The Black Depths of the Grave

The Black Depths of the Grave

Story by Jonathan Danielsen

Artwork by sylverstorms

https://www.deviantart.com/sylverstorms

“Deep below the storming waves of the ocean is an ominous calm. About two hundred feet below is a hunter with claws strong enough to pry open a live clam. Different animals have evolved into crab-like forms at least five different times, and yet, crabs are but the janitors of the ocean. And down in the depths, the mighty crab has a great fear. The enemy of the crab is—”

Tentacles reach out and grab the crab into a black hole. The bulbous head of the enemy is the last thing seen before they disappear into the darkness.

“Well, well. Speak of the devil.”

The glow of her phone illuminates her grin of intrigue. Though her joy will last but a minute.

“Hey. You check that gate over there?”

Tori pops out one of her wireless earbuds. She nods and fakes a smile at Matthias. He shakes his head and the five-foot-four white man in his thirties disappears beyond some gravestones.

“The crab struggles, but the octopus grips it from behind, out of sight, out of reach. All its strength is nothing with the suckers of the octopus holding it back. Its back is pierced. It is injected with venom. Within minutes, the crab is weakened, paralyzed. There is a backwards rush as the crab’s limp body is taken to the home of the octopus. There, the crab is stabbed again. Its insides are dissolved and sucked out. It will be nothing but an empty shell.”

“YOU! Bitch!” Matthias yanks her earbuds out to scold her. “You should be checking the gate.”

“I already checked the gate like five times tonight.”

“Then check it again. Then check the near the gazebo. We have a job, dammit! I’m gonna tell Mitchell.”

“Fuckin’ snitch, I am doing my job! The hell we need to guard anyway? Ain’t gonna be no zombies or vampires roaming about.”

“Grave robbers. Didn’t you get the memo?!”

There is a soft scuttling somewhere behind Tori. Tori takes a step back and almost turns, but decides to get some more words in with Matthias.

“Fine. Well. I’m not dead, so I’m not about to worry ‘bout them robbing me.”

The scuttling gets closer to the twenty-three-year-old black woman, who is just a bit taller than Matthias. There is a metallic clank. Tori looks behind her and sees nothing. When she looks at the ground, her eyes widen.

“See, this is what fuckin’ happens when you don’t pay attention to shit,” Matthias says.

A crab has latched onto Tori’s blue lunchbox and is dragging it away.

“The fuck. Give that back to me.” Tori grabs her lunchbox and tries to shake the crab off. After that doesn’t work, she cautiously (but quickly) grabs the crab from behind and tries to wrestle it out of the crab’s claws. The crab lets go with one of its claws and pinches one of the fingers on Tori’s other hand. She screams and dances around as Matthias dies of laughter.

After a quick minute, Tori pulls the crab’s arm off so she can free her finger. A large golf club almost clips Tori as the crab’s exoskeleton is crushed inward.

“Gross,” Tori replies.

Matthias grabs Tori’s lunchbox and presents it to her, but before she can grab it, he swings it around and opens it.

“I’m taking my lunch break now.”

“No. You are not stealing my lunch.”

Matthias’s mouth is already full of peanut butter and jelly as he speaks. “I’m not. I earned this lunch from your dumb crab. Get out there, already.”

/

Tori trudges toward the dirt road of the entryway. There are flashing red and blue lights in the pitch black. There is an explosive popping noise in the distance. Immediately, the runs for cover and hides in the dark. There is tingling on her leg as she brushes up beside a bush. A light comes out of nowhere and blinds her.

“YOU, THERE! Get out from behind that bush and put your damn hands up!!”

After the cop talks to her for a solid few minutes about her rights, Matthias approaches the cop car, along with Mitchell. “The hell is going on here?” Mitchell asks the cop.

“I was chasing this kid with no headlights. Was trying to write her a ticket, but she pulled a knife on me. Chased her out of town, fired a few warning shots. She fled behind that bush over there.”

“I have no idea who you are! I’ve been here all night!” Tori yells from the back of the cop car.

The cop’s countenance hardens. “What’s a lone black girl like you doing out here at two in the morning?”

Mitchell seeks to end the confrontation. “What was Tori wearing? Please, without looking at her.”

