The Chapel

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Book excerpt

Chapter One

Cornwall, 1970

Before the day she was taken, Lindie Parker had known true fear just twice in her young life. The first time had been around ten years ago, at the age of six. Lindie’s mother had taken her to Plymouth shopping as a pre-Christmas treat, but it'd been busy, and Lindie, being a 'foolish child,' as her mother had called her when she’d finally been reunited with her distraught daughter, stopped to admire a pretty pink dolly in Woolworths’ Christmas display window. By the time she’d moved away from the momentary dream of unwrapping the cherubic-looking doll, with its pink dress and patent shoes on Christmas morning, she’d lost her mother in the crowd. Until her taking, Lindie had never felt so alone, with a true fear that she’d never see her parents again.

After what seemed like an age of frantically looking up at strangers’ faces with tears streaking her reddened cheeks, a kind looking policeman with a slightly bulbous and pockmarked nose had finally found her. Clutching his hand, the two of them covered the high street, soon finding Lindie’s mother shouting her lost daughter’s name in a panic outside of Boots the Chemist. In all, and on that occasion, Lindie had been separated from her mother for just fifteen minutes, but at age six, fifteen minutes of anguish can feel as long as the longest of days. Little did she know then that her brief fifteen-minute separation was not even a dress rehearsal for the hell she’d have to endure a decade later.

The second time Lindie Parker had known genuine fear was six years ago, at the age of ten. Helen Bower, her best friend in school, but the kind of girl her mother had said, 'You really shouldn’t hang around with,' bet her a Curly Wurly chocolate bar that she couldn’t ride her smart pink and white Schwinn Spitfire down a ridiculously steep slope at the Carvear Clay Quarry. It was a risky move on a few counts, for one if she did fall off and get injured, she knew there was a whole mighty heap of trouble waiting for her as the quarry was further away from home than she was allowed to wander. Not to mention the fact that they were not allowed to be in there in the first place. Trespassing was not befitting of a well-behaved young lady. However, as it'd been a Sunday the chance of getting caught was low, the temptation of the thrill, high. The quarry was a regular hangout on such days for risk-loving local kids, but on that sunny afternoon the two girls had been its only visitors, the other local youths who hung out there, mainly boys, were likely in the woods engaged in a full out game of war, using fallen ash and oak branches as imaginary guns. Miraculously no one had ever been seriously injured during those foolhardy stunts at the quarry, or worse, killed, which was surprising as Lindie had seen some mind-blowingly stupid stunts pulled by more than a few of the local kids.

Secondly, her bike might get wrecked. The Schwinn had been a present for her tenth birthday. Lindie’s father, who worked as a merchant seaman, had brought it back all the way from America, and it was by far the smartest bike any girl owned at Lindie’s school. It was her pride and joy. She couldn’t help but grin like a maniac at the feeling as she sped through the village, the streamers on the end of each handlebar strung out behind her in the breeze. If you’d asked Lindie what that specific feeling was, she’d have told you, freedom!

Lindie did not want to wreck her bike, but she liked Curly Wurlys and more importantly, she didn’t want Helen Bower to tell the other girls at school on Monday that she’d been a scaredy-cat, or worse a chicken-shit. So, with her heart in her mouth, Lindie struggled her beloved Spitfire to the top of the slope and made the run. Almost at the bottom and starting to think she’d bagged that Curly Wurly from Helen, her front wheel found a deep rut in the slope and the trusty Schwinn Spitfire had launched her over the chromed handlebars. Apart from a shredded tyre, and a slightly buckled wheel that Mr. Johnson at the local bike shop had fixed by adjusting her spokes, the bike survived unscathed. Lindie, on the other hand, was not quite so fortunate, and as it turned out was not quite as crash-proof as her Spitfire.

After a few blank moments of unconsciousness, she’d awoke to the tear-filled face of Helen Bower who’d proclaimed in relief, 'Fucksticks, Lind - I thought you were dead.' Bar once overhearing her father curse when he’d hit his hand with a hammer fixing the old wooden bench in the back garden it was the first time Lindie had directly heard anyone use the F-word. She had no idea what fucksticks meant, but she was pretty sure that it was not the kind of word her mother would approve of, and likely one of the reasons why Helen Bower was not the kind of girl she should be hanging around with.

