The Labyrinth

In one of the ancient American cultures, one of the most unknown, there was a ritual where young boys and girls decided whether or not they wished to serve their king as warriors for the small empire. There were no remains left of their cities or how their people lived except for some oral traditions that were passed on from grandparent to grandchild over and over again through more than three thousand years.  Some considered the empire as fact, others as a myth but it was true.

They were a culture with a lot of enemies so they had to create a force to defend their people and their land. So, every year those fifteen-year-olds who wished to be considered were led before the king to swear their allegiance to him and the empire. The children stood before the king for several hours without food, water or rest. The only exception was a five minute break every three hours for the kids to rid themselves of waste. After a full twenty four hours those who remained were taken from the plaza to a large stone wall outside of town. One year there was only one boy named T’rupta left at the end of the trial period.

T’rupta was escorted from the village and taken to a large stone wall. As he looked at the wall he noticed that it was so high it nearly blocked out the sun. The stones were aged and showed the patina of at least a thousand years. The stones were placed perfectly together and it was covered with a moss that, in the summer sun, looked a bright shade of emerald green with touches of brown and black salted through it. Ferns with fronds that he thought were larger that he was. In the wall was a large wooden door with the heads of gods that were carved long before T’rupta’s people settled the in the area. Despite the temperature hovering around eighty degrees the closer they moved toward the door the colder the air felt until it was barely comfortable to endure.

The high priest stood before the door staring in T’rupta’s eyes. “Boy,” he started with a complete lack of emotion in his voice. “You have been chosen to defend the empire. There is one final test you must pass before the king will allow you to defend his empire. Do you wish to take this test?”

“I do,” T’rupta said. He was standing as proud and brave as he could. He was facing the unknown and he was scared but he didn’t dare show it otherwise he would be cast aside as the others were.

“Enter the labyrinth,” he said as he opened the door. “I will pray for you and your soul that you will reach the other side safely. But beware; there are creatures and beings within who will try to destroy you. You must use your mind, your body and your spirit to survive them. I wish you all the luck the gods can grant you young T’rupta. Believe me…you will need it.” It was only then that the priest smiled as he patted the young man on the shoulder. “I know you’ll make it,” he whispered. “You have the fire of the king inside you.”

“How many have made it,” the young man asked.

“In the last twenty years five had made it,” he replied with that straight look once again moving across his face. T’rupta asked how many tried the test. “Well over one hundred have tried but the gods did not look favorably on those who died on their quest. They were unworthy of their dreams.”

T’rupta got a look on his face that combined fear and pride. “I will make it,” he said. “I swear that to you, the king and the gods.” He grabbed the door from the priest’s hand and stepped through. The door closed behind him and he heard the priest lock it behind him. His first look at the labyrinth was nothing but a wall that looked as if it went on for miles. No doors or anything else. All he could see were stones, moss, ferns and spider webs. The clouds above were nearly black. There was lightening coming from the north and he could hear the thunder in the distance. It was cold, so cold that he could see his breath. He stood straight. It was almost as if he were a wild animal sensing danger or searching for prey. Despite his fears and doubts, and thought about what his first move was going to be he stood there for God knows how long when he heard a voice.

“Don’t go either way,” it said. He couldn’t tell where the voice was coming from until he looked down. Standing there was what could only be called a troll. He was barely a foot and half tall with a long nose, long hair and a long red beard. His clothes were metal armor with tarnished bronze spikes and some kind of crest on the chest. T’rupta didn’t recognize the crest but for some reason that didn’t matter. “Don’t go either way,” the troll said again.

“Why not,” T’rupta asked but as he waited for an answer he thought of another question. “What is your name little one,” T’rupta asked as he crouched down on one knee.

“My name is Desdrew,” he replied. “Do you think you are the first to try and cross the labyrinth,” he said answering a question with a question. T’rupta answered that he knew of the many journeys which had taken place before his. “There have been many more than you have been told of. They have come and gone for many seasons. With each one a storm follows and those who didn’t make it lost their soul and were sacrificed to the spirits who created this labyrinth. I have known the many and the few since the spirits placed me here. I can judge those how will try and whether they will make it out alive.”

“What do you see in me,” the boy asked.

“That is not for me to say,” Desdrew said with a slight smile. “All I can say is do not go either way as you enter. The rest is up to you.” Desdrew reached into pocket, pulled out a pipe and handed it to T’rupta. “Boy, smoke this and the smoke you exhale with show you the path to your fate.” The boy took the pipe, took and big drag on it but while he did he looked down and Desdrew was gone. He exhaled and the smoke swirled around for a second and faded into nothingness.

“Desdrew,” he yelled but there was no reply. “How is this supposed to help me?” Again he stood in silence. Then he inhaled a chest full of smoke and again he exhaled being careful to watch the smoke as it flowed around. It drifted around his head and down the front of his body. As it hit the ground it spread out covering several of the black stones he was standing on. “What am I supposed to see,” asked out loud. Just them he noticed that the smoke had all moved to a corner of one of the stones and was moving down into the small gap.

It took him a second to realize what was going on and as soon as he did he walked over to the rock, pulled his knife and, with much effort, he lifted the stone. Under the stone were a hole, slightly bigger than he was, and a wooden ladder. He looked at the ladder before starting down. It was old and nearly rotted away, tied with hemp ropes and it even had some branches with leaves growing from some of the rungs. Even though he was sure it wasn’t safe he stepped onto the ladder and climbed down into total darkness.

He stepped off of the ladder and the minute he did he felt a warm wind coming from directly in front of him. Reaching out he touched the walls on either side of where he was standing. They were cool to the touch and wet. He could hear water dripping all around him and he could feel streams of water flowing around his feet.

“Hello,” he yelled. The only sound that came to him was an echo from directly in front of him. Using that sound he knew which way to go.

It was a long walk but he walked slow, listening as he proceeded. By the time he reached the end of the tunnel his eyes had adjusted to the lack of light and he saw the smooth carved edges of the walls. Surprisingly, other than the branches on the ladder, there was no vegetation anywhere to be found. He did see a few spiders nesting on the ceiling but they took no notice of him as he walked by so he didn’t bother them.

Finally he made it to the end. Before him was a stone door. There were a gold handle on the left hand side. It looked at it at that moment thinking whether or not he should open but he turned and looked behind him. The hallway he had just walked down was gone. Instead he faced a stone wall that matched the rest of the tunnel. “Well, I guess I have only one way to go,” he said under his breath. With that he grabbed the door and, although it was large, it swung open with just a little effort.

