Hell House (1/17)
Title: Hell House (1/17)
Author: narukyu
Characters/Pairings: Gabriel/Sam, Sam/Andy (one sided); Jake, Lily, Ansem, Ava, Azazel
Rating: R
Warnings: violence, adult language, death (OCs, minor character), gore (not much worse than 3x15), sex, AU (pre-season 1), high school fic (ish), slash, minor femmeslash.
Word Count: 60K-ish
Summary: A devotedly unreligious man sends his youngest son to a private religious school. If that wasn't suspicious enough, Sam can't get a hold of John or Dean, people are disappearing right and left, and, in the night, something whispers in the silence of the old chapel. Soon enough, Sam discovers that something terrible lingers behind the doors to the sacristy--something that sheds a light on the secret holy mission of the Soldiers of Christ as well what happened to his family so many years ago.
Abandoned Convent Proposed for Site of New School
With funding from undisclosed donors, a nonprofit religious organization seeks to build a private school on the ruins of Saint Mary's Convent in Ilchester, Maryland. The property, home of a well documented homicide in 1972, stands infamous in the memories of nearby residents as being the place where a local priest murdered eight women without provocation. Since the murders, the property has been deserted and abandoned.
However, this unfortunate history is not enough to dissuade Father Gregory Thompson, the director of the nonprofit organization. When asked about the wisdom of building the school on the site, he compares their efforts to the construction of Solomon's Temple.
“In the Bible, David says to his son, 'Be strong and courageous and do the work. Do not be afraid or discourage, for the lord God, my god, is with you. He will not fail you or forsake you until all the work for the service of the temple of the lord is finished.'”
The decision to build is hotly protested by locals, who believe that the site of the tragedy should be left alone, and by paranormal enthusiasts, who insist the place is haunted.
Regardless of public opinion, the school looks like it will be built sooner rather than later. The former convent has already been sold to the organization by the previous owner, and the organization has already hired a building crew.
Construction of the new school and church could occur as early as next month.
Jessica Gottman, Howell Sun Times. March 12, 1984
-----
The radio crankily spewed static in the cramped space of his car. Troy Michaels winced. Reception was always shitty during the summer in Ilchester, even at night. His dad said it had something to do with melting cables and lazy maintenance workers.
Making a face, he pounded on the dash until the white noise settled into something comprehensible. One eye on the road, the other on the radio, Troy kept spinning the knob until a voice broke out in the hot night air.
A sports broadcaster was jubilantly announcing the prospects of the upcoming Hoyfield-Tyson rematch, which made Troy sigh. Since when did anything interesting happen in boxing?
Ten more minutes of futile tuning got him no more results nowhere. Defeated, he turned the radio off, clenching his hands tight around the wheel. The ladies lived around here. They’d understand, hopefully.
Just thinking about the ladies made Troy smile, because, whoa. He’d gone from pathetic, love sick, love abandoned puppy to player in the space of one week. Troy’s smile broadened as glee fluttered in his chest.
Not one girl, not two, but three of them. At the same time.
He had to be honest--it was just a road trip, and not some kinky four-way orgy. But, shit, the summer was still young! Troy grinned at the road. And as long as those fine, fine Catholic school girls needed him, there was always a good chance… no, a strong chance… a damn near inevitability that something awesome was going to happen.
And maybe that was overconfidence speaking--sure, whatever. But, if he could be confident about one thing, it was that the summer of 1997 was going to be the best summer of his entire life.
The school grew larger and larger in his windshield, putting a damper on his mood. Troy shifted in place uncomfortably. With its tall black gates and severely plain buildings beyond it, it looked more like a prison than a freaking school. Swallowing a bit, he pulled the car off of the road next to the gates.
He squinted up at them, trying to fend off his instinctive sense of dread. Saint Mary’s School was offsetting during the day, and fucking creepy during the night.
Swallowing again, Troy pulled the key out of ignition and settled back in his seat, ready to wait. His eyes drifted immediately back to the rod iron fence, and to the silhouette of the chapel some ways beyond it. Dim lights slid through stained glass, bouncing up and down in sphere-like shapes, as if created by people walking with candles.
Two other buildings bracketed the chapel on either side, and they both were dark.
And so Troy waited.
Ten minutes passed with neither hide nor hair of the ladies. Sweat soaked through his shirt, pooling damply under his arms and between his shoulder blades. Shooting a bittersweet glare at the broken air conditioner, Troy rolled down the window.
He froze, letting his arm hang out of the window. Was it just him, or did something move in one of the chapel’s windows? He leaned against the steering wheel, squinting at the far off building.
Despite the heat, Troy felt the hair on the back of his neck rise.
This was a bad place. He didn’t like it, not one bit.
After a moment of no further movement, Troy sank back in his seat, sweeping his hand over his sweaty forehead. He tried to psyche himself out of his paranoia, but he could think of nothing good about the school. He’d never been on the grounds--it was private property--but he’d heard plenty of things about it.
