He craned his neck to get a better viewing angle and saw that more than a dozen glowing spheres had appeared in the sky. They seemed to be falling, like meteorites, but Quinton knew that wasn’t what they were. He knew that, because they were falling too slowly, not free-plummeting the way a lump of space debris would.
“What the hell is that,” asked James, suddenly noticing.
Quinton stared out at the descending lights and wondered that himself. The way they moved was almost gentle, as if they had some great purpose that could not be rushed. It was then that a blinding light also filled the cabin.
The two pilots cried out and shielded their eyes, holding onto their chairs as they fought to stay seated. Mere seconds later, the light had gone again, and Quinton opened his eyes. The lights outside were still falling, but something inside the cabin had been altered. Something unexplainable.
Quinton looked down at his instruments with horror as he realised that they were no longer there. All that remained was a blackened husk of metal where dials and equipment used to be. The smell of ash lingered in the air, and Quinton felt dizzy as he realised something else.
His dizziness turned to panic.
The engines had stopped. They were going down.
Outside, the bright lights continued falling like stars, Angels from heaven. The plane fell faster.
Jack
It was funny how people found religion in times of crisis. People that hadn’t seen the insides of a church for years would suddenly get down on their knees and pray, whenever they were out of any other options. As much as Father Pitt enjoyed seeing his pews full of parishioners, he knew they were all hypocrites.
He considered giving another sermon, but then decided against it. Nobody was listening. His parishioners were huddled together in small groups and families, seeking only the shelter and community that the church provided, nothing else. They were not looking for tales of morality. As soon as the snow cleared, they would be gone again, returning to their mundane and selfish lives. In many ways the drastic snowfall was a blessing. Perhaps it was God’s way to send these lambs to Father Pitt, so that he may attempt to capture their spirits and return them to the Lord’s path. But he could no longer be bothered.
The church had been full for almost twelve hours now as the snow outside continued to fall so deeply that people had started turning up for fear that the world was ending. No one stated such absurdities, but their presence at the church spoke of a collective fear unspoken. At first, Father Pitt had served his calling well; had sought to help them with their anxieties and teach them about God’s plan for them. Within a few hours, however, he saw the futility of such pursuits.
Then they found the first body.
***
Mary found the body in the church’s sole toilet. It was a small, recently-built cubicle set inside the entrance corridor that led inside the church. Mary had been fighting the urge to urinate for a while, too chilly unwrap herself from her seat, but she could hold it no longer.
The toilet’s door had been unlocked when she tried it and she hurriedly stepped inside without thinking about it.
The dead man staring back at her made her yelp.
She had noticed the overweight man earlier in the evening, alone and praying. Now he was sat upright on the toilet with his pants around his ankles, guts spilling from his bulbous stomach which peeked out beneath his ill-fitting sweater.
Mary slipped on the bloody tiles and fell against the wall.
She screamed.
***
Dr Wallace came out of the toilet wiping his bloody hands on his shirt. In all his years of being a Doctor he had not seen such a grotesque wound. The man’s stomach had been torn in two, his large intestine severed and leaking out onto the floor. The smell was overpowering and would soon invade the interior of the church and make them all gag.
“What happened to him?” asked the woman who had found him.
“Mary, is it?” he asked. She nodded. “Well, my answer is that I have no idea, except to say that he was clearly murdered.”
Everyone in the church gasped. Some of the women began to cry. The church’s priest stepped forward, a look of utter despair on his face. “I don’t understand. How could he have been murdered with all of us here?”
“Yeah,” said a ginger-headed man wearing a green cardigan. “He was sat in the corner praying only twenty minutes ago. I saw him.”
Wallace shrugged. “All I’m telling you is that he didn’t die of natural causes. He was gutted like an animal. Also, I found this…” He offered out his hand so that everyone could see. It was a playing card: the Jack of Hearts. “It was forced into his mouth,” Wallace explained.
“Oh God,” said a young blonde of perhaps twenty. She had her hand to her mouth.
“What is it?” Father Pitt asked her.
“It’s Jack the Raper.”
Wallace huffed. “You mean that killer in the papers?”
The girl nodded. She wore a supermarket uniform and a name tag that read: Kelly. “That’s his thing,” she said. “His calling card or whatever.”
“How do you know that?” someone asked.
“Because I like reading about serial killers and stuff. I’ve googled this guy like a hundred times.”
“That’s sick.”
The girl rolled her eyes. “Whatever! Doesn’t change the fact that this is him. He’s already killed seven people, and every time he leaves a playing card stuffed in their mouths – always the Jack of Hearts. The papers say it represents sin because of its link to gambling and the heart is supposed to show lust. There was a whole article on it from some professor guy.”
“Are you serious?” Wallace asked.
“Yes. The guy breaks into people’s homes, kills any husbands or men in the house, and then rapes and kills the wife. That’s why the papers have called him Jack the Raper.”
“I feel sick,” said a woman in the back of the assembled group.”
