by Jason Brant
“That's when he killed everyone!” Kyle said.
Katie tried to hide her annoyance unsuccessfully, and moved on. “They continued to convene here at odd dates that seemed to have no rhyme or reason to them. Typically, they would only stay for a night, and then head back to their normal lives. Except that Charles Danver had all but abandoned his everyday life. He stopped working at his steel mills, lost contact with friends, and ostracized his wife. He spent his days travelling to libraries and searching for other pieces of seemingly esoteric parcels of land.”
Travis and Joey noticed that they had all stopped working and stomped over to them.
“What the hell are you doing? We aren't paying you to stand around shooting the shit,” Travis said. He crumpled his beer can in his hands and tossed it into the crevice.
“You aren't paying us anything at all,” Kyle said. It was apparent he was eager for Katie to continue the story, and his agitation at their interruption bled into his voice.
“True, but we−”
“I'm conveying the story behind the church to...” She looked at Bryan, clearly not remembering his name.
“Bryan,” he said.
“Bryan. He should not enter the church unless he is fully aware of the potential dangers that lurk inside.”
Although Bryan had found himself enraptured by her little history lesson, she lost him when she started laying on the dangers of the paranormal. He still wanted to hear the rest, but he would do so with much less enthusiasm.
Creepy Joey looked over all of them with his unblinking eyes. “Fine, but let us record what you're saying. It could turn into a great intro for the episode.”
“Do what you will, but I'm going to continue whether you're ready or not,” Katie said, turning back to Bryan. He noticed that her diction became more pointed and her vocabulary more robust when Travis and Joey were near.
Joey shuffled back to the equipment cases. Bryan watched him leave with disgust - even his gait made him want to shiver.
“Danver's life had been completely consumed by his obsession with the occult. For ten years, he isolated himself, except for his jaunts to the church on seemingly odd dates. And then it happened. His group met here on Saturday, May seventh, nineteen seventy-two. Eleven people came here: seven men, and four women. None returned. At least not right away”
Travis popped open another can of beer, interrupting the story. Bryan blew his breath out, not realizing he'd been holding it. Everyone turned toward Travis. He shrugged his shoulders and took a swig, winking at Katie over the top of the can. Katie flipped him off.
“When Sunday night came and went, the families of Danver's cohorts became concerned. Most of them didn't know what the group did during their palaver−”
“Palaver?” Kyle asked.
Katie's shoulders slumped, her head hanging, the irritation of being interrupted over and over growing.
“Meetings,” Bryan said.
“Oh. I knew that,” Kyle said, his eyes searching the ground.
“The families didn't know what the group did during their... meetings, but they had a feeling that it was something 'unnatural.' That's a direct quote. On Monday, the police drove up the mountain and found the church. The description of it in their reports is what caused the biggest backlash. The pagan symbols, massive altar, and upside down crosses caused a massive outrage. They discovered evidence of the group being there that weekend: food, clothing, and their vehicles. However, they didn't find a single person, living or dead. No blood either – at least none of the fresh variety. Everyone was gone - vanished into the woods.” Katie pointed toward the crack in the earth. “Or fallen into that large chasm, though they never found any evidence of that after they searched it.”
Bryan was shocked that he had never heard about this before. Witchcraft and murder are a reporter's wet dream. Not being alive in the seventies probably played a part in that, but it still seemed like the kind of story he would see on American Justice or Cold Case Files.
“The next morning, the state police had organized a massive search party. There were some very rich people missing in Appalachia, and the Governor applied a lot of pressure to find them. The search had only been in progress for two hours when they found Charles Danver, wandering in the woods. His left hand was missing and blood saturated his clothing and hair. He mumbled incoherently about 'the other side', sometimes whispering, and other times screaming. Death was knocking on his door and he appeared ready to answer it.”
Bryan smiled at that last part, realizing that she had completely lost herself in the story, and had begun spouting cheesy lines as if she were writing one of her books. She also seemed to have turned into a walking thesaurus.
“Shocked by his appearance, health, and state of mind, the police hastened their search, concerned for the safety of the others. They scoured the mountains for weeks, never finding a single shred of evidence as to their whereabouts. Bringing in hounds, they followed Danver's trail back to the church, but they weren't able to locate his missing hand, or find the place where it had been severed. Investigators were baffled at the complete lack of clues.”
“Jesus,” Bryan mumbled.
“Jesus? No, I don't think so. This seemed to be something else entirely.”
“So what happened with Danver? Did he survive? Was he able to lead the police to the bodies of his friends?” Bryan asked.
“No. Though he lived through his injuries, his mind never recovered. Prosecutors wanted to try him for the murder of his compatriots, but with no physical evidence as to their actual demise, they couldn't charge him. His mental state, however, landed him in an institution outside of Indiana, Pennsylvania, where he remained until his death by suicide last week.”
The timing of his suicide didn't strike Bryan as accidental.
“He killed himself a week ago?” Kyle asked.
“That's right. He hung himself and did not leave a suicide note. The disappearances of his acquaintances happened forty years ago tonight.”
Kyle's eyes widened. “No way that's a coincidence.”
