The Knowing: A thrilling horror fantasy

by David Graham

  Deborah motioned Dai over. “Sorry, Dai, it’s urgent. Can you try pinging the lieutenant? He believes an explosion is about to happen. We need more information.” She extracted a radio from a pocket and thumbed a button. “Code nine. I repeat, code nine.”

  Dale noticed shadowy figures in the church gallery scurrying purposefully. He guessed that MI5 agents outnumbered the congregation. Dai looked uncertain. Dale sympathised. Life couldn’t get any weirder or more inconvenient. “It’s okay, dude, go ahead,” Dale said. “But be gentle.”

  Dai looked at Dr Kyriakides. “Where should I look?”

  “Try the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex,” the doctor said.

  “Left or right?”

  “Perhaps the left would be – ”

  “No, go for the right,” Steve said. “It’s more involved with waking thought and reality testing.”

  “Okay,” the doctor shrugged. “He’s the better psychologist.”

  Dai moved to stand in front of Dale. “This won’t hurt a bit.”

  Dale remembered him examining the burn patient in West Hollywood. It’d been a massive leap of faith to accept what he’d done back then. And now? Perhaps they were cut from the same cloth, after all. He watched Dai’s face as he engaged the hocus focus. His pupils constricted and then dilated as if he’d suddenly gone into the dark. The image inside his head continued to repeat, but the focus seemed to have shifted. The light had become golden and it was very bright. Then he heard voices: “Scaredy-cat, scaredy-cat.” They sounded like the kids that used to torment him when he was little. Dale felt heat on his face despite the coolness of the church. He was getting hotter by the second. He needed to escape ...

  Dale looked down both sides of the church. “Oh shit,” he said. “It’s here.”

  Deborah shouted into her radio: “Code ten, code ten! This isn’t a drill! We need to evacuate!” But the music had already changed and drowned out her words.

  Then the door at the entrance to the nave opened ...

  Near the front, on the bride’s side, the Queen glimpsed the dark features of Deborah Jenkins. She reminded her a bit of her sister, Margaret. Her glossy hair was topped with one of those frivolous fashion items called a ‘fascinator’ that her granddaughters were forever wasting money on. She was talking loudly and gesticulating wildly to a young man next to her, which seemed rather rude inside a church. She would need to have a word with her. Glancing ahead, she noticed the hirsute attributes of Dr Kyriakides who was standing next to David. She didn’t recognise the two men standing adjacent to them. They wore identical suits, but their haircuts were different. One of them had been bending over and seemed to be in some discomfort. Perhaps he had problems with a shoelace.

  Suddenly the music changed. The Queen recognised Mendelssohn’s ‘Wedding March’ immediately, although it had been played at the end of her ceremony rather than as she walked down the aisle. How times change. She turned to watch Sandra make her entrance. The sunlight silhouetted her dark hair, which had been arranged in ringlets cascading onto her shoulders. She looked so radiant ... and extremely pregnant. And then she saw who was giving the bride away. How appropriate that it should be Emma Jones. She’d been such a help to Sandra in discovering her gift and then liberating her from the unfortunate clutches of that scoundrel Major Chisholm. To think that he’d had the nerve to place one of his spies in the Palace.

  “Please watch out, Ma’am!” Goodness! That had to be David. Now, what did he mean by that?

  The stained glass windows cast colourful patterns onto the motes of dust that drifted lazily in the reverberant sound of the organ. The Queen sensed a vague movement to her left accompanied by a barely detectable current of air. The woman in black had pushed back the covering over her head. The Queen was certain she’d seen the face somewhere before. The woman stood up with difficulty and opened her mouth. Time seemed to freeze as a stream of energy emerged from her mouth and coalesced with similar effusions from David and his troublesome niece. The Queen had heard of a tripleheaded obliteration hex, but she’d never witnessed one before. It was one of the reasons why Mr Brown used to burn an effigy of Siandi Da’aan every Halloween at Balmoral Castle; “kill the witch’s fire with fire,” was the way he’d bluntly put it.

