Raven Revivals

by Amy Cross

  She drops the last of the padlock keys into a small tin and closes the lid.

  Hauling the box of food up into her arms, she starts making her way along the tunnel, heading deep down into the depths of the crypt. When she reaches one of the ante-chambers, she takes a short detour and drops the box next to a makeshift bed that she has already started to construct. Nearby, several other boxes contain the other items that she's planning to use while she's underground: stacks of old paperback books rescued from the local charity shop; magazines and newspapers, along with piles of crosswords and other puzzles; a pack of cards, so she can play Solitaire to her heart's content; and more food, which used sparingly should keep her going for six months until she takes a brief trip above-ground to fetch more supplies.

  “I can be happy down here,” she tells herself, even though she's not entirely convinced. “I've always been okay with my own company, and at least I've got an actual job to be doing, something important. I'm here to save the world. I'm doing this for all the people out there, all the people in Rippon, all the people everywhere.” She pauses for a moment, surveying her little collection of items. “I'm doing this for Henry. Who knew that saving the world would be so boring?”

  Taking the torch back out into the tunnel, she makes her way toward the chamber that contains the Devil's coffin. Although she keeps telling herself that he's probably gone back to sleep now, she can't shake the fear that his eyes might still be open, that he might be waiting for the ravens to come back. If that's the case, she figures he's going to be disappointed, since she already has plans to raven-proof the entire subterranean structure.

  “Hey honey,” she mutters as she enters the final chamber, “I'm -”

  Her foot crunches against something hard on the ground. Something made of glass.

  She stops.

  She stares straight ahead.

  She blinks a couple of times.

  She feels her blood run cold.

  All over the floor, there are pieces of glass, while in the center of the chamber there's nothing more than the plinth on which the glass coffin used to stand. The coffin itself has clearly shattered with considerable force, and some of the pieces are even embedded in the walls, as if they were forced there by some kind of explosion.

  “No no no no no,” Sam whispers, trying to calm the growing sense of terror in her soul.

  She takes a deep breath.

  “No no no,” she adds, stepping forward and staring at the empty plinth. “This can't be... This...”

  Suddenly she turns, but there's no sign of anyone behind her. She listens for a moment, but all she can hear is her own heartbeat. She takes a step back, and this time her feet crunch against some more pieces of glass.

  “No!” she shouts, racing through to the next chamber, and then the next. There are several to check, and once she's finished she starts all over again, convinced that somehow she's missed something. Every shadow could be a hiding place, but although she leaves no stone unturned, she find nothing. Finally, however, once she's completed several full circuits, she finds herself back in the main chamber again, and she reaches down to pick up a piece of curved glass that was once part of the coffin.

  She pauses, and for a moment she imagines hundreds of ravens pecking at the coffin. After a moment, however, she realizes that the glass seemed to have been shattered from the inside, as if...

  Either way, the Devil's corpse is gone, and there's no sign of him anywhere in the crypt.

  “Oh crap,” she mutters, turning and racing back along the tunnel.

  When she gets to the door, she's faced with the massive array of padlocks.

  “I've locked myself in,” she whispers, filled with panic. “I've locked him out, and me in! The Devil, he's out there right now...”

  Running back to the nearest chamber, she fumbles through her belongings until she finds the tin of keys. As she races back through to the door, however, she trips and falls hard against the floor; the tin goes flying, with the lid springing open and all the keys clattering out in a huge mess.

  “No!” she shouts, crawling forward and picking up a handful of more than one hundred keys that fit one hundred padlocks. While they were in the tin, they were arranged in a precise order that meant she knew which key fit which padlock, but now...

  She stares at the pile of keys, and then at the padlocks.

  “Crap!” she shouts again, as she tries the first key in the first padlock. No luck. She tries it in the next, and then the next, and then eventually it unlocks the forty-first padlock that she tries. Pulling the padlock away, she grabs another key and starts all over again.

  One down. One hundred and four to go.

  “Come on,” she hisses to herself. “Please!”

  Outside, in the moonlight, a single raven sits on the cemetery wall, watching the juddering crypt door and listening to the sound of Sam cursing to herself as she works on the padlocks. Its dark, beady eyes stare impassively at the scene, and finally it looks up at the moon and lets out a shriek of rage.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Lifting the crate of soda bottles from the floor, Mr. Hale struggles for a moment before finally managing to get them onto the counter. He pauses as he feels something tighten in his back; the pain is just a twinge, negligible really, yet it's another reminder that he's getting too old for so much heavy work. He pushes the crate along the counter and checks his watch: another late night, another -

  Suddenly a figure runs past the window and stops in the doorway, staring at him breathlessly.

  “Good evening, Ms. Marker,” Mr. Hale says with a weary smile, “we're closed, although -”

  “Have you seen him?” she asks.

  “I'm sorry?”

  Walking over to the booths, she seems to be checking for someone.

  “Is anything wrong?” Mr. Hale asks.

  “Have you seen anyone unusual?”

  “Unusual in what way?”

  “In...” She turns to him, with wide-eyed fear. “You'd know him if you saw him.”

