The Chapel

by S. T. Boston

“Yeah, listen Scott…”

  “One sec,” Scotty cut in, his words spilling out fast. “I gotta play it to you. I’ll hold the phone to the speaker.”

  In the background Mike could hear Scotty messing around with wires. He heard a click and a clonk, Scotty’s iPhone was put down on the table, or that was how it sounded at least, then picked up again.

  “You still there?”

  “Yeah,” Mike replied, hating the stall his bad news was getting, but at the same time more than a little intrigued.

  “Good,” Scotty said, “I thought I might have cut you off, bud. I’ll play you the clip, you hear the team talking then - No, fuck it! I don’t need to explain it, just listen. If they don’t give us Moot for season two off the back of this, I’ll eat my hat, Mike, do you hear me? I will eat my fucking hat!”

  Mike felt a pang of sadness at the mention of season two, and the fact that after his reveal, Scotty was going to be brought back down to earth with all the grace of a crashing 747. Mike heard the click as Scotty actioned the piece of audio from two hundred odd miles and one stretch of water away.

  “This is vigil six of the night and vigil two in A Bunyan Room,” he heard Scotty say. Despite being transmitted via a smart phone held against the laptop, it was pretty clear. The fact it was playing through the Jeep’s rather expensive audio system helped matters considerably. He wasn’t sure though how he was going to check Scotty’s audio this way, most EVPs needed a pair of headphones and a held breath to check, then a good few minutes of arguing over what, if anything, had been said. “The time is three fifteen am on July tenth, 2018. It’s funny, it’s not even called The Bunyan Room, it’s called A Bunyan Room.”

  “Yeah, and did you see the local walks are sponsored by Scholl foot products? Do you think that was intentional?” said another voice. It sounded like Morgan, Scotty’s younger brother. Following this little joke a few people laughed. That laughter sounded almost canned, like you used to get on those old eighties’ sitcoms like The Goodlife.

  “I heeaarrr yoouuu!”

  “Holy shit,” Mike whispered under his breath as the menacing voice filled the cab, emanating from every speaker and deepened by the Bass tube in the boot. Just as Scotty had he felt a chill run through his body.

  “We have an ambient temperature in here of eighteen degrees centigrade and no electromagnetic interference on either the MEL or K2 meters,” There was another click as the audio was stopped.

  “You hear that shit?” Scotty babbled.

  "And you're sure that's genuine?" Mike questioned. He was trying hard to quell his initial reaction, in the world of paranormal research, you often found that if something was too good to be true it pretty much always was.

  “Totally, I’ve amplified that a bit and cut some of the background hiss out. Mike, it came in around sixteen hertz.”

  “But you have the original un-edited one saved, too?”

  “Of course!” Scotty chided, sounding almost offended.

  “Where..?”

  “In A Bunyan Room,” Scotty cut in before Mike could finish asking. “It’s a small exhibit room at the far end of the building, ground floor. You gotta take this to the channel, Mike they HAVE to give us Moot after this, they just gotta!”

  “There isn’t gonna be as season two, Scott." The line left his lips before he'd even had the chance to think about it.

  “You what?”

  “I said, there is no season two, we’ve been shit-canned.”

  There was a long silence that hung over the Bluetooth, where all Mike could hear was the steady thrum of the large tyres over tarmac. Finally, Scotty said, "Those mother-fuckers, just like that?”

  “Well, no. Not exactly. They were willing to film and run it, but they wanted us to,” Mike paused for a brief second, “stretch the truth of our findings a little. I know the team is made up of three, but I wasn’t willing to even negotiate that one. I hope you’re not mad.”

  “Mad? I’m fucking livid,” Scotty almost screamed down the phone. “Not at you, no – bugger that. They want us to be another laughingstock like Meadows and her bunch of phonies – no way. I’d have told them to ram it, too. Does Tig know?”

  “She knows,” Mike replied solemnly. “Thank God she feels the same way you do. Like I said the team is made up of all of us but ultimately, I have to make the odd executive decision now and again. I made the call; I’m just glad you guys are with me.”

  “With you, Mike, if it wasn’t for you I’d still be clearing bloody cobwebs from town cameras in Cowes in the pissing rain, instead of living my dream.” Scotty paused. “What’s the plan now? Do you think we can jump to another channel?”