“The fuck do I know? She’s dressed in all black trying to be invisible at nighttime. Black pants, black shirt. Black baseball cap with some blue thing on it.”

“Like Matthias’ hat?”

Matthias is dressed in all gray—light gray. Gray pants, gray shirt. Gray baseball cap with a blue ocean wave on it.

“The little shit works here,” the cop concludes.

/

After Tori is back out of the car and the cop is back in and ready to continue looking for the suspect, he pauses to warn them. “Sorry ‘bout how I was treating the girl there. It was all necessary. I’ve gotten calls from across the state. Graves getting robbed. Human bodies ripped out of the grave and getting torn apart. The bones are all that’s left. It’s some spooky shit going on around here. It’s not just the valuables; someone wants the bodies. The what for and the why, I do not know. Y’all be safe out here.”

Needless to say… it’s going to be a long night. After the cop left to chase his suspect, Mitchell went back to the office and Matthias and Tori went back to patrolling the night. A few hours into the night, and they were ready to leave soon.

But Tori sees something by the south hill. Some sort of dark creature with a long, pointy head. It wasn’t here to steal… it was here to feast. A shiny, red, gooey thread stretches between the creature’s mouth and some human remains. Good thing the creature is facing the other way!

Tori sneaks off and radios Matthias for help. By the time they get back around the bend, Tori sees a glimpse of a leg disappearing behind the hill. Matthias, who is close behind, sees—

“What? I don’t see anything.”

“Whatever it was, I think it just ran away.”

“Something definitely did disturb his grave….”

The two of them approach the gravesite. The remains are scattered all throughout the hole in the ground, and all over the coffin, and all around the hole.

“Her grave. It says, ‘Gloria C. Miesner.’”

“Something was definitely here….” Matthias says, drawing a weapon.

“Why the hell do you have a gun?!”

“Why the hell wouldn’t I? It’s fucking graveyard shift, at a fucking graveyard. And since I don’t believe in zombies, or vampires, it’s probably a bear. Of course, feel free to beat him up with your fists.”

Tori mocks Matthias by mouthing his last words as he tracks the creature’s footprints. They’re not bear claws to be sure. Actually, they’re not claws at all. More like just big circles, elongated every now and then. He tracks them around a gazebo, and they just disappear. He looks around him, confused. He then hears a low, reverberating growl. He is illuminated by pink and violet lights.

BANG! BANG! POW!

Tori realizes she hadn’t been paying attention to where Matthias went and makes toward the gunshots. Just because she doesn’t like guns doesn’t mean she can’t respect their power. The last thing you want to do when a strange creature is hunting you is to split up and find yourself without a weapon.

Tori sees an eleven-foot-tall… thing on top of a gazebo flinching each time it gets shot. Is that a—?! No, she must be seeing things. The creature pounces as Matthias backs away. The creature is within arms’ reach. Matthias tosses the gun and starts punching the thing to no avail. He sees one of the gunshot wounds he inflicted and kicks the creature in that spot, real hard. It bellows in pain and stumbles back. Just when Matthias gains a bit of confidence, the creature picks him up with two tentacles and chucks him about a hundred feet away, right over the cliff.

The creature stares at Tori next. She starts to run, but stops as she looks over her shoulder. The big, glowing creature had suddenly disappeared! Tori hides behind a bush again. Pink and violet lights illuminate her. The black creature keeps disappearing into the dark whenever its many bioluminescent stripes go dark. Only about ten minutes until sunrise. Can she last that long?

As she runs away from the creature again, it spits a green, viscous liquid at her that misses. Personally, she is offended. She remembers Matthias’s gun. But to go back to the gazebo would mean having to pass the creature.

She looks back and the creature has disappeared. She sees a crab and picks it up. “Heeeere…. Food?” She is illuminated from behind. She chucks the crab behind her and races to the gazebo. She hears thumping as the creature races behind her. She looks back. She looks at the ground. She can’t see the gun or the creature. She could turn on her phone’s flashlight, but then the creature would easily see where she is. Or maybe it already knows.

