The lengths that I will go in order to take a good picture. I have such a fascination with taking the perfect photo, and I love the satisfaction of perfectly capturing my surroundings. Every year, my town held a photo taking contest with a prize of $10,000. My grandfather loved to take photos, and gave me his camera when he passed away. If I could win this contest, it would be a way of honoring his memory. The contest looks for a picture that captures both beauty and depth, and that intrigues its viewers. This year I was determined to win. I realized that in order to do so, I would need to find the perfect location. After researching parks that are great for photo taking, I decided to plan a trip to this park that I had read about online called Rethguals park. It intrigued me because it had a fascinating history. Supposedly, there have been reports of spiritual encounters or incidents there, as it is described to be old and full of history. I have never been one to believe in the supernatural, so it didn’t bother me much. I figured it might be the perfect place to find both beauty and mystery. I called my friend Jack and asked him to come with me, figuring that he would be a good accomplice, and that the trip might bring us together. He agreed, as spooky, “supernatural” things are something that he is very interested in. 

The next weekend, Jack and I started on our way to Rethguals park. Jack has been my friend since college, and we have stayed in touch ever since. Recently, I have been feeling differently around him, realizing that he would fit into my life perfectly in a romantic way rather than just in a friendly way. However, I have no idea what he is thinking or if he has ever even thought about our relationship like that. Either way, I was excited to see him today because we haven’t seen each other in a month. 

Jack picked me up in his old Ford that huffed smoke as it trucked along around 12pm. Jack had dusty brown hair that was unkempt and he wore glasses which covered dark green eyes. He had a comforting way about him, as he was easy to talk to. After about an hour of driving, we finally arrived at the park. By then, it was 1:00pm. The park was a lot bigger than I had thought, but it was just as beautiful as I had hoped. The trees were all different shades of red, orange and yellow, and the leaves fell gracefully as we walked through the park. Jack and I both stared in awe at the scenery, sharing a serene moment together.
“This place doesn’t seem so scary at all,” Jack said. 

“This place is so pretty I would want to deter strangers as well.” I said. 

“Let’s keep walking though, maybe there is more here than meets the eye” Jack suggested. A little while later, we came across a road in the distance. 

“Hey Allie, check this out- why would there be a road in the middle of the woods?” Jack asked. We decided to see where it led. Soon enough, we were standing in front of a giant, old house that was in shambles. It was almost fully overgrown with bushes and the wood at the top of the house caved into a big hole and looked as though it was struck by a meteor. My stomach dropped at the sight. Maybe there is something sinister here after all. Or maybe, it’s just an abandoned house, there are abandoned houses everywhere and they don’t cause any harm. 

“Maybe now I could believe something bad happened here” Jack said with a cruel excitement. 

The house looked to be almost a hundred years old, and it was adorned with graffiti and broken objects all around it. The graffiti was unsettling, it looked like some kind of ancient scripture, and it made me feel slightly uneasy. There was a small shed on the side of it, which was just as overgrown and old looking. As we traipsed passed it, following the road, we stopped and stared in shock as we stepped into a whole village of abandoned houses. 

It looked as though each house had a different purpose. As if they all had different personalities when they were lived in and were now sour phantoms haunting the village. They were all equally run down and covered in Earth and eerie graffiti symbols, but I could tell that they were part of some kind of school system. There was an old, rusty basketball court on the side of one house, and another house seemed to have desks and even old books in it. All of this, I got from looking from the outside, and I didn’t know if I should dare to go in. 

“We HAVE to go in one of these” Jack urged. 

“Are you joking? This place is already creepy enough!” I scoffed. Although I didn’t want to admit it, the more we walked, the more of an uneasiness I started to feel. Something in me seemed to be telling me that I shouldn’t be here. 

“Maybe we should get going now. It’s almost four and It will be dark by five. We should probably make it out of the park before dark.” As I said it, my stomach dropped thinking about being here after the sun was down. 