  “I don’t know. If we’ve been ditched by a channel as small as SwitchBack I can’t see any others taking us. I know Really love the paranormal stuff, but they are all clogged up with the Yank teams.”

  “Youtube,” Scotty said hastily. “We own the name of the show, we have a following, we go online. With enough views and subscribers, we can make a good amount on click advertising.”

  It wasn’t a bad idea, and Mike felt a pang of hope cut through the otherwise shit situation. Scotty had the editing abilities and prowess to handle such a project. Sure, they’d need to source their own locations, but that was no issue. After a few years in the game, Mike had a host of locations and contacts. They could really strip it back, cut out the micro-managing and do things how they wanted, and after all, he'd never gotten into this for the money. It was nice to get paid for such work but that hadn’t been the idea when he’d put that post up a few years ago.

  “It’s that lucrative?” Mike asked, not wanting to sound too hopeful but at the same time thinking of how much the faked Sleaford haunting had netted in revenue thanks to the monetised videos of their supposed poltergeist.

  “It can be,” Scotty said enthusiastically. “I get about ten pounds per ten thousand views on my videos. Okay, so at the moment I have only had just over that many views on my few investigations, but using the Unexplained UK name - Mike, some of the shit on YouTube has ten million views, do you know how that equates?”

  Mike ran the sum in his head as fast as he could, which was pretty quickly, he’d always had a flair for numbers. After just a few seconds he said, "Around ten-grand per ten million."

  “Right on, now if you had that many views on a number of clips, you’re talking….”

  “Not a bad return, and certainly enough to keep us in a bit of pocket money.”

  “Exactly, it’s not ideal, no. But it’s better than going back to scratching in the dirt.”

  “I think we need to have a meeting and discuss it,” Mike said as he navigated the on-slip to the motorway. He gunned the accelerator and managed to join in front of an eighteen-wheeler that had been powering down the inside lane.

  “Okay, I can do the editing and handle the uploads, you source the locations and get Tara back on research.”

  “Talking of locations,” Mike cut in. “I took a rather interesting call just after leaving Media City.”

  “Go on,” said Scotty sounding intrigued.

  “A lady by the name of Sue Reed is asking us to investigate her holiday home.”

  “She rooted us out for it?”

  “Yes, specifically asked we bring no TV crew. I didn’t tell her there was more chance of the Titanic reaching New York, obviously. Anyway, from what I can see, and I only took a very quick look, it’s a converted chapel, in a village called Trellen in Cornwall.”

  “Ohhh, no TV crew?” Scotty said rhetorically. “The TV crew is what most people want, I guess she must be pretty genuine, it sounds interesting.” Scotty was right on the money with that little observation. Mike had been contacted via the channel a few times by private homeowners, and one of the first things they asked was always would it be filmed for TV?

  “I am heading to hers now, they live in Pewsey….”

  “Crop circle country,” Scotty cut in. Mike wasn’t surprised he’d made the connection
that quickly. Ghosts weren’t the only thing that got Scotty’s juices flowing, so to speak. He was a sucker for anything from aliens to conspiracy theories.

  Mike set the cruise control at a tad over seventy, fast enough to make a bit of progress but slow enough not to excite the plod if he happened to go by a motorway patrol. “Yeah, crop circle country,” he agreed. “Anyway, I am heading there now. I’m just outside Manchester so should I be there in about four to five hours, traffic depending.”

  “Do you want me to join you? I’d have to book the Red Funnel but I’m sure I can get an afternoon crossing?”

  “It’s okay. Tara is heading up from her place. She is a lot closer than you are, she’s not far from the Wiltshire border. When I know more, I will give you a shout. If I take the case then I’ll need you in Cornwall at some point for a tech setup assessment. I'll firm up the dates once I know if it's within our remit. How are you fixed for work?”

  “We just got axed, Mike,” he laughed. “I’m about as free as a bird. I have a few events coming up but nothing for two weeks.” Scotty trailed off and Mike could hear the resignation in his voice that nothing for two weeks also meant no steady income for two weeks. “I’ll finish up on this EVP and work on a few channel designs for you, how’s that sound?” Scotty sounded disappointed at not being invited. It wasn’t that Mike didn’t want him there, it was more down to the fact it would be a wasted journey and a needless expense.

