Blackened

by Tim McWhorter

“Let’s go this way,” I whispered, nodding in the direction of the stairs leading to the second floor. Even before I stepped foot back in the church, I’d already decided to forgo the pulpit area and the coffin that may or may not still be there. Like an old girlfriend who caused you way too much grief, I had no desire to see it again. After all, I was on a fact-finding mission to see if Barnes had been back here, not a nostalgic trip down memory lane.

  “You got it, Chief,” Dallas whispered, though with his deep voice reverberating around the room, you wouldn’t have known he was whispering at all. I looked at Claire, and despite being half concealed in shadow, the silhouette of her head offered a reassuring nod. Quite literally, they were behind me every step of the way, and it helped me breathe just a little bit easier.

  The set of stairs leading to the second floor shared a wall with the window we had just come through, so by the faint light of my cell phone screen, we made our way to the bottom step. The first problem we encountered was immediate. No matter how much we tried, there was no sidestepping the shattered glass littering the floor. The crunching sound of it echoed just as much if not more than Dallas’ voice.

  From the foot of the stairway, Dallas shined his flashlight up into the second floor abyss, putting to shame the small amount of light coming from my phone. There was a landing up above, and in the space beyond, a doorway. The dingy wooden door, that looked to have once been painted white, stood open just a few inches. To say that the long, thin opening didn’t conjure up every haunted house movie I’d ever seen would be the understatement of all understatements. After a few seconds with no movement or sounds from above, Dallas looked at me and gave a nod. I nodded back, and before I could change my mind, followed the trail the flashlight laid out.

  The stairs were made of wood, and when their first sharp cry cut through the silence, I cringed and froze there on the first step. I looked back over my shoulder at Dallas, but all he did was shrug. When I finally took the second step and produced a similar sound, I realized it was going to happen every step of the way. The neglected wood was old, probably original, and had undoubtedly undergone some warping over the years. Short of dismissing the second floor altogether, there was nothing I could do. So without further hesitation, I climbed up the stairs, trying to ignore the sounds that were like a wakeup call to the darkness.

  I’m not sure when it happened exactly, but at some point, I’d started feeling better about our prospects of not finding evidence of Barnes. There were no tire tracks in the muddy parking lot, no flattened soggy grass. There didn’t seem to be any activity in the large room, and so far, we’d found no means of lighting whatsoever. No makeshift lamps, no candles, only the dark. With the exception of a possible forest animal or two, we were most likely alone in the church. Still, there was a reason the screws had been removed from the sheet of plywood and the window busted out. Neither of these could have been the work of a raccoon or opossum, and that thought remained in the back of my mind.

  The top of the stairs emptied onto the small landing and brought us face to face with the partially open doorway. Adrenaline already coursed through my veins, but its volume increased in the unfamiliar part of the church. I had no idea what might be beyond that door. Nor did I know what to expect, which strangely bothered me, as if expectations were mandatory.

  I felt a slight tapping on my arm and turned to Dallas. He was urging me to take the flashlight.

  “You’re up front,” he said, and as I took the flashlight from him, I found myself wishing our positions were reversed.

  Sliding my cell back into my jeans pocket, I turned the flashlight’s attention to the door in front of me. With a deep breath and slow exhale, I used my foot to nudge it open. As it swung slowly inward, it emitted the low creaking sound of every opening door in every movie about haunted houses I’d ever seen. Up close and personal, it was one of the scariest sounds I’d ever heard, and my neck hairs stood on end.

  Standing just inside the doorway, my eyes trailed after the beam of light shooting out from my hand. A million dust particles were caught in its ray as it slowly investigated the small room. The ceiling was low, and the quarters were cramped, that much was obvious right off. As I cut the flashlight along the wall, the beam of light eventually discovered a tiny, lone window at the far end of the room. I aimed the light directly on it, hovering there for a bit. Roughly the size of a box of cereal, the entire pane of glass looked like it had been painted over with black paint. I was instantly reminded of the basement window. The artist was apparently the same, as was the artistic style. Bleak.

