The Dead Don't Speak | Open Novella Contest 2020 | ✔

Chapter 8: Underground

Two inmates and a ghost boy walk into a chapel.

That's not a joke.

Liz hadn't been talking nonsense when she'd said we'd be going to church. As soon as we were allowed to go outside the next day, she dragged me out, mumbling about dirt and a half-hearted plan to wipe Korea off the Earth. It took a lot of coaxing and questioning on my part before I could finally put the pieces of cryptic comments in place and see what was going on.

As it turned out, Liz meant she'd made good use of the dirt she'd dug up on Officer Davies while sniffing around Doctor Jones' computer. She'd approached the poor man moments before dinner, armed with blackmail material for a weapon and unafraid to use it. Davies had gone down without protesting or putting up much of a fight. Of course. The guy didn't have much prison experience yet and was still young, a mumbling newbie with a crappy buzzcut and as much acne as the teens he supervised. It made him an easy target.

The officer's compliance would allow us to run Kim Sarang's errand. He'd cover for us and throw any potential meddlers off our trail while we did whatever would be necessary to earn the desired Ouija Board and bag of chips. While I felt a little bad for using Davies like that, blackmailing him and hitting him where it hurt in order to succeed in our endeavours, I wasn't going to tell Liz to dream up another plan for us to work with. It was do or die in the most literal sense.

Our end would have to justify our means.

I let Liz drag me to the old, abandoned chapel in the prison yard: a small, unwelcoming building made of stone, its unhinged door covered in chipped red paint and the rusty bell in its tower seconds away from crashing down through the roof. The chapel hadn't been in use for decades, I could see that much. Would've been a damned safety hazard, too. The once-holy place reeked of earth and bacteria, moss claiming large chunks of the walls, and I half-expected to find something dark trapped between them: a demon thirsting for blood or some other monstrosity with sharp claws ready to strike.

Lonewood's old chapel contained no such horrors, I discovered upon entering with Liz, quietly, as to not attract the attention of curious fellow inmates. It was dark inside; only a few rays of sunlight managed to seep through the cracks in the walls and the murky stained glass windows. Fallen stone and other rubble cluttered on the ground, surrounded by long green vines creeping high and weeds conquering the floor.

A spectral man in a cassock roamed the ruins with an empty look in his eyes. Beneath a tarnished bronze cross hanging askew on the wall knelt another ghost, her head bowed and mouth whispering silent prayers for all eternity. Other than them, the only ghost we had with us was Michael. I was grateful for that; three ghosts was already quite the crowd.

Liz, unbothered by our dead companions, made straight for the altar, ancient and wrecked and covered in dust like the rest of what remained of the chapel's interior. I followed her, holding my breath, trying to avoid sneezing and tripping.

Behind the altar lay yet another pile of rubble, through which my partner in crime began to rummage. She shot me a warning look, asking for my help wordlessly. I complied, crouching down beside her and helping to remove sticks and stones and rotten leaves. When we'd shoved it all to the side, I found myself staring down a gaping hole, a black void waiting to swallow us and never spit us back out again.

"It's cold down there," Liz said, as if that was the most interesting thing she could find to comment on. "After you."

I had nothing against being told what to do from time to time. Hesitant, I placed a foot on one of the first rusted iron rungs of the makeshift ladder leading down. I didn't dare look beneath me, afraid of what I would or wouldn't see. Liz came after me and the farther we descended, the more the caustic, musty stench of the underground became ingrained in my nose.