Every Last Devil: A Chilling British Crime Thriller, page 2
“You okay?” Matt asked again, his voice almost punching a scream from her.
He and Aggie had stopped up ahead, and she couldn’t figure out why because there was still nothing but trees.
Then her eyes drifted up and she saw it.
It was as if the church had grown out of the ground, an organic monstrosity of flint and ivy. She couldn’t see where the structure ended and the forest began. All she could make out was an archway that stood between the trees like a glitch in reality, one that didn’t have any right to be there. It led, as if by magic, into the stone-walled interior of a church where the sun danced like candlelight.
And growing right in the middle of the ruined nave was an oak tree.
“Pretty cool, right?” said Matt, his neck craned back as he studied the tower of the church. “You been out here before?”
“No,” said Charlie, her voice muted by the spectacle before her.
She’d done her research, though. She’d come prepared, and maybe that was why she felt so unnerved, because she knew the story that went with this church.
“Right, let’s get the kit sorted,” said Aggie. “Mic’s in the bag. I’m assuming you know how it works.”
“Yeah, I think so,” said Charlie, ripping her eyes from the archway and attempting a smile. “Haven’t gone through two years of A-Level media studies for nothing.”
Aggie wasn’t listening, pulling the camera from the case that Matt was holding. She clicked her fingers until Charlie figured out what she was asking, opening the bag and removing the microphone. She trotted over and handed it to her, watching as she fixed it to the mount at the top. She passed the camera to Charlie.
“Don’t drop it.”
I won’t, Charlie thought, and then very nearly dropped it. The camera was a Canon DSLR, and thankfully she knew how to operate it. She switched it on, studying the little screen when it came to life.
“This isn’t the camera we usually use,” said Matt. “Dougie has his own kit. But they’re pretty easy to figure out, everything should be ready to go.”
“Sounds good,” she replied, attempting to sound as casual as possible and hoping he wouldn’t hear her pounding heart. Her hands were so sweaty it was a struggle to hold onto the heavy camera, and everything she’d learned at school seemed to drain out of her stupid, sweaty head.
She really, really didn’t want to mess this up. She’d only stepped in this morning because Dougie’s mum had fallen ill and Matt had called her, frantically asking for help. But if she played her cards right, then this episode of Paranormal Norfolk could be the first entry on her CV, and a perfect calling card for university.
“Right,” said Aggie, her knees cracking as she stood up. She glanced at her phone again, her brow furrowing. “Here’s good. Make sure you get as much of the archway in as possible, but I don’t want to reveal the tree until we step to the side. Yeah?”
“Yeah,” said Charlie, scrubbing her hand down her shorts.
“We want a little shake, but not tremors, okay? Think early MTV.”
Charlie couldn’t remember what MTV was, but she nodded.
“We get it done quick, no mistakes,” said Aggie. “You good?”
“I’m good,” said Charlie.
“Get over here, Matthew, before the whole world beats us to the punch.”
The whole world had beaten them to it already, Charlie knew. When she’d Googled St Mary’s ruins she’d found dozens of videos exposing the ‘secret’ ruin and its terrifying legend—everything from school trips to an episode of the insufferable Norman Balls and his conspiracy theory website. She kept her thoughts to herself, hoiking the camera up and pressing the record button.
“Hold up a second,” she said, manually adjusting the zoom and then the focus until both Aggie and Matt were crystal clear. She took a couple of steps back, angling the camera so that the shot almost reached the top of the arch. “Okay, in five, four, three…”
She mouthed the rest of the countdown, watching Aggie’s face open up into a smile before she started speaking.
“Hi guys, and welcome to another episode of…”
Matt joined in at this point, both doing jazz hands.
“Paranormal Norfolk!”
“Today we’re in one of the most haunted places in the whole county,” Aggie went on, and Charlie leaned in to make her the focal point of the shot. A flicker of annoyance crossed Aggie’s face, but she didn’t stop. “The ruins of the Church of St Mary, in East Somerton.”
