Chapter 2 - The Sound Behind the Wall
The silence inside St. Jude's Cathedral was no longer peaceful. It was the heavy, suffocating quiet before a violent storm.
Two hundred guests—business associates, lifelong friends, and members of my family who had traveled across the country to testify what was supposed to be the happiest day of my life—sat frozen in their pews. Neatly dressed women covered their mouths with trembling hands. Men leaned forward, their brows furrowed in utter confusion.
"Mark..." the woman whispered, her voice trembling as she tried to salvage the performance. She reached out with a manicured hand, her fingers brushing the lapel of my custom tuxedo. "Don't listen to her. Children have wild imaginations. You know how much stress Chloe and I—we both have been under with the wedding planning..."
"Don't call yourself Chloe," I said. My voice didn't shake. It was cold, flat, and stripped of every emotion I had felt five seconds before.
She blinked, her breath caught in her throat. "What are you talking about? I am Chloe."
"Chloe's left earlobe was severed in an ICU in Chicago after a semi-truck broadsided her car," I said, stepping closer to her. I stared down at her left ear, where the pearl earring gleamed under the cathedral spotlights. There was no scar tissue. There was no missing flesh. "I spent six months holding her hand while she recovered. I kissed that exact ear every single night. You are not Chloe."
The fake bride's eyes darted wildly. The mask was completely gone now. The sweet, gentle kindergarten teacher I had known for over a year had disappeared, replaced by a cornered animal calculating her escape route.
"Mark, please," she hissed, her voice dropping an octave into something harsh and grating. "Let's just finish the ceremony. We can talk about this in the car."
"Finish the ceremony?" I barked a harsh, humorless laugh. "Who the hell are you? And where is Chloe?"
Before she could answer, before the priest could step forward to intervene, a sound ripped through the front of the church.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
It wasn't coming from the pews. It wasn't coming from the massive oak doors at the back of the cathedral.
It was coming from directly behind the altar—from inside the small, windowless vestry room whose heavy iron-reinforced door was always bolted shut during services.
Thump! Bang! Bang!
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The sound of muffled, frantic pounding echoed against the wood, followed by a faint, desperate human wail that made my blood run instantly cold.
Someone was locked inside the vestry. Someone was trying to claw their way out.
