by Jason Brant
“Charlie Danver purchased this church, brought a bunch of his friends up here, and then killed them all!” Kyle said. His enthusiasm had skyrocketed since he'd learned the location of their soon-to-be investigation. He looked like he was doing the pee-pee dance.
“No, he most certainly did not murder his friends,” Katie said. “Though it is true that nine people came here one night, and only Mr. Danver was ever heard from again. No bodies were ever found.”
“Ok, so what? His friends are now haunting the church they may have been killed in?” Bryan asked. “That's it? How does that make this place legendary? Any prison or mental hospital in America has had more than eight murders.”
Travis was rummaging through a cooler in the back of the van. “We're going to be the first people, outside of the police, to step inside the church in forty years.” He produced a can of beer from the cooler and started taking long pulls from it.
Katie sneered at him, her disgust flooding through her voice. “You're drinking while you're on the job? No, you haven't even started working yet. You're drinking beforehand.”
“Yup.” He let out a loud, wet belch. “It's good to be the boss.”
“You little motherfu−” Katie took a step toward Travis.
“Hold on a second. I want a couple of answers before you kill him. I still don't understand the significance of the church, or why the hell a bestselling author is going to appear on a shitty television show like The Specter Slayers,” Bryan said.
From the look on Katie's face, he figured he probably just saved Travis' life.
“We're going to have a very pointed discussion about this later. You won't enjoy it,” she said, staring Travis down.
He winked at her and took another swig of beer. Bryan wondered if Travis thought that was flirting. He expected to see the two of them rolling in the dirt before the end of the night, and they wouldn’t be exchanging kisses.
Turning back to Bryan, Katie continued. “I don't particularly feel like giving you a history lesson right now. You should have been prepared for tonight. If you have no interest in being a professional, then I'm not going to humor you by wasting my time.”
With that, she walked away, moving toward the church.
Bryan turned to Kyle, his anger boiling over. “That's it, I'm outta here.” Taking attitude from two television hosts was bad enough without taking it from a know-it-all author. He walked toward his car, before remembering that it had been blocked in.
Kyle moved beside him. “Dude, where are you going? Don't blow this opportunity!”
“I didn't even want to be here. You talked me into this. Now I'm being berated by these three dipshits and a bitchy author. Thanks, but no thanks.”
Creepy Joey had been slinking around close by, his odd, shuffling gait moving him within earshot.
“You can't leave,” he said. “We need you to carry and set up equipment.”
“Go to hell,” Bryan said. He stood beside his car, trying to figure out if he could squeeze it around the Range Rover.
“We'll guarantee you several minutes of screen time,” Joey said.
“Who gives a shit? I don't particularly want to be prancing around on camera, acting like I'm scared.”
Joey looked around for help from Travis, and found him pulling another beer from the cooler. He whistled, catching Travis' attention, and nodded his head to the side, signaling him to join them. Joey nodded back and strode over, sipping at his new beer.
Bryan opened his door, intent on leaving, regardless of whether he had to tap the Range Rover a few times with his bumper. He was pissed at Kyle for forcing him into this situation, and at the moment he didn't care that he was Kyle's ride home.
Travis walked up beside the car, his can already significantly lighter.
“What's the problem?” he asked. He didn't seem particularly interested.
“The slaves... interns, I mean, want to leave,” Joey said. “I guaranteed them a little extra screen time, but this one isn't biting.”
Travis scratched his temple as he seemed to think through the problem. Bryan wondered if it made his brain hurt. He pretended that he could see smoke coming out of Travis’ ears and tried not to smile at the imagery.
“We'll give both of you an 'Associate Producer' credit. Now get out of the car and start carrying our shit over the bridge.”
Bryan stood with one leg in the car, contemplating the offer.
Helping with the show would have given him something to put on his resume, but having a producer credit would be even better, and much more impressive. Even if the episode turned out to be terrible, which it most likely would be, he would still have a leg up on everyone in his graduating class.
“Fine,” he said, closing the door.
Kyle joined Bryan as he walked around to the back of the van. “Good choice, dude. This is going to be great!”
“We don't have time to chit chat. The equipment needs to be set up before the sunsets.” Joey said. “Grab those cases and carry them across the bridge. Make sure the T and A doesn't do anything too stupid before we get ready.”
“The T and A?” Kyle asked.
“Tits and ass,” Travis said. “Now let's get this damn thing shot so I can go home, crack a cold one, and bang the old lady.”
Kyle and Bryan exchanged another glance, shocked at how brazen these men were. It didn’t seem that Travis needed to be home to ‘crack a cold one’ anyway. They each grabbed two silver cases and walked toward the bridge, coming up behind Katie.
“These guys are complete tool bags. What did you get me into?” Bryan felt like he hadn't stopped bitching since the moment they'd arrived. One ridiculous moment seemed to follow another, over and over.
Kyle wasn't paying attention to him. Instead, he seemed to be checking out Katie, who stood at the edge of the chasm and snapped pictures of its depths.
“I think she's just playing hard to get,” Kyle said. His voice trailed off, as if he merely thought aloud.
