My cousin and the cave. nosleep

This is the story my grandma told me about my cousin.

Every day, the walk to school was the same. Leave the house, go through the field, take the path into the woods, follow the stream, pass the cave, walk less than half a mile more and pop out in the town park which is across the street from the school. Doing this in reverse, clearly, would bring her home. In the mornings, she trudged through without paying much attention to her surroundings. She wasn’t a morning person and she never would be. In the afternoon, however, she’d enjoy the walk. Nature, fresh air, animal sounds, a light breeze, the beautiful colors of the forest, and the crystal clear stream with cool and delicious water. She could spend hours on the mossy ground, surrounded by trees- but for the cave. If the forest was the comfort of her bedroom, with all her favorite things inside; then the cave would be the closet, the entrance to the attic, or the doorway into the creaky hall… whatever most kids were afraid of. She feared only the cave. Not that there wasn’t something beautiful about this naturally occurring part of the breathtaking land she knew so well, but because in a mere matter of seconds it could turn her joyous love of her surroundings into sheer terror.

Maybe it was the inky and foreboding opening, so dark that it seemed to steal your ability to see somewhere just beyond the first few inches inward. Perhaps it was the way every sound of the forest, often pleasing out in the open, would echo and reverberate into something horrid if it were close enough to the cave. In fact, sometimes the faintest tweet of a nearby bird would echo out of the cave like a shrill screech, a twig snap would sound like a gunshot. Now and then, on her walk past, she’d pay attention to the ominous noises bursting out of the cave. Generally, if she heard two tweets then she heard two shrieks, one twig snap then one gun blast. It would comfort her to know that they were echoes until another series of sounds would emit out of the gaping hole with no echo-causing sound beforehand. There were points in time between leaf rustles, birdsong, and snapping twigs that audible growls, moans, and cries would come from the cave but natural forest sounds would start back up so suddenly that you wouldn’t even notice they weren’t natural echoes.

Usually in the morning, she’d tiredly meander along until she reached the cave and finish the walk at the quickest pace possible for her exhausted body. When dismissal came, she’d take her time enjoying the trip home but break into an outright sprint when passing the cave and heading home. Until today; this was different. Today she made it up and to school like always, felt great the whole day, and was excited to get home and kick off her weekend. In fact, everything was perfect until after she crossed the street. Halfway across the street, she became dizzy and felt faint. She nearly blacked out and stumbled as a car sharply honked and roused her back to finish her crossing. When she was safely on the other side, her head began to throb with such pain that it nearly brought tears to her eyes. She felt a wave of nausea that lingered and she ached everywhere. Never before did she have an illness hit her so quickly. She knew the walk home would be difficult and found herself pausing several times to shake a dizzy spell or avoid passing out. She considered stopping at the stream, thinking the cold water would ease her many aches if she waded into it for a bit. It was then that she realized her vision was starting to be affected as well.

It appeared as though a thick, foggy mist was settling in to the valley out of nowhere, curling up around her feet as she stepped forward. It made her think of an old horror movie. She didn’t want to have any more symptoms hit before she was able to get beyond the cave. When she approached her fear, she was shocked to notice that today the unexplained noises coming from within were almost constant and that there were no birds singing gleefully around to cause an echo. The muted sound was something like a creepy chant. Fear stopped her in her tracks when she heard this, especially shocking was the lack of birds and their pretty little melodies. Passing it off as another bizarre symptom of whatever diabolical flu she was coming down with, she began walking again, at the fastest pace possible while being so sick and in pain. A calming feeling washed over her as she could see glimpses of her house through the trees. This didn’t take away from the fact that she was feeling the way she did.

Upon entering the house, she found it odd that no one else was home. Usually by now her mom was prepping dinner while shedding her high heels and glancing at reports from work. Dad was in the den clacking away at the computer, and her little brother was loading up a video game. Today there was silence. Did she forget about an after school event? Her illness couldn’t have kept her so long that her family would have given up waiting for her! She assumed they simply all had things to do that kept them from getting home as early as usual. It happened now and then to one of them, the odds were eventually everyone would be busy at once. She jotted down a quick note before heading up to her room to try to sleep off the way she was feeling. “Mom, Taking an after school nap, been dizzy, felt faint, vision seems cloudy/foggy, sore all over, have a headache… tired. Not to worry, a good nap will fix me up. It is probably stress from finals. XOXO”

By 4:39 pm she was changed into pajamas and lying down for a nap. She drifted to sleep quickly and awoke a sweaty mess. When her eyes popped open she noticed three things. She still felt a great deal of bodily pain and a headache, her clock read midnight, and even in the dark she could see a haze rolling up from the floors. She ran downstairs to see if anyone was still up. Walking down the steps into silent darkness made her nervous at first, but of course they’d all be in bed by now. It was midnight after all. She walked back up to her bed and figured she could use a lot more sleep.

