THE CHURCH: PART 1

I cranked this story out rather quickly, but my mom read through it and gave it a good, little edit run, so hopefully it's not in too bad of shape. I originally intended to post it as a note on facebook, but my blog hasn't gotten any love in a very long time from me or anyone else and it is well overdue for some. There are two parts to this story and I had hoped to have them both finished by now as a Halloween treat for all of my facebook friends, but I'm only about halfway through the second part and I'm making no promises as to when it will be finished. It's too much pressure. Anyways, I hope you enjoy. :)

 

My friends, Charlotte and Sarah, now known as Ruth, used to explore abandoned churches, houses, barns, whatever we could find, and there was this one church in particular that I’ll never forget.

 

And so the story begins…

It was a hot day, but not yet humid, late spring maybe, and the three of us had made ourselves comfy in Charlotte and Ruth’s mother’s red Subaru. They’re sisters, you see, but aside from the sprinkling of freckles that color their faces, you’d never be able to tell. We’d been driving nearly forty-five minutes and had just taken the small jog at the end of the parkway onto route 18.

It was an immensely boring road that rarely veered from a straight line, but there was something unsettling about it. It was too boring, too plain, too straight. We all stared at a house decorated with hundreds of gnomes as the Subaru flew past; Ruth wasn’t exactly easy on the gas. People were strange here, nearly as strange as the road itself.

Ruth had been looking for any reason at all to drive and take advantage of her new license and so we had disembarked from our home town of Irondequoit on a journey to explore some abandon buildings I had seen passing through on the way to Buffalo, particularly the church. We hadn’t yet had the opportunity to explore one.

I was nervous. They were looking to me to guide them to our next adventure and I wasn’t exactly sure where it was. I was going off memory. What if it isn’t past that town? Is it five miles past that farm—or three? Is it really on the right side of the road? What if I’m getting mixed up from my trips back from Buffalo where it was on my left? Should I be watching both sides of the road?

I took a calming breath to maintain my composure. The air smelled of stale French fries and cheerios, courtesy of their younger brother Arun, and my window wouldn’t go down—child proof. Charlotte sat in front of me, having called shotgun before we left. The breeze blowing in through her window lifted stray wisps of her normally deep auburn hair around her face. Today in the sunlight, it looked ablaze with orange flames.

I looked past her through the front windshield. A smoke stack loomed before us in the distance puffing out light clouds of steam. We were lucky. On previous trips down this road, I had seen it leak out the thick refuse of pollution in long, hazy streaks that would hang in the air, unmoving, even as the clouds passed them by.

“How far away do you think that is?” I asked no one particular.

They both knew what I was talking about without having to ask. We’d been friends for a long time. “Five miles?” Ruth guessed.

“It’s about forty,” I said. That was the funny thing about this road: it easily tricked the eye, like a desert that would put out false hope to those who had found themselves trapped in it.

She didn’t believe me. I let it go.

I wondered for a moment if their mother ever really knew exactly how far we traveled on these trips. Naturally, she saw the odometer and gas readings, but did she just assume that we putted around town all day or did she suspect something more devious?

A distant, blinking, red traffic light signaling a town suddenly pulled my thoughts back to the road. It was hard to tell how far away it was. The road was endless. Was it one mile away? Was it ten? It was impossible to tell. And so I waited, my eyes never straying far from the flashing red light.

As we neared, my excitement began to grow. There was something very familiar about this town; the houses set too close to the road, the twisted curve of the trees, the rusty cars… This was it! This was the town the church was in! It had to be!

“I think it’s here guys,” I said. “It’s white and old and surrounded by pine trees.”

The speed limit dropped to thirty and Ruth slowed to forty. The houses and various establishments started to grow closer together.

“There’s a pine tree,” Charlotte said, pointing to her right at a small Methodist church. “Is that it?”

“Does that look abandoned?” I baulked. The small front lawn was mowed, the bushes were trimmed, and although it was a bit rundown, overall it looked well maintained.

“Well, it’s a church and there’s a fucking pine tree,” she countered. That was another thing about this road: there were nearly as many churches as there were houses and they were all small and inconsequential as though they had been built with the intent to be forgotten. “Look, there’s another pine tree.”

“That’s not even a church.”

“But it’s got a pine tree!”

“Shut-up! Where am I going!” Ruth cut in.

“I think it’s up here.” I was getting nervous again. We’d already passed through the intersection in the middle of town and were nearing the outskirts. The buildings were already beginning to thin again.

“Pine tree,” Charlotte said. “Pine tree,” she repeated a moment later.

“Church, Charlotte. Church.”

“Pine tree!”

“There!” I said. “That’s it! Right there!” I pointed through the front windshield. The old white church, exactly as I had described it, save for one thing, was coming up on our right.

“Where are all the fucking pine trees, Eh-leee-uh?” Charlotte asked as Ruth pulled up onto the shoulder. Her voice was tight with sarcasm.

“Well, there’s two pine trees,” I said.

“I thought it was surrounded?” We all got out of the car to survey the area.

