Inheritance Read online

  Part III

  Wesley handed me a flashlight and pulled some rags from a drawer and we headed outside towards the shed. “We’re gonna go into that door cut into the floorboards,” he said. “There’s no light in there so we’ll need these. I actually haven’t been back inside there since the first day that I came out here. I just ventured back in there to grab a few books.”

  “Why haven’t you gone back in there?” I asked. He didn't answer. He was really starting to worry me.

  We reached the shed and Wesley unlocked the door and opened it slowly. He peeked in carefully as he opened. Once fully opened, he walked in and said, “It’s safe.”

  Walking directly over to the door on the floor, Wesley took a deep breath. He looked at me and bit his lip. Reaching down, he grabbed the ring and held onto it for a few moments while taking deep breaths.

  “Wes, we don’t have to go in there. We can come back later if you want. If you’re scared, we can just get some other people to come out and clean things up in here.”

  “No! No one else can come in here, just you and me,” he said as he pulled the ring up.

  The door opened and out wafted a putrid smell. He shone his flashlight into the opening. There was a set of steps that led down to the lower room. After handing me one of the rags, he tied one over his mouth and nose. I did the same as he stared down the steps.

  “That smell? Your grandfather didn’t kill someone, did he?” I asked while trying not to vomit.

  “No. It just stinks in there,” he said as he started walking down the steps.

  Shining my flashlight down as I followed him, this room looked a bit larger than the shed that was above it. The steps hugged a bricked wall. On the opposite wall there was a small opening that only came about half way up. On the floor, which appeared to be made of solid rock, there was a large circle drawn on it with some type of chalky substance that smelled of sulfur. Within the circle, strange shapes and symbols were etched within smaller circles. The large outer circle that encompassed everything looked to be broken.

  “What’s that?” I asked, but not really expecting an answer that made sense.

  “That’s a sealing circle. I read it in one of the books. It’s supposed to keep things sealed, obviously. You’re not supposed to step on them or it will break them,” he answered.

  “This one looks broken.”

  “Yeah, I think this one was just being practiced with.”

  “Oh,” I replied. I wasn’t expecting this answer at all. I was beginning to think that he had read more than he was letting me know. “So how are you supposed to trap something inside one? I’m sure someone isn’t going to wait around for you to draw all this around them.”

  “It doesn’t work like that,” he said. The book said that you draw them smaller and make a ring of them around what you are trapping. This way, you can walk between them, but whatever you trap inside is stuck there. Well, it says that there are many ways to do it. It just depends on what it is that you want to trap.”

  “Ok Wes, I’ve seen this room now. I’m done playing along. Let’s get out of here and we can come back later with people to clean up the stink.”

  “Not yet. This is what I want us to see and I told you that no one else can come in here,” he said as he walked over to the hole in the wall. Kneeling down, he pointed his flashlight in. It went in for about 10 feet and it looked like there was another hole at the end. He began to crawl inside the passageway. “This is as far as I came in last time. Come on!”

  I knelt down as well and crawled in. The space was just wide enough for me to crawl through next to him. At the end, the hole dropped straight down. Along one side there were handholds. It appeared that these had been cut into the rock so that someone could climb up and down the passage. This was only large enough for one person to go down at a time. Shining the light in, it appeared to go straight down for at least 50 feet.

  “I’m not going down there,” I said. I had lost my nerve. While in the house, my presence gave Wes courage. Now, under the earth, Wes was more than willing to go forward on his own. “We don’t know what’s down there.”

  At this moment, we heard a low rumbling sound issue from the passageway down.

  TIKKEELLLLLLL……

  We both looked at each other. “There can’t be anything bad in there. Someone made this tunnel to go down. Why would someone build that into the wall if there was something bad in there?” Wesley said. His argument was solid. ‘Look at this rock. We’re really close to the coast too. It’s probably just water passing through a cave. The water is probably just echoing through it so it sounds like that.” His argument now seemed less solid but still in the realm of possibility.

  Again, the rumbling sound echoed from the opening.

  TIKKEELLLLLLL…… TIKKKEELLLLL……

  “I’m sure its fine.” He said as he then turned to put his legs in the hole.

  “Why are we just now hearing this noise? Wes, don’t go in there! Let’s get out of here,” I tried to argue.

  He didn’t listen, before his head disappeared into the hole, he stopped and smiled at me. I wasn’t about to let him go down there by himself. He obviously wasn’t thinking straight, and to have him roaming in a cave by himself would just be dangerous. I grudgingly followed him down. I put my flashlight in my pocket since I needed both hands to climb down. Wes kept his on, but he placed it in his shirt pocket so that the light shone right up at me. This afforded me small snatches of light depending on his movements. The air here was moist which in turn made the handholds in the rock wall slippery. About halfway down, we heard the sound again…only louder.

  TIKKEELLLLLLL…… TIKKKEELLLLL……

  When Wesley reached the bottom into the lower part of the passageway, I heard a gasp.

  “What is it Wes? What’s there?” I called out, but no reply.