  “Like a plan,” Mike replied positively. “I’ll speak to you after the meeting, tomorrow morning at the latest.”

  “Sure, drive safe.” The line cleared and the radio came back on to Duran Duran who were singing about The Reflex.

  Cruising in the middle lane Mike let his mind wander to just what might be happening at that idyllic-looking old chapel he'd seen briefly on the screen of his smartphone, and for the first time in a long time, he felt a slight pang of excitement about a venue. This wasn't some used up, media paraded, supposedly haunted location that had seen every ghost documentary and half-baked team through its doors. This was new, unknown and a totally blank canvas. Mike usually enjoyed the solitude of long-haul driving, but he found himself wishing both the time and the miles away, so he could find out just why Sue Reed had called him? Why she’d sounded so anxious? And why she’d been so set on keeping this low-key and private?

  Chapter 11

  Tig’s car was already parked on the road outside of the Reed residence as Mike drove onto Wilcot Road, the back caught in the shadow of some large and well-maintained privet hedges, the front of the car bathed in the strong afternoon sun and caught in a contiguity of light and shade.

  Tara was out of the car, her bum planted on the lower part of the bonnet and her arms to her sides. Her slender fingers with their perfectly manicured nails, orange this week, tapped a rhythm on the headlight glass. Her legs were stretched out, straight and locked at the knee with her attractive, and mildly summer tanned face turned toward the sun which still sat reasonably high in the sky. It would still be a few hours before it began to slip toward the horizon offering a little respite from the heat. Large Gucci shades hid her eyes and her ash blonde hair, bleached a shade lighter than normal from the sun, flowed down her back in a silky wave. There was a time when Mike knew that removing those sunglasses would have revealed another fresh, or freshened up bruise, but those days were thankfully long gone.

  The sight of Tara sunning herself, and the way her body looked in her dark shorts and well-fitted red t-shirt that displayed the Hollister logo in white across her breasts, stirred the usual lust in him that he always felt when he first saw her after they’d been apart a while. That initial lust gradually ebbed away to be replaced by a steady and consistent longing, followed by the guilt, always the guilt.

  He drove past her and tooted the horn lightly, snapping her from whatever daydream she’d been caught in. Tara, seemingly not at all startled, offered him an encouraging wave, and by the time he’d pulled his Jeep to a stop under the cover of the neighbouring property’s pine trees, she’d reached the passenger door and was trying the handle impatiently. The door was still auto-locked, so Mike shut the engine down and removed the key allowing her to climb up into the cab. She swept an empty pack of prawn salad sandwiches, purchased at Keele Services earlier in the trip, and a drained can of coke into the footwell before she planted her bum on the cream leather seat.

  “You look like shit,” she said, sounding half serious as her eyes looked him up and down.

  Mike cocked his head and looked in the rear-view, he'd not shaven the night before in preparation for an early start and dark stubble now defined his jawline. His shirt, now pulled open down as far as the third button and no longer donning his tie, (that had been cast to the depths of the Jeep’s rear seats), looked as if he’d slept in it. Even his hair looked a mess, out of place and, well – stressed, was the only way he could put it. Tara was right, he did look like shit, he forced a smile and said, “Nice to see you, too.”

  "Guess it's been a helluva day?" she half asked, and half stated with a smile. Her Skechers stirred the rubbish of the day around the footwell, the empty can she’d just added to the various wrappers and junk made a low crinkling sound as her left foot ran over it.

  “Well if you define a helluva day as a five thirty start, followed by a drive from Arundel to Manchester, getting the show shit canned, having to break it to you guys, then driving from Manchester to the arse end of Wiltshire for…” he paused. “For, well at the moment I don’t really know, likely some rich lady who has it in her head that her old church is haunted, then yes! I have had a helluva day, as you put it.” Mike offered up a wan smile and noticed the inside of his Jeep, that had begun to smell pretty bad, a mix of half-eaten food and man-sweat, now smelt fruity and feminine. It was Tara’s shampoo; the smell was welcome compared to his fousty smell. He arched his back in the seat and stretched out a travelling pain. A bone, somewhere deep in his back cracked and he felt relief wash over his aching body. Running a hand through and tidying his dark hair, he said, “Tell me what you know then?”

