The Watchers

by Neil Spring

  ‘I was followed,’ he said, stepping into the narrow hall. ‘Three men in a bloody huge silver car.’

  ‘Where is it now?’ I asked, peering into the scarlet evening.

  ‘I lost it at the crossroads. Listen, who the hell are these men?’

  I heard my voice become confiding as I listed the attributes I had come to associate with these shadowy figures. ‘They arrive in badly fitting clothes and their vehicles look futuristic. They ask the most bizarre questions, sometimes posing as officials.’

  ‘You’re staying, right?’ Araceli said to Frobisher. I hadn’t heard her come downstairs. She looked relieved to see someone else in the house. So did Dr Caxton, who followed closely behind. Only Grandfather, who was at the Aga in the kitchen, looked suspicious.

  ‘Of course I’ll stay,’ Frobisher said. ‘But I’m not sure I can offer much comfort.’

  In the kitchen we watched Frobisher take out a Dictaphone and place it on the table. When he pressed Play, children’s voices – cracked and distorted – filled the room.

  ‘Kcab gnimoc era ew rof. Seiks eht hctaw dna rehtag.’

  The children at the town meeting. Chanting.

  ‘It’s gibberish,’ Dr Caxton said.

  ‘Until you slow it down,’ Frobisher said, ‘and play it backwards.’

  He changed the tape, pressed Play, and the voices from the tape recorder stilled us all.

  ‘Gather and watch the skies. For we are coming back.’

  For several moments we said nothing.

  I had begun to feel foolish for ever having doubted Randall’s warnings. I watched him raise his hand to touch the scar on his face. It was an involuntary reaction and curious.

  ‘How the hell could the kids speak backwards?’ Araceli asked. ‘In unison?’

  ‘These children are imbued with psychic abilities because of what they saw at the school,’ said Randall.

  Gather and watch the skies.

  Although it was definitely the children chanting, the message hadn’t come from them. I was certain of that. The words had found their way through from something else, to reach the people of the village, to draw them into doing something we needed to prevent.

  Randall’s glance flickered to mother and daughter. ‘Take Tessa upstairs, please.’

  Araceli did what she was asked. When she returned alone a few moments later she met my eyes, and again I felt that unsettling sensation that we shared something unique.

  ‘Possession,’ Randall said with grim conviction. ‘When the demonic truly take control of a person, observable phenomena may occur—’

  Araceli twisted in her chair, eying Randall with alarm, as Frobisher slapped his hand on the kitchen table.

  ‘Randall, really!?’

  ‘After all we’ve seen, don’t doubt it, don’t you bloody dare!’ Randall’s temper flared. ‘In biblical times they were known as fallen angels. Now the newspapers call them aliens. Their real name is the Watchers.’

  ‘Under the circumstances,’ Dr Caxton said, ‘after all we’ve seen, after all we’ve experienced . . . I’m sorry, but I’m not sure I can deny such an explanation any longer.’

  Randall nodded, patting his Bible.

  ‘Assume you’re right,’ Frobisher said. ‘Why wait until now to tell us this?’

  It was a good question, and from the guarded expression on Randall’s face I knew there had to be a good answer. He just wasn’t prepared to divulge it. Yet.

  ‘So what do we do?’ Frobisher asked. ‘I thought you were the great expert, Randall. If you’re so knowledgeable, then why not just reason with these Watchers? They must want something. What do they need?’

  ‘How many people are gathered for the sky watch?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Frobisher replied. ‘Earlier today a hundred maybe. There’ll be many more by now.’

  ‘If the sky spectres appear en masse, they’ll take their souls. Every last one. When the Watchers are seen, disaster surely follows. They have been awakened by a cult,’ Randall said darkly. ‘As part of an ancient ritual called the Summoning.’

  ‘How do you know this?’ Dr Caxton asked.

  ‘I know because I’ve confronted this cult before.’ Randall’s eyes glinted and locked with mine. ‘A long time ago. The Parsons Elite is a satanic brotherhood – a hierarchical order of patriotic, influential men and women whose primary motive is to prepare our world for the End of Days – the arrival of the Angel of the Bottomless Pitt, the Lawless One.’

