The Watchers

by Neil Spring

  We went somewhere. We went somewhere.

  ‘All of you keep away from me!’ I said, backing against the wall.

  On the radio the newsreader said, ‘The sky watchers have gathered. Fire will be produced from heaven in the presence of men.’

  Whatever power was controlling the lights was also controlling the radio. And the child, and Frobisher, and Dr Caxton. I had no doubt that together they would make this remote and lonely farmhouse my prison. The safe, certain, knowable world that I had craved for so long couldn’t have been any further from my reach now. Fantastic forces and materializations. Grandfather gone. Araceli gone. Tessa, Frobisher, Caxton – gone.

  ‘Frank,’ I tried again, ‘think about what happened to the other children, the adult witnesses. You too, Dr Caxton. Tessa’s mind was susceptible; her defences were down from the day she saw the craft at the school. Your minds are stronger. You both need to stop listening to her. We’ll get away from here, warn the base, try to evacuate the village.’

  ‘I think you need to calm down,’ Dr Caxton said.

  ‘No! You need to listen to what I’m saying! Very soon everyone gathered at Giant’s Point for the sky watch will be victims. And if the military open fire on whatever appears, the whole world could fall victim. It’s our duty to help them.’

  At the window the wind screamed as if offended, and almost at once the farmhouse roof began clattering. Tessa raised her eyes to the ceiling. ‘Stones,’ she said flatly.

  The barrage intensified, and I thought the roof would surely collapse.

  Tessa looked at me and smiled. ‘Chuck him outside.’

  Both men gave me a long, cold look.

  ‘Don’t think about it,’ Tessa said. ‘Just do it!’

  ‘Listen to me!’ My voice rose to fever pitch. ‘We know what the Watchers are capable of. Their appearance always precedes disaster. We have a chance now to avert that disaster. If there’s evidence in this house drawing them here, we must destroy it.’

  ‘He’s lying to us like he lied from the beginning,’ Tessa said in a menacing but somehow amiable voice. Her eyes were on mine, narrow and mocking. ‘Throw him out. Now!’

  I bolted for the door into the hall but they were too quick. Time slowed. I saw Dr Caxton lunging, seizing my right arm, felt Frobisher pulling on my left.

  I wish I hadn’t looked at Tessa’s face just then, because I saw the impossible: her features twisting, contorting, hatred turning to pain then back to hatred. And then her face changed. Suddenly I was staring at a child’s body with an adult’s face. Selina’s face.

  ‘No! No, this isn’t real! Grandfather, help me,’ I shouted, but the stones on the roof just fell harder. I kicked wildly, straining against the two men as they dragged me towards the door.

  ‘It was your fault I died,’ Tessa said horribly. Not in her voice at all, but a malign impersonation of my friend’s. ‘Your fault, Robert. Your sin . . .’

  I caught the edge of the desk, tried to hang on.

  ‘And you know what happens to sinners . . .’

  Frantically I grabbed the door frame.

  ‘They are rendered powerless and devastated by the will of the Lawless One . . .’

  I hit out at Frobisher.

  ‘For he alone lives in unsleeping matter, our king of phenomena . . .’

  Dr Caxton pushed me hard, and I went crashing into the closed front door. Frobisher unlocked it.

  ‘No!’ I yelled. ‘Help me!’

  ‘And he welcomes you to drown in his sea of fire!’

  – 50 –

  A voice as chilling as the raw darkness all around me struck me as I stumbled out of the farmhouse and glanced wildly about me.

  The rain of stones had ceased, but there was a new threat, far worse.

  ‘Hello again, Robert.’

  I tensed at the reptilian voice and turned to see a gaunt figure with white skin and high cheekbones.

  ‘I have travelled a long way,’ he said from the gateway into the yard.

  My stomach dropped. Horrified, I realized I was staring into the same slanted eyes that had so cruelly regarded me one early morning in my childhood. My Black-Suited Man had returned.

  ‘What did we tell you, Robert? People who look for UFOs should be very, very careful.’

  His lips drew back into a dreadful grin. He stepped forward. I stepped back; but it was no good. Frobisher and Caxton were behind me. They seized me, pinning my arms.

