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“Do you want to talk about it?”
Strand set down his mug of tea, then picked up a crumpled napkin, smoothed it out, and placed it under the mug.
Keeping his eye on the mug, he said, “The first tape you’re holding was recorded in 1986, in a small town outside Austin, Texas. The second, recorded ten years later by a different person, took place near Denver, Colorado. The third was recorded another ten years after that, in Orlando, Florida.”
Alex turned over the three rubber-banded black VHS cases she’d picked up, not even surprised Strand had somehow known which ones she’d picked from his secret collection without looking at them.
Without looking at her.
“No,” she said, after clearing her throat a bit, “I meant if you wanted to talk about…” The fact that they had inadvertently unleashed the end of the world upon... well, the world? The fact that she and Strand hadn't spoken in months? The Adversary?
Everything?
She settled on saying, “Never mind.”
Strand adjusted his mug so that the handle was facing away from the edge of his desk. Finally, he turned and leaned against his desk, gesturing for Alex to put the first tape into the modern VHS player, which was hooked up to the TV in the corner in his office.
After she hesitated for a moment, he said, “I thought you wanted to watch more of these tapes. That is why you came here, isn’t it?”
She sighed, heading over to the VHS player and popping the tape labeled ‘Booth – 86’ inside the machine. “No, I do. I just – I was wondering if there’s anything you’ve been wanting to say.”
“About what?” His tone wasn’t sharp, but it was frustratingly dismissive. “Nothing’s changed, Alex. Given that the skies haven’t started pouring acid rain, the earth hasn't opened up to swallow us all whole, and the population hasn't turned into ravenous cannibals, I’m going to try to live a normal life.”
Alex thumbed on the TV power button. “That’s good. Great.”
She wasn’t facing him, but she knew he was tilting his head to one side as he watched her work. “I know I already asked you this, but how are you, uh...”
Her hand fell away from the power button, as if weighed down by some magnetic force. “I’m fine.”
“Really?”
Alex stared at her reflection, warped by the television screen.
She wasn’t even sure she had the capacity, emotional or otherwise, to honestly answer his question. The past three months were like a collection of snapshot images. After their last recording session with Nic at the studio, he’d sent Strand and her home and told her to wait. Just wait and see if anything would happen.
But Alex didn’t do ‘wait and see.’
She’d gone to Philmont Scout Ranch to visit John Uvela and look at the fallen totems, her vision blurring and a pit twisting in the bottom of her stomach. She went back home and replayed all the Black Tapes episodes, taking notes upon notes and stopping just short of putting up a webstring corkboard, like Strand did. Even just thinking about that time she'd found him holed up in his office tempted her to call him, but she decided to wait for him to call her first.
He didn't.
She tried getting in contact with Amalia, Simon, and Warren, and to her lack of surprise, came up empty. She blew off her sleep therapy. For weeks, she spent her afternoons tossing and turning in bed, and spent her evenings playing back all the Black Tapes episodes, trying to find anything that would guide her out of the darkness that she knew had long since swallowed her.
In September, she started having nightmares about a cat turning into a woman.
Almost as if Nic had sensed what the lack of work was doing to Alex, he visited her and floated the idea of doing a few Pacific Northwest episodes. No Black Tapes, no Tanis, no Strand. Alex had instantly balked at that, but halfway through the conversation, she realized she’d been wearing the same clothes for six consecutive days, and had been leaving half-empty coffee mugs scattered around her apartment. She agreed to do a few PNW episodes, on the condition that she start seeing her sleep therapist again.
Things got a little better after that. Not good – maybe not even acceptable – but better. By the end of October, she was getting five hours of sleep per day instead of three, and as Strand and Nic both pointed out, the world didn’t seem to be collapsing in on itself anytime soon.
She couldn't shut off the nightmares, though.
Two weeks after Halloween, she approached Nic to do a trial run of a Black Tapes episode. Nic raised an eyebrow, but said if Strand was up for it, she had the green light. And, during the drive to Strand’s house, while musing that she hadn’t seen him since August, Alex had a feeling similar to when you wipe the morning mist away from a windshield.
Talking to him again, however, was turning out to be a different story.
“Really, I’m fine,” she said, blinking as she shook herself out of her hazy memories of the past few months, and pushed the play button on the VCR machine.
