A Cry From Beyond

by WR Armstrong

  The following morning I turned up there as instructed with passport in hand and learned that Ridgecroft had suffered concussion and a broken arm from the fall he’d taken, but was otherwise all right. He’d already been questioned and stood by his story that I was responsible for the recent spate of disappearances.

  Towards the end of that week I received a visit from my old friend PC Derek Morgan. Morgan asked me further questions related to what occurred the night Ridgecroft visited the cottage. Once again I was cooperative.

  Gentleshaw caught up with me a few days later and was good enough to give me the low down on ex-Detective Adam Ridgecroft.

  “He was a decent cop in his day, Mr O’Shea, but sort of went off the rails; not surprising really, given what he went through with all those disappearances.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “He was granted early retirement...”

  “And?” I said, sensing there was more.

  Gentleshaw sighed. “Soon afterwards his wife left him, taking the kids with her. He threatened to kill himself if they didn’t return. When that failed to work he tried to commit suicide. He ended up being sectioned for his own good. Rumour has it he only got out a few months ago.”

  I raised my eyebrows and looked heavenwards thinking what a lucky escape I’d had.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  I ate a light chicken salad that evening, washed down with a half bottle of chardonnay. Then I adjourned to the attic room, where I idly strummed a guitar whilst debating what to do next.

  Inform the police about the danger presented by the cottage? Tell them I was haunted by a woman and a child seeking to avenge their deaths and the deaths of others, and that the child carried her mother’s still borne sibling around like it was a treasured doll? And that the cottage or something in the cottage had claimed yet another victim, a fact thus far kept secret. And what about High Bank’s sinister connections to the outlying buildings, commissioned by a long dead member of the landed gentry, that included the creepy chapel with a secret chamber, and the haunted folly with its history of witchcraft, all of which were connected by ley lines.

  And so it went on, a seemingly endless series of weird and wonderful incidents and spectacles that when combined, suggested something was very, very wrong in the neighbourhood, but to try to rationalise it before members of the police force would be sheer foolhardiness.

  In the attic room, sitting in front of my lap top, I typed the words “ley lines” into the Google search engine and started to research. It turned out that Jenny’s summary of the subject had been pretty accurate. What she neglected to mention however, was that tunnels were occasionally discovered beneath ley lines, constructed by those who believed the energy emitted by them could be harnessed beneath ground and stored for their benefit. My mind started working overtime. Where did the tunnel, (it had to be a tunnel), lead that was constructed beneath the chapel? My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of my mobile ringing out down in the living room. I hurried downstairs to answer it, hoping it was Michelle.

  “What’s going on John?”

  It was Mike. He sounded tense.

  “If you must know,” I said, “lots, but nothing I can make any real sense of.”

  “Is there any news on your friend, Des?”

  “No: it appears he’s left the building Mike and something tells me he isn’t ever coming back.”

  “What about the others?”

  “Same story I’m afraid.”

  “Ye Gods: what an almighty mess!”

  “Tell me about it why don’t you.”

  “And the police; are they investigating?”

  “They’ve searched the cottage and the surrounding area and I have to keep in close contact, let them know my movements.”

  “They suspect you?!” He sounded horrified.

  “Who else is there to suspect? It’s a matter of common denomination. Think about it for a moment. I am the only individual whose presence has coincided with every disappearance. But they can’t pin anything on me because I’m innocent. They’re as frustrated as me.” Though not nearly as scared, I almost added. “They’re holding my passport until further notice,” I said as an afterthought.

  “You’re kidding me!”

  I told him about Ridgecroft.

  “Have they charged you with anything?”

  “Not yet.”

  “So it’s touring the EU or nothing. What a fucking pickle!”

  “Don’t be like that. It won’t be forever.”

  “Have you got yourself a lawyer?”

  “I don’t need one. I haven’t done anything.”

  Mike sighed and changed the subject.

  “How are the new songs coming along?”

  I decided to play the honesty card.

  “They’re not.”

  “Tell the record company that and you’re history.”

  I sighted recent events for my writer’s block.

  “If you want my advice,” Mike responded, “Get away from that damn cottage as soon as humanly possible.”

  “I can’t leave, not yet,” I said automatically and it felt like someone else had spoken. I suddenly thought about the chapel and the discovery I’d made there. I felt compelled to return, discover exactly where the underground chamber led, and what its purpose was, but I didn’t want to do it alone. Hell no, I was going to need help. Mike was no use. Wild horses couldn’t drag him back to High Bank. Then I thought about David. Now he was a different kettle of fish.

  “Mike, I’ll talk to you later,” I said, bringing the conversation to a premature close. I rang off and dialled David’s home number. He answered on the third ring.

  “Dave, it’s John,” I said relieved to hear his voice.

  “I intended ringing you later,” he replied. “See if you’re bearing up okay following your little fracas with Robocop. Besides, I’m getting bored out of my skull. Jenny’s away on a teaching course until the end of the week, I’m starting to go stir crazy sitting around doing nothing; fancy a pint?”

  “Good idea. I need to talk to you.” I hadn’t told him about my visit to the chapel and what I had discovered there.