Bryan didn't bother responding.
They approached the rickety bridge and stopped at its base, giving it wary looks.
“I'm not so sure I want to test this thing out,” Bryan said.
Katie stopped taking pictures and analyzed the bridge, squinting through the deepening darkness. She examined the edge of the wood planks, putting pressure on them with her toes. Without a word, she started crossing it, gingerly planting her feet at places that looked the least rotted.
“It's safe to walk on, but you won't be able to get that equipment van across it,” she said when she reached the other side. “It will hold your weight, but most likely won't take too much more.”
Puffing his chest out, Kyle moved across the bridge, staring straight ahead the entire time. Bryan figured that having a girl go first was a detriment to Kyle's ego. When he reached the other side he dropped the cases he carried and grabbed his nose, bending at the waist.
“What's the matter?” Bryan asked.
“It smells awful over here!” Kyle said, wiping tears from his eyes.
Katie didn't seem affected by whatever stench had doubled Kyle over.
Standing alone on the other side of the giant crack, Bryan saw her watching him and remembered her demeaning attitude. The last thing he wanted was to look weak in front of her. He already felt stupid for not knowing what he had gotten himself into earlier, and he didn't need her pointing it out.
He took a deep breath and moved to the base of the bridge. Knowing that doing this for the sake of a woman, especially one so far out of his league, didn't stop him from taking a tentative step onto the first wood board. It was the same feeling he had every time he over-tipped a female bartender. He knew that he had no chance with them, yet he couldn't stop himself from doing it over and over.
The bridge sank several inches as his put his weight on it, threatening to topple him forward.
“What am I doing?” he whispered to himself under his breath.
Though it swayed gently
from side to side, it felt like it was sturdy enough to get him across. He wasn't afraid of heights, but looking down the dark crevice didn't give him a warm feeling. Shuffling his feet as fast as he dared, he crept forward.
“Watch out!” Travis yelled from behind him.
Bryan's heart thundered in his chest. He could feel his pulse hammering in his ears as he stood perfectly still, anticipating the bridge's collapse.
Nothing happened.
“Just kidding,” Travis said. Ben and Joey guffawed at the stupid joke.
Assholes.
Reaching the far side, Bryan felt the firmness of the ground beneath him and exhaled, trying not to tremble in front of everyone. He hadn't realized he had been holding his breath the entire time.
That was when the smell hit him, like a punch in the face. Rot. Like a compost heap. It reeked of death. Oddly, he hadn't noticed it on the other side of the crack. His first few breaths felt labored as he tried to adjust to the stench.
“What is that?” he asked, fighting the sting of tears.
Katie's nose wrinkled slightly, but that was the only indication she gave that she even noticed it. “The smell was documented by the police during their investigation. At first they thought it could be dead bodies, but they never found any.”
With that, she dropped her bag to the ground and began pulling items from it. Bryan wanted to ask her what investigation she meant, but didn't feel like being berated again.
Then he realized that the church had nothing growing around it. No grass or weeds, nothing. Only fifty feet of bare soil surrounded the church in an odd circle. Looking down at his shoes, he observed the hardened, cracked earth that covered the area.
The Specter Slayers slowly crossed the bridge, one after the other. Ben began dry heaving as soon as he reached the other side, his face contorting from the terrible stench. The other two pinched their noses shut, but didn't seem surprised by its presence. Travis drank from his beer.
From behind him, Bryan could feel the church looming over them. Everyone turned toward it, and took in the dilapidated building, no one uttering a word as they did. Though he didn't want to admit it, Bryan felt that something really was different about the area.
The trees above the church rose even higher than those on the other side of the chasm. Their heights pushing farther than their narrow trunks should have allowed. The branches weren't leaved, but the large number of them still managed to damper the evening sky.
Though the woods stood in complete silence, Bryan couldn’t quite shake the feeling that they weren’t alone. He tried to brush the thought away, but couldn’t manage to keep himself from wondering if they were being watched.
The darkness continued to deepen as they stood there, entranced by the oddity of the scene they now found themselves in. The moment was broken as Katie snapped a picture of the front of the church.
“Let's get the generator over here and get some light on this bitch,” Travis said.
Chapter 5
They'd spent the last ninety minutes setting up the generator, carrying gas cans, and all manner of cables from the van, across the bridge, and to the front of the church.
The bridge held fast, though the weight of the generator had made things hairy for awhile. Kyle and Bryan had managed to get it across, but they had both broken out into a cold sweat doing so. It had been explained to Bryan that the generator would be needed because the church had no electricity running to it.
“No shitters either,” Joey had said, with a bizarre smile on his face.
The cabling consisted of audio, video, and Ethernet. Ben would stay in a corner of the church through the 'investigation' and monitor all of the camera feeds. He could remotely pan most of the cameras and zoom in on objects of interest.
Throughout the set up, Bryan had watched Katie, noticing that she worked harder than the rest, always making sure everything was finished correctly. He'd noticed Kyle keeping an eye on her as well, but imagined that he wasn't admiring her work ethic.
