Page 4 of Forever Dark
“Father Wells?”he called, wondering if Cheryl had been wrong.His voice echoed up above to the unseen nooks and crannies of the old roof.
No answer.
He took another step in.Candlelight rippled against the walls, making the shadows shift across old hymn boards and cracked plaster.Near the altar stood more candles.Enough to light the front of the nave in a thin, trembling wash.
“Is anyone here?”
The words rose to the rafters and came back smaller.
Nothing moved.
Off to the side near the altar stood the narrow door leading to the tower stairs.Connor had barely fixed on it when a draft came through the church.
It slid over his neck and down his arms like cold fingers.
The nearest candle flame jumped.
Then another.
And another.
A whisper of moving air traveled down the aisle.One by one, the flames guttered out.Small hisses.Tiny threads of smoke.Glass chiming softly as the breeze passed them.
Connor stopped where he stood.
The last light near the altar burned thin, bent sideways, and died.
Darkness dropped over the church.
For a second all he could hear was his own breathing and the low pulse in his ears.
Then, above him somewhere in the tower, wood creaked.
Not the lazy sound of an old building settling.Weight.A step, perhaps, or a shift.Something real.
Connor thumbed on his flashlight.
The beam sliced through the black, catching pew backs, a fallen hymn book, the blank face of the old cross above the altar.The church seemed larger now that the candles were gone, the dark around the beam too deep to trust.
He swept the light toward the altar and froze.
Words had been written on the wall behind it.
Dark strokes, uneven and crude, but careful enough to form lines.Not English.At least not any English he could make out.Latin, maybe.Church language from funeral services and old ritual, half-heard across years of listening without really understanding.
The substance on the wall had dried in some places and run in others.
He held his breath for a moment.
It looked like blood.
Connor raised the light higher, tracing the words, trying to make sense of them.He couldn’t.One word looked vaguely familiar, but that was all.Below the writing, a slow, dark line had dried down the plaster.
Another creak came from above.
He moved toward the tower door, every muscle locked tight, the flashlight beam steady only because he made it steady.This was very different from what he was used to.The slow rural life he enjoyed policing.This was not it.This was something else, he could feel it in the cold dark corners and the stagnant air.
Connor grabbed the radio on his shoulder without taking his eyes off the stair door.“Dispatch.”
