Dreams Beneath The Witch Tree | CreepCast

Hi, I'm recording this for my house because I wanted to talk about something. The crew cast fans submitted stories are so frequent and there's so much content happening that it feels odd having it be all on a crew cast fan server. I feel like it should exist on its own storytelling server where even people who don't know the show could stumble upon it be like this is fucking sick and start writing stuff. Therefore we have made a new subreddit called Tales from the Creep where you can go upload your stuff there and then we will still be picking from those stories and reading them on the channel. But that way people in the crew cast server it can be memes, stuff about the fandom, all that kind of stuff. People complaining about the fandom and just kidding, that doesn't happen and we can have an area where you have stories here and you have memes and joky fun stuff here and you know all the other conversations that happens on the crew cast server. I think it's just going to help clean stuff up because I feel like the stories they're awesome but I miss all the fan art seeing fan art and missing all the memes and that kind of stuff. So I think separating them will be good for everybody and that way if you're really into reading the storytelling now there's no other memes and stuff getting in your way. If you're really in the memes now it's not being drowned out by a bunch of stories. That's what's happening, that's what it is. If you don't like it, don't know how to just tell you, just kidding, I'm just messing around. We like to joke here, am I right? Have fun writing, we'll see you there. Welcome back to Greek cast. Today we are reading another wonderful story by our good friend Nick Lowe who was the author of Daegon's Mirror and it's a story called The Dreams Beneath the Witch Tree. Yes, he did Daegon's Mirror which was really cool. I don't think he had a ton of attention before then but thanks to you all being so supportive. He has since made an Instagram account called Low Craft which like the name Low.Craft and of course he has his creepy pasta account which is just under his name Nick Lowe. He's got a bunch of other cool stories. We already read Daegon's Mirror but there's Daegon's Beacon and Daegon's Daughter so we did a series out of that. There's the Shambler in the attic, the House of Dead Gods and we really loved it the first time we checked it out. So why not check him out again? So of course as always thank you to Nick for writing such a cool story. Yes. Yeah, no I really enjoyed his last one, all the love crafty and goodies and stuff like that and I think one thing I really liked though was the dialogue, the characters I thought were extremely well written and I think especially the world that he set up and that like dilapidated wet moldy house. So I'm curious to see how this story fares as well and to see if it does it go in that similar direction again or does it kind of like take a new approach somehow? Yeah, I think I like the love craft stuff. It's hard to pull off, right? A lot of people try to pull it off and it comes off as dumb but Daegon's mirrors won't the only like true love crafty and things that I've seen other people try to emulate and do a good job at. Obviously there's good examples of it in other media but I'm specifically talking about like creepypasta online horror stories. Nick is one of the few to pull it off well, and I just want to take time to think people who are listening on Spotify or have a podcast right now. If you are listening over there, be sure to give us a nice rating or consider going over there and listening and also to all of our beautiful patrons who help up. Just keep this thing going and help get all the extra little goodies that come with it. So thank you so much. Isaiah, are you ready? I'm ready. By then, with that, let's get into it. That was arcasically coffin. It made me really cough. Okay. Nick Lowe, the dreams beneath the witch tree. Written below is the last known statement of Benjamin Harper, a former parish priest serving the village of Barton, Cheshire. Mr. Harper was relieved of his position by Bishop Gerald Ellison of the Chester diocese and taken here to Byron House, a home for the mentally disturbed, shortly after suffering in an acute episode of hysterical anxiety. There, he came under the direct care of one Dr. George Monroe, the head psychiatrist. Mr. Harper's growing insanity is believed to have been triggered by his inability to accept the loss of his close friend and predecessor, Stephen Adams. Following the death of his mentor, Mr. Harper suffered a rapid decline in both his sanity and his faith that ultimately led to his confinement. Mr. Harper's stay in Byron House was, however, brief, as he vanished from his cell not long after this statement was recorded. The unknown means he is thought to have overcome the security staff, brutally murdering one of the junior physicians, Dr. Howard Fleming, or making good his escape. The week's prior to his flight marks some of the most drastic alterations in his demeanor. The House staff would often report that Mr. Harper's mood would shift dramatically and without provocation, particularly during the nighttime hours. Some of the orderlies even refused to work with him, citing a disturbing smirk that would creep across his face, most often as precursor to his fluctuating moods. In the months that have passed since his disappearance, I've been able to directly confirm several of the less outlandish claims made in his statement. With the events described within, however, are simply too fantastical for me to officially stake my reputation on acknowledging. Others are woefully and worryingly repugnant in their authenticity. So his mentor died, and that led to like a mental breakdown, that then led him to killing the staff to break out. Is Byron House a thing? I feel like that's a love. It's probably a love draft reference. Those are to say it's already skewing so hard. This also has little remnants and hints of like this short story that Lovecraft did called From Beyond that I don't know if that's actually what the story was called, but it was adapted into like a Stewart Gordon movie in the 80s. It's my favorite Stewart Gordon film. It's like a really, really short story that he turns into a full-fledged film. But it kind of reminds me of that of like two scientists doing something. One of them dies. One of them goes crazy and kind of like goes on not necessarily killing spree, but like, you know, it has drastically changed. He has seen unknown forces, just very, yeah, very big fun actions. Yeah. Okay, so looking up Byron House, it seems I was wrong. There's a guitarist named Byron House, but I don't think that's the one I was thinking of Arkham House, which was the publishing company that was Lovecraft's thing. Yeah, Arkham, Arkham for sure, but I thought I was on to something. I was just making it up. I lied. As little doubt that Barton is a strange place. Stranger still is the unsettling grip that it has upon some of the village's residents. There's a tangible miasma of superstition and fear that lurks over the village like a blanket of fog. Outsiders may very well scoff at those who put stock in old tales of witches and werewolves, but to many residents of the village, there's a little distinction between reality and folklore. I cannot deny that I, despite being a man of science, find the strange history of Barton's seductive and even nourishing, as it is for all those who harbor a secret and inescapable appetite for the weird. One need only walk down certain decaying streets and the south end of the village and take note of the odd symbols and signs that the common folk keep over their doors, to see that a great many in Barton refuse to let the old ways die. In my time at Byron House, I too have seen things that I cannot fully comprehend or provide reason for. I have treated many long-time Barton residents who firmly believe, with a level of conviction not seen in many conventional religions, that the devil makes his grotto in the shadowed woods that crown the edges of the village. I've decided to share Mr. Harper's account of his growing madness in his own words. In the hopes that many in the scientific community will be able to gain an insight into how and why such episodes of insanity come to fruition and how they can be successfully treated. It is also my hope that should any of the stranger occurrences written below ring true for you, the reader, then this statement will also serve as a dire warning and lesson in meddling within the affairs of certain circles who clearly do not take kindly to outside interference. These then are the last known words of Benjamin Harper. That's a fun intro. I was like, I was like stories to start off with like hooks of stories where a man of science or like a very like obvious non-believer in supernatural superstition has his own sanity tested or his own like belief system shaken. I think it's always a really fun always make you know like sleepy hollow like a bod crane kind of meme or something like that. It's always it's always just a fun way to start a story. It's also cool to have like the old town where like they don't let the old ways die and they keep vigils over their doors and say the devil works his way through the tree line and such. It's already such an older like you know from coming from the scientist standpoint, it's already such like an outdated like just completely different world. That's like archaic. You know, it has like just like such a weird alien vibe to it. Hey, you think it. You think it was based on a gravity falls? I would probably assume so. I think that's what it is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I bet that love craft guy got his idea from gravity falls. Yes. Lovecraft in the thirties did say that he loved gravity falls. It was one of his best. It's his favorite meme. That's right. I do remember that. It was if I recall correctly, he hated anyone that wasn't white, but loved gravity falls. Oh, absolutely. I think that was in his manifesto. He listened to that's why famously he named his cat gravity falls. Yeah. Of course. They're very infamous. H. P. Lovecraft cat gravity falls. He would yell at it. He would scream at gravity falls and he would play Fortnite and listen to breaking Benjamin. That's the average H. P. Lovecraft. Well, I don't, I don't think he, I don't think he had those in the thirties. Oh, those are the 1930s. I don't think he had, Branky Benjamin or Fortnite. I don't even think they had video games. But they did have gravity falls. They had a gravity falls. Yeah. You really liked it. Yeah. It's where a lot of this stuff gets it's inspiration from. So yeah, it's cool to see, you know, artists like Lovecraft getting their inspirations from the great. Yeah. My gravity falls like the creepy. I bet, I bet gravity, they didn't have video games, but I think they did have Alan Wake somewhat. So I bet he also get his idea from Alan Wake. And then later twin peaks got their ideas from Lovecraft. So, you know, some people think that Alan Wake came off the twin peaks, but it's actually the other way around going through the whole, you know, 1930s Lovecraft. Right. And we should probably read the story. Okay. I don't understand what more do you want me to say? I've told my sword to the police to the doctors here and to anyone else who will listen. You have no right to keep me locked up in this place. I've committed no crime and caused no harm to anyone. I would still have my freedom and the village, it's safety had it not been for a lone passerby spotting me in the darkness of the cemetery on that awful night and alerting the police. This whole affair would have been covered up and be done with. And you would have remained blissfully ignorant to my involvement in the matter had those blundering bobbies not interfered. That was the most British I'm not going to try to British accent and be bullet. I've tried it before on the show never again. You say I'm mad. You may well be right. But if you had come to the same conclusion as I did regarding the fate of my poor friend, I'm sure you too would have taken some form of desperate action. No doubt the police report will detail the simple facts of the matter without bothering to add the nuances that hold the whole affair together. I'm confident that the report will dryly state that I in the early morning of December 5th, I Benjamin Harper was found in the darkest corner of Barton Parish Cemetery. I was discovered the report will say disturbing a suspected burial site. Digging up the cold winter earth below an ancient and twisted witch elm tree beneath which one slate remains of a wicked and vile occupant. It will also state that in a fit of unrestrainable rage I attack two policemen with a shovel, rendering them unconscious so that my grim labor could be completed without interruption. It is not my sanity that I fear now, rather the possession of my feeble mind and the body it is currently master over. For I'm now horribly aware that the mind, soul, and body are not as tightly entwined as the so-called experts of medical and spiritual matters believe them to be, but are instead three separate spheres of mastery. I can only hope that the truth of my tale is fully appreciated before an all too familiar tears forced upon my mind, where I now wonder if wickedness and insanity are truly mental conditions or some form of spiritual sickness. Can either be inherited, carried in the blood and