The ground lights up beneath her. She gets a glimpse of the creature just before it smacks her. She gets the wind knocked out of her and is hurled about twenty feet, just missing the gazebo. Her ribs feel like breaking. The creature is mad strong. She can’t take another hit like that. The creature approaches, illuminating the ground again. She sees a reflection—that’s it, the gun! She points the gun at the creature, and it once again disappears.

By the time she’s safe at home, it’s already daylight. Only then does she turn off her headlights. Home, sweet home. A wooden, mahogany red house on the outside. On the inside… it’s nighttime again. Tori’s interior walls are all colored midnight blue. Tori has several decorations of neon color, and some black decorations. She has a neon green sign that says “i believe” in bubbly lettering. And under the illumination of the light is a shadow….

“You.” Tori rushes towards the couch and moves it away from the wall. “You’re supposed to be in bed, young girl.”

Tori’s eight-year-old daughter giggles. Her skin is almost as dark as the walls. She has curly hair. Her eyes are innocent. But the truth is, she causes trouble whenever she can. Jennifer is an explorer.

“C’mon, young girl. Since you’re up, you better stay up. How long you been up?”

Jennifer shakes her head.

“That was not a yes-or-no question.”

Tori sighs. “I’ll get breakfast ready.”

/

Tori is making pancakes. Being the fanciful cook she is, she flips the pancakes by tossing them in the air. Only this time, it lands on the edge of the pan, splitting in half, half of it falling on the floor.

“FU-FUDGE, AAH!”

Loud pattering descends the carpeted stairs. “…Mommy?”

Tori rubs her side. “I… sorta fell today.”

“Are you okay, Mommy?”

Tori smiles and nods.

“Did someone push you?”

Tori recalls being thrown. “Well, uh… not exactly. Don’t worry. No one’s coming after us. Just another night at the graveyard. Only person who gave me some trouble was some cop.”

“Mommy, is it still nighttime?”

Tori kneels down. “Of course not, sweetie.” Tori sniffs and makes a face. The other half of the pancake is still in the pan, isn’t it?

“Uhh…” Tori begins, as she tosses the half pancake into the trash. “No, that’s just the wallpaper. You love that wallpaper!”

“No, Mommy, it’s night outside!” Jennifer says, pointing out the window.

Tori leaves the kitchen and looks out the window.

“Stay here,” she says.

She opens the front door, and a blinding white light fills the house from outside, only for a split second. When she adjusts her eyes and continues looking, all she sees is darkness. Their little home in the woods is once again surrounded by night. But even stranger, there’s nothing but pitch black any farther than two hundred feet in any direction. And it’s not because of the somehow-night sky. And it’s not because of the trees. There’s not a star, moon, or cloud in the sky. Tori looks down and sees Jennifer in front of her.

“It’s not safe to be outside, honey.”

Tori picks up her child and heads inside.

“What’s happening, Mommy?”

Tori strains to keep a calm face. “Why don’t you go upstairs and catch up on that sleep you obviously missed? I know it’s the weekend, but—”

“Mommy, what about pancakes?!!”

“You’ll have pancakes when you wake up!!”

As Jennifer patters up the stairs, Tori goes to the front door again. Her hand is shaking. She reaches out for the doorknob, but pauses. She then retracts her hand. Tori takes a deep breath. And another. She pulls the door open. She looks straight up at the sky and heads towards the strange barrier of darkness.

But a blue-white light illuminates the trees in front of her. She looks back at the house and sees a beam of light coming down upon the center of the house. Above it is a radially symmetrical claw of five digits.

“JENNIFER!”

Tori rushes back into the house.

CRACK!

Tori looks down to see the source of the sounds and discovers the stairs leading to the front door are split down the middle. The earth quaked and the entire house tilted down five degrees, as if it were sinking in unstable terrain.

The claw’s blinding beam deactivated. Instead, it started glowing with lime stripes, similar to the markings of the creature Tori saw earlier in the morning. She approaches the building, and the porch roof crashes in front of the entrance, blocking it. Tori looks up and sees the giant claw has dug itself into the walls of the house.

Tori enters through one of the windows and rushes upstairs to save her daughter. Tori enters Jennifer’s room, which seems to be one of the few rooms currently undamaged by the claw.

