Crimson Vengeance

Crimson Vengeance

         “No!” I screamed, stumbling backward up the cold stone steps. Motes of dust rose all around me, choking the already stale air. Shadows danced as I lost my footing and crashed to the floor below, my flashlight rolling to the far corner of the crypt.

         “Why won’t you leave me alone?” was the only thing I managed to stutter through trembling lips, “I returned the damn locket!”

         No response came from the hellish bowels of the undercroft, only the grim silence of death. Gradually, a figure materialized in the suffocated light.

         Though the morbid parody of a man never once moved its dry, cracked lips, a crescendo of maddening voices resonated within my mind. I gazed upward, silently pleading for an end to the anguish, but no relief could be found in those hollow sockets.

         Then, with the unholy shriek of a thousand damned souls, the withered corpse drew a serrated knife and lunged forward, driving it deep into my chest. The abomination’s horrific visage was warped in a wicked grin as it twisted the handle of the blade.

         “Forgive me . . . brother,” I choked, my head falling back into a pool of my own blood.