Chapter 4: The Whispers in the Van

Night fell like a heavy curtain, moonless and absolute. The four friends huddled inside the dead van, having barricaded themselves as best they could with equipment cases stacked against the windows. The metal shell that had once represented freedom and adventure now felt like a tomb—protective, perhaps, but ultimately temporary.

"How long until sunrise?" Matthew asked for the third time in an hour, his usual repertoire of jokes reduced to nervous repetition.

"Six hours," Caleb answered, consulting his watch by flashlight. The practical timepiece was one of the few things still functioning normally in this place. "Maybe seven."

Rose sat pressed against the driver's side door, her camera cradled in her lap like a protective talisman. She'd stopped filming an hour ago when the battery indicator began fluctuating wildly, showing full charge one moment and critical the next. "The equipment is going haywire," she murmured. "It's like something is draining the power."

Liam occupied the back corner, his leather journal open, trying to make sense of their situation through the lens of every horror story and supernatural account he'd ever studied. The pages were filled with frantic notes, diagrams of the blood symbols they'd witnessed, theories that grew increasingly desperate with each line.

"There has to be a rational explanation," he muttered, more to himself than the others. "Electromagnetic anomalies, underground magnetic fields, some kind of natural phenomenon that creates spatial distortions..."

A sound cut through his theorizing—a low, keening wail that seemed to rise from the chapel itself. Not quite human, not quite animal, but something caught between the two that spoke of suffering so profound it had transcended the boundaries of individual identity.

They all froze. The sound came again, closer now, as if whatever made it was circling the van. Through the gaps in their makeshift barricade, they could see nothing but impenetrable darkness.

"It's just the wind," Caleb said, but his voice lacked its usual confidence. "Old buildings make noise."

The wailing stopped, replaced by something worse—whispers.

They seemed to seep through the van's metal walls like water through cloth, dozens of voices speaking in languages that predated civilization. The words were unintelligible, but their meaning was clear: Come out. Come home. Come join us.

Matthew's breathing grew rapid and shallow. "Do you hear that? Tell me you hear that."

"We hear it," Rose said, her artist's eye wide with terror and fascination. She raised her camera instinctively, then stopped. The whispers seemed to coalesce whenever she tried to record them, becoming almost solid in the air around the lens.

The voices grew more insistent, more personal. Individual words began to emerge from the chaos—their names, spoken with the intimacy of old friends.

Liam. A voice like autumn leaves. You've been searching so long. We have what you seek.

Rose. A whisper soft as silk. Such beautiful darkness you capture. Come see the masterpiece waiting inside.

Caleb. Mechanical, grinding. Your practical mind seeks solutions. We are the answer to every question.

Matthew. Multiple voices speaking in unison. Your jokes cannot reach us here. But we appreciate the effort.

"Stop it," Matthew said, his voice cracking. "Just stop it."

But the whispers only grew louder, more numerous, until the van seemed filled with invisible speakers all talking at once. The metal walls vibrated with the sound, harmonizing with frequencies that made their teeth ache.

Then Rose gasped, pointing toward the front windshield.

A child stood in the darkness just beyond their headlights' reach. A little girl in a white dress that seemed to glow with its own pale luminescence. She couldn't have been more than seven years old, with long dark hair that hung like a curtain around her face.

She was smiling.

"Oh God," Rose breathed. "She's just a child."

The girl raised one small hand and waved at them, her smile widening to show too many teeth arranged in neat, perfect rows. Her mouth opened and closed with mechanical precision, speaking words they couldn't hear over the whispers that continued to pour through the van's walls.

"That's not a child," Liam said, his voice hollow with recognition. "Look at her movements."

The girl's head tilted to one side with the sharp motion of a bird studying prey. Her smile never wavered, but her eyes—black holes in a porcelain face—seemed to bore directly into their souls. When she moved, it was with the fluid grace of something that had forgotten how human bodies were supposed to work.

She began to walk around the van in a slow, deliberate circle, never breaking eye contact, never losing that terrible smile. Her bare feet made no sound on the ground, and where she stepped, the grass withered and died.

"Don't look at her," Caleb said urgently. "Everyone turn away. Don't make eye contact."

But Rose was transfixed, her camera raised despite her trembling hands. "She's beautiful," she whispered. "In a horrible way, she's absolutely beautiful."

The girl stopped directly in front of the windshield and pressed her palms against the glass. The metal around her hands began to frost over, spreading outward in crystalline patterns that looked almost like the blood symbols from the chapel.

Her mouth moved more frantically now, and finally they could hear her voice—a child's voice speaking words in a dozen different languages, all of them begging, pleading, promising.

Let me in. I'm so cold. I've been waiting so long. Please, I just want to come home.

"She's lying," Liam said, but even he could feel the pull of those innocent words, the desire to help what appeared to be a lost child.

The girl's smile faltered for just a moment, revealing something else underneath—rage, ancient and consuming. Her small hands pressed harder against the glass, and spiderweb cracks began to appear under the pressure.

Matthew laughed—a high, hysterical sound that bordered on madness. "This is insane. This is actually insane. We're going to die out here, aren't we? We're going to die and become part of whatever that thing is."

"Shut up," Caleb snapped, but his own composure was fracturing. The practical man who could fix any engine, solve any mechanical problem, was confronted with something beyond the reach of logic or reason.

The whispers crescendoed, becoming a roar of voices that threatened to drive them mad. The little girl's smile returned, wider than before, and she began to laugh—a sound like breaking glass that cut through every other noise.

The van rocked slightly, as if something large was moving around outside. Then the rocking became more violent, as if dozens of hands were pushing against the vehicle from all sides.

"They're trying to tip us over," Caleb said, bracing himself against the dashboard.

Equipment cases tumbled from their makeshift barricades. Rose's camera clattered to the floor. Matthew curled into a ball, his hands over his ears, muttering fragments of prayers he half-remembered from childhood.

The girl at the windshield tilted her head the other way, studying them with the patient interest of a scientist observing insects. The cracks in the glass spread further, and something that might have been saliva—or might have been something far worse—began to seep through the fissures.

"It's getting in," Rose said, her voice dreamy and distant. "It's going to get in and then we'll all be together. Won't that be nice?"

Liam grabbed her shoulders, shaking her back to awareness. "Rose! Stay with us!"

But the oppressive atmosphere was affecting them all. The whispers seemed to be coming from inside their own heads now, promising relief from fear, promising an end to the uncertainty. All they had to do was open the door. All they had to do was join the congregation.

The little girl's laughter grew louder, more triumphant. The van's rocking increased until they were being thrown against the walls like dice in a cup. Something was definitely outside—many somethings, all working together with unified purpose.

Liam felt his grip on consciousness beginning to slip. The stress, the terror, the impossible situation—it was too much for his mind to process. The whispers promised such sweet oblivion, such perfect understanding.

His vision began to blur at the edges. The last thing he saw before darkness claimed him was the little girl's smile stretching impossibly wide, revealing not teeth but a tunnel of absolute darkness that seemed to go on forever.

As consciousness fled, Liam thought he heard his own voice joining the whispers, welcoming the next group of investigators to Angels Chapel.

But that had to be a dream.

Didn't it?