The Watchers

by Neil Spring

  I tried pulling her up, but she was a deadweight. ‘Let me go!’ she moaned. ‘Let me go! Let me go!’

  A sudden, sickening realization.

  They’ve brought us here.

  I stooped over her, looking down into her dark eyes. I’d thought them beautiful before, but now I saw something else, something unnatural. The irises were black.

  ‘You had to come here of your own free will.’ There was a flatness to her voice. ‘The Demon’s Gate will open and we will be at peace.’

  I shut my eyes, pulled a deep breath down into my lungs, held it.

  ‘Robert, you will understand,’ she whispered. ‘When you see him, he will explain.’

  ‘Who?’ I demanded.

  She didn’t answer, just pointed. The robed figure was in the doorway. He had removed his hood.

  ‘Hello, old chap,’ he said.

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

  by Dr R. Caxton (Clementine Press, 1980) p.139

  We had to slow down as we reached the village. Parked cars lined the road next to the Ram Inn and the post office and the bridge that crossed the stream flowing down into the cove.

  ‘What the hell?’ Frobisher said. His eyes had gone wide with alarm, and when I saw what he was looking at I felt a chill shudder through me.

  People crowded the beach. Friends on telephones had arranged to meet. The newspapers had encouraged it. The curious were hungry for answers and, yes, perhaps a little magic. And those desperate to know had found it impossible not to come. But there was something wrong. No one moved. No one spoke.

  The parents of the children from Broad Haven Primary School were lined up at the slipway, staring out to sea. In front of them, with their heads tilted up towards the heavens, were their children. And watching this bizarre scene from a short distance away were the elders of the village – Delyth Cale, Ethel Dunwoody and Roger Daley – huddled together. Winding down the window, I could hear the conspirators joined in a dissonant chant.

  What I was hearing was the perfect confirmation of what Wilding’s grandfather had told us in the kitchen at Ravenstone Farm. Without thinking, I said to Frobisher, ‘We have to stop them!’

  Sheer terror made me get out of the car. That was before the roar and flash of light which came out of the sky.

  One by one, every light in the village blinked out.

  The car’s engine failed.

  And the elders bowed their heads. ‘To do thy will shall be the whole of the law,’ one of them said

  The others repeated the words, spreading their arms: ‘To do thy will shall be the whole of the law.’

  Then the rain came in a great hissing rush.

  – 54 –

  It was Admiral Lord Hill Bartlett.

  He had come from London, just as I had asked, but not to help. No. The truth was in his baleful gaze and in his smile, which was as thin as the curved blade in his gloved hand.

  ‘I . . . I don’t understand,’ I heard myself say eventually, just as Araceli stumbled to join Bartlett. ‘You . . . know each other?’

  ‘My father,’ she admitted.

  ‘You and Araceli were acquainted in childhood, brought together to witness something honourable. Something life-changing,’ he said.

  ‘It’s clear to me now,’ Araceli said. ‘Oh, it was beautiful, Robert. Do you remember?’

  Did I? Perhaps enough to realize remembering wouldn’t be a good idea. The admiral took a step towards me. ‘Our brotherhood is indebted to you,’ he said.

  Brotherhood? I thought, This is not happening.

  ‘I assure you this is happening,’ the admiral said so quickly it was as if he could hear my thoughts. He didn’t just sound unwell, he looked it. Still recognizably the man who had once confided in me, but now inhabiting a dying body. His face was haggard and drawn, his arms scrawny.

  He nodded at Araceli. ‘Look,’ he instructed. ‘Look at her!’

  I obeyed, and all the stories about her family and the Haven Hotel came rushing back, along with an unwavering conviction I barely had strength to acknowledge: that there was a reason I was obsessed with this woman, a reason I had wanted to help her. A reason so dangerous I had locked it away behind every door in my memory. I tried to summon some strength. The totality of what I was about to learn at Stack Rocks I wasn’t sure of, but that process of understanding began with acceptance that I had been duped by the admiral and his daughter. They had lured me here together, ensnared me. I didn’t yet know why, but I knew I would learn truths this night.

