Terribleminds Flash Fiction: Roll For Title Challenge

“Fuck!”

My fingers are getting numb already. God damn, cheap ass snowmobile. I can already hear my wife laying it on, hey, you get what you pay for. She can be a real bitch sometimes.

Of course she’s right. What was I thinking buying a decade old snowmobile from a fucking, rust bucket pawn shop in the buttcrack of nowhere?

I was thinking I needed something fun in my pathetic, cookie-cutter life. Some kind of a break. Something new. Something exciting. I bought a used, barely running snowmobile.

I try to push the sleeve of my coat back to check how long I’ve been out, but my gloves are so damp that I can’t get a good hold of it. I keep trying to convince myself that the tingling in my fingertips is just them falling asleep not the early stages of frostbite. Finally I lift my sleeve up to my mouth and bite the cuff, pulling it back enough to see my watch.

4:48 Shit. It will be getting dark soon.

I’ve been walking for over an hour already and there is nothing in sight but white. White snow-covered ground. White snow-falling sky. This is what I get for taking the wife and kid on a winter vacation. Who the hell goes on a winter vacation?

We are summer people. We go to the beach. We walk on the god damn hot sand and burn our feet. We get sun tans that resemble red, blistering soon-to-be-cancer burns. We don’t go to a mountain cabin in three feet of snow. We don’t try to reconnect with the land by buying a fucking cheap snowmobile and getting deserted in the middle of nowhere with zero go damn cell service.

The snow fall is picking up. I can barely see now, squinting to keep the flakes from landing in my eyes. They land on my lashes and sit for a second before melting and dripping down my face. If it was any colder I know they’d freeze and I’d be in some real shit.

It’s getting harder to walk. My boots feel like they are sinking deeper into the snow than they should be.

Is it really getting that deep?

In my estimation I should be about a mile from the cabin. Not too bad. I might be able to do it in thirty minutes if I stay in the right direction.

I feel the ground slope beneath my boots. I sink in. The snow is above the knee now and falling rapidly.

Then I hear it.

A crack.

It’s barely audible but deafening.

I freeze in place. A new kind of terror runs through me. This is something I've never felt before. This is a real life and death fear.

Is this what I was dreaming about back at the safety of my office cubical? Is this the break in the monotony that I was yearning for?

No, this was a different kind of break. This was an oh-shit-something-is-breaking-under-me-and-I’m-about-to-fall-in kind of break. This was bad.

A second crack.

This one was even louder.

My heartbeat was like an engine on overdrive. It felt like it would launch itself right out of my chest and skip across the snow leaving a bloody trail.

I didn’t know if I was about to fall into a icy pond, an old well, a shitty septic tank or what it was, but my mind was running through a list of all the worst places.

Then it happened.

A loud barrage of cracking followed by me falling between the cracks. My life story.

Only I didn’t fall into an icy pond and become an instant ice cube or land in a pile of a year’s worth of shit and urine. Instead I fell about twelve/fifteen feet, staying upright the whole way down, stopping in what appeared at first to be a cavern but I quickly realized this wasn’t a cave.

This was a burial vault. A tomb.

Even though I knew I should be focusing on climbing out, all I could think about was exploring. There was eight caskets inserted in the walls of stone, each one had a marker with a name across it.

Angela O’Brien, Stephen Kook, Barry Graves… Barry… Graves… ok, that is classic.

There didn’t seem to be any correlation between them. I couldn’t find a common family name anywhere. Even more bizarre was the dates on the individual makers. They were barely a handful of years old. The oldest date I could find was Mr. Graves who passed away just six years ago.

Towards the back of the tomb there was what looked like an altar of some sorts. It was made of bone and stone with a fully intact human skull sitting in the center. Candles aligned the sides, half-burned with black wicks and dried wax puddles around their base. The sight of it sent a chill down my back but it was too intriguing to not approach.

As I scoot closer, the lighting started getting worse. I could barely see my boots. I need a light. Of course I didn’t pack a flash light, why would I.