  The Queen quickly checked around the church and saw that she was the only one still able to move. Deborah and some of the other guests close by her had their hands inside their jackets as if they were about to pull out firearms. The organist’s hands remained above the keys, but somehow the sound lingered in the air. David seemed to be in the process of moving in front of Sandra to protect her, but he was immobilised like the rest of the guests. In the meantime, the streams of energy had assembled into a golden orb that hovered in mid-air above the pews. And it had started rotating. The Queen covered her ears against the shrieking noise it made.

  “I’m sorry, Ma’am, I’ve let you down,” the Queen heard distantly inside her head. She’d been looking at David, but his lips hadn’t moved. His curious disappearance and reappearance in Green Park, seemingly unscathed, made sense to her now. How cunning. But David’s kidnapper couldn’t have known about his telepathic ability.

  “What should I do?” she communicated to him. The orb was spinning faster and tendrils of energy were snaking out into the church. She touched the broach on her right shoulder. It was hot under her fingers and she could feel the warmth seeping into her body. David wasn’t responding. “Are you there, David?” she attempted again. The only thoughts in her head remained her own. After so many years of having things done for her, it felt strange to be so out of her depth. She walked over to David. His mouth remained wide open as if he was trying to scream a warning. She looked into his eyes, hoping that somehow he’d tell her what she should do. Instead, she saw the reflection of an old woman wearing a funny hat and even more ridiculous sunglasses. She sighed and placed her disguise on the floor.

  As she stood up, she was sure she detected something burning. She turned and noticed the rector’s richly embroidered white and gold vestments smouldering. Someone had left a bottle of water near the end of a pew. She bent down and threw the contents at the vicar’s clothing. There was a brief fizzle. The priest still had his arms outstretched to welcome the happy couple. Water dripped from his face, which remained creased in a rictus of a smile. She shuddered. She’d always been suspicious of religion’s trappings of power despite being the head of the Church of England. What hypocrisy. But who was she to talk. And she had her subjects to save.

  The Queen walked into the body of the church, unpinned the broach and held it out under the spinning orb. One by one, the lightning streams pulled back from the far reaches of the church and formed into a huge glowing ball around the orb. The object pulsed with sinuous currents, as if thousands of serpents were ready to spit their fiery venom and reduce her to a pile of ashes. If someone had wanted to frighten her with an image of hell, they were doing an exceptionally good job of it.

  She wondered what her dear sister would say if she could see her battling with this fearsome foe. They’d been brought up on Agatha Christie and Enid Blyton, and she was sure the Famous Five never had to deal with anything like this. She could imagine George’s eyes dancing with excitement at the sight of it while Timmy yelped his way out of the church with his tail between his legs. Her corgis would have barked the thing back to where it came from.

  But this wasn’t the time to reminisce. What should she do next? If she let go of the broach, the swirling monster above her might do its worst and reduce Piccadilly to a barren wasteland. Imagine London without Buckingham Palace – or afternoon tea at The Ritz. She tried to recall David’s instructions. She closed her eyes and imagined the two of them back on the bench on the hill above Balmoral Castle. It was all a bit muddled. Her memory hadn’t been so good since the stroke.

  “Oh, Margaret dear, what should we do?” the Queen asked the church.

  She held her breath and listened. The orb continued to wail like
a banshee, but it had also developed an ominous hiss. She recalled witnessing a screeching singer shatter glass at some tawdry Royal Variety Performance. The tightrope-walking dog had been much more amusing. She glanced anxiously at the stained glass windows. She was sure she’d heard her sunglasses crack on the flagstones. They’d been a gift from a distant king in an even more remote outpost of the commonwealth.

  “Lilibet dearest, use the way,” she heard whispered inside her head.

  Of course! Even if David couldn’t send her a message, she might be able to find out what he’d been thinking. She’d used ‘the way’ on him before, even if he didn’t know it. She turned around to look at the stationary figures, frozen like statues. If she’d been a child, she’d have gone up and said, “Boo!” Except she wasn’t a child and she had their lives and the continuing existence of countless others in her hands. Could this be what she’d been waiting for all these years?

