Chapter 2: The Backward Walk

The van's engine ticked in the gathering dusk as they sat in stunned silence, staring at the twisted chapel through the windshield. What had seemed merely unsettling from a distance now felt actively malevolent up close. The building's warped wooden boards seemed to shift and breathe in their peripheral vision, and the boarded windows gave the impression of eyes sewn shut.

"Jesus Christ," Caleb whispered, his knuckles white on the steering wheel. "Look at the foundation."

They followed his gaze to where the chapel sat. The ground around it was wrong—not just bare earth, but a perfect circle of dead soil that looked burned, as if nothing had grown there for decades. Beyond that sterile ring, the forest pressed in with unnatural density, the trees leaning inward like curious observers.

Rose had her camera up, filming through the windshield, but her hands shook slightly. "The light is all wrong," she murmured. "It's like the shadows are... deeper here."

Matthew nervously adjusted his equipment, his usual stream of jokes notably absent. "So, uh, what's the plan? Walk up and knock?"

Liam consulted his journal, scanning the fragments of information he'd compiled. "Most accounts mention entering at dusk. Something about the threshold between day and night being... significant."

"Significant how?" Caleb asked, though his tone suggested he didn't really want to know.

Before Liam could answer, Rose's phone buzzed. She glanced at it and went pale. "Guys, the subreddit is blowing up. Someone just posted about us being here."

She read aloud: "If you're really at Angels Chapel, there's something you need to know. My grandmother was from that area. She said there was a ritual—a way to enter safely. You have to walk backward across the threshold. Never face the altar directly on your first entry. The dead don't like to be stared at."

"Walk backward?" Matthew's voice cracked slightly. "That's not creepy at all."

"It's just superstition," Caleb said, but his practical certainty seemed forced.

Rose continued scrolling. "There's more. 'The chapel feeds on those who approach with arrogance or disrespect. The backward walk is a sign of humility. It might be the only thing that keeps you from joining the congregation.'"

A chill ran down Liam's spine that had nothing to do with the dropping temperature. "Joining the congregation?"

"Look," Rose said, holding up her phone. The screen showed a grainy historical photograph—the chapel as it had been in the 1800s, surrounded by a small crowd of people in period dress. But something was wrong with the image. The people's faces were too pale, their eyes too wide, and their mouths hung open as if they were screaming silently.

"Probably just a damaged photograph," Caleb said, but his voice lacked conviction.

The temperature dropped another few degrees, and mist began to rise from the ground around the chapel. The iron cross atop the steeple creaked in a wind none of them could feel.

"We should go," Matthew said suddenly. "This feels wrong. Really wrong."

But Liam was already opening the van door. The compulsion that had driven him here was stronger now, singing in his blood like a fever. "We came here to investigate. Our subscribers are counting on us."

The others reluctantly followed, gathering their equipment with the mechanical movements of people fighting their own instincts. Rose shouldered her camera, Caleb grabbed the portable lights, and Matthew fumbled with his audio gear, dropping it twice before getting a grip.

The moment they stepped out of the van, the silence hit them like a physical weight. It wasn't just the absence of sound—it was the presence of something else, something that swallowed noise and left only a ringing emptiness that made their ears ache.

The chapel door stood slightly ajar, revealing nothing but darkness beyond. Up close, they could see that the wood was carved with symbols that seemed to shift when observed directly—not quite letters, not quite pictures, but something that made their eyes water and their minds recoil.

"The door's open," Rose whispered, her voice barely audible in the oppressive quiet.

"It wasn't open from the van," Caleb said, his practical mind grappling with the impossibility.

Matthew's hands shook as he adjusted his equipment. "Maybe... maybe the wind?"

There was no wind.

Liam approached the threshold, his journal clutched in one hand, a flashlight in the other. The darkness beyond the door seemed to move, to pulse like a living thing. He could feel his friends behind him, their breathing harsh in the unnatural silence.

"Remember what the post said," Rose whispered. "Backward. Walk backward."

It felt ridiculous, like children playing a game. But as Liam turned around and began to step backward toward the open door, he felt something shift in the air around them. The oppressive weight lifted slightly, as if some invisible presence had stepped back to watch rather than threaten.

One step. Two. His heel crossed the threshold.

The temperature plummeted.

Three steps. Four. He was inside now, his friends following in a awkward backward procession, their equipment clanking softly in the void.

Five steps. Six.

That's when they saw them.

The chapel was full.

Dozens of figures sat in the rotting pews, their backs to the altar, their faces turned toward the newcomers. Men, women, children—all dressed in clothing from different eras, from rough frontier wear to modern hiking gear. Their skin was the color of old parchment, their eyes wide and staring, their mouths hanging open in expressions of infinite sorrow.

And they were all perfectly, horribly still.

Rose's camera clattered to the floor. Matthew made a sound like a wounded animal. Caleb grabbed Liam's arm so hard it would leave bruises.

The figures didn't move, didn't blink, didn't breathe. They simply sat and stared with those terrible, knowing eyes, as if they'd been waiting for decades for this moment.

"Oh God," Matthew whispered. "Oh God, oh God, oh God."

One figure in the front row—a young woman in a 1990s flannel shirt—slowly turned her head toward them. Her neck moved with the grinding sound of rusted hinges, and when her gaze met theirs, her mouth opened wider, revealing a throat full of darkness.

"Run," Liam breathed.

They turned and fled, stumbling over each other in their panic, equipment abandoned as they burst through the chapel door and into the night. They didn't stop running until they reached the van, where they collapsed against the vehicle's reassuring metal frame, gasping and shaking.

"What the hell was that?" Caleb demanded, his voice raw.

"They were just sitting there," Rose said, her artistic composure completely shattered. "Waiting. Like they knew we were coming."

Matthew was hyperventilating, his usual jokes replaced by ragged breathing. "Did you see their eyes? They were... they were aware. They knew we were there."

Liam's mind raced, trying to process what they'd witnessed. The figures had been too still, too perfect in their positioning. Not mannequins or props—something far worse. Something that had once been human.

"We need to get out of here," he said, his investigator's instincts finally overwhelmed by pure terror. "Now."

But as Caleb fumbled for his keys, a sound rose from the chapel behind them.

Screaming.

Not one voice, but dozens, a chorus of agony that seemed to come from the very walls of the building. The sound cut through the night air like broken glass, a symphony of madness and despair that spoke of suffering beyond human comprehension.

The screams rose and fell, sometimes forming almost-words in languages that predated civilization, sometimes dissolving into animal howls of pain. Through the boarded windows, they could see flickers of movement, shadows dancing in patterns that hurt to observe.

The four friends huddled against the van, paralyzed by the sound. It seemed to go on forever, each scream layering over the others until the very air vibrated with torment.

Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the screaming stopped.

The silence that followed was even worse than the noise had been. It pressed against them like a living thing, heavy with malevolent attention.

In his journal, Liam had written that something in the chapel had been waiting.

Now he understood that they hadn't just observed it.

They had announced their presence.

And it was no longer content to simply wait.