The Black Alchemist: A Terrifying True Story

by Andrew Collins

  Pulling closed the heavy wooden door, I followed him onto the gravel path.

  ‘I’m going home,’ he exclaimed, making his way across the green.

  So it seemed as if the Black Alchemist looked set to pay Danbury church a personal visit, and it would not be to attend a service, either. Hopefully, Bernard would know when this was going to happen, so at least we would have a chance to prepare ourselves for any kind of confrontation.

  For the moment though, we had a more immediate problem on our hands—such as what were we going to tell the rector? Sorry, our magical serpent swordstick has just blasted open the south door of your church, so that a former lord of the manor could inform us that the site was about to be attacked and desecrated. I wasn’t too sure he would understand!

  As I said goodbye to the psychic, I had an idea. How about telling the rector we had been sitting in the pub, when Bernard—whom he knew was psychic—had suddenly received the impression to go over to the church. This we had done and, feeling that something was amiss with the south door, had discovered it unlocked.

  It was a plan! Turning around, I strolled back towards the green in front of the church, before turning right into the rectory’s long driveway.

  The rector’s wife answered the door. ‘I’m sorry but my husband’s out at the moment,’ she announced. ‘Can I help you?’

  I told her the story and she accepted my word.

  ‘Oh dear, that was probably the choirmaster,’ she said. ‘He uses the south door for choir practice on a Sunday evening.’ She sighed with concern. ‘I shall have to speak to him. Perhaps he forgot to lock it when he left last night.’

  Perhaps. Either that, or there was another explanation—one I didn’t have the heart, or bottle, to tell her.

  Time passed. Christmas came and went. Winter melted into spring. Spring blossomed into summer, and summer matured into autumn. The nights grew longer, the air turned colder, but still the Black Alchemist did not turn up at Danbury, or anywhere else for that matter.

  Bernard and I continued to meet for a drink in the familiar surroundings of The Griffin and the subject of the Black Alchemist would inevitably crop up in conversation. In answer, he would merely shake his head and say: ‘No, nothing on him at all.’

  As each passing month pushed the October 1986, Running Well confrontation even further back in time, the subject of the Black Alchemist began to slip away from our conscious thoughts.

  The Indian swordstick remained dormant, and other more productive quests occupied our lives.

  August 1987 saw my departure from the family home at Wickford. I moved into a comfortable first floor flat within a terraced house in sunny Leigh-on-Sea. It was exactly what I needed, independence and a place to write freely. Then, unexpectedly, as I attempted once more to finish my written account of the Black Alchemist affair, it all began again.

  Part Three Red

  24 Night of the She-Wolf

  Thursday, 15th October, 1987. 8.00 pm. ‘Tonight, I want you all to imagine yourselves as a tree, with your body as the trunk and your arms as branches,’ the vivacious lady teacher told the small, but attentive class. ‘Sense the wind blowing through its leaves. See it. Feel it. Experience it. Then write and draw whatever comes into your mind. I’ll give you ten minutes.’

  The class quietly opened their loose-leafed files and picked up pens and pencils in anticipation.

  Chesca Potter was first and foremost an artist—a painter of magical and mystical themes and subjects. Indeed, success and recognition had come to her in recent years in the form of several commissions for book covers and illustrations. However, the creative writing class, held close to her King’s Cross flat in the heart of London, was helping to develop her writing skills, and she enjoyed the company of the other young writers.

  Content, Chesca picked up a pencil and mentally contemplated the evening’s chosen image, which she found comparatively easy to draw as many of her pictures were created in a similar way.

  For a few moments she closed her eyes and became at one with her drawing, before writing: “I am the lightning blasted tree”. Yet she had to stop and re-open her eyes as the image seriously disturbed her for some reason. A nauseous feeling welled up inside her, and she shivered with concern.

  Chesca looked around at her classmates silently engrossed in their own work and could not understand her irrational feelings. Why should visualising yourself as a tree produce such an oppressive reaction? Something was undoubtedly wrong, and it worried her.

