Fighters of Fear

by Mike Ashley

  I grimaced. Ralph shrugged.

  “There is little interest in this matter outside of Enderby,” he replied, “aside from a few idle lines in the local paper. And the contractors need only be assured that the problem has been dealt with. When it is appropriate to do so, I will let the facts be known. But not for a number of years.”

  That evening witnessed certainly the most unusual service that had been held in the church of St. Michael at Enderby. It contained the form and ritual of the St. Michael’s Day commemoration, surely the first time this had been held nearly a month late. The congregation was small, even by modern standards, numbering only four, and that including the vicar. The doors were locked against the remote possibility of other worshippers. And one of those present paid little heed at all to the proceedings, but roved restlessly around the aisles and corridors of the church.

  It was at Ralph’s suggestion that this curious re-enactment of the old service was undertaken. He was convinced that it must play a crucial part in recent events, its absence a kind of catalyst to the sombre happenings since. So, the Revd Hollis led us through the blessing of the walls and structure of the church, in a solemn if uneasy procession, and then spoke with commendable conviction of the legend of St. Michael, to his audience of two, Ralph being preoccupied. Sitting on the narrow pew, my mind too was, as it is said, “elsewhere.” A tingling, dry-mouthed nervousness had been with me since we had enclosed ourselves within the dim, cold, hollow expanse of this disused church. Always in the past, when I had accompanied Ralph Tyler on his researches into the stranger, darker incidents of provincial existence, there was an element of doubt. The Herefordshire case, for instance, might have been an unfortunate accident only, events at Hubgrove could admit of a psychological explanation: the still unsolved quarry burial case was replete with uncertainties. But this was altogether different, for my implicit faith in my friend’s judgement led me to anticipate some distinctly real encounter with a force outside of rational experience.

  I heard and registered mechanically, without paying any extra attention, that Eric Hollis had begun to read from a sacred text. His quiet, soft tones were echoed in hushed whispers by the ancient place. The wan yellow electric light we had sparingly employed at the altar end of the church left much of the rest in a grey shadowed twilight. I let my glance stray around the stone walls, stained glass, marble tablets, cold tiled floor. I peered upwards to the low vaultings, and hesitated.

  There was a blurring up there. I sensed it was wrong. It was like a gathering of dark dust, so that the dimness was deeper than it was below or beyond. I stared harder. I clambered to my feet, and clung to the back of the pew, steadying myself as I gazed, neck craned. The vicar’s voice halted abruptly as he noticed this disturbance. Ronald Alwyn followed my stare. Ralph swivelled around from the depths of the church and marched hurriedly towards us.

  Seeping as if from all the walls and perimeters of the church, great rays of black motes funnelled into the focal cloud that hovered in the upper air near the roof. It seemed to gather into itself deep, floating shadows wrenched from the very stones. None of us uttered a word. The concentration of the dark form became more intense, it took an opaque, almost tangible appearance, and began to boil and squirm as if in some struggle of frantic proportions. With a sickening, rattling squeal this process became complete, and a tangible body emerged, a winged beast, perhaps five feet in length, with shining flesh and dark limbs. Shrieking in high pitched sobs, it flapped heavily, clumsily above us, then swooped unerringly at our petrified forms. Jerked out of inaction, we sprawled onto the floor. Sweeping past our heads, the creature emitted another wail and plunged down the stairwell of the Fitzgilbert crypt.

  Still prone on the slabs on the floor, I raised my head reluctantly, fighting to suppress a swarming hysteria. Ralph and Eric Hollis were already on their feet, faces grim and fixed. Ronald Alwyn was staring as if in a state of daze. Slowly, we moved towards each other, and Ralph steadily led us to the open gates of the crypt. It occurred to me only afterwards that at this point I had not the merest idea of what we were to do. Some physical attack upon the beast was out of the question, for its agility was far beyond ours, and in any case had we not seen it resolve from the very atmosphere? Blindly, hesitatingly we descended the steps. The welcome wave of electric light that burst out at the flick of the switch at the foot of the stairs nonetheless callously revealed a hideous scene. I remember croaking an oath of disgust. The dark winged creature was squatting upon the tomb chest of Guy Fitzgilbert, talons gripping, clawing frenziedly at the ancient stone lid. This was in itself a repulsive sight, but it was the sudden lurch of the neck, bringing the beast’s visage to glare awfully at our own which brought me close to extreme nausea: it was a human face, or nearly; that of one terribly scorched, crusted with ash and dead black skin, a mask of deformed, torn flesh.

