A Cry From Beyond (32 page)

“Something is below us,” I said, a statement of fact rather
than a general surmise. “It is almost like a magnetic pull, though
not quite. It tries to guide, to influence, but it isn’t good Dave,
far from it.”

“I don’t
understand?”

I smiled
weakly. “Nor do I, but I hope to, soon.”

“You’re
giving me the creeps,” David complained. I apologised and vowed to
keep my thoughts to myself, realising that if he bottled out, there
was a very real chance I would too. It was all starting to get too
much for me. I needed moral support.

We
continued on towards the chapel, which assumed a dark brooding
elegance in the snowy night. As we drew closer, I shone the torch
against the craggy grey stonework and in through the open slit
windows, and wondered what we would discover this night.

The heavy
wooden door was ajar, just as I had left it. The interior, we found
to be quiet, (as the grave I thought morosely), and devoid of any
discernible life. The birds, it seemed, were absent and for that
small mercy I was relieved.

“Having
fun?” I asked David, trying to lighten his mood, sensing he’d
rather be anywhere but here.

“Best
night of my life,” he replied glibly. Together we headed up the
aisle to the altar and the sunken staircase contained therein.
There we paused uncertainly and gazed down into inky
blackness.

“Nice,”
David said as I shone the flashlight in, thereby displacing the
dark with soft yellow light.

“What the
hell is the idea of it, John?”

I
shrugged. “I’m not really sure yet.” And then I noticed the
brickwork guarding the stairwell. “This is an addition,” I said
pointing.

“Huh?”

“This,” I
said patting the wall, “is newer than the rest of the building.” I
inspected the stairwell itself and guessed it was around the same
age.

“What are
you trying to say,” David asked, still unable to grasp the
significance.

“I would
bet money,” I replied, “that this submerged chamber was excavated
after the original chapel was built.”

“Why, for
what reason?”

“I really
couldn’t say. All I know is, a trap door is down there, beyond
which may lie the answer.”

David
stared down into the stairwell and swallowed nervously. He was
clearly having second thoughts about agreeing to join me on this
little expedition. As if to prove the point, he asked for the
flask, saying, “I think I need a little Dutch courage,” and took a
couple of healthy gulps of whisky.

We
descended the stairs, with me taking the lead, shining the torch
light towards the centre of the limited floor space.

“Wow,”
was all David managed when he saw the trap with its hefty stone
door leaning at an angle against the wall, where I’d left
it.

We came
to stand over the hole, and peered in. The torchlight did its work
well and steps attached to the submerged wall were
revealed.

“It’s
like a sewer chamber,” David observed and he was right, the
description was apt.

“Maybe
that’s what it is,” I ventured, as I crouched and swung the beam
from left to right.

David
grimaced. “This might surprise you John, but sewers are not my
favourite place to be.”

“You
don’t say,” I answered dismissively, when in truth I too harboured
doubts about venturing any further.

I handed
the flashlight to David, instructed him to keep it trained into the
hole and then, telling myself yet again it was something that had
to be done, I began to descend.

“Do you
really want to do this?” David asked as I started down.

Glancing
up, I answered with a simple “Yes,” and tried to smile but failed
miserably.

Moments
later, I was standing in a narrow tunnel barely high enough to
allow me to stand upright. At this point I wished I’d had the
foresight to bring along a second torch, but it was too late now,
we would have to manage with what we had.

I called
for David to throw the one we’d brought along down, which he
promptly did and I managed to catch. I shone it upwards, lending
him the light he required in order to make a safe descent. It
wasn’t long before we were both standing in the tunnel, whose roof
was arched and whose width gave just enough space for David and I
to stand two a breast. I shone the torch around and saw that the
tunnel in front of us disappeared into darkness, while that which
lay in the opposite direction was blocked some fifteen feet hence
by a brick wall.

But
wait...

Set into
the wall to its right, was what looked suspiciously like a
doorway.

“Jesus
Christ,” David breathed having spotted it too. “What is this place
John?”

I didn’t
bother answering, because I didn’t know. What I did know was that
in the tiny anti-chamber above us I had somehow managed to play
with Kayla when I was a child, long after Kayla’s young life had
ended.

But it’d
happened sure enough, and the reason it happened was because High
Bank was haunted. Yet up until my mother’s admission I’d had no
memory of the episode.

David
nudged me, demanding my attention. “Temperature’s
dropped.”

“Huh?”

“Temperature’s dropped,” he repeated.

He was
right. I led him over to what appeared to be a door sunken into the
wall at the blocked end of the tunnel. It looked incredibly old and
weathered and was covered in lichen. There was a large iron latch
as well as a handle.Positioned directly underneath was a lock into
which a key of some magnitude could be inserted. I attempted to
lift the latch, but it was rusted solid, proving to be immovable:
the same went for the handle.

“Where do
you think it leads,” asked David, his voice hushed as if he was
afraid of being overheard.

“My guess
is as good as yours,” I said. “Do you notice something,
Dave?”

“It’s
getting colder,” he said.

“Got it
in one...”

The
temperature had continued to dip quite noticeably.

Shivering
collectively, we slowly moved away from the secret door. As we did
so, all hell broke loose above us.

“What’s
happening?” David asked looking up.

“The
birds are back,” I said, having to raise my voice to be heard above
the escalating din.

