The Key
© Stephen Cain
605 words
There are cheerier — some might say healthier — places to take a stroll than through the old cemetery at the end of Webb Street. It is easy to see how it has earned its evil reputation. Perhaps there are some that do not feel it, but it is as though form and substance themselves have worn thin here, have become threadbare, and something primordial constantly threatens to re-enter through the weakened fabric. And yet I am drawn to this place. Time escapes me as I wander among plaques and lichen-covered headstones just to chance with this proximity to the metaphysical.
The section of the cemetery containing larger tombs resembles a city whose inhabitants have no eyes for there are no windows. Despite the curse born by these inhabitants, the houses are constructed in fine style, but one is clearly pre-eminent. A sepulchre of startling opulence, crafted in pale marble, its preclassical architecture has granted it an aura of vast antiquity from the day of its completion. It slumbers now beneath empty eyelids amid the rank overgrowth that crowds the most ancient quarter of this city of the dead, but were some new, sighted occupant to find it necessary to put in windows, it would awaken to answer your stare like some appalled, cadaverous clown. It draws me like gravity, a most desirable property.
The key was lying on the step, gleaming in the moonlight. I could not imagine how it had come to be there. The answer was as inevitable as the question — of course it fitted. The heavy doors resisted at first, but soon swung inwards without complaint. The sepulchre was even more spacious than had seemed possible from the outside. A portion of the moon’s silver trickled down through an oculus high above and as my eyes grew accustomed to the gloom I could make out the disquieting forms of its ancient design. As I crossed the marble floor of the vestibule I fought down a sickening unease as though my familiar world were being gnawed away by worms bred from the very echoes of my footsteps. I passed between the oddly twisted columns that marked the entrance to the tomb proper. The walls were lined with recesses sheltering silent coffins. I felt no inclination to investigate those shadows more carefully — there seemed little mystery about what would be waiting within. The moon had extended a ghostly finger of light through the oculus, pointing to one particular recess in the far wall. The coffin that it contained stood open. Every line in that eldritch chamber seemed suddenly to converge on the gaping sarcophagus. It was not curiosity but predestination that prevailed upon me to discover its contents. I moved slowly, like a sleepwalker. Even as I brought my face close to peer into it, my trance was shattered by an explosion that threatened to obliterate the delicate lacework energy holding together the component atoms of my dust. I realised that the doors of the sepulchre had slammed shut behind me and, as the echoes slowly faded, an obscure sense told me that I was not alone.
Turning slowly, fearing to see, I could make nothing of the patterns of light and dark that shifted and mutated with horrible disregard for the laws of physics. I released the key and waited in vain for the sound of metal striking marble. The voice, when it came, was guttural and liquid, thick and oily as treacle, but it crawled along my nerves like some bloated graveyard spider.
"The hour of freedom is over," it said. "It is time to return to your box."