You can trust in many things in life. You can trust your friends, your family, your partner. Some people only trust in themselves. Let the strength of their own two hands carry them to where they want to go. That was me because I didn’t have any of the other stuff. It made me stronger, and more independent.
It sounds good on paper, but for the most part, it just meant I was running from what could help me. It meant hurting those who tried. It meant destroying myself before anyone had the chance to hurt me. Therapy helped me realize that.
It began when I bought a house in a quiet suburb. Hard work had paid off. I could finally afford to pay a loan. I screwed up a relationship with the love of my life, so I had nothing else going on - why not sell my soul to the bank for the next thirty years?
I didn’t have much stuff to move in, so the day I got the keys was pretty much the day I moved in. Television, bed, computer, that’s it. Ready to settle into a new routine, one that would hopefully be a lot more healthy.
The next day, I woke up close to noon only because somebody rang the doorbell.
“Hi, we wanted to welcome you to the neighborhood,” a middle-aged couple said.
Another buzz a day later.
“Hi, Father Samuel,” a man my age greeted me. “I’m your neighbor.”
Two days later.
“Hi, we’re the Cummings family,” a group said. “I’m Steven, this is Camile, our children-”
On and on. It was a friendly place, but most names slipped my mind. I also made a poor impression. I would be in my pajamas, or reeking of alcohol, or just an asshole. Nobody wanted to talk to that person. I never heard from them again, except Father Samuels. He was a weekend priest, and only went to church on Saturdays and Sundays. Otherwise, he spent his time on the front porch reading a good book.
He would wave as I went to work, but mostly, he showed little interest in me. It was the same relationship I had with a random guy at the gym.
The days passed, the house remained mostly empty and I was the only one to go inside: no friends, no new girl, just me by my lonesome after work.
I was more than surprised when I saw a wooden cross nailed to an empty wall adjacent to the kitchen. I had come home from work, walked up to the fridge, poured myself a glass of whiskey, and turned around to see this antique cross the size of my head.
The surprise faded and I started doubting my memory. Maybe it was always there? Could have been left by the previous owners. It’s the kind of thing you just tend to look over and not think about - but had I looked over it for almost a week? That’s unlikely.
I ignored it, went upstairs, and did my usual evening routine. The next day, I took the cross off the wall and threw it into the trash. Father Samuel waved at me as I left and for the first time, I waved back, mostly out of guilt.
When I got home, I found two nailed to the walls - one in the living room, and another in my bedroom. I’m not an idiot. I knew that they were never there before - definitely not in my bedroom. These crosses were different from the first. Carved differently. One was done so well it looked like a store-bought one.
I started to walk around my home with light feet, clenching my fist. I was thinking angry thoughts to help my courage build up. I imagined somebody around every corner and I was itching to throw a punch or send out a brutal kick.
The anger faded when I checked every room and found nothing. I would have heard someone if they were still there - an empty house echoes. I ended up double-checking the locks and the windows that night. The next day I did the same and finally armed the home security system. I didn’t used to do that, only ever setting the alarm if I was going on a long weekend.
I just wasn’t worried enough before.
I stepped outside. It was garbage day, so I had a trash bag in hand, and three crosses resting inside. I walked over to the garbage bin. Father Samuel was at his, talking with a neighbor. I put the trash bag in quickly and closed the lid before he turned around. I didn’t want to test fate and have a cross puncture the bag or something.
“Morning,” I said when he looked at me.
“Morning,” he nodded.
We stared at each other for a moment.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. “Mr…sorry, I forgot your name.”
“Um…Corey, Corey-”
“Spencer, right,” Father Samuel nodded. “You seem a little anxious.”
“Uh, just thought I would miss garbage day,” I murmured. “Anyway, off to work.”
Father Samuel looked at me curiously. It was like he was analyzing me, like some theory on a whiteboard, looking for an answer. He nodded, not because he had found an answer, but because he had better things to do.
“Have a good day,” Father Samuel said and walked back to his home.
I got in my car and left for work. My last sight of Father Samuel was him entering his home and closing the door behind him. I kept my eyes forward and breathed a sigh of relief when I saw the garbage truck ahead. I saved myself from embarrassment, but I still had a big problem.