She paused, and Charlie let the camera rise slowly to take in the full drama of the arch, and past that, the tower. She hadn’t been told to, but she’d watched enough episodes of the show to know that’s what Dougie would have done. When she’d finished, she panned back out to the presenters.
Matt took over the talking, his eyes wide with theatrical terror.
“Built over five hundred years ago, the church lies deep in the forest, just a stone’s throw from the sea. The trees have done their best to erase this building from existence, to bury the horrors of its past. But no true act of wickedness can ever be truly forgotten. Because, oh—”
“Because,” Aggie said at the same time, barely able to conceal her irritation. “Because what happened here, in these stone walls, really was evil. And the truth of this tale is one of the reasons why so many people come here looking for answers, and leave wishing they hadn’t found them. What is the truth of St Mary’s? To answer that, we have to turn to the witch’s tree.”
Aggie and Matt stepped aside and Charlie moved forward instinctively, zooming in on the tree that grew in the middle of the church. She held the shot there until Matt whooped.
“That was amazing, well done!”
Charlie thought he was talking to Aggie, but when she looked up from the viewscreen she saw that he was smiling at her. He jogged over, wiping the sweat from his brow as he leaned in.
Close enough to kiss, thought Charlie, but instead he pulled the camera strap over her head so that he could take it from her. There was a bleep as he pressed play, then the muffled sound of her own voice as she counted them in.
“There was a little too much movement there,” said Aggie, her face stern. “We don’t want to make anyone motion sick. Less is more with a camera.”
“Right, sorry,” said Charlie. “Shall we do it again?”
“No time,” said Aggie.
“Mate, it’s perfect,” said Matt, squinting at the screen. “She’s a natural, Ag. This is literally better than anything Dougie does. Wanna see?”
He offered Aggie the camera but she shook her head.
“It will have to do, and Matt, remember your lines, yeah? It looks shit when we talk over each other.”
Aggie walked off towards the arch, and Matt threw Charlie a look like they were two naughty siblings being told off by a parent. Charlie giggled, almost dropping the camera as Matt passed it to her. She looped the strap over her neck again as Matt followed Aggie into the dark interior of the ruin.
Charlie hesitated for a moment more, the chill of the forest settling into her bones. The trees sang their whispering song, and there was something about it that made her want to turn around and walk away, head back to the car, head back to civilisation. Because the rules were different here, weren’t they? In the old places of the world, like this one, anything was possible.
Quit it! she told herself, pinching the flesh of her upper thigh to goad her body into moving. She crunched through the dry undergrowth, passing through the archway, trying to ignore the way her ears popped as if she’d just dived too deep in a swimming pool.
The church was so much bigger than it seemed from the outside, as if it had taken a breath when she’d entered, inflating itself. The walls craned upwards like cliff edges, leading to a roof that was forged from the dancing trees. The nave was a giant space broken only by the oak tree that sat dead centre. Something about it made Charlie feel like it was watching her.
Past that was a door that led into the church’s bell tower. It was so dark through there that the world might have ended right on its threshold.
She shivered, the goosebumps returning. The church felt like a fridge, even though shafts of sunlight broke through the shifting canopies, spearing the dirt floor. Flies buzzed everywhere, landing on her face to taste her, trying to crawl into her ears and nose.
“Gross,” said Aggie, almost at the tree. She waved her arms to chase the flies away, spitting into the dirt.
Don’t, Charlie almost said. Don’t spit on her grave.
Because there was a grave here. A body buried deep beneath their feet, woven into the knotted roots of the old oak.
“Right, this will do,” said Aggie, turning her back to the tree. “Let’s get it over with. Reeks in here.”
