Outside of the run-down Fast Out, or simply "Out" if you read the dimming sign, young Frank Ballman hung out with Dennis Mally, brown bottles in hand. Cars, old and new, pulled up to get gas. Under flickering copper-colored lights, a middle-aged couple argued in their minivan, a man in a suit wiped mustard off his jacket as he waited for his tank to fill, and a teenager took his time behind the wheel texting in spite of the car behind him, honking relentlessly. On the window of the store was a big, sun-damaged, festive poster advertised slush that was orange and black, ambiguous to what the actual flavor for it was, sold just in time for Halloween.
"Looks terrible," said Frank to no one in particular.
Dennis heard him, didn't quite get it until he looked at the sign too. It was the last week in November, though, and the wind was getting chillier.
"Bet those are selling like hotcakes," he said, shivering as he lit a cigarette.
"What should we do tonight?" Asked Frank.
"What you mean?" Said Dennis, unable to get his lighter to hold a flame.
"You're back home on break from college," clarified Frank, "I don't know." After a short pause he said, "well, you remember Redd from photography?"
"Yeah, I remember," Dennis took a drag and blew, "he's cool, what about him?"
"I was talking to him and he does this thing where you go into abandoned buildings and you just film it."
Dennis made a face and tilted his head at this, somewhat mystified.
"He's got a website, gets a lot of views, too. It's becoming like a thing online," Frank said, getting him interested in what he was about to ask him.
"That's something, Frank," said Dennis, "but what if you run into someone though? Like, crazy or something?"
"I guess that's one of the reasons why people watch." Frank didn't feel like he was winning Dennis over, so he just told him why he was talking about Redd.
"Colowick's, huh?" Dennis mused after hearing all Frank had to say.
"Yeah, so are you in?" Frank asked, hoping for a yes.
"Why not?" he said smiling, as he put stepped on the butt of his cigarette. "Gonna take us there?"
They didn't park in the lot, but rather in on the street outside. It was around 8 pm. Redd was already there with his expensive camera, an impressive-looking, matte-black machine. He wasn't alone; his cousin and his girlfriend were there, and so was Harry Nakamura, another chill guy he remembered from high school. Harry was a good photographer, but his paintings were even better. He even won a countywide art contest one time.
"Man," said Harry as he looked at the old plaster shell that was once known as James Colowick's Middle Elementary School, "makes me feel old. Kinda depressing."
Tears of rust ran down the cracked walls, sections of rusty gutters hanging over them, their last screws doing their best to keep them up. The parking lot was losing the war against the weeds, so bad that it looked more like broken sheets asphalt were placed over the overgrown grass. Most of the windows of the gym were shattered, revealing the pitch black from within. The large, dark, metal cross stood forlorn atop the school chapel. It looked more like crypt now, bereft of hymn and prayer.
The place wasn't tagged, strangely enough, though it's been nearly ten years like this.
"Hey Redd," his cousin said nudging him, "You think the devil's still there?"
"Shut up, Lenny," Redd said playfully but sounding slightly nervous.
"Oh man," said Dennis, laughing at the memory, "dude, you freaked us out."
"Saved me though," Frank admitted, "I didn't know the words for my song. I would have ruined the Christmas program. Good thing it ended early."
"Yeah," said Redd, "I got y'all good."
That's what he said the first day of Christmas break, but we never believed him. He said he did to mess with the teachers for making us do the dumb act for our folks. We all knew he had stage fright so bad it sent him running off the stage. He was crying when he came back, though, and scared out of his mind. Even the cops were called. It was no joke to our parents with that Kelly guy running around. Even to this day, they haven't caught that psycho killer. Though Redd made it sound like the guy or thing, wasn't even a person.453Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyUi3Dal9QI
Heavy grey links chained up the doors, and the windows, low enough for them to climb through, were boarded up. There was a chainlink fence though that lead into the field. Lenny brought some tools, anticipating such an obstacle. He snipped a hole through it and walked in, guiding his girlfriend by the hand. Everyone else followed in. A frayed piece caught Frank's shirt, making a tiny hole near the sleeve.
They each had their own flashlights. Dennis smacked his own a few times to stop it from flickering as they walked the old field where countless games of soccer, football, and tag were played. Frank stepped on something that let out a crunch.
"What the hell?" He whispered to himself.
He shined his light down and saw his foot buried in the belly of an old baby doll. The years of sitting in the field had made the plastic dry and cracked. It's sticker eyes fading, leaving only white dots that stared looked upon no loving mother.
"What?" Asked Dennis.
"Nothing," said Frank, as he lifted his foot, "It's just a stupid little-"
The doll flailed its arms, making the sound of a dying machine trying to be human.
"M-rrrr-mmy! Mo-zzzzz-mmyyyyy! Zzzzzt," it bellowed at him in varying pitches.
Harry quickly came to Frank, filming the toy's dying words.453Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡshD9OC5bZ9
"That's creepy," said Sandra, Lenny's girlfriend.
"Thing looks ancient," commented Harry, urging Frank to keep his flashlight on it as he filmed, "how it still works, or the batteries, for that matter..."
"PLEEEE-ZZZE PLAAAaaayyYYY. Zzzrt." Then the plastic child moved no more, its last minutes well documented.
They crossed a courtyard and into the building that consisted of the classrooms for grades 1st to 4th. The door wasn't chained, but it was well weakened by rust. Redd put his boot to it until it gave way. Within the memories flooded Frank's mind. It was odd. Any day, if he had to recall his time in Colowick's he knew he could detail the layout of the whole school; the wallpaper patters, the bulletin boards, fire alarms, who taught where. But seeing it now, forsaken, lit only by the moon and portable light hit him differently. Above the corridor was a cloudy, plastic pyramid let the moonshine in, and to their left were classrooms for grades 1 and 2 and to their right, grades 3 and 4.