The screen flashed with static for five seconds, and then a dark corridor swung into view, illuminated by the video camera’s flashlight. Alex had gotten used to seeing erratic movements of the tapes’ subjects, but the person recording this one carried their device with more urgency, swaying back and forth as sounds of rapid footsteps could be heard on either side. Without even thinking about it, Alex took a step backward and settled on the small wicker chair in front of the TV screen, watching closely.
“Come on!”
“Quit fucking running; I told you there aren’t any security guards around here. You better not drop that either; it’s my —”
“— Yeah, your dad’s, I know.”
“Okay, you two, shut up. It’s over here. Gimme the key.”
Two young kids – boys, Alex guessed, barely sixteen – stopped outside a door. One of them slowly prodded the door open, slinked in halfway, then whispered back, “Get in here.” The person who held the camera – probably another boy, Alex guessed – pushed the door open wider, and after a brief, disorienting pan of the camera, one of the subjects said, “There, look!”
The camera swung over toward a wall of the room, and at first, Alex thought it was focusing on a large wardrobe, but after the cameraman took a couple steps backward, showing the object in its entirety, she gasped a little.
“It’s a confessional booth,” she said.
Strand didn’t say anything.
The booth was tall and wooden, and it bore intricate designs – pretty much like every confessional Alex had seen. Nothing remarkable or horrific stood out, although it did look noticeably larger than the booths she’d seen. It was difficult to look for specific details in the woodwork, since the room was only lit by the camera’s light, and the person holding the camera was obviously not suited for that line of work. Alex had to glance away for a moment to regain her sense of balance. She was glad she’d turned down Strand’s offer for breakfast, but started to regret turning down his offer for coffee.
When she flicked her eyes back to the screen, she saw the two boys, who were wearing ripped jeans and dark T-shirts, stifle nervous laughter as they opened the small doors on the opposite sides of the booth. They both gave mock salutes to the camera, and went inside.
“Have you ever been to confession, Alex?”
Alex nearly jumped straight up out of her chair. Strand had silently crossed the room to stand behind her as she watched the video with rapt attention, clutching the other tape in her hands.
“Sorry,” he said as she glared up at him. “I didn’t want to make too much noise and disturb you.”
“Well, you kinda just did!”
“Again, I apologize.”
She turned her attention back to the screen as the camera rolled. It was merely focused on the large, ornately carved box, the cameraman’s aim wavering slightly as muffled sounds of laughter and curses emitted from the booth.
“Yes,” she said after half a minute, answering Strand's question. “When I was a kid, I'd go sometimes. But it’s been years since I last went.” She expected to feel ashamed admitting that, but she didn’t.
Strand stepped forward and pressed the fast-forward button on the player. “For me, it’s been longer.”
Nothing happened on the screen, even as the camera wavered and the fast-forward lines looped down, again and again.
“So, what, the confessional is haunted? By – wait, don’t tell me – a demon?” Alex asked.
To her surprise, Strand chuckled. “Let’s find out.” He reached out and pressed the ‘play’ button.
Just as he resumed the video, loud knocks could be heard from inside the booth.
“I’m trying!”
“Push harder!”
“It’s not budging an inch!”
“Shit, c’mon guys, this isn’t funny anymore!” the cameraman shouted. “Get out of there!”
“We told you, we can’t!”
The cameraman moved closer to the confessional, reaching out with his free arm and audibly straining to open one of the doors. The voices inside were beyond panicked, the knocks and bangs increasing in speed and volume with every passing moment.
And, amid the shouts and thuds, Alex swore she could hear a low, rough growling sound.
She could only watch in muted horror as the three kids began screaming out of frustration and fear, as the confessional doors rattled and the growling got louder, as the cameraman clumsily set down his large, ancient recorder. The camera tilted up at an angle toward the wall adjacent to the booth, showing the long, lean shadow of a figure beating on the doors of the confessional as his friends inside screamed for mercy.
The screen switched back to static.
“Oh, my God,” Alex murmured. She turned around to look at up Strand, and it was as if she were really seeing him for the first time since August. His rumpled flannel shirt, his five o’clock shadow, his bloodshot eyes...
He looked like he’d been dreaming about a cat as well.
“Dr. Strand?” she prodded, but he kept his attention fixated on the television screen’s static.
