I wouldn’t have believed if it I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. The pile of old, assuredly inert fireworks, their wicks rat-gnawed and withered, was possessed by the malignant spirit in a last-ditch effort to get revenge on us.
We’d foolishly disturbed its dolmen-capped, subterranean resting place (or jail) during our celebratory adventuring the morning of The Fourth; and it was now dead-set not on possessing us, but ending us. Ashlie, who I’d never known to back down from anyone or anything, leapt away from the malevolently animate pile as the crumpled and sunken tubes regained something of their structural integrity; their faded labels tearing in the sudden expansion. Some fell from the shelf they had occupied for decades, rolling toward us with eerie accuracy, as if guided by a spectral hand. I kicked one away, a simple bottle rocket, but halfway through its spin it righted itself and resumed its advance—this time toward Ashlie.
She screamed, but before she could retaliate or run, a bouquet of sparklers flared, brilliant in the small, dust-choked room. Alicja, visiting from Poland, muttered something unintelligible—presumably a curse—and bumped into Ashlie, who, panicking, turned and swung on Alicja. thinking her to be some phantasmally animated pyrotechnic. Alicja dropped, knocked clean out by the punch, and after realizing what she’d one, Ashlie turned and ran—completely hysterical. But the disembodied daemon wasn’t done with us yet. A small, hexagonal box, label-less and black, sprang up into the air of its own volition and then detonated.
I caught the small, chest-high blast mostly in the shoulder, luckily having turned away from the initial flaring of the sparklers. I was stunned, and the explosion—its yield lessened by time—singed my bare arms, but I was otherwise unharmed. Ashlie, however, caught the full brunt of the explosion mid-flight, and the concussive force, amplified in the small room, sent her flying face-first into the stony wall, rather than through the open threshold.
She was knocked out cold.
Left alone, half-blind, and terrified beyond sense, I squinted through the ashen haze at the pile to see what remained of the ancient fireworks. It was hard to tell through the murk, but there appeared to be quite a few larger items, things you’d ordinarily launch skyward to marvel at their colorful, far-flung explosions. Veritable mortars, I stumbled away from the deadly objects, careful not to step on Alicja, still unconsciously sprawled across the floor.
As I retreated, I heard a sharp grating sound, like something metal being dragged across the floor. The room we were in, some long disused chamber or feature-less tomb, distorted the sound with its weirdly contoured concrete walls, making it sound disconcertingly harsh and unearthly. Fumbling my way to the exit, I took one last look back, hoping to see one of my friends stirring awake; but instead, I saw something so impossible, so nightmarishly unthinkable, that had I not been in the presence of two people who respected me, I would’ve screamed—and probably pissed myself.
Ambling toward me through the greyed atmosphere was a vaguely man-shaped assembly of fireworks; a misshapen automaton of forsaken pyrotechnics, ensouled by a vengeful spirit.
I will admit that my first thought was to run, to flee that lurching horror of combustibles, but I’m not that much of a coward; I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if I’d left my two best friends to be burned alive or worse by that thing. So, I followed my second thought, and took off one of my shoes. With nothing else in the room to use, I took aim and threw my shoe square at the thing, and felt a small sense of triumph at seeing it physically recoil from the small object. Seizing the opportunity, I grabbed Ashlie—nearest to me—and dragged her out of the room. Dropping her a few feet away from the doorway, I then removed my other shoe and launched it again—but this time the fiend-possessed fireworks were ready.
A bottle rocket—appropriated as one of the thing’s fingers—shot out, incinerating the shoe in mid-air. The detonation awakened Alicja, who immediately screamed upon seeing the golem of America’s freedom only a couple feet away from her. The thing’s “head” (one of the aforementioned mortar platforms) turned to her, and my heart plummeted at seeing the small silos all occupied. With newfound courage, I ran forward and threw myself into the horror just as one of the missiles fired. The projectile, knocked off course, shot into the wall, and the subsequent explosion filled the room with a searing wave of heat and a sparkling blossom of colors.
For a few moments, there was only a simmering heat and brain-numbing pain, my vision entirely obscured by kaleidoscopic nothingness. From my spot on the ground, I heard Alicja weakly mumble something in her native tongue and then go silent. Hoping that the firework-entity had been rendered immobile by its own blast, I crawled to where I had heard Alicja. Finding her crumpled on the floor, her face and hair greyed by ash, I dragged us both toward the exit; my vision returning to me in variegated phases.
Once there, I rolled her through the doorway, then stood and gripped the giant stone door. It had taken the three of us to open it, and in my weakened state I was sure I wouldn’t be able to even make it budge; but terror or survival instinct had apparently galvanized my muscles, because I was able to—through an almost Herculean effort—bring the moss-covered slab across the doorway; resealing the ancient tomb.
Just before I turned away, I heard what could’ve been one last defiant shriek—or the delayed detonation of a screamer.
Either way, the malignant spirit was doomed to an eternal entombment amidst the ash and paper it had briefly—and horrifically—inhabited. I don’t know who or what had imprisoned it, nor why; and I shudder to think of what happened to the owners of the discarded fireworks—but it’s all history now, plainly none of my business.
I woke my friends, and together we scrambled up the ancient steps, exited the rune-inscribed megalith, and went home—banishing the sepulchral site from our minds.