Introduction

It was a pitch-black gloomy night: the night just before Friday, October the 13th. There was a myth that Friday, October the 13th only occurred once every 402 years, and on that day, unusual events were inevitably going to take place. To some, this was only a fable, but over by the Heridan Graveyard, the atmosphere was beginning to stir. The wind was blowing in both directions, but everything in between seemed mysteriously still.

 All of a sudden, a green eerie rose from one of the graves. A thin layer of fog crept across the entire graveyard, as the whispering began. The soft, near silent whispers turned into chants just as the fog got thicker. The entire ground became shrouded in such profuse fog that you would not be able to look down and see your own two feet. You wouldn’t need any sight, however, to know that something was about to go dreadfully wrong.

 Suddenly one of the graves—the one right in the middle of the graveyard—began quavering. There was a groaning sound, and all the fog slowly navigated to that one grave. The groaning became louder, and the shaking became rougher as the gravestone was upturned just as the grave was completely covered by fog. When the fog cleared away, IT was standing perfectly still in the silence of the moonlight. IT was an undead creature, and by the looks and smells of IT, IT had been undead for quite some time. IT’s name fit perfectly, for it was Zwart Versterf, meaning Black Death in Dutch.

The Black Death stood up straight, with impeccable posture, as he reawakened himself from his slumber.

            The graveyard was in a large, circular field that held over 500 graves. Unlike most graveyards, there was no church anywhere nearby. In fact, the nearest church was about five miles away. The people there were had died unknown or shameful deaths. They were the kind of deaths that no one talks about—only the family knows what really happened. Some of the graves dated as far back as 1206, and some weren’t even dated at all. It’s needless to say that the graveyard had very few visitors. With no one to clean it up, the ground was littered with dead leaves and garbage that had been blown by the wind. The graves were situated in concentric circles starting around the perimeter of the circular field. The outer-most circle was located just inside the graveyard fence, with smaller circles of graves until there was just one grave at the center.

            From the center of the graveyard, Black Death recollected his thoughts, and started to slowly and confidently stride to the graves. He started with the inner-most circle, and moved out from there. He stood on a grave, waited for fifteen seconds, whispered an incoherent phrase, and moved on. Despite the fact that Black Death was an undead creature, he looked like a pretty normal human being from far away. His black suit was not the slightest bit torn, nor did it look worn out; his face had some scars on it, but they weren’t severe; he was a bit pale, but so was everybody else in the town, so no one would have noticed or said anything.

            It was only when you got closer that you noticed something strange. His eyes were not the normal color that a person’s eyes should be. They were BLACK; fully, completely black. Though, sometimes, if you could get very close, you would see that there was also a hint of red in his eyes. It was a little, tiny dot that glowed a rich, deep blood red. Every time he whispered on a grave, the dot got bigger. His eyes turned a frighteningly stunning mixture of the deep black, and blood red; each color swirling around the other.

            When Black Death stepped off each grave, the fog had clouded them, just as they had before. And every time the fog on the grave had cleared away, yet another foul-smelling, undead creature presented itself.

            When Black Death had finished summoning the rest of the undead, he raised his hands for attention.

“Tonight is the night we must fully power up and prepare for our revenge!” The Black Death croaked. “Tomorrow night is the night where our revenge on the humans makes them suffer the most! That night will be a memory the human world will never be able to erase! We get revenge on the humans for what they did to us, and we will make them feel our wrath!”

With that, they all vanished, leaving a seemingly still night to pass.

Prologue

Henry McAdams lived 810 years ago. He lived in a small town called Heridan, located in Western Europe. When Henry was a little boy, he had a best friend named Ziahara Cerberus. He and Ziahara did almost everything together. They were inseparable; they acted like brothers. The only real difference between the boys, in fact, was their families. While Henry’s family was just like any normal family was in the 1200s, everyone thought that Ziahara’s family was a bit odd.

