The Ghost of Briarwych Church Read online

  “I will not let this happen,” I say firmly, as I focus on the thought of keeping Elizabeth safe. I can tell that Shaltak is still trying to throw her from the tower, but at the same time I can feel myself pulling in the opposite direction, forcing Elizabeth to stay up here.

  “Let her go,” Shaltak sneers, still speaking through Elizabeth. “You might as well get it over with. She's screaming in here, Judith. She's terrified, her mind is breaking apart. You're only prolonging her agony, so let's just get this over with.”

  “No!” I sob, with tears streaming down my face. “I'll never let you do this!”

  “You'll get tired soon,” Shaltak replies. “Your mind isn't that powerful.”

  “Lizzy!” Father Loveford shouts suddenly as he emerges from the top of the stairs. “It's me. I need you to come away from the edge.” He steps up behind her and starts to reach out toward her wrist. “Let me help you,” he says. “Lizzy, things might seem bad now, but there's a way out of this. For a start, you needn't worry about what happened at the airbase. You have my solemn vow that I shall breathe not one word about any of this to Corporal Bolton. He'll never find out that you were responsible. Maybe that's wrong of me, but I won't let them get their hands on you. I just can't. They'd...”

  He pauses for a moment.

  More tears run down my cheeks as I struggle to hold Elizabeth in place. I can feel Shaltak still trying to push her over the edge, but somehow I'm managing to keep her right there on the ledge. I don't even know how I'm holding her back, but it's as if by concentrating I'm able to cancel out at least a small part of Shaltak's power. And as the priest gets closer to Elizabeth from behind, he too seems to be helping, as if between us we're slowly beginning to counter everything that Shaltak tries.

  “Come down with me,” he says, still almost touching her wrist.

  “Fine,” Shaltak says suddenly, returning to my mind. I gasp as I realize that she's left Elizabeth's body. “We'll do this the fun way.”

  Suddenly the priest turns and looks straight at me.

  “You're not real,” he says, as his eyes widen with fear. “You can't be real.”

  I want to tell him to run, to tell him that he must take Elizabeth with him, but I can't get the words out. Now that she's back in my body, Shaltak is once again far too powerful.

  “You're not real!” the priest shouts again. “In the name of all that's holy, I know that you cannot be real!”

  I feel myself stepping toward him, and I'm powerless to stop Shaltak using my body.

  “Stay back!” he says firmly. “You will not come anywhere near her, do you hear? You will not take so much as one more step!”

  “Time to give her a push,” Shaltak whispers as I look up at Elizabeth. “Don't you want to hear her scream, Judith? At least for a few seconds, until she splatters all across the ground far below. I have to be honest with you, I haven't had this much fun in centuries.”

  “Lizzy, you must get down at once,” the priest says as he tries to block my path. “Lizzy, do you hear? Climb down from that ledge!”

  Shaltak forces me to take another step forward.

  “Stop!” this brave priest says firmly. “In the name of the Lord, I command you to stop at once!”

  Stopping, I look at Elizabeth for a moment longer before slowly turning and looking at the priest. I want to warn him, but I'm powerless to resist Shaltak's control of my body.

  “You are an abomination,” the priest continues, and he's right. “You are ungodly. Leave this house of the Lord and do not come back. Your transgression here is over. Flee, dark spirit, for you...”

  His voice fades, as Shaltak smiles a smile with my lips.

  “You are an abomination,” he says again. “You are not right here. By that I mean that you desecrate the very ground upon which you stand and...”

  He takes a deep breath.

  “How dare you set foot in this church?” he continues. “You are -”

  Suddenly Shaltak forces me to reach out and touch Elizabeth's back. I want to pull away, and I try with every last ounce of strength to resist, but I can feel my fingertips pressing against the bloodied marks that cover Elizabeth's back. The priest shouts at me, warning me to stop, but I can't fight Shaltak and slowly I push my darling daughter forward.

  “Here comes the scream!” Shaltak sneers.

  “No!” I scream, pulling back just as the priest turns and grabs Elizabeth's ankle.

