Ten Open Graves: A Collection of Supernatural Horror

by David Wood

  “Not exactly.” Kyle shook his head.

  “Then why you here?”

  Kyle looked at the man, then at his rifle, his eyes lingering on the long, gnarled finger pressed against the trigger. “’Cause something strange was going on out here.”

  “Strange?” Dean raised his head again, and one side of his mouth curled into a smile that made Maya's flesh crawl. “Oh yeah, somethin’ strange is definitely goin' on. Somethin’ glorious. It's been our little secret, but soon the whole world is gonna be in on it, and when that happens everythin’ will change. And lucky you, you'll get a front row seat.” He lowered his head and stepped to the right, away from the hole in the mountain. “Now, why don't–”

  Before he could finish, Dean 's face hitched up in a strained grimace and his body twitched like he was being electrocuted. He dropped the rifle, and then dropped to his knees in a quivering fit. Maya barely had time to wonder what happened when gravity left her stomach and blackness spread across her vision, throwing her into twilight.

  Nausea tickled the bottom of Kyle's stomach, and his vision dimmed for a moment, but it was nothing compared to the overwhelming sensation earlier. For the two people with him, though, it looked bad. Both of them were on the ground, their limbs twitching and their mouths chattering nonsensical words as their eyes rolled up until only the whites were showing.

  He wanted to rush to Maya to make sure she was okay, but his instinct – honed by his years in the army – made him run for the dropped rifle. With practiced ease he unloaded it and pocketed the rounds. He then unhooked the thin leather shoulder strap, set the gun aside, and grabbed the jittering Dean Cotton.

  He didn’t want to touch the guy but he had no choice. Dean’s arms and legs vibrated like he had a cattle prod jammed up his ass, but Kyle used his knees to hold his arms in place while he wrapped the leather strap around Dean’s wrists, cinching it tight. He then turned, grabbed Dean’s feet, and checked what shoes he was wearing. He was glad to see large laces crisscrossing their fronts. Using those he tied Dean's legs together at the ankles. Once he was properly trussed up, Kyle flipped him over so that his face wasn't mashed in the ground.

  Satisfied they were no longer in danger, Kyle went to Maya. Halfway there she stopped shaking. She lifted herself up by her right arm as he squatted down next to her. “You okay?”

  Maya shook her head and stared down at the bit of ground she sat on. “Not even a little bit.”

  “Did you hurt yourself?”

  “I skinned my hand,” she replied, holding up her left palm. Shallow, red scratches marred her skin, and thin streaks of blood dribbled from cuts where small rocks had nicked her.

  Kyle untucked his shirt and tore a length of fabric from the bottom of it, then handed it to her. “Sorry. I wish I had something more hygienic, but it'll have to do.”

  Maya took it and wrapped it around her hand. “Thanks. What about—” Her eyes jerked over to where she'd last seen Dean, fear igniting her face like a lit torch, but when she saw him tied up on the ground she sighed and closed her eyes for a moment. Dean still trembled. “Oh thank God.”

  “Yeah, he keeled over the same time you did. Unless he turns into the Hulk or something, he's no threat to anyone now.”

  “Maybe he can shed some light on what's going on.” Maya stood up and dusted herself off.

  Together they walked over to Dean and squatted on both sides of his twitching body. His eyes were barely open, and all he saw were slits of white. His mouth moved and strange sounds tumbled out of him, but there were just that – sounds, nothing intelligible. He waited a few more seconds to see if Dean followed Maya's example and came to on his own, but when he didn't Kyle reached down and slapped Dean's cheek.

  “Wake up, Dean. Come on.”

  The twitching didn't stop. Kyle slapped him again, harder, but nothing changed. Finally he pulled the man into a sitting position, then reared back and slapped him hard enough to send a crack into the air.

  “Kyle!” Maya grabbed his arm.

  Kyle shrugged her hand off. “Hey, he had a gun on us, remember? If it wasn't for this...seizure, or whatever this is...we might be dead right now. And my sister might be in danger too. If I have to kick the information I need out of him, so be it.”

  Kyle pulled his hand back to deliver another slap, but he stopped when Dean went silent and stared up. His pupils were so large they practically swallowed his eyes. A sick grin twisted his face.

  “Your sister is just fine.” The pitch in Dean’s voice rose with laughter. “She looks as sweet as a plum. I bet she tastes as good too.”

  Kyle grabbed Dean by his shirt and yanked him close. The miner smelled terrible, like an animal that had been gutted and left to rot in the woods, but his need to protect his sister overrode everything. “Where is she? Where did you see her?”

  “In the dark.” Dean laughed and rocked his head from side to side. “Always in the dark. Everything's prettier in the dark.”

  “Do you mean the mine?” Kyle's head snapped up and he glared at the entrance in the mountain.

  Dean pulled at his restraints, grunting and chuckling at the same time. “It's not just a mine, dumbass. Never was. It just took us awhile to figure that out. And now your sister waits, her fear making her blood taste so sweet.”

  “Where in the mine is she?” Kyle shook the man in his hands like a ragdoll. He didn't know why he was asking. He wouldn't know one end of it from another. He asked out of instinct, out of fear.

  “Not far, boy.” Dean looked directly at Kyle. His eyes were almost completely black. “Just a little ways in, but it don't matter. Nothing does. Soon the darkness will rise, and we will all revel in his glory.” Laughter and hoots burst out of Dean's mouth like crows fleeing a bell tower.

  Kyle pulled on Dean's arms and struggled to his feet saying, “You're going to lead me to her, you son of a bitch,” but Dean went limp and slipped from his grasp. He chuckled on the ground, bits of foam spotting the corners of his mouth as his eyes went white again. Dean wasn't going anywhere. “Shit.”

  “What do we do now?” Maya’s tone was even and calm, but that didn't help Kyle's nerves.

  “We're not doing anything.” He stressed the first word. He then got up and walked over to where he'd set the night vision goggles down. “You're staying right here. We just have the one pair of these, so I'm going in alone. He said she wasn't far, and I'm hoping he's right.”

  Maya walked over and touched his hands as they held the goggles. “He's crazy, Kyle. Whatever's going on here is shredding his mind, and it might do the same to us if we give it a chance. I'm not saying we should leave – I mean, I am, but I know you need to do what you can for your sister – but you need to hurry. Careful, and quick, okay?”

  Thankful for her understand, Kyle stepped close and tilted his head down toward hers. She tilted her own and pushed herself up into his kiss. Her lips were soft and warm, as were her hands when they touched his face. He felt much more calm when they pulled apart.

  “Give me twenty minutes. If I'm not back by then, run back to the Jeep and haul ass out of town.” He reached into his pocket and handed her the keys.

  “You'll be lucky if I give you ten,” she replied. He wasn't sure if she was joking, but a small smile pulled at her lips. “Now get going.”

  Kyle glanced over at the former man and frowned. He hated leaving her with him, but he didn't have a choice. He had confidence in his knots though.

  “Okay. See you soon.”

  He turned and left before the fear building inside him could show on his face. Everything around him was falling into the Twilight Zone, and he had no idea how to even begin handling it. All he could think was that he had training, he had equipment, and he had a mission. If he could focus on those things, he'd be okay. As he neared the hole in the mountain, though, doubt crept into his chest like a sliver of ice aimed for his heart.

  All alone on the side of a mountain hundreds of miles from home, Maya trembled. It wasn
't just because she was alone. She was a big girl, she could handle that. And it wasn't because yards away from her was a trussed up hillbilly who minutes before had pointed a gun at her – she had grown up in Memphis, Tennessee, for Christ's sake. Those were valid reasons to be shaking, but as bad as they were they paled next to the evil she felt moving in the earth below her. It was like an ocean of malevolence and hatred and rage spread out beneath her feet, growing stronger and closer with every minute. It took every ounce of strength she had to not say, “Fuck it,” run to Kyle's Jeep, and put all this crazy shit in her rearview mirror.

  “It wouldn't matter even if you did.” Little titters of laughter trailed after Dean Cotton’s words.

