Abyssal Tomb

Beams of soft moonlight cut through the thick grey carpet high in the skies above Mill City, Iowa. The glow reflected off of the towering glass skyscrapers, pushing high through the skyline and looming over the sprawling forest just outside of the metropolitan goliath. The same soft radiance also mirrored off of the nearby Twin Lake, hidden in the untouched wilderness beyond the city. An equally gentle mist rested over the lake, stretching out onto it’s grassy banks and into the trees bordering the small, natural oasis. The silence of the night was only broken by chirping crickets and rustling in the thick brush as my brothers and I made our way through the woods.

My name is Amber Loveheart, and I’ll never forget what I did to them.

“Amber, slow down!” My brother Jimmy panted as he called out after me. His thick, leather coat was starting to weigh heavily on his shoulders after four hours of walking through the thick forest. I told him to dress lightly. My other two brothers, Ricky and Mark, took my advice, and were easily weaving through thbn e branches and bushes in their light flannel overshirts. It may have been October, but it wasn’t that cold yet. Plus, the exercise kept us warm.

“We’re almost there Jimmy,” I called back, “Just hang in there a little bit longer.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” he replied. “You’re not the one carrying all this diving gear.”

Mark scoffed. “You were the one who demanded to carry it. I’m the strongest, I was supposed to be carrying those bags.”

“Yeah, Mr. Tough Guy Jimmy just had to carry them. ‘What do you mean Mark is the strong one. I can handle it.’” Ricky chuckled as he chimed in, adding a layer of joy to Mark’s stoic retort.

I shook my head. “Stop wasting breath, getting through these woods is only the first half of what we need to do.”

All eyes turned to me as we finally pushed through the last of the wilderness and made our way to our watery destination. The Twin Lake was just as beautiful as in the pictures at school. Untainted by human industry and untouched by the world, the crystal clear water acted as a natural mirror of the nature in all directions. The small fish and plants that lived within were visible far from shore, except for those that lived deep enough for the darkness of the lake to swallow them. It was in that darkness, that silent abyss, where my brothers and I were headed. Our grandmother was buried down there, in a steel casket wrapped in chains. Called “The Girl in the Dark”, the people of the city thought she was some sort of witch, claiming that she, and only she, had been responsible for over 90 murders in the city over the course of 5 years. They described her as a promiscuous cannibal who practiced dark magic to brutally murder and eat her victims. Of course, they were all lies. Magic isn’t real, and even if it was, we had seen our grandmother. Never in person, but in family videos with our parents. She was a sweet, angel of a woman. Yet here she was, tossed in her metal tomb to the bottom of a dark lake in the woods. Forgotten about. Without a trial or even a proper burial. We traveled as far as we did to rectify that.

“Jimmy,” I ordered. “We need the suits and oxygen tanks.”

My brother, still panting, dropped the bag of gear along with his heavy coat and fell to the dirt, trying to catch his breath. “Amber,” he bagan, “Are you sure this is a good idea? What if she’s not down there?”

“She is,” I snapped.

“Well even if she is,” Jimmy continued, “How do you plan on lifting a metal casket covered in chains with a corpse inside? That’s a lot of weight, even for the four of us. Plus, what’s the point in all this? She’s probably just a skeleton by now, and we didn’t bring a shovel.”

Mark grabbed the bag and handed out our diving gear, silently glaring at Jimmy. We all knew that look. When Mark looked at you that way, it was time to stop talking and start working. Reluctantly, Jimmy squeezed into his scuba suit and joined us by the lake. We all had plenty of oxygen and weren’t diving too deep. Our only challenges were lifting the casket and finding it down there in the first place. Of course, swimming all the way out to the center was going to be a chore in itself, but we had prepared for this. We were going to expose what the city did to our grandmother, and finally bring justice for what they did to her. What our uncle did to her.

One by one, we ventured out into the water and began our journey to the center. Small fish and snakes swam passed and around us as we moved through their cold, silent home. The mist grew thicker and thicker as we moved closer and closer to the middle, until finally we were surrounded by a dense fog. As we exchanged silent nods, we each tucked our heads and began swimming down into the darkness. Narrow beams of light cut through the blackness as we each clicked on our flashlights and began scouring the lakebed for the watery tomb.

As we began moving in different directions, I called out into the abyss. “Radio check.”

“Clear.”

“Clear.

“Clear.”