  Friday, 16th October. 3.00 am. Chesca had been unable to get to sleep. The disturbing feelings she had experienced whilst at the writing class the previous evening had grown with intensity as the night had advanced, and with them had come a sense of depression and hopelessness. Why, she could not say. It concerned her almost to the point of desperation, and the incessant gale-force winds had not helped calm her nerves. They had started around eleven o’clock and had been growing in ferocity ever since.

  She was on edge, and something else was happening now. An ugly image kept looming out of the dark depths of her mind—a hideous demon with a long tongue protruding from an open mouth. Chesca recognised its form from her past studies of Hindu mythology. It was Kali, an Indian goddess of death and destruction, whose image she had wanted to paint for some while.

  Chesca could almost sense the goddess’s terrifying presence getting stronger by the minute. Yet there was more—a sudden realisation that this image was connected in some way with her experience at the writing class and, for some reason, the growing intensity of the gale-force winds.

  Something was building up both within her, and outside, across London.

  Distraught, she searched for answers. The response came as a sudden compulsion to paint a picture of the demoness—almost as if Kali was compelling her to do so. It would take her mind off the events of the past few hours and, in some strange way, release them from her mind.

  Picking up a sharp pencil, Chesca Potter began to sketch an image of Kali, which she sensed she must finish before the first light of day washed away the darkness.

  3.30 am. The sound of the violent gales woke me from my slumber. The air in the room was warm, humid even. Strange for that time of year, I thought.

  Lying in bed, I listened. Never had I heard anything like this before. Outside the wind roared, rumbled and hissed incessantly, with ferocious gusts coming around every 30 seconds.

  Suddenly, a loud crash sounded overhead. It was a chimney stack collapsing, I was sure of it. But whose was it? Mine, or somebody else’s?

  Still the wind increased in ferocity. Windows exploded, masonry crashed to the ground, fences gave way and tree branches snapped. With each almighty gust further terrifying sounds followed, their intensity reaching towards an unnerving crescendo.

  Something very powerful was manifesting itself. I could feel it. Sense it. It was a hurricane, yes.

  But something more, much more.

  Slipping out of bed, I toured the first-floor flat in the darkness, making sure every window was shut and secured, before moving into the Black Room, my place of meditation. Kneeling down in front of an ottoman that acted as an altar, I contemplated the chaotic strength of the winds and closed my eyes.

  Images appeared of an almost demonic female face, a crone cackling with laughter. No, I could not look. Re-opening my eyes, I raised my hands into the air and shouted: ‘What the hell is going on?’

  4.00 am. Caroline Wise could not sleep in her second-floor London flat because of the worsening winds. The dim light of the bedside lamp on the clock radio gave her the chance to block them out. She would read.

  Minutes passed as the feverish pitch of the terrifying gales grew louder and more violent. Continually she broke off her reading to glance cautiously at the vibrating bedroom window that looked like it was about to implode from the impact of the oncoming gusts.

  The room was a darkened miniature city of angular shapes and forms, she considered. Then, as Caroline looke
d towards the window, a new shape now blocked out the faint light coming in from the street lamps outside.

  It was human-like and advancing very slowly.

  The end of the bed obscured its lower half, but she could see that its torso and head were those of a wolf. A she-wolf, she felt, and it was no mere image in the mind’s eye. It seemed physically present in the room and even its minutest details could be distinguished—its coarse bristles encircling an extended reddycoloured snout, even the sticky saliva around the edges of its long, jagged teeth.

  Caroline did not want to view the disgusting sight, so mentally pushed the vile form back towards the window and the oncoming winds. It vanished, but the lingering thought of its presence nauseated and revolted her.

  Somehow, she instinctively knew its nature—malevolent, female and, for some inexplicable reason, linked with the presence of the chaotic, destructive might of the hurricane.

  Caroline let minutes pass before responding. Casting off the duvet, she slid out of bed and stumbled across to the door. Pulling it open, only darkness and a sense of calm greeted her in the hallway.