The little stunt in the quarry had earned her an overnight stay in Plymouth’s Greenbank Hospital, being observed for a potential head injury, then on release a further three weeks of home detention. To add insult to injury, Lindie’s eye had also been stitched up, leaving a thin scar, that even to this day resembled a half-cocked smile just above her right eye, just below the brow line.

However, those two instances had been dwarfed by the fear she’d felt on the day of her taking, and the fear that had lived with her every hour of every day since. That fear was different, it was pure, total and absolute.

The day they’d taken her, Lindie’s father had been home on shore leave, and her mother, keen for them to have some quality family time together, suggested they take an afternoon trip to Charlestown. Lindie liked Charlestown, it featured a small harbour that as a young child her grandfather had taken her and her older sister fishing in. Often not catching much they’d await the ramshackle fishing boats on the quayside all scoffing toffees from the local sweet shop held in a crumpled brown paper bag. Once the tatty looking boats were docked, they’d purchase some mackerel off the sun-drenched fisherman, taking them home for her gran to gut and behead. Her grandfather never let on where the fish had come from, always letting one of the girls claim the glory of the catch. In all likelihood her gran had known, it was just one of those little things you let kids believe, like Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy.

After a delicious fresh fish supper, her gran had always served up lashings of her self-proclaimed famous apple and cinnamon pie for dessert. The pie was always doused in a plentiful heap of clotted cream, acquired from Mrs. Hitchen, whose family ran the local farm and creamery in the next village.

Adjoining the small harbour, which held the fond childhood memories, was a beach that in the summer months saw many of the local children running and screaming in delight, kicking up water and drenching each other.

That day, not long after arriving in Charlestown, and having wandered the cobbled streets, Lindie’s parents stopped into one of the pubs for a drink. Not quite yet being old enough to enjoy the benefits of the bar, or the array of delicious local ales and ciders that her father was a big fan of, Lindie had chosen to take a walk to the harbour and beach. It was early September and the weather had still been on the right side of warm. So, with the promise that she’d only be ten minutes, and that she’d be back for a lemonade, Lindie set off on her own. Reaching the shore Lindie had kicked her black Slingbacks off, collected them up in her hand and walked the length of the beach, enjoying the feel of the cool stones on her feet, and the summer-long warmed water as it swelled around her ankles. She had been wearing her favourite yellow and black striped dress that day. Her mother, far from being an authority on the fashion of teen girls, had told her she looked like a bumblebee in it, and that girls blessed with bright red hair should not be seen in such colours. Being fifteen and stubborn, naturally, Lindie took no notice of this opinion and wore it every chance she got. Her once favourite dress was now lost forever, back at the Bad Place, on the floor of the room that had been her hell since the day of her taking, and she had no intention of going back there just to get it. Besides the dress was pretty much ruined, she couldn’t remember how long she’d worn it before they’d given her fresh clothes. In fact, it was fair to say that she hated the bumblebee dress now, it served as a constant reminder of that day. Lindie decided that if she never saw the dress again, she’d be the happiest girl alive. She did wish she had a pair of shoes, though. For some reason, and one Lindie never figured out, her Slingbacks had been missing when she’d awoken in her cell-like room, face down on the lumpy, dirt-stained mattress that served as the cell's only furnishing from the day she arrived until this day, the day of her escape. Since then she’d been barefooted almost all of the time, save for during the coldest months when they’d given her a pair of white ankle socks that were a little on the small side and sported some old, dry splatters of blood. Lindie didn’t like to think of where the blood or the socks had come from, some things were better left unimagined.

That fateful sunny September afternoon in Charlestown the shoreline and harbour area had been quieter than normal. Walking back along the beach, her feet jostling the countless small stones and lost in a brief thought of Nigel Banks, the boy at Lindie’s school who she, (and a good portion of the other girls), held a big crush on. Lindie hadn’t noticed the two people making their way toward her, they’d just registered in her peripheral vision as they’d passed her by. Just two regular people enjoying the last of the summer sun before the colder months crept in. Thanks to the sound of her own feet on the shingle, and the occasional breaker that broiled its way onto the stones with a relaxing shhwoosshhh sound, coupled with the fact she was preoccupied with her own thoughts, Lindie had not been aware that having passed her they’d stopped, turned and began to follow her, gaining ground with every step. She didn’t feel them grab her, she was simply on the beach one minute, and the next she was in the Bad Place, laid in the foetal position on that horrible mattress in the room that was to be her cell, no - her hell for many months to come. Her favourite dress had been splattered with blood on the right shoulder, more blood matted her red hair to the side of her head, just above the ear, which explained why she’d had the fiercest headache she’d ever experienced.

