‘Not very round,’ Greene said, when he’d completed the full circuit.
‘It’ll do. You paint the triangle on the inside while I draw an outer circle.’
Both boys eagerly set to work, giggling as they bumped into each other.
‘Right,’ said Spelling with satisfaction, straightening up and admiring their work. ‘Now, what’s that inside the triangle?’
‘Three circles joined by a cross and . . . it looks like . . . a sort of curve with . . . flames coming out of it,’ Greene told him, cocking his head to one side and concentrating hard on the symbol.
‘Okay. Black circles and cross – and you can do the curve and flames in red.’
Clemens watched their bent backs with rising trepidation. Why had he suggested this daft idea? He thought he caught a movement in the periphery of his vision, and he shot a glance towards one of the small side chapels. It was the Lupton Chapel, screened off from the main hall by intricate and delicate stonework. A black shape had seemed to duck from view behind the screen.
‘I – I say, you blokes. I think there’s someone in here,’ he whispered urgently to the others.
They looked up at him. ‘Don’t be so bloody wet, Clemens. Nobody could have got in here.’
‘The doors weren’t locked, were they?’
Now Spelling and Greene regarded each other.
Greene gulped noisily.
‘What did you see?’ Spelling asked.
‘I don’t know. Just a shadow over there, I think.’
‘Well, shine the sodding light over there then.’
Clemens did so, but there was nothing to be seen.
‘It – he might have ducked down,’ Clemens insisted rather reluctantly.
‘Oh, give us the torch,’ snapped Spelling, and marched over to the small side chapel shining the beam ahead of him. Clemens and Greene watched his silhouette disappear behind the ornate stone screen, suddenly vanishing completely, the light with him. They froze as they heard a low moaning coming from the chapel and sucked in their breath as a ghostly face slowly rose between a gap in the stonework, its features made grotesque by deep shadows and harsh highlights.
‘You silly bugger, Spelling!’ cried Greene, almost in tears, though instantly relieved.
Spelling laughed helplessly as he returned from behind the stonework, taking the lighted torch from under his chin. ‘That got you going!’ he choked between bouts of hysterical giggling.
Greene made as if to throw the tin of paint over him and Spelling scooted down the aisle, raising his knees in comical haste.
‘Silly bugger!’ Greene called after him.
‘Ssssh!’ Clemens was worried about the noise they were making now.
Abruptly, Spelling flicked off the torch and darted up a narrow gangway between the pews, tripping on one of the steps as he went, sprawling forward on to his chest. He lay there panting, trying to smother his giggles.
‘Come off it, Spelling!’ Clemens hissed in the darkness. ‘Turn that bloody torch on. Come on, Greene, let’s go if he’s going to play silly buggers!’
But Greene had joined in the game too. He was nowhere to be seen.
‘Oh, for Chrissakes, you too! It’s not bloody funny!’ Clemens’s anger, along with his fear of the dark, rose. He whirled round as he heard a bump then a muffled giggle from behind him. ‘Come out, Greene. I know you’re there!’ He became desperate. ‘I’m going if you carry on like this!’
He stepped backwards with a start as something white caught his attention at the back of the pews and his heel kicked against one of the paint tins, knocking it over, its contents spilling on to the floor, spreading darkly across the freshly drawn symbol, an expanding pool of sticky wetness.
The boy scrambled away from the spilled paint, not wanting to have his shoes ruined. The back of his knees caught the edge of the seat of the front pew on that side and he sat down with a jolt. He remained in the sitting position, his chest heaving, his eyes staring directly ahead and slightly upwards at the white blur sitting motionless at the back of the opposite pews. The pale, claw-like hand which appeared from behind went unnoticed until it clamped down on to his shoulder and Greene shouted: ‘Boo!’
Clemens screamed and fell to the floor, scrabbling his body away from whatever had grabbed him.