It crossed my mind that Father Samuel was the one hanging up the crosses. With him being my neighbor, it was enough coincidence to think the priest was responsible. Of course, that meant a priest was breaking into my home, somehow, without damaging the locks or windows. Whatever the reason, the security system would catch him. Indoor motion detectives would pick something up.
I did my part, I could rest easy - but I didn’t.
When I returned home, I disarmed the security system. I walked around my home and saw crosses in every room. Two in my bedroom. Each one was different, some even had Jesus carved on them. A fresh nail in the wall to keep them up. I called the people behind my home security systems to see if my system was disabled at any point, but they told me it wasn’t.
I did a test, turning it on, and almost immediately set it off. It was working. With nothing more to say to them, I hung up and looked around. I didn’t touch the crosses. I was too scared.
I looked out the window. Father Samuel was standing on his porch, looking at my home. I marched outside and up to the dividing fence. He met me there.
“What’s happened?” he asked, his face painted with concern.
“Somebody…well, somebody has been breaking into my house,” I told him, trying to control myself, but my anger was building as the fear faded. “Hanging up crosses…”
“As in, crucifixion crosses or-”
“Yeah, those,” I said through gritted teeth. “You wouldn’t know-”
“Calm down. I had nothing to do with it,” Father Samuel said, realizing what I was saying. “I only just started as a priest. I am not doing door-to-door missionary work, let alone breaking into people’s homes to hang up crosses. I don’t even have a cross hanging in my home.”
He was steady in his tone, his words clear and concise. I had no proof that he was guilty, nor did he have proof he was innocent. I had to go with the latter, so I tried to calm down again.
“Somebody is doing it,” I said slowly. “It’s been going on for three days now. There’s a cross in every room. They didn’t set off the alarm, or turn it off. It’s like the place is haunted.”
“I have yet to hear of an evil spirit hanging crosses,” Father Samuel said with a half-hearted laugh. “If you don’t want the crosses, I will take them off your hands. I could give them away at the church.”
I nodded. It was a reasonable offer, but it still didn’t solve the problem.
“Yeah, I will think about it,” I said. “But, Jesus, it’s a little-”
Father Samuel scowled deeply and took a step back.
“What’s…oh, sorry,” I said. “Lord’s name in vain, right? I think I will just…yeah.”
I turned around and walked away. I could feel his eyes on me and I just felt more embarrassed.
Once inside, I did my best to ignore the crosses, making my way straight to the bedroom. I turned on the TV and set up something interesting to keep me distracted. I planned to get some sleep and deal with it all the next day.
It was a dreamless sleep. I think I woke up a few times just to stare at the darkness, but I would fall asleep again pretty fast. I was too comfortable to think and get agitated. When the warm morning light was bleeding through the curtains, I yawned and slowly woke up. I pulled all the sheets around me and when I was ready, I sighed and made to get out of bed.
I couldn’t miss them if I tried.
Crosses covered the walls. It was a tight knight collage of wooden crosses, all hanging from nails. One of them was still moving on the nail, slowly coming to a stop, as if it had recently been interacted with. I was frozen in place, that feeling of something being in the room with me was overwhelming.
It was the sounds of the world that activated something in me. I stood up and leaned forward, looking into the hall. I could see crosses hanging on the walls outside my bedroom. It was on every wall, I knew that before I even stepped out of the bedroom. How best do I describe it? Everything felt smaller and a lot more foreign. It didn’t feel like my home.
I was in some kind of madhouse, but instead of tightly packed paintings of sad clowns, it was wall-to-wall Jesus. Everywhere I looked. I put on clothes and left. I didn’t bother checking other rooms, I just walked outside and stopped halfway up the path to look back at the house. I could still see them through my open door.
I sat down.
I don’t know how much time passed, but eventually, I heard footsteps behind me as Father Samuel walked up the path.
“Mr. Spencer? Are you okay?” he asked.
I shook my head and pointed at the house. He didn’t say anything for a minute, I assume he could see them from standing behind me as well. That didn’t stop him from walking past me and up to the door, looking inside. Another moment of silence before he reached forward to grab the doorknob, but withdrew his hand.
When he turned to face me, Father Samuel’s brow was furrowed. He slowly walked up to me, hands behind his back, as if he were thinking deeply on a relaxed stroll. No, that’s not it. It was more like a doctor pacing in a hallway trying to figure out how to break bad news to a patient.
