Note: I do not own Teen Titans nor Evil Dead. All characters and events regarding either Teen Titans or Evil Dead belong to Warner Bros. Pictures (Teen Titans) and Renaissance Pictures (Evil Dead).

Chapter 2.

The Book

Night had fallen quite early. Robin, Raven, and Beast Boy were still settling in, Cyborg was preparing the dinner (knowing that if Beast Boy had done it, it would be a vegan meal), and Starfire was drawing a picture of the clock in the living room. She was doing a very good job too, because the clock in her drawing looked almost exactly like the one she was scaling. She was in the middle of shading the picture when the clock's bell began to strike the hour, but when she looked up at it, she noticed it was only 10:30 and that the clock's pendulum had stuck on the right hand side.

"That isn't right," she thought to herself as she stared at the clock.

There was suddenly a gust of wind from the open window. Starfire turned toward it and lifted one of the curtains. She saw the swing moving by itself again, and she could swear she heard a deep voice say, "Join us." It was then that her hand had tightly gripped the pencil she was holding and when the wind blew the page with picture of the clock, her hand started scrawling a picture by itself. She tried to hold it back, but it was too strong for her. After her hand had finished the scrawl, Starfire could move it of her own free will once more. She looked down at what her hand had drawn and felt a chill down her spine; the scrawl was what looked like a book, but it had a human face for a cover. While she was looking at it, the cellar door in front of her moved, like something was knocking on it, trying to get out. She stared in horror at it as it slowly stopped moving. To get the thought out of her mind, she left the room and tore the page with the scrawl out of her sketchbook, and it worked.

A few minutes later, they all sat down to have dinner; Cyborg had prepared strawberry banana milkshakes with hot-dogs and potato chips for them all. Beast Boy stood up and said, "I would very much like to make a toast here." He held his glass up and went on, "As a great friend of mine once said... he said, 'I...'. No, wait he said, nis... to tarin."

"Which means?" said Robin, completely confused.

"Which means 'Party down'!" finished Cyborg.

Raven only smiled while everyone else laughed. Right when they were about to drink their milkshakes, they heard a bang in the living room. They turned toward the doorway and saw that the cellar door had opened by itself. Everyone walked into the living room to investigate. Starfire and Robin thought it would be best to close it up, but Beast Boy wanted to check it out. He went down the old stairs and disappeared from view. "He's crazy," said Cyborg, "Going down there without a flashlight. I'm going down there with him."

"Be careful Cyborg," said Robin.

When Cyborg lowered himself into the basement, he started looking for Beast Boy. The pipes in the basement looked like they hadn't been changed in over 25 years, because they were old, rusted, and leaking water everywhere. Across from the entrance was an old wooden door, which he pushed open and walked through. He couldn't believe what he was seeing; there were animal parts hanging from the ceiling and poacher's tools scattered around the area. "Oh, my God!" exclaimed Cyborg, "Who were these people?"

He continued into the next room of the basement. Cyborg was just about to call Beast Boy's name when Beast Boy himself jumped out of nowhere and freaked Cyborg out. They both had a good laugh though. "Hey come over here. I want to show you something," said Beast Boy as he led Cyborg to a table that was in the corner of the basement room. On the table was a shotgun, the shells of ammo, a tape recorder, and something covered in an old newspaper from 7 years ago. Beast Boy picked up the shotgun, checked if it was empty, and slowly turned it toward Cyborg's face as he said, "I bet this thing still shoots."

"Yeah, I bet it does," said Cyborg, who didn't even notice the gun being pointed at him until he looked up, "Whoa! Put that down!"

Beast Boy laughed and put the shotgun down. Cyborg then lifted the newspaper and picked up what was under it. It appeared to be some kind of book, but it looked atrocious, like it had been made out of someone's face. "Oh, God," he said, "Look at this." He opened the book and examined it. The pictures inside were also grotesque, and he tried to read the writing, but it was written in a dialect that even he couldn't read with his computer brain.

"Look at this," said Beast Boy as he picked up the second thing that was under the newspaper. It looked like some kind of dagger, but the hilt was made of bone and looked like a human skeleton. "This kinda looks like your old girlfriend," said Beast Boy. They both laughed at that. "Let's take this stuff upstairs," he said, "I'll grab the recorder, and you can take the rest."