  Maya turned and looked down at the miner. His wrists were still bound tightly behind his lower back, and his feet were laced solidly together, but that didn't diminish his danger one bit. Not to her. What was wrong with him went straight into the yawning dark below them, and she didn't know if laces and leather straps could do anything about that.

  “What wouldn't matter?” she asked, regretting the question even as she asked it.

  Dean laughed again, and flecks of spit foamed in the corners of his mouth. “Running, you dumb bitch. Ain't nowhere to run to.”

  It took her a couple seconds to realize what he was saying, and why he was saying it. He picked my thoughts right out of my head, she thought, amazed and repulsed all at the same time. The idea he could see into her so fully and easily turned her stomach sour.

  “It ain't hard,” he said, continuing to reply to her unspoken words. “Not with you. You're old blood. I can smell it in you.”

  “Old blood?” Without even knowing she did it, she took a step toward him. “What do you mean, 'old blood'?”

  Dean pulled at his restraints, grunting and laughing as his muscles flexed and strained. His gray skin, already marred by cuts, tore even further, and in the wounds she saw cords of black muscle quiver under the strain of his efforts. Liquid the color of bird shit oozed from the tears. Even from a distance she smelled the stink rolling off him, like a dead animal left to rot on the side of the road. Repulsive as he was, she didn’t run away.

  “Answer me.” She picked up the rifle from where Kyle had tossed it. “Tell me what you mean by that.”

  Dean flopped around like a fish dragged onto shore, he shoulders bunching and his hips thrusting into the air. His movements were rough and spastic, and all the while he laughed his madman's laugh. After several seconds of wiggling and grunting, the laces around his feet burst apart, and with an agility she wouldn't have thought him capable of he flipped his torso upward until he stood on his feet.

  “Stop right there!” She aimed the gun at his chest.

  Hunched over, his chest heaving up and down in ragged motions, Dean tilted his head and looked at her with a smile on his face as empty as his black eyes. “You ain’t got the guts, you stupid bitch nigger.”

  Blood drained from Maya's face. Her panic opened the floodgates of her mind, shouting her every thought into the psychic ether, and the monster in front of her heard them loud and clear. “Don't get in my head! Stay out!”

  “Your blood's so old.” Dean stepped toward her. “You don't even know the honor you should feel at having it pump through your veins, the glory of the ancient ones that it came from. But I do, don't you worry, and I can't wait to tear your throat open and drink every last drop of it.”

  The smile on Dean's face widened until it tore the corners of his mouth, and pus leaked from the wounds, making him look like a clown from her worst nightmare. He opened his mouth wider and wider, roaring into the sky, and his shoulders and arms heaved at the leather binding his wrists. Maya watched in horror as his flesh tore and his muscles expanded, pulsing and bleeding a black thin liquid. He was changing, transforming right before her eyes, and deep inside her a voice screamed at her to run, but a terrible fascination kept her rooted in place. It wasn't until the leather strap broke and his arms flew up that the little voice finally was heard.

  Dean snarled at her, a black tongue licking a ravaged mouth. “Too late,” he said, his words nearly unintelligible.

  With a speed that took her breath away, he leaped at her, covering the dozen or so feet between them in less than a heartbeat. She stumbled backward, barely missing his arms as they grabbed for her, and as she moved she threw the rifle at him. It hit his face but he didn't flinch. Instead he laughed and reached out, his clawed fingers scraping her skin.

  In his touch she felt death, and she knew he would tear her open and make good on his intention to drink her dry, but suddenly his body seized up again and he dropped to the ground in a quivering pile. Relief flushed through her like cold water. She nearly shouted in glee when the same psychic thunderclouds poured into her brain too, and just like he did she collapsed into a spasming heap, her body falling like a felled tree right on top of him. When her skin made contact with his, terrible visions entered her mind, showing her a world she never could have believed possible. It was a world of darkest evil, as ancient as the light of the furthest stars, and she fell into it with eyes opened, sightless, and black.

  Chapter 16

  A week ago Kyle had been up to his neck in supply requisition orders and boxes of tighty whities, glad to be back in the States but missing the smell of grilled kebabs wafting from carts on the streets of Kabul. Now, as he walked hunched over through a mine tunnel cast in varying shades of green by the night vision goggles he wore and searched for his sister, that felt like a lifetime ago. Since coming back home his world had been turned upside down, and ideas he'd once considered the stuff of fiction were all too real.

