The Stained Glass Sentinel

My partner in these investigations, Marcus Webb, had always been a skeptic. He’d joke that our EVP sessions were just us recording the static of downtown Meridian on a Friday night. But when we stumbled upon the old Congregational Church on Elm Street, something in his demeanor shifted. The building was a relic, its white paint peeling like sunburned skin, and the steeple tilted just slightly, as if weary of holding up the sky. Marcus, who never showed fear, stopped mid-stride, his eyes locked on the stained glass window above the entrance. ‘You feel that?’ he asked, his voice barely above a whisper. I felt nothing but the evening chill, but his face was pale, and he clutched his recorder like a talisman. Before I could answer, he crossed the street, his steps deliberate, and I had no choice but to follow.

Inside, the air was thick with the smell of old wood and candle wax. The pews were worn smooth, and the altar was draped in a moth-eaten cloth. Marcus walked to the center aisle and stood there, his head tilted as if listening to something I couldn’t hear. ‘It’s not the town noise,’ he said, his brow furrowed. ‘It’s… a hymn. Faint, but I can almost make out the words.’ I raised my own recorder, but all I captured was the creak of the floorboards and the distant hum of traffic. Marcus, however, was adamant. He started humming a melody I didn’t recognize, and his eyes grew wide. ‘This is what the ghost sang when I asked it to communicate,’ he said, his voice shaking. ‘I didn’t even realize I was humming it.’

We set up our equipment near the chancel, forgoing the fort we’d planned to investigate. The sun had fully set, and the church’s interior was swallowed by darkness, lit only by our flashlights. Marcus was unusually quiet, occasionally murmuring questions into his recorder. The usual white noise was absent, replaced by an unnerving stillness. Then, around midnight, the stained glass window began to glow—not from any external light, but from within. The colors swirled like liquid, and the faces of the saints depicted seemed to contort. Marcus dropped his recorder, his mouth open. ‘It’s not the glass,’ he said, pointing a trembling finger. ‘It’s the light behind it, but there’s nothing back there.’

I walked to the window, and as I approached, I heard it: a low, rhythmic thrumming, like a heartbeat, emanating from the wall. I pressed my palm to the glass, and it was cold, unnaturally so. Then, the thrumming grew louder, and the window’s images shifted into a scene of a lynching—hooded figures, a tree, and a body swaying. Marcus was shouting behind me, but his voice seemed distant, muffled by the thrum. The temperature plummeted, and my breath fogged in front of me. I tried to pull my hand away, but it was stuck, as if the glass had become adhesive. The scene in the window grew more vivid, and I could hear cries for mercy, the crack of a whip, and the final snap of a rope.

Just as I thought I’d pass out from the cold, the thrumming ceased, and the window returned to its benign depiction of Christ with outstretched arms. My hand came free, and I stumbled back, gasping. Marcus was on his knees, his face buried in his hands. He looked up at me, and his eyes were bloodshot. ‘I saw it,’ he said, his voice hoarse. ‘I saw the faces of the congregation that day. They were singing a hymn, but it was a song of hate.’ He pulled out his recorder and played back the session. Instead of our questions and the ambient noise, there was a single, clear voice—an old woman’s—singing the same hymn Marcus had hummed, but with lyrics we didn’t know. ‘They’re still here,’ Marcus whispered. ‘They’re stuck, just like we are now.’

We fled the church, but no matter how far we drove, the hymn followed us, playing on a loop in our heads. We couldn’t agree on whether it was a haunt or a curse, but both of us felt it: a pull back to that stained glass sentinel. The church had witnessed the worst of frontier justice, and it wasn’t finished with its witnesses. As I write this, I can hear Marcus humming that hymn in the next room, his face gaunt, his fingers tapping a rhythm on the wall. I don’t know if we’re haunted or just trapped, but I know one thing: we never did check out that fort, and now, I suspect we never will.