‘Shut up, you clot! Do you want everyone up here to find out what the noise is?’ Greene was angry at the blubbering figure on the floor, and almost regretted his little joke. If they were found in the chapel – especially with all that paint on the floor – they’d be for the high jump. ‘I think we’d better get out now. Where’s Spelling? Come on, you idiot, before we’re found out!’ He hissed the last remark across the aisle to the pews opposite. It was then he noticed the white shape.
‘Spelling? It’s you, isn’t it?’ he asked uncertainly.
Clemens followed his gaze, the poor light restricting his vision. They both heard the low, husky chuckle.
As Clemens shrank against the edge of the front pew, he saw there were other shapes sitting there in the darkness, shapes that hardly seemed to move, yet never seemed to be still. He slowly craned his neck round to look at Greene and he saw that the pews on their side were also filled with dark, nebulous figures. A low murmuring suddenly began to fill the chapel, no more than a whispering, but somehow becoming incredibly loud, filling the boys’ heads with the sound. Above the voices, they could hear the laughter – the snarling, cruel laughter – coming from the white figure opposite. The stench of something charred and burnt swilled in the air, sweeping over the boys in nauseous waves.
Spelling, who was still lying sprawled on the floor, now paralysed by the sounds he heard and the stiffened, frozen muscles of his back, reached out a hand in an attempt to push himself to his feet. It touched something brittle but flaky. His fingers crept along its length and reached what could have been an ankle. He felt crispy flesh.
The boy drew his hand away with a cry of horror and he looked up into an ugly, almost fleshless, grinning skull. He backed away on all fours, down the narrow passageway between the rows of pews, past hideously disfigured faces peering down at him, whispering; the fingerless hands pointing accusingly.
He began to whine when he reached the aisle but he continued to crawl backwards, towards the rear of the chapel, away from the altar, away from his transfixed friends, the mewling noise from his lips lost in the sound of the whispers. Back, back, so conscious of the dark shapes that filled the wooden seats on either side of the place of worship, but his mind refused to let him suffer the full realization of it, refused to let him understand.
The chapel was alive with the sound of the dead. It was full of the smell of decomposed corpses.
As Spelling scrabbled backwards along the hard stone floor, he saw a white figure rise from a rear seat and descend the narrow gangway towards his two friends. The boy’s tears left a trail of glistening spots along the aisle and his knees were rubbed raw against its unyielding surface. He saw the dark puddle through the gloom, the blurred whiteness of the two paint tins, one lying on its side. He saw the dark bodies rise and converge on Clemens and Greene. He saw the figure strangely garbed in white reach for the boy who lay prostrate on the floor. He saw the other boy look around wildly for a place to run and sink to his knees when he realized he was hemmed in, only the paleness of his face visible over the back of the front pew.
Then Spelling failed to see anything but a dark mass of moving shapes, obliterating the boys and the figure in white.
And only then did he scream and scramble to his feet and run from the main chapel.
The headmaster’s footsteps clattered along the uneven stone pavings of the cloisters and his eyes examined each lurking shadow as he passed. It had been a habit of his over the years to take a leisurely late night stroll around the College, not really to check all was well, but to indulge himself in his own solitary nostalgia of centuries long gone, to listen to the ghosts of past Etonians, to imagine himself back teaching p
upils who bore names such as Walpole, Pitt, Shelley or Gladstone. Whom among his boys today would rise to the height of these famous men? Did past tutors recognize the potential of certain students? Could they possibly have guessed the important roles the man would play in England’s future? Which one would be his Shelley? Which one his Gladstone?
Tonight, there was an urgency in his stride, a purpose to his late night walk. A feeling of building pressure had been with him all day, distracting his thoughts, nagging at his concentration. He passed through the arch of Lupton’s Tower and hurried along the cobbled centre path of School Yard, the ancient buildings overlooking the wide quadrangle silent and unaware of his anxiety. On reaching the centre of the yard, a position occupied by a weather-worn statue of Henry VI, he paused and slowly revolved his body as though he could sense rather than see or hear any source of trouble. He did this twice and each time he found it necessary to tear his eyes away from the grey, looming chapel which dominated the quadrangle and the surrounding buildings.