The Cerberus family lived in a house that was about a mile from the town, and they were very quiet all the time. Whenever the community got together to plan something, Ziahara’s family never showed. No one ever went to Ziahara’s house, because there were rumors of lethal poisons, and fatal rituals there.

When they were little kids, Henry didn’t know or care about the difference between their lifestyles, but as he got older, he became more curious as to what made the Cerberuses seem so foreign.

Ziahara had become quieter as well, and started to keep more to himself. Henry often caught him muttering strange things to himself, or staring off into space. Whenever Henry asked what was wrong, Ziahara insisted that Henry was delusional, and then walked away. But while Henry was only curious, his parents were scared. They thought that Ziahara was just as bad an influence on Henry and the town as his parents.

One day, when Henry and Ziahara were talking, two men grabbed him and carried him away. Henry followed the two men who snatched Ziahara. He watched in terror as the burly men shoved him down on the ground next to his parents. All three of had their hands tied and their mouths gagged shut.

         “I hereby sentence each of you to be death by hanging for possessing devil-worshiping materials, as well as practicing witch craft!” the town leaders boomed.

          Everyone cheered. Ziahara and his parents were given exactly five minutes to say their good-byes to each other before the nooses were thrown around their heads. Ziahara’s parents seemed resigned to their fate, but Ziahara was infuriated. He turned to Henry with the outer ring of his eyes completely gone red. It made him look more insane.

         “You!!” he started off saying. “You and your family are the reason why I am going to die very soon! I will pay you back for this when you least expect it too! I will—”

         Ziahara wasn’t able to finish his sentence before the men grabbed him again and tied him and his parents to the oak tree with only a stool to keep them standing. One, Two, Three. Then Henry heard stools being kicked out, and the agonizing, thudding sound of bodies falling and necks snapping. He The crowd cheered as the nooses tightened and bones cracked. What terrified Henry most though, was Ziahara, and what he had said. It was the look and color of Ziahara’s eyes that made Henry want to run. But he couldn’t. He just stood there and watched Ziahara. And just as Ziahara was starting to cease all movements, Henry heard a voice in his head that he was confident wasn’t his own thoughts.

         “I am dead now, but I am not gone,” the voice whispered in a calm, raspy voice. “I will be back, and this entire town will pay for what they’ve done to me. But I have a special plan for you and your family…Oh yes, something very special indeed. You will just have to wait and see what I am going to do.”

            Henry could not remember what exactly had happened next. All he could remember later was opening his eyes and finding himself in an unrecognizable place. He looked around, feeling more confounded then he could ever remember feeling. Ziahara’s clothes, Ziahara’s toys, Ziahara’s shoes...Then Henry realized he was in Ziahara’s room. This meant he was in Ziahara’s house. He was too astonished to be curious how he got there..

Henry lingered in Ziahara’s  room for a little while until he had gathered enough courage to walk outside. When he did though, Henry noticed that in the Cerberus house, there was one long hallway, and at the end of that hallway, there were five more. The hallways looked like forks in a road. Henry decided that he would start from the right and move to the left. The first hallway led to a big room with adult clothes, and a large bed in it. Henry decided that that room had belonged to Ziahara’s parents. Henry had just been in the second hallway, which was where Ziahara’s room was located. The next hallway led to the kitchen, and the hallway after that was the dining room. The last hallway had an empty room at the end of it, and Henry guessed that it was a guest room. Henry was confused and slightly disappointed. The house was just as normal as any other house! Just as he was about to leave though, something caught his eye. It looked like a crack in the floor. Henry reexamined the crack, and saw that the crack outlined a large square.

Henry also noticed that it wasn’t part of the regular floor; it must have been cut out from it. He ran into Ziahara’s parents’ room, where he saw a tool that would help get the floorboard up, and then ran back. It took Henry a bit of time because the floorboard was heavy, but he finally got it out. Even though it was dark in the hole that the missing floorboard made, Henry could still see a ladder there. That’s weird; I wonder where it goes… A rush of adrenaline rushed through Henry as he slowly began to climb down the ladder, with no idea of what would happen next.