  “Sorry, David,” she relayed gently before peeking inside his head. Usually she encountered embarrassed resistance and had to tease under the surface. Mr Blair always had plenty of legal obfuscations up his sleeve. This time, it was just too easy. And for someone so keen on popular culture, she was surprised to see how empty David’s thoughts were. It was as if his past life had been sucked out of him. Then she saw it, carefully placed for her to find: an inverted funnel, sculpted out of something like pewter. Of course, it had to be Welsh slate!

  She repositioned herself under the orb and its hellish surround. The pulsations were becoming more insistent and bulbous protrusions periodically broke the surface. She could make out faces and they seemed to be laughing at her.

  “Who are you kidding, old woman?” one of them jested.

  “You’re too old to rule a dog’s home,” another sneered.

  That was it. She’d had enough. How dare they mock her! She held the broach under her chin and stood with the sphere a couple of feet from her head. She felt static electricity lift her hair and a tingling sensation against her face. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and imagined herself back at Balmoral, sitting on the same, much loved roughly-hewn bench, opening her mind to connect to the sky ... funnelling everything that was evil into the vastness of space ...

  “So, who was that old woman?” the organic preserves stallholder asked as she completed clearing up for the day. She disengaged her Beats by Dre earbuds from her tortured ear canals. Leaking hi-hats added their sizzling crispness to the air. “I noticed her smiling at you.”

  “Yeah? So what?” the next-door purveyor of the finest bric-a-brac said. “She looked the sort who’d recognise quality.”

  “Quality? Huh,” her neighbour said, sniffing snootily at the sight of the randomly arranged tat on her rival’s trestle table.

  “Actually, she reminded me of someone ... you know, that ancient actress ... whatshername ... yeah, that’s it ... Greta Garbo.”

  The jam seller frowned from the lack of familiarity and then cocked her head to one side. “What’s that?”

  “What’s what?”

  “There’s a strange wailing noise. It’s like a cross between Kate Bush and Björk.”

  The trestle table owner shuddered. “It’s your tinnitus. I’ve told you before you’ll go deaf from the stuff you listen to.”

  The stallholder shot her a glare. “Anyway, I think it’s coming from the church.”

  “It’s probably just the organ that’s got stuck – or bats in the belfry objecting to the bloody wedding. I mean, why can’t people be satisfied with a registry office?”

  “Well, I’m going to investigate. It doesn’t sound right.”

  Bric-a-brac followed organic preserves up the front steps of the church, listening out for something that wasn’t quite ringing true. “You’re right,” the former said. “The noise is coming from inside.”

  The two of them grabbed hold of the brass rings to open the double doors, but let go immediately, their fingers sticking to the metal. “Christ, that’s freezing!” organic preserves said. They tried a second time with their jacket sleeves as protection. There was some resistance and the whiny noise got much louder as they opened the doors a crack.

  “Oh my God, did you see that!” bric-a-brac said. “There’s something glowing!”

  “Wow! It’s like a fireball from Warlords of Draenor!” preserves said, her jelly-like body going all of a quiver.

  The doors slammed shut of their own accord. The two stallholders looked at each other, finally in full agreement. They ran in the direction of the nearest shop to call for the fire brigade.

  ... time must have passed, but the Queen couldn’t be sure for how long. She felt strangely light-headed. She’d been thinking about her sister and her concentration had been wandering. She was still clasping the broach as if her life depended on it. In fact, it was getting hotter by the second and she’d have to drop it soon. She should have worn gloves, of course. But somehow the pain didn’t seem to matter. She slowly opened her eyes and was surprised to find that she was looking into the body of the church from a vantage point high up in the roof.

  Well, what a sight! There she was, an old woman with her hair standing on end – her long-suffering hairdresser would never forgive her for that – with a glowing ball hovering overhead and rivulets of energy shimmering their way up into the roof’s apex. Logically, that had to mean she was dead, or else she wouldn’t be having an out-of-body experience. But she was also still standing up and dead people didn’t do that. And then there were the people standing around, motionless. Why weren’t they bowing, curtseying and applauding her – or rushing to their monarch’s assistance if she was already dead? But, goodness, it was so wonderful to be free and unencumbered. Perhaps, if she relaxed a little more, she’d float even higher. She craned her disembodied neck upwards.

