"So go. I don't want to touch it. I don't want anything to do with that."

We're already way out here, so there's no way I'm not going in. I press Poe a couple more times, but she backs away from the church and folds her arms. I know her well enough to know there's no way I'm getting her to budge.

It's dark and it's cold and this is probably a very bad idea.

"Okay, just-stay there."

"I'm fine."

I scan around the church. There are woods on all sides. I can't tell where the road that we're on leads, but it's got to be a main road where trucks can come for building and supplies and all that.

Everything is silent.

Too silent.

"Just wait. I'm going to check it out."

"You're crazy," she says.

"Yeah, maybe."

I go to the door and turn the handle.

It opens with ease.

As if whoever built this has been waiting for me to come on in.

80. Upside Down It's dark outside, but it's black in here. It's strange because even though this place is really unsettling, it has the smell of a new home. The smell of freshly cut wood as opposed to the kind that's rotting away in the forest. The whiff of sawdust instead of the gasp of dust and cobwebs. The boards underneath me don't creak like they do in spooky haunted houses.

Yet this does nothing to make me feel better.

Why are they building a new church here?

I go through what appears to be an open area that will serve as the welcome area. A wall separates it from the main sanctuary, but there's no door in the open entryway.

This isn't bigger and better than New Beginnings. So why?

There are no pews in the church, at least none that I can see. I see tools and a couple of table saws, some stacks of wood, some stone, some drywall leaning up against the wall.

My flashlight moves over these things quickly because I keep imagining that someone's going to come out of nowhere with an ancient face and hollow eyes spitting out spiders and sickly insects.

In front of me is a roped-off area where the pulpit should be. They're building a platform around the ropes, but standing ten feet tall is a statue of something. It looks like a stone sword coming out of the earth, the handle near the bottom and then the blade going up and ending in a spire.

As I get closer to the structure, I realize that it's not a sword.

You don't need any more proof this is it this is all you need Chris now get out of here.

Yet I keep walking.

I keep walking as if I was always meant to find this.

Of course you were, people have been pointing you in this direction for some time.

I feel cold and heavy, like the air is thick. I also feel something that's starting to overpower the fear inside of me.

I feel like I'm falling. No, not falling, but sitting in a roller coaster flying.

Rushing.

I can feel my heart racing and yet I also feel so deathly cold, like I'm in the middle of subzero temperatures with no clothes on. My arms begin to shake and I rub them but can't stop the tremor.

I get to the structure and know that it's no sword.

It's a cross. An upside-down cross.

It's also old. It's made of dark stone that looks worn with time.

The ropes stand about five feet away from the stone structure on each side. I shine the light on the ground in front of me and see a plaque of some kind firmly cemented into the floor of the church.

This is a gravestone. This thing, this tall upside-down stone cross, is a gravestone.

I get closer to see what the plaque says.

Louis-Henri Clerel de Solitaire 17361842 And then, in a much smaller font that I have to squint to read, is something written in French. Identifying the language is the best I can do. Even if I weren't doing so horribly in French, I still bet I wouldn't understand a word of this.

Quand on parle du loup, on en voit la queue.

I wish I had a phone to take a picture of the inscription, because there's no way I'm going to remember it.

"Yesssssssssssssss."

I drop the flashlight and turn around and shield myself, since the voice coming out of nowhere sounds like it's two inches away.

"Chrisssssssssssss."

The voice, low, hungry, grave, sickly ...

"Now," it says. "Right now. Now."

I reach over and scrape the floor and find the flashlight. Then I scan the area around me.

That's the voice you heard in the passageway.

I think about the time they blindfolded and gagged me and then threatened me.

"Who's there?" I shout.

I don't see anybody. But I can hear the laughter. Laughter like a razor blade scratching against skin, taking little chunks with it.

"Who's there?" My scream echoes off the walls. "Who are you?"

"The one who knowsssssssssss. The one who can set you free."

I feel like I'm in one of those theaters with the deep roaring bass that's just thumping and throttling.

That's how this voice sounds.

That's how my heart feels.

Then I see something bright blistering through this dark mess, and I squint and fall to my knees, knowing I'm in trouble knowing I'm dead knowing the end is here.

"Chris."

It's Jocelyn.

She's come to save me.

81. Echoes I see her outline lit up by something behind her. She stands at the edge of a doorway in the back of the church.

"This was a mistake."

I pause for a moment. It's her voice-I can hear her and see her. Yet I don't understand what she's talking about.

"Jocelyn?"

"You don't want to be with someone like me."

What's she saying?

"Joss-"

"Don't ruin yourself. I'm used goods."

I keep walking toward her. She's looking down, not at me.

"Jocelyn, it's me."

"You strip this away, and there's nothing down inside."

Then I remember. She said that once to me. Yet I can't remember when.

"God did this."

I keep walking toward her without answering.

"Ultimately God let my parents down."

What's she saying, what am I hearing?

"If-and I mean if-God is up there, then why?"

These are things she said to me once, but ...

I reach her, and she looks up at me and smiles.

But the face looking at me and those eyes looking into mine and that smile don't belong to Jocelyn.

Up close now, I know it's not her.

The eyes are empty and black and the gaze is needy and obsessed and the smile is hateful and wanting.

"What-who-who are you?"

She moves to kiss me, and I see her smile that's transformed not into brilliant white fangs wanting to bite but rather blackened and oozing gums wanting to suck.

I scream and then see those eyes shrivel up to nothing. Nothing but emptiness. Nothing but rotting black holes.

"We don't have to die, Chrissssssssssss."

But before the rotting, sickly old man in front of me can reach over at me, I swing my flashlight and strike something hard. I think it might be his jaw or the side of his face.

I tear out of there before whatever this is can touch me.

Then I'm outside, sucking in air and sweaty and trying to find Poe to tell her to run, and I realize that I'm alone.

Poe is gone.

82. Things in My Head I've lost someone else.

This is what runs through my mind as I'm calling out her name and directing my light in a hundred different spots trying to see her.

I've let someone else I care for get taken.

And still out of breath and still in a state of shock, my voice cracking because I'm losing it, I hear a ghost call out my name.

"Chris."

Of course, it's not a ghost. It's Poe standing at the edge of the woods we came in from.

I reach her, and she clasps on to both of my arms.

"What'd you see in there?"

"Nothing. Just-my imagination is playing tricks. I just thought-when I came out and you were-"

"I felt weird standing by the empty church."

Oh but it's not empty not at all Poe.