by Heide Goody
“It’s really cold,” said Guin, hugging herself.
“It’s snow joke,” said Newton, deadpan. “This weather, I mean.”
Guin fixed Newton with a stare designed to shut him up, but he took it as encouragement. “I think it’s settling. If you catch my drift,” he said.
Guin sighed theatrically. “It’s nice you’re trying to make us all laugh, Newton—” she began.
She didn’t even have a chance to reach the inevitable but before he responded with “I just want everyone to chill out.” He grinned broadly. “Apart from Mrs Scruples, that is. She’s out cold already.”
“Poor taste, Newton,” said his mum.
“Let’s just keep walking,” said Dave in a determinedly upbeat voice. “We’ll get somewhere eventually, or get a phone signal at least.”
It was hard going for the adults, even downhill. Newton wondered if they could lay Mrs Scruples flat, give her a hefty shove down the hill, and meet her at the bottom. But it was probably not a very charitable thought.
“What if there are more of them?” said Guin. “Elves. I mean, what if we didn’t get them all?”
“You know, this whole thing might have escalated in our minds,” Dave said, his words coming slowly, as if he was trying to shape his thoughts as he went. “I mean, is it possible we’ve just got ourselves a bit freaked out after a rough evening and not sleeping properly and everything?”
“Dad, you were there!”
“I know I was there.”
“They’re definitely real.”
“Guin’s right,” said Esther carefully. “We can’t wish them away. No matter how appalling they were and how far away from our normal lives this whole thing has been. There are more things in heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
“Quoting Shakespeare does not make things true,” said Dave.
“Well, I’m just glad we’ve seen the last of them.”
“There’s one over there,” said Newton.
They all looked back to where he pointed. A small figure was just visible up an alley. It looked as though it was hard at work scooping something out of an indistinct shape on the ground. Faint gloopy noises reached them as they watched.
The elf looked up. The family instinctively held still against the shadows. The elf straightened and moved towards them, its hands stained with something that made them black in the dark. Esther judged it hadn’t seen them.
“Come on, go. Go!” she said, sotto voce. They moved much more quickly. Newton didn’t even glance back to see if the elf was following.
“Someone’s coming,” said Guin.
Newton looked ahead. “It’s a person. An actual person.”
“Please let it be someone with a working phone or a car,” said Dave.
It was a man. He wobbled between the closed market stalls as though drunk.
They were in the thick of the market. At some time during the night it had lost its festive jollity and become cluttered and threatening. As if every rustic stall front concealed something dreadful. Newton saw the man wore a multi-coloured jacket and lime green trousers that put him in mind of a children’s entertainer. It was unlikely he was out entertaining children at whatever time of the night it was now.
“He doesn’t look right,” said Guin.
“We shouldn’t judge people,” said Esther. “We have no idea what personal difficulties he might have...”
The man was close enough for them to see him clearly. Newton really didn’t like the look of him. His face hung grey and slack; the face of a dead man. One who still walked – with an awkward gait.
“Hi there,” said Dave and waved, almost dropping his corner of the stretcher in the process.
The man didn’t respond.
Newton saw the man’s jacket ripple and bulge. “His stomach…” Newton began to say and then a button came undone and a tiny head popped out, laughing.
“No…” Dave moaned.
“When I followed Elsa Frinton’s footprints,” said Guin, her voice low and distant, like she was recounting a dream, “I saw something on the wall. I thought it was a pink glove, like a human hand with no bones or meat inside it.”
Elves burst forth from the man’s stomach, leaping down onto the ground. As they left his body it collapsed, hollow.
“Back up, back up!” gasped Esther.
They started to drag the stretcher back the way they’d come. The elves were content to watch them with silent menace.
“And the stallholders at the market,” said Guin. “They all moved oddly, didn’t they? Like they were too tired and floppy to move properly. I guess a human suit is hard to steer.”
The board bumped over hidden obstacles beneath the snow. Mrs Scruples groaned loudly.
“She’s not dead. That’s a positive,” said Dave.
“Why am I tied down?” mumbled the old woman.
“There was an explosion,” Newton told her helpfully. “Your house is no longer safe.”
Mrs Scruples feebly tugged at the bonds tying her to the makeshift stretcher. “Kidnap!” she exclaimed, a loud bird-like squawk.
“Nobody’s kidnapping you, Mrs Scruples,” said Newton in his gentlest ‘would anyone like a cup of tea’ voice. “We’re just trying to get you to safety. Just relax for now.”
Mrs Scruples did not relax. “Let me go!” she shouted as she thrashed in place. “You’ve got no right to do this.”
“Shush, everything will be fine,” Newton urged her.
“Help me!”
“We are helping.
“Help me, little folk!”
The elves by the hollowed out human suit took this as their cue and began to follow.
“They’re coming for us,” said Esther, like there was any doubt.
“Here I am,” called Mrs Scruples. “I told you I’d get them for you.”
In silent agreement Dave and Esther let the stretcher drop. “We should put some distance between ourselves and these things,” said Dave.
“Don’t call them things,” said Esther. “Could be considered racist.”