He stepped through the door and looked around. There were two doors and ladder. Looking up he saw that the ladder seemed as if it went on forever. There was what looked like a pin prick of light. It was so small it was hard to judge distance. The doors looked tempting but he thought that it might be better to be on the surface rather than scurrying around underground like some rat looking for food. The ladder he had climbed down was fifteen rungs. How much more could this one be he thought. He hadn’t gone down any since he entered the tunnel but then again he hadn’t gone up any either so, with that thought in his mind he started climbing.

“Is there anyone up there,” he yelled. There was no answer but there breeze he had felt earlier became warmer and more humid making it hard for him to breathe. It took almost a half an hour for him to climb the twenty four rungs to the surface only to be met by a metal grate. It wasn’t hard to lift it and climb out.

“Where the hell am I,” he asked. That was an impossible question. There were four paths leading off in different directions. All were sandy and dry, lined with brick walls covered with dark green ivy that he had never seen before. On the wall to his right there was a wooden plaque that warned, “Those who come to choose must pick the right path. The others will lead to misery and suffering. So pick carefully and proceed with the haste necessary to complete your task.”

T’rupta looked around, thinking what to do. If he chose wrong what would happen? If he walked the wrong path would he be alive to tell others? He wasn’t sure. Then he glanced down and saw footprints. There were hundreds of sets leading off in different directions but he noticed that the path off to his right only had a few sets of footprints leading away from him.

He thought back to what the priest had said before he entered the labyrinth. “In the last twenty years five had made it. Well over one hundred have tried but the gods did not look favorably on those who died on their quest. They were unworthy of their dreams.” The words were as clear as if the priest was standing before him talking to him. He turned and started walking down the path that was to his right.

He walked about twenty feet when he turned and saw that the other three paths had disappeared…swallowed into the surrounding walls. T’rupta looked ahead and continued walking. It wasn’t a long path or anything but it was tight. He could barely fit between the walls. His clothes were stained and torn from rubbing against the vines but he didn’t slow down.

Then T’rupta looked up and saw that the sky was crystal clear and the morning sun that he saw when he entered through the main door was gone. The sky was full of stars and they were brighter than he had ever seen but there was something strange. The constellations he learned about as a boy were gone and different ones took their place.

“Nice work young master,” a voice said as he reached one of the doors at the end of the path. Looking around T’rupta saw Desdrew sitting on the top of the wall looking down and smiling at him. “Honestly, I didn’t think you were going to make it this far but you have a wisdom about you. I am sure of that but do not get cocky. You may be smart but the creator is older and wiser than any other being. Keep your eyes, ears and mind working and you will do fine. Just think about why you are doing this and why others didn’t make it though the labyrinth. “Because they turned the wrong way,” T’rupta said with a sense of not pride but arrogance. “I saw the clue and figured it out. They were stupid enough not to know what it meant.”

Desdrew looked at him with a touch of distain.  “You believe that you are better than the others, and I warn you…your going will not be an easy one.” With that he stood up and went running down the wall laughing as he left the young man standing there confused but all alone. Although he had left Desdrew’s voice came through one last time. “One last warning before I go, do not eat or drink while you are on your quest. What is healthy for you may be poison and what is poison may be healthy. Do not trust any food or drink”

T’rupta opened the door and stepped through.  The ground was soft and moss covered. Puddles covered nearly every inch and there were times when he was walking in mud that covered his ankles. Despite the condition of the path, as he walked he could feel something was different. Somehow the labyrinth had changed again. Although it was night he could see clearly. On each side of the path were trees placed about twenty feet apart with a path going off into the distance between each one. “What is this,” he asked. The trees were very, very large and their canopy nearly blocked out the sky. On the horizon were a pair of, what looked like, moons. “My land has only one moon,” he said. “Where am I and how did I get here.”

He was tired. It wasn’t that he had been travelling a long time, just a couple of hours, but the darkness and the sound of the breeze was tranquilizing to such a level that he began to think that sleep was more important than finishing his quest. Then through the breezes a faint music started to be noticed. It was the lyre. T’rupta knew the instrument since both his mother and grandmother forced him to learn how to play when he was five-years-old. That had the effect of adding to the weariness he was experiencing.

“What if the others fell asleep on the path,” he asked. “Maybe that was what led them astray and did not allow them to complete their quest?” He looked around trying to make sense out of what was happening. He wondered if this was all real, an illusion or was he losing his mind after just a couple of hours. Maybe he wasn’t suited to protect the king or anyone else. The doubts continued to increase the more his mind had time to work. He was such a cock sure boy and now everything he thought about himself disappeared into some dark recesses that he didn’t want to know existed.

He dropped to his knees sobbing just as he did when he was a child of three or four when he saw something familiar. There was a white moth flying around his head looking at him as it did. Still crying he raised his hand and held it still in front of him. The moth circled a couple more times and landed on his hand but just as quickly as it landed it flew into the air and down the trail.

The moth stayed just out of T’rupta’s grasp as he stood, still crying, and chased it down the path. It was clear that this insect was leading him somewhere but he didn’t know where. Was it the right way or was it leading him off of the right path. It went pass door after door until it finally stopped and settled on a bright red flower.

“What are you trying to tell me,” T’rupta asked as he looked around. There was a door next to the flower but it was covered with spider webs and dirt but there was still more of the path in front of him so, once again T’rupta was confused. “Am I supposed to go through the door,” he asked as he moved closer to the moth. It just sat on the flower looking at him and then suddenly it launched into the air, circled the boy and flew back down the way it came. T’rupta looked confused and angry as the moth flew away. “Thanks for the help,” he yelled as he looked at the door and then down the path.

The door wasn’t as ornate as the others he had seen on his journey. Out in the real world he wouldn’t have paid any attention to it but he decided that the moth must have been telling him something and by going through the door at least he might be a little closer but that was hard to tell since he didn’t know what direction he was going or what direction he was supposed to be going in the first place.

By now the darkness had gotten so bad so the first thing he did was make a make-shift torch so he could see the rest of the way. He got it made and used friction to get it smoking at first and, after a few tries, it burst into flame.

