Day 14.

Tonight felt much more serene. There was a calmness to the gentle breeze outside, a quietude to my room. Everyone had gone to sleep hours ago, but i couldn’t achieve that nirvana. I was almost glad about it, just to experience this silence.

It was around that time that I started feeling something else. Like... a heavy sensation on my shoulders. At first, I didn’t htink too much about it. But after a few minutes it became more noticable. I sat back down on my bed, moved my shoulders up and down, stretched my arms, flexed my hands. Nothing seemed to help.

I bent forward. The pressure was increasing. It didn’t seem to be coming from my muscles, which I had initially thought. it almost felt like... like it was coming from outside. Like someone was pressed their hands upon my shoulder.

I rubbed my eyes until I saw stars. Bright lines danced before my blackened sight, but I couldn’t get rid of the pressure.

Suddenly, my shoulders exploded in sharp pain, like claws pressed into my flesh. I let out a muffled yelp, doubling over. Some taloned thing surely was clenching my shoulders tightly, but nothing was there. I slid off my bed to my knees, my hands grasping my shoudlers, trying to find some kind of relief. I opened my mouth to yell something, I don’t know what, but I felt moist heat against my neck, heard a long hssssssss, like steam.

I remember glass flying everywhere, the caw of a crow. He was yelling now, shouting to leave me alone, they had no authority here. The pressure gave way, the stinging pain subsided, daggers drawn from a wound, I was laying on the ground.

“Faires? Faires? Ah shit...”

Hands gathered me into arms, and I flew.

My body was cold, I was laying on something hard. But my head was on something soft and warm.

“I told you to follow the rules, I told you I wasn’t the only one watching!”

I felt fingers float across my face, barely touching. It tickled.

“God knows I do what I can, but you don’t make it easy! I told you they’d know, and now they’ve gotten him involved!”

“They should not have gone to him...” Her voice was very quiet.

“You made contact in a way no one’s dared in ages. They’re so damn intent on... Look, no matter how we feel about it, there are rules. We’re under them, so we follow their rules.”

“I was lonely...”

“You’ve got me!” I heard a heavy sigh, he continued, “I know its not what you want. But he’s not an option for you.”

“You brought him back, didn’t you?”

“Didn’t know where the hell else to bring him. He couldn’t just stay with it still there, and they won’t come here.”

“Thank you, Kon.”

“Eh?”

“Thank you. For bringing him back.”

“Look, just wake him up, okay? We need to make sure they didn’t do anything to him.”

She was tapping my forehead. I felt her breath, warm and sweet, on my ear. “Benjamin Faires? It’s time to get up.”

I was up. Why weren’t my eyes open?

“Benjamin Faires, I have your glasses this time. See?”

I felt her slide them on. That must have done it, because now I could finally open my eyes. “I wasn’t asleep,” I murmered. I then remembered that my shoulders were still sore. It wasn’t the stinging pain I remember, or the pressure, but the sort of pain you have when you’ve been lifting weights for the first time in a really long time.

Thi’s face was hanging over mine, upside down. She smiled. I realized my head was on her lap. I flushed and sat up very quickly, cringing slightly at the tension in my trapezius. We were near the front of the church, up by the piano. Konstantine stood nearby, looking extraordinarily anxious. He kept running his hands through his hair. He wasn’t at all the domineering figure he had been the last time I’d seen him.

“How do you feel?” Kon asked. He looked nonchallant, crossing his arms, but I could tell there was worry in that question. Now whether it was for me or not, well, I couldn’t say.

“Shoulders hurt a little,” I said. At first I was sort of touched by his concern, or something one might call concern, but then I got angry. Angry because I jsut didn’t understand anything that was going the hell on. I stood up, Thi slowly followed suit. But my attention right now was on that tall man who always seemed to be around when weird things were happening to me.

“What happened back there?” I motioned to some general direction behind me, which may or may not have actually been towards my house. I hoped we wouldn’t get caught up on trivial details like that.