  Eric Hollis began praying loudly, firmly, in a bold chant of words I do not now recall. The creature spat, gibbered, lunged menacingly. I huddled against the wall, prepared to bolt. It became increasingly evident that the rector’s solemn invocations were only holding the apparition, keeping it at bay, but scarcely testing its defences. At any hesitation or sign of tiring, it would be upon us again, and we should have unleashed upon the outside world a being we were powerless to control. I saw it open out its wings and sway forward. In the close-confined, poorly lit cell the span of its wings blotted out much of our illumination. It reared above us. The vicar’s prayers became more rapid, imploring: we backed off. Plainly, the crisis had come and we must withdraw, get out as best we might.

  Ralph motioned Eric Hollis to stop, stepped forward and shouted a single phrase, in an unfamiliar tongue, faltering slightly in the middle but finishing with a roar of command. At the same time, he drew back his right arm as if in the act of throwing something, and ended by pointing with outstretched hand at the creature. He did this again and again, each time with the strange, miming action, and gradually, as if truly struck, it shrank back, until with a howl it fell in a contorted mass upon the floor. Flames burst all around it, leaping from the stale, crumbling atmosphere in a blaze of brilliant, cruel glory. I saw the creature’s head jarred agape in a paroxysm of pain and fear, baleful black eyes gleaming in shocked frustration, limbs pinned irrevocably back by the sudden furnace. I remember clearly the comforting crackling of the tongues of fire, a golden screen obliterating what should have never been. Then, Ralph’s urgent, hoarse whisper to the Reverend Hollis, “Now! The reading!” and, above the flames, the clergyman’s calm, clear voice, telling from the Testament of Abraham, how the angel Michael rescued souls from the depths of hell.

  Ashes tumbled slowly, softly in suspenseful air, for a few moments a translucent silence fell, the fire faded swiftly, and all was still. I groaned, and subsided onto the narrow, stone steps.

  It was a while after this experience that I felt reassured enough to seek from Ralph a few further details about the manifestation at St. Michael & All Angels, Enderby. Our meetings and conversation since had been rather painstakingly light and casual, as we avoided by mutual understanding discussing so intense an ordeal. But at length, I wished to know what it was he had used to finally suppress the being.

  “Around Guy Fitzgilbert’s tomb,” he replied cheerfully, “is inscribed a motto that has more or less escaped the attention of historians and so on. Those who have noticed it have been unable to decipher its full wording, since much is worn away, and it seems anyway to have been concealed within the sculpted beading which is also around the base of the chest. When I examined the crypt, the significance of the many St. Michael symbols was soon evident, and so I surmised the motto might have relevance too. At any rate, I copied the fragments that could be discerned. Whether what I recited made any sense I honestly couldn’t say. I don’t know Latin. But in any case, I feel it was the sound as much as anything else, for it is clearly a very ancient protection.”

  “And—what we saw?” I enquired, tentatively. “Any theo
ries?”

  “Well, speculation. I would propose that Peter Fitzgilbert was burned to death by his brother, either as part of warfare or in an execution. That would account for the legends that one or other, or both, were involved in witchcraft or sorcery. Now, as to why a lingering being, still steeped in hatred, should lie within the church, I wonder whether the supporters of Peter did not perform a final, macabre trick, and arrange to have their lord’s ashes mixed into the mortar and stones of the unfinished church? Then, the manifestations began and it was necessary to rededicate it to a powerful protector, St. Michael, slayer of evil winged creatures. The yearly ritual especially helped to hold back the beast. But nothing could cleanse or purify the site, for it was built by hatred, and in a certain sense, even with hatred.