Mrs Scruples dragged off the singed curtain remnants and staggered upright.
“You’d be better off if you stayed with us you know,” Dave told her.
The look she shot back suggested she didn’t agree.
The back of Newton’s foot connected with something. It was a weight which held down a corner of tarpaulin covering one of the stalls. He picked it up, held it like a bowling ball, took aim, and lobbed it at the elves. Two of them were crushed into the deep snow as it rolled over them. The remaining elves hissed and began to run at them.
The fabric awning directly above Dave was heavily laden with snow. He punched the awning from below and sent a considerable pile of snow onto the nearest elves. They were instantly buried. “And go!” he yelled.
They ran.
“I’m coming, little ones!” yelled Mrs Scruples in the night. “You can rely on me!”
***
48
Guin thought she heard the elves laughing. They were enjoying the chase. She glanced back: a lone elf was just a few paces behind.
They passed a chestnut stall; its brazier still radiated heat. Guin kicked it over. Hot pieces of charcoal rolled down the street, throwing off sparks. The elf stumbled and skipped over them, but continued its chase.
“This way!” Esther shouted. They twisted through the market and ducked down a side road while the elves were unsighted.
Mrs Scruples was still out there somewhere, calling to her ‘little people’.
“Mad as a box of frogs,” muttered Dave.
“Is that a clinical term?” asked Esther, nudging him in the ribs.
It was easier to move now they were out of the market and its clutter, but they were also very exposed. There was movement from some of the houses overlooking the street. Without looking too closely, Guin had the strong impression that elves were more or less everywhere. The ones chasing them were just a smal
l sample of a whole townful of elves.
They were at the edge of the town square and there wasn’t much more of the town beyond it. A steep hill rose up in front of them, its side thick with trees. The drystone wall and the church stood at the end of the road, but beyond that they’d be out in open countryside.
Guin didn’t fancy their chances out in the woods, being pursued by a horde of murderous elves.
“Church?” suggested Dave.
“Really?” said Esther.
“Just as a place to lay low.”
They moved together, up the road. Near the rear yard of a house, they skirted round a parked tractor. Guin stared at its convoluted shadows and recesses fearfully. A hundred elves could have hidden beneath it.
“Maybe there’s keys in the cab,” suggested Newton.
“Not enough room for us all,” said Dave.
Guin knew how slowly tractors went. If they were to make any kind of a getaway, there was no point in choosing something that could be overtaken by an elf who wasn’t even trying.
They crept quietly into the churchyard, the tree and snow covered slopes towered over the grey building. Esther got to the church first and tried the latch. It opened. They all piled inside and shut the door firmly behind them.
“I’ll see if I can lock it,” said Dave. “Try and find some lights.”
Moments later the interior of the church was lit up. It appeared to be free of elves. Dave found a heavy iron key and locked the door. They got their breath back, sighing heavily with relief.
“Nice church,” said Esther. “It’s simple and functional. Nothing fancy or excessive.”
“Suddenly an expert on churches, are we, mum?” said Newton.
“No elves,” she added. “I especially like the fact there are no elves in here.”
“Maybe the elves can’t cross the threshold of a church,” said Newton. “We should get some holy water and some crucifixes to defend ourselves.”
Guin rolled her eyes. “Seriously? The elf crosses are the things that work against the elves. Holy water won’t be any use at all.”
“Can’t hurt to try,” said Newton, lifting the wooden lid on the font and dipping a finger into the dark interior. As he shook the water off he turned and pointed. “Stairs.” A doorway led to a spiral stone staircase. “They’ll lead to the bell tower. Maybe we could go up—”
“And ring the bells and see if someone comes to help us!” said his mum enthusiastically.
“Er, that,” said Newton kindly. “Or I was just going to see if I could get a better phone signal high up.”
“Yeah, yeah. That too,” agreed Esther.
“Go with him,” Dave told Guin.
“Why?”
“Safety in height. You know: like climbing trees to get away from bears.”
“Bears can climb trees, dad. That’s the one thing you shouldn’t do when attacked by one.”
“Fine,” he said irritably. “Sharks then.”
Guin could have pointed out how stupid that was too but simply went.
She ran up the stairs behind Newton. She didn’t run far: physical exercise was not her friend. She was the pale and sickly looking girl in her class at school, a stereotype she was happy to live up to. After one circuit of the stairs, she resorted to walking. A dozen spirals later she reached a small square room with bell ropes hanging from holes in the ceiling. Newton flitted between the two small leaded windows, waving his phone about.
“Any luck?” asked Guin.
Newton gave her a terse, still look. “Maybe we will have to resort to fighting them off with holy water and crosses.” He caught her expression. “We don’t know those things aren’t related to vampires or demons or something. They’re ugly like demons, I mean those carvings on some of the pews downstairs even look a bit like them.”
Guin pulled out the Little Folk in European Folklore book and sat with it, cross-legged on the floor, over a heating grill that was not entirely cold. There was a quote from Dr Epiphany Alexander on the subject of carvings that Newton needed to hear. Before she could locate it there was a loud braying din. Downstairs, the organ was being played, but not by anyone with training. Chilling, discordant notes echoed around the church.