Kon clearly did not want to tell me what had happened, and at some level, my mind convinced myself that that was just fine. I mean, why did I need to know? Maybe if I didn’t know, I could just pretend it was all a dream or some sort of imaginings intended to be written in my notebook. I convinced myself that not knowing was probably not the best way to go about this, and persisted staring at him until he gave an answer.

He dropped his eyes, breathed heavily a few times.

“They’re not allowed to touch everyone else,” he said quietly. That didn’t really answer my question. I was about to remind him of that, but he continued. “I don’t know what happened back there, Faires. Maybe... Maybe it was just a rogue?” He looked at Thi, ending with a tentative, hopeful tone. She looked back with doubting eyes, the corners of her brows slightly unturned, biting her lips. Kon shook his head, looked back at me.

“I don’t know.”

“That’s no kind of answer,” I said, failing to keep a little venom out of my voice.

“It’s the only one I’ve got! And don’t get smart with me, kid, I saved your sorry ass.”

“Who’s the ‘they’ you guys keep talking about, then?” I asked. Then I kind of freakout out a little, my head shook a bit, and I added, “And, and, who the hell are you?” That time I motioned at both of them.

“You were content not knowing three days ago. How about you just go back to that plan.”

“Because something freakin’ tried to kill me tonight!”

“I think I should take you home,” Kon said, raising his hand a little as if to placate me.

“No! Ever since I came here, I’ve been in a perpetual state of confusion and various stages of pain! Now I think its my right to know what is happening and–”

“That’s your problem, you know?” Kon said, stepping towards me. I backed off. “You and all the ones like you. Think you’ve got rights to everything. Think you’ve got so much freedom to do whatever the hell you what. You think that’s a right? It’s a privilege everytime you leave your bloody house that you’re privileged enough to bloody have!” He came closer, grabbed my shoulder, which made me flinch more than I would have liked. He bent down so we face to face. “I’m sorry you got involved in this, but don’t worry, its going to end now. You can just forget about tonight, and this place. Alright?”

Veins which had been popping from his temples were starting to secede. He let go of me. My shoulders throbbed.

That’s when I remembered. Fifteen years ago, when I had been sitting on the front steps of this building, and those boys had stood at the edge of the clearing. I remembered as they came closer, they were yelling. Yelling about someone pushing down on their shoudlers. They couldn’t see anyone. Neither could I. I remembered how they stopped halfway to me, maybe a hundred feet away, spinning around, trying to find cause for the pressure they were feeling. A pressure I felt last night.

Only my story didn’t end the same way their’s did.

“Stay away from him,” Thi said sharply as I came out of that memory. I found myself sitting on a pew, breathing fast and shallow. Kon had just started towards me. Thi was already there. Kon stopped, narrowing his eyes with confusion.

“Thi, don’t be–”

“You weren’t there. You don’t know.” She turned back to me, a tender hand on my shoulder. “Our pasts are part of us, but you should never dwell somewhere you’ve already been. Come on, get up, you need to leave.”

I shook my head. “You were here ten years ago, weren’t you. You were here when that happened. You saw it!”

Thi stood up. “Kon, you should take him home.”

“No!” I jumped to my feet, looking frantically from one to the other. “No! What happened to them... that happened to me tonight! What was it? What was trying to do to me what it did to them?”

“There’s no danger at your house anymore, but Kon should see you there. I have to stay here.”

As I looked at her, she suddenly seemed so much older. She wasn’t the young, innocent thing I had known thus far. She was... mature and tainted by life.

“But–”

“Goodbye, Benjamin Faires.”

She turned away without another word, small, bare feet taking her to the piano. She sat down, her fingers touched the keys, but she didn’t play anything. Kon sighed, placed his huge hand on my back and started to lead me towards the doors.

“No, wait, I–”

“That’s enough now, Faires. She won’t say a damn thing when she gets like this. Come on.”

He kept guiding me forward. I tried to stop, to look back, but that hand on my back seemed to make stopping impossible. I did look back, nearly tripped over debris, so gave in to going with Kon.