“We have plenty of time. When are we ever going to find something like this again? This is the perfect place for you to take pictures!” Jack persuaded. Something about his persuasion calmed me, and I did want to make him happy. I decided to look at the bright side, and as the fear went away, I realized just how beautiful this abandoned village really was. I took a ton of pictures of the historic looking buildings and marveled at their beauty. The path that snaked through the old village was narrow and had trees surrounding it on all sides. It was a beautiful Fall day but the leaves fell cautiously to the ground as if they were afraid of what awaited them. As we kept walking, there were eerie noises coming from the brush around us. Each time I looked, I noticed either a bird or a squirrel, but for some reason it did not help the uneasy feeling inside of me. As we neared the end of the road, there was a church standing by its lonesome in the distance. 

“Now that has got to be haunted. Let’s check it out!” Exclaimed Jack. Although the thought of getting any closer to it made me feel sick, I could not let Jack know how scared I was, so I followed him as he ran over to the eerie old church. The church was absolutely gorgeous. It looked to be as old as time itself, and full of endless secrets and stories. It just looked as though it was daring you to come inside and see what was in there. 

Jack slowed to a walk as he neared the entrance and took a few steps back while looking up. I caught up to him to see what he was looking at. Above the door to the church, there was a giant bees nest, swarming with angry looking bees. And right behind the bees nest was another threatening symbol. It was almost as if the bees were guarding the church, attempting to keep trespassers away from its secrets. 

“I definitely don’t like the look of this. This has got to be a sign that we shouldn’t be here” I insisted. I could also just feel the evil energy radiating off of the place, but at the same time I was intrigued by it. I took out my camera and snapped a picture of it. It was just the perfect scene. I thought about how much my grandfather would love such a perfect photo. The rustic old church is sure to win that photo contest, even in the picture, there is something so sinister but alluring about it. 

“Can we please just go inside at least one of them?” Jack pleaded. 

Even though I was so drawn to it, the bad energy I was getting from the church overtook my curiosity. 

“Fine- but just definitely not this one,” I compromised.  As we walked away from the church I started to hear more noises in the woods around us, but maybe It was just because I was thinking about it. I jumped at every leaf crunch and turned at every twig snap. 

“Hey, how about this one?” Jack pointed to a house that looked less scary than the others, but still nothing in me felt comfortable about going inside of it. As we walked toward it, I noticed something on the ground that made my stomach drop. 

“Jack…I don’t like this,” I said, starting to panic. 

“Allie, what are you so scared of?”

I pointed to it on the ground. 

“Allie, that’s a shoe.” 

At this moment, my fear was matched with my feelings of stupidity. Yes, it was only a shoe. But It was just one shoe, by itself. How could that out of place shoe just sit there so confidently on the gravel path as if it belonged there? 

“I know I sound silly right now but why is there just one shoe laying there?” It wasn’t even an old ratty shoe, it was a clean, white, unstained new shoe. That realization made me even more nauseous because for what good reason would someone leave a brand new shoe on the ground unless it was as a distraction or for something sinister? 

“I don’t know- kids will leave their shoes anywhere. Telephone wire, old abandoned house, same difference.” Jack picked up the shoe and looked inside of it. 

“Don’t touch that! Are you crazy?” I shouted, making Jack drop the shoe, startled. 

“What do you mean? I’m just checking to see if there is anything interesting inside of it.” He explained. 

“I just feel like there is no good reason for there to be a shoe out here by itself. Let’s just keep going.” Ever since I laid eyes on that church I have developed a headache. Seeing that shoe seemed to make it worse. We finally came across another house, this time a beautiful mansion. This house was set apart from the others because although it was old, abandoned and broken down, it seemed less sinister than the others. At the very edge of the property there was a slanted fire hydrant. I wondered about what could have caused such a heavy piece of metal to take on such a slant. That, just as the rest of the village, was covered in graffiti, as if graffiti defined mystery. 

