One day later, it's a cloudy afternoon with a chill in the air as dead leaves blow across the grass in High Point Cemetery. Ivory Campbell is standing outside the mausoleum with her boyfriend Steve McCoy and his friend Dr. Paul Abernathy and her old friend Story October that came down from Chicago last night. Dr. Paul Abernathy is a well-groomed bearded man around fifty years old but is in good shape from an active lifestyle. He was invited by Steve because he's experienced in cave exploration.
They are all dressed appropriately for the occasion except Story October, the rest are wearing what one might expect for cave exploring and they all shake hands and do introductions. Story is wearing black leather pants, leather jacket and leather gloves without a helmet, like the rest are wearing. Steve makes sure to squeeze Story's hand extra hard to try to establish that he's the alpha-male and that Ivory is his woman now, but Story is stronger than he looks and isn't affected, either that or he's good at hiding it. . . Steve knows that Ivory and Story were lovers once, a long time ago and so he feels a little threatened by Story October's presence.
While Story and Steve shake hands, Story notices how hard Steve is squeezing, so he looks down at their hands and then back up to look Steve in the eyes and says, “Woah, dude, don't worry, I'm not here to steal your girlfriend, so you don't need to squeeze my hand so hard, big guy.” Then he slaps Steve's shoulder and continues, “I'm just here for all the weird shit.”
“I... um..." is all Steve can manage to say back, feeling kind of embarrassed.
Slightly enjoying the jealousy and male rivalry she says, “Okay guys, you all know why we're here, it's just a quick look around to see if there is anything occult involved and to see what is actually down there. The police said it's private property and they can't do anything about it until the manager or the owner of the property report something... which never happened. This is probably not entirely legal, you know, us going down there but since no one seems to care what's going on around here anyway... I figure it doesn't matter, as long as we keep it on the downlow.”
“How the hell do I let you talk me into this kinda' stuff..." says Steve while shaking his head.
They all descend one by one as the crude ladder creaks and Story notes, “The symbols are a ward to keep certain things from leaving the hole,” intrigued, as he climbs down.
Ivory asks, taking everything, he says as gospel, “Oh? what kind of things?”
“I'm not sure, it doesn't make sense. I can't read some of the words, this is stuff I've never seen before,” he replies, looking concerned but excited at finding possible new arcane words, takes out his phone and takes a few pictures of the symbols.
Steve rolls his eyes and shakes his head slightly at the ridiculousness of an occult expert. He thinks, “More than likely, this guy is making up some bullshit” but holds his tongue because Ivory seems to believe this stuff.
During all of this, Dr. Paul Abernathy has been quiet, then says, “I'm sure this is all done by confused rebellious kids, but I am interested in this tunnel/cave system, right here all this time under our little town. It's very exciting!” as he shines his lantern around and turns on the light on his helmet.
The group does an equipment check and takes a look around the area. There are piles of rubble and it stinks of wet earth, mold and faintly of rotten meat. Dr. Abernathy finds something suspicious looking, saying, “Oh Lord, I believe this is human remains, all torn and scattered here.”
“Oh God” says Steve, “we gotta report this but let's make sure there isn't more first... Looks like you got your story babe,” directing the latter part of the sentence towards Ivory.
They start to take a quick look further down the tunnel before heading back to report what they have found to the police. That's when they hear a noise coming from the hole above. Lights are shined in that direction by the group, and they see the ladder being pulled up; It's the grounds keeper, Theodore.
Ivory says, “Son-of-a-bitch, you bastard, what the hell is wrong with you?!” yelling up at Theodore.
Accompanied with various comments of displeasure and disbelief from the other members in the group, comments such as, “Oh, you've got to be kidding me..." protests Dr Abernathy.
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Story notices something wrong with his appearance, it's blurry and shifting, possibly something magical but he's never seen anything like it before. “Something isn't right about him,” he says slowly.
With howling comments from the group, such as, “You're damn right about that!” from Ivory.
Steve joins in and yells up to Theodore, “Dude, I'm gonna punch you in the face, put that ladder back down now, you damn lunatic!”
Theodore speaks down to them without the strong accent that Ivory heard from him when last they spoke, it's smooth and deep, saying, “No, you'll be doing none of that, you're food for the dead now. The best you can hope for is a quick death... but I hope it's slow and torturous,” then he continues,
“They are neither here nor there.
They reside in the place between places,
the space between spaces.
They were, they are, they shall be once more.
Scentless, tasteless and without form,
silent mutters before a storm.
Before Father Time first opened his eyes,
before creation, forth-come demise.”
There is a rumbling sound as the very earth seems to slowly close up, as if there was never a hole there to begin with. As the hole closes up, rubble and dirt fall on the group below while they cover their eyes or look away and try to shield themselves with their arms.
As Theodore leaves the mausoleum he chuckles and talks to himself about how he alone knows the truth of things and is chosen by 'THEM.' A middle-aged couple visiting a grave nearby look over at him like he's crazy. Theodore realizing he must look crazy talking to himself, speaking in his strong Midwestern accent once again, starts to say as he gestures to the mausoleum, “Oh I was just gloatin' over the... um, thing..." he does a dismissing gesture with his hand while shaking his head and feeling annoyed, awkward and embarrassed, he quickly moves along.
Watching everything from nearby bushes, is Claire Oberhauser. She followed Story October all the way from Chicago, got a room in the same hotel he's staying and followed him out to the cemetery.
Suspecting something isn't right, she runs over to the mausoleum and looks inside and doesn't see anyone, all she knows is that they went in, then Theodore went in and left and now they are gone. She doesn't care about the rest of the group, especially that redheaded woman, she only cares about what happened to Story. Claire calls out, “Story, are you here!?” but there's no response or any sound at all, except the noises from outside.
Claire chases after Theodore and catches up to him and says, “You! What did you do with my Master!?” in an extremely confrontational tone.
Theodore turns around in confusion to look at her and says, “Huh? Screw you, bitch.” looking annoyed.
She reaches in her purse and pulls out pepper spray and tries to spray Theodore in the face, but he turns away and covers his face with his arm. He manages to grab her arm and then back-hands her across the face, knocking her to the ground.
“You wanted a piece of me? Looks like you got it, bitch... now fuck off!” states Theodore smugly, then walks away before too much attention is drawn.
Back below the surface after a few moments, the group stops coughing and they dust themselves off as a little bit of dirt and small rocks still trickle down. The dust slowly settles.
“What just happened?” says Dr. Abernathy, uncertain about what just occurred.
Steve quickly replies, as if trying to not let in any explanation that upsets his understanding of reality, “It was a cave in,” he says firmly, as if by sounding certain it will make it more true and adds, “And is anyone hurt?” His voice trailing off because he can clearly see that no one seems to be seriously injured.
Ivory quickly looks at Story, raising her eyebrow as if asking him what he thinks.
“Um, yeah... it was probably a cave-in..." Story says to the group, so as not to make them any more upset than they already are but he knows it wasn't a cave-in, it was magic. To Story, magic and the supernatural look different and feels different, it stands out like a sour note in a harmony, he simply knows when it's not natural. For some unknown reason, he was born with the special abilities that are a gift. . . and sometimes they can be curse. For example: being told you're having hallucinations or delusional and being committed to inpatient psychiatric care and put on heavy medications.
“Oh good,” says Ivory, even though she acts relieved, she's known Story since they were kids, and she can tell when he's lying but, in this case, she happily convinces herself to believe the lie. She pulls out her phone to call for help and says to the group, “Um guys, I can't get a signal.”