The Upstream Writer: Flash Fiction Friday: "Flashes of Inspiration" No. 21

#21 "The Ghost In The Crypt"

The air hung thickly around me. It was getting hard to breathe.

That didn't stop me from lighting one up and taking a long drag, relishing the cool detachment it brought me.

I stared at the thing in front of me. Of effing course it would be.

"Geez, Mirabelle," I muttered under my breath. "You couldn't pick something a little more subtle, could you?"

I stood at the foot of a gigantic stone door, carved and painted in ornate patterns and occult symbols. Every kind of warning sign and portent to danger, in every language since the dawn of sentience screamed at me there... and right there in the middle of my sight line, a gem as big as my face, like the world's most expensive PUSH ME button.

So I did. Taking a deep breath and saying the words Mirabelle had all but literally seared into my brain with a hot brand, I called up the ancient power and placed my hand over the jewel.

It felt like planting my hand over a dutch oven fresh from the fire. I spat my cigarette a good twenty feet as I screamed bloody murder and scared the bejeezus out of half the jungle. If Degarras and his men didn't know where I was--they sure as shooting did now. By the time it was over, I couldn't tell if I'd lost all the feeling in my hand, or just the hand itself.

Opening my eyes, I discovered that the gem was no longer glowing, and the absence of heat had created that sensation of numbness. My hand was still there, at least. I took it down.

With a great, rumbling groan, like a freshly-tranquilized elephant, the door gave an earth-shaking rumble as it slid and scraped its way upward. I couldn't imagine the mechanics required to lift something that huge, but once the opening was wide enough for me to fit, I decided I didn't need to worry about mechanics. I had a crypt to loot.

The further I got from the entrance, the less light I had. It got so dark, I half expected to see Mirabelle's faint outline in front of me, but no dice. The juju on this place was still too strong. I stopped when progressing forward felt pointless, when every step just might be a bottomless pit.

"Gee," I coughed in the stillness and silence, "some light would be nice."

I flinched and reached for the holster on my hip as something exploded right next to me. I stared right at it and nearly blinded myself.

A torch! As if commanded by my voice, lanterns burst to life all the way down the hallway. In the dim, quivering light, I saw no pits on the floor, just a hallway so long that the focal point extended to a tiny gap at the edge of my view horizon. I stepped forward, grabbing one of the torches out of its brackets, just in case I lost the light of the others. I counted twenty paces, then fifty, then one hundred. Had I gone a mile already? How long was this crypt, anyway?

I kept walking and counting, acutely aware of more and more things as I did. At five repetitions, my badge clip on my belt started chafing. (why the heck didn't I leave that back at the hotel?) By twelve repetitions, I was wondering what on earth about this mission warranted a two-piece suit and tie? I pulled at the knot and loosened my collar just a little. At probably the fourteenth repetition of one hundred (or somewhere thereabouts... I got bored of counting a couple times and arbitrarily started spewing numbers) I finally reached the doorway at the end of the hall, and I could see as I approached with the torch that the shadows contained therein weren't ordinary shadows. It was weird, seeing that thick black line that the light from my torch wouldn't cross. It gave the impression that the blackness filling the space in front of me had mass and volume. I could stick my hand in it and swirl it around, but according to my eyes, it was a solid mass that I shouldn't be able to just step into.

Which is why I proceeded to do exactly that.

The torch in my hand gave a little whuff-ing sound, and the light from it seemed to retreat around the flaming bulb part at the end--only to disappear completely and blaze brighter than ever when I took another step forward. I looked away and rubbed the dancing stars out of my eyes. I did notice that the thick shadows weren't thick any more. I could distinguish everything within a thirty-foot radius--

Including the gigantic stone coffin with a slab depicting the demigod war chieftain Brophistocles.

"Bazinga!" I cried, just because I had developed the trend of talking to myself... Except this time, my voice took on a thundering echo that rang for several repetitions. I clapped a hand over my mouth, but it was too late. A long, hissing groan issued from the shadows beyond my little circle. I drew the knife hanging from my belt.

"Sorry," I told to whatever spirits had no doubt become aware of my presence. "This dude has an amulet I need to free my girlfriend from the netherworld." I watched for more movement, but I only heard the sustained hissing. "Now, if you don't mind, I'll just be about my business and get out of your hair." If the Whatever-It-Was even had hair. Who cares? It's a metaphor. I shrugged and turned back to the sarcophagus.

Big mistake.

The first tentacle wrapped around my right leg and jerked it out from under me, slamming me flat on the stone floor before I could catch myself on my hands. It was sheer dumb luck that I managed to tuck my chin and take the brunt of the hit on my thick skull and not break my nose. It still hurt like heck. I hauled myself up on one elbow and twisted to see over my shoulder just in time to come face to face with another tentacle headed for my neck. I slashed at that with my knife, gritting my teeth against the horrible pain of the living tourniquet wrapped around my calf and squeezing tighter.

"Dagnabbit, let go!" I grunted at the alien Guardian. I should have remembered that ancient legends spoke of these creatures who thrived in the shadows of enormous tombs, determined and willing to set upon any living creature who dared trespass to disturb the slumber of such a auspicious figure. More than a dozen tentacles of varying sizes thrashed and wriggled as the creature sought to trap me. I dodged many of them, but occasionally the Guardian scored a hit. One particularly thick limb slapped me across the middle, sending me flying back against the rock wall. I landed hard, and the next thing that registered was another tentacle wrapped around the shaft of a spear! Too late, I moved to slice at it, and the Guardian hissed as it stabbed me in the side. I could feel the rush of alarm at the injury, but I still needed that amulet. I fought my way through the tangled, ever-changing forest of tentacles, slicing at any that got in my way, twisting and ducking to avoid others. At last, I threw myself on top of the coffin.

The Guardian let out a piercing shriek and the frenzy of the tentacles increased. I clenched my fist against my side to keep from bleeding out altogether. I knew I had to defeat the Guardian in order to gain access to the tomb--but how?

"STOP!"

The voice that spoke I had only ever heard in my dreams. The heat trapped in the cave seemed to vaporize in seconds, and I felt the chill wind blow over me. When it faded, I saw her. Barely visible, made of dancing lines of blue light, but Mirabelle was there. She hovered between us, her hand resting protectively on my chest while the other arrested the movement of the Guardian. It hissed angrily at her, but she didn't move. Her ethereal blue skirts swirled around her, caught in an un-felt wind.

I grimaced as a shooting pain radiated from my stab wound.

"Mirabelle..." I grunted, "You're here..."

She didn't take her eyes off the creature. "I'm not sure how it happened. I swear, Damian, if I could manage to come in here by myself, I would have done that ages ago. Perhaps it just needed the touch of someone--"

"Alive?" I quipped.

She chuckled. "Thanks for putting it delicately, Detective."

Above us, the monster bellowed, as if it felt the need to remind us that it could still squash our puny little lives (well, existences, really...) if it cared to, at any moment.

"Now then," my ghostly girlfriend murmured, "we've got a threat to mitigate if you want to have a snowball's chance at getting that amulet."

I grinned. "Right behind you all the way," I replied.
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