Slowly, he moved the rocks and dirt from in front of the door. He swept away the spider webs and gently he yanked on the handle but it wouldn’t budge. Time and time again he pulled on the door until it fell off of its rotten hinges. It landed with a thud spraying the area, and T’rupta, with a layer of thick black mud and rancid smelling water. He wasn’t hurt just a little surprised so he picked the torch off of the door, gathered his senses and walked through the door.

As he stepped through the door slammed behind him and he heard the tumblers of a lock. Once again there was no turning back. It was darker than it was before he entered so dark that even the torch wasn’t helping. It was as if all of the light was being absorbed by the air itself.

He walked a few steps when he noticed a strange sound. It was sound of wood breaking with each step he took or maybe it wasn’t wood but for all the world he couldn’t guess what he was walking on but he did stumble once and he fell onto the floor. He crawled for about twenty feet feeling ahead as he went. The floor was dry and whatever he touched crumbled into powder as soon as he put any weight on it.

“What the hell is that,” he asked.

His hands, knees, feet and face were covered with the strange white powder. It was strangely musky smelling and yet sweet. He continued crawling until he found a place where he could safely stand up. When he did he reached over to one of the walls and touched something he never expected…a human skull. He jumped back with shock more than fright slamming into the other wall sending down a flood of broken skulls, jaw bones and teeth that knocked him down to the ground under a heap of shrapnel.  He was shaken and bleeding from being cut by the sharp edges of centuries old bones. As he stood he pulled up a part of the floor. It was then he found that what he had been walking on, what he had been turning to powder were the arm and ankle bones from thousands of people who had died wandering through the labyrinth.

His eyes quickly became accustomed to the lack of light “By the gods,” he said as he looked around. For as far as he could see there were skulls and bones. “How many people tried this and failed,” he asked in a voice that echoed for nearly ten minutes. It was easy to see that it was not the hundred that the priest had told him. T’rupta could see thousands of skulls lining the walls. It was scary but he fought the feelings and continued on.

It took a while for him to make it to the end but he made it. The last fifty feet or so he had a strange feeling, stranger than he had ever felt before. It was as if someone was watching him…making sure of his movements…maybe seeing how his mind was holding up. He was tired, hungry and thirsty. He had no idea how long he had been walking or how much further he had to go. Most would have given up, lay down, and left the gods to decide their fate but T’rupta wasn’t going to do any of that. He was going to make it and he wasn’t afraid to let the gods know how he was feeling. “You aren’t going to beat me,” he screamed. “I know what you are doing and it is not going to happen. I am not going to go crazy or kill myself just for your amusement. You have enough sacrifices already. I am not going to be another one.”

Even with that he had a feeling that someone was watching so he slowly, very slowly looked around. He touched every skull. Maybe one of them opened a door or something. There had to be something. Yes, there was a door at the end of the path but he knew there had to be more. The longer he was there the stronger the feeling was. There was someone watching him but he had no idea where they were. Then he got a look at something in the corner of his eye. One of the skulls had eyes. They were lifeless and white but they were still there. Looking around he saw more and more skulls with eyes still resting in their sockets.

How long had they been here, he thought.  His mind was racing, thinking of all the possibilities when he felt something on his leg. It was cold, deathly cold, and it was moving. He thought that it must have been a weed brushing against him. There were a lot of them around so he thought that had to be the answer. Yes, he thought, it must be a weed so he didn’t pay attention. Again and again he felt something brushing his legs and it was becoming painful. He was close to the door so he opened and stepped through but before he closed the door behind him he looked back. There on the floor there were no weeds, at none that could have caused him any pain rather he saw movement all over the floor. There were dozens of hands crawling all over the floor. They looked as if they were hunting for something and he thought that he might have been their prey if he had not stepped through the door. “Better luck next time,” he yelled back as he closed the door behind him.

The path ahead of his was clear and T’rupta made quick time through a number of twists and turns. On the way the path was lined by trees, shrubs and stone walls. The sky was still filled with millions of stars and somehow he managed to orient himself to where the end of the labyrinth might be. Of course, he couldn’t be sure but he had a feeling that he was travelling the right direction to complete his quest.

He had been walking several hours, although he thought and felt that he had been travelling for days, maybe weeks. He had not had any water, food or sleep in a long time and his body was starting to show it. He was dehydrated, hungry and barely able to stay awake when he reached the last doors.

T’rupta literally crawled to the doors. They were made of gold with pearl and diamond inlays. They were marked in letters seven feet tall. The one on the left was marked “right” and the one on the right was marked “wrong”.  He sat on the ground and just stared at the door. Right or wrong, left or right... all meanings were gone. Up was down, left was right, life was death and day was night. How could he make such a decision especially in the condition he was in.

He looked behind him as he had so many times he changed directions or had a choice he had to make. Desdrew was nowhere to be seen but where he had expected to see his guide he saw a pomegranate tree. It was huge and full of fruit. It was not there a few minutes before but it was now. Beneath the tree a young woman was sitting and eating one of the juicy fruits.

“Darling T’rupta,” she started. “I know that you are hungry, tired and thirsty. Here take this and enjoy then you may choose a door and fulfill your destiny.” She reached up and pulled a ripe fruit from the tree, placed it in her hand and held it out before the young boy.

T’rupta looked at her and then at the doors. Yes, he was hungry and thirsty but he had heard so many things about the labyrinth he did know what do to, He knew he wasn’t far from the end. It was staring him in the face but he remembered all the bones and skulls he had seen. He remembered the pain he had when they sliced into his flesh. He remembered Desdrew and everything he told him so long ago. He also remembered the king and the priest and that he was the only one out of dozens to be chosen for this quest. He was the one chosen to protect the king. All he had to do was choose the right door.

He stood up and stepped toward the woman. “I am not that hungry,” he said as he turned and walked over to the doors. He looked at both wondering silently what he should do. Should he choose right or left, right or wrong? He wasn’t sure as he reached for the door marked wrong and opened it. Was it his fate or was it just another path that led to nowhere? Inside was a golden gate that swung open and welcomed him. Also, the king, the priest and Desdrew were standing there.

“You have chosen the right path even when you knew it was wrong,” the priest said as the boy bowed before them.

“That is the sign of a true protector,” the king said with a smile as he walked up to T’rupta and held out a gold and silver amulet. “Bow before me.” The boy did as he was told. “”With this amulet I grant you the honor of being the protector or the king and the empire. Henceforth you will be known as T’rupta, Guardian of the Empire.”