Once we were outside in the clearing, the night seemed so much less intimidating. The moon lit the clearing, and weird though it was to hear myself admit it, being by the side of a massive guy like Konstantine was enough to keep me from feeling any fear about the woods ahead.

“Ten years ago...” I began, hoping to get something out of him.

“Ten years ago, I wasn’t here. So try your luck elsewhere.”

More silence. Manly silence with my dad was okay, even enjoyable. Manly silence with Kon? Intimidating and nerve-wracking. There was so much I wanted to know that he knew, but I had already accepted he’d never share. Maybe if I got him off the subject of the crazy-ass thing that attacked me in my room, I could surprise him into an answer.

“So what’s with you and Thi?” I asked, though as soon as I had said it I realized this was probably not the way to start things off.

“Nothing.” Besides the annoyance in that answer, there was an element of sadness. This man was more like a woman with his multiple emotion answers.

“You live in an abandoned building with a girl half your age and you expect me to believe there’s nothing going on?” OK, so I needed lessons on delicate ways to phrase questions.

“She’s not half my age! Does she... does she look half my age?” The guy was definitely a woman. Maybe he knew what I was thinking, because he grunted in a manly sort of way and added, “We don’t live there.”

“What do you mean?”

“Neither of us live there. She’s just... there. And I’m, well, its just a jo– I mean, I just am there a lot.”

“So you’re not, well, you know.”

“Haven’t you asked enough questions now?” Kon said, stepping over a pothole as we navigated the ill tended road back to my house.

“What makes you think its safe back at my house?” I asked. I was bad at this game of diversion.

“Because you will.”

“Strangely enough, that doesn’t give me much comfort.”

“They’re... look, I can’t explain it to you, just trust me, okay?”

“We don’t exactly have the best track record.”

“I saved your life, didn’t I?”

“From what?”

“From–” Kon stopped walking. Damn, I’d almost done it, too! “Look here, kid,” he pushed my chest, “You’re nosy. You can play that up to being a ‘creative mind’ or whatever, but I don’t like it, and I don’t like you. Now you need the cut this inquiring minds crap, because let me tell you, it won’t get you anywhere you want to be. Got that sparky?”

“You did not seriously just call me sparky.”

“You got yourself mixed up in some deep shit, and if you want my advice, you go home, and you try to forget about it. If you do that, then there’s no reason you should have any more problems like you did tonight. Now come on.” He grabbed my arm and pulled me forward until I started walking on my own, then let go.

It wasn’t long before we were standing outside my house. He stopped at the gate.

“Go on in. I’d sleep on the couch if I were you. Bound to be a hell of a lot of glass on your bedroom floor.”

“My parents will send you the bill.”

“That’s cute. Still living with your parents?”

I took the hint and started towards the house. Not a look back. I figured that was what he wanted. Make him think I’d follow his advice, give up on all of this.

The front door was locked, but I reached up for the key above the door. My parents were some of the most unorginal people in that way. Our house was just begging to be robbed. Though in all honesty, the thief would be disappointed.

I quietly entered the house. Which meant I stubbed my toe, knocked over a plastic cup, and ran into a door that didn’t look to be closed. After that last incident, I waited in silence to see if anyone had woken up. I didn’t hear any sounds of movement on any of the floors. And with the creaky floorboards of an old farmhouse like this, its pretty easy to guess where any member of the family is in any part of the house. I could actually hear my dad snoring. Good. Glad to see I could be attacked, kidnapped, and returned without anyone in my family noticing.






“Did you get him back alright?”

“He’s fine.”

“Why... why did that happen?”

“Why does everyone think I know that answer?”

“Are they going to come for me?”

“No one’s coming for you.”

“But you reported me, right?”

“You know I have to. Everyone knows you’re a problem, if I didn’t report you at all, they’d know something was wrong.”

“I don’t want to go to sleep...”

“Oh god, Thi, come on, don’t cry. You’re not going to sleep. I’ll handle it, okay? Look, I have to go now, I’ll smooth it over and–”

“Don’t go...”

