No One Escapes

Note: I cheated the prompt a little. There are more than two people.

We kept running, with them continuing to follow us. We were desperately trying to find the actual exit to this place. Our flashlights weren’t very effective due to the surrounding mist, therefore prohibiting us to see. John trips in front of me. He falls, his flashlight flying out of his hand. I helped him up, his face etched with pain.

“Damn it!” he shouts, glancing down at his ankle, which was twisted at the oddest of angles, already starting to color and swell. Sophia and Katelynn were farther ahead, as I stayed behind and helped John limp slowly to an unknown destination. I take a quick glance behind us. They were getting closer, which wouldn’t be a problem if John hadn’t broken his ankle. But I wasn’t going to leave him here. We make little progress and I take another look behind us. They were closing in. 10 feet. It seemed like an eternity. 5 feet. I knew this was a bad idea, I think to myself.

3 Hours Earlier…

A group of us were at John’s house, hanging out, munching on the candy that we collected from trick or treating. 

“Ay, we should head down to the cemetery!” my friend Paul says, already standing up. 

“It’s only a few miles down the road, just a hour or so away,” Paul says. John and I look at each other questionably. Against our better judgment, we agreed to it. Being Paul, he cracks open the window and jumps out of it. I look down at the 12 foot drop. 

“Can’t we just go through the front door?” I ask him, still looking at the drop.

“My parents can’t know man! Let’s go!” he loudly whispers. I shrug, grab a pen and notebook, then jump out the window, John following me. Chad, Katelynn, and Sophia followed us. We catch up to Paul and start the long walk to this cemetery. 

What seemed like sooner than later, we reached the cemetery entrance. Darkness fell upon the cemetery and we clicked on our flashlights. Paul leads first, followed by Chad, Katelynn and Sophia with John and I taking the rear. We cautiously snaked through the cemetery, passing by hundreds of gravestones.

“Yo look at this one!” Sophia shouts pointing at one of the gravestones. We crowd around it. The gravestone read: 

Thutmose II

1510 BC - 1479 BC

King of Egypt

“What is that doing here?” I ask. I bend down to get a closer look at the gravestone. I rub my hand along the top of the gravestone and feel dust come off. I look at where the dust came off of and see a symbol. I quickly blow off the rest of the stone. 

“What does it say?” Paul asks me, shining his light on it. Using my artistic skills, I write out the symbols on the stone. 

“Gimme a light,” I say, and Katelynn hands me hers. I fumble with the light for a second but eventually get it settled on the drawing that I had made. 

“Here’s what it says,” I tell them, showing my notebook to them.

Ο θάνατος θα σταλεί

“What does that say?” John asks me. I sit in silence for a moment.

“What’s that say?” Sophia asks me, lightly hitting me on top of my head. I look at both John and Sophia. 

“I don’t know, but we need a picture of this so we can look at it later,” I say pulling out my phone. I shine my light onto the gravestone and look at it through my phone lens. I frown, exit out of my camera app, and go back in. Nothing changed. 

“Are you gonna take the picture?” Katelynn asks, a snobby tone in her voice.

“You want me to take a picture of a blank gravestone?” I ask her, being a little snobby as well. She rolls her eyes and comes to look at what I see through the lens. I see her eyes dart between the lens and the gravestone sitting in front of us. 

“How does that make sense?” she says. Paul walks over and looks into the camera also. The gravestone lacked the writing in the camera lens. I took the picture of it anyway.

“That makes no sense,” Paul says and looks at the gravestone. He kicks it on the edge and his other foot slips and he falls, hitting the ground with a decent amount of force. I put my phone away and bend down to see if he’s okay. He waves me off and looks at his leg. It was slightly bloody, and he wiped his hand over it. He grabbed the gravestone to pull himself up. 

“On that note, let’s continue to explore,” he says. Katelynn and Sophia started walking in another direction to explore more. The three of us follow them. At least that’s what I thought. A few steps in, Paul screams. 

“Ahhhh! Help! Help!,” he shouts. The four of us turn around abruptly. Black, bonelike fingers were wrapped around his left foot. We rush over to him and grab both his arms, tugging him toward us. Paul continues to scream. We dig our heels into the ground to gain more leverage. I feel Paul’s shoulder separate and he screams out in pain. His other shoulder follows, and the bonelike fingers crawl up the back of his leg. 