Matt joined her, and Charlie took up a position in front of them, lifting the camera until they appeared on the screen. They stood in a dark spot between two sunbeams, almost invisible, as if the ruins had turned them into ghosts. She adjusted the light settings until they looked a little more solid. Whatever Aggie had smelled had reached Charlie’s nose, and she felt it wrinkle. It stank like the bins at school when they hadn’t been emptied for a while.
“Ready?” Aggie asked, and Charlie pressed record.
“Five, four, three…”
She nodded the last two beats, watching Aggie’s face light up again.
“We’re now inside the church, and right below us is something so horrible you’d struggle to imagine it.”
“No, not mud,” said Matt. “A body.”
“The body of…”
They said the next bit together, and for a reason Charlie didn’t understand, they both did the jazz hands again.
“A witch!”
“Legends tell the story of a woman who lived in the village hundreds of years ago,” Aggie went on. “She had a wooden leg, and the locals accused her of being a witch.”
“They dragged her kicking and screaming into the church,” Matt went on with a morbid grin. He had to shake his hand at a fly that kept trying to land on his cheek. “And killed her in the most horrific way.”
“They dug a hole,” Aggie said, her voice quieter now. Charlie zoomed in a little for dramatic effect.
“And threw her in it,” said Matt, his eyes wide. “They covered her up while she was screaming for help.”
“They buried her…” said Aggie, and this time Charlie zoomed right in on her. “Alive.”
Something exploded through the door at the back of the church, a thunderous flap of wings that made a jolt of pure panic rip through Charlie’s body. Aggie screamed, Matt wheeling around with his arms up as if the witch herself was rising from the earth.
It wasn’t her, though, it was a bird of some kind, a big one, which flapped awkwardly up and over the lip of the roof. Only when it chattered its outrage like a machine gun did Charlie realise it was a magpie, although she couldn’t ever remember seeing one that size before.
“Fuck,” said Aggie, a hand on her heart. “That almost killed me. Did you get it?”
Charlie nodded, the camera still recording. Matt laughed.
“People are gonna love that,” he said. “We staying here or moving?”
“Staying,” said Aggie. “You ready, Charlie?”
Charlie ended the shot, then started recording again to create a new clip.
“Back up a bit,” said Aggie, flapping her hands. “I want to try something.”
Charlie did as she was asked, zooming out a little to take in as much of the tree as possible.
“Five, four, three…”
She gave another nod, but this time Aggie didn’t smile.
“The legend states that the witch’s wooden leg sprouted into a monstrous oak tree,” she said, gesturing behind her. “Which grew so quickly that it demolished the church.”
Charlie took a moment to pan up the full height of the tree, through the missing roof and into the canopy above. The branches seemed even more agitated than they had a moment ago, sweeping back and forth as if trying to warn them. She swallowed another unpleasant thump of fear, returning the shot earthwards.
“Here’s where it gets really interesting,” said Matt. “And this is what we’re here to prove today. The witch lies beneath us, trapped in an eternal sleep. But there is a way to wake her.”
“There’s a way to bring her back,” said Aggie, her eyes wild.
There were more flies here than ever, five or six of them crawling on Charlie’s hands as she fought to keep the camera steady. She could see them boiling in the air over her friends’ heads.
“All you have to do to release the witch from her slumber, to set her free,” said Matt, “is walk around the tree three times.”
“Has anyone ever been brave enough to try it?” asked Aggie.
“Not that I know of,” added Matt, and Charlie had to agree with him, because in all the videos she’d seen of this place, not one person had been stupid enough to walk around the oak more than twice.
“Are we brave enough to try it?” said Aggie.
Don’t, Charlie thought, as if it would make any difference at all.
“I don’t know,” said Matt. “Are we?”
He turned to the camera.
“What do you think?”
Charlie thought he was asking her, but she couldn’t work her dry tongue into a reply. In the end, though, it turned out he wasn’t.
“I think they’re saying yes,” he said to Aggie.
“They’re definitely saying yes,” she replied. “Together?”
Matt held out a hand and Aggie took it. Then they glanced at Charlie.
