Light in the Darkness Read online

  First prize was 300 bucks and a mystery gift, not too shabby. Everyone watching was to receive a slip of paper and put their vote into a box rather than an elimination style contest. It was apparently my lucky night as the slip I received had another stuck to it, an extra vote for Roddie! I peeked around the crowd of people and saw that a fair amount of people seemed to be voting for the giant eye. They had a big projector screen display a tally as they counted up the votes, for a total of 480 voters.

  As the count hit around the half way point it was clear that many of the participants were no longer in the running but Roddie and a custom made robot were neck and neck at 130 votes each. The robot looked like it was ready for combat, it had a glossy blood red coloring, shoulder cannons and both arms were fashioned into swords. I thought the helmet was the coolest part as it looked like some kind of medieval T-shaped knight helm and glowing red eyes underneath. Roddie certainly had some steep competition.

  Their votes hit 177 each, only a few more to go as Roddie made her way back to me to watch for the results. She undid the iris flap and stared up at the projector with a look of determination in her eyes. The votes swayed in favor of the war-bot and then to the monster eye and then finally it was down to the very last vote to determine the winner at 199 votes each. The last paper was drawn, a pause and then the counter ascended one last time for the giant eye monster, Roddie had won! She squealed in excitement and hugged me so tight that I could barely breathe. She made her way up to the stage and claimed her money and mystery gift box, which was decorated with a deep blue bow.

  I was extremely happy to see Roddie emerge victorious. “Tonight is our lucky night El!” Roddie said, gleaming with excitement. “I wonder what the mystery gift is!” It was drawing near 10:30 so we decided to make our way out of the party before opening her prize. Once outside the mansion we sat down on the entrance steps and Roddie quickly tore off the bow and wrappings to reveal a top of the line digital camera! This thing evidently had all the bells and whistles and even boasted indestructibility. “Well, that settles that.” Roddie said with a huge grin on her face. “I knew my costume was the best! That robot was pretty sweet though.”

  For a while after we just sat on the front steps staring deep into the night time fog, pondering the night ahead. It truly was an obscene amount of fog, more than I have ever seen before. Our field of vision could not have been more than 10 feet but as ominous as it was, in a way it was oddly comforting, as if we were being cradled in a blanket. “OK!” Roddie said jumping up pointing out into the fog. “Onward to the church!”

  Ch. 8

  _____

  The walk back seemed to take forever, as if time itself was standing still, waiting and watching for our adventure to begin. Upon entering the church Roddie immediately ripped off her costume to reveal that she was fully clothed in black. “OK, let’s get this show on the road!” she exclaimed. We quietly made our way up to my bedroom and I saw a light on back in Pastors bedroom. It was 11:45 so we had about an hour to figure out how to get the camera down the laundry shoot to film the ritual without Pastor noticing. “Does the camera have a rechargeable battery?” I asked.

  “Uh, let me see… yeah it does.”

  “Hurry and open it to see if it has a charge.” I commanded.

  “Jeez El, I’ve never seen you take charge like this, I kind of like it.” Roddie said with a wink. “Hmm, yeah. It looks like it’s at 25% battery right now.”

  “Here, you can use this outlet to start charging it.” I said while unplugging my Hawk-Man night light to make room.

  “Are you sure you’ll be alright without your night wight?” Said Roddie, teasing me in a child-like voice.

  “Just plug it in.” I said with a sigh. It seemed like it would be ready before we needed it, so that was no longer an issue. We decided on lowering the camera on a towel to help avoid making noise as it descended down the old, metal laundry shoot. The only problem left was what we would use to lower it down, as I wasn’t so sure I had any rope laying around. As if she had read my thoughts, Roddie went into my closet and grabbed a bunch of her shoes that she had left there and started to unlace them.

