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“Ladies, gentlemen, everybody in between, we welcome you back to Renchantyn Unsolved , where we dive into the strange and the sinister to search for the answer of the question: do ghosts exist?”
“As usual,” Martyn interrupted, “the answer is no.”
“Which would take all the fun out of the show,” rumbled Ren, giving him a playful side-eye and an elbow. “My name is Ren, and I’m your resident ghost hunter and believer.”
Linking his hands and addressing the camera in front of them, while BigB who held it gave them a thumbs up as the audio came through his ear piece, “And my name is Martyn, and I’m the resident ghost hunter and unbeliever. Ren, tell the audience and especially me where we’re going to investigate tonight?”
“I’m so glad you asked Martyn, because I think this will really freak you out–” Ren swept a hand behind him at the dark building they filmed in front of: a tall-roofed, elaborate church with steeples that prodded at the black clouds. Trees surrounded it on all sides, crowding the white building in on itself. Despite the grandiose, it was a rather small investigation spot, but with hotspots that Ren had read about to keep them entertained through the night.
Martyn, still looking back at the defunct chapel, clicked his tongue. “Well, you could say that, but I think we’ve been doing this show long enough now Ren that we know that you’ll be the one freaking out with your tail tucked between your legs, and I’ll be laughing at you.” Ren kissed his teeth.
“...M’kay.” He sighed heavily. “Let’s get this over with.”
And BigB stayed back, along with Skizz holding the interview boom mic and Etho on tech, zooming out the camera for the wide shot as Ren and Martyn approached the entrance. Banter picked up through their hand-helds and clipped on microphones, words forming around the whistling of the wind.
“Why did you think that an old creaky chapel was gonna be the thing to break me?”
“Y’know, I don’t know. I just really wanna test the waters to see what makes you squirm.”
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Ever since Ren met Martyn, he has been cold. He supposed it doesn’t help the fact that they’ve been doing the web show for the whole time, spending late nights exploring drafty buildings and pretending that they know what they're looking for. But he has been cold in a specific way, every time he stood beside Martyn, with chills taking over his fingertips and the tip of his snout. It made his fur stand on end, and no amount of layers would help him shake it off.
He was being paranoid. Certainly he was, because it was especially difficult to be anything but as the aged oak doors of the church opened up to them.
“Whoof,” Martyn said the moment they stepped in, fanning himself with the collar of his shirt. “Man, is it hot in here?”
“You're warm?” Ren's ears pricked forward. “How?”
“Dunno, man. Maybe they invested really well in their insulation methods.”
Ren grumbled. Listen, he loved the guy, but Martyn did not give him any leeway when it came to finding things strange or suspicious. Granted, that was in the case if the two of them saw eye to eye on what strange or suspicious even meant. Everything had to have an explanation, of course, but for Martyn he refused to consider that maybe, maybe that explanation was something paranormal. No, it had to be bad door sealing or poorly nailed floorboards or... well maintained insulation.
The white beam of their flashlights swept the sides of the chapel. It was hard to tell from the outside, but the whole building was wooden, and it was a miracle no hooligans had burnt it down. However, as every abandoned building did, the church had its fair share of crude graffiti that Grian would probably make them removed in editing. The front doors pointed them straight down the aisle, narrow and lined by a carpet filled with dust and dead leaves. Short pews branched out left and right of them. At the very back, they could see the sanctuary, and the impression of the large, rotting cross hung on the furthest wall.
“You know what, Ren?” piped up Martyn after a long while of silence, the group of them having taken in the interior. “I think you're right, this place doesn't really sit right with me.”
“Well, we're not backing out now. Just look at how tall that roof is, wow...”
Etho, hiding most of the way in his vest, whimpered from behind them, “Oh man, please don't let there be bats...”
“If there's bats, Etho, I'll get rabies just for you.”
“Oh, Martyn, you're the worst! ”
The two hosts moved further down the aisle together, and leaning into the camera, Skizz started mumbling the tune of the Wedding March. Ren's flashlight pointed back at them, and the cast chuckled, following slowly after them. BigB made sure to pan across the pews for some B-roll.
“Right, storyteller,” Martyn said, pausing to pick at the wrinkled pages of an old Bible sitting in the pocket of a pew back, “what's the story you're gonna tell us today? What're we here for?”
Ren bounced on the balls of his paws. “Right! Oh, here, we can set up. Guys, c'mere— Martyn, maybe the two of us sitting in the front pew. B, how does it look up on the stage?” BigB, squinting into the camera's viewfinder, gave him a thumbs up.
