by J. R. Rain
“Nevermind that.”
A hand grabbed my ankle. Another grabbed my hair. I screamed as I finished typing in the password, even as I was lifted off the ground…and pulled toward the open mouth of a living skull.
And from the iPhone issued out a man’s voice. The same man’s voice we’d heard earlier, speaking the same unintelligible nonsense.
The skeleton lowered its face to mine, intending, I was certain, to take a bite from my cheek and forehead. And, indeed, I was looking deep into its ghost eyes, alight with hellfire.
But then the zombie paused.
In fact, the entire graveyard went silent. The gnashing teeth stopped. Hovering just inches above me, the light in the creature’s eye socket winked out.
And then I was dropped to the ground, where I witnessed the second strangest thing I’d ever seen. The zombies went back to their graves. Whether or not these were the correct graves, I didn’t know. But I watched as one by one, they each stepped down into their respective pits and even had the common courtesy to rebury themselves.
“Sweet mother of God.”
We were in Tommy’s Ford Explorer.
The cemetery was quiet. We probably should have headed out of there as fast as we could, perhaps only stopping when we ran out of gas. But…the worst seemed to be over.
“Someone’s going to know something,” said Tommy. “All the grave sites will have freshly turned soil.”
“I suppose so.”
“I mean, word is going to get around that something happened here.”
I nodded. My upper arm still hurt where a skeleton had recently gripped me tightly. Had this hillside really been filled with the walking dead? “Am I dreaming?” I asked.
“No, brother. That shit was real, and I’m going to complain about that app, leave it a bad review or something.”
“It’s gone,” I said. I had been looking at Tommy’s phone a few minutes earlier.
“What do you mean it’s gone?”
“Both the summoning and reversal app are gone.”
We both thought about that, looking at the now-empty cemetery. The Ghost Christmas Tree swayed in a small wind, multicolored streamers hanging limply.
“So what do we do?”
“Play dumb,” I said. “And never talk about it again.”
“I’m good at playing dumb,” said Tommy, and started his SUV.
I glared at him. “And you’re never to look at my mom again, dammit.”
Tommy grinned and pointed the Explorer out of the cemetery. “Like that’s ever going to happen.”
Author’s Note: “Merlin’s Tomb” was, in fact, the opening scene to a much bigger screenplay that never happened. That screenplay was going to be an epic, Indiana Jones-esque adventure about the search for the Holy Lance, or the Spear of Destiny. Except something funny happened along the way to the studios: my Hollywood agent and I had a falling out just as I began the screenplay. I left the agency, and never went back to writing screenplays.
For those of you who don’t know, the Holy Lance is the very lance used by a Roman Centurion long ago to pierce the side of Christ as he hung on the cross. The lance, or spear, is purported to give great power to its owner. In fact, according to legend, the owner of the lance can rule the earth.
Fun stuff.
Napoleon supposedly owned it. And so did Adolph Hitler. Or so the legends go. I mention Hitler here for a reason, as you are about to find out. Der Fuhrer was going to play an important role in my screenplay, and I had thought it might be fun to introduce him in the opening sequence as a lad. Except the screenplay never got written.
Or, rather, never got completed.
The opening sequence was indeed written, a sequence that, I think, can stand alone. A sequence that features one very popular wizard, too. That opening sequence has now since been turned into an easy-to-read short story, which I present to you here now.
—J.R. Rain
he cathedral is majestic. But in young Clifton’s mind, when you’ve seen one stained-glass window, you’ve seen them all.
“I’m bored,” he announces.
Monique tugs on his hand. “Come, cousin,” she says in her heavy French accent. “Father will be worried. We’d better hurry.”
But Clifton still lags behind the others in the tour group. “Uncle Gerard hasn’t noticed us for the past thirty minutes.”
“Well, Father has always been a bit… preoccupied.”
“You mean a bit boring,” Clifton counters. “He wanted to come here more than we did.”
“Clifton, you’re on holiday, in France. The least you could do is pretend to be interested.” Monique pauses, letting go of his hand and taking in the great, intricately carved pillars. “It’s not often one tours the St. Francis Cathedral,” Monique observes. “Especially an American such as yourself. Look about you!” She gestures to the sun pouring through the majestic stained glass windows. “It is beautiful, no? See how high the ceiling is!” Smiling, she raises her arms and spins around, her fashionable, flower-pattern dress twirling around her.
The tour guide, who has been talking nearly non-stop to the small group following him, drones on: “Legend has it that the sword of Excalibur is hidden here in St. Francis, perhaps within a secret chamber…”
“Okay, now that’s interesting.” Clifton perks up. “Excalibur, here?”
He now, admittedly, views the church with a renewed curiosity. He sees again the walls hung with ornate paintings and rich tapestries and grins. But what catches his attention the most is the gilded bronze door to his right. A massive door, and he wonders what’s behind it.
Excalibur, perhaps?
He glances at his uncle; the man is completely absorbed in the tour. On impulse—after all, most of what Clifton does in his young life is on impulse—he grabs his cousin’s hand and pulls her to one side, where they hide behind a wide cabinet, which just so happened to be next to the gilded, bronze door.