“Okay, this one we definitely have to check out,” Jack said, looking at me for my permission with pleading eyes. 

“Fine, this one seems alright,” I agreed, succumbing to the tricks of his eyes. 

We started off the road into the tall, unkempt grass, and walked through it for about a minute until we finally reached the doors of the mansion. The mansion was large and was made of stone, although the stone was covered in green vines and weeds. The windows were all shattered and the ones that weren’t adorned with broken glass shards were barred off. The door was white but covered in graffiti and profanity. There was debris all over the front stairs, broken pipes and pieces of wood. We were careful to avoid stepping on anything that might cause tetanus. Jack pushed the door open and it slowly started to swing open with a loud creak that lasted long enough to build up a great deal of suspense. Once the door was fully open, Jack and I precariously stepped into the house. It was dark, but illuminated with the light of the setting sun through the various shattered windows. I took out my phone to use as a flashlight to avoid stepping in anything that I did not want piercing my shoe. Surprisingly, the inside looked a lot different than the outside. There wasn’t any graffiti on the walls, and it almost looked as though it was untouched since the 1800s. I noticed a dining room on the right, and what looked like the entrance to a kitchen on the left. In the middle, there stood a grand staircase with two sides of stairs coming together in the middle at the top. The staircase was chaperoned by a golden rail, as if it was inviting one to join some magnificent party. 

“This place is amazing,” Jack sighed. “There’s got to be a ton of old artifacts and antiques in here!” 

Jack decided to check out the ground floor, but I felt as though I was being drawn upstairs. I followed the crescent shaped staircase until I reached the top. There was not one creak under my feet, and each step looked perfectly polished. When I reached the second floor, I was met with a beautiful hallway lit only by the glow of the sun. The sun highlighted old paintings on the wall and cobwebs formed in the corners of the ceiling. The hallway had three doors, and I decided to pursue the one in the middle. I opened the old, white, french doors and was met with a breathtaking sight. There stood an old bed with silk sheets untouched and a golden headboard. The furniture in the room looked priceless, each carefully carved to fit the ambiance of the room. I took out my camera again to take a few more pictures when I heard Jack yell from downstairs, 

“Allie I’m going to wait outside for you,” I heard Jack yell, along with something else inaudible. 

“Okay,” I responded, too entranced by my photo taking to say anything more. I took a few more pictures of the room and then I started to look through the ones I had already taken. The room was just as beautiful in the picture as it was in person. I felt as though I will have many great contenders to submit to the contest now. When I clicked through to the picture I had taken at the old church, I felt my heart stop beating. 

I almost dropped the camera when I noticed in the picture there was a dark figure in the window of the church. My blood ran cold as I looked closer realizing, it was not just a shadow and that it had a face and a body and I immediately knew that it did not have good intentions. Suddenly, I felt as though I had taken off my rose colored glasses, and the mansion no longer felt like a safe place. My headache started to come back, and this time it was worse. I knew immediately that I needed to get out of this place- not just the mansion, I needed to get out of this park. I ran out of the room and down the stairs and ran to the door. I just needed to get to Jack and then we could get the hell out of this place. I threw the doors open and stepped outside. The sun had just almost set, and the golden horizon was the only light left in the sky. I immediately cursed myself for letting us be here this long, now we will have to navigate ourselves out of this terrifying place in the dark. My panic started to increase again as I realized that Jack was nowhere to be found. 

“Jack?!” I yelled, panic consuming my chest. There was no answer, and it was getting darker by the minute. 

