by Neil Spring
He nodded. ‘I did as I said I would and visited some of the children from the school.’ His face turned dark. ‘They’re in a bad, bad way. Crying, shaking, mumbling about “the Summoning” . . . One of the children, Dafydd Pugh, poor thing, was completely distraught. Couldn’t speak, wouldn’t eat.’ He went quiet for a moment, as if selecting the order in which to tell us the important facts. ‘We were in the lounge and his mother had made him a sandwich which was on a plate on the coffee table. I saw the plate move. No, not move. It flipped right off the table! And I swear no one was near it.’
I realized then that the psychologist had been building his courage to tell us this, that his scepticism was protection against phenomena he simply could not explain.
Dr Caxton cleared his throat. ‘I’m not sure the conclusion I might draw would have any form of scientific validity, but I believe the witnesses are either attracting poltergeist phenomena, or—’
‘Or the sky spectres are inducing psychic abilities in the children,’ Randall broke in. ‘Just as they induce physical symptoms and psychosis in adults. This is how the Watchers operate. They induce terror and then feed off that terror.’
For once I was taking him seriously – the events involving the cattle shed were too strange to ignore. What if a power existed that could project itself in whatever form it wanted? And what if that power could exert influence over the minds of people who saw it? Make them do things against their will?
I thought of the sky watch planned for tomorrow night and understood why Randall wanted so badly to prevent it.
‘I am worried,’ Dr Caxton said cautiously, ‘that we are dealing with something . . . diabolical. As far as I have been able to ascertain, none of the children who observed the UFO at the primary school was baptized. Not one. Whereas every child who attended the school trip, was baptized. Now, I’m all for coincidences, but that’s rather remarkable, wouldn’t you say?’
A flash on the horizon.
We leaped to the kitchen window.
There was something in the sky, an orange streak, arcing away from the lower fields up and out across St Brides Bay.
From The Mind Possessed: A Personal Investigation into the Broad Haven Triangle
by Dr R. Caxton (Clementine Press, 1980) p.110
My wife, Julia, often asks me what I dream about. This might surprise me because dreams are so rarely interesting to anyone except the person who has them, as I am fond of telling my students whenever they ask me to interpret their dreams. But when Julia asks, it’s different. Because Julia knows that for too long I only dreamed about one thing. That terrible Tuesday. The night of the sky watch in the Havens.
The hours that led to that event were packed with things that skewed my interpretation of what it means to be human, indeed what it means to be me. They were hours that cast the longest shadow of doubt across my science and they were hours I would give anything to forget.
After I had inspected Randall Pritchard’s cattle shed for myself, I decided to return to the village. The rain was driving down as if someone wanted to cleanse the Havens of all their trouble. Wherever I went in the Havens, whoever I spoke to, I could feel heaviness in the air. An expectant dread.
‘You know, Doctor, ever since those kids at the school saw that damn thing, this place hasn’t been right.’ I heard that a lot. Only the sky watchers seemed content, in spite of the rain. As I drove around the Havens I noticed a surprising number of people with maps and backpacks, and cars loaded with camping gear. By mid-morning there must have been over a dozen cars parked around the slipway, which should have been kept clear for the lifeboat. Some were here for the lunar eclipse; most were here to look for UFOs.
They had come like moths to the flame and seemed to have no idea of how dangerous these phenomena were. I drove around the bay and parked on the stone jetty known as Giant’s Point. The sea was crashing in on both sides.
‘Out there,’ a local woman told me, pointing. ‘That place is in my nightmares, at the heart of them.’
She was staring out to sea at Stack Rocks, the fort crouched sullenly on its peak.
– 45 –
Tuesday 15 February 1977, 9.30 a.m., eleven hours until the sky watch . . .
Randall had dozed in his study, then left early for Broadmoor Farm to round up his cows.
I hadn’t slept well. All night the rain had been drumming harder and harder on the roof. By now the fields surrounding the farmhouse were nothing but mud and ice. The nightmare hadn’t helped either. It came back to me as I scrambled some eggs on the hotplate of the Aga. In the dream I saw myself surrounded by ancient trees, saw the lighthouse in the distance. Except this time there was something else – a group of hooded strangers. Watching me.
As I downed some coffee and struggled to finish my eggs, I wondered again what it meant. The dream had never been clear but previously it had always been mixed with memories: Dad’s motorcycle, Randall’s facial scar, the child I had been before coming to live here at Ravenstone Farm. I dropped my plate in the sink, looking out over the fields and St Brides Bay and thinking about what Randall had told me about my childhood.
A violent child?
So much I had forgotten.
I crept into his study. The Parsons Report would be where I had left it. I had a suspicion he didn’t want me, or anyone, anywhere near it. All the same I felt a deep and welling desire to read it, a feeling that was like going for a medical test you knew deep down was very likely to come back with a dreaded, life-changing result. Although I had never been religious, I had always wondered about the source of Randall’s fervour, whether his interest in UFOs and religion ended with him or went back generations. Either way, the Parsons Report echoed his warnings, warnings that I had thought so long to be the product of his religious fanaticism.
