The gravecrawlers

I reached the gates of Whispering Pines cemetery, but had to stop because my lungs were burning. The hot air outside made my life considerably harder as it dried my mouth and throat mercilessly. My pursuers were not far away, so I had a choice to make. Time was of the essence. I could either continue running, or jump the fence into the realm of the dead.

Looking to my right, I saw far away the torches of the mob, which was hell-bent on capturing and punishing me. The thievery I had committed was out of the utmost necessity. I still hate myself to this day, as I am writing these pages, for that unlawful act. But my punishment had been greater than that which any mob could have inflicted upon me, for what I’ve experienced that night exceeds the most hellish punishments or nightmares any mind could comprehend.

With aching muscles, I struggled to climb the fence. The mob was closing in. I heard their furious shouts. I jumped down on the other side, then hid behind a large gravestone several yards away. They turned onto the street with the cemetery, and just when I thought they’d pass by, they stopped. My heart was beating like the drums of war, and I was struggling to keep my rapid breathing from uttering any accidental sounds.

They were arguing outside the fence. Their voices were full of venom and rage. They were eager to capture me. I was praying to God to save me. To my knowledge, nobody had seen my face, so I had a chance to escape. I thought if I could just survive the night without being caught, I could go back to my family. With the money I’ve stolen, I could then help find treatment for my dear daughter, who was in dire need of it.

The arguing reached an end. The mob decided to split up in order to increase their chances of finding me. I sighed in relief and thanked God for his mercy. Had they chosen to enter the cemetery, I would have had no chance. Now, looking back, I know it was not mercy from God, rather a punishment for my grave sin.

I waited until the raging mass of people dispersed, then tried to figure out my next steps. One thing was certain, I could not leave this place. Not soon, that is. I was trapped in that garden of the dead, with only ghosts for company. Or so I thought. The place bore an ominous feel to it. I sensed it after my heart and lungs calmed down. The smell of dried grass and dust accentuated the thirst I was feeling. I could have killed for a glass of cold water. I could even drink from a dirty puddle.

The smell of coming rain began drifting on the wind. This was welcome at first, as the cooling of the air brought a much-needed relief. But the prospect of rain was alarming. I looked to the sky through the pine branches and saw the moon fade behind the amassing clouds. Then I turned my gaze to the dark shape, which was looming in the distance like an everlasting curse.

It was the house of the former caretaker and mortician, Mortimer Blackwell. He had died before my birth, but his infamy had spread all across New England. Rumors say he had experimented with dark magic, and he had committed unspeakable evils in that very house. Nobody had the courage to go inside that edifice of conjuring and death. His entire family had perished in the mysterious circumstances after his death. So did subsequent buyers of the house. And after nobody was willing to buy it anymore, it stood derelict. Whatever was hiding inside, it was watching over the cemetery.

I shuddered as these thoughts ran through my mind. Then thunder rumbled nearby. The sky was full of mounting fury, ready to unleash upon the land. I had to find shelter, but there was no other option but the accursed house. Outside, members of the mob were still walking about relentlessly. I had a feeling that they tried to avoid this place. No sane soul in Harper’s Ridge would enter it after nightfall. The awful history of the Blackwell house was keeping people out.

Yet I was inside Whispering Pines, forced to enter the dreaded ruin. So I gathered my courage and headed toward the Blackwell house, which was several hundred yards away from the gate. I kept convincing myself that if I only stay on the porch outside, everything will be fine. I thought it would be a miserable night if the temperature outside dropped, but being the end of summer, I could survive that. There was nothing which could have prepared me for the things I was about to experience.

After a cautious walk among the tombstones and pines, I reached the rotting corpse of the Blackwell house. The steps leading to the porch were made of stone, just like the stone of the graves in the cemetery. I hesitated to put my foot on the first step leading to this monument to Erebus, the primordial darkness. But as drops of rain began falling, I took the step with trembling feet.

I went up to the porch, which used to be covered, but the shingles and woodwork lay in pieces on the mossy stone below my feet. Maybe I will stay in the rain, I thought. The prospect of going inside became evermore frightening. I looked toward the front door, but I saw only darkness. The clouds above blocked almost all moonlight. Fortunately, I remembered I had a few matches in my pocket.

As I was fumbling for them, I heard a branch snap from down between the graves. I stopped and listened. Then came something similar to an owl’s hoot, but it was sickly. A sound I did not recognize. It was deep and distorted. I turned, but saw nothing. Then another strange hoot sounded, this time from another direction. This one was slightly different, but still definitely not made by an owl, nor any other nocturnal bird.

A long pause followed. I did not move for several seconds, but then resumed my search for the matches. Finally, I’ve found them. I took the small matchbox in my hand and opened it. I’ve felt I have only a few pieces left in the box. Providence was surely not on my side.

I lit one, then I recoiled in horror. A few yards away, between the graves, I saw a figure move. A gasp escaped my mouth as I tried not to scream with fright. It was only a fleeting moment, but I undoubtedly saw a humanoid shape crawling on all fours, then disappearing into the shrubbery. The match was quickly burning down, so I threw it away and took out another one. I lit it and tried to look around, but the light was meager. The fire was almost touching my finger, when I pointed the match to the grave, where I saw the figure hide. A pair of bright yellow eyes disappeared behind the stone as the light fell upon it.

