The Paupers' Crypt

by Ron Ripley

  The opening line stated,

  I am trapped …

  Chapter 11: Mitchell’s Notebook, Part One, May 4th, 1980

  I am trapped.

  I am still not quite certain what happened, or how I ended up here. It is all a terrible dream. A nightmare from which I cannot awaken.

  It began in a common enough way, and I suppose the banality of its beginning is part of the horror.

  I decided to walk from my room on Washington Street to Woods. The cemetery is always a source of inspiration for me. A place to think and consider life; a sanctuary in which to reflect.

  I brought my notebooks; the first one, I knew I would finish with since I had only a few pages. I brought pens in case one went dry.

  The morning was fine. A beautiful spring morning. I went and sat by the Greeley’s plot, the elm tree there offering shade. I wrote steadily for an hour or so. I filled the last of one notebook and had started the second. When I finally paused to stretch, I saw a fog had rolled in.

  It was a strange and curious fog. Thicker than any I had seen before, except for those on the beaches of Maine. I assumed the marshes, nearby, were responsible for it. I prepared to return to my writing when I saw how the fog followed the fence line and did not pass it. It was as though I was wrapped in a cocoon.

  And at first, it was a pleasant and comfortable feeling.

  The cemetery had always been a place of rest and safety. Why would I be afraid of a bit of fog?

  I should have been.

  Instead of returning to my writing, I should have left, fled, run from the place. Yet foolishly, I continued to write, to work on my craft. It will cost me my life, I am afraid.

  No sooner had I begun a new poem, then I heard laughter. When I looked up, I saw a young woman on the cemetery road. She was tall and thin, and she wore a faded yellow wedding dress.

  I thought it rather odd and I worried for a moment, whether or not she was mentally stable.

  Only for a moment, though, for then I realized her skin was a deathly white. Vicious, like a cold, hard snow. Her eyes were black. Not only her pupils and irises but the whites as well. The entire orb was black, and her eyes were locked on mine.

  When she saw me look at her, she threw her head back and let loose a laugh. The sound was so raw, so vile it caused my hands to shake.

  I threw my notebooks back into my satchel and got to my feet. I turned to flee and saw half a dozen others. They stood before the gate, each with a terrible smile. Some had gray skin, while others were almost alabaster white. Each had black eyes, though, and I knew they sought my death.

  And I knew, deep within, how my soul would suffer if they slew me.

  I ran and searched for a place to hide. If you are reading this, then you, whoever you are, have found my hiding place.

  My prison.

  My grave.

  I suffer no illusions about whether or not I shall escape from here.

  He has told me this is my place of dying.

  The owner of the voice, the man who spoke to me, who urged me to hide as the dead chased me through the cemetery. I have not seen this man. I know I shall soon.

  I hope, if you are trapped here with my remains, I can be of some assistance. I have traveled through all six of these doors, and I can tell you what to expect within each.

  None of them, let me assure you, lead to freedom, safety, or life. My return to this ante-chamber is nothing short of a miracle.

  Danger sits like a fat and swollen spider in its web, waiting for the unwary.

  Say a prayer for me, and I wish for you a quick death, and not the lingering starvation which I am sure is my fate.

  Chapter 12: Picking a Door, 9:30 AM, May 2nd, 2016

  “Do you mind if I smoke?” John asked.

  Brian shook his head. “Light up, John. Light up.”

  John shook out a cigarette, placed it between his lips and lit it. Once he had exhaled the first drag, he looked from Mitchell to the notebook and finally to Brian.

  “So, the papers from the office, they said we had to hide as best we could?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Brian said. “And Mitchell here, told us there’s danger behind every door.”

  “But we’re going to have to pick one to go through,” John said. He glanced at the iron entrance. “And they’ll get through, soon enough?”

  “So the papers say,” Brian said, sighing. “I know the iron will hold them off directly, but they must know of another way in. I don’t hear them on the other side.”