***
49
More than anything Dave wanted to protect his loved ones. The look of alarm on Esther’s face as the church organ struck up was almost more than he could bear. He’d tried to deal with the situation in the best way he knew how: keep his head and deliver solutions to problems. But this was so far away from anything he’d ever experienced he was running out of ideas. They were trapped in an unfamiliar town, surrounded by an enemy that was not only ridiculously numerous, but also completely impossible for his brain to believe in.
“This is a classic villain scare tactic,” he said, attempting to be reassuring. “Creepy organ music. I mean, doesn’t it remind you of every horror film you ever saw?”
Esther wrinkled her nose. “Not sure about that. They normally at least do chords, don’t they? That sounds like someone running up and down the keyboard.”
Dave whirled. The church was essentially one huge open room. His original idea that they could lay low and get behind some cover seemed quite ridiculous now. “The kids!”
“We defend the stairs,” said Esther. “Grab weapons.”
“What?”
“When they show themselves we need to be ready to take them on.”
Dave stepped up to the altar and grabbed a pair of candlesticks. Their weight felt good in his hands. Esther lifted a brass heating duct grille. It looked too heavy for her to carry, but that probably meant it had excellent elf-squashing potential.
Dave looked all around, wondering which direction the elves’ attack would come from. The tuneless organ honking continued, but there was another sound. Almost like voices singing in a choir: a choir that tuned up by scratching their fingernails down a blackboard. Discordant, wordless and completely without a tune. The closest thing Dave could bring to mind was the noise he made as a child when working hard to irritate his family. It was optimistically known as ‘the bagpipes’, made by holding his nose, make a droning sound and making small rapid karate chops against his throat.
He spotted them, beyond the altar. Had they been in the choir stalls all along? They began climbing up and over the wooden seats, the grotesque carvings come to life.
Moments later the bells rang out. Even louder than the organ and almost as chaotic as the choir. Guin and Newton were giving it everything that they had, although they really didn’t know what they were doing.
“Maybe someone will hear,” said Esther optimistically.
Dave remembered bell ringers sometimes suffered serious injuries. If they forgot to let go of the rope, they could be whisked upwards at something like fifty miles an hour.
Elves came at them. Dave swung the candlesticks, one in each arm, and just for a moment he was Antonio Banderas wielding two pistols against Mexican drug peddlers with devastating style. There was a satisfying crunch and a lot of splatter as he made an elf sandwich with smeared elf filling.
“Consider that an exorcism,” he said.
Esther had managed to pin one elf underneath her heavy iron grill. She jumped on it to get more momentum. Dave couldn’t be sure from this distance, but it looked as though she’d created elf chips.
“Guin! Newton! Take care with those bells!” he called towards the bell tower.
Abruptly, he realised the bells had stopped. And so had the choir and organ.
“Guin! Newton!” Dave charged up the stairs. Esther close behind.
The bell-ringers’ chamber was empty but for half a dozen swinging ropes.
“Guin! Newton! Where are you?” Dave turned in a circle as if he might have overlooked two children. “They must have just been in here.”
One of the small leaded windows in the room was open, swinging in the wind and letting snow flutter in.
“It’s not big enough,” Esther murmure
d.
“If they were dragged through—” said Dave instantly wishing he hadn’t.
There was scrap of fabric on the floor beneath the window, ripped from Newton’s clothes.
Wordlessly they sprinted back downstairs, out the church’s main door. There were no elves to be seen. They headed round to the outside of the bell tower and located the window. Footsteps in the snow indicated a great many elves had been here, and they had been dragging something with them. The prints headed up into the trees. It was wild and dark in there, the snow lying heavy and menacing.
“It looks steep and dangerous,” said Dave.
Dave ran back into the church. Esther followed him. “I’m thinking a rope maybe, anything that could help us out in the woods.”
“It’s a church Dave, not Go Outdoors. What are we likely to find?”
Dave trotted to the base of the bell tower, looking around to see if there was any spare rope. A large box in the corner looked like a good prospect. He opened the lid and found a neatly coiled length of bell rope with a red, white and blue fluffy end.
“Good,” he said lifting it onto his shoulder. “Candles! They could help us start a fire in a pinch.”
Esther made a doubtful noise, but ran to the altar.
“I know it seems like overkill, but we run the risk of getting exposure out there in the open,” Dave called.
“Yes! Yes!” Esther shouted back, knowing he was right but impatient to get on with it.
“Grab the cloth thing while you’re there as well,” he said.
Esther hesitated for a moment before she balled up the altar cloth with the candles.
They both sprinted for the door and went back round to the far side of the church.
“I’ll tie the rope around both of our waists,” said Dave. “We’ll be able to move separately, but this snow is so deep I’m worried one of us might step into a gorge or off a cliff.”
They started to trudge up the hill. The lights of Alvestowe disappeared as the concealing tree branches blocked out streetlights and the yellow light reflecting off the snow. Dave led the way, kicking the earth to find footholds among rocks and tree roots.