The Gollancz Book of Horror - [Dark Terrors 05]

by Edited By Stephen Jones

  It occurred to Daniel it would be a good idea to walk round the church to see if there was another entry. He soon discovered there was not, and found himself again confronting the door that was closed to him. Resisting the desire to try to force an entry, and realizing that would not be possible without the aid of a battering ram, he flung himself down on a nearby wooden seat, folded his arms, and glared angrily down at the ground in front of him. Then he noticed something he had missed before: on the paving stones on either side of the little porch that fronted the church, positioned just about on the spots where the two old people, the vergers, had been standing minutes earlier, were two dark patches of what at first he assumed was water. Curious, and with nothing better to do, he went over and squatted down to inspect one of the damp places. If it was basically water, it was mixed with something else - something that glistened slightly, that had a greenish hue a similar colour to the lichen that grew on the cement-clad walls of the church, and that had a pungent, bitter odour. There was a hint of ozone in the smell, and something else far more unpleasant. The liquid, whatever it was, was drying out quickly in the glare of the sun but, if it had come from the two old people, they must have been dripping wet: absolutely soaked in the stuff! And how they must have stunk! He would not have liked to be in an enclosed space with them.

  Inside the church, for instance.

  Daniel was now very concerned about Marc. Why had the vicar allowed the boy in, and shut him out? The man had invited them both to the service.

  Then Daniel remembered that the dog-collar round the vicar’s neck had been worn almost threadbare, and was filthy.

  Somewhere back in the garden the band began to play again. After a few seconds Daniel noticed the sound they were making was getting louder, and guessed they were on the march now, and heading towards the church. He stood gazing in their direction rather nervously, waiting for them to appear through the trees.

  * * * *

  Daniel had left the gate that gave access to the churchyard open when he had passed through it. A man with a drum was the first of the musicians to reach it. He then came to a Halt. Small, thickset and ungainly, swaying slightly as he marched on the spot, he looked as though he was stewing inside his tight, thick uniform. His sweat-slicked face was mottled with poppy-red blotches and his angry little eyes, staring furiously at Daniel, looked as though they might crack and burst, like chilled eggs dropped in boiling water. The man whacked both sides of the drum in a way that suggested barely controlled fury with two leather tipped, dumbbell-like sticks, producing enough sound to drown out most of the noise made by the rest of the band, who, visible now, and approaching at a funereal pace, were still some way behind. From the position the man had taken, and his commanding, threatening posture, it seemed to Daniel that he had deliberately taken it upon himself to act as guardian of the gate: a sentinel who would not let anyone in or out. The fellow seemed to be challenging Daniel to try to pass through, if he dared!

  Unable to allocate a cause for this behaviour, Daniel stood his ground, staring mildly back at the drummer and grinning awkwardly in bafflement at the man’s inexplicable and inappropriate aggressiveness. If he thought his grin might have some mellowing effect, he was wrong. The musician’s chest rose at the sight of it, his chin came up, and his whole figure seemed to expand and grow taller with pride - or was it triumph . . . ?

  Daniel’s smile froze slowly on his face as the rest of the band caught up with their leader, lined up behind him and began to march forward towards the church, because behind them, he saw, were many more people, also advancing towards him. They were spread out among the trees, and, looking around, Daniel saw they formed an arc as far as he could see: an arc that was almost certainly a section of a circle of men and women stretching all around the graveyard. By the time the possible significance of this fact had registered in his mind, Daniel found he was partly encircled by a second, much closer, arc of people, formed by members of the band. He had not given the musicians any attention before because he had no ear for, and was therefore unable to get pleasure from, music of any kind, but now, he realized, some of them were more than a little peculiar looking. Their faces were partly concealed by the brass instruments they were playing, so it was not possible to detect exactly what was wrong with the features of many of them, but the distortions were greater than one would expect from the normal effort required to produce notes, he thought.

  The drummer now stood directly in front of Daniel, about ten feet away. His unrelenting pounding of the instrument was deafening at that distance: Daniel felt each beat like a blow against his own chest. The din made the ground beneath him quake and his knees shake, and even seemed to affect his bowels and stomach. The sounds the rest of the band were making were awful too, to his hearing, and had a worse effect on him than music normally did. Then he realized it wasn’t just the faces of the players that were strange; their instruments were unconventional, too. The valves were surely longer and thinner, the brass tubes twisted in over-ornate curves, and the bells pointed down and around in ways unlike other trumpets and trombones he had seen before. He could not be certain, because he didn’t trust his own ears, but he thought the range of tones produced was different to those obtained from normal instruments.

  These reflections were driven from his mind when the entire band started to march forward, closing ranks as they did so, forcing him to back away towards the church. They advanced in a determined rather than menacing way. With the exception of the drummer, who continued to scowl directly at him, they had their eyes almost shut, and seemed to be concentrating totally on the production of the sounds they were making. Nevertheless, Daniel did feel menaced. He made some effort to brave it out and held his ground as long as he could, until they were close enough for him to reach out and touch. Then, trying to maintain as much dignity as possible, he turned and retreated.

