Somehow, while trying to remove the lid of a rune-inscribed sarcophagus he’d found, my little brother had inadvertently broken his finger. I heard the crack, heard him suck in air, but figured he’d have enough sense to refrain from crying out - given the grave circumstances. But my little brother, eighteen years old, shouted out, “Yo, that fucking HURTS.”, and after another raspy intake of air, let loose a litany of more expletives - all of which loudly echoed throughout the vacuous burial chamber.
His friend (Trent) must’ve gone to him, because I heard shoes scuffle loudly toward the direction of the coffin and my brother. I then heard Trent—presumably having seen my brother’s busted finger—add his own curse-laden voice to the still-echoing tones of my brother. I told them both to quiet down, reminding them that we had in fact trespassed upon the resting place of the nameless dead; and in response, Trent had the audacity to say, “Yo, chill!”, as if I were the one who’d shouted loud enough to wake the identity-stricken corpses. Of course, I hadn’t actually believed this, at least not until I heard a nearby coffin splinter within its cobweb-draped alcove as something inside pushed against the tightly sealed lid.
My brother—who i suppose I’ll call Derek, for privacy’s sake—then quieted down, as did Trent; and together we listened, fear-stricken, as someone else added their voice to the waning echoes of the teenagers.
Its voice was low, but carried within it an incalculable agedness, a sorrowful depth of timbre, as if it had…well as if it had lain dead for untold cycles, amidst the soundless subterranean darkness.
Generally aware of where the other two were, I crept toward that area of the spacious yet lightless chamber, while the waking thing continued its deathly moans, apparently ignorant to our presences. Eventually, I bumped into one of them, and managed to slap my hand onto their mouth before they could let out a startled cry. I whispered, “Shh, it’s me”, and the muffled response told me that I had found my brother. I heard, “Bruh, you good?” whispered behind me, and pushed Derek toward Trent. I didn’t want them bumping into me—or falling over each other—in the pitch-black darkness; and also knew that, if things came to it, I’d have to defend them from whatever was reanimating nearby.
I’m not terrified of the darkness, but I do find it severely unsettling, in a sensorial kind of way. Not merely because of the limited—or lack of—sight, but also because a sort of inner hollowness also seems to accompany darkness for me. I lose myself in it no matter the surroundings. I guess you could call it vertigo, even though there aren’t heights involved. While most people grow accustomed to it after a while, my senses of equilibrium and physical self only worsen the longer I remain without light, until I start to lose focus and swoon. So, enshrouded in the complete darkness of the crypt, I wasn’t exactly at my best. When I heard the thing’s feet touch the stone floor—a sound that chilled the very marrow of my bones—I figured I’d maybe be able to throw an uncoordinated punch at best.
But then an incredible thing happened. Just when the source of the dragging footsteps and horridly hollow moans seemed mere inches away, light burst into the room. Torches set in sconces lined the upper rim of the chamber, and all of them had flickered to life in an instant – revealing, among other sepulchral things, the sunken, death-blighted face of reanimated horror.
Two milky eyes—blind, mindless, yet still somehow focused—sat within deep socket, and between these was a fleshy divot where a nose should’ve been. There was a mouth, but it was toothless, having only a greyed, shriveled tongue; upon which rested a small bundle of teal eggs of some kind – For centuries, its skull had been the nesting place of some tomb pest. Its neck, shoulders, and chest were similarly ghoulish, horribly emaciated.
“Ugh, peep that drip. Straight gloomer fit.” Trent absentmindedly adjusted his hoodie upon noticing the undead’s wretched attire.
It had worn an assuredly elegant burial garment of some sort at one point, but time and the graveworm had faded and whittled this down to loosely held tatters; now nothing more than a ragged skirt hanging about its waist.
But the most abominable thing about it, the most anatomically obscene feature, was the cavity in its abdomen; within which resided a large creature outwardly resembling a worm, only more akin to a big snake in size. Its skin was pale grey, though the coating of slime about it gave it a silvery glow. There weren’t any appendages that I could see, but I did notice—between dry-heaves—several eyes, grown seemingly at random, about its coiled form; some darkly pupiled and searching, others as dead and white as the eyes of its host.
Whether or not the thing possessed a head was not immediately obvious, but the whole body—which I estimated at being around ten feet when uncoiled—throbbed with a sickening excitation; as if it had sensed the presence of fresher bodies and was preparing to emerge.
“That shit is low-key disgusting. I’m finna trip.” Trent’s voice was shaky, he was clearly terrified.
“Deadass…” Derek’s voice, despite the circumstances, wasn’t as jarred. “I’m getting a real bad vibe rn.” Apparently, the shock of his minor injury had numbed his mind a little to the horrors of the tomb.
The zombie, lich, undead thing—whatever you’d like to call it—regarded us collectively with its vacant eyes, whilst the thing embedded within its abdomen continued to pulse and writhe. Sensing the advent of something horrible, I motioned for Derek and Trent to make their way toward the nearest edge of the chamber, toward the newly appeared circle of moonlight on the floor; immediately above which was the hole through which we’d fallen earlier in the night. Coeval with the sorcerous activation of the torches, the moon had appeared immediately above the tomb. The two teens silently complied, keeping their eyes trained on the undead horror.