  A window in the kitchen rattled in sympathy with the ebbs and flows of the gusting winds. She would have to close it. Anyway, it would give her a chance to compose herself in different surroundings.

  Switching on the light, her eyes squinted as her raised hand made for the rattling pane, which was quickly secured.

  The door behind her slid open and a female form moved into view. It was her flatmate, twenty-year-old Gaynor Sunderland, bleary-eyed and in her dressing gown. Using the back of her hand to shield her eyes from the intensity of the bright light, she leaned back on the fridge. ‘I heard someone get up,’ she said, in a low voice. Her eyes kept closing as if she was about to fall back to sleep.

  ‘I was having this horrible dream,’ Gaynor now revealed, not thinking that Caroline would be particularly interested. ‘I was being held in a house against my will by an old woman with a wolf’s head—a she-wolf of some kind. And there were two men as well. They also had wolves’ heads.’

  Caroline’s disturbing vision returned to her instantly. Gaynor too had seen a she-wolf. This time in her sleep. Her flatmate was psychic, so had Gaynor telepathically picked up the image of the she-wolf from her? Or was it something else—an intrusion into the house of a hideously malevolent force? And who was this shewolf? They were questions that Caroline did not wish to answer.

  Leaving Gaynor, Caroline returned to her bedroom and climbed back into bed. She attempted to ignore the foul memory of the supernatural intruder, and the disturbing sound of the gusting winds, by once more trying to read by the dim light of the clock radio.

  Yet then, over a period of no more than a few seconds, the entire input of light coming in through the window gradually extinguished as the different electricity sub stations lost their power and London was plunged into total darkness.

  9.00 am. The car tyres crunched over shattered roof tiles and broken pieces of masonry as I swerved to avoid yet another fallen tree sprawled across the road, its branches twisted and fractured by the sheer weight of its heavy trunk.

  The hurricane had left a trail of absolute chaos and mayhem across Leigh-on-Sea and the neighbouring ward of Chalkwell, which lay just a short distance from my flat in Lord Roberts Avenue. Roofs were missing from houses, lines of fallen trees blocked virtually every road, fences had simply vanished and shop fascias, Perspex blinds, broken glass and gates littered everywhere. The scene was like something out of an apocalyptic nightmare.

  Further on, in Leigh Broadway, shopkeepers were desperately trying to collect up what was left of their stock, which now lay scattered across the road, as emergency replacement glass fitters hastily boarded up disintegrated shop fronts.

  On the other side of the street people were clearing away the fragments of a collapsed brick wall, which now blocked the pavement. And all around, chimney stacks were either inside roofs or scattered across people’s front gardens.

  It was the same story wherever I went. As I drove around, taking in the situation, I just shook my head in disbelief.

  Pulling into a side road, I searched for a parking space. On the corner, wrapped around a bent signpost, was yet another shop blind, lying next to which was an ornamented pinnacle, fallen from the roof of a nearby bank.

  No, I had never seen anything like this before.

  37. The ancient yew in Leigh-on-Sea churchyard wrenched from its roots during the Great Storm of 1987.

  9.30 am. Jonathan Guy, news editor for the Leigh Times, was the only person who had managed to reach the office before me. ‘The phones are out,’ he announced, pacing up and down in frustration. ‘But if you do want to use one, keep trying, as I somehow managed to get through to my father.’

  This was Mike Guy senior, the paper’s editor.

  ‘There’s a tree on his car,’ John moaned. ‘A fence has smashed into my mum’s car and the roof of her flat caved in as the chimney stack toppled down. My dad didn’t sound in a good mood when I spoke to him.’

  The telephone did work spasmodically and, obtaining a line, I seized the opportunity to ring Brian Fenning, the paper’s head photographer. We needed some pictures as no one was going to believe this in years to come.

  Brian was almost insulted by my suggestion. ‘Er, before you go any further, I’ve just got back actually. I’ve been out since first light this morning and have taken over three hundred pictures so far,’ he announced.

