I was a jet, smashing the sound barriers with my arms outstretched and a delighted cry on my tongue. I would be thirteen at 2:43 in the afternoon on that day. I was so excited, charging around the house as if my feet were on fire. My parents were just getting up, probably almost as excited as me. I leaped outside their door and thumped it with two fists in succession, knock, and knock. After waiting a few seconds, the door was suddenly blasted inwards on its hinges. I looked in to see fire, but only a patch of it. In fact, the longer I looked at it, the more it seemed to look like a triangle on the floor. I blinked.
Okay, now it is a triangle.
For some reason it didn’t occur to me that that was impossible and that the door had ceased to exist. I looked to my right, towards the window, bed and desk, but none of them were there. No window, no bed, no desk or wardrobe or anything. Except blood, lots of blood. I decided to add some of my own, to compare it. Just as I started looking around for a knife, something pulled me back, jamming something cold to my throat.
“I’ll help you…” It whispered with malice. And then Chris shook me awake from the strangest dream of my life.
Okay then, now I’m thirteen.
I grinned, and shot out of bed.
*
Relatives began to appear family by family. Some I greeted with a shake of the hand or a nod, while others would gush comments about how old I had become. As soon as they were out of eye shot I would scowl and curse at them. If I don’t know you, then you don’t know me. Or else. Not to say that anything could dampen my mood. It was about half eleven and people were still arriving, complaining about parking. Hello, this is West London! At about that time, my two best friends, Ricky and Greg arrived. I introduced them to some people I knew and then jumped ship, desperate to get out of the house for a while.
*
I’ve known Ricky and Greg since we started school, ten years ago. We are so tight, we haven’t argued since we were in year four. Once we had a piece of art homework due, which we all did, but I dropped my sheet and the teacher stepped on it. She then gave me a detention. Ricky and Greg were furious, and so they came back after school and banged on the windows until the teacher would let them into detention with me (serves the crabby old fart right). Ricky seems to bounce off walls when he’s having fun, and if he isn’t having fun, he’ll make some fun. Greg is more tame, and the one who you tell anything. He’ll always be the one to stop and argument, simply by laughing- I don’t have a clue how he does it. Two people will seem to be about to start a nuclear war over something like a lost pencil, and he starts laughing, and soon everybody will join in. He only laughs at trivial matters though, and doesn’t do it out of choice. We ended up going to the corner shop and lashing out our cash on sweets. It was my birthday so I’d make it all up and more through fivers in cards. We were happily munching away, knowing that we wouldn’t eat any lunch- or dinner- after filling our faces, but who cares? Not me, and not my friends, problem solved. We’d been out for about an hour when I asked what we should do.
“Cemetery,” Ricky said, “Let’s go there.”
I laughed at him.
“What the hell? Why?”
“I dunno.” He frowned, “But I think we should go there, y'know?”
I was about to come up with another rude, childish remark, when Greg started to agree.
“It would be a good idea, you know, to see if we recognise any surnames.”
“Yeah right.” I replied.
“You never know. I really think we should.” Greg wasn’t letting anything on, and they were both looking at me expectantly. After a few seconds, I shrug.
“Fine, If that's what you wanna do, go see some dead guys. Weirdos.”
That was when things began to get weird.
It was only a quarter of an hour’s walk away, but for some reason, they were going pretty fast, checking their watches repeatedly. I struggled to keep up, stumbling sometimes into a jog.
"Why's it so important?" I asked, but they ignored me.
"Oi! Block head!" I shouted, once again jogging to catch up.
"No need to be rude." Greg frowned.
"Or in other words, shut it." Ricky said absent mindedly. I kicked at a wall, then decided to keep my argument clean date (at least with Ricky and Greg) at some-time-in-year-four. They probably had some kind of a good reason, so I should, as suggested by Ricky, shut it.
I was relieved when it came into view, and couldn’t wait for a rest. The late August sun had peaked and I was sweating in the heat. I wasn’t a very good athlete. I wanted to sit down, but Rick and Greg were practically dragging me, towards a large tomb. I was surprised to see that it even had a door. Ricky halted me and Greg crept around the other side of the tomb. He did a full circle around it. He frowned at Ricky.
“There’s nobody there…” He said.
“But they said one O’clock… Didn’t they?” Ricky asked.
“Yeah…” Greg mused.
“For gods sake! What the hell is up with you lot? Can we just go home now, we've only got about an hour until I'm thirteen, we should get ready.” I pleaded them, and they looked at me as if I hadn’t been there.
“Oh, yeah…maybe...” Ricky started, but didn’t know what to say. I turned on Greg.
“Well, these old guys came up to us earlier and said that there’d be a surprise party here…”
“What, in a cemetery?”
“Maybe they were having us on?” Ricky suggested hopefully. I tutted and looked at the tomb itself. I looked at the door, a solid oak door with a handle and lock and everything. I stared at it, moving closer slightly. The longer I looked at it, the more appealing it seemed. I could sense Ricky and Greg behind me, and they were talking, wondering who these 'old guys' were, but I couldn’t hear them properly.
“Logan!” Greg shouted, and I was roused from my trance. He pointed at a plaque above the door. I read it.
“Holy crap!” I whispered.
“That says Aage!” Ricky cried, remembering a bit of my family history.
It read:
‘Some men are born into greatness, others seize it and others have it thrust upon them. Aage, the last true necromancer, was a member of all three groups.’
Another, slightly below it read simply:
Here lies Aage, the last true necromancer.
I stepped back. This was insane. I knew that his tomb was in England, but not so close! My parents weren’t very fond of the myth surrounding Aage, so I didn’t blame them for not telling me. After all, I never really cared for him, but here he was, right before me. I could only assume that the old people who sent us here were from the fanatic part of the family. I stop looking at the plaque, and again at the door. It looks more appealing than ever, as if something about it is glowing with invisible radiance. I putt my hand against it, and with me pushing it, it opened.
“Logan… It’s a grave…” Ricky whispered after me, but I didn’t heed him, forcing them to follow me. I could see the grave itself, carved into the exact likeness of Aage. I walked closer to it, into a rectangular chamber, that would have been pitch black were it not for the light shining in through the open door. I noticed that lying next to the hands were some medieval gauntlets, or at least they looked like it (they don’t exactly teach you how to identify what period a pair of gloves were made in history). I reached out to touch them, but suddenly, I felt somebody grab me from behind and push something wet onto my mouth. I tried to cry out, and I could hear Ricky and Greg struggling behind me. I felt my muscles slow down, until I could no longer move, and I felt myself falling down, into darkness, until there was nothing.
That was when things got scary.
Thank you for reading, please critique if you have time. Remember that the more points for improvement I get, the better the story will become. I will not take anything personal (of course) so feel free to knock my work if it's bad. By the way, I know that the bit with the dream is somewhat random and has no meaning so tell me if you think I should remove it.