  John cocked his head, listened for a moment and then nodded. “True. Looks like we’ve got to play ourselves one hell of a game of hide and seek.”

  Brian chuckled bitterly. “Sounds about right.”

  John looked back at the six doors.

  “Guess we’ll have to read about Mitchell’s experiences?” John asked.

  “More than likely,” Brian said. He stared past John and at the six choices before them. “I really just want to know why this is happening.”

  “Trying not to think about the why of it,” John said momentarily.

  Brian looked over at him and frowned. “Why not?”

  “Just going to take up time, make me a little more worried,” John explained. “We can’t really afford either of those, can we?”

  Brian shook his head. “No. No, I suppose we can’t.”

  Brian looked down at the notebook, and then he jerked his head up sharply.

  “What is it?” John asked in a low voice, taking his cigarette out of his mouth.

  Brian held up a finger, cocked his head to one side and closed his eyes.

  John closed his eyes too, and listened.

  He heard the rapid beat of his heart, the exhalation of air through his nose and the inhalation through his mouth. He felt the cold and the raw edge of fear which chewed at his confidence and threatened to overwhelm him. He smelled the musky odor of death and a bitter hint of sorrow.

  And then he heard it.

  A light, insistent scratching. Coming from one of the wooden doors.

  With a shudder, John opened his eyes and saw Brian had done the same. The younger man pointed to the third door, and John nodded.

  The scratching came from the door’s center. As John listened, he could hear the sound move down slowly, ever so slowly to the bottom. Suddenly, the scratches stopped.

  Then a dark gray finger appeared. The nail was like polished obsidian. It caught the light of hurricane lamp, took it in, turned it around and let it glow dully. A second finger, and then a third and a fourth joined it. Finally, the thumb made an appearance and the entire hand was present and accounted for. It would slide in, palm down, and then slip out only to return a second later with the palm up. It rattled the door, pulled at it, and then it focused on the floor.

  It wasn’t the hands insistence, or the color of the flesh or the darkness of the nail which bothered John, though. It wasn’t the smell or the sight of it which caused a hitch in his breath or the knot in his stomach.

  It was the hand’s size; tiny, no larger than a toddler’s.

  Yet the malignant nature of it numbed John’s mind as surely as the touch of another had damaged his flesh with cold.

  And then he heard more scratches from the doors on either side of number three.

  They’ve sent the children in first, John realized, horrified. The children. Small enough to get in first and open a door for the others. For something worse.

  “Come on,” Brian said, his voice raw with fear. “Looks like door number one is the winner for today.”

  John merely stood up, held onto the hurricane lamp and waited or Brian to gather up the flashlight and Mitchell’s notes on the doors.

  Without a word, Brian walked to door number one, took hold of the wooden latch and led the way out of the chamber.

  John followed as quickly as he could.

  Chapter 13: Door Number One, 9:35 AM, May 2nd, 2016

  When the door closed behind them, Brian felt fear settle
into the back of his mind.

  This is a bad situation, he told himself. And this, this isn’t helping things at all.

  He and John stood in a small corridor, perhaps twenty feet long with walls close to his shoulders. If he went up on his tiptoes, he would hit his head on the ceiling. The entire length was made of old red bricks. The mortar was shrunken and crumbled in some places. And the only light was cast by the lamp. The end of the corridor looked to be a sharp turn, but until they got closer, Brian wouldn’t be able to tell.

  He put the flashlight down on the floor between his feet and opened up the notebook. By the lamp’s dim light, he found and read Mitchell’s section about the first door aloud,

  “There is no way to differentiate or to grade the horrors behind each door. I can only catalog them. The first door opens to a corridor which leads to a larger passage and two rooms. These rooms are the home of a man who has been dead for a long time. He is brutal and wicked, and delights in torture. I don’t think I escaped his clutches. I think he let me go so I might experience other horrors, and die of slow starvation. His name, I believe, is Malachi, and he would make the greatest of inquisitors seem like nothing more than amateurs.”

