‘Holy Mother of God!’ he heard the priest exclaim softly as he looked around the interior. The heavy smell of charred metal and burnt material still hung in the air and Father Vincente knew it was an odour that would always be with him in his mind. ‘What now?’ he asked his two companions.
‘Up there.’ Keller pointed the beam towards the staircase and upwards.
‘Will it still hold us?’ the priest asked.
‘If we go one at a time it should be all right,’ the co-pilot reassured him. He moved towards the narrow staircase, the priest and the medium close on his heels. Testing each step, he made his way up, careful to avoid the gaping holes in some of the stairs. One side of the staircase was completely open to the first-class passenger compartment and he briefly shone the light down into it, then wished he hadn’t. Hardly anything at all remained in there.
He soon found himself in the passenger lounge, but was careful not to step into it; the whole floor tilted precariously downwards and there was a long narrow opening at its end leading back into the main body of the aircraft. He turned his attention forward, to the cockpit. The small door leading into it was open, loose on its hinges, but still intact. Keller pushed through and surveyed the confined compartment. As he knew they would be, all the instrument panels had been ripped out and taken away for further examination. The front of the cockpit had caved in from the floor upwards and, incredibly, he could see parts of the glass-fibre radar cone, which was carried in the very nose of the Jumbo, pushed forward into the cockpit. There was hardly anything left at all of the pilots’ seats and for the thousandth time he wondered how the hell he’d escaped such devastation. A mangled hole in the roof provided a possible clue: could he have been thrown through that opening after it had been made by flying metal? He felt the cold night air seeping through the gap, its icy current tightening his flesh. No, it was impossible. Any piece of metal of that size which had travelled with enough velocity to cause a hole like that would have had to pass right through him. It would have killed him instantly!
But this thought led on to another possible solution: suppose there had been an explosion below, and the forward passenger door had been blown off with the blast? And suppose he had been out of the cockpit for some reason at the moment of impact and thrown clear through the open doorway? It was hardly feasible. For why should he be out of the cockpit at such a point? Panic, perhaps? Or maybe he had come down to inspect the damage caused by the blast? No, there wouldn’t have been time. Hardly feasible, and yet – it was a slender thread to cling to! It could at least help him keep his sanity.
‘Are you all right up there, Mr Keller?’ he heard the priest’s voice from below.
He turned back towards the staircase. ‘Yes, I’m fine.’ And he was. Apart from the natural sadness at the sight of the destruction of such a fine machine, he now felt little remorse. He felt puzzlement, he felt wonder, but the melancholic depression that had been dogging him for so long had lifted. Perhaps it was the experience last night: the positive feeling of Cathy’s presence, the reassurance that her death did not mean she no longer existed. To him it was a new and exciting concept, a concept that would need time to grow in his mind, to be finally accepted and appreciated. And there was more, too, because he felt close now, close to solving a mystery. What was the mystery? His survival? The cause of the crash? No, it was something much greater, but he had no idea what it was. Just a feeling.
‘May we come up, Mr Keller?’ The priest’s voice interrupted his thoughts again. ‘It’s awfully dark and lonely down here.’ Father Vincente was making an effort to keep his voice light.
‘What? Sorry, yes, please come up. One at a time,’ Keller called down to them. ‘Mind the gaps in the stairs and the hole in the side panelling.’ He shone the torch down into the dim stairwell.
The priest came up first and Hobbs quickly followed. ‘Through there,’ the co-pilot pointed as the three of them crowded in the tiny area between the cockpit and the passenger lounge. He led the way. The priest’s face was grave when he saw the damage to the cockpit. ‘Those poor, poor men,’ he said, and looked up at the co-pilot. ‘You were a very lucky man, Mr Keller.’
‘Was I?’ he replied, without rancour.
Hobbs spoke. ‘I suggest we proceed with haste. If the police return, it could prove to be very awkward. I’m sure they’ll make us leave as we’ve got no authority to be here.’
