Palmyra Paranormal

It Begins

On the day he died, George was 15 years old. It had been at least two years since anyone had called him "Georgie". Well, anyone but his mom. He supposed he would be Georgie to her as long as she lived. He figured that was ok, she was his mom, after all.

But tonight, he was George. Definitely not Georgie. Tonight he'd show those turds that called themselves his friends, what he was made of. Witches, ghosts, spirits. They were just so much bull shit. Nobody really believed the stories. Not anyone over six, anyway.

"Bull shit!" He said out loud. His voice was steady and firm. It was good to hear it in the silence, surrounded by trees and deep shadows. "I'll show 'em. I'll show 'em all."

He made the top of the hill, only mildly winded. It wasn't a steep climb, but pushing through the brush and branches had made it harder than it looked. The top of the hill was basically a meadow, a large circle of short grass and scrub. At the highest point, the foundation of the old standpipe was still visible. The concrete slab seemed to glow in the bright moonlight.

In the center of the slab was an iron square. According to local mythology, it covered the entrance to the tunnels where the witches, ghosts, or spirits resided. So close. All he had to do now was pry it off the opening and he was golden.

Tommy Buchard (why would a fully grown 16 year old want to be called a baby name like Tommy?) said he had been in the tunnel and left a box containing a dead cat. He had left it in the tunnel as an offering to the spirits who haunted the tunnel. Tommy made it sound like he had killed the cat, sacrificed it or some shit, but George was pretty sure it was roadkill. Tommy wasn't the brave warrior he pretended to be.

Just like the turds told him, there was an iron pry bar on the slab next to the cover plate. In the moonlight, he could see the small, square hole that was designed to accept the end of the bar. He carefully inserted the bar and heaved all of his weight down on it. The back edge of the plate acted like a fulcrum, raising the far end of the plate off the ground.

George could see the plate lifting and his heart pounded hard with anticipation. The plate rose by nearly a foot before the end of the bar slipped out and everything, including George crashed to the ground.

"Shit!" He shouted through the pain. He had slammed his right knee into the ground so hard that for a few moments, he thought it might be broken. But no, on close examination, the knee felt undamaged.

"But that'll be a hell of a bruise," he said proudly, as he gingerly poked and prodded his knee. "Fuck. Let's try that again."

This time as the plate began to rise, George added perpendicular force to the bar, causing the plate to begin a swing clockwise, exposing the opening below. He eased the plate back down and took a minute to catch his breath.

He used that same plan two more times before he'd uncovered the opening enough that he thought he'd be able to squeeze past the edge of the plate. He walked around to the widest part of the opening and gazed fearfully into the blackness below the edge of the concrete slab. He pulled out his flashlight and shone it down the hole, illuminating... well, basically nothing.

He could see the side of the pit drop away, but the light he'd brought wasn't strong enough to show him anything of interest. Not at first.

He lay down on his stomach, leaned over the edge of the opening and swung his flashlight around, looking for stairs, a ladder, some way to descend into the bowels of the hill. What he saw instead, was an opening in the side of the wall that had an old, rotted, iron pipe protruding out into the main part of the pit.

With the light he had, he couldn't tell how deep the pit was, but he was sure he could get his foot on the pipe that was sticking out of the tunnel. He turned around and slid backwards until his legs were hanging down, into the darkness. He pushed himself back a bit at a time, his toes stretching down, searching for the pipe.

Just as he was thinking he'd have to give up, his foot touched the ragged end of the pipe. He scooched back a bit more and tested the pipe with his foot.

"Seems solid," he said out loud, before touching the pipe with his other foot. Again, he tested the strength and, feeling good about it, put his weight on the pipe. It held!

Slowly, he put more weight on it, releasing his tense grip on the lip of the pit. He smiled brightly, but in a flash, the rotten iron crumbled under his feet and he was falling, falling... until he unceremoniously crumpled against the dirt floor of the pit.

His ankles screamed in pain and his knees hurt like hell. His lower back felt like someone had hammered a gutter spike into his spine.

"Jesus Fuck!" He shouted and proceeded to massage his ankles. His flashlight was lying next to him, illuminating the wall behind him, but then, something in front of him caught the moonlight and glinted in the dark. Two sparks of red, unblinking in the dim light.

A shadow moved, and in an instant, he found himself looking at the wall with the circle of light from the flashlight bobbing softly. There was a low, guttural growl coming from somewhere nearby. Gazing ahead, it took him a moment before he understood what he was seeing. There was a boy (apparently), sitting in the middle of the floor, rocking back and forth.

But something wasn't right. George squinted against the dark, trying to see more clearly. Then he saw it! The boy had no head. George heard the growl again and tried to turn to the right to see what he shared this hole with, but he found that he couldn't move. All he could do was shift his eyes back and forth. He watched the scene tilt crazily to the left until everything was sideways. He thought he could feel his right ear against the floor.

His vision slowly faded as he saw someone, something, bend over the boy's body and tear open its stomach. He was still confused as to who the boy was, and how he had gotten there. He thought he heard a monstrous howl as his vision faded to black, along with the rest of his universe.