Night Creepers

by David Irons

  She ran back towards the ladder and pointed the small light back up the shaft into its darkness.

  'How the hell did it shut?' Kristi wailed.

  'How the hell has anything shut in here?' Jennifer pointed out.

  'Didn't you hear that sound? It was something mechanical like machinery,' Kelly observed.

  'She's right,' Matt agreed, 'I heard it. This place is automated; it wanted us down here.’

  'Because Blitzer wanted us down here, we're being moved into position,' Alex said.

  'Trapped,' Kristi stated with a grimace.

  Jennifer climbed back up the ladder, feeling her way back to the hard wood, then into the soft fabric of the coffin. Knocking against it with her hands, she tried moving the heavy oak lid. A blast of claustrophobic nausea rippled over her as she repositioned herself, putting her back to its lid, using the leverage from her legs on the ladder's first few rungs. A thought she tried to keep from her mind, that day trapped in the locker back in the nineties when she was just a kid. For a brief moment, she reverted back to that time, the past twenty years of life all just a dream. She clenched her fists three times, pounding the coffin lid — Open. Open. Open. Peter and Sarah's ghoulish grinning faces in Mrs. Baker’s shed, the words of their awful song, 'Night Creepers — Night Creepers, creeping through your hair, running down your body, running everywhere!' The face on her arm, his slogan — "Come on Down!" a bubbling pulse seemed to grow on her flesh the tattoo was inked on. Grunting and heaving, claustrophobia cutting through her marrow to slice at her soul; unable to move the locked-tight lid, she descended back to the others. 'That thing's solid. We're not getting back up there.'

  Kristi sighed.

  'Are you sure?' Matt climbed the ladder for a second opinion.

  'We're not getting back up there,' Jennifer stated, trying to hide the fear that blemished her face.

  'Were not supposed to. That bastard wants us down here,' Kristi uttered as she pulled the wide-eyed Kelly closer to her.

  'You think he's still alive, don't you?' Jennifer asked.

  'With that piece of crap, nothing would surprise me. Gregory Blitzer isn't exactly the man his minions think he is.'

  Matt continued to thump on the locked lid above. Kristi nodded to Alison. 'She doesn't have half a clue what that guy was like. I didn't until I married him and drew back the curtain. The things they accused me of making up about him…' She paused, looking at Kelly. 'They were nothing compared to what that guy was really into.'

  She stared at Jennifer with sincerity and seriousness. Her usual obtuse attitude stripped away in that moment. Jennifer watched as Kelly hugged herself closer to the woman she had seemed so estranged from. Kelly had at times appeared like the adult in her relationship with her mother. Now she looked like exactly what she was: a scared witless kid.

  Kristi moved them closer to where Jennifer was standing. 'I don't know what's down here, but we need to stick together, Jennifer. I think I can trust you, but them…' she shrugged slightly in the direction of the others.

  Matt climbed back down. 'That sucker's solid. We've got to find another way out of here.'

  Alison stared down at the ground with a deep, worried expression, as the priest rubbed his forehead. Jennifer looked into Kristi's deep brown eyes, mesmerized by the almost black vortex that stared hypnotically back at her. Almost an hour ago, Jennifer felt her and Matt had formed an unsaid alliance, a practical level-headed one. Now, here she was being drawn into cahoots with the most volatile personality they had been locked in with.

  The old saying, "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer" came to mind. Then, looking into those dark pools Kristi had for eyes, Jennifer remembered what she was: an actress. She being the only one down here who pretended to be someone else for a living, and that feeling of sincerity Kristi was trying to project was quickly dismissed with a deep suspicion. Jennifer wondered if by drawing up sides and aligning herself with this manipulating woman, she might have inadvertently been signing a deal with the devil; subconsciously she scratched at the winking red face of Beelzebub on her arm.

  It was as if Kristi was telepathically channelling into her distrust and trying to pacify it. 'Trust me, Jennifer. I wouldn't lie to you…' she whispered.

  Matt moved towards them, breaking the scene, 'We have to keep going through those tunnels. It's the only way out.'

  Jennifer nodded, stepping backwards, still caught in Kristi's persuasive gaze, as she picked up the projector and swung it over her shoulder.