“What?”

“Please don’t go... I don’t want to be alone...”

“I... look, stop crying, it’ll be okay. Come here. See? It’ll be fine. Shhh... calm down, no one is going to hurt you. Just try to get some rest. Shhh...”





It was around three in the afternoon when I left the house. I had eeked out of Lea where she’d left my bike, which was at one of her friend’s houses. I treked the mile to the house, found my bike on the front stoop, and headed into town.

Today the weather had cleared up and was acting more seasonal; not quite as warm as usual, but warm enough that I only slipped on a light hoodie.

Our library was a very comfortable place to be. Or, I found it to be. It wasn’t huge, but its selection was nothing to turn your nose up at. One librarian managed the whole thing. She was the kind of person who would never give you that death glare if you dared greet a friend in a normal voice level. She was a bit of a loud person herself.

I locked my bike up outside the library and headed inside. I was bound and determined to find out something about that church. As soon as I heaved the doors open and stuck my head inside I heard a loud,

“Ben Faires!”

I looked to my right at the counter and saw a familiar face, but one I hadn’t seen in quite some time.

“Hey, Rosie.”

Rosalie Brooks. She was always sort of a quirky girl. She went to high school with me. We were always friends, but never really close. I usually didn’t get close to too many people. Maybe it was a lack of social skills.

She hadn’t changed a bit. Still looked like she was in highschool. She came from around the counter, gave me a quick hug, stepped back.

“It’s been forever, Ben!” Rosalie was one of the few who called me Ben. In punishment, I always called her Rosie.

Her fashion sense hadn’t changed much either. Rosie was the kind of person who shopped almost exclusively at Salvation Army. She was a fan of layers; three layers of shirts was not uncommon and skirts over jeans were favoured. She was an average looking girl, other than that. Didn’t wear much makeup, kept her shoulder length mousy brown hair in low, loose, bun type loops on either side of her head, allowing a good variety of flyaways. She had very little chest to speak of, and a fairly long torso.

“You still helping out here?” I asked, my hands deep in my pockets.

“Oh yeah. Mom and I run it pretty much equally now.”

Didn’t I mention? Her mom was the librarian who likes to be loud.

“That’s cool. You, uh, you still taking classes out at the college?” I hated small talk. Rosie had been taking classes at the local community college since I could remember. Lots of literture type classes. My dad loved her.

“Sure am. In one of your dad’s classes right now. I think I’m going to have to give up being a student though; already got my degree. Just fun, you know?”

No, I didn’t.

“Well... uh, you looking for anything specific or just here for fun?” She asked after I supplied the conversation with only an awkward pause. I shrugged.

“Um, yeah. You guys have any local type litertaure?”

“You mean published by local people?”

“Yeah. Maybe... maybe historical something?”

“Well... newspapers of course, always good. But, we do have a little local section right over there, actually. That little display in the corner.”

“Oh, okay. Thanks Rosie.”

She hit my shoulder. It hurt. But I didn’t show it.

“No prob. Well, I’ll let you get to it. Call if you need anything, okay? I think we’re pretty much the only ones in here today.” She smiled this goofy thing she did where she squinched up her nose and squeezed her eyes shut and smiled a huge closed mouth grin. She would only hold it for the briefest moment, you would wonder if she’d smiled at all. But that was Rosie.

I meandered over towards the local section.There wasn’t a huge selection. A few self-published fictional books, some professionally published books. I saw the history book my dad had told me about by McLaughlin, a history professor at the college. I grabbed that. I remember dad mentioning something about a local lore book published at the school press, but I didn’t see it.

I turned around. Rosie was still at the counter, writing something down.

“Hey Rosie?”

“Yup?” She looked up.

“You got anything by Professor Jhonas from the college?”

“Oh yeah, that myth book. Um... I think someone checked it out a few days ago. Let me check if its been returned yet or not.” She typed something into the computer, nodded, turned around to sort through a row of books yet to be reshelved. I took a few steps back over to her, when she held a book up and exclaimed, “Got it!”