T’rupta stood and said what neither he nor anyone else there expected. “Your highness, I am honored to be offered this position but I have to decline,” he said. “I have seen and learned too much to accept. There have been many, many who have given their lives to be able to protect you Your Highness. That is not right.” The king was getting angry but T’rupta continued. “I am going to train others in such a way that this deadly test will no longer be necessary because so many will pass it as I did.”

The king, the priest and Desdrew spoke with each other for a time before they turned to T’rupta.

“You are a brave boy,” the king said. “You are right that the test is badly flawed however it is the way we have done it for centuries and it is how we will do it in the future.” With that he took a crystal dagger from its sheath and plunged it deep into the boy’s chest. When the boy took his last gasping breath the king opened the door and tossed the body inside to be included in the wall.

During the following years dozens of young men and woman died in the labyrinth. A few survived and of those few none ever spoke out against the labyrinth. The word of T’rupta had spread and each that passed his skull bent to show tribute to a young hero but nothing changed. Young people died for no reason and they were willing to do so.

In the end, centuries after T’rupta, the royalty of the empire were killed by, ironically, being locked in the labyrinth. After that day not another young man or woman died to serve the empire and T’rupta…his story was told and retold, he became a hero throughout the empire and his name never died and it still lives on for the few who remember the empire and what it meant.

The Vampire Crypt

The Allegheny Heights Cemetery is one of the oldest and most historical in the state of Pennsylvania. There are missing headstones where bodies lay waiting for someone, anyone to come and visit to mourn them. There is even a mass grave filled with the bodies of a mass execution that took place in the late 1800’s. In addition to the stranger of the graves there are a number of the graves are those of heroes in the War of 1812 and the Civil War.  As with all cemeteries of any age, there are also a number of myths and legends connected to it but this cemetery had more than its share.

In a corner of the property sits a granite crypt. It has no name and no date of death engraved anywhere on its face but there was a one time a plaque above the entrance. You can see the outline and the holes where the bolts once were but the edges are cracked, nearly shattered, as if the plaque was removed with a lot of force. It sits against a small sandstone cliff. As a matter of fact, it looks as if the crypt goes into the cliff face. Mosses and ferns are living in every crack and crevasse and the granite façade has a beautiful blue-black patina that only comes with age. One other thing that adds to the crypt’s mystique is the location. There has never been a ray of sunshine that has ever touched the opening. It is in a darkness that makes anyone who sees it think of the movies you see about Transylvania.

Over the years people have told of strange occurrences and other stories about the crypt. It has been said that there has been as many as twelve bodies buried inside and other stories where the tomb has been sitting empty for all those decades. In that story the owner took a trip to Europe while the crypt was being built. She died in Breslau, Germany in the late 1800’s and her body was buried there. But, the story goes further…it continues that the woman’s valuables are locked behind the iron gates of the crypt. No one has confirmed or denied either of these stories or any of the other hundreds still circulating around.

All of that, as well as stories that told of paranormal activity in the area, has earned that crypt the name “The Vampire Crypt”.

Almost everyone in that small town knew the legends about the tomb. A few bugged the staff at the cemetery for information about who was buried there but the staff was quiet about the true facts of who was entombed there, when they were entombed and even if there was anyone in the crypt. It wasn’t a case of whether or not they knew…they did! It was that they just didn’t want to say anything to either confirm or deny the stories. For more than 100 years there was nothing…nothing until that night is 1978. That night a sixteen year old boy decided to see for himself what the big secret about the Vampire Crypt was all about.

His name was Robert Brisban and he was well known throughout the town. He was seriously the trouble maker in town. He shoplifted, harassed his neighbors and regularly got caught drinking under the railroad bridge outside of town. Now, he wasn’t really a bad kid. Even the judge said that he was just a regular teenager he was unlucky enough to get caught more than other. The thing was….his luck didn’t just affect him. Any kids that were with him got in trouble too but he was popular so when you say that other kids caught with him it pretty much involved every kid in town.

That night he, and few of the other kids, did something that everyone wanted to do…he broke into the Vampire Crypt and found out what was in there.

The night before he went in there was an accident on the corner of Cherry Street and 6^th Avenue…about 50 yards from the crypt. It wasn’t bad, just a fender bender but one of the cars went through the cast iron fence that surrounded. That left a gap in the fence and that was just enough of an invitation for Brisban and his friends to sneak in.

The crypt had cast iron doors. They were heavy…almost too heavy to move but all the security that they had was a $10.00 padlock that was bought at the local hardware store and it was easy enough for a group of boys to cut courtesy of one of their dad’s metal cutters. It took all of five minutes before the lock fell to the ground and the boys forced the doors open and that is when they learned the truth…there was a body locked in the crypt.

The coffin was open. Its ebony cover was lying against the wall. The walls were also lined with remains of flowers that had long ago dried. He was dressed in a formal outfit with gold buttons hold the coat closed. Whoever the man was he was well to do and was popular. Inside the coffin was the body of a man. The body looks as if it was old…really old but it was well preserved. On its finger was a gold ring with a huge blood red garnet stone surrounded by diamonds.

Brisban smiled when he saw that ring. “That’s a fucking big rock,” he said as he reached into the coffin. The thought was going through his head to take the ring as proof that he and the other actually were in the crypt rather than just bragging about. It didn’t take long for him to decide. He reached down and pulled on the ring but it didn’t move…the finger was too large for it to come off easily so he took the metal cutters and cut the finger off. It was easier than he thought. There was a crack as the bone split and the ring was his.

He slipped the ring onto his finger. It was a good fit and felt natural as it slid on. He held his hand up in the air and raised his ring finger. “Look at this,” he was yelling, “I’ve got the vampire’s ring!” He looked around and the other boys were long gone. “Cowards,” he yelled as he exited the crypt and saw the other scampering over the fence.

Brisban walked home, admiring the ring as he walked. He stopped a few places to show off his trophy. Of course no one believed him. Some accused him of breaking into someone’s house and the more he told the story the more he was accused.

He went home. His mom and dad weren’t home. He was sure that, by now, they had heard about him breaking into a house and were not going to be happy so he got ready and rushed into bed to get to sleep. It was quick until he was out and dreaming about the girls he wanted to date and maybe more.

