Traynor’s throat had dried up again. He took another sip of water and wished dearly that it were something stronger.
“What kind of things are you concerned they might find?” he asked.
“Images, writings, the documents I mentioned earlier. When All Hallows was desanctified, a group of our Holy Brethren was charged with the searching of the place. Unfortunately, due to tragic events that befell two of them, their efforts remained peremptory at best. A further visit was planned, but it was difficult to recruit individuals willing to go there. Their faith simply wasn’t strong enough.” He gave the priest a steely look. “I trust that is not going to be a problem here?”
Father Traynor had no idea. “I hope it will not be, Your Grace,” he said, as honestly as he could. “I will pray for humility, and for the strength to be guided through the task our Church has considered me fit for. I can do no more than that.”
“Nor can any of us.” Cardinal William Thomas seemed pleased. “One final thing. Should you yourself discover anything of a . . . controversial nature, it is the wish of the Church that it be destroyed by you, and before you leave that place. Is that understood?”
After years of faithful devotional service, Father Michael Traynor suddenly realized he had never felt so unsure of anything in his life. “Are you certain, Your Grace? Should I not bring it back here so that it might be studied by our scholars?”
That was not the correct answer. Cardinal Thomas’s expression darkened to the point where the color of his face began to resemble his garments. “On no account must you bring anything out of All Hallows Church.” His voice was quivering now, more than Michael’s had been earlier, in fact. “Except, of course, yourself—alive and well and with nothing to report to anyone who might ask you questions when you emerge. I hope that is understood? It would be a shame to lose such a promising young member of our Westminster priesthood because such simple instructions could not be followed.”
Traynor gulped and nodded. “Of course, Your Grace. I understand perfectly. I will join the team, destroy anything I find, and anything that they find too. On Boxing Day morning I will say that all is well and that, through the protection of God and our Holy Mother Church, those under my care were seen safely through this most Holy of festivals.”
“That all sounds splendid.” The Cardinal seemed satisfied. “It is almost as if God himself has placed the words in your mouth, just as he has placed the thoughts in your heart.”
“And then I presume you wish me to come back here and tell you what I found?”
“That will not be necessary. What is necessary is for you to swear on the Holy Cross that you will never tell a single living soul of any of the events you witness, or items that you or others may find, within the confines of All Hallows Church.”
“Never?”
“No.”
“Not even you?”
“Not even me. We will, of course, all be praying for you while you are in there, but everything that happens to you inside All Hallows Church during those four days will be a matter for you to resolve with Our Lord in the fullness of time.”
The Cardinal stood, and his attendants moved aside to allow him to come around to Father Traynor’s side of the desk. “Have faith!” he said with a smile. He laid a comforting hand on Traynor’s shoulder. “You have been chosen by Our Lord for a most important task, as was Saul of Tarsus who became St. Paul on the road to Damascus. Do not underestimate how valuable our Holy Mother Church considers you to be. There are few who would agree to this heavy burden. We will all be praying for you.”
There was nothing Father Michael Traynor could do other than give his Archbishop a weak smile and promise that he would do his very best.
That had been a week ago.
Now, after seven days of prayer, contemplation, and numerous unsuccessful attempts to rid himself of self-doubt that had, in the last twenty-four hours, escalated into mounting terror, here he was, standing outside All Hallows church at six o’clock on a freezing December morning.
This, too, had been part of the Cardinal’s instructions. He was to ensure that he was the first to arrive, the first to break the chains that held the rusting iron gates together, the first to step inside the place for nearly twenty years. It was a task he had been anticipating with nothing other than a gnawing horror that clutched at his insides every time he contemplated it.
Of course, it hadn’t helped that, in order to prepare himself for his task, he had thought it best to familiarize himself with the history of Blackheath in general and All Hallows in particular. The Catholic National Library in Hampshire had nothing on the place. Neither did the other libraries he and his fellow priests were allowed access to.
A couple of local Greenwich libraries did, however.
They had been the last resort, a final desperate attempt to glean more about the place where he was to be locked in for four days and four nights with only six other people, none of whom he would likely have anything in common with. It was there, among stacks of dusty books and crumbling box files, that he found them.
Considering they were from a time when newspaper articles were meant to be more about reportage and less about sensationalism, the stories were still pretty horrific. Too horrific, in fact. Many were hearsay, scraps of stories gleaned from those who had lived in the area all their lives and had lost friends and loved ones in the catastrophes that had befallen those who ventured too close to the church “when the stars are right” as one old woman had put it.
There were the usual stories of strange noises or lights coming from the building, but it was the details in some of the tales that had caused his fingers to tremble and his mouth to turn as dry as the paper he was holding by the time he had finished the articles. A strange, luminous hopping thing with flesh whiter than moonlight that had been seen amid the gravestones on summer nights; horrible sounds that seemed to come from deeper than the church foundations could possibly go; a multitude of twisted human-like creatures seen simply in silhouette and from a distance, their shambling march stopped only by the boundary wall that had apparently been constructed with the purpose of keeping things in rather than others out.
