The Gravest Girl of All Read online

  Neil waits, but the figure now seems content to simply stand and watch.

  “Oh, you're having a laugh,” Neil says nervously, before heading to another window and looking out.

  Sure enough, the second tall figure is standing at another corner of the pub.

  “I'm not having this,” Neil whispers, before hurrying back to the bar and grabbing the phone's handset. He starts dialing 999 as he heads to the front window, and then when he looks out he sees that the hunched figure has now walked around to the other side of the carriage, leaving only its legs visible.

  He taps to connect the call.

  “They're gonna think I'm out of my mind,” Neil says, trying to keep from panicking. “They're -”

  He stops as soon as he sees another figure stepping down from the carriage. This figure is taller than the others, and bulkier too, as if it's wearing...

  “Robes?” Neil whispers, as the phone continues to ring.

  He knows it seems improbable, but the taller silhouetted figure does indeed appear to be wearing some kind of robe that flutters in the cold night air. And as the Bell and Thistle's wooden sign swings and creaks a little in the wind, the taller figure takes a couple of steps forward across the car-park before stopping and staring at the pub.

  Or rather, staring at Neil.

  Because even though he can only see the figure's outline, Neil somehow feels absolutely certain that the figure is staring straight at him. It's as if he can feel a pair of eyes burning through the night air, watching him intently as he stands at the window. The sensation is overwhelming, almost nauseating, and after a moment Neil feels compelled to step back and try to keep out of view.

  “This isn't normal,” he whispers. “This -”

  Suddenly the ringing stops as someone picks up the phone on the other end.

  “Yeah, hello,” Neil says with a flash of relief, “this is Neil Langford at the Bell and Thistle. I'm sorry to bother you, but I've got a bunch of -”

  “Come outside,” a dark, scratchy voice says firmly over the phone.

  “I...”

  Neil pauses, and now the flash of relief has drained away, leaving a sense of hollow fear in his chest.

  “Come outside,” the voice says again, crackling slightly.

  “Is that Beckenford police station?” Neil asks cautiously, as he keeps his eyes fixed on the silhouetted figure.

  “Come outside,” the voice says. “I have need of information.”

  “You have need of...”

  Neil swallows hard, before cutting the call and dialing 999 for a second time. Figuring that he must have experienced some kind of freak mis-connection, he waits as the ringing sound returns, and then he once again hears someone pick up on the other end.

  “Hello,” he says, “I'm -”

  “Come outside.”

  Neil slowly lowers the phone and stares at the speaker. Hearing a faint crackling sound, he again swallows hard.

  “Come outside,” the voice says for a fifth time, and Neil turns to look over at the door as he hears a sudden metallic clicking sound.

  He watches in horror as the lock shakes violently for a moment, and then the entire fitting falls from the door and clatters down against the wooden floor just as the door starts to swing open. Now he can hear the sound of the wind blowing outside, and the sound of leaves rustling at the far end of the car-park, and he watches as the door swings all the way open and bumps against the wheelchair ramp that's propped up against the wall.

  The wind causes his Superman onesie's cape to flutter slightly.

  “Come outside,” the voice says, this time coming not from the phone but from the air all around, as if the words are somehow hanging in the darkness. “I have need of information.”

  Too terrified to move, Neil remains in place next to the bar, staring at the door. He half-expects a figure to appear, but then slowly he realizes that his own feet seem to be sliding slowly from under him, as if something is starting to drag him across the room.

  He looks down and adjusts his feet, but already he can feel the gentle pressure again, getting stronger and stronger with each passing second until -

  Suddenly his legs are yanked toward the door.

  Neil cries out and turns, trying to grab the nearest table, but instead he's pulled at speed across the room until he slams into the side of the door with such force that he hears the glass rattling in the frame. He lets out a pained “Oof!” as he comes to a halt, and then he turns and looks out across the car-park, only to see the silhouetted figure still standing and watching him.

  Beyond, the houses on the far side of the village green are all still dark. Their occupants are fast asleep, evidently with no idea of the bizarre scene playing out in the heart of their little village.

  Slowly, and with pain in his legs and back, Neil starts hauling himself up. He has to lean against the door in the process, and then he tries to call out for help, only to find that his voice is catching in the back of his throat. He tries again, just as his legs start to buckle.

  He grabs the door's jamb to hold himself up, struggling for a few seconds until -

  Suddenly an invisible force pulls him from the doorway, slamming him down hard on his knees and then sliding him across the car-park until he stops – palms torn, knees shredded to blood through the legs of his onesie – just a couple of feet in front of the tall figure.

  “I need to understand this place,” the figure says, his voice growling from a face that's hidden in shadows. “Before I -”

  “Please don't hurt me!” Neil whimpers. “What are you? No! Wait! I don't need to know! I don't need to know anything! I don't want to know, just please let me go! I'm not a bad man! I'm not even curious! I just want to mind my own business!”

  “Before I reach Rippon, I need to know what I'm dealing with.”

