A Cockney's Journey

by Eddie Allen

We started to move towards the large doors when suddenly the torch went out.

  “Oh no, the bloody batteries have died,” Tony gasped.

  We stood there in silence, listening to Tony shaking and banging the torch on the palm of his hand.

  “It’s not going to have it,” he informed us. Now this is what I call bang in the shit.

  “Ed’s got a lighter,” Brian muttered in a low voice.

  As he was saying it, I was already rummaging around in my pockets, feeling for my lighter. There was a click and a sudden surge of light appeared; much brighter than a candle. Pukka lighters these petrol ones.

  “Blimey, that’s nice and bright,” said Tony.

  “Yeah,” I said, all cocky and feeling proud of myself. “And it’s full up.” I put a fag into the flame and took a large drag, blowing a cloud of smoke in their direction. “Right, let’s see if we can budge these doors,” I said, pointing the lighter.

  “Not a chance, they must be six inches thick,” Brian remarked, disappointedly.

  “Yeah, you’re right mate. There must be another way out,” Tony said.

  “Let’s try one of those doors over by the altar,” I suggested.

  As we moved towards the door on the left, there was a horrible and loud howling noise that stopped us dead in our tracks.

  “Fuck! What was that?” Brian said, trembling.

  “Quiet will you, otherwise every motherfucker will know we’re in here,” Tony hissed aggressively with facial expressions to match. We stood there in total silence in front of the door. There was a dragging sound coming from the other side of the chapel. In fact, it sounded like it was outside the main entrance door. I flipped the lid on my lighter shut plunging us into darkness. I whispered in Tony’s ear, “Someone’s coming!” Suddenly, there were a lot of jangling noises and pushing; something was trying to open the main doors and it was obvious they were having trouble getting them open. I thought there must be a few of them. God help us. I reached out in the darkness, frantically feeling for the door handle. Eventually, my hand felt metal and I pushed it down. Realising the door was stiff, I leant on it with my shoulder. The door creaked as it opened slowly. “Come on, follow me,” I whispered. “Quickly.”

  Once inside, I shut the door tight and lit my lighter. We were standing on a small stone floor, with steps spiralling down. As we moved towards the stone stairs there was a thud.

  “Arghhh!” Tommy cried, as he fell to the ground.

  “Quiet!” Brian shushed.

  I pointed my lighter in the direction of the noise; Tommy was sitting on the floor holding his foot.

  “That bloody hurt,” he said. “I tripped over that lump of iron lying on the floor.”

  On the floor by Tommy’s feet lay a four-foot long iron pole, about two inches round, and completely rusty.

  “Great. Let’s prop it up against the door,” Tony said quietly. He picked it up and wedged it in a mortar joint in the floor, pushing the pole under the cross beam on the door.

  No one’s getting through that door, I thought gleefully.

  “Come on. Let’s get down those stairs,” Tony ordered. “You first, Ed; you’ve got the lighter.”

  I was just about to put my foot on the first step when we heard all the commotion coming from inside the church. I flipped my lighter shut and once again we were in total darkness.

  “They’re inside the church,” Brian informed us. He was pretty good at stating the bloody obvious. All four of us stood rigid on the spot, five feet from the propped-shut door. I could see a faint light coming through the cracks in the doorframe. It sounded like there was a large gathering on the other side. We could hear feet shuffling and a lot of whispering but couldn’t understand what was being said. Then came that howling noise again, followed by a series of chants. The hairs on my neck and arms stood up like a hairbrush and I felt all hot and clammy.

  “What’s happening?” Tommy beseeched.

  “It’s obvious; satanic worshippers. I told you, didn’t I?” Tony whispered. With that, I struck my lighter and moved a bit lively down the stairs with the rest following at the same speed.

  “How far down does this bloody go?” I gasped.

  “It must lead underground,” Tony reckoned. “Where we saw those iron gates in the cemetery, Ed.”

  “Of course, that’s how we’ll get out.”

  “Do you mean we’ll have to go through the crypt to get out?” Tommy asked, now visibly trembling.