One of
the creatures suddenly entered the tunnel; a big black ugly thing
that made an aggressive bee line for David. Caught off guard, he
stumbled and fell and the bird attacked going for the eyes, using
its large hooked beak. Somehow David managed to dislodge the
creature. It flew around wildly, until I managed to catch it with a
lucky blow from the hammer. It fell limply to the dirt floor where
it lay stricken, its wings fluttering weakly. From his prone
position, David brought the heel of his boot down hard, crushing it
underfoot.

“Christ
almighty John,” he blurted. “What on earth have we got ourselves
into?”

A good
question: it was one I was unable to answer.

Training
the torch upwards through the open trap, I saw others flying
around. Another came at us. Better prepared this time, we reacted
swiftly. David ducked out of the way, leaving me free to employ the
hammer once more, this time to propel the bird against the wall.
Stunned, it dropped heavily to the floor, where it lay twitching.
An uneasy lull followed.

“I don’t
fucking believe this,” David said in a shaky voice.

We
listened and waited, all too aware that another attack could be
imminent.

The way I
saw it we had two choices; either we left the tunnel and took our
chances with the birds, or we tried to close the trap door and
travel along the tunnel towards God only knew what. A dead end
perhaps? Logic said it was unlikely. After all, what was the point
of a tunnel that led nowhere?

Of
course, there was always a chance it was unfinished, it was
possible that its architects failed in their attempt to create
their desired labyrinth, or even if they had succeeded, there was
nothing to say that the neglected tunnel hadn’t decayed and
collapsed. The doubts kept coming and the panic rose, our choices
were worryingly limited. Take our chances with the birds in the
chapel, or with the tunnel ahead.

David was
speaking, but couldn’t be heard above the riotous barrage of noise.
It appeared the birds sense of excitement, (or was it fury), was
mounting. I was convinced that to return to the chapel would be
shear madness. The maniacal birds were large enough and in
sufficient numbers to cause us serious harm. The way I saw it, we
had no option but to travel the tunnel and see where it led us. The
prospect was daunting, more than daunting, it was terrifying if you
allowed yourself to dwell on the fact that with the trap door
closed, we’d be sealed into an extremely long coffin. At that point
my fear of being buried alive increased tenfold.

First
things first however, we had to address the problem of sealing the
trap against the infernal birds. Taking the initiative, I quickly
explained my plan to David, handing him the flashlight and hammer
before ascending the ladder.

“Be
quick!” he called from below. “You’ve got to be quick!”

And he
was right, just as I reached the half way stage in my ascent, two
huge birds swooped. I kept my head down and my eyes shut and
continued to climb. One of them caught my hand with its beak. It
pecked viciously. I struck out managing to fend the creature off.
Those above circled the anti-chamber frenziedly.

I reached
the top of the ladder. Blood ran from a deep cut to my hand.
Another bird attacked and received the same treatment as the last;
and then another. This one caught me on the forehead with its
talons. I knocked it away and it fell, mortally injured.

Then my
head was above floor level. I made a desperate grab for the trap
door. Burning pain shot through my injured hand as my fingers
curled around the handle. Birds pecked at my head and face, drawing
blood. From below, I heard David shouting, but whatever he was
saying, whatever words of warning or encouragement he offered were
lost within the monstrous bird song.

Using
both hands I pulled at the handle, failing miserably to move it at
the first and second attempts, partially succeeding in the third,
before finding success on the forth.

But there
was a cost to be paid. When finally the door passed its pivotal
point, it fell quickly with the stone slab catching my forehead,
knocking me from the steps and sending me crashing to the floor
some several feet below. For a time afterwards there was only
blackness. David reckoned I was unconscious for as long as five
minutes. He said that as I lay unconscious, he had to fight off two
giant birds that had gained access to the tunnel prior to the door
being closed. He too had sustained injuries to his face and
hands.

I looked
around, feeling dazed. Light from the torch made the atmosphere in
the tunnel eerie and unreal, the numerous dead birds lying
hereabouts only adding to the unpleasant, surreal
quality.

“Any
ideas what we do now,” David asked once I’d regained my
senses.

I looked
at him feeling as guilty as hell for bringing him here. “I need to
think,” I said.

“What is
there to think about,” he said bitterly. “Why not admit it, we’re
completely fucked.”

“Where’s
there’s a will,” I told him, but he ignored the remark.

“While
you were out of it,” he said, “I tried to force that old door open,
but it’s stuck fast.” He glanced up, his face turned into a shadowy
mask by the torchlight and added, “No way in this world can we
leave the way we entered. It would take Superman to raise that slab
from below.”

“Only one
thing for it then,” I said standing and brushing myself off. “We
explore the rest of the tunnel.”

David
grimaced at the thought.

“Give me
the flashlight,” I said and shone it ahead. Moments later we were
travelling along the narrow passage, which appeared to descend
imperceptibly.

“I feel
like a character in “Journey to the Centre of the Earth”,” David
commented in an attempt to lighten the mood, but his tone was
anything but light hearted. He was scared stiff, but why wouldn’t
he be, I asked myself. We had absolutely no way of knowing where we
would end up. For all we knew we were walking to our
deaths.

The
tunnel grew still narrower the further we went, which only added to
the claustrophobic feel of the place.

“The
birds back there,” David said after a while, breaking the silence
between us.

“What
about them?”

“I think
they were Ravens.”

“How do
you know?”

Jenny is
forever pointing them out to me.”

“Why does
she do that?”

David was
silent.

I stopped
and turned to face him. “Out with it.”