‘Yes, I’m sure you’re right,’ Father Vincente said. ‘They may have allowed us to be here if I’d spoken to them first, but under these circumstances . . .’ He left the sentence unfinished.
‘How do we begin, Mr Hobbs?’ asked Keller.
‘We begin by laying down a few ground rules.’ The priest had spoken before the spiritualist could answer. ‘We must agree to call the experiment off if it seems to be getting out of hand.’ He looked searchingly at Hobbs, then added: ‘By any means we deem necessary. Also, if the strain becomes too much for any one of us, the other two must stop immediately and help that person. Lastly, whatever happens here tonight will be kept to ourselves, until such a time when all three of us feel it would be right to let the facts be known. Have I your word on that, Mr Hobbs?’
‘Certainly,’ came the instant reply.
‘Mr Keller?’
The co-pilot was more hesitant, but finally he nodded and said, ‘Yes.’
‘Then let us proceed.’ The priest placed his briefcase on the scorched floor of the cockpit and opened it. He removed two long candles and lit them immediately. ‘These will provide us with some extra light,’ he said, handing them to the two men. They found suitable resting places for the candles and turned their attention back to the priest who was draping a length of dark material around his shoulders. In the brighter, but more eerie light, they saw it was a purple stole. He next took out a crucifix and placed it on the floor before them, then reached back into the bag for a vial of clear water and a darkly bound book. ‘I want to consecrate the area with Holy Water before we begin,’ he explained, unscrewing the lid of the glass container. He dipped his fingers into the blessed water and sprinkled it around the interior of the cockpit, intoning a barely heard prayer as he did so, and frequently making the sign of the cross. Before closing the lid, he sprinkled water over the two men, his lips moving in quiet supplication. Keller was impatient to get on, but he did not resist the priest’s ritual.
At last, screwing the lid of the vial loosely back on, Father Vincente smiled at the two men. ‘Not much of a preparation, gentlemen, but then I don’t know how far you intend to go. As it is, I may just be over-cautious.’ He put the container close to the crucifix, within easy reach. Straightening up again, he told them: ‘I intend to pray from the Litany of the Saints whilst you proceed. Just an added precaution.’ He smiled and opened his book. ‘I won’t interrupt you.’ Then he paused before adding: ‘Unless I have to.’
Father Vincente again wondered briefly at his own faith in these two strangers. They had come to him in the night with their distressing story of discarnate souls bound to this world for undiscovered reasons, pleading for his help in unravelling the mystery that was in some way connected with the young co-pilot, the answer that would release those wretched souls and perhaps free the young man from his guilt. Why had he believed in them? Apart from their obvious sincerity, the answer was perfectly simple: he had been expecting them! Or at least, he had been expecting something like this to happen.
Many years ago, in his native Switzerland, a village not too far from his own had suffered a terrible tragedy. A skiing resort, full of holidaymakers, men, women and many children, perched high above the village on a mountainside, had been completely destroyed by an avalanche, the people crushed to death, none surviving. The villagers had grieved over the loss, but their mourning seemed to extend for many more months than was entirely natural. There was a feeling of strange oppression in the little hamlet and then queer things began to happen: accidents, sudden deaths, madness. A priest from his own order had
been summoned – an older, much wiser man than he – and an exorcism had been carried out. Whether it had been only in the villagers’ imagination, or there really had been a tangible ‘haunting’ in the village, he had never been quite sure, but certainly life had returned to normal soon after the priest had performed the ceremony. There had been other incidents, too, in his ordained life as a priest, incidents that were neither dramatic nor of great importance, but proved to him without a doubt there were influences around them all that were not of this world.
If what these men claimed proved to be true, it was his duty to investigate then recommend the matter to be handled by a higher authority than his. He was a mere parish priest; there were others of his order that were trained and infinitely more capable of dealing with affairs of this nature.
‘David, can you get yourself into a position close to where you would have been on that flight?’ Hobbs asked.
‘It’s not possible, I’m afraid.’ The co-pilot pointed towards the shattered front of the aircraft. ‘My place – and the captain’s – has been completely destroyed.’