  'Which way though?' Kelly asked, in a meek voice.

  He pondered for a moment. 'Let's go down the middle tunnel.'

  'Yes, the middle, that makes sense. That's what I would suggest,' Alison agreed.

  'Whatever. Just moving sounds good to me,' Alex huffed, a slight spooked tone in his voice.

  The priest ran his hands through his hair nodding, looking like he would agree with anything right now.

  Matt raised his piece of wooden pew to his chest. 'Shall we do it?'

  'Okay,' Jennifer said as she looked at Kristi; feeling like she almost had to ask the woman’s permission.

  'Yeah middle one,' Kristi simply said, leading her daughter by the hand to join them.

  Slowly, forming back together as a group again, they walked down the length of the gloomy middle arch. Staring silently at the rows of florescent strip lights, their feet matching the metronome beats of the collection of ticking clocks inside the seemingly endless dank tunnel, they moved forward into the mist shrouded unknown.

  CHAPTER 13

  The sound of sizzling electrified lights and the constant ticking of clocks haunted the tunnel, as a soft breeze that snaked around them; a breeze that put goose pimples on exposed flesh, that reached up the arms of sleeves and caressed skin with a ghostly icy death-like touch.

  In the hazy, humid gloom, the wall’s dampness reflected under the low neon glow. Not speaking, they stared ahead, not knowing what to expect, clutching whatever weapons they had with stiffened, poised fingers.

  Jennifer's devil twitched in overdrive, her shoulders tired from the heavy projector and battery. Even though the walls were alive with artificial light now, her self-sufficient ways unconsciously knew better than to put the weighty thing down — just in case.

  Wooden stakes might be good when faced with an apparent assailant who had climbed from his grave; but if said assailant decided to cut the power, left his guests without a chance of seeing their hands in front of their faces; not only could Jennifer light the way with the projector’s lamp, if Blitzer came close enough to her, she could brain him with the incommodious thing.

  The passageway's length seemed to defy the stretch of the actual graveyard above. Each step further into nothingness was measured with the clocks' intolerable long ticks.

  Suddenly, their silence was broken.

  'Jesus how long is this place?' Kristi asked in a dead pan slightly out of breath tone. 'Feels like we doubled the length of that driveway outside already.'

  'She's right, where the hell is this taking us?' Alex moaned.

  'We should just keep moving forward; give it ten more minutes, if it goes nowhere then we go back and take one of the other tunnels,' Matt suggested, adding, 'what else can we do?'

  'We could have split up, saved some time. If one of us found a way out, we could come back for the others,' Alison chimed in.

  'Do you fancy trusting anyone down here to come back after they got out?' Alex asked her doubtfully.

  She flicked her eyes to Kristi quickly. 'Well… What I meant was…' She mumbled.

  'We'll stick together,' Kristi stated with a finalized importance. 'We don't know what the hell we're walking into. It's safer this way, for all of us.'

  Alison and Kristi glared at one another. The timid woman now held her own gaze longer than a nanosecond, as Kristi scowled back with a red-hot stare.

  Kristi's reptile-like eyes flicked at Alison then landed on Jennifer, silently imparting that See what I mea
n? Split up? Can you trust her? Huh Jennifer? Can you? attitude she shared with her new ally. Her look tried to draw Jennifer in to that grey area she wanted no part of, enrolling her to become part of Team Kristi, the team whose leader would probably pat you on the back only to try and find a soft spot to plunge her knife.

  'Let's just keep walking,' Jennifer said, pulling away from Kristi's hypnotic stare. 'There has to be a way out of here, so let's just find it.'

  Alex shrugged. 'Hey preacher, you got any idea of what might be down here? If we can find a way out? You know these places?'

  The priest looked around, nervously. 'I don't know it,' he said, wary of having to continually state his innocence. 'But it looks to be catacombs, a crypt. I can only guess like the rest of you that there is some way out other than where we came from. We just have to find it.'

  Sensing the fear and uncertainness in his voice, Alex turned to look back where they had come from; its image mirrored what was directly in front of them — dank misty tunnels. 'Great, let's just keep moving then.'