passed on to our descendants? Can they transfuse from parents to their children? If so, what other darkness can be inherited? Carried along the roots of our family history? Is it possible that sin itself can plunge endlessly in the crimson rapids of our ancestors' veins, biting its time, patiently waiting for the chance to emerge within the next generation? I confess to you, gentlemen, that I am uncertain as to the authenticity of what I am about to tell you. The terrible truth is that, ever since I came to Byron House, I cannot recall if what happened was but a dream. Even now, I cannot say with any certainty that I am awake or simply dreaming that I am awake. Boundary between reality and hallucination is a frail shroud indeed. And who can say from which side of the curtain any of us is truly peaking? Hark, gentlemen, harken unto me. I beseech you to take heed of my words. There is something wicked out there in the backwoods and borders of our village. Though its earthly fetters have been laid to waste, the potency of its spirit lingers. In time, it will find a new home and set its powers against us. For the sake of my soul, as well as the soul of my dear friend, I will now try to recount for you in detail that blasphemous chain of events that led me to the grave of Francis Ellis Pindle. The occupant of that hidden burial chamber and immerse his body and acid until nothing but bubbling black sludge remained. Steven Adams had been a family friend for as long as I could remember. A devout man of God had been the local vicar since I was a young boy and was very much loved by the community he served. He never married or had much in the way of a family of his own, and as such, I think he had always looked at me and my mother's his own flesh and blood. In the twilight of my teenage years, my father sadly passed away from a heart attack. My relationship with Steven grew stronger, forming a bond that nurtured me into manhood and shaped me into the person I am today. For this, I owe Steven a debt of gratitude. One I hope I came close to repaying when I finally destroyed the horror that had inflicted itself upon his life and that lonely December night. Steven was a true paragon, godly, honorable, and wise. He was devoid of bias and all the other flaws inherent in most of us. I never once saw him grow angry or fearful or disappointed at any point, safe towards the very end. Despite his almost saintly behavior, the man was also incredibly human and very much interested in matters of science as well as faith. He had, on occasion, said that Darwin's theories made a lot of sense in that he enjoyed reading books covering topics such as biology as well as chemistry, physics, and history. He was a remarkably well-rounded and well-adjusted man, not once did his belief in God falter. He was just able to see the sense of how the world worked and blended it into his love of his fellow man and in the Almighty. Let's tell you now, characters getting ready to, we're getting ready to see a character really slip the fuck up when it's like, this is like the very like, he's a reasonable man. Yes, he has faith, but he also, you know, is a learned, signed, signed man. This is definitely a guy who's going to have his entire fucking reality smashed right in front of him. A hundred percent. Yeah, yeah. They are, they're, they're, they're setting this up to a rug poll later with how much he changes the counterbalance between the two. Much like, um, I haven't actually watched Gravity Falls, but I was going to make, I imagine that he'll have a Gravity Falls reference to diminish the story. I imagine that he'll probably like abandon God or something. I think like the, the trials and tribulations will have him like, uh, definitely, it goes to love crafty and realm. It's going to be that like his understanding of what faith is, is manipulated to where he's horrified by it or it's like a new entity comes in and he like, uh, dives even deeper into a new faith or something is, is the trajectory. He finds, he finds something supernatural that isn't God. Yeah. When I came of age, I decided to follow in his footsteps and join the church myself. I can't say my mother was particularly pleased with my choice, but Stephen was very proud of me and it was this approval that fueled my desire to serve my God and community just as he did. My mother had never been warm with Stephen, despite how closely he associated with us both. I suspected that they had once harbored feelings for each other and that he's had turned sour around the time of my birth. How much older is Stephen than him? I don't know. Are you trying to, do you think Stephen felt his mom? Right. Well, in less drastic words, yes. Uh, my mother had never been. Yeah, but while I was thinking to Stephen might be his dad where it says they have no feelings that's out around the time of my birth. I have a feeling that what I think is, I think that he probably wanted to get some pussy, but then the dad, but then his actual dad came in, had a child, and then like them basically having a kid together, soured any chances of the relationship, maybe? Uh, potentially. Yeah. Um, could be that, well, the reason I think it might be his dad is because at the beginning of this entry, our author now said, is it possible that craziness like madness can be through generations? Yeah. I mean, I think you're probably right too. I mean, also, especially if he knows it's his kid, but she won't like let him see it. Or if like this person she's with now is just like, fuck off. That's not your kid, even though it is. Uh, that's probably, maybe that's, that's probably what's happening. My father had ever allowed this matter to interfere with their own friendship, and they had been like brothers, right up until my father's last breath. It was Stephen who had been at my father's deathbed, who had spoken kind words into his ears, he cast for breath, who had given a moving eulogy as his casket was lowered into the ground. I don't recall my mother ever mentioning my father's death after the funeral, nor had I once seen her cry or lament his passing. She simply grew colder and more distant with the people around her, including both me and Stephen. As such, I didn't feel burdened by my decision to leave her and Barton behind. My heart wasn't heavy at the thought, but rather the opposite. Stephen assisted my decision to join the ministry, and as I spoke to several authorities from the diocese of Chester, and attended an interview with my bishop, my resolve to become ordained only grew stronger. By the time I had secured my place at the theological college, and my mother had slowly come to terms with my choice, but I never received her blessing or encouragement for treading the path I was determined to embark upon. Chester Shire wasn't close to Cheshire, a five-hour train journey was required whenever I wished to visit my family home. Our remaining contact with Stephen Weekly via letter, and regularly, a handwritten note in a tail-tale stiff card envelope, would arrive for me in the post. Our correspondence wasn't particularly thrilling, but it was welcomed as his letters of encouragement helped to guide me through the more difficult parts of my study and fire up in me a conviction that only he could coax. Months of grueling study passed me by, and I am not too proud to admit that I occasionally regretted my choice. During these bouts of demoralization, I would call my mother, who would delight in such talk and beg me to return home. A gesture I found amusing, considering her absent feelings for me, were part of the reason that I chose to leave Barton. Stephen's letters, however, that held me back and kept me upon the path I had chosen for myself. During rare breaks, I would return to Barton for brief stays, and I would check in on my friend, and we would chat about the various topics we had discussed in our exchange of letters. Stephen's main areas of interest had changed drastically in the months I had been gone, and he was now ferociously researching local Cheshire history, and in particular, our folklore and other esoteric matters, details of which were lost on me. I would make a token effort of visiting mother, but the blanket of cold repression that fell across the kitchen as we set there in silence over a pot of tea, was becoming more and more unbearable. Once or twice, I felt as if she wanted to tell me something. She would stop herself before anything significant left her lips, and she would instead inquire sarcastically as to Stephen's well-being before reaffirming her objection towards my study. This time passed, these sogerons to Barton ceased altogether as I threw myself deeper and deeper into theological pursuits, relying solely upon Stephen's letters to keep me informed about how my mother was fearing. It had been some weeks before I noticed a gradual change to my routine that piqued my interest and matters beyond my own affairs. So engrossed had I been in my studies that I neglected to notice that Stephen's letters had abruptly stopped. I waited a week before sending him a note of my own in hopes of her response, but nothing came. I could only assume that he had become engrossed in study himself, as he had a habit of picking up a new topic and devouring as much information on it as he could before finding a new sphere of knowledge to move on to. To be quite honest, I was focused on my own study, and so welcomed the break in my weekly task of finding something interesting to fill my letters with. This absence of communication lasted just under five weeks, and eventually, one of Stephen's letters arrived for me on a Friday morning. I was already on my way out, and so opened the letter and read its contents whilst walking to the local parish I was helping to curate out. Dodging traffic and pedestrians alike, I read the note, folded it into my pocket, determined to pin my reply as soon as time permitted. Asbestos, my memory serves me, much delayed letter, read as follows. Benjamin, firstly, let me apologize for my lack of communication with you over the past few weeks. I have, as you may have figured out yourself, stumbled upon a fascinating area of chess out of history that our own parish was directly involved in some two centuries ago. Now, I understand that this is hardly an excuse for neglecting you, and I sincerely apologize if my absence has caused you any worry. Please read on, and I shall attempt to explain. I have been investigating our parish's history, and in doing so, came across an obscure piece of information that points to which trial taking place within our community, well after the witchcraft act of 1735, had forbidden all forms of necromancy and sorcery for being punishable crimes, how scandalous. To think that our dear community of Barton was involved in some sort of affair, well, after such matters had ceased to be acknowledged by the crown, details are sketchy, but it seems much of the affair was conducted in secret and many later recordings destroyed in order to prevent the facts surrounding it from ever resurfacing. Now, it comes the really intriguing part. The individual tried and executed for practicing witchcraft is none other, distant relative of mine on my mother's side, one Francis Ellis Pindle. This is how I was able to unearth certain details as they have been sat in my family's records for over a century. The whole matter has been deeply excited, and I'm currently waiting on several sources to provide me with the information on various subjects, but I believe I am close to warming out the truth. I have reason to believe that this ancestor is buried right here in the parish cemetery. Try as I might, I cannot find a grave, or from what I have read, which is where sometimes buried in unmarked plots, occurs upon their names and a final punishment for trucking with the devil. It was also a precaution, for if any of their coven could unearth the remains, they could restore them to life, or so the focal goal goes, but here I am, getting ahead of myself again. How have you been, my boy? I look forward to hearing about the past few weeks I've missed out on, so please furnish me with all the details. I understand if you will be finishing your first year soon, and once you have, I ask that you come stay with me in the bottom for a while, for these, for there is much we must discuss about my findings. Take care of yourself Benjamin, yours truly, Stephen. So yeah, I think 100% Stephen is, what, that's just such a funny letter to get out of the blue. It's like, I found a witch in the cemetery. Yeah. Anyways, how are you doing? Okay. Cool. See you soon. I do think that Stephen is his dad, and I think that like, what is it going to be? It's because it already started with at the beginning, Benjamin was digging up a grave of some kind of, that's how the cops caught him. So now I'm wondering if, well, the one underneath the Elm tree underneath the witch hell. So it's either, it's probably the witch that's there, but I'm wondering if Stephen somehow curses himself reveals that, like, I'm wondering if he thinks that like the curse itself is hereditary to Benjamin, you know? Well, not to put our author in a box to say the stuff he does, but what was interesting about DeGon's mirror, which is based off of, you know, Shadow over Innsmouth and stuff, that is the Lovecraft story with DeGon, right? Shadow over Innsmouth? Yeah. Yep. In that story, the whole thing was the family we were reading about was always doomed to this reality. They were always going to go back and be servants of DeGon as just a matter of when they matured at that phase. So here, especially because of what Benjamin talked about in the beginning with like, is this curse in the veins of ancestors as it carried through generations, maybe the witch was a member of their family and they're always meant to come back to it. Like both Stephen and himself are compelled to like, take up the body, maybe resurrect or something like that perhaps that's also just really fun to not hear from your boy for a while. And he goes, I'm going to get the body out of the cemetery. Okay. You knew you. Alright, I want to take a quick moment to think today's sponsor, FlexySpot. Deep down, you know when it's over. I had my gaming chair for years and spent half of that in denial. And as I moved, I made some tough decisions and the chair was one of them. But thankfully, I hardly miss her. Thanks to the C7 ergonomic chair from FlexySpot, immediately the difference in the support was night and day. 