She tried again. “Strand?”
He blinked out of his trance, looking down to meet her gaze.
“Do you know what happened to the three of them?” she asked.
“No.”
She frowned. “Why not?”
“I had received this video in an unmarked envelope on my doorstep about three years ago. My assistant at the time tried tracking down the sender, but to no avail. He called churches and museums, but never found any leads. I was actually considering throwing this one out, chalking it up to either a prank or an old-fashioned video version of what you’ve referred to as ‘Creepypasta,’” – Alex let out a soft laugh at that – “but then I received the second and third videos, the ones recorded in ’96 and ’06. Again, in unmarked envelopes, left right on my doorstep. So, I added them to the collection I briefly showed you last summer.” The gravel in his voice smoothed out a bit when he added, “If you don’t want to watch the following tapes, I understand.”
Alex looked down and realized she had been gripping tightly onto the VHS tapes, similarly labeled as the first one but with their respective years.
Her hands were trembling.
“Oh, I’m... I’m sorry,” she muttered, loosening her grip and handing the tapes over to Strand. When she pulled her hands back, she saw the edges and contours of the tapes etched into her skin.
“Maybe we should take a break,” he said. “My coffee offer still stands.”
Alex folded her hands in front of her, and she blew out a long breath to calm herself.
It didn’t help.
“No – no, let’s watch them. Can’t be any worse than the first, right?” She forced a smile, and though she wasn’t sure his was forced as well, Strand returned it.
Alex ended up getting only two hours of sleep that night.
“So,” Nic said, “how’s it going?”
Alex switched her phone over to her other ear and sighed. “I don’t know, Nic. I mean he seems like the same Dr. Strand. It was a little awkward at first, but I think he’s been doing okay. Maybe. He said he’s teaching and writing another research paper, and hasn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary. I was going to ask him about the Adversary, or his ex-wife, o-or even Charlie, but I might —”
“— I meant the episode, Alex.”
“Oh.” She winced, then began rubbing her temple with her free hand. “Yeah. I think I’m gonna keep going with it. I recorded us listening to another set of Black Tapes, and yeah, they’re some seriously creepy stuff. As far as I can tell, they’re not related to the Unsound, or any of the other cases we’ve been researching.”
“I thought we weren’t going to go there,” Nic said gently. “Not just yet.”
Alex shook her head, even though she knew he couldn’t see her. “Yeah, no, we’re sticking to the basics for now, like you said. Anyway, I was wondering if it’d be all right if I headed to Montana. That’s where Rich – Dr. Strand’s lead is, about the subject of the new Black Tapes.”
“Yeah, sounds good to me. Call me if you need anything.”
“I will.”
“And Alex?”
“Yeah?”
“You sure you’re doing all right?”
She wanted to joke. Wanted to tease Nic, tell him off for being his overly protective self. She wanted to ask him what he’d been up to, because she knew there was something going on at the studio when she wasn’t there.
“Yeah,” she said. “I’m fine.”
The confessional booth looked brighter than it had in the Black Tapes. It also looked even taller, stretching up until it almost reached the room’s ceiling.
Even in person, Alex didn’t sense anything particularly different about the booth, but perhaps it was the warm comfort of daylight that put her at ease.
“Sure is a beauty, don’t you think?”
“Huh?” Alex asked, snapping out of her reverie to turn toward the booth’s new owner. “Um, yeah, it’s gorgeous.”
“Got it at quite a steal, too. Dr. Strand probably mentioned this to you, but that thing’s been bouncing around all over the country for the past sixty, maybe seventy years. Wouldn’t surprise me if it’s been in just about every state!”
Suzanne was the last person Alex expected to own what she’d come to think of as the Demon’s Booth. Suzanne was a short, stocky, middle-aged blonde woman with a sunny attitude and bright blue eyes. She was enthused to meet Alex, and even more enthused to meet Dr. Strand. She’d bought the booth at an auction about a year ago, and provided a list of the booth’s previous homes – which is how Strand had known where each of the videos were recorded, having cross-referenced the years with locations.
The more Alex learned about it, the more it seemed like Strand had been preparing for her to come back to him, in search of another Black Tapes case.
“Do you know what happened to the people who went inside?” Alex asked, then mentally kicked herself for asking such an inappropriate question.
Just as she thought, Suzanne frowned a bit, the first time she looked anything other than cheerful. “Well... I don’t know. People tell stories about these kind of things, you see. Probably just trying to scare kids into not being too curious, or the kids dare each other to go in because they want to get scared.” She shrugged. “It all kind of sounds like some urban legend to me. Anyway, the doors in this building are always locked, and we’re not exactly situated where all the cool kids are hanging out, anyway. It’d be a shock to me if any kids came, wanting to try getting in the confessional themselves.”
Alex sneaked a glance over toward Strand, who wasn’t smiling, but had that subtle all-knowing, smug expression she’d seen so many times. In a way, it reassured her. He’d been polite on the trip to Montana, but almost too polite. She was glad to see reminders that he hadn’t changed, that the distance of time and space hadn’t spread too much to become an impassable chasm between them.
“Then, if you don’t mind me asking,” Alex said hesitantly, “why is there a velvet rope and a sign saying ‘Do not enter?’”
“Oh, that’s for liability reasons,” Suzanne said, smiling again as she chuckled. “People are, after all, naturally curious.”
“But as you’ve stated,” Strand said, “no one’s ever been trapped inside since you’ve acquire it.”
“No, Dr. Strand,” Suzanne said, although her smile seemed… strained at the edges. “Well, if you’d like to take some pictures before recording that interview you mentioned, I’ll go get Tom to whip up some refreshments for us in the café.”
“Oh, that’d be great. Thanks,” Alex said, then, after a moment, she elbowed Strand’s arm.
“Yes,” he said quickly, “we really appreciate it, Suzanne.”
She turned to leave the room, and Alex dug her camera out of her purse. Lowering her voice, she asked Strand, “Would you really count this as a museum if it has one attraction?”
“Not just the one – we could still check out the collection of cattle skulls Suzanne mentioned.”
Alex rolled her eyes and started snapping a few pictures of the Demon's Booth, still trying to comprehend how expansive it was. She and Strand went in separate directions to examine the booth from either side, taking care to stand behind the velvet rope.
“Let me guess,” Alex leaned out past her side and called over to Strand after taking a dozen pictures and checking that her recorder was still on, “you’re going to say the wood is so old that the doors stick, causing those people in the videos to get stuck.” Although the other two Black Tape’s subjects comprised of a group of five middle-school Catholic girls, and then a group of four college co-eds, the same events happened: two or three people went inside the booth, joked around for some time, then tried to escape and grew increasingly panicked, with the videos ending right in the middle of chaos.
Strand poked his head out from behind the far end of the cabinet, looking both amused and impressed. “Well, yes, that’s the most likely explanation, but there’s always the possibility that the tapes are indeed fakes.”
“I thought you added them to your collection because you weren’t so sure of that.”
He gave a one-shouldered shrug. “I’m not. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to completely discard the theory.”
Alex lowered the camera, staring up at the top of the booth. “Then what about the growling? How do you explain that?”
“Speaker system.”
“This thing’s been circulating the country for the past sixty years,” Alex pointed out. “Probably longer than that.”
“It’s a very rudimentary speaker system. Or the sounds from the panicking people trapped inside the booths echo, emitting a noise that sounds like growling, but actually isn’t.”
Alex nodded, but wasn’t fully convinced. After placing her camera back in her purse and joining Strand at the front of the booth, she said, a little hesitantly, “Thank you, by the way. For inviting me.”
He shifted his weight over onto one foot. “It’s not a big deal. I’ve, uh... been wondering whether you were going to ask me about my extra collection of Black Tapes.”
“Dr. Strand,” Alex said, a slow smile starting at the corners of her mouth, “does that mean you’ve been waiting for me?”
“No, not at all,” he said, his words so brusque that she couldn’t help but grin. “I just thought you had perhaps forgotten about the Tapes. Or that you needed some space.”
Alex’s grin faded away at his last sentence. She looked over at Strand, and he seemed to look somehow small - but maybe that was due to him standing right in front of the looming confessional.
“Well,” she said, trying to sound just as brisk and professional as he just had, “I can’t say this wasn’t an educational outing, but it seems like after we finish asking Suzanne a few questions and talking to some locals, we’re not going to find out much more about this fancy box.” She headed over to the large window that was closest to the booth and toyed with the lock. “Unless...”
