As the Father Wills (Short Story)

I never understood my dad. Pastor Elias Ward wasn’t the kind of father who said “I love you” very often. He didn’t toss a football or laugh at dumb movies. He didn’t show up to my debate finals. He just… quoted Scripture. Disciplined like thunder. Prayed like every second mattered more than I did.

He was always tired. Always distracted. Always somewhere else, even when he was in the room.

So when I turned seventeen, I snapped. “You’re not a father,” I shouted. “You’re a prison warden!”

He didn’t yell back. He never yelled at me. He just looked at me—like he’d already lost something—and handed me a key.

“To the church basement?” I scoffed.

“No,” he said. “To the truth.”

I thought he was being dramatic.

The next morning, he was gone. No note, no bags, no goodbye—just vanished like a ghost that finally gave up pretending to be flesh.

Everyone said he just abandoned us, but Mom refused to believe he would do that. The police looked. The church tried to fill his shoes. The pulpit sat empty longer than it should have.

And I hated him for it—for leaving, for being cold, for making me carry his name.

Then one night—three months later—I finally went down into the church basement. I don’t know why. Perhaps I thought I would find answers there.

It did.

The key still sat on my desk. I took it, like it had been waiting.

Behind the boiler, there was a door I’d never seen, rusted shut. But the key turned like it was a brand-new door.

Inside… was not a storage room. It was a study, dust thick like fog. Bibles, sure—but older books too. Bound in leather and… something else. A charred cross hung over a circle of salt carved into the concrete. A journal sat on the desk, cracked open like it had been read over and over again.

I read the first few sentences: I am the watcher. My call is not merely comfort, but containment. Evil does not slumber. I have kept it beneath the altar, bound in prayer and fasting. Until my beloved son is ready.

I laughed. Actually laughed out loud. “He’s insane!” I declared.

Then the church groaned. The rafters above creaked. Not like old wood, but like something moving.

That night, I dreamed of him. My dad. He stood behind the altar, eyes sunken, lips chapped from fasting.

He was crying. I’ve never seen him cry before.

“Honor me now,” he whispered. “Stand where I stood. Keep it bound.”

I woke up gasping, salt on my palms and Scripture on my tongue.

I thought I hated him for not hugging me, for not playing catch, for hardly ever saying “I love you.”

But he was busy, and for the first time I saw it wasn’t neglectful busyness. He was busy guarding something. Something older than the congregation. Older than the town. Something underneath.

And now? Now it’s my turn.

I haven’t left the basement in three nights. I pray, I fast, I read his words again and again. The salt keeps the voices out—for now.

I finally understand him. He wasn’t unloving. He was bleeding himself dry so the rest of us could sleep. So, if this gets out and you find this… Please. If the salt circle is broken, don’t step inside. Don’t pick up the cross. And don’t open the door beneath the altar. Not unless you’re ready to die guarding it too.