by Peter Spokes
But enough; I had made up my mind not to revisit resentment and my father’s recalcitrance. I would be as once I was, beautiful and basking in the friendship of my brothers, enjoying the creation of my father – though his love for his creatures would always be a thorn in my side. Why he concerned himself with beings many of whom didn’t even believe he existed was quite beyond me – but there I go again.
I continued to climb – though slower, doubt beginning to question the decision I had made – uncertainty clouding my intention.
I felt I had done my time and to once again bathe in my father’s love was all that I wanted. My only vice was in wanting to be loved by him more than the ape-beings and sub-creatures that proliferated in the world he had made. They did not deserve his love. But also, it was true that he treated them like cattle. At least I and my minions had chosen to integrate with them; enjoy their bodies. True, the Nephilim offspring were considered monsters by my father – and my brothers too – but at least I educated them; taught them how to use tools; to better fight their neighbours; paint their faces to emphasise beauty and encourage lust. I taught them to understand the way of the prophets by looking at the night sky.
I taught them to ‘become’.
I was the Light-bringer.
I ‘am’ the Light-bringer.
I am the Morning Star.
It was because of me that people became self-thinking.
It is ironic that from my darkness I wished to enlighten them while my father, from his vaulted heaven of light, wished only to keep them in darkness.
I slowed my ascent, and then stopped.
This wasn’t right. Just because those in power thought one thing and you another, did that make you wrong?
Around me there was silence; the sea of grotesques stopped screaming and writhing and waited my next move.
I looked up. Michael and Gabriel, my friends, my brothers, would be waiting for me.
Frustration and anger welled up inside me. But this time I let it take hold.
I was once the most beautiful of all of heaven’s angelic host. Now – I looked down at my blackened gnarled arms – and boiled with uncontrolled anger.
I was not going to seek absolution from those that I – a prince of heaven – had been punished by! I would not look for redemption for supplying the means to help the creatures develop and progress and enjoy their short lives!
I would not kowtow to my father’s restricted and misjudged dictates!
I let out a frustrated scream which was picked up by the horrendous assemblage and amid wails, howls and screams, we headed back below – to the pit… to hell.
Fire and Flames
Chapter 1
Scene 1: Hammett
April 1755
The conflagration was now no more and the embers cold, and the folk from the small community gone and so Father Jonathan Hammett left the shadows of the trees. He knelt and with the aid of an old wooden ladle, he carefully conveyed the black ashes into a small hessian bag.
He understood that all the ashes were unnecessary; just enough for the essence of the twins. Then he stood up and wondered where best to hide them.
He smiled and, with purpose, headed back into the darkness of the woods.
Eight months later Father Jonathan Hammett dropped to his knees and fell forward into the snow. With great effort, he turned over onto his back and gazed through watery eyes at the trees, their tops disappearing into the darkness.
Blood speckled his mouth and the front of his coat.
His fast and laboured breathing sounded like an iron gate on rusted hinges.
The father closed his eyes. He no longer felt cold and he mused on how strangely warm and comfortable he felt.
He knew he would never rise and see his beloved again.
The father wondered if anyone would ever find his body.
Despite his forgiving nature, an anger churned in his heart towards the man that had murdered him.
But just then, he stared. He saw snakes dropping towards him. As they reached him the snakes – no tendrils – from the highest branches of the ancient trees, gently reached below him; cradling his head and then his arms and torso.
Then he thought he heard her voice.
Fascinated, he slowly turned his head. He could barely keep his eyes open but looked over and saw his beloved Mary.
A black cat sat on each side of her.
Kramer had not lied; she walked as if in life.
The father smiled and closed his eyes for the final time as tears ran down to his neck, comforted in the embrace of the woods that he had so loved and the place where he had first met his love.
Scene 2: God’s Work
April 1756
Finney stopped for the third time and moved the burning torch around him. The flames cast dancing shadows across the empty trees.
He was having reservations.
Initially, the idea of a brief visit to the woods to where the witch had been buried and digging up some old bones that had been put there a year ago had seemed fairly straightforward, especially when so many coins had been offered.
The three of them couldn’t believe their luck – they were getting paid handsomely for doing God’s work, according to the father.
What could go wrong?
Sadly, Finney had discovered that talking about it in the warm, well-lit back room of the Green Man where the beer had been copiously imbibed, was one thing but actually walking – or stumbling would be more accurate – through a cold, wet forest at night was a different thing entirely.
A while back, the rain had found ingress to the area between his shoulder blades and was still moving down his back. Finney moved his torch around; shadows appeared to move at the limits of his vision, behind the trunks and boughs.
The trees appeared animated and appeared to watch them closely.
He kept looking around and saw the anxious faces behind him. Jed was holding his shovel before him like a sword and at the back, Lucas was going to trip or walk into a tree if he didn’t stop looking behind him.