I sighed. “Good, we can all hear each other. Everybody pick a direction and search in a sort of triangle perimeter first before snaking into the middle and checking the area. We have to cover a lot of ground and I think this is the most efficient way. If you spot it or have an emergency, let everyone know. We’ll find you. Everyone understand?”

“Yes, Amber.” Jimmy answered.

Ricky giggled. “Whatever you say, boss-lady.”

Mark grunted into his microphone. I took that as a yes.

With that, we all disappeared into the lake, leaving each other in total silence. The time was eleven o’clock at night, we expected to be searching until well into the morning hours. Within the hour, our quiet was already broken. The time was eleven forty-five. Fifteen minutes to midnight.

“Um, guys?” Jimmy muttered into the radio. “I know that you all think I can’t do this but I don’t need any help over here.”

I sat in silence for a moment. I hadn’t gone to help Jimmy, but maybe Mark or Ricky?

“Sorry kid,” Ricky began, “but even though I know you’re not up to it, I’ve got too much work to do on my end. I got slowed down by this wild looking plant. It was all frilly and pink like some little kid’s skirt. Shoulda seen it, it was hilarious *and* adorable.”

“Amber?” Jimmy asked.

“Not me dude, I’m still busy over here. Maybe it was-”

“No.” Mark interrupted. “You’re seeing things Jimmy, get back to work.”

“I am not seeing things!” Jimmy replied. “Somebody is down here with me, I saw another flashlight.”

“Not possible,” Mark responded. “We’re not even supposed to be out here. This lake is protected. Even if somebody did sneak out like us, on foot, they wouldn’t have any reason to be down here.”

“I know what I saw, Mark.”

“Yeah, Mark. Dimmy Jimmy knows what he saw.”

My brothers began arguing on the radio, but all of the chatter faded away. I didn’t need to listen to them, I’d finally found it. All of their squabbling and Jimmy’s complaining faded away as I gazed upon the moss-covered steel casket, half buried in the sand at the bottom of the lake. Old, rusted chains, overtaken by the underwater ecosystem, bound the coffin with four different padlocks. Worn down paper seals with strange writing were plastered along all sides of the grave, except one on the corner. It looked as though some deep water fish had chewed through the old material, leaving a gaping rip in whatever was placed on my grandmother’s coffin. The time was twelve. Midnight.

“Stop arguing!” I finally shouted, suppressing the ongoing quarrel on our radios. “I found it. Everyone converge on me. I’m going to throw down flares.”

Ricky, Mark, and Jimmy all copied as I began lighting and tossing bright green beacons into the water around me. Within minutes, each of them found their way to my location. We gathered in the murky depths, each of us grabbing one of the mossy, rust covered corners of the casket. Lifting with all of our strength, admittedly mostly Mark’s and my own, we began dragging our grandmother towards the shore. If it weren’t for the buoyancy of the Lake, it probably would have been impossible, even with the four of us. The weight of the chains and thick steel of her tomb weighed us down as we trudged closer and closer to shore. We were more than halfway there when we saw a new light. A purple flare burning faintly in the dark. The time was one-fifteen.

“Hey, hey do you guys see that?” Jimmy’s voice shook through the microphone.

“Yeah, I see it.” Mark replied. “I suppose we owe you an apology, Jimmy. It looks like there really is somebody down here with us. Amber, you’re the leader here. Should we check it out?”

I sighed. “No time. We only have a limited supply of oxygen and this coffin is already slowing us down enough. We need to keep moving.”

“Copy,” Mark said.

“Copy,” followed Ricky.

Silence.

“Jimmy?” I asked. “Do you copy?”

Ricky gasped. “Amber,” He stammered. “Jimmy is…”

I felt wrath begin boiling in my chest, moving up until my face was hot. “Don’t tell me that Jimmy passed out! I do not have time to deal with his-”

“Amber,” Mark interrupted. “Look behind you.”

As I craned my neck to look at where Jimmy was carrying the casket behind me, my rage drowned beneath a wave of sorrow and fear. Jimmy was floating behind us, his hands still stuck to the corner he was carrying. The rest of him was floating in pieces behind us, staining the dark lake crimson with my younger brother’s flesh and blood. His suit had been torn to shreds, and his helmet and oxygen taken. The three of us stopped, dropping the tomb in the sand below. A weak purple glow in the distance finally burned out, swallowed by the abyss.

“What, what happened?” I muttered. “Ricky, you were right there. What happened?”