“Alex,” Strand said in a warning tone.
“What?” she asked, taking her hand off the lock. “I’m not doing anything.”
Ten hours later, she pushed open the window, and whispered, “See? Totally not doing anything.”
“Okay, you can stop saying that now,” Strand said as he stood behind her, cautiously turning his head around at every small noise in the quiet neighborhood.
Alex slid inside easily enough, but it was tough work helping Strand up and through the gap. After a few minutes of heaving and pulling, he was panting on his hands and knees, and as she looked down at him, Alex ended up having to stuff her fist against her mouth to keep from bursting into laughter.
“What’s so funny?” he gasped.
“I’m sorry, it’s just –” she gestured at their black ensembles and flashlights – “you have to admit, this is kind of ridiculous.”
“Alex, this was your idea!” he hissed.
“Okay, okay! Here,” she said, holding out her hand. He ignored it, pushing himself to his feet and lightly stepping past her to face the confessional booth.
Still giggling out of sheer adrenaline, Alex brushed aside the brief sting of rejection and shone her flashlight on the confessional booth. It didn’t look any different, and when she held her breath for a moment to listen for any growling, there was only a faint creaking sound.
“Okay,” Alex said, slinging her backpack down and pulling out her video camera. “Five minutes, just like I promised.”
“Remind me why I’m the one going inside?” Strand whispered, stepping over the velvet rope.
“Because you’re incredibly brave and strong and can debunk the tapes in that amount of time,” Alex explained for the third time, then added, “And because I know how to hold a camera better than you.”
Snorting lightly, Strand stood before the booth for a moment as Alex turned on her video camera. He waited for her signal, craning his neck up to look at the top of the booth. Then, he turned to face the camera, nodded, and went inside, closing the door behind him.
Alex kept her flashlight trained on the confessional in one hand, the camera steady in her other, making sure that she was getting a good angle of the entire confessional.
“Dr. Strand?” she called out after a minute.
“Yes, I’m still here,” he said, his reply muffled.
She lowered her voice. “This is God. I want to give you a message.”
He sighed. “What is it?”
Delighted that he was playing along, Alex continued in her low, commanding voice, “Wearing all that black makes you look washed out and suspicious. You should let Alex take you shopping. She’s got an excellent taste in fashion - she’ll even let you buy more flannel shirts.”
“Okay,” he said, sounding impatient, and she laughed. “I will, on the condition that Alex let me examine this in peace.”
Stifling her laughter, Alex stepped closer to the confessional, gravitating toward Strand’s compartment.
It suddenly occurred to her how quiet the whole ‘museum’ was. There was the occasional sound of the small house-like building settling, but even though the window was open, Alex couldn’t hear the wind sweeping through the trees. She couldn’t hear the tick of the clock, even though she noticed about three of them in other rooms of the place. She could barely even hear herself breathing.
She froze in place, as still as a statue, straining to hear something, anything, when —
— Strand swung open his compartment door, right in her face.
“Ahh!” she cried, dropping her flashlight and the camera.
“Alex! Are you all right? I'm sorry; I didn’t know you were right there,” he said, leaning halfway out of his compartment.
She scrambled to pick up the fallen objects, and Strand held his own flashlight up to help her see. The video camera had survived the fall, but her flashlight was cracked down the middle of the lens.
“There’s five bucks I’ll never see again,” she said, stuffing the busted device in her bag.
“You still have the receipt, right? We can return it in the morning.”
Alex didn’t say anything.
Sighing, Strand held out his own flashlight. “Here, take mine.”
“What?” Alex pushed away the handle. “No, you keep it. You still need to find a speaker system, or monster mask, or whatever it is you look for when you’re figuring this sort of stuff out.”
“Look, this isn’t the time for your admirable stubbornness, Alex.”
She put a hand over her chest. “Did you just say it was admirable?”
He shook the flashlight with impatience. “Take. It.”
She did, but handed him the video camera. “Then you record what’s going on in there. It’s on the night vision setting, so you should be able to look through the viewfinder.”
He gingerly took the camera and turned it to record Alex. “I’m going to close the door again.”
“Okay. And if anything happens, I’ve got my phone.”