“You fit right in,” BigB said, “red Skechers and everything.”
Martyn followed along, sitting beside Ren and throwing his arm over the top of the pew. Clearing his throat, Ren straightened the sherpa collar on his jacket. “Okay! Backstory time. So, I'm sure you noticed the territory when we were driving in, yeah?”
“What, the absolute nothing in every direction?”
“Well, er, yes, exactly. In 1890, this church was constructed here, and the surrounding area used to be the site of a town called Bahgburn— but in 1963 the town was actually moved and combined with one a couple miles down the road, Rochester.”
“Oh, we're staying in Rochester! Did you know that?”
“Nothing on this show is done on accident, my friend,” Ren told him, glancing down at his pocket notebook.
“We had dinner there. That diner had some damn good poutine, I'll tell you what. How come they tore down Bugburn?”
“Bahgburn.”
“Gesundheit.”
Ren kicked him; Martyn snorted.
“What I read, the reason that they demolished the town was because of some strange crime that was going around. Windows being broken, gates smashed, cattle stolen. Small community harassment. And it was only a population of about 30, so the deputy—”
“Wait, wait, so— Instead of doing his job, the deputy just told his entire hamlet to pack up shop and move down the road?”
“I mean, you got your poutine out of it, didn't you?”
“Well, I guess!”
“And then this place, of course, was more or less untouched, because they felt like it wasn't right to demolish the church, and—”
“Because it's a church.”
“Because it's a church, exactly. Doesn't stop teenagers on road trips from spray painting some rather foul looking bits on the walls, but...”
“So it's an old ass church,” yawned Martyn, resting his head on his fist. “What shadow thing is in here?”
“Well, if you were gonna let me finish... Rumour had it that another reason that the town of Bahgburn turned itself over and picked up, leaving the church completely untouched, was because some people thought that, instead of God, a demon inhabited it and was attacking their farms at night to drive them away.”
Laughter. His ears flattened against his head. Martyn, meanwhile, still giggling, was wiping his eyes.
“Isn't it, like,” he struggled to say between breaths, “like textbook stuff that demons can't be in churches?”
Ren flipped the small page of his small notebook. “Well—”
“Oh, yeah, take back what I said earlier, I feel way better. That brightened up the whole evening, dude, let's get a move on.”
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It was late summer, early autumn, and it was not supposed to be windy that night. Yet there was an unmistakable breeze that raked through Ren's fur as he stepped up into the elevated sanctuary. Martyn sat a few rows down in the pews, balancing the EMF detector on the bench in front of him. He kept his hands to himself. The device was stable for now at 2 EMF.
Ren pointed his hand-held camera around the stage. The white panelling on the back wall was flaking, drowning in spray paint, black and neon pink. He tried his best to breathe softly, because Etho once told him that he noticed in editing that he whistled a little when he breathed through his snout. The green night vision tilted up to capture the cross mounted on the wall, imposing and coming apart. There was a bird's nest in the corner of it.
“Jeez...” murmured Ren. “Right. So, of course, this property is still owned by people. We had to get permission from security and so did plenty of other people, and there have actually been sightings of a few ghosts in this very center chapel. Some roommates to that demon feller I mentioned. One, Martyn, usually seated a row or two ahead of you, an old man in a tweed suit and a flat cap, named Bernie.”
“Bernie!” Martyn cheered. “Hoh, I like the sound of Bernie. A right classy fellow, huh? Where's our Bernie?”
“We're gonna... see if we can find out. Now, Bernie, I know this might be a little ahead of your time, but think of this like a radio. This is called a Spirit Box. You'll be able to talk to us through this box just like a radio.”
The moment that the Spirit Box was switched on, the chapel reverberated with static. It echoed in the high ceilings, and made Ren physically flinch before he turned it down. Stupid thing, always starting up too loud for his sensitive ears. Once it was on the right settings, he set it down on the pastor's altar. Ren said, “Right. Again, we are hoping to just have a little conversation with Bernie, or Bernard, I'm assuming in full. Just a couple of, ah.. righteous men, hoping to chat.”
“C'mon out, Bernard,” Martyn hollered, shifting in his seat. “Man, I've always hated pews, these things suck. Bernie!”
“My name is Ren, my loud friend here is Martyn. Do you think you could say our names back to us?”
The static rolled and rolled. Jumped frequencies would occasionally spit out an incoherent syllable at them, all which sounded more like choking or coughs rather than actual responses. Martyn glanced down at the EMF. It was still at 2.