The next morning Brisban’s mom and dad got home. He was right. They had heard about their son’s exploits the night before and they were mad.

“Go wake that son-of-a-bitch up,” is dad yelled. “That boy ain’t going be stealing off of anyone. He’s going to learn that stealing’s wrong.”

Brisban’s mom walked up the steps and down the long hallway to her son’s room. The door was closed and there was music coming from his computer.

“That boy doesn’t know how to turn anything off,” she said. Even though she was angry she still smiled. She heard the song “Highway To Hell” playing. That was one of Brisban’s favorite songs so it was almost a sure thing that it would be playing.

Slowly she opened the door. The room was cold and the air felt heavy. She called out to her son, “Robert, wake up! We need to talk/” There was no response. She called out again and still there was nothing!

“Helen, what’s going on up there,” dad’s voice came from downstairs.

“I’m getting him,” she yelled back. Still there was not a movement from Brisban. His mom closed the door and walked over to the bed. Robert was lying in bed staring at the ceiling. His mom reached over and shook him. His head tilted toward her and it was at that moment she realized that he son, the light of her eyes, was dead.

She screamed a scream that wasn’t like anything she had ever done before. Brisban’s dad came running up the stairs and as he cleared the last step he saw his wife coming out of the room. She was crying and grabbing onto the walls barely able to hold herself up. “He’s dead,” she said between her tears. “Robert is dead.” She stood aside as he rushed past her and saw the body.

911 was called and, once the paramedics showed up they tried to revive the boy to no avail. It was then they noticed that something was wrong. It was not that the young man was dead it was the fact that the ring finger on the boy’s right had was torn off. There was a quick search of the room but the finger was nowhere to be found.

After the cause of death was listed as uncertain Brisban was buried in the Allegheny Heights Cemetery not more than fifty feet from the Vampire Tomb.

No one knows for sure what happened that night or where the finger disappeared to but the story was passed around that the body in the Vampire Crypt was actually a vampire and that, by stealing the ring, he had angered the spirit of the vampire and the death, the missing finger and the missing ring was that spirit coming back to get what was rightfully his.

The Vampire Crypt was sealed with a heavier lock and, since that night, no one has entered although the stories do continue to be told and the temptations are still there but no one is brave, or stupid, enough to go into that building on the side of a cliff where the sun never shines.

The Ghost Of Bakersland Road

“What do you mean?” I knew that was going to be the question I was going to get when I got home and told my father about what I had seen when I snuck out of the house last night. The other thing I was going to hear was when he told me I was grounded for two weeks for sneaking out but, with what I saw, I think that two weeks may be just about fair.

Thinking back I don’t know how or why I expected him to believe me. After all it was just me and Tommy Ingersol out driving that night. I was just 16, never been behind the wheel and I just got my temps that morning. Tommy was 19 and had hid license for three years now, so he said that he’d take me out to practice. He figured that back country roads were the best to learn on since there weren’t many drivers travel that way at night and it was deer hunting season, for just bucks I think, so they’d be spending most of their time in the woods hiding from all those bad assed, drunk out of their socks redneck hunters.

I had watched so many movies about stealing a car, my fave is Gone In 60 Seconds. Anyway I hotwired my dad’s 1989 Pontiac Bonneville. It was a piece of shit. I knew it, my friends knew and fuck man and the whole county knew it. Everyone except my dad knew it. To him that car was worth the best Coupe DeVille on the street and was twice as beautiful. I guess he was looking through rust colored glasses cause that was the only thing holding that car together.

I got that hunk of junk started and out of the driveway. A block away Tommy was waiting. He opened the door and laughed. “Boy, I would never, ever take this car to get your license. They wouldn’t let you leave the parking lot much less take your test in it.” I just nodded my head. I wasn’t about to argue. That was my dad’s car and I sure as hell wasn’t going to defend it. I’d like to see it run into a brick wall myself but that wasn’t about to happen.

We went out 38^th Street. The road was clear and smooth and it was so easy to drive on that I got cocky and got the car up to 45 miles per hours. Now, I know that ain’t much but for a boy who had never driven it was like riding on a rocket. I never stopped for one stop sign and I barely slowed down for the red lights in town and once we got outside the town limits I let go and reached sixty miles per hours about the time Bakersland Road came over the top of the crest.

I slammed on the breaks and man, the smell of that rubber tearing up the gravel and the tires themselves burning nearly made me gag. We left a trail of black smoke and skid marks that covered nearly fifty feet. We slid through the intersection just a minute before a truck crossed on its way into town. God was on our side that night and he knew it…he must have known it. After all, how else did we get through and not die as a fireball on the front grill of a semi doing sixty-five miles an hour.

We sat there a couple of minutes before Tommy brought out a pint of whiskey. “Here,” he said as he handed it to me. “You take the first and then I’ll take some. I think we need it.”

I was young but I knew that my nerves were so shaking I would have drank panther piss if it would have calmed me down. I took a drink, he took a drink, I took another and so on and so on for almost an hour. I think I got the last drop but maybe I didn’t. I was so fucked up I couldn’t remember my name much less how much I had to drink.

By the time we started making sense again it was almost midnight. I know that I still had a little bit of a buzz on but I wanted to get home so I backed up, turned the wheel and started down Bakersland Road.

The speed limit was fifty five but I set the cruise control at forty five just to be safe. Tommy had fallen asleep with his head leaning out of the window. From what I could see in the mirror he had his mouth open and his tongue flapping the way my German Shepard does when he goes for a ride. Man, I was hoping that a moth or something would fly in there just so I could watch him freak.

About two miles down the road there was a church. I think it was called the Mount Zion Church Of Christ or something like that. I know it was Mount Zion but hell there are so many fucking religions today it is damn near impossible to keep track.

I remember that there was a cemetery somewhere around there but I didn’t remember where As a matter of fact I heard that there were two run by the church but I never saw the second one but I heard that one was from the 1760’s to the 1780’s.

I was driving pretty well, especially for having a head that was spinning like a top. I was staying between the lines and not throwing up too much of the side of the road when I did wander a little. Anyway, I was driving when I saw a woman walking along the side of the road. She didn’t look hurt or anything like that she was walking. She wasn’t dressed too bad. She was wearing blue dress which was a little above her knee, a white blouse and a blue plaid coat. It was dirty but with all the dust on the road it couldn’t be anything else.