‘All right then. Just get as close as you can.’
Keller scrambled over debris, aware that the weakened floor might collapse at any moment, pitching the three of them into the cabin below. And there were too many pointed spikes of mangled metal below for them to escape without injury. He reached the farthest point he could then squatted on the floor before the jumbled wreckage. It gave him an eerie sensation which he tried to ignore.
‘Okay,’ he called back over his shoulder. He could hear the priest’s soft litany as Hobbs crawled forward to join him.
‘Now, close your eyes, David, and try to think back to that night. If you can’t, think beyond it. The nearest point you can remember.’
Keller concentrated, but it was no use; everything was still a blank. He shook his head.
‘Try hard. Anything before the flight even,’ Hobbs urged.
He thought back to the fight with Captain Rogan in the hangar. The senior pilot’s angry face. His words, filled with hate. He tried to bring to mind the consequences of that fight, but it was no use. There was nothing. He raised a hand to his eyes and rubbed them roughly. Oh God, why can’t I remember? His new-found confidence began to drain away from him. His resolution wavered. Cathy, can’t you help me? I know you haven’t gone from me. Please, please help!
Nothing.
He breathed out wearily and looked round at Hobbs and stiffened when he saw the spiritualist’s expression in the gloom. His eyes were half closed, only their whites were visible; there were rigid lines on his face. Keller suddenly noticed the temperature in the confined space had dropped by several degrees and the air in Hobbs’s lungs escaped in small clouds of steam. Not only had it become noticeably colder, but the atmosphere in the cockpit had changed. There was a tension, a terrible feeling of oppression, an almost physical sensation of a huge weight being pressed down on them.
Keller tried to move, but he found his limbs were locked by some unbreakable bond. He tried to speak but his throat was dry – the words would not form. The prayers of the priest behind him faltered for a few seconds, then continued, the voice sharp, hesitant, as though forced.
The co-pilot suddenly felt a pressure on his back, a cool, icy cool, sensation at the base of his spine travelling upwards. The muscles of his neck and shoulders hunched together and he struggled to move his arms. It felt – it felt as if . . . something were trying . . . to enter . . . him! The feeling of revulsion was nauseating and bile rose in his throat. He fought against the force, a living, physical thing that struggled equally against him, which was trying to dominate him. His ears pounded with the blood that rushed through them and he felt the movement of his heart as it raced madly, then began to slow, to become leaden. He feared it might stop, but abruptly, it speeded up again, and ran fast, too fast! Where was the priest? Why wasn’t he helping?
But Father Vincente did not understand the battle that was going on inside Keller. He was aware of the terrible presence in the aircraft, the loathsome, malevolent thing that had descended upon them, and he renewed the strength of his prayers. But he failed to recognize the condition of the two men in front of him. The light was bad and he could only see their figures, Hobbs kneeling beside the crouched co-pilot. There was nothing to indicate their plight. He reached for the crucifix and held it to his chest.
Keller was losing. The monstrous entity – whatever it was – was spreading through him, sapping his strength, dominating his will, devouring his soul. He heard the chuckle then – low and coarse. Demonish! His eyes, the only part of him that could move, looked towards the spiritualist kneeling at his side. The sound had come from him! With horror, Keller saw his eyes were fully opened now and were regarding him with a gloating, baleful pleasure. The dry chuckle escaped from his sneering lips again.
‘Welcome, Keller.’ The voice came from Hobbs, but it didn’t belong to him. It was the same low-pitched snarl Keller had heard the night before. ‘You’ve come to me at last, eh, bastard?’
Father Vincente heard the words. He was struck rigid as he realized what was happening. His body began to tremble with fear. ‘In the name of God, no!’ he screamed, lunging forward and snatching at the vial on the floor as he did so. But in his haste, and in the dark, he stumbled and the vial slipped from his grasp, rolling out of sight beneath strips of fallen metal. He dropped to his knees and desperately searched for it, but the glow from the candles, and even the torch, had dimmed considerably.