Most of it was negative. His dad had been around when the murders happened in the seventies--freaking headed the investigation, back in the day! Troy’s dad was deeply bothered by the idea that someone could just come and set up a school over where so many nuns had been killed.
A priest had gone crazy, he’d heard. And if there was a scarier thing than a peace loving, charity offering man of the church going ax murderer, he didn’t ever want to see it.
A skeletal hand suddenly rapped on his passenger window. Troy jumped, his heart clanging in his chest, but it was no murderer or monster--it was a frigging nun. He peered suspiciously at the bland-looking woman outside of his car.
Awkwardly, he leaned over the seat and rolled down the window. “Uh, hi.”
“Hello,” she said briskly. She had a faint sheen of sweat over her eyebrows, but, other than that, looked unscathed by the humidity. “May I ask you why you’re invading private property?”
“Uh…” Troy panicked. He recovered quickly and cleared his throat, trying to put on a winning, model citizen smile. “I’m here to pick up Natalie, Chrissy, and Julie.”
“I’m sorry,” the woman said, sounding anything but. “They’ve already left.”
Startled, Troy nearly fell over the seat. “Wait, what?” he said, disbelieving. “We had a…” Troy’s heart sank as he suddenly recalled the conspiratorial glances the girls had shot each other before the hot one, Natalie, approached him in the deli section of the grocery store. She’d leaned over the counter and spoke to him so softly, so enticingly that Troy found himself agreeing to be their ticket out of Maryland before he’d even known that his dad would allow him to have the car.
Second verse, same as the first. Troy’s jaw tightened. Played. Again. His heart sank.
Fucking bitches.
“Thanks for your time, ma’am,” he said coldly, settling back in his seat. He started the car and pulled it sharply into reverse, making a U-turn in the road before speeding off.
He sunk low in his cushions, something shriveling up inside of him when he imagined going home. His dad was gonna laugh his ass off. Kevin too, the little brat.
Shit, how embarrassing!
-----
A girl hurried down the sidehall of a church, contraband high heeled shoes clicking quickly over the tiled floor. She absently touched the back of her hair, fingers dancing over two of three purple butterfly pins-also contraband.
She seemed oblivious to Julie’s incredulous stare, so, pointedly, Julie rose to her feet to greet the other girl, crossing her arms over her school approved uniform, tapping the tip of her school approved shoe against the hard floor.
The other girl paused, noting the emphasis, and then blew her a raspberry.
Julie scowled. “You’re late, Natalie.”
The other girl waved a dismissive hand. “Quit being such a prude.” She spun around in a half-circle, smiling at no one in particular. “I had to make myself pretty for Troy.” She paused, and then pursued her lips at the slight reflection of a nearby picture frame of a saint.
Julie couldn’t help staring. Natalie looked almost like an angel--or, at least, what Julie thought an angel was supposed to look like before her stint at Saint Mary’s.
Even wonderful things--like angels--lost their shine and appeal here.
“You almost missed last confession,” Julie said gruffly, shoving her hands in the pockets of her skirt.
“Psh.” Natalie reached up, fussing with her hair. Her long, black mane was settled in what she called a style she called ‘indifferent, but classy’. Julie would have just called it a very messy bun, plus some ugly ass butterfly pins, but there was a reason no one ever asked her for hair tips. She barely had any to mess with, and she kept it that way.
Natalie was still squinting at the picture frame. “If it wasn’t for the fact that there’s only ten of us in good old 1979, I’d consider skipping. But, as it is…” She sucked in an almost silent breath, then gracefully whirled around, striking a pose. “They’d totally miss me!” A beat passed. Perhaps noticing a complete lack of admiring classmates, she deflated quickly, looking up and down the empty hallway with poorly concealed disappointment. “How many are left?”
“Two,” Julie said flatly. “You and me.” Wasn’t it obvious?
“Ah, barely skated by, didn’t I.” Natalie floated around the hallway, bubbly and happy at nothing in particular. Then she got a good look at Julie’s ever persistent scowl and faltered. Her expression abruptly turned soft and kind. “Hey. Cheer up. We’ll be gone from this place in an hour. Two, tops. Then we’ll have all the fun in the world.” Her voice deepened slightly, moving into a slow, husky purr that had even the most stuck up nun tripping over herself to please Natalie.
It was compelling, as usual, but also completely ineffective.
Julie tilted her head, biting on a smile. “You know, your charm doesn’t work on me.”
“You could always pretend that it did,” Natalie said playfully, taking Julie’s hands in hers. She swung them lightly, back and forth, and Julie didn’t suppress her smile anymore, let it spread and widen, letting her affection for Natalie show-
She slammed down on the expression, killing it quickly. She learned her lesson from before. It was a hard lesson, consisting of gold bars and strange writing, of her mouth moving without her permission, of that otherness inside of her, dark and foul and so very, very wrong.
Feeling cold, Julie gently pulled her hands out of Natalie’s, pretending she didn’t see the other girl’s hurt expression.
But Natalie was right. Once they finally left this place, everything would be better. Julie’s mouth pressed into a thin line. It just has to be.
