The Church
he glass shattered opening the way to a dark refuge. She crawled through the small window and dropped painfully to the stone a metre and a half below. She lay there for a moment the cool stone soothing her charred body. Summoning her strength she pushed herself to her feet, she couldn't rest yet she wasn't safe. Reaching back through the window she hauled the machine into the cellar. Placing it carefully on the ground in the corner, she crouched in front of it and began the process of setting it up.
Her work involved such attention to detail that she didn't hear the hesitant steps moving across the floor above. Fitting the final transmitter rod in place she activated the machine. A hum, felt rather than heard, emanated from the machine as the power level built. Energy radiated from it in ever increasing waves. It's lights cast a ruddy luminescence around the cellar It wouldn't be long before the machine reached maximum output, then she would be safe. With a sigh she lowered herself to the floor, the cool stones providing a limited comfort for her burns.
A flickering pool of yellow light encircled the head of the stairs as the cellar door creaked open. A man clothed in a dressing gown entered the doorway. He held an oil lamp in one hand and a pitchfork in the other. The prongs of the fork encrusted with garden soil from the days work. With a fear stricken face he began to descend the stairs. "Dear God. May the Lord preserve my soul," he cried at what the lamp had illuminated. He hurled the fork in abject terror. It struck, its lethal intent realised.
An inarticulate cry roused her to alertness from her torpor on the flagstone floor. Pain, worse than anything she had experienced in the crash, lanced through her thorax. Her body conditioned by military training reacted without thought. Her arm snapped out towards her assailant. Ten fingers of ruby light shot from her weapon, catching the man in the forehead, above the bridge of the nose. The lasers burnt through the skull in milliseconds then commenced vaporising the brain. The man opened his mouth to scream, but collapsed back on the stairs dead, before uttering a sound.
Grabbing the fork by the shaft she wrenched the prongs, with a screech of metal on chitin, from her body and tossed it away. Holding her thorax she levered herself into a sitting position against the wall. If she could stem the flow from her punctures and if a rescue team arrived quickly she would survive.
Michael didn't believe the tale told by the locals about the church being possessed and causing insanity. They were just superstitious. During his research on the church he had found an old article about the church's priest who disappeared in 1835 the same time the church was abandoned, on the very eve of its tenth anniversary. This must have been the source of the possession rumour. Half a kilometre before the church the road became impassable. A four wheel drive may have been able to make it further but Michaels little car had no hope. Michael turned the car around before he turned the engine off. 'It's not that I'll need to make a fast get-away,' he told himself, 'I'm just saving time later.'
The road curved away from where he'd parked the car and sloped down into a small valley. From the top of the rise Michael could just see the church huddled in a small clearing at the bottom of the valley. 'Perhaps the locals aren't just superstitious,' he thought, the place didn't feel right. The church seemed to be tying to repel him, as if it didn't want to be disturbed. Shaking off the feeling of foreboding Michael headed down the track towards the church.
The closer he approached the church the worse the road became, until it disappeared altogether. It vanished from beneath his feet without notice as he was intent on the trees. Michael was sure it wasn't his imagination, there was something sinister about the trees. The way they leaned in, like predators about to pounce, blocking out the light, closing in, confining. Their branches reaching out. A root clawed at his foot, he stumbled. Mocking laughter rustled through the leaves on a breeze. Heart beating wildly he raced towards the scant security offered by the clearing around the church.
On reaching the churchyard Michael paused to catch his breath. 'What's wrong with me,' he thought, 'they're only trees. They can't possibly harm me.' He looked back the way he'd come, the trees cool menace abated by the warm sun on his back.
A sudden creak echoed around the valley as the church made its presence felt. The warmth fled from the suns rays leaving the light as cold and sterile as fluorescents in a mortuary. Michael turned slowly to face the church. It loomed at him from the centre of the clearing. Its walls blackened with age. Daggers of glass hung in the shattered windows, the fangs of a leviathan. With each gust of wind its timbers groaned a banshee wail.
Michael stared at the building, knowing real fear for the first time in his life. 'Perhaps it wasn't such a good idea coming out here after all,' he thought, 'one man's rumoured to have lost his mind after entering here. Am I going to be next.'
Steeling himself Michael cried out to his surroundings, "I will not submit to fear. There is nothing to fear here. Trees cannot harm me and neither can a derelict building."
Having garnered his flagging spirits with his outburst he advanced on the church with resolute steps. The stairs leading up to the doors groaned their protest with every footfall. Michael reached the high arched doors and pushed. With a nerve rending squeal the door swung in. The movement stirred up apparitions of dust that cavorted in profane abandon in the light from the windows, thence returning to their shadows to glare malevolently at intruders. The interior of the church was ill-lit gloom, the shadows dancing with a life of their own. Spider-webs hung in a silken tapestry of death from the tattered remnants of decorations.
Michael entered the church cautiously, almost not daring to breathe, in case he disturbed something best left alone. His feet left clear prints in the dust on the floor, an incriminating trail, branding him as an intruder in forgotten lands. He crept along the centre aisle towards the pulpit, trying to stay in the light as much as possible. God knew what terrors waited in the dark of this God-less place.