  “Christ John,” he said, mildly exasperated, “what now?”

  “I’ll explain when I see you.” An idea suddenly popped into my head. “Hey, listen, why not come over to High Bank; stay over if you care to”.

  “That’s not a bad idea,” he agreed. And then: “On second thoughts I think I’ll give the stay over a miss if you don’t mind and get a taxi home. No offence John, but I don’t want to risk ending up vanishing off the face of the earth like Terry and the others.”

  “I take your point. See you in a while: Oh: and Dave.”

  “What now?”

  “Do you have such a thing as a heavy duty flashlight?”

  “Yes; why?”

  “Bring it with you. And wear sturdy boots and an anorak too.”

  “I thought I was coming over to get pleasantly sloshed; not to go on a hiking expedition.”

  I laughed weakly. The strain was starting to tell. I was feeling lightheaded and physically exhausted. It’d been an eventful few days.

  “I’ll be over within the hour,” David finished.

  I hung up the phone and happened to glance in the direction of the fireplace and caught sight of a couple of the sexton beetles that co-habited the cottage. Seemed Roy was unsuccessful in evicting the little buggers. Death beetles, I mused and half wondered again where they came from. They appeared as mysteriously as wood lice. They seemed to pop up out of thin air. An outer wall stood behind the inglenook fireplace and the potbelly that occupied it. Above was the master bedroom and below, well, there was the dreaded cellar.

  Lennon entered the sitting room just them. He ambled over to the potbelly and slumped down, resting his head on his paws, whilst observing me out of the corner of his eye.

  “What goes on here?” I asked him.

  He responded with a tired grunt and closed
his eyes. Recent events had taken their toll on him too, it seemed. Outside it had begun to snow again and the flakes were sticking. They drifted lazily from the heavens, coming to rest on the ground and buildings forming an instant white carpet. Once again I wondered if I should have followed Gentleshaw’s advice and purchased snow chains.

  I roused myself and set about preparing for the evening ahead, dressing in warm clothing, into the pockets of which I placed a small flask filled with whisky, a fresh pack of cigarettes, matches and a big claw hammer.

  When David arrived it was dark and snow fell heavily. He was naturally curious to know what entertainment I had in mind for the night ahead. When I mentioned my idea about visiting the chapel, he was surprised and just a little apprehensive, more so when I informed him of my earlier experience there.

  “Jenny would go bananas if she knew what we intended doing,” he said. “By the way, you look like death.”

  “Best not mention that word around here.” I tried to smile, but it didn’t work.

  “Yeah... right. So what’s the game plan?”

  I handed him a can of beer, popped the ring on my own and said, “We see for ourselves what’s inside that underground chamber in the chapel.”

  “What do you think is in there?”

  “I have absolutely no idea. Maybe nothing, but it’ll nevertheless be interesting to see where it leads.”

  David looked far from convinced. “If you say so, buddy.”

  I elected to leave Lennon at home on this occasion, deciding he’d been through enough and was deserving of some rest. We left the cottage, David and I, bracing ourselves against the night chill and headed across the back garden. We passed by the gazebo where I’d first seen Melinda, climbed over the waist high fence that helped form High Bank’s boundary and entered the copse that would eventually lead us into the field where the chapel stood.

  As we emerged from the trees, we both happened to glance over to the right. In the middle distance, standing behind a row of impossibly tall conifers stood the old manor house, the one I’d visited in my dream, (had it really been a dream or had I sleepwalked? I still couldn’t be sure), and where I’d witnessed the farmyard activity, followed by the heated exchange in the farmhouse itself between Melinda and her father...and where I later discovered the photograph of Melinda and her family and witnessed her father’s body hanging limply in the stairwell. The place stood in perfect darkness, the downfall of snow forming the only movement thereabouts.

  We walked in silence for a short time, both of us I dare say, wondering what surprises the night held. David was the first to speak.

  “Are the cops still keeping in close contact?”

  “They phone or visit most days,” I said, proffering him the flask, which he took and swigged from and then handed back.

  “What do they think?”

  “They don’t have a bloody clue,” I said. “At least I don’t think they do. They’ve put a missing persons report on the three they know about. I’m surprised the national Press haven’t taken up camping outside my front door by now.”

  “What do you think happened?” David asked; his breath vaporous against the icy air.

  “They’ve been abducted,” I said simply, “By what, remains to be discovered?”

  “I don’t believe in the supernatural,” David said bluntly,” I humour Jenny, but it’s bullshit as far as I’m concerned.” He paused, frowning. “And yet...”

  He either wouldn’t, or couldn’t finish the sentence and I thought better than to prompt him. We both of us knew something deeply disturbing and unexplainable was afoot and that speculation would be pretty much pointless. We needed proof of what really lay behind the disappearances. Halfway across the field, I stopped and asked to use the flashlight. David duly handed it to me and I shone it around the immediate area. A thin layer of snow covered the ground by now, and with snow still falling it was impossible to make out what I was looking for, which was the area of ground where Lennon had dug.

