricane lamp and together they began to walk quickly towards the far end of the crypt.
They had gone no more than a dozen paces when Brian felt as though he was being watched.
A quick glance at the stone doors of the burial niches revealed it to be true.
Faces peered out of the stone. Some of them were confused. Others angry. None of them looked especially pleased to see either Brian or John. Brian didn’t want to find out why, or what the dead would do about it. He had a suspicion it wouldn’t be good.
“Got the key?” John asked in a low voice.
“Yeah,” Brian answered, keeping his own voice barely above a whisper. He had the key ready.
Hands appeared. They reached out of the stone doors to grasp the edges. Slowly, almost casually, the ghosts began to pull themselves out.
Whispers filled the air.
“… see you …”
“… smell you …”
“… are you afraid?”
And more words and phrases he couldn’t quite catch. The closer he and John drew to the second door, the louder the voices became.
The angrier their tones grew.
“Quick!” John hissed as they reached the iron barrier.
Brian kept the flashlight in one hand, and the weight of it made the muscles of his forearm scream in protest. He ignored them, slammed the key into the lock and turned it sharply. For a moment, it caught, and he had a flash of panic.
Did I break the key? Is the lock jammed? he wondered.
And then the door opened.
It swung into another room, and he and John hastened into it.
Brian pulled the key free, and John slammed the door back into place.
“Oh no,” Brian said, shining his light around him.
“What?” John asked, turning around. “Oh! Oh, this isn’t good at all.”
Brian couldn’t respond. He couldn’t look away from the skeleton which lay on the floor before them.
Chapter 9: Jenny Makes a Call, 9:10 AM, May 2nd, 2016
When her boss, Anne, stepped out for a quick cigarette, Jenny picked up her phone and sent Brian a text. Nothing more than an emoticon with hearts for eyes and a swooning look.
A second after she hit ‘send’ the phone buzzed, she smiled, and looked down at it.
‘Message Failed to Send.’
What? she asked herself. She hit send again, watched the screen, and saw the rejection come through, once more.
Bet it’s the damned location, she thought. Jenny quickly navigated over to Google, found the number for the Woods Cemetery and dialed it.
The phone rang three times before it was picked up.
“Woods Cemetery, Joe speaking,” an old man said.
“Hi Joe,” Jenny said happily, “my husband, Brian, is supposed to be working there today. Is he around?”
“Brian?” Joe said. “Oh, Brian Roy. He’s the new boss in town, right?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Nice fella,” Joe said cheerfully. “Well, he’s speaking with a family right now. Would you like me to take a message and ask him to give you a callback?”
“You know, a callback would be great, Joe,” Jenny said.
“Okay then, Mrs. Roy, I’ll be sure to tell Brian you called,” Joe said, and he sounded like the sweetest old man on the face of the planet.
“Great, thanks!”
“You’re welcome,” Joe said pleasantly, and he hung up the phone.
She would give Brian another call, or send him a text at lunchtime. She still had some paperwork to catch up on. Not to mention a ton of emails.
She put her phone down on the desk, logged into her work account and thought, I’ll have to make sure and tell Brian what a nice man Joe is. He was really helpful and pleasant.
Jenny hummed to herself as she scanned her emails and looked for anything which could possibly be construed as important.
Chapter 10: Brian and John in the Crypt, 9:10 AM, May 2nd, 2016
While Jenny had an exceptionally pleasant conversation with a man named Joe, Brian and John looked at the skeletal remains in front of them.
“He,” John said, setting the hurricane lamp down on the stone floor, “does not look like he came out on top of anything.”
“Definitely not,” Brian said. Behind him, he could hear the voices, their words lost on the other side of the iron door.
John walked forward, knelt down and looked closer at the skeleton.
It wore clothes dusty from years of solitude. The skeleton was once a man, and he had been dressed in a pair of jeans, black work boots, and a red sweater. A silver ring remained on the index finger of the left hand, and a pair of horn-rimmed glasses rested on his chest. The arms of the frames were connected by the fine links of a silver chain.
