Chapter Text
“Im bored as all shit” Larry said suddenly, breaking the silence in his bedroom as he sat up on his bed. Ash glanced up from her sketchbook. Blinking a couple times. “Uh. ok? What do you want me to do with that information-?” she responded, setting the book down.
Larry sighed dramatically, flopping back onto his… stained mattress on the floor. That's probably a better descriptor than calling it a bed. Throwing his hand over his face he groaned. “I don't know, man. I'm just bored. I miss Sal. He'd have an idea.”
“no he wouldnt”
“-yeah he wouldn't. Still miss him though”
Ash sighed “...well we could like, go somewhere i guess?.. Nowhere is open this late though".
Larry nodded and thought for a moment. Playing with his hair absentmindedly. Eventually he sat up again. “...we could go somewhere that's like.. Not open y’know?” he said, putting his hair in his mouth and chewing on it. Ash looked at him for a sec “so are you suggesting like, breaking into a place? I feel like that would be an asshole-y thing to do”.
She said, a note of concern in her voice. Larry spat his hair out and responded, “yeah ok but what about the church? Me and sal have been meaning to check that place out for awhile. The vibes are off. With the whole… jesus-y schtick.”
“...that's every church. Every church does the ‘jesus-y stchik’.”
“yeah but this one feels weirder”.
I mean… yeah Larry was right, Ash thought.
The Phelps church always had a weird vibe. She'd been there a couple times. Her parents dragged her for easter when she was little. Her family wasn't super religious or anything. They were more culturally christian if anything, she didn't think about it much. Larry on the other hand, was much less involved with this shit. He said he was agnostic and ‘open minded’, but he clearly thought the idea that christianity had any basis was like, really stupid. Honestly everything he knew about it was from horror movies and Travis spewing his bullshit. So he didn't have… much respect for the religion. And so he really didn't have many qualms about breaking into a creepy ass church.
“Yeah it does feel weirder.”
Ash said, picking at her lip slightly as she mused, “...so… you wanna break in? Really?”
“Yeah.”
Larry said, pushing up from his mattress to go look for his lockpicks. Ash stared for a minute more. “Ok.” “Nice, let me grab my shit.”, Larry grinned back at her while rummaging through his room looking for his lockpicks…. For like a solid 5 minutes, before finding them behind his dresser with Ash's help.
“So ash, should we like, wear ski masks or something?” “Do you have ski masks?” “no” Larry said simply. He thought for a sec, chewing on his shirt collar this time. “Ok, should we wear all black then?” “…I don’t have a change of clothes” “oh. Well then like… uh. Let's just go as is.” “Sounds good”
_____
Sitting in Ash's car, it took them half an hour to get out of the apartment because they kept realizing they needed more crap. They went out as is then remembered it’s winter and grabbed jackets. Then they remembered they forgot their phones and a flashlight. They thought they were good after that until Larry revealed he didn’t have his lighter. So he got that. It’s been a long journey to even start driving.
“Anything else??” Ash asks flatly as Larry hops into the passenger seat, lighting a cigarette. “No we’re good” he says, taking a drag and exhaling the smoke through his nose. “Want one?”Ash nods. Larry fumbles in his jacket pocket and hands her a cigarette, lighting it for her. She puts it in her mouth. Taking a drag before blowing the bitter smoke out. “….ok. Let’s go”, she says, holding the cig in her mouth and starting the car.
“You really should get your license,” Ash says, pulling out of her spot. “I tried, dude. I keep psyching myself out when I'm behind the wheel and fail the test. Last time I hit a sign”, Ash snickers and Larry shoots her a look. “Whatever. You can just drive me around, dude.”, “get sal to drive you around.” “He’s missing an eye, dude. His depth perception and stuff is screwed and shit. Love him but I don’t trust him behind the wheel of a car y’know?” “Well then you should learn to drive so you can drive your boyfriend around” Ash says. “Didn’t you start working out just to carry him around? Driving can’t be too hard. Heh” she smirks to herself with her eyes on the road. Larry huffs slightly, saying nothing.
Ash pulls up to the long road leading to the church, but parks on the grass. Larry raises an eyebrow “dude what? The church is over there, dumbass”. Ash sighs “I don’t wanna park my car in front of the place we’re breaking into.” Larry thinks about this response before deciding it’s reasonable and nodding. “Yeah ok…. Anyways. Why the fuck is it so far away from the main road? Creepyyyy. Like, what are you trying to hide?” “Bodies?” “Probably”
Walking along the road to the church, Larry’s chewing on his shirt again. Ash notices and makes a face “Larry, you want gum or something? You’re gonna destroy your shirt collar.” Larry glances at her , not spitting out his shirt, voice muffled. “this is more like, satisfying. I have to chew like, an entire pack of gum to get the same feeling dude. It gets expensive quick. This is cheaper.” “Ok well don’t do it around me it’s gross.” “Fine.”. He spits out his shirt dramatically.
As they approach the church, Larry's eyes scan over it. It's not crazy huge but it's not crazy small either. Red double doors with stained glass above them. The old wood has a mildewy smell, gross. There's a small shed next to the church made out of the same wood. They'll check that out later.
“You think we’ll see Jesus, dude?” Larry asks as they reach the door, kicking it once. “Pfft, like the real dude? In the flesh and stuff? Yeah sure", Ash says, smirking.
“…So… you gonna pick the lock?” Ash asks. Larry kicks the door slightly harder. Before sighing, looking a bit defeated. “Yeah. I was hoping I could kick it down or something." He mumbles before pulling out his lockpicks, getting down on a knee and starting to pick at the lock, glancing back at her, he asks the girl, “Ash, shine the flashlight at the lock for me”.
Nodding, Ash takes the flashlight out of her backpack, shining it at the lock. Larry works at it for a minute, biting his tongue.
“Dude this is a weirdass lock-” he mutters. After a couple minutes he hears a click and pulls at the padlock around the chain securing the door. It opens and he pockets the lock... Then he kicks open the doors.
The double doors open, creaking slightly. Reveling the foyer. It's well kept enough. But clearly old. Like, old old. The church has been here since the 1700s. It's probably needed to be repaired like a million times… which makes Larry wonder, if you replace every part of a church, is it still the same church? Damn. thats deep
But other than the fact it's creepy old, there's nothing too special about it. Just some dead flowers on a small table with a half melted candle next to them.
Larry walks in first, humming. “I kinda thought it’d be creepier. More pentagrams.” Ash laughs
“half the town goes here. I doubt they'd wanna advertise how culty they are right after walking in.”
Larry shrugs. “Yeah maybe…”
he says, walking up to the big doors. Ash follows him, looking around “damn, it’s been years since I’ve been in here. It’s creepier at night with no one else here.” “Well no shit”, Larry says, opening the big double doors to the main churchy area.
“Woahhhh… dude look at this place- it’s like, it’s like all churchy- PENIS-“
Larry immediately points to the painting of Jesus crucified behind the altar, grinning like a middle schooler. Ash cracks up too, adding, “doesn’t he normally have like, a loin cloth or whatever?”.
Larry looks back at her and smirks
“Probably ...probably because it’s so damn small dude. They wanna cover that shit up. But not Kennith I guess. Dude is gayer than me to get a painting where his lord and savior’s cock is out.”
“DUDE- wait wait actually y’know what’s even better? Travis asking for this specific painting or something. He went up to his dad and was like “ahem… father, we should get the Jesus painting with his p-penis out. Not because im gay father- no. For. For accuracy.””
Larry laughs, grinning at ash, the gap in his teeth fully pronounced. He pushes his hair out of his face and leans on the podium “oh definitelyyy. The prick probably creams his pants every sermon or whatever. Looking at Jesus’s dick. He imagines the bread is Jesus’s dick and the wine is his cum” “LARRY-! That’s cruel… but-“
Now they are both giggling their asses off. Ash sits down on a pew, while Larry continues leaning on the podium. “Ok ok…. Ok. We’re here to find cult shit, yeah?”
Ash gets her final giggles out and nods, looking up at Larry “yeah, yeah. Ok. Let’s look around”
——
After poking around the main room of the church and finding nothing particularly interesting but some writing on the back of pews. Probably from bored kids. Larry carves a sanity falls logo with his nails he needs to trim into the back of one. But he gets bored pretty quick after that, laying back on the pew
Looking up at the ceiling he wrinkles his nose, sniffing the air “hey ash, is it just me or does it smell like weed but way worse in here.”
“It’s incense. Like a Christian thing.”
Larry nods. “Uh ok. But like… why? Why do they do that? It smells bad.”
“You smell bad”
“I smell great, screw off”
Larry pulls out the pack of cigarettes from his pocket, grabbing one before shoving it back in. Taking the lighter out of his pocket, he zones out looking at it. It was his dads and stuff.
The metal is cold.
He snaps out of it though, clicking it till it sparks and catches. He holds his cigarette to it, hearing it crackle and start to smolder at the tip. He puts it to his lips, inhaling the bitter smoke. Closing his eyes as he holds it in his lungs. He doesn’t like the vibe of this church, dude.
It's nice spending time with ash, even doing this. Both of them have been busy. Ash just got accepted to art school for next year. Which is cool and stuff… even if he’ll miss her.
Ash is busy snooping near the podium. She successfully finds a Bible. A rare find in a church as we all know. Flipping through it, it doesn’t seem like there’s anything interesting. Sighing, she closes it. Glancing at Larry she pipes up. “Larry it really doesn’t seem like there’s anything that weird. And I kinda feel bad.”
Larry sits up, sighing a bit too “you might be right dude….wanna head out? We can get food on the way back to the apartment. I brought, like, 20 bucks.” "Why'd you bring 20 bucks?” “To get food. I just said that” “…ok”
Larry gets up and stretches, putting his cigarette out on the pew in front of him before shoving it in his pocket with his hands.
Him and ash leave the church, both looking slightly disappointed.
As they start walking away Larry notices something. “Fuck… dude it smells like death over there…” he jerks his head to the shed next to the church. Ash raises an eyebrow and walks over to see what he’s talking about. She scrunches up her nose at the odor “oh fuck you’re right. What the hell is that??”
They walk over to the shed. Larry gags at the stench. He looks at the lock on the shed door and doesn’t feel like picking it. So he picks up a rock and just hits it really hard till it breaks. He then opens the door.
The stench gets stronger
“Ugh-?!” Larry looks slightly horrified. Ash grabs Larry's arm, squeezing, eyes wide. “H-holy shit…”
A rotting, mutilated corpse.
Dead bodies are fun.
Fun times.