She was blonde…I remember that. It wasn’t an unpleasant blonde that some girls go for now. It was natural kind of like the color of the hay that was so common out that way and her fingernails were painted with just the right amount of pink.

It was clear to see that she was young but it was hard to guess just how young. I was thinking maybe nineteen or twenty if she was a day but she actually looked more like may age…which I liked.

I pulled over, reached across Tommy and opened the door. It was at that moment that Tommy woke up.  “What’s going on guy,” he asked as his eyes tried to focus in the darkness.

“Get your ass in the backseat,” I said. “You’re sleeping and I am picking up a hot girl so get your ass back there.” He was still groggy but he crawled in the back and, as soon as he sat down he was out. He left the back door open so I went around and closed it and then I helped that girl into the front seat. Hey, I know what you’re thinking but if you had seen her you would have helped her too!!! I got in, shifted into drive and started down the road.

“My name is Rose, Rose LaMonica,” she said as she reached for my hand.

“Nice to meet you Rose,” I said as I took her hand and smiled. “My name is Ronnie Dean Warren but my friends call me Toad. Where are you headed?”

“I just want to get to town,” she replied. “I have been away for quite a while. I wonder if anyone will remember me.”

I asked her how long she had been gone and she said, “Honestly, I don’t remember when I left but I know it has been a while.” She scooted closer to me…so close that her hip was right up against mine.

“Are you seeing anybody,” she asked.

“Nope, I am single,” I replied. No, I didn’t tell her that I was just sixteen…do you think I was stupid or something. You know what, after what happened maybe I was.

“Pull over a minute,” she said as her fingers stroked my thigh.

Did I do it…no. I wanted to to. God knows I wanted to but I had to get the car back before my father woke up and found that it was missing. That would have been all I needed, a stolen car rap on my sheet as well as drunk driving. Fuck, I would have never got my license!

We were travelling down the road. I knew there was a turn off at the edge of the cemetery and I knew that was where she wanted to go but I just kept driving. “Why aren’t you stopping,” she screamed but she didn’t give me time to answer her hand came up and she slapped me hard across my face. “I wanted you boy. I wanted you to take me!” She slapped me again and again. I tried to hold her back but it was beyond me being able to do anything.  I saw a glint of something metal as there was a sharp pain in my stomach. “You made your choice boy!” She was still screaming and attacking me as I passed the turnoff.

My eyes were cloudy and my emotions were spinning wildly between pain, anger and fear. I wanted to fight but I couldn’t.  I pulled off the road and collapsed into a world of complete darkness. But, before I faded I looked over, the door was closed but the girl was gone. There was no sign that she had ever been in the car. Even the metal thing I had been stabbed with was gone but I was pouring blood and it was pouring out bad.

In the morning I woke up in the Allegheny Heights Medical Center. My stomach was hurting and I could feel bandages wrapped around my body including my stomach and face. My father was there but there wasn’t the anger I expected in his face….I would see that later. His look was utter concern, I looked around. Tommy was there as were two members of the Allegheny Heights police as well as a captain from the state police.

“Good morning Mr. Warren,” the state cop said. “Can you tell me what happened?”

I laid there and told him how I saw a young girl walking along the side of the road, picked her up and how she attacked me. He just stood there writing everything down and nodding his head. Then he asked for a description, which I gave. He didn’t say a word to me. He reached up to his walkie talkie and called in the information. Then he listened. He didn’t say a word…he just listened.

Turning to me his face was pale, so pale that I doubted that he had any blood flowing through his body. “Did she give you her name,” he asked.

“Yeah, her name was Rose LaMonica,” I replied. As soon as I said that the state cop fell back into a chair and the tow local boys just looked at each other but didn’t say anything.

“Rose LaMonica,” he asked with a tinge of disbelief in his voice. I confirmed that was the name that she gave me. “Lay back,” he said as he stood up and approached the bed. “You picked her up out by the cemetery?” I told him I did. “Mr.Warren, I have a story to tell you.” He sat down and started the story. “Rose LaMonica was arrested and convicted for murdering her fiancée. She, to put it bluntly, was a slut. She had sex with most of the boys in town and when her fiancée said that he wanted to wait she sliced his body apart. She was tried and the evidence was so strong that the jury didn’t deliberate. They just said guilty and she was hung a few minutes later. She’s is buried in that old cemetery out there.”

‘When was she hung,” I asked.

“1779,” he replied. Then he opened the calendar on his phone and said a very, very audible “Yes!”

“The date yesterday was October 5^th, right?”

“Yeah”

“Every year we get reports about a woman out here on October 5^th,” he said. “Most don’t stop to pick her up they just drive by. The ones who do pick her up usually end up here. Some better off that you but a few ended up downstairs.” I knew what he meant by that…he meant the morgue. “You were lucky Tommy was there.”

“You mean…?”

“Yeah, you met the ghost of Rose LaMonica close up and lived to tell about it.” He didn’t say another word to me but he did tell the local cops that there was no case there and that they could leave. Then he turned to me, smiled and told me to tell Rose hello if I ever saw her again and then he left.

Needless to say that from then on…on October 5^th I either stay home or I stay to the opposite side of town. I do still have the scars left from that night to remind me of Rose and her fury and I have been to that cemetery a few times and yes, I did find her grave. I have left flowers for her and I even say a prayer for her tortured soul. I just don’t go there at night anymore as sure as hell I don’t go there in October…not just on the 5^th. I don’t go there at all. After all could you imagine what she would be like on Halloween if she is that pissed off on the day she died?

Black Mountain

For a small town Allegheny Heights, Pennsylvania has more depression, alcoholism and suicide that any other place in the United States. It is also the one place in the eastern United States where both positive and negative electromagnetic forces fight and combine to cause severe storms within the human mind. Some have suggested that Allegheny Heights was like an inland Bermuda Triangle where the souls of the tortured are taken by a gateway into another dimension. No one has proved anything yet but there is a lot of talk.

There is one place in particular, about five miles from town called Black Mountain. It was called Black Mountain because, despite it being in an area that got a lot of sun the mountain itself was always in shadow. It was, rather is, a place where there have been more than five hundred suicides and attempted suicides in the last twenty years. However, the sides of the mountain weren’t the only shadows. The canopy of the trees at the base of the mountain are well over grown to the extent of walking on the ground around Black Mountain is like walking through an open field at midnight during a new moon. No light at all, except for the flashlight most people carried when they traversed into the area. The thing was…the darkness was made the area the perfect place to commit suicide.

