Light in the Darkness Read online

  The church was definitely a spooky place at night despite how sacred it was supposed to be. For a moment, I just stared at the basement door as if it would divulge its secrets to me. It ended up taking me a good ten keys just to get the first lock open. Why the heck did Pastor have so many keys anyways; there weren’t that many doors that even had locks in the church! I eventually got the other two locks out of the ways, opened up the door and started my decent. I was still annoyed by the lack of railing since the stairs were very steep and narrow. As I reached the bottom I saw a glowing light towards the back wall of the room and the air was thick with some kind of incense that I was unfamiliar with. The light didn’t seem to be from a candle but it was oddly inviting so I made my way over to the altar while keeping focus on the eerie glowing and thankfully found some matches and lit the two candles. I looked up to see that the light was now gone. Could the candles have scared it away? Was it even a thing that could get scared? I was confused but now was my chance to look around the room and check out what kinds of things Pastor had stashed away. I rather liked the tribal masks as they were very fierce looking and the geometric figures painted on the altar were oddly appealing, as if they emitted some kind of knowledge that I didn’t quite grasp. Just then I thought I saw a silhouette of a man out of the corner of my eye, I quickly turned to see but it had dissipated as quickly as it came. What was even going on in this church!?

  I managed to swallow my fear and continued to look around the area. I noticed that the altar had a few compartments in the bottom and when opened revealed some kind of wand, more incense and a circular plate with a five pointed star carved into it. I scratched my head as I pondered what all of this could be used for when the basement door slammed shut with a swift gust of wind that blew out the candles! I freaked out, but was surprised to see that the feint light was now back as if it could only exist in the darkness.

  I slowly inched forward and as I did the light seemed to grow brighter and yielded more and more colors. It was like walking into some kind of worm hole but did I dare to continue forward? I stood my ground as the lights began to take shape and patterns started to dance across my vision. I couldn’t make out exactly what the patterns were since there were several going at once and they kept morphing into each other as if they were unlocking something. I stopped and sat down on the ground mesmerized by it all… what could all of this be and how was it in my basement of all places!? Just then the colored patterns dissipated and I found myself again in the darkness of the basement but now there was an unsettling melancholy permeating every ounce of my being. I started feeling really freaked out like I needed to get away but my legs wouldn’t respond to my pleas as I was further consumed in darkness.

  Ch. 5

  _____

  I woke the next morning suspiciously refreshed. I had no idea how I even made it back to my bed but all I could think about were the strange lights and consuming darkness from the night before. I realized that I was going to be in huge trouble as Pastor was bound to have noticed his keys were missing and the basement door unlocked. I jumped out of bed and rushed downstairs to see that Pastor was nowhere to be found, which was very odd for a Saturday morning. I checked to see if the basement was still open but it was locked tight in its usual way. I went back to the kitchen and prepared some delicious sugar flakes cereal as I pondered my late night adventure. How could light and darkness create so many strange feelings and how could I have gotten back to my room? Just then Pastor came walking into the kitchen looking very hungover. He asked if he had done anything embarrassing at the banquet and continued on as if it were a typical Saturday morning. “It must be my lucky day” I thought to myself, somehow I was going to get away with it!

  Several weeks passed with no weird night time occurrences and I settled back into my daily routine. For a time, Pastor seemed to be almost… frightened about something. I decided to cut my losses and forget about whatever happened that night since whenever I started to contemplate the consuming darkness, I felt that same melancholy and dread start to creep over me. I started to find enjoyment in the predictability of our daily affairs and soon I had all but forgotten about the lights in the dark.

  Ch. 6

  _____

  “El, are you even listening to me?” asked Roddie grudgingly.

  “Huh, oh yeah, yeah.” I said as I put down the book I was reading. “We can meet up at my house before the party and get rea…”

  “You don’t even live in a house dummy.” Roddie interrupted with a smirk. “Luckily I have so many of my clothes stashed there or else I would never bother to go to that junky old church.”

  It was our freshman year of high school and Roddie and I had been invited to attend the most extravagant costume party in town at an old mansion. I never expected to see her again but on the first day of school, there was Roddie, in no less than 4 of my classes that semester. As I expected, Roddie took Stevie’s incident pretty hard and went to go live with her uncle for a while.

  Roddie had hardly changed at all since back then. We had hit it off right away despite her absence and she quickly drew me into her occult interests. Roddie had this peculiar quality where one minute she could be teasing me or fawning over cute animals and then the next she had tapped into her inner genius and would explain some kind of meditation technique with a passion I had only read of.

  Roddie’s uncle lived in a very old Victorian house that was apparently haunted by not one but three spirits. The house was in the middle of nowhere and so Roddie, out of pure boredom, started to learn deep meditation techniques to pass the time. It wasn’t long before she accidentally found that she could leave her body if she went deep enough and found herself face to face with a small boy with yellow eyes, gleaming in the darkness like that of a cat’s.

  “I’ll see you at that crusty old church at 7 o’clock sharp!” said Roddie “and you better be the one to answer the door, you know how creeped out I am by Pastor!”

