01 The Chalk Man by C J Tudor

Author:C J Tudor
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Thrillers, Psychological, Horror, Suspense, Fiction
ISBN: 9780593359013
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2021-05-24T23:00:00+00:00

1986

As well as cleaning houses for people, Hoppo’s mum also cleaned the primary school, the vicarage and the church.

That’s how we found out about Reverend Martin.

Gwen Hopkins arrived at St. Thomas’s as usual on Sunday morning at 6:30 a.m., to mop, dust and polish before the first service at 9:30 a.m. (I guess Sunday rest didn’t apply to those doing the reverend’s work.) The clocks hadn’t gone back, so it was still pretty dark as she walked up to the big oak doors, took out the key she kept on a rack in her kitchen and inserted it into the lock.

All the keys to the places she cleaned hung on that rack, with the addresses of the owners on. Not very secure, or clever, especially as Hoppo’s mum smoked, so she would often linger outside the back door at night and sometimes forget to lock it again.

That morning, she would later tell the police (and the newspapers), she noticed that the keys to the church were on the wrong peg. She didn’t think much of it, nor the fact that the back door was unlocked, because, as she said, she was a bit forgetful, but she did usually put the keys on the right pegs. The problem was, everyone knew exactly where she kept them. A miracle, really, someone hadn’t used them for stealing stuff before.

All you would have to do was sneak in, take a key and then let yourself into someone’s house when you knew they were out. Maybe you’d just take a small thing they wouldn’t notice, like a tiny ornament, or a pen from a drawer. Something that wasn’t valuable and they would probably think they had misplaced. Maybe that’s what you’d do. If you were the sort of person who likes to take things.

The first clue that something was amiss was when Gwen found the church door unlocked. But she dismissed it. Maybe the reverend was already in. Sometimes he woke early and she would find him in the church, running through his sermons. It wasn’t until she let herself into the nave that she realized something was wrong. Very wrong.

The church wasn’t dark enough.

Normally, the pews and the pulpit at the end of the nave were solid, black shadows. This morning they glimmered, with tracings of white.

Perhaps she hesitated. Perhaps the hairs on the back of her neck shivered a little. One of those faint trembles of fear you put down to your imagination playing tricks on you but, actually, the real trick is fooling yourself that everything is all right.

Gwen traced a faint cross over her chest then fumbled for the light switch near the door and flicked it on. The lights along the sides of the church—old, some broken, in need of refitting—buzzed and spluttered into life.

Gwen screamed. The inside of the church was covered in drawings. On the stone floor, the wooden pews and the pulpit. Everywhere she looked. Dozens and dozens of white stick figures drawn in chalk. Some dancing, some waving.

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