In Dreams: The Nightmare King

The Cave

As we walked towards the seating, I remembered the other reason I hated funerals that took place here.

-The Cave-

It sat at the bottom of the cemetery, opposite the road. It was mostly overgrown, with trailing, flowery vines; some landscaper's poor idea of "prettying up" the gaping black maw. All it really did was make the place feel more ominous, like there were hidden eyes watching. Brie tugged on my arm to get my attention, gesturing with her chin at the only available seating, facing the cave. Of course, I thought dryly.

The stupid folding chairs had their back legs squarely situated on some obviously occupied plots. I grimaced. Brie and I squeezed our way into the row and sat down. The back legs of the chairs immediately began to sink into the graves behind us. Just great. Now I knew why these chairs were vacant.

We had to turn sideways a bit in order to view the proceedings, but every tiny shift in weight caused the chairs to lurch further into the ground. I was grimly reminded of the employee earlier warning the director of this very issue.

Glancing at Brie, I reminded myself grumpily that I was only here because of her.

"It's going to be sooooo boring!" She had pleaded. "All those stuffy relatives of mine! You're the only one that can keep me sane while this thing drags on! Pleeeaaase!!! I can't refuse to go, he's my uncle's cousin's something or other, I don't know, but you know how those people are, crazy about their bloodline and what a grave insult it would be if I didn't show." She whined, stretching the grave in a dramatic manner.

"I might as well be in a cult the way they act..." Brie tapped her chin thoughtfully, then went back to begging "Please, PLEASE. I know you hate funerals, but for me? Pleeeeeaaaase?" I have no will-power, so I reluctantly agreed, and here I am now with my ass sinking into someone's resting place. My chair lurched downward again as I scooted a little forward to try to balance on it's crazy tilt. I really wished I had brought those sedatives.

To distract myself, I started looking around the proceedings, as the first speaker took his place at the head of the empty grave. He was welcoming all the guests and giving a brief intro to the other speakers, with a long-winded family history with each one. Brie looked at me as my gaze passed in her direction, she rolled her eyes towards the speaker, and then placed her right hand on her left thigh and spelled 'booooring' in ASL alphabet. This was our "secret language" in situations like this where we didn't want to draw too much attention to ourselves. Brie jutted her chin at another row. 'the hat' she spelled out. I peeked at the hat in question. It was indeed an outrageous hat for a funeral, with little colorful birds on springs bobbing around a see-through mesh like material. A sudden gust of wind ripped the hat from the woman's head, it blew over the crowd, smacking a few other guests on its way. Brie and I suppressed a giggle. She leaned towards me

"That's what hat pins are for!" She quickly whisper-laughed in my ear. As she straightened back up, her chair sank another inch and her surprised expression caught me off guard. I coughed to cover the laughter that was bubbling up. Brie's shoulders started to shake with silent mirth. I had to look away from her to stop myself from losing is completely again. My eyes fell on the cave mouth down below and my giggles died as I noticed we were being observed.

The eyes from the cave glared at me, and then the wind blew the vines and the pair of eyes were gone. My heart rate had climbed. Uneasily, I turned to Brie, she was studiously ignoring me while biting her lip. I quickly scanned the other guests. No one else was looking at the cave. Hoping I imagined it, I focused my attention on a grounding exercise, breathing slowly. My heart was taking its sweet time slowing down.

I watched as a preacher took his place at the graveside. The wind kicked back up and snatched his words away before they ever reached us. I strained to hear, hoping to distract myself, but found my eyes wandering instead. The temptation to look at the cave mouth was nearly irresistible, and my anxiety was ramping up as I once again looked towards the cave, my heart racing. Nothing, good. I sighed and tried to relax, letting my eyes wander over the guests. Unfortunately, the first thing I noticed was a man sitting stiffly in our row facing the cave nearer the grave site. His bearing was stiff, unnatural, and a look of horror was on his face as he looked down the hill. My attention snapped back to the cave, all the alarm bells in my head going off.