The Lychgate Read online

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  All around the churchyard, deciduous leaves turned to a warm blend of red, orange and gold. The bareness of their tree canopies accompanied shortening days as an omen of darkness and old life ending. Were it not for the yew and other evergreens dotted here and there about the churchyard, Pastor Gilbert’s depression might have been inconsolable. He never expected such a small community to bounce straight back after losing its eldest male child. But now all faith, energy and enthusiasm for the future seemed to have followed the light and warmth of summer into formless oblivion. As a man with strong leanings toward the Celtic Christian tradition of worship - with its acknowledgement of profound spirituality and parallel religious traditions - All Hallows Eve bore special significance. He didn’t celebrate it. The community showed no drive for a knees-up this year, at any rate. Yet a growing unease led the man of God out of his caravan, through the lychgate and up to the church on that evening. A night light flame flickered behind the glass of a hexagonal lantern, hanging loose in his grip. Its pathetic glow lit up the immediate path at his feet and little else. Off to his left in the darkness, Gilbert knew the mound covering that young body stood as a reminder of their recent tragedy. Still, he felt an element of responsibility for the boy’s death. The sturdy church door opened in his hand with a faint creak. Despite recently oiled hinges, their damp local climate already fought back against the industrious renovations of his flock. A fresh drizzle blew across his neck as the minister slipped inside. He shivered. Lord, deliver us from rain and evil on a night like this. It was a curious thought: Halloween; the night when the veil between the worlds of the living and dead became thinnest. Gilbert decided it was pointless to attempt sifting truth from superstition. How could he know which was which? Instead, passing the night in a sacrifice of prayer for the beloved souls in his care, felt like a worthwhile endeavour. Whatever the reality buried in all that myth, it couldn’t hurt to ask God to help them all. If something didn’t change soon, he suspected the community would break up and fail. Hadn’t the Lord led them here in the first place? He paused at the altar to light a candle on either side. The church remained under a cloak of shadows. Occasional flickers from the spluttering wicks caused fingers of light to stroke the stone slabs of floor tombs in the aisle and nave. Gilbert rested the night light lantern on the flagstones beside a front pew and knelt on a cushion to pray.

  The words wouldn’t come or felt redundant. He’d asked God for the same things, day in, day out, for the last few weeks. What he needed was faith, not repetition. Oh, for the mustard seed faith that moves mountains.

  One of the brass candle sticks toppled off the altar with a clatter. The impact extinguished its flame, darkening an already near pitch-black church interior. Gilbert looked up from folded hands clasped before his face. There’s no breeze in here that I can feel. Must have knocked it when I lit them. His mouth went dry. The other candlestick slid along the altar top, under its own steam. It teetered on the edge, then toppled with the same outcome as its predecessor. The minister swiped up his lantern with both hands, as if it were a precious baby. He let go with singed fingers, catching the handle in time to stop it smashing into the floor. Its tiny light swung in a pendulum of illumination that caught the edge of the altar. The ankles of a pair of young legs appeared in the last two sweeps. The minister rose on uneasy pins. He eased out of the pew into the aisle and held the lantern forward. “Who’s there?” The tremor in his voice caused a sarcastic inner critic to lambast him. God’s man of faith and power, is now God’s man of paste and flour. The building remained silent. Gilbert took two hesitant steps closer. The feet before the altar became visible on the edge of his weak cone of light. They belonged to a child, from the size of them. With each half-step, the sweeping glow spread upwards to reveal a boy of familiar dress. The minister gasped as two lifeless eyes stared through him from a pallid face. “How can it be?” Gilbert reached his free hand out to touch the form of the drowned boy he’d buried. The phantasm vanished as if at the flick of a switch. The man stumbled forward into the altar, smashing his lantern and extinguishing the final source of light. From the porch door at the other end of the building, a low, malevolent cackle broke the stillness like sudden static. It wasn’t a boy's voice. This sounded like a man, yet twisted and evil. Plain mockery and hatred in its laugh sliced through Gilbert’s courage with effortless power. A pale green glow emanated from the back of the aisle. The pulsing light grew with a throbbing intensity that matched an increasing volume and echo in the grim laughter. Gilbert span and lost his footing to land on shards of glass from the broken lantern. The pain of their lacerations dulled to nothing at the approaching, semi-translucent apparition before him. It was there and not there at the same time, yet the fear it induced remained potent and present. Like a child desperate to ward off some nearby source of terror, his bent arms raised in front of his face. Two glowing green orbs like eyes zoomed forward with a rush, visible in the gap through which he couldn’t resist staring. The community founder let out an unrestrained scream.

  “Who’s there? Sweetheart, is that you?” Grace lifted her head off the caravan pillow next to her husband. She propped her upper torso on one arm and squinted in the darkness. A battery powered LED torch she kept by their bed for emergencies, clicked on in the gloom. Her daughter stood motionless in a white nightdress, hair hanging forward across her down-turned head. “What’s the matter, petal? Was it a bad dream?” The head raised into the full glare of the torch beam. The girl’s eyes rolled back, exposing only the whites. Grace rubbed her own eyes in disbelief. She flicked the light back and forth in hopeless arcs. An attempt to dispel any reflection on her daughter’s pupils, like those of an animal in car headlights. No effect. The girl’s mouth lowered. She slurred out a phrase in tones far below the pitch possible for a female her age. “Join the congregation.” A flash of fear rippled in the mother’s chest. She tapped her husband.

