In the first chapter, the book talked about Martin Halligan, a “dark priest” who had run the church 800 years ago. Martin had two passions: painting and killing. And by the time the town had caught on to what he was up to, he had murdered thirteen people over a span of seven years. Halligan was arrested, tried, and hung all on the same day.
The church’s legacy of ghostly deaths began shortly after that.
For the next few hours I continued to read about the church’s deranged history. When my eyes got heavy, I closed the book, leaned back against the couch’s thick cushion, and felt myself doze off. While asleep, I dreamt that a black dragon was breathing against my face. The breath grew hotter and hotter until my skin was burning. The breath then turned ice cold.
I woke up in a dark room.
The fire had gone out and the lamp had been turned off. I got up and walked out of the room. Except for the moonlight shining through the windows, the church was dark. My watch said 1:17 a.m. and I assumed that Michael had put out the fire and gone to bed. I made my way to the staircase and went up it.
A thin, blurry man stood at the end of the hallway.
“Michael?” I called out.
He didn’t answer.
I started to walk down the hall and he turned and walked into what I guessed was another bedroom. I kept going and when I reached the room I stared into total darkness.
“Michael?” I asked again.
A flash of lightning lit up the room and I saw a bunch of crucifixes hanging on the wall, a bed broken in half, and what looked like a dead white cat laying upside-down in the corner by the window.
But no one was in there.
I hurried back to my room and locked the door.
Somehow I fell asleep within the next hour and the next thing I knew it was morning.
After showering and getting dressed I went downstairs to find Michael reading the newspaper.
“Good morning, Jon. There’s coffee in the kitchen,” he said without looking up.
I went into the kitchen, poured a cup, and then went back out to the dining room. “Michael, did you sleep upstairs last night?”
Michael put down his paper and shook his head. “No, I never sleep upstairs.”
I scratched the back of my head, “Well, it’s just that I thought I saw someone standing at the end of the hall late last night and—”
“Jonathan,” Michael interrupted, “Remember what I told you, I can’t answer questions or discuss things like that. Whatever you saw is for you and you only.”
I bit my lip and nodded. After breakfast I went back upstairs and walked down the hall to the room.
The door was closed.
I turned the handle and opened it. Nothing—completely empty. No crucifixes, no broken bed, no upside-down cat. Just plain white walls and a window. I shook my head, closed the door, and walked back down the hall. When I got back downstairs I saw a note taped to the front door of the church and went up to it.
Had to go into town. Be back soon.
- Michael
I took the note off the door and scrunched it up. This was interesting. I liked the idea of exploring the church and its grounds without Michael around.
The next couple of hours flowed by like a hazy dream. Voices whispered down the hallways, I swore I saw reflections of blurred faces in the mirrors and windows, and when I returned after wandering through the cemetery - many of the names on the tombstones matched those in the book - a fog had wrapped around the church so thick that it took me almost twenty minutes to find the big double doors again.
And then there was the basement. I’d read in the book that the entrance to it was in a hallway that ran behind between the church’s nave and with Michael still gone, I figured now was as good a time as any to go down there. I walked through the kitchen and into a white-walled hallway. The entrance to the nave was across the hall just to my left and there was a door at the far end of the hallway. I went up to it and stared at its gold handle.
Time to go down there.
I opened the door.
Wooden stairs descended into candlelit darkness. I put my foot on the first step and it creaked like an old man’s spine. I left the door open and started walking down. The staircase curved a bit and I counted another tens steps before I reached a cement floor. Bottles of wine lined the wall on my left side and a couple of candles flickered on the wall to my right. Had Michael come down here and lit them for me?
My gut said no.
Straight ahead more candles illuminated a white stone hallway that looked like it stretched out at least two hundred feet from the room I was in.
And then I looked up and my stomach twisted like I’d just drank a bottle of turpentine.
A mural of death covered the ceiling. Priests slitting their own throats, strangling each other, hanging themselves—one with a narrow face and long, black hair was clutching his heart, his face twisted in pain.
Daniel.
I bit my lip and looked ahead. Somehow I knew the answer to what happened to Daniel was down that hall.
I walked forward. The hallway was similar to upstairs: cold and impersonal. I thought about Michael’s warning.
But I kept going.
A black cloud crept out of the ceiling.
I stopped and watched as it swirled towards me. It was almost as wide as the hall and my heart suddenly felt like it had a syringe filled with misery stuck in it. I took a step back and felt hot breath on my