  Arid found himself moving towards the welcoming face and the outstretched arms of the priest. The man stood just in front of the now wide open door to the church. The musicians suddenly seemed to run out of steam. The music they were playing fell apart in discordant tatters as, one by one, in quick succession, they stopped playing. Within seconds a shocking silence returned - shocking, that was, to Daniel, who had been beginning to think the noise would never stop.

  Into the silence, the priest said, ‘You look troubled. I hope our celebrations have not over-excited you. Perhaps you would like to enter our little sanctuary for a while, until you regain your composure.’ His voice was deadly calm, cold even, undermining, to some extent, the authenticity of his benign expression.

  Daniel badly wanted to see inside the church, out of curiosity now, and because he expected to find Marc there, but, now he was invited to enter the building, he was reluctant to take up the offer. He felt totally confused by the circumstances he found himself in, in fact, and wanted to come to some understanding of recent events, within himself, before embarking on any further action.

  He shook his head vacantly, as though he hoped to toss his disordered thoughts into some more meaningful pattern, then looked about him again. The people who, minutes earlier, he had seen advancing through the trees, had all reached the churchyard wall, and had come to a stop there. There were dozens of them and they formed a barricade through which Daniel knew he would not be able to pass without violence, if their intention was to obstruct him. And what other purpose could they have? They stood in silence, watching him patiently, but alertly, as though they were keen to see what his next move would be.

  He was sure, now, that some preordained event, incomprehensible to, yet vitally involving, himself, had been set in motion, perhaps unconsciously, by his own actions.

  He was anxious to understand the nature of his predicament.

  It occurred to him that the only way he could discover what his part in this ritual was to be was to submit himself to the expectation and requirements of the people surrounding him. Reluctantly, he decided he would also have to put himself
in the hands of the priest, who, his instincts told him, he could not trust. He could see no other option.

  As he marched towards the vicar, who stepped back eagerly to let him pass, he noticed the man’s robe had fallen open at the front. Under it, he was wearing more ornate apparel: a flowing, silky vestment of vertical red and green stripes that billowed and squirmed around his stationary body as though it had a life of its own.

  * * * *

  It was chilly, and darker than Daniel expected, inside the church. Instinctively, he knew he was not alone there, though as far as he could make out the few rows of narrow pews were empty. Very little of the bright sunlight outside passed through the filters of deeply coloured glass at the windows that were themselves partly covered by the green mould that clung to the outer walls.

  A large number of ancient banners, draped apparently haphazardly from the rafters, hung down almost to the floor along the length of the aisle, forming a kind of maze. The fabric of the banners, embroidered with faded heraldic designs of great complexity, was ancient, tattered and rotten. Daniel had to push layer after layer of this dank material aside as he attempted to make his way towards the front of the church. Somewhere ahead he could hear water lapping, and twice he heard a gentle splashing sound that seemed quite out of place in such surroundings. Something large, he thought, was moving slowly and cautiously about in deep water somewhere in front of him: something that was perhaps aware of his presence in the building.

  When the sound was repeated a third time, Daniel, who judged he was about halfway down the length of the church, stopped and called Marc’s name. There was no answer but, seconds later, he heard the creak of a door, and someone took a few hasty steps across the right hand corner of the church. Daniel called out again, his voice so loud now it startled him, then tried to run forward through the dangling confusion of banners to try to catch a glimpse of whoever was ahead of him. After a few moments, from the same distant quarter of the church, he heard a door slam shut. He scratched impatiently at the draperies that hindered him and concealed his view ahead, tearing some of them from their fixtures on the rafters. They fell behind him slowly and clumsily, with anguished sounds like heavy sighs, filling the air as they descended with a deeper, choking mustiness that entered Daniel’s nose and mouth and eyes. Brought to a halt by this polluting filth, he hawked and spat to clear his throat and wiped his eyes, in bewilderment as much as irritation. He was no longer quite sure which direction he was facing. He seemed to have walked a long way, at least the length of the church, as far as he could estimate from his memories of the size of the exterior of the building, and he wondered if he had turned back on himself. The sound of splashing, now sounding behind his left shoulder, seemed to confirm this suspicion, and he swivelled round and set off in that direction.

  Seconds later he jerked one of the draperies aside and found no more ahead of him. He had reached an open, empty space at the end of the church. He’d expected to find some kind of altar there, but there was nothing of the kind apparent in the gloom. A splashing sound from somewhere near by drew his attention down to ground level and he saw he had come close to the edge of a large, rectangular pool of murky water. Ripples were spreading out from a point near the middle and lapping against the crudely cut stone sides of the pool, disturbing a crust of tiny grey-leaved plants that floated over the greater part of its surface.

  After gazing at the steadily expanding ripples for some moments, Daniel dropped to his knees and dipped his cupped hands into the tepid water. He stooped forward and flung some of it over his face to clear away the dust and muck that had gathered there as he had made his way through the maze of curtains. The water, though refreshing, tasted foul on his lips, and had the same slightly offensive smell as the patches of dampness left by the old people who had been waiting for Marc outside the church.