  For a moment, I feel a rush of panic, but then everything goes black and I slump down against the floor. I squeeze my eyes tight shut, waiting for Elizabeth's cry, and then after a few seconds I slowly open my eyes as I realize that somehow I'm back downstairs in the corridor on the church's ground floor. There has been no cry, no scream, and deep down I can tell that my daughter is still alive. I managed, at the very last moment, to hold Shaltak back, to prevent her from pushing Elizabeth quite as hard as she'd intended.

  And now I can feel Shaltak's anger rising in my mind.

  “How dare you defy me?” she sneers, sounding weaker than before. “How dare you and that priest stand in my way?”

  “I can stop you,” I manage to say through gritted teeth. “You're trapped here with me, aren't you? Otherwise you'd have left by now, but you must be trapped somehow. And it might be difficult, it might be almost impossible, but I can hold you back. At the very least, I can slow you down, and sometimes that might be enough.” Getting to my feet, I start stumbling forward, hoping to reach the altar, but then my legs weaken and I almost fall. Stopping in front of the main door, I try to once again find the strength that – moments ago – let me stop Shaltak in the bell-tower. “I'm not defenseless against you!”

  Suddenly I hear footsteps, and I turn to see that Father Loveford has carried Elizabeth down here. My girl looks to be unconscious, and after a moment I see from the expression on his face that the priest is able to see me. I want to cry out to him but Shaltak is holding me back, and I can feel her getting stronger again in my body, as if she's preparing to attack them once more.

  “You're not real,” the priest says as he carries Elizabeth toward me. “I know you're not.”

  “Don't fight this,” Shaltak gasps in my mind, but I can tell that she's getting even weaker. For the first time, I'm managing to hold her back, but I don't know how much longer I can manage.

  “You're not real,” the priest continues as I look down at Elizabeth. “You're... I... you're...”

  My poor girl.

  Shaltak might be out of her body, but I can't imagine what damage she might have done while she was in her mind. Can Elizabeth recover from her brief possession, or is she doomed to never wake up? I can sense her soul, I can tell that she's in there somewhere, but something seems to be keeping her unconscious.

  “You are real,” the priest says suddenly. “How would I have known your face before I saw that photograph? You are real and...”

  Slowly, I turn and look at him. He has the face of a kind and decent man, and it is clear that he loves Elizabeth very much. I want to tell him that I see all of this in him, and to tell him that I never wanted all of this to happen. To speak, however, would mean momentarily losing my focus on holding Shaltak back, and then she'd be able to attack them again. She's already getting stronger, and I can only hope that Elizabeth will be taken from this place before it's too late. Once she's out of the church, I believe Shaltak will be unable to reach her, at least if I am able to hold her back. For that to happen, though, this priest must get past me.

  “You can't hurt her,” he says suddenly. “Not now. If you could hurt her, you'd have done it by now. Maybe you can whisper in her ear and convince her to leap to her death, but you can't really do anything to her. Maybe you can scratch her back from time to time, but that's not enough for you, is it? Even that push in the bell-tower was more a hint than a proper push. Maybe the push was the absolute strongest move you could make and -”

  Suddenly Shaltak bursts through and forces me to lean forward, and I l
et out an angry snarl. I'm able to regain control, but I can feel Shaltak getting stronger and stronger.

  “And that's all you can do!” the priest says as he takes a step back. “You can't even leave the church, can you? Otherwise you'd have wrought your revenge upon the villagers long ago. Mrs. Canton didn't actually see you from her window that night, it was just a guilt-induced vision. You're trapped here in the place of your death, and you'll be trapped here forever, which means I only have to get Lizzy away from you, which means...”

  His voice trails off. Why doesn't he just leave? That's all I want. Shaltak is starting to break through and I don't know that I can hold her back for much longer.

  “You are real,” the priest says, “but that doesn't matter. Not once we're out of this place.”

