A sleepy village in middle England seems like an unlikely place for – well, pretty much anything – to happen.
It started with village historical society, as they often do, loudly resisting change. This time, it was a new road the county council wanted to build, one which would bring growth and opportunities and all those rather intangible benefits always promised yet not always delivered.
What was different this time, however, was that no amount of objection from the society had been able to see off this project. In hindsight, given the reverence normally reserved for them, this should have been one of the first clues that something was afoot. ‘No historical interest on the sites required to be developed’, the surveyor from the city with the sharp suit had assured them. Work began in record time.
And so they broke ground on a rather unassuming patch of land, not before evicting a small flock of sheep. They dug deep into the earth for the foundations, and deeper still. The residents grumbled about the noise of the machinery, running late into the night and starting up again too early in the morning. Until one day, it stopped.
For the first couple of days, everyone was simply happy for the peace and quiet. After a week it became the village mystery. The council were keeping schtum about it, saying only that there was a “short delay” and that work would resume soon.
~
I never could resist a mystery, or the chance to break some rules. So, I asked some friends to come on a little adventure and see if we couldn’t find out what the holdup was. My old schoolfriends, James and Liz – none of us strangers to a little soft trespassing in the name of entertainment during a well spent youth – and James’ girlfriend Hanna. I don’t think they thought it was much of a ‘mystery’ to be honest, but there isn’t a lot to do in a village this small – so they were easily swayed.
We scaled the chain link fence the next morning in the dim pre-dawn light and snuck across the site. All was quiet and still, not even a solitary security guard to dodge.
There was a very square large tent surrounded by equipment which seemed to be where the action had been. It was white, and rather reminiscent of the tents the police put up over a dead body to keep it out of view. I didn’t like it as an omen. By now I was feeling slightly unsure that this was a good idea. We ducked inside and out of sight – less likely to be seen. Or found.
I liked what we found inside the tent even less. It was dark enough in there that we needed our torches to make out anything other than vague shapes. We were expecting there to be a hole, and we were right about that much. But instead of groundworks for the base of a new bridge, the area looked to have been carefully excavated, more like an archaeological dig. The hole was maybe ten feet deep, and perhaps twenty-five by fifteen feet with a ladder at one end for access. Our torch beams scanned across the ground, illuminating the grisly contents of the pit. Partially exposed skeletal remains peeked out of the dark earth, twisted and tangled together. This wasn’t a cemetery, this was a mass grave. I shivered, a deep chill settling over me.
My head was spinning. No historical interest? I refused to believe the historical society didn’t know there was a mass grave here – they had been around forever and had reams of documents, especially old maps, covering every aspect of this village. Had there been a battle here? I swallowed hard, wondering internally if there was a chance it was the correct period for a plague pit.
That wasn’t all though. My blood turned to ice in my veins as I finally dragged my eyes away from the skeletons and I saw something that really didn’t belong in a grave. James had already scampered down the ladder and was approaching it. I descended with more trepidation, waiting at the bottom to offer a hand to the girls before we picked our way across, carefully trying to avoid stepping on any… one.
James looked up as we reached him, the disturbed ancient dust floating in his torch beam. “What the…” he muttered.
A large granite slab had been dragged aside, partially exposing a stone staircase which led deeper into the earth. It was dangerously, almost seductively inviting and yet just looking at twisted a tight knot in my belly. There was an inscription carved into the stone.
This place bears a curse
Bury this stone again
And dwell not on it
1666
What could they have been so afraid of, that they felt they must cover with a gigantic lump of rock, a mass grave and then ten more feet of earth?
I didn’t want to go down there, but at the same time, how could I not? We descended, without exchanging a word. It was somehow a given that we would, as if some unseen force propelled us forward into the darkness.
At the bottom of the staircase we found the rotted remains of a wooden door. I led the way, creeping forwards with my torch thrust out in front of me, distinctly aware that we with each further step that should not be there. The hairs on the back of my neck prickled.