“No no no, please, help!” Paul shouts in desperation, as the fingers continue to pull him closer to the gravestone. Blood starts to drip from his midsection, his intestines slowly starting to come out. His abdomen was being ripped apart! Paul starts to spit out blood. 

“Let go,” he mumbles through the blood. Sophia looks at him with tears in her eyes.

“No Paul please,” she begs, not wanting to let go. Paul looks at John and I, the bonelike fingers up to his neck. I look at him, and let go. John glances in shock at me for a second, but looks at Paul. Paul’s pained expression pleaded for him to let go, and he did. Katelynn drops her arms, sadness covering her face. Sophia cries and reluctantly lets her hands drop. Paul screams one last time, and is sucked into the gravestone, the fingers vanishing with him. John and I stand there in shock, silence consuming the four of us. 

“What happened?” Katelynn asks, a lighter tone to her voice than the usual aggressive one. 

“I don’t know, but we need to move on,” John says. He points to the way that we came from.

“We came from that way,” he tells us and starts to walk. I follow him, and Katelynn pulls Sophia along, who was bawling her eyes out. Him and I slow down while the girls catch up to us. They pass us, and we follow them. We walk in silence, with only the occasional sniffle from Sophia. 

We walk and walk and walk, not finding the entrance. 

“Are you sure this is the direction of the entrance John?” Sophia asks, doing a little better. John nods. It was cold out, and it was late at night, with Paul’s parents most likely wondering where we were. 

“We need to find a way out of here,” I tell John and the girls.

“No kidding!” Katelynn says to me. 

“Stop!” Sophia shouts. “Did you hear that?” We all stop and listen, and sure enough, something can be heard. A laughter echoes throughout the night, seeming far away. No one can escape, the voice says, and laughs again. Run. With that, the cool air becomes a freezing breeze, blowing the sounds of distant whispers around. We look around, our awareness high. Bony hands start to reach out of the ground, grasping the ground and pulling the rest of themselves up. The dead had been risen, a phenomenon that I did not believe would ever happen. Sophia and Katelynn scream and then run. We follow them, with the dead following us. A heavy mist falls over us. I could barely see five feet in front of me.  

We kept running, with them continuing to follow us. We were desperately trying to find the actual exit to this place. Our flashlights weren’t very effective due to the surrounding mist, therefore prohibiting us to see. John trips in front of me. He falls, his flashlight flying out of his hand. I helped him up, his face etched with pain.

“Damn it!” he shouts, glancing down at his ankle, which was twisted at the oddest of angles, already starting to color and swell. Sophia and Katelynn were farther ahead, as I stayed behind and helped John limp slowly to an unknown destination. I take a quick glance behind us. They were getting closer, which wouldn’t be a problem if John hadn’t broken his ankle. But I wasn’t going to leave him here. We make little progress and I take another look behind us. They were closing in. 10 feet. It seemed like an eternity. 5 feet. I knew this was a bad idea, I think to myself. John pushes me away and he collapses against a tree.

“Go,” he tells me. I look at him. Before I can respond, he continues.

“It’s better if one of us dies than both of us,” he says to me. I don’t move.

“Go now!” he shouts, picking up a large stick.

“I can hold them off!” he shouts to me. They are on him in a second, and he wasn’t able to swing. A tear falls from my eye as I turn the other way and run. 

I don’t know how long it was until I found their bodies. Sophia and Katelynn were sprawled on the ground, two deep cuts, one on their back and side, with a stab wound into their heart. I stare at them, dumbfounded as to what I am seeing. After witnessing the death of Paul and my closest friend, I now am unfortunately able to see the dead bodies of my other two friends. 

“I told you. No one escapes,” a raspy and metallic voice says behind me. I quickly spin around to see a hooded figure. A blade was held in his right hand, dripping with blood. He raises his head to look at me. But that's the thing. He had no head. It was a headless body with a hood draped over where the head should’ve been. He vanishes, and I feel pain mixed with the feeling of cold metal on my back. I fall forward, warmth drenching the back of my shirt. Another cut comes, right along my side. The figure turns me around and stabs me right through the heart.

“60 seconds,” it rasps. He vanishes, his laughter echoing through the night. I open my phone, and look at the gravestone image. It was no longer blank. It said:

Paul

2005 - 2020

-----

“What,” I whisper to myself, not comprehending. I feel myself closing my eyes. I reach over and hold Katelynn’s hand. I should’ve told her, I think to myself. A smile comes to my face. With that, I died, just as the next day began.