Ren set his jaw with a dull click. “Is there someone here that isn't Bern—”
A thud, behind him. His ears and tail stuck straight up, fur on end in an instant. The Spirit Box continued to churn. Slowly, Ren turned, staring over his shoulder at the darkest corner of his side of the church. There was a doorway to the cellar behind him, completely devoid of all light, and already his eyes were playing tricks on him. His attention darted between speckles of false movement, straining to see in the dark, straining to hear anything other than the crickets and the tree branches scratching on the windows. The shadows bent and twisted. They congealed, folding into themselves, like arms wrapping around the body they belonged to, melding with the rotting white frame of the doorway. Without even noticing, his tail had already found its place between his legs, and the Spirit Box choked on itself, sputtering, like a death rattle.
“Dude, that was God,” Martyn said from the gallery. It got a chuckle from BigB, and Etho whispered, “Ren's seein' things again...”
“Shush, dude,” said back Ren without hesitation. “Whatever it was, it wasn't Bernie, I don't think.”
“Bernie would never. Are you gonna go over there, or am I gonna need to find a plastic ball?”
“Okay, dude? First off, that was the one episode in that sanitorium. And second, duh, we need some action up in here.”
Ren shut off the Spirit Box before it could spit out any more radio news host stutters, stuffing the device in his jacket pocket. Martyn reached for the EMF, clicking it off quickly, and moving out of the pews to follow behind Ren as he peered into the cellar doorway.
“Honestly, m'dude, pretty good segue into this room... Thanks not-Bernie for that. Now, Martyn, what is the rule about demons and places with basements?“
He rolled his eyes. “The demons are probably from the basements?”
“Exactly. Gold star. And—” Their flashlights, pointed straight at first, tilt down further than a 45 degree angle, down a flight of wooden stairs that opened up to a black pit at the bottom. “Erm, no thank you. Martyn, I think it's time you took the lead.”
Scoffing, Martyn gently shoved past to get down the narrow set of steps into the basement. Ren shivered as he was brushed, glancing to make sure the crew was still with them, and BigB waved him away. It would probably be too cramped downstairs for them all to cram in, and Ren's ears flattened with a quiet whine before he followed Martyn down. The wood groaned beneath his paws. Concrete on all sides painted white, and a hardwood floor decrepit from water damage greeted him. Martyn was already halfway into the room, flashlight sweeping a row of chairs stacked against one wall, covered in cobwebs. “Did they have Sunday school in the 1900s? This is giving me 'sit down and colour a page of Jesus on the cross' vibes.”
“I hope they used fun crayons at least,” Ren muttered, poking at a table topped with a thin layer of dust. “Give Jesus purple blood or something. Could be rad.”
He shivered. Cold.
Martyn chuckled as Ren began to rub his paws together, audibly 'brrr'ing. He shook out his fur with a whole body shake, making Martyn quip, “Oh, Twitter'll love that. Put that in their 'Ren being a dog for 10 minutes' compilation.” Ren stared down Martyn's camera and sighed heavily, then also said “Sigh,” out loud.
“I need thicker fur for this job, man. Too many heeby jeebies. I have no idea how you're just in a tee shirt right now.”
“No, literally, I am so warm in this church right now. I'm like if a furnace was just guzzling coal.”
“M'kay, a little T.M.I. there dude, but whatever. We've got a demon basement on our paws. Have you got that maglite on you?”
They took a moment to shuffle around the chairs and find the ones with the least cobwebs— two for them, and a third for the flashlight, and whoever or whatever may be down here with them. Ren's leg bounced. Martyn carefully set the maglite switch between the two activation triggers, and put it down on the third chair. The three of them formed a tight circle in the very middle of the room, and Ren slowly swept his night vision camera around, gazing at the floor. There were strange singe marks on the ground, making an oblong ring, which they sat in the middle of. Ren cleared his throat.
“Right...” Taking a deep breath, Ren glanced at Martyn, who glanced back, aiming his own flashlight at the chair in front of them. Ren spoke out first, “So, er, we would... We would like to open up a channel of communication with anyone or anything that's in this room with us right now. We're gonna try to ask you some simple 'yes' or 'no' questions, and if it's a 'yes,' then you're gonna tell us by tapping on that flashlight on the third chair.”
“I've got my light on it,” Martyn said, twitching the beam around on the chair. The shadows seized. “I'm gonna ask first, is there actually someone—” The maglite flashed at them. “—in this room. Okay, cut me off, sure. Rude.”