John, with exceptional care, searched the man’s pockets. A few moments later, he was rewarded with the discovery of a wallet.
“What’s this?” John asked in a soft voice, which Brian suspected was more for John’s own benefit than his. John reached behind the body and carefully removed a small satchel. He scooted away from the body and motioned for Brian to join him, and Brian did.
The floor was cold and uncomfortable, but it felt good to sit down. Brian felt adrenaline drain into his stomach. And even though Brian knew the biochemical process, what it meant and the purpose it served, it didn’t make him feel any less nauseous.
Brian realized, painfully, how he and John were trapped in the crypt. Within the cemetery. By the fence and the fog. And in spite of his ability to see and converse with the dead, regardless of his previous experiences, Brian was completely and utterly subservient to the situation.
He hated it.
“You okay?” John asked as Brian adjusted his position.
“Scared,” Brian said truthfully, “and frustrated. I know what ghosts can do. Scares the hell out of me.”
“Well, maybe one of these will be our lucky door,” John said, gesturing around the room.
For the first time, Brian really took note of their small prison. It was circular, with the iron entrance behind them and half a dozen more doors in the curved walls. Each lintel was labeled with a Roman numeral, one through six, the brass secured firmly to the wide planks. The doors were painted a dark green and were narrow and short.
Brian’s skin crawled as he looked at them.
They lead to nothing good, Brian thought. Only variations of bad, and each worse than the one before it.
“They don’t feel right,” John said softly.
“No,” Brian agreed. “Definitely not. Do you want to open up the wallet and see who our roommate was?”
John nodded, set the old satchel on his lap and opened up the wallet. It contained an assortment of color pictures kept in a cracked plastic accordion sleeve, fifteen dollars in singles, some random scraps of paper with short sentences like, ‘the oak on Elm,’ and ‘Fire on Mulberry.’
John found the license tucked behind a YMCA membership card. The picture on the license was of a young man. Dusty blonde hair fell to the shoulders and rested easily on the plaid shirt he wore. His face was wide and open, and he had a smirk.
“Mitchell Farmington,” John read. “Age twenty-two, born April first, 1960.”
“He’s been here a long time,” Brian said after a moment of silence.
“Yeah,” John agreed. He returned everything to the wallet and placed it on Mitchell’s chest.
“Think he might have written something down?” Brian asked, motioning towards the satchel.
“Hm? Maybe, we should che
ck it out,” John said absently. “Let’s light the hurricane lamp, though. Save some of the battery’s juice in the flashlight.”
“Sounds good,” Brian said. He passed the lamp over to John, and the man took out his lighter. He raised the shade, adjusted the wick, and then he lit it.
The flame from the lamp was strong and burned a bright blue just below the orange tip. John lowered the shade, and Brian turned off the flashlight. It was best to save it for later, and Brian hoped like hell there was going to be a later.
A whole lot of later.
John put his lighter away, turned the wick up a little higher for more light, and then turned his attention to the satchel.
Brian watched the older man work at the straps and the buckles, which were green with age. John finally freed the straps and left smears of cleared space on the leather. He wiped off the dust and grime on his pants and glanced over at Brian then smiled.
“Well,” John said, “let’s see what Mitchell had brought with him.”
The leather flap hissed and creaked as John pushed it up and back. From the narrow depths of the satchel, he removed a pair of black and white composition notebooks, several pens, an old Hershey’s chocolate bar wrapper, and a bottle of Coke. John set them all out on the floor between them and Mitchell.
The notebooks looked remarkably untouched by their thirty plus years in the room.
“Would you like to do the honors?” John asked.
“I would love to,” Brian said. He reached out and picked up one of the notebooks and opened it. Page after page of free verse poetry, most of it about life in a small city. The penmanship was neat, mistakes crossed out, and the corrections jotted above them.
Brian flipped through the entire notebook, shook his head and set it down. “Poetry.”
John nodded and handed Brian the second notebook.
The first few pages were filled with poems, but afterward, the pages were filled with word after word after word.