  Lost as I was in the memory of a year ago, it wasn’t until I heard a crashing sound that I realized Claire had entered the room beside me. The clamor jolted me back to the present, and I swung the light in the direction of the clamor. Silver beer cans scattered in and out of the shadows like rodents fleeing the light. The chaotic clanking of metal continued for five or six seconds before the stillness of the room eventually returned. Even if our being there had been a secret up to this point, it was a secret no longer. We’d just been officially announced.

  “Sorry,” Claire said through clenched teeth. “Must’ve been a stack of them.”

  “Honey, you just took kicking the can to an all new level,” Dallas said, just before giggling at his own joke.

  The three of us stood perfectly still, allowing our stomachs to fall out of our chests and back into their proper positions. Not surprisingly, it was Dallas who made the next move.

  “Let me see that a sec,” he said, reaching for the flashlight. More than ready to pass the baton, I graciously obliged.

  Starting at our feet, Dallas slowly scanned the flashlight toward the other side the room, focusing primarily on the floor. What lay before us was a scene straight from a “teenagers gone wild” horror film. There were two mattresses taking up most of the floor space in the tiny loft. They weren’t actual beds, just old filthy mattresses cast straight down onto the floor. A soiled yellow bedsheet lay balled up at the foot of one mattress while the other was bare, but just as stained. Littering the ground around them, more beer cans, condom wrappers and cigarette butts told us all we needed to know about why one of the windows had been secretly unsecured. Three crushed red solo cups, a gold lipstick tube and a neon green pair of earbuds added a splash of color to the otherwise drab and depressing display.

  “Yuck,” Claire said, and even though I didn’t look up at her, I imagined her cute little nose was wrinkling up the way it sometimes does when her dog has gas.

  “Eh, I’ve done it in worse,” Dallas said matter-of-factly, and I imagined him shrugging his shoulders as he said it.

  Whether he’d intended to or not, adding a little levity to the scene was just what the doctor ordered. All three of us shared a much needed, albeit subdued, laugh. Once we’d determined that whatever had taken place in this room was disgusting, yet probably not the work of Barnes, we turned from the room and started making our way back toward the stairs.

  Chapter 16

  It was the sound of something smacking against the side of the church that had Dallas snapping off the flashlight and all of us holding our breath. The last thing I saw before the world went dark was Dallas drawing his gun and holding it crisscrossed over the flashlight the way cops do in the movies. I wasn’t sure if seeing that made me feel better about the situation or worse. It meant we had protection, sure. But it also meant that we might need protection. From what, I didn’t know, but the very idea was unsettling.

  We stood there for what must have been at least a minute, maybe two, staring off in the direction of the stairway. We remained silent and still, as if our lives depended on it. And for all we knew, they did.

  Staring into the blackness, it took all I had to keep from pulling out my cell and shining some light on the situation. I ran my fingers over the outline of the phone in my pocket, but refrained from taking it out. I decided to keep my light off as long as Dallas left his unlit.

  A couple of minut
es passed without another sound. We couldn’t stand there all day. One of us had to make a move. And with that thought, I slowly stepped toward the top of the stairs.

  The sanctuary below was dark, like midnight on a moonless night. Despite the early morning sun outside, there was no more light coming through the window. The sheet of wood we’d propped open had somehow swung back into place.

  “Wind probably knocked it out,” Dallas whispered from over my shoulder, interrupting the quiet and scaring the shit out of me.

  He was probably right, but part of me didn’t trust the simplicity of it. It could have very well been the wind, but my memory of this place and how things worked here wouldn’t let me buy into that notion. Instead, the “what ifs” started parading through my mind one after the other. What if someone had seen the Jeep parked in the driveway? What if it was the people responsible for the mess up in the loft? What if it was Barnes?

