Love’s Penalty

Michael's eyes followed the wide shaft of light as he descended into the darkness above the burning flare. He estimated the room to be about as wide as it was deep as the light flashed across the cold, rocky surfaces surrounding him. Jagged outcroppings of stone filled the room, giving it the appearance of a natural cave, not something man-made. The floor slowly drew closer, and he saw that it, too, was solid, unshaped rock. 

A wave of terror flashed through him suddenly as the light passed over something upon the uneven stone floor. “Christ!”

Sam stepped back from the mouth of the shaft as he heard the exclamation, his escape route clear in his mind as he eyed Bridgette, who held the radio.

“What? What is it Michael?” she shouted, staring down into the hole.

There was a long moment of silence, and Sam inched away another step. Bridgett’s hand hovered over the lever that would bring her husband back up the shaft.

“I’ve found Jeffrey,” 

Bridgette let out a deep sigh of relief as her husband's words echoed in the chamber; at the exact moment, a violent chill penetrated her soul.

Sam felt it too, his eyes turning back to the entrance of the tomb curiously, expecting to see a host of demons walking in through the low opening. 

“He’s dead alright,”

Sam swallowed the fear in his throat and stepped back to the shaft, glancing over his shoulder nervously as he felt the chill lingering in his bones.  

“Okay… I’m on the floor of the chamber… well, actually… It's not a chamber at all, looks like a cave,” Michael said, his feet straddling the flare as he shone the light down on Jeffrey’s body.

“Wonderful,” Sam muttered, shrugging the residual effects of the chill off as he waved Bridgette away from the wench, taking the radio from her hand. “I’m sending down the second harness.”

Bridgette accepted the radio back as Sam went to work. “Do you see anything else Michael?”

“No… nothing but rocks and,” His voice broke off, and Bridgette’s body stiffened. “My God… this is very odd,” 

Michael tried to hold the light steady, but his hands were trembling. Something about the statues he now gazed at unsettled him. Michael stood on a slightly higher area of the cave and looked down over a small grouping of large, half-buried boulders. Just beyond the boulders, about twenty feet away, stood the statues. The small circle of light danced over them as his hand continued to shake.

He drew a deep breath and steadied the narrow beam, guiding it over the strange forms in the chamber. There were four of them, each rising nearly eight feet tall, their massive silhouettes carved with an austere precision that made the air feel heavier. In the flare’s dim reddish glow, their surfaces seemed to burn with a fiery hue, as if painted in the likeness of flame itself. They stood like sentinels, silent and watchful, exuding a presence that felt less like stone and more like warning. Michael trained the light on one of the sculptures, letting it begin at the foot and work its way up to the head—or heads, he soon realized.

“There are some sort of statues down here,” he began, briefly taking his eyes off his findings to glance up to the hole in the ceiling as he heard the harness hit the edge of the slab when it entered. Then he turned his gaze back to the statues, his face instantly contorting into confusion. “That’s odd,” he muttered, trying to recall their exact positions.

“What type of statues, Michael? What do they look like? Can you describe them?” Bridgette’s voice echoed off the dark walls of the cave, sending chills through Michael’s body.

“I can see four of them… I believe they are all the same, or very similar,” he answered, again following the light as it roamed over one of the stone figures.

“Describe it to me Michael,” 

“Well… it appears to have wings,” he paused, squinting. “Six of them actually… and four heads… grotesque to be certain!” he added, pursing his lips as he silently surveyed the figure's details. 

The artistry was amazing, a set of lower wings branched out from the back of the torso, folding over to cover its feet, preventing any onlooker from telling whether the creature was coming or going. A second set of wings hid the creature’s gender.

Michael took his gaze from them once more to grab the harness as it lowered to within reach. He struggled briefly with the dead body, but finally managed to get the harness around it. “Okay Sam… you can haul him up,”

“Can you see the things feet Michael?” Bridgette sounded almost as if she knew the answer to her own question.

Michael returned his gaze to the statues, wiping sweat from his forehead. “No… its wings are covering them,” he answered.

“Seraphim,” Bridgette whispered, her face going pale, just as Sam leaned over the lip of the shaft to check on the ascent of Jeffrey’s body.

“Poor shmuck,” Sam muttered, watching the limp body sway as it reached the halfway point of the shaft. Again, he felt the chill, this time stronger than before, causing him to tremble in the weak light of the chamber. His hands clamped onto the lip of the opening—and terror struck him like a bolt of lightning. The hairs along his neck bristled as though charged with electricity, and suddenly his body betrayed him. Even if he had willed it, he could not move; fear had rooted him in place, rigid and helpless.

Something loomed behind him—and he knew it wasn’t Bridgette. Every nerve screamed at Sam to run, to spin on his heel and flee the tomb, but his body betrayed him. He could only stand there, tears blurring his vision, staring down into the shaft. Jeffrey’s corpse rose toward him, limp and turning in slow, macabre circles as it was drawn upward, a puppet on an invisible string.

Then the fear took form.

Sam was a hard man, tall and muscled, not easily broken—but tears blurred his eyes as Bridgette’s face rose before him. Her wide, terrified gaze met his for an eternal instant before her head tumbled in slow, sickening arcs, striking the rough walls of the shaft and vanishing into the dark below. 

Adrenaline rushed through Sam’s veins as he realized death was at his back. He turned, his back pressed against the circular, well-like wall built up around the hole in the ground. His skin crawled as he stared into the eyes of the local worker who stood before him. His face showed no emotion, but madness was apparent in his brown eyes. A bloody machete rested in his right hand.

Sam swallowed hard, preparing to push himself off the wall and past the mad worker. Somehow, he knew there would be no talking to this… thing. He could feel the evil thickening in the chamber, causing the lights to dim. No, this worker was not himself; something foul and sinister controlled him, and Sam had no intentions of finding out what.

Jahari’s eyes flickered momentarily as he held Sam in his gaze. Sam brought his right foot up behind him, bracing it for a push that would send him on his way to the exit. 

The eyes fixed on Sam were not Jahari’s. Their slow crawl up and down his body made his stomach turn, as though he were being measured, weighed, dissected. Then, with a shudder of wrongness, its gaze shifted down, settling on the frail body it inhabited—as if the thing inside was appraising its stolen shell.

Sam bolted then. He rushed past the worker, ignoring the chill that ran across his skin as he passed. He did not look back as he neared the exit, so he did not see the figure suddenly collapse to the dirt floor.

His heart pounded in his chest as he ducked low in his run, the exit just before him. 

Then the strangest thing happened.

Sam watched as the tomb exit suddenly began to shrink, growing smaller and smaller in his sight. He felt his body stop and turn back to the room, and even that seemed to be dwindling in size; everything was shrinking—or was he falling? And why was everything getting darker? He tried to focus his vision on the sarcophagus to his right, which seemed gigantic now. He fought against the sickening sense of collapse, willing it away—but the fall only worsened. The chamber stretched into immensity, a cavern without end, its walls retreating until they seemed miles distant, then dissolving altogether. The darkness thickened, swallowing stone, space, and sound, until there was nothing left but the sensation of falling and the black that closed in around him.

Then Sam felt the presence.