Suddenly, the door at the end of the hallway creaked open. They both tensed, eyes shooting toward the noise, paranoia molded and heightened by the place they’d both been forced to grow up in. But no one stood in the threshold. If they were there, they were out of sight.
Julie knew from experience that it was likely no one was there at all.
Natalie let out a slow, controlled breath. “O-kay. That wasn’t terrifying at all.” She had a white knuckled grip on the front of Julie’s vest. She eventually released it, inching away from Julie, but not going very far.
“That means ‘next person’,” Julie said, forcing herself to relax. She played at nonchalance, but the eighth phantom door opening was just as creepy as the first. It’d been easier to deal with before, what with Miguel’s lame jokes and Jon’s vaguely homicidal mutters. But they were gone now, third and fifth to go to confession, respectively.
And now it was her turn.
Shaking her head, Julie made for the door, only to be pulled back before she’d taken one full step.
“I was thinking…” Natalie said leadingly. Her eyes lowered. Her lashes were dappled with the faintest hint of glitter. When she looked up, Julie, quite fancifully, thought she’d been lost in an ocean of green. She couldn’t will herself to look away.
Natalie paused for a moment longer, then bopped Julie on the nose. “Last one’s a rotten egg!” With that, she took off down the hallway, new shoes clattering up a storm. Julie hauled ass after her, snarling and laughing in the same breath.
It was a close race, Natalie winning by a hair. She stretched herself across the threshold, as if ready to fight for her place, but Julie was already backing off. She knew not to touch other girls.
Natalie pouted at her for not playing along, and then grinned, patting herself down. “May be a little long,” she said in a huffing breath. Her skin had a healthy glow. “I have much to confess.” Natalie blew her a kiss, then closed the door behind her. The sounds of her footsteps echoed through the door, eventually fading.
Groaning, Julie listed back to her seat, and waited some more.
At this rate, she was never going to leave this place. She let her head fall back to the wall and closed her eyes.
Julie ended up falling asleep that way, legs crossed, slouching in the uncomfortable chair. Under her eyelids danced flashes of a reoccurring nightmare-red splotched uniforms, people laying in rows, screaming static in her ears. She jerked awake, rubbing the back of her hand against her mouth distractedly, and then glanced at her watch. Thirty minutes had passed since Natalie went in, and the door down the hall was wide open.
She sat up quickly. How long had it been opened?
Swallowing nervously, Julie stood on suddenly weak legs, making her way down the hall, and through that door.
Behind the door was another hallway. Unlike the previous hallway, which was wide and spacious, the walls here were close together and sparse in decoration, as gray as wet concrete. Part of the original chapel, she theorized blindly, having never seen the old chapel, not really. Outside views didn’t count. Plus, the old chapel was always under renovation. She didn’t know anyone who’d been inside. Until now, that is.
Julie crept down the hallway to the one doorway, crossing through that small obstacle with trepidation. When she saw what was inside, she breathed out a sigh of relief, closing the door rather noisily behind her. Old chapel or new chapel, a church was just a church--she rather fondly thought she’d recognize a confessional anywhere. She bounded up the center aisle, distractedly genuflecting before nothing. She hurried into the confessional, realizing only belatedly that she should have knocked first. But it didn’t matter anyway-she was alone.
Julie settled on the hard, lone bench in the confessional. “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” she said, dutifully reciting the ritual words. She’d given her confession some thought, balancing some truth with some lies.
Priests here were pretty aggressive. If you didn’t tell them enough about your own sins, they started assigning sins to you, and she’d had enough of that judgmental attitude to last her a lifetime, thank you very much. She didn’t need it on her last day here too.
Clasping her hands together in her lap, Julie sucked in a breath, ready to get finish her last duty to this damn place so she could leave.
She paused, holding the air in her chest. She’d just noticed how quiet it was on the other side of the confessional--so, so quiet, like a graveyard. Or like a classroom after one of the nuns asked a question. It was a dead, heavy silence thick with anticipation of incoming noise.
Julie frowned. The priests were always noisy. The old man liked to flip through a journal and write shit down, like he was a therapist or something, and the preachy one never shut the hell up long enough to hear confession. Others shifted nervously in their seats or licked their lips too often. She even had a priest once who was a total mouth breather, which made an awkward confession even more awkward.
She’d never had quiet before, but it was absolutely silent on the other side of the confession booth. She tried to peer through the partition, but could see nothing.
Was someone there? She called out, but no one answered. Freaked out at the idea of someone sitting there, silent, watching, she decided that the priest’s side must be empty. Even old men needed bathroom breaks. Especially old men.
Julie’s shoulders sagged as she sighed. So she’d have to wait some more then, huh? She stretched her legs out, thinking longingly of the trip they’d all take afterward.
It was going to be wonderful. She just knew it.
She glanced at her watch, squinting in near-total darkness at the clock face. Would Natalie leave her? Julie made a face at the ceiling. Chrissy might, but Chrissy was a bitch.
