by Will Storr
‘And there were others,’ says Charles. ‘There was also Nobby Goldsmith – he was the copper. And then there was a woman called Foster. Must’ve been at least five in all.’
I wonder if the Friends of Hecate are aware of the work of Charles and Dave.
‘Oh yes,’ he says, with his crystal-topped staff bobbing along, reflecting the stars as it goes. ‘Trust me. If you’re in their way and they want to stop you, then they will stop you. And they’ve tried to get at me, I can tell you.’
‘What sort of things have they done?’ I ask.
He’s silent for a couple of steps as we trudge on up the path. ‘Things like knocking me off my bike, purposefully and intentionally,’ he says. ‘And there was another incident. It was in Worthing town centre, in Chapel Road. Somebody stopped me in the middle of the street with a gun. He told me, “Pack it in, or you’re going to get this and so is your family.”’
‘What did you do?’ I ask.
Charles lets out a tough-guy laugh. ‘Ha! Me, being threatened? I’ve been threatened before, so it wasn’t a surprise. Still,’ he pauses for a beat, ‘it was a bloody shock that it was a gun.’
I wonder, as we walk, if all this is why he and Dave appear to be a little bit jumpy tonight.
‘Jumpy?’ says Charles. ‘Oh no. There’s not time to get scared, is there, Dave?’
‘Jesus!’ Dave whispers suddenly. ‘Shhh!’
A dirty green Land Rover is approaching. We watch in silence as it drives past us and pulls up at the other side of Charles’s car, which Dave hides behind.
‘Don’t say a word,’ Charles whispers. ‘This could be trouble.’
A large man in Wellington boots and tattered green wax jacket climbs out of the high, mud-splattered vehicle. He stands still and regards us, exuding the rude and bloody confidence of a true man of the countryside.
‘Going ghosthunting, then?’ he says, with thick, knotty fingers and dry slurry cracking off his boots.
‘You might as well get up,’ Charles mutters to Dave. ‘He’s seen you.’
Dave’s head emerges from the protection of the car’s matronly rear-end.
‘Er … no,’ he says. ‘No, we’re off in a minute.’
We walk past the farmer.
‘He’s another,’ Charles says out of the corner of his mouth.
After they’ve got their supplies, we make our way up a track towards the twelfth-century church, which has sat alone in the woodland since the original Clapham village that it served was deserted during the plague. All that’s left of old Clapham now are rubbled remains amongst the thicket and the pit where the victims of the great sickness were dumped when it swept through the country in the fourteenth century.
The twilight has been completely overwhelmed now, and the ranks of individual trees that stand ahead of us have merged in the darkness into one vast, swaying silhouette. I’m suddenly aware of how small our voices sound. We’re breaking a silence that stretches for miles around us and, as we approach them, I feel dwarfed by the army of brooding birches.
‘How do we know that there aren’t Satanists in the woods right now?’ I ask, as the shadow of the forest falls over our faces.
‘They could be here now,’ he says, ‘and unless you heard something or they had a fire going, you’d never know there was anybody there.’
We turn a corner onto a steeper path that, for a few yards, takes us into more open land. And as we do, I get a fleeting whiff of smoke.
‘Is that smoke?’ I ask.
Dave stops, dead still. Charles sniffs.
‘There might be a bit of a fire going on somewhere, yes,’ he says. ‘That would be interesting, if it was coming from the altar tree. Crikey, that would be just your luck if there’s a ritual going on up there.’
‘Oh, before we go to the tree, Dave,’ says Charles, ‘we’ll take Will to the stump, see what he makes of that.’
We turn off into an area of sparse, spindly woodland. Between the trees, under our feet, are the crunchy leftovers of several small fires.
‘Are these the remains of rituals?’ I ask.
‘Could be, yes,’ Charles says. ‘We have found quite a few bits and pieces up here. Look,’ he says, stopping suddenly and pulling a flourish of long grass away from a cut tree stump, ‘what do you make of this?’
A pentagram has been carved into the wood. And it’s not been done idly by some lost local herbet. Its channels are perfectly straight. It is deep, clean and on purpose.