  “Unfortunately we have to, Tom,” I sighed.

  “Bloody hell,” raged Brian. “What have we got ourselves into?”

  As we continued our descent, I noticed how cold and damp the air was. There was a strange musky smell and the stairs seem to get narrower. I found it difficult to balance. Must be near the bottom. I stopped for a second and held my arm out straight. My lighter was flickering.

  “There’s a draught coming in from somewhere,” I whispered.

  As I turned round to face the others, I slipped and dropped the lighter, plunging us into darkness again. I panicked.

  “Don’t move, none of you. I’ll find it,” I reassured them. I leant on the wall to get my balance. “Oh my God! What’s this?” I screamed. My hand sank into the wall; it felt like I had put my hand into a bowl of custard. Pulling my hand away from the wall, I knelt down on the stone stairs wiping my hand on the treads in a desperate attempt to remove the stuff.

  “What’s happening, Ed?” Brian asked in a trembling voice.

  “Nothing, I put my hand in something.”

  While cleaning the stuff off my hands I hit the lighter. My God, if ever there was a time for a miracle this was it.

  “Found it,” I said. The stairs lit up. I looked at my hand; it was covered in this white stuff, like some sort of fungi. At last, we were at the bottom of the stairs. I waved the lighter around and noticed an archway to the right of me. Cobwebs hung everywhere and on one of the cobwebs I noticed a large spider with its eyes upon us, as if watching our every move. This is it; the way out, I hoped. But something strange happened; the lighter stopped flickering.

  We continued through the archway and a feeling of dread came all over me. I can’t explain why, but it felt like we were not the only ones down there. The whole place reeked of evil. We walked into a large basement vault and stood there, motionless. Stacked around the walls were coffins and in the middle of the room was a massive uneven black marble table with stained large metal bowls and used black candles at one end. To the right was a small lectern with an open book. In the far corner was a small iron gate, ajar.

  “What the hell is this place?” Brian asked.

  “It’s some sort of sacrificial temple,” Tony guessed.

  Tommy was shaking with terror, a look of disbelief in his eyes.

  “I want to go home,” he cried.

  “Look at these bowls,” I pointed the lighter so they could see. “Dried blood with hair stuck to it and this chalice is half full with some sort of dark liquid.”

  “Sacrifices or not, we’ve got to get the fuck out of here a bit rapid, otherwise we’re going to be in deep shit,” Brian said.

  For once, I totally agreed with him. I moved towards the iron gate and my lighter started to flicker again. I knew this gate led to the cemetery via the tunnel.

  “Come on. Let’s get out of here.” I pulled the gate open and we found ourselves in some sort of tunnel, very narrow and low. Tony and I had to crook our necks so we didn’t bash our heads on the jagged ceiling. Being six foot plus had its advantages, but not now. We moved slowly and I could hear faint voices all around me. Suddenly a fierce icy cold wind penetrated my body. The hairs on my body were tingling and standing to attention and it was only then that I noticed how cold I was. I turned round to the others.

  “Did you hear and feel that?”

  They looked at me, shaking their heads and indicating that they never. My mind was doing overtime now. That’s just how I felt when William Charles Bennett visited me. As we
ventured deeper, it occurred to me that those in the church might use this tunnel. I stopped dead in my tracks.

  “What’s wrong, Ed?” the three of them asked simultaneously.

  “I feel uneasy. Suppose they are going to use the basement tonight and can’t get down because we blocked the door?”

  “So?” Tony barked. “That’s their problem.”

  “Wrong, Tony, it’s our problem if they decide to use this fucking tunnel to get into the basement.”

  “Oh shit!” screamed Brian. “We’ve got to go back and remove the iron bar from the door.”

  “You must be joking,” Tommy cried, looking at Brian in amazement.

  “Yeah, and we can use the bar to break open the gates to the cemetery,” I said, all excited.

  “Come on, let’s go for it, Ed.” Brian agreed, equally excited.

  We started back up the tunnel but as we approached the gate, there was this disgusting smell that hadn’t been there earlier.