The Specter Slayers didn't do a lot, mostly standing around and drinking beers. Travis and Katie threw several barbs at one another, but seemed content to stay out of each other's way for the most part. Bryan still anticipated fireworks, and started to hope that they would happen sooner rather than later.
Creepy Joey sat on the beer cooler and watched everyone. Bryan caught him staring at Katie several times, the same as everyone else, but his unblinking eyes made it disturbing.
After several false starts and installation errors, the generator was up and running. The last thing they needed to set up before heading inside were the lights. They would sit outside the front of the building to provide enough lighting for some exterior shots.
“Make sure you've got them angled upward, we need some good shadows running up the walls of the church. Looks spooky that way,” Joey said.
Katie looked up from the notebook she had been taking notes in. “We discussed this. We need good lighting in order to properly document everything. The piss poor setup your show employs will not suffice.”
Travis belched again. “Tough titty - that's all we brought.”
Without saying a word, Katie turned on her heel and stomped away, stopping close to where Bryan was fumbling with a light. Even in the darkness, he could see that her face had turned a deep red. He wondered if the top of her head was about to pop off. The aforementioned fireworks looked like they might be lit.
“I'm going to throw those idjits into that big crack by the end of the night,” she said under her breath.
“We're in agreement on that.” Bryan kept fiddling with the tilt mechanism on the light, trying to get it into place. He'd used several different kinds of lighting at the television studio that his college had, but this piece was driving him nuts. Every time he tightened one bolt, another one seemed to loosen. He’d purchased better equipment at a thrift store.
Katie crossed her arms and looked down at him, watching him unsuccessfully set up the light stand. “Are you new in this crew?”
“Kyle and I are interns for tonight only. After that I'm going to delete this experience from my memory. We were just told about the internship yesterday.”
She softened a bit at that, her stance relaxing as she unfolded her arms. “That's why you didn't know about the Danver church.”
“Yup.” He finally got the hinge tightened and the light aiming at the church.
Running a hand through her black hair, she blew out a long breath. “I feel like a real asshole. I assumed you worked with the knuckleheads and lumped you in with them. It seems you're as big a victim to their idiocy as I am.”
Bryan stood and brushed his hands on his pant legs. He was taken off guard by her apology. Having already written her off as a bitch, he started to reassess her.
“I'm just trying to get through the night without killing one of them, or my friend. If I can pull that off, I'll consider this a success. And apology accepted. You seem to be taking this very seriously.”
“That's because I have a feeling we're going to find something very interesting here tonight. I'm concerned they're going to screw it up and we'll be without any believable evidence,” she said, glaring over her shoulder at Travis.
“I still have no idea what you're talking about.” Having a bestselling author on the set of a poorly made show like The Specter Slayers had Bryan intrigued. What could have her interested enough to put up with this?
She reached into her bag and pulled out two energy bars, offering one to Bryan. Surprised at the offer, he took it from her, giving her a questioning look in the process.
“You're going to need this. It's most likely going to be a very long night.” She opened the wrapper and took a bite, looking thoughtfully at the church. “The Danver church has an extensive history, but only part of it is known with absolute certainty. And most of that is just within the last several decades.”
Bryan bit into his energy bar, and immediately remembered why he didn't eat them. They t
asted like dried mud wrapped around tree bark. He kept eating it however, not wanting to seem ungrateful for the peace offering.
“In the sixties, Charles Danver, a wealthy steel industrialist from Pittsburgh, became fascinated with the occult. At that time, it seemed that his interest was purely academic. Those closest to him have sworn under oath that he didn't practice any form of religious activities, let alone anything outside of the Christian variety.” She crumpled the wrapper of her snack and threw it into her bag.
“He began hunting through libraries, reading about the history of rituals, demonic possession, the history of modern religions, et cetera. His hunger for knowledge of the paranormal became voracious. At some point, he came upon some texts - very old and specific texts. It's unknown if his occult obsession was because of these works, or if he merely stumbled upon them during his research.”
Though Bryan normally didn't bother with these kinds of things, he found himself leaning forward, listening intently to the tale Katie weaved. She truly was a great storyteller. Even her body language conveyed her message - her head bowed forward, eyes looking up at Bryan.
“Either way, these documents would forever change his life. No one knows what happened to them, where he found them, or exactly what it is that they conveyed. What is known, however, is that he was never the same after reading them. He began searching for, and buying, thousands of acres of property covering the Appalachian Mountains. Where we're standing right now being one of those lots. The road that brought you here, and the surrounding land, is all owned by his estate.”
Kyle realized what they were talking about and rushed over to where they stood, trying to hear the story better. The excitement on his face was that of a little boy preparing to open his first Christmas present.
“His estate?” Kyle asked.
“I'll get to that soon. He searched for years, looking for this exact spot. When he finally found the location of the church, he purchased it, and then promptly closed the entire area off to everyone. Through his searching, he found other people with interests similar to himself. Together they began meeting here, at the church,” she said, gesturing toward the aged structure.