“It is surrounded,” I said, mimicking her tone. I gestured to the church before us. “On one side.” And this time I spoke the truth. Two trees rose along it’s left side, sheltering it from the eastern wind that would otherwise have hammered it to near disrepair. These trees had been planted with purpose and now towered over the church itself to forever be its faithful companions.

Ruth walked around the front of the car to join us, her camera already slung around her neck—a loan from school for her photography class. She was nearly as eager to start snapping as she was to keep driving. I had my own tiny Kodak camera in my pocket.

She tucked a lock of her soft, black hair behind her ear. “Are you sure it’s abandon?” she asked. It was clearly no longer being used, but was in much better shape than most of the abandoned buildings we normally visited. Her eyes flickered to the house next to it.

“I think so,” I answered, already scrutinizing the same house. It looked nearly as rundown as the church and I would have thought it to be abandoned as well if not for the SUV parked in the thinning, torn-up gravel drive. The car worried me. Would someone see us and rat us out? Or, more importantly, did the church have caretakers? Did it matter?

“Let’s just go,” Ruth said. We’d driven all the way here and we all knew that we weren’t turning back now.

Together we started the short hike to the two tall and very green doors on the churches face. Save for a small circular window near the top of its pointed roof they were it’s only identifying features. We walked in step together, no one leading, no one following.

The church, like the road, was eerie in an unsuspecting way. It was dull, featureless, boring, but at the same time there was something disquieting about it, something that kept your senses alert, something that awoke the innate need in you to be cautious.

Maybe it was the lack of sunlight. It was a fact I hadn’t missed and was what set the church apart from the rest of the setting. There was no sun gracing it’s steps, brightening it’s front doors, lighting it’s face or sparkling through it’s lone window. It wasn’t exactly set in shadow it just wasn’t lit the same way everything else was. It was almost as if the sunlight itself was wary of it—not frightened, but wary, just as we were.

We reached a small set of basic stone steps that led to the doors and quickly ascended them. They had been worn over time and a couple spots had started to crumble, but were otherwise in good repair and we had no need to watch our footing.

We paused for a moment before the doors and glanced at each other. There was only one handle—one shot. We were entering new territory and we knew it. Most of the buildings we explored didn’t have doors and when we encountered ones that did, it was all too easy to push them open or find another way in. Sometimes we climbed through a window, sometimes we walked through holes where the walls had simply crumbled or rotted away, sometimes we broke through a rusted lock, but we weren’t going to have those options here. This door had to open and it had to do it of its own accord. We weren’t getting through it any other way.

Ruth pulled on the handle, but the door didn’t budge. Damn.

“Let me try,” I said, taking up position in front it. I pushed down on the little lever on the old brass doorknob with both thumbs and pulled for all I was worth. Nothing. Ruth tried once more, but to no avail. Locked, I thought. Shit.

“Let’s see if there’s another way in,” I suggested. A back door, I thought, hopeful. I skipped down the stairs and started for the left side of the church where the pine trees were. Ruth followed and took up pace at my side. I glanced back as we neared the corner of the building. Charlotte was still standing on the front steps.

“Come on,” I said. What was she waiting for?

“No. I’m not going.”

“What?” I said, completely exasperated.

“I’m—not—go—ing.”

In situations like these, Ruth and I normally had a very savvy way of just forcing her to do what we wanted through brute force—and by that point, it wasn’t beyond us to simply drag her around the side of the church with us—but we both knew that she wasn’t going to go without a fight. The commotion it would cause and her psychotic, high-pitched screams—developed over the years we spent waiting at the corner of the street during for the school bus every morning, screaming simply because we could—would definitely draw some unwanted attention.

“Just leave her,” Ruth said.

“Someone’s going to see you!” I said.

“I don’t care. I’m staying.”

Ruth and I turned around and continued to the corner of the church, growling our irritations to each other. Charlotte shouted something just as we were about to turn the corner, but I was far from giving her my attention by that point. She was being beyond irritating. What did get my attention was the fact that Ruth had suddenly lost pace with me and was no longer at my side. I turned around and was puzzled to see her hurrying back to the church doors.

“What is it?” I shouted down to her.

“She got it!” she shouted back.

“I got it!” Charlotte reiterated.

Figures, I thought. She was the smallest of us, the shortest and the youngest, and she was the one who got the door to open. I really shouldn’t have been surprised though. She had a knack for finding her way into places and finding her way out. If you put her in a maze she’d find her way out even before the rat.

By the time I reached the doors, Ruth and Charlotte were already peering inside.

“What’s in there?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I can’t see anything,” Charlotte answered. I saw that she had only pushed the door open a few inches.

“Well go inside.”

“No way.”

I let out an irritated huff of air and maneuvered to the front of our little group. I took a peek through the small crack and then carefully pushed the door open. It was heavy and opened slowly, but eventually the gap was big enough for me to fit through. I shimmied through the small opening and took a few cautious steps inside. I half expected to see someone waiting with a broom ready to chase me out, but no one was there.

