Awakening by S. J. Bolton

Author:S. J. Bolton [Bolton, S. J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Mystery, Thriller, Suspense, Horror
ISBN: 9781250037916
Google: S7ols7koLy0C
Amazon: 0312381875
Barnesnoble: 0312381875
Goodreads: 4835296
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2007-02-21T06:00:00+00:00

29

A few hours later I was back in the graveyard.

If Ulfred was here I hadn’t found him yet. I’d started in the oldest corner and worked my way towards the group behind the elder bushes. I walked in straight lines, crossing and recrossing the churchyard, checking the names on each stone as I passed. I found a couple of Witchers – male and female – but they’d died too long ago to be directly connected to Walter and his brothers.

The wind had been increasing in strength for most of the day and the trees that circled the perimeter of the churchyard were swaying deeply. Their dark branches, heavy with spring leaves, were blocking light from the moon, causing weird and constantly changing shadows to dart across the ground, like tiny creatures scurrying among the stones. I had to steel myself not to shudder, to tell myself it was only the brush of long grass I could feel around my ankles.

After half an hour of searching, I had to switch on a small torch to see names carved on the stones. After an hour, I was as certain as I could be that Ulfred was not resting in peace in this particular plot of holy ground.

I didn’t relish the thought, but knew I had to check inside the church for some sort of memorial stone. If Ulfred’s body had never been recovered, then a stone plaque in the church might be the only record remaining.

I walked back thorough the stones and arrived at the front door of the church. The one remaining door was slamming furiously against its casing. I stepped inside.

* * *

Was this really a house of God I’d just entered? Standing at the back of the nave, with the dark walls soaring high above me, watching the clouds race across the sky where parts of the ceiling had fallen in, I doubted it had ever felt like a place of peace. Now, so many years after worship had ceased, it seemed a place of old, bad memories and dark secrets.

And so much larger than its outer shell had led me to expect. The stone archways stretched up, just about supporting the blackened, fire-eaten ceiling beams. Ahead of me, lining up in the nave like the remains of a long-forgotten army, the charcoal-black pews stood empty and crumbling.

Inside the church walls, there was nothing to protect me from the foul stench of the bat colony, and the combination of rotting flesh and faeces was sickening. The wind howled, bats screamed and dry leaves hissed and rattled.

I hadn’t wanted to dwell on what Violet had told me, but in the place where much of it had happened, it was impossible not to. Looking ahead, to where the chancel rails separated the altar from the rest of the church, it was as though Ulfred were still there: tethered, weak with hunger, bewildered and terrified. I could almost see the congregation gathered around him, praying for the release of his soul, the minister muttering the age-old incantations of the exorcism.

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