9 Tales Told in the Dark 10

by 9 Tales Told in the Dark

  “This is our home,” Athina said, seemingly surprised at the question. She had remained seated and when she spoke, Denise realized that her Aunt wasn’t seated at a table, she was sitting before an oblong box that looked to be at least six feet in length.

  Michail stood near Denise but hadn’t come closer once she had backed away from him. “You know where you are, don’t you?”

  Denise shook her head, glad that she had the open doorway behind her. A means of escape flashed through her mind.

  “Most homes here have little shrines, you’ve seen them, they are common,” he said. “Those that are not used much are small and attached to the house, above ground.”

  “But those that are used frequently require much more space, “Athina said, “and they are built under the home.”

  Denise glanced around the room quickly and said, “We’re under your house now?”

  “Yes,” Michail said. “Dorothea led you here by the back entrance. You probably didn’t notice.”

  Denise recalled that the structures with red roofs were shrines and churches. The building she had followed Dorothea into looked as if it hadn’t been painted in years. The red paint had faded to a dusty brown, the same color as the door and shutters on the front of her Aunt’s home. Her Aunt’s home was a church?

  Old house. Doesn’t belong here.

  After all her running, Denise had ended up right back at the place she had started from, but now she was hundreds of feet below the surface of the village.

  Taking all of this in, Denise gestured at the woman. “Who is Dorothea? How did you get her to find me, to lead me here?”

  Athina said, “We have led you this entire journey, Denise. Dorothea is simply another member of the family involved in your destination.”

  Denise took another step back; the room had become increasingly colder as she stood there and the unknown threat from the people before her was only growing.

  There was also something behind the three of them that kept distracting Denise.

  Beyond the faint light of the torches, all was dark. Denise swore she saw the darkness…moving, like dark, black waves. It appeared to be rustling or gathering itself together, as if it were preparing to take shape. She couldn’t really describe it but it appeared that there was a depth to it, a dimension. She thought she saw threatening images in the blackness; for an instant a gigantic wing, the size of an elephant and then what appeared to be the backside of a beast with scales as large as truck tires. But as soon as the likeness would appear, it would vanish in the pitch-black shadows.

  I’m scared and seeing things and need to get out of here, was all she managed to think as Athina and Michail spoke to her.

  “What family are you talking about? You and my Mom were never close, she rarely mentioned you and when she died, you never contacted Dad or I.”

  “She left us,” Athina said, the words sober, like a decree. She stood and approached Denise. “She forsook us, moved away from the village, tried to hide herself from us all, and then destroyed herself to ensure she would never return.”

  “What do you mean destroyed herself?” Denise had her back to the doorway. It seemed her Aunt was finally volunteering some information and Denise would leave as soon as she had the answers to her questions.

  “She cremated herself, didn’t she?” Athina asked, as if it was something to be ashamed of.

  Surprised at the question, Denise said, “Yes, she did. So did my Dad, so do most people. Why is it any concern of yours?”

  The blackness behind them seemed to modify itself again. Denise was certain she saw a flicker of…something. There was a mixture of rage and curiosity behind it, but the thing had appeared and vanished so quickly she wasn’t certain it was actually there.

  “We don’t cremate,” Athina said, unaware or taking no notice of the massive dark entity behind her. “We don’t destroy the soul. It lives on. What your mother did was blasphemous. And she never instructed you in the ritual either, which is why we had to work so very hard with so many people to bring you here.”

  “What…people? What are you talking about?” I’ll leave in a moment, Denise promised herself. I just need to get the answers and then I’ll be gone.

  Michail said, “After we had your address, we prepared the way for you, to bring you here. My son was the driver who met you when you arrived. The Hotel Grande Bretagne employs my niece and nephew. She checked you in and he was the porter who took your bags to your room.”

  “Your phone was disabled on the flight,” Dorothea said. “The young man on the computer in first class with you had hacked into your phone so nothing you sent was ever received, and if anyone sent you any content, it was marked as delivered but never was.”

  “And my son verified the phone was disabled when he took it from you and placed it in your hotel room charger,” Michail added. “They are all relatives, many are very distant, but they knew you needed to be here.”

  Denise felt the fear that had been building suddenly explode. These people were not only insane, they were dangerous. She abruptly turned away from them and fled through the doorway. She immediately started climbing the steps into the darkness. She kept one arm in front of her and used the other as a guide along the rough-hewn wall to her right.

  She was panicking and was almost immediately out of breath. She tried to calm herself down. She stopped and turned and looked down into the darkness. There was a very faint yellow glow from where they were, but she heard nothing. No shouts or footfalls on the stone steps pursuing her.

  Surprised they were not coming after her, she decided to walk cautiously up the steps to try and conserve her energy. Her mouth longed for water and her body craved rest but she pushed that all aside. One foot in front of the other.

  The air in the stairway abruptly turned from cool to frigid. She stopped, gasped and clutched her shoulders, trying to warm herself against the stinging cold. Something enormous was in front of her in the darkness. She could see nothing. She managed to only whimper in shock at what was unseen. It made no sound. She heard only her rapid and terrified heartbeat and nervous panting.