  “What on earth is that pong?” Brian whispered.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “It smells like rotten meat.”

  “Right, it only needs one of us to get the bar. You got the lighter, Ed, so you go,” pleaded Tommy.

  I looked at Brian and Tony but I could tell from their expressions that I wasn’t going to get a volunteer out of them!

  “Great,” I moaned. “Looks like I haven’t got a choice, does it?”

  I walked back through the basement and crossed the floor to the archway. As I turned and looked behind me, there was something different about the room. I couldn’t place what it was right away but then it dawned on me; there was a coffin standing upright against the wall. Maybe we never noticed it when we came through. I turned round and crept up the stone stairs, dismissing what I’d just seen. As I reached the top, I flipped the lid on my lighter shut. Bloody hell, it’s dark. I could still see a faint ray of light coming through the doorframe. I crept up to the door, shaking uncontrollably and sweating. I reached out for the iron bar and, as I put my hand around the bar, there was a faint sound coming from the other side. I pressed my ear against the door, listening. A muffled voice whispered, “It’s nearly time, tell the others.”

  I gently lifted the bar away from the door. I was absolutely petrified about making a noise. I crept back down the stone stairs to the basement vault and stood in the archway, staring at the upright coffin, my arm outstretched, shining the lighter around. I quickly moved around the marble table towards the gate with one eye on the coffin. I pulled open the gate, shining my lighter into the tunnel and the flame started to flicker again, but this time there was no draught. I moved my arm around and noticed all three of them sitting on the tunnel floor.

  “You lot all right? I got the bar.” I said, all cockily.

  “Just about,” Tony sighed in relief.

  I shoved the bar towards Brian. “Take hold of that mate, your job is to smash us out,” I said, feeling confident that Brian was up for the task. “And come and look at this,” I motioned them towards the basement room. “Did any of you see that when we came in here earlier?” I pointed towards the coffin. No, was the unanimous reply.

  “Let’s have a look, shall we?” Brian said.

  Having the bar had obviously given Brian a great deal of courage. While we stood in front of the coffin, I told them what I had heard behind the door.

  “I think we should go now,” Tommy cried.

  “Shall we open it up, Tony?” Brian asked, ignoring him.

  “Why not? There’s probably nothing in it anyway,” I said unconvincingly.

  Brian grabbed the coffin lid and pulled it off. What came next was the biggest shock I’ve ever encountered in my life. There, right in front of my very eyes and lying in an upright position, consumed with rigor mortis, was the decaying body of a man.

  “Bloody hell,” Brian gasped.

  Tommy stood there; his eyes were staring, his face contorted with fear.

  “Can’t hurt you. He’s brown bread,” Tony grinned confidently.

  I think Tony laughed out of fear. I looked the body up and down and noticed that he had pyjamas on, his top was blood-stained.

  “Put the lid back,” Tommy pleaded.

  Brian obeyed, putting the lid back in place. Tony reckoned he must have been murdered and dumped down here. I must admit, I agreed with his conclusion. “Let’s get out of here and tell the old bill,” I said.

  We walked towards the gate, noting that the horrible smell had gone. That’s strange. As we walked back down the tunnel, we could hear noises behind us.

  “They’re in the basement,” I whispered. “Let’s get going a bit lively.”

  After what seemed like an age, we finally came across the iron gate that led into the cemetery. I stood in front of the gate and smiled to myself, as I knew we could get out.

  “It’s just a padlock and chain,” I laughed. “Go on, Brian. Smash it off.”

  He raised the iron bar and with his full force he hit the padlock. The heavy blow smashed the padlock open and we were out.

  We moved silently and quickly, trudging across the cemetery, looking for the way out and eventually came across a clearing.

  “I don’t believe this,” I shouted. “We’ve come back to the bloody church.”

  We dived back into the bushes, peering at the gloomy sight in front of us.

  “We must have got in from over there, Tony.”

  “I’m not so sure, Ed,” he replied.

  “You mean we’ve got to get round the church to get out?” Tommy said, horrified.

  “Yeah, it looks that way,” Brian sighed.

