by Jason Brant
“It’s Bryan.”
“Don’t give a shit.”
Chapter 7
Kyle stood and stared at the church. Bryan walked up beside him and gave him a small punch on the shoulder.
“Sorry man. I feel like you just found out Santa Clause isn't real.”
“I'm such an idiot. You tried to tell me they were con artists, but I didn't want to believe you.”
Looking at the Danver church, Bryan felt sorry for his friend. This was an odd role reversal for them. Lately it had been Kyle trying to placate Bryan, not the other way around. Now that he was thinking about it, he wasn’t sure that he had ever seen Kyle upset like this before. He always came across as nothing but jovial, not a care in the world, other than getting laid that is.
“Paranormal phenomena are real, pay no heed to what those morons say,” Katie said from behind them. She had been so quiet during the encounter that Bryan had forgotten she was there.
“Don't you start too. The so-called experts just told us flat out that this is all a scam,” Bryan said. He didn't care how hot, rich or intelligent she was he didn't want her messing with Kyle's head. It actually angered him that people still believed in such nonsense.
“Do you really consider those two to be experts at anything other than being assholes?” she asked.
Touché.
“Well, no. But that does not change the fact that we aren't standing in front of a haunted church. Sure, it looks old and scary and has an insane history. And it's in the middle of god-knows-where, but that doesn't mean there is anything supernatural about it.”
“I think you're going to change your mind once we go inside.” She lifted her bag and threw it over her shoulder. “We might find something very interesting in there.”
For the second time tonight, Bryan felt like she wasn’t telling them everything. Obviously, she had extremely detailed knowledge about the Danver church, and she seemed forthright with sharing it, but he still wondered if she held something back.
She turned around and locked eyes with him. He was struck again by how pretty she was in a girl-next-door kind of way. From her ponytail to the workmanlike boots, nothing about Katie Upshaw exuded money, or high class.
“You still believe?” Kyle turned away from the church and gave Katie a questioning look. “Even after they admitted to faking all of their evidence?”
“I don’t believe in anything with blind faith. My own travels have shown me sights that would shock most people. There are things in this world that we can’t explain, and no amount of hoaxes or ‘Specter Slayer’ assholes can change that.”
As she spoke, Kyle’s head lifted and his back straightened. Bryan could actually see his conviction coming back. He looked like he might propose to her on the spot.
“You’re right – why should I let these knuckleheads sway me,” Kyle said.
“Seriously, come back to reality here. I hate to agree with Dumb and Dumber, but they're right. Every cell phone has a built in camera now. Why aren't we getting tons of pictures and videos of all this supernatural mumbo jumbo?” Bryan asked. He paused for dramatic effect. “The answer is that it's not real.”
“You aren't one to take things on belief or faith are you?” Katie asked.
Kyle moved over beside her. “Bryan is an atheist. If you can't demonstrate it, he doesn't buy it.”
Somehow, this conversation had been turned around, and it was now two on one. Just a moment before Bryan had been relieved that his friend had finally come to a rational realization. Now he was being tag teamed. He knew that trying to debate with someone as intelligent as Katie would be difficult, but he felt he had to try.
“That is a position I can fully appreciate,” Katie said. “Not that I agree, but demanding evidence of one’s beliefs is something to be respected.” She captured Bryan’s gaze again.
He wondered for the second time if something was passing between them. It had been so long since he’d been a part of the dating game that he assumed the signals were being crossed, and he was misinterpreting the situation. Why would a wealthy, attractive, pseudo celebrity like Katie Upshaw be interested in a broke college student?
Her reaction did cause him to wonder. Typically, when people found out he was an atheist and a skeptic, they responded to him with anger and scorn. That’s why he kept his opinions to himself. Nothing pissed people off like telling them that you think their religion is a scam.
“Understanding that the world is a real, tangible place must be liberating. Not having to feel guilty because of the bizarre moral compass of an invisible man in the sky makes life simple. No ghosts, no Bigfoot, no heaven or hell - just life.” Katie gave him a brief smile as they stood there, eyes locked.
Bryan and Kyle stood by the church, dumbfounded.
“Actually, yeah, that pretty much sums it up,” Bryan said. “Are you an atheist as well?
“No.” She turned and walked toward the door without saying anything else, leaving them with more questions than answers.
Travis walked over, staggering slightly as he went. “We’re heading inside now. You’re going to shoot us walking through the front door and inside a little bit. Then we’ll find a spot for Ben to set up the station where he’ll monitor all of the camera feeds. After that, we set up the cameras, shoot a few shots of us acting scared, stage a few noises, and put this son of a bitch in the can. Questions?”
“Actually...” Kyle started to speak before Travis dismissed him with a wave of his hand.
“Good, let’s get going.”
After a few moments of fumbling, the Specter Slayers had clipped wireless microphones to their shirts. Bryan now stood behind them, holding the camera he had removed from the tripod. Kyle attached a light to the top of the camera, and stepped back behind Bryan, waiting for the shooting to commence.
“Hit it,” Travis said, and threw yet another beer behind the camera.
“Rolling,” Bryan said. He squinted his left eye closed, peering into the viewfinder with his right.