The strange thing was, some of the bodies of the suicides were found lying on the ground…a strange place for a body to be found when there were so many trees to hang themselves from. God knows there are still plenty of ropes hanging from the branches from the bodies which were cut down and those who changed their minds once the rope tightened. Hell, I don’t know how they did but they did it. The bodies on the ground looked as if they had been mummified or as one guy guessed dehydrated by radiation but we always asked radiation from what? The thing was some of the dehydrated bodies were dead less than a week.

Some have claimed that they have see lights floating around Black Mountain but no one, not even the biggest advocate, has ever taken a picture of any light, orb or even a flying saucer. Another thing, not one of the “grown up” citizens of Allegheny Heights neither saw any lights nor claimed to have seen any lights. But there are those who will argue till the cows come home that they have seen them and no amount of proof to the contrary will even convince them different.

Well anyway, let’s get back to the story. One morning back a couple years ago a group of kids and I were walking close to the Black Mountain forest but not in it. There was not a kid’s parent with a hundred miles would ever give their permission for their child to go anywhere near the actual mountain. Anyway, while we were walking one of the girls looked on a tree and saw a parchment note nailed to the bark. It read, “I am here for the end. Do not try to find me because I will not be found.” It also gave a time of 12:35 PM. There was no date or other information…just the note and the time. But the parchment wasn’t weather beaten as you would suspect from an older note but then again…who uses parchment in the 21^st Century?

We didn’t waste any time. I grabbed the note…you know come to think of it we could have considered that note a grave marker but I wasn’t thinking with a clear mind at the time. I wanted to get those kids back to town so like I said, I grabbed the note, rushed back to the car and I got those kids home before rushing into town and to the police station.

Now, I was well known at the police station. I did a lot of exploring around the town and found a lot of stuff I turned in to the cop until the rightful owners could be found. I remember that I found a chest with fifty 1967 Canadian $20 gold coins under an abandoned barn north of town. The owners of the property didn’t know how they got there or who owned. I turned them into the police and a month later they gave them back to me as found treasure. It took a year but I found the owners. A family was visiting when their coins disappeared. Anyhow, I returned them and got a $1,000 reward but that was the honest thing to do.

I took the note to the police once the read it they were as confused about it as I was. I told them that there was nothing else anywhere in eye’s sight except that note. They called the hotel and they weren’t missing anyone and the state had no missing person reports from anywhere in this end of the state so obviously it was someone who didn’t want to be found so he left everything behind him and no one knew anything.

The desk officer got on the phone and activated a phone tree that had been set up more than a dozen years before. They had found maybe 300 bodies over the years and a couple hundred of those who were wandering around the mountain after a failed attempt. Within twenty minutes more than twenty five of the biggest, strongest men in the county, as well as a handful of nurse’s arrived at the station and I was told to lead them to where we had found the note. We drove in a caravan out to the point where the tree was and as soon as we stopped the men started their search and the nurses set up their first aid station.

The trees in the area were dried and looked nearly dead. Their leaves, the ones that were still hanging, were brown with tinges of black on their edges. The grass was charred and felled to point away from the mountain. I was surprised that I had not noticed those things earlier but even after I had none of the “rescuers” seemed to have noticed them either.

I pointed out the exact tree where the note was found and the men were all over within seconds. They checked the nail holes where the sign had been hung. There was sap flowing from the wound. That meant one thing…the sign had been hung recently, very recently. The cut in the bark was fresh…another sign of a recent event.

“Men, spread out and check the forest. The body has to be around here somewhere,” the commander yelled over his megaphone and with that the men, me included, started into the woods not knowing what, if anything we were going to find. We tried to stay within sight of each other but soon all of the people were spread so far apart that a visual contact was no longer possible.

I was alone for quite a while before I ran into one of the other searchers who, like me, had nothing to report.

By now the sun was a little past its apex. We were getting hungry so he and I walked over to a log that had been knocked down by some passing storm. I had a turkey sandwich and he had macaroni salad. It wasn’t too hard to figure that we shared our food and had a pretty good meal. He had a GPS in his backpack so, in addition to eating, we took a reading to see where we were. It showed that we were just about half way through the forest and getting closer to the mountain. I wasn’t sure if a stranger set on killing himself would travel as far as we had but after eating we decided to keep walking but we didn’t have to walk far. Beneath a nearby tree was a body. It was dehydrated as were so many of the others found in the woods and above it was a part of a rope, frayed at the end. A quick look showed the other end of the rope was around the neck of the body. Whoever this was knew what they were doing. The noose had thirteen loops and was placed on the left side of the neck. According to documentaries this was the most efficient way to die from hanging. It quickly snapped the neck assuring a quick and somewhat painless death.

I walked around the body and finally found a wallet. The body was that of a Daniel Dages of Pittsburgh. He was only 34 and, if you can go by the pictures in his wallet, he had two children both boy and they were 12 and 10 years old but there was no wedding ring so I was not sure if he was married or not. We weren’t sure how long he had been dead but the rope looked fresh with no weathering which meant that it was new…very new. That meant that he died recently. I put the wallet in my pocket and took a GPS reading as to the location and then we started looking around.

The ground was muddy around the site and there were not one set of footprints as you would expect with a suicide. There were at least three sets of footprints around the body and two of them led off deeper into the woods and toward the mountain. The thing was there was something strange about the footprints that neither my partner nor I could put our fingers on but we started following them anyway.

It was about a half mile that we walked on a muddy trail following whoever it was that left the body laying there. The trees faded away about 10 minutes after we started walking again. The mud turned into chips of pitch black granite and, shortly after that, they turned into sharpened rocks of pure blackness. The sky was dark with grey clouds that came in from the ridges out in the next county, the ground was black and the edges of the rocks were enough to shred the skin for your hands if you were not careful. There was no vegetation at all, not even the mosses you would expect in a warm, dark atmosphere.

On the hard surface the footprints ended but, after we discussed it for a minute, we decided that we would continue up the mountain in the same general direction we had been travelling. In the dim light we could see that the farther we travelled up the mountain the larger and sharper the rocks became but there was a trail about 3 feet wide weaving between the rocks and it was going up the mountain the same as we were. But, by the time we had hit the trail the only sound that we could hear was the wind blowing around us. The birds had given up making music a long time ago and we had not even noticed.

