The Priest Hole Read online

  Scott turned to Tom as Sadie turned the music up even louder. “It's all true,” he continued. “I heard that on some nights, people report hearing the sound of soldiers marching right through this field. It's the ghosts of all those people who died here! There are other stories like it in other parts of the country, too. If you check the sites of all the major English Civil War battles, you'll find significant spikes in the number of reported hauntings. It's almost as if the war was so bitter and traumatic, the scars still won't heal.”

  “And yet it's never been proven,” Tom said with a smirk. “Funny that.”

  “I'll show you,” Scott continued, slipping his phone from his pocket. “I mapped ghost sightings against a grid showing major Civil War battles with casualty densities of -” He stopped as he saw Tom getting to his feet. “What are you doing? I've got all the data right here.”

  “Tonight isn't about data,” Tom told him, heading over to join Sadie. “It's about dancing.”

  “I need to pee,” Scott muttered dejectedly, getting to his feet. He felt he was losing the argument, and he needed time to come up with a new approach. Pie charts, maybe. “I'm going over to the trees. You coming?”

  “To help you pee?” Tom asked, already dancing awkwardly. “Uh, no dude, I think I'll be cool here.”

  “Be ready to party when you get back,” Sadie told him, taking a quick break from the dancing to roll a cigarette. “The whole ghost story, sitting around being boring part of tonight is over. When you guys dragged me out here to party, you promised we'd have fun. If this is the most fun you can imagine, I'm seriously disappointed.”

  Scott turned and began to walk away, but a moment later he heard someone running up behind him and he turned to find that Sadie had followed.

  “Hey,” she whispered, as Tom danced by the campsite, “I thought you were going to be the fun one.” She paused, biting her bottom lip for a moment. “Tom's fun, but...” Another pause, and then she kissed the side of Scott's face before turning and heading back toward Tom. “Don't let me down!”

  Scott stood for a moment, shocked, trying to work out what that peck on his cheek had meant.

  “Back in a moment,” he whispered finally, his voice cracking slightly.

  As he made his way across the open field, Scott couldn't help but feel a little frustrated. He'd spent hours researching local ghost stories earlier in the day, and he'd been convinced that he'd be able to reduce Sadie to a quivering wreck. Instead, she seemed to find the whole thing funny, which was definitely not the reaction he'd wanted. Reaching the line of trees, he slipped through the undergrowth and began to unzip his pants. He could hear Sadie turning the music up even louder and starting to sing along, and deep down he couldn't shake the feeling that Tom was going to snatch her away from under his nose. Sighing, he began to pee against a tree, while staring ahead at the dark forest.

  He didn't hear the brief thumping sound over his shoulder.

  Or the second.

  He did, however, notice when the music suddenly stopped.

  Figuring that Sadie was just changing tracks, he finished peeing and then zipped himself up as he turned and started to walk back away from the trees. He couldn't see Tom and Sadie up ahead in the field, but he figured they must have just sat down again. His heart sank as he realized that they might be doing a little more than sitting, and he realized there was a distinct chance that he might end up being the awkward third wheel. By the time he got to the spot where the fire was dwindling, he looked around, half-expecting to see his friends getting more than friendly. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, however, he spotted a dark shape sprawled across the ground, and another a little further off. Taking a step forward, he felt something crunching under his foot. He reached down and picked up Sadie's phone, and as he ran his finger over the screen, he realized it had been almost broken in two.

  “What the...”

  “More witchcraft,” a voice sneered behind him. “I can see that it's going to take me a very long time to clean up the mess this country has become. It is little wonder that I am needed again. This England, my England, shall be cured of all its ills!”

  Turning, Scott saw a figure standing just a few feet away. Before he could react, however, the figure raised an ax in his right hand and then brought it crashing down into Scott's face, splitting his head down to the neck.

  OTHER BOOKS

  BY AMY CROSS INCLUDE

  Horror

  The Farm

  Annie's Room

  Take Me to Church

  3AM

  Asylum

  Meds

  The Ferry

  Tenderling

  The Girl Clay

  The Prison

  American Coven

  The Night Girl

  Devil's Briar

  Ward Z

  Ward Z: Revelation

  The Devil's Photographer

  Fantasy / Horror

  Dark Season series 1, 2 & 3

  Ascension (Demon's Grail 1)

  Dead Souls Volumes One to Three

  Lupine Howl series 1 to 4

  Grave Girl

  Graver Girl (Grave Girl 2)

  Ghosts

  The Library

  The Ghosts of London

  The Vampire's Grave

  The Werewolf's Curse

  Thriller

  Ophelia

  The Dead City (Ophelia 2)

  Fallen Heroes (Ophelia 3)

  The Girl Who Never Came Back

  The Dead and the Dying (Joanna Mason 1)

  The House of Broken Backs (Joanna Mason 2)

  The Pornographer's Wife

  Other People's Bodies

  Dystopia / Science Fiction

  The Shades

  Finality series 1

  Mass Extinction Event series 1 to 4

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Epilogue

  Also by Amy Cross

  ANNIE'S ROOM

  1945 and 2015. Seventy years apart, two girls named Annie move into the same room of the same remote house. Their stories are very different, but tragedy is about to bring them crashing together.

