In the Dark of the Night

Note= Spelling and Grammar errors in Amanda's entry are due to the emotional stress she is under and NOT the fault of the author. As for with Brother James, he's not used to writing in the modern style of English Since he's from the __CENSORED__ .
The following was blocked out due to the fact it was a spoiler to this chapter. All mistakes in the entries are intentional.


Chapter 11

Entry 40
Monday evening, 3 P.M.
By Amanda

We have rested for several hours now. We did not sleep well but it was still sleep that has been denied to us for the past fifteen hours since that explosion last night. Even before that, out sleep was troubled by these new and malevolent specters. That explosion ... now that I am down here in the crypts, the need to see my mothers, desecrated tomb had filled me. I will stop writing for now. I will continue this entry afterwards.

It took some time to convince the Keeper to show me the damage. After he ... it ... saw that I was serious; it led me to the southern end of crypt. There, I could see the large bas-relief doors my father had made for mother's tomb.


"Okay, is it just me or does this house sound fancy?" Yusuke asked with no sarcasm but with actual curiosity as he turned to Keiko. "It's call a manor earlier but the fancy doors, a family crypt on the lands, the tunnels, the description sounds like a mansion."

Keiko didn't have an answer. "I always get confused on the different titles for homes westerners have."

"A mansion is a very large or stately residence. In a dictionary there are three definitions for manor: 1)a feudal estate, 2)the main house on an estate. Number three is the most accurate since it specifies for England = the landed state of a lord." With that Kurama went on reading. Or tried to when Yusuke asked what 'landed' meant, if the Bogy House was near the sea. "In the English language landed means owning land."

The massive doors were blown off just as the Irate Monk ( I never have asked him what his name was!) told us. They were indeed lying as if they were blown off from the inside out. I walked into the crypt for the first time since I was Jun's age. It has been that long since my mother died.

I looked for some of the tapestries that my father hung in there, ones that were the most loved out of my mother's collection. They once hanged on the walls of the massive tomb and were now missing. I was shocked when I finally found the burnt and tattered remains of the once magnificent works of art. They were only tapestries; there were no living creatures within the tomb. Why would these hateful specters have the need to destroy them? As I looked around, I saw that the lid to the marble sarcophagus is laying several feet away. No mortal could have moved it by himself. The coffin inside was damaged as well. The lid was in pieces and there were burn marks that looked as if they began from the inside. I noticed a pattern, which I pointed out to the keeper. It seems that the explosion originated within my mother's coffin, which blew the sarcophagus lid into the doors of the crypt. The Crypt Keeper agreed but we were at loss as to why the culprit would want to take my mother's corpse.

As we started down the tunnel that would take us to the outer lawns, Misao stayed at my side, clinging to my dress in her small hands. Although she could walk again since the cast was off, she was too scared to run about. Unlike the smooth walls of the water passageway, this tunnel's beginning was carved out of rock. All around us was the rough, dark gray of stone. Every time the rocks would groan as the earth settled, we would jump in fright, thinking that it was a new attack. After an hour's walk and no encounter, we were forced to rest as we came to a blockade. It looked as if it was a cave-in. The flashlights that some of the semi-corporal ghosts brought us showed that at this point parts of the tunnel was formed not out of stone but smaller rocks and dirt, held in place by a massive system of tree roots. Actually, the girls rested as the adults dug through the dirt and rock pile. I was helping as well until Akira heard me panting, my breath labored with the extrusion and fear. He made me sit down and write. I plan on helping as soon as-----------------------------------------------


"Why did you stop, Kurama?" Yusuke wasn't the only one that nearly fell on his face as Kurama's smooth voice suddenly stopped.

"The entry stopped at that point, Yusuke. Mrs. Kuwabara's writings ended that suddenly." Kurama answered as he flipped a few pages quickly. "There's more on the next page but it appears to be a different entry, several hours later on in the day, and not a continuation of the last sentence." With a pause, Kurama swept a look across the room before speaking more. "I've glanced at the next couple of pages and I do not see her handwriting after the next page."

"Shit."


Monday 7:28 PM

When will this horror end?

How many more of us will die? Gods protect us, I already know that answer. Shino, MacGavin and now Akira are dead.

I previously left off as we were digging through the blocked tunnel. That reason - I meant ther - the reason stopped do - soabruptly was that we were attacked. Oh Gods please have mearcy!

They

Gods I don't want to relive it!

The Irate Monk is correct. The events inthis house need to be written down, recorded.

But I don't

I don't want to write about that!

Someone else write please let someone else wirte now!