Griggs-Meade looked up at the high stained-glass windows, seen only as huge black holes from the outside, as though they themselves would provide evidence of unrest. A faint rustling noise seemed to float across the yard towards him, and the more he strained his ears to listen, the less sure he was that it wasn’t just the sound that lived within one’s own eardrums. And then, a small, sharp scream gave his hearing something more tangible to relate to.
It came again; shrill, like a young girl’s. The headmaster broke into a run, cutting diagonally across the yard, heading for the entrance to the antechapel, his long legs swiftly covering the ground. As he reached the large old door, wondering whether it would be open or not, he heard footsteps pounding down the wooden steps inside, a muffled tattoo of panic-hurried feet. He pushed at the door and it swung wide. And from the darkness, a smallish body threw itself at him, limbs flailing, terrified screeching noises emitting from a tightened throat.
The impact knocked Griggs-Meade back, but he clutched at the struggling figure and managed to grab an arm above the elbow. He shook the boy violently to control him and looked down into the pale face. Dragging the boy out into the yard in order to distinguish his features more clearly, he felt the body grow rigid in his arms. He thought he recognized the face – the name would come to him later – but the boy’s condition was hardily conducive to questioning. His mouth was frozen open and his eyes looked past the headmaster at the door he’d just come through. His face glistened wetly as though he’d been crying, and now fitful whimpers escaped from him. Griggs-Meade realized that whatever had frightened his pupil was still back there in the chapel. He began to drag him back towards the door, furious at the breach of rules, wondering just why the boy was out of bounds and who else was in there.
Spelling understood the headmaster’s intention and began struggling to free himself, his broken whining turning into screams of refusal, falling to his knees to hinder further progress. ‘Stand up, boy!’ Griggs-Meade thundered at him, but the pupil had become a hysterical, blubbering wreck by now. He was torn between leaving the boy in such a fearful state, and investigating the reason behind it. He looked up at the chapel and made his choice. Leaving Spelling lying rolled up in a ball on the ground, he dashed through the dark entrance and up the wooden staircase.
The coldness hit him as soon as he entered the antechapel. He felt as if he had suddenly plunged into a gigantic freezer. Hardly pausing, he rushed to the entrance of the main chapel, oblivious of the darkness, full of anger for anyone who would dare violate his beloved chapel.
And there he stopped, unable to comprehend the sight before him.
It appeared that the vast hall was filled with dark, moving forms; forms that wavered and faded, undulating in a constantly changing mass, the eerie light from the enormous coloured windows confusing rather than accentuating the shapes. When he tried to concentrate on one figure, or a particular group of them, it seemed to disappear and form again after he had shifted his gaze. An overwhelming noise hit him, a bustling, howling sound, tumultuous in its overall effect. Listened to individually, however, the sounds were only whispers. Coarse and parched. Burnt voices.
In the dimness at the front of the chapel, before the altar, he could just make out a white-coated figure through the twisting throng. It seemed to be clutching two smaller bodies in a tight embrace. Fascinated, and horrified, the headmaster walked forward into the main chapel, the fascination drawing him in, the horror urging him to run away. He resisted the latter because he realized the figure in white held two boys in his arms – undoubtedly his pupils. His premonition of danger earlier that day had been correct; he did not understand what was happening, but he knew the boys – the College – was in mortal danger.
Griggs-Meade was neither a brave man nor a coward. He was merely governed by an overriding sense of duty.
The noise in the chapel was reduced to a hushed silence at his approach, as the hazy shapes turned to look in his direction. They seemed to waft away before him, clearing a path down the long, wide aisle so that he could have a clear view of the white figure and the two boys locked in its tight embrace. Some inner sense told him not to look at these spectral shapes as he passed through them; the horror of their nebulous features would be too much – he would be forced to turn and flee. But the stench that assailed his nostrils could not be denied. It was the smell of rotting death.
The sniggering, cruel chuckle ahead allowed him to fix his attention on the white-coated figure. Even from this distance the man seemed vaguely familiar. Could it be? He looked very much like the photographer who had done so much work for the College over the last decade. What was his name? He had a studio along the High Street.
