Flaming Retribution
One summer evening I was in our kitchen on the second floor of the building washing the supper dishes. I felt the balmy air waft in through the open window as Allison, my partner, watched television in the living-room. Shadows stretched with the sun slowly dropping out of the sky. Above the steady drone of the traffic I could hear someone shouting. I looked out the window from the shadows of the room. A rough-looking guy in his late twenties was bawling and pointing at the building where we stayed.
“You generation of vipers!” He screamed. “We're coming for you.”
I stepped back as he appeared to be staring at me. For a moment I was shocked, then my ego kicked in: I would get the bastard for shouting at me that way.
In the living-room Allison lay on the settee as I strolled in and shook my head. “There was a rough-looking guy walking along the other side of the street a minute ago. He was shouting and pointing up at us.”
“Oh, never mind... just some druggie or a guy had too much to drink,” she said grabbing the remote control.
“Hmm... didn't sound like that.”
Out of the dark a flaming head approached me and then hovered several feet away from my face. Although the flames looked intense. I couldn't feel any heat nor see any damage to the head. “You and your kind are not fit to live in the lord’s house,” it said in a deep growling voice.
I began to panic and search for a way to escape, but the darkness was complete.
“I saw you hiding back from the window!”
I recognised the facial features behind the flames: the angry guy in the street. I woke up and wiped beads of sweat from my forehead. Next to me Allison slept peacefully. Staring into the darkness I began to doubt what was happening.
A few days later I crossed over the High Street and headed for home. As I walked past several shops a figure appeared from a chemist and walked past me. I was a few steps away when I turned; it was the angry guy from outside my window and my nightmare. I ran back and tapped him on the shoulder.
“Eh!” He uttered, turning back. “What do you want mate?”
I gazed at him. “You're the guy who shouted up at my window the other day.”
“I don't know what you're talking about,” he said turning to continue his journey.
“Along at Abbey Court!”
“Nah, wasn't me,” he shouted over his shoulder.
I stood for a while thinking he was lying, but his demeanour said otherwise.
Weeks later I was reading through a website on the local abbey, now in ruins, when I came across a section on local buildings. The converted building we lived in near the abbey was used originally as monk's accomodation when the population grew. With the eventual ruin of the main building several buildings were either demolished or converted into apartments.
Shaken out of my slumber I was pulled up horizontally out of my bed to four feet above a sleeping Allison where my body hovered. I tried to shout to her for help, but I couldn't utter a word. Struggling was useless as I was being held by a powerful force. Two small crimson orbs like the pointed ends of red-hot pokers approached me from the dark as I began to spin horizontally.
The guy from the street came into view and watched with red eyes as I spun above my bed.
“I told you I was coming for you,” he said in an other-worldly voice.
“Why me!” I howled.
Allison slept on as the spinning stopped and I was lowered feet first to the floor in front of the demonic figure.
I was brought here by the monks as a soul gatherer... an unclean soul gatherer,” he growled.
My mind was still spinning. “A what?”
He screamed and his facial features changed. I looked at Allison, who kept on sleeping.“Okay, okay... look, I don't understand!”
He kept on talking with the same voice although having a different face: “The monks needed somewhere to send the bad spirits cleansed from locally possessed people. I was tempted to the abbey by the promise of salvation and straight entry into heaven. Remember we're talking of the 1200's... the Abbot was, we thought, the closest man we had to God.
“And what happened?”
“I was tricked by them. I have been walking this plane and others, what you would call undead, for centuries!”
“Shit!”
His face changed into the features of a woman.
“What has this got to do with me?” I asked.
He let out a growl. “You... my dear sir, are the reincarnation of the Abbot!”
I stepped back unable to believe what I had just heard. If this was a nightmare; I had to wake up. If this was real; I had to fall asleep.
“Oh it's real alright,” growled the possessed man reading the quizzical look on my face.
The next morning I stood in the kitchen staring out of the window at heavy rain being blown in off the North Sea. Allison prepared her breakfast. “What's wrong with you?” She asked then stared out of the window. “Apart from the weather I mean.”
“That guy I told you about. You know... that was shouting up at the window.”
“Yes.”
“Well, it's become a bit more weird than that!”
“Like?”
I went on to tell her what happened the previous night.
The microwave pinged annoucing it had finished cooking her porridge. “So, basically, this guy has been walking around for hundreds of years with a load of bad spirits for company, and you're the reincarnation of the abbot who was to blame?”
“Well... yes!”
“Make a good horror movie,” she laughed.
“It's not funny!”
“Oh, come on. You've been watching too many scary programmes,” she said while opening the microwave.
After supping some porridge Allison nodded her head. “If you are concerned, have a word with Gem; she'll help you.”
Of course, I thought, why didn't I think of that: Gemma was the local Spiritualist and Medium.
A few days later I was sitting at a table in the Abbot's House which I had persuaded the Abbey Supervisor, a friend of mine, to let us use for evening. The possessed man sat opposite me. I had persuaded him to come after a few drinks at a local hostelry.
Gem buzzed around lighting incense and placing things on the table. The sun-light had dissappeared from outside the lead-laced glass windows and darkness crept around the poorly-lit room.
“Okay, let's begin,” announced Gem as she sat at the table. “Please close your eyes and concentrate.”
I closed my eyes to the humming of the Medium and the powerful odour of incense. When I opened them again the man's facial features had changed, and the ancient room was much colder and darker. Shadows moved around the walls.
“Come out of this man's body and give him peace. You will move to the light!” Gem commanded.
There was a howl and the man's face changed again. This happened several times until a changed face shouted: “Stop!” Then he pointed at me. “You are to blame for this!”
I felt my voice start... not under my control. “You lie! How dare you accuse me: the Abbot.”
“You lived well off the proceeds of the abbey fields and the sale of merchandise, while we the local people starved.”
An anger grew in me that I could do nothing about. “Away with you... you unclean spirit!”
The possessed man stood and put a fist on each hip. “I will not go. Anyone who spake against you was a bad spirit and was locked away until a witch, under your pay, be found to rob them of their spirit.”
Suddenly flames erupted in a corner and spread across the room burning up the darkness.
“Burn now as you burned our spiritless bodies!” Screamed the man.
I grabbed Gem and shook her out of reverie. We ran to the door, but it was locked. I looked around; the flames were spreading everywhere. The possessed man screamed, and moved toward us engulfed in flame. “You must burn,” he growled. Suddenly the door opened, and we ran out closing the door behind us. With regret I held it shut. The alarm erupted and we heard the sprinkler system douse the inside of the building. Then we heard a body hit the door and slump to the floor.
Gem turned to me. “It's okay now. All the spirits have returned to the light. Including the Abbot.
The next morning I awoke to the ringing of the house phone. I stumbled out of bed and answered.
“It's George here at the abbey.”
Shit! I thought. I'm going to get the third degree. “Hi mate.”
“How'd you get on last night?”
“Fine.” I answered with knitted eyebrows.
“Listen mate, I just need the keys to the Abbot's House back, their spares, but I need them ASAP. And... you owe me a pint.”
“Sure, I'll drop them off later this morning.”
I did'nt understand. Why did'nt he notice the fire damage and the water? What about the guy's body?
Later that day when George opened the door to the Abbot's House I could not believe what I saw: nothing! I breathed a sigh of relief and turned to him. “Okay, lets go and get that pint.”