  ‘No! Please, let me go!’

  Their faces were unsettlingly blank, their eyes hazy, windows to a world beyond.

  The Black-Suited Man advanced across the yard. Not walking, though; he lifted one foot and began to bring it forward, but then in a stroboscopic blink he flickered and was suddenly closer without moving through the space in between. Behind him trailed a blurred string of ghostly shadow selves, each one simultaneously performing a different part of the motion, like a poorly exposed photograph.

  I looked away. This cannot be happening. I closed my eyes. Then Tessa called out from behind me, in a voice so imperious it instantly pierced my stupor of denial, ‘Yes, do be good dogs and let him go. Cast him out.’

  I could hear my heart thumping in my ears like a tribal drum as Caxton and Frobisher pushed me forward.

  The Black-Suited Man started glowing.

  Don’t look in his eyes, Robert.

  ‘Where is Araceli?’ I demanded, focusing on his hat – wide-brimmed, black.

  ‘She has the honour of being part of our design.’

  ‘What design?’

  ‘A soul is required. The cycle is complete. Our time has come again, and the final ritual shall be invoked. A Summoning is due.’

  ‘Don’t you bloody dare!’ I yelled. ‘Don’t you touch her!’

  The Black-Suited Man’s shoulders rolled with silent, mocking laughter. He moved closer, would be upon me in another moment.

  Suddenly a sound made the Black-Suited Man freeze. His head snapped to the right, sniffing the air like a dog catching a scent.

  A car was rolling into the farmyard, washing it in the glow of its headlights. It stopped, a door opened, and a figure emerged.

  Father O’Riorden saw me, saw Dr Caxton and Frobisher holding me prisoner, and then he saw the Black-Suited Man. Instantly I recognized the blooming contrition in the priest’s eyes.

  ‘Be careful!’ I shouted.

  Almost immediately the priest held up a large silver cross that dangled against his chest. He held it at arm’s length and sighted down his arm at his opponent as if the crucifix were the sights of a rifle. ‘Unholy abomination.’

  ‘Your relic is as useless as you are, priest.’

  Father O’Riorden’s eyes were hard with an authority that went beyond his full robes and white collar. ‘I know what you are.’

  ‘Then know us better,’ the Black-Suited Man answered, ‘for we are legion.’

  And from the trees surrounding the yard two identical figures appeared. They didn’t walk; they cut jagged trajectories through space, insinuating themselves closer.

  ‘We can appear in any shape we desire and in any place,’ the Black-Suited Man said. ‘We were present at the dawn of creation.’

  ‘You over-reach yourself, fiend,’ Father O’Riorden said. ‘Whatever false realities you have projected into these people’s minds, your powers are unequal to the grace and providence of Almighty God.’

  ‘The End of Days is upon you,’ the men said in perfect unison. ‘The Falling.’

  ‘What is the Falling?’

  ‘You will find out. Tonight.’

  ‘Still your lying tongues,’ said the priest. ‘No one will fall.’

  ‘Everyone will fall,’ the three men said in synchrony. ‘Soon our kind will assume its rightful place in the End of Days.’

  Father O’
Riorden stood firm at the side of his car. He glanced at me, Dr Caxton and Frobisher. ‘I stand here as the agent of a greater power and as these people’s protector. As his sword and as their righteous shield. In the name of God the Creator, I will banish you!’

  The Black-Suited Man’s gaze fixed on the crucifix. ‘Your relics are useless without faith. You stopped believing years ago.’

  For the first time Father O’Riorden’s expression of zealous fury seemed to falter. ‘How do you . . .’

  ‘We know everything. Especially your secrets. We like those best.’ The first Black-Suited Man sounded more confident than ever. ‘Haven’t you heard? Knowledge is power . . . and we know all about you, false prophet.’

  ‘No!’ There was an edge of desperation in Father O’Riorden’s protest.

  The Black-Suited Man gave him a chilling smile. ‘If your parishioners could only feel your contempt for them, how you resent them.’

  ‘I have not lost my faith in the Lord.’