  This gets worse. No torch and the lighter was no good either, as it was now far too windy.

  “Let’s lay low till morning. It can’t be long now till it’s light,” Tony suggested.

  This sounded a good idea to me, so we all plotted up in the bushes and waited for daybreak.

  I lay there, puffing my Park Drive fag. It then occurred to me that we hadn’t heard the chiming of the bell since midnight. In fact, where was the bell? It wasn’t in the church we were in. And what about those voices and the feeling of an icy presence? Well, I knew in my heart were they came from.

  “Ed, come on. Let’s go.”

  Tony was shaking my arm as I had dozed off. I opened my eyes and the early summer sun was straining through the thick woodland onto my face. I knew it was over. We never did tell the police. In fact, we told no one what happened that night, because Tony reckoned we could have been arrested for trespassing, so we kept schtum.

  It was a few months later when Tony showed me the local newspaper.

  “Read this, Ed,” he cried, stuffing the paper under my nose. I sat down and started to read a story about how police had launched a murder hunt following a call to a South London cemetery. They had uncovered a satanic group practising black magic rituals in the crypt of a derelict church inside the grounds. In the crypt police discovered the body of a middle-aged man who had been severely dismembered. Human parts had also been found in metal bowls around a marble altar and the police had also discovered two dogs with their throats cut. A shiver went down my spine; the howling noise we heard must have been the dogs being killed. I put the paper down and stared at Tony.

  “We had a lucky escape, you know.”

  “Yeah,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief…

  I’ve had a few lucky escapes in my time. Well, I used to think I was lucky, but I know different now. I went to Stamford Bridge with Brian and his elder brother David to watch my beloved Queens Park Rangers play against Chelsea. There was a very large crowd of about 38,000 and we were at the Chelsea end, or The Shed as it was called. It was only the second time I had seen Rangers since I first started to follow them; the last time was in 1967 at Wembley, with Brian and David. I was only eleven and QPR won the League Cup against West Bromwich Albion 3-2. If I had a fiver for every game I’ve seen since then, I would have a few quid in the bank now and be a lot less stress
ed.

  We stood on the terraces in The Shed, cheering our teams on respectively. We were about ten rows from the front and I was standing in front of the metal barriers resting my elbows on the top bar. Weird things; all over the terraces, like small goals. Out of the blue, Rodney Marsh scored a corker and half the stadium erupted with cheers and applause. The singing and chanting was electric; just like a tribal war song. I felt elated and started jumping up and down waving my arms. After a few seconds, however, I realised that I was the only one cheering. Not knowing the unwritten law of football proved to be a hard lesson to learn. A hand grabbed my shirt collar and tried to drag me over the barrier.

  “Fucking Rangers supporter,” he screamed. Brian’s brother, David, grabbed the guy’s hand.

  “Let him go, you prat,” he shouted. “He’s only a kid.”

  David was in his twenties and a bit of a lad; what happened next should have put me off going to football forever, but it never did. Straight from the kick off, Peter Osgood equalised and the guy let go of my shirt collar. The whole of The Shed erupted. Everyone was singing ‘Spirit in the Sky’, thousands of them; and then it happened. From the back of The Shed came a massive surge downwards; it was like a tidal wave of human bodies. I slipped and fell under the barrier. I was sitting on my backside, huddled up in a ball. I was so scared that I couldn’t move. I looked up and to my horror there were three guys and a girl pinned to the bars. I can still hear the screams to this day. Hundreds of supporters spilled onto the pitch. The referee stopped the game and all the players stood in the centre circle. There were bodies everywhere. I am still amazed that no one got killed. What astonished me even more was that, after everything settled down and a few supporters were treated for minor injuries and two were stretchered off to the hospital, the referee re-started the game. It ended in a one-all draw. Thank God for all-seater stadiums now. On reflection, I still haven’t got a clue why I slipped that afternoon. If I hadn’t, I probably would have been crushed to death. What comes to mind is karma, or my guardian angel, perhaps. They can see the whole picture.

  CHAPTER THREE