“I’m sorry, Billy. Really, we all are. Let me try to explain again.” The professor thought back over the last three days. He wondered again what this meant for his grant proposal to continue such field excavations with high school students in the future.
The four members of his research team, and three high school interns, had found the overgrown driveway without too much difficulty. The man who had refilled the Synthol fuel tanks on their small fleet of SUVs, a quaint local custom, had first shaken his head and asked why anyone would be looking for Enoch the Destroyer. Fifty NWSA bucks bought the approximate mile marker.
The professor specialized in the cults that arose towards the end of that awful pandemic forty years ago. The artefacts one usually found in the isolated cabins and compounds were important cultural touchstones. The collection work for his next museum exhibit would likely be complete after this short trip.
The cabin was a two-story structure stylized like a medieval castle, seemingly built by hand into the low hillside, surrounded by dense forest. The front door was predictably unlocked. The professor surveyed the first and second floor himself, stun gun in hand. A doorway off the kitchen led to a small cellar workshop. In the center of the far wall in that dank place, an opening led deeper underground. This had been helpfully marked by a painted sign hanging at the entrance: Enoch’s Vault. Pay dirt.
It was the professor’s own university press that had caused this arms race in the first place. There would be fewer places to visit like this one without that revised English translation of the Book of the Dead. The truth was that these groups were often successful in their dubious aims as early as the ‘30s, and the black market for doomsday technology today was on fire. His post-doc swabbed the sign’s paint and ran a quick analysis by handheld sequencer. “Chicken blood, sir. And… macaque?”
The professor briefly wondered if he was in over his head on this one. Should he call Father O’Flanagan? No, it would be annoying to have to offer joint authorship before he knew what was here. “Okay, people! Flashlights! We are cataloging only. Don’t pick up anything!”
A small alcove had been dug out a short way down the deepening slope of the vault’s passageway. Wooden shelves full of trinkets and knick knacks were arranged like a walk-in pantry. “Sean, you start this list, and show young Billy here what we are looking for in the dark. The rest, follow me.”
The earthen hallway ended in a small room. A wooden table and single chair sat to the left, a single candle burning in a silver holder. The dirty pile of clothes on the bed in the far corner shifted. An old man sat up, shackled to his bed. “I was expecting someone eventually.” He coughed, rattling the chains on his left wrist. “I was once one of the truly great mystical artists, but my last few inventions, well, they have a tendency to backfire.” He rattled the chain again and laid back down. “Best I never leave this place again. Take what you wish, but I implore you. Read the manuals.”
The professor called out “Sean!” His student ran into the room from the hallway, took one look at the candle and scene on the bed, and dropped his pencil. “Sean, Omega Protocol. Go to my car and get O’Flanagan on the satellite phone immediately. And, where is the boy?”
A voice cried out from down the hallway. Billy rushed in, rubbing the back of his hand. “I was just dusting, and this dried cat’s paw reached over and scratched me!”
The professor rushed Billy down the hallway, intending to get him to safety, assuming that was still possible. Alas, the moment the boy tried to cross the vault’s threshold, his shirt and hair burst into brief flame. Billy staggered back and the rest of the team crept past and up the stairs with sad faces. The Professor, from the relative safety of the basement workshop, asked, “Dusting? How many of those devices did you pick up?”
Horns sprouted on BIlly’s forehead. “Um, all of them, sir? There were inscriptions, but they were dirty and I couldn’t read them. That one box in the center sure blew smoke everywhere when I opened it, too!”
Three days later, the professor locked eyes with his former student. Red eyes stared back from the shadows of the vault opening. “I’m not sure why I’m recounting all of this to you. You are the one living it. Anyway, since it’s impossible for you to leave safely, we voted and the concrete will begin flowing now.” The Professor shed a final tear and departed up the stairs.
Workers in the floor above started a noisy mechanical pump and the workshop slowly filled with concrete. The thing that had once been Billy Hastings retreated further into the vault and furiously cleaned his purple black tail with his tongue. He had been grateful for the meal they had left back here, but he was getting hungry again. He grinned in the falling light, and began digging.
Answering Reddit WritingPrompt [WP] Archaeologists discover cursed artifacts; along with proof that the curses are real. Unfortunately, nobody told the intern who promptly began triggering all of them haphazardly. I had recently read Chuck P. stories of strange old houses in the Oregon hills, and here we are.