EMBRACE

I’m a wreck. My life feels like it’s falling apart. Two weeks now my wife has been staying out late coming home exhausted at random hours of the night with all sorts of new excuses for where she’s been. Dinner with friends, late nights at the gym, night-time networking events?

Does she really think I’m this stupid?

No, I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to see for myself where she was going. I had to know where my wife was really spending her nights.

I tell myself it’s not stalking. I’m just following her from a safe distance in my car so I can catch her in the act. I am not the bad guy here. She’s the one who decided to cheat.

I won’t let them have their fun and force me to pay alimony. I need concrete evidence of her betrayal. I find exhibit A when her car drives past the gym she goes to and it all becomes real.

My heart shatters. How could my love do this to me? Even knowing full well that I’m going to hate what I find, I step on the gas and follow my wife.

Whatever I was expecting, it wasn’t a graveyard.

Panic jolts through me when she pulls over. I worry she recognizes my car. Instead when I anxiously roll past I see that she’s exited her car and is walking towards the entrance to the local cemetery. I pull over the first chance I get.

From inside my car, I see my wife in the glow of the street lamp standing at the imposing black iron of the cemetery gate. She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a large key. Upon turning the lock, the iron gates creek open loudly granting entrance to my wife who ambles inside.

I get out and run towards the gate, I don’t care if she hears me. Reaching the entrance, I thank God when I see that it’s is still unlocked. Carefully stepping inside I walk into the empty cemetery and the eerie silence of the dead.

A crescent moon hangs in the sky, wind blows through the empty branches of gnarled old trees. Somewhere an owl hoots. I don’t like where any of this is going.

I pull out my phone and switch it to flashlight mode. Around me a dozen splitting paths lead all cross the graveyard. Frantically searching for her, I freeze when I spot the silhouette of her advancing down the cemetery lawn.

I nearly call out to her but something in my brain stops me. Why is she here? Who is she sleeping with the damn grave digger?! As morbid as it sounds, I actually still wanted to see where she was going and who she was meeting with.

I turn off my phone and slowly creep past the tombstones, ducking among them as I followed my wife walking further into the field of graves. Eventually she stops and I hide behind one of the larger tombstones.

My jaw drops when I see the crypt.

An ancient brick dome is held in place by twin marble pillars wrapped in ivy. In the center is a granite slab apparently the door. The location of the large mausoleum, isolated from the other graves made it seem all the more unnatural.

Peering behind a grave marker, I watch my wife standing in front of the crypt. A scream bubbles in my throat when I see my wife remove her clothing. Her white dress falls to the dirt, revealing nothing underneath except her pale, naked body.

This had to be a bad dream. My wife standing naked in front of some creepy old mausoleum basking in the moonlight. Her back was to me, I couldn’t see her expression.

Morbid fascination or not this was too much. I stand up from the behind the grave and call out my wife’s name. My voice is drowned out by a sudden loud grinding sound. To my growing terror, the large stone slab at the front of the crypt began sliding to the side.

The door to the crypt was open. Ice fills my veins as a terrible luminous glow and curling wisps of smoke spill out from inside the tomb. I swear that I can hear multiple, inaudible voices chittering away from the source of the glow.

Exposed, my wife begins walking towards the mouth of the crypt.

I run towards my wife, calling my beloved’s name over and over again. The faster I run, the further she and the awful glow seem to pull away. I can see my wife entering the crypt, disappearing into the smoke.

My chase freezes to a halt when I reach the mouth of the tomb and I see what’s happening inside. I wish to God that I hadn’t.

My feeble human mind rejects the unknowable evil I see. My body instinctively tries to run but whatever is inside the god-forsaken crypt won’t let me. An invisible force trips me and I fall. It drags me by the ankles towards the glow, my fingers leaving trails in the dirt as I scream for it to let me go. In an instant, my body is pulled past the slab, towards the horrors lurking within.

Terrified and desperate to escape, I suddenly hear my wife calling my name. Through the glow and the smoke I see her, smiling with her arms spread in anticipation of me. Oh my love, I’m so sorry I was mad. I stop struggling against the force, rush over and hug my wife. For a brief moment I’m stupid enough to think everything will be okay. As the chittering voices grow louder and the glowing engulfs us, I lean in and kiss her.

Just in time for the slab behind us to grind shut, sealing us in.

THE END.