by Andy Jarvis
Baz got up last, still shaking but smiling. “Does nothing bother you?” he asked Henry.
“I’m a little scared of ghosts,” Henry cracked. “But don’t tell anyone.”
The sky broke showing patches of daylight as the storm rolled on, to be replaced by grey cover and steady rain. Cool air breezed in and everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
Reverend John looked puzzled. “Can you hear that?” he said.
“Yeah, but what is it?” said Baz fretfully.
I shrugged my shoulders and shook my head in disbelief. “What next?” The hum that had come from the belfry now continued from somewhere in the church.
Silas walked up the aisle sniffing the air as we followed. Creaking sounds came from the walls as the hum continued. A familiar smell of grease, solder and warm metal hit our nostrils. Baz turned to me and grinned from ear to ear like a big Cheshire cat. He dashed to the vestry, bursting back through the door barely a second later. “The boiler’s fired!” he cried, running and high-fiving me.
“How?” I cried. “Damn, it must have tripped in at last. And about bloody time!”
“It’s a parting gift from Isabel,” said Henry. “Well, goodbye,” he added, heading for the door.
“But wait, what about my church?” said Reverend John, chasing after him. “Is that it? Surely not,”
“Your church will be fine now,” said Henry, turning briefly as he reached the exit. “You folks go on and have a great life now.” He smiled and stepped out into the rain.
It was the last time we ever saw Henry Wainwright.
21.
I once watched some obscure art house film and sat in the cinema for several minutes after the lights had gone up thinking: What the hell was that all about? I think that’s how the remaining four of us felt after Henry’s sudden departure. I stood alone in the vestry staring dumbly at the boiler which hummed away perfectly. I ran it through again in my head, in slow motion this time. Nope. This was even crappier than the film. Didn’t even have a proper ending and the guy who was supposed to be the hero had just done a runner. I might have guessed.
Outside, the people of Candlewell picked up the pieces of what was to be recorded as the worst storm in its history. A framed newspaper article would eventually adorn the walls of the village hall with the heading: ‘The Day Hell Came to an English Village.’ Photos would show the devastation: flattened crops, dented cars and smashed greenhouses. Another would show a tree next to where we’d jumped into the river with Henry that day, split in two and charred from a lightning bolt. Most likely the very one Silas had said hit a tree.
Baz wandered aimlessly about to and from the vestry, still hardly believing the boiler had fired up by itself. Reverend John knelt down, eyes closed and head bowed, not before the altar or even the front row, but several rows back, praying quietly, humbly, as though a common man and sinner come for absolution.
Silas sat nearby, shaking his head. He breathed a heavy sigh that sounded strangely of disappointment. I wanted to ask him about that sigh. Was it a sigh for the departed Isabel, if she was really gone? Or a sigh for Henry just running off and leaving us all to it without an explanation? I couldn’t bring myself to ask the question. I was confused, beyond anger or my cynicism of recent days. My mind needed to be elsewhere, if only for a while.
In the end, all I could think of to say was: “We better go.”
Reverend John looked up. “But you can’t,” he protested. “Look at it out there, it’s a terrible night. You can’t possibly want to drive all that way in these conditions. It wouldn’t surprise me if there was a bridge out somewhere.”
“Are you mad?” said Baz. “We’re just going to drive off with a smile and a ‘cheerio everyone’ after all that’s happened? Personally I could do with a pint or two, just to get my head back together.”
“Me too,” I said. “But reality bites, mate.” We’ve got to make a living, that’s where all the pints come from, and we promised McBright. We’ve stalled long enough and our jobs are on the line. If we’re not in the workshop by 7.30 in the morning, we’re dead.”
“Stuff McBright. He’s not going to sack us. He’s got too many contracts and there aren’t enough of us skilled lads around to fill them. I’m not frightened of McBright, not after what’s happened here.”