For the few tramps who had dared spend the night near the church’s walls the story remained the same—they were invariably found dead come the morning, their eyes opened wider than any normal man’s, the orbs bulging from their sockets, “as if something had tried to suck them out” to quote a local publican of the time.
There were other stories too. Worse stories, concerning things Father Michael wished he had never read, so deeply embedded had they become in his consciousness. These were the tales he did not wish to revisit, even though he had been forced to for the two sleepless, nightmare-ridden nights he had had to endure since he had read about them.
Only the Cardinal’s parting words had stopped him from picking up the telephone to let them know he wouldn’t—no, couldn’t—go. If he failed in this, if his anxious nature got the better of him and stopped him from embarking on this task which the Lord had set him, then what kind of a priest was he? And worse, what kind of a man was he?
If he failed in this, he would consider himself to have failed in life. And then there would be only one way out.
There he stood, before the building that, until a week ago, he had never known existed. Now he wished it had never been built.
In his right hand was a suitcase containing his personal effects and changes of clothes. In the left was a heavier, sturdier bag of deep brown canvas held together with a number of straps. This contained equipment and tools his seniors had considered to be essential to aid him on his journey. He knew there were crucifixes, bottles of holy water, altar cloths, and other items sacred to his religion. There were also five canisters of lighter fluid and several boxes of matches, in case he came across anything that needed to be destroyed leaving no trace. There were other items, too, and he had not yet had the chance to see what they were as the bag had been in the taxi that had
been sent to collect him at five o’clock this morning. The bulkiest item in there, however, was a sturdy set of bolt cutters. From the look of the heavy rusted chain that was coiled between the iron bars of the church gate, he was going to need them.
He gave the gate a shove. It refused to budge even an inch. The light from the flashlight he had taken from his pocket and another, heavier push revealed that the metal of the gate had not become welded to the snaking chain solely by the elements. It was stuck solid to the gate-stops embedded in the flagstones at his feet as well. Even if he could get the chain off, he wouldn’t be able to open the gates without the aid of a battering ram.
Father Traynor sighed. Perhaps this, too, was a sign from God? Perhaps the most important sign of all? The one telling him not to go in there, the one that, if he did not heed it, would lead to his certain death and eternal damnation?
To his left, the barbed-wire fence that had been erected on his side of the boundary wall creaked in the chill morning breeze, the blackened points of lethal tetanus-dosing steel just visible in the orange glow from the street lamps. The stonework adjacent to the gate had crumbled sufficiently that it might be possible to squeeze through, and definitely possible if he used the bolt cutters.
If you don’t do it now, the others will when they get here, a voice warned him. And they’ll wonder why you didn’t when you had the bolt cutters and, as far as they are aware, you volunteered to accompany them on this ordeal.
He reached down, and unzipped the canvas bag. He rummaged around inside until the cold metal of the bolt cutters met with his searching fingertips. The handles were colder than he expected them to be and the sudden shock made him gasp, his breath steaming before him in the lamplight.
They were heavier than he expected as well, and he had to use both hands to get them out of the bag. It was a struggle to fit them around the top strand of wire, and even more difficult to orient them so they would cut, but eventually, after a lot of straining, he managed it.
He had thought the strand of barbs would snap as he cut through it, but instead the broken ends flopped limply to the ground with barely a sound, all resistance gone out of them many years ago. The strand below had a little more fight in it, and he had to twist the bolt cutters more savagely to make the wire finally break. One more, and there was enough space for him to clamber through.
Father Traynor threw his bags across the gulf of crumbling stone. That was what the black outline of the collapsed segment of wall made him think of. A gulf, a barrier of nothingness between the normal, natural world outside, and whatever it was that was waiting within the rotten edifice that lay before him.
The bags landed with a dull thump on the other side. An early morning mist had gathered during his efforts, and now the graveyard was wreathed in a low-lying fog. He could just make out where the bags were, but he would have to hurry if he wasn’t going to lose them.
He placed a hand on the wall on either side of the gap. The stone felt clammy in the early morning chill, the surface gritty beneath his quivering palms. He could feel something else as well, something more than just the moisture from the dew. It was sticky, and as he pulled his left hand away the lamplight caught the outline of numerous slime trails, glistening orange in the artificial light. Without thinking, he wiped his hand against his coat before realizing he was just going to have to put his hand there again if he was going to get across.
Get on with it, then.
He could already feel his nerve failing and he wasn’t even inside the church boundaries yet. He gripped the walls again and took his first step. His right foot landed somewhere within the gulf, the fallen stones beneath his shoe rocking back and forth as he tried to find a firm surface. When he saw there was none he leaned back, balancing all his weight on his left foot, and then vaulted himself across. At the last minute, he felt something grab at his leg and he almost went sprawling as he landed in the graveyard. He recovered his balance and caught his breath, coughing to clear the gritty feeling at the back of his throat. Was it his imagination or was even the air of a different quality on this side of the wall?