“Mommy, Mommy! What is that?! What do we do?!”

Tori hugs her child and holds her close. “We need to get out of here,” she says to her.

Jennifer runs to the closet.

“Sweetie, where are you going?”

Jennifer produces her lobster outfit from Halloween. “To protect us,” she says.

To be fair, the lobster suit was more of a stiff plastic than fabric. It could be used as decent armor. Still…

“That’s cute, dear. We need to go. Now.”

RUUUUUUUUUUMBLE!

The entire house shakes violently. The two of them fall over and begin to get a bit dizzy. The house is being lifted into the air.

“Pleeeeeaase!!” the child begs her.

Tori accepts that this might be the end. No way out of a house that’s suspended in the air.

“Okay,” Tori acquiesces.

As the house continues to rise, Tori re-enters Jennifer’s room in a matching outfit. The two of them are both dressed as lobsters.

“What about the pants?” Jennifer asks.

Tori is already wearing a lobster torso and head covering—eyes and antennae and all.

“You do know the lobster pants limit your mobility….”

“Lobster pants limit the what?”

Tori sighs exasperatedly. “I am NOT putting on the pants.”

“Okay, let’s go!” Jennifer charges.

Jennifer climbs out the window and onto the roof.

“JENNIFER!”

Tori has no choice but to pursue her. She climbs out the window but cannot see her. Tori looks around. She stumbles around on the wobbly roof and finds a gable end to hold on to. She looks down and sees a dark green spot on the ground, surrounded by a black cylinder. Can’t see much, but they’re definitely high up in the air. They’re being abducted.

“Jenniferrrrr…!” Tori calls out.

She climbs over the roof and finds her on the other side, climbing one of the metallic tentacles.

“Jen, get down from there!”

Jen keeps climbing and climbing. The claws sink deeper into the house and the whole thing shakes. Tori nearly falls off. She ends up sliding down the slope and grabbing onto the tentacle Jennifer is climbing before the rest of her body slips off.

She looks up at Jen. With all her might, she pulls her body up to the claw and climbs after her. Jennifer finds some sort of hatch and crawls inside. Tori takes a couple minutes to catch up to her and find the hatch. She presses a button, which opens it up.

Suddenly, everything shakes as the entire house below them is torn apart. Tori reaches her hand towards the hatch, and the sliding doors shut on her hand.

“Aaah! Motherfucker!”

Tori opens the hatch again and makes haste to get inside. She suddenly finds herself underwater, already starting to suffocate! Her feet are being weighed down. But upon inspection, there was nothing around her ankles and no explanation for the pulling force. If only the lobster suit could help her breathe underwater!

Tori sees ridges in a wall beside her. She uses the ridges to scale the wall and pull herself up. She seems to be at the beginning of some large, dark tunnel, a purple light pulsing across now and then. Tori sees hands of color thrashing about just above the surface.

“Mommy’s coming for you!” she yells, which in retrospect, may have been a bad idea.

Jennifer is only visible for about a second, every two and a half seconds, as the purple light pulses across. Tori runs across the metal mesh bridge and dives into the frigid water. But while Jennifer continues to be pulled downward, Tori seems to be just as helplessly floating on the surface. Tori turns herself up-side down and pushes her feet off the mesh bridge, diving under just as Jennifer bounces herself up. Their hands meet and Tori then grabs onto the bridge. She strains as she pulls the two of them up, weighed down by the water in their clothes. Jennifer is coughing hard and freezing.

After some rest, there is a calm. Did Tori save Jen’s life, or did Jen save Tori’s life? Surely, that creature planned on destroying them with its spaceship. And surely, the creature must think them dead. Tori looks to her side and sees Jen is gone. With the pulse of the purple light, her silhouette is visible at the end of the tunnel.

“Come back!” Tori yells, as she chases after Jennifer.

After a brief chase, they find themselves in a five-way intersection. They must be in the center of the spaceship.

“Don’t you dare wander off, Jen!”

Jen wanders off in a random direction, anyway. Tori attempts to run, but immediately falls over from the pain in her side. Her stomach is floating somewhere towards her head. She feels like vomiting. She’s lost her sense of balance as dizziness begins to dominate her. She suddenly loses track of which way Jen went and is left staring at the choice of hallways.

