On Holy Ground (standard:horror, 2210 words) [1/3] show all parts
Author: heather	Updated: Oct 13 2001	Views/Reads: 3983/2293	Part vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
5 teenagers in a film class decide to capture supernatural activity on camera in the most unlikely of haunted places...a church.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

sometimes annoyingly inquisitive, asked. 

Mr. Peterson smiled as if he was about to present them with a million
dollar check from Publisher’s Clearing House. 

“Any genre you want,” he said quietly, smiling still. 

The class quickly became a cacophony of excited talk, ranging from
worries to ideas. Shea and Conor grinned at each other. Mr. Peterson 
held up a hand for quiet. 

“There’s more.  Take notes, if you’d like!” Mr. Peterson always said
this and nobody did it.  “You will each work in a five-person group.” 

Hisses of ‘yes!’ scattered through the room, and Shea and Conor gave
each other high-fives. 

“We should take Amber and Steve,” Shea whispered. 

“Yeah, and Garrett, too.  He’s awesome with the DAT,” Conor whispered
back. 

“There is a catch!” Mr. Peterson shouted above the noise. The room
immediately became silent. 

“There’s always a catch!” Shea sighed. 

“Shut up and listen,” Conor instructed her offhandedly. 

“I will assign the groups,” Mr. Peterson told the class. 

The whole attitude and mood of the classroom turned sour.  Faces turned
from rapture to disappointment, annoyance, and anger. 

“Hey, that’s not fair!” someone protested. 

“Yeah!  We should be able to work with who we want to!” 

“The film won’t be as good if we can’t work with people that we are
productive with!” 

Shea shushed everybody, her eyebrows knit together with confusion.  Mr.
Peterson wasn’t usually this anal about who worked with whom. Mr. 
Peterson waited until everyone quieted down. 

“Now, anyone who knows me knows that if there is one thing I hate, it’s
cliques.  Even though the principal of this school says there aren’t 
any at Birchwood High, there are, and all of you know it.  The jocks 
hang out with the jocks, the metal heads hang out with the metal heads, 
etcetera, etcetera.  I do not want that in my class.  Last semester, I 
let you work with whomever you wanted to, and you all worked with the 
same people every time.  I want a little more variety.  Therefore, I am 
assigning the groups this time.  This is not debatable, so I suggest 
you resign yourself to the fact that I am assigning groups,” Mr. 
Peterson said in a friendly but firm way. 

Shea and Conor shot each other worried glances.  They always worked
together.  Would Peterson split them up? 

“We’re his favorite students, he won’t split us up,” Conor reassured
her. 

“I hope so!” Shea said to him. 

Shea and Conor had been best friends since kindergarten.  Even though
they were opposites as far as gender went, they were practically 
identical in every other way.  They even looked the same.  Shea had 
long dark hair and blue eyes, as did Conor, but he had died his hair 
darker, (black to be exact), and his blue eyes were shielded by 
steel-framed glasses.  The only real difference between the two was 
their attitudes.  Shea had a very sarcastic and sometimes 
confrontational manner, while Conor was a “man of very few words”, and 
a diplomat.  Both were very intelligent, and fortunately smart enough 
not to ever have any feelings for each other behind friendship. 

“I will post the list of your groups tomorrow morning on the bulletin
board in front of this class room.  You can come in at any time to 
check it.  Let me mention once again, these teams are not debatable.  
You are with who you are with, okay?” Mr. Peterson said. The class 
finally surrendered to the idea, and there were no outbursts. 

“Are there any questions?” Mr. Peterson asked. Nobody spoke or raised a
hand. 

“Good,” Mr. Peterson said just as the bell rang.  “I’ll see you
tomorrow.” *** 

After gathering their books and things, Conor and Shea walked out of the
building together. Shea heaved a big sigh. 

“This has been one hell of a day!” she breathed. Conor nodded. 

“Tell me about it.  Mr. Leighton got on my case this morning because I
forgot what a substrate was,” Conor said darkly. 

“Gross, Leighton,” Shea remarked, looking down occasionally as the
descended the steps from the high school and walked across the street 
to the sidewalk. 

“What happened to you?” Conor asked, seeing a rock and kicking it as
they walked along.  They each only lived about two blocks from the 
school, so they declined taking the bus. 

“Oh, nothing much,” Shea said sardonically.  “Failed a geometry
exam...the usual, you know?” 

Conor stared at her in horror. 

“Man, your mom’s gonna kill you!” he said. 

“Nah, it’s not her I’m worried about.  It’s my dad.  He’s the one who’ll
lecture me.  My mom will just run off to her bible and pray for me,” 
Shea said sarcastically. 

Conor laughed and Shea joined in. 

“For as long as I’ve known your mom, I still can’t believe what a
fanatic she is,” Conor said, shaking his head. 

