13 Ghost Stories in 13 Days

The Time I Went to the Old Church Later Than I Should Have

I was lost in Manayunk and it was too late to find my way home.

I panicked and opened the door of the old weird church. I’d done this before. It’s not like the movies. You don’t have to find a monk and ask his permission. You don’t have to cry out for sanctuary. You just find a pew and go to sleep. There’s no one ever there. Anyone who shows up in the morning won’t say anything to you. Sometimes they’ll cook you breakfast.

It was after midnight and the candles were lit and this should have been a sign that I wasn’t alone, but the truth is I wasn’t in the right state of mind to be at a church this late. It was cold out and I was afraid of catching a chill. I couldn’t call in sick the next morning. I moved closer to the candles for warmth.

There was a sermon going on, which also should have been alarming, but it was late. Satan delivered the sermon. Which, again, should have been alarming, but I really needed to sleep it off and it was almost 1 a.m. and the only one watching the sermon was God, who sat alone in the front row, and that kind of made me feel OK.

“I told you he’d come,” God said.

“Point for you old friend,” Satan said, in a friendlier voice than he should have had.

These were the first English words I heard him say. The sermon was Latin, which should have alarmed me, but honestly that’s what I kind of always assumed Satan spoke. I slid in a few rows behind God, rested my head on the pew in front of me and closed my eyes.

The church organ woke me up. “Toccata and Fugue in D Minor,” otherwise known as the last song you want to hear when trying to sleep in a creepy abandoned church.

I opened one eye and looked up. Satan had moved from the pulpit to the organ. God tapped his feet along with the beat.

“You are not,” Satan sang along with the music, “goingtosleepnow. You are not, go-ing to sleep.”

“Like hell I’m not,” I said. I pulled my sweatshirt over my eyes and again drifted off.

The smell of smoke woke me up. The church was on fire. I popped up and looked for an exit. Not a fire at all. Nothing but Satan sitting beside me, drinking straight from a bottle of communion wine. He smelled like fire and brimstone, because he’s Satan.

“Take a load off Annie,” he said.

“I’m trying,” I responded.

God watched disinterestedly from the other side of the church.

“Blood of Christ?” Satan asked.

“He’s had enough,” God said.

“I’ve had enough,” I said. Then I switched pews and again covered my eyes trying to sleep.

I woke to a steady stream of liquid on my forehead. Satan, casually dripping the remainder of the bottle of communion wine on my head.

“Oh come on,” I cried out.

“That’s a sin,” God said. “Can’t waste good wine.”

“Will you two please let me sleep?” I said. “I have work in the morning.”

“You’ve lost your way my son,” God said. “You shouldn’t be out this late on a work night.”

“I’ll be better in the morning,” I said. Then I rolled under a pew, hoping to ignore the blinding light that emanated from inside God.

Satan woke me up maybe 10 minutes later with a tap on my shoulder. He had a gun. He slid it my way.

“Only one way to make me stop,” Satan said, pointing at the gun.

“Jesus Christ,” I said.

“What?” said Jesus, lifting his head up from another pew, where until that moment he had been sleeping.

“Don’t do it my son,” God said.

“Just one shot,” Satan said. “Then you can sleep it off. In the morning this will all be a dream.”

“My son,” God said again. “Don’t do it.”

“Can silence me forever,” Satan said. “No more sin. Save the world.”

“Jesus,” I said again.

“What?” Jesus said, lifting his head again.

“I just want to sleep,” I said.

Then I pulled the trigger and shot Satan through the heart.

Satan laughed, because he’s immortal.

“I told you,” Satan said.

“Me dammit,” God said.

“Pay up,” Satan said.

God reached into the pocket of his robe and tossed a Satan a golden coin.

“They don’t make humans like they used to,” God said. Then the three of them left through a back door. The lights went out in the church, and I fell into a dreamless sleep.

In the morning the cops showed up. There was a dead drifter on the other side of the church. Someone shot him through the heart. They brought me in for questioning, but they concluded he’d been dead long before I got there.

“Someone up there likes you,” one of the cops said as I left the police station.

“Or someone down here,” I heard Satan say from beneath a sewer grate.

The only rule of 13 Ghost Stories in 13 Days is that the story must be posted the same night I started it.

Previously on 13 Ghost Stories in 13 Days:
Day 1 The Ghost’s Girlfriend
Day 2 The Girl with the Puka Shell Necklace