Page 38 of Together We Rot

“This was way less terrifying in theory,” Veronica whispers as we weave our way to the back. Her whole dress code might revolve around fear—scaring her mom when she catches her walking out of the house, scaring the elderly as she passes them on the street—but beneath it all, she’s a softie. She’s one of those tiny little Chihuahuas with the spiked vests, and I have the sudden, inexplicable terror that I’m guiding her toward a hawk’s nest.

We make it to the world’s most ancient door, and we might get lucky and be able to huff and puff our way through.

“Show of hands, how many of us have actually done this before?” Kevin’s directing the question at all of us, but his eyes are trained solely on me. The one person here reckless enough to have experience. Except, unfortunately, I don’t.

I tell him as much.

“Maybe it’s unlocked,” Lucas says, and even he doesn’t sound hopeful. He rests his hand on the knob and recites something under his breath that might be a curse or might be a prayer, and then wiggles the knob.

Nothing.

After a moment of stubborn resignation, he abandons it for the crowbar. “Fine, give me that. You guys would probably break the door for real or something. Guess we’re doing this the hard way.”

He breathes in, all doctor’s-office-stethoscope-style, and readies himself to commit his first-ever crime. Beneath his shallow breath, he’s started up a count.

One, two, three—

On “Go!” he makes the loudest noise I’ve ever heard in my life.

The slam of the crowbar wedging into the doorframe freezes us all over. An owl goes flying off a high branch, and the world reverberates with the sound, echoing back like a scream in a cavern.

“They definitely heard that one on the other side of Michigan,” Kevin says under his breath. It’s pointless to whisper after the sound we just made, but no one wants to admit that. Because admitting that means admitting the fact that there’s the potential someone already heard us and is now on their way over. “We need to go fast and get the hell out.”

“I think I’m going to throw up,” Elwood contributes uselessly.

In an attempt to be actually useful, I peer into the shadowed gap he’s made through the door. There’s a century-old radiator inside and a massive table holding a single cross and nothing else. I can’t say for sure what I was expecting, a dead body rolled up in a rug or what.

Satisfied that there’s nothing immediately horrifying on the other side, I slip my wrist through the gap and unlock the door. Once I hear the click, I yank my hand back, and Lucas lets the bar go slack against his side.

I move to take a step forward, but in a shocking feat, Elwood beats me to it. I didn’t think he had it in him to make the first move. All his life, he’s waited for my lead: letting me pick our lunch spot every semester, giving me first pick for group assignments, sitting there limply sophomore year for our first and only kiss...

Jesus Christ. My cheeks give the radiator a run for its money. This is not the time to dredge up that memory.

I’m thankful it’s dark as I follow Elwood’s lead. I slap the blush right off my face and focus on the task at hand. I’m not frolicking down memory lane; I’m stepping into a holy war zone.

Even being here is surreal. The church has always been a constant, something ominous in my peripheral as I ride through town, as familiar as the frozen sun above my head. I’ve never stepped foot on the sun, and I never thought I’d step in here, either.

“So, what’s the plan?” Lucas asks finally. His eyes dart to every barren corner of the office like he’s willing some shadowed deity to appear out of thin air. Every shift of our weight against these wooden boards feels explosive, our labored breath a battle cry in the dark.

“The plan is don’t get caught,” I answer, and I’m relieved I can get the words out at all.

My body’s all live wire, my tongue short-circuiting with the chattering of my teeth. I nod at Elwood and pretend that I wasn’t imagining his mouth on mine five seconds ago. “Lead the way.”

He nods, his arms an impenetrable barrier across his chest. He’s made a locked box of himself, but for once, I know exactly what lies inside. His brows pull into one furrowed line and there’s a tightness to him like a frayed rope. One wrong pull and that pretty resolve of his will snap.

He presses his ear to the barrier between this room and the next. Content with the silence, he grips the handle and pushes it open a crack to peer out. We only breathe again after he finishes surveying the church. The door swings the rest of the way open and he takes the first experimental step forward.

The pews might be vacant at this hour, but they’re worn with years of use. Discolored from several hundred Sundays spent in these very seats. Swing the kneelers out, and I’m sure you’d see the imprints of bodies hunched over, bowing to a god that’s never once stopped to listen to me.

My hands ball at my sides. I clasped them in prayer once when my mother went missing, but no amount of “amen”s brought her home. That’s when my folded hands turned to fists. God and the law might have given up on my mother, but I haven’t.

And I never, ever will.

“It should be over here,” Elwood whispers. His voice is deafening in the quiet.

I can’t help the nauseous tide rolling in my stomach as we walk past the pulpit. The thought of Elwood’s father standing here and treating this glorified podium like it’s a royal throne, some symbol of his divine entitlement—it sickens me to no end.

“The tabernacle is here behind the altar,” Elwood clarifies, and he might as well be speaking in Latin. I’ve never felt more like a godless heathen in my life. He catches my confusion and clarifies quickly, giving me the SparkNotes of Christianity. “For the Eucharist... communion, Wil. The body and the blood.”

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