Page 3 of Forever Dark
“That’s what I thought.”
Another pause, shorter this time.“Nobody called anything in.Father Wells has the keys, doesn’t he?Pretty sure he isn’t out there either.Last I heard he’s still staying with his sister in Pine County.”
Connor looked past the wall to the front doors.Even from the road he could see one standing open.“I’m going to check it out.”
“You want Arnold?”
“Not yet.I’m right here.It’s probably just some local kids scaring each other silly.”
“All right.I’m logging you there now.”
Connor turned the SUV through the open gate.
The headlights swept over the front of the church and turned it from silhouette into stone and shadow.Cracked steps.Rotten trim.Dark windows.Ivy climbing one side like it meant to finish the job weather had started.
He parked near the front steps and killed the engine.The quiet rushed in at once, broken quickly by the metallic ticking of the cooling motor, which sounded like chattering insects.Somewhere across the fields, a dog barked once, then stopped.
Connor sat for a moment with one hand on the wheel, looking at the church.
The place was wrong tonight.
Not just occupied.Wrong.He could feel it in his bones.
A strip of light spilled from the church over the threshold and onto the cracked stone of the entry.It looked warm, but it was not inviting.
He stepped out of the car.
Night air met him, carrying the smells of moss, soil, and the faint sweetness of cut grass from some nearby field.The church stood above him, taller and darker than it had looked from the road, the steeple cutting up into a sky with no stars visible through the clouds.
His hand instinctively settled on the butt of his gun.
“Sheriff’s department,” he called.“Anybody inside?”
No one answered.That somehow only increased the eerie feeling in the air.
Taking a deep breath, Connor climbed the steps.
The front doors were heavier than they looked, swollen with age, iron fittings furred with rust.One had been pulled open halfway.Connor looked through the gap.Just inside sat a row of glass-encased candles burning along the aisle.
His brow furrowed.
Not electric lanterns.Not flashlights.Candles.
Dozens of them.
The sight made something tighten low in his stomach.It bathed the interior of the church in, what felt to Connor, an occult light.
Tentatively, he crossed the threshold.
The church held the cold differently than outside.The air in there felt sealed up, stale and old, carrying damp wood, wax, and the faint, sharp smell of mold.Flashlight in one hand, Connor let his eyes adjust, keeping his hand on the weapon at his hip.
The pews stood in rows on either side of the aisle, most coated in a film of neglect.Dust.Droppings.Splintering varnish.But the aisle itself had been cleared.Fresh disturbance showed in the grime, a path through the years of neglect.
Boot marks.
More than one set.
Connor drew his gun.The sound of leather and metal seemed to scrape through the whole church.