We found ourselves in a chamber, though other words sprang into my mind unbidden. Tomb? Crypt? Prison? There was a sconce attached to the wall that would have once held a candle, James slid his torch into it so that it cast a dim light around the room. The walls and floor were the same hard stone as the staircase, apart from a wide circle in the middle of the floor. In the torchlight it appeared to be bare earth, though it was darker in colour than natural for the area, a deep red hue with pale flecks that glinted faintly.
“I think we should keep out of that circle,” whispered Hanna. “We don’t know what that’s made of so it’s probably best to stay well clear.” We all nodded in agreement and instead turned our attention to the walls.
I stared at them for a long while, until I realised I could hear my heartbeat pounding in my ears as my pulse climbed higher. This had to be a dream. Huge arcane, occult-looking symbols adorned the walls. I recognised a pentacle, but everything else was alien to me. Whoever had designed this chamber believed fervently in the power of this ritual, given the time it would take to chisel symbols of this size by hand.
The furthermost wall from the entrance bore another inscription.
The Devil was banish’d here
By blood and bone
Be moste wary
Seek not His escape
Or be us all damn’d
To eternal hellfyre
The families three
Our kin forfeit
To halt the beest
Forsaky’n by the Lorde
And all that be good
1666
Liz pulled out her phone to snap a photo. As she tried to get the whole inscription in the frame, she took a step backwards. I tried to call out, to stop her, but it was too late. Her foot sank softly into the dark earth, and she pulled it back out as if it burned.
Before our eyes, the footprint began to glow a terrible red. Spidery, thin cracks spread from the it, also glowing red as they widened and grew. The ground beneath us rumbled ominously.
“We need to leave,” I hissed, grabbing Liz’s hand to pull her back towards the exit, but she stood didn’t move. “Now,” I insisted, tugging on her hand. In a flash her palm burned white hot and I instinctively snatched my hand back. I looked more closely at her, distressed. She stared back, but it was not my friend looking out of those eyes. They were suddenly an inky black, and her whole demeanour had changed – she cocked her head, watching me in the most animalistic, inhuman way.
The others were begging her to leave too, to no avail. She twisted to look at each of them, her head still tilted at that unnatural angle, then did the worst thing yet. She grinned. A terrible, rictus grin that must have been painful. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a pocket knife, and I leapt back automatically.
Liz raised her arm and with no hesitation sliced deeply into it. The blunt blade did not cut cleanly, leaving a jagged tear that began to bleed freely, splashing on the stone floor.
I was glued to the spot. Something had taken over her, I could not help and I knew instinctively that events were playing out now that we were only bystanders to.
She turned to the wall, dipped her fingers into the wound in her arm and began to daub new symbols onto the stone in blood. I could not tell you what they were, only that observing them as they began to glow the same red as her footprint made my head want to burst into flames, full of pain and heat and dread.
She completed the last symbol – four, one on each wall, and collapsed to the ground. This broke my inertia and I ran to her. She was unconscious, her breathing ragged, but whatever had a hold of her seemed to have left her body. I quickly slipped off my belt and tightly fastened it around her arm to stem the flow of blood.
I’d been so focussed on helping Liz, I failed to realise it was quiet. Too quiet. I spun around to check on the others, and to my horror saw that they were also in its clutches. They were held against the wall, arms held out in a crucifix pose. The muscles in their necks bulged, an unseen hand choking the life from them. The ground was shaking harder than ever. Whatever was coming, it was close. I grabbed Liz and hauled us into the corner, as far from the circle as we could get, laying her head down gently onto the hard stone floor. The glowing cracks had spread fully across its surface now, and with every shockwave the tiny particles on the surface would jump and shimmer in the torchlight.
The circle fell away with a grating, booming noise that made me clap my hands to my ears, only to find they came away with matching smears of blood on them. If the end of the world had a sound, it was this.