  So he had known it all along.

  ‘I assure you, the Parsons Elite exists,’ Grandfather said. His words came out with grim defiance.

  I felt squeezed, diminished, by the burden of my own secret knowledge. Could Randall belong to this cult? Had the Jacksons belonged to this cult? The headmaster also?

  Something thumped in the room above us in my old bedroom, where Tessa was sleeping. The light bulb flickered.

  Thoughts flew at me then, thoughts I wanted to bat away, but Grandfather’s words had opened a door at the back of my mind that had been closed (By me or by him?) a long time ago. What flooded in were memories, snatches of conversation and images which finally, horribly, made sense. I saw something when I was young. It affected me, and Grandfather helped me forget. I found myself thinking of the Great Flood – the night my parents died – and the Jacksons, whom Selina had traced to the Haven Hotel.

  ‘The battle on earth will commence with signs in the heavens . . . The Demon’s Gate will open. Darkness will rule for eternity.’ I said the words out loud and everyone stared.

  ‘It’s a prophecy,’ Randall said at last. ‘Worshipped by the Parsons Elite.’

  ‘So what do we do?’ Frobisher demanded again.

  ‘We have faith,’ Grandfather said simply.

  ‘That’s it?’ Frobisher looked about ready to explode.

  That was the moment I decided to tell them about the incantation I had found at the church and the curious symbols I had copied down. I was thankful I hadn’t left the paper on which they were written in my room at the Ram Inn, where it would have vanished with the rest of my notes.

  I showed them.

  ₮ｻ∑∆иςⅰ∑и₮◊и∑ㄅ∆Я∑ς◊ⅰи

  Araceli didn’t look. Not directly. Dr Caxton looked very carefully indeed, however, tracing the outline of each symbol with a cautious finger.

  ‘Do you recognize these?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh yes, indeed,’ he said in a quiet voice, and when he raised his head the alarm in his eyes provoked a scraping sensation in my gut. ‘These are sigils from the magical traditions of anti­quity. I’ve seen something similar in the texts held at the Library of Magical Literature at Senate House in London.’

  ‘Texts about what?’ I asked.

  ‘Exorcism,’ Dr Caxton breathed.

  ‘I should have told you, boy,’ said Grandfather. ‘I just didn’t want you getting too close. Whatever happens now, whatever you may see, don’t look at it, do not be fooled by lying wonders. Your greatest protection is in faith.’

  But faith in what?

  There was a screeching noise that made us all tense.

  ‘What the hell?’ Frobisher reached into his inside pocket, producing his Dictaphone. ‘It’s turned itself on,’ Frobisher shouted. His eyes were wide and incredulous. ‘I didn’t touch it! Honestly.’

  The voices of the children chanting in unison spooled out, louder than before. Unnaturally loud for such a small device: ‘Kcab gnimoc era ew rof. Seiks eht hctaw dna rehtag.’

  The tape recorder burst into flames and Frobisher threw up his arms. The device clattered to the ground, smoking.

  ‘There is a war raging,’ Randall declared, ‘between the forces of good and evil, between order and chaos. And the battleground is right here in the Havens.’

  His eyes jumped from the smo
uldering tape recorder on the flagged floor to the ceiling that separated us from the room in which Tessa was asleep. His face hardened with decision. ‘There is somewhere I need to be,’ he said quickly, pulling on his shabby overcoat as though it was a suit of armour and he was preparing to go into battle.

  His resolution, his passion – he reminded me so much of my mother in that moment that I wanted to tell him I was sorry. Sorry for ever doubting him.

  Then he dropped a heavy hand on my shoulder, squeezed tight, let go and marched out into the yard.

  ‘Grandfather, stop. Wait!’

  He stopped just in front of his battered Hillman Hunter and turned to me. ‘Robert, my boy,’ he said, ‘your mother would be so proud.’

  Something in his tone frightened me. As if this was the last time we would speak.