Dear Gods, it just like Jun's dreams

"Aw man --- she's next." Yusuke whispered, causing his fiancee to stare at his pale face.

"Yusuke, we don't know that." Keiko weekly protested.

Yusuke balked at that, shaking his head. "Bull, you're the one that pointed out that the only family alive that's listed in that damn book is Kuwa ... Kazuma, Shizuru and their pop who's in a coma. Everyone else must be dead, you said so yourself. Remember that dream the oldest sister had? Their ma just gave the order of who died first ..."

"In the dream the girl looked into the coffins." Hiei spoke up from the wall where he lounged against. "The first coffin had Shino, second was MacGavin and third was the grandfather, Akira. After that is the mother then the eldest child, Jun."

"Even though we know that the family is going to die or go missing ... reading about it is so different. Before they were just names. But from reading this journal ... it's as if we knew them. " Botan shook her head. As a death deity, Botan worked with the souls of the recently departed before her appointment as assistant to Yusuke during his tenure as a spirit detective. However, there are special ranks of spirit guides that are trained to recover the souls of people who have a highly traumatic death. Botan was a rank 3 guide, the highest traumatic death she dealt with were medium empathic range. As such she never had to face events as what written in the journal. Shino's death most likely falls into rank 4. MacGavin, Akira and any others inside the house are rank 5, the highest and most dangerous. Deaths that were drawn out, giving the dying time build up emotional distress.

Kurama frowned as he looked over the page. "Interesting, the handwriting abruptly changes. It is as if someone else was writing."

"So?" Yusuke didn't see why that was relevant. He pointed out that other people have written in the journal before.

"True, but they always started a new entry, not start in the middle of someone else's entry." Koenma countered.

"How about everyone shut up so I can take over reading?" Genkai finally snapped as she grabbed the book. Several people shared a guilty look. Although Genkai knew that her son and his family were haunted, that her daughter-in-law and some grandchildren were murdered by the supernatural; for years Genkai did not know the details of what they went through. However, in this first volume of three journals, they are discovering the gory and horrifying facts.

To whomever reads 'tis passage, I beg ye to forgive the scrawls above. 'Tis has been several centuries since I last possessed a physical form and took pen to paper.

Those two single sentences shocked everyone into silence. Not one person dared to speak for everyone wanted to hear what happened. Was it Amanda that was possessed? If so, by whom? Or what?

I ask thee to forgive my unannounced entry. I am Brother James, a Franciscan monk from a monastery that once stood on these grounds in the seventh century.

I have possessed the Lady Kuwabara for she is too distraught to finish chronicling the most recent tragedy. 'Twas previously noted that we agreed upon to record the events of this cursed abode. 'Tis our intent to make several replicas once this book is completed, then to take said duplications and hide them at the entrances to the home and land. The purpose to these plans are two-fold.

Firstly, to gain the attention of said persons. Secondly, the books shall bespelled so that when a person touches them, we goodly ghosts shall be forewarned. It is our hope that if a person's attention is drawn to the book, they shall read the horror of what transpired within these lands. That is why it is of dire importance to inscribe these dark moments.

The gentlemen had demanded Lady Kuwabara to scribe as they continued to remove the barrier in that tunnel. The men had made a small opening at the top of and were working on enlarging it when a noise was heard further down the tunnel from whence they came.

The foreign monk, Kohaku, refused to wait and Sir Kuwabara agreed, he insisted that Kohaku use the opening first since the powers granted to him by foreign gods could secure their safety n the other side. As the monk used those strange paper strips to ward off evil, Sir Kuwabara aided his granddaughters up the mound and to the little aperture. After reaching the other side, they slid down to the waiting monk. Sir Kuwabara was helping his daughter-in-law, the Lady Kuwabara, up the mound as the sounds neared. It soon became apparent that the opening the men had dug 'twas not large enough for the good lady. With her belly swollen with child, she could not pass through.

The men had the good lady back out as they renewed their efforts of digging. When her sobs turned to screams, her father-in-law paused so he could look back. What he saw were four of the undead. Though they looked like animated corpses, they were far worse. They had a sickly pallor, elongated and sharpened teeth, hideously long tongues, their fingernails were lengthened and sharp as claws. As they came nearer, their true nature became apparent.

They were ghouls.

These undead foes dined on carrion, to be more exact, the flesh of dead men and women. If there were no corpses, then the fiends would use their surprising cunning to hunt a victim. There is one fate worse that falling victim to a ghoul and their subsequent dining on the flesh, and that is for the victim of a ghoul to rise up after death as another ghoul. If the ghouls devour the entirety of the body or a hero destroying the corpse would prevent such a fate. If the corpse is not destroyed, then the unfortunate victim will become a ghoul the following night.