My phone.

It still works, even though it gets no signal, I could use it to see with. I tried to maneuver it out of my pocket but the combo of wet gloves, tight pants, and numbing fingers wasn’t helping. I pull off the gloves and the cold hit them like stabs of a thousand vampire needles aching for a taste of blood.

Quickly I slide my hand into my pocket and pull out the phone, then jam my hand back inside the glove.

How long does it take for frostbite to set in?

I point the light at the altar and watch as the candles surrounding the skull send shadows on the wall like tall guardians. I inch closer, all the way to the edge of the altar and stare into the eyeless sockets of the skull.

“We’ve been expecting you.”

What the hell? Did that skull just speak to me? No fucking way. I didn’t see his jaws moving so it couldn’t have been…

“The last casket can finally be filled.”

Who the fuck… ok, ok, I am definitely hearing some crazy shit right now. Probably hallucinating from the cold. Is that a symptom of frostbite?

There was a rumbling to my left and then I spot it. A casket is sliding out from the wall. It stops just short of falling to the floor and then opens. It’s empty inside.

I turn the light to glance at the name marker and see my name.

Ok, this is a fucked up hallucination.

I rub my eyes and check again but it’s still there, staring at me like it’s common knowledge and I’m the dumb fuck for not knowing it’s there.

“I can finally be released from this prison.”

God damnit I can’t believe I’m doing this but…

“Who are you?” I ask towards the lifeless skull.

“That is not important. Just know that you have been destined to be in this spot for longer than you can imagine.”

“I don’t understand,” I say. “How is that possible?”

“There are always things in this world that cannot be explained,” the voice spoke to me.

“So what, you just expect me to hop right in that casket and give up on life just because my name is written on a piece of fucking slate.”

“It is destined to be so.”

“Well, I hate to break it to you buddy. That ain’t fucking happening,” I curse and begin to back away.

I don’t wait for a response. I’m quickly back at the hole entrance and trying to climb. I search for a handhold, suddenly realizing the walls aren’t dirt but stone. Slick, flat stone. I can’t find anything to grab onto.

It’s too high to jump… there’s no way out.

I turn and go back to the altar. The skull is still there, unmoving but scaring the living shit out of me. My instinct is to smash the hell out of it.

Can’t fuck with me if you’re a pile of dust motherfucker!

I lead with a kick and knock the skull and half the candles off the altar. I follow that with clumsy fist crashing down on top of the bone table.

Where are you at? You can’t hide from me bitch!

I look for the skull. I want to smash it into tiny dust particles so small it will be like it never even existed.

There. Hiding below the bone table I spot the little fucker. I take a step back to get a better stomping angle and feel my heel land on something. It moves under my foot.

A candle.

One of those god damn guardian candles is under my foot and I’m losing my balance. I feel my weight shift.

Fuck!

“Shhhhiiiittt!!”

It’s the only word that falls from my mouth as I start to flail around, desperate to stay upright. It’s a losing battle as my weight is already shifted too much in the wrong direction. I go crashing down backwards, falling blindly.

Of course, I land in the god damned open casket. Where the fuck else would I land?

The lid slams shut and I realize after a few pushes and punches that the lid is locked tight. I’m not getting out.

Total blackout. I can't see anything.

Breathe… Don’t panic…

My phone.

Try your phone again. Where is your phone?

I check everywhere. Left pocket. Right pocket. Jeans. Coat.

It’s not here. I feel around the casket.

Nothing.

I must have dropped it when I was attacking the altar.

So that’s then… this is how you die… buried alive?

I breathing hard, gasping for air now. Full on panic is setting. I scratch at the lining of the casket. The last resort.

Calm down… you’re using up all the oxygen…

I start to feel light-headed. I can’t seem to get a full breath of air. Everything inside is a about to pop out. It’s overwhelming.

Get a hold of yourself… breathe… breathe… bre..

 

The End.