“Who gives a shit?” Travis asked. “He offed himself, and he was too crazy to draft a will, so all of his property went to his grandkids. We paid them a shit ton of money to let us be the first people to set foot in the church since he lost his mind and killed everyone. End of story.”
“There is no evidence that he did anything to anyone,” Katie said. Her shoulders tensed and she squeezed her hands into tight fists. Bryan wondered how much longer it would be before she starting taking swings at him. He hoped not long.
“Aren't you supposed to be some super smart writer? You can't figure out that the only guy to survive a massacre is the one that did it? And he happened to be insane afterwards - that's a pretty smart defense for a murderer.”
Bryan's mind reeled as he thought through the story he had just heard. This unkempt, bizarre church in the middle of nowhere had a dizzying background that he never expected. The condition of the woods and the isolation of the location added a truly spooky atmosphere to the whole situation.
“Hold on a second. You're telling me that the guy that owned this shithole killed a bunch of his friends here, cut off his own hand, and then spent the rest of his life in an asylum, never revealing the locations of his victim's bodies? Then he killed himself a few days before the forty-year anniversary of this event? And now we're standing here, about to go inside?”
Katie shook her head in frustration. “Why is no one listening to me? There is no evidence that he was involved in anyone's murder!”
“Ok, fine. Either way, that's a pretty interesting string of events that led all of us here on this precise night,” Bryan said. “But I don’t see how this is any kind of proof of the supernatural. And I still don't understand why you're here?” He nodded at Katie.
“She's paying us to tag along on the investigation,” Creepy Joey said, smiling at Travis. “We paid Danver's grandkids a lot of cash, but she's paying us even more.”
Katie shrugged. “I'm researching a new book. The history of this place will provide an interesting backdrop for my new novel.” Her eyes shifted ever so slightly as she spoke, making Bryan wonder if there was more to her being here than she cared to share.
“As much fun as this little history lesson was, we have a show to shoot,” Travis said. He looked over his shoulder at Ben, who was still playing with the generator. “Turn on the goddamn lights.”
Chapter 6
The lights flashed on, sending an eerie glow across the front of the church. The angled beams threw shadows upward, adding to the already ominous look of the structure.
The unnatural darkness of the area had hidden many of the details of the church, which the lights now exposed. The entire building, aside from the collapsing roof, was constructed of uncolored stone. Aging, cracked mortar held the large pieces together creating an old, but sturdy appearance.
A large door stood in the middle of the front wall, its height well over nine feet. It appeared to be made of one solid piece of wood and painted a faded black. Two large and rusted hinges held it in place.
On either side of the door, twelve feet from the ground, were two stained glass windows. Several smaller panes of glass were broken in both frames, and the majority that remained didn’t have enough light shining on them to make their design apparent.
Stepping forward, Bryan noticed that a large cross had fallen to the ground in front of the door, its wooden length cracked from the impact. He bent down and picked it up, surprised at the weight of it. Looking it over he found a metal ring on the back that had been used to hang it from the wall. The ring was screwed into the wood at the bottom of the long section of the cross. He couldn’t find a similar ring, or a hole where one had been, at the short end.
Bryan looked at the wall above the door, searching for what had fastened the cross to the church. He finally spotted a small hook, screwed into the stone about ten feet above the top of the door. There was only one. The lone hook and ring on the long end of the cross meant one thing to him – it had been hung on the front of the church upside down.
“What kind of church did you say this was?” Bryan asked. “This isn’t exactly screaming ‘I love Jesus.’”
Kyle stepped beside him and looked over the cross, excitement flashing across his face. “Dude, this is crazy. I’ve seen these kinds of satanic things in movies, but never thought I’d see one in person.”
“The inverted cross has only recently come to represent satanic beliefs. In Catholicism, it is used to represent humility. A man named Simon Peter was crucified upside because he was unworthy of being crucified in the same manner as Jesus Christ. He—”
Joey held his sound recorder close to his mouth. “Scratch that last in post. We need people believing this is a place of Satanism.”
Katie closed her eyes, clearly fighting the desire to pull her hair out.
“That would be dishonest of you,” Kyle said. “I realize you guys like to do some selective editing in your show, but to completely omit information isn’t cool.”
“I tell you what, you disgusting little con artist,” Katie said. “You stay away from me for the rest of the night, and I won’t kick your fat ass in front of your friends.”
Joey sniggered again, but averted his odd stare from her.
Travis grunted, but didn’t argue with her. He pointed at Bryan. “You’ve been nominated to run the camera for the introduction of the church. Get your ass over to the equipment.”
“Actually, I'm more of an audio−”
“Don't give a shit,” he said. He walked back over to the generator without saying another word.
“I feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone,” Bryan muttered to himself. He threw the cross to the side, watching it crash against the front of the church. “I could be at home, studying for a test, but no. I’m stuck here, holding satanic crosses.”
“Let's go, Brad,” Travis said.
“It's Bryan.”
“Again, don't give a shit.”
Bryan rolled his eyes as he walked over to nerdy Ben, who had been unpacking all of the equipment. A camera sat atop a tripod, pointing toward the front of the church. A light had been set up behind it, casting a glow over the packed dirt that surrounded the area.