The small entranceway I had stepped into was made completely of wood: wood floors, wood paneling, wood rafters… but I saw none of this. I saw only the room beyond and the red wall to wall carpeting that highlighted it. I guess this is where I’m supposed to make a creepy blood comparison, but nothing about this carpet was in the least bit creepy, and it was a far cry from the dark, pulsating red that’s normally associated with blood. This carpet looked like it was pulled right out of the seventies. It may even have been shag. And it looked surprisingly clean.

I walkedroom, entranced with not only the brightness of the carpet, but the brightness of the room in general. It wasn’t lit with sunlight or even manmade light, but it was bright nonetheless. We hadn’t seen any windows from outside and from where I stood I still couldn’t see any. Where was the light coming from? I took another step closer.

Ruth and Charlotte were standing in the partially opened door looking at me. “What’s in there?” Charlotte asked.

I didn’t answer; I wasn’t sure yet. My eyes continued to roam over the red room. It appeared to be big enough to hold mass in, but the idea seemed oddly out of place without any pews to fortify the image with. The room was completely empty.

Against the far wall opposite of me were two doorways, branching off into two different rooms. Perhaps there had once been a podium of sorts against the empty wall between these two rooms where the priest would give his sermons, but there was nothing now, just bright red carpeting.

The two rooms, however, were not empty. The one on the right looked as though it had been some type of kitchen and had cabinetry along the walls and the one on the left had an old vacuum cleaner in the doorway. It was the kind your grandmother might have—the kind that after fifty years would still be sucking away—the kind that you’d throw-out your back from just carrying around.

An uneasy feeling settled in the pit of my gut. Somehow I knew that we weren’t alone and it was more than just the vacuum and the coincidentally clean carpet. I could feel it in the air, sense it with my instincts, know it the same way you know when you are being watched. We weren’t alone.

“There’s a vacuum in here. I think someone’s here. Should we go back?”

“Let’s just look around,” Ruth said.

I took another step and the floor groaned a hideous wail. I looked down.

“Whooaaa,” I said, surprised. I looked back at the door. Charlotte and Ruth were making their way inside. “You guys! Be really careful. There’s a giant hole in the floor!” One more step and I would have fallen through it.

I then automatically looked up. It might seem like a strange thing to do considering that the hole was below me, but what normally creates a hole isn’t what is below it, it’s what is above it, and that’s often ten times more dangerous than the hole itself. Water could be leaking through the roof. The rafters could be rotted. The wood beams could be seconds away from collapsing in on us.

But the wood work above us looked to be in surprisingly good shape. There was no water damage, no cracked beams, no mold, no nothing. After scrutinizing the walls holding them up and deeming them safe as well, I bent down to take a closer look at the hole itself. It was big enough to throw a refrigerator through, maybe even two, and had an old wooden ladder descending into its extraordinarily dark belly. I expected to find the wood surrounding the hole rotting or brittle or in the least weakened, but it was just as strong as the rest of the floor. It was almost as if a giant had randomly decided to punch a hole through it.

“Oh man,” Ruth said, crouching down to peer in the hole with me.

“What’s in there?” Charlotte asked.

“I don’t know. It’s too dark.” I looked at Ruth and I know she saw that look in my eye. “Let’s go down there,” I said, a grin tugging up the left corner of my lips.

“I’m not going down there!” Charlotte butt in.

“We should push her in,” Ruth suggested under her breath.

I stifled a chuckle. “Maybe if we knew she wouldn’t die from the fall.” We had no idea how deep it was. Was it five feet? Ten? Twenty? It was too dark to tell.

I took a deep breath and looked at the ladder, which was leaning almost too conveniently against the edge of the floor. Didn’t I think there was something odd about that? Of course I did, but you only get to live once and I’d much rather die while living than live like I’m dead. “Alright,” I said. “I’m going down.”

I walked over and manhandled it a bit to see if it was sturdy. It didn’t seem to weaken under my abusive treatment and what I could see of it before the darkness swallowed it appeared safe. Here goes, I thought.

I turned around and put my right foot on the third rung which was only a few inches deeper than the floor. Ruth and Charlotte both watched me attentively. What they were going to do if I fell, I wasn’t sure.

I then very carefully began shifting my weight from my left foot—the one planted firmly on the floor—to the one on the rung. I breathed slowly and moved with the utmost caution. When all of my weight had been completely transferred onto the ladder, I swung my left foot onto the rung and stood there for a moment, getting a good feel of it. It hadn’t creaked once and felt solid beneath my feet. I shook it a little and pulled it away from the floor a few inches, which startled Ruth and Charlotte, and then let it fall back into place.

“Jerk,” Ruth said.

I smiled. I hadn’t meant to scare them, but it was amusing nonetheless.

I shrugged my shoulders then. “It feels sturdy,” I said. I jumped on the rung a little and nothing happened.   I looked down below me, but still couldn’t see anything. “If you hear screaming though, that’s probably just me plummeting to my death.”

“Oh, okay,” Charlotte said. “I would have wondered.”

I chuckled and then slowly began to descend into the darkness.

 Copyright © 2012 by E.B. Mazza

All rights reserved.

No part of this written work may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations for articles or reviews.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and places are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.