  And then he does it. He steps forward, and I close my eyes as I feel him carry Elizabeth straight through me. In that instant, I sense her soul more strongly than ever, and I realize that she's definitely still in her body. At the same time, I can feel Shaltak screaming in my mind, flailing in a desperate attempt to leap back into Elizabeth. I'm ready for her, though, and I manage to hold her back with the very last of my strength. I'm shaking wildly, but I just have to stay strong for a few more seconds, and finally the priest passes through me and I realize that he's almost out of the church.

  “You can't stop me!” Shaltak shouts in my head. “You're nothing!”

  Suddenly my strength fails and I feel Shaltak rush back into my body. In that instant I turn and lunge at the priest, but to my relief I see that he and Elizabeth are beyond the threshold of the church. I fall toward them as Shaltak screams through my mouth, but as I cross the threshold I fall into an immense darkness. For a few seconds I feel nothing at all, and then I land on the cold stone floor and look up to see that I'm back in the corridor. I look toward the door and see that the priest is out there with Elizabeth still in his arms. Finally, just to make absolutely certain that Shaltak can't get to them, I reach out and force the door to slam shut.

  Left alone on the floor, I realize that Elizabeth is safe. I shall never see her again, and she might never recover from the damage that Shaltak inflicted, but at least she has a chance.

  I saved her.

  “You have no idea what you've done,” Shaltak sneers in my mind, still sounding a little weakened. “Do you think you've stopped me? All you've done is delay me and make me angry. And while I wait for somebody else to come into this church, I am going to greatly enjoy torturing you for your actions.”

  “Help!” I hear the priest shouting outside. “Help us! Please, somebody help us!”

  “I don't care,” I reply, with a growing sense of absolute joy as tears of relief run down my face. “I deserve everything you do to me, but at least Elizabeth is away from this place. And I know that so long as she never returns to this church, you won't be able to harm her.” In my mind's eye, I briefly relive that terrible moment with the rose and its thorns, but then I force myself to imagine Elizabeth safe out there in the world. Even if Shaltak tries again to reach out from the church, as she did when she tormented Father Perkins, I shall find the strength to keep her back. “She is safe,” I say firmly, through gritted teeth. “Now and forever. And that is all that matters.”

  “Try to remember that,” Shaltak growls, “as I torture you for decades.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Many years later

  “Mummy, please,” Elizabeth sobs as worms continue to wriggle through holes in her face, “why are you doing this to me? Why did you -”

  Suddenly she's gone, in the blink of an eye, and I'm left on my knees in the cold, dark church. I stare down at the floor, waiting for the next nightmare to begin. There's always a next nightmare. Shaltak torments me for days on end and then leaves me trembling in fear for a short while before launching another round of horror. Sometimes the gaps between nightmares last for weeks, other times for just a few seconds. There seems to be no end to the ways in which she manages to torture me.

  And then, suddenly, I hear a very faint clicking sound and I look along the corridor. The main door remains locked as usual, although after a moment I realize that there's somebody out there, somebody who seems to be trying to get the door open.

  “What did I tell you?” Shaltak's voice whispers in my ear. “Churches never stay shut. Somebody always comes along to open them.”

  The sound stops, and a moment later I realize I can hear voices outside, as if some people are walking around the building. A moment later, getting to my feet, I start walking toward the door. I'm so dazed – so used to long stretches of boredom punctuated by brief, haunting nightmares – that I barely even remember how to think anymore. And then, as I get to the door and reach down to touch the lock, I realize that I'm allowing Shaltak to guide my body.

  “No,” I whisper, pulling away, but the lock has already clicked and I can hear Shaltak laughing in my mind. She's been waiting for this moment, and it has finally arrived.

  Feeling distinctly unsteady, I take several steps back. I don't know how long it has been since living people entered this church, but it must be at least several decades since Father Loveford took Elizabeth out of here. I feel a flicker of panic as I imagine Elizabeth out there now, but then I remember that Elizabeth would most likely be an elderly woman by now. Besides, I rather think that I would sense her, which means that the voices must come from new people. Sure enough, as the heavy door creaks open, I realize the voices sound young.

