Weird shit goes down

Sarah found a back road that circled back around the church and parked the car out of the way behind a line of trees where it wouldn't be immediately noticed. We sat there in the tiny vehicle watching as the cops buzzed about the place like so many worker bees.

"What the hell are they doing?" I wondered aloud, watching as they began to load up their cars with huge boxes they had taken from the church's cellar. I took out my phone and snapped a few pictures, though admittedly it was hard to gleam too much.

"What do you think those are?" I asked Sarah, who was frowning at the scene. "That's a lot of boxes."

She was silent a beat. "Maybe it's evidence, about the fire." Another beat. "Or maybe it's drugs."

I couldn't help but smile at that.

We kept watch for a while and the day began to darken into night. I called Jess and told her I'd be working late, and while she wasn't exactly thrilled, she gave me the all clear. With Sarah, the process was a lot more complicated. She got of the car to make her phone call and whatever the conversation was it definitely wasn't pleasant. I could see her cringe, speak in small bursts and mostly frown sadly as the person on the other end of the line spoke. After a small eternity she hung up, composed herself and returned to the car, sitting in complete silence.

Maybe I should have kept quiet, but we were sitting in a car for hours on end and my curiosity was getting the better of me.

"So...um...are you ok?"

Sarah's frown deepened and she remained silent.

"I don't mean to pry it's just that..." I sighed, "seems like you're struggling with something. Maybe talking about it will help."

Slowly, Sarah turned to regard me. For a moment all she did was take in every inch of my face, analysing it for any hint of deception or potential cruelty. "Are you close with your family?"

"I love my wife and I try to be there for my kids."

"No, I mean your parents. Siblings." She watched me carefully, "are you close?"

I didn't exactly want to go into my family's extended history, but if I wanted Sarah to open up at all I needed to give her something.

"I'm not super close with my parents but I still call them every now and then, see them at Christmas and birthdays.They're good grandparents to my kids," I sat back in my seat a little, "I've got a sister that I barely see, but that's because she lives abroad. As a family we mostly get along."

Sarah nodded distantly. "My Mom died when I was a kid, so it's just my dad and my brother." She rubbed her eyes, her body sagging with exhaustion. "My brother has his issues, but he's a good kid. My dad...he...he's a stern man. He doesn't ....he's not ok with me being around guys."

A super conservative and domineering old man. So it was that old chestnut. Well, that certainly made sense with Sarah's general failure around men and why she was so damned Mousey all the time.

"So how'd you convince him to let you do this?"

She blushed a little. "Told him I was out working with Mary."

I laughed a little under my breath. Maybe there was hope for this girl.

We made awkward but decent small talk for the next hour, and I got the feeling that I was making progress with Sarah. It was pretty dark by the time the cops packed up and left, but we decided to wait an extra fifteen minutes before approaching just to be on the safe side.

The church was huge and even with the fire damage it still looked incredibly grandiose. It was kind of surprising really. Normally big fancy churches like this were built in the centre of town, not out in the middle of nowhere, hidden away.

Using our phones as lights we managed to find a side entrance that hadn't been locked down by the cops and entered into God's House. I was probably committing several kids of sacrilege, treading all over the place with my muddy shoes, but I was never exactly a saint at the best of times.

The interior looked reasonably intact as well. Row after row of pews sat there waiting to polished by the asses of faithful. The stain glass depictions of Christ and the Virgin Mary were a little dirty from soot, but unbroken. A single ray of moonlight shown down through a hole in the ceiling right over the alter, and had I been a superstitious man I would have taken it for a sign.

I frowned. "So, where exactly did the fire start?"

"Over there," Sarah traced a path with her phone light and illuminated a spot off to the side, where a door had once been and now was merely a blackened entrance.

We approached it, phones at the ready carefully examining the damage that got considerable worse in the next room. In fact, the little corner of the church was scorched to the point where it was on the verge of collapse. More than a few holes had been burnt through the wall like horrible pockmarks.

"Look," Sarah shone her light at pile of blackened rubble and kicked at a piece of burnt cloth that sat amongst it. "It's the curtain from the confessional booth."

Now that I looked it, the remains definitely had the austere look of a confessional and as I got closer I could smell...brimstone? What the fuck.

I was about to say something when suddenly Sarah clamped her hand around my mouth and closed her phone before smothering the light of my own. Before I could even mumble a complaint I heard it. Voices. Footsteps. Coming from the hall. I went deathly still.

Slowly, Sarah removed her hand and gestured to one of the holes in the nearest wall. Moving inch by inch we made our way over the damaged wall and peered through, not daring to breath.

There were three of them standing by the alter. Though they were bathed in the moonlight I couldn't discern who they were, dressed in cloaks and wearing strange animal masks. They spoke to each other in a strange language that I guessed was Latin, though by no means was I sure.

The tall of the four, a man wearing a wolf mask, produced a leather bound tome and began to read aloud. Instinctively the other two discarded their robes, revealing the naked bodies of two women, one wearing a fox mask, the other an older woman wearing a strange ape mask. Slowly the two men began to caress and touch each other before moving over to the alter right where their pale, voluptuous bodies shone in the brilliance of the moonlight.

Soon their caressing turned to more aggressive fondling and eventually the two women began to vigorously fuck each other on the alter, scissoring each other with wild abandon.

All the while the man continued to pace around them in a circle, reading aloud from his book.

Their moans built and built, rising with the man's chanting. I couldn't look away, though I felt Sarah practically vibrating next to me with arousal, little gasps escaping her mouth as she took in the vivid sight before us.

What happened next was perhaps the strangest thing I had ever seen.

As the two women began to ground into each other faster and faster, the chanting growing perfectly timed with their pelvises thrusting, a bright light emerged the mouth and eyeholes of the fox mask wearing younger woman and...well, frankly, it looked like a burst of energy rushed out of her and into the older woman. As that energy entered, I could see things change, the older woman's body began to grow firmer, tighter as age was washed away. The reverse effect happened to the other woman, as her body began to age decades before my eyes.

I could only watch in transfixed silence as the newly rejuvenated woman stood from the alter and adorned her cloak, standing beside the wolf-faced man who had finished his chanting by this point and closed his book. Words were exchanged between them, mutterings I couldn't quite make out save for a few pieces.

"......leave.........Bishop........ ceremony..." the wolf man turned to the woman still lying on the alter, he gestured harshly, pointed off out of view, "....silence....home...car..."

The woman, who had appeared in her twenties just moments ago and now looked closer to sixty wearily nodded her head in understanding. Together they made a sign with their hands, a sort of religious gesture. Her voice, now raspier answered "...Baphomet....baptism.... "

Baphomet? Wasn't that some goat demon? Was there a fucking cult going around doing satanic shit in this town? I was struggling to process this shit, but I heard a final word from the wolf-man, a name that I was familiar with.

"Higston..."

Was my new boss...part of a demonic cult?