It was all very well the father telling them ‘the Lord is on your side’ and ‘the Lord will protect you’, but here inside these dark, dank woods Finney sensed a strong feeling that ‘the Lord’ held little sway.
After almost an hour the three of them were thoroughly lost but just as they were about to turn back – or at least where they thought ‘back’ should be – they broke into a clearing – and there in the centre was the witch’s grave.
Finney called to the others, “Jed, Lucas, get digging – I want to be out of this hell hole and back dead drunk before daybreak.”
Jed and Lucas grunted and started to dig into the wet mud while Finney continued to look warily around.
Despite his heightened alertness, he jumped suddenly when he heard a crash from somewhere beyond the light; something heavy and dragging.
Then it grew darker and he realised his torch was not going to last much longer.
“Keep digging, damn you!” Finney yelled across the now roaring bursts of thunder as he watched his flames splutter.
Finney turned around wondering what could be out there hidden in the trees and darkness.
He looked over as Jed and Lucas began to gently place the corpse onto a sheet before folding it over. Despite Jed’s haste and current state of mind, he paused to stare at the corpse and how oddly bereft of decomposition the body appeared. It looked to him that it had only been placed there an hour ago.
He watched Jed and Lucas finish wrapping the cloth sheet and turned to find the entrance to the clearing.
“Okay, that’s it,” he said moving swiftly towards the gap in the foliage. But as he turned back to hurry his colleagues, he saw it was empty, but for the witch’s body in the cloth sheet.
“Hey, Jed! Lucas!” he shouted into t
he rain.
Then he heard a scream, long and piercing which then stopped abruptly.
He turned to go but remembered the money promised for the corpse and so as fast as he could he approached the corpse.
Scene 3: … Dreaming, Floating…
Dreaming, floating… trapped… a longing to be once again among them… and my beloved.
Deprivation from where she belongs… but she whispers to them and they answer with a sad and distant sway of their boughs. There is a malaise that the woods cannot endure much longer. It has missed her but she tells them, patience, for she senses a change is coming… and her power grows stronger.
It will not be for much longer, she tells them…
Scene 4: The Pickpocket
1855
Jimmy Mann ran down the street as fast as his lanky frame could manage. In one hand he held a thick wallet and in the other, a small knife that allowed him to appropriate the former.
He was berating his own foolishness.
This time he had lingered too long and was too distracted by the money.
He had been following a short but distinguished looking gentleman for thirty minutes – fifteen minutes longer than he would usually allow himself – but this guy just kept on bringing out his wallet. First, he bought some flowers from the flower seller on the corner. Then, a street beggar – Mann had never seen him before; beggars normally frequented the bigger town and cities, not a small village in the middle of nowhere.
Then Jimmy watched him leave the Green Man alehouse and thumb several notes before putting them into his wallet.
Eventually came the opportunity to strike.
The taking of the wallet had probably been the easiest pick of his life but then somewhere a whistle had blown and within a moment a constable and several angry locals were on his tail.
He was experienced to know that an exit of escape was the first thing to think about before initiating the crime and Mann had seen the forest that spread from behind a stone wall on the other side of the road as far as the eye could see.
They would never catch him in there.
Mann smiled to himself as he saw that just fifty feet away a gate gave him access through the wall and into the woods. He had learnt a long time ago never to jump over a wall without some knowledge of what was likely to be on the other side.
In less than a minute he was over the gate and into the woods.
Had Mann felt safe enough to turn around he would have noticed that his pursuers had stopped at the gate. In fact, the one person to climb the gate was quickly checked and brought back down.
Mann ran between thick-trunked oaks and gnarled chestnuts and after about twenty minutes he broke – panting for breath – into a clearing and stopped. He bent over holding his side and then looked up and around himself. Odd, he thought. He couldn’t see how he had entered the clearing. All around were vaulted trunks and a lattice of branches, limbs and exposed roots.
There was a small mound in the centre upon which Mann sat down and proceeded to open the still bulging wallet, only to find nothing but thick wads of newspaper. No wonder the beggar was out of place. He had been set up.
Mann’s face turned savage and he was about to throw the paper and wallet as far as he could, when another thought occurred to him. Maybe if their little village was burnt down they might regret the day they set up Jimmy Mann.
The woods around him looked very dry; even the upper branches seemed devoid of all but a few leaves and foliage. Had Mann been interested, he would have noticed how strange was the absence of green foliage considering that spring was well under way.