But Julie was fairly confident that Natalie wouldn’t leave her here, alone. Smiling at the thought, Julie stretched her legs across the floor, and then stopped when her foot was snagged on something. She leaned over, barely registering a small squeak of hinges behind her as she blindly swept her fingers across the confessional floor.
Her nails hit on something hard and metal.
She brought it up into the light that shone falteringly through the aesthetic holes in the confessional walls. She recognized it immediately and with it, the odd smell in the confessional. Julie stood quickly, heart thundering in her chest as she rolled one of Natalie’s gaudy butterfly pins over and over in her hand, smearing red all over her pale fingers.
Pain suddenly shattered through her shoulder. With a cry, Julie fell forward against the partition, clawing through the holes. Heavy, panicked breaths of another danced over her neck, and a hand tangled roughly in her short hair, pulling her back to the bench. She resisted and screamed at the top of her lungs, digging her nails into leather gloves, elbowing futilely at a solid, male torso. But then, in a fit of absolute desperation, she twisted in his grip, bringing the pointed end of Natalie’s pin into the vulnerable curve of an exposed eye. He screamed and suddenly, she was thrown away, her body flying back like it was a rag doll.
There was a hidden door in the back of the confessional, behind the bench, and Julie fell through it, dropping to the ground in a clattering heap of elbows and knees. Holding her arm carefully, she scrambled to her feet, her shoes sliding for a moment, frictionless, against the tile. She heard the man thrash about and curse in the confessional behind her, but she didn’t stop to watch. Heart pounding in her ears, she ran down the unknown, old chapel hallway.
There was a door there to her left-heavy and solid, just like the doors of any church. With a relieved sob, Julie wrenched it open with her good arm, stepping quickly inside of the poorly lit room, only thinking to get away, get out, run away. She’d just slammed the door shut behind her when she saw it. When she saw the floor.
When she saw her dream, played out in real life.
Nine bodies were laid out on neatly sectioned out pieces of plastic. Sucking in a low, panicked breath, Julie drifted along the wall, her eyes darting everywhere, cataloging, naming-
Oh, God. Naming.
Julie looked down the row closest to her--Bill, with his stupid bowl cut, now smashed down the middle, Chrissy, nearly unrecognizable under the blood, Jon, one of his sharp cheekbones caved in, Miguel, whose scalp might as well been gone. Neatly pressed white shirts on all of them, flaked with blood and other.
And the body at Julie’s feet--Natalie. Oh, Natalie. She looked like she was asleep, innocent and unbothered, her mortal wound covered by her artfully mussed hair.
Julie pressed her knuckles to her lips, trying to muffle the noise from her own mouth. Was that her? Screaming? Could a human being really sound like that?
The door behind her swung open. She turned quickly, trying to force her way out, but she was stopped by a throng of bodies, living and deadly. Hands tightened on her arms, her shoulders, and she tried to twisted this way and that out of their grasp.
It was inevitable. She saw this in her dreams. They cared about her even less than the fickle child cared about the doll he or she tore apart. But, damn it, Julie tried.
“Please don’t hurt me,” she babbled, tears running down her face. She sought for humanity in a face that had long forgotten it. “Please!”
“We’re not trying to hurt you,” a woman said kindly. She had one hand on Julie’s neck. “We’re trying to save you.” Her free arm darted low. Fire traced across Julie’s stomach with a sharp tipped blade, and Julie only knew pain.
Then Julie was on her knees, crying, screaming, more panicked than in pain, her hands scrambling at fleshy wet things, trying to push them back in. And they just watched, the four of them, two men lingering back, one with his hands tucked into his sleeves, the other with a hand pressed over his bleeding eye. And the woman, so so calm, her fingers curled tightly around a knife, eyed her like she was something new.
Julie stared up at them in disbelief. She had names for every one of them. That was why she didn’t believe her dream--because she knew them. She knew their lines in the sand. She knew--she thought they wouldn’t cross them.
Why?
And then one of the men said, “We did not hear your last confession.” There was a shuffling movement between the four of them, looking almost like agreement.
“Repeat after me,” the woman prompted. Dazed, Julie focused on her instead. “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned…”
Julie’s mouth was numb. She had to have misheard-blood loss, shock, fear, panic dulling her senses? Her fingers were sticky and bloody, grasping at those things coming out of her stomach that she knew she needed, and they wanted to talk confession?
Dull anger--no, fuck you, wrath--surged through her veins.
“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” the woman prompted again, impatiently now.
“Yes, you have,” Julie whispered dully, trembling. Natalie’s pin bit into her hand suddenly. What was one more pain stacked up on the others?
Julie glanced behind her, seeing a flash of a dark haired, sleeping angel, and closed her eyes, tears leaking out from under her lids. She knew what happened now. She dreamed it, and it was true and it was happening. Her wrath eased out of her, soothed by her resignation.
“Your confession?” The woman prompted, more tersely than before.
“I have nothing to confess.”
Oh, Natalie, she thought suddenly, regretfully. I’m so sorry.
The hammer came down on Julie’s head.