I retrieved the key to his desk and unlocked the drawer. There was no chance of being disturbed. Randall was at Broadmoor Farm; Dr Caxton had left early. Araceli and Tessa were still asleep. I slid open the drawer.
The Parsons Report was gone.
Back in the kitchen my mind was still trying to catch up with everything that had happened. The headmaster had known something about the Happenings and had killed himself. The Jacksons had also known something. I thought about heading over to Broadmoor to help Randall, but before I had a chance to put my coat on the telephone jangled in the study. Frobisher was on the line, and I had never heard a man sound so frightened.
‘Where the hell were you? I waited on the beach like you said.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Last night! You called and told me to meet you this morning. Seven thirty sharp, you said.’
That stunned me into silence.
‘Remember we talked about your grandfather, and you said you had found a document to show me?’
The line crackled and hissed. Whoever was behind these phone calls wanted me to know that they knew my every move. They wanted to intimidate me. And they were succeeding.
‘Frank, we never spoke.’
‘So what’s in this report?’
The fear that had clutched my stomach the night before returned now, made me clutch the phone with mounting alarm. ‘It’s a document that was circulated among an elite group of the Establishment – military, politicians, the Church. It talks about UFOs as signs. Religious signs. And now it’s gone. It could be the key to all of this.’
‘I’m worried, Wilding. My phone’s been going crazy all morning.’ Even as he told me this, heavy static was drowning out his voice.
‘What do you mean?’
‘This morning it was a little girl. She said, “Events in the Havens will worsen with the Summoning. There will be a war that marks the coming of the beast.” I mean, what the hell is that supposed to mean? What’s the Summoning?’
The rain drummed down harder.
‘Frank,
were you planning on attending the sky watch tonight?’
‘Not with all this rain. Much more of this and they’ll call it off.’
No. The Watchers are too clever for that. The village will have its lunar eclipse.
‘Frank, come here, to Randall’s farm. Please. Come as quickly as you can.’
– 46 –
Tuesday 15 February 1977, 10.30 a.m., ten hours until the sky watch . . .
‘I found circular burn marks in the lower fields,’ Randall said conversationally, pulling off his overcoat. Araceli and Tessa were with me in the kitchen. ‘And more footprints near the cattle shed and the house.’
He handed me some Polaroid shots showing sets of prints. They looked as though they had been made by enormous ripple-soled boots.
‘The force that has targeted us,’ Randall said in a hushed voice, ‘is getting nearer. I want everyone inside the farmhouse for the rest of the day – and the night.’
Shortly afterwards Dr Caxton arrived back from the village. ‘Who’s for a cup of tea?’ he asked, trying to lighten the mood. Tessa hummed quietly to herself in the corner of the kitchen. Araceli and Randall sat at the vast table looking deeply troubled as I told them about what Frobisher had said on the phone.
Araceli gave Dr Caxton a direct stare. ‘Something bad is going to happen, isn’t it?’
‘I fear so, young lady.’
I glanced up. Part of me thought he was mistaken; most of me knew he wasn’t.
*
After lunch I called RAF Brawdy and asked for the admiral. He should have arrived by then.
‘You made it, thank God!’
‘Yes.’ His voice sounded terribly hoarse and he was coughing fitfully. Painfully. ‘Did you find the Parsons Report.’
I told him I had. I also told him that now it was missing.
‘Can you drive over and meet me?’
‘There’s no time,’ I said. ‘Something terrible is going to happen. Tonight.’
He thinks I’ve lost it, I thought as he gave a sympathetic sigh on the other end of the line, but my sense of expectation was so strong that I was all but paralysed.
‘Admiral, the sky watch— ’
‘How are your nerves?’ He sounded genuinely concerned. I imagined he was wondering what had happened to his ever-reliable source on the Defence Select Committee. At last he said, ‘So be it.’
I gripped the phone tighter. ‘Admiral, if one of these . . . sky spectres – UFOs – appears in front of so many people at the same time, it could have disastrous consequences.’
‘If you’re telling me you anticipate further sightings, I will inform NATO that we anticipate a breach of our air defences by a prototype foreign jet and give strict instructions not to scramble any interceptors.’
‘Except they’re not jets,’ I said a little too quickly.
The admiral drew another ragged breath. ‘What are they then, Robert?’
Here it was, the question I knew how to answer. But who was I fooling? Getting the words out wasn’t going to be as easy. The strength left my legs and I had to sit down.
Randall was right. Long ago he had told me that there were Watchers, ancient beings who wanted to open the minds of men and flood them with horror. After all I had learned, I could only conclude that the UFOs were directly related to the entities and occult manifestations involved in seances and poltergeist events. They came from another reality, a world interpenetrating and interlocking with our own.
‘Robert?’ The admiral sounded pained; he probably was.
‘The UFOs are spiritual deceptions that have been summoned by a cult, the Parsons Elite, to induce fear and panic,’ I declared. At once I felt a weight lift. ‘Randall has a term for them – sky spectres. Paranormal manifestations that precede a catastrophe.’
Silence.
‘You think I’m crazy, don’t you?’
The silence spun out, and when the admiral spoke again it was in a calm and patient voice that made me feel diminished.