‘What are you doing here?’ Griggs-Meade demanded to know, his voice much stronger than he actually felt. ‘Why are you holding those boys?’
The man’s low snigger made the headmaster shudder. It wasn’t human.
‘Answer me! Why are you here?’ Griggs-Meade tried to appear angry. He almost succeeded.
Suddenly, the snigger became a cackle and the man threw out his arms, but still held the boys by their throats. The headmaster stopped in his tracks as he saw the boys’ eyes begin to bulge, their cries cut off when their tongues protruded from their mouths as vice-like fingers began to squeeze the life from them.
‘Stop that! Stop that!’ the headmaster shouted, but he could only watch in horror as the man slowly raised his arms with super-normal strength, still holding them out sideways, lifting the two struggling boys off their feet. He was hanging them with his own hands. The choking sounds the boys made as their faces began to flush a deep purple galvanized the headmaster into action. With a cry of rage, and fear, he launched himself forward.
But then an astounding thing happened which made him fall back with shock. The figure in the white smockcoat suddenly burst into flames.
First the head, a fiery ball that simultaneously laughed and screamed in pain, the mouth a gaping hole amid roasting popping flesh. The hair disappeared instantly in a bright flare and the eyes slowly extended down the cheeks hanging by slender threads blackened by the blaze. The fire moved along the outstretched arms and down the body, so the man became a burning cross of howling anguish and perverse, mocking laughter. The flames reached the two boys at the same time and engulfed their heads. Their screams meant nothing to the sprawling headmaster, for he was already rigid with shock, far beyond any point emotion could reach.
The interior of the vast hall was now brightly lit by the flames, patterns of red and yellow dancing on the walls, the four kneeling child-like statues on the altar apparently smiling in the flickering light. The shadowy figures filling the chapel crouched and fell away from the burning trio and, as Griggs-Meade looked slowly around in emotionless wonder, he saw the near-invisible tongues of flame lapping at the transparent bodies, saw the writhing of the tortured souls. But he also saw the real curls of smoke rising from the rows of wooden pews as the spectres fell on them, their
vaporous shapes twisting in silent agony. The wood glowed red and soon tiny flickers of flame spread along their lengths, meeting and joining, growing into bigger flames.
His attention was caught by one of the smaller shapes falling away from the central burning trio as the bones in the man’s fleshless hand grew brittle and snapped. The boy fell to his knees and immediately rose, his back and arms a ball of fire. He ran towards the altar as if to save himself, but he crashed against it, falling to the ground. Rising again, Clemens staggered around the altar, twisting and turning as he went, falling again and clutching at the tapestries to save himself. The fire from his body shot upwards, spreading across the ancient material as though it were paper, greedily devouring the treasured scenes.
The two remaining figures before the headmaster, the man and the now dead boy, slowly crumbled and fell to the floor, the screams of pain dying with the body, but the harsh chuckling laughter continuing, still coming from the burning corpse.
Griggs-Meade vaguely wondered why he seemed to be sitting in a sticky red pool and, as he raised his hand, he saw it was covered in the fluid. It looked like blood and his mind was no longer able to tell him it was only red paint. Indeed, the paint had spread so that it touched against the bottom row of pews, and as the flames crept down the old wood they found an able and willing ally in the sticky substance. They kissed the paint and clung to it in rapturous welcome, spreading swiftly and eagerly towards the headmaster’s outstretched legs.
Soon the whole interior of the chapel had become a furnace, a raging inferno that cared little for tradition and as much for human life. Outside, the small adjoining buildings that had always cowered under the chapel’s magnificence now cowered under its burning threat.
And the boy who huddled in the yard shivered and wept.
21
‘Go left. Here.’ Hobbs’s voice was weak and hoarse. Keller followed his instructions and turned the Stag into the lane opposite the College chapel. The medium’s brooding eyes looked back at the chapel as they sped away from it. He said nothing.