  Since Dallas had both the flashlight and the gun, we silently elected him the leader, and he started down the stairs first. I followed closely behind with Claire’s hand clasped tightly in mine. Creeping as quietly as the old wooden steps would allow, we made our way down in a tight group. For now, we left the lights off and had to feel our way. We proceeded with caution, and not just because the plywood had fallen back into place. The handrail going down the stairs was dry-rotted, and if I put too much pressure on it, it would sway back and forth. I didn’t know how much pressure it would take to topple it completely, but I was pretty sure I pushed it to its limit a couple times. The loud cracking sound told me so.

  When we finally got to the bottom of the stairs, Dallas put his hand out telling me to stay where I was. He shuffled away, and instantly my anxiety flirted with panic. I didn’t like being separated. Outside was one thing, but inside this creepshow was another story altogether. It was only seconds but felt like ten lifetimes before I heard the now familiar crunching of glass, followed quickly by brilliant sunlight flooding back into the room.

  As Dallas stuck his head out the window and looked down toward the ground, I took the opportunity to scan as deep into the sanctuary as my eyes would allow. The large room was steeped in shadow and uncertainty, but as far as I could tell, we were still alone. I found myself wishing I had the flashlight back. The light from my cell illuminated the space immediately around Claire and me, but couldn’t reach far into the shadows.

  “Where’s he going?” Claire asked, and I turned back just in time to see Dallas disappear out the window and the sheet of plywood swing back into place. The large room was once again plunged into darkness, and I immediately determined I liked it better the other way.

  “Shit,” I said, and as quickly as I could, felt my way over to where my boss had been standing five seconds earlier. With a deep breath, and fighting speculation that he had intentionally left us behind, I slid the sheet of wood aside.

  He hadn’t gotten far. Standing just below me, Dallas held the piece of broken pew.

  “Yep,” Dallas said with a shrug, “must’ve just fallen out.”

  “Great,” I said, and silently chastised myself for doubting Dallas’ integrity. It wasn’t his fault. It was my own insecurity. Mostly, it was the fact that I had already been through so much in this very church that I now questioned everything that had or would happen within its walls. Either way, I vowed to never doubt Dallas again.

  “Well, if it fell out once, it could fall out again,” I said, my eyes scanning the tree line across the way. I thought I saw someone – or something – move through a clump of green shrubbery, but I quickly dismissed it since my eyes were squinted against the brightness of the morning sun. It could have been a deer, or even the wind rustling a small tree branch.

  Or more than likely, it was nothing at all.

  “I know,” Dallas said, dropping the piece of broken pew onto the grass at his feet. Reaching up with both hands, he grabbed the sheet of plywood on each of the sides and told me to step back. With a grunt, he gave it a tug, and just like that, the sheet of plywood came away in his hands. The screw popped clean from the clapboard siding, making a sound like what you would imagine a bone breaking would sound like.

  “That should fix it,” I said, and actually laughed. I looked at Claire, who had followed me over, and she offered a grin.

  “I’d say so.”

  We each extended a hand toward Dallas and helped him back through the window. As much as I would have preferred it be the other way around, we couldn’t leave just yet. Our business here wasn’t finished. That fact was made abundantly clear when I turned back toward the sanctuary. Anxiousness and regret made their way down my spine when I realized how long we’d left our backs exposed to the room. I shivered. It was that same feeling you get when walking through a haunted house at Halloween, and when you stop to glance behind you, there’s something that you hadn’t seen the first time.

  “Enough screwing around,” I said, once Dallas was safely back inside the sanctuary. “Let’s hit that basement.”

  Chapter 17

  On our journey to the basement, the only stop we made was at the tiny room that had been transformed into a wacked out classroom for the insane the last time I was here. Gone were the headless dolls and miniature chairs, the room now empty of everything except the cracked chalkboard that still hung crookedly on the wall. The phrase that had been written across it, and likewise my mind for months following, was gone. There were no biblical quotes repeated over and over, no more talk of reaping or harvesting. What graced the chalkboard now were things entirely of the unrighteous variety. In fact, they would have undoubtedly made a nun cover her mouth in shock.