Lindie’s memory of that day was still clear in her mind, although she had no real idea of exactly how long ago it had been since that sunny September day, the last time she’d seen her parents. Hunkering her small body down against the trunk of a fallen tree, adrenaline trying it’s hardest to mask the stabbing pain that throbbed at the soles of her bare feet, she cradled her baby into her chest, the infant girl nuzzled into its mother, grizzling slightly.

“Shhhhh, baby,” Lindie said softly, trying to hide the sobbing sound in her own voice, whilst doing her best to get her breath back. She’d heard the bad people pursuing her, their feet snapping twigs and crunching on fallen leaves as they came for her, but for the last few minutes the sounds of them had faded and she wondered if they’d given up the chase.

Cowering by the log Lindie looked up at the dark, ominous and towering trees. Above the looming canopy, she could see the first tendrils of dawn threading their orange light through the night sky. Lindie knew she would have to move soon, but if she hadn’t stopped, she feared she would have passed out. Months of being locked in a room had not left her in the best physical shape. Her lungs were burning with every breath, and her little-used legs felt like jelly. Gently she pulled aside the grubby swaddling blanket and kissed the top of her baby’s head, enjoying the comforting warmth of her body heat and the wispy feeling of the child’s light strawberry blonde hair on her lips.

Lindie had only been a mummy for just over a week, and her insides and private areas, as her mother called them, still hurt fiercely from the birth, another thing that was hampering her bid for freedom. However, she felt a natural and overwhelming maternal instinct to protect her daughter from the Bad Place. Despite being a bit naive at times, Lindie Parker was not a stupid girl, she knew that her baby daughter had been put in her belly by the bad men during their strange and torturous ceremonies. Her mother, whom she missed dearly, despite her slightly out of date view on the world, had been quite conservative and had not yet broached the sensitive subject of the birds and the bees with her daughter, but Helen Bower had. Helen had told her all about how babies got into a girl’s belly when they’d been twelve and sat chatting one lunchtime at the back of the school field.

Helen had delighted in telling her how her older sister, Sharon, just eighteen at the time, had once had a baby put in her belly by a local boy named Paul Fletcher, and that their father had taken a fist to her sister’s belly and gotten rid of the child before it had time to become a proper person. He’d then hunted Paul down and beaten him too, and that’s why her dad was spending some time at what their mother called her majesty’s pleasure in Dartmoor prison. Likely another reason why Helen was not the kind of girl she should be hanging around with.

Lindie had found the very notion of child conception disgusting and made herself a promise that she would never let any boy do that to her. A promise that just under three years later she’d had no chance of keeping when they’d taken her innocence during the hellish ceremony. Her promise aside, as soon as she’d seen her daughter, she’d loved her unconditionally, despite the evil seed that she’d spawned from, and had no intention of letting those monsters get their hands on her.

Not long after that day, the day when they’d planted their seed into her, she’d been made to watch a ceremony. Lindie soon learned that it was no easier being a spectator, in fact watching the torturous acts of those monsters was just as harrowing as being the subject. In the early days, not long after her taking from the beach in Charlestown, Lindie would fight when they came to take her, but gradually and bit by bit they had broken her spirit. Eventually, she learned that fighting just delayed the inevitable and often landed her with a blackened eye, or a bloodied nose. At first, when Lindie could still keep track of the time she’d been away it would be a blow to the tummy, hard and harsh enough to leave her doubled over, eyes streaming with tears and her lungs on fire, fighting for every breath. But around the time every day seemed to merge into one, and time seemed to dissolve into one long living nightmare, they left her belly alone. They still hurt her, both physically and mentally, and done things to her that a girl of her age had no business being involved in, but at least the blows to the belly had stopped.

The day she’d played witness to the horrors the Minister came to her room, and as always, he'd knocked three times. Lindie never invited him in, but he always entered, nonetheless. Fearing she was going to be the subject of another hellish night at the hands of the bad men she drew her legs up to her chest, tight against her swelling tummy and hugged herself, wishing she could shrink into the walls themselves to escape the horror.

