Phantoms and Fangs

Two

 Ivy and lichen covered the majority of the headstones leading up to the chapel ruins. It sat at the peak of the cemetery and must have been beautiful once, scorched stone walls littered with shards of stained glass were all that remained. Reyna's backpack thudded to the ground while she used the dwindling twilight to set up her stream, connecting a small microphone that clipped to her shirt and a night vision lens to her phone. Two bars of data wasn't ideal for streaming, but having any signal this far in the middle of nowhere was better than none. Starting the stream was as easy as pressing a button and the 83% battery left on Reyna's phone would last at least two hours. Two viewers immediately popped onto the live stream, one was someone that Reyna recognized as a consistent viewer of her content and the other was a bot advertising a service to get more viewers on every stream. One real person watching wasn't a great start, it was better than zero though.

"Good evening my fellow reapers and revenants. My name is Reyna and tonight we will be investigating the Crown Hill Cemetery for signs and proof of the supernatural." Her voice took on a cheery facade while she spoke in an attempt to convince the audience watching as well as herself that she wasn't afraid. Being able to talk to just one other person helped banish the creeping anxiety that had been growing ever since Reyna passed over the graveyard threshold.

"Now you might be wondering 'Reyna, why did you choose some rinky-dink cemetery that no one has heard about to explore' well my dear viewer it's because recently a local college student went missing, and his last known location is this very graveyard." Every word dripped with forced dramatics, with forced pauses that attempted to build suspense but felt more like someone unsure of what they should say next.

"For those who have never heard of the Crown Hill Cemetery, I can't blame you. This burial ground has been left abandoned for almost a century. The stone walls I'm standing by may look like some kids attempt at making a fort, but they were once the base of a chapel. Rumors spread through town with locals claiming some demonic presence had been the root cause of." CRACK. The yelp that left Reyna's mouth was anything but dignified when a piece of stone hit the wall next to her.

"Hello, who's there?" The false confidence that Reyna started the stream with had completely abandoned her. Her heartbeat was racing and the dread that sat comfortably in the back of her mind was now filling every cell in her body. She twisted wildly in a frankly pathetic attempt to see who or what threw the stone.

The number of viewers on her stream had gone up to 11, an unusually high number for how long she'd been streaming. Notifications popped onto her dim phone screen, a few were comments asking if that was real, and others were debunking it loudly claiming she must have had a friend hiding in the bushes. If only she did.

"Huh, that's certainly something." Fear stained every word that fell out of her mouth. Reyna reached into the side of her backpack fishing out a small flashlight and immediately shone it on the stone that laid next to the wall. The rock was smooth, gray, and devoid of any interesting characteristics. It being so plain and ordinary was somehow disappointing. Reyna imagined how much more fitting a chunk of a statue or a rock carved in pentagrams could have been.

"Well chat, it seems that the rumors of demonic activity are more true than I thought. Whatever spirit is hanging around the chapel clearly doesn't want me here, if more people listened to warning signs like this in horror movies they would actually survive." Sad attempts at comedy did practically nothing to settle the fear taking root in the pit of Reyna's stomach. She staggered away from the stone barriers, each step had her debating between running back to her bike, or continuing to wander around some creepy graveyard. The first few steps towards the lichgate promised safety, that promise was quickly forgotten when Reyna glanced at the live stream.

Comments kept popping up in the chat, practically begging her to look for where that stone came from. In just a few minutes from when that stone hit the wall the number of viewers had increased to 53. Hope started blooming in her chest, seeming to say, it's working, you're finally getting the recognition you want, it's just a graveyard, you can do this, keep going. Twigs snapped to her left diminishing that growing spark of hope.

The sound initially sent a chill through Reyna's body, before that hopeful feeling chirped in her ears again. No ghost or demon is walking around snapping twigs, someone's clearly fucking with you.