‘A five-point star is very difficult to draw, let alone carve,’ Charles says. ‘This has been done very nicely.’ He takes a digital camera out of his pocket and switches it on. ‘Oh, you wouldn’t flaming believe it, would you?’ he says. ‘This is always happening. New batteries, they always go down up here.’
Suddenly, I get a more definite wisp of smoke.
Charles stands upright and angles his face up towards the sky. ‘Do you know what?’ he says. ‘I think there is a bit of a fire going on somewhere.’
We all stand there, sniffing the air for clues and, eventually, decide to press on regardless, in the direction of the altar tree.
‘People have had stomach cramp, nausea and pressure on the ears in this vicinity,’ says Dave, as we go. ‘We’ve had orb pictures, a black shadow, mists. Mediums we’ve brought up here don’t like it one bit.’
‘The theory behind it,’ says Charles, ‘is that they can use the power to affect any living thing. And if the experience of the local dogs is anything to go by, that’s true. They can. It works. The only thing I can relate it to is electricity. Now, you can use electricity for good – it gives you light, you do your cooking. But in America, they use it for bad, don’t they? They frazzle you.’
‘The trouble is,’ Dave continues softly, as we trudge up the hill, ‘they’ll come up here, they’ll do their business and they won’t shut the energy down that they’ve built up. So that energy is still hurtling around the vicinity. Anybody out walking their dog could walk straight into that. Responsible occultists would dismiss the forces they’ve created. But not this lot. They’ll build it up and bugger off home.’
‘Do you know what?’ Charles says, stopping and resting his hands on his hips. ‘I think that smoke is coming from the tree. The wind’s going in the right direction.’
We stop behind him and look at the smoke curling above the tree-tops and fogging up the stars.
‘We might be in trouble,’ says Charles.
‘What do you mean by “trouble”?’ I ask.
‘Well, if it is coming from up there, is it something going on? If there has been something going on and there’s just remains, that’s good. But if they’re still up there, that’s not quite so good.’
‘What would you do if you found them in the middle of a ritual?’ I ask.
‘Keep an eye on it,’ Charles says, and looks at me out of the corner of his eye.
‘If they were killing animals … then we’d probably have to step in.’
‘Have you ever found anybody doing anything suspicious?’ I ask.
‘We’ve seen people coming out of this area with snooker cases,’ he says.
‘What do you think was in them?’ I ask.
‘Ritual regalia, swords, remains of something. Who knows?’
By now, we’ve reached the corner to the track that leads to the altar tree. We’re surrounded by forest, enveloped in the pitch-black night with just the moon glowing above us for company. Dave has crouched down on his knees and is looking up the path towards the fire.
‘What do you think?’ he says. ‘Creep up and have a look?’
‘Yeah,’ says Charles. He switches his torch on and shines it down at his partner. Dave pulls his camouflaged hat tightly over his head. I can just make out the symbol on the buckle of his brown leather belt. It’s a Boy Scouts logo.
‘But aren’t you worried it might be Friends of Hecate?’ I say.
‘Well, you don’t know, do you?’ whispers Charles. ‘But we hav
e to have a look. This will be the first time that we’ve ever done this … but let’s do it. They won’t be expecting anybody.’
‘We’ve got nothing to lose,’ says Dave.
There’s a silence.
‘Except our lives,’ says Charles.
We creep, silently, up the earthen track. As we get closer, we can make out the large fire through the gaps between the trunks. You can see its fat red belly breathing and its yellow flames groping and spitting sparks up into the canopy.
‘If we start hearing moaning or chanting, then we’ll know,’ Charles whispers.
‘Do you really think they’ll be chanting?’ I say.
‘I would’ve thought so,’ he says.
Then, a silhouette of someone appears in front of the fire. It’s a man. And behind him, a tent.
‘A tent!’ says Dave.
‘A tent!’ says Charles.
‘Fuck!’ says Dave. ‘Dim the light!’
‘It’s dimmed!’ says Charles.