  With a few sighs and mumbles, they trudged forward, walking in silence for another short amount of time — maybe twenty or so minutes — before the florescent strips stopped, the tunnel ended, then opened up like a giant gaping toothless mouth into a chasm of tenebrosity. Tensed with trepidation, paused and staring, then taking their phones back out, Kristi, Jennifer and Matt aimed the small beams into the dark space, their power of light seeming no match for the void's murk, like trying to hold a single lit match to the deepest darkest black hole in space.

  Jennifer coughed, bringing her hand to her mouth and nose; a distant stink weaved through the cold breeze, lingering close and personal to her nostrils. 'What the hell is that?' she gasped. Now everyone recoiled as their own senses filled with the repugnant reek.

  'Jeez, what's in there?' Alex gagged.

  'This is as pointless as pissing into the ocean and hoping it turns yellow,' Kristi barked, making both the priest and Alison shake their heads slightly, a twitch she had inflicted on them both since being in her presence today. 'Jennifer, fire that thing up to put some light in there.'

  The leader has commanded, Jennifer thought to herself, attaching the projector's exposed wire to the battery's terminal. With her daughter behind her cowering in the shadows, and the iron candelabra in her hand like a trident, Kristi looked like the queen and ruler of this underground hell as Jennifer now acted like the head of her loyal minions, with no other purpose than just waiting to do her bidding.

  Firing up the projector, its noisy mechanisms echoed around the chamber. She flipped its on switch, a strong white beam flooded from its lens, striking out and cutting away any darkness like a hot knife through butter.

  Jennifer stepped into the unseen room, staying close to its opening, pointing the projector's beam inside; pulling its focus to give her a wider, more panoramic view, revealing a mosaic-tiled chamber. Each tiny coloured square shimmered in the beam of light, like lustrous cubes of starlight in the far away night sky, twinkling with an almost surreal sea-like quality.

  Jennifer, in awe of this sight, took a side step to her right and suddenly felt something touch the back of her neck, something long spindly and wet. Thoughts of snakes and tentacles touched her mind as she gasped; spinning around, swinging the light upwards, the beam's erratic heart-stopping movement grabbed the group's attention, striking a cold icicle-like shudder through their bodies. More gasps sounded, mixed with the recoiling stagger of feet, as those who had started to venture into the chamber behind Jennifer looked up towards where the projector's spotlight lay.

  Hanging from the ceiling were thousands of flesh-coloured tendrils, seeping through the earth like dangling elongated worm bodies, all reaching for the girl with the light. Flailing backwards, slipping and falling on her rear end, the projector still pointing upwards, Jennifer stared at the thin tentacle-like things. She tried to steady the beam from the projector as it swayed around over the dangling mass above her. They watched as each spindly, albino vine — none of equal length or shape — shuddered with the sudden movement from her fall.

  'What the hell are those?' Kelly screamed out, a voice so shrill, it sent shivers further up Jennifer's spine.

  Matt rushed to pull her to her feet, helping steady the projector. His gaze returned to the ceiling, trying to make sense of the snake-like mass. 'Roots!' He yelled, 'they're just roots! From the roses in the church yard, look!'

  His words flattened the inconceivable image into something they could all understand.

  'Jesus, they're roots,' Alex almost laughed. 'We're still under the damn graveyard.'

  'If we're still under the graveyard and we've walked all this way, then where are any of the coffins?' Alison asked.

  A silence drew between them, quickly ending any moment of relief; the oppressive dread of the situation squeezing them like a giant’s grip.

  'Yeah,' agreed Alex. 'I saw headstones up there, so where are the bodies?'

  Jennifer caught her breath, backed up into the dark corner against the cold mosaic wall and stared at the dangling roots, still not fully trusting them as she tried to compose herself. 'Maybe they're above us still,' she reasoned. 'We don't know how deep we are. Maybe as we've walked, we've just gone further down too.'

  'Maybe,' said Matt. 'How far do rose roots grow downwards?'

  'Maybe two or three feet, the sheer volume of what's up there and the years they have been growing, who knows, maybe six?' suggested the priest.