‘Robert, of course I don’t think you’re insane. But it is clear that you’re under a great deal of stress.’
‘Admiral—’
‘I should never have sent you here. I’m sorry. What you need now is to rest and—’
‘I need you to listen to what I’m saying!’ I said, then went on.
With every word I heard the weight of the admiral’s concern and a sense of his own responsibility building in his every sigh and breath. When I had finished telling him about the cows he said in a low voice, ‘Do you realize how that sounds? An entire herd spirited away?’
‘Admiral, you must warn the prime minister.’
‘Warn him that demonic sky spectres are manifesting off the Welsh coast?’ I could almost see him shaking his head. ‘Be reasonable.’
Perhaps I really have lost it, said a voice in my head.
‘Come on, old chap.’ The admiral continued, his tone soothing. ‘We’ll get you back to London tomorrow. You can come back with me in the morning. Today you rest.’
Except I couldn’t rest. Because from the window I had seen the one thing I had prayed wouldn’t happen.
The rain had stopped.
From the official testimony of Lisa Garwood, taken before the National Security Council in connection with the events of Tuesday 15 February 1977 in the Havens, west Wales
Q:Clearly you have been through a terrible ordeal. It falls to us to ascertain the nature of that ordeal.
A.If you wish.
Q.Ms Garwood, you have a part-time job at the Ram Inn?
A.I did.
Q.So you moved away?
A.There’s nothing left.
Q.Do you remember the atmosphere in the village before the sky watch commenced?
A:You don’t forget something like that.
Q:Describe it for us, please.
A.Well, I remember looking down from my window in the inn. Where the road skirts the cove there must have been a hundred or more down there, checking the sky like fishermen do before a storm. The seafront was brimming with people with their heads tipped back, and there must have been ten or twelve small boats out in the bay, anchored and waiting. I looked past the slipway and out onto the bay at the Austin Burnet on the water, her deck full of crew and their wives and kids. They had flasks of coffee and picnic hampers with sandwiches. Everyone, whether they were standing by their cars, outside the inn on the seafront or on the Austin Burnet, was holding a camera or had binoculars around their neck. Time wasters, I thought. Nothing’s gonna happen. I hope it rains on the lot of them.
Q.Do you regret that thought now, Ms Garwood?
A.What do you think?
– 47 –
Tuesday 15 February 1977, 12.30 p.m., eight hours until the sky watch . . .
That afternoon passed more slowly than any in my childhood summers, when I would play outside the main gates at RAF Brawdy. Around mid-afternoon I went out into the fields – fighting through the mud – and looked across the bay at the crowds on the shore and the boats under the oppressive sky. I tried telling myself they were foolish, that nothing would happen. I felt the lie and didn’t linger, returning quickly to the farmhouse, where Araceli was standing in Randall’s study wearing a black jumper and a blue skirt.
It caught at me, how familiar she looked, as she glanced at me then turned back to studying the newspaper articles pinned to the wall. Her expression was more wary than warm, and I thought she looked distracted and drained.
‘I can tell Randall doesn’t want us here.’
‘Why do you say that?’ I asked.
‘Oh, come on. He looks agitated whenever he’s in the room with us.’ She sat down at the desk and her attention switched to one of the skeletal trees opposite the farmhouse. ‘I had the most terrible nightmare last night. I tried telling Randall
about it before he went out. He cut me off.’
‘What nightmare? Can you describe it for me?’
She pondered this, brow furrowed, eyes distant.
‘It’s been the same nightmare, off and on, for years,’ she answered finally. ‘It’s dark. I’m been dragged along the ground. There’s an awful pain in my leg and a light shining above me through the forest.’
At the mention of her leg I noticed for the first time a jagged scar running down her knee. It was faded, clearly old.
‘How did you get that?’
She looked down, and I felt an odd tingling on my neck. I suddenly felt more worried for her than ever before. At that instant Tessa appeared at the study door. Araceli looked up sharply and the child pierced me with an accusing gaze.
‘He’s been thinking a lot about you – about us,’ Tessa said to her mother, pointing at me. ‘He’s been wondering why we are alone, where Daddy went.’
‘Is that right, Robert?’
The intensity of Araceli’s tone made it hard to deny. But how the hell had Tessa known what I had been thinking?
‘Because Mummy says I’m clever,’ Tessa answered.
My throat went dry. I thought I’d got used to strange surprises, but I was still shocked that the child appeared to have heard my thought. She had a look on her face that was . . . pleased? An unsettling smile played on her lips.
Araceli stood, moved past me into the hall. She said to her daughter, ‘After tonight we’re getting out of here.’
Did she mean the farm or the Havens? Both?
‘You could have left the area long before now,’ I said.
‘What makes you think I’ve had a choice?’ she replied, striding away.
‘The light in your nightmares,’ I called after her. ‘What does it look like?’
She paused at the door to the kitchen. Her words came with an immeasurable sadness that stole the breath from my mouth. ‘It pulses. Like the beam of a lighthouse.’
*
Frobisher pulled up outside Ravenstone Farm just as the dusk was sucking all the colour from the day. It was around five in the evening, and the burly journalist looked disturbed; as he approached the house he kept looking back over his shoulder.