We all freeze and listen, for a moment, to the crackling and murmuring from the area around the altar tree.
‘I don’t care who it is!’ Charles hisses. ‘I’m going to go up to that tree and have a cup of tea!’
‘We can’t do that!’ says Dave.
There’s a tense silence as we all try to make out each other’s expressions in the dark.
‘Tell you what,’ Charles whispers to Dave. ‘Why don’t you creep up a bit further and report back?’
‘All right,’ says Dave, pulling his hat down again, over his face. ‘But keep that light dimmed.’
‘Okey-pokey,’ Charles says, and we watch Dave scrabble up the ditch on his stomach. While Dave’s gone, Charles lights up another Superking and starts to tell me why Clapham is such an important location for the local occultists. Over thirty years of exhaustive investigations, he has worked out that there are two main reasons why Friends of Hecate chose Clapham Woods as their base.
The first is that six powerful ley-lines intersect them. This rare and numerically significant conflux (six being the ‘number of the beast’) creates a ‘black stream’ which is ideal, he believes, for devil-worshipping and malevolent conjuration. The second reason is that there’s a lay-by on the nearby A27 that the Satanists find handy for parking.
I watch Dave creep up the track and, as the dangerous dark folds in around him, it strikes me that everybody needs a Satanist. Because knowing whose fault it is can be a great comfort. It helps define you, knowing who you’re not. It’s reassuring. Especially if you’re an anti-Satan vigilante or, indeed, a Christian. And then it occurs to me that enemies can also be exciting. The thrill of having the spicy breath of the dark side prickling the skin on the back of your neck can be seductive and thrilling and vital. Isn’t that one of the reasons why we want to believe in the supernatural, in the devil and in evil and in ghosts? Because their very presence in our days makes our lives feel less ordinary? And the fact that they never quite get you has the perverse effect of making you feel safer. Is this just another chimera, invented by the brain, to make us zombies feel alive and to stop us blowing our brains out? It’s hard to deny that these diabolical enemies are an excellent ointment for the self-esteem. After all, if something that powerful and frightening and unconquerable can be after you … well, you must be pretty important. Not inconsequential or lonely. Not inadequate or small. You’re obviously not just a zombie, living an automatic life. There’s just no way that you’re here for no reason at all. If for nothing else, you’re here to do battle. It’s a war, an epic fight against evil. And that makes you the hero.
‘I can see that fag butt from right up there!’
It’s Dave. He’s arrived back, on his hands and knees, in the ditch.
‘What are they up to?’ Charles whispers, shining his torch down on his friend.
‘Milling,’ Dave says. There’s a silence. Dave adjusts his hat. There’s a small twig stuck to his left cheek.
‘Hmm, milling.’ Charles says. ‘No chanting?’ he says. ‘No moaning?’
‘Not that I could hear.’
‘But could you actually tell what they were up to, Dave?’
Dave looks at Charles.
‘They might just be camping,’ he says. ‘Kids … camping’.
‘Well, bollocks to them,’ he says. ‘I’m going to just march right up to them. I don’t care.’
‘I don’t see how we can,’ Dave says.
In the distance, the sound of teenage laughing spirits through the trees. We listen to it in silence. Eventually, Charles and Dave decide that perhaps it’s best if we leave the altar tree after all, and we trudge off to do our Ouija board.
I can’t pretend I’m not a little apprehensive about this. Almost everyone I’ve met on my search so far has warned me against the Ouija board. They’ve said it’s an unfinished device, that you can’t control it, that you risk possession, madness or suicidal depression if you even dare tinker. Priests, parents, druids – even the lucid and rational Lance from the Ghost Club – have all told me to keep well away from the crafty seductions of evil Ouija.