This is not good. They finally caught a break from the killer alien that was after Tori at the graveyard, but now, there’s no telling what will happen to her daughter. She stops and thinks. She was facing the way Jennifer fled. If she stays on the ground, she won’t stumble into facing another direction.

After about a minute of crawling, she stands up and tries to pick up the pace before her daughter gets too far. She uses the walls to aid in her balance. She can her child’s laughter in the distance. As she gets closer to the sound, she finds what appears to be a door. There aren’t exactly any handles, but attempting to touch the large, ornamented rectangle sends the door out of the way, leading her to fall face-first through the open rectangle and into the room.

“Hi,” she says as she sees her daughter in front of her, playing with some sort of creature. “Don’t do that agai—”

 The odd creature interrupts Tori by licking her. Some sort of orange, bulbous tripedal creature with a hairy… tongue?

“I’m gonna name it Suzie.”

“No, honey, you can’t name a creature that isn’t yours—”

Bump.

The door closes on Tori’s rear end.

Bump. Bump. Bump.

Tori decides to drag herself into the room. Her head and stomach feel better after a little rest, but while there was a cute, round creature on her left when she entered, there was a mound of gold on her right.

“Holy fucking—”

“Ooooooohh, Mommy’s in trouuuuubleee….”

“Fine, ‘fudge,’ but I mean, look! It’s… gold! And… some sort of stone statues of alien creatures,” she says as she searches the golden mound.

Tori starts stuffing gold into her pockets. Not having large pockets, and not having her purse with her, she begins stuffing gold down her shirt.

“Mommy, I thought you said taking things from other people is wrong.”

Tori looks at her daughter. “We can… make an exception.”

/

The two of them later leave the room weighed down by the gold. The tripedal creature follows the two humans dressed as lobsters.

“We should find a way out of here and liberate all this precious metal!”

“Mommy, what is liberate?”

Tori hears streaming water and assumes it’s where they came from. Tori leads the way, making sure Jennifer is not too far behind. Tori goes first and crosses a bridge. Not quite familiar, but it’s not like they can exit the same way they left. Maybe… the ship has some sort of escape pod? Once Tori gets to the middle of the bridge, purple electricity approaches the bridge from either side of it and strikes Tori’s stomach and pockets, targeting the gold.

“AAAAAAAH -aaaah -aaah -aah -ah”

Her voice loudly echoes across every hall of the ship. A bit of smoke seeps and all the gold falls out of new holes in her pants and lobster torso. Several screens light up across their path. On them is a pair of glowing lime green eyes searching about.

“Umm… we should run.”

“Mommy, is that an alien?”

“Let’s go, RUN!”

They end up at the intersection again. The orange, tripedal creature rushes past them and goes through one of the tunnels.

“Wait, come back!” Jennifer cries.

Tori puts her hand on Jen’s shoulder. “We should go a different way.”

Tori guides her through one of the other tunnels. They see a shadow approaching ahead, so they dash into another room. There is technology all around. Large, spherical balls of lights and wires and tech are scattered about the floor. There are wires and screens suspended from above—the creature still out looking for them. Jennifer starts playing with all the buttons.

“No, no, don’t touch other people’s….” Tori looks up at the screens and has a change of heart. “Actually, just hit everything you can. If we break something, it might do something to the ship.”

Jennifer keeps pushing a bunch of buttons everywhere. Tori picks up a remote of some sort and whacks a bunch of wires everywhere. Sparks fly and the lights blink.

“We did something!” Tori says with relieved glee.

Suddenly, an orange beam of light comes from the ceiling and consumes Jen. The light is gone, and so is she.

“NOOOOOO!!”

Circular saw blades pop out of all the walls and converge towards Tori. Tori sees a vent just big enough for her in the corner and rushes to remove the grate. She sees a saw blade coming towards her and dodges it. Then, she immediately crouches down for the vent. Just as she’s about to enter, she’s blocked by a wall of electricity in front of her. She looks behind her and it’s too late.

Standing in the doorway is the creature in all its glory, unobscured by darkness. It’s a fucking eleven-foot-tall starfish, five tentacles and all! It actually looks quite beautiful with all the light-up stripes and otherworldly eyes. But this was the creature responsible for killing her daughter.