  “I'm terribly sorry,” he replies, “but you've lost me. Who are you looking for?”

  “The...” She pauses. “A stranger.”

  “Well, what does this stranger look like?”

  “Kind of... Very distinctive. Not like anyone else you've ever seen in here.”

  “Do you mean like the Americans?”

  “No,” she replies, “this guy is a different kind of different. He's... singed.”

  “You've lost me,” Mr. Hale replies as he starts unpacking bottles of soda from the crate. “You could always try the B&B down the road if you're looking for someone who's new to town, but I don't think there have been any new arrivals today. Rippon's a small town and people tend to talk to one another, so I think I'd know if someone had turned up from the outside world.”

  “He didn't arrive from the outside world,” Sam stammers, “he arrived from... inside...”

  “Inside?”

  He waits for her to explain.

  “Are you okay?” he asks. “You've got this look in your eyes, like... Maybe you'd like to sit down and have a drink? Technically we're closed, but the pumps still work so I figure I can make an exception.”

  “If you see anything strange,” she continues, grabbing a napkin and pulling a pen from her pocket, “you have to call me immediately.” She scribbles her phone number on the napkin before sliding it over to him. “Trust me, if you see the guy I'm looking for, you won't have any doubt. Just... Don't talk to him, okay? If you see him, just back away and let me know where he is.”

  “But what -”

  “Promise me!” she shouts.

  “I promise,” he replies, starting to worry. “Can't you at least tell me what's wrong? Do I need to be worried?”

  “I have to keep looking,” she mutters, heading to the door. “He can't have got far, not in his condition.” She glances back at him. “And watch out for ravens. They might be around, they might be trying to protect h
im. I know this probably sounds crazy, but humor me. Be careful.”

  He watches as she runs out into the dark night. Making his way to the window, he peers out across the town square, just in time to see Sam hurrying toward the church. Turning back and heading to the counter, he resumes his task of taking soda bottles out of the crate, while trying to work out what could have made Sam so worried. He's known her for a while now, enough to consider her to be a level-headed kind of girl, so he can't shake the feeling that something must be very wrong if she's in such a state of panic.

  And then he hears it.

  A faint knocking sound from the back room.

  Looking over toward the door at the rear of the cafe, he waits for a moment. Probably just the wind, he tells himself, but a few seconds later it happens again: it's as if someone is in the back room, someone who just bumped against one of the storage shelves.

  Making his way to the door that leads through into the storage room, Mr. Hale pauses again, listening for any sign of life.

  “Hello?” he calls out.

  Silence.

  Reaching through, he flicks the switch on the wall, but for some reason the light remains off. He flicks the switch a couple more times, with no better result.

  “I changed that damn bulb just a few weeks ago,” he mutters, taking a step into the room. All around him, metal shelves hold boxes and crates of supplies for the cafe. There's not exactly anywhere for a person to hide, and even in the relative darkness Mr. Hale can tell that there doesn't seem to be anyone around. He waits a moment longer, before telling himself that he must have imagined the whole thing. Turning, he heads back through to finish the evening's work.

  And then he hears it again.

  “Okay,” he sighs, turning back to look through to the store room, “let's not have any more silly beggars. If there's someone in here, you can just get the hell out. Understand? I'm not going to tolerate any silliness.”

  He waits.

  Silence.

  “Whoever you are, you can just get out. I've been running this cafe for nigh on fifty years and in that time, no-one has even stolen so much as a bottle of pop, and I don't intend to have that record broken tonight.” He steps further into the room, looking all around in case someone might have found a place to hide. “You think I'm an old man, right? You think I'm defenseless? Well, I'll tell you...” He grabs a mop that has been leaning against the wall. “I took jujitsu when I was a boy, and I'm still pretty limber. If you fancy your chances -”

  Before he can finish, he hears a noise over in the far corner, behind one of the shelves. It sounds like a kind of dark rasping sound, as if something – not necessarily something human – is injured.

  “What the hell is that thing?” Mr. Hale mutters as he makes his way around the shelf. Finally he sees it: in the corner, curled up as if it's trying to hide, there's a dark shape. It's bigger than a dog, and as he cautiously makes his way closer Mr. Hale can't help but wonder if it might be a person curled up tight in the corner, perhaps even injured. “Are you okay there?” he asks, holding the end of the mop out. “Are you...”

  He waits, still trying to work out if the shape is human.

  Finally, he uses the end of the mop to gently prod the side of the creature. Hearing a faint growl from inside the dark mass, however, he takes a step back. His heart is racing, and although he doesn't want to panic, he can feel the fear growing in his chest.

  “Okay,” he continues hesitantly, “I think maybe I should give someone a call. If you understand what I'm saying, just try to stay calm. I'm going to get someone to help you. A doctor, and a police officer... Maybe a priest...”

  Suddenly there's a whirring sound from back out in the main room, and seconds later the jukebox starts playing Elvis Presley's Return to Sender. It's the first time the cafe's jukebox has been touched in years.

  “We're closed!” he shouts.

  He waits.

  The music continues to play.

  Turning, he heads back across the room, but before he can get there the door swings shut with violent force, plunging the room into darkness.

