“And why is that?” asked the vicar, now quite annoyed that his plan had been shot down without even a discussion.

The verger turned to him, his face white.

“Because I think the dead are coming back to life,” he said. “And not the nice ones…”

The Church of St. Timidus had been in its present location for centuries. Much of its grounds were taken up with old gravestones because, for many generations, most of the people of the town had been buried beside the church when they died.

Unfortunately, not everybody had been buried under the church lawn. Church grounds were known as “consecrated,” which meant that they had been set aside for holy use. But people who committed serious crimes, and were executed for them, were not allowed to be buried on consecrated ground. For that reason, a second graveyard existed not far from the old church, though beyond its walls. No gravestones were placed there, and no markers, but everybody knew of it. The townspeople called it the Dead Field, and nobody built houses on it, or walked their dogs there, or had picnics on its grass during the summer. Even birds didn’t nest in its bushes and trees. It was, everybody felt, a Bad Place.

Now, as the vicar and verger watched, shambling shapes began to emerge from the Dead Field, their progress lit by the lights of the church grounds. Some still wore the tattered remains of old clothing, although there was precious little of it left. Thankfully, their modesty was preserved by the fact that most of them were just bones. The verger saw one skeleton with part of a rope round its neck, and knew that here was someone who had been hanged. The end of the rope dangled at its chest, so that it looked a bit like a necktie. Another skeleton appeared to have lost both its arms. It tripped on a stone and couldn’t get back up, so instead began to wriggle its way along the ground, like a bony worm with legs. Occasionally, flashes of blue light were visible in otherwise empty eye sockets.

“I wonder what that blue light is?” said the vicar.

“Maybe they’ve stuck candles in there,” said the verger sarcastically. “After all, it is Halloween.”

“Well, we can’t go outside now,” said the vicar, ignoring him.

“No, we can’t,” said the verger.

And from beneath their feet came what sounded like laughter.

XXVI In Which Constable Peel Wishes He Had Pursued Some Other Profession, and Dr. Planck Reappears

CONSTABLE PEEL AND SERGEANT Rowan were debating their options. They could a) let Nurd go, which didn’t seem like a very good idea given that he was, quite clearly, not a human being and also, if he was to be believed, a demon; b) take Nurd back to the police station and wait for someone with a little more authority to decide what should be done with him; or c) and this was Constable Peel’s suggestion, run away, because Constable Peel didn’t want to see Nurd do that thing with his head again. It had made him feel quite ill.

“He’s a demon, Sarge, and he doesn’t half smell bad,” said Constable Peel. “I’m not sure I want to be driving around with a stinky demon in the back of the car.”

“Hello,” said Nurd through the open car window. “I can hear you. Less of the stinky, please. I fell down a hole.”

“You have been driving around with a stinky demon in the back of the car,” Sergeant Rowan replied, trying to ignore Nurd. “Nothing happened.”

“’Nothing happened’?” said Constable Peel. “His head split open, Sarge. His tongue played a tune. I don’t know how you usually spend your evