We found the church keys inside a Ziploc bag of table salt.
Mara said, “Don’t— don’t touch it like that,” but she was already holding it, the plastic puckered with damp, the metal shapes pressing like bones against the clear.
It wasn’t our church. It was the one by the overpass with the LED sign that kept glitching—PRAY ER NI GHT—PRAY ER NI GHT—like it was stuttering.
“Who salts keys?” Jonah asked. He was smiling the way he does when he’s about to throw up.
There was a note folded into the bag. Grease-stained. Not handwriting. More like the letters were pressed too hard, like they’d been carved through the paper with a dying pen.
BRING THEM BACK WARM.
We didn’t call anyone. That’s the part that feels rehearsed now, like we’d been waiting for instructions.
The church smelled like old raincoats and coins. The lights were on but humming wrong. Wet-static in the ceiling. The sanctuary was empty except for a crockpot on the altar. Plugged in. Breathing steam.
Mara said, “This is stupid. This is like— someone’s filming.”
Jonah lifted the lid.
I didn’t look at first. I heard it. A soft, shifting knock. Not metal. Not wood. Something softer, bumping the ceramic.
He said, “They’re teeth.”
I said, “Stop.”
He said it again, like correcting himself. “They’re— they’re warm.”
The salt bag felt heavier in my hand. The keys had gone slick. I realized the salt wasn’t dry. It was clumping, sticking to my fingers like sugar on fruit.
Mara started laughing, but it was airless. “Okay. So. Okay. We put them back. That’s what it says.”
“Back where?” I asked.
She didn’t answer. She was looking at the communion rail.
There were grooves in the wood. Dozens. Small, neat crescents. Like someone had pressed their mouth against it over and over and over.
Jonah reached into the crockpot.
I swear to you he didn’t mean to. He kept saying that later. “I just wanted to check.” Like you check bathwater.
His shoulders went tight. His jaw moved once. Twice.
“Spit it out,” Mara whispered. “Jonah. Spit it out.”
He didn’t. He swallowed.
I don’t know why we followed. Maybe because he looked so relieved.
The teeth were different sizes. Some with silver caps. One with a pink thread still clinging to the root.
They were salted. Tender. Almost sweet.
Mara gagged but kept chewing. “It’s not— it’s not that bad,” she said, crying through it. “It’s like cartilage. It’s like—”
The humming got louder. The LED sign outside flickered through the stained glass, painting our faces red, then white, then red again.
BRING THEM BACK WARM.
We understood too late that it didn’t mean the keys.
By the time the pastor unlocked the doors the next morning, the crockpot was empty, and the communion rail had three new crescents carved into it, still glossy, still human.