Tori goes up to the monster and punches it repeatedly, alternating arms. She pauses and looks up at the monster, which is simply staring down at her in disappointment. She remembers the creature’s bullet wounds. She pulls her arm back to punch the creature again, but the creature slaps her against the wall. Her shoulder is hurt, but not too badly.

The creature opens its mouth, sucking in some air and tilting its head back. The creature spits its green, viscous liquid at her, which she dodges (Should she be worried about that mysterious liquid?). Tori finds a tool that resembles a crowbar and hits the creature on either side of its head, before slipping under its… tentacles? Legs? But the creature back kicks her against the wall behind, slamming her head.

There is a bloodstain on the wall (It must have soaked through the lobster head!), but nothing’s broken, except her dizzying vision. She runs away from the creature. The lights blink, the darkness lasting longer this time. The creature spits at her, hitting her leg. Tori screams louder than she ever has in her life as her flesh tears open. She takes a look at her wound and sees her flesh corroded to the bone. Even worse is when all sensation stops, and she realizes her leg is paralyzed.

“I knew I should have worn the stupid lobster pants.”

She attempts to hop away on one leg, but her whole world shakes, and she hears two consecutive loud booms. Everything tilts, and she and the monster slide down the catwalk. Tori grabs a rail that she passes, and the creature continues sliding past her. Tori looks up to see where to climb, but the ship rights itself up again. Tori sees the creature walking towards her. Out of options, she sees a gutter or something, full of trash along the wall. She reaches in and finds a small, black box. She points the box at the creature, threateningly. The creature stops in its tracks. It worked! The creature snatches the device out of her hands.

“What are you waiting for? Kill her!” A voice says from all around her.

Suddenly, the creature itself begins speaking to her.

“Why are you trying to kill me?” the creature asks.

Tori is both surprised and offended. “Y-you can talk?! Why are you trying to kill me?”

The creature’s look turns stern. “You found my translator. I thank you for that. I do not thank you for you and your friend shooting at me in the graveyard last night.”

“He wasn’t my friend; he was my coworker! I don’t even like guns!” Tori shouts, her neck straight-up tilting forward with fervor.

“I see. I am deeply sorry for this misunderstanding. I know I must have looked like some sort of monster, digging up graves like that. I am not a murderer. I just need to eat. Human flesh is all I can consume. I do not want to kill, so I only eat dead people. All I ever wanted to be was an artist; I didn’t want to be this!”

The creature produces one of the alien statues Tori saw from the treasure room. The statues were the creature’s work all along.

“You killed my daughter.”

“Quinfudd would never harm a child,” the creature says, referencing her ship. “She was simply teleported to safety.”

“Motherfucking kill her! I don’t care what did or did not happen at the graveyard! She tore all my wires apart, leaving me for fucking dead! I’m fucking dying, Black Depth!”

Black Depth looks concerned. “I will do whatever I can to help you, but I will not kill this woman.”

“This woman fucking killed me,” the Quinfudd says, sounding less energetic by the second.

A giant circular saw blade comes out of the floor and splits Black Depth in half, vertically. The two halves split from each other, and internal organs spill out. Tori stumbles back in fear, accidentally dodging a saw blade, herself. Suddenly, the lights blink, before going out, completely. There are massive shaking and explosions. The only visible light comes in bursts, originating from explosions.

/

Next morning, at the graveyard. There is grunting. A shovel hits dirt, repeatedly. A hole is being dug six feet under. There is already a dead body there. Tori lies down in the dirt, next to the body. She pierces the body with the shovel and digs out some of the internal organs, which spill all over the clothes of the carcass. Above her hole in the ground, a great, six-limbed starfish with blue and white stripes stares down at Tori as she eats the body.

“You got infected, haven’t you?” the creature asks, solemnly.

- END -

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No characters, places, or events in this story are meant to represent real people, places, or events, or another person’s characters, places, events. Any similarities are purely coincidental. Black Depth, Tori, and Quinfudd copyright of Jonathan Danielsen, a.k.a. Sushi-Volcano/Ice-SV3.