The Closet

Chapter 15

            The boys awoke to what seemed to be another world. They felt like the bubble of excitement they had been living with for a week had burst and they were physically exhausted and mentally beaten. They dressed and grabbed their gear on the way to the kitchen for breakfast. 

            “Where’s Allie?” asked Jason.

            Lacy said, “I checked on her a little while ago and she’s still sick. One more day at home, I think.”

            They wolfed down breakfast and headed out the door at a run, a few minutes late as usual. The three boys walked together and turned out of the entrance gate.  They had walked for a few minutes toward their schools when Jarom cried, “I forgot my homework! My teacher will kill me if it’s late. Go ahead and I’ll run home and grab it. I’ll have to run the whole way, but I think I can make it.”

            He turned back toward home and his brothers watched him go before resuming their walk. They were a little surprised that Jarom would so concerned about his homework, but their thoughts returned to the week they’d had and the school-day they were starting. 

            Jarom ran to the entrance gate, but didn’t turn in. He passed the gate and continued running down the street between the elementary school and the cemetery, and when he reached the gate into the cemetery, he turned in. The headstones and tombs looked different in the daylight, and he wandered from row to row looking for one that was captured in his memory. Several minutes went by before he saw the chained gate that he and his siblings had come through the week before. Looking left and right, he saw that he was alone. He lifted the gate off its hinges and opened it enough to slip through, and then hung it back on its hinges and ducked inside the tomb. 

            It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dim light, but past the first crypt was an opening in the ground with a stone slab shifted out of its seat.  He sat down on the slab, removed his backpack, and rummaged around in it for his headlamp. He had not emptied his adventuring tools out last night and was still prepared for completing his mission.

            With the lamp on, he dangled his feet through the hole in the ground until he felt they were on solid wooden steps, and then boosted himself through the opening. The dim light of the tomb seemed like bright daylight compared with the inky darkness in the tunnel. With his light shining on the steps below him, he began taking each one in turn. He remembered that some were missing and others broken and rotten, so he was extra-careful in his descent.  Several minutes later, he reached the bottom and looking up, could only see a faint glow coming from the tomb opening.

            Four headlamps gave out a lot more light than one, and having companions lent an air of security while walking through the dark tunnels, but he felt his mission was justified and had already committed himself. He knew that there would be consequences for his disobedience, but his impetuous nature had subdued those thoughts. Now, walking alone through the passage to the round room a short distance away, his conscience began to prickle and as he entered the round room and looked at the chain ladder hanging from the shaft, the temptation to climb back into the closet and go on to school, late though he would be, was strong. He remembered his father telling him that he had was forbidden from climbing down that ladder again, and he told himself that he was following the letter of the law, if not the spirit. His indignation at being excluded from his discovery was stronger though, and he put his feelings of weakness aside and turned down the west tunnel. It was the same 15 minute walk it had been the several times he had made it previously, but he couldn’t help but feel a tingle at the back of his neck as he walked. He could almost feel a presence there, but he looked behind him and saw nothing. He arrived and found things as they had left them the night before. He passed the side tunnels on the right and the left, and a moment later found the tunnel that branched off sharply to his right. He made the turn and came to the third steel door, bolted and locked as the others had been, with its eerie inscription.  “Geben Sie die Hoffnung, die ihr hier eingeben,” he read and realized that they had never looked up the translation.

He examined the door and the lock and found them as he had expected, but he noticed again the rubber seal around the door.  Removing the lubricants from the backpack, he sprayed graphite and WD-40 into the workings of the lock.  Selecting a curved pick, he inserted it into the keyway and began depressing the pins and the springs under them one at a time until he could feel them moving smoothly and freely. Then he inserted the tension tool and applied a finely tuned tension to the cylinder. He chose a diamond shaped pick and then snapped off his headlamp, closed his eyes, and began to depress sequentially the pins in the lock.  The procedure was routine by that time. Having spent close to 2 hours in the past 2 nights sensing the subtle changes in position and pressure in the lock, his senses had become acutely attuned, and without his eyes as a distraction, he focused completely. 