  ‘If you concentrate, really focus, you’ll remember what your grandfather tried so hard to make you forget.’

  I brought you through the worst of it.

  I stared at the admiral and Araceli, my head shaking in automatic denial. Opened my mouth to reply, before closing it again, because in a white flash of memory I was seeing it again: the Haven Hotel framed against a purple sky, and in the woods behind the hotel a ball of yellow light. Floating. Hypnotic. Silent.

  Pulsing.

  ‘I don’t remember!’ I screamed, stepping back ‘I won’t remember!’

  ‘Ah, there it is,’ the admiral said calmly. ‘All that anger and rage that has kept you fighting, brought you here.’

  ‘Shut up, shut up!’ My cry echoed around the dank chamber. ‘Whatever he has made you believe,’ I said to Araceli, ‘whatever sick fantasies he has tricked you into indulging, this man is a liar and a traitor.’ My voice was shuddering, my limbs trembling with fury – and with frustration, because Araceli wasn’t hearing me. Her body was rigid, her eyes unresponsive.

  The admiral snorted, a thick phlegmy sound, and suddenly I saw the truth. His connection to the conspiracy I had unmasked was now undeniable. The admiral, a man who had always savoured power and clamoured for more, had led me out to this island fortress for a reason.

  ‘You wanted to know about Jack Parsons?’ the admiral said in his hoarse voice. ‘A dangerous visionary who conducted experiments here in the Havens, Parsons believed that the many tales of UFOs and extraterrestrial visitations that had surfaced since the 1940s were actually evidence of the presence of satanic forces engaged in worldwide deceit.’ He coughed roughly. ‘Oh, Parsons was clever and ambitious. He saw the potential of manipulating these powers.’

  ‘Manipulating how?’ I asked, wondering how the admiral could even hope to overpower me. His eyes had become dark hollows, his face was wasted.

  ‘Parsons believed that ancient occult rituals could open portals between the human world and the other side – the Abyss, the Kingdom of Shadows.’ His voice was reasonable. ‘Just imagine how quickly the world’s problems would dissolve, how quickly we would come together, if the world faced a threat from outside our planet? A new world order would be needed. Those who had prepared the way for these powers would take control.’

  ‘People like you,’ I said bitterly, and the admiral nodded.

  ‘The Parsons Elite has one goal: to convince the world that extraterrestrial life exists and has been visiting this planet for centuries.’

  Remembering Grandfather’s prophetic warnings, I said, ‘In the last times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.’

  The admiral nodded. Satanism offered him the most power, but it had needed an appropriate disguise – evil always does. In this case the lie was clear. He and the Parsons Elite had spun the lie of extraterrestrial life visiting this planet into the hearts and minds of millions. Prepared the way for a grand deception that would breed panic and dread and damn souls to hell.

  This was the crux of it, this was the truth.

  ‘In the face of fear, in the face of the unknown, individuals will be silenced; they will scream for leadership. It is as Parsons planned. In the aftermath of the crisis a small group of elite men will tak
e control. In the name of the Dark Father, the Lawless One.’

  I said, ‘This has nothing to do with me or Araceli.’

  ‘Wrong. You are descendants of the project. Jack Parsons learned, as you did, that these airborne visions of hell can be summoned through ritual prayer, but also that exposure to them at close quarters induces a gradual descent into mental anguish which sometimes results in suicide.’

  And here was the truth I’d been blind to until now. Missiles and explosions and fallout weren’t the only weapons of conquest. Subtler methods led to the same end. Our minds could be used against us. Thoughts and attitudes subverted.

  The admiral said, ‘Demonomania is significantly more pronounced in children who are unprotected.’

  Those who were not baptized. ‘But that would mean the sightings were arranged, the children at the school—’

  ‘Were deliberately exposed,’ the admiral finished. ‘Correct.’