When her eyes opened the next morning she was disappointed to see that the mist was still there. It appeared as though there was a layer of dry ice all over the ground or floors as she walked along. She stretched out her arms, yawned, and felt an intense pain. When looking up into the mirror, she nearly let out a scream. She was covered in bruises! There was so much discoloration in her skin that it was sickening. Not to mention that she still felt a deep ache in all her joints and muscles. Otherwise, the headache and dizziness had seemingly gone away. She made her way down the steps and quickly went from room-to-room, realizing that she was once again alone. Now she was nervous. It is one thing for them all to have something to them to do on a weeknight, but they’d never leave her home alone on a weekend. She searched around for her cell phone, in fear, wondering where everyone was. As she slid her phone open, she realized her touch screen had a crack across it. “How in the hell?” she wondered aloud. There was a voicemail and a missed call from her mother.

Just seeing this made her feel better. She typed in her code to listen to the message. She noticed right away that there was a lot of static and that her mother’s voice was cutting in and out as well as being filled with great sorrow- almost sobbing, “... sweetie… and your dad and brother… Aunt Denise… can’t believe… dead… weekend”. Her brain put it all together. There was terrible cell reception at Aunt Denise’s house. Clearly her family had gone there for the weekend because she had passed on. She concluded that they’d left her behind because of her illness. It was only Saturday morning. She’d likely be alone until sometime Monday evening or even Tuesday morning as it was an extended weekend for Memorial Day. She sat and wept quietly in memory of Aunt Denise. Attempting to call her mother and getting a direct to voicemail response confirmed her idea. They were out of service at her Aunt’s house. Despite her sadness, she was somewhat relieved to have a few days to begin feeling better. With no appetite for breakfast, she planned to quickly walk into town and grab some Tylenol, but she wanted to sit there for just a little longer.

At 3:00 pm she jumped up out of the chair. Got her wits about her and noted that just since yesterday afternoon she’d slept almost twenty-three hours total. She still ached, she still felt tired, and she still saw the tendrils of hazy fog swirling up from the ground everywhere she went. She threw a light jacket on just to cover more of the large purple blotches that were all over her body. She started the pilgrimage for pain relief and vaguely remembered the cave chanting yesterday. Fear crept over her, but she pushed on. It is better to hurry and grab things she may need now, rather than wait until it was so excruciating that she had to make the walk in the dark. As she neared the cave, she came to a startling realization. The cave chanting yesterday was not just a figment of her illness; and it was a bit more loud and understandable today, her searing headache returned just for the amount of time she passed the cave. In a moment of near “blackout” she stumbled toward the cave.

Tripping over a rock near the gaping mouth was enough of a jolt to wake her out of her trance. Her heart nearly stopped when she saw how close she was, the chanting voices thundering in her ears. She couldn’t tell if a black shadow was coming closer to the opening or if she was merely seeing movement from the tufts of mist all around. She walked on as fast as she could manage, too afraid to look back and wandered into town. She passed a few people along the way and smiled, with no response. Then she saw a group of friends, she greeted them and they said nothing. She walked up to them, chatting at random and they didn’t seem to care. She got tired of them ignoring her and she punched one of the guys gently on the shoulder. He quickly snapped his head around as if he was startled and looked at her, and then to either side of her, behind him. Eventually, he made a confused face and turned back to the group who continued walking toward the café. “What was that all about? Have I done something to piss them all off?”

With her illness and strange behavior from her friends and family, she decided to quickly purchase the Tylenol and get home. She wasn’t treated much better in the store. She stood in line through four sales. No one smiled, started a friendly chat, or even looked at her. The cashier didn’t greet her and before he began the transaction, he was paged to the office by the manager. He turned and walked away, never having even said, “I’ll be with you in a moment”. After a few minutes of waiting, she threw a $5.00 bill down on the counter and walked off. She set her sights towards home, disgusted with the way people treated her. She contemplated if they were nervous of how she appeared since she got ill? She guessed it was possible, she had ratty hair, dark circles under her eyes, she never reapplied makeup, she was wearing pajamas in the afternoon downtown, and any of her exposed skin was covered in various dark shades of black and blue. Despite her exhaustion, she opted for taking the longer route home. She had to stay on sidewalks passing people who didn’t even bother to look at her as she walked along. No matter how much she felt like an outcast, at least she didn’t have to go near the cave again. She arrived at the house, she took a few tablets of Tylenol, plopped down on the couch, and flipped the television on. She intended to watch a few shows and browse the internet for her symptoms to see what could be going on.