  ‘But you have lost your faith in humanity, in human institutions.’

  The Black-Suited Man’s eyes became a lacework of black filaments, as if bloodshot with oil. Then the strands thickened and coalesced, and an inky glaze spread over the whole of his eyes, turning them into slashes in reality, windows onto the void. The eyes of his companions, standing behind and to either side of him, collapsed too into pools of unfathomed darkness, leaving ragged holes in their faces.

  The Black-Suited Man thrust his hideous face towards the priest and stretched his lips in a grin of malign triumph. ‘It is our right to claim the unbelievers, to winnow the unrighteous and the sinful from the herd of men. We were cast in the role of his instruments of vengeance and wrath before your pitiful race was raised from the clay. You have felt his love? Now you will know his fury – it will pour, scalding, onto you.’

  ‘What do you want?’ Father O’Riorden screamed.

  ‘To gorge on your soul.’

  Panic flared in the priest’s eyes, then collapsed into . . . regret?

  ‘Release Robert,’ he said.

  I felt the hands gripping me slacken instantly.

  Frobisher blinked, shook his head as if to clear his vision, saw the Black-Suited Men and his hands clawed at the air. He staggered back, tumbling into the house. Dr Caxton was staring horrified at his hands. His gaze jumped to my face. ‘I’m . . . I’m so sorry. What . . . what have I done?’ He looked down at Tessa, who had appeared from the house. She smiled at him, smiled at us both. Blinked.

  The Black-Suited Man turned his head towards me, slowly, deliberately, and gave me a smile so sharp it sliced through my paralysing fear. I stumbled back, tripped, but somehow kept my balance.

  ‘You will come to us, Robert,’ he said with dreadful certainly. ‘It’s in your blood. Your presence is required for the Summoning. Fire will manifest from heaven in the sight of men.’

  ‘Run, Robert!’ Caxton burst out. ‘Did you hear what I said? Run!’

  And I did.

  From The Mind Possessed: A Personal Investigation into the Broad Haven Triangle

  by Dr R. Caxton (Clementine Press, 1980), p.137

  To come to the level of understanding of the demonic forces that I, regrettably, have achieved requires one to throw out the notions of reason and order that underpin the modern scientific paradigm. It is with grim hopelessness that I transcribe this warning, knowing how likely it is to be taken for a lurid work of fiction at best, and at worst the ravings of a lunatic. But the patient and open-minded inquirer should take heed: whether you believe in the bogeyman or not matters little, for it is certain that he believes in you.

  I looked for Tessa, but she had vanished. Frobisher was on his knees in the doorway of the farmhouse, and we could only watch as the Black-Suited Man moved towards Father O’Riorden.

  The poor man shrank back, scanning from side to side in a desperate search for an escape route, only to register the two other Black-Suited Men, closing in on him in a classic pincer formation. It was appalling, the anguish contorting his face as he realized he was trapped. As the Black-Suited Men continued their slow advance, he managed somehow to stay on his feet and draw himself up to face what hunted him.

  My heart was beating hard with panic but I couldn’t move. Couldn’t do anything. Although I had been released from the state of possession that had made me throw Robert out into the yard and hold him in a vice-like grip, I could now only watch; this was the lesson I had to learn, as my father had learned it: those who hunt ghosts are hunted in turn by them.

  Father O’Riorden had made a deal with the devil and that deal had allowed Robert to get away.

  ‘I deny you in the name of Jesus Christ,’ the priest roared at the three men. He was clasping the silver crucifix that hung around his neck and brandishing it at the nearest predator.

  Something shuddered beneath the ground, and the air between the priest and the Black-Suited Man spasmed, flexing and distorting like a bedsheet blowing in the wind. The unholy creature shrieked and flung up its arms, turning its face away from Father O’Riorden and towards me, and what I saw engraved itself on my mind for ever. A ripple swept over its disproportioned face, and for just a moment I glimpsed the traumatized but indubitably human face of the person this creature used to be. I could have sworn it was the face of the deceased headmaster, Howell Cooper, a sinner’s soul reincarnated in this fiendish form.

