The Man in the Moss

            He gasped.

            It were like Fireworks Night out there.

            Lights all over the Moss, like smouldery bonfires. Lights swooshing like rockets, through the rain, from one side to another, sometimes going across each other.

            But no noise except for the howling dogs and the rain.

            The lights lasted no more than ten seconds and then it was all gone and Benjie couldn't see anything apart from the water rolling down the glass.

            But when he lay in bed, the light showed up in the space between his eyes and his closed eyelids. He saw the Moss lit up greenish now, all green and glowing, except for the Dragon Tree.

            And that was twice as big now, its branches, all gnarled and knotted and black among whirling, spinning lights, two of them spiking up into the sky ... arms like giant horns with groping claws on the end. And the whole thing was breathing, dragging up big, soggy lungfuls of peat, and soon it was going to burst and its arms would gather up the whole village.

            Benjie felt a scream coming on and chewed the bedclothes instead, not wanting to be put out in the shed with The Chief and get gobbled up first.

Macbeth watched Chris and Chantal sink side by side into the sofa at the Rectory. They didn't seem like the same people. 'I really am tired,' Chris said. 'I'm shagged out.'

            And then, clearly shocked at himself, he looked up at Cathy. 'I'm sorry. I don't know what I'm saying. Catherine, has something got inside me? Am I possessed?'

            Cathy waved it away. 'Chris, you've got to tell me very quickly, no evasion. What happened in there?'

            Chris tugged at his beard. 'I just don't know. First of all, it was fine, we felt... how we used to feel. Holy. Special. And then it all went wrong ... really quickly. It went... dirty.'

            'It was like baptism,' Chantal said, hugging herself with goosebumpy arms. 'Only in reverse. In our baptism ... our re-baptism, we throw off some of our outer clothes - symbolically - and we're submerged in water. It could be a river, or we'll hire a public pool for an afternoon, and you come up cleansed and purified.'

            'That's it,' Chris said, eyes full of agony. 'That's right. Only this was like being submerged and some of us threw off our Christian clothes and we came up not so much dirty ... well, yes, dirty - but worse, really. Like it was before.'

            'People smoking,' Chantal recalled. 'In church. But it didn't feel like church, it didn't feel like anywhere.'

            'Yeah, and blaspheming in an everyday sort of throwaway fashion. And we drank ... God forgive us, we drank the Communion wine, like it was any old pop. It didn't matter. We were like the mass of godless people out there, we didn't need religion any more, we had no use for it. Catherine, I'm confused. We'll burn in hell for this, I think we've started to burn.'

            'It's OK,' Cathy said soothingly. 'The fire's out, now.' She turned to Moira and Macbeth. 'It's obvious, isn't it? It was the final sterilization.'

            'Well ...' Moira said. 'You can't just drain the power of centuries out of stone, you can only take it out of people, you let them absorb it through their mindless, passive ritual and then you snuff out the light, blow their shaky faith up their faces and leave them empty and when they walk out totally knackered like this guy here, they've drained out everything that was left in the church.'

            'Forgive me,' Macbeth said, 'Why'd they wanna do that?'

            'Because the church is the sacred centre of the village,' Cathy said. 'It's got to be neutralized before you can ...' She stopped for breath and couldn't go on.

            'Replace it with something black and horrible,' Moira said.

            'What ... what can we do to help?' Chris asked, rather feebly..

            Cathy rounded on him. 'You can keep your bums on that settee, call in all your friends and don't move until your coach comes for you. And then you can go away for ever."

            'Steady, Cathy.' Moira took her arm.

            'Wants to know if he's possessed?' Cathy said with a sharp laugh. 'Well, of course he's possessed. Possessed of a very slow brain. Moira, look, there's a copper out there who wants to go up the Hall with Stan Burrows and a bunch of his mates and do some sorting out, as they put it.'

            'So stop him,' Moira said.

            'You try and stop him!'

            'Look, they go up there mob-handed, God knows what could happen. It's pretty damned obvious - and we're looking at something planned months ago - that Stanage has shut down the church to deflect a lot of energy towards the second natural focus, the second-highest building in Bridelow. The brewery, right? And what's at the very top of the brewery building?'

            'Th'owd malt-store,' Willie Wagstaff said impatiently. Disused. Moira, happen this is over me head, but why don't we go up there mob-handed and flush the buggers out?'

            'Because you can't fight this thing with primitive violence. I swear to you, Willie, those guys go up there they'll wind up killing each other. It's like, how come you can put a bunch of ardent, Bible-punching born-again Christians in a church and they come drifting out an hour or so later with this amazing born-again apathy?'

            'He's right, though, Moira,' Cathy said. 'We can't just stand around doing nothing. Somebody ought to go up there.'

            It's what I've been trying to tell you!' Willie cried, all eight fingers beating at his thighs. 'Somebody has. Mr Dawber's up there. And Mr Dawber's been in a mind to do summat daft.'

            'OK,' Moira said. 'Come on, Willie.'

            'We'll go in my car,' Macbeth offered, moving to the door.

            'Ah ... not you, Mungo.'

            'What ... !' Macbeth counted three seconds of silence before he tore off his black slicker and slammed it to the Rectory lino with a noise like a gunshot. Willie jumped back. On the sofa Chris and Chantal gripped hands.

            'Now listen up!' Macbeth snarled. 'Everybody just fucking listen up! I have had it. I have had it up to here with getting told to butt out. I am sick to my gut with being treated like some goddamn halfwit with a stupid name who had the misfortune to be born five generations too late to be part of any viable heritage. Either I'm in, or I start figuring a few things out for myself, and maybe I'll kick the wrong asses and maybe I won't, but that's your problem not mine.'

            It all went quiet. Shit, Macbeth thought. Which reject script did that come out of? He picked up his slicker and put it on.

            'OK,' said Moira carelessly. 'You drive, Mungo. Cathy, I don't know what to say, except please keep that cop off our backs for as long as you can. And maybe if you can get the Mothers together in one place, that might be best. Would everybody fit into Ma Wagstaff's parlour?'