“You can come with us,” said Matt. “Let’s go.”
They set off like lovers, hand in hand, Matt almost skipping as they walked around the ancient tree. They circled the trunk once before stopping.
“Cut,” said Aggie, glaring at Charlie. “You have to follow us around or it won’t work.”
“I don’t want to,” said Charlie, her voice small. She lowered the camera but kept it running. “What if it’s… you know?”
They didn’t know, according to their frowns.
“What if it’s true?”
Matt laughed. Aggie didn’t.
“I mean, I know it’s not true,” Charlie went on, the heat blazing in her cheeks. “But…”
She didn’t have anything to add. She lifted the camera again.
“Sorry,” she said.
“Okay, let’s try that again,” said Aggie. “Ready?”
Charlie nodded, counting down.
“Are we brave enough to try it?” Aggie said.
“I don’t know. Are we? What do you think?”
I think something bad is about to happen, Charlie answered him silently.
“You can come with us. Let’s do it!”
They set off again, although this time they weren’t holding hands. Charlie sucked in air as she followed them, doing her best to keep them in the viewscreen as she struggled on the uneven ground. She passed the door to the bell tower as she went, cold air reaching out and running its fingers down her cheek. There was a sound from inside like somebody humming and her skin shuddered so hard she almost sloughed it off in one go.
It’s just your imagination, she told herself. It’s not real.
“One!” yelled Aggie as they reached the starting point. She set off on the second lap without stopping, faster now, fast enough that Charlie had to trot to keep up. She was already dizzy, the church seeming to sway around her, the trees overhead in a frenzy.
Aggie and Matt were already out of sight by the time Charlie had reached the back of the tree again, but this time she didn’t hurry to catch them. Instead, she found herself stopping beside that rectangle of darkness that led into the bell tower, ensnared by the same inhuman hum that seemed to come from inside.
“Two!” yelled Aggie, as if from a million miles away. “Charlie? For fuck’s sake.”
Aggie traipsed back the way she’d come, planting her hands on her hips as she scowled at Charlie.
“Uh, hello? Anytime today, mate.”
Charlie didn’t reply, angling the camera towards the door of the bell tower.
“What?” snapped Aggie.
“What is it?” added Matt, as he walked up to her.
“You don’t hear that?” she replied, just a whisper. “The humming?”
Even as she said it, she realised it wasn’t a human voice. It was an insect hum, a swarm of buzzing flies. There had to have been thousands of them to make that noise. Tens of thousands.
It was still too dark to see what sat in the tower—too dark for human eyes, anyway. Charlie angled the camera, using the zoom to float through the door. She heard the click and whirr of the autofocus as it struggled to find something, the viewfinder blurring, then clearing, blurring and clearing, and finally clicking home.
A man stared at her from the floor of the tower, his eyes inky black pits in his head, his mouth open in a silent scream. He, like the witch, had been buried alive in the dirt, although in his case, it was up to the neck. He looked like he’d been swallowed almost whole.
It was as though somebody had wrapped Charlie in a frozen blanket, the sudden chill paralysing her. All she could do was stand there, staring at the image on the little screen of the camera, waiting for a scream to tear its way out of the man’s gaping mouth—or from her own.
In the end, it was Aggie who broke the silence.
“Fuck! Fuck! Is that…”
The click of her torch, scattering the shadows of the bell tower like they were crows, revealing the dead man in sickening detail.
Because there was no doubt at all now that he was dead.
For one, he had no eyes. The sockets were empty other than what might have been a handful of black pebbles collected in the drooping hollows. His skin was parchment pale and streaked with dirt, a crust of crimson around the ragged mess of his throat.
He hadn’t been buried up to the neck, Charlie realised. The head had been cut from its shoulders and planted on a bed of loosened soil. Even as she watched, a beetle scurried up from the ravaged flesh and vanished into the mouth, hiding itself amongst yellow teeth and yet more stones.