  Thomas groaned. “What is it, Grace?”

  “Thomas. Wake up.”

  The man turned onto his side. “I’m tired. Tell me in the morning.”

  Grace lifted a glass of water from the shelf by their fold-down mattress and sloshed it across his face.

  “What the heck?” Thomas sat bolt upright, fighting with the covers. His anger subsided the moment he followed his wife’s terrified gaze to the figure of their daughter with her rolled-back eyes.

  The child spoke again in that unearthly timbre. “Join. Join the congregation.”

  Thomas sat speechless with Grace’s fingernails digging into his right forearm.

  In the darkness of the fens, a woman wailed. “Somebody come quick. Pastor Gilbert has collapsed. He might have had a heart attack.”

  A commotion kicked up outside.

  Thomas extricated himself from the tense grip of his spouse. He swallowed hard and clambered across her to stagger towards his daughter.

  The child blinked and appeared her normal self. “Dad? Mum? I had the weirdest dream.” She looked around. “Was I sleepwalking?”

  Grace rushed to her side and hugged the girl tight.

  A fist hammered on the caravan door.

  Thomas whipped it open to find himself face to face with Mark. The signature, laid-back expression had evaporated from his visage, replaced with a fear the carpenter had never seen there before. “What’s going on?”

  “Get everyone dressed. We need to leave.”

  “What?”

  “Will you come to the church with me to fetch Pastor Gilbert?”

  “Huh? Mark, if this is some kind of Halloween prank, it’s in poor taste. Our kid just woke us up with a freaky scare.”

  Mark grabbed his arm and pulled Thomas out of the caravan. “See for yourself.” He pointed towards the churchyard.

  Thomas rubbed the gooseflesh of his opposite arms at the sudden effect of October night air on his semi-naked torso. The shivering didn’t abate once he caught sight of wispy, glowing shapes floating and wandering amongst the gr
aves. “Oh my God.”

  Mark stuttered. “I’d say we need God right now, don’t you?”

  Kelly raced into their neighbours’ caravan. A hysterical exchange arose between her and Grace as they peered out the rear window.

  Thomas took a breath, reached through the doorway and pulled out a jacket. He clapped the other man on the shoulder, unsure whether it was for Mark’s encouragement or his. “All right. What happened to Pastor Gilbert?”

  “Mary Jacobs heard a cry from the church. She rushed in and found him collapsed at the altar. It was on her way back that all this started happening. Once she woke us up, one look outside was enough.” Mark indicated the aimless, spectral figures as the two men darted through the lychgate. He flashed a broad, high-powered battery torch beam from side to side. “I don’t know what’s going on, but I’ll be damned if I’m staying here tonight. Kelly's warming up the car. We’ll drive Pastor Gilbert to hospital. Maybe he’s unconscious?”

  They raced up the path to the church. Inside, the minister lay sprawled on his back amidst the shattered remains of a night light lantern. Both eyes remained open and bulging like saucers, his mouth wide in a soundless scream now his soul candle had also been extinguished.

  “Scratch that.” Mark observed the lifeless gaze staring up at him. “We’ll take him to hospital, anyway. Kelly and I can come back for the caravan in the morning.”

  A woman’s scream rang out in the churchyard.

  Mark flashed the beam down the aisle towards the empty doorway. “If we come back at all.”

  Dead weight from the lifeless shepherd of souls borne between their shoulders, the friends staggered out into the churchyard again. A curling white mist thickened around the graves. Flickering shapes formed out of the darkness, their intention no longer aimless. Focus shifted upon the two men, hurrying as best they could towards the lychgate with the dead body a curious, middle party. Beyond the boundary, Kelly revved the engine of their beaten-up Ford Sierra. Grace drew up alongside in their minivan; a terrified, twelve-year-old face gawping from the rear window.

  Thomas fought to control rapid breathing from exertion and fear. “Let’s put him in ours. More room.”

  “Gotcha.” Mark cast one rapid glance back over his shoulder. The ghostly throng were drawing closer. “Oh shit. Thomas, what the heck is going on?”

  “Worry about it later. Let’s hustle.”

  They doubled their pace and thundered out of the churchyard.

  Thomas rolled back the sliding door of the minivan. Its squealing rear passenger recoiled and Grace gasped as the two men hauled Pastor Gilbert’s corpse across a seat. The door slid shut and Thomas jumped in the front next to his wife. Five more vehicles rumbled past. Mark gave them a thumbs up as Kelly gunned the Sierra and peeled out like a rally car at Monte Carlo. Grace tried the same thing. The wheels of the minivan spun, but found no purchase. The back end slipped to one side with zero forward progress. Lateral motion was all she could achieve in repeated attempts. They were going nowhere - fast.

  “Easy. You’ll dig us in,” Thomas shouted.