  “Oh, good Lord! We can see the light!” the Queen uttered silently to the infinitely welcoming cosmos.

  Dai’s jaw ached like he’d had his mouth open for hours of root canal treatment. He checked his left hand: there was no ring. He looked over at Sandra. She stood 20 feet away next to Dr Jones. Her veil was still down and she was glancing around, clearly just as puzzled as he was.

  “What happened?” she asked, her telepathy uncharacteristically hesitant. “Are we married?”

  “Dunno,” Dai replied truthfully. “One minute I was here, the next I’m still here and my jaw aches like I’ve been at the dentist.”

  “Well, I’m aching all over. ” She peered down. ‘‘And my flowers have wilted.”

  Dai inspected the single carnation in his buttonhole. It, too, was drooping. Then he noticed the body on the floor. The figure looked as crumpled as their wedding bouquets and its white hair stood on end, like a Dr Frankenstein scared shitless by his abominable creation. Its hands were held pressed together, as if the figure had been struck while engaged in prayer.

  “Oh Christ, that’s Her Majesty!” Dai shouted. A chord of dissonant pedal notes from the organist’s abruptly relaxing feet added the frisson of a film soundtrack to the urgency of his proclamation.

  Those guests who were still recovering lurched into full consciousness with hands planted over their ears. Dr Jones staggered over to the recumbent body. “Someone call 999,” she yelled over the bone-shaking racket. “And kill the bloody organ while you’re about it!”

  Hands dived reflexively into jacket pockets and extracted nothing but thin air. “Perhaps there’s a phone in the vestry,” someone said. Dai heard several pairs of feet running in search of the elusive landline. He felt he was reliving his moment of helplessness in the Scottish Highlands. There didn’t seem much chance of telepathy saving the Queen’s life this time. He vaguely recalled something emerging from his mouth before everything ground to a halt – and Her Majesty ending up unconscious on the floor. Oh shit, is it my fault this time, too?

  “Of course it isn’t, silly boy,” the Queen communicated in a clipped tone that was still as cut glass as Granny Betty’s best vase.
r />   “You’re alive, then?” Dai responded, immediately regretting that he hadn’t stopped to think before he thought.

  “Well, we haven’t joined the spirit world quite yet,” she replied with a chuckle that felt more like a tickle. “It takes more than a triple-headed obliteration hex to dethrone us. Mind you, we do believe that our hands are rather burnt.”

  Dai went over to Dr Jones who was checking the Queen’s pulse. “She’s okay, I think, although some of what she’s saying doesn’t make much sense,” he said, whispering in her ear. “She was going on about an ‘obliteration hex’. Perhaps her brain was starved of oxygen.”

  Dr Jones looked at him piercingly. Dai was sure her eyes were up to something sneaky. Mixing green and blue always spelled trouble. She turned back to the Queen and continued her examination. “You may be right, David. Something hit her for six, although I don’t believe she’s had another stroke. Her face is symmetrical, as you can see.”

  Dai looked at the Queen’s face. He wished his grandmother had looked so serene on her deathbed. He was starting to appreciate the true nature of Granny Betty’s demons and he had a sneaking suspicion that the Queen knew a whole lot more than she’d let on back in the Palace.

  “Wise words, David,” the Queen said inside his head. She opened her eyes and blinked. “Well, that was a nice rest,” she announced to the church. “A cup of tea would be most pleasant. Although ...” She looked at her hands which held something silver between them. “Perhaps we were a little foolish, but at least they no longer hurt. We imagine the nerves have been damaged by the heat. It reminds us of that time when our favourite horses were caught in a fire at the stables ...” She tailed off, misty-eyed.

  “I should be wearing gloves,” said Dr Jones, gently taking hold of the Queen’s hands.

  “So should we,” Her Majesty said. She shuddered and looked away.