The interior of the mausoleum was quite small, being just a single room lined on one side with a wall of labeled crypts. The far end of the room housed a raised dais with a stone coffin in the place of honor. A bust of a snarling creature was carved into the wall above the coffin. All four of them leapt back when the beam of Noah’s flashlight landed on its fearsome countenance. It might have looked like a normal human if the face weren’t so grotesquely twisted by its wild expression. It stared down at them with an animal hunger in its eyes.
“Well, that’s only completely horrifying,” Leah said after a moment. She walked closer, mounting the steps and circling the coffin to peer closer at it. “It’s so lifelike, though. If it was carved by hand, whoever made this had to have been a master artist.”
Noah got the feeling she would have stroked its stone face if it weren’t a foot out of reach. He kept the flashlight trained on the statue for her benefit as he stepped closer to Brian, who was sitting quietly on the ground, his back against the wall. His backpack in his lap.
“Sorry for pulling you in,” Noah said.
Brian looked up at him and chuckled unhappily. “Thanks. I mean, you saved my life, man. So I forgive you.” He looked around. “Even if this place is creepy as hell.”
Noah smiled. “Well, yeah. Not my first choice for escaping a couple of crazy wolves. Definitely would’ve picked somewhere with some heating, to start with.”
Brian raised an eyebrow. “I have some hand warmers, you know. There’s a couple in my bag.” He unzipped his backpack and fished around for a moment.
Noah laughed. “Of course you do. Is there anything you didn’t bring?”
Brian handed his friend a small plastic packet and frowned. “Snacks. I have some water, though.”
“It’s fine,” Noah said. “Ideally we won’t be here long enough for that to matter. The wolves should definitely be long gone by morning, right?”
Brian shuddered. “I hope so. They aren’t acting like the wolves I’m used to, though, so who knows.”
“Hey, can I have this for a second?” May abruptly asked.
“What?” Brian looked over to see her pointing at his flashlight, which Leah had balanced on the floor to point straight up when she first entered the mausoleum. “Yeah, that’s fine.”
Noah started kneading the hand warmer to activate it as he watched May take the light and walk across the room to investigate the crypts. She crouched to peer at the names engraved into each marked square.
“This isn’t the Latin alphabet,” she said after a moment. “I don’t recognize the characters at all.”
“Maybe the family spoke a foreign language,” Leah said from where she stood over by the carving on the wall. “They probably wanted their graves to be in their mother tongue or something.”
“Must be some rare language,” May said, straightening after looking at the names for another minute.
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“Holy crap,” Leah suddenly said breathlessly.
They all turned to see what had caught her attention. She had for some reason climbed onto the lid of the coffin and was face-to-face with the bust, staring intently at its mouth.
“What? What are you doing, Leah?” Brian asked, alarmed.
“There’s a lever,” she said excitedly. “It’s tongue is a lever, I think. I’m going to pull it.”
“Woah, hold on a moment!” Noah said quickly. “It could do anything. We’re in a random family’s mausoleum. Who knows if they were crazy enough to rig traps like some kind of ancient tomb?”
Leah stopped. “You really think it’s that dangerous? Why would they make the trap so hard to find?”
Noah hesitated. “I mean, it’s a long shot, but I’ve seen so many movies of people more or less in this exact situation that I would feel like an idiot if I made the exact same mistake as everyone else.” He paused, watching Leah practically bounce with excitement. “I can’t deny I’m curious now, though. I’m starting to see why everyone always pulls the lever.”
“Let’s put it to a vote,” Leah said, suddenly glaring menacingly at her brother and May. “All in favor of pulling the lever and probably finding an awesome stash of gold and riches left behind by this family to the one worthy enough to find their secret lever.”
She raised her hand hopefully, then grinned as Brian and May both raised their hands as well with sheepish looks towards Noah.
Noah threw up his hands. “Fine! But if I die because of this moronic decision after escaping from freaking wolves, I'll never forgive you all, I swear.”
Leah grinned. “Aw, we’ll be fine.” She wrapped her fingers around the protruding tongue and pulled down.
It didn’t even move a little.
Leah sputtered and glanced around awkwardly. “I thought I saw a hinge mechanism,” she said sheepishly.
Then she adjusted her grip and pushed the tongue upwards.
It slid up with a crunch. Leah almost fell off the coffin as a series of clicks ran down the wall. Then the lid started to slide open, and she did fall off, toppling to the floor as she lost her balance.
Her head poked back up after a second, and she glanced at her friends before slowly leaning forward to peer inside the coffin.
She immediately grimaced and recoiled. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that there’s a corpse inside,” she said. She looked up with an odd expression. “Although, guys, you should take a look at this.”
“I’ll pass,” Brian said, looking sickened. “Does putting the lever down close it back up? Let’s try that right now.”
“No, there’s something else in here,” Leah said. She started to reach in, but stopped with a slightly uncomfortable expression and withdrew her hand.
Noah sighed deeply and walked over, looking down into the coffin.
There was indeed a corpse, but it had an ancient look about it and wasn’t as gross or smelly as he feared. The skin looked like aged yellow paper, drawn so tight around its bones that it looked skeletal. Its hands and feet were, disturbingly, locked down by strips of metal to the base of the coffin. It had black wispy hair and no nose to speak of.
Around its neck was a necklace of thin silver links, with a large square locket of the same color that rested on its chest.
As Noah looked down at the corpse, May drew up beside him to get her own look at it. She glanced sideways at Leah. “Is this necklace what you were trying to get at?”
Leah shrugged. “Yeah, I wanted to see if I could open it. I’m not sure I want to touch it, though.”
May raised an eyebrow and impassively grabbed the pendant. She lifted it closer to her, leaning forward when the chain went taut to get a better look at the mechanism to get it to open. Seeing two small knobs on each side of the square, she nodded to herself and compressed them both at the same time. They clicked into place easily and the two halves of the pendant slowly cracked open like a book, ticking gently.
The three of them leaned forward to see what lay within, only to recoil as a vast amount of black dust-like smoke blew out from the pendant. At the same time, the corpse began to shake like it was being electrocuted.