  38. Every road in Leigh-on-Sea and neighbouring Chalkwell (pictured) was full of fallen trees and debris following the devastating hurricane. ‘The whole of Leigh, Chalkwell and Westcliff have been completely devastated. I’ve never seen anything like it,’ he admitted, trying to contain his excitement. ‘The houses along the cliffs have really taken a battering—roofs off, chimneys gone, windows out, and there are trees all over the place. In some roads every single tree has fallen on the houses nearest to them. It looks really bizarre. Anyway, I keep bumping into photographers from the Echo, so I suppose they’ll be running a picture special in tonight’s edition.’

  Hopefully, we would do the same in the next issue. As morbid as it might seem to some, a full pictorial account of the damage done by the hurricane would have to be made and recorded for posterity in a local paper such as ours.

  3.00 pm. Johnny Merron, Caroline’s other flatmate, had finally managed to get to work despite being turned back by police on his first attempt to reach the heart of London.

  Even though it was now mid-afternoon, the electricity had still not been switched back on and the telephones remained out of action.

  Caroline contemplated the absurd situation. With the roads blocked, the electricity not functioning and the telephones out, it seemed bizarre to think that one of the world’s most technologically-advanced capitals had been brought to a standstill by the powers of nature. She mentioned this to Gaynor as they hunted around for batteries to use in an old radio they were trying to repair in the hope of reaching the outside world.

  Then, as if to signal a return to normality, the telephone rang out. Answering it, Caroline heard the relieved voice of her best friend Cath, who lived nearby.

  After establishing that each other’s homes were still in one piece, Cath went onto a different matter.

  ‘Caroline, something awful happened when I woke up around four this morning,’ she said, in a clearly hesitant and concerned voice, which was not like her. ‘As I opened my eyes I swear I saw Graham as a wolf.’

  Caroline had to reassure her that she was not going mad before she would continue.

  ‘I even saw a long snout and a hairy face. It was horrible and it frightened the life out of me so much I screamed out, waking Graham. At that moment his face turned back to normal,’ she explained. ‘I’m not kidding you, Caroline. I bet you think I’m going round the bend. Don’t you?’

  She knew her friend was not lying, or mad. Even though Cath claimed to be non-psychic she had shown to Caroline on man
y occasions she was more susceptible to paranormal experiences than she liked to admit. So seeing her husband as a wolf was not as outlandish as Cath obviously believed it to be.

  Wolves again. Three separate experiences, and all at the height of the hurricane. It had to mean something.

  Minutes later Caroline answered the telephone to someone else who had been desperately trying to ring—Marion Sunderland, Gaynor’s mother, calling from her home in Flint, North Wales.

  ‘I’ve been trying to get through,’ she confirmed, in her distinctive Liverpudlian accent. ‘The lines have been down all over the place. We haven’t seen much of the hurricane up here, but I heard about it on breakfast TV earlier. Is everyone alright? How’s Gaynor, and yourself?’

  After assuring her everyone was fine, Caroline asked Marion if she had experienced anything unusual over night—any strange dreams or visions? She asked because Marion was, like her daughter, very psychically sensitive.

  ‘No, I didn’t, love,’ Marion responded. ‘Why, why do you ask?’

  Caroline refrained from giving the game away, and instead asked Marion if she felt anything as they spoke.

  ‘All I get now are some words. I don’t know what they mean. I get “the wolves are running”.’

  The wolves are running.

  This was the fourth person to pick up on wolves. But why wolves? Perhaps they were some sort of supernatural aspect of the hurricane. It was certainly a pattern, but what did it all mean?

  4.30 pm. The Leigh Times would put together a pictorial special on the hurricane, so we needed to find out exactly what had taken place, both locally and over the rest of the country. We needed to know what had caused it, the full extent of the damage, and why it had not been predicted by TV weatherman Michael Fish. The previous evening he had confidently informed viewers that reports of a hurricane on the way were greatly exaggerated, and there was nothing to get alarmed about. Oh how those misplaced words would come back to haunt him in the years to come!