  Then the torrent of energy pouring out of the Black-Suited Man dissipated; space snapped back into its normal shape, and when it did the demon was twenty feet from where he had been, just a tall thin man staring blankly into space. For a moment I felt hope, but then the man’s blank eyes became wounds in the world; the transformative wave flowed back, and the demon reasserted control of the flesh.

  ‘That’s not going to work,’ snarled the Black-Suited Man. He rolled his shoulders and flexed his neck languorously then strode towards O’Riorden, even as the other two were just reaching him. The priest swivelled to face the closer one and opened his mouth to speak, but the third was on him from behind, seizing his neck and ripping the crucifix from his hands. Then each grasped the priest by an arm and pinioned him in a cruciform position.

  Every part of the priest’s body went rigid apart from his face. My heart clenches even now to remember that expression, so distorted in agony.

  ‘Damn you, hell’s spawn,’ gasped O’Riorden. The shreds of faith he had been able to recover in his final moments had been too little and far, far too late. Now he would pay with his soul, and he knew it. But still he held on to a kernel of defiance. He struggled not to show his fear. He would not beg. And still, even facing oblivion, Father O’Riorden thought of others. He turned his head and shouted directly at Frank and me, ‘Run!’

  Although at that instant we were able to move again, neither of us fled. We just looked on in horror. The leader straightened his black hat, then plunged his bony white hand into Father O’Riorden’s chest. There was no blood, just a throaty scream as the hand passed as easily as smoke through his clothes, into his body.

  When Father O’Riorden uttered his last words, his voice came out in shuddering starts. ‘My heart!’ he gasped. ‘Please, not my heart!’

  ‘Make it still,’ one of the Black-Suited Men said.

  Threads of light forked from the priest’s chest, and I could not remember ever being so cold.

  – 51 –

  Tuesday 15 February 1977, 10.30 p.m.

  Running, chest tightening, breath burning in my throat, along the rutted path that led towards the lower fields. I went past the cattle shed’s great black shadows and into a field thick with clots of thistles, stumbled on more giant ruts made by Randall’s tractor. I did not look back.

  Although I was afraid, deeply afraid and shocked by what I had seen, I wasn’t running from Ravenstone Farm to get away. I was running because I desperately wanted the t
ruth, the truth about the Parsons Elite, the truth about my parents’ deaths and the truth about Araceli and her daughter.

  You left her, Robert, my conscience murmured. You left Tessa behind. Though if Randall’s theories were right, I’d left behind a girl that used to be Tessa, a girl that could control other people’s minds, a girl now possessed by an ancient demonic force that was responsible for the UFO sightings and the appearance of the Black-Suited Man – a force unleashed in the Havens by the scientist and occultist Jack Parsons over thirty years ago.

  If I could find the physical source of that force, I might find Araceli and discover what it was about her, this place and my family that had drawn these forces. Stop whoever – whatever – was responsible.

  The Parsons Elite were at the heart of all this, I was convinced of it now. But you’ll never defeat them, warned a voice in my head. ‘But I must try,’ I said aloud.

  From behind me came a sound to torture the ears: Father O’Riorden’s scream. I stopped. I had to go back, see if he was OK, check on the others. But as I turned, the sky roared and my eye was drawn to movement in Little Haven across the dark expanse of St Brides Bay. Pinpricks of light. Torches. People gathering on the beach. Guilt mixed with terror. My gaze swept the sky for anything unusual. Nothing. Only a low ceiling of dark clouds which would soon sheet rain. But the sky watch was approaching. And then what?

  I wanted to scream at the people on the beach to run, to get away. But even if they could have heard me, my warning would go ignored because their attention was elsewhere, just like Grandfather had predicted, on the heavens, with all their ‘signs and wonders’. I knew that the Havens were in a desperate situation.

  What will happen if you don’t stop this? What will happen if sky spectres are summoned en masse with all these people watching?

  The admiral’s voice sounded in my mind: The Russians will think it’s the Americans and vice versa. With nuclear weapons on our doorstep? You know what could happen!

  My thoughts turned to Araceli. She was the key to all of this. And I felt sure that she needed me.