Father Patrick paced the length of his study. The bible lay open on his desk, but the words were a blur. The clicking sound at the door had shaken him more than he wanted to admit. It had felt… intelligent. Purposeful.
He jumped as his landline phone rang, the shrill sound shattering the silence. He snatched it up, grateful for the distraction. "Hello? St. Jude's rectory."
"Patrick? It's Helen Sharpe." The Mayor's voice was crisp, efficient, but there was an unfamiliar tension underlying it. "Are you seeing this weather?"
"Mayor. Yes, it's… quite something." He walked to the window, holding the cordless phone to his ear. The fog was a solid wall against the glass. "I've never seen it so thick."
"Neither have I. I've just had the police department on the line. They're getting calls. People are spooked. A few car accidents on the outskirts, nothing major, just fender benders from people driving blind." She paused. "I'm considering making a statement. A calming one. I thought perhaps… if you were to echo it from the pulpit, so to speak. A message of community and level-headedness."
Patrick felt a wave of relief. This was something concrete to do. A pastoral duty. A way to be the man he was supposed to be. "Of course. Whatever you need. We must urge people to stay safe and look out for one another."
"Precisely. I'll have Ben email you the draft. Good man." The line clicked dead.
The call had grounded him. The Mayor needed him. The town needed him. He was Father Mallory again. He sat at his desk, refreshed the email page on his laptop, waiting for the draft from Ben. The other temptations, the darker pulls of the machine, seemed quieter now, drowned out by a sense of purpose.
A new sound began outside his window.
Thump.
Then another. Thump.
It was a soft, heavy sound, like a bag of wet sand being dropped on the ground. Then a skittering, like claws on stone. It was coming from the church roof.
He looked up from the screen, his blood running cold. The clicking was back. But this time, it wasn't at the door. It was above him.
Something was on the roof.
He rose slowly from his chair, his eyes fixed on the ceiling. The sounds moved from one side of the rectory to the other. Thump. Drag. Skitter. It was circling. Exploring.
Then, a different sound. From the direction of the church itself. A high, resonant PING.
Then another. PING.
It was the sound of someone, or something, lightly tapping on the stained-glass windows.
Fear, cold and sharp, lanced through him. His congregation. The thought was automatic. Was someone out there? Were they trying to get in? Were they in trouble?
His duty warred with his terror. He had to check. He had to see.
He left the study and moved into the dark, empty nave of the church. The towering, vaulted ceiling was lost in shadow. The only light came from the red sanctuary lamp glowing above the altar and the faint, eerie luminescence of the fog pressing against the windows.
PING.
The sound came from the large window depicting St. Michael defeating the dragon. A shadow moved across the colored glass, blotting out the light from a streetlamp that was no longer there. The shape was long-limbed, distorted.
PING. TAP. TAPTAP.
It wasn't at just one window now. The sounds came from all around the church. A gentle, almost playful tapping on the holy images. On the Virgin Mary. On the crucifixion window. On the rose window above the choir loft.
They were everywhere. Surrounding the house of God.
Father Patrick stood frozen in the center aisle, his head turning, trying to track the sounds. The gentle taps were more terrifying than any attempt to break in. They felt like a mockery. An inspection.
The clicking started again, a conversation happening just beyond the walls. It seemed to be coming from the roof, the walls, the very foundation.
He fell to his knees, not in prayer, but because his legs would no longer hold him. He clasped his hands together, but no words would come. The rituals, the vestments, the scriptures—they felt like paper-thin defenses against whatever was outside. The laptop and its filth felt like a sin so small and pathetic in the face of this… this presence.
He was just a man. A flawed, frightened man, on his knees in the dark, listening as the unseen congregation gathered outside his church.
The tapping stopped.
In the new, absolute silence, a new sound began. A slow, deliberate scraping. It was the sound of something sharp being dragged down the length of the heavy oak front doors. It was a long, drawn-out screech that set his teeth on edge and echoed through the hollow belly of the church.
It was the sound of a key being dragged down a blackboard.
It was the sound of something wanting in.