Preface

  It has been years of wallowing beneath the excuses of past mistakes. Like a vigorous sloshing of a spoon desperate to mix oil and water, the near impossibility of clarity in the death and gore lends us to hold secrets longer than need be.

  But, for this tale, the spoon has given up, allowing the details to rise above the regret, and like the ancestors before, the need to create cautionary tales arises. This story comes yellowed around the edges of crinkled journals atop a box of tapes, CDs, and harddrives; an amalgamation of timeless doom desecrating the unsuspecting earth.

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  Salvaging Corrupted Data...

  Opening Files...

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  Below is the archived transcript of Station 12’s opening chapter to the previously green-lit television reality show Night At Saint Vincent Chapel.

  While the details have been notably researched, much of the information listed is public, and therefore, requires no redaction. All persons named in this introductory transcript are neither living nor missing at the time of this release.

  Warning:

  The following program contains violence and strong language and is intended for a mature audience. Viewer discretion is advised.

  [Subtle woodland noises]

  [Wide shot of the pale sky and outstretched trees. The camera spins at an alarmingly dizzying rate. Cut to the nunnery’s large wooden doors.]

  [Narration begins]

  Woodhurdst, Pennsylvania. Home of the state’s largest monastery. The active historical site, once home to eleven nuns and four priests, exists on two acres of secluded land between the William Penn State and Weiser State forests. While today it is a well-known memorial site, Saint Vincent Chapel was once a beacon for travelers hiking through the extensive trails.

  Much of its record comes from hikers and hunters who once believed the building to be a sanctuary. Others more familiar with the trails around Weiser Forests considered it a checkpoint.

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  During its operation from 1664 until its closure in 1989, over one hundred and fifty people claimed to have visited or worshipped at the chapel. A journal recovered from former governor Andrew Blake now archived at the Weiser History and Nature Museum, notes the chapel as ‘foreboding’ and ‘a peculiar sight’ during a hunting holiday in 1856. Though these claims are not what shroud the chapel with such infamy, but rather in the mystery of the one and only service held on October 31st, 1989...

  The Saint Vincent Chapel Massacre, a prominent mass-murder-suicide orchestrated at the height of the Satanic Panic, was executed by The Followers of Haung Father. This cult gained traction for their neo-feminist beliefs in deconstructing patriarchal systems. They attempted to innovate a matriarch-centered structure under a mythological devil they called Haung Father. The cult preached that Haung Father held women in the highest regard, particularly pregnant women. Women rarely did manual labor, and men were not allowed to touch or speak directly to them. With this unusual practice, they lured hundreds of poor, displaced, and pregnant women to their cult with the promise of community and care, ultimately accepting only around fifty in total.

  Their commune and hippie allure lasted just over ten years before gaining public traction after a police-reported incident near the church. Many families who came to retrieve their daughters, ex-partners, and the like often found themselves in vicious and sometimes physical altercations with the cult. One incident led to the firing of a shotgun, but no injuries were ever reported.

  With none of the women being forced to remain in the cult, families often left empty-handed, and the local police kept their heads down.

  The many films and documentaries that either feature or focus on The Followers of Huang Father attribute the development of this cult to 35-year-old carpenter, Bradley Porter. Though most information about him is unknown, investigators are certain that Porter organized and executed the massacre in 1989, but were unable to convict him due to his apparent suicide.

  32 years later, Station 12 is deciding to dig deeper. We return to the chapel to face our fears with 12 young men and women who will compete for one million dollars. They must solve deadly challenges, unfold the mystery, and avoid our carefully laid traps! Alliances with the dead are encouraged, but not guaranteed. Making contact with the paranormal? Mandatory.

  So, don’t look back. Question everything. TV12 brings you a new series:

  Night at Saint Vincent Chapel

  PROLOGUE

  Bodies thrust themselves in front of Jeremiah with blusterous introduction. He heads the way with his shoulder and one hard suitcase. Legs and knees smack against the fully loaded plastic with a hollow thud. Lisa trudges up the hill behind him as he grunts and groans in the fight to clear the way. She shrinks behind him, mirroring his sways and jukes to avoid even eye contact with the crowd. It’s her luggage he’s using as a knight’s shield, and so she has nothing to protect herself from the occasional brush of calloused fingers.

  Lisa looks over her shoulder briefly. Nine other people file behind her silently. No one’s as chatty as they were on the drive into the forest. She looks forward again, giving in to her nerves. Jeremiah’s heel kicks her shin on occasion and she accepts every coming apology so as long as she can cling to the back of his sweater.

  “You’re kind,” someone says over the babbling of madmen. She whips around to see the man in the comfy green sweater at the end of the line taking something from outstretched fingers. She thinks, for a moment, that she knows what it is, and envy envelopes her. Out of all the people in line, why had they shared anything with him? That rancor doesn’t last as she topples over a rock, or maybe a shoe, and falls hard into the ground.

  Jeremiah stops, ready to free his hands to help her before the savages descend upon her. Though he is too slow, his brief ease tells her the soft fingers that touch her skin are friendly and she accepts the help to her feet.

  The crowd of woodland men halts. They freeze under her gaze as if she possesses the eyes of Medusa. They might as well be ornaments on the lawn baking in the sun until their faces leather and their dirt-caked fingers crumble away.

  “Go.” Lisa shoves Jeremiah. When he doesn’t move, she shoves him once more before he stumbles up toward the nunnery.

  She wants inside the decrepit stone walls, their thick, mossy structure too great for human fingers to tear down. Though for a single second, she childishly believes she could stay planted there on the ground and command the world with a blink. While the dark descends on her turbinado eyes, so would it on the rest of the forest. And they all might adore her for it.