He chuckled. “Nothing’s going to happen.”
He closed the door on himself again, and Alex quietly explored the rest of the room. Aside from a few rugs hanging on the walls and a couple of candles in waist-high holders, there wasn’t much else to look at. Judging from the size of the ‘museum’ and the town’s inhabitants, it was easy for Alex to assume that the confessional booth was the main attraction.
After several long, slightly eerie minutes of hearing Strand shift and poke around in the booth, Alex heard... nothing.
He’d gone completely silent.
“Dr. Strand?” she asked, crossing the room in a few long strides. “Are you there?”
He sighed. “Yes. I haven’t found any speakers or trapdoors, but unfortunately I seem to be...” His door rattled slightly, and Alex cocked her head to the side.
“Trapped,” she said. “Huh.”
“Well, can you try opening the door from your side?”
“Oh, right.” She tried the knob, but it was jammed. Oh, no, she thought as panic started to grab hold of her.
“Not opening?”
“Let me just try to...” She tugged the knob outward, then put the flashlight down as she struggled to open the door with both hands. “It’s not budging!” she cried, not caring how loud she sounded.
“Okay, calm down, we’ll just —”
“— What, wait for our friendly neighborhood demon to start growling and do who-knows-what to you? Uh uh, I’m calling 911.” Alex shrugged off her backpack to get her phone.
“No, don’t do that. We’ll get arrested for trespassing.”
“Better to be stuck in a jail cell than in some possessed box!”
“Alex, please listen to me,” Strand said, just as she was starting to draw in deep, ragged breaths, her heart already going a mile a minute. “You need to get out of here. I’ve still got the camera; I can feel along for a weak spot and break out through the center compartment, if I have to. Get back to the motel as fast as you can. I’ll meet you there.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head rapidly even though she knew he couldn’t see her. “No, I’m not going to just leave you here like this!”
“Alex, I promise, I can get myself out of here, I just need to —”
Suddenly, she heard the sound of a door creaking open from down the hall. “Oh my God!”
“What?”
“Someone’s coming!”
“Then get out of here. Now!”
Panicking, sleep-deprived, and confused, Alex did the best thing she could think of.
She went into the other side compartment.
After closing the door behind herself, trying desperately hard to slow her breathing to normal and shutting off her flashlight, Alex waited for the sound of the door to the room opening. She waited to hear the sounds of growling, banging, even the fucking Unsound.
Several long, agonizing moments passed, until she heard a muffled voice say, “You just went into the other booth, didn’t you?”
“Yeah,” Alex said, still breathless, yet feeling a bit better that she could still hear Strand. “But I think Suzanne or someone’s coming, so shh!”
She waited. And waited. She couldn’t tell how much time was passing, but she could feel sweat beading at the hairs near her temple. She was frozen in a crouched position, but after what felt like an hour pass by without any noises, Alex finally settled herself down on the bench against the wall side of the booth.
“Alex?” Strand asked tentatively, his voice still muffled but oddly soothing.
“Yeah,” she said, brushing some of the sweat away with the edge of her sleeve. “I’m still here.”
“I don’t think anyone’s coming,” Strand said. “Let’s try to get out again.”
Alex tried the doorknob to her stall, but it didn’t work. She rattled the knob, pushing against the door with her shoulder, and even shoved up against it, but to no avail. She heard similar sounds of struggle from Strand’s side, but they both stopped trying after a while, and she settled back down on the bench. Sliding her bag off her shoulders, she began digging around for her phone.
“Don’t call the police,” Strand said. “It’s only going to make things worse for us.”
Too late. Alex found her phone and frantically typed in her password - then let out an uncontrollable sob when she looked at the screen.
“I can't,” she said, tossing her phone back in the bag. “There's no signal in here. How? I had full reception this afternoon, so how come I don't have any in here?”
Strand sighed heavily from his compartment. “Well, the good news is we’re not in any immediate danger. If you use your flashlight to find a way out of here, maybe through the center stall, you can slip out while you still have time.”
“Right. Yeah, okay.” Alex stood up again and trained her flashlight on the latticed panel that connected her stall to the middle one, but just as she started to look for an opening, the beam of light flickered for a bit, then went completely dead.
“Oh, my God. Oh no,” she moaned, clicking the power button on and off several times.
