At Fear's Altar Read Free Page B

determination to correct whatever wrong turns he must have made steeled him against the hopelessness that Toni and Sara were wrestling with behind him. He kept his wits sharp, noting any and all landmarks that he recalled passing on the way in. For the first few minutes he actually began to feel as though they were making real progress. The unfamiliar chapel was long behind them, making the entrance to the trails, by logical extension, that much nearer.
    His fear worsened when Colin spied another crossroads in the fore. The three possible options felt less like a choice and nearer to a physics equation; something tedious and murky and impossible to navigate.
    Sara snivelled something to him. A plea most likely. Colin gestured to the left and continued to guide them.
    “This isn’t the way back!” Toni shouted.
    “Watch your tongue, young lady.” Colin’s reprimand was limp. He wondered what had happened to the stalwart figure he prided himself as being; the kind of man who could unfailingly strike a fine balance between inoculating the next generation to the rigors of life while simultaneously instilling in them a sense of wonder about the world.
    The woods became a knitted mess again, especially after the path that Colin had been so sure of wound them up in an impossible way.
    When he spotted the pinkish clapboards and the gently trembling reeds, Colin said “No.”
    “Oh my God! There’s that swamp again. I knew we got turned around back there. I told you we were going the wrong way!”
    Somehow they had circled the marsh completely, for they were now standing at the rear of the chapel. A plain wooden door was the only disruption to the uniform rows of old boards. This time they were much closer to the building. Colin wondered if he’d ever see home again.
    “That’s it, I’m going to find help!” Toni announced. Before Colin could even react, his eldest granddaughter was marching forward. He could hear her sloshing through the sludge.
    She craned her head back and screamed, “Hello! Is anyone out here? Help us! We’re lost!”
    As sparrows took startled flight from their hidden perches, a feeling of abstract menace seized Colin.
    “Wait!” he cried. “Toni, I said wait! Stop!”
    He went barrelling after her, oblivious to the fact that he had dropped his cane. Toni seemed to be edging more toward a footpath they had not yet taken, avoiding the chapel altogether for some reason, but Colin, still plagued by an inexplicable dread over seeing his granddaughter enter that church, lunged forward.
    Her bicep felt brittle in his fist. When he caught sight of Toni’s expression he realized just how overwrought his reaction must have seemed. Nevertheless, he was confident that keeping his granddaughter away from the gnomish building was genuinely prudent.
    “Go back on that path there,” Colin said, “and keep an eye on your sister. I doubt there’s anyone around, but I’ll go look for help, okay? Let me do it.”
    She turned on her heel and stomped back up the path, muttering something Colin could not discern but knew he did not like.
    That the church’s back door had been left unlocked was a fact that didn’t truly register with Colin until after he’d pulled it ajar and found himself standing within a room only nominally larger than a closet. His repeated attempts at holding the flimsy door open would have been amusing had Colin not felt so ill at ease. Desperate to admit as much daylight as possible, he braced the door with one hand while groping the gloom for anything that could serve as a doorstop. The unsanded walls held much grit in their grooves.
    When Colin’s hand met with garments hanging in a row, he concluded that this must be the vestry room. But the shapeless robes were not made of fabric. They were rubbery to the touch, like garments of leather, or perhaps only something like leather. Colin snapped his hand back.
    On the opposite side of the jamb there stood a small bookcase, and Colin