Something was lurking between the graves. There was no doubt in my mind about it. I was trying to convince myself that it was only an animal, but its movements were unlike that of any creature I knew. The match burned my finger, so I dropped it. Then I heard rustling. Something was coming from the direction of the grave. I took several steps back, but heard the thing approach in the darkness. It uttered a menacing but unrecognizable sound as it closed in on me. Meanwhile, the falling droplets transformed into rain, and the ramshackle porch roof above provided little protection.

I dreaded the thought of entering the accursed house, but I dreaded more the creature a few steps in front of me. With a pounding heart, I turned and ran toward the blackness where the front door of the house was supposed to be. The thing bolted after me, but I reached the door just in time. My hand instinctively found the latch, and I opened it, stepped in, and closed it before the creature could catch me.

I heard it pace around the door, sniffing, probing. Go away, damn you, I thought while I was gripping the latch with both hands. Finally, it retreated. I sighed, but I was in a worse situation than before. If a thing like that was outside, who can tell what was inside?

The smells drifting in the house were the most unnerving and peculiar. I felt as if I stepped inside a crypt, not the ruins of a house. The smell of rats and mold blended with the miasma of the grave, of unearthed bodies left to rot. Everything there reeked of desecration and unholiness. If there was a God, I think even he was staying far from this place.

I held the door for some time, anticipating the creature’s return, but it did not come back. I was suspecting its intent was to come in through a different entrance, to surprise me. After it left, only silence remained. Faint skittering hit my ears. First, it startled me, but then I recognized the sound as that of rats moving around. I lit another match and looked around. Lots of debris lay about the house. A few feet away, I noticed a heap of old wood planks. I picked up a thin piece and held it inside the flame. It was dry, so it caught fire before the match burned out.

By the light of the meager flame, I searched the heap for a plank sturdy enough to prop the door with. To my relief, I found one. After propping the door, I turned with the intent of exploring my surroundings. It was not the prospect of discovery which was fueling me, but the assurance of security. I wanted to see if there was any immediate danger near me, or anything useful.

It was clear to me that surviving the night was exponentially more difficult than I had imagined previously. At least I was sure the mob was not coming after me there. As I walked into the living room, I heard and felt the floorboards creak painfully under my weight. A thick layer of cobwebs and dust covered everything. Rat droppings were everywhere.

I noticed a large table in the living room, and my heart began pounding after seeing what was on it. An oil lamp enveloped in thick cobwebs lay on top of it for who knows how long. I paced to the table, took the lamp and in my hand, and I felt right away that there was still some oil in it. It was a most welcome find, just like a thirsty man finding water in the desert. Some unfortunate soul who had entered this godforsaken place must have left it on the table a long time ago.

After clearing it of cobwebs, I lit it. At first, the light it gave out was faint. But the flame got bigger after several seconds, and it illuminated the place much better than the weak flame of the thin piece of wood. Now, as the inside of the house was illuminated better, I saw my surroundings more clearly. The floor had several holes in it. I noticed a large rat climb out of one of these holes. The light visibly confused it. After staring at me with its small beady eyes, it walked away nonchalantly into a dark corner while passing close before me.

I turned and followed it with my gaze, then I looked up after I saw it no more. I gasped when I saw movement in the corner at about eye level. Something was moving there, or maybe my mind was playing tricks on me. Instinctively, I took a step back toward the middle of the living room. The boards below my feet squeaked, but I didn’t pay much attention. My eyes were fixed upon the shifting, undulating darkness. Then, to my utmost horror, it came out of the corner and began floating toward me.

There was no doubt in me anymore. A haunting presence was there with me. A dark consciousness, which had somehow survived the certitude of death, was approaching me. As it got closer, I saw it possessed a human shape, but it was as black as the darkest pits of hell. It had no features, only a contour, and it radiated an icy chill. I still don’t understand how could something radiate coldness, but that thing certainly did. It was emanating from it, and I felt it drain all remaining warmth from my body. Then it spoke, but it was no language I understood. It was a strange mumbling, which reverberated in my mind like some kind of dark chanting.

I took several steps back while my skin was crawling from the icy touch of fear. Then, on my last step, I heard a crack, and I was falling backward into the abyss. I screamed, of course, as the fall came as a surprise. I instinctively clutched the oil lamp close to my body to avoid breaking it. The last thing I wanted was to set myself alight.

I was expecting to hurt myself, but to my surprise I fell onto something relatively soft. The smell, which hit me, was atrocious. It was like being locked into a coffin with a rotting corpse for company. Then I looked around and saw what was below me on the basement floor. A pile of bodies in various stages of decomposition, with rats crawling all over them.

I threw up right then and there, then scrambled to get up and move as far away from the horrible pile as possible. To my incredible luck, the lamp was still burning. I was clutching it like a mother would clutch her dear newborn child. I searched for the humanoid darkness which caused me to fall into this mass tomb, but I did not see it.