  I looked over at the chapel, then turned and peered through the snow and distant trees to where High Bank’s internal lights shone. It struck me that the two buildings were perfectly aligned to one another. But what did that prove? Something bothered me about this stuff, but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. Then, right out of the blue, it hit me. Ashley Church, I recalled, was also aligned to High Bank. High Bank, I suddenly realised was aligned to the crofter’s cottage and the chapel, and now that I thought about it, those latter buildings were aligned to the folly no less.

  Lennon, I now reasoned, had sensed this and tried to show me in the only way he knew how, by digging. As for Melinda, the day she’d appeared outside the chapel and later outside High Bank, was she also trying to clue me up. It’s said that Ley lines can be good or bad, depending on their geometry and what had occurred historically upon the land they occupied. My guess was something bad, very bad had occurred in this little corner of England in times gone by, and that whatever it was, its legacy was hell bent on haunting the present.

  I glanced over at David, ashen faced in the reflected torchlight. He looked anxious, no, more than that, he looked afraid.

  “What is it?” he asked and shuddered involuntarily. He adjusted his beanie, then his specs, pulled up his coat collar and looked towards the chapel.

  “Do you feel it?” I asked.

  He frowned, seeming at a loss.

  “The pull, do you feel the pull?”

  He stared blankly, but I nevertheless sensed the remark registered with him in a way he was unable to explain.

  “Each time I’ve walked this field,” I said, “I’ve automatically trodden the exact same path, so has Lennon.” I glanced down at the ground and it was my turn to shudder.

  “Something is below us,” I said, a statement of fact rather than a general surmise. “It is almost like a magnetic pull, though not quite. It tries to guide, to influence, but it isn’t good Dave, far from it.”

  “I don’t understand?”

  I smiled weakly. “Nor do I, but I hope to, soon.”

  “You’re giving me the creeps,” David complained. I apologised and vowed to keep my thoughts to myself, realising that if he bottled out, there was a very real chance I would too. It was all starting to get too much for me. I needed moral support.

  We continued on towards the chapel, which assumed a dark brooding elegance in the snowy night. As we drew closer, I shone the torch against the craggy grey stonework and in through the open slit windows, and wondered what we would discover this night.

  The heavy wooden door was ajar, just as I had left it. The interior, we found to be quiet, (as the grave I thought morosely), and devoid of any discernible life. The birds, it seemed, were absent and for that small mercy I was relieved.

  “Having fun?” I asked David, trying to lighten his mood, sensing he’d rather be anywhere but here.

  “Best night of my life,” he replied glibly. Together we headed up the aisle to the altar and the sunken staircase contained therein. There we paused uncertainly and gazed down into inky blackness.

  “Nice,” David said as I shone the flashlight in, thereby displacing the dark with soft yellow light.

  “What the hell is the idea of it, John?”

  I shrugged. “I’m not really sure yet.” And then I noticed the brickwork guarding the stairwell. “This is an addition,” I said pointing.

  “Huh?”

  “This,” I said patting the wall, “is newer than the rest of the building.” I inspected the stairwell itself and guessed it was around the same age.

  “What are you trying to say,” David asked, still unable to grasp the significance.

  “I would bet money,” I replied, “that this submerged chamber was excavated after the original chapel was built.”

  “Why, for what reason?”

  “I really couldn’t say. All I know is, a trap door is down there, beyond which may lie the answer.”

  David stared down into the sta
irwell and swallowed nervously. He was clearly having second thoughts about agreeing to join me on this little expedition. As if to prove the point, he asked for the flask, saying, “I think I need a little Dutch courage,” and took a couple of healthy gulps of whisky.

  We descended the stairs, with me taking the lead, shining the torch light towards the centre of the limited floor space.

  “Wow,” was all David managed when he saw the trap with its hefty stone door leaning at an angle against the wall, where I’d left it.

  We came to stand over the hole, and peered in. The torchlight did its work well and steps attached to the submerged wall were revealed.

  “It’s like a sewer chamber,” David observed and he was right, the description was apt.

  “Maybe that’s what it is,” I ventured, as I crouched and swung the beam from left to right.

  David grimaced. “This might surprise you John, but sewers are not my favourite place to be.”

  “You don’t say,” I answered dismissively, when in truth I too harboured doubts about venturing any further.

  I handed the flashlight to David, instructed him to keep it trained into the hole and then, telling myself yet again it was something that had to be done, I began to descend.

  “Do you really want to do this?” David asked as I started down.

  Glancing up, I answered with a simple “Yes,” and tried to smile but failed miserably.

  Moments later, I was standing in a narrow tunnel barely high enough to allow me to stand upright. At this point I wished I’d had the foresight to bring along a second torch, but it was too late now, we would have to manage with what we had.

  I called for David to throw the one we’d brought along down, which he promptly did and I managed to catch. I shone it upwards, lending him the light he required in order to make a safe descent. It wasn’t long before we were both standing in the tunnel, whose roof was arched and whose width gave just enough space for David and I to stand two a breast. I shone the torch around and saw that the tunnel in front of us disappeared into darkness, while that which lay in the opposite direction was blocked some fifteen feet hence by a brick wall.