As the ghouls neared I was filled with regret that I am intangible and therefore unable to aid in digging a larger opening for the lady and her unborn son. Sir Kuwabara grabbed a broken length of a sturdy root and wrapped his jacket about it before setting it ablaze by means of the lantern. Standing before his daughter-in-law, he brandished the torch, holding the ghouls at bay. The monk's bellows caught my attention, causing me to look at the small passage that was dug to see the young Lady Jun had crawled back to our side. As I swooped down to her with eh intent to demand of the child to return to safety, she had grabbed a stick and wrapped the shirt off her back around it. As Sir Kuwabara scolded his brave granddaughter, she used his own torch to light her own. As she told him to unsheathe the sword he took from the private study and set it's blade aflame. I could hear the cries of the her sisters, Ladies Shizuru and Misao as they joined in the digging, 'twas at this point that I left.

I did not flee, I am no craven.

I knew that I must fetch some of the semi-corporal ghosts to aid the Lady Kuwabara. She mayhap be wedded, to a foreign pagan no less, however she is still the daughter to the Lord of the Manor, Sir Adam Holmes. We spirits had watched over her since she was a babe, as we did with her father before her and his father's father. As a ghost, walls and dirt did not impede me. The only resistance came from the sinister spirits that arrived in the past months.

I soon returned with assistance. The sight that greeted these eyes --- more ghouls had came in my absence. Sir Kuwabara and his granddaughter were brandishing their torches as Lady Kuwabara dug through the pile of dirt and rock. Her panic showed clearly in her eyes as the digging continues on the other side in great haste. Majority of the semi-corporals wasted no time and began to dig, whilst three joined the fray of holding off the fiends. The blazing sword that Sir Kuwabara used was effective that once it sliced through the fiends, the flames destroyed the flesh very quickly, even faster than the torches did. Perhaps there is some unknown quality of this blade?

In short time, the opening was large enough for the Lady Kuwabara ... as long as she laid down and crawled on her back. It was not yet large enough to crawl on hands and knees. But before she would use the escape, she ordered her daughter to go through. I heard Lady Jun argue with her mothers, she insisted that her mother should go first, since the child carried the torch that was aiding in keeping the ghouls at bay.

The child's argument ended when one of the semi-corporal ghosts stole the torch from her as another shoved, nay, dragged her through the opening and to safety. As soon as her daughter was on the other side, Lady Kuwabara began to enter the hole. She laid down feeling the cold damp earth and the hard rocks on her back as she began to inch upwards. The tunnel was long, about nine feet from one side to the other. I followed her as she slowly made progress.

Within this tunnel, there no light. As her belly grazed the top of the tunnel, it blocked off any light from the torches that were being used against the ghouls. However, her daughters had some flashlights that some semi-corporals brought them. Why could we not see the beams from them? I went ahead to find out why and found that the tunnel was not as straight as I thought. It was at the point of four feet there was a giant boulder that forced the others to dig round it. It was due to the curving of tunnel that no light could reach beyond. I went to guide Lady Kuwabara around this obstacle. It was difficult for the lady. She would have first had to move her arms from her side to above her head, then twist to her side so she could navigate the curving tunnel.

She was halfway through turning to her side when we heard Sir Kuwabara's cry of "Hurry, Amanda! I can't hold them off much longer!" For a few seconds, we heard nothing else. I hurried to his side. When I gazed down at the unfolding scene, I offered up a prayer for this foreigner. For now there were twelve ghouls down in the tunnel. The semi-corporal ghosts that could stand the rising evil energies and joined the fray could not hold back this many. In the most dire turn of events, a ghoul had managed to move between Sir Kuwabara and the tunnel and began to enter the space where Lady Kuwabara still crawled within. If Sir Kuwabara moved to intercede this fiend and protect his son's wife, then he would leave himself open for attack from the remaining eleven. Knowing this, he still choose that course of action. Rushing forward, he bellowed for the semi-corporals to abandon him and pull her to safety.

I watched as a torch fell as that spirit answered the orders. I could hear her panicked screams as the ghoul grabbed her ankle. Sir Kuwabara set the fiend ablaze with the sword as the spirits broke it's grasp and aided the lady around the boulder. She coughed as the thick smoke filled the tunnel and the semi-corporals took hold of her arms and dragged her quickly out.