Chapter One
Author: narukyu
Characters/Pairings: Gabriel/Sam, Sam/Andy (one sided); Jake, Lily, Ansem, Ava, Azazel
Rating: R
Warnings: violence, adult language, death (OCs, minor character), gore (not much worse than 3x15), sex, AU (pre-season 1), high school fic (ish), slash, minor femmeslash.
Word Count: 60K-ish
Summary: A devotedly unreligious man sends his youngest son to a private religious school. If that wasn't suspicious enough, Sam can't get a hold of John or Dean, people are disappearing right and left, and, in the night, something whispers in the silence of the old chapel. Soon enough, Sam discovers that something terrible lingers behind the doors to the sacristy--something that sheds a light on the secret holy mission of the Soldiers of Christ as well what happened to his family so many years ago.
Abandoned Convent Proposed for Site of New School
With funding from undisclosed donors, a nonprofit religious organization seeks to build a private school on the ruins of Saint Mary's Convent in Ilchester, Maryland. The property, home of a well documented homicide in 1972, stands infamous in the memories of nearby residents as being the place where a local priest murdered eight women without provocation. Since the murders, the property has been deserted and abandoned.
However, this unfortunate history is not enough to dissuade Father Gregory Thompson, the director of the nonprofit organization. When asked about the wisdom of building the school on the site, he compares their efforts to the construction of Solomon's Temple.
“In the Bible, David says to his son, 'Be strong and courageous and do the work. Do not be afraid or discourage, for the lord God, my god, is with you. He will not fail you or forsake you until all the work for the service of the temple of the lord is finished.'”
The decision to build is hotly protested by locals, who believe that the site of the tragedy should be left alone, and by paranormal enthusiasts, who insist the place is haunted.
Regardless of public opinion, the school looks like it will be built sooner rather than later. The former convent has already been sold to the organization by the previous owner, and the organization has already hired a building crew.
Construction of the new school and church could occur as early as next month.
Jessica Gottman, Howell Sun Times. March 12, 1984
-----
The radio crankily spewed static in the cramped space of his car. Troy Michaels winced. Reception was always shitty during the summer in Ilchester, even at night. His dad said it had something to do with melting cables and lazy maintenance workers.
Making a face, he pounded on the dash until the white noise settled into something comprehensible. One eye on the road, the other on the radio, Troy kept spinning the knob until a voice broke out in the hot night air.
A sports broadcaster was jubilantly announcing the prospects of the upcoming Hoyfield-Tyson rematch, which made Troy sigh. Since when did anything interesting happen in boxing?
Ten more minutes of futile tuning got him no more results nowhere. Defeated, he turned the radio off, clenching his hands tight around the wheel. The ladies lived around here. They’d understand, hopefully.
Just thinking about the ladies made Troy smile, because, whoa. He’d gone from pathetic, love sick, love abandoned puppy to player in the space of one week. Troy’s smile broadened as glee fluttered in his chest.
Not one girl, not two, but three of them. At the same time.
He had to be honest--it was just a road trip, and not some kinky four-way orgy. But, shit, the summer was still young! Troy grinned at the road. And as long as those fine, fine Catholic school girls needed him, there was always a good chance… no, a strong chance… a damn near inevitability that something awesome was going to happen.
And maybe that was overconfidence speaking--sure, whatever. But, if he could be confident about one thing, it was that the summer of 1997 was going to be the best summer of his entire life.
The school grew larger and larger in his windshield, putting a damper on his mood. Troy shifted in place uncomfortably. With its tall black gates and severely plain buildings beyond it, it looked more like a prison than a freaking school. Swallowing a bit, he pulled the car off of the road next to the gates.
He squinted up at them, trying to fend off his instinctive sense of dread. Saint Mary’s School was offsetting during the day, and fucking creepy during the night.
Swallowing again, Troy pulled the key out of ignition and settled back in his seat, ready to wait. His eyes drifted immediately back to the rod iron fence, and to the silhouette of the chapel some ways beyond it. Dim lights slid through stained glass, bouncing up and down in sphere-like shapes, as if created by people walking with candles.
Two other buildings bracketed the chapel on either side, and they both were dark.
And so Troy waited.
Ten minutes passed with neither hide nor hair of the ladies. Sweat soaked through his shirt, pooling damply under his arms and between his shoulder blades. Shooting a bittersweet glare at the broken air conditioner, Troy rolled down the window.
He froze, letting his arm hang out of the window. Was it just him, or did something move in one of the chapel’s windows? He leaned against the steering wheel, squinting at the far off building.
Despite the heat, Troy felt the hair on the back of his neck rise.
This was a bad place. He didn’t like it, not one bit.
After a moment of no further movement, Troy sank back in his seat, sweeping his hand over his sweaty forehead. He tried to psyche himself out of his paranoia, but he could think of nothing good about the school. He’d never been on the grounds--it was private property--but he’d heard plenty of things about it.
