The Paupers' Crypt (6 page)

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 2
^nd
, 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 2
^nd
, 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 2
^nd
, 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 2
^nd
, 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?”

John chuckled. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, just like it,” Brian said, sighing.

“Understood,” John said. “Let me know if you need me to carry the flashlight. Thing looks like it weighs a ton.”

“Thanks,” Brian said, “I’ll swing it for now.”

“Fair enough,” John said.

The passage curved gently to the left, and when it straightened out again, a round door which reminded Brian of Bilbo Baggins, stood before them.

Pretty sure there’s no happy little hobbit in there, though,
Brian thought.

John hissed and stumbled.

Brian reached out, caught the man by his arm and asked, “Are you okay?”

For a moment, John didn’t answer, and when he finally did, his voice was filled with pain. “My leg. Where the ghost had grabbed me earlier. Felt like someone just drove a bunch of needles into it.”

“Let me take a look,” Brian said, turning on the flashlight. He aimed the beam at John’s leg as the man pulled up the pants.

“Damn,” Brian whispered.

When he had seen the injury in the office, the frostbite had covered about a hand’s width of flesh. Now the skin had a blotchy black and gray appearance, and stretched from the brown sock John wore and up to the knee.

John looked down, saw it, and whistled between his teeth. He dropped the pants leg, winced as the fabric brushed the skin, and gave Brian a grim smile.

“Doesn’t look too good, now does it,” he said.

Brian shook his head. “No, John, it looks pretty damned bad.”

“Probably why it hurts so much,” John said.

“Probably,” Brian replied. He turned off the light. There was nothing he could do about the leg. The best chance John had was to get out of the cemetery and get to a doctor. Brian didn’t even have a knife he could use to amputate the leg if it came to it, and no matter how tough John was, Brian doubted the man could handle a surgery without some sort of anesthetic.

And why would he want to?
Brian asked himself.

“Ready for door number two?” John asked, interrupting Brian’s train of thoughts.

“Of course not,” Brian said. “But we don’t have much of a choice.”

“No,” John agreed, “we don’t. Want to do the honors?”

“Sure,” Brian said. He stepped forward, took hold of a brass knob and revealed the next challenge.