Without a weapon or means of defense, I had only my fists and (hopefully) superior dexterity with which to combat the worm-harboring corpse. Sensing—though not actually seeing—movement, it turned its head, and I saw with new revulsion the intra-abdominal creature mimic its motions; turning its worm-like body within the cavity. Slime and corpse fluid dribbled out in the motions, staining the floor blackly and sending up the most putrid fumes I had ever smelled. For a moment, I was distracted, dazed by the miasmal funk. And in that brief lapse of focus, the cavity-resting worm sprang out, bursting from its host like a spring-loaded toy.
I saw only a flash of silver before feeling it wrap itself around my neck. Its constriction wss immediate and powerful, and my vision instantly reddened from the pressure. Derek and Trent let out simultaneous screams, but neither came to my immediate rescue, and I was left helplessly clawing at the ever-tightening, monstrous coil. Meanwhile, the reanimated corpse merely stood by, as if having literally only been a mobile vessel for the parasite, and thus rendered inert in the dreadful thing’s absence.
Desperate, knowing that I’d die before my companions snapped out of their youthful senseless and came to my aid, I decided to risk infection and disease in order to save my life. Mustering what I could of my rapidly dwindling strength, I pushed the fat-bodied coil upwards, and shed fresh tears as I felt my jaw shift alarmingly in the ever-mounting tension. Just before my jaw could be broken or torn from my head, I pressed the plumpest portion of the worm’s body into my mouth, and bit into it as hard as I could.
Despite the power with which the thing had seized me, the actual skin of its body was fairly weak. My teeth sank into it easily, and the subsequent burst of juices caused the whole thing to deflate considerably the next moment. The taste was indescribable. Some noxious, unpalatable admixture of bile and phlegm, it was both nauseating and spicy; somehow affecting my taste buds in a way that nothing else ever had. But still, I chewed on, and more of its vital filth gushed out. The eyes, at least the few that I could see with its body pressed so closed to me, blinked sporadically; even the pallid and pupil-less ones.
Finally, after I had chewed nearly through, the whole thing went limp; and the coils suddenly unwound themselves from my body as if the muscles within had simply disintegrated. I tried to open my mouth and let the thing fall out, but my jaw, either due to the thing’s constriction or my rabid biting, had been broken or misaligned; and I could only shift it so that some of the residual muck fell through my parted lips.
The singular look of horror on Derek and Trent’s faces was almost comical, and had I not nearly died, I would’ve mocked them for it. Derek, speaking first, stuttered out, “On god, b-bro. I would’ve helped…but my finger, you know?” Trent, feeling similarly ashamed, added on, “Forreal, I would’ve helped, no cap. But like, you seemed like you had it, fam. Jawbone OP.”
No doubt suffering from some adverse psychoactive effect of the worm’s blood, I shrugged; not feeling particularly bothered by their brief periods of cowardice. Before I could actually say—or rather, mumble—anything in response, the corpse suddenly came to life – as in, it regained a little of its former animation, turning to me with some semblance of sentience. I backed away a little, not exactly scared—having been emboldened by my victory over the parasite—but also not wanting to fight something closer to my size. But the corpse did not advance toward me, and instead raised its hand in a gesture suggestive of peace.
“Yo, this dude’s vibe is different now. I think he’s friendly.”
I threw a dubious glance at Trent, who was slowly approaching the corpse. Derek, thankfully, remained at the spot beneath the hole in the ceiling. The corpse, turning to Trent, repeated the peace-offering gesture, and Trent mimicked it. Satisfied, the corpse nodded and turned back toward me, and I performed the hand sign as well. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Derek do his part, though the corpse did not seem to require it of him, with him being so far away. For a moment, it remained still, as if it had lapsed back into a state of necrotic dormancy; but then its thinly attached jaw lowered somewhat, and a voice issued from the ghoulish maw:
“Thank you for relieving me of that pest. Had you not trespassed upon this tomb, that vermin would’ve nested within me for eons; stoking the embers of my spirit to feed off them as sustenance, never to let me rest. It would’ve fed upon me indefinitely, for it was, by all practical measurements, immortal. And so too would I have been, had you not drawn it out of my body. The vitality of your form must’ve been irresistibly enticing to it. I am glad that you were not overwhelmed, even if it would have been existentially profitable for me. Now, I shall rest. But first, I will do you a service, as you have done for me.”
Striding past me with a surprising swiftness, the corpse then seized one of the sarcophagi and lifted it as effortlessly as if it had hefted a bundle of clothing. Then, with Herculean ease, it carried it to the spot beneath the hole in the ceiling, waiting for my brother to step aside before gently setting it down.
“You may use the higher elevation granted by this to exit through the hole. Again, thank you for your assistance, even if it was involuntary and born of sepulchral irreverence. I now bid you farewell. Eternal rest awaits me.”
The benevolent undead then crawled into the alcove from which it had emerged, and entered into a deathly restful sleep.
Trent, a broad smile across his face, said: “Bruh, that’s a mood.”
Derek, resting against the sarcophagi, added: “Bussin. Sleep well, Zomboomer.”
Exhausted, (and admittedly a little drunk on worm-slime) I concluded, through gritted, slime-covered teeth: “Night night, homie.”
Both of their heads then turned to me, and with uncanny simultaneity they said, “cringe.”
One by one we climbed up through the hole. The moon was high in the sky, its far-spread lunar brilliance a welcome change to the shifting shadows and eerie torchlight of the tomb. Nerve-wracked, haggard, and variously injured, we staggered out of the ancient, communally forsaken cemetery. I hadn’t wanted to come, but they’d insisted on my presence. I’m glad I did, otherwise my brother and his dopey friend probably would’ve died.
But that’s the last time I go exploring abandoned graveyards with zoomers.