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He sat there in silence, waiting to hear the sound of children wailing, but the ghosts appeared to have finished their business. He could not find them anywhere in the church or the offices or the living quarters. He wondered if theyd left the building. He went to the side door, by the offices, down off the main hall. He walked up to the heavy wooden door and put his hand on the handle. An image came to his mind, images, thoughts hed been struggling not to think:

Flames dancing and twisting and beckoning and hot, so hot, but so pure

He knew that was trouble. He also knew that in the reflection, at least, the flames were outside of the church, not inside. He pulled his hand off the door handle and looked out the glass panel of the top half of the door. He saw only the same dreary day outside, the same sidewalk he took to the bus stop, the same childrens toys across the street.

But theyd been outside the window in the reflection and he wasnt ready to go outside.

He stood there a few minutes more, and then made the sign of the cross and went back to the living quarters where he spent the night sitting on the couch, holding his Bible on his lap and staring at the television, which he did not turn on. He fell asleep sitting up on the couch.

He did not see the ghosts for a few more days. It wasnt until Mass on Sunday that they reappeared, and this time there were more of them. He thought maybe 30 of them, total. They didnt register immediately. He walked in, behind the altar boys, and turned to face the congregation, and saw gaps here and there, half-empty pews near the front for no reason. The ghosts did not all sit together, for some reason. When he saw the spaces, he waited, and the ghosts became more visible to him.

One came up for communion. He had handed a host to a mother carrying a baby, and blessed her, and the next in line was a ghost. It was an elderly woman. Why would an elderly woman stay around after life? Why would she be at this church? He did not recognize her, either. He had wondered, during the week, if they were parishioners, churchgoers who could not let go. That thought bothered him: if they were regular churchgoers, why were they not in Heaven? Was he reaching his congregants? Were they sincere in their beliefs as they prayed, or simply mouthing the words back. Why would someone come to church if they did not truly believe in it?

Was there a Heaven?

Was there?

The elderly lady, the ghost, stood there before him. The elderly wanted him to place the host in their mouths; newer generations held out their hands.

He didnt know what to do.

The woman behind the ghost stood there, not willing to move forward. Having spent time near the ghosts, Father Albert thought he knew why: they gave off an atmosphere, a slightly-repelling feeling that you did not want to get too near to. It was like feeling a draft from a basement where food had gone bad, cold and slightly off and rotten.

The woman opened her mouth to take communion.

He heard a cacophony of discordant music and car sounds loud, thumping bass and guitars and tires squealing and children shouting and an older womans voice screeching and the sound of something breaking. He staggered a little under the impulse of it. He looked at her. She had her mouth open and the sound came from it. Her eyes were wide open, pleading. He leaned in closer. What would the churchgoers think if they saw him hand a host to empty air?

He shook his head, slightly, and her hands, clasped together, quivered. He saw rage flash in her eyes, then it quickly faded out. She was pleading with him. Her mouth closed when he stood there, implacable. She moved away and the rest of communion passed uneventfully. No other ghosts came up.

He could not shake the sounds out of his head. After Mass was over, after hed said goodbye to everyone, when the church was quiet, he went back into the church itself, dimly lit now only by sunlight, pale and gray outside, filtering through the stained glass windows, the scenes of incredible loveliness and horror that lined the walls, the bright yellow and blue and red and white glass depicting the torture and death of Jesus in primary colors.

There were about 30 of them, he confirmed. They were still in the pews, more or less where they had been during the service. Most sat there. Some knelt. They all turned to look at him when he entered. He still had his vestments on. He walked up to the front of the church, stood before them.

Tell me what you want, he said. He forced his voice to be calm. This was one of the reasons he was hereto help people deal with the mysteries, the vagaries, of the soul and the afterlife. These were people, too, he told himself. They existed, now, on a different level than he did, but they were people.

He felt certain that he could, in this instance, distinguish people from evil spirits or demons or others. He did not think that these ghosts were inherently evil. It bothered him, though, that they felt wrong to him, that the sounds and smells and feeling they emitted were so wrong themselves.

Tell me, he asked them again.

Their heads watched him, mostly men, a few women, only one old woman, no children.

As one, they opened their mouths. They looked, to him, like nothing so much as the same crowds he expected on weekdays: small but devoted, opening their mouths to say

It was no prayer that came from their mouths, though. It was horrifying. The sounds commingled in his ears: screams, roars, animal sounds, city sounds, incomprehensible sounds, people talking, people shouting, people crying, the earth moving, coughing and choking and thuds and thumps every bad sound one could hear in a life came out of their mouths.

He steeled himself and braced himself and forced himself to listen.

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