He looked for the bags. They had landed close to the wall, somewhere to the right, and in the direction of the church. But the mist had thickened now, and he could no longer see them. It felt as if he was standing on bare, hard-packed earth and, as he took a step forward, his foot caught in what he presumed was a tree-root, even though the landscape before him appeared bereft of vegetation apart from a skeletal apple tree he could just make out in the far distance, beyond the heavy buttress that was propping up the left-hand wall of the building.
Between him and what he hoped was a tree were the graves.
He hadn’t been able to see them from the road, so small were the stones and many of them so low lying. Now they revealed themselves, teetering stone heads rearing in the mist, poking through the carpet of fog that was failing to conceal them. He was tempted to examine a few, to see how recent the newest grave was, but he reminded himself that he had been charged with getting into the church before the others arrived.
Somewhere inside the canvas bag was the heavy iron key that would open the main door. If that didn’t work, he had been told there was a separate side entrance on the right. In case the key for that didn’t work, he had been assured it could easily be forced using the crowbar they had also given him. He hoped it wouldn’t have to come to that.
But first, the bags. He took a step to his right, something brushing over his foot and scuttling away as he did so. He pointed the flashlight at the ground and, leaning over, swept at the mist with his free hand.
Nothing.
They had to be here! This was where he had seen them fall! He coughed again, what he was breathing feeling more like smoke than air. It didn’t smell like smoke, though.
It smelled of the dead.
Stop thinking like that, he told himself. It’s just earth, that’s all. Earth and rotting grass and the damp stirring everything up. Now get back to looking for those bags.
They were still nowhere to be seen.
He widened his search, even though he knew there was no way they could have fallen this far from the wall. To his right All Hallows Church loomed, its beckoning shadow inviting him to search within the blackness of the mantle it cast over the ground close by.
Perhaps he had miscalculated? Or maybe the ground had been slippery and the bags had slid farther away? The beam of his flashlight began to flicker and he started to panic. If he had to wait until sunrise, the others would be here and how ridiculous would he look then? He kicked at the ground and looked over at the teetering headstones to his left.
Was it his imagination, or were they now nearer?
Stop thinking like that.
He turned around to face the church once more. The towering black, monolithic outline seemed almost to be defying him. You’re never going to survive this ordeal, it seemed to be saying. Not if you can’t even get inside the building.
His search became more frantic. He started again, back at the boundary wall and the torn fence he had pulled apart. He traced the trajectory of the bags once more, one step at a time.
Nothing.
They had to be here!
Father Traynor took a step back, took a step closer to the church, closer to the shadow cast by the church.
Suddenly, just as he imagined he could see something through the distant mist, the ground gave way beneath his foot and he fell, striking his head on something. The shadow of All Hallows Church embraced him, and then everything was darkness.
Thursday, December 22, 1994. 5:17 A.M.
memo
From: His Eminence Cardinal William Thomas, Archbishop of Westminster Cathedral
To: The Office of the Secretary to His Holiness Pope John Paul II, and subsidiary members of The Vatican Advisory Committee on The Incidents at Blackheath
Most Holy Father and Fellow Brethren,
The priest has been despatched with God’s blessing. As we discussed, I
still believe it to be highly unlikely that we will hear from him again. It is therefore my sincerest hope that all of you in Vatican City will join me in praying for his safe passage, at least until he is able to locate that which I have charged him with destroying. We live in trying times. Few things are sacred, and little can be kept out of the watchful eye of the media. That attention should have been drawn to All Hallows Church is regrettable, but it is my hope that the matter will be dealt with appropriately.
They will be inside that place for four days.
Surely no one will be able to survive in there for that long?
I remain your most humble servant,
William of Westminster
EIGHT
Thursday, December 22, 1994. 5:43 A.M.
NOT QUITE DARKNESS.
Not quite.
Father Michael Traynor lay in the damp silent black for several minutes before he realized that he was still conscious, that he was still breathing, and that the overbearing might of All Hallows Church had yet to consign him to the hell he had been convinced he was destined for.
Not quite darkness.
But certainly different.
When he opened his eyes again, the cemetery was not as he remembered it, but then neither was the world. The landscape he now beheld possessed an eerie green glow, a dull emerald sickness that tainted the lightening sky as well as the land that was gradually being revealed by the dawning rays of a pallid sun.
He placed his palms against the ground, ignoring the chill feel of the earth beneath his skin, and levered himself upright.
Something was wrong.
Horribly wrong.
The mist that swirled about his feet seemed too thick to be the ordinary moisture of a chill winter’s morning. The breeze that blew was tainted with the slight but bitter stink of corruption as it assailed his nostrils. It wormed its way to the back of his throat and hung there, tickling a little, causing him to cough, the mucus that was expelled into his mouth tasting even worse. It was as if he had swallowed something rotten, a thing of flesh that had been long in the grave, that had tried to rot to a dry nothingness, but had been prevented from doing so by the very mist that was plucking at his trouser legs.
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