Wallace shook his head. He was feeling rather nauseas himself. “I have to report this,” he said.
“Well, no one has a mobile that works,” Kelly said. “I think the snow is interfering or something.”
“I’ll have to go find someone, then,” said Wallace.
“You can’t go out there,” said the man in the green cardigan. “The snow is three feet deep. We’re all stuck here. With a goddamn killer in the room no less. Jesus Christ.” Father Pitt cringed at the blasphemy and the man seemed embarrassed. “Sorry,” he quickly added.
Wallace wasn’t in the mood for a debate, so he headed towards the church’s exit corridor. He tried to ignore the faecal scent of the dead man in the toilet as he passed. Up ahead was the old, wooden door of the church. He grasped the large brass hoop that constituted the handle and turned and pulled. The door fell open with force, knocking Wallace back onto his ass. Snow flooded in from outside, piling up on the ancient carpet.
“I can’t believe it,” Wallace said as he scurried back to his feet. “The snow must be six feet now. How long have we been in here?”
“Last time we checked outside was about six hours ago,” said the ginger man in the cardigan. “It was nowhere near that high then.”
“It’s the end of the world,” said a woman in the crowd. She was the first one to finally say it. The first one to say what they were all thinking.
***
“We have to get out of here,” Bradley whimpered, reaching into the pocket of his cardigan and pulling out his phone. The LCD display still read NO SIGNAL and he sighed as he put it back away.
“Calm down,” Dr Wallace told him. “The more we panic, the less rational we will be, and that’s the last thing we need right now.”
“So what do we do?” Mary asked. “Are we in danger?”
“I’m sure we’re fine,” said Father Pitt. “We just need to stay calm.”
Kelly began flapping her arms. “Calm? Calm? How the heck can we stay calm with Jack the Raper around?”
&
nbsp; Bradley was getting annoyed at the girl’s wild assertions of a serial killer being amongst them. Life was a pretty shitty place, for sure, but he wasn’t about to believe that this ‘Jack the Rapist’ was currently standing in the same church that he was. “Stop making assumptions,” he said. “We don’t know what happened to that man in the toilet.”
“We know he was murdered,” said Wallace. “And with the snow the way it is outside, we know that it was one of us that did it. No one else could have gotten in.”
“We know no such thing,” said Father Pitt. “Anything could have happened.”
Bradley had heard enough. He just wanted to sit down and wait for things to blow over. He went over to one of the pews and sat down. As soon as he did, the church’s lighting went out.
***
Kelly shook her head. This was bad. Snowed-in inside a church with Jack the Raper, and the lights had just gone out.
“Everybody hold on a minute and I’ll get some candles,” said Father Pitt. “It’s not a problem.”
Everyone mumbled anxiously in the dark and all Kelly could see was the soft, flickering shadows of their movement.
“This is so screwed up,” said a voice. Kelly thought it was the man in the cardigan, sitting on one of the pews.
Maybe he’s the killer. He is a bit of an oddball.
Jeez, I can’t wait to get out of here. I’m freezing my tits off and I don’t want to get raped and butchered.
Now that the quiet buzz of electricity had halted, the whistle and howl of the wind outside was the only sound.
When Father Pitt returned with an arm full of candles, which they lit one by one, they all found another body.
It was the cardigan man.
***
“We were just talking to the guy,” Kelly shouted. “Like two minutes ago. What happened?”
Dr Wallace leant over the man’s body, pulling up his ripped and bloody cardigan that was no longer green but red. Then he opened the dead man’s mouth. He pulled out another playing card and held it to the group. “It’s another Jack of Hearts.”
“I want to get out of here. Somebody get me out of here.” It was Mary. Apparently two dead bodies in one night was too much for her. She began fluttering about, shoving people at random and begging for their help. Her panic was infecting the other half-dozen people in the group. They were all starting to lose it.
“Should we slap her or something?” Kelly asked.
“No,” said the Doctor, who quickly grabbed the woman in a calm embrace. “Calm down, dear. We’re all here with you. Nothing bad will happen to you.”
Yeah, right, thought Kelly. Two down already.
“This is the Devil’s work,” said Father Pitt. “Someone capable of such deeds has no place in my church.”
“We need to find out who it is,” said Kelly. “We need to check for…I don’t know; clues or something.”
“The playing cards,” said a nearby woman. “We should check everyone to see if they have any of those cards on them.”
“Good idea,” said Wallace, “But without resorting to a strip search, it would be very easy to hide such a thing.”
“No one is looking in my knickers,” said Kelly.
“Maybe that’s because you have something to hide,” said Mary, suddenly back in control of herself.
“Yeah, right,” said Kelly. “Little old me has been travelling around England raping and killing people. Are you on drugs, you daft cow?”
“How dare you call me that.”
“Ladies, ladies,” said the Doctor. “We can’t assume anything right now.”
“It’s probably you,” said Kelly. “There are lots of killers that worked in the medical profession. It’s even thought that Jack the Ripper was a surgeon. Then there’s Harold Shipman, the Angel of Death killings, and Marcel Petiot in France.”
