Chapter 3: The Broken Cross

3.

When I got there, the coroner’s van was already gone. Natalie sat on the concrete stoop, holding her baby brother tight, a hollow look on her face. When she saw me, she stood up fast, wiping her cheeks with the back of her hand.

Her mom had gone to the hospital to deal with paperwork and the police.

As soon as I stepped inside, the air changed—heavy, oppressive, thick with a kind of chill that felt unnatural. I’d been in enough bad places to know something was very wrong.

It was a cramped two-bedroom, no porch, just a makeshift bay window strung with laundry. The place barely got any sun. The bathroom was straight across from the front door—a bad layout, if you asked any old-timer. Red blessing stickers, the kind you buy at the corner store before Christmas, were stuck not on the main door, but the bathroom door. Everything felt off-kilter, like the house itself was confused.

A faded Braves cap hung on a nail by the door, and the TV muttered static in the corner.

“What happened?”

I drifted toward the fish tank, which sat like an aquarium tombstone by the door. The water was cloudy, no fish in sight—just piles of smooth stones and plastic weeds.

My eyes flicked to the doorframe. The cross I’d given them wasn’t there.

Natalie wiped her tears, steadied herself, and spoke in a thin voice: “This morning, I got up to change my brother. When I came out to the living room, I saw Dad with his head in the tank.”

“I tried to pull him out, but he was too heavy. I called Mom, but by the time we got him free, it was too late.”

She swallowed. “Last night, he was laughing with us at dinner, talking about taking us to the zoo. I thought things were finally getting better.”

“But now—” Her voice broke. She sobbed, then looked up at me, hope and fear mingling in her eyes.

“Pastor, are we cursed? Is something haunting our family?”

“I did everything you said—prayed, gave them the candle ash water, hung the cross…”

She pointed at the door, her hands trembling. Her face went pale. Suddenly, she rushed across the room.

“I swear I hung it right here, Pastor! Right after I got home, just like you said…”

Her voice shook as she tore through the house, searching frantically for the missing cross.

I moved closer to the tank. Something glimmered beneath the stones—a flicker of dark red. My fingers fished through cold, slimy water, heart thumping like a drumline, until I found the splintered wood.

“No need to look,” Natalie said, hurrying over. But she stopped cold when she saw what I pulled out: the cross, split into three jagged pieces. Her hand flew to her mouth as she stared, eyes huge with terror.

That cross, cut from lightning wood, blessed on the altar every Christmas since I was a boy—it had more power than most folks understood. It should’ve been enough to keep regular spirits at bay.

But for something to break it—to kill a man in his own home—this was no ordinary haunting. This was a century-old spirit, or worse. Something mean and patient, something that fed on fear.

Natalie had no idea what her family had stumbled into.

Things had gone from bad to worse.

“When’s your mom coming back?”

This was way beyond candles and prayers. I needed someone in charge before I could even think about what to do next.

Hmm?

Natalie didn’t answer. I glanced back and realized she’d slipped away.

The overhead light flickered. Her baby brother, lying on the battered sofa, let out a piercing wail. Rain began to drum on the windows, and a cold gust swept through the apartment.

Crack.

The bathroom light snapped on, then every bulb in the house went dark. For a moment, all I could see were the red blessing stickers glowing faintly in the bathroom window, turning the air sour with dread.

I tensed, unclasping my rosary and winding it around my hand, just in case.

The bathroom door creaked open.

Natalie stepped out, head lowered, hair curtaining her face, her bare feet padding silently across the linoleum.

Her eyes met mine, empty and glassy. Somewhere outside, sirens wailed, but inside, the world held its breath.