  Kristi raised her eyebrows at him, sensing his guilt. Once more he felt like he was being implied in their subterranean capture, and quickly added, 'I'm a horticulturalist, gardening is my thing.' Then smiled with an awkward, insincere flash of teeth.

  Kristi held her scowl, turned in slow motion coolness, a condescending unimpressed look in her eyes that said all the colourful words that her tongue retained.

  Jennifer fired the projector’s beam around the room, understanding its circumference, highlighting its oval dimensions. Thirty-feet round and burrowed out like the centre of a great rabbit warren.

  Taking in the tiled wall, it gave her the bigger picture that the small mosaic squares collectively created. Two strips of glossed black tiles ran fully around the spherical room: one top, one bottom, both filled with squared representations of thorny, green entwined vines that sprouted red roses. In between the squared roses were blocky, twisted demonic faces: wide eyes, fangs; hanging tongues from gaping, almost salivating shiny tiled mouths; serpentine and insect-like things, both horned and winged with lascivious, desperate hungry eyes. Their vivid colours hidden from the elements outside in this damp cut off domain preserved their freshness, gave their tiled skin an almost scaled look.

  Covered in wonderment, Jennifer's heart rose to her mouth as she stared at these cubed beasts. The room's pieced-together images produced a bizarre claustrophobic chamber of horrors; one that sent cold ripples over the flesh of the girl who wore the mosaic creature's leader, Old Nick, forever inked into her skin.

  'What was this place?' Jennifer whispered, turning the projector around the room, rotating it on the images; passing each face, the next becoming more bestial and abstract than the last. They all stared at the rotating images as if they were in the middle of some kind of grotesque, ancient Grand Guignol zoetrope.

  Suddenly, the rotating beam stopped, Jennifer gasped. There, smeared on the tiles in visceral dripping red, desperately scrawled in ragged block capital letters, the words,

  'THEY ARE WHAT THEY EAT'

  The 'T' trailed off at the bottom to a bloody handprint, like a morbid red full stop. Kristi, for the first time since being with the group, was lost for words. Her cold heart froze at the grisly sight. Kelly put trembling arms around her again. Alison bit her lip, Alex rubbed his face as Matt looked at Jennifer and she looked back at him.

  The low drone of the breeze was broken as a low pained lilting sound, an elongated guttural 'Ugghhhhh…' came from somewhere ahead of them. The proj
ector's beam wavered as Jennifer, unable to breathe, turned it to follow the tiled, winding roses again. They lost their squared-off red petals, becoming spiny, green barbed wire that formed a huge throne arch on the blocky background.

  Breaking the repetition of flattened tiled imagery, soft three-dimensional curves replaced the jagged formation of small tiles. Air was sucked out of everyone's lungs at the sight before them.

  Chained with an ancient rusted manacle by a single malnourished arm — a real flesh and blood arm — a female figure was suspended from the wall: a stick thin dying girl, one arm prisoned, the other arm dangling. Long blonde rattails of hair patchily grew from atop her lopsided head, hanging down towards her dirtied legs, masking her hidden face.

  Her clothes: a torn and ragged black denim jacket — split at various points of its seams — covered a dirtied, bloodied neon pink dress. Next to her filthy bare feet, skewed and dirtied, a pair of black high heels. Silently Jennifer held the long stream of candid projector light on this image. For a second, while everyone digested what was before them, a silence filled the air, only broken by the heartbeat-like tick of clocks behind.

  Kelly tried to process the spot lit image before her with ten-year old eyes. The connotations of a chained — almost stripped — woman did not bring forth anything that would better the already bad situation; it just filled her mind with a sexualisation she was unable to gage or grasp. She let all of her trapped anxious fears out in a single piercing scream that sent a spiralling wave of terror jolting through everyone's bones.

  Kristi grabbed her face tight, muffled her, stifled her cry with her palm; her eyes looking as though they would burst like a pair of blown out car headlights from the muted scream.

  'Oh my god!' Alex shouted, 'who the hell is that?' Stepping backwards he stumbled on an array of scattered, blood-drenched books on the floor, staggering, almost falling as he tried to regain his balance.

  'That sick son of a bitch,' Kristi spat.