  “Well,” John said with a sigh, “I can’t say I find this particularly encouraging.”

  “Neither do I,” Brian agreed. He closed the notebook and picked up the flashlight. “Let’s see what we can do.”

  “Lead on,” John said.

  Brian did so. His heart fluttered nervously within his chest.

  Christ I don’t want to die down here, he thought. The reality of it weighed heavily upon him.

  Within a few moments, they reached the end of the corridor and found it turned to the left and spread out considerably. The walls were still made of brick, as was the ceiling and the floor. On the left, was a single door made of wood and painted a dark blue. On the right, was one identical to it.

  Brian took a few steps into the new chamber and came to a stop. John did the same and kept within arm’s distance of him. Pressure began to build in Brian’s head. The sensation was decidedly unpleasant and soon bordered on painful. It felt as though someone was behind each eye and sought to push them out of the sockets. For a moment, Brian had a mental image of his eyes dangling from their optic nerves and resting on his cheeks.

  “Jesus,” John hissed. “Get out of my head!”

  Brian couldn’t even speak, his tongue had swollen in his mouth, and he found it impossible to speak.

  A harsh laugh filled the chamber and changed to sharp snarl.

  “How do you like it?” John spat.

  The pain vanished from Brian, and he looked at John.

  The man’s face was a mask of rage. “You don’t like it do you? No, I know you don’t. Let me in and I’ll pump you so full of pain, you’ll wish you were deader than you are now.”

  “Silence!” a man snarled, and a moment later, a shape stepped out of the far brick wall.

  Chapter 14: The Contest, 9:40 AM, May 2nd, 2016

  John stood there, angry. He was filled with a rage he hadn’t felt since Vietnam.

  And he had been angry when he was in the jungle. Especially after he’d been hit with the Molotov cocktail.

  Somehow, he was able to send it back to the ghost which sought to hurt him. Which had sent the pain into his head. John felt as though there was a path between himself and the torturer, and he fed all of it back, ten-fold.

  The pain in his head vanished.

  John took a step forward and looked at the dead man who had walked through the wall and into the room.

  The man wore a set of clothes which looked like the Puritans could have brought them over from England. He was tall and thin, his skin the darkest gray that John had ever seen. The eyes didn’t even look black so much as they did empty.

  “Malachi,” John said, setting the hurricane lamp on the floor.

  For a moment, Malachi looked surprised. The expression vanished quickly.

  “You know my name,” the ghost said.

  “Seems like it’s the most impressive part about you,” John said.

  “I’ll teach you to keep a civil tongue in your head,” Malachi said softly. “Or I’ll have it out of your mouth altogether.”

  John chuckled. “Pretty good little speech there, Malory.”

  “Malachi,” the ghost said, anger creeping into his voice.

  “Melinda?” John asked innocently.

  “Malachi!” the dead man shouted.

  “Michelle?” John said, taking a short step forward.

  “Malachi! You stupid, ignorant fool!” Malachi shrieked.

  John felt the ghost’s anger wash over him, push at him, and John brought up all of his memories of being wounded. The pain, the fear. John threw it all at Malachi and watched with satisfaction as the ghost took a step backward.

  Malachi dropped down to a knee, head bent. “No.”

  Brian groaned beside John, and he glanced at the man. Brian’s eyes were shut tightly, perspiration on his head.

  John’s rage flared up, and he focused it on Malachi again.

  This time, Malachi screamed and fell onto the floor.

  John looked at the dead man, who rolled onto his back and gasped as he stared up at the ceiling.

  “Are you alright?” John asked, looking at Brian.

  Brian nodded, his face pale. “Felt like he reached in and squeezed my heart. Not the best thing for me.”

  “Not the best for anyone,” John said. “Be right back.”

  John walked forward to where the ghost lay and squatted down next to him. Malachi smelled of a dead animal. The stench of a big raccoon who’d been hit on the highway and had spent weeks there.