  Every curse word known to man had been scrawled graffiti-style in white chalk. Crudely drawn sketches of naked men and women covered the rest of the black board. The drawings were cartoonish in design, the breasts unnaturally large, and the penises and scrotums equally so. These weren’t the drawings of a talented hand. Most likely, it was the work of local teenagers, the same ones who’d left their shrine to parental un-supervision beside the filthy mattress upstairs. Stupid kids. If they only knew what vile crimes against humanity had taken place inside these walls. Or, maybe they did know. Maybe that was even the draw. Thrill seekers who obviously hadn’t lived the nightmare like I had.

  After only a brief stay, we left the classroom and its modern art just as we found it.

  “That way,” I said, pointing to the front of the church. Normally, the person who knows the way leads the way, but at some point, we’d changed the rules. In our little game, the person who had the flashlight and the gun led the way, and the nervous kid and his nervous girlfriend brought up the rear. Claire and I were just trying to stay as close to the person with the gun as possible. It wasn’t a very creative game, but it worked for us. Just because we assumed we were alone didn’t mean we couldn’t be wrong about those assumptions.

  A chill ran through me, and I shivered from the cool air. I could feel the dampness all around and wondered if any of us would come out of this trip with a cold. Especially Claire. She wasn’t saying much, just kind of following along. I hoped she wasn’t sorry she’d come. I looked back, and she gave me a faint smile. At least I think she did; most of her face was engulfed in shadow.

  I didn’t mean to step on the hymnal, but they were scattered everywhere, and I didn’t see it. I was too busy looking back at Claire and not paying attention. The book slid out from under my foot just enough, and I started to go down. I grabbed onto Claire’s arm to steady myself, but that proved to be the wrong move. Her shriek was sheer reflex, and it shattered the quiet of the sanctuary.

  Like line dancers, we went down into a crouch one right after the other, and shut our lights back off. The echo of Claire’s outburst bounced off the walls. Across the room, something small and furry scurried deeper into the darkness, and I was grateful that it was heading in the opposite direction.

  “What the hell,” Dallas said, his words a whisper.

  “Sorry. I slipped
.”

  “Me, too,” Claire said. “Sorry, I mean.”

  We stayed crouched for almost a minute, and my heart beat an increased, yet steady rhythm the whole time. Between the scare from the cans upstairs, the plywood swinging back into place and now this, my nerves were pretty much shot. I was ready to get the hell out of there, to mosey on down the road as my father would say. Quite frankly, I didn't want to be here anymore. But we still needed to check out the basement. If Barnes was back in operation, there was no better place for him to do it. Therefore, there was only one way to find out for sure whether Barnes was back in operation. I couldn’t leave without doing that.

  “Come on,” I said, standing back up. By the dim light of my cell phone and without a gun, I broke protocol and led the way to the front of the church. It was only another fifteen or so steps, but I took them carefully, this time mindful of the scattered debris lying about.

  I turned the small corner and entered the tiny alcove located just off the entryway. The brass coat hooks still hung on the wall, still tarnished and naked. Trading Dallas my cell phone for his flashlight, I shined it on the small door that led to a set of stairs which, in turn, led to the basement. Standing at the precipice of the closest thing I knew of to Hell, my chest was pounding so hard I wouldn’t have been surprised if my friends could hear it.

  This was the place.

  The very place.

  Just coming to this church that stormy night had been life altering, but it was what I’d experienced at the bottom of these stairs that changed me forever. Not just my life, but me. The things I’d seen. The things I’d been forced to do to survive. All of it had latched onto parts of me like so many leaches, and would be with me forever, never leaving. Like a bad dream I would never, ever wake from.

  And like a dumbass, I was about to go back in.

  Chapter 18