She couldn’t keep herself from dozing off, but much to her terror, each time she slipped into a sleep state, she could hear the chanting from the cave. To keep herself occupied she tried calling the friend she had punched earlier, to apologize and ask what she had done to upset everyone. The phone never rang through, but she heard it connect. There were sounds similar to wind howling and distant voices, as they grew louder she could clearly hear the cave chants again, “Cum autem mortuus deambulatio. Quaerite lucem. Intra in spelunca.” She quickly hung up the phone and tossed it on the floor. “What is happening?” she sobbed into the pillow. She awoke sometime late the next afternoon or even the afternoon after that. After days of chanting, haunting mists, no human interaction, and constant sleep or pain; she truly felt like she was losing her mind. She may have slept even longer, had the smell not been so unbearable. She looked around the refrigerator and trash can for signs of rotting meat. Even after an entire can of Febreeze, the scent hung in the air.

The mirror showed that there was no change in her appearance other than her eyes. Set against the black and blue skin, the fact that her irises and pupils were nearly as white as the rest of her eye was shocking. She walked back into the living room, determined to call her mother. She was terrified of the phone, tired of the confusion, ill beyond anything she’d ever encountered, and now the scent of the house was making her all the more sick. Shivering in fear, she picked the phone up to call her mom. Dead Aunt or not, they needed to come home before all she could see was foggy mist and she was one big bruise. She dialed her mother’s number to be met with an eerie whisper of, “Cum autem mortuus deambulatio. Quaerite lucem. Intra in spelunca.” She didn’t even hang up this time. She threw the phone down and dropped slowly to her knees, speechless. Nothing made sense, the only thing that even seemed constant in her life right now was her ever worsening symptoms and the damn chanting…the chanting! She jumped up, horrified but determined. There was clearly a link between what was going on and the cave. Why else would the chants be coming through her phone?

Once she began crossing the yard she noticed that the smell followed her, the mist she saw was even thicker than it usually was, wafting up in plumes with each step she took, and she could already hear the faint chants “Cum autem mortuus deambulatio. Quaerite lucem. Intra in spelunca.”. It grew louder and louder as she walked. “Cum autem mortuus deambulatio. Quaerite lucem. Intra in spelunca.” “Cum autem mortuus deambulatio. Quaerite lucem. Intra in spelunca.”

When she reached the cave, she took a deep breathe and walked in. Immediately the loud chanting faded into the distance. She saw the shadow of a human figure walking back in the darkness. A different whisper grew in her mind. She whimpered, the human shape turned toward her, crouched down, and began to walk in a way that much resembled the bow-legged waddle of a crab, arms flailing high like claws. It was terrifying to watch this shape creep toward her. When it came into the light she nearly fell over, it was so pale that it was white with sickly purple veins crossing one another. It stood there, now motionless, as she backed up to the border of the sunshine coming in to the dark cave. They stood facing one another, as if it wouldn’t risk stepping in to the light.

The chanting was coming from all around them, yet she could hear this creature’s voice in her head. It whispered the chant as well, but at a different pace and tone as the rest of the voices. This is the voice that answered when she called her mother. She was paralyzed in fear, hopefully safe within the sunlight. The creature’s ears, clawed fingers, and black robe reminded her of the Nosferatu character in the old movies her dad watched. The sheer terror came when she realized that this thing had no eyes and no nose. The front of the head looked just like the back of the head. In fact, if it weren’t for the mouth, she wouldn’t even know it was facing her. Oh, and what a god awful mouth it was. There were no lips, just jagged and bleeding tears into the flesh of the face. The teeth were as sharp and thin as a sewing needle, but there were dozens of them. They poked down from the top, came up from the bottom… and tore the flesh with each movement of the monster. After they stood looking at one another for what seemed like an eternity, the bloody mouthed beast started to lift an arm. One clawed fingertip pointed directly at her. As the chanting of the other voices continued, his whisper began to change. “Do you not see because you wish not to see?”

“See? See what? Do you mean my eyes… I’m sick, I can’t help…”. The creature interrupted her stammering with more whispers, “Cum autem mortuus deambulatio… when the dead walk…” He said. He then slowly motioned behind him, to a small circle of light and continued, “Quaerite lucem... look for the light… Intra in spelunca… Enter the cave”. She found herself accepting his cold, clawed hand as he offered it to her. They slowly seemed to float into the cave, with the circle of light growing larger.

At home, her phone rang… it somehow replayed her mom’s message from Friday afternoon, “I don’t know why I’m calling, sweetie. It seems so silly, but me and your dad and brother, we’re going to miss you so much. Aunt Denise is on her way here, I still can’t believe that car hit you. That you’re dead, how will we ever get through this weekend”… and she burst into sobs as the phone disconnected.

Submitted November 23, 2017 at 02:25AM by ApLyWo http://ift.tt/2iIkyNF nosleep