“So what has happened here? I’m a bit confused. We had a storm, a bad one, yes. It obviously scared the crap out of the bats, but what about everything else? Where was the mist, the ghost, or that thing that Henry was on about for that matter? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“The boiler,” said Baz. “What about the boiler firing?”
“I don’t know? A fluke, duff parts maybe, like I was saying before about tight-arsed McBright and his cost cutting.”
“Oh come on, Ed!” cried Baz. “You know that’s just so much crap. We tried everything.”
“Thermostat, that’s what,” I said. “It must have been dodgy all along. It’s just decided to trip in now.”
“Come off it Ed!” Baz said impatiently.
“Okay, maybe it was Isabel. But I thought she’d at least make an appearance, wave goodbye or something. I just don’t know.”
“It’s different,” said Reverend John, solemnly. “I can feel it, the air, smell it even.”
“That’s just the smell of grease and stuff,” I said. “And it’s the change in the air you get after a thunderstorm. I once read something about it. It’s the negative ions in the atmosphere.”
“No, it’s not that. I can sense it. I haven’t felt the church like this since I was a young child. It’s over. It’s done,” Reverend John said with such a deep sadness in his voice I felt it press on my own heart.
“And we have to go,” I muttered.
Within half an hour we were speeding up a rain swept back road to home.
22.
It slithered. Sleek, and as black as the woods to the side of the road, the thing writhed its way across. Its eye caught the headlights, flashing white light in the beam. Baz barely had a chance to cry out.
“Serpent!” he screeched as I hit the brakes. Too hard. The van went into a skid, swaying left, then right as I wrestled with the steering. Too late. A thud under the wheels indicating that we’d made contact as the van spun to a stop, miraculously facing the same way as we were driving. I sat for several seconds just staring and panting, grateful that the vehicle hadn’t rolled over.
“What the hell was that?” I cried.
“Can’t you guess, Ed? What do you think it is?”
“Oh no, bollocks to that. There’s got to be a rational explanation. I’m going to take a look.”
“Don’t, Ed! Get the hell out of here! Just drive, will you!”
“Sorry,” I said, diving over the seat and rooting around in the tools for a torch. I kicked open the back doors and cautiously made my way back up the wet, unlit road shining the torch as I went. I stopped a few yards short as the creature came into view. Its tail end still quivered, suggesting it still lived, but only just, and the depression below the head proved that we had indeed run over it.
My mind swam. Have I lost the plot? I went closer; shining the torch and bending down to take a look. I jumped back as the tail flapped suddenly and I recalled the scene from Alien where John Hurt gets it right in the face. I looked again. I’d seen something like it before, but two things didn’t go together here: road and…road and…eel. Eel? Road and eel? But sure enough, it was an eel. Now the thought wasn’t so much Alien as Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy – the part where the whale drops out of the sky. Where the hell?
Then my brain clicked. I remembered. I remembered a wildlife program I once watched on television. Eels! They migrate up British rivers, then live a while in our waters, sometimes getting trapped when the water levels drop. Sometimes they live there for years growing fat on the other pond life. Then when the water level rises again they try to get back to the river to make the long journey home to the Sargasso Sea. And they�
��ll do just about anything to get there, traverse woodland ponds, cross wet fields. And even roads – if they’re wet enough. But something nagged in the back of my mind. Something on the program I’d watched didn’t quite add up, but I couldn’t remember. Maybe it was the size of the thing? Then again, I guess any angler would tell you he’d caught one bigger. But what the hell, there it was true enough, an eel. Simply an eel.
I began to giggle. I grasped the creature by its still quivering tail and held it up. At over five foot long, it truly was a monster – but a natural one. “You’ve been eating some stuff, you greedy fat bastard!”
I ran back to the van, pounding on the roof as Baz wound down the window. “It’s okay, mate. It’s only an eel,” I held it up.
“Jesus Christ, Ed! A what?” he exclaimed, recoiling at the sight of it.
“An eel. It must have come up out of the river or a reservoir somewhere, because of the flooding. Boo!” I shouted, thrusting it at him and laughing.