  “I’ll be waiting, don’t worry.” I said with a yawn. It was only 7am and we were sitting in the cafeteria waiting for first period to start. “Only one more day of school and then the weekend.” I commented, trying to sound enthusiastic. “I wonder why they aren’t holding the Halloween party tonight instead of tomorrow.”

  “Duh, it’s because Saturday is a much better day for a Halloween party.” Roddie said sharply. “Besides, tomorrow IS Halloween. That’s obviously the best choice. Why don’t you have some coffee to get your brain working?” Roddie questioned playfully.

  “You know coffee just makes me anxious.” I said just as first period bell rang. Though we had several classes together, we very quickly became separated when the teachers found us shooting the breeze as opposed to taking in the lectures.

  It had been a long day of classes and all I wanted to do when I got home was read the new comic I had ordered. Upon reaching the church I checked the mailbox to see that Pastor had already gotten the mail, which was very unlike him. “Perhaps he had ordered something too”, I pondered as I made my way inside through the large wooden front doors of the church and back into the kitchen without a soul in sight. I saw the stack of mail on the edge of the table and sure enough, peeking out from beneath some letters was the new issue of hawk-man! Although I wanted to get into it right away, the church seemed unusually quiet so I decided to look around for Pastor to see what he was up to.

  Not in his room, the back offices or anywhere that I could see but just as I was about to give up, I saw that the basement door was cracked open. It had been a long time since I’ve given the basement any thought and I was almost reluctant to investigate. I slowly made my way to the door to see that a dim light shone up the stairway from below. I called down thinking that Pastor must be getting some chairs or something but there was no answer. After about thirty seconds I called again… but still no answer. I became worried that maybe Pastor had hurt himself or something in his old age and rushed down stairs to find him in a dark robe, sitting on the ground in f
ront of the oddly decorated altar.

  I walked up and touched his shoulder to find that he seemed to be sleeping. Well, as long as he was OK; I didn’t feel like getting yelled at so I quietly made my way back upstairs to read my new comic. I really wished I had just left it alone because now I was becoming curious about that basement once again. “Perhaps Pastor had ordered something for the rituals he engaged in?” I started thinking to myself. No, there was no way I’m getting into this again, not after last time. After all, I had a fun, normal party to go to tomorrow evening and if I start making any plan with regards to that basement, Roddie is sure to push the issue along; I had to keep this a secret.

  The new issue of Hawk-Man was titled “Hawk-Man: Invisible Light”. Oh great, even my comic book was trying to get me to find out Pastor’s secrets. Later on that evening I found Pastor in the kitchen making some spaghetti for dinner. I noticed his hand was shaking a bit but decided to leave it alone. He greeted me in an unusually pleasant manner and asked how school was. It was almost as if he was a completely different person. The universe itself seemed to be giving me every reason to investigate the basement rituals but dang, if I wanted to catch Pastor in the act, I would have to miss the Halloween party tomorrow night! Later that evening, I decided to give in and tell Roddie about the basement.

  Ch. 7

  _____

  “What?!. How come you never told me about any of this?! Forget the Halloween party, we need to find out what he’s up to! Roddie proclaimed excitedly. “Err, well, maybe we could go to the party for a bit but he could be up to so many different things El!” Roddie took to the news about as I expected and I was now firmly locked into this investigation.

  “You said his mood changes around the time of these rituals, right?” Roddie questioned with a smirk.

  “Yeah, it’s pretty creepy. I’m not sure what to make of it”

  “I’m excited to find out what he’s doing! I haven’t tried any elaborate rituals myself but it sounds like powerful stuff.” Roddie exclaimed. “What I really don’t understand is how his rituals would be affecting you, especially two floors away.” At this point all of my memories of occult occurrences were fully awakened. “If only I could see the truth of all things like Hawk-Man then we wouldn’t need to go sneaking around.” I joked.

  “You’re such a dork! It would take years and years of practice to unlock a power like that, and you have a grand total of zero hours invested so far!”

  It was true, I had avoided the mystical side of life as much as I could, but who could blame me. It’s not exactly a common occurrence to wake up wounded by unseen forces, and I was just a kid when it happened! “So we’ll go to the party until, let’s say… 12am and wait around until Pastor disappears into the basement.” At least this time around I would have the company of Roddie and better yet she was somewhat knowledgeable about these matters. I was starting to become more optimistic about the whole thing. We could very well figure it all out and maybe what we learned could even be useful to us!

  Time seemed to move very slowly as I waited for Roddie to show up that evening. I didn’t yet know what costume she had prepared but I decided on dressing as the Egyptian god: Horus, the avenger. I didn’t research very much into the occult yet at this point but I was rather fond of ancient Egypt and Horus’s all seeing eye reminded me of Hawk-Man.

  7 o’clock rolled around and Roddie was still nowhere to be found, even after her all her threats. The sun had set and it was turning out to be a rather foggy evening I thought to myself as I peered out down the road. I started to see some movement on the sidewalk a few houses down, some kind of blob of red and white bouncing along. As the figure came more into few I saw that it was a giant eyeball! The massive creature made its way to the door of the church and stopped, grabbed a section of its iris and peeled it away to reveal a familiar freckled face.

  “I guess we have a bit of a theme going this Halloween eh?” I joked.

  “Who are you supposed to be…? Ra or Horus? That’s hardly any different from Hawk-Man you dork!” Laughed Roddie. “We better get going or we’re going to be late to the party!”

  The old mansion was only a few blocks away from the church but it seemed to stretch on much longer than usual in the dense fog. The owner of the mansion was a very kind elderly man and I guess he was lonely as he would always throw giant parties around the holidays, with Halloween being his favorite and most grand party of them all. The mansion itself was beautiful, it looked like some kind of old castle and the property was very large and well kept. If the weather was nice enough, the parties would often extend outside into the courtyard.

  When we arrived at the gates of the mansion, Roddie sat down on the ground and demanded we rest for a couple of minutes. “Not the most practical of costumes?” I said with a smile.

  “Shut up! It’s way better than yours, I even made it myself!” Said Roddie while wiping sweat from her brow; I’m ok now so let’s get into the party already. I’m totally going to win the costume contest!”

  I truthfully wasn’t all that interested in the costume contest, well, not any more anyways. The mysteries of my paranormal experiences weighed heavily on my mind as we were greeted into the mansion. It seemed like everyone from school was at the party, which I guess wasn’t a surprise since the whole town was invited. Roddie and I made our way over to the food to find a luxurious spread of desserts and drinks, many of which I didn’t recognize. “Look at all this food!” Roddie said, opening up her costume. “I don’t think I’m ever going to leave this area.”

  As Roddie satisfied her sweet tooth I pondered our plan of action for the night ahead. We had about an hour to set a plan into motion for figuring out Pastors secrets… but how do we get into a locked basement and while he’s down there no less? Then it hit me, the old laundry shoot in the upstairs bathroom went all the way down into the basement! That had to be the only way but neither Roddie nor I would fit into such a cramped space… we would need some kind of camera to lower down there.

  “Hey Roddie, do you own a camera that we could use for tonight?” I questioned.

  “I think my mom has an old one stashed somewhere, why? Are we going to knock down the door and interrogate Pastor? Roddie said chuckling before cramming her mouth full of cupcakes; she was definitely a girl who liked her sweets. “While that could be fun, I don’t think that would help us learn very much, if anything.”

  “No, that’s not it.” I responded. “I think there’s an old laundry shoot that we could lower the camera down into to spy on the ritual.”

  “Oooo yeah, that might just work! This is going to be such a fun night!”

  “I don’t know about fun but it will be interesting to see what we learn from it all.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure it will be very educational El.” Roddie said jokingly. “I guess we’ll have to swing by my house real quick after they announce me winner of the costume contest!” Roddie certainly was a strong willed girl, I was glad to be in her company.

  There were many really cool costumes being worn at the party, there was an alien Frankenstein (or at least that’s what it looked like to me), one lady had her small dog worn as a second head dressed in some kind of futuristic looking clothing. It looked as though another costume consisted of several people working all the arms of a giant octopus… gee; maybe I should have made a costume too instead of buying something generic online. Despite all of the great costumes, I really think Roddie had a good chance of winning; her eyeball costume was incredibly detailed with what looked to be very accurate features, not that I really knew much about eyes.

  As I was looking over the crowd of both fun and gruesome entities I noticed that Roddie had slipped away from me. I scanned the party once more but no giant eye in sight, I crack myself up. I wasn’t much into mingling and small talk so I figured I would just wait by the food for her inevitable return. As I leaned against the food table trying to look as though I belonged, I began to feel something crawl up my back and grab my
shoulder! I jumped forward, nearly knocking a plate of cookies to the ground and turned to see Roddie with a big grin on her face. “I didn’t think my costume was that intimidating El. Hey, anyways, I guess they are holding the contest a bit earlier than we thought so we could head to my house sooner.”

  This was good news, now we had all the time we needed to get everything prepared. “Have you seen some of these costumes? You have some steep competition!” I said trying to push Roddie’s buttons.

  “You think? Well, I spent a couple of weeks on this so I won’t go down without a fight!” Roddie seemed as confident as ever, which was good because people were starting to gather for the contest to begin. We walked into the crowd looking for some indication for where to join in the competition until we found a sign up table at the other end of the room just as they were closing it down.

  “Hey. Wait up! I need to sign up too!” Shouted Roddie over the loud music. It was a good thing she got there when she did or else she would had lost before it even started. There were a total of 20 participants up on stage for the contest… yes, the mansion had its own stage… and all of them seemed like they made their costume from scratch. No alien Frankenstein I thought to myself, that’s too bad, but the dog headed lady and octopus group were in the running. Roddie’s costume was even more intricate than I thought; she had made it so that the veins around the eye could function like monster arms and the iris lit up creating a sort of hypnotic gaze effect. I was actually rather impressed.