From here, they can still hear the tour guide, “…of course, that’s just a legend. Just like the one that claims the bones of Merlin are buried deep beneath the cathedral, forever guarding Arthur’s sword. All of which add to the charm and mystery here at St. Francis, don’t you think?”
The group, along with Monique’s father, murmur agreement—then turn a corner… and leave the cousins behind.
“Let’s explore!” Clifton exclaims.
“Father would be very displeased.”
“He won’t even know we’re gone.” Clifton adjusts his cap. Like Monique, he is well-dressed in new breeches and stockings. The young duo is fairly well-off, and while raised with the utmost decorum, Clifton is somewhat prone to mischief. He is, after all, an eleven-year-old boy with an overactive imagination.
As she is about to protest again, Clifton turns to the big bronze door. “Let’s see what’s in there. Pretty please?”
And before she can tell him just what she thinks of this ridiculous idea, Clifton pushes the heavy door open. It groans and creaks just enough to make even him nervous. He looks over his shoulder, but they are still alone in the long hallway. He grins, relieved, and winks at his cousin.
“C’mon, Mon.”
Despite her disapproval and mild protests, Monique soon joins her mischievous cousin—a cousin who forever gets her into trouble—and together they step through the bronze door.
And find themselves in an old sanctuary.
It’s filled with pews and statues and more stained-glass windows. The place has a reverence that encourages whispers, which is exactly what Clifton does.
“Boy, oh boy!” He literally rubs his hands together in anticipation. Anticipation for what exactly, he doesn’t know. On second thought, he very much does: adventure. The guide, after all, had said the magical words. King Arthur, Excalibur… and Merlin!
Music to any eleven-year-old boy’s ears.
“I think we’re not supposed to be in here,” Monique whispers as well.
“Well, he’s in here.” C
lifton points toward another boy sitting quietly in the front pew. The dark-haired boy is a couple of years older than Monique and her cousin. He uses a sharpened piece of charcoal to carefully draw on a pad of paper. His blue eyes suddenly rise up at them, study them briefly, then drop back down to his drawing.
“Well, I don’t think he’s supposed to be in here, either,” Monique protests, interrupted by her father’s muffled voice from beyond the door. “Monique? Clifton? Where the devil have you two gone off to?”
“Mon Dieu!” Monique exclaims. “We’d better find him. He’ll be worried—”
But as she starts for the bronze door, Clifton takes her hand and leads her down the main aisle toward the lectern. “If he finds us in here, I’ll get a whipping. He already thinks I’m trouble.”
“Well, you are.”
Clifton quickens his pace to the massive lectern. There, the two cousins stand a moment beneath a life-size crucifix. Behind them, Gerard’s faint voice is now joined by another. The cousins exchange worried looks. And, just as the door opens, Clifton yanks Monique down behind a stone altar.
Uncle Gerard and a red-faced priest enter the sanctuary through the same bronze door, then spread to either side of the great room. Behind the altar, Clifton raises his finger to his lips in a universal shushing gesture. Twice his cousin nearly stands. Twice Clifton grabs her and holds her down.
And that’s when the boy feels something curious. He moves closer to the altar, frowning, and brushes his palm over the stone base.
“Do you feel that?” he whispers.
“Feel what?”
The boy guides Monique’s hand to the correct spot… and to the cold updraft.
“It’s air. Big deal.”
“Exactly. Air. Which means there’s an opening in here.”
Gerard and the priest finish their search at the back of the long sanctuary, and are now moving up the aisles toward the lectern.
As the men approach, Clifton furiously searches the stone base until he finds a thin seam.
“They’re coming,” Monique hisses.
“Help me,” he says.
“Help you do what?”
“Push. We need to push it open. That’s how these things always work.”
“How do you know that’s how they work?”
“That’s how they work in Amazing Adventure Tales.”
“This isn’t a magazine, Clifton. This is real life—”
“Just help me, will ya?”
Clifton heaves his shoulder into the altar, grunting, digging his boots into the polished floor. Or trying to. Mostly, he slips and slides. He curses under his breath.
“Scoot over, Cliff!” Irritated, she elbows her cousin aside to make some room.
Now, with the two of them pushing, the heavy slab of stone shifts. More cool air blows out through the narrow, dark opening.
“Push harder!” Clifton whispers.
“I’m pushing as hard as I can!” Monique hisses.
As they continue with their efforts, Monique’s father speak up, presumably addressing the older, dark-haired boy. “Say there, lad. Have you seen two children in here? A boy and a girl?”
Clifton and Monique pause, gasping slightly, straining to hear the boy’s response. After a moment of silence, the boy speaks in a heavy German accent: “No. I’m sorry.”
Her father grunts as Monique breathes a sigh of relief, but Clifton is already pushing again. Just as she leans her shoulder in to help, that’s when it happens: the block of stone opens enough for them to crawl through.
They do just that. Clifton, always the fearless one, is immediately down on his hands and knees. He reaches back and grabs his cousin’s wrist.
“C’mon, Mon,” he whispers from the darkness.
Monique knows she doesn’t have to follow him. She also knows it’s crazy. Clifton, after all, is nothing but trouble. Except, she secretly liked that about her cousin.