I hurried over, took with with my thanks, and headed to a table.

Jhonas’ book was very clearly not professionally done, as most books off the school press looked. The design was lacking. A black cover with the tiitle, “Local Lore: Miles, California,” “Dr. R. Jhonas” down at the bottom, and a dark image of a candle in the middle.

I looked through the index, found a bunch of urban legends I’d never heard of. They must not have been very popular, or she was just making them up. It wasn’t until about half way down the list that I saw what I was looking for.

Oaklawn Lane, First United Methodist Church, 1881-1943

That was it. I tore my way to the correct page, and was greeted by an old black and white image of the church itself. Numerous cars were parked by the church in the field of somewhat shorter grass than existed there now. People were smiling and waving by the front of the church. It must have been taken in the thirties. It was weird to see it then, back in its glory. Back before the roof decayed and the grass went to seed, before the paint chipped away and two exceedingly insane people for some reason stayed there.

I started to read the first paragraph, which began with when the church was built, by whom, but jumped pretty quickly to the year 1939.

“As all good legends do, this one begins in fact. In 1939, there was a girl in Miles by the name of Emily Faye. Emily was the daughter of Judge Rupert Faye, who had served the bench of Miles for nearly ten years. Emily was a smart girl, very prominant in the community. She had grown up knowing everyone, always under the wing of her father the Judge.

In the summer of 1939, when Emily was fourteen years old, the Judge was approached by a man named Alfred Hughes. Hughes was a lawyer who worked for the district attorney. A man in his thirties, Hughes had become obsessed with little Emily. He was convinced she would grow into a fine young woman, and eventually approached Judge Faye about her hand in marriage. The Judge was appalled, and turned Hughes away with a threat against his job if he ever so much as looked at Emily again.

We are told that Emily was at the local Methodist Church, though we are given no reasons for her being there. It was the middle of the week, and she seemed to have no business there at the time. Regardless, Hughes followed her there, took her inside, and violently raped her. Her body was found naked and mangled inside the church. Hughes was never seen again.

In an indepth search through newspapers of the time and interviews of Miles natives resulted no further information than this. The newspapers said very little of the violent murder, and the few natives I could get to talk about it were either children at the time, or knew little more than the papers had told them.

After the murder, we know that attendance at the church heartily declined. It lasted almost four entire years before it finally closed its doors for good.

As I knew it would happen, I then had to jump into the world of unsubstantiated claims.

It is well thought of that the building is haunted by the Emily Faye. Children tell stories of ghosts and dare one another to go inside.

‘Oh sure, we used to play that game, see who was the bravest,’ said Stanley Spike, the owner of the bike repair shop in town. ‘Tom Weste, why he was always willing to go right up to the door, see, but never went inside. One time, when we was playing at it late one night, why Tom and me, we went to that door and teased the other boys what weren’t so brave. Tom, he waved and taunted, but I went around the side to look in one of the windows. Why I swear,’ Stanley hesitated here, shaking his head, ‘Why I swear I saw her, Emily you know, looking right back out at me. Kinda pale, ghostly like. Eyes that beg you to hold her and kill her all at the same time. Mind that was just through stained glass, but seemed clear as day. Why Tom and me took off running and screaming, and them other boys, they was hot on our tails, too. But none of ‘em was scared as me. Cause see, I’d looked into those eyes. Those cold, dead eyes of that poor girl who died so long ago.’


I turned the page and found a picture of the girl, Emily Faye. The scare I’d had last night? Nothing compared to what I saw. I’m sure you’ve guessed, I don’t know why I hadn’t been expecting it. The picture in that book was someone who I knew by the name of Thi.

It was the same girl. Same hair, same way she smiled just a little with those tiny lips. Same innocence. The eyes were different though. These eyes in the book, they were bright and full of life. They were cold. Like the eyes that Stanley Spike had described. They weren’t like the eyes of Thi.