Most of it was negative. His dad had been around when the murders happened in the seventies--freaking headed the investigation, back in the day! Troy’s dad was deeply bothered by the idea that someone could just come and set up a school over where so many nuns had been killed.
A priest had gone crazy, he’d heard. And if there was a scarier thing than a peace loving, charity offering man of the church going ax murderer, he didn’t ever want to see it.
A skeletal hand suddenly rapped on his passenger window. Troy jumped, his heart clanging in his chest, but it was no murderer or monster--it was a frigging nun. He peered suspiciously at the bland-looking woman outside of his car.
Awkwardly, he leaned over the seat and rolled down the window. “Uh, hi.”
“Hello,” she said briskly. She had a faint sheen of sweat over her eyebrows, but, other than that, looked unscathed by the humidity. “May I ask you why you’re invading private property?”
“Uh…” Troy panicked. He recovered quickly and cleared his throat, trying to put on a winning, model citizen smile. “I’m here to pick up Natalie, Chrissy, and Julie.”
“I’m sorry,” the woman said, sounding anything but. “They’ve already left.”
Startled, Troy nearly fell over the seat. “Wait, what?” he said, disbelieving. “We had a…” Troy’s heart sank as he suddenly recalled the conspiratorial glances the girls had shot each other before the hot one, Natalie, approached him in the deli section of the grocery store. She’d leaned over the counter and spoke to him so softly, so enticingly that Troy found himself agreeing to be their ticket out of Maryland before he’d even known that his dad would allow him to have the car.
Second verse, same as the first. Troy’s jaw tightened. Played. Again. His heart sank.
Fucking bitches.
“Thanks for your time, ma’am,” he said coldly, settling back in his seat. He started the car and pulled it sharply into reverse, making a U-turn in the road before speeding off.
He sunk low in his cushions, something shriveling up inside of him when he imagined going home. His dad was gonna laugh his ass off. Kevin too, the little brat.
Shit, how embarrassing!
-----
A girl hurried down the sidehall of a church, contraband high heeled shoes clicking quickly over the tiled floor. She absently touched the back of her hair, fingers dancing over two of three purple butterfly pins-also contraband.
She seemed oblivious to Julie’s incredulous stare, so, pointedly, Julie rose to her feet to greet the other girl, crossing her arms over her school approved uniform, tapping the tip of her school approved shoe against the hard floor.
The other girl paused, noting the emphasis, and then blew her a raspberry.
Julie scowled. “You’re late, Natalie.”
The other girl waved a dismissive hand. “Quit being such a prude.” She spun around in a half-circle, smiling at no one in particular. “I had to make myself pretty for Troy.” She paused, and then pursued her lips at the slight reflection of a nearby picture frame of a saint.
Julie couldn’t help staring. Natalie looked almost like an angel--or, at least, what Julie thought an angel was supposed to look like before her stint at Saint Mary’s.
Even wonderful things--like angels--lost their shine and appeal here.
“You almost missed last confession,” Julie said gruffly, shoving her hands in the pockets of her skirt.
“Psh.” Natalie reached up, fussing with her hair. Her long, black mane was settled in what she called a style she called ‘indifferent, but classy’. Julie would have just called it a very messy bun, plus some ugly ass butterfly pins, but there was a reason no one ever asked her for hair tips. She barely had any to mess with, and she kept it that way.
Natalie was still squinting at the picture frame. “If it wasn’t for the fact that there’s only ten of us in good old 1979, I’d consider skipping. But, as it is…” She sucked in an almost silent breath, then gracefully whirled around, striking a pose. “They’d totally miss me!” A beat passed. Perhaps noticing a complete lack of admiring classmates, she deflated quickly, looking up and down the empty hallway with poorly concealed disappointment. “How many are left?”
“Two,” Julie said flatly. “You and me.” Wasn’t it obvious?
“Ah, barely skated by, didn’t I.” Natalie floated around the hallway, bubbly and happy at nothing in particular. Then she got a good look at Julie’s ever persistent scowl and faltered. Her expression abruptly turned soft and kind. “Hey. Cheer up. We’ll be gone from this place in an hour. Two, tops. Then we’ll have all the fun in the world.” Her voice deepened slightly, moving into a slow, husky purr that had even the most stuck up nun tripping over herself to please Natalie.
It was compelling, as usual, but also completely ineffective.
Julie tilted her head, biting on a smile. “You know, your charm doesn’t work on me.”
“You could always pretend that it did,” Natalie said playfully, taking Julie’s hands in hers. She swung them lightly, back and forth, and Julie didn’t suppress her smile anymore, let it spread and widen, letting her affection for Natalie show-
She slammed down on the expression, killing it quickly. She learned her lesson from before. It was a hard lesson, consisting of gold bars and strange writing, of her mouth moving without her permission, of that otherness inside of her, dark and foul and so very, very wrong.
Feeling cold, Julie gently pulled her hands out of Natalie’s, pretending she didn’t see the other girl’s hurt expression.
But Natalie was right. Once they finally left this place, everything would be better. Julie’s mouth pressed into a thin line. It just has to be.