“I don’t know, I swear!” Ricky shot back. “One minute, the twerp was there, the next he was like this. He was fine when we came up on that flare, but I didn’t see anything happen to him. I was looking ahead.”

“Ricky!” I roared. “Jimmy is dead! You really didn’t see anything?”

“No, I-”

“Bullshit!”

“Enough!” Mark’s cold voice cut through our headsets. “Sitting here arguing won’t solve anything. Let’s just finish getting this thing to shore, then we can regroup and figure out what happened to Jimmy.”

I looked back at what was left of my brother. His stupid, big coat was floating in pieces around his remains. “But, he’ll be left here. In the lake.”

“We’ll come back, Amber. But for now we need to finish this. Otherwise he died for nothing.”

Swallowing my tears, I began towing our cargo once more in silent agreement with Mark. He was right, after all. If we stopped there, why did Jimmy even die? We would leave just as empty handed as before, minus one of our own. We continued without words, and saw no more lights nor signs of anything or anyone else traversing the water with us. Finally, after hours of work, the three of us hauled the forgotten grave of our grandmother, Nora Loveheart, to the banks of Twin Lake. The time was two fifty-five.

As Ricky, Mark, and myself finally dropped the casket and ripped off our scuba gear, I was finally allowed a moment to grieve our lost brother. Dropping to my knees, I felt tears crawl down my freckled face while I gently lifted Jimmy’s still tightly gripping fingers from the steel corner. His hands and wrists were all I had left of him. Jimmy was a coward, and he loved to complain, but he was always there for us. Even when he didn’t want to, he helped us. He was our youngest brother, my youngest brother. I didn’t even get to say goodbye. The last time we spoke, we’d all scolded him, made him feel stupid. Would he remember that in the afterlife, if there is one? Would he forgive us? I felt Ricky’s strong hand on my shoulder as he sat beside me, letting me rest against his chest.

“He’s in a better place, sis. Trust me.” I cried silently into Ricky’s flannel shirt. Even though Ricky was trying to be my rock, I could feel him trembling, and I could feel the wetness of fresh tears on the back of my hair and neck. He was grieving too. I could only imagine his guilt over Jimmy’s death. He was always the hardest on the poor kid.

While we wept, Mark worked. Ever the soldier, Mark began picking each of the four padlocks keeping the coffin sealed, undoing the chains and surveying our grisly prize. His brow furrowed and a scowl grew as he looked in mine and Ricky’s direction.

“What’s wrong, dude?” Ricky growled. “We can’t have a minute to grieve? Don’t you care?”

Mark’s glare shattered Ricky’s resolve like a vase thrown against a moving train. “That’s not what I’m thinking, so watch what you say. Look at where Jimmy’s hands were.”

Ricky and I looked at the corner that Jimmy was holding. It was the same corner where the paper seal had been ripped. “What exactly am I looking at? Torn paper?”

Mark sighed. “Listen to me, and listen closely. To everything I say.” Mark tore another of the seals off of one of the corners of the tomb. “Do you know what these are?”

I shook my head. “Of course not. It looks like a piece of paper with scribbles on it.”

“Ricky, Amber. As you both know, the rumors surrounding our grandmother were that she was a witch. She was described as a serial killer, a cannibal, and practitioner of the dark arts. They say that she could walk into any room, any space, undetected. They say she could survive any conditions. Fire, drowning, firing-squad, stabbing, lethal injection, nothing could stop her. They say she could escape any prison, almost as if she could teleport.”

“Where are you going with this, Mark?” Ricky interrupted.

Unphased and unmoving, Mark continued. “These seals were likely placed on her grave as some sort of magical barrier. I’m not sure if or how they would work, because before today I’d never have believed in such things, but why else would useless paper seals be placed on a steel grave wrapped in chains beneath a lake? How else could they have withstood the elements after all of these years? Paper erodes quickly underwater, yet these have lasted decades. Moreover, Jimmy’s body was torn to shreds, with pieces of him missing. It would match her alleged modus operandi.”

“That’s crazy!” I barked. “Witches and magic aren’t real. Those paper things are probably just from our paranoid uncle. I bet he put some sort of water seal on them. You sound just like him, you know! I can see why dad named you after Uncle Markus. You’re just as crazy as he is. Do you think grandma killed Jimmy? Really?”

Mark tore off the rest of the seals surrounding the coffin. “Why don’t we open this and find out?”

