Stephen Jones - Dark Terrors 3 - The Gollancz Book of Horror

The man shook his head sorrowfully. ‘We get so few visitors here,’ he complained. ‘It’s such an out-of-the-way spot. We are, all of us here, in some sense, refugees from the world, if the truth be known, and perhaps a little too isolated. It’s only rarely that anyone discovers our existence, and comes amongst us. When we are discovered, and someone wanders into our community from outside, it’s always a time of great excitement for us. And sadly, very sadly, nobody ever comes back. It’s such a difficult place to find, and people like yourself forget about our existence so easily, so quickly.’

Daniel thought the man must be exaggerating wildly, and wondered if he was quite right in the head. The sample section of the population he had met seemed anything but excited to see visitors.

‘We got lost, actually. Found this place by accident.’

‘Quite so.’

‘Then we mislaid our car.’

‘Really!’ The man made it sound like a clever thing to do.

‘I’d appreciate some help,’ Daniel admitted. ‘Some directions.’

‘Of course you would,’ the man agreed. ‘I can understand that.’

‘We searched about, but seemed to be going round in circles.’

‘Well, yes; you probably were. It’s a maze of a place, our village. It couldn’t be more difficult to find your way about. It’s almost as though it had been designed to confuse.’ All this was said in a cheerful, matter-of-fact way, but was hardly helpful, Daniel thought.

‘We parked the car by the river,’ he said. ‘If you could point us in that direction?’

‘No problem at all.’ The man smiled benignly. ‘The simplest thing in the world.’ He had released his grasp of the huge cloak he was draped in when he had shaken hands. Gradually, it had fallen loose around his neck to reveal a dog-collar. A grubby, grey and frayed dog-collar. ‘The only difficulty is, which part of the river?’ he continued. ‘It flows all around, you see.’

Daniel had heard that before. ‘It can hardly flow all around,’ he protested.

‘I assure you it does,’ the reverend gentleman insisted. ‘Quite literally so. Round and round and round.’

‘Dad!’ Marc sounded angry and impatient. Daniel turned towards him. The boy pulled a crazy face, tapped his left temple, and inclined his head towards the man in the dog-collar.

The vicar saw this, and grinned brightly. Slowly, with smooth motions, he placed his hands together across his chest as though he was about to pray, audibly took a deep breath, then abruptly reached forward and thrust out his hands so the tips of his index fingers just touched Marc’s forehead in the centre, directly above his nose. The boy stood fixed to the spot for a moment, then he gasped and reacted belatedly by jerking his head back seconds after the contact had been made. Daniel turned towards the priest to protest at what could have been an aggressive action, but, as he did so Marc dodged swiftly round the figure in front of them and exited through the flap in the canvas. Daniel, after a brief hesitation, followed him. The vicar, who made no attempt to obstruct either of them, followed Daniel.

Marc was almost running now, past the front of the red brick house close to which the now absent band had been playing. Daniel had no choice but to pursue him. Unabashed, the man in the cloak trotted beside him.

‘I think the boy must be anxious to visit hallowed ground,’ he said. ‘He’s heading in that direction. Your son, I assume?’

Daniel grunted in acknowledgment of this fact.

‘A fine lad. He’ll find plenty to amuse him in our place of worship if he’s interested in that sort of thing.’

‘He isn’t. Not even slightly. As far as I know, he’s never been inside a church in his life.’

‘Really?’ The little man seemed to sneer, then took command of himself and forced his face back into its customary expression of excessive good humour. ‘Well, I suppose there must be many young people like that nowadays. We are all regular attendees here, of course. We’re holding a service very soon, as it happens. I’m on my way to prepare for it now. I hope you’ll join us.’

‘I’d rather be on my way out of this place.’

‘But your son has other ideas, I think.’

‘You’re wrong. I’m certain he hasn’t the slightest interest in your bloody church.’

‘We shall see,’ the vicar said amiably, apparently unoffended by Daniel’s deliberate rudeness.

Ahead of them a bare, gaunt, ugly building had become visible through the trees at the back of the garden. Its walls had a sickly green colour, and it had a red tiled roof. At first it looked nothing like a church, but Daniel saw that its windows were of stained glass, and that it was situated at the edge of a tiny graveyard containing perhaps a couple of dozen weather-worn tombstones. Then, with a shock, he realized why the bleak, slab-sided building was so lacking in ecclesiastical charisma: the outer surface of the walls had been coated with what looked like cement. To keep out the damp, presumably. Pale green moss or lichen had grown over most of this cladding, creating an unpleasant, messy, musty effect. Daniel thought, as he drew nearer to the place, he could detect a concomitant odour of damp rottenness in the air. A tall tower, like a fat chimney with many unglazed windows, was attached to one corner of the building.

Marc disappeared briefly behind some shrubbery, then re-emerged near a gate in the fence at the back of the garden. Here he paused briefly and looked back, then slipped through the gate into the graveyard beyond.

Two slender, stooping, darkly dressed figures came out of the church and stood close to the porch in front of the open door. They were looking towards Marc as though they were expecting him to arrive at that moment: had, indeed, been waiting for him. This was somewhat disconcerting, but there was nothing very alarming about their appearance: from their movements they seemed to be a rather frail, elderly couple. Vergers, probably, but the sight of them caused Daniel’s heart to trip in a sudden and poignant surge of apprehension. For no obvious reason, he was suddenly concerned for his son’s physical safety. He came to a stop, to consider his position.

He found he was still holding the prize he had won earlier. The thing had come partially unwrapped, and he was able to see what it was; a model of the object he and Marc had discovered soon after they had arrived in the village, that he had decided was some kind of monument. About fifteen inches long, it was well made, with very finely worked details, he noticed, even down to the lettering on the broken stone tablet at the base. It was made of some yellow metal that shone like gold. The figure emerging from the base, stripped, in the representation, of the clinging briars that masked the actual object, was rendered with fastidious care. It appeared to be that of a victorious warrior, and certainly not an angel. The projections on its back could have been rudimentary wings, though they more resembled fins. Its minute face pulled tight in an expression of gleeful, vindictive triumph, snarled up at Daniel, baring its tiny sharp teeth. Its one raised fist appeared to stab the air victoriously. It looked somehow familiar, and it took Daniel a few moments to realize it could have been a portrait of the seemingly demented clergyman as a much younger man. He considered hurling the ugly thing away, but something made him finally reluctant to do that, and he rewrapped it as best he could and stuffed it upside down into his pocket.

The vicar, meanwhile, had marched on towards the church, presumably to participate in the forthcoming service he had mentioned. There was no sign of Marc now, or the two old people who had positioned themselves outside the building, and the vicar, well ahead and striding swiftly, would soon reach the church himself. Daniel started after him, but he knew there was no hope of catching up with the man before he vanished inside. As he entered the graveyard he heard a loud noise in front of him and assumed the vicar had slammed the door shut behind him. Daniel guessed it would be locked when he reached it, and found he was correct in that assumption. He rattled the latch, twisted the big iron handle, and thumped the solid, heavy wooden door with the palm of his hand, to no effect.