  Araceli released a scream of agony and guilt, collapsing to her knees. I recalled the emptiness in her daughter’s eyes and realized that, like her own child, a demon had long ago reached into her mind, hungry for its ruin, and used her.

  ‘The rituals that summon the sky spectres are derived from work carried out by Jack Parsons and Aleister Crowley, grand masters of the occult, both brilliant men, who first opened a portal to the Kingdom of Shadows in America. When Parsons came here after the war, he achieved the same thing, right here in Stack Rocks Fort.

  ‘It’s a tradition our order has worked hard to honour. We identify our thoughts and actions with the images of deities we wish to invoke: flying saucers, faceless humanoids. When children see these phenomena, the change is induced – a state of demonomania. Over time programming takes place. Godly spiritual foundations are shattered, the soul is weakened, the witness possessed, their soul damned to hell.

  ‘Think of us as parents,’ he added. I could tell from the tone of his voice that he believed his cause was noble and just. ‘The child’s wellbeing is our chief concern. Over time every one of the Ten Commandments is violated in the presence of the child, breaking God’s will. Leaving us with a shapeless rock to chisel and sculpt as we will.’

  ‘You’re sick!’ I said. The admiral only nodded, a simple gesture of conviction. He glanced down at Araceli, whose face was buried in her hands. ‘Dear Araceli,’ the admiral said, and the ghost of a smile touched his lips. ‘The name is appropriate, don’t you think? It means altar of the skies. And like her mother, Tessa will never hear the Lord’s name. The only name she will hear is the name of the Dark Master, who in time will be presented to her as God.’

  He wasn’t gloating. In a way that would have been easier to bear, because his deliberate tone was sending dread coursing through me. He wants me to know all this for a reason. He wants me to understand.

  ‘I am not frightened,’ I said.

  ‘You should be. How’s the anxiety?’ the admiral asked suddenly. He came right up to me and pressed his cold bony figures against my temples. The sensation of his papery skin against mine made me think of dead leaves, and when I smelt his putrid breath, hot against my face, I felt my gorge rise and pushed him away. ‘All your fears, your memories, your worries, these aren’t just anxiety, Robert.’

  ‘What are they then?’

  Angling his head to one side as his clear eyes looked into me, he said, ‘Think of your brain as a radio. All that festering anxiety, churning away, making you a slave to your memories. And all your life you’ve wondered, haven’t you? What’s the cause of your private little hell? Your grandfather? The way he treated you, filling your head with his notions?’ He dropped his voice. ‘No, Robert.’

  For a moment those words just hung there. Behind me, far below, I heard the waves pounding the rocks. Denial was clutching my heart. ‘Enough,’ I muttered, closing my eyes.

  ‘Listen to me!’

  He hit my face so hard I tasted blood. I was too shocked to fight back, too numb to move, the way people freeze when they’re about to get hit by a train. And the admiral knew I was defenceless, which was the worst part. He was grinning, playing with me.

  ‘Yes, I’m sure that, in your darkest moments, you must have comforted yourself with all sorts of reassurances,’ he said, ‘convinced yourself that you were overreacting, perhaps . . . seeing things that weren’t there? And it’s an interesting question: how does a man halfway to losing his mind ever properly comprehend that it has finally gone?’ The playful trill went out of his voice and his face turned to stone. ‘Well, let me put you right. You’re not mad, old chap. You are . . . selected.’

  ‘You brought me here under false pretences?’

  ‘Guided you.’

  ‘From London?’

  ‘From childhood.’ His cruel smile emphasized the years of planning that had gone into luring me to this island fortress. ‘You are the child of our order.’

  ‘The child?’

  He sprang at me and with one hand slammed me back into the pillar in the centre of the room. I’m not sure which was more surprising, his speed or the crack of pain as my head connected with the stone. He was unwell, probably dying, and he was old, which could only mean that he was drawing his power from somewhere else.

  ‘You have a duty to carry out,’ he said in a desperate growl, so close that I felt his saliva flecking my cheek.