Creepy Joey eased the door open. The rusted hinges produced a high-pitched screech as they resisted the movement. The top one cracked, breaking free of the wall, and skewing the door at an angle.
The breaking hinge startled everyone, particularly Joey who threw his arms in the air in a warding off gesture, as if he expected the door to attack him. “We’ll cut that in post, Ben,” he mumbled.
Regaining their composure, Joey and Travis stood on either side of the doorframe and peered inside. Compared to the exterior, which was now illuminated by the lights they'd set up, the interior of the Danver church looked like a cave. The lone light atop the camera didn’t brighten more than a few feet of space.
Travis turned toward the camera Bryan held, looking into the lens. “There is a distinct electricity in the air. Something is in here, and it doesn't want us to proceed.”
Bryan tried not to laugh. The camera wobbled as he failed.
“Goddamn it, hold the camera still,” Travis said.
“Sorry,” Bryan said, rolling his lips inward between his teeth, trying not to smile. He had to take a step back to keep both men in the frame because Travis’ height made it difficult.
Kyle lingered behind them, trying to look over Bryan’s shoulder. To their right stood Katie, boom microphone in hand, and headphones covering her ears. The microphone kept popping into Bryan’s shot, though he was certain that she couldn’t care less. He was surprised that she would help with the filming at all, given her already contemptuous relationship with the show runners.
“Quiet,” she said, her voice hissing.
Everyone stood in front of the doorway, listening. Bryan held his breath, focusing as best he could while still maintaining his shot. Nearly a minute passed before she shook her head.
“Never mind. I thought I heard... something, but it’s not there now.”
“What was it?” Joey asked, theatrically playing to the camera.
“It sounded like something slitheri
ng...,” she said, but stopped herself when she realized he didn’t actually care, and was putting on a show for the audience. “Just go through the goddamn door.”
Joey gave her a smirk before taking a tentative step forward, and entering the church.
“We're the first people to enter this hellhole in half a century,” he said. “The stench inside the church is even more intense than it is outside.”
Taking a breath through his nose, Bryan nearly gagged. He felt tears stinging at his eyes again as he tried to breathe through his mouth. He recognized the smell, but couldn’t place what it was. All five of them pinched their noses shut, their mouths gaping as they tried to push through the terrible odor.
“Dude, that smells so bad I can taste it!” Kyle said.
Pulling the top of his shirt over his nose, Travis followed Joey inside, standing off to his right. Bryan came in behind them, trying to keep both men in frame while not tripping over the doorframe. He lifted his face away from the viewfinder and tried to look around the church.
The darkness, like the smell, seemed thicker, more palpable, inside than it did out. Taking a few steps further, Bryan panned the camera, trying to shine the light around in a semicircle. Pieces of wood and bunches of leaves on the floor were all he could make out.
“Kill it,” Travis said. He pulled out a flashlight that had been jammed in his back pocket and turned it on.
Bryan stopped recording and lowered the camera to his side, holding it by a handle on the top. He rolled his shoulder backward, stretching the muscles that had already begun to ache from holding the equipment.
Joey and Katie also produced flashlights and turned them on. Katie’s was much larger, and looked to be a heavy-duty brand. The beam from hers shown significantly brighter, allowing them to finally see some of their surroundings.
“I take it you don’t have any of those for us?” Bryan asked.
“What the hell? That thing might as well be a spotlight. Why would you bring that in here?” Joey said to Katie, ignoring Bryan’s question.
“Don’t ask stupid questions,” Katie said without looking at him.
“We need soft, weak light sources in here, or else the footage won’t appear scary,” Joey said. “Just because you paid to be here doesn’t mean you can wreck our shots.” His voice had gone up an octave and resumed being disturbing.
Katie turned, shining the light directly in his eyes. “I’m here to search for evidence, not pander to your moronic audience.”
“Hey!” Kyle said. “I watch their show.”
“So the next time you feel the need to speak up about my equipment, don’t,” she said.
Creepy Joey held his hand in front of his face, trying to block the light from his eyes. “Fine, just point that damn thing somewhere else.”
“Seriously, we don’t get any flashlights?” Kyle asked.
No one responded to him.
“Goddamn it,” he said. Fishing around in his pocket, he pulled out his cell phone and activated a flashlight application. The light was brighter than Bryan expected it to be, but he still felt bad for him. Bryan had the light mounted to his camera at least – Kyle had a phone.
The group moved a few steps into the church, casting the beams from their flashlights around as they inspected their surroundings. The inside of the building was in better condition than Bryan had expected. The roof had only caved in at the back right corner, keeping the majority of the church out of the corrosive elements.
From their position at the door, it looked like most of the building consisted of one room, the chapel, and nothing else. The floor was made of large stones and mortar, much like the walls, but flatter, allowing them to walk across them without spraining their ankles.
A large section of a tree trunk sat in the middle of the room with a wide slab of stone sitting atop it. The crude altar dominated the room, with logs and stumps surrounding it haphazardly on all sides, creating rudimentary seating for the congregation. Bryan’s eyes were pulled to it, his mind racing at the possible atrocities that had been committed upon it.
