Close my eyes - room.
This is freaky, but that’s what we are here for, I think. I keep my eyes closed and step towards the door.
“I summon those behind the door,” we all continue. My body says the words with them, but they sound far away. In my mind, the door is old and solid with a large keyhole. The key hole has lights coming from the other side. Should I tell them about this? No, if I do it will maybe stop it and this won’t come back. I’ll tell them after.
“I release you unto this realm,” we say. I get the strangest feeling that I’m being watched. The door handle jiggles as if someone is behind it trying to open it. A shiver rolls down my spine.
“Until the time my watch has ended,” we say. On the ground a key appears. It is a skeleton key with a horned monster carved onto the top, two wings coming out of it.
“I summon those behind the door,” we continue. I grasp for the key, keeping my real eyes tightly shut. The door wiggles again. A strange feeling of fear mixed with elation unravels in me. I can feel the weight of the key in my hand. It feels so, so real.
“I summon you now,” we finish. I keep my eyes tightly closed. Shaking, I place the key into the hole and turn. I can even feel it click as the door mechanisms unlock inside. I don’t open it though. I just step back. Something from the other side rattles the door again. The door handle turns, a sliver of light escapes into the room as it begins to open.
“Uh, do you guys feel something?” Aaiden asks, his voice loud once again. My eyes open instinctively washing away the vision. I close my eyes again immediately. No room, no door. Whatever it was is gone. They are all looking around the graveyard. Before I can even wonder what just happened or tell them about it, I feel a rumble underneath us.
“What is that?” Blythe squeals, her eyes dancing frantically around the graveyard.
“I don’t know,” Fiona answers moving down to all fours, her hands feeling the ground. Next to her hand small pebbles shake. A rumble comes up from the ground. I jump up just as Aaiden and Blythe do. All around us the rumbling gets stronger. A potted plant on one of the graves shakes next to us.
“Is it an earthquake?” I ask. As if in answer to me, the ground shakes harder. Now some of the tombstones are swaying. The earth under us begins to roll. Like the waves in the ocean, the rolls come stronger. We all get caught in the waves of dirt rolling under us and past us. One of the gravestones, a large Eiffel tower shape, falls over cracking. Blythe screams.
“Did it work?” I yell. Did what Fiona did work? Did me unlocking the door work? my brain asks me in response to my own question. Adrenaline courses through me making it impossible to answer as the rolls increase. We can’t even run for fear of being toppled over. Fiona is still on her hands and knees, yelping each time a roll is under her. I grab on to what seems to be a sturdy tombstone beside me to hold myself up.
“What is that?!” Aaiden yells, clearly petrified.
I follow where he’s pointing. In between the rolling, a pile of dirt is being pushed up out of the ground. It grows in size until finally a pale hand rises up.
“Oh no, nope, nuh-uh. This is not happening,” Aaiden says. “Nope, nope, nope, nope,” he keeps chanting as the hand is followed by another.
I grasp harder onto the tombstone holding me upright and stare in horror. Dark hair surfaces as the thing’s arms reach out of the ground and it pulls itself up. A full mass of dirt-caked hair erupts from the ground attached to a sunken lifeless face. Chalk white skin hangs down in folds. Two milky eyes stare out from its sockets. The thing’s mouth is gaping open with rotted broken teeth. All of us seem paralyzed by the sight. There was no denying we had just unleashed something dead. It pulls itself up further and further out of the ground. Tattered undistinguishable clothing hangs from its form.
“There’s another one!” Blythe yells. Off to her left another pair of hands is rising.
I instinctively scan the graveyard. More are coming up elsewhere. The ground was giving birth to the things quicker and quicker. They all seemed focused on climbing up out of their dirt graves, but as soon as even one notices us, I am afraid of what might happen.
“What did we do?” Fiona cries.
I don’t have an answer for her. My brain is working a mile a minute trying to find a way out of here. The longer we stand here, the more of them that are climbing out of the ground blocking our path out.
“Why do they all look the same?” Aaiden asks.
“It doesn’t matter, we need to leave,” I yell. I start trying to move towards Blythe and Aaiden. I am unsure when, but we had all separated during the rolling. The ground moving makes it almost impossible to gain any traction, so I slowly work my way over even with the shaking.
Blythe is staring at one of them coming up near her; she curls in a ball.
“I can’t, I can’t, I can’t!” she cries. The thing next to her must have heard her even with the ruckus; its milky eyes turn on her. An unearthly rasping snarl emits from it. It lunges, reaching, but its legs are still firmly planted in the ground like a corpse flower. Blythe doesn’t move, she just keeps talking and staring at it.
Aaiden yelps distracting me. “Nope, nope, nope!” He shakes one off that has grabbed his leg. “I’m so out!” He starts moving across the graveyard. Determination seeps into his expression as he sees that Blythe is about to be grabbed. I keep making my way towards them. Movement out of the corner of my eye captures my attention. A fully birthed corpse is standing now across the graveyard. More are very close to getting out.
Blythe’s blood curdling scream whips my attention back on her.
“It’s just me, stupid!” Aaiden yells at her. He grabs her up. “We have to get out of here.”
“I can’t!” she cries, tears streaming down her face.
Just as I reach them, Aaiden grabs Blythe’s face in his hands. “You can. Just focus on me, nothing else, okay? There’s just me here, just me. I won’t let anything touch you,” he tells her. She nods.
“We can do this, Blythe!” I say even though I have no clue if we can. The earth is still rolling, but I seem to be getting used to it. I can stand a little straighter, so we may have a chance after all.
“Good, you’re here.” Aaiden puts a hand on my shoulder. “Where’s...”
Fiona cries behind me. She’s holding onto her book, but so is a corpse. It’s trying to pull it away from her. She’s on her knees and behind her, another one that’s still planted in the ground is grabbing onto her calf, pulling at her jeans.
Fiona screams again; it’s a mix of frustration and fear. Something snaps inside me. I run towards her. I’m not graceful, but I go as fast as I can over the rolling ground and in between tombstones. So many of the corpses are still coming up. I see a large potted plant up ahead, the flowers withered and dead already from neglect. I pick it up as I pass and hold it up in the air. When I reach the corpse holding her leg, I smash it over its head. It lets go of Fiona. She instinctively pulls her leg out of reach, still fighting the dead thing over her book though. Around us, the other corpses have all locked on to the fact we are the only living things nearby and they are all coming for us.
“Fiona, we have to go!” I grab at her.