  Reaching the bottom, I quickly pulled the light from my pocket and turned it on. Crawling through the exit of the passage, it opened into a much larger room. It was very much a cave, but there was no water as Wes had suggested. This cavernous room opened up to about 30 feet above us. In the middle of the room was what Wes was fixated on. There appeared to be a large hole in the floor, which he was walking towards.

  TIKKEEELLLLLLLLL….. TIKKKEELLLLLLLLL….. TIKKKEELLLLLLL….

  The sound was louder now and the acoustics of the room made the sound appear to be coming from all directions.

  “WES STOP!!” I cried out as he walked closer to the hole

  “It’s true then,” he said.

  “What’s true?”

  “It was in one of my ancestor’s journals. He said that he called up and imprisoned it. It’s there, in that pit. Come look with me. Look around the pit.” He pointed his light around the edges. “See. Sealing circles. It’s trapped. It’s said that they live forever. Time won’t kill it. It’ll just remain here, trapped for eternity and growing hungrier. If released, they can devour the world. Like a hungry amoeba, devouring the world. Come look with me.”

  He stepped closer to the pit.

  “No,” I yelled to him.

  I ran forward and grabbed Wes’ arm right as he reached the edge between two of the seals. Shining his light down into that pit as he looked over. I wanted to avert my eyes, but I saw it. And it saw us. Within this pit, only about 20 feet down sat this beast of untold horror. Its thousand eyes instantly fixed upon us. Each filled with hatred. Intruding upon its imprisonment to feed our curiosity on its humiliation. Each eye stealing a glimpse and closing. Then those would disappear into the darkness as new ones would rise forth from its formless mass. That same burning hatred in each new set of eyes, gazing upon its newly inherited captors.

  This was the moment it had waited for, maybe even centuries from when Wesley’s ancestor imprisoned it. Wesley had exposed himself just enough over the edge of the pit so that it could strike. Shooting forth from the mass, a great appendage reached out to us. It touched Wes’s head and left arm, which were i
nstantly dissolved away. Where once my friend’s smile rested would be no more. I let out a cry of terror as I released my hold on his other arm as well as my flashlight. What remained of his body fell forward into the pit as I fell backwards, rolled over and covered my eyes. My flashlight quietly rolled towards the edge, fell, and then went out. I was alone in the dark with this unholy, undying beast of horror.

  TIKKKEELLLLL……. TIKKKEELLLLLL…..

  Had any of the seals been broken? I don’t believe that Wes did since he walked up first, but in my panicked charge to keep him from the edge, did I? I had become disoriented in my attempt to move away from the pit. How was I to find the exit? If I felt along the floor, there was the chance that I may reach towards the edge of that pit, or even worse… touching and breaking one of the seals that would allow that horror to escape upon the world.

  I sat for a moment, listening to the cries of rage from that beast as the sound reverberated through the room. It seemed to be all around me, so I was unable to give direction to the source. We hadn’t examined the room so I wasn’t sure if there was another way out or if the wall went all the way around with the single exit. I knew that whatever I decided, I would only have one chance of escape. I would either crawl towards that pit and break a seal or I would hit a wall. Only then would I have any chance of finding my way out.

  I debated for a long while. Hearing the incessant cries from the horror within that pit made it harder to think. My thoughts became muddled and seemed to melt away. The longer I remained the harder it was to focus. I felt a pounding in the back of my head. Was it trying to enter my thoughts? It must know that I was still there. This room was not meant for people to stay in. However, the time spent just proved that no seals had been broken. I finally chose the best direction I could calculate from where I was. “Only one chance,” I repeated to myself. Moving ever so slowly, I crawled along the ground in the impenetrable darkness. The cries from the beast continued. It wanted me dead. It wanted retribution.

  TIKKKEELLLLLLL…

  I hit the wall in only about 10 feet. I was safe. I felt a great weight lift from within me. I decided to feel my way left, which as it turned out, was the correct direction to go. I had never felt luckier in my life. I felt the opening into the passageway that led back up to the basement. Quickly pulling myself up through the hole and gaining my legs, I ran from the room, up the steps and finally out of the shed. Slamming the door closed behind me, I fell to the ground and cried.

  Part IV

  What was I to do now? Was my nightmare over or had it just begun? I couldn’t tell anyone about this. What if someone were to break the seals? I had to hide it. It was known that I would be with Wesley. Even if this meant that I would have to fake a confession that I killed my dearest friend, it would have to be so.

  Luckily, there was a supply of bricks and building equipment at the house. Evidently, repairs had once been planned for the house but not completed. I ventured back into the shed and destroyed any traces of these unholy terrors. I burned what I could and threw anything else into the hole in the wall that led to the passageway down. I then built a layer of bricks along the wall that the opening was on. Then I plastered the floor to cover the carvings. My only hope was that this wall would just be overlooked. Hopefully, in time, this shed would be considered unneeded, torn down and the basement would just be filled in. Ignorance of such things existing was my only hope for this world.

  It has been a week since these events. I have returned home to my family and lived with these secrets. Already, news has been circulating of Wesley Miller’s disappearance. I will confess that I killed him and threw the remains of his body into the ocean. I can’t have searches going on within that house. Oh God, if such a being of goodness exists, please strike these images from my mind. If only I could share in the ignorance that the rest of the world enjoys. Death may be my only release.