“Eel? I’ll give you eel.” Baz threw open the van door and snatched the thing from me. Then with all the finesse of a Rugby League drop kicker, he sent the creature skidding down the road. He chased after, kicking and stomping it. “Scare the shit out of me, will you! Bastard!”
I began to laugh so hard I sat down on the road, oblivious to the rain or the water seeping into my underpants. “And you thought it was a mythical beast! What an absolute dickhead!”
Half a minute passed and Baz was still at it. I thought he might be losing it and ran up behind him, tugging at his jacket. “Hey, it’s all over mate. Enough is enough. Let’s go.”
He shook me off with an elbow and carried on kicking and swearing. He was gone, totally lost in his own rage. In the end I jumped on his back, sending him sprawling face first onto the grass verge, where, still hold of the eel, he thrashed and kicked. I was barely aware of it at the time, but I recall maybe two cars slowing down as I tussled with Baz, then speeding off again.
He calmed down eventually. He lay there panting half a minute with me still sprawled on his back. “It’s okay mate,” I said. “It’s over. Let’s go home.” Another car passed.
We slung the poor creature over a low wall and I helped Baz back into the van and we continued on our way. Despite the scare and soggy underpants, the day’s events had taken their toll on Baz. Coupled with the sound of driving rain on the windscreen, he eventually began to nod off.
Half an hour passed and still Baz dozed. About a mile from the motorway in a street lit area he awoke with a start and a gasp, “Jesus Christ, Ed!”
“Now what?”
“I just realised…it was him.”
“Him what?”
“It was Ankou.”
“Don’t start that again Baz, for fuck’s sake.”
“No, listen…Ed, listen to me. It really must have been him.”
“Baz! We ran over an eel! A one in a million chance yeah, but that’s what happened. Read my lips will you, it was an eel.”
“Listen up, Ed,” he said, grabbing my shoulder. “Remember what Henry said about Ankou? Could transform himself into other creatures? That must be what he did. That was him, and we just killed it! I mean I finished it off with the boot like, but we destroyed the evil, get it? That was our role. That’s what Henry meant! It’s what Isabel was hanging around for, for us to come along and…”
I pulled sharply into a lay-by and parked up the van, then turning to Baz said, very calmly, “Look, I’m going to get really annoyed in a minute if you don’t stop this crap.”
“But Ed, it all fits in, doesn’t it? It must have flown out with the bats or whatever and transformed himself into…”
“Stop it!” I snapped. “Look, let’s run it through again shall we? Isabel yes, we both saw her. I can accept that. The mist, that too, but I can’t explain that. I may be a bit confused about the religion thing, but maybe I do believe in there being an afterlife. But mythical creatures that turn themselves into what…eels? An eel for Christ’s sake! Why an eel? Why not a big snake with fangs? But an eel?”
“But Ed, what about Henry? Look what he did; getting Reverend John to say stuff he obviously never wanted to admit to. He admitted to killing his old man for God’s sake, and then he said the church was okay after. Henry must have done something.”
“Yeah, I think it was all very clever. In fact I’ve been thinking about it all the time we’ve been driving and do you know what? I think we’ve been duped.”
“How do you mean?”
“I think Silas was nearer the truth when he accused Henry of being a hypnotist. And did you see how annoyed Henry looked when he said it? And then when he was trying to get Silas to say something, he just suddenly stopped and turned away to talk to us, like he’d given up on him. That’s what hypnotists do when they can’t crack someone. They get a few people together, and those that are receptive they keep. The rest they turn off the stage. Then afterwards Silas just sat there looking as though he didn’t believe any of what happened.”
“But nobody’s that good, are they, Ed? I mean to crack RJ like that.”
“I don’t know. There are some pretty clever hypnotists these days. Some people even go to them for pain relief.”
“But Ed, look what RJ was saying about that black spirit or whatever it was.”
