Scared by Rayne Hall

Author:Rayne Hall
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: horror, short stories, horror stories
Publisher: Rayne Hall Ltd
Published: 2021-08-31T00:00:00+00:00

This story has been previously published in the short story collection Six Scary Tales Vol 1.

THE LOFT

by Liv Rancourt

I’ve always really hated the dark. It took an act of will to turn the big old-fashioned key in the door to the north transept of Our Lady of Hope Church. Willpower and the knowledge that Erin was right behind me. Father Tom had turned off the lights when he locked up after the evening Mass and as we pushed on the door, it swept back a little of the blackness. I stopped two feet in.

Erin scooted around me and chuckled at my hesitation. I always had trouble stepping out of the tiny red halo from the EXIT sign.

“Scaredy cat.” She pulled out her cell phone and tapped the screen. “This neighborhood may be a Devil’s Triangle for Verizon coverage, but the flashlight app still works.”

“You know the door code.”

She laughed outright at that. “Stand still, Davey Ray. Mama Erin will take care of things.”

I watched Erin walk steadily through the darkness, her cell phone giving off just enough light to show me her silhouette. She was tall, at least 5’10” in her classy pumps, and weighed maybe 200 pounds. Her velvety alto was the foundation of the trio.

She paused once and the light bobbed up and down, and I knew she’d just sketched a bow to the altar as she passed it. The room smelled faintly of old stone and incense, and I listened for the soft beeps that would mean she was punching in the code to open the sacristy door. A moment after I heard them, the huge glass pendants that hung in a double row above the center aisle started to glow. When it was bright enough to make out the pews and pillars, I headed towards Erin.

Another gust of wind hit, loud enough that it made me jump. Something solid thumped to the ground. “The wind gets right through those old windows,” I murmured.

Erin and I met in the center aisle. “You trying to convince me or yourself?”

“The wind must have blown something over. It’s not like there’s anyone else in here.”

“Right.” She looked carefully around as the lights got brighter. Our Lady of Hope could easily hold a thousand people, and for Holy Days we had to fill the aisles with folding chairs and hope the Fire Marshall didn’t catch on. It was well named, too, planted in the middle of a neighborhood known mostly for abandoned buildings marked by gang tags and chain link. The occupied spaces were kept alive by regular infusions of state-sponsored income. And by the oxycontin economy.

The choir loft ran the width of the church above the vestibule, which was the area between the big front doors and the three sets of swinging doors that opened into the nave, or the main body of the church. Matching doors at the very back opened to stairways that led up to the loft. Only one of those stairways was ever used. To my knowledge, no one had tried the other one since sometime before I was born.

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