  Whatever lurked before her was something she could only sense because it was as if she was blind. It was ancient and had a wisdom that was all knowing; it knew no fear and nothing was a threat to it. It was communicating this to her, feeding the impressions deep into her mind, forcing them into her consciousness. Its size was of another dimension, surely filling the space in front of her but also at ease with rivaling the entire church or village or island. It had no discernible shape; it was indescribable yet her mind was trying to make logical sense of what it was receiving. She saw a dragon-like creature with the tentacles of an octopus, a water-being that also flew with wings wider than a city block and had the body of a spider with the legs of a centipede and the head of bird with the eyes of a human.

  The horrific likenesses appeared in such a rapid fury of shapes and sizes that she began to scream and plead that they would stop, her cries echoing and repeating themselves against the stone walls. She knew that if the images and communication from the entity continued, she would go mad. The primordial reaction that rose up was fight or flee, and she fled. She screamed without caution and started back down the stairs, not caring if she tripped or fell and broke her neck. Anything would be a mercy compared to what she was running from.

  She reached the landing and the door was still open. She ran into the torch-lit stone room and pulled the heavy door closed behind her. She was certain that the thing she was running from was flying or crawling eagerly after her, ready to devour its prey.

  Athina, Michail and Dorothea were all standing there in a group as if waiting for her, as if she had never left.

  “What…what was that…thing?” Denise panted.

  “It’s why we’re here,” Athina said calmly. She held out her hand. “It’s why you’re here. Come, let me show you.”

  Denise didn’t take her Aunt’s hand but she moved closer to the o
ther three, putting greater distance between herself and the door and whatever was on the other side of it. But she also sensed that the darkness went wherever it wanted and doors would never keep it from where it wanted to go

  The stone room they were in was more like a cave, Denise discovered. It was about the size of a small bedroom and the ceiling was no more than eight feet in height. The torches that burned steadily had been crammed into thick cracks in the walls. The four of them were all clustered together around the box and when Denise looked down, the flickering light revealed that it was a six-sided, polygon shape. It was hollowed out and at times, dull flashes of thick gold lines seemed to shimmer off the sides.

  Without saying a word, Michail pried one of the torches free from the wall and brought it close to the box. Denise shuddered and stepped back.

  It was a coffin. The gold flashes she had seen were the six side handles. She noticed that the lid was over in the corner of the cave with a raised cross on it. The coffin had a depth of about twelve inches and Michail moved the torch overhead to reveal the contents. Denise didn’t want to look. Athina, Michail and Dorothea watched her. None of them spoke nor did they glance down.

  She finally looked. By the flickering yellow-gold light of the torch, Denise saw the gray-white skeleton bones of a human body. The skull grinned with the remaining teeth and a few patches of tissue remained on the bones. The cushioned bottom of the casket appeared to have once been trimmed with some sort of white plush material, but most of it had long sense disintegrated.

  “Who is this?” Denise quietly asked, unable to look away.

  “It is Periklis, my husband,” Athina answered. Her voice was soft and Denise could hear great love and fondness in her Aunt’s voice.

  “Why is he….here?”

  “It has been three years since he passed,” Athina said. That was all she said and after a moment, Denise pulled her gaze away from the skeleton. “But why is he here, why are you all here?”

  Dorothea said, “It is three years. That is the number of resurrection. In all religions, in all cultures, even in mythology, three is when the dead are raised.”

  “Jesus rose after three days,” Michail said.

  “The Celtic Shamans believed that after certain incantations, they would resurrect their ancient ability to see the Grand Three, the past, the present, and the future,” Dorothea said.

  “The Holy Trinity,” Michail added.

  “And of course we Greeks have the three Fates, the three Graces, the three Gorgons and the three Furies,” Athina said. “It is always about the threes, but most importantly, we bring our dead back to the surface after three years to confirm they are not a revenant.”

  “What is a revenant?”

  Dorothea said, “After three years, if the coffin lid is removed and the body is black and putrid, then it is evidence that the person has become a revenant that he or she is burning in hell.”

  “If a body is a revenant, we destroy it immediately,” Michail said, “before Draugar can lay claim to it.”

  Before Denise could ask, Dorothea said, “Draugar is the blackness that dwells here where it is constrained and imprisoned, and where it desires to be freed from.”

  “Draugar is always seeking a body to inhabit, so it can live again, so we must exhume the bodies every three years,” Athina said. “If there are bones, we wash them and rebury them and that seals and protects them from Draugar. If the corpse is black, we quickly destroy it before Draugar can possess and reanimate it.”

  Michail said, “Draugar is always watching and waiting.”

  “For now and ever, and to the ages of ages,” Dorothea said solemnly.

  Listening to the three of them talk by torchlight in a cave deep under an ancient church made the moment surreal for Denise. It was all such crazy nonsense, superstition, and crazy old world beliefs. And yet she really had fled from some unknown thing that blocked her escape. Was that Draugar? If it was all real, if everything she heard was true…

  “A revenant is the only time a body can be cremated,” Dorothea continued. “It is a mercy to put them out of their misery, so they cannot be possessed by Draugar.” She joined Denise in sitting down. Athina occupied the third chair while Michail stood behind Athina.