  “You’ve been intrigued since you took that call, haven’t you?” Then before Mike could answer Tara added. “I know you have; I know you too well. I bet it was all you could do not to pull over and get researching the place yourself at the first service station.”

  Mike smiled, she had him pegged alright. When he’d picked up the bland and over-priced prawn sandwich at Keele his phone had come out, but he’d stopped himself knowing Tara would be armed with as much information as the time she’d had would allow her to glean. “Look, you’re right,” he conceded with a smile. But I’ve also been in this car for almost the whole day. The seat, as comfortable as it is, almost feels like a part of me, so I’d like to get inside as soon as possible, hopefully get a brew in as well. Service station tea always tastes like gnat’s piss.” Tara nodded and a knowing smile spreading across her face, it sparkled in her eyes, the way it had the very first time they’d met.

  Despite the fact he’d parked in the full shade of the pines the air temperature in the Jeep had been steadily creeping up since he'd stopped. Mike cranked the ignition, the engine fired eagerly to life and cool, conditioned air began to flow from the vent.

  “I’ve spent the last few hours kicking the case research to life,” Tara began, her voice enthusiastic. Mike had been surprised at the sanguine way both her and Scotty had taken the news that the show had been cancelled and thought she’d want to talk about that first. He’d been wrong. She was focused solely on the task in hand. “And all I’m left with are more questions, questions I hope Sue Reed can answer.”

  “Go on,” Mike encouraged, shifting his weight in the seat a little.

  "Well, the place is supposed to have been a church once,"

  “A chapel, but yes – close enough.”

  “Well there is no record of it ever having been registered as one, I mean none. I looked on parish register, a website where most places of Christian wor
ship are registered, those not bonafide Church of England and..”

  “Not a trace of it?”

  “Not a single mention. I checked the Church of England site thinking it would be on there, but it’s not.” Tara paused as if to let the information sink in, she then sighed and continued, “So I did a little research into what is expected of churches and chapels, I mean there has to be some kind of regulation, right?”

  “I’d have thought so, I’ve never been in the God squad,” Mike smiled. “But in this day and age, I'm certain there must be some form of regulation.”

  “Right,” Tara agreed, sounding enthused. “Churches with an income of over five thousand pounds are encouraged to register as charities, tax benefits and all. No such church charity for Trellen does, nor ever has existed! I then looked into a very interesting piece of legislation,” (said with heavy sarcasm), “called The Places of Worship Registration Act of 1885. It basically states that any non-Church of England establishment, even if used as a Sunday School needs to be registered. It’s more in-depth than that but I won’t bore you. Now the holiday home website states that it was built in the seventeenth century, so it does pre-date the act, but it was also supposedly a place of worship when the act came to pass so it should have been registered.”

  "Is there a chance you missed it?" Mike asked. He looked out of the bug-splattered windscreen as two girls, both no older than ten, went skating past on roller boots, holding onto each other for support.

  Tara fired him a look that said, really, what do you think I am, a fucking amateur?

  “Okay, sorry,” he added quickly, without her needing to say anything.

  “Unregistered churches are common in China as Christianity is not the main religion there,” Tara continued. “But here in jolly old England, or the UK for that matter, no – they are not common."

  “It must have been an unofficial chapel then?” Mike asked.

  “Yeah, it has to be, but why? Why would you not register it? This is rural Cornwall, breakaway factions of religion are commonplace in deepest darkest America but not here, it just doesn't add up,” Tara paused again as if wondering where to go next with her reveal. Her eyes found the two skater girls who were now at the end of the road and clumsily turning around. Finally, she said, “I Google searched Trellen Chapel, Trellen Church and looked on the images tab and all I found were the pictures taken by the Reeds that are already on that rent a holiday home site. It looks like they renovated it from a fire damaged wreck. You need to see the pictures; the place was a write-off. So, having seen the post and pre-renovation photos I searched the web for news stories, I mean a church – chapel,” she corrected herself, “burns down it would make the news somewhere, local Echo that kinda thing.”