The basement was littered with all kinds of waste. Close to the pile of bodies, I noticed a pile of broken wood planks, which had once had been coffins. Then I heard rustling from near one of the walls. I looked toward the source of the sound and saw a large hole in the brick wall. Then I saw another a few yards away.

The rustling became louder. It was as if something were crawling through one of those holes. Then I remembered the strange creature which attacked me outside. I was expecting it to come through one of the holes to resume its attack, so I looked for a way to escape. I saw the remnants of a staircase, which once was leading to the floor above, but its lower part was lying in a pile below it.

I had to look again toward the hole, as the crawling intensified, and I saw the creature. It stuck its head out, its fiery eyes gleaming with otherworldly radiance. In its mouth, a human hand was dangling. Blueish and rotten, it had most likely been ripped off of a cadaver somewhere in the cemetery.

When I saw the creature with the hand in its mouth, I realized what that place was. An unholy feeding ground for the monstrosities born of the dark magic and necromancy perpetrated in the Blackwell house. I had no time to ponder more on the subject, however, because in the second hole, another creature appeared. This one had no body part in its mouth. It uttered a screech, which I felt inside my bones. Its mouth opened wide, revealing countless sharp teeth made for rending flesh. Its skin was dark grey, slimy and covered by soil. The creature had thin, long hands and a large palm, adapted to dig tunnels through hard soil and rip coffins apart.

My eyes darted around, searching for a way to escape. Both creatures jumped out of the holes, and the first one dropped the hand from its mouth. It fell to the stone floor with a soggy thud. More creatures followed the first two. That was when I genuinely thought I will serve as food for these ghouls just like the bodies I’ve fallen over.

As I was retreating, I turned my head and saw a small opening on the opposite wall. It was a small basement window. I knew right away I had to try it. It was my last and only chance, but with the beasts closing in, I doubted I would get out. They approached, trying to encircle me while more came from the holes in the wall. A larger one came through, and when it saw me, it growled menacingly, then jumped onto the pile of bodies. Saliva was dripping from its mouth. It must have been their leader.

That was when I bolted toward the window. The beasts growled and ran after me. I reached the opening with a few steps, but I felt them close. I smashed the lamp into the ground behind me. The oil spilled, and it caught fire, blinding the nocturnal creatures for a few seconds. I jumped and grabbed the edge of the opening and pulled myself up. Under normal circumstances, I’m not sure I would’ve done that feat, but panic made me strong for a few seconds.

I almost dragged both my feet up when I felt claws dig into my flesh. The pain was sharp, cutting like a razorblade. I screamed, caring not about who might hear me from the streets outside. At that time, I preferred the people hunting me infinitely more than these ghouls from the abyss. The creature was dragging me down, its claws sunk into my flesh like hooks. I clawed at the stone, trying to overcome the pulling force, then felt the beast clawing itself up on my body.

I shrieked as I felt the claws dig into my buttocks and lower back. Then, involuntarily, I struck the windowpane, which was already cracked. It broke into several pieces. I grabbed one shard with my right hand, and as the creature was making its way up, I stabbed backward behind my ear. It screamed as the shard sunk most likely into its eye. I felt a cold, viscous fluid cover the right side of my face and neck. It reeked of the grave. The monster fell backward, and I no longer felt its weight dragging me down. I quickly grabbed the rim where the windowpane used to be and pulled with all my might.

I didn’t notice a shard of glass cutting deep into my palm. All I wanted was to get out by any means necessary. I did, but it was not over. I saw the shape of another creature in the opening. Rain fell on me mercilessly, but I did not care. It washed away the putrescent gore, which stuck to me when I fell onto the pile, and the foul blood of the monster I stabbed.

In the basement, the fire caused by the broken lamp was already fading. By its dying light, I saw several hideous heads pop up behind the creature, which was already crawling outside. Having no weapons or anything which I could use to defend myself against these beasts, I ran toward the cemetery’s edge. I heard them behind me as they gave chase. At the last moment, I changed directions with a sudden move. This made one of them crash into a gravestone, which shattered.

So I ran, changing directions several times, but my body was screaming for me to stop. My lungs were at the end of their capacity and my heart was bursting out of my chest. Fortunately, I reached the fence. I jumped on it, and in a few moves, I was already on the other side. There was no time to be careful, so I fell on my side in a large puddle of fresh rainwater, and gasped desperately for air as my chest was exploding from the effort.

I turned on my back and heard the distant shouts of the people who had been chasing me. Rain fell onto my cheeks, and it was the most welcome feeling in the world . No abysmal monster jumped the fence to kill me. Members of the mob reached the place where I fell to the ground. They shouted for the others to come.

But then silence came upon them. I sat up and looked between the iron bars toward the darkness of the cemetery. The men screamed in fear, abandoned all prospects of capturing me, then ran in all directions. There, in the crepuscular domain of the dead, countless grotesque figures were watching with burning hatred and hunger in their long dead eyes. But whatever ancient curse had awakened them, it also forbade them to step beyond the boundary of their domain. One by one, they faded back into the shadows. They retreated into the house of death, where the frigid ghost of Mortimer Blackwell was still watching over his children.