“I'm guessing this is the camera I'm supposed to use.”
“No fooling you,” Ben said without looking up from his work.
Taking a deep breath, Bryan focused on keeping calm. If Ben thought he was going to push Bryan around all night, he would get a rude awakening before long. The two hosts could call themselves his boss, but he would be damned if he would take any attitude from the techie.
Joey and Travis stood in front of the church, drinking beers and laughing at each other's crummy jokes. Bryan stepped behind the camera and centered them in the frame, adjusting the zoom and focus after a few moments of fiddling with the controls.
“I guess we're ready,” Bryan said.
“How’s the lighting?” Joey asked.
“Pretty bad.”
“OK, good.”
Both men tossed their beers past Bryan, the cans twisting through the air, their contents splashing Ben. His head snapped up, glaring at Travis and Joey, although he didn't say anything.
Travis bounced on the balls of his feet a few times, loudly exhaling with each hop. “Let’s do this.”
Bryan pressed the record button. “And... we're filming.”
“OK guys, this is the big one,” Travis said, sweeping his hand toward the church. “The Danver church - the Holy Grail of all haunted locations.”
“That's right, fans. Yours truly, are going to be the first people to set foot in the ‘Church of Hell' in forty years,” Joey said.
“The evil pulsating from this place is so frightening that our crew actually quit rather than come here and shoot the show with us! You'll be seeing all new faces tonight. These fresh investigators are the bravest of the brave, and they've volunteered to walk through Hell's gate to find evidence of the paranormal,” Travis said.
Bryan had to admit to himself that what they lacked in actual investigative abilities, or social skills, they more than made up for in showmanship. Back and forth they played off each other like seasoned pros. He hated it, but he was impressed.
“And to top it all off, we have a special guest for tonight’s episode. We’ll be joined by bestselling horror author Katie Upshaw! Her knowledge of the paranormal is world renowned, and she’ll be a great asset to the investigation.” Joey beamed at the camera, his awkwardness temporarily abated.
“Not even our top psychic dared step foot inside this church. The forces that dwell inside are rumored to be too strong for even the fiercest medium,” Travis said. “We're going to do everything in our power to last a full night in this church, but history is not on our side. Stay tuned.”
Travis looked past the camera at Bryan and gave him a throat cutting gesture, before they burst into gales of laughter.
Bryan stopped recording and looked over his shoulder at Kyle, his brow furrowing in confusion. Kyle shrugged and shook his head.
“Our best psychic didn't dare?” Joey asked Travis, still laughing.
“I don't get it. What's so funny?” Kyle stepped forward, approaching them from behind the camera.
The Specter Slayers looked at him, before cracking up all over again.
“Our psychic isn't scared of this place. We canned his ass with the rest of the crew,” Joey said. “Actually, the network identified him as the most likeable person on the show, so he was the first one we fired. We can’t have someone hogging the spotlight, ya know?”
“And our ratings have been through the roof since then!” Travis nodded emphatically in agreement, teetering on his feet a bit. “Apparently the audience has been watching more, hoping to find out what happened to him. I told you, our luck lately has been bad ass.”
“Oh, of course,” Kyle said. “You had me going for a minute there. I thought h
e was actually afraid of this place.”
“Why would he be afraid?” Joey asked. He had moved over to the cooler and opened another beer.
“Because of the reputation the Danver church has,” Kyle said. He seemed perplexed by the entire conversation. Bryan just wanted it to be over.
“Hold on. Do you actually believe this crap?” Travis asked. “You know this is all a bunch of bullshit, right?”
Kyle looked at Bryan with a what-is-this-guy-talking-about expression. “Believe in what, the Danver church?”
“Not the church, moron, ghosts. The paranormal,” Travis said. “You don’t realize it's all make believe? Why do you think we only 'see' things when they're off camera?”
The dumbfounded look Kyle gave them almost made Bryan laugh out loud. Kyle had believed in the Specter Slayers completely. He'd never questioned them, or the paranormal in any way. Bryan actually felt sorry for him now that he knew the truth.
He assumed it was similar to the feeling he had when he finally admitted to himself that Christianity was a sham. It's a horrible moment when you realize that everything you believed in was a lie.
“You're telling me that you, the freaking Specter Slayers, don't believe in ghosts?” Kyle asked.
“Of course not. What are you? Retarded?” Travis asked.
“What about all of the evidence you’ve captured: EVP, moving chairs, footsteps?”
Joey smirked. It was a creepy smirk. “Electronic voice phenomenon is just one of our guys standing on the other side of a wall and talking. The chairs move because we tie fishing line around them and pull. And footsteps... if I need to explain how to make that sound, then I'm going to throw you in that big ass crack behind you.”
“You fake all of it?” Kyle’s entire body slumped. He stepped past everyone and stood in front of the church, staring at the crumbling stones.
Travis drank half his beer in a few large gulps. Bryan wondered how many of those he’d put down already.
“We’re going to do one last sound check with Brad, and then we’re heading inside,” he said, between belches.