  “Rippon?” Neil gasps, barely able to get the words out as he shivers with fear. There are tears in his eyes now. “That's... This isn't Rippon. Rippon's close, but this is -”

  “I know where Rippon is to be found,” the voice snarls, as Neil is slowly lifted – trembling and weeping – into the air. “I want to know what it is. I have traveled beyond the known worlds. I have traversed realm after realm, encountering creatures you could not even imagine, and in every case I made sure to understand the terrain I was about to enter. Now I need to know what a human town is like, and how I can crush anyone who dares stand in my way.”

  “Crush them?” Neil sobs. “I don't know, I...”

  Suddenly he lets out a horrified gasp as he sees the figure's face. Half-hidden in shadow but with a hint of moonlight now picking out a few key features, the figure tilts his head slightly, revealing a pale, withered face with just a torn hole for a nose and dark black pits for eyes. Scars criss-cross the skin and bone. Wisps of smoke are curling from the creature's mouth, which opens a moment later to reveal a faint, deep fiery glow coming from the back of the throat.

  And sulfur.

  The air stinks of sulfur.

  “What are you?” Neil asks, his eyes opening wide with shock. “Please, you can't -”

  “Fine!” the figure snaps, reaching out and placing a hand on the side of Neil's face, and immediately starting to squeeze hard. “This will be much quicker if I merely take the information I need.”

  Neil starts to cry out, but his voice is quickly choked as he feels his thoughts being un-knotted and drawn out through the figure's hand. Try as he might, he's powerless to resist as his each and every memory is straightened out for examination and then run through another, much more powerful mind. While still aware of his own mind, Neil nevertheless can feel something rifling through his thoughts as if in a desperate search for certain snippets, and then those thoughts are returned to his mind in a random, loose mess of strands. Whereas once his head was filled with connections and understanding, now he has only random-seeming memories that jostle for position, and saliva is starting to bubble and dribble from his lips as he groans and tr
ies to keep his mind together.

  And then, in the space of just a few seconds, it's over.

  “Interesting,” the figure purrs. “In some respects, humans are more complex and intelligent than I had anticipated. In other respects, they are... not.”

  Neil tries to speak, but somehow the connection between his mind and his mouth is broken. He can only emit a faint, gurgling whisper that splutters at the back of his throat. And in his head, a lifetime's worth of memories have been torn apart and shoved randomly back together. Some inner part of his psyche is trying to put the pieces back together, but the task is hopeless: his mind is broken and all that remains is a mass of disordered information.

  “You will be happy to know,” the figure continues, as the three skeletal figures make their way closer from different parts of the parking lot, “that I have no further need of your services.” He pauses, staring at the tears that are running down Neil's face. “You have been most useful. I shall leave you in more or less the same condition that I found you.”

  Neil tries to thank him, but at that moment he feels his head twisting and the bones in his neck starting to snap.

  Suddenly the figure turns, and in that instant Neil – still wearing his Superman onesie – is thrown through the air with such force that he flies straight across the car park and through the upstairs window of a nearby house, shattering the glass before disappearing inside.

  “We ride on,” the dark figure says, climbing back into the carriage, followed quickly by his three attendants. “I know everything I need to know now, so let nothing delay us. I want to reach Rippon within the next few hours.”

  With that, the carriage sets off across the car park, as lights flicker to life in one of the houses and then – a moment later – a woman's scream rings out across the village.

  Chapter Four

  As the first rays of morning sun spread across the land, a raven hops along an old stone wall. The raven has never heard the phrase about early birds catching the worm but – if it had – it would doubtless have been in full agreement. Already, its belly is nicely filled with three fat and juicy worms, but there's room for a couple more.

  After a moment, the raven stops and looks toward the horizon. There, the town of Rippon rests on a hill. The raven watches the town for a moment and briefly considers taking flight and heading in that direction. Quickly, however, the bird remembers how it had felt the last time it went near Rippon. It had felt a sense of pure dread in its heart, dread strong enough to linger even in the memory of a creature not usually known for complex thoughts. And so the raven turns and flies off in the other direction, happy to get as far away from Rippon as possible.

  In this, the raven is not alone. All the creatures of the moor know instinctively to keep their distance from that particular town. And at this particular moment, they're all moving further away than usual. Something is hissing in the air, something that's telling them all – every bird, every rabbit and fox, every bug and worm – that bad things are about to happen in that quiet little town.

  ***

  “Hello?” Susie Shearman calls out, turning and looking toward her office door. “Is someone there?”

  She waits, but all she hears is silence. Still, she's certain she heard someone entering the church a moment earlier so she gets to her feet and checks herself quickly in the mirror before heading to the door and leaning through. It's only been a few minutes since she unbolted the main door, and when she glances at the clock on the wall she sees that it's barely 7am. Then again, she knows some people like to get their church visits in early, so she looks across the church and tries to spot some sign of movement.

  Sure enough, she sees that the curtain on one side of the confessional box has been drawn, and a pair of feet can be seen poking out underneath. She knows it's wrong of her, but her first reaction is to roll her eyes. She was hoping to get a quiet morning, and to maybe deal with some paperwork, but she supposes that somebody has committed some terrible sin and has urgent need of confession. The people of Rippon, she has learned, tend to make huge mountains out of the tiniest molehills.