  “We’ll use a bunch of shoe laces as rope to lower the camera down. As long as we tie them with a slip knot they should hold the weight just fine.” Roddie was once again coming through with her inner genius, it seemed like we had everything ready to go when there was a knock on bedroom door. Three raps and then silence; Roddie and I looked at each other as I slowly got up and walked to the door. I turned the handle and opened it to find Pastor, looking a bit angry. He at once walked into the room and looked around suspiciously. Was he on to us, no… how could he be..? Luckily Roddie managed to stash the camera under the bed where he couldn’t see it.

  After a short while, he seemed satisfied with his scan of the room and turned to me. “Elliot.” He said in a stern monotone voice. “I know you had your little party tonight but your friend needs to go home now.”

  “OK, we were just wrapping things up for the night.” I said with my fingers crossed behind my back.

  “Hurry up. I’m sure her mother is waiting for her to get home.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Oh and Elliot, I need you to clean up the kitchen before you go to bed.” Pastor said as he walked out of the room, closing the door behind him. It seemed we were still in the clear, though Pastor did seem oddly suspicious.

  “El! Do you think he knows?!” Said Roddie sounding a little less confident than she was before.

  “Nah, I’m sure he was just being careful so we wouldn’t find out about his ritual.”

  I opened up my door and listened for Pastor. Off in the distance it sounded like he had made his way downstairs to the kitchen, now was my chance. I jogged downstairs to the front door, said some fake goodbyes and closed the door loudly so Pastor could hear. I figured I should go ahead and clean the kitchen really quick so Pastor would feel more like Roddie had left. I got into the kitchen to see Pastor eating a banana, gotta fuel up for ritual I guess. He seemed deep in thought and ended up ignoring me while he was in there. I glanced at the clock on the stove as I finished putting the last of the dishes in the dishwasher, 12:33, almost time.

  I made my way back upstairs and into my bedroom; the room appeared empty until I shut the door behind me and saw Roddie slowly starting to peek over the side of my bed. “Pastor is a pretty scary guy.” She commented. “I’m glad I don’t have to live with him.”

  “Gee, thanks.” I said. “Well, it’s just about time to get this going. I think Pastor went into the basement already.” The old laundry shoot door was in the upstairs bathroom. “When I was younger, I used to be afraid something monstrous lived inside the shoot and even had a couple of nightmares about it.” I commented.

  “I suppose that wasn’t too far off from the truth and tonight’s the night we find out for sure.” Roddie said with conviction. It seemed as though her confidence was back and raring to go. I was glad at least one of us was ready for this.

  Ch. 9

  _____

  It was 12:59am. We used 12 shoelaces total at 3ft each to lower the camera down and we weren’t even sure if that would be enough to reach the basement. I slowly opened the old laundry shoot door and stuck my head in, seeing if I could hear into the basement. “I don’t think he has started yet.” I whispered to Roddie who was quietly admiring herself in the bathroom mirror. It was then that I heard what appeared to be the ring of a bell; three tones total before dropping back into silence. I kept listening; waiting to make sure the ritual had started.

  Muffled chanting could then be heard coming up from the metallic access way. Roddie tore herself from her own reflection and listened in. “I don’t recognize what he’s trying to do, but that’s definitely an occult ritual if I’ve ever heard one.” It was time to start lowering down the camera; hopefully the makeshift rope would be long enough. We carefully placed the now activated camera into the shoot and slowly started lowering it d
own. It had to be lowered extremely slow or else it made too much noise and we’d be caught for sure. Another problem was that it would be hard to tell when it got to the point where the camera could capture the ritual; it seemed to be almost a straight drop so we’d have to either stop it at the end or carefully allow it to dangle outside of the shaft and hope it wasn’t facing the wrong way.

  We kept lowering the camera until it was down to that last three shoe laces when we suddenly I felt a little bump in its decent. Roddie and I looked at each other and decided we would hold the camera there and hope it at least caught the audio. We held our breath, hoping to hear what was happening down below but it seemed to have all gone quiet. “What should we do now?” Whispered Roddie looking impatient.