First out of the red ground came a hand, a monstrous, wizened hand ending in jagged claws. Then another. The beast hauled itself out of its pit, surrounded by acrid smoke, flames licking at its feet. A skeletal figure with a dark leathery hide unfurled to its full height towering above us. Its face resembled the skull of a boar, lit from within by that sickly red glow that was all around now. It roared, and as it did I could see that same glow throughout cracks in that old, gnarled skin. The creature seemed to be hellfire itself, poured into a corporeal form all the better to unleash its wrath.
It turned its attention to James and Hanna, still fighting desperately against the invisible bonds that held them captive.
“You are the first upon which I take my revenge, but you are only the beginning,” it rasped, and I felt the words in my head, white hot and searing, as much as heard it.
“W-why us?” James managed to whisper hoarsely, looking wildly at me.
“Your lineage condemns you,” it hissed, and raised one of those colossal hands and curled its claws into a fist.
James and Hanna both froze, then began to convulse, their bodies contorting and twisting unnaturally. Their piercing screams rent the air and when I heard the first crack of bone I couldn’t watch any more, burying my head into Liz’s coat. I didn’t look back until it was quiet. There was nothing I could do for them now. Their crumpled forms lay prone on the stone floor.
The creature turned its attention to me.
“Their ancestors blamed me for the pestilence that befell them,” it spat. They imprisoned me here below their blighted dead. Now I shall tear out every branch of their family lines. Witness my return, human. My vengeance will be taken in fire and blood!”
I shook like a leaf and cradled Liz’s limp body, expecting any moment to meet a similar fate to my friends.
The flames around its feet shot up, engulfing the creature. It roared again, an ear-splitting shriek that threatened my very sanity as it echoed through my head. The impossible fire raged through the room, intensely hot, until I could not stand it any longer, and just as suddenly the chamber grew dark again. When I dared to look up the creature had vanished. The walls were blackened and somehow, I wasn’t burnt. Liz stirred beneath me, also unburnt, but breathing shallowly. I scooped her up and made a break for the door on shaky legs.
I didn’t stop until we were clear of the building site. I set her down as gently as I could on the grass and collapsed next to her, blinking in the first rays of sunlight peeking over the hill. I wasn’t honestly sure that we weren’t dead.
~
That was three days ago. Liz is in the hospital – she should be okay, she needed three units of blood and surgery on her arm, she was lucky to keep it. She told them she it was a suicide attempt to avoid too many questions, and is now pending psychiatric assessment.
I’ve joined the historical society. It turns out there’s a lot more to it than your run-of-the-mill history society. Given the events of the last few days that makes a lot of sense.
I’ve also started to look into the family trees of James and Hanna. The inscription underground had mentioned three families – but back in the 1600s. There could be hundreds, if not thousands of descendants of those families now. I need to know who could be in danger, and who could be able to help.
Most suspiciously, the site of the pit remains quiet. I so wish they had stopped digging once they reached that plague pit, but something tells me it was always their intention to reach what lay beneath it. Men in all black arrived the day after we escaped, and for a while I thought it was all about to blow up. Police, journalists, TV crews, the whole lot. But nothing happened. There was no indication they had discovered the bodies. They only stayed for a short time and when they left, they sealed it back up tight.
There have been a few… incidents in the village. Coincidence or the start of a vengeful demon taking its revenge? Fires have been breaking out, chimney fires, stovetops catching alight without warning. Maybe it’s the time of year – maybe not.
A flock of sheep up on the nearby fell were savaged by a large dog which still has not been found. That’s the official story anyway, the farmer’s wife was overheard tearfully divulging that the poor creatures had been torn nearly limb from limb in a manner no natural beast was capable of.
The butcher’s wife dropped down dead in the street, ostensibly of a heart attack but the witnesses said her faced was twisted up in a grimace of pure terror. I do know she was a distant relative of James – a second cousin. That may help narrow things down a little.
I know something is brewing. The demon is biding its time, growing in strength. I fear something far worse is coming. There is work to do.