"OK," said Cyborg as he turned to another page in the book, but he wished he didn't, because he almost puked when he saw the picture; it was of what looked like the cover of the book with the face coming to life. Cyborg couldn't take it anymore, so he just closed the book and took it with him, knowing that Raven would probably like to check it out.

A little while later, Beast Boy was telling the others events that had happened before he got his powers while Cyborg hooked up the tape recorder. "This guy was a real turd," said Beast Boy, "Everyone hated him."

"Like you, kind of," said Robin.

"Yeah, just like me. I'm gonna break your face," laughed Beast Boy, "And also he's into this Western stuff. He makes all these little models -"

"Alright quiet," Cyborg interrupted, "Listen to this. This is the tape we found downstairs." Cyborg flipped the switch to "play" and the tape started.

A man's voice sounded on the tape. It said, "It has been a number of years since I began excavating the ruins of Kandar with a group of my colleagues. Now my wife and I have retreated to a small cabin in the solitude of these mountains. Here I continued my research undisturbed by the myriad distractions of modern civilization and far from the groves of academe. I believe I have made a significant find in the Kandarian ruins: a volume of ancient Sumerian burial practices and funerary incantations. It is entitled 'Naturom Demonto', roughly translated 'Book of the Dead'. The book is bound in human flesh and inked in human blood. It deals with demons, demon resurrection, and those forces which roam the forests and dark powers of man's domain. The first few pages warn that these enduring creatures may lie dormant, but are never truly dead. They may be recalled to active life through the incantations presented in this book. It is through recitation of these passages that the demons are given license to... possess the living." The tape ended there.

"What does that mean?" asked Starfire looking worried.

"It means that if the incantations are read out loud, the demons that have been recalled to active life are able to take control over the bodies of the living," said Raven.

Cyborg pulled the book he found in the basement out from behind him and handed it to Raven as he said, "Do you think this is that book he mentioned in the recording?"

Raven took the book curiously and examined it. She gasped in horror when she saw that the cover was a human face. When she opened it, she examined the pictures and the writing. "It is the Naturom Demonto," she said, "The binding is human flesh and I can tell by the deep shade of red in the ink that it was inked in human blood."

"Can you read it?" asked Robin.

"Maybe I can," said Raven as she read the first few pages, "It's a very hard dialect to read, but I can make out some of it. The writing is Sumerian cuneiform, but it's not human handwriting."

"What does it say?" asked Beast Boy.

Raven read some of it and said, "It's the same as what the man on the tape explained. It deals with demonic power and the resurrection of these demons."

"With the warning and everything?" asked Cyborg.

"Yes," said Raven, "But this part here, I don't understand. It's just an assortment of words in an even more difficult to read dialect of Ancient Sumerian."

"Can you try to pronounce it?" asked Robin.

"I can try," said Raven as she started reading slowly, "Tatra amistrobin hazarta." As Raven read the first line, thunder clapped and the ground outside began to rumble and smoke. She continued reading, "Tatir mano, manziz onhaz ansobar." The storm raged around them and ground outside began to open and reveal a hole which was glowing red. "Saman darobza, darhi sahaiker danz derodza. Kandar..."

"Stop reading," said Starfire, but Raven couldn't hear her because of the thunder.

"Kandar..." Raven continued.

"Stop reading!" said Starfire louder, but Raven still couldn't hear her.

"Kandar," Raven finished.

"STOP READING!" screamed Starfire, and this time Raven heard her, just before a tree crashed through the window. Cyborg turned on the lights and Starfire ran out of the room crying.

"Starfire," said Raven, "I'm sorry. I didn't hear you."

Cyborg said to Raven, "I guess I shouldn't have brought that thing up here."

"I should have just read it to myself so I could translate it later," said Raven, "Please take it back to the basement."

When Cyborg took the book back to the basement, Robin said to Raven, "Don't blame yourself. Starfire still doesn't really understand human nature, so she gets scared easily."

"Plus I asked you to read it, so it's also kinda my fault," said Beast Boy.

"Ah, it doesn't matter," said Robin, "Let's just get some time to hang out before we go to bed."

They continued going about their time, unaware that they have unleashed an evil far greater than any they have ever faced.

Uh-oh! It looks like our heroes are in for a rough night against the deadites and Kandarian demons. What will happen next? We'll see.