There wasn't much to see. Just the things one would expect. Rotting carpets, stained ceilings that fell apart one piece at a time, the musty smell that could make them sick. Frank almost felt bad for dragging Dennis with him in this adventure, who kicked around debris and covered his nose when he came near something vile. It certainly wasn't for everyone, Frank thought after seeing Harry and Redd carefully film every corner of a classroom. Lenny and Sandra went outside, probably finding fun with themselves instead.
"Hey, Frank," Dennis was calling, "You remember that weird door at the back of the chapel?"
"Yeah, the red one that no one ever opened?" Frank said, picking rat droppings of his shoe with a twig.
"Yeah, that one," Dennis moved closer to him, "Mrs. De Cesena sent me to get Father Richard from the chapel during recess one time."
"Uh-huh." The twig snapped and Frank jerked his head away to avoid any spatter.
"The door was open, man, and there was like these concrete steps that went down super deep."
Frank looked at him, intrigued.
"What was in it?" He asked.
"I don't know, man, didn't go in," Dennis looked disturbed, "but Father Richard came out of nowhere and put his hand on my shoulder. He told me to leave. When I told him Mrs. De Cesena wanted to see him, he just closed and locked the door and walked away without saying anything else." He looked Frank in the eyes. "I think I heard something down there. Like moaning, or something."453Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpGcHNHvCQ3
"Let's go down there, then," Frank said, not sharing the same nervousness as his fellow adventurer.
"You think Redd will want to? I mean it was where he was attacked by that thing."
"Maybe he'll get some good footage." Frank shrugged.453Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMkFuyi4EbE
Redd looked a little shocked by the proposal at first, but as he thought it over, he buried his fear and agreed, granted that all six of them were together. They couldn't find Lenny or Sandra, so the four of them would have to do. They probably went back to the car.
They had to climb through a broken window in the office. Inside, a door opened to the hallway. They made there way down the once-white-now-a-yellowish-brown carpet as they heard rats scurry above them behind the ceiling boards. The orange paint peeled, dried and curled on the wall and chipped at the slightest touch.
After a few turns, the red door stood before them.
Frank looked back on Redd, whose hands were shaking as they gripped the camera. Upon meeting his gaze, he stopped and smiled, trying to play it off as excitement. It was unlocked, and Dennis opened the door slowly.
"Yeah," he said after swallowing spit, "the steps."
Harry was the first to walk in, his camera ready and his bright flashlight pointed ahead. Redd following in after than the rest. The steps really did go down a long way. The steps, walls, and ceiling became the same dark grey concrete. At the bottom of the steps was a door, black as night, with some kind of symbol painted on it. Harry held the light in his armpit and twisted the knob.
The room it hid had a stone floor, like one that would belong to a castle. The place was ancient, way older than the chapel. At the opposite end of the room was a pair of wooden, iron banded double doors. 453Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡt7dhMcaSln
"Whoa, what the hell is this?" Mused Frank.
Dennis touched one of the stone walls. Candleholders were set into the walls, covered with the wax of spent candles.
"It's like a place where knights or something would live." He said, picking at the frozen drops.
"Speaking of knights," said Harry lighting up a huge painting that hung on the wall. "Hey, check this out, guys."
The armored man carried a bloody sword in one hand and in the other a severed head. It wasn't a human head. Well, not completely human. The knight gripped the head by its long, black, ringed horns. Its eyes were red and fierce, weeping tears of blood. It's jaw slacked open, revealing its needle-like teeth and a wet tube-shaped tongue.
The beast's gaze freaked them out, but the knight's stern and judging face, oddly enough, made their skin crawl. Redd suffered the most from this effect.453Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBa972DVCTb
"Oh my... no, screw this, screw this," Redd made a move towards the door, "Let's get out."453Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTxJWQbfxw0
"Hey man, c'mon," Harry pleaded, "We've never seen anything like this, it would be good for the website."453Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtjjBJETJJh
"I can't I..." He turned to look at Harry, accidentally caught sight of the demon's head and jerked his once more to the door.
Though he didn't say, they all understood.
"That's it," he admitted, "that's what tried to get me that night."
They were all silent. Redd's fear silently leaked out into them. Though Frank wasn't much of a believer in the supernatural, he did feel something in his heart. Something wrong about this place; this underground ancient tomb that was connected to this chapel. Harry, with new eyes, looking upon the unholy visage too shared Redd's horror. Even Dennis began to creep to the black door.
"I'm getting a weird feeling too, now," Harry said, wiping his nose with the back of his sleeve, "I got the footage anyway, let's get a move-"
The huge double doors began to part, the heavy wood scraping the stone. A noise that sounded like a sigh and a growl came from the sliver of darkness in between. A hairy deformed hand with sharp nails wrapped around the wood as its glowing scarlet eyes looked at them. It stepped through slowly, it's hooves clattering on the dusty stone.
"No way..." whispered Frank.
They didn't remember much after that. They remembered Lenny coming out of his car and shouting at them from across the fence. "What?" he called out as he slid his jeans on. "What happened, guys, what going on?" Sandra buttoned her shirt up as she got into the driver's seat. Redd and Harry dove into the back seat. "Get in!" Frank remembered screaming at Dennis through the open passenger door. He muttered curses as he buckled himself in. "You all good?" Redd shouted from the open window ahead of them. "Yeah!" Frank yelled back.453Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaIrP4E1ZZz
Then they both peeled out towards their homes.
Frank texted Harry, saying if he could see the footage. He could, of course, that is if he wanted to go back to Colowick's and pick it up off the basement floor where he dropped the camera.
Though, to be remembered was all the horror needed. It wrote itself into the mind and comes unbidden. Even on the brightest days, a shadow follows, cast behind you.
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