Phil Rickman - The man in the moss

They were there; no question. But were they lying low, expecting him? Had they somehow heard him coming?

Sam pulled in a deep breath, drawing in rainwater and nearly choking. He stuck his finger under the trigger guard and went over the rise like a commando, stopping just the other side, legs splayed.

'All right, you fuckers!' he bawled. 'Nobody move!'

And nobody moved. Nothing. Not even a rabbit in the grass. Only the sound of the rain battering the bracken.

Holding the gun under his right arm, Sam fumbled for his torch, clicked it on, swirled the beam around, finding one, two, three, four, five stubby stones, a circle of thumbs jabbing out of the moor.

'Where are you? Fucking come out! I'll give you your bloody Satan!'

Not frightened now. Bloody mad. 'Come on!'

He thought about firing a shot into the bracken, case they were flattened out in there. But it wasn't likely, was it?

No, they'd gone. He switched off the torch, pushed it back in his pocket and did a 180-degree crouching turn, with the gun levelled.

Behind him, up on the moor, he glimpsed a fleeting white light. Didn't pause to think. Right. They're on the run. Move it.

Half-aware that he was departing from his own useless piece of moorland, Sam set off under a thickly clouded night sky with little light in it but an endless supply of black water; his jacket heavy with it and his faithful fishing hat, which once had been waterproof, now dripping round his ears like a mop rag.

He thought of his bed, and he thought of his kids and his wife, who he supposed he loved really, and he thought this was the stupidest bloody thing he'd do this year and maybe next, but…

… but them bastards were not going to get away with it, and that was that.

He tracked the light. Just one light, hazy, so probably a fair distance away. Heather under his boots now, waterlogged but better than the bracken, and the light was getting bigger; he was closing in, definitely, no question.

Two, three hundred yards distant, hard to be sure at night but the way the rain was coming down, crackling in the heather, there was no need to creep.

Sam strode vengefully onward.

Maybe it was due to forging on with his head down and his eyes slitted to keep the water out… maybe this was why Sam didn't realise for a few seconds that the light was actually coming, much more quickly, towards him.

A shapeless light. Bleary and steaming and coming at him through the rain… faster than a man could run.

'Hey…!' Sam stopped, gasping, then backed away, bewildered. His index finger tightened involuntarily and the gun went off, both barrels, and Sam stumbled, dropping it.

Something squelched and snagged around his ankle like a trap. He went down, caught hold of it – curved and hard – and realised, sickened, that he must have put his foot through the ribcage of a dead sheep.

Pulling at the foot, dragging the bones up with it, he saw the light was rising from the moor in front of him, misty and shimmering in the downpour.

And it seemed to him – soaked through, foot stuck in a sheep – that the light had a face, features forming and pulsing, a face veiled by a thin muslin curtain, the fabric sucked into a gaping mouth.

Sam's mouth was open too, now; he was screaming furiously into the rain, wrenching the torch from his pocket, thumbing numbly at its switch, until it spurted light, a brilliantly harsh directional beam making a white tunnel in the rain and mist, straight up into the face.

Where the tunnel of light ended suddenly. A beam designed to light up an object eighty yards away, and it shone as far as the rearing figure of light, a matter of four, five feet away. Where it died. In the beam, the figure of light turned into a shadow, a figure of darkness and cold.

'No…' Sam Davis wanted chanting townies in robes and masks. He wanted sick, stupid people. Wanted to see them dancing, getting pissed wet through. Wanted to hear them praying to the fucking Devil, with their fire hissing and smouldering in the rain. Didn't want this. Didn't want it. No.

When the shadow stretched and the torch beam began to shrivel, as if all the light had been sucked out, leaving only a thinly shining disc at the end of the torch, Sam felt his bowels give way.

All the rage and aggression slithered out of him like the guts of a slaughtered pig, and the void they left behind was filled with a cold, immobilizing fear. Lottie Castle came awake in swirling darkness.

Awakened by the cold air on her own body, exposed to the night, the sheets and blankets thrust away, her nightdress shed.

Her body was rolling about on the bed, drenched in sweat, arms and legs and stomach jerking and twitching with electricity, nipples rigid and hurting.

What's happening, what's happening?

She was ill. Her nervous system had finally rebelled against the months of agony and tension. She was sick, she was stricken. She needed help, she needed care. She should be taken away and cared for. She should not be alone like this, not here in this great shambling mausoleum.

Lottie began to pant with panic, feeling the twisted pillow sweat-soaked under her neck as it arched and swayed. She couldn't see anything, not her body, not the walls, nor even the outline of the window behind the thin curtains.

It couldn't be darker. But it wasn't silent.

And fright formed a layer of frost around Lottie's heart as she became aware that every muscle in her body was throbbing to the shrill, sick whinny of the Pennine Pipes, high on the night.

At 8 a.m., the Sunday sky hung low and glistened like the underside of a huge aircraft.

It didn't menace Joel Beard, God's warrior, skimming across the causeway, hands warm in his gauntlets, deep and holy thoughts protected inside his helmet, his leathers unzipped to expose the cross.

Nourished by little more than three hours' sleep at Chris and Chantal's place in Sheffield, he felt… well, reborn. Talked and prayed and cried and agonized until 2 a.m. Old chums, Chris and Chantal. Born Again brethren, still with the Church of the Angels of the New Advent. Still strong in their faith.

'I sometimes wish I'd never left.' Joel reaching out for reassurance.

'Why? It was your great mission, Joel – we all knew that, it's terrific – to carry our commitment, all our certainty, into the straight Church.'

'But it's just so… lonely, Chantal. I didn't realise how… or how corrupt. That there were places where the Church allowed the evil to remain – real evil – for a quiet life. A quiet life – is that what it's come to? I mean, tonight, going back to the church, after this fiasco with the grave, it was there for anyone to see. The ghastly light from the clock that isn't really a clock, and all the sneering gargoyles and the place over the door where this revolting Sheelagh na gig thing used to be… And you realise… it's everywhere. How many country churches have these pagan carvings, the Green Man, all kinds of devil-figures? Demons. Twisted demon faces, everywhere, grinning at you – it's our Church!'

Yes… yes… yes… the pieces of so-called character clinging to old churches like barnacles to a wreck, the very aspects of ancient churches that tourists found so picturesque… 'Oh, yes, I've always been fond of old churches.' As if this was some sanctified form of tourism, when really they were soaking up the satanic.

'What it means is that the Church has been sheltering this filth, pressed to its own bosom, for centuries. What everyone finds so appealing about these old parish churches are the things that should not be there. Am I the only one to see this?'

They'd brought him food and coffee. Made up a bed for him in the sitting room. Sat up half the night with him. Prayed with him in his agony.