  “So that, properly understood, what we saw was a concentration of all both brothers ever wrought in the name and form of evil. It was released almost by accident, because the traditional ceremony was missed, and the sanctity of the church was eroded by disuse and the interference of the restoration work.

  “It would be my contention that Guy Fitzgilbert, obsessed both by the fate and spectre of his brother, and the destiny of his own soul, arranged the ritualistic reading from an apocryphal text which seemed to promise redemption even from the depths of damnation. It was our privilege . . .” here Ralph grinned wryly, “to witness the working of a minor miracle. By intervention through us, not only was the creature finally released from its earthly state of captivity in a despicable form, but, we may hope, restored to a better world.”

  “You surely don’t believe . . .” I began, but Ralph interrupted.

  “No, I don’t. But it’s difficult to account for what we saw in any other way.”

  PENELOPE PETTIWEATHER IN

  JEREMIAH

  JESSICA AMANDA SALMONSON

  Jessica Amanda Salmonson (b. 1950) has written ghost stories, dark fantasy, folk tales and heroic fantasy. Her early work included the trilogy about the twelfth-century female samurai warrior, Tomoe Gozen, which began with Tomoe Gozen (1981). She also won the World Fantasy Award for her anthology of heroic fantasy stories featuring strong women warriors, Amazons! (1979). She has also undertaken considerable research discovering lost and forgotten stories by both leading writers and those deserving of more attention, such as Julian Hawthorne in The Rose of Death (1997), Olivia Howard Dunbar in The Shell of Sense (1997), Sarah Orne Jewett with Lady Ferry and Other Uncanny People (1998) and Jerome K. Jerome with City of the Sea (2008). Her own output of short stories is extensive with a number collected in The Deep Museum (2003). Her psychic detective, Penelope Pettiweather, lives in Seattle and explores the environment for any weird events and then writes about them to her friends in England. The first three stories appeared in a small-press booklet, Harmless Ghosts in 1990, and these and others have long been hard to find until all were reissued in The Complete Weird Epistles of Penelope Pettiweather, Ghost Hunter (2016). It brings our journey through the archives of the fighters of fear to a conclusion.

  “Je suis dégoûté de tout.”

  —René Crevel, 1935

  My dear Jane,

  I’m glad you received that copy of Satan’s Circus by Lady Eleanor Smith. One frets about the overseas mail. You’ll note that while the spine says the publisher is “Doran,” the title page says “Bobbs Merrill,” yet both purport to be the first edition. I’m told that Doran had a habit, in those days, of purchasing unbound sheets of other publishers’ overruns and reissuing them under their own imprint. So you see, it isn’t really the first edition except on the inside! I was also delighted by your perceptive comments on the outstanding story “Wittington’s Cat.” The compiler of Giddy’s Ghost Story Guide completely misunderstood that one, didn’t he?

  Thank you for that perfect copy of Stone-ground Ghost Stories. I could never have afforded it over here. You’d pale at the American prices for old British books! The stories struck me as quaintly amusing rather than horrific, but there is a lot more to them than meets the eye, though once more the compiler of Giddy’s failed to see much in them. There’s so much to the central protagonist’s character that could be further explored if some talented and enterprising fellow ever wished to add new episodes about the haunted vicar and his parish.

  But, enough of mere fictional ghosts. I was chilled to the bone by your recent experience with those two paintings you were restoring. If you wrote that one up as a “fictional” adventure you could certainly sell it to one of the fantasy magazines. They needn’t know it actually happened. But what a shame the paintings had ultimately to be covered up. Not that I blame you; still, I’d like to have seen the one of Death on my next trip abroad, and that won’t be possible now that it’s safely “preserved” under whitewash.

  Did my colleague Mrs. Byrne-Hurliphant bother you that much on her English journey? She can be a pest, certainly. Please forgive my giving her your address. Now, at least, you’ll know exactly what I’m on about!