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Because if you use code YTE730, you'll get an extra 30 bucks off your E7 or E7 Pro Standing Desk. And if you use C730, you'll get an extra 30 bucks off your C5 or C7 Morphor chair. And if you check out their activity calendar, you can randomly win a free order during the holiday season. And when you do check out, if you could leave them a note, letting them know that creep cast sent you, it would mean a lot. Thank you so much to FlexySpot for sponsoring the show. We are now back to the episode. (upbeat music) (sniffing) - I'm river and I'm old. - And I know go to the doctor as much as I should. And I don't wanna deal with an appointment and insurance. (imitating dog barking) So let somebody else handle it. And that's why I use ZockDock. ZockDock is a free app and website where you can search and compare high quality in network doctors, choose the right one for your needs, and click to instantly book an appointment. We're talking about in network appointments with more than 100,000 healthcare providers across to every specialty. From mental health to dental health to high care to skin care and much, much more. And the nice thing about ZockDock is that you can filter for doctors that take your insurance that are nearby and are highly rated. It's super easy to use and you can find an appointment time that works for you with the right doctor that fits your needs. Plus, ZockDock appointments happen fast, typically within just 24 to 72 hours of booking. You can even score same day appointments. You don't wanna admit it, we should probably see the doctor. Go to ZockDock.com/creepcast to find an instantly book, a top-rated doctor today, that's z-o-c-d-o-c.com/creepcast. ZockDock.com/creepcast. Thank you so much for ZockDock for sponsoring this episode, back to the episode, don't get too scared. (upbeat music) The letter did not unnerve me in the least. It was just like him to find some new topics to obsess over. And I thought little about the matter. - If I sent you a text creatively, I'm like, I'm going to find the body. (laughing) - It would have liked to get you a little bit. - It would have liked to get you a little bit. - I would be the exact same. You'd be like, yeah, I don't know. I went out to Georgia and I found it. I've been, you know, I made friends with paranormal investigators and we're doing, I mean, I would, it would mean nothing to me. If my wife said that, it would be a different story. - Right. Okay, so now I don't like that you phrased it that way 'cause now it's like you just don't care about me. - No, it's not that. It's just that I would not be surprised 'cause I'd be like, what? And you're just like, I was pretty cool when I see it as a video. - All right, all right, let's see. - The YouTube thing does cover up a lot of the like, weird kind of stuff. - You need to become a serial killer, is that what I'm trying to tell you? - It's really, yeah, yeah, yeah. - Yeah, there's a lot of situations I'll be in. I'm like, this is kind of odd, but then you say you're a YouTuber, they're like, oh, I should make it a YouTube video. They're like, oh, how fun. - I was breaking it in a ring. - That's the band of property for a video. It's like, oh. - It's just for a video. - It's not a felony then. - You're fun. - Yeah. - Oh, what's that? You found this cool thing in there that someone definitely owns this property and you stole it, it's for a video. - It's a video. - Of course not. - Come on. - It's a video. Money laundering, drug possession. It's a video, guys. Stephen had always been this way. No doubt in his next letter, he would be talking just as enthusiastically about a completely different topic with witchcraft far from his mind. I wrote a meager reply that night. Nothing terribly fancy. Just a passive interest in what he had mentioned and also a little update on how my own studies were progressing. I responded to his invitation to join him at Barton Parish and said that it would be a pleasure to spend some time with him. After my first year was finished, I was able to come home for Christmas. My delight, my mother invited Stephen to our home for lunch. Christmas itself is a busy time for the ordained but I was grateful for the snatches of conversation we managed to have. To my surprise, Stephen had not dropped his inquiries into his ancestor and the various Cheshire witch trials, both legal and illegal, that had occurred in the county. In fact, he would speak of little else during my short stay with him. He was particularly excited because he believed he had finally located where Francis Ellis Pindle had been laid to rest. He described to me, great detail over Brandy, that at the very back of the cemetery, close to where the gunner's cloth Woodland starts to encroach upon the hollowed ground, there can be found a small cops of witch-elm trees, so called because witches were once hanged from them. He was his belief that Francis had been interred in the ground beneath one of these trees. Super caution levied against him, as the old folk believed that the roots of a tree would pin the witch's body and soul in place, denying either the power to rise from their grave and avenge themselves upon the living. Metal. The next morning, he took me out to see the cops where he suspected the final resting place of his witch ancestor lay. Even in the daytime, it was a dark and blasted place. The trees looked more dead than alive, with twisting dry branches that groaned like the creaking of a floorboard as the wind lightly danced around them. Here, somewhere beneath the dark ground, Stephen was convinced that the body of Francis lay. I cannot say with conviction that even then, I was worried about him. I had convinced myself that his interest was purely historical. He was nothing more than an enthusiastic amateur. Hindsight, however, the warning signs were undoubtedly present. I would come and visit Barton sporadically during my second and third years at college. I think I was subconsciously outgrowing the place, but in the best possible way. I was shaping into the man I always wanted to be, and I felt renewed by my growing independence from both Stephen and my mother. It was during the last part of my ordination, my final year, that I first heard the growing rumors regarding Stephen and his radical change in behavior. The source of such gossip came from none other than my mother. There was a certain sense of satisfaction in her tone upon informing me of the various distasteful exploits that Stephen was being accused of. He was now apparently drinking heavily and had been spotted meeting with certain unsavory types after dark. Strange visitors had been seen in the cemetery, always at night. He was, she said. He was, she said, keeping company with odd strangers who spoke in foreign tongues and who wore bizarre clothing. Loud, violent behaviors in the middle of the night was becoming a regular occurrence for his neighbors. As voices were heard emanating from the church house at all hours. That's really funny. To imagine that it's like, yeah, he's talking to some weird foreigners, I think, and it's like a demon and a cloak that's like, "Uki baka, taka, taka, taka." They're like, I think that guy is from Italy. Yeah. I'm pretty sure. No one gets scared, but I'm pretty sure it's a Chinese guy. I think that guy over there might be, I'm not sure. I don't want to be Portuguese. I don't want to freak anybody out, but I think that's a Chinese guy over there. Never met someone for Portugal, but I'm almost positive that I would be, what that would look like. Father Steven, would you come over here, please? I should never mind. We don't go down this road. No, no, we don't, we don't, we don't go down this road. I think you keep going the road here. No, no, no, no. I think you're set up a really good, classic wholesome creep cast bit with that one. If you noticed, I tried to keep the nationality vague and keep switching it up. Like, "Oh, Italian, Portugal, these are fun." You really locked it on that Chinese thing for the first second. So why don't you go, let that one play out. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, we're having fun. We're having fun, no reason to get anyone in trouble now. We're not having a good time. But also like there was noise coming all hours of the night, like there's loud-in cantations. And it's like, those, you know, Steven's always been a real wild one. It was having his parties. I was part of getting drunk on branding, having gay sex with the Chinese guys. So it sounds like, I don't see. There you go. You brought him back in. It's going to be hard to take him out of my counter. Right now. He's there. We tried to ask him to leave, he won't. Yeah, exactly. Now, that crap favor, I think Steven's shot me. He's got himself in a literal Chinese finger trap now. So he's got to watch out. He's got a push and twist. You know what I'm saying? He's in a Chinese finger trap with the Chinese guy. Yeah. Well, no, okay, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I heard the way you giggled when you said, well, I know. I open the door on that one. I'm shutting the door back. I didn't walk into the room. The door shut. We're done. I don't need to see what's going on there. We're good. We're just going to keep moving. I even talked that several pets had gone missing in the village. In particular, miss it. No. No way. That is a Polish name or something that is, that is messed up. Zabowicz. Zabowicz. Zabowicz. Zabowicz. Zabowicz. Zabowicz. Zabowicz. In particular, Mrs Zabowicz Tabbycat, Cleo and Old Man Slater's Greyhound, Basil. The ladder was known to roam freely around the village and was almost always in constant trouble, tipping over rubbish bins and chasing jacked done calf's chickens. Some people assumed that the dog could either run off or been hit by a car, but a fair number attributed to more ominous reason behind the dog's sudden vanishing. The cat, however, was rarely seen outside of the Zabowicz home. Many assumed that the eldest son, Ian, was the culprit. The boy had always had a cruel streak and was disliked by almost everyone in the village, including his own mother. But when the decayed headless body of a cat and the severed head of a Greyhound were found casually discarded in the gunner's cloth by some local children, the day after Walper yes, many began to suspect that Stephen's sinister new acquaintances were responsible. The most disturbing revelation, however, was that Stephen's face appeared to have taken on a rather unusual count. This kind of sardonic smirk that greatly unearthed those who saw it. By all rights, the expression was wholly alien to the man and, when seen, it appeared to twist his face to such an extent that he looked like a stranger. The bishop of the Chester Diocese had issued him with a formal warning about his behavior, the outcome of which I would soon learn of. At the time, I found all of this impossible to believe. The evils being attributed to my friend were nothing more than village gossip, I believed, and the usual Barton superstitions, something for the old codgers to grumble over while steep in their cups, and I refused to accept the rumor or take the matter seriously. Soon enough, however, I too became embroiled in the abnormal changes in Stephen's life. Again, there was a period of time where I didn't receive regular correspondence from Stephen. In fact, these periods had grown more frequent. But I admit that I was beginning to grow worried, as the rumors regarding his behavior churned over in my mind and the large gulf between his letters was growing even wider as time passed. I hadn't received a letter back from him for a very long time, perhaps four months. But when I finally did, it was far more disturbing than anything I had ever read from him, and it filled me with an urgent need to see my friend and assist him however I could. It arrived for me and expected, much like the previous one I have described, and despite looking like a letter from Stephen, it was so hastily sprawled that for a few seconds, I thought it was written by his stranger. "Benjamin, I remember it to tell you this, but I fear I have led myself down a dark and winding path. So far have I descended into darkness, and so deeply have I gazed at the blackness that I wonder if I will ever be able to find my way back to the Lord's light. My middling the past affairs of the parish and my own family history have brought me nothing but misery." "I am doomed. It's the dream's been, the hideous dreams. I dream constantly, so much