Glaring, Ricky and I got up and each grabbed hold of a part of the lid. Lifting with all of our might, we forced the thick, steel top off of the tomb and onto the shore of the Lake. My heart sank as the three of us stared into an empty grave. No body, no skeleton, not even a shred of clothing. Just a small piece of wet parchment. A note.

‘Thanks for the help, cutie.’

“Move!” Ricky threw me aside as I finished the note. A warm splat punctuated his words. A wild-haired, crazy-eyed woman grinning ear to ear stood behind Ricky, pushing a long, rusty blade through his ribs from behind. Ricky’s pained gargles quickly subsided as she buried her weapon in his back, dropping him into the dirt. She laughed hysterically into the night, like a wolf howling at the woman. The blood of our brothers stained her drenched, tattered shirt and mini-skirt. She smeared Ricky’s blood over her face as she cackled at the moon, letting it drip onto her bare, dirty feet. The world stood still, all noise stopped. Ricky was bleeding out next to me. No, he did bleed out next to me. Another brother dead. I could see Mark opening his mouth as if he were screaming something at me, rushing over to where I was. The crazed woman stared directly at him and licked her lips. Then, with a snap of her fingers, she was gone. I could feel Mark’s strong hands pulling at my arms, but I fought. Ricky was dead. I roared into the empty forest, bawling at the loss of another brother. Half of my living family gone. I couldn’t leave him. I couldn’t fight it either. Mark easily threw me over his sturdy shoulders and began sprinting into the forest, back towards the road and our way back home. I fought with all of my strength, punching and clawing at his strong back, but it was no use. Jimmy and Ricky were gone, and that woman was still out there.

“Mark,” I whimpered. “Put me down. Please. I’ll run on my own.”

Mark grunted and set me down gently against a tree. “We should break here for a moment. To drink some water, and eat something. We’ll need our strength.”

“Are you crazy?” I argued. “That sadistic monster is still out there. We can’t stay here.”

“Don’t argue, Amber. We’ll have to move until sunrise to get out of this forest, whether we rest or not. If we’re not at 100%, that woman will catch up to us and we’ll be easy prey. I’m taking charge now.”

Opening his bag, Mark drew two bottles of water, a couple apples, and a sandwich cut in half. He split our meals evenly, placing mine in front of me and wasting no time scarfing down his snack. While we ate, I thought about what he had said earlier.

“Mark,” I began.

“No time to talk, Amber. Eat.”

It was time to talk. “No, Mark. This is important. We can talk while we eat.”

Mark’s icy glare sent chills down my spine. “What is so important?”

“That thing you said, down by the lake. Do you think that, that the woman we saw…” I trailed off as I took a chunk out of my apple.

“It was her,” Mark craned his head, looking over both shoulders as he sipped his water. “It was our grandmother. We have no idea where she is, if she knows where we are, or what she plans on doing to us. The rumors were true, Amber. Now eat your food, I’m going to scout ahead a bit.”

“What? You plan on leaving me here?” My eyes pleaded with Mark’s. As always, he was unmoved.

“I plan on making sure she hasn’t gone ahead of us and set a trap. If I’m not back in ten minutes, run for your life.”

The time was three thirty-five. I was alone in the woods with my insane grandmother. Ten minutes, Mark had said. I would have to start running at three forty-five. But that means Mark wanted me to leave him too? Lose my last brother? What if she came for me instead? I’d lead this mission, I was in control, but when push came to shove I fell apart. I failed them. I failed Ricky and Jimmy. The time was three forty-one, and I was not going to fail another brother. I bolted into the forest after Mark, chasing the last vestige of my family. I’d gotten them into this. It was my fault Ricky and Jimmy were dead. It was time to be the big sister I was supposed to be. I had to protect him.

Three-forty four. Mark’s bag sat torn apart in the brush. Fresh crimson dripped from it’s canvas mesh. I forced my way through the dense bushes and into a small clearing. Moonlight punctured the thick roof of the woods, illuminating a smeared trail of blood leading to a thick oak, where Mark’s bloody figure sat. I sprinted towards him, desperate to see his apathetic glare. Desperate to hear his cold, commanding voice. Desperate to feel the safety of our most stoic and secretly caring brother stand beside me. I dropped to my knees in front of him. His chest was still moving. Raspy breaths came from his lungs. He was still alive! I hurriedly began ripping pieces of my sleeves and pants off to use as bandages to cover the many stabs and cuts covering my brother’s body. I felt his strong, but now sticky hands grab my wrist as I went to cover a wound on his head.

“Amber,” Mark wheezed.

“No, save your strength Mark. We’re getting out of this.”

Blood peppered my flannel as Mark coughed. “Leave me, now.”

“No Mark, please. I can’t, I can’t lose anymore. Please.” I grabbed and held my brother as tight as I could. My tears mixed with the blood on his bare, shredded chest.

I felt him gently grab my back and hug me. Mark had never hugged me. He never showed us any affection directly. “I love you, Amber. I loved Ricky and Jimmy too. But I’m a lost cause. I won’t make it. Please, escape while you can. I managed to slow her down. I can’t let you die too. Tell people about us, about what happened here. Please, you have to…” Mark’s grip went limp, and his raspy breath ceased. After all of the running, all of the work, all of the loss, I couldn’t do it. I broke down, silently sobbing over my brother’s mutilated corpse. I knew that I couldn’t escape. It was over.

A vaguely familiar, cheery female voice echoed from just behind me, on the opposite side of the clearing. “Don’t be so sad, cutie. Mama is gonna make good use out of you kids here.” My grandmother cackled into the empty forest.

“Why did you do it?” I whimpered.

“What was that, sugar plum? I didn’t quite catch that.”

I turned and screamed, hot vengeance pumping through me. “Why did you do it? We’re your grandchildren! Don’t you give any shits about that? Do you care at all?”

Nora chuckled as she pushed aside a loose curl of hair with her knife. “Of course I care, sweetums. Since you little pumpkins are family, your flesh tastes better! I’m like, so super happy you all came to visit! You didn’t bring that sour-puss son of mine, either. Marky-poo was always a party-pooper. Oh, you must be Maxy’s kids, though! How’s he doing? Is he still sore about his legs? I always told him to be thankful I didn’t eat his arms. Marky-poo drew the short stick on that one.”

As my grandmother talked on and on, my blood only boiled more and more. We weren’t family to her, we were livestock. Unthinking, I grabbed a branch and charged. The time was four o’ three. I was going to kill my grandmother.

Her rambles ceased as I ran. Time stopped. The world drowned in silence. My heartbeat echoed in the night. I saw only her. Nora Loveheart. The witch. The girl in the dark. A murderer. The face of evil. I swung at her smiling face. She vanished.

“Come out!” I cried. “Stop hiding! I’ll kill you for what you did!”

Nora giggled. “You’re welcome to try.” I felt her long knife force its way through my back. “But I don’t think you’ve got a chance.”

Coughing blood, I dropped my weapon. I had failed again. I couldn’t protect anybody. Not even myself. Crying, I accepted my fate as she tore her blade from my flesh and let me fall to the ground. My grandmother loomed over me, licking her blade clean.

“Don’t be sad, cutie. Today is a good day! Ms. Sunshine can finally spread cheer all across the city again! Just imagine all the fun I’m gonna have! Doesn’t it sound great?”

I tilted my chin up and spit blood onto her filthy face. She licked it off with a tongue like that of a serpent. “Thanks for the appetizer kid.”

As Nora raised her blade to finish me, sharp spotlights burned through the darkness. I could hear heavy machines and dozens of guns click behind me, ready to liquify whatever they were pointed at. Footsteps surrounded the clearing around me, and a hulk of a man wearing a dirty lab coat and thick rubber gloves replaced my grandmother standing over me. As the lights had come on, she had vanished again. Disappeared into the night, free to wreak havoc on the world again. It was all my fault.

I heard people talking behind me. “Mr. Fera, the perimeter is clear. The target has vanished.”

“Thank you, Scarlet,” The man standing over me replied coldly. “Send a medical team to my location,” he continued. “I have a casualty.”

“But sir, isn’t she implicated in the release? Should we let her-”

“Send the medical team, now.” The man interrupted. “This girl, these children. They’re Max’s children. My nieces and nephews.”

My eyes went wide. “Uncle Markus?” I rasped. “But, dad said you were gone?”

My uncle looked down at me with the same cold glare of my late brother. I saw terrible burns covering the upper and left sides of his head and face, along with two long gashes starting from his forehead and down his left cheek. “Your father told you what I wanted him to. Stop wasting breath. You’re bleeding out and you shouldn’t strain yourself.”

My vision blurred and my ears began to ring. I felt gloved hands lifting me gently onto a stretcher as I faded from consciousness.

My name is Amber Loveheart. I got my brothers killed, and I unleashed evil into the world again.