Ren brushed down the fur on his neck. “Jeez... Whoever that was, could you turn off the flashlight?”
A beat.
Nothing.
“Whoever that was,” Martyn started up again, “did you die peacefully?”
The light stared at them. A breeze brushed by Ren, and he glanced at the wall behind them. Martyn watched the light, eventually turning off his own.
“Were you killed?”
Ren studied their own shadows in the beam of the maglite, blinking hard. The void in the corner surged out beyond itself, quivering, quaking in the attention of an anxious Internet show host that always saw a little bit more than others did. A draft ran up his arm.
“Were you summoned here, somehow?”
The room plunged into darkness, and Ren whipped around, his chair squealing on the floorboards. Martyn put a hand on his shoulder to steady him.
“Dude, screw that,” Ren said, voice shaking. “I don't like it down here, man, this sucks.”
“I think you forget every time, Ren, that we have to camp out in this place after this.” The hand on his shoulder rubbed up and down, making Ren sink back into his chair. “Come on, face your fears, ask our demon a question.”
“Are you the one making it so cold down here?” Ren asked the dark, which remained after several beats.
Martyn shrugged, finally moving his hand. “It's a basement, dude, they're drafty.”
“No way, man, not buying it. It’s like the air is touching me.”
“It's a concrete basement,” he said, rolling his eyes and slouching back in the rickety old chair. They weren't sitting too close, but Martyn could tell Ren was still shivering, and so he reached over to grab one of his paws. Ren held it with an iron grip. “They're cold and they let in drafts, especially if they're this old. I lived in a basement apartment for years, I'm like basically an expert.”
“M'kay...” Ren cleared his throat, then muttered, “We can cut that out, me jumping...”
“If you want. Wanna ask another question, or you want me to?”
Ren shifted, staring at the maglite through his camera. “Are you here to harm anyone?” Light flashed at them. Ren pushed his sunglasses up his nose. “If you want to harm one of us, turn off that light.”
He held his breath, not daring to blink, staring down the maglite on the chair across from them. Martyn made a noise, something of disbelief that Ren would jump into the deep end just like that.
The room went dark.
“Right, Martyn, that's too much fun for me, my dude. I think it's about time we get outta this stinking basement.”
“Yeah, I'm down. That's a big 'no thanks' from me.”
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Ren had a degree in film editing and a year later was sleeping on the ground of a run down chapel in a sleeping bag.
He and Martyn were laying on the elevated ground of the sanctuary. The lobby was too cold and they'd rather die than sleep in that basement, so the main chapel it was. Ren laid awake, sunglasses discarded on top of his bag right beside him, staring up at the cross mounted above them, the room ascending until it reached the pitch black rafters. There was scratching up there. Ren prayed it was just squirrels.
BigB and Etho got driven back to where they were staying in Rochester. Lucky bastards, sleeping in a motel room in actual beds. Skizz was outside sleeping in the van, just in case either of them got eaten by a bear or mauled by a ghoul or anything practical like that.
Ren rolled over, clicking his watch so the numbers glowed, checking the time for what must've been the millionth time since they started the sleeping portion of the investigation. In green, his watch told him it was 4:06. He sighed— three more hours to go. He glanced to where Martyn laid across the stage from him. Martyn always managed to sleep great during these, and Ren couldn't understand why. Not even the slightest discomfort from sleeping on the floor, Martyn would be asleep within the hour as long as Ren didn't keep on whispering at every new creak in the already-creaky building.
Another breeze whistled through the aisle, dancing past the pews and climbing over top of Ren's sleeping bag. He pulled the edge of it up as far as it would go on his shoulders.
Would it be warmer, he wondered, if he was beside Martyn? Would he make the chill go away, like how he tried to down in the basement, holding his paw? He had a sense of protection over Ren during these situations, always keeping level headed and calm when Ren couldn't. Always there to hold his hand, hold his shoulder, walk down the basement stairs first. Surely, Martyn would keep him warm during the night, their sleeping bags beside each other instead of on the other side of a pastor's altar. In the same bed at their motels, rather than over an arm's length away, a bedside table between them and a lamp to accentuate the distance.
Fur standing on end, Ren trembled with another shiver. He rolled over, hugging himself, rubbing up and down his arms in hopes to drive it away.
On second thought, Martyn's hand was colder than the basement itself. Maybe the warmth was from the red hot feeling that bloomed in Ren’s chest.