“What is it?”
“The light just went out!” Alex practically screamed, then threw the flashlight against the side of the stall. It bounced off and hit her in the shin, and she cried out, sitting down hard on the bench.
Just as she did so, she could swear she heard the low, ominous sound of growling.
She gasped, locking every single one of her muscles in place.
“Alex, listen to me,” Strand said, from his compartment, sounding entirely too calm, “Pay attention to my voice.”
“You can hear it too?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper as she still dared not move. The growling was quieter than in the tapes, but it was there, like it was coming just from under her feet. She didn't lift up her legs; she was too petrified to move.
Then, after a long moment, she started to wonder what it would be like, to finally come face-to-face with her very first demon. To her lack of surprise, she started to smile. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad. It felt like a bit of relief, actually. Relief mixed with mind-numbing terror, but still.
“Alex. Alex!” Strand's voice pierced through the low, unwavering, rough intonations that beckoned her attention.
“What?” she snapped.
“I've been calling your name for a minute. Talk to me. Are you all right?”
Slowly, with shaking fingers, Alex touched her cheeks, and pulled them away, rubbing her fingertips together. Tears. She'd been crying.
“Alex, please, are you all —”
“—No!” she shouted, pressing her hands over her ears to drown out the terrible, unknown sounds from underneath. “No, I’m not all right. This was a stupid plan, and I’m sorry. I’m sorry I got us stuck in here and we’re probably going to get caught if we’re lucky, and it’s – it’s all… It’s my fault, Dr. Strand. I don’t know why I thought I could do this again.” She punched the wall side of her stall, and it felt good for a moment, but then her hand just hurt.
The growling got a little louder.
Strand was silent as she wiped the tears from her eyes, the sweat from her forehead. She tried not to sob, to seem weak and helpless, but it was like once she got started, she couldn’t stop.
“I just wanted to do something, for a change,” she said, her voice breaking at the end as she cradled her throbbing hand with her free one. “I haven’t been able to get a good night’s sleep in a year. Maybe longer than that. I was so, so tired of feeling helpless, and wondering if I was going to wake up one day and it would all be over, and I knew I was the cause of that. And I...” She let out an uncontrollable sob, doubling over and hugging onto her knees as her tears continued to fall. “I deserve this. Because I was too stubborn and nosey for my own good. I kept pushing, and pushing, and now...” She raised one hand and slapped the small, empty space on the bench next to her, as that would stop the demonic noises. “Now there’s nowhere else for me to go, so I might as well just accept it. I’ve been stuck in the dark since this all started, since I made you show me the tapes. I guess I belong here, anyway. I just wish I hadn’t dragged you in here with me.”
She cried into her knees, pushing out all her guilt and exhaustion, with no more words to say. In the back of her mind, she swore the muddied, garbled growling from beneath her booth was fading away, but she honestly didn’t care to listen to it anymore.
“It’s real,” Strand said.
Alex raised her head a bit, tears still clinging to her lashes.
What? she thought.
From the far side of the booth, she could hear Strand shifting around on his own bench. “The Unsound, the Axis Mundi, the Adversary - everything we’ve been dealing with since we watched that first Black Tape of Robert Torres’ birthday party.”
Alex drew in a long, shuddering breath, but didn’t say anything.
Strand’s words were muffled, but he sounded more sure of them, as sure as he’d sounded when Alex had first met hm. “I know what I saw when I was with Cheryl, when we were children. I know how I found Bobby Maines. I tried to do the same thing to find my... to find Coralee. But when I didn’t find her, when Charlie accused me of purposefully lying to her and keeping Coralee’s true whereabouts to myself, I stopped believing. Or, rather, I shoved my belief down so deep, I’d convinced even myself that none of this is real.
“But it is. All of it.”
There was nothing but silence for the next several moments. Alex realized, then, that she couldn’t even hear any growling.
Slowly, carefully, she sat up and leaned back against the wall of her bench.
She opened her mouth to speak, but didn’t know what to say.
Yet, at the same time, she hadn’t felt so clear in months.
“You said that you’re the cause of this, but I have my share of blame as well,” Strand said, softly, but loud enough for her to hear. “I’ve been... I should’ve been more forthcoming about my past. I shouldn’t have pushed you away.”