Nobody knows who invented it, but the talking board became mainstream during the Spiritualism movement in the mid-nineteenth century. In 1890, two businessmen, Elijah Bond and Charles Kennard, had the idea of patenting a set and an employee of theirs, William Fuld, came up with the term ‘Ouija’ (which comes from the French and German words for ‘yes’). In 1901, Fuld took over production of the boards, and in 1966, Fuld’s estate sold the patent to toy-makers Parker Brothers, who own the trademark on the name to this day. Nobody disagrees that the planchette on a Ouija board does appear to move without any of the participants being consciously responsible. Sceptics, however, theorise that players are making tiny, involuntary muscle movements (the so-called ‘ideomotor effect’). Others think that spirits are using the energy of the participants to communicate and, sometimes, materialise. Christians believe it’s the devil.
After a short walk, we find ourselves crouched low on the ground in an abandoned, pathless acre of the ancient Sussex woodland. It’s testament to how close-knit the community is round here that they know the location of this plague pit, one of the many forgotten mass-graves that silently haunt Britain’s subterranean landscape. All that’s visible now is a barely noticeable, twenty-foot-square drop. I watch Charles brush some dead, coppery undergrowth from the board, as the birches huddle and whisper above us. Charles picked up this ‘Waddingtons Mystifying Oracle’ in a charity shop that he used to work in. He claimed it for himself when they refused to sell it. Right now, it’s illuminated only by a small candle, whose thin, cowering light is being diluted by the shadows and bullied by the breeze.
‘We ready, then?’ says Charles as the flame sends its weak yellow light over his long hair and watery eyes.
‘Yep,’ I say, and we each place a fingertip on an upturned shot-glass in the middle of the board.
‘Right then,’ says Charles. Almost instantly, the glass shoots across the board and starts to spell out its message. I try to follow it with frantic jerks of my head.
C to L to A to P to H to A to M.
‘Clapham,’ says Charles.
E to V to I to L
‘Evil,’ he says. ‘Clapham evil. Hmmm.’
The glass feels as if it’s floating on a skin of oil. And there’s a real force coming from it.
‘What do you mean by that?’ Dave asks the board.
It moves again. Y to O to U to D to A to N to G to E to R.
‘What from?’ he says.
P to E to O to P to L to E.
‘Well, yeah,’ says Charles. ‘People. What type of people? Who? Who?’
D to E to V to I to L to W to O to R to S to H to I to P to P to E to R to S.
‘Devil worshippers … ’ says Charles.
T to H to E to Y to A to R to E to A to W to A to R to E.
‘Jesus!’ says Dave.
T to H to A to T to Y to O to U to A to R to E to H t
o E to R to E.
‘Interesting,’ says Charles. ‘They’re aware that we’re here. Hmm. They must have seen us come up. Or they’re in the woods somewhere. Who are we speaking to, please?’
R to E to V to H to A to R to R to Y.
‘Is this the Reverend Harry Snelling?’ says Charles.
The glass shoots to ‘Yes’.
I to A to M to S to T to I to L to L to H to E to R to E.
‘Who’s keeping you here?’ I say.
F to R to I to E to N to D to S to O to F to H to E to C to A to T to E.
‘Why are they keeping you here?’ Charles says.
As the dead reverend tells us that THEY ARE USING ME FOR MY ENERGY, I notice that there’s a crescent of white on the end of Charles’s fingertip, where mine and Dave’s are pink.
‘So has everyone got their fingers on the glass quite lightly?’ I ask.
‘All lightly, yes,’ Charles says.
‘It doesn’t feel heavy, does it?’ I say.
‘It’s flying,’ Dave says. ‘I’ve never seen it as strong as this. Usually it takes a while to get going. But this is very strong. This just went straight into it.’
My phone starts buzzing in my pocket. Now I’m really scared. It’s too late for this to be anything but bad news. I reach into my jacket with my spare hand and pull it out. On the screen is the word ‘Home’. Farrah.
‘Sorry,’ I say, ‘I should take this.’
I put the phone to my ear.
‘What’s up, love?’ I say. ‘I’m in the middle of something.’
‘You know the stereo in the kitchen?’ she says. ‘It keeps turning itself on and off.’
‘What?’
‘I keep turning it off and as soon as I leave the room I hear it turning itself on again. It keeps happening.’
‘When’s this been happening?’ I say, with my right index finger still outstretched on the Ouija board. ‘Just now?’