'Come, child,' the Minister had said, in his soft, almost gentle patter as he entered the room. He always spoke that way, softly and with the tone of a kind man. However, he was anything but kind, he was evil, and that night in the epileptic flickering lights of the Ceremony Room’s many oil lamps she’d caught her first real glimpse of the monster he really was. 'You have nothing to fear, for today you will learn of your purpose here at The Chapel. You are truly blessed, child!' he’d encouraged, smiling as he stalked slowly through her cell, his long dark velvet robe flowing behind him like that of a monk. His silver, grey hair was slicked neatly back on his head and his fierce blue eyes seemed to burn into her soul.

The false smile still dressing his smooth lips the Minister had taken Lindie by the hand and lead her to the Ceremony Room. She didn’t fight it, like the coming of the night, it was inevitable, and besides she didn’t want another bloodied nose.

There she had been handed over to the eager congregation, all of them wore faceless masks of porcelain. The participants then bound her to a high-backed chair, using a rope that felt soft against her skin, yet hurt from how securely it held her. Next, a woman, only recognisable as such as the female robes differed slightly to that of the male version by how they dropped lower at the bust, grabbed her head and held it firmly in place, while another strapped it to the back of the chair with a leather strap, fixing her gaze at the twin altars at the centre of the room, one of which had played host to her many a time.

Transfixed she watched in horror as within this pit of serpents the last of her innocents and spirit ebbed away, for here, in the Bad Place, there was no hope, this was where evil and darkness dwelt.

Behind the Minister, who clutched a bundle of something in his hands as he approached the altar, and the one they called the High Priestess who chanted spells of both Latin and English in a flat monotone voice, walked a girl with the most strikingly beautiful long blonde hair that’s she’d ever seen. She was around Lindie’s age, eighteen at most. It was hard to tell, her face was streaked with tears, her hauntingly beautiful grey eyes were red and puffy. She wore what looked like a white nightie, it appeared to be made of silk and dropped to her ankles where the intricate lace of the hemline was dirtied and torn as if she’d been outside.

As they led her toward the altar, she’d watched mesmerised as the girl’s gown flowed and shimmered in the dancing light of the lamps. It was the first time that Lindie grasped the terrible knowledge that she was not the only prisoner at the Bad Place. When she thought about it, there had been nights, many cold and lonely nights in her hell-cell when she’d thought she’d heard distant sobbing, but she’d discounted it as if the sound were that of her own desperation reverberating through her mind. Now she knew she’d been wrong.

Transfixed by how the girl’s pretty hair glistened in the light, Lindie had taken a few seconds to register exactly what it was that the Minister held in his hands. With abhorrence, she’d eventually caught the sight of the baby’s angelic looking face as it wriggled and writhed in its robes, and then through the High Priestess’ chanting, she’d heard it grizzle. Not wanting to watch, but at the same time for some morbid reason not being able to close her eyes, Lindie looked on as mother and child were laid down next to each other, the mother on one altar and the child on the other.

Distraught, the blonde girl had reached fruitlessly for her infant, only to have the Minister grab her wrists and bind them to the iron manacles set deeply into the altar’s stone. The child, who Lindie had now seen to be a baby boy, was laid on a velvety looking black sheet, naked and squirming around, his chubby little legs bicycling the air above his tiny body.

The congregation, who had been silent, but held a palpable feeling of excitement now joined in with the chanting of the High Priestess, as if the particular spell of horror she was on was a party favourite that needed singing along to. Eyes wide, Lindie watched the Minister raise a jewel-encrusted golden dagger high above the squirming child, that now as if it could sense the imminent danger began to squawk uncontrollably. The girl, thankfully unable to see the horrific events unfolding next to her, due to her head being held in place much like Lindie’s, just in a horizontal position, begged for them to stop. As the dagger reached the highest point in its arc, and the chanting reached fever pitch, Lindie saw something that at first, she thought had to be a trick of the flickering candlelight. The Minister’s face seemed to change, his features moulded into one flesh coloured mound that flickered between obscurity and human, like the way the picture would sometimes roll on the old TV set in Lindie’s lounge when the signal was bad. Before she could get a clear look at the illusion through her tear-filled eyes his face was normal again, and it left her wondering if her tortured mind had imagined the horrific image.

Book Details

AUTHOR NAME: S.T. Boston

BOOK TITLE: The Chapel

GENRE: Horror

SUBGENRE: British Horror / Haunted House Horror

PAGE COUNT: 618

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