As she debates this internally, someone up in the sanctuary says, “Voices, monsieur. Up there. Near the altar.”
Monique squeaks, then crawls quickly through the opening, scraping her knees a little in the process. She ignores the pain. Once inside, she and Clifton push the stone shut again.
They are safe.
For now.
It is mostly dark, although the light from the sanctuary seeps through numerous cracks in the altar’s old masonry.
The cousins sit as quietly as they can, not daring to so much as breathe, as shadows play on the other side of the altar’s secret entryway and Gerard and the priest mumble and search overhead, clearly confused and irritated.
Clifton stifles a laugh. Never has he had more fun than this! Well, maybe he did. But this is certainly in the top three.
When the shadows finally move away, Monique exhales a sigh of relief. Never has she been more nervous. Just as she’s about to turn to her troublemaking cousin, he suddenly points behind them.
“Look there!” he whispers excitedly.
Monique follows his finger. And sees it too: stairs that wind down into the floor itself, stairs hidden by the altar.
“I betcha no one’s been down there for hundreds of years.”
“And it can be another hundred years, for all I care.”
“C’mon, Mon. Where’s your sense of adventure?”
“There is no way I’m going down those stairs.”
“Suit yourself. You can just deal with your father alone.”
And with that, Clifton eases forward, and into the dark opening, his feet alighting on the first step.
A moment later, he disappears.
Monique, chewing her lip, looks at the stone opening, considers her options, then back at the dark hole. “Wait for me!”
In the sanctuary, the dark-haired boy has just witnessed two kids vanish behind the altar. One moment they were there, hiding from this fuddy-duddy man and angry priest, and the next… gone.
The boy frowns and sets aside his drawings. He crosses the room and heads up the short stairs to the raised lectern. Once there, he examines the ancient stone structure. Yes, indeed, the two kids are quite gone. But where?
Now, he moves his hands over the intricately carved stonework… and soon he, too, feels the cool updraft.
With Clifton one step ahead, the cousins continue down the winding stairs.
There is no railing, and so the kids use their hands for guidance, sliding along the rough-hewn stone walls, which are damp with mildew. The water drips somewhere nearby, and the archaic steps sometimes crumble beneath their weight. Each time they do, Monique squawks a little, only to be hushed by her younger cousin. All in all, it is a precarious descent, especially for Monique in her new shoes.
At one point, disoriented in the complete darkness, she loses her balance and, gasping and squealing, she pitches forward into Clifton. Amazingly, her cousin keeps his footing and catches her. She gets a severe admonishment to stay alert… and the two kids continue down, down…
“I’m frightened, Clifton,” says Monique. It is, at least, ten minutes later. They have been traveling in complete darkness for so long. There is only so much a girl could take.
“Just a little longer, please. I feel a draft.”
“You and your blasted drafts.”
“Wait! I see a light ahead! Come on!”
Monique sees it, too. A soft distant glow.
The light is a flickering torch, of all things.
As they reach the blessed fire—anything is better than this darkness—they also reach the bottom of the stairs. Before them, stretching to the left, is a long stone corridor.
Clifton grabs the torch, which is in a metal sconce mounted onto the stone wall.
“Here’s a question for you,” Monique says. “Who lit the torch?”
“Dunno,” Clifton answered.
“And how long has it been burning down here?”
“Dunno that either—wait! Maybe it’s magic!”
Monique isn’t so sure how she feels abo
ut that. A magic torch at the bottom of the world’s creepiest stairway does little to ease her misgivings about this whole blasted enterprise.
Clifton holds the flickering flame before them, practically salivating over the long corridor.
“Maybe we should go back, Cliff,” says Monique.
But her cousin waves her off and is already heading down the tunnel. She bites her lip. Yes, she could go back up… but that would mean going back up alone in the darkness. Damn Clifton! She pauses only briefly before hurrying after him.
At least we have light, she thinks grimly.
The tunnel is very quiet. Too quiet. They can hear their breathing and footfalls, and Monique is certain—if she listens hard enough—she can make out her own heart beating.
“More light!” exclaims Clifton, picking up his pace.
Monique sighs and hurries after him. More light can only be a good thing. Unless it is a bad thing. In which case, they are stuck here, deep beneath the church.
She does her best to push aside her fears, although she is mostly unsuccessful. Soon, however, they find themselves stepping carefully from the tunnel and into a circular room… a room lit with three more torches.
Clifton holds his aloft, scanning the place. “Dead end,” he reports glumly.
This, of course, is music to Monique’s ears. Now they have to turn back. She says as much.
“Not yet,” he replies. “There’s something about this room. Something weird.”
“It’s just a room—”
“No, it’s not. Look, it’s a perfect circle.”
“I don’t care if it’s a perfect anything. We need to get out of here, Clifton. Right now!”
“Hold on, Mon. Why would anyone build a circular room in a secret tunnel? And look! There’re grooves in the floor next to the wall. Can’t you feel a draft coming from them? There’s an opening under here.”
“The only draft is between your ears. Now come on, Cliff!”
“Just give me a minute, will ya? If I don’t find anything, we’ll head back. I swear.”