  Grace struggled to apply fewer revs. The vehicle remained fixed.

  Thomas threw open the front passenger door. “Lord, help us.” He slipped round to open the rear tailgate. His frantic fingers gripped onto some worn and splitting carpet mats he’d once stuffed in there with little thought. Fifty yards away, spectral figures wandered through the lychgate towards them.

  Grace screamed. “Thomas. Thomas.” She gunned the engine again. Clods of mud splattered her husband from head to toe.

  “Stop.” Thomas banged on the vehicle bodywork. The engine stilled. He dropped to his knees, ripped the carpet mats asunder and stuffed them around the rear wheels for grip. “Slowly.” The man hopped back in beside his wife. The minivan edged forward, found traction and kept rolling. Thomas glanced in his door mirror in time to see the torso-like apparitions reach the patch he had knelt in, less than a minute before.

  “Can you see them?” Kelly dipped her main beam. Extra light only reflected off a swirling fog bank to hinder rather than help their escape. She eased off the accelerator. Ahead of them, red tail lights of the other five cars pulled further away.

  Mark twisted round in his seat. “Do you think they’re stuck?”

  Kelly joined him for a split second. When she swivelled her attention back to driving, the empty-eyed stare of their dead son’s form blocked the road. The woman screamed and tugged the wheel clockwise to avoid hitting the boy. Their Sierra careened down the bank of a drainage channel, bounced on a protruding rock and flipped. Its engine roared, free-spinning wheels mingling with cries from the vehicle’s occupants. The car landed submerged upside down in deep, freezing water. Cold shock stung the couple inside like a thousand needles. The vertiginous, v-shaped bank of the tight channel clamped all four doors shut. The car lay wedged underwater. Mark and Kelly panicked and kicked in the smothering muddy depths. There was no air and no way out of the black, watery tomb. Their last memories were of each other’s flailing limbs bumping together in one final, hopeless desire to cling on to life.

  On the misty track above, a minivan raced past toward the stone bridge leading to freedom. Thomas reached round to squeeze his daughter’s icy leg. The cold of fear almost made her feel as numb as the bouncing corpse of their departed minister on the last seat. His jostling body rocked with every bump in the thoroughfare, tongue lolling out in the manner of a thirsty puppy dog. Grace left the single track, and they emerged onto a tarmac road. The surface evened out. Her trembling hands shifted up a gear. Huge, terrified eyes stole a glance at her husband. “I don’t care what we’ve left behind in that place. I’m not going back there. Ever.”

  2

  The Saint

  AD 699.

  “Good morning, Brother Guthlac. Have you been at prayer long?” a novice monk rose from his straw mattress in one corner of the dark barrow. A persistent mist reached deep into the man’s lungs. He coughed with a rattling chest. These wet, inland islets on the eastern edge of the country were purgatory to the respiratory system.

  A tonsured, twenty-six-year-old holy man rose from his knees, face almost aglow with serenity. “How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard?”

  The scriptural rebuke from Proverbs 6, caused his companion to hang his head in shame. “But the sun is not yet up. Not that we’ll enjoy much of it at this time of the year, amongst the damp.”

  “Are you sorry you came with me from Repton Abbey, Beccelm?” Guthlac exchanged a heartfelt hug with his helper.

  “No, Brother. It was the Lord’s will that I accompany you. What are our discomforts and tribulations compared with His?”

  Guthlac adjusted a garment of animal skins, symbol of his abstinence and asceticism. The pair moved up from the cistern where they slept and prayed. The hovel descended beneath a mound of clods and earth, once plundered by grave robbers hoping to acquire treasure. Above them, a simple hut completed their basic oratory for seclusion and prayer on the island of Croyland.

  “Will you not take some breakfast?” Beccelm asked. “I worry at the fevers you have endured of late.”

  “My vows are firm, my will resolute.” Guthlac raised a stern warning hand not to press the matter.

  “But a scrap of barley bread and a cup of muddy water after sunset, cannot keep body and soul together for long.”

  Guthlac sighed. “I know your motives are pure and born of love, Brother. But what is a long time on this earth if spent in disobedience to Our Lord?”

  Beccelm let it go. “Yes, my Brother.”

  Guthlac stepped out beneath a greying sky, as if the black of night were being diluted by the wetness which clung to every surface. The first fingers of dawn clawed their way over the eastern horizon. “In a vision during prayer, St. Bartholomew told me to venture out in the boat today.”

  “Where are we going?” Beccelm’s young face presented a picture of excitement.

  Guthlac placed both hands on his shoulder
s. “I’m going northeast. You are to spend the day in devotion and study. I’ll return before nightfall.”

  Beccelm’s head sank again. “Yes, Brother.”

  Guthlac smiled. “Now then. I’ll need a faithful believer to stand with me in prayer while I’m gone. Who knows what dangers await in the islands of mist?”

  Beccelm shrugged. “The Lord kept you safe during your campaigns as a soldier in Æthelred’s army-”

  Guthlac interrupted. “Ah, but I wasn’t a soldier of Christ then; with the hordes of hell baying for my blood. You may not be safe here in intercession, if the dark one feels hindered by your prayers.”