  Annie Riley has just broken both her legs. Unable to leave bed, she's holed up in her new room and completely reliant upon her family for company. She's also the first to notice a series of strange noises in the house, but her parents and brother think she's just letting her imagination run overtime. And then, one night, dark forces start to make their presence more keenly felt, leading to a horrific discovery...

  Seventy years ago, Annie Garrett lived in the same house with her parents. This Annie, however, was very different. Bitter and vindictive and hopelessly devoted to her father, she developed a passionate hatred for her mother. History records that Annie eventually disappeared while her parents were executed for her murder, but what really happened to Annie Garrett, and is her ghost still haunting the house to this day?

  Annie's Room is the story of two girls whose lives just happened to be thrown together by an unlikely set of circumstances, and of a potent evil that blossomed in one soul and then threatened to consume another.

  Also by Amy Cross

  THE FARM

  No-one ever remembers what happens to them when they go into the barn at Bondalen farm. Some neve
r come out again, and the rest... Something about them is different.

  In 1979, the farm is home to three young girls. As winter fades to spring, Elizabeth, Kari and Sara each come to face the secrets of the barn, and they each emerge with their own injuries. But someone else is lurking nearby, a man who claims to be Death incarnate, and for these three girls the spring of 1979 is set to end in tragedy.

  In the modern day, meanwhile, Bondalen farm has finally been sold to a new family. Dragged from London by her widowed father, Paula Ridley hates the idea of rural life. Soon, however, she starts to realize that her new home retains hints of its horrific past, while the darkness of the barn still awaits anyone who dares venture inside.

  Set over the course of several decades, The Farm is a horror novel about people who live with no idea of the terror in their midst, and about a girl who finally has a chance to confront a source of great evil that has been feeding on the farm for generations.

  Also by Amy Cross

  TAKE ME TO CHURCH

  “There has been a terrible battle...”

  On a desolate patch of land, far from any town and linked to the shore only by a rocky causeway, there stands an old wooden church that has been left empty for more than a century. No-one goes there anymore, but the church still has one forgotten purpose, and now it's about to get pressed back into service.

  Rachel has just survived something horrific, something that left her with terrible injuries that will most likely kill her soon. She stood up against the darkest evil, and she averted a tragedy. Now, as death threatens its slow embrace, Rachel has been taken by her remaining disciples to the church, where she will either recover or die.

  At least, that's what she hopes will happen.

  For Rachel, the danger is still very real. Rachel is certain that she banished the evil during her final battle, but worries that other dark forces might yet be out for revenge. Hideously injured and on the verge of death, she's preparing to face the truth. And then, against her strictest orders, her helpers make one final mistake.

  They bring a child to the church.

  Take Me to Church is a horror novel about a woman who thought she'd defeated evil, but who now feels a dark force closing in, and about a child who ends up drawn into the heart of battle.

  Also by Amy Cross

  ALICE ISN'T WELL

  (DEATH HERSELF BOOK 1)

  “There are lots of demons in the sky above London. The problem is, this one came crashing down to earth.”

  Ten years ago, Alice Warner was attacked and disfigured by an attacker in her own home. She remembers nothing of the attack, and she has been in a psychiatric hospital ever since. When she's finally released, however, she starts working as a security guard at an abandoned shopping mall. And that's when she starts to realize that something is haunting her, keeping just one step out of sight at all times...

  Meanwhile, seventy years earlier, a little girl named Wendy is left orphaned after a World War 2 fighter plane crashes onto her house. Taken to a monastery, Wendy is quickly singled out by the nuns for special attention. They say she has been possessed by a demon, and that there's only one way to save her soul. Fortunately for Wendy, however, there's someone else who seems to know far more about the situation.

  What is the shocking connection between Alice and Wendy, reaching out across the years? Does a demon really lurk in the girl's soul? And who is Hannah, the mysterious figure who tries to help Wendy, and who seventy years later begins to make her influence felt in Alice's life too?

  Alice Isn't Well is the first book in the Death Herself series, about a dark figure who arrives in the night, promising to help deal with the forces of evil whenever they appear.

  Also by Amy Cross

  MEDS

  (THE ASYLUM TRILOGY BOOK 2)

  “Welcome to the Overflow. And remember, all roads lead back to Lakehurst.”

  At the edge of a ruined town, a burned-out hospital houses one final, functional ward. There, a small group of doctors and nurses tend to patients who have been consigned to the Overflow. Unloved, forgotten by the people who knew them, these are the patients who will never receive visitors. If something happens to them, no-one will ask questions.

  When she starts work at Middleford Cross, Nurse Elly Blackstock thinks she's getting a second chance. She soon discovers, however, that this particular hospital is unlike any other. In one of the beds, an old man grapples with the horrors of his past, while in another there's a woman condemned to a life of darkness and silence. Ghosts stalk the corridors, and more ghosts are on the way. And watching over all of this is the hospital's administrator, Nurse Kirsten Winter, a woman who is desperately searching for someone named Annie Radford...

  Meds (The Asylum Trilogy book 2) is a dark horror novel about the lengths one woman will go to as she searches for the truth about the voices in her head.