  “I guess we just wait for it to be over.” I said as I carefully tied the remaining lengths of shoe lace to the hinge of the little door to avoid having to hold it. Just as I was about to finish the knot, there came fierce tugging at the other end of the line! After three pulls, the last of the shoe lace disappeared. The bathroom lights started to flicker before finally going out completely and there we were, in an eerie silence. I could hear Roddie next me sobbing but when I reached out to her, there was nothing there. The sound of Roddie crying starting trailing off as if she getting farther and farther away but there was no sound of the bathroom door being opened. After another minute I could no longer hear Roddie at all, nor could I manage to speak, it was just silence and darkness. An intense feeling of dread and melancholy started to come over me, it was if death itself had come to greet me.

  I felt as though I was moving even though I was sure that I was still sitting still. Deeper and deeper into the darkness and silence I went and I felt as though my life was being sucked right out of me. Just when I was about to give up all hope the lights suddenly came back on and I saw Roddie standing over me with a very concerned look on her face.

  “El! El! Are you alright?!” she was asking repeatedly as I tried to get my bearings.

  “Yeah, I think so. What was that? What happened to us?” It was hard to speak, like I hadn’t used my voice in years.

  “We were trying to listen to the ritual downstairs when you suddenly slumped to the ground and started whimpering.”

  “The lights went out, and you were crying in the darkness!” I exclaimed.

  “El, calm down. Nothing like that happened. It was just you.” Roddie said in a calm reassuring voice. Just me?! Now I was really shaken up, what the heck was going on here…?

  “What about this darkness now?” Roddie inquired.

  “I just felt like I was being swallowed in darkness and dying. All sound dissipated and everything just felt deeply sad and foreboding. I don’t know how else to explain it.”

  “I hate to say it but you’re starting to creep me out. Maybe we should call it a night.” Roddie said reluctantly. All I could do was nod in agreement, still shocked by my experience. She slowly pulled the camera up, saved the video and handed it to me. “We’ll just watch it later; I really want to go home.” It was if all of our enthusiasm for the project had vanished.

  Ch. 10

  _____

  All I wanted to do is stay in bed and rest for the rest of the weekend. Darkness loomed on my mind and it refused to leave. I still hadn’t looked at the footage we captured as I wasn’t so sure I even wanted to see anymore. It was Sunday evening when I finally decided to get out of bed. I walked down stairs to the kitchen to grab a bite to eat and found that there was still had a bit of my favorite cereal left. As I sat down to eat I started to feel as though I was being watched, though it was just me in the kitchen.

  My delicious bowl of cereal cheered me up a bit and I then decided that I had better go see if Pastor needed me to do any chores before I went back to bed. The church was eerily quiet for this time of day, usually there was a service scheduled for an hour from now and people would have started gathering. Pastor was nowhere to be found on the main floor so I started making my way back upstairs to check if he was in his room. Half way up the steps I heard Pastor call for me from what sounded like his bedroom. Upon reaching his room I found that it was empty and Pastor’s coat was missing from the bedpost meaning he had gone out to run some errands.

  I must just be hearing things I thought to myself. I decided to go back to bed and read some comics to pass the time but as I made my way down the hall, my hearing started to fade and I could no longer hear my own footsteps. I stopped and looked around, everything seemed… off somehow. “EL!” I heard a voice yell from just behind me. I nearly fell down I turned so fast, only to find that I was still alone in the hallway although now, I could at least hear my heart pounding in my chest. After a moment it seemed as though my hearing had returned but now I felt like I had a new, invisible friend that wanted nothing more than to scare the living daylights out of me, perhaps friend was the wrong word.

  I ran to my bedroom, slammed the door shut behind me and slumped to the ground as I tried to calm myself down. Everything was getting very out of hand and I felt lost and powerless against the forces at work. What was going on in this church! It was then that it hit me, all those lights I saw in the basement that one night could be a portal of some kind, no, it had to be a portal but to where? If I wanted everything back to normal I would have to figure out how to close it and it had to be soon before something really bad happened. It was too late to go to the library to do research and tomorrow I had school… but I would see Roddie and surely she would help! Tomorrow, she and I would review what we caught on video as well; perhaps it held some kind of clue as to how we close the portal.

