“Not without me you’re not!” said Sarah angrily as she stood up from her chair and marched towards me. “You aren’t going anywhere without me.”
“It’s not safe for you there, I don’t know what I am going to find, and I’m not going to put you in harm’s way.” I replied, standing my ground.
In retrospect, that was probably the wrong thing to say. Sarah lost it.
“How dare you tell me what is and isn’t safe for me!” She shouted “I can decide for myself what is and isn’t safe for me! You forget I’m the one who hired you, so that makes me the client.”
I was getting angry too, what right did she have to yell at me, I’m the one who is helping her. “You haven’t hired me, I’m helping you. So simmer the hell down because I haven’t said ‘yes’ yet.”
“Oh please look at this place! You were right, you aren’t at the top of your game this place is a shit hole. You need my help as much as I need yours. How much longer are you going to be able to keep the lights on when was the last case you solved? One month, two?”
She was right, I hated her for it, but she was right. I need this paycheck, things were getting tight and I couldn’t avoid those bill forever. Beside this was bigger than some paycheck, I knew it was, just not why. I stared down at the floor silently.
“Either you take me or I won”t tell you where it is.”
It didn’t make sense, but it didn’t have to, she already knew that she had won.
“Fine, come on.” I said defeated.
We walked out to the parking lot outside my office, there were only two cars out there were Sarah’s and my 1999 Oldsmobile.
“I’m driving.” I said walking towards the car, the light from the moon and neon signs reflected and warped off the car’s white exterior.
I unlocked the door and we got in. “Which way?” I asked as I pulled out onto the desolate street. I looked at the clock on the dash, it was 1 A.M.
“I’ll tell you as we go.” Sarah said, staring out window.
“Don’t trust me? You’re already in the car, it’s not like I’m going to kick you out.”
“I wouldn’t take it personally, Detective. I don’t trust anyone.” She added fiddling with the seat belt. “Just keep going straight.”
I didn’t press her, not after the last little outburst she had a second ago. I guess I could understand why she might have trust issues, still I would like to know where i was going.
I wouldn’t call my car the flashiest thing on the road, but I love it. It’s about ten years too old and falling apart at the seams. It’s a very comfortable ride, good on gas, just not that pretty to look at, inside or out. The antenna was bent and broken from a car wash, the radio’s cassette was busted by me one drunken night when there was nothing on the radio and I blamed the cassette play for it. I had gotten the car a few years ago from a police auction, it was a deal and I plus I still had some money left over, but since then the car had fallen into disrepair.
“Make a right up here.” said Sarah, pointing and the intersection up ahead.
We kept driving and I looked over at her, she was staring out the window watching the ocean through the line of palm trees that stood in front of it. It was an otherwise calm night, beautiful night, but I sensed that Sarah wasn’t marveling at the scene in front of her. She hadn’t stopped fidgeting since we got out on the road. First she started with the seat belt, then she twirled her hair before drumming her fingers on the dash. Now she was just staring off into space.
There was something about her that I couldn’t quite shake, i still had that sense of familiarity that I couldn’t place. I thought it was that I had just forgotten about the Proctor case, but that feeling came back before we left. Something about the way she acted reminded me of someone, I just couldn’t figure out who.
“Left up here.” called out Sarah before zoning out again.
We spent the remainder of the trip in silence, barring the occasional “left” or “right” from Sarah. I tried to talk to her, ask her about her family and how things had been lately, but I got no response, just the odd grunt or noncommittal noise. Her fidgeting had gotten worse, now, it seemed that she could barely keep still.
“This is it, coming up on the left” she said. body turned towards the door, hand on the latch, poised to jump out the literal second the car came to a stop.
She had taken us into the town’s business district, and just like she said, just up ahead was an old office building. It wasn’t all that big, about three floors and it had the same pueblo crossed Italian shop style that all the buildings have around here. The place looked abandoned, but so did everything at that hour. I pulled into the parking lot and found a place close enough to make a quick escape to, should we need to, but also far enough away not to raise suspensions should there be anyone inside.
Just like I had said, the second I put the car in park Sarah was gone, out of the car and running down the street.
“Sarah! Saaarah!” I shouted in a horse whisper.
It was too late either she didn’t hear me or didn’t want to so quickly I shut off the engine and got out. I followed behind her, stopping briefly to go back for the gun in my glove box and stuffing it in the back of my pants. When I looked back to the door of the building I found the door open and Sarah gone, apparently the door was locked because the window in the door was smashed where Sarah had broken in.
“Shit” I thought. “Hopefully she didn’t set off a silent alarm.”
I followed quickly behind her but when I got inside she was gone.“Sarah!” I called out again, with the same results.
The place was pitch black except for the moonlight coming in from the windows on the wall by the door and silent, Sarah’s foot steps having faded down the hallway as I walked in. I couldn’t see much but I could make out a reception desk, covered in what looked like pamphlets. I turned on the flashlight on my phone and gave the room a once over before making my way over to the desk. The place certainly didn’t look like like the den of evil my mind led me to believe, it just seemed like your normal friendly nonstandard church. I shined the light on the wall where the opposite behind the desk. The words “Church of the Covenant” shined back at me in regal brass letters. Right below the name was a picture of a kindly looking old man in a black suit smiling, and at the base of the frame was a plaque written in the same font as the church’s name.
Father William Mica
“Our Prophet and Savior”
I didn’t recognize the man in the portrait, but obviously he was the man in charge. I took a picture of the portrait and made a few notes in my notepad to review later then I made my way to the desk to look over the pamphlets.
They all seemed pretty innocuous just your regular everyday religious reading material filled with all the stock Getty images and flowery calls to action you could expect. I grabbed one of each just to make sure. I continued to look around the desk, there wasn’t anything else of interest other than the computer, which was of course password protected and the only thing I found in the drawers below the desk was spare office supplies. Satisfied that I couldn’t find anything else I moved on.
The door behind the desk was left open when Sarah came charging through. As I made my way through the building, following my flashlight as I wandered the halls, I looked at the doors, and noticed how most of them were unlabeled, and locked. I would occasionally pass by a room with a strange name like “Seeing Room” and “Circular Reformation Center” all of these rooms were locked as well but I made a note of them for later.
I kept walking descending deeper and deeper into the building with only my little cone of light to guide my way. There was no light at all here, well none that I could use, and I wouldn’t dare turn on a light just in case there was someone still left in the building other than Sarah and I. I made my way into a large room that looked like a cubical farm, possibly used to call random people to spread Father Mica’s message. I was making my way towards cubical farm when I heard a scream coming far to the right of me.
“Sarah!” I shouted as I grabbed my gun. “Sarah!” I shouted again, this time I was met with a scream. I laid my finger on the trigger guard ready to fire as I ran towards the source of the scream.
I ran faster and faster, the beam of my flashlight dancing wildly in front of me. It felt weird to be running around with my gun in hand, it had been years since I even carried it and even longer since I’d fired it. It’s weight felt foreign in my hand and threw me off balance.
“Why the hell did she have to run ahead” I thought as a descended a staircase and found myself in a hallway identical to the one I was just in. I heard the scream again, but this time it seemed to drag out into a sob.
“Sarah?” I called out, fearing the worst.
My call was answered with more sobbing, this time I could pinpoint it to a partially open door at the end of the hall, a soft blue light emanating from the crack. Slowly I approached, gun drawn. I braced my self against the door jam and slowly pushed it open with my gun and flashlight guiding the way. Then, in one quick maneuver, I spun into the room, quickly checking all my corners and blind spots. That’s when I saw it.