Hobbs – or the thing that now was Hobbs – turned his head slowly to regard the scrambling priest with disdain.
‘Grovel, priest, you sucker of spirits, you leech of the cloth.’ The low, husky chuckle. ‘Do you think a few drops of piss would drive me away?’
Father Vincente stopped his searching and looked up at Hobbs. Suddenly, he thrust the cross forward and began to shout: ‘Holy Lord, Almighty Father, Everlasting God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Who once and for all consigned that fallen tyrant to the flames of hell. Who sent Your only begotten Son into the world to crush that roaring lion; hasten to our call for help . . .’ The thing in Hobbs laughed aloud, horrendously, filling the priest’s ears with its braying sound. It reached a high pitch, and the spiritualist’s body rocked backwards and forwards, mocking the priest. Father Vincente faltered, then continued: ‘Hasten to our call for help and snatch from ruination and from the clutches of the noonday Devil this human being made in Your image and likeness. Strike, terror, Lord, into . . .’
‘Stop!’ the creature screamed. ‘Fool. Do you think words are enough?’ He glared at the priest.
Suddenly, the crucifix in Father Vincente’s hand glowed red hot. He dropped it with a cry of pain and fell back. The metal crucifix lay on the cockpit floor between the priest and Hobbs, black trails of smoke rising from it.
The creature laughed again and the priest immediately resumed his incantation: ‘Into . . . into the beast . . . now laying waste Your vineyard. Let Your mighty hand cast him out . . .’
Keller felt the pressure ease slightly. The droning words of the priest came through to him and somehow filled him. He had felt himself sinking, sinking, falling into a void of blackness where only a round white object waited for him. As he fell towards it, he saw two dark, cold eyes drawing him down, rose-bud lips silently mocking. Hands constricted his throat and breathing became difficult. He saw the long, buckled blemish, the brown scorched plastic of the doll’s face! The doll’s face! He remembered the little girl boarding the aircraft, carrying the tiny plastic doll! He remembered that!
And then the priest’s words had come droning through, as if from a great distance away, but growing louder, louder as they reached for him. He found himself saying the unknown words with the priest, words he’d never heard before. No sounds came from his lips, but inside himself, inside the cavern of his being, he spoke them: ‘. . . Of Your servant, so he may no longer hold captive this person whom it pleased You t
o make . . .’ He began to emerge again, to float to the surface, towards light. ‘. . . In Your image, and to redeem through Your Son, who lives and reigns with You . . .’ The unseen hands fell away from his throat. ‘. . . In the unity of the Holy Spirit . . .’ He was reaching the surface, the voice was louder. ‘. . . God, for ever and ever . . .’ With a gasp he fell forward, released from the terrible pressure that had held him in its suffocating grip.
Hobbs was staring at the priest, vile obscenities pouring from his twisted lips. Keller staggered upright and struck out at the spiritualist, knocking him back against crumbling metal. The thing lay there in the dark and glared at the copilot, his malicious eyes filled with hate. A leer, a twisted snarl of a smile, spread across his face. ‘Think you’ve escaped?’ he rasped.
Suddenly, the broken shell of the aircraft began to tremble. Chunks of metal were dislodged and fell with a dull clatter. The thing on the floor was laughing aloud, grotesque in its derision of them. The trembling became more violent, the broken aircraft began to vibrate with a rising intensity. A high-pitched whining howl filled the small compartment, stinging their eardrums with its sound, penetrating to a point behind their eyes, causing agonizing pain. Keller lost his balance as the shaking increased, crashing back against the framework of the removed electronics panel. The aircraft seemed to be crumbling around them, whole panels of stained metal falling inwards, sending up choking clouds of sooty dust. The two candles were knocked over, leaving them with only the dull light from the torch. The quivering world seemed to be a cauldron of sound: the clang of toppling metal; the groaning of the aircraft itself as it suffered the new onslaught on its already violated body; the shrieking that dominated every other sound, the obscene mocking laughter of the thing inside Hobbs; and, throughout, the priest’s fervent incantation, rising in pitch to compete with the noise.