that I no longer tell what is real and what is fantasy, a dream often of a cold, godless place, devoid of warmth and comfort. Above me, I see twisting black roots warming their way slowly towards me like serpents. I try as I might, I could not move my arms and legs, where my body is confined to a casket, a bayarade rotting maggot infested casket. When I finally awake, look locked by my bedside, always displays the same time, 3 AM, but wishing hour. By the time you read this, I may not be at the parish. I must leave this place, leave Barton and never return. I have some diameter to attend to. Most importantly, I must return to that which I have called. He has his own black designs, and I must ensure that they never come to fruition. In my more lucid moments, I am formulating a plan, but I must be prudent, unless he suspects me of acting. I must be decisive and deliberate in my actions and conceal all evidence from him before the sun sets and his time begins. He has his means, that is beyond doubt, but I also have mine. I know of certain antique formulas and signs that can ward off his spirit, potent as it may be, once I am sure that this evil is returned to the cold ground, his remains must be destroyed. Fire is no good. It will leave too much attacked. It must be something stronger, something that will obliterate him until there is nothing left. I will then take my leave. I have already spoken with the bishop, and we both agree that you already take my place bend. May you be a better guide to the people of this parish than I. Ben, if I fail in my endeavours, I can offer you only this warning, fear that which looks beneath the witch's tree, do not invite it in, but will make itself a home within you and through your work, it is black magic. You will invoke those who look at the threshold, those unnamed blasphemies from the great outside. And then my friend, we don't all ruin. God bless you. That is the average text from Hunter at 3 in the morning. That is just by what I do. Isaiah, I think I am having a heart attack. The pizza rolls and whiskey are finally caught up with me, and the grim reaper is by my nightstand. He chuckles and does four-night dances at me, he keeps telling me of, he keeps telling me of a Chinese man that's haunting my dreams. I mean this in the best way, and not you and Alison are a lovely couple, and I think you guys are never going to break up, but I mean this was false and serious. You have all the makings of a divorced father, thank you, and the best way, like the humor, the jokes, the whiskey and pizza rolls dinner, it's like built into you, also does that mean was that too far? No. That's fine. I think it's true. It is built into me. Too much. And then it builds itself, like Lil Legos. So in this letter, he's having visions now that he's the body beneath the witch helmet, which is his ancestor, and he is determined to destroy it somehow. It says that it's now time for Benjamin to take his place. Is it the witch or do you think it's the man he was looking for? Well he, Francis Pedal was a witch. Okay, okay. To say that this letter disturbed me greatly would be a gross understatement, I had never known my friend to be so worried or panicked over anything in his life, and yet here he was, telling me that his very soul was in jeopardy. I spoke with my superiors at the college, but I did not show them the notes Stephen had sent me. I feared that should anyone else read the note, they would question his sanity and that might put into motion a whole course of events regrettable to the man's already afraid reputation. Now as I speak to him first and get to the root of the issue, I get it because he's under three. A few days later, I was on a train and bound home for Barton, disembarked at the nearby east witch of station and caught a rickety old bus into the village, arriving around mid day and hastily made my way in the direction of the parish church. Several locals recognized me and I had to pause momentarily for a few quick exchanges before resuming my journey. I did my best not to look panicked and to keep my gate to an acceptable stride as I gave each passerby my time, but deep inside I was overcome with a crippling dread that only increased as I neared my destination. When at last I arrived at the church gates, I found them closed but not barred, pushing their heavy iron frame inwards. I walked past a small stone fountain which was bone dry and not flowing with the gentle, trickling sound that usually welcomed visitors. The surrounding benches that crowned the fountain were empty, as was the entire church yard and cemetery. I couldn't help but notice the serene, yet disturbing quiet of the places I headed straight for the church doors, which were worryingly locked. I looked around puzzled, Stephen should have been inside and getting ready for the evening service. I picked up my bags and made my way around the church and towards the small residence at the back where Stephen lived. The front door, like that of the church, was locked. Curtains were open and I peeked inside but could see no signs of life. I then did a quick tour of the perimeter, knocking and calling on every door in window before returning to the front. I assured myself that there must be a perfectly mundane excuse for him not being present at the church and muse that maybe he was out picking up provisions from Littler's store on Townfield Lane. The relief of such a normal explanation was abruptly shattered, however, by the gruff and familiar voice of a man barking out to me from the direction of the cemetery. Vokers don't bend and I don't suppose he's going back into time soon. I caulked my head in the direction of the voice and called out. My words feebly battling the expanding gust of wind that were coalescing piles of brown autumn leaves, causing them to dance around the dry grey fountain behind me. "Is that you, Ted?" I called out, already knowing the answer to my question. To meet my reply, a tall and wiry frame of old Ted quilt slowly emerged from behind a large headstone. He had a small shovel in one hand and was no doubt tending to the earth around the cemetery, just as he had for as long as I could recall. Like the autumn chill, he wiped sweat from his brow and waved at me before picking up his tools. As he made his way towards me, his long wide hair and beard, billowing in the wind, I cannot punish the thoughts of the old pagan gods for my mind. With his towering height and whysened but friendly old face, he reminded me of Woden, chieftain of the gods and the leader of the dreaded wild hunt from the old sacks and legends. eyes. I'm all, I'll make you some tea. You rested one of his giant hands on my shoulder. I want a lot of your bin. I've got some queer things to tell you. I keep having gay sex with I knew he said that word. I knew you were going to say something. I thought to myself I'd better read the next one before he does something to tell you. You're horrible. I've got some queers I should do. I can make a man come in public. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. This is a good story. Quick, quick. Yeah, we'll see that. We'll see that. Nicholas Cage will be down in 60 seconds. That's about my. Oh, quit. No, that's just miserable. I had my period trash week. I've trapped in his mom. Dad, what are you talking about? I had my period last week, man. Dad, I don't think that's done. I think that makes much sense. I thought I was pregnant, but I luckily I got my period. I got a lot of things I got to tell you. So weird witchcraft going on in the cemetery, man. I keep getting my period. It's not monthly. It's weekly. I keep sucking male ghost dick. No, no, no, no, no, no. The ghost of men are very happy in the cemetery for me. Dad, you got to quit. The number of people I see get mad. They're like, I say, it was such a prude. Why would I say let hundred tell jokes? If I just let him tell these things, the show would get whysucker souls clinging. See, it's like that. There's got to be some pushback to it somewhere. I've got to be, I'll, I'll, I'll let people at church ask about the show. And I'm like, um, I don't really want creed cast. What is that? Ghostbusters just 10 second ghost cock in the cemetery. No, no, it's not. No, it's not what it is. It was funnier when it was the Chinese guy, but it was just less you're going to go to the afterlife with a smile on your face. No, the story is getting good. Sorry, I'm sorry. I go. I got my period because I thought that was fun. I'm not telling you. You can have to watch the morning back. To everyone who gets mad at me for quote unquote being a prude. This is what I'm holding off. There's a, I am, I am the little Dutch boy with his finger in the damn keeping the entire village from being flooded. Okay. Everyone's like, oh, why is the Dutch boy standing next to that damn because the Dutch boy knows what it takes to save the town. Okay. Man, you can, you can just take a finger in it if you want. Put a finger in it, Ben. The classic tad quote, put a finger in a bin. You're so gross. Your pinky's a wine cork. Okay. All right. Just one pinky band, please. It's you. You go. You go. There's not just like a joke. It's just in all the nitty gritty. It's all the dude. I can see everything you're describing. It's way too deep. Right down to the knuckle. God, you got no, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's a good story. Big old knuckles on you. Like a half dollar right there on, right there on your hand. Ted, can you just take me back to Stephen's house? Oh, yeah, sure. Ted didn't say any of this. Ted was the nice old man who works in the garden. I'll test you guys. Okay. All right. So this is real quick. Ted didn't actually say that stuff. So that's why why not? Don't give me that voice. This is not can. Just to say that voice. If it's not canon, that Ted is a second ghost. That I don't want any a part of it. I'm going to keep reading. My asshole looks like a used catcher glove, man. That's the last one. And that's actually the last one because that's disgusting. And for you and for you to, and for you to honestly, for you to let that happen, I think that's gross. For me to let that happen. For me to let you talk. I did everything to think of my power to keep you talking. And it was completely ineffective. You just also tired out. And then you say it anyway. Everyone talks about me holding back and being a prude or whatever. What am I holding back to him? It doesn't do it. But him, him behind the headstone now is a lot more devious. Isn't it? What are you doing back there? I'm reading. No, I'm reading. I'm reading. I'm reading. You said that would be the last. You don't want to see this back here, man. No, you said you gave me your word. And it was over here in the magnificent cemetery. Oh, get out of here, man. You don't want to see this. All right, come take a look. Do you want me to see it or not? I don't care what you do. Just make a move, honcho. All right, what we're done. Go ahead. Got my period, man. Good stuff. Ben, do you see it tan packs lying around here somewhere? Okay, that's actually that's and that is it. That's that's the last of the bits. Go ahead. Hey, there's episode sponsor by Tushie Tushie's luxury. But day that your bathroom has been missing over two million butts love Tushie and yours will too. I, it, what's my asshole that makes it clean? This holiday season give the gift of clean with one of Tushie's premium bidets. Things can be pretty messy in our bathroom. And that's why I use Tushie. We have them installed at the studio in our bathrooms in my house. It's awesome. Using clumps and clumps and toilet paper is gross and honestly pretty wasteful. People who have made the switch up to Tushie use up to 80% less toilet paper. And with less toilet paper means less clogged toilets and less gross bathroom experiences. The other thing I really like about Tushie is that it's really easy to use. It takes no time to install and no additional plumbing or power tools needed. Restore balanced to your bathroom and get the luxury bidet everyone's talking about. Tushie, remember A hole is only a naughty word if you wipe. Perlimited time our listeners get 10% off their first bidet order when you use code creepcasts to check out. That's 10% off your first bidet order at hellotushie.com with promo code creepcast. Thank you to Tushie for sponsoring this episode and now back to the episode. With that, he pulled the front so defeated sounding how you're reading this. With that, he pulled the front door key from the back of his tattered trousers and unlocked the front door of Stephen's house. Causing the lock to make a heavy clunky sound as the door opened to char. He entered and I followed behind, still confused as what I could have missed in the time since I last heard from Stephen. Teddy immediately headed for the kitchen where Trude was word. He put on a pot of tea and then set down to roll himself a cigarette while waiting for the tea to brew. Hungry. He turned to ask me, scraping his tongue across the cigarette's paper skin and gesturing to some biscuits on a nearby plate. Later, perhaps. I replied with a weak smile. The smell of the brewing tea filled the room and offered me a little comfort. Stephen had always appreciated a strong tea. I placed my bags down and looked around the room. It was exactly how I remembered it, untouched and impeccably clean, as was Stephen's fancy. Ted looked quiet out of place in such an uncluttered arena. His wild beard and dirt stained clothing. He didn't say anything to me. Growsed as he was in a cigarette rolling, which caused me to grow a little impatient with the man. Look, if something is having to Stephen, you have to let me know quickly Ted. What is it? He proceeded to pour two cups of tea and after passing one along with a small jug of milk, he struck a match and lit a cigarette before leaning back in his chair inside. There is an easy way to say this, Ben. So I'll just come out of it. Stephen has left the bearish. His ways, shall we say, over the last few months have been unnerving. Many of his parishioners and the bishop felt it was in everyone's best interest that he takes his leave at least for a few months. I nodded, not so much in agreement, but simply out of shock. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the last two letters Stephen had sent me and handed them over to Ted, placed his cup on the table and took them into his huge hands without saying a word. He stroked his snow white beard whilst intermittently nodding in sign as he flitted from page to page, occasionally rereading a section and then nodding once more. Once finished, he ended them back to me, picked up his cup and took a sip, straining the brown liquid through his beard. Do these letters mean anything to you? He was talking about the bloody witchcraft business and awful lot. I knew some of what he was talking about, especially those trees out back past the graveyard. He used to play around the gunners. Cloud was a boy. There was always tell about how evil that place was. You're from Barton. You must have heard old tales about the Ghost of Goblins and how old Salt Peter would get you if you linger too long past sundown. Salt Peter? I replied with a smile, recalling the childhood memory of how my grandfather would warn me of entering the gunner's cloth after dark. Stay away from those woods, boy, you would say. Salt Peter, salty Pete, some call it. Three legs he goes. He'll trick you into the woods using the voice of someone you know. That's just an old wives tale, dead. Steve would have never taken such talk seriously. Imps and witches, familiars, it's just childhood superstition. Well, I can't argue with you there, Ben. He said taking another sip of tea. But it was more than weird changes in his nature that I wanted to talk you about. Not all this witchy nonsense. Tap the letters on the table, zipped to emphasize how little they thought of their contents. Such as, I said, picking up my own cup. Well, a couple of folks rumbled him good to the bishop over his nightly doings. They said he'd been calling regular with shady types from East Witch and that he was involved in some missing money here at the parish. Quite a sum of folks are too, quite a sum of folks are to be believed. Then there's a strange sounds and stranger lights coming from the cemetery. My mother was telling me about this week's ago. I didn't want to believe her. She's never been too keen on Stephen. Not just that, Ben. He was his whole manner. He just stopped giving a damn about this, about the community. He grew slack in his duty and, you know, that's not Stephen. He turned into this cruel, morose man. Almost a complete stranger really unsettled a lot of the locals. It took a few more steps from his team and finished his cigarette before continuing. So there was a village meeting with the agreement of the diocese and Chester in the bishop. It was a sigh that he should leave us. He didn't say I know where he's gone, but I reckon that you don't want to take over his duties if you're willing. At least until the bishop can find a replacement. He stood up and opened nearby drawer, producing a sealed letter for the mark of the Chester diocese. Opening it, his contents confirmed what Ted was hinting at. They know what to say. I was supposed to start my tenure as a curate under Stephen, not becoming the village viker. Why didn't Bishop Ellison speak to me directly about this? Ted simply shrugged before continuing. There's something you should know, Ben. You brace yourself, because what I have to say next is gone upset you. Stiffing my back in response and allowed him to continue. Some believe that Stephen may be dead. I opened my mouth to reply, but he raised his hand. Let me finish. I said some believe he may be dead, but that doesn't make it so. Nonetheless, no one has heard, hide, or hear of him since he left. Phil Crouch heard a rumor that a man who looked just like Stephen had been spotted down by the locks a few nights ago. You know the ones by the river? Down past the canal that run through Blackroft. He was ranting and raving. Stephen, that is. Almost as if he was having a quarrel with himself. Phil says he came out to see what the fuss was, and he swears hands down that he saw Stephen throw himself into the locks. He told the local Bobby's about what he'd seen, and they couldn't find anything in this. I thought you should know, unless you hear it from someone else in less favorable terms. I felt my world come crashing down around me. This was too much for me to absorb at once. Every man be he a saint or a sinner as his share of faults. But to hear of these developments, coupled with the last letter Stephen had sent me and the news that he may have killed himself, not to mention the expectation that I should take his place at the parish. I'll need time to think about it Ted. I said, stand it up slowly. He nodded and finished his drink before standing himself. I understand. Look, no one's expecting you to hold a service or anything. The whole village knows the situation, and I just think that they are. I just think that they and the council are glad to have you here. You won't have to perform any public services, not until you are good and ready at least. No doubt our placement will be found before too long. I try not to worry too much about what Phil Crouch says. You know him. Steep a fire with a drink at the time. I'm sure Stephen's fine. He's probably just taking the time he needs. You pointed to the keys on the table. These are yours until it's all sorted out. Look, I best begin back to work out there. If it need me, just say so. But I hope you'll stay. Patting me on the shoulder, Ted left, leaving me sat alone in the kitchen. My mind was blazed with confusion and doubt. Just what chaos had I returned to. It took no small amount of time for me to settle into the house. I avoided going into town at all costs and only received the minimal amount of visitors, many of which were only at my door seeking gossip. I quickly dismissed the worst of them and focused instead on the genuine well-wishers and sympathizers of which there were depressingly few. Apart from Ted, the only person I spoke to regularly was my mother, who was less than supportive with the whole matter and only offered a few snipes about the man I had come to think of as my father. I spent the rest of my time in the church taking care of daily chores and wandering around the cemetery, where I would occasionally bump into Ted and have a short, pleasant, though sterile conversation about the weather before moving on. The days were growing colder. Now it frequently brought him hot tea and food as he worked relentlessly on maintaining the church grounds, especially those close to where the feral brambles of the gunner's cloth constantly enroached. He wasn't a bad company by any means, but as the days turned into weeks, we found less and less to talk about. I also kept it constant. I also kept in constant contact with Bishop Ellison, who offered me all the support he could in running the parish. He was confident that a replacement for Stephen would be found quickly, but was very sensitive about discussing it in detail, knowing just how close he had been to me. He was during one of these mini daily excursions around the churchyard. It was during one of these mini daily excursions around the churchyard that I decided to revisit the witch-elm trees that Stephen had once shown me. I had explored most of the large open cemetery and decided to walk around the far back end, which borders with the gunner's cloth. I could not state with any clear conviction what it possessed me to walk along the lonesome and lonely stretch of graveyard, rammed as it was with crumbling tombstones, the names of their occupants long since worn away by the passage of time. In the shade of those large forsaken trees, there rested some of the oldest and most crepithead stones in the whole cemetery. Many of them leaned, had steep angles, and some had toppled over entirely, their surfaces now home to moss and lichen. I passed each in turn, trying in vain to make out the names and dates that had been washed away by the relentless rain of northwest England, till I came across the witch-elm trees once more. Nestled at the very back of the cops, deep in the shadows of a particularly diseased-looking tree, I could see a patch of ground that appeared to have been freshly excavated. I made my way closer and stood in front of it, noticing that a small carved stone had been half submerged in the recently disturbed soil. It was green and furry with moss. I had been down and ran my hand around it and found the clumps of moss growing upon its surface easy enough to pull off. Nice of vegetation, I could spot that there was an inscription and a date chiseled into the sandstone underneath, or the moss that preserved it. Here lies Francis Ellis Pendle, beloved by the devil, unforgotten by his disciples, 1751 AD. Carving was undoubtedly old, and despite the protection afforded to it by the moss, it was still eroded and worn away in parts. As I pulled the stone out of the earth, I noticed a newer, fresher-looking carving on the back. It was an odd shape, some kind of hieroglyph. It's difficult to truly say just what it was, that appeared somewhat similar to a pagan pentagram, where the lines were broken, resulting in a series of independent points. There said what looked like a "loss-in-shaped eye". In place of a pupil, there was instead a small flame-like shape. The symbol must have been "heathen" in origin, for I had never encountered its likes in all my years of religious studies. The whole stone was perhaps only 10 inches in height, hardly what one would call a tombstone, but appearing to hold the same purpose. Stinctively, I dropped the stone close to where I had found it and rubbed the dirt off my hands. I felt as if I had just come into contact with something unmistakably evil, as if my very soul had been touched by the horary and eldritch nature of whatever darkness it had been used to commemorate. It was then that the words from Stephen's last note crept into my mind. Fear that which lurks beneath which tree, do not invite it in, for it will make itself a home within you and through you, work its black magic. The hour was growing late, and the dimming sun caused the darkness of the gunner's cloth to wash over me, developing me within its black folds. I no desire to stay in that place, and hastily made my way back to the house, determined to reach it before the sun disappeared behind those vile trees. Once inside, I breathed a sigh of relief and then set about preparing myself a supper of some toast and fresh tea. "Try as I might, I cannot banish the warning from Stephen Slough." letter. Eventually, perhaps driven by a need to see if I had remembered his words correctly, I took the bundle of Steven's letters from the kitchen drawer, where I kept them tucked away beneath some pearly flits, and sifted through them until I found the one that mentioned Steven's talk of witchcraft. I unfolded it and re-read it until I came to the passage with the warning. I'd indeed remembered it verbatim. Unnerved, I folded up the letters in hastily, placed them back into the drawer. Moment later, Ted came into the kitchen, trembling about the cold and wiping his mud-stained boots on the door-matte. He nodded and helped himself to the DI'd brood before setting himself down and pulling out his tobacco to roll himself a cigarette. I waited a few minutes for him to progress halfway through his task before broaching the subject of Steven and his strange decline. So, Ted, did Steven ever mention a grave to you? We're not in the yard close to the woods. He put his tobacco down and nodded. I saw him looking over at a bunch of times. He told me it was a grave of a witch, hung for his crimes hundreds of years ago, one of the last andingly reckoned. And that was last he was studying him before his change of character came over him. He nodded again and lit his cigarette with a match before extinguishing it with the shake of his hand. Study is one way of putting it. Obsession would be another. You know he converted the seller of his house into some kind of study. A library I guess you could call it. A full of all sorts of queer-looking books. Latin, I reckon. Not unusual for a vicar. I guess some of them is written in German and others in languages I can't begin to understand. Not only that, I moved all kinds of bloody chemicals and equipment in there too. I can't really say I recognized most of it. Plays stinks to high heaven. Is it still there? In the seller? No. I reckon he took almost everything with him when the bishop told him to leave. Might be some bits and pieces down there. But you'd be lucky to find much. We both then sat in silence. Ted turned his attention to a local newspaper folded on the table and myself to my thoughts. The next day, acting largely upon a hunch, I contacted the east witch college and asked to speak to their head, who turned out to be a rather jovial man