  Ch. 11

  _____

  It was a brisk fall morning and I was walking to school, pondering on how I could possible put this nightmare behind me. The sky was filled with dark foreboding clouds, preventing the nurturing light of the sun from brightening my gloomy disposition. The funny thing was, I had watched a weather report the night before and it said no clouds or rain today; I guess weather prediction was never very accurate. As I approached the school I saw Roddie waiting for me just inside the doors as usual, finally I started to feel some normalcy.

  We planned to watch the footage we captured before classes started so we had plenty of time to daydream up our next course of action. I walked through the front doors of the school and Roddie jumped up in excitement to greet me. “El, let’s see what we got!” she said gleefully. It was almost as though she had forgotten what happened that night but I suppose it was most dramatic on my end. I took the camera out of my backpack and booted it up. A small spark shot out from the battery compartment as the loading screen came on which startled us. I sat down on the bench next to Roddie and scrolled to the saved videos, selecting the only one available. The thumbnail was pitch black so I was already becoming doubtful of our success.

  Roddie clung to my arm as the video started, it was 11 minutes long and the first two minutes were just silence and darkness. I wanted to joke about how similar the footage was to my experience but the words just wouldn’t come out. We watched another minute go by and finally Pastor started chanting, though it sounded muffled somehow. The chanting grew quieter and quieter and the video started distorting and shaking as if something was about to happen. It was then that a very dim light came into view and in it was a very tall and slender silhouette, far too tall to be Pastor. The silhouette was hunched over a smaller figure which was sitting on the floor near the altar.

  “Oh no, I think Pastor is feeding the shadow El! That’s… it has to be some kind of demon! Angels wouldn’t appear like that…” Roddie said in an alarmed tone. “Do you see that off into the back of the room?” I checked where she was pointing a saw a vortex of some kind, seeping out of the back wall.

  “Do you think that’s where it came out of?”

  “Uh, maybe… but that thing… it isn’t human and it does not look nice.”

  “I don’t know what Pastor is trying to do and I don’t care anymore! We need to close whatever he
opened, banish whatever he brought here and we need to do it soon, like yesterday.”

  “There you go again El, being all strong and brave out of nowhere.” Roddie said blowing me a fake kiss.

  “This is no time to be joking around, we haven’t a clue how to banish something like that or if that… thing in the back is where it came from.”

  “Let’s just go to the library after school and see if we can find a book or if not, we’ll search around online.” Said Roddie in a now casual tone. “I’m sure we’ll figure it out, don’t worry about it.”

  “Easy for you to say. You’re not the one having repercussions to all of this. I was afraid to go to sleep last night.”

  “What do you mean? Did something else happen?” Roddie asked with peaked curiosity.

  “Yeah, I was looking for Pastor yesterday evening and I lost my hearing, just before it came back something yelled my name from right behind me but I was all alone.”

  “Oooo.” Roddie sounded, pondering the new information. “I guess that is pretty creepy. I’m sure we’ll figure it out El.”

  I wasn’t particularly fond of school but I found a certain level of comfort in the tedium of my classes that day. So long as I was in school, nothing out of the ordinary happened, the worst thing I had to worry about was a pop quiz. I actually managed to get through the day without thinking anything more about the situation back home, if I could even call it home anymore; it was also the first time I found no relief in the sound of the last bell of the day.

  I met up with Roddie at the front door and we started our walk to the library. It seemed to have grown even gloomier since school had begun with an almost night-time level of darkness. “The weather has been kind of depressing since Saturday night, don’t you think El?”

  “It definitely seems that way, I hope there’s no connection to the rituals… nah how could Pastor of all people have any influence over the elements?” I said with an uneasy chuckle.