He spent another hour on the exacting task he had undertaken before he was rewarded with the oily-smooth turn of the cylinder as each of the pins was depressed and held at the perfect level. The shackle clicked open and Jarom removed the lock from the bolt. He turned on his headlamp and grabbing the handle of the bolt with both hands, attempted to turn it. It was beyond his strength to budge it, but then he remembered the lubricant. He sprayed the WD-40 on all the binding joints and surfaces, and this time thought to lubricate the hinges of the door. He tried again, but the oil had not had time to penetrate the oxidized connections and he still couldn’t budge the bolt. 

            He thought of the tools they had left the night before by the art storage room and he walked out into the main passage and turned left.  A moment later, he turned into the passage leading to the treasure chamber where he found the hammer, screwdrivers, crowbar and the sledge hammer. He picked them all up and, a bit clumsily for the load, staggered back out into the main passage. He stumbled along for a moment before turning back into the drift he had emerged from moments ago.  

 Laying down the other tools, he picked up the crowbar and fitted the claw on the curved end under the handle of the bolt, pulled on  the crowbar. With the additional leverage it provided, the bolt turned easily.  He sprayed more of the WD-40 on the slide and then tried to push it back down without success. With nothing to pry against, he picked up the hammer and by striking the handle of the bolt both repeatedly and deafeningly, was able to return it to its starting position. With a few minutes work of alternating between prying with the crowbar and beating with the hammer, the bolt loosened and he could move it up and down easily enough. 

Sliding the bolt open was another story though. Even striking it with the hammer didn’t provide enough force to move the bolt sideways out of its seat in the wall. Looking around for help, his eyes fell upon the sledge hammer and taking it up and assuming a batter’s stance, he swung aiming for the handle. The first blow landed on the face of the door itself and sounded like the gong on a Japanese temple being struck as the sound echoed into the passageway, but the second swing was on target and the bolt moved slightly. Becoming more confident, he hit the handle again and again and it broke free. Once it had moved from its archival position, he was able to loosen it up and move it smoothly by hand.

The lubrication on the hinges had done its job while he was working on the bolt and by prying with the crowbar between the end of the bolt and the steel door frame, the door moved toward him more easily than he had expected. The dank and musty odor of ancient death and decay emanated from the slim opening. Able to get his hands on the edge of the door, he could pull the door open enough to look inside, but he was not prepared for what he saw.

Gazing into the barely-lit blackness, he could make out what appeared to be piles of debris littering the floor.  He stepped into the chamber and moved closer, shining his light onto a mound of rags, and as he moved the light up, he discovered that the rags had a face.  He could see the dessicated leathery remnants of what skin was left over the cheeks and the forehead.  Wisps of hair were evident, but the eyes were gone and the lips were pulled back to reveal an exaggerated toothy grin. Simple striped clothing covered the rest of the body, threadbare as it was, and the floor around it was stained from fluids that had likely drained from the corpse. The skin covering the hands and arms was shrunken and seemed to be all that held together the skeletal remains. 

He was staggered, but the shock he felt wasn’t from the single body. It was from the hundreds of bodies that he now recognized leaning against the walls, laid out on the floor, and lying over each other. As far as his light would penetrate in the pitch-darkness, he could see as ghastly an illustration of hell-on-earth as could be imagined, for these souls did not depart their mortal remains quietly, but appeared to have been locked in and forgotten and left to starve. 

The observations, the conclusions he had drawn, had come to him in such a rush that terror that overcame him followed by his realization of what he was standing in the midst of.  His panic washed over him in waves, and he turned to leave this abhorrent and frightful place when he heard the squeak of the door hinges followed by the explosive sound of the door closing into place. 

He ran as quickly as he could for the door and began to push on its cold steel surface, but it was unmoving. The bolt had been thrown and he was locked in, just as his deceased companions had been at the end of their lives. Screaming and weeping, he banged on the door until his hands were raw and he sank to the floor sobbing with fear and regret.