  Daniel was about to call out his son’s name again when he heard the boy’s voice shouting. It sounded muffled, from a long way off. The cry seemed to come from the sky. It took Daniel a few seconds to understand that the boy must somehow have found his way up into the tower. He shouted, ‘It’s all right, Marc. I’m here. Stay where you are. I’ll come and get you.’

  An answering call, that sounded even further away, was incomprehensible, but it proved his voice had been heard. Marc would at least be reassured to know he was there.

  Daniel looked around for some way into the tower. A single door, hard against the right hand side of the pool, was the only possible way into other parts of the building. It was accessible by a narrow path, about a foot wide, that surrounded the pool on three sides. Daniel ventured along it sideways, finding he had to slide his back along the wall because otherwise his wide shoulders threw him off balance. In spite of his feeling of urgency, he moved cautiously. He was very sure he did not want to tumble into the water and find himself in the company of whatever else it contained.

  His disappointment at finding the door was locked and totally unresponsive to the small amount of leverage he was able to exert against it, from his precarious position, almost overwhelmed him. In frustration, he kicked it with his heels and thumped it with his fist, but didn’t even get the satisfaction of hearing it rattle on its hinges. At last, he squirmed back along the ledge and slumped to the floor by the side of the pool and stared down into its depths. He noticed something he had missed before: at one point a set of steep stone steps descended below the surface. The water was clearer than he had thought, and he was able to count down to as far as the seventh step before the rest became a blur.

  Then he heard Marc’s voice calling again, sounding more demanding now. He decided to get out of the church to try to find some other way of getting to the boy. There may be some way up to him from outside. At least he should be able to see and talk to Marc through one of the tiny windows at the top of the tower.

  Instead of pressing back through the ancient drapery, Daniel edged his way back along the wall of the church, much as he had along part of the perimeter of the pool. This sideways method of locomotion enabled him to locate the main door of the church without difficulty and he burst through it with some aggression, determined to deal with the vicar and whoever else might be waiting for him outside in whatever way he had to. He was ready for violence now.

  It was perhaps fortunate, then, that he found nobody there to oppose him. All the people who had been gathered around the church, including the shabby clergyman, had withdrawn, vanished. He could hear the sound of the band some distance away, the piping and droning of their music becoming fainter as he listened.

  He paced some yards away from the tower, turned, looked up, and shouted for Marc. Almost at once, the boy’s face appeared, framed in the highest of the narrow windows. ‘I’m all right, Dad,’ he called. ‘Don’t worry.’

  ‘Can you get down, Marc? Can you see any way out?’

  ‘I don’t want to get out. I like it here. They’re going to look after me. They want me to stay.’

  ‘What are you talking about, Marc? I don’t understand. Who wants you to stay?’

  Marc stepped back a little from the window. ‘You know. You saw them - the people who live here.’

  Daniel found he was almost inarticulate with anger. He spluttered as he spoke. ‘I don’t care what they want. You’re coming with me, if I can get you out. I have to take you home.’

  Marc shook his head. As far as Daniel could see, the boy looked happy. That, in itself, was annoying.

  ‘I’m never going to leave this place, Dad,’ Marc said patiently, as though Daniel was the child and he the father. ‘And there’s no way you can make me. Get out yourself, while you can. They’ll let you go now, at once, but they might change their minds at any minute. And I warn you, if they do, they can be terrible . . .’

  Daniel remembered the tiny, round, stone-cold eyes of the people he’d come close to, and shuddered. He became afraid. The calm tone of his son’s voice scared him, too.

  ‘I can see a long way from up here,’ Marc
said, in a nonchalant, dreamy voice. ‘It’s true about the river running all around. It’s a very wide river. The village is surrounded by water in all directions, as far as I can see.’

  Daniel concluded that either he or Marc was mad. In an effort to cling to his own sanity, he shouted, ‘Never mind all that. Can you see the car?’

  ‘Of course I can. Very clearly.’

  ‘Where is it?’

  Marc held his hand in front of his face and pointed. ‘There. Where we left it.’

  ‘How do I get to it?’

  ‘Just follow the path beyond the gate. Takes you straight to it, Dad.’

  Daniel found he believed the boy unquestioningly. The car would be where he said, at the end of the path. The thing to do now was to get out, and come back later with reinforcements to set Marc free. There was nothing that he, Daniel, could do alone, in the face of his son’s stubborn rejection of his offers of assistance.

  ‘I’m going, then, Marc, but don’t worry - I’ll be back soon. I’ll bring help.’

  He thought he heard Marc laugh in an easy, light, and totally uncharacteristic way, but the boy made no further comment. He waved his hand, and stepped back into the tower. Daniel didn’t wait to see if his son would reappear. He ran off down the path as quickly as he could, as though he feared he might be pursued by . . .