“You just don’t get me, do you, Baz? I believe Reverend John. After all we’ve been through, I’ve got to believe. The mist, the apparition, the light of Isabel, I believe it. I stood in it and I felt it for Christ’s sake. And I really do think something bad happened to Reverend John, but it may be that he misinterpreted it. I mean, he was only ten, for God’s sake. I know what my imagination was like at that age. Or maybe Henry planted some suggestion there that we don’t know about. The only thing I don’t believe is Henry bloody Wainwright. I believe he’s a con. All this cock and bull about a legacy? Come on Baz, do me a favour! He’s taken the money and run.”
“You know what I think, Ed? I think you’re in denial or whatever they call it. It’s because the truth is so fucking scary that you can’t admit it. Come on Ed, even Reverend John said she was gone.”
Baz had a point. I had the strange sensation that at least part of Baz’s interpretation of events was correct. As for the rest of it, I could feel doubt creeping in. I had to keep Baz’s imagination in check in case he flipped again, and took me with him. What had happened that night couldn’t all be true. I did believe that. I had to make Baz believe that, at least until we got home, got to daylight or got a pint down us and had a chance to view things from another angle – the real world, not a lonely wind and rain swept road on a winter’s night.
“Okay then, why did he piss off so suddenly?” I muttered.
“But that’s just his way,” said Baz. “He never lingers long, does he? I suppose he doesn’t want to make a big deal of it, you know, the modest type.”
“Or maybe he just wanted to get out before anyone sussed him, just like those fake mediums that demand cash up front. He was doing a flit. Anyway Baz, I don’t think his kind are supposed to take money. I’m sure I read about it somewhere, it’s their belief. You’re supposed to owe them a favour instead.”
“Oh, come on Ed, just because his belief is in the wind and the fresh air or whatever doesn’t mean he has to live on it.”
“Alright, but maybe he does a round of these…these ceremonies, sessions, or whatever that was supposed to be. Think about that, at £500 a time. Maybe he’s on his way to another one right now for all we know. Maybe that’s why he cut and run so early. He didn’t even stop around to see if Reverend John was alright or nothing, especially after putting him through all that.”
Baz sat silently for ages looking straight ahead, taking deep breaths and sighing. “So we just beggar off and leave Reverend John to it then, is that it? I guess that makes us as bad as Henry, and for the sake of what…McBright? Are you mad?”
“But that’s just it, we can’t do anything. It’s no good trying to tell
Reverend John he’s been had, it won’t work. You just can’t tell someone that they’ve been hypnotised, they won’t have it. That’s why it’s pointless us hanging around. You don’t really think I wanted to rush back for McBright, do you?”
“But what’s going to happen to him?” said Baz, fretfully.
“Nothing. He’s lived with his church for nearly eighty years hasn’t he? I think he’ll suss soon enough, or Silas will break it to him. Silas knew what was going on, I’m sure.”
“I don’t know, Ed. Henry made him say all that stuff. How’d he do that?”
“All that stuff was already there. It’s a bit like those psychoanalysts that make you go back to your childhood. Henry didn’t make him say anything that wasn’t true, or he didn’t believe at least, and it can’t have been easy keeping it to himself all those years. I bet Reverend John has been wanting to get it off his chest. Henry just coaxed it out of him. That’s how good he was. And don’t forget, Reverend John told Henry everything he needed to know, just like how I said these spiritualists work. And all that bit about interpreting the role of the mandrake, well, he just made that part up based on what Reverend John had already told him after he blurted it all out, you know, the crucifix and the symbolic death and all that. He was very clever, I’ll admit, very sharp.”
“But, Ed, it all just seems to tie in with what Henry said last night. Henry said Isabel awaited something from Reverend John – the truth. He just told it, the one skeleton in the cupboard he’s kept to himself all his life and it freed Isabel. Even Reverend John said she was gone, and so is that thing Henry said she was bound to. It’s almost like Isabel intended us to find out the truth, like she led us to it, from finding the mist right through to Henry getting it out of Reverend John, to us ultimately destroying that thing back there.”