I burst out of the side door and into the alley. I felt the contents of my stomach slip past my lips as I wretched and spat. It was, perhaps, the moment I needed to regain my senses, for the fog of fear to clear my head. What had it been about that photograph? Someone in the belfry? It shook me up. Maybe I had just missed it before.
As I spat the last of my guts out, I shook my head.
It was what I felt. It was all of it, the craggy remains of the structure, the man in the belfry; not a simple shadow on the paper, but an alien, malevolent sickness that invaded my senses. I shook free of it, and began walking down the alley, intending to work my way through the unfamiliar streets of this town at which I had arrived a mere three weeks before. I strode upward through slick cobbled alleys.
Then I stopped.
“You have got to be kidding me,” I spoke to the groaning stars visible above the the shadowed, decimated remains of the old chruch. At the base of its steps, I felt its cold, dread fingers slip around my heart.