Prologue
Unearthly.
It was the only word he could use to describe the sound that he was hearing. A peal of thunder cracked through the sky, emanating so loudly that he covered his ears with his hands. It was a brief reprieve from the music that filled the night air as well, as the organ tones were muffled by his hands momentarily. Could it really be described as music? He questioned his own sanity as he believed what he was hearing was more easily described as a hymn from the very depths of Hell…. If Hell existed. After what he had just witnessed, he could not imagine that it did not.
Jules had heard stories about the old church; the placement of the building in the middle of an isolated rural town in northern Vermont, the oddest choice for a building that exuded such presence. It didn’t belong in the middle of the forest, surrounded by overhanging trees more reminiscent of Georgia, where Spanish moss clung to the branches thickly like spider webs on decaying lumber. He had to come see it for himself, to experience it in all of its fabled greatness. So many urban legends had circulated their small neighboring town, and the urban explorer within him wanted to see if the place really existed.
It did. The building had not disappointed, with its formidable stone walls, and towering belfry. The light shining from the sun that afternoon seemed to shrink upon touching the building, not even filtering through the opaque stained glass windows when they had entered the building, as though it did not want to intrude upon the silence and darkness within. Yes, he thought back, it was not just him that entered the place, it was definitely they. He didn’t come alone.
But it was likely that he was going to be leaving alone… if he was allowed to leave at all.
The music seemed to be growing louder. Jules looked around the churchyard in terror as he tried to imagine what was playing the diabolical tune on the old organ within the church. If it was the thing that he had seen earlier…. God help us, he thought in his head. God help me.
He had witnessed his friends quite literally being torn apart by something that he could not even begin to describe. At first, as the band of urban explorers had entered the place, a strange, shadowy mist had approached them, slowly rolling towards them like fog in a cemetery. One of his friends had cracked a joke about it being reminiscent of the fog in a classic zombie film, approaching them like a harbinger of death and despair. When the dense, charcoal fog started to take shape around them like a fist in the grip of rage, that was when the jokes stopped. The screams instead took their place.
Jules had narrowly escaped the fate of his friends. As the presence loomed closer, it began to thicken around them and grabbed at their bodies. Sheer terror struck into his heart at the realization that an ambush of a supernatural sort was taking place. Jules gasped for air as the mist attempted to reach for his throat, choking him momentarily as his airflow was temporarily cut off. He clutched at the mist, his hands going through it instead of touching anything tangible. As panic started to set in, he did the only thing he felt he could at the time: he reached into his shirt and grabbed at the golden crucifix nestled against his body, thrusting it out towards the enveloping darkness.
The mist retreated from his body as though stung harshly, offended by the simple action that he had performed, and he was able to escape behind a wooden bench, observing everything. He saw the mist continue to envelope his friends, heard the rips and tears of flesh as his friends were quite literally consumed by the presence, an unholy communion of actual flesh and blood instead of the metaphor that takes place every Sunday in churches across the world. Screams filled the air until they became gargles, and gargles turned to silence. Nothing remained except for the sounds of their evisceration, and the mist fortunately remained too thick to actually reveal the horror within. He had stifled his own screams with a hand clenched to his mouth, tears welling in his eyes out of pure fear, a fear that he had never before felt in his life.
The thick, dark mist cleared. The aftermath of what had happened was enough to make Jules run out of the church and hurl behind a nearby tree. That was when the music had started.
The sky had quickly darkened to match the mood of the interior of the church, and Jules felt glued to the spot. It was the music that was keeping him in place, immobilizing him with it’s hellish melody. Whatever was playing the organ inside the church just knew that he was still nearby.
Jules had covered his ears to tune out the thunder and the horrible song, but it did no good for his paralysis. He remained on the spot, mere feet away from the entrance to the church.
The door that had shut behind him in his hasty exit slowly opened. Jules could do nothing but watch as the mist rolled towards him as it had towards his friends. An unseen force tore the crucifix from his neck and flung it across the churchyard. His only salvation was ripped away from him the way his friends’ lives were ripped from them.
Soon, his screams were joining the unholy hymn that filled the darkening sky.