Mann got to work preparing his fire. Before lighting it, he checked the wind direction by throwing a handful of dirt into the air. Unfortunately, the dirt dropped in no direction other than down. Never mind, once I set it alight I’ll soon see which way the wind’s blowing, he thought. As he looked around for an exit to his clearing, Mann noticed a hole in the undergrowth beside a large knotted and twisted oak or elm that looked like it had fallen many years ago judging by the amount of moss and ivy clinging to it – he wasn’t bothered what sort of tree it was; he knew it would be ash in a few hours. He stopped suddenly and laughed. How do you turn an oak into an ash? Set it on fire! He laughed again.
He dug into his trousers and found the matches. He was about to strike several when… he saw out of the corner of his eye a black cat and then another. They sat silently on their haunches and stared at Mann, their green eyes extraordinarily bright as if lit by a preternatural inner fire.
Mann picked up a stick and threw it but they didn’t move – didn’t even flinch as the stick passed within inches of them. He watched, amazed, as they sat, never taking their eyes from him.
Then Mann jumped as he heard the sound of ripping or tearing branches. It was not simply the sound of something heavy falling down, but something far greater, like when a peal of thunder is felt through your feet.
This was followed by the sound of dragging; as if a tree were being pulled across the forest floor.
Mann looked around and then up noticing how dark it had suddenly become. Now he could only see the cats’ eyes as if they were illuminated from within, except that they appeared higher now and in the growing darkness he thought he saw the outlines of two young women…
He shook his head, struck the matches and threw them onto his small pile of paper and sticks.
The paper and the dry tinder soon caught and white smoke began to curl upwards – much to Mann’s disgust. How was he supposed to know which way to run if there was no wind?
Mann shook his head and turned to the large knotted trunk beside which he had planned his escape route – only to find it was no longer there. He continued in a slow circle, but the tree had gone.
He stood alone in the silence and eerily sudden darkness but for the small fire whose crackling tinder created tiny burning flecks that floated to the sparse canopy above.
He heard the dragging noise again – and very close by – so he ran, with his arms stretched out in front, away from where he thought the noise was coming from, but tripped on a root. He reached down to his ankle and felt the cause of his entrapment but despite twisting and pulling, could not break free. Then reaching out he grasped a branch or another root which seemed to entangle around his wrist. As he thrashed and kicked with his free leg, that too became trapped.
He stopped suddenly. The dragging noise had started up again and abruptly the fire went out, but then it was back again. Mann realised with increasing horror that something large had moved between it and himself.
He continued to remain immobile until he heard a low, dry grating sound from somewhere near to the fire. He felt something curl about his neck but before he had chance to contemplate on this an explosion of white light erupted at the base of his skull.
Scene 5: Satan’s Army
1955
Dean Cowling staggered uncertainly out through the door of the Green Man public house. He was going to have some fun and Kathy Clemons was the one to give it to him.
Two hours earlier he had sat with several others of ‘Satan’s Army’ drinking too much beer. He and a bunch of his mates down at the local salvage yard had come up with the name in an attempt to give some sense of awe and credence to their presence. It hadn’t worked. For one thing ‘army’ was initially ‘commandos’ but none of them was too sure on how to spell it. Vic thought it should have an ‘oes’ at the end while Dave was certain it ended with ‘ows’. Then when they thought they had it right, it was too long for their recently purchased leather jackets.
They were all happy, however, on how ‘Satan’ was spelt.
So ‘army’ was substituted, but despite the scary name Dean still felt they were not treated with the respect they deserved.
Indeed, when the landlord had first seen them this evening he had asked where they had parked their
motorbikes. Dean had looked at his ‘army’ and then responded a little lamely, “We don’t have any motorbikes.” The landlord had shrugged and continued drying his glasses.
Dean had seethed with embarrassment made all the worse by the fact that Kathy Clemons had seen the exchange with her boyfriend, George Hope.
What on earth did she see in the jerk? He wasn’t good looking; must’ve been less than five-six and wore glasses; while Dean was funny. He still remembered calling him ‘George Dope’ which had gone down well with his mates but figured that Kathy must have had no sense of humour as she had not been laughing – not even proffered a smile. At that time, he decided they deserved each other and to hell with them both.
However, he realised he still had trouble taking his eyes from her. He hoped he looked like James Dean in that film he saw at the picture house recently. It was called – he looked up at the ceiling that was beginning to swim before him as if the title had been written on the rafters – something about ‘causing a rebel’.
His mates were becoming raucous and Dean wondered how long it would be before Kathy noticed what a popular chap he was and what a great time he was having.
Dean was feeling pretty good. That fifth beer had certainly hit the spot and, God, did Kathy’s legs look good!
Unfortunately, it was then that Kathy stood up and allowed George to put her coat around her shoulders and prepared to leave.
This wasn’t right; those legs were looking better and better and now they were disappearing between the tables to the exit.
Dean felt himself get up and stagger towards them. Kathy and George both turned around at the sound of falling chairs in Dean’s swathe.