However, it was too late for the brave soul to crawl through. With the sword buried into the grown where he stabbed the fiend that tried to enter the tunnel, he took the torch to one ghoul, another attacked him, sinking it's teeth into his shoulder. As it dragged him away from the fire the was being fed by the previous ghoul's form, several others jumped into the fray. "Is she safe? Then forget about me you ghosts and collapse the tunnel!" was the last words that were heard from Sir Kuwabara. Soon I could see naught but a writhing mass of ghouls. So foul was the power of the ghouls that not one of the semi-corporal ghosts could come near enough to offer assistance to that doomed soul. Soon the unholy fiends stood and walked away, dragging the body Sir Kuwabara with them.

I looked back at the tunnel to see that the others indeed had closed that path off. As I passed through the ground, I thanked God that the good lady did not have to witness the final moments of her father-in-law, nor the children's their grandfather's.

I do fear the this will be her last entry to pen. I have asked the monk Kohaku to inscribe future events. Lady Kuwabara was too shaken to write these events. If Lady Jun's prophetic dream continues to be proven true, then the good lady is next to die.

~~TBC~

Okay, I know there are some people out there will be confused on the ghostly monk's speech and how he addresses a person. No I will NOT be changing it to modern English, do NOT ask. Therefor, modern grammar does not apply to his speech, so don't tell me I made grammar errors unless you are familiar with Old English and know when to use the 'tis,'twas, nay, aye, and soforth. Brother James is from 7th century Old England, so yes his speech is different.

Since early century people put major emphasis on a person's status, their class and rank, it reflects on how the address each other.

Adam Holmes is owner to of the lands, so he is called a lord = Lord Holmes

Akira Kuwabara has a good reputation but he does not own land in England, so he simply called Sir Kuwabara.

As for the children, since the are youths and not married (maidens), they are addressed by their first name = Lady Jun.

Amanda = Why does Brother James call her Lady Kuwabara instead of Lady Amanda?Simple, he called her Lady Amanda when she was a child and later when she was unmarried. In Brother James' view, it is disrespectful for a man to call a married woman her name, unless he was the husband or her family. By calling her Lady Kuwabara he is acknowledging that she is a married woman.


I came up for the idea of the Reikai death ranks and ghostly categories when I was trying to reason why Botan would not be familiar with the horror of the books. I created the idea that the guides work within ranks, the guides are trained to deal with the potential of the ghosts becoming vicious. That is why Botan appeared so suddenly to Yusuke, why a guide pops up at moments of death, they want to reassure the newly dead and calm them. The more agitated they are, the more of a risk they will not move on but stay and become hateful ghosts.

Even the novice Spirit Guide can deal with Rank 1, the quiet deaths. The elderly and sickly that have accepted that they are dying fall into this rank, they move on to the afterlife willingly, and do not stay behind as ghosts.

Rank 2 is when the dying do not fully accept death, they may have tasks not finished or are still attached to a loved one. Also those who die while unconscious fall into this rank. They often make the harmless 'ghosts' that can only be felt or a ghost that repeat the same action over and over throughout time. These are not true ghosts but a portion of the essence, a piece of a soul that acts as a motion picture. Category 1, the weakest of ghosts are created by a rank 2 death.

Rank 3 involve the sudden deaths, where the dead didn't have time to register that they died. Most car accidents where they die at impact and quick murders fall into rank 3. Deaths in this rank can produce categories 1 to 3 ghosts. These ghosts are able to possess people for only a few hours and they are completely intangible, unable to influence the physical world without possession of a living being. However, if they were in a strong emotional state at death, then they may become category 3 ghosts. An example would be a husband and wife arguing, only for one to shoot the other unexpectedly. Among the powers of a category 3 ghost is the ability to move solid objects. Many of the mild cases of poltergeists and other noisy hauntings are in this category. They may move dishes or push someone around.

Rank 4 deals with violent deaths that were drawn out long enough for the victim to know they are dying and create a large emotional store of energy. A speeding car out of control, a train wreck where they don't die on impact but later due to injuries. Kidnappers that wait some time before shooting. These types of deaths can create category 1 - 4 ghosts. The violent ghosts, those that injure the living, are category 4. They are the most widely known of the powerful ghosts.

In rank 5 are the deaths are prolonged and bloody and are caused by another person. These are the victims of terrorists and other murderers that take their time killing or warriors that died in battle. Rank 5 deaths are always when the dying person has time to dwell on the fact that they are going to be killed by another person. While all categories, 1 through 5, can be created; category 5 , the strongest of ghosts are also the rarest. Centuries may pass before another category 5 ghost is created. The gods are thankful of that.