  “You can see my Periklis, he is not a revenant,” Athina said, her voice proud and firm. “So the ritual can begin now. We must wash his bones.”

  Michail reached into the black shadows that surrounded them and brought forth a large clay container. Denise heard liquid slosh about and her thirst, never forgotten, rose up and she reached eagerly for the pot, thinking it was for her.

  “NO!” Dorothea shouted, reaching across and pushing Denise’s outstretched hands away.

  “Please, I am so thirsty,” Denise wept.

  Athina shook her head. “Not now. Put your needs, yourself, aside.”

  Michail set the jar carefully on the ground and he, Dorothea and Athina put their hands on the pot and began to chant in unison. Denise couldn’t make out what they were saying; it was a language unlike any she had ever heard. Their incantations and her weariness were settling on her. Her head began to throb in time with their chanting; a headache was forming and she felt as if she was falling into a trance. Neither fully awake nor fully asleep, she rocked back and forth in the chair.

  She watched through the yellow-gold of the torchlight as Athina dipped a thick blue parchment into the jar. It emerged saturated with a red liquid that dribbled off of the engorged cloth.

  “Take this wine,” Athina called out to the ceiling of the cave and Denise, through blurry eyes, thought she saw movement in the blackness that surround them.

  “Take this wine,” Michail and Dorothea repeated, and Denise watched as Athina knelt down and reached into the coffin. She appeared to be reaching about as if she was pulling flowers but when she straightened up, in her arms she had gathered together the bones of her husband, his skull facing Denise, grinning at her.

  Athina began to rub the wine-saturated cloth over the skull, washing it thoroughly, and then gently handed it off to Dorothea who passed it to Michail who was kneeling before the coffin. He placed each cleansed bone back into the casket. Denise watched the washing of a portion of the rib cage and then a foot bone and then a leg bone. Piece by piece, the bones were washed and then in assembly line fashion, passed to Dorothea. Eventually all the washed bones were returned to the coffin and Denise assumed the contents would be buried again.

  Throughout the hour-long ritual, the three of them sang or murmured or chanted in another tongue. Denise’s eyes gradually closed as she slumped in the chair.

  “You will learn all of this,” she thought she heard Athina say. “But you won’t need us, you can do it sufficiently on your own.”

  “We’ll teach you,” Dorothea promised, her voice sounding far away, as if she was calling out over a riverbank to the other side. “What your mother never taught you, we’ll teach you.”

  “Your hands are willing,” Athina whispered. “You are young and strong, with many, many years ahead of you…”

  Denise opened her eyes. She looked at her palms. By the flickering light of the torches, she saw that her open hands were now stained deep red, as if they were both severely sunburned.

  Groggily, she stood up and leaned on the chair for support. Had she fallen asleep? Dizzy, her eyes took a moment before they could focus on the two torches, which were creating shadows on the stone walls. Once she felt her head was clear, she looked around but Michail and Dorothea and her Aunt were gone.

  “Hello?” She turned to her left toward the doorway but something wasn’t right. Alarmed, she touched the wall where she had entered but the stone was now solid. The doorway had vanished. Impossible. Her head began to ache; what was happening to her? Was she losing her mind? She made her way back to the chairs. Only one remained. Hadn’t there been three chairs? She started to tremble and peered into the darkness, afraid of all that was happening to her. She rubbed her arms against
her shoulders to try and ward off the creeping chill in the cave.

  At the foot of the chair she noticed there was a coffin, but it was closed with dust and debris on top. Where had it come from? At the base of the casket was the large container that Michail had produced earlier. Denise pulled one of the torches free and held it close to the jar. Dozens—hundreds?—of red handprints had stained it over many years or decades, or even further back in time than she wanted to acknowledge. The container almost appeared to be solid red but the individual handprints could still be discerned

  Your hands are willing.

  Denise looked at her left hand, illuminated by the torch. It was blood red.

  She heard a rustling impatience in the darkness. The presence was watching her, eager to make an attempt at possessing whatever remained in the coffin before her. The thought flickered dully in her mind: If it is a revenant, I will have to act quickly, destroy it immediately.

  The next instant, it felt like she had just been plugged into something and was being controlled by an unseen intelligence. Everything she did was done automatically. Taking no thought to what she was doing, Denise stuck the torch between two rocks near the coffin. She brushed the dirt off the top and wondered again how the casket had been placed there. Once the surface was clean, she grabbed hold of the lid with both hands and opened the coffin.

  Overhead, she heard a flutter as the darkness gathered itself in anticipation.

  By the light of the torch she looked at the contents.

  Then she put her hands on the pot and like an old song lyric she suddenly recalled, she began to chant.

  An hour later, she closed the lid of the coffin. She had performed the ritual automatically, as if in a trance, her tongue and vocal chords creating words and sounds that she had never spoken before, yet they had all flowed out of her with ease and without hesitation. All the while she washed the bones, she sensed the darkness above her had recoiled, pulled in on itself once it had viewed the remains.