  After pulling the office door shut and locking it, Susie makes her way along the aisle until she reaches the box, at which point she makes her way inside. Before she can take a seat, however, she spots a plate waiting for her, with a scone and a dollop of cream, and her heart instantly fills with dread.

  “A gift,” says the voice from the confessional box's other side. “I made it myself.”

  Cautiously, she picks up the plate and sits down. She wants to leave, but at the same time she reminds herself that she has a duty of care for anyone who enters the church, even if they're the...

  No.

  No, she still can't quite bring herself to use that name.

  “Please try it,” the voice continues, with a hint of earnestness in his tone. “I've tasted so many lately, I think I've lost the ability to judge what makes a good scone. I desperately need someone else's opinion.” He sighs. “I think I might be losing my mind.”

  Susie stares at the scone for a moment. She certainly knows of one person in town who has been hanging increasingly eye-catching boards outside the cafe, advertising home-made scones along with drinks and free wifi, but she can't quite believe that the devil himself might have come to confess. Still, there's a creeping sense of uncertainty in her chest and she makes the sign of the cross on her chest before sliding open the panel that separates the two boxes.

  “Forgive me,” the voice says, “for I have sinned, and it has been a while since my last confession. Several thousand years, at least.”

  “It's you,” Susie whispers, her chest tightening with fear.

  “I thought you weren't supposed to say things like that,” the voice continues. “I thought the whole idea of the confession was that it's anonymous and -”

  Suddenly he starts coughing, and for almost half a minute he sounds as if he's in real distress, barely able to get his breath back. He sounds so ill, in fact, that Susie actually feels a flicker of pity.

  “I'm sorry,” he stammers finally, “please... I just... I need...”

  Silence falls again, and although Susie knows she should say something to calm him, her soul is gripped with fear.

  It can't be him, she tells herself over and over. That creature has not come to my church.

  Or is it a test?

  “I never understood the point of these theatrics,” the voice continues, once his coughing fit is over. “I don't mind admitting, I laughed at people who needed to come to a church and speak to a priest. I thought they were small-minded, doltish people with limited intelligence. I suppose I pitied them.” He coughs again, but only briefly this time. “What changed?” he asks finally, his voice filled with a hint of wonder. “When did I go from being someone who laughs at those people, to being someone who desperately wants to come here and talk to a priest? Is this what happens when you spend too much time around humans? Do you start to understand them?”

  Susie swallows hard.

  “Are you still there?” the voice asks.

  She opens her mouth to reply, but only a faint gasp comes out. Taking a deep breath, she tries to pull herself together. “I... I am still here,” she stammers, while looking up toward the ceiling.

  What do I do? she asks, hoping that she might be given the guidance. The Devil is here for advice, what am I supposed to tell him?

  “Have you tried the scone yet?”

  Looking down at the plate, she has to admit that the scone looks extremely tempting.

  “Later,” she stammers, setting it aside.

  “I've become something of an expert on the damn things,” he continues with a sigh. “If you told me I'd spend my final weeks baking, I'd never have believed you, but it's actually rather calming and meditative. What next, huh? If I had time, perhaps I'd take up knitting or -”

  He breaks into another series of coughs, these ones sounding wetter and more guttural than before.

  �
�It's not a trick,” he adds finally. “The scone, I mean. It really is just a scone. I understand why you might be skeptical, though. I suppose you take rather a dim view of my activities, it's just...” He pauses. “I've made a mistake. A terrible, dreadful mistake, one that I can't possibly put right. I suppose arrogance was my greatest sin this time around. I simply thought that I could pass on my knowledge, and that my student would remain content to learn from me. It never occurred to me that he might get ideas of his own, that he might decide to overthrow me, that he might...”

  His voice trails off for a moment.

  “Who dares poison the devil?” he whispers finally. “Someone who learned well, that's who. Someone who had plenty of time to sit and to think and to come up with schemes. I didn't even know I could be poisoned, the idea never occurred to me, not until suddenly I fell ill. I crawled away, of course, and I managed to get myself buried here at Rippon for a while, so I could hide and think. Still I remained arrogant, still I felt I could control him and make him pledge allegiance to my cause. I guess I never truly understood the labyrinthine machinations of his mind, not until it was too late.”

  She waits for him to continue.

  Dear Lord, she's thinking, what does he want with me?

  “And now he comes ever closer,” the voice says with a sigh. “I was able to fool myself before, to tell myself that when the final moment came I'd have some grand plan that might save my skin. Slowly but surely, however, time has run out, and now I'm sitting here in a goddamn church, talking to a goddamn priest, lowering myself to a level that makes me sick.” He pauses again. “The one good thing to have come out of this is the scones, really. I know no-one is willing to admit it, they'll probably never be willing, but I'm deadly serious when I tell you that I make the best scones in the history of civilization.”

  Again she looks down at the plate next to her, and again she reminds herself to avoid temptation.