  I was afraid of what he would do to me, but I was also afraid of what he intended me to do to others. I struggled but was still exhausted by my ordeal in the bay.

  ‘Tonight the world goes to war,’ the admiral hissed. From outside a malevolent light poured into the chamber. It stabbed my eyes, reflecting off the silver objects on the floor and from the knife that was just inches from my face.

  I dug my fingers into his neck, squeezed, and the admiral snarled in pain.

  ‘Araceli, help me!’ I shouted.

  She ran to my side, stooped and reached for something on the floor. I couldn’t look down, couldn’t see what she was doing, but I could hear the chink of metal on stone.

  ‘Do it, girl,’ the admiral commanded. ‘Do it!’

  A searing pain. My hands spasmed and the admiral wrenched free from my grasp. I looked down at my feet, already knowing what I would see. One ankle was encircled by a heavy band of metal attached to the floor with a chain.

  ‘You’re both insane!’ I yelled, more at the admiral than Araceli. She had her back to me and was gazing at the casemate that faced the shore where the villagers had gathered and where all hell was about to be let loose.

  ‘The Falling!’ the admiral said in a low voice. ‘Now it begins!’

  Crouching and tilting my head to one side, I saw what the villagers were seeing: fiery balls of light dropping from the heavens, casting deathly reflections on the waters of St Brides Bay.

  Thunder roared, mixing with another sound, the wailing of a distant siren.

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

  by Dr R. Caxton (Clementine Press, 1980) p.180

  11. p.m. Outside the Ram Inn, close to the sea wall, the elders were still muttering and swaying, but with greater passion. I could hear them in spite of the rain, which had begun to drive down in torrents, and in spite of the lifeboat station’s emergency siren.

  ‘To do thy will shall be the whole of the law.’

  Pritchard was correct: there was a secret group in the village that had been waiting for the call of the Watchers in the sky. It was in part thanks to them that the demons had gained a foothold in the minds of the local populace. I was about to tell Frobisher we should leave when I saw his eyes darken and fix on the sky. ‘Sweet Jesus,’ he whispered.

  We watched, tense with fear, as a red fireball dropped from the sky and swooped, stopping over a boat in the bay. Another joined it. Hanging motionless together, they were like a pair of demon’s eyes.


  I dragged my eyes away. ‘Don’t look, Frank,’ I said, but it was no good. His head was tilted back and he had begun to walk towards the Giant’s Point. ‘Frank!’

  Slowly the people on the beach began to move as one – up the slipway, turning at the post office and walking out along Giant’s Point. More than a hundred people. No one broke away; no one spoke except for the elders in their circle: the teaching assistant, the postmistress, the landlord of the Ram Inn. ‘To do my will shall be the whole of the law . . .’

  A police car screeched to a halt behind me, its blue lights flashing in the dark, Sergeant Blakemore’s pale face behind the windscreen. He got out but then did nothing, just stood there, gaze locked on the lights above the water.

  Just then lightning ripped across the sky, and against the dark, on the nearest hill, the Haven Hotel stood out in sharp relief. There was a single light glowing in a ground-floor window. Someone was up there. My brain and body made the decision in unison. I turned into the streaks of rain and headed for the Haven Hotel.

  – 55 –

  At Stack Rocks Fort the sky boomed and everything shook. Jagged shafts of light flashed through the casemates and the air vibrated. Through the nearest opening I could see the glow of something in the sky reflecting off the sea and, beyond, Little Haven drenched in an eerie flickering light.

  ‘What’s happening?’ I shouted just as the red globes falling from the sky began to track across the bay.

  ‘They’re heading for RAF Brawdy,’ the admiral said.

  But they weren’t just heading for the base; they were heading for its nuclear weapons. Suddenly I could see how everything was connected – what part those weapons were to play in all of this, if the admiral had his way.

  ‘We will watch as a new era begins,’ said my former mentor reverently, ‘and I become its master.’

  ‘We’ll all be destroyed in any explosion,’ I said.

  ‘No, I am protected. I am promised a long, long life.’