The night of the Church annual lock-in came faster than I would've liked. Thankfully Shane's family often attended Church, so his presence was somewhat expected, and his face familiar amongst the crowd. Marcus was welcomed just like everyone else; it wouldn't be very Christian to send him away, would it?
With my two friends present, the idea of being in a place that I fear wants to chew me up and spit me back out in disgust is easier to face. Painful mingling and small talk conversations should also be easier to avoid.
Mary Culkin was there to greet us at the entrance, a few member of the congregation by her side. Fortunately for me my mother opted not to volunteer this year.
The women sat behind a table in the foyer, a list of names in front of them to record the children in attendance. A donation box sat further along the table, optional contributions encourage â and expected â upon arrival. The ladies sat behind the second table were selling snack, they were of the healthy variety which is why we had stashed junk food in our bag when packing.
"Caleb!" Mary welcomed happily, "It's so lovely to see you. And you boys as well." She shot a smile to Shane and Marcus who offered polite greetings. "Aren't we all excited for a night of fun?"
Mary was overly cheery, her positive disposition almost unbearable, but somehow it was just enough.
"Yeah, it should be good." I responded with a smile. Fun wasn't exactly what I would call it, but if I managed to avoid all the activities planned and the vast majority of people in attendance, a night with my friends wouldn't be terrible.
"We got a lot of things planned. We were planning on watch a film, maybe Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, that's such a good one. Ooh, or maybe a drama, something like Miracles from Heaven, that one was so emotional, it made me cry. There are so many good options."
"Maybe we should put it to a vote?" I suggested when she continued listing films.
"Yes! That's such a brilliant idea. We also have games; everybody loves a good game." Her gaze flickered over to the other boys expectantly.
"Yeah, games are great." Marcus hesitate before says, very awkwardly, "Pictionary. Scrabble. Erm... buckaroo? All great."
"I play scrabble on my phone now you know. We should play together! I think it's just called Scrabble? Something like that. Such good fun."
"I'll look into it." I reassured her, even though I lacked the intent to follow through.
A few other attendees trickled in behind us and Mary took that as her queue to end the conversation. She ticked my name off the list and added Shane and Marcus at the bottom before saying, "Just set yourself up where there is space and there are refreshments in the back room. Feel free to help yourselves."
We all thanked her before placing a donation in the box and carry on into the main area.
The Church was already busy, with children spread out across the place talking and playing games. Everyone was dress in pyjamas with there sleeping bags placed beside their friends on the floor. The three of us scoured through the mass of people for a space to claim for the night. With most people opting to place their sleeping bags somewhat close to each other and in the centre of the room, there was space in one of the far corners for us to settle down.
After last year got a bit too 'rowdy' â nothing untoward happened, but the night became a bit of a free for all â more volunteers were encouraging to chaperone. The ratio of children to adults was now less unevenly matched.
We had no plans to do anything reckless, the most rebellious thing we had planned was binging on sugar filled snacks and avoiding participating in the scheduled activities. Still, having watchful eyes scanning the room at all times was a bit unnerving.
"Well, this is gonna be fun." Shane mumbled sarcastically.
"Hey," Marcus threw his pillow in Shane's face, "don't be such a Debbie Downer."
"Sorry, I meant 'this is gonna be so fun'." Shane responded, changing the tone delivery of his sentence so it sounder more chipper and I let out a chuckle at his antics.
"Idiot." Marcus muttered, a glare on his face.
Shane stuck his tongue out in response, childishly responding, "Says you."
The two began to bicker while I resorted to ignoring them and setting up our sleeping bags.
"Should we see what food they have?" I interrupted once everything was arranged to my liking.
"Yes please."
Marcus didn't wait any longer before heading of in the direction of the kitchen. He was like a bloodhound, his nose taking him to the right place even though he had only been her once or twice before.
The kitchen was small and only occupied by four people. Two were volunteers, and two were people in our year. They were dubbed 'youth helpers', lacking the seniority to make any major decision, but acting as additional monitors to further help ensure the evening ran smoothly. One of said youth helpers was Faith.
"Caleb!" Faith greeted happily in a similar manor to her mother.
"Hey Faith."
"You guys after some food?"
"Yes please." Marcus responded, his head bobbing so vigorously I thought it might fall off. Faith laughed at his reaction before telling us what was available.
"It's nothing too fancy. We have some sandwiches, soup with bread, casserole, stew. And then there's cake and cookies. It's only one meal per person so pick carefully."
Marcus seemed to panic, his eyes fluttering across the items on offer. "I'll have the soup, no, sandwich, what's on the sandwich?"
"We have egg, ham, and cheese."
"A ham sandwich. No, cheese. Ugh, can someone decide for me?"
"I ate before we came," I lied, "so you can get two things if you want."
Marcus eyes lit up before he decided to have a cheese sandwich and the soup. Shane asked for a ham sandwich and then we all grabbed a chocolate chip cookie before heading back to our corner.
"Dude, you have so many problems I couldn't even list them all at this point."