  “What the hell's going on now?” Mr. Hale asks, trying not to panic as he fumbles through the darkness. Finding the door handle, he gives it a pull, but somehow the door seems to be locked, despite the fact that there hasn't been a key for the damn thing in more than twenty years. He pulls on it again as his desperation starts to mount.

  “Is someone out there?” he shouts as the music continues to play. “Listen, I'm a patient man but -”

  Suddenly, he hears a sound in the darkness. He turns; he can't see anything, but he can hear something shuffling closer, something moving in his direction. There's another sound, too: a kind of guttural groan, as if something is snarling in the darkness.

  “Now listen to me,” he stammers, backing against the door, “I don't want any trouble, do you understand? Whatever you want, you won't get it by -”

  Before he can finish, he spots two faint red shapes a few feet away, at eye-level. They're coming closer, and they seem to be flickering slightly. It takes a moment, but finally he realizes that he's being watched by two glowing red eyes. He tells himself that he must be wrong, that they can't be eyes, but as they get closer he realizes he can see the dark, slit-like pupils staring straight at him.

  “What... Dear God, may -”

  Before he can finish the sentence, something large and heavy slams into his chest, crushing his ribs and causing his heart to burst.

  Out in the cafe's main room, the jukebox flicks itself onto the highest volume, blasting out Return to Sender so loudly that the sound from the store room is almost drowned out. The door, however, is shuddering, as if some great force is pounding against its surface, while beyond the music it's just about possible to hear the old man's screams as his body is torn apart piece by piece.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  “My parents moved away,” Anna explains as she stands in the kitchen. “My Dad had a job opportunity, but I wanted to stay in Rippon, so I moved in with a friend.”

  “At the cemetery, right?” Mrs. Havershot replies, before taking a bite of the sandwich she's just been preparing. “That must be such a strange place to live.”

  “It has its ups and downs,” Anna admits with a faint smile. “I guess it's not the kind of place to be if you're easily creeped out, but I'm okay with that kind of thing. In fact, it's kinda fun once you get used to it.”

  “I couldn't do it,” Mrs. Havershot continues, heading over to the fridge and taking a look inside. “I'd never be able to sleep. I already think I hear little bumps in the night as things are, so I think a cemetery would tip me right over the edge.”

  “Sorry about this,” Scott whispers to Anna. “I swear I thought they were staying out all night.”

  “Apologizing for us again, are you?” his mother replies with a smile. “Let me guess. You thought you'd got the house all to yourselves again, so you could bring your new girlfriend over and have a nice fun evening.”

  “It's not that,” Scott tells her, even though she's right on the money, “it's just... I thought you guys were staying with Aunt Elizabeth for a few nights, that's all. You said not to expect you back until after the weekend, remember?”

  “We figured we should get home,” his mother explains, pushing the fridge door shut. “Life has to get back to normal at some point, doesn't it? Ruthie wouldn't want us to spend all our time in mourning. At some point...” She glances up at the ceiling for a moment. “We're going to have to go through her room eventually. I know some people just like to leave a room untouched, as if the person is coming back, but...” She pauses, before looking back over at Scott and Anna. “Ruthie was always so clear-minded and logical. She'd probably want us to give her stuff to a charity shop.”

  “She'd hate that,” Scott replies.

  “Nonsense. Ruthie was a very kind and caring girl. She'd want to know that other people are making use of her possessions after she's gone.”

/>   “Totally,” Anna says, before realizing that she might have said too much. “I mean,” she adds, subconsciously rubbing her arm, “I imagine that's how she'd feel. She sounds like a nice person, so I'm sure she'd be into... recycling...”

  “Badgers!” a voice calls out suddenly, and seconds later Mr. Havershot storms through from the garage. “It must have been badgers!”

  “What must have been badgers?” his wife replies.

  “Something got into the shed,” he continues. “It's a total mess in there. All I can think is that some errant badger broke through the door and somehow had a little party all by itself.” He turns to Scott. “You were home all evening, weren't you? Didn't you hear anything? How could you miss the sound of a load of badgers causing mayhem?”

  “We were playing video games,” Scott replies. “Sorry.”

  “I'll clean it out in the morning,” his father mutters, clearly annoyed. “Badgers are vicious little things, though. If there's one thing I hate, it's badgers. You should see the mess they made in there, it's almost as if they were trying to get into the spare freezer we've got out there. Maybe they're evolving and becoming smarter. Either way, I'm not about to let badgers trash my shed. I need to come up with some kind of trap.”

  “Come on,” Scott whispers to Anna. “He really does hate badgers. When he starts ranting about them, it can last all night.”

  ***

  “This is the first time I've been in here since...”

  Scott's voice trails off as he and Anna stand in the middle of Ruth's bedroom. There are posters all over the walls, and a couple of dresses laid out on the bed, almost as if she might come walking back through the door at any moment. Anna can't help thinking about her old bedroom, and how her own family must have gone through her things after she died. Making a mental note to check the local charity shops for some of her old clothes, she picks up a framed photograph from Ruth's bedside table and looks at a picture of Ruth and some other girl smiling on a sunny day.