named Lee Humphrey, who was all too happy to answer any and all of my questions. Over the phone, he confirmed a suspicion of mine that he and Stephen had had some mild correspondence concerning lab equipment and various chemicals, compounds, and acids. He reeled off several overly long and complex names, oblivious to the fact that I was totally ignorant of what he was speaking. I thanked him and hung up the phone. A few more pieces of the puzzles slotting into place in my mind. The distance between them, however, was too great to form a larger cohesive picture, witchcraft and science, chemistry and an obsession with a 200-year-old hidden grave. How do they connect? Determined to uncover more, I decided to visit the library, Stephen had set up, and then dismantled during that time we were separated. The entrance to the seller was in the kitchen, behind a narrow door that I first presumed to have been a broom cupboard. It concealed a flight of cold-stone steps that led to a distinctly dank and musty underground room. A few cramped shelves on the walls either side of the steps house a collection of mundane objects, candles, dried out paint cans, and the like. But also, luckily, a working torch. I took the ladder and switched it on as I descended the steps. So I did drives me crazy, I British people call flashlights torches. Can't you just be normal? Torches and other things, stupid, whatever. He has a torch in my head now, like a flaming torch. "Baaaaaaand," the seller said, "Baaaaaaand." The seller wasn't very far down, but the low ceiling above the steps was frightfully claustrophobic, and I was forced to cock my head to the side to avoid banging it on the wooden beams. I reached the bottom and found an open doorway to my right, which led into a very simple square room that, like the stairs, possessed an oppressively low ceiling and a strong musty scent. I entered the seller, relying upon the feeble cone of sickly yellow light emanating from the torch to make out any firm details from the malaise of murky darkness beyond. A large rotting wooden table served as a centerpiece for the room, and there were rows of badly handmade shelves lining the back wall, sagging and leaning at odd angles. The shelves were mostly barren, but there was evidence in the dust that a large collection of books had once stood here, and a bare steel skeleton of chemistry equipment and a few empty bottles set on the desk. As I moved the light around, it reflected off several large bottles on another shelf to my right. Large, thick, almost barrel-like, most for full of clear yellow liquids, others were not brown oil in color. A few were marked with hastily scrawled labels that read "royal water". Beyond the collection of chemicals, there was a door that appeared to lead out of the seller. This confused me, for I could not recall any outside entrance that led to the seller beneath the house. The door itself looked ancient, with its rusted bolt and handle barely holding onto the crumbling wood, to which there were both crudely nailed into. So I moved closer to it, the light from my torch caught something carved into the frame above the door. It was that curious star hieroglyph I had seen on the stone above the grave of Francis Ellis Pendle. I ran my finger along the carving, almost as if to ascertain that it was real. As my finger traced the freakish shape, I felt a chill creep over me, the same chill that it caused me to flee from the shadows of the witch elves. This time, I refused to let fear grip me, taking the door by its rusted handle and pushing it inward. To my surprise, the door did not lead to the outside of the house, but instead, revealed another set of stone stairs leading further down into the earth. Oater that assaulted my senses is that took a solitary step towards those stairs was foul. It was a putrid stench, unlike anything I had ever smelled before. If I was to describe it as an ungodly mixture of some acidic compound and rotting excrement, I would be on the verge of doing justice to the malignant face of scent. Instinctively took a step back and raised my hand to cover my nose as if it would somehow relieve me of the burden of breathing in that foul and fetid air. For a brief moment, I considered turning around and leaving the cellar, but out of burning curiosity, I slowly started to descend those awful stairs. Well, lay at the bottom as something that will haunt me until my final days. For lane beyond, it was a second chamber, not unlike the first. Whereas the above-cellar space had been converted into some kind of perverse amalgamation of esoteric library and alchemist laboratory, this hidden chamber was nothing less than the devil's workshop. Strange images were carved and painted onto the walls, many of them resembling the hieroglyph I had seen on the meager gravestone of Francis Ellis Pindle. There was little to tie the various pictographs together. Some depicted spheres or eyeballs. Others were long snake-like tendrils that curled upon themselves to create a rudimentary alien text. As I etched further into the room, I could make out various objects nailed to the ceiling. Some were rusted tools, like the kind you would find at a slaughterhouse. Others were odd assortments of twigs held together with twine, creating shapes that had a vague human outline to them. The crowning whore, however, was the table. This long stone edifice was less a desk and, more like a butcher's slab, staying the hideous reddish brown all over. There were grooves carved into the table's surface, all of which culminated towards a round hole, underneath which a rusted iron bucket had been attached. It was from this bucket that the stench appeared to originate, and bending down to inspect its contents, I could see the glistening, rotting hind limb of a dog. Magnets wriggled across its surface, burrowing in and out of the putrid flesh. I felt bile rise in my throat, but I managed to keep it down and continue my investigation. Like the room above, there were shelves fitted to the walls. These were not bare, instead being filled with the brand with various manuscripts, papers, maps, and class shars. The whole scene had an unmistakable sense of the bygone laid over it, as if it had set there undisturbed for centuries. Among the papers and jars, I found a small linen bag tied with a piece of string. A brown stain on the bags under side made me think twice about opening it, but I eventually found the courage to do so. Inside were numerous small wide objects that looked like tiny stones, but upon tipping the contents out and inspecting them with the torch, I found my whore, but they were children's teeth. Roodle. Okay, so when Stephen went mad, he began to give himself over to these occult teachings and the dogs, the animals that went missing, all the rumors and stuff was him performing like experiments in this lower basement. Yeah, and also I think that he let it in. And this is him doing the black magic that he was talking about as well. Yeah, do you think it's him getting possessed? And that's like, that's our old with himself while he's fighting himself. That's not red, but I feel like it's like he's going insane and he's like performing, obviously non-holy black magic kind of, I wouldn't even say experiments. I just think he's like doing rituals and shit in his basement. Do you think that maybe he started doing this because he thought he could defeat the witch? Like there was some ritual he could perform to get rid of it? Yeah, I think so I also think that he went in ignorantly thinking that this was just like a cool discovery and not realizing like the thing that he just like let loose. Yeah, that's how it goes sometimes you think you found a clue. dead witch. And the next thing you know, you're collecting children's teeth. It's a bummer. Yeah. It's, you know, it's rough. That happens to us. By this time, the smell was becoming unbearable, and I had no wish to linger further. Sight into a ban on my investigation. I spied a small, frayed notebook left on the right hand corner of what I now thought of as a bit of a section. I spied a small, frayed notebook left on the right hand corner of what I now thought of as a vivisectionist's table. For whatever reason, I could not then fathom. Curious woodblock image on the front must have caught my eye, and I picked the book up and tucked it into my jacket before making my way back to the sanity of the house above. I immediately removed my jacket and threw it onto the kitchen table, discussed it that the terrible stench from below had somehow attached itself to me like a parasite. Then methodically opened all the windows of the house, hoping that the chill air would purify the hideous odor that had made a nest for itself in my nostrils. Tired, my poor mind swirling from the revelations of that hypogen realm, I eventually collapsed onto my bed and succumbed to exhaustion. I cannot say how long I had been slumbering when the first of those terrible dreams came to me. My sense of time had been grossly warped by my exploration in the cellar, but it must have been quite sudden, as the sun was still in the sky when I finally jolted awake, my pillow wet was sweat. It's impossible for me to tell if the dreams were brought on by Steven's final letters, or if that hidden chamber below the house had awoken something macabre and unwelcome in my imagination. I found myself standing within the cemetery outside, only it was different. The land around me was sparser, with fewer tombstones jutting out of the soft mossy ground, the gunner's cloth lay before me, it's outlined far more feral and foreboding than it had any right to be. Sky above me was a blackened abyss, punctured by thousands of twinkling stars that glittered and gleamed from the grate beyond. The fat silver moon slowly crept above the tree line, casting its pale white light upon the cemetery, causing long, deep shadows to detach from the headstones and crawl upon the ground towards me. I took a few steps back, but they still followed me. Chilling me as they swept over my feet, legs and body, then out of the tangled briars he came, popping and gambling out of the branches, the awful form of salt-peater. On three legs he danced, the sleek body of a greyhound, upon the neck of which they're leaned and sway the head of a cat. His eyes were milky orbs, faintly illuminated like phosphorous toadstools. From his feline jaws, they're dripped a reddish clear syrup that hissed as it hit the sanctified ground of the courtyard. He momentarily ceased his incessant frallicking to scratch himself, but I could see that it was his missing back leg that was attempting the impossible task, a raw bloody stump that gesticulated feebly towards the source of his irritation. Then, beyond the twitching imp, I could see another figure, a man. Even at this distance, I could make out the repulsive details of his form. He was tall and thin, his long, slender fingers like twigs, his lengthy nose and sunken eyes were clearly visible through the cemetery gloom. Worst of all, a sardonic and wolfish grin laced stretched across his face. There was a hunger in that smirk, a deep and terrible burning hunger, and saw Peter cease to scratching, and in a hollow voice that somehow sounded like my mothers, spoke these words. "Come child, come, we have marmalade and marzipan, in all manner of big treats for you. We have seed cakes and toffee apples, all that your heart desires come with me into the forest, and I will show you the delights beyond your dreams." I felt myself being pulled towards those honeyed words, all the while the tall sinister man said nothing, only grinning at me from beneath his wide-brained hat. "I can't. It's dark and my mother will want me home for supper." "Suppor?" Applied salt, Peter, is rotting pale tongue licking around his chops. "Oh, we shall have supper, won't we master?" The imp then looked up towards the terrible man, who stayed silent while nodding his head in agreement. I tried once more to turn away, but my feet were spellbound, marching me towards what I knew to be my demise. "Mother, mother, please, I'm scared!" Terrible man laughed as salt, Peter rubbed himself upon his master's blood-stained breaches, a wheezing purr emanating from his twisted form. "Mother!" I cried once more, the words mercifully pulling me back from the precipice of my dreaming madness. "Mother." Went bird, awake now, and once more in my bed. To say that the dream, the nightmare, had a nerve for me would be a lie. In fact, it was all I could think of for the next few days. I did not dare to sleep again on the first day, and instead piled myself with the strong Turkish coffee that Stephen had kept hidden away for special guests. When I finally did succumb to sleep the next day, my dreams were less vivid and mercifully brief. I felt the presence of salt, Peter, and the terrible man on several occasions, but managed to awaken myself before they could make themselves known. I also dreamt often of the gunner's cloth and of the outer cops of witch-hail trees that lay beyond. I think salt, Peter was an old name for gunpowder. I thought, so I wonder if there's a connection between, am I wrong? Yeah, potassium nitrate. Okay, yeah. Well, it's the chemical that's used in gunpowder and black powder and stuff like that. I wonder if there's a connection between this creature being called salt, Peter, and then all the references to the chemical stuff that Stephen was doing in his basement. I don't know. The main script I had taken from the hidden seller to what he