The pulpit held the decayed remains of a bible. The word of God, forgotten and unattended, had become as corrupt as the building that housed it. Standing at the pulpit looking down at the crumbling remains Michael noticed the cellar door. The door stood open its hinges having fused together with rust. The dark soulless void reached out to caress his mind. The room swam in and out of focus as he stared at the door fighting to overcome the waves of terror he felt emanating from below. He gripped the edge of the pulpit to steady his weakened knees. The ancient stand unable to cope with his white knuckled grip relinquished a half metre length of River Red Gum. It came away in his hand its nails rusted through.
The short plank assuaged some of the instinctual fear coursing through Michaels veins. He was now armed with mans primeval weapon and it granted him a certain sense of security. Enough security to advance on the cellar and get to the bottom of the terrors inhabiting the church.
The dry planks of the cellar stairs squeaked abuse at their first use in a hundred and sixty years. The only light in the cellar came from a window, a small window, high on the wall. It provided very little illumination leaving most of the cellar floor shrouded in shadow.
Cautiously Michael descended the stairs, his club gripped tightly in both hands. His eyes so intent on locating anything lurking in the cellar he didn't watch the stairs. He lowered his foot to the next step and felt it roll forward. He glanced down and recoiled in horror, a cold fist encircling his heart, as the skull rocked back to its age old position. Its empty sockets glared accusingly at him for disturbing its unholy rest. Scattered on the next few steps down were the rest of the skeletons remains. The man, most likely the priest, had not died easily. The skull had holes burned into it, in the centre of the forehead. Ten small punctures arranged in two offset circles, one inside the other. The skull had fractured between these points forming a cracked and fatal pentagram.
Michael edged passed the gruesome bones, his shoulders rubbing against the rough stone wall, its solidity a reassuring pressure at his unguarded back. At the bottom of the stairs he paused, his eyes slowly adjusting to the oppressive gloom.
Beneath the window, a few dry leaves covering it, was a horrific sight, the remains of an enormous insect. The body had completely decayed leaving behind the exoskeleton. The head was a nightmare vision. Two large, dry and cracked compound eyes mounted on a triangular head equipped with vicious mandibles. It rested upon several plates of chitin all that remained of the creatures body. Its legs were now hollow tubes of animal plating. Its lifeless claws clutched an obscure metallic device, ten small crystals set in one end. The device had not survived the passage of time well. It had almost rusted to nothing. Michael approached the remains circumspectly. It was obvious that the creature was well and truly dead, but the sense of foreboding and terror that had been rising and falling in the church was still strong. He squatted by the chitin and gave it an irreverent nudge. The head rolled forward off the pile. Michael jumped back raising his club, afraid the creature was about to attack. The head came to rest at the foot of the pile, upside down. There was no further movement from the remains so Michael knelt to examine the head more closely. With his club he carefully turned the head so it was the right way up. He was wary of touching it. Its multifaceted eyes were as menacing in death as they would have been in life.
A sudden premonition a danger overtook him. He spun away from the husk and frantically scanned the cellar for any sign of approaching danger, his club waving about in front of him defensively. Nothing was evident, just an unaccountable feeling of panic. Michaels wave of panic was slowly receding when he saw the machine.
The machine lay against the wall in the far corner, the lights on it glowing faintly. He approached it cautiously, his makeshift club held out in front, a ward against possible attack. The lights would occasionally glow brighter, demon eyes flicking open to regard him with their baleful stare. Each flicker gave him palpitations almost causing him to lash out with his club. Michael tried to reason out his fear. It was only a small machine with flickering lights how could it harm him, but each new flicker sent a fresh wave of fear speeding through his body.
Fear almost overwhelming him Michael tentatively reached towards the machine with his club and poked it. He lept back raising the club, awaiting the machines response. With of soft click the lights went out and silence abruptly descended on the cellar. The background hum produced by the machine, only noticed by its absence.
Outside a kookaburra laughed, it's cackling breaking the tense silence. With a sigh Michael lowered his club and wondered what he had ever been afraid of. The cellar was fairly dark, but not so dark you were in danger of tripping. It had a dry musty smell of age, but nothing overly unpleasant. A pleasantly warm breeze wafted through the broken window.
Michael gingerly collected up the exoskeletal remains and gently placed them in a pile on top of the machine. He wanted to avoid as much damage to them as possible, they were unique. He carefully picked up the equally unique piece of alien technology and climbed out of the cellar, respectfully avoiding the priests mortal remains.
The church seemed to have undergone a transformation since he had entered the cellar. It was no longer an ill-lit crypt with unnatural beasts lurking in dark recesses. It was a melancholy tribute to the trials of early Australian settlement. The tattered decorations hanging from the balustrade, a reminder of a celebration that never happened. Just before leaving the churchyard Michael turned to look back at the building. It nestled in the middle of the clearing, the sun warming its ancient timbers. A forgotten relic of a bygone age. Its air of incipient doom replaced with a congenial peace.
The walk back to his car through the trees was enchanting. The trees were alive with the squawk of birds, the buzz of insects and the rustle of animals in the undergrowth. Michael began to understand why bushwalking was such a popular pastime. He began to whistle as he strode back to his car, his arms gently cradling his priceless burden.
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