Suddenly, the door at the end of the hallway creaked open. They both tensed, eyes shooting toward the noise, paranoia molded and heightened by the place they’d both been forced to grow up in. But no one stood in the threshold. If they were there, they were out of sight.
Julie knew from experience that it was likely no one was there at all.
Natalie let out a slow, controlled breath. “O-kay. That wasn’t terrifying at all.” She had a white knuckled grip on the front of Julie’s vest. She eventually released it, inching away from Julie, but not going very far.
“That means ‘next person’,” Julie said, forcing herself to relax. She played at nonchalance, but the eighth phantom door opening was just as creepy as the first. It’d been easier to deal with before, what with Miguel’s lame jokes and Jon’s vaguely homicidal mutters. But they were gone now, third and fifth to go to confession, respectively.
And now it was her turn.
Shaking her head, Julie made for the door, only to be pulled back before she’d taken one full step.
“I was thinking…” Natalie said leadingly. Her eyes lowered. Her lashes were dappled with the faintest hint of glitter. When she looked up, Julie, quite fancifully, thought she’d been lost in an ocean of green. She couldn’t will herself to look away.
Natalie paused for a moment longer, then bopped Julie on the nose. “Last one’s a rotten egg!” With that, she took off down the hallway, new shoes clattering up a storm. Julie hauled ass after her, snarling and laughing in the same breath.
It was a close race, Natalie winning by a hair. She stretched herself across the threshold, as if ready to fight for her place, but Julie was already backing off. She knew not to touch other girls.
Natalie pouted at her for not playing along, and then grinned, patting herself down. “May be a little long,” she said in a huffing breath. Her skin had a healthy glow. “I have much to confess.” Natalie blew her a kiss, then closed the door behind her. The sounds of her footsteps echoed through the door, eventually fading.
Groaning, Julie listed back to her seat, and waited some more.
At this rate, she was never going to leave this place. She let her head fall back to the wall and closed her eyes.
Julie ended up falling asleep that way, legs crossed, slouching in the uncomfortable chair. Under her eyelids danced flashes of a reoccurring nightmare-red splotched uniforms, people laying in rows, screaming static in her ears. She jerked awake, rubbing the back of her hand against her mouth distractedly, and then glanced at her watch. Thirty minutes had passed since Natalie went in, and the door down the hall was wide open.
She sat up quickly. How long had it been opened?
Swallowing nervously, Julie stood on suddenly weak legs, making her way down the hall, and through that door.
Behind the door was another hallway. Unlike the previous hallway, which was wide and spacious, the walls here were close together and sparse in decoration, as gray as wet concrete. Part of the original chapel, she theorized blindly, having never seen the old chapel, not really. Outside views didn’t count. Plus, the old chapel was always under renovation. She didn’t know anyone who’d been inside. Until now, that is.
Julie crept down the hallway to the one doorway, crossing through that small obstacle with trepidation. When she saw what was inside, she breathed out a sigh of relief, closing the door rather noisily behind her. Old chapel or new chapel, a church was just a church--she rather fondly thought she’d recognize a confessional anywhere. She bounded up the center aisle, distractedly genuflecting before nothing. She hurried into the confessional, realizing only belatedly that she should have knocked first. But it didn’t matter anyway-she was alone.
Julie settled on the hard, lone bench in the confessional. “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” she said, dutifully reciting the ritual words. She’d given her confession some thought, balancing some truth with some lies.
Priests here were pretty aggressive. If you didn’t tell them enough about your own sins, they started assigning sins to you, and she’d had enough of that judgmental attitude to last her a lifetime, thank you very much. She didn’t need it on her last day here too.
Clasping her hands together in her lap, Julie sucked in a breath, ready to get finish her last duty to this damn place so she could leave.
She paused, holding the air in her chest. She’d just noticed how quiet it was on the other side of the confessional--so, so quiet, like a graveyard. Or like a classroom after one of the nuns asked a question. It was a dead, heavy silence thick with anticipation of incoming noise.
Julie frowned. The priests were always noisy. The old man liked to flip through a journal and write shit down, like he was a therapist or something, and the preachy one never shut the hell up long enough to hear confession. Others shifted nervously in their seats or licked their lips too often. She even had a priest once who was a total mouth breather, which made an awkward confession even more awkward.
She’d never had quiet before, but it was absolutely silent on the other side of the confession booth. She tried to peer through the partition, but could see nothing.
Was someone there? She called out, but no one answered. Freaked out at the idea of someone sitting there, silent, watching, she decided that the priest’s side must be empty. Even old men needed bathroom breaks. Especially old men.
Julie’s shoulders sagged as she sighed. So she’d have to wait some more then, huh? She stretched her legs out, thinking longingly of the trip they’d all take afterward.
It was going to be wonderful. She just knew it.
She glanced at her watch, squinting in near-total darkness at the clock face. Would Natalie leave her? Julie made a face at the ceiling. Chrissy might, but Chrissy was a bitch.