  Suddenly a female figure comes into view and stops in the doorway, silhouetted against the cemetery.

  I take several more steps back as I feel Shaltak's presence growing in my body. I have to remember how to hold her back, but at first I only feel her getting stronger.

  “Come on,” a young male voice says outside, as another set of footsteps comes toward the door, “let's -”

  He falls silent for a moment, and then the female figure takes a step forward.

  “Hey, stop!” the male voice calls out. “You can't seriously be going in there!”

  When Elizabeth was here, I managed to find a way to hold Shaltak back, but right now I'm struggling to recall precisely how I achieved such a thing. Perhaps Elizabeth's plight gave me extra strength, but I have to find that strength again. I can feel Shaltak's hunger growing, and if she's been ravenously waiting all this time for the moment when these two youths enter the church. Whatever she plans to do, I know it will be terrible.

  “Kerry, we have to go home now,” the male voice continues. “We're not allowed to be in here. This is a really bad idea.”

  “So are you coming,” the girl replies, “or are you an even bigger chicken than I thought?”

  “Grow up,” he says. “How did you even open this thing, anyway?”

  “I won't let you do this,” I whisper, clenching my fists as Shaltak gets stronger and stronger in my mind.

  “It was open when I came back around,” the girl continues.

  “How did -”

  “Obviously I did something when I was using the knife. I unlocked it without realizing, and then a gust of wind must have blown it open. Neat, huh? I've spent time on the streets, I know how to hustle.”

  They continue to argue as they come into the church. I stand completely still, focusing on the strength of Shaltak as she ripples through my body. Despite my every effort, I know that she's become stronger and bolder with every passing second, and after a moment I'm unable to stop myself walking forward along the corridor. I can hear the youths arguing in the old office, but to my relief I find that I instead walk through to the aisle and start making my way along the corridor. Shaltak has a plan, and as I move through the moonlight I try to once again summon the strength that I shall require if I am to stop her.

  “I won't let you harm them,” I say through gritted teeth. “I am not a -”

  Suddenly an immense pain bursts through my mind, causing me to gasp and stumble. I drop to my knees, but I refuse to fall all the way down, a
nd as I get back up I hear Shaltak's low, murmuring laugh starting to rise through my thoughts.

  All around, the old pews are broken and burned. My heart weeps to see the devastation that has been caused to my once beautiful Briarwych Church.

  “It's time to send a message,” Shaltak says, as I make my way up to the altar, “to anybody who might be keeping an eye on this church. The miserable locals are of no use to me. If I know human nature at all, however, then there will be somebody out there, somebody far away perhaps, who will seek me out and try to make a deal.”

  “I refuse to let you hurt these people,” I say firmly, as I hear the youths still arguing. “I will stop you.”

  “Not this time,” she replies. “Your pathetic show of strength caught me by surprise last time, but that plan won't work again. Your daughter Elizabeth is dead, by the way. Did I mention that? She lived a life of agony, screaming in a cell, and eventually she scratched out her own eyes and beat her head to a pulp against a wall.”

  “No,” I say, shaking my head, “that isn't true.”

  “She blamed you to the very end,” she sneers. “She cursed your name.”

  “You're just trying to weaken me with lies,” I reply, “but I see through your petty little games. I don't know what happened to Elizabeth after she left this church, but I know she strong.” There are tears in my eyes now. “If she is dead now, then she is at peace. And I also know that you were unable to reach out and hurt her from here in the church. I was always able to hold you back.”

  “Whatever,” Shaltak says. “Once I'm away from this place, and away from you, I can really have some fun.”

  “I won't allow that to happen,” I tell her. “I shall ensure that you are trapped here with me forever.”

  “Echo!” a female voice suddenly shrieks.

  I turn as the voice echoes in the air all around us, and I see that the girl is already almost here at the altar.

  “Fuck!” she shouts, and her voice echoes again.

  “Such crude young things,” Shaltak whispers. “Come on, Judith, I know you. You must abhor this wretched child.”