We followed that trail as it got steeper and steeper until we could barely keep or footing and then we crawled but we kept moving up the goddamn mountain. Then we saw the most amazing things…three caves that appeared to go deep into the side of the mountain. We talked again and decided to search the caves. Flipping a coin we decided on the one in the middle to check out first. Don’t ask me how that worked out but it did.

The center cave went back into the mountain about a half a mile and once we got in there we saw the most beautiful caverns, huge caverns with giant black crystals and a few white ones that created their own light. It was as if we had stepped into a cathedral a God himself was at the altar instructing the crystals where to rest so that they could make the room more beautiful than any artist could ever imagine. The cave on the left was more of the same but even more beautiful than the first.

By the time we got to the cave on the right it was nearly dark so we scampered back into the center cave and settled down for the night. That night we heard some animals screaming in the darkness and others growling and grunting and they seemed a lot closer than the others. That made us nervous so we didn’t get much sleep that night. We took turns telling stories and talking about how the Steelers/Browns game was going to go t the end of the year. That was very spirited since I am a Browns fan while my partner is a Steeler fan all the way.

The morning came faster than either of us wanted it to. There was something about that cave that bothered us even though we had not been inside and we did not know what awaited us.

We exited our temporary home and stepped into a world that was just as dim as we had left the day before. The sounds of the animals hadn’t faded yet as a matter of fact the growling had become almost unbearably loud.

We stepped into the last cave almost at the same time. The air coming from inside was a lot warmer than the air outside or even the air coming from the other caves. The entrance was a total black. It was not welcoming at all and we, at least I, had second thoughts but I knew that we had to man-up and go in to see what was going on in there if anything was going on.

The floor of the cave was smooth and yet dull. There was no light reflecting from the outside. It was darker than dark and rank smell was coming from deep in the blackness.

“What’s that,” my partner.

“It smells like rotten meat but not the meat you get at the store. I mean meat from a fresh kill,” I replied in a calm voice. I brought up the point that bears and wolves would sometimes carry their kills into caves to protect them but there had been a legend passed down for the last 100 years that I could not get out of my mind and I didn’t want to talk about. It was just too terrible to think about. We covered our mouths and noses with cloth, it didn’t do much good but it was an effort, and we continued down a slight grade into the bowels of the mountain feeling our way down as we went.

There were minerals in the roof and walls of the caves that became more and more illuminated as we moved farther down the cave.

The farther we travelled the more intense the smell became as well as the light getting brighter and brighter. Finally we could see the walls, ceiling and floor of the cave, There was no more sharp edges. Everything was as smooth as glass and not hot but comfortably warm. I would guess that the temperature was around 65 degrees but the humidity made it feel a lot warmer.

We had already travelled about five miles into the mountain when we saw something that shocked and surprised us…we saw bodies hanging on the wall. It was as plumb and fresh as a newly dressed chickens and it was easy to see that their necks had been broken as if they had been hung. I counted five in that spot. I couldn’t remember how many missing persons that town was looking for but so far we had six bodies and no explanation.

Travelling farther the smell turned from rotting meat into a kind of bitter smell and once we turned a corner we found out why…there was a small town of caves hidden deep in the cave and the occupants appeared to be home. I told my partner to stay where he was when I moved a little closer and when I did I saw something that I should have known was there but yet never expected to see.

The legend was that the caves on Black Mountain were homes for some creatures that should have disappeared a long time before man even thought of walking upright or creating fire. The story was that the caves has an intelligent form of, I guess you could say, lizard being that took humans for food. Well, at that moment at least the beings were true. The creatures I was watching were tall, almost as tall as I was and although they walked on two legs most of them still walked on all fours. Maybe they could go either way. Their skin was scaly and dark green with black stripes running from the backs to their bellies and their heads were definitely like those of modern day salamanders except for a massive set of teeth that kind of reminded me of the alligators down in the New Orleans delta.

I stood crouched down as I watched at least twelve of the creatures walking around the area. I must have been there for about 30 minutes when the largest of the group started walking toward the trail. Panicked I hid behind a huge rock and I hope that my partner was doing the same. It took about 5 minutes before the creature returned dragging one of the bodies I had seen earlier behind him.

As soon as it stopped a claw came of the end of each “toe”. They looked to be about five to seven inches long and man did they look sharp. I just stood and watched and the lizard ripped the body apart and it drained the blood to the extent of sucking out the last drop from the heart and veins of its victim. As it did others came, removed the entrails and took them to the others who were waiting nearby. As that happened the heat in the room “cooked” the rest of the body making it appeared extremely dehydrated and almost leather like. When they were done and everyone was fed the same lizard who had brought the body in carried it out of the room.

Slowly I came out of my hiding place and followed the lizard out of the cave, gathering my partner as I passed by. The sun was up high in the air as we stepped from the cave. God, it was nice to feel a breeze of sweet air after what we had put up inside. The lizard travelled down the same trail we had followed up the mountain.

The lizard was slow, very slow, but dragging the body of a man would slow anything down. It took several hours before we reached the wooded area at the base of the mountain. I watched as the lizard passed tree after tree looking up into each. It looked at a couple hundred before it stopped and it placed the body carefully beneath the tree.

After it had left I arose and walked over to the spot where the body was placed. Looking above the body I saw a broken rope dangling from a heavy branch.

I looked at my partner and he looked at me and we realized what was happening at the same time. People were committing suicide and the lizards of the mountain were claiming the bodies, devouring what they needed and returned the rest. We thought about it a minute and I said, “This is nature and that was all it was. The creatures intended no harm to anyone. They took what neither God nor man wanted. Most of the time no one knew, or claimed the bodies and they were buried in a mass unmarked grave outside of town. This way they meant something to something and I think maybe in a small way that justified their deaths.”

Did we say anything about what we had found? Well, we reported finding another body or two but we never mentioned the lizards, the caves or anything else that we had found. Yeah, dehydrated bodies are still found throughout the forest but I never went on the searches again. I knew what was happening and that was all I needed but as far as I know my partner and I were the only modern people to see the lizards and that was enough to keep me going and repeating the legend to keep others from climbing up there. They deserved to be left alone and be allowed to life.

So…that’s the end of the story except to say that neither me nor my partner ever went on the mountain and no one ever knew why.