“But I gave you so many reasons to,” Alex said, surprising herself with her own admission.
“Perhaps,” he said, “But in the end, I suppose we both had our reasons to act the ways we did.”
“I wish things had turned out differently,” Alex said. “For you and your family, I mean. I wish you’d been spared of all those years of misery and pain.” When she let out a small sigh, the tail end of it turned into a sob, but she had no more tears to shed. “I wish none of this wouldn’t have happened. I wish that none of this were real.”
“Me too,” Strand agreed, and even in the dark, even separated from him, Alex could picture the expression on his face. “But, at the same time... I’m glad it is.”
“You do?”
She couldn’t see him nod, but she knew that’s what he just did. “Because,” he said slowly, “if none of this were real, then I wouldn’t have met you.”
“I wish I was over there,” Alex murmured before she could stop herself, but her soft words sounded so incredibly loud in the booth. “I wish I was over on your side. With you.”
It was silent for what felt like hours. Her heart was racing, her shin and hand kept throbbing a little, her tears were drying on her cheeks, sweat continued to bead at the hairs of her temple, and she realized she was trembling all over.
She should have kept her mouth shut. There she went again, loudmouth Alex, blurting out whatever came to her unfiltered mind without thinking. She should’ve just —
“Alex,” Strand said, and it took only him saying her name to shake her out of her darkest thoughts. “So do I.”
Click.
Click.
Alex gasped, turning around on her bench to try to pinpoint the noise. “What was that?”
“I think... I think the doors just opened,” Richard said.
“Oh... Oh my —”
As if she were in a pool of molasses, Alex slowly got up off the bench. She reached out and turned the knob, and...
The next few minutes were a blur, passing by both too slowly and too quickly for her to fully process. She stumbled out of the confessional, sweaty and tired and pumped with adrenaline, but she turned instantly toward the tall, recognizable, human figure who had let himself out of the opposite booth, and before she knew it, she and Richard were both colliding into each other, her arms around his, his tightening around her waist, and she thought she didn’t have any more tears to squeeze out, but they fell anyway, and she felt bad at first for messing up his clothes, but then realized he was just wearing his dumb burglar outfit, and she thought about how ridiculous they both must have looked, which got her sobbing and giggling at the same time.
Richard just tightened his arms around her even more, and let her laugh and cry.
“Well,” Richard said as Alex closed the trunk of his car, “It didn’t go as horribly as I thought.”
“Any damages to the confessional?”
“No, none that Suzanne could see. She wasn’t thrilled when I told her about us prowling around the other night, but she said she understood. Turns out she lied to us earlier about not knowing whether anyone got stuck inside it. She even had to help out a couple of college students who got themselves locked in there last month.”
“Ah,” Alex said, nodding sagely. “I bet your offer to donate a couple of your father’s artifacts to her museum didn’t hurt.”
“Not so much.”
She held up his car keys, and he waved them off. “You can drive, if you’d like.” His expression shifted to concern. “I mean, if you’re not feeling well, then I can just —”
“— I told you before, Doctor, I’m back to fighting form. Turns out that unloading all my burdens does wonders for my sleep cycle.” She stretched her arms out, reveling in the best night’s rest she’d had in years.
“Before we take off, I still owe you a coffee,” Richard insisted.
“Hell yeah, you do.”
He chuckled softly, but his subtle expression of worry didn’t change. “Are you sure you’re all right, Alex?”
She lowered her arms and met his eyes directly. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I don’t know if I’ll ever really be all right, if we’re really in the middle of an Apocalypse and we’ll have to deal with this Adversary, and whatever else the future holds.” She lifted a hand and smoothed out the lines between his brows. “But I’m better than I was, and as it turns out? I’m better when I’m with you.”
His face relaxed at her touch. “Good. As it turns out, we’re both on the same page. Speaking of which, are you, uh...” He cleared his throat, and she grinned, taking her hand away from his face. “Planning on airing this episode?”
She shook her head and pulled out her voice recorder, showing him that it was off. “This was supposed to be a test run. It’ll stay in the secret archives.” She flicked her gaze from the recorder up to his cool blue eyes. “Unless you want it to be an aired episode.”
He paused, visibly lost in thought for a moment, and then said, “Let’s see where the road takes us.”
She grinned. “Sounds good to me.”