  ‘You don’t have to go.’

  ‘But I do. I made a promise a long time ago to a power higher than man. And one day, maybe soon, I’ll have to face that power.’

  ‘Please tell me where you’re going?’ I knew it wasn’t to warn the villagers. He had already tried to do that.

  ‘It’s better you don’t know. You can’t know.’ He paused, flashing a glance over my shoulder back at the farmhouse. ‘Do not trust that woman, boy.’

  ‘What? But why not?’

  ‘All alone in that rambling hotel. Her life makes absolutely no sense.’

  I thought of her parents. The fact that she never mentioned her father was troubling because if her mother really had been mixed up in the occult, what about him? Where was he and why had he left her here alone?

  Randall saw these thoughts on my face and nodded. ‘Protect the child.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Remember,’ he said, touching a calloused hand to my cheek, ‘you can hold them back with faith. Faith can nullify evil, can form a psychic barrier.’

  He got into his car. The door slammed, the engine started, and the Hillman Hunter crunched away over the half-frozen puddles. I followed it with my eyes up the narrow lane.

  When I turned back towards the house, the others were on the doorstep.

  From the official testimony of Emma Wheal, taken before the National Security Council in connection with the events of Tuesday 15 February 1977 in the Havens, west Wales

  Q.Ms Wheal, do you still live in Little Haven?

  A.No.

  Q.Where do you live now?

  A.Milford Haven. Little Haven was always a ghost town, especially in winter, but after what happened, well, very few people wanted to stay around, you know. Businesses closed up. The post office went, so did the Nest Bistro. I was glad to leave. No place for a young person.

  Q.Were you at home on the night of 15 February at midnight?

  A.I was working late in the Ram Inn. I was paid double-time that night, it was so busy.

  Q.What was so special about that night?

  A.The sky watch. There were camera crews and tourists and everything. Every holiday cottage in the village was booked because of the blood moon. You know, the lunar eclipse.

  Q.And you rented out your home, Albert’s Cottage on Wesley Road?

  A.Yeah, well, people were paying a lot. It’s only three hundred yards from the seafront, you see.

  Q.And who did you rent it to?

  A.A pair of UFO spotters. They were everywhere. Even the Talbenny Caravan Park was full, and that’s completely dead in winter.

  Q.All right. Let’s discuss the events of the night of 15 February. What was the general mood in the pub before the sky watch began?

  A.Well, excitement, I suppose. A lot of people were taking it seriously, but some weren’t. They were laughing and joking and saying they were going to be taken, you know, by aliens. That was around seven o’clock. We had the radio on loud in the bar; they were reporting live from the front. That was where people would have the best view of the sky. At Giant’s Point.

  Q.And what did you think of people’s behaviour?

  A.Well, it wasn’t normal, but at the same time you couldn’t help going along with it. Everyone seemed convinced that something was going to happen, with all the stories in the papers, you know, and everyone wanted to go out along Giant’s Point to see. I’d never believed the stories or taken an interest, but if it wasn’t for me working and having to lock up, I probably would have gone too.

  Q.What happened then? Later, at 8.30?

  A.We were listening to the radio, and we could hear everyone at Giant’s Point cheering and whooping, and . . . well, that was when things began to get really strange.

  – 48 –

  8.30 p.m.

  And so we come to the worst of it.

  I was in the front room of Ravenstone Farm, and Dr Caxton was snoozing in the armchair nearest the fire with his hands interlocked across his chest. He had been asleep for about an hour, and during that time not a word has passed between Araceli and me, sitting side by side on Grandfather’s tattered old sofa. I don’t know what thoughts were keeping her silent, but as for me, my head was full of satanic cults and demons from the deep. Frobisher, still unsettled by his exploding Dictaphone, was preparing coffee in the kitchen

  I thought of the incantation at the church that I’d copied down: ‘Gha D’rcest Cthasska, Gha D’rcest Cthassiss.’

  The sense that these words were important, that I might need them, still hadn’t left me, and that’s probably why I had taken the paper on which they were written into Randall’s study. And locked it in the desk drawer.