But Julie was fairly confident that Natalie wouldn’t leave her here, alone. Smiling at the thought, Julie stretched her legs across the floor, and then stopped when her foot was snagged on something. She leaned over, barely registering a small squeak of hinges behind her as she blindly swept her fingers across the confessional floor.
Her nails hit on something hard and metal.
She brought it up into the light that shone falteringly through the aesthetic holes in the confessional walls. She recognized it immediately and with it, the odd smell in the confessional. Julie stood quickly, heart thundering in her chest as she rolled one of Natalie’s gaudy butterfly pins over and over in her hand, smearing red all over her pale fingers.
Pain suddenly shattered through her shoulder. With a cry, Julie fell forward against the partition, clawing through the holes. Heavy, panicked breaths of another danced over her neck, and a hand tangled roughly in her short hair, pulling her back to the bench. She resisted and screamed at the top of her lungs, digging her nails into leather gloves, elbowing futilely at a solid, male torso. But then, in a fit of absolute desperation, she twisted in his grip, bringing the pointed end of Natalie’s pin into the vulnerable curve of an exposed eye. He screamed and suddenly, she was thrown away, her body flying back like it was a rag doll.
There was a hidden door in the back of the confessional, behind the bench, and Julie fell through it, dropping to the ground in a clattering heap of elbows and knees. Holding her arm carefully, she scrambled to her feet, her shoes sliding for a moment, frictionless, against the tile. She heard the man thrash about and curse in the confessional behind her, but she didn’t stop to watch. Heart pounding in her ears, she ran down the unknown, old chapel hallway.
There was a door there to her left-heavy and solid, just like the doors of any church. With a relieved sob, Julie wrenched it open with her good arm, stepping quickly inside of the poorly lit room, only thinking to get away, get out, run away. She’d just slammed the door shut behind her when she saw it. When she saw the floor.
When she saw her dream, played out in real life.
Nine bodies were laid out on neatly sectioned out pieces of plastic. Sucking in a low, panicked breath, Julie drifted along the wall, her eyes darting everywhere, cataloging, naming-
Oh, God. Naming.
Julie looked down the row closest to her--Bill, with his stupid bowl cut, now smashed down the middle, Chrissy, nearly unrecognizable under the blood, Jon, one of his sharp cheekbones caved in, Miguel, whose scalp might as well been gone. Neatly pressed white shirts on all of them, flaked with blood and other.
And the body at Julie’s feet--Natalie. Oh, Natalie. She looked like she was asleep, innocent and unbothered, her mortal wound covered by her artfully mussed hair.
Julie pressed her knuckles to her lips, trying to muffle the noise from her own mouth. Was that her? Screaming? Could a human being really sound like that?
The door behind her swung open. She turned quickly, trying to force her way out, but she was stopped by a throng of bodies, living and deadly. Hands tightened on her arms, her shoulders, and she tried to twisted this way and that out of their grasp.
It was inevitable. She saw this in her dreams. They cared about her even less than the fickle child cared about the doll he or she tore apart. But, damn it, Julie tried.
“Please don’t hurt me,” she babbled, tears running down her face. She sought for humanity in a face that had long forgotten it. “Please!”
“We’re not trying to hurt you,” a woman said kindly. She had one hand on Julie’s neck. “We’re trying to save you.” Her free arm darted low. Fire traced across Julie’s stomach with a sharp tipped blade, and Julie only knew pain.
Then Julie was on her knees, crying, screaming, more panicked than in pain, her hands scrambling at fleshy wet things, trying to push them back in. And they just watched, the four of them, two men lingering back, one with his hands tucked into his sleeves, the other with a hand pressed over his bleeding eye. And the woman, so so calm, her fingers curled tightly around a knife, eyed her like she was something new.
Julie stared up at them in disbelief. She had names for every one of them. That was why she didn’t believe her dream--because she knew them. She knew their lines in the sand. She knew--she thought they wouldn’t cross them.
Why?
And then one of the men said, “We did not hear your last confession.” There was a shuffling movement between the four of them, looking almost like agreement.
“Repeat after me,” the woman prompted. Dazed, Julie focused on her instead. “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned…”
Julie’s mouth was numb. She had to have misheard-blood loss, shock, fear, panic dulling her senses? Her fingers were sticky and bloody, grasping at those things coming out of her stomach that she knew she needed, and they wanted to talk confession?
Dull anger--no, fuck you, wrath--surged through her veins.
“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” the woman prompted again, impatiently now.
“Yes, you have,” Julie whispered dully, trembling. Natalie’s pin bit into her hand suddenly. What was one more pain stacked up on the others?
Julie glanced behind her, seeing a flash of a dark haired, sleeping angel, and closed her eyes, tears leaking out from under her lids. She knew what happened now. She dreamed it, and it was true and it was happening. Her wrath eased out of her, soothed by her resignation.
“Your confession?” The woman prompted, more tersely than before.
“I have nothing to confess.”
Oh, Natalie, she thought suddenly, regretfully. I’m so sorry.
The hammer came down on Julie’s head.
Chapter One