“Jack, we need to leave right now!” I yelled anxiously, almost tearing up. There still was no answer. My head was beginning to pound and quickly became aligned with the rapid beat of my heart. I ran through the thick grass guarding the mansion and into the road. I noticed the shoe that I had seen earlier, but it looked slightly darker. I took out my flashlight again and got a closer look just to see that the shoe was now facing the direction of the old church down the road, and that it was now covered in a satanic symbol, which looked to have been drawn in blood. In that moment my blood ran cold and I quickly stepped back just to fall backwards onto the road. At this moment, everything in me was telling me to get out of this place, to run and never look back. I stood up, ready to run like my instincts were screaming at me to do, but I knew that I couldn’t leave Jack behind. I had to go find him. With my heart now in my throat, I started running to where everything in me was telling me to run away from. I couldn’t think. If I let myself think, I knew I would turn around. If I let myself think, I might just have a heart attack from fear. Instead, I started counting as I ran. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. I counted my footsteps as I ran. As I finally reached the church, my legs and hands were shaking. The bees nest was angrier than It had been earlier, almost as if it served as a final warning to those who attempted to enter. I went around the back, looking for another entrance. The only other entrance I found was a door to the cellar on the ground, which was chained off. It was probably for the best because there was no way I was going to go down there. I found a broken glass window on the other side of the church, took off my jacket to put it around the glass edges, and then climbed in. It was pitch black in the church besides a light coming from the very back which I could not make out. I hoped to God that Jack was somewhere in here, alive. Although I wanted to shout his name, something in the back of my mind told me to be as quiet as possible, because I felt as though I was not alone anymore. As I climbed through the window, I cautiously placed my foot on what I made out to be a wooden pew. Once in the church, I took out my flashlight and noticed that there were rows and rows of old, broken down pews. There were all kinds of satanic symbols written on the walls and on the pews. I don’t think my head has ever hurt more than it did at this moment. I could hear the buzzing of the bees through the walls of the church, seemingly growing louder. I cautiously crept towards the light in the back of the church, my heart feeling as though it was going to beat out of my chest. I finally reached the door from which the light was illuminating from and I slowly opened it. I had to cover my mouth from screaming when I saw Jack lying unconscious in the middle of a makeshift satanic ritual site, the same symbol around him that I found on the shoe. There was blood in a circle around him that must’ve been drawn from his bleeding hand. I ran over to him, picked up his head and started shaking him awake, crying. “Jack, wake up!” I shouted in the quietest way possible, terrified of drawing over whatever set up this ritual. Relief washed over me as Jack's eyes opened slowly. 

“Allie? What’s going on?” Jack asked, his now open eyes filling with fear. 

“We need to get out of here right now,” I answered, quickly pulling him to his feet. The symbols in the ritual seemed to glow in steady beats, as if drawing off of our energy. I did not understand what I had come across, but all I knew was that we needed to get as far away from it as possible. 

I navigated through the church with Jack, trying my hardest to ignore the whispers and shadows around us and the pounding of my heat. We reached the broken window I had used to enter through and just as I was about to climb out, I turned to see the figure that I recognized from the picture I had taken. Without a second thought, I jumped down from the window, grabbed Jack, and broke into a run. As we ran, I began to hear loud noises behind us that sounded angry. I had a feeling that I had just disrupted an important ritual to something extremely sinister. We kept running and neither of us dared to look back. After what felt like forever, Jack and I finally arrived at the entrance of the park and jumped in the car. I immediately locked the doors. As soon as we realized we were safe, we immediately embraced each other. Jack pulled away, his eyes reflecting the crazy night we had just shared. “Allie, I have no idea what happened out there, but I wouldn't be here without you” 

So many different emotions suddenly flooded over me when I met his warm gaze and then pulled him in again. “I am really grateful you came with me” I said, tears of relief forming in my eyes. This horrible night has become something that brought Jack and I together, forming a bond from memories that neither of us could ever forget. I felt a mix of solace and uneasiness as we drove away from Rethguals Park. I didn’t know if I could ever look at my camera again, let alone submit any picture to the contest. A feeling came over me telling me that the entity now forever in my camera was not meant to be released to the public eye, and I realized that some things are better off left alone, and some pictures are better off left untaken.