"You're so mean to me." Marcus replied around a mouthful of food.
"See, this is what I mean!"
"You really shouldn't talk with food in your mouth." I agreed.
"Would you rather I ignore you?"
"Yes." Me and Shane said at the same time.
"Fine then, watch me not talk to you."
"I give it five minutes." Shane said, turning to look at me.
"I wouldn't even give it two."
Shane checked the time on his phone while was sat down and began eating. I tuned the noise in the room out, pretending it was white noise that hummed in the background of my mind, and allowed myself to relax against the wall. I brought my knees to my chest, holding them close to me as I ate my cookie.
"Did you guys know," Marcus said, "about fo-"
"3 minutes." Shane interjected.
"Guys." Marcus whined, elongating the words for added effect. Shane and I laughed in response.
"Go on, tell us." I encouraged.
"What I was gonna say is apparently about four in ten Americans believe in ghosts."
"Where did you pull that fact from?" Shane face was sceptical. Unlike Marcus Shane didn't believe in ghosts. I was on the fence; I didn't lean either way. Unless I visibly saw something I couldn't say I believe, but with so many unknowns how could I say they weren't true?
"I read it online somewhere. I mean the numbers could change, but still. Also, more people believe in ghost than U.F.O's, but it's real close."
"Well, I think it's all a load of crap."
"How can you even say that! I've shown you loads of evidence."
"You've shown us videos that could easily have been faked. Those ghost hunter shows are just a joke. I don't understand how anyone could believe they're not staged."
"Okay, but how about CCTV footage in shops or things like that."
"There are things like CGI and green-screens, it's so easy to fake stuff. And then people that 'claim' something has happened are just lying to themselves or trying to create some drama in their otherwise uneventful lives."
"I mean yeah, I don't think all the stories people say are true, but I definitely believe some of them. Some things are just too unexplainable. I watched one video where this group were spending the night in a supposedly haunted house. So, one of the guys decided to go to bed early and then he heard the door in the room beside his fling open. Naturally he assumes it's the wind, but he goes downstairs anyway to tell the others. When he comes back upstairs with a friend the door to the room is now closed.
The thing is, the guy that it happened to was the one most sceptical about ghosts, so he looked 'round the room to try and logically figure out how it happened. There was a chimney, so he was convinced the door opened because of the wind. Turns out the chimney was blocked. The whole room was airtight so how could it have been a crosswind that caused the door to open?"
Marcus glanced between me and Shane to see If we were following along before carrying on. "Okay, then they leave the room and close the door so they can test it out. They checked if the door was on a latch by opening and closing it. So, to open the door the handle had to be twisted, but all of the boys were downstairs together. No one was there to open it."
"Maybe the door wasn't closed properly?" I suggested.
"But the guy said he heard the noise of the door unlatching."
"He could've just imagined it? Or added it in to his memory after the fact because it seemed right."
Marcus just sent Shane a disbelieving look before continuing. "Anyway, afterwards him and his friend who was filming stood around the door trying to figure out what had happened, and then, when he tries to open the door again it won't open. He tries a few times, but it doesn't work. He then gets his friend to try as well, because obviously his friend though he was havin' him on, and neither of them could open it anymore. So, what's up with that?"
"Well, someone could have been in the room." Shane states as if that's obviously what happened. "It could've been some sort of prank and they hid in the room, waiting until the right moment to scare them."
"But they walked around the room at the start when they were trying to figure out how it happened and there was no one else there. It was also a vlog style video and there was no cut, so no one could've snook in. And, he swung the door open fully at one point, so no one could've been hidden behind the door." Marcus rebutted.
Shane didn't say anything after that. You could see he was pondering the story and trying to figure out an argument. While Marcus seemed to have counterpoints to each idea we came up with, I knew Shane wasn't swayed. Me on the other hand, I wasn't sure.
I wanted physical proof myself.
"I say we scare everyone tonight." Shane whispered as he lent in closer. He had pondered over Marcus' story for a while but gave up when he couldn't think of a logical explanation. He said he would have to watch the video at some point and then he could comment. With ghost the topic of conversation, his suggestion was unsurprising. "We could do a Monsters University thing, you know? Like, make some noises, turn off the lights, all that jazz. I bet there a sheet somewhere and we can jump out as ghosts at the end."
"Dressing up as ghosts? Fake hauntings? Love it." Marcus said happily,
"Are we not going to get in trouble for this?" I asked. If my parents found out I did anything but the expected, they would not be happy.
"It should be fine," Shen reassured, "it's only a bit of fun. What's the worst that could happen?"
Me and Marcus shared a questioning look before agreeing. It's just a bit of fun, right?
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A/N:
Do you believe in ghosts? I'm like Caleb, I need to see it to believe it, but I would never say they didn't. I'm impartial. I do love watching videos of 'ghost sighting' though.
The one I wrote about was actually a video i've watched. I also watched a reaction video from the guy in the video talking about it years later and it really did seem real. But who knows?