  Yes, yes, I did promise to tell you what happened over Christmas if you’d tell me that horrid adventure with the paintings “Gravedigger” and “Death.” Well, a bargain is a bargain, so now I suppose I must. It’s much more terrible than any of the little accounts I’ve sent to Cyril for his antiquarian journal. So brace yourself, and remember—you asked.

  It was three weeks to Christmas. I planned holidays alone. All my friends would be off to other states to visit kin. And while Christmas is no big thing to me—growing up with both East European Jews and Southeast Asian Buddhists in one’s motley family helps to weaken the impact of Christian holidays—it can yet be gloomy and sad when one’s options are unexpectedly restricted. I can’t count a couple of pre-Christmas parties I would probably attend. The fact that people are so fantastically tedious makes the doing something as depressing than the not, so you can see I was just in no mood for anything.

  I’d finished some early grocery shopping and was coming up the backstairs out of a bleak afternoon rain, two bags squashed in my arms, when I heard the phone ringing. You just know when you hurry, things take longer. I dropped the keys. Then I tried the wrong key. Then I tried the right key upside down. By the time I’d tossed the torn bags and their content across the kitchen table and grabbed the receiver, all I heard was a faint “click.” Surprising how discouraging that click can be at times.

  But before I’d put all the groceries away and pulled together the majority of the bulk beans I’d scattered, the phone rang again.

  It was the feeblest voice I had ever heard.

  “Miss Pettiweather?”

  “Absolutely,” I replied, affecting the prim and the resolute.

  “I beg your pardon?” said the faint, elderly voice of a woman who must have been a hundred and fifty-eight if her age matched such a sad, rasping, tired timbre.

  “Yes, this is Miss Pettiweather,” I said, donning a more conservative aspect.

  “I read your article in the Seattle Times,” said the cracked old voice. “The one about the haunted houses.”

  I winced. It hadn’t been an article but an interview. And while the reporter tried her best to be straight-faced about it, it was so garbled and misquoted that even I had to wonder if the interviewee weren’t a lunatic.

  “Did you?” I said affably.

  The feeble voice said, “If it happens to me again, I don’t think I can make it.”

  It seemed she was on the verge of tears.

  “What’s happened?” I asked, worried that some wretched woman was truly in need of my special talents, but so old it would be difficult for her to communicate her problem. “Who am I speaking to?”

  “Gretta Adamson,” she said. “My heart isn’t as good as it was. If he does it again, I’ll die. I tried to tell the doctor but he said not to excite myself. He doesn’t believe me. Do you believe me, Miss Pettiweather? Won’t anyone believe me?”

  “Oh I can believe just about anything; but I don’t know anything about it as yet, Miss—Misses?”
<
br />   “I’m widowed.”

  “Mrs. Adamson. You haven’t told me . . .”

  “It’s Jeremiah,” she said. “He comes back.”

  “Is it bad?” I asked. That was the simplest way I could put the question. And she answered even more simply.

  “It’s terrible.”

  Then very quietly, very sadly, she added: “Every Christmas. But . . . but . . .” She broke down at that point and could barely finish: “He isn’t the same.”

  She lived alone in a small, run-down house in a run-down part of the city. The house hadn’t been repainted in a full generation, for even curls and flakes had long since come loose and disappeared, so that the whole grey structure looked as though it had never been painted at all. Most of the windows were cracked; some of the cracks were taped; and a few small panes had been replaced with wood or plastic.

  The lawn was a miniature meadow for inner city field mice. A wooden fence set her small property apart from the surrounding houses and cheap low-rise apartment buildings. The fence was falling down in places. The front gate was held closed with a length of rope, which had been woven about in a curious manner, as though the inhabitant beyond had a secret method no one else could duplicate, thereby making it possible to tell whenever someone had tinkered with it. I retied the gate in a much simpler manner, then strode a broken stone walkway between the two halves of her little meadow of frozen, brittle grass.

  When Mrs. Adamson opened the door, her white, creased face looked up at me from so far down, it made me feel like I was a giant. In her gaze was a world of pitiful hope, worry, and despair. Her head was cocked completely on its side, resting on a shoulder in a spectacularly unnatural posture.