“Mr. Spencer? Corey?” he said. I looked up at him. “I’m not a heavy sleeper. I think I would have heard if my neighbor hammered thousands of nails into his wall last night…so I take it that you didn’t do all that.”
I shook my head.
Father Samuel knelt in front of me. His face wasn’t far from mine. Although he was my age, he looked older in his eyes.
“I don’t think you should stay in that house anymore,” he said sternly. “That is not normal, obviously…and it worries me greatly. Come, you can stay at my house. I will ask a colleague of mine to get your things from your place and we can figure this out after.”
Father Samuel stood up and held out his hand for me to take. I returned my gaze to the house.
“It’s fine, I will get my things,” I said, standing up and walking over to the house. “I also have somebody I can call…maybe…I think he will let me crash on his couch.”
“No! It’s not safe,” Father Samuel said, jogging up behind me. “And I insist you stay at my place. It’s much closer and I have a bed you could-”
I stepped into the house and looked up the stairs, mentally gathering what I needed before I did it. I turned around to face Father Samuel.
“It’s okay, nothing bad has-” I began.
Father Samuel looked furious. His fingers were curled in front of his face like he was ready to bite them off his hands. He was one of those people that got red in the face when they were angry. It was a little shocking seeing someone so calm and collected in such a state.
“Didn’t you hear me?” he said. “It’s not safe!”
“Calm down!” I snapped. “Jeez. It’s freaky, but not dangerous. I will be right down.”
“Hurry!”
“Yeah, yeah, loosen the collar a little bit. I’ll be fine.”
I marched up the stairs quickly, but not like I was being chased. I didn’t need to make a performance of it. When I walked back into my room, I got my work things into my backpack and started to pick and choose different clothes I could take with me.
Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw movement. When I turned my head to look at it, a cross slipped off the wall and landed on the ground. Luckily, it landed on a blanket. If I hadn’t turned at the right time, I wouldn’t have even seen it fall.
“Huh, might as well put you back up,” I murmured.
I swung the backpack over my shoulders and then picked up the cross. I lifted it and placed it back on the nail. As I did, I heard yelling down the stairs, and out my front door. The voice was furious and growing louder. The words were nonsensical, but the way they reverberated around me was ridiculous as well.
The crosses began to shake. It hurt to look at them all, my eyes didn’t know which one to focus on. Fear was building in my heart. The rooms felt darker, despite the rising sun. The backpack I wore felt heavier.
I was suddenly light-headed, on my hands and knees.
“Jesus,” I murmured. “What is going on here?”
As I said that, the words disappeared, and silence followed. The room was lighter, as was the backpack. I could stand without feeling like I was about to crumble or throw up. As for the fear, my heart pounding slowed and I sighed with sudden relief.
“Was that an earthquake?” I said to myself. “In this part of the world?”
I got up and made my way downstairs. The door was still open, but I didn’t see Father Samuel waiting down there for me. When I reached the bottom of the stairs, I saw something on the path scramble away and slip behind the fence. I saw the movement through the gaps between the planks of the fence, but couldn’t get the shape.
From that glance, it looked like a spider, but a big one. The size of a large dog. With no sign of Father Samuel, and my heart growing steadily calmer, I decided to go to work and deal with the crosses after. Maybe set up cameras and catch the intruder in the act.
Only, when I got back, I saw the crosses were gone. Not just every cross, but the nails as well. The walls showed no evidence of being turned into Swiss cheese by thousands of nails. I expected at least a crack, or maybe to find some drying spackle, but nothing.
I didn’t see Father Samuel when he got back. I never saw him again.
It took me a while to piece it all together. At some point, I stopped looking at it with the eyes of someone who didn’t want to see something else other than some creepy guy breaking into my home. I started looking at all that had happened, remembering the way Father Samuel acted, and the words he said.
Ghosts and demons don’t hang up crosses. A regular person like me didn’t hang them up, that much I knew for sure. It was impossible, but not with him.
There is evil out there and it might seem silly coming from a guy like me, after all that I’ve done, but calling on Him works. I don’t know exactly what would have happened if something was different. If one thing was different, it wouldn’t have ended like it did. I am grateful for that.
I say again, there is evil out there. Trust in His name, it’s all you have.