“It’s you,” said Mary again, pointing her finger at Kelly. “You’re a freak. Who knows all that stuff you’re talking about?”
“It’s just an interest,” said Kelly. “It doesn’t make me a freak. I just like to read. You should try it sometime, you dumb bitch.”
Mary lunged through the candle-lit shadows and went for Kelly’s throat. Kelly jumped aside, up the steps that housed the church’s altar and lectern. Her foot struck something and she went hurtling to the floor.
“What the fuck is that?” she cried out as she fumbled about on her hands and knees. When she felt the soft, slick flesh of another dead body, she screamed.
***
It was crazy, but Mary was certain that the little blonde bitch had something to do with what was happening. She kept going on about serial killers, like they were some sort of heroes or something. The girl was small, sure, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t stab someone to death.
And maybe she has an accomplice. Maybe I’m surrounded by bloody killers.
“That’s three people dead,” said Wallace.
“We’re dropping like flies,” said Kelly.
“God help us,” said Father Pitt. Let me head into the vestry and try to get a call through to 999. The police need to get here right away.”
“I’ll come with you,” said Mary. “I don’t want to stay out here.”
“Fair enough,” said Father Pitt. “Come along then.”
The two of them disappeared into the shadows, their candles bobbing along through the darkness. A shiver rushed along Mary’s spine as she realised she was now more alone than she had been. There was still a handful of people gathered in the church, but how could she trust any of them?
She gathered a candle in each of her hands and then went and followed Father Pitt. Inside her little cocoon of flickering light, she felt as if she might just make it. She just wished it was not so cold. It was as if the snow was never going stop falling and they would be trapped there forever.
***
Father Pitt had been gone for several minutes and Wallace was getting anxious. As a Doctor he was expected to be one of society’s wardens, in the same way as a teacher or police officer. It would not do for him to show his fear at the situation. People would be looking to him as some sort of authority. The priest, too – which was making him wonder where Father Pitt had gotten to.
“Is everybody okay?” he asked the group. “I’m just going to find out what Father Pitt is doing.”
No one said anything so Wallace felt it safe to sneak away for a few moments. He headed down towards the altar and then turned right into a small side door. Through it was a small antechamber that had been turned into an office of some kind. Lying on the floor, dead, was the older woman, Mary. A few feet away from her body an old swivel chair lay. Slumped over it, and also dead, was Father Pitt.
Wallace raced back out into the church. “They’re dead,” he shouted. “The priest and the woman are both dead. We need to get out of here right now.”
It was finally too much and the group lost it completely. Everyone began swarming around, heading for the nearest windows and doors. Wallace headed back to the church’s front entrance and pulled open the door again. Just like before, the snow piled in and covered the carpet; only this time it was higher than the doorway. He was faced with a sheer face of packed snow. Against all rationality, he lunged forwards anyway. He shoved both arms into the snow and succeeded only in getting his hands and wrists through before it compacted and became utterly solid. It would take a tonne of pressure to clear the doorway.
They were trapped.
And to make matters worse, someone back inside the church was screaming loudly. And then the scream suddenly stopped.
***
Kelly was about to shit a brick. Another person was dead; gutted just like the others. Even with a group of people huddled together, someone was managing to pick them off one by one. If only it wasn’t for the dark.
The latest dead person was an older gentleman who had kept to himself since entering the church. His wife had found him propped up against a large wooden cross at the side of th
e church. A playing card hung from his lips: a Jack of Hearts.
Now there was only a handful of the group left and Kelly wasn’t about to trust any of them. The main suspect in her eyes was the Doctor, but it could have been anyone. She had to keep her distance.
The wife of the dead man had now joined forces with a teenage boy in trying to smash through one of the stained glass windows. It held strong, braced by the snow against its other side.
The Doctor was sitting by the front door, slumped on the floor. It seemed like he had finally lost it, too, but it could have been an act. Then there was a middle-aged man and another woman who was likely his wife. That was all that was left of the group of strangers.
To think we all came here for safety. What’s the worst that could happen in a church?
Kelly wanted to be alone until she knew it was safe. There were bodies everywhere, which is why she decided that the church’s small side office would be as good as anywhere. At least it had a door she could close. She quickly headed there before the killer attacked anybody else.
Inside the office, the smell of blood and guts was strong, but she would have to bare it. She turned around and started to close the door. The pain she felt when the knife went into her guts was excruciating.
***
Wallace sat on the floor and shook his head. He stared into the flickering flame of his candle and asked himself over and over if he was dreaming. Half a dozen people murdered in less than an hour, and there was no escape. No way to find help.
As he sat there, Wallace’s mind began turning to maudlin thoughts; regrets of not having a family and instead choosing to be a slave to his work. What did any of it matter really? Curing people was a worthwhile pursuit for one’s lifetime, but it was a selfless task that brought a man no true happiness – not in the way a family did. Wallace had only come here tonight because he had nowhere else.
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