“Yeah, I’ve known her longer and I still don’t understand it.  Trust me,
it was a big disappointment to her when she found out I wasn’t into the 
whole ‘God’ thing,” Shea said, glancing both ways as they crossed 
another road. 

“Hey, at least you’re not a Satan worshipper or anything,” Conor
remarked. 

“Yeah, I never had much taste for human sacrifice,” Shea said. 

“Pity,” Conor joked. 

They finally were in a few feet’s distance from their homes, so they
stopped on the sidewalk. 

“So, do you want to come over or what?” Shea asked, squinting in the
unusually bright autumn sunshine. 

Conor shook his head. 

“No, I’ve got things to do,” he declined. 

“World domination plans?” Shea cracked. 

“Nope, gotta clean the fish tank!” Conor answered. 

Shea laughed. 

“Okay, then, I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said, turning to walk away. 

“Do you want me to call you?” Conor called after her. 

“No, I think we’ve covered every interesting part of our day.  It’ll be
another one of our episodes where we sit on the phone and watch TV for 
hours and don’t say anything until one of us finally says we’re hanging 
up!” Shea yelled back. 

“All right.  See ya!” Conor yelled, walking to his doorstep and
disappearing from site. 

“Bye!” Shea yelled, even though Conor was already in the house.  She
walked to the second house from Conor’s and opened the door. *** 

Shea walked into her house and slammed the door so her mother knew she
was home.  Her mother had always gotten annoyed at this, but it was an 
unspoken tradition since Shea had first gone to school. 

“I’m in the kitchen, Shea!” her mother’s voice called to her. 

“What a surprise, she’s in the kitchen!” Shea thought comically.  Her
mother was a baking machine, and sold her goods from the house.  She 
walked up the few carpeted steps, greeted Hippocrates, the immense 
Great Dane, whose outlandish name was due to the fact that Shea’s 
father was a Greek History professor, and went into the kitchen. 

“Hi, honey,” her mother greeted her, both of her hands immersed in a
huge lump of bread dough. 

“Hi, Mom,” Shea said tiredly. 

“How was your day?” her mother asked, turning back to her kneading. 

“Okay,” Shea said, praying that her mother wouldn’t remember that
geometry exam she had taken. 

“How did you do on that geometry exam?” her mother asked. 

“Of course!  God likes her better!” Shea thought miserably. 

“Umm...not so good,” Shea said, wincing. 

“What do you mean, not so good?” her mother asked slowly. 

Shea didn’t say anything for a minute, and then just blurted it out. 

“I failed it, okay?” she said wretchedly. 

Her mother whirled around with her hands on her hips with a frustrated
look on her face.  She pushed back a wayward strand of her dark hair 
that was usually impeccably tidy with the only finger that wasn’t 
flower covered. 

“You failed it?” she echoed despondently.  “Oh, Shea.  What will your
father say?” 

“Do we have to tell him?” Shea piped, raising her eyebrows hopefully
even though she knew what the answer would be. 

“Of course we have to tell him, Shea!” her mother replied. 

“Why do you have to tell him everything?” Shea said, annoyed, and folded
her arms. 

“As a wife, it is my Biblical duty to-“ her mother began. 

Shea interrupted her with an upheld hand. 

“Please,” she said flatly, “don’t lecture me on your Biblical duties.” 

“Fine,” her mother said.  “But I’m telling him.” 

Shea shrugged. 

“Fine, tell him.  Betray me, if you want.  Go ahead,” Shea said
sullenly. 

“Now don’t put a guilt trip on me, Shea, because you know it won’t
work,” her mother warned. 

“What guilt trip?  It’s not enough that you named me a boy’s name-“ 

“Shea is a unisex, and very lovely, name.  Why do you always go back to
your name when we have an argument?  It’s really getting silly, Shea!” 
her mother reproved her. 

“Because it was your first offense against me!” Shea said, knowing she
was being ridiculous. 

“Oh, don’t be absurd!” her mother admonished. 

“Whatever,” Shea intoned, and went off to her room to think and brood
about this wretched day. 

Later that night, she was lectured by her father on the virtues of a
healthy mind, and so on, until he began to rant and get off the subject 
as he always did.  Mr. McNeil was a bit eccentric, but usually a good 
guy, and Shea liked him, since he was her father and everything.  Any 
other time, Shea would have borne this sermon accordingly, but this 
time, she was not in the mood and strode out of her father’s study just 
as he was getting to the culmination of his oratory, which had somehow 
stumbled upon the subject of Aristotle and his teachings to Alexander 
the Great. 

Shea went into her room and shut the door quietly so as to not disturb
her father’s idiom and lay down on her bed.  After much thought of 
self-pity, she went to sleep two hours earlier than usual. 


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