Kyle whistled, the sound bouncing off the empty walls, adding to the isolated feel of the church. “What the hell?”
The longer walls each had two stained glass windows, with the two end walls containing one each. Bryan spotted three more upside down crosses, and other symbols he couldn’t recognize, hanging between the windows. Though he wasn’t religious, he still found the blasphemy unsettling.
Katie moved forward, shining her flashlight along the ground as she went. Debris was scattered about, but not as much as Bryan thought there would be with a hole in the roof. Her light fell upon a book splayed open on the floor. Bryan walked up beside her, looking at the binding.
“What language is that, Latin?” He asked.
“Yes.”
“Can you read it?”
“No.”
She picked it up, and carefully arranged some of the dislodged pages in place. “We’ll most certainly have to inspect this later tonight.” She placed it carefully on top of one of the logs and continued toward the right wall.
“Did you guys find somewhere for me to setup?” Ben asked, from outside the front door.
“Yeah, here in the front,” Travis said. He pointed his light at the right corner, showing the bare space. “Doesn’t look like we’ll have to move anything either.”
“Ken, start carrying shit inside,” Ben said.
“It’s Kyle, you little douche bag.” Kyle stomped outside, mumbling under his breath and staring down Ben as he passed him.
It didn’t seem like Ben knew that he was teetering on the point of a serious beating, and Bryan hoped he would keep it up.
“Bryan, bring the camera over here! We need a shot of this!” Joey said. They stood under one of the stained glass windows, shining their lights on it.
Bryan lifted his camera as he approached, zooming in on the window. “What am I supposed to be seeing?” he asked. As the lens zoomed in he saw it. The portrait in the stained glass was a black humanoid shape with dangling arms and large, white teeth.
Chapter 8
It took them over two hours to carry the rest of the equipment into the corner of the church and set it up. They unfolded a table and installed all of the computer apparatus for Ben’s workstation. Cables crisscrossed the floor, running from cameras setup at every corner of the chapel, and running back to the makeshift operating center.
Five monitors sat on the table, giving Ben access to the video feeds from every camera simultaneously. A controller, that reminded Bryan of an arcade joystick, sat on the desk allowing Ben to pan and zoom any of the cameras if necessary. Headphones sat on the table, giving him audio from every microphone attached to the cameras and Joey, Travis, and Katie. Bryan and Kyle weren’t mic’d up because “no one gives a shit what you have to say,” Travis had told them.
Lights sat in every corner, behind the cameras, dimly lighting the room. They weren’t bright enough to fully illuminate their surroundings, but they did an excellent job of enhancing the already tense atmosphere of the church. Katie had argued profusely about upping the bulb wattage, but Travis had ignored her requests while pantomiming her nagging with his hands, opening and closing them like a mouth.
After all of the video feeds were verified, they unpacked the last of the cameras – helmet cams that attached to their heads, giving a clear image of what the wearer was seeing. This episode would be the first one where this new equipment would be used. Bryan assumed they were an attempt to replace the fired crew with a cheaper alternative.
“These are idiot proof. What you see is what will be picked up by the camera,” Joey said, tightening the camera to the baseball cap he now wore.
Travis also wore a Specter Slayers hat, but it had conveniently slipped his mind to bring some for Kyle and Bryan. Instead, they used straps to attach them to their heads. They weren't comfortable. Bryan assumed that Travis 'forgot' so that they would look inept on camera, while Travis a
nd Joey would appear professional and prepared.
They had offered a camera to Katie, but she had countered by suggesting they put it someplace uncomfortable. As they equipped themselves for a long night of filming, Bryan fought the urge to stare at her. She had worked her way around the room, inspecting everything, and taking notes in a binder. The intensity with which she studied the church and the antagonism she threw at the Specter Slayers made her even more interesting to him.
Kyle stood beside him, fighting with the straps to his camera, cursing the entire time. He noticed Bryan’s attention was elsewhere and followed his gaze. He looked back and forth from Katie to Bryan, realizing the interest there.
“Are you checking her out?” Kyle asked, the corners of his mouth curling in a sly grin.
Bryan averted his eyes and felt his face flush as he resumed manipulating the helmet cam. “I think she’s interesting. She hates those two turds, which makes me respect her a whole lot more.”
“Yeah, she’s definitely something,” Kyle said, watching her from across the room. “I can tell she’s into me. Right now she’s just playing hard to get.”
Because he had some success with women, Kyle considered himself an expert in regards to all things dating. He liked to think he could predict what women would do in any given situation, and often gave out unsolicited advice on how to manipulate them. Since the breakup with Christine, Kyle had been directing him on how to ‘score a bunch of chicks’, and aggravated the hell out of Bryan.
“You’re kidding right? She’s ignored you from the moment she got her. Actually, she and I have had a couple of... moments.”
Kyle stopped adjusting the straps encircling his head, and turned his full attention on Bryan. “Moments? What do you mean, moments?”
“We’ve had some prolonged eye contact a couple of times.”
“Eye contact? Wow, I hope she's not pregnant,” Kyle said. “Give me a break. I've been working her since the moment she got out of the car. I'll be doing shots of Jägermeister off her naked body by morning.”
