Ghost walk at the Gothic Church

I live alone. A single woman in a large city in a multi-storey building where you only hear neighbours, you hardly ever see them. There’s no way you can make friends in such a situation. So, the only friend I’ve had since living in my lovely one bedroom 7th floor flat (apartment) is my cat – Mr Socks (Socks for short). A black and white kitty. He doesn’t go out because there’s nowhere for him to go.

I’ll tell you where I think this all started.

That stupid ghost walk I agreed to go on. What was I thinking? My friends, the few I kept in contact with from Uni, they don’t believe in ghosts and they laugh at me because I do!

There’s a beautiful old, Gothic church less than a mile from where I live and I met the friends there.

No, I didn’t bring any alcohol, why do you ask?

They all held up a small bottle and shook it so I could hear the liquid inside.

Oh of course you did… I shook my head and rolled my eyes appropriately.

I got a job as soon as I left Uni, none of the friends managed to and all but one still lives with the ‘rents even though we’re all in our late 20s.

The guy taking the ghost walk turned up, took our money – took my money, I mean… how do I manage to get invited to these things and end up paying four times as much for the privilege? - and we went inside. He had to unlock the large dirty-rusty chain and padlock securing the gates and the same for the doors before we could go any further.

The friends dodged off to the left when we went into the church. Most of the people there had bought torches and the street light outside gave a little light through the stained-glass windows.

Everything was dusty, but looked like it had not been touched since the last service.

The guy stood on a little raised area at the front of the church.

He told us the history of the church, who had commissioned it, how long it had been a successful, thriving church and I was surprised at the short time it had been going before it was closed up – a little under a century – and that had been more than a century since. The church celebrates its bicentennial year this year, in fact. Maybe that’s the reason the guy got permission for the ghost walks?

He leaned to one side to show off the font. It still had water in it, clean, fresh water. Apparently, the church had been built on this specific plot because there was a natural spring and the font tapped into it.

He was so enthusiastic about the font’s source that he invited everyone to take a drink from the font.

I didn’t really want to, it didn’t seem right to me, kind of disrespectful.

The friends seemed to realise I was reluctant because they came out of the back of the church, screeching and whooping. They made everyone jump, me included.

The guy at the front stood and glared at them. I dropped back into the shadows so the friends didn’t notice me and make me look stupid in front of everyone.

The friends were the only ones to drink from the font. They took it in turns to try to drink it dry. They clamoured for a position around the marble structure and leaned in to take mouthfuls of the clear, fresh, cold water. Eventually, they started messing about, spitting the water into the air, at each other and across the floor. When Simon spat a great mouthful of water and it hit the guy, everything seemed to stop. The people around me gasped – so did I – and the friends realised they’d gone too far.

The guy took some money from his pocket and handed it to them with the instructions to go and never attend any of his events again.

They left and didn’t even look back to see if I was coming.

A month later and I haven’t seen the friends. They haven’t messaged me, texted me or called to see me. Mr Socks ran away one evening and I can’t find him. He ran away on the first night after I got back from the church.

I think he knows something.

This evening, I made a snack and a cup of cocoa for supper. When I turned around to take my supper into the living room, all the cupboard doors stood open.