  The black depths of Malachi’s eyes rolled to fix upon John. “Who are you?”

  “Me?” John asked, surprised. “I’m just a man.”

  “Your face,” Malachi said.

  “Fire,” John replied. “Terrible fire. You should see my chest.”

  “The pain,” Malachi said, shuddering. “I have never known it.”

  “Now you have,” John said, and he knew he had a weapon against the dead man. “Now, I don’t suppose you’ll tell us how to leave the cemetery?”

  “Leave?” Malachi asked. He chuckled. “Oh no. There is no leaving, my new friend. If He lets you go, then you shall leave. Until then, you are His guest. Nothing more. Nothing less. Survive in here as long as you can. If He is impressed, He will let you leave. If not, well then, we’ll have more time to get acquainted.”

  “Best way out of here?” John asked.

  Malachi smiled. A wicked smile of crooked, yellow teeth.

  At the far wall, a door made of bricks swung into the room.

  “Travel carefully,” Malachi warned. “There are far worse residents than myself in the crypt.”

  Before John could ask who they might be, Malachi sank down into the floor and vanished.

  John looked back at Brian and smiled. “Looks like we’ll take the new door.”

  Brian gave a weak grin. “Sound good to me.”

  Chapter 15: Jenny Starts to Get Concerned, 9:40 AM, May 2nd, 2016

  Jenny picked up her cellphone again and checked the volume on the alerts. Brian still hadn’t called or texted her. Her own text still hadn’t gone through.

  She picked up the office phone and called the cemetery again. After two rings, it was answered. She recognized the voice.

  “Hi Joe,” she said. “Is Brian there?”

  Joe chuckled. “No. Well, yes and no. Does that help?”

  Jenny shook her head. “No, it doesn’t help. Can I speak with my husband, please?”

  “He can’t be reached by phone right now,” Joe said pleasantly.

  “Is he still talking with some people?” she asked.

  “No,” Joe said. “He’s trapped in the crypt.”

  Jenny felt cold suddenly. “What? What do you mean?”

  “Brian has quite the reputation amongst the dead, Mrs
. Roy,” Joe said, his voice becoming harsh and angry. A note of power ran through his words and Jenny’s throat tightened.

  “Who are you?” she asked softly.

  “Someone who feels privileged to have Brian here,” Joe said, chuckling. “I wish to see how well he can do. A few others have survived this, so there is a chance he might as well. Of course, none of them had such troublesome hearts.”

  “Why?” she whispered. “Why are you doing this?”

  “Why?” Joe asked, sounding surprised. “Well, perhaps a better question is why not? I have been dead a very, very long time. I am bored; he is entertaining.”

  “What if something happens to him?” Jenny asked.

  “You’ll know where to bring the flowers,” Joe said, and he hung up.

  Jenny tried to call back, but she only received a busy signal. She returned the phone to the cradle, stood up and went to tell Anne she was going home sick.

  Chapter 16: Traveling through the Unknown, 9:40 AM, May 2nd, 2016

  Brian walked slowly. He listened to his heart, made sure the rhythm was steady. Malachi’s cardiac squeeze had nearly done him in.

  Brian glanced at John. The older man had taken the lead and lighted the way as they traveled along a corridor fashioned from stones, wooden timbers, and packed earth. It felt as though they walked on a downward slope. The air remained chilly and harsh. A glance at his phone had shown he was still out of service, and the time was only twenty to ten, in the morning.

  It felt as though hours, not minutes, had passed.

  Brian was exhausted, hungry, and tired.

  But there would be no rest.

  No rest for the wicked, he thought, smiling to himself. And you have been wicked. I don’t know if I’ve deserved this, though.

  “How are you feeling?” John asked, glancing back at him.

  Brian shook his head. “You know the first day when you reach basic training, and you realize you made the worst mistake of your life?”