  I stared at the barred window and the darkness beyond. Grandfather out there somewhere.

  Gather and watch the skies.

  He’ll come back, I told myself. He’ll take one look at the crowds, realize it’s too late, realize he can do nothing and come back.

  ‘What time does the sky watch begin?’ Araceli asked.

  My gaze shifted from the flickering television to the small silver clock on the mantelpiece. ‘Any time now. We spend the night here. None of us leaves this house until it’s over. You should go to bed,’ I said, ‘get some rest.’

  ‘What if something happens again?’ As she spoke Dr Caxton stirred and opened his eyes. ‘Besides, I want to hear how they report it on the local news.’ She rubbed at her eyes and drew her knees up to her chin.

  ‘You know, tiredness only makes anxiety worse,’ I said.

  ‘And you’re an expert on anxiety?’

  I surprised myself with a laugh. ‘I’ve learned a thing or two.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Dr Caxton said. ‘Hunger, anger, loneliness and tiredness: all of these states heighten anxiety.’ He kept his eyes on me. ‘It must be very difficult for you being back in this house, Robert.’

  My gaze shifted to the study, just visible across the hall through the doorway, and I thought of the picture hanging over the mantelpiece. My shoulders tensed. I glanced at Araceli. Something in her eyes. Pity? Understanding?

  Frobisher appeared in the doorway, coffee mug in one hand. He looked agitated. ‘I’m going upstairs for a lie-down. I’ll check on Tessa while I’m at it.’

  Araceli nodded thanks and ran an agitated hand through her hair.

  As I watched him go, I dug my fingers into the cushion next to me. ‘My friend Selina used to say my face was a mask of worry. I thought I’d grow out of it, but you know what happens with habits – they take hold of you.’ I stood and went over to the fire, gazing at my hands as I spread them before the flames. ‘I suppose the only thing to do is shake them off.’

  ‘Or prevent them taking hold,’ Dr Caxton said. ‘The more you indulge your fears, the more they will rule you. You can’t control events, Robert. Only how you respond to them. When you see a distracting thought flying at you, name it for what it is. Then step out of its way, cast it away.’

  ‘You make it sound so easy,’ I said.

 
‘What if?’ Dr Caxton said. ‘The most worrying words in the English language, because once a person starts asking that question, it can be very hard to stop. The problem,’ he added, leaning forward, ‘is that that particular question never allows you a satisfactory answer. Robert, you crave certainty, it’s what you need to feel safe, but I promise you this. You’ll never lay a hand on it.’

  I allowed the words to sink in but almost immediately my head began to swim like it had done at the hotel and at the Ram when I had witnessed – predicted – Selina’s death. Dr Caxton must have seen that memory on my face because he promptly asked what was wrong.

  ‘I don’t just fear what’s happening here; I fear for my sanity.’ He listened patiently as I told him about my premonitions, my visions.

  ‘And these visions are new?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I think so.’ It was hard to be sure when so much of my childhood was hidden from me. ‘Doctor, what’s causing them?’

  His tone became peremptory. ‘Have you seen a UFO up close, like the children at the school?’

  I hadn’t. Only the amazing lights cartwheeling over RAF Brawdy. ‘But my visions began after that. And since I’ve been here they’ve been getting stronger.’

  Dr Caxton’s expression betrayed not the slightest hesitation or embarrassment. ‘If you are psychic, you should endeavour to nurture that ability. Master it before anyone else does.’ He smiled. ‘Perhaps it will go away, perhaps it will get stronger, but there is no reason to think that you are suffering from pathological hallucinations. OK?’

  I felt at once reassured by his tone, which was clear and calm and commanding. Yet I was still confused. ‘If I can see the future – if the future already exists – then our actions, ours words, our choices, they all count for nothing.’

  Either he had heard such musings before or they vexed him because he simultaneously nodded and frowned. ‘Instead of thinking of time as a sequence of events, try picturing it as a series of overlapping and interlocking dimensions, like a deck of cards shuffled with another.’