  On the ground to his right were the pipes he'd seen running out of the mountain. He had no idea what was in them, but in the distance he heard the chug-chug-chug of pumps, so he followed them in the hope they'd lead to some sort of explanation. The mine's low ceiling forced him to walk in a crouch, and it didn't take long for his thighs and lower back to feel the strain. He hoped like hell Dean was right and his sister wasn't far.

  He'd forgotten how oppressive being in a mine felt. Hewn out of the very rock of the mountain, every surface was rough, and grit sat piled in drifts on the floor and between the pipes. Even with the goggles on it was hard to see, the darkness like a mouth swallowing him bite by bite. It was the weight of the stone above his head, though, that really put the pressure on. The rocky ceiling looked thick and strong, but he'd heard enough stories of unsecured shale dropping on people and crushing them before they knew what was happening to keep a wary eye as he stepped further into the mountain.

  Twenty yards in, the tunnel curved sharply to the right. Kyle pressed himself against the wall and leaned out slowly to see what lay ahead of him. All he saw was more rock and pipe before the tunnel ended at a T. The pumps grew louder as he edged deeper in, and as he neared the junction he could tell they were down the tunnel on the right, which was exactly where the pipes were headed. The tunnel to the left was featureless – just one long, dark walk.

  A minute after turning right a new sound joined the pumps. At first it sounded like muffled talking, but after a few seconds he heard it for what it was – screaming. He tried to break into a run, but the low ceiling kept him to a hunched scurry. The goggles bounced around on his face despite the strap, screwing up his vision, but when a flash of light showed an opening in the rock wall several yards down on his left he saw it clear as day.

  “I said shut up!” a deep voice roared through the opening. “Or I will gut every last fuckin' one of you!”

  Envisioning his sister on the business end of that threat, he picked up the pace. When he finally came to the opening, he stopped and edged his face around to look. Inside the rocky chamber were seven people, all of them cringing against the far wall in fear. Even through the grime that coated their faces he could tell they were all kids. In the middle of the group, her eyes wide in terror, stood Taylor.

  Between him and the kids stood a man holding a flashlight.
He waved it around like a club, and his bunched shoulders said he was moments away from unleashing hell on whoever was closest to him. Kyle didn’t give him that chance; he scurried as quickly as he could through the entrance and tackled the man from behind. The kids screamed even louder. The flashlight hit the ground, turning their shadows into monsters on the walls.

  “Who the fuck?” the man asked as he threw an elbow backward and hit Kyle in the shoulder.

  The blow was stronger than Kyle had been ready for, and he lost his breath as he stumbled backward. The miner twisted around, and in the skewed light he looked like a crazed beast. Kyle couldn't recognize him past the coal soot and snarling mouth. With a snarl, the miner rushed forward.

  As his opponent closed on him, he stepped to the left and hooked his right arm around the miner's neck. Once he was locked in, Kyle hammered blows into the miner's side, hitting ribs, hip and arm as the guy tried to break free. They were solid hits, but the thick clothing the miner wore, along with the adrenalin, diminished their effect.

  Swinging wildly, the miner got smart and sent a fist into Kyle's crotch. Most of his fist hit thigh meat, but enough of the punch went into his balls to make Kyle “Ooff!” and lose his grip. Now free, the miner reared up, grabbed Kyle by his shoulders, and threw him to the ground. What little air Kyle had in his lungs left him in a rush when he hit the stone floor, and he barely had a chance to draw new breath when the miner was on him, straddling Kyle's waist as his hands raked across Kyle's chest, somehow shredding his coat and shirt into ribbons. Kyle brought his arms up to defend himself, but his opponent took that as his opportunity to hit his shoulders and ribs. Each punch felt stronger than the last, and he gasped, not just at the pain, but also because he had to force air down his windpipe. When the miner twisted to drive a knee into Kyle's side, Kyle thrust his hips upward as hard as he could, ramming the miner's head into the ceiling. The miner staggered and fell off him.