said, who knows? Who knows? The main script I had taken from the hidden seller chamber, lay forgotten on the kitchen table during this haunted time. Until by chance, a week or so later, I haven't defined it beneath a small pile of local newspapers that had been collecting. I was once again taken aback by the group TESC, the monical woodblock printing on the front of the main script. Sitting down and inspecting it further, I could see roughly a dozen or so figures depicted in the image. Most were what I would describe as crones and haggs. Many of them riding upon the backs of black goats and other less discernible creatures. Various furtive, demonic characters were also shown. Some of them dancing and copulating with the crones and disgusting detail. Around them were various smaller figures. I guess you would call them imps or familiars of varying anatomy. Many of the figures were oddly named, text appearing next to them. To be what I took for some form of early English. Queer titles such as Pie Wacket, Grizzled Greta Gut, and Peak in the Crown. But one of the odious creatures had a name next to its image that caused my heart to jump in my chest for a moment. The image was that of a three light town bearing the head of a cat. Next to the bee slay the words, Salt Peter. My pause for a moment, images of that terrible nightmare are playing out of my mind like a perverse pantomime. I glanced back at the yellowed manuscript. There was no title on the front. So I slowly peeled back the first page and there printed in bold black, lay the words, Sussex manuscript, cultus, cultus, Maleficerum. So that means cult manuscript, I'm pretty sure. I think, is that why Maleficerum? Maybe maliciousness. My computer gets possessed immediately. Maleficerum, okay Maleficerum is in reference to witches because the book, Malice Maleficerum, means the hammer of witches. So cultus would be cult of witches? I would imagine then. Sussex manuscript, cultus witches. Also the other name, Pi Wackets, a legend too, right? I'm waking that up. Yes, Pi Wacket is one of the familiar spirits of a convicted witch accused to be claimed of witch finder. Okay, yeah. So it was a spirit that like witches would summon and stuff like that. So it's a book of spells, a book of witches. The description he had of like these weird shapes, these half-man things like copulating with the crowds and stuff like that remind me of a lot of old depictions of like witch festivals where they're around a fire and the demons appear and dance with them. Kind of like the ending of the movie The Witch. But there's a painting. I think it's called Black Sabbath. This is important to me. Witches Sabbath. Yeah, so there's a painting called Witches Sabbath. That's a very famous one of like all the witches gathered around like a depiction of the devil or baffum at whatever goat headed thing. But yeah, typically in like old tradition, the witches would gather together and have these big fires where the spirits would come out and keep them blessings and stuff like that. Anyway, no author or date appeared anywhere in the front or back at the manuscript, but as I flick through, it opened on a section roughly half of the way through. This particular chapter must have been referenced many times, for the manuscript almost appeared to want to open at this point. I glanced down and saw the title, calling upon thy black imp. almost looked like something out of a cookbook, or a pulse of recipe that was half profane culinary instruction and half magical incantation. Odeous images accompanied the next page showing a gnarled chrome gleefully chopping up the bodies of rabbits, cats, dogs, calves with an oversized meat cleaver. I decided to put the manuscript in the kitchen drawer next to Steven's letters and did my best to banish its foul images for my mind. That's a really funny place to put it. So what's the caretakers name? Ted? Yeah. So he's just like walking around one day and he opens and he's like, oh, what's in the cookbook? Oh, my God. Oh, boy. Oh, God. Oh, no, it's happening again. Okay. All right. This is a drill. Days and then weeks passed by and eventually I managed to put most of the past behind me regarding the Horde manuscript as well as Steven in his strange turn of personality. The dreams lingered for a while, but eventually they released me from their grip. My sleep grew more restful. I resumed my duty as a standing by car with a renewed guest toe and opened the church. At first the locals were slow to return, but his word spread. My Sundays were soon busy and I found myself welcoming faces new and old to my service. I allowed myself to forget about all this talk of black magic and imbs and witches that have plagued my return to the village and instead focused on serving my community with the help of a few curates appointed by the bishop to assist me. I even found the courage to descend once more into the cellar and rigged up the entrance that led to the hidden room beyond. Thoughts of Steven still occasionally crept into my mind, of course. Typically in the form of short dreams, I still experience from time to time. These were less disruptive than my prior nightmares, being less sinister in nature. I had resigned myself to the awful truth that I may never see or hear from Steven again and so spent more time with my mother and rekindled a few friendships in the village that had grown cold whilst I was away studying. I grew keenly aware that I was being groomed by the diocese to replace Steven as the parish priest and struggled with my conflicting feelings on the matter. I had managed, however, to develop a firm mental robustness that permitted me to carry on with my new daily routine, growing my flock and welcoming the Lord's light and forgiveness into the hearts and minds of my community. Sadly, this period of respite would abruptly end with an event that was singular in its horror and absurdity. It was an event that at a certain time in my life, I would have welcomed wholeheartedly and how it was one that filled me with an "inescapable" cold dread, for the first time since returning to Barton, I finally received word from Steven, note the plunge my mind back into madness. The letter was from Steven, but this wasn't obvious to me immediately. As it lacked not only the hallmarks of his handwriting, but also that of any normal sane human being. The writing was a mere scribble, childish and scratchy. Cramp script appeared as if it had been fighting with itself as it spilled onto the page in a vain effort to form some kind of discernible legibility. The paper itself was also odd. It appeared to have been torn from a book, as the printed stamp, property of Barton Library, appeared on the opposite side. The paper was also slightly damp, water stains and a strange grit-like sediment dotted around the written words, content of the note, as best as I cared to remember, was as follows. "Ben, don't have long before these hands are not mine, I need to make it back to my body. I can feel him pulling me back to his, I don't think I can escape again, I will try. Do one last thing for me, I beg you, we need the tree, I am beneath the tree and in pain, his spirit is free now, it wants you. My body is no longer suitable, yours is better, I beg you, take up the earth under the tree, take what you find beneath and burn it, not fire, it must be acid. Take the royal water and drench his remains in it, none of the essential salts can survive, do you understand? You can return if you use fire, I am slowly in the ground, I cannot stand the blackness anymore, I am myself for a few moments, back here in my own rotting body to a bright and bring you this note, soon I must return to the soil, my own fault, I called him and he answered, I'm so sorry for bringing you into this madness, do as I ask, Stephen." So not to diminish the story, it's really cool, but if I was to text you that randomly, would you come burn the body? I, yes, in a heartbeat, even if you're still, if you're walking on the street, I'd cover you in gasoline, I'd light you a blaze, or no, I throw acid in your face, I just looked up to royal water is an old name for a mixture of nitric acid and hydrochloric acid, it's a metal way of saying it, royal water, that's a cool way to say it, royal water, the stuff that just burned stuff, that's pretty sick, but so, so if I texted you that, which he's not even, I mean, he's saying burn the body so that I can be free of it because he's possessed by it, but he's not saying to burn his own body, right? Right. Saying burn the, the witch. Yeah, so why would you burn me if I texted you that? Oh, I wouldn't think about that in the moment, I would think about that later. Oh, shit. I guess it goes. I guess I'd say, oops, oops, I'm on the ground screaming, my face is melting. Oh, I guess I say, Oh, dang, fuck, man, I'm so sorry. Oh, that's rough, dude, I'm sorry to hear that, that's sorry. Oh, well, you know, this is really one of those when some loose some scenarios, I'm bleeding everywhere. I mean, now it's fascinating, I see more and more where the story opened up at with him in the madhouse for digging up a body. I must burn it. No, it must have been. Burn it. The note must have been hand-delivered or it lacked a stamp or even an address on it. It was simply a folded up piece of paper with bins crawled on the front in the same spider e-pinmanship. I needed some fresh air to clear my mind after reading the baffling note and took a brisk walk through the village. The banishing sun was pleasant enough, but it was punctured cruelly by a cutting wind that caused my skin to shrivel with goose bumps. The village was quiet, and I saw only a few locals as I walked a loop around the village, starting at town-filled lane and then a long run-cord road, finally back up lit lane and towards the church. There was so much chaos flowing in my mind that upon returning home, I simply collapsed into a chair at the kitchen table and lay my head down. I weighed heavily upon my heart that Stephen was out there somewhere, either a drooling madman or the victim of some black sorcery that I could barely bring myself to give credence to. But if God and His mighty kingdom were real, as I had been raised to believe, and surely the devil and all the denizens of the pit must be also, this affair did not strike me as madness. There was a revolting authenticity to it, not to mention an alien element that my mind struggled to grapple with in its complexity. As the sun sank upon that day and gave birth to the inevitable darkness, I found myself drawn to the decanter of Brandy that Stephen had kept in the lounge and indulged myself heartily of its warming contents. The fire conjured in my throat by the liquor was very much welcomed him. By the time I had polished off of a fourth glass, I was very much under the sway of hypnose that carried myself numbly to my bed. For the first time in weeks, the dreams returned, a toss and turned all night unable to settle. My brain buzzed with a thousand thoughts as half-imagined fear stands to my mind's eye. There's a horrid semi-realization that my slumber in form was being watched and more than a few times I felt my spirit lift out of my body and float above my bed. From this observation point, I could see a dark figure standing in the shadowed corner of my room, his eyes glaring at my sleeping body with an alien hunger. I saw Salt Peter, that hideous abomination, leap upon my bed and paw playfully at my lips. "This one will do nicely." The empathend spoke, once more, in a voice that sounded like my mother's. "This one, Master, and then we are free." On the morning sun, blissfully shined through my bedroom curtains, I was able to banish the night's dread back to whatever foul pitted it spawned from. But each night they returned. I held sermons for the following fortnight designed more to comfort myself than my community. I spoke with fiery conviction how Jesus had defeated both death and the devil and how with his love, there was no evil on the earth that would not be banished. It settled my nerve somewhat, but comfort of normalcy, which I craved, looted me. Few days after receiving this crude note, I learned with great dismay that Stephen's body had been found on the Blackcroft teeth. Though his bloated corpse had been discovered some distance away from both the canal and the nearby river, the corner ruled his cause of death as drowning. The funeral shortly followed and I decided to leave the service, despite the bishop offering to take that burden from me. The turnout was higher than I expected, which comforted me, and I even saw my mother shed a few tears for our village's departed biker. Eventually, with both the terrible dreams and Stephen's demise weighing upon me, I made the decision to step down from the parish and to leave the church entirely. What had once been a dream was rapidly transforming into an unending nightmare. I planned to leave Barton all together to never again step foot within its haunted streets. I concluded that the village was not a good place to linger and made plans to relocate to Manchester. This decision, final and resolute in my mind, did manage to bring some comfort, now that myself. to hope that this whole affair would one day be behind me. I didn't inform the bishop, I was concerned that he would try to convince me to stay. I gave myself no longer than two months to wrap up my affairs and then inform the diocese of my decision. As fate would have it, that decision, along with many others, stolen from me on that awful night that was to come. The renewed sense of peace brought on by my impending resignation and relocation might have lasted at that crowning horror and automated my world on that dark December night. I'd retired to bed early, but the constant lashing of the rain had been relentless all day and was set to continue throughout the night. I slept fitfully in and sporadic episodes of thrashing, where I was experiencing the most vivid and horrid dream imaginable. I dreamt of being confined, bound in the darkness. My arms worked but my legs felt numb and lifeless. I struggled ceaselessly to remove myself from this foul bondage, but my body felt like some spindly marion that whose strings had become tangled around my fingers, cutting off the blood flow and leaving them numb and useless. After what seemed like an eternity, I somehow managed to muster what little strength I had and forced my forms through the cracks of my prison. I dreamt of pushing upwards, forever upwards, past the rotting wood and the soft wet earth, past the worms and the mad-it-tangle of endless roots, and finally to the cold, rain-lash surface above. I woke suddenly with that last thought, set upright in bed with cooling sweat pouring down my back, but it wasn't the dream that it startled me awake. As my sense is suggested, I could hear that it was the ringing of the church bells that had mercifully returned my mind from the abyss. The clear and familiar sound of ringing bells pierced the night air, and I glanced at the clock to see that it was just past three, for which he now, I thought. I jumped out of bed and grabbed my dressing-gown, no doubt the noise would eventually awaken the entire village, and I would be to blame. I raced down the stairs and bolted out of the kitchen door into the chill of the night. I barely noticed the cold rain pelting my face as I ran towards the church. My slivers greedily soaked up the muddy water that pooled around my footsteps and I shuttered as the cold damp muck sank in between my toes. Determined to stop the commotion, I fumbled with the keys, but the door was already a jar, and I pushed it open and made my way to the main hall in the direction of the bell chamber. By the time I reached the door, the ringing had mysteriously stopped, and I slowed down my pace. As I'd been over to catch my breath, I noticed a disgusting trail of mud and slime shaking its way from the doorway and through the hall. It seemed to lead directly to where I was headed. I kneeled and swiped my fingers through the baffling sludge. It possessed a charnel stitch, not unlike the beaded aroma that had sickened me in the cellar that terrible day. I immediately pulled a hangar chiff from my gown pocket and wiped the horrid jelly from my fingers as best I could. I was determined to find out the cause of the ringing, but it crept over me that there was perhaps a mundane, yet still unnerving explanation. Suppose someone had broken in and was using the bells as a diversion while an accomplice robbed my home, I thought. Still as much as I would have liked to accept the solution as fact, I felt compelled to investigate the muddy trail. There's little value in the house that a thief could steal, and even if it was true, I no desire to confront a burglar in the dead of night. I therefore slowly entered the numerous chambers that housed the bell ropes beyond the main hall. There was a feeble sliver of light that glowed through the window from the street lamps outside, I could just make out the basic parameter of the chamber. I was certain that no one else was in the room and I carefully walked deeper into the darkness to inspect the six ropes. All were unmoving, except one, which swayed gently in the dark. Just like the floor outside, there was a smear bowel smelling mud over the ground, as well as on the moving rope. I placed my hand upon it and it stopped swaying. Then, just as I was considering leaving, I suddenly became aware of a shape on the ground in the far left corner. My eyes were still adjusting to the dark of the room, but at first, I fancy it looked like a mud-sane bundle of rags and twisted sticks, but as I inspected further, creeping whore washed over me along with the terrible recognition, what I was seeing. What did I see? That is, at once, an easy and a difficult question to answer, and is perhaps the crux of this whole affair. Be lying on the ground in front of me, face, or should I say skull, pressed to the stone floor, was an ancient collection of decayed bones and mummified flesh, chunks of thinking, sawed in earth and flayed, tattered skin were wrapped around the grizzly mound of necrosis. It was a brown, spindly thing, more bone than meat, with a wide-ish cracked dome for a head. Wrapped around its spine, close to what, once passed for a neck, was the rotten damp rope of the hangman's news. It was then that I heard a muffled and strained sound emanating from the skeletal whore, lay at my feet. It was at once a whisper in a growl, human and beastial. Disembodied and echoing all around me, yet at the same time focused upon that massive rags and fused bone, the noise allulated of my soul. For the voice was that, Stephen Adams. Corpse thing before me issued forth a single sentence for growing still in silent. Once more. And for love of God, please. Oh, gosh, dude. Oh, your voice says that he's been, like, possessed by the spirit of this ancient witch. And then the witch is like decomposing skeleton shows up. And you hear your friends say, please, my gosh. So it seems that the witch's, which is places with Stephen, like the witch's spirit is still trapped in his tomb, but because Stephen came into contact with it, Stephen now possesses the rotten body of the decaying witch, deep beneath the earth, explains his visions of being covered in roots unable to get out. And now, it wants Benjamin next. So Stephen has to horrifically switch his body with the corpse that's decomposing in a coffin. Right. And now it's crawled to the church to try to get, um, Benjamin to help him. That's rough. Those who have bothered to speak to me at any length know the rest of my story. Half mad and howling with a volatile mixture of fear and fury. I retrieved the yellow chemicals from the basement and together with the rotting bundle through their contents into the self-exhumed grave of Francis L. Spendle. At some point, two police officers accosted me. And I managed to overcome them and continue my grizzly task, dissolving the whole mess into acrid sludge. I watched it bubble and froth into the black soil as the earth reluctantly absorbed the disgusting mass. Despite the obvious horror, I felt a great relief wash over me. The chaos of the past few months of my life came sharply into view, like a knot unraveling before me. Madness gave away to clarity, though this is the end of my account. It's not the end of the matter. For there was no doubt in my mind that beneath that lonesome witch elm, beneath the colders of that hidden grave, the soul of my dear friend, Stephen Adams, had lain incarcerated for months in silent torment. It called up the wicked soul of his ancestor for whatever purpose I can now only guess out. He had not been strong enough to put down that which he had called for us and paid for it with his life and soul. A terrifying spiritual transfusion had taken place. Pendle had taken Stephen's body, that Stephen had been forced into Pendles. At some point, Stephen had managed to take control of his body long enough to hurl it into the churning waters of the river hoping to end that evil which had made a home for itself within him. Stephen had been reduced to a mere consciousness, his Pendle spirit roamed freely. As the witch said about renewing his covenant, conjuring up his black ebbs, Stephen's sentient mind fully aware with its senses intact, understood with a bombardable clarity that it had now inhabited the 200-year-old corpse of Francis Alice Pendle, he who had been hung for his crimes against God and the King, he who had sought to bargain with the devils of the sky and of the earth, he who had slept restlessly beneath the dark soil of the gunner's cloth, his presence felt by all who dared enter, he who had dreamt of nothing but the torment and wickedness he would unleash upon the descendants of those who had delivered him to his grave, dreams of vengeance and dark oaths of terrible dreams of blasphemy and madness, the dreams beneath the witch tree. And that is the end of the story. Whatever stories end with like a little exposition dump like that, usually I'm like, eh, but it was nice. It's like a little, it's, it feels almost like poetic. Yeah. And also you have to take that ending and compare it back to the very beginning of the story, where it's like we're reading an investigators account or like he's talking about Benjamin, who Benjamin was thrown in a madhouse after being found, you know, dissolving the body and acid. It says he came under direct care and says, he, one night he vanished from a cell, not long after his statement was recorded. Through unknown means, he has sought to have overcome the security staff brutally murdering one of the junior physicians, Dr. Howard Fleming, for making good his escape. So he's made it out, he's hiding in the woods somewhere. So what I think happened is, uh, Pendle's body switched with Stevens, right? We know that happened. And then Steven managed to come back from the grave or crawl out of the grave to have Benjamin dissolve him so that he'd be no more, which sure Stevens finally laid to rest his soul is no longer trapped in the body. But even though Stephen got to throw the rotting corpse, or he got to throw himself into the river for a quick moment, we know that spirits can still possess rotting corpses. So that would mean Pendle spirit is inside of Stephen's body, meaning that's still out there. And again, if my theory's correct, that Stephen and Benjamin are father and son, then it's likely that Pendle is now seeking Benjamin's body. And in our intro to the story, which is set after the events of the letter, it seems that Pendle got what he wanted. Perhaps Stephen's or Benjamin's dream of being beneath the ground wasn't him in Pendle's old body. It was him in Stephen's own body. And now Pendle has possessed Benjamin in the psychiatric ward, killed a doctor on his way out and made it into the night. So his witchcraft came to fruition because he didn't need the father anymore because he had the son. So I think that's where the story is. It's all, and also there's some clever stuff in there about Benjamin not feeling fit to take over the moniker of the church and saying God will protect him and all this stuff. But despite his stated assuredness in God protecting him, he always continued to think on these evil things. He continued to go down into the basement, he continued to look into the witchcraft, he looked more and more into it. He told himself that God would have it under control, but he kept prying into the demonology and to the witchcraft of it all. And eventually he suffered the price because at the end of the story, it seems he became the next vessel. So it's ultimately like a story of him slowly drifting off his slope. He starts the story like you mentioned, saying Stephen was such a good guy, Stephen would never do anything wrong. And Stephen does all this evil, gives himself over to the spirit of Pendle. That now at the end of his story, he's fallen into the same trap, Stephen, who I believe to be his father, was just a forerunner for him. So it's a fascinating story with like, of like one character's descent into madness, even though trying to convince himself that he's able to stop not being able to stop and eventually succumb into the same fate that he tried to save and eventually save Stephen from. Yeah, it's a good, it's a good work. Same again with his other story, Day on smear, really great characters, great interactions between like little setups, like I feel like they just having like a character like Ted come in for a brief moment and kind of be at least someone who was there watching him and be like, I know, seriously, it's getting really fucked up. It's just a fun little addition, even if it isn't like to, you know, tie itself into a huge part of the outcome of the story, it's just a lot of fun. But you know, a really, really fun story. I always like whenever stories have a thing too of like a priest, like it kind of reminds you of the movie, the final prayer, which I reference all the fucking time, but it really is just like people coming to a parish where the guy is seeming a little, like a little out of usual, like not super normal, kind of a bit weird and it just fully envelops into like a giant horror that the guy has been having to deal with for some time. So that's always fun. But guys, that's our episode this week. Thank you so much to the audio listeners on Spotify and opa podcast. Thank you so much for giving us a nice, beautiful rating there. It also patrons, we appreciate you so much for supporting the channel. Be sure to check it out if you want some extra goodies. But until next time, stay creeped, everyone. Bye. Stay creeped. And of course, check out Nick Lowe's Instagram and a creepypasta account down in the description. I'm looking forward to when he inevitably writes a story about me saving Hunter from being in the spirit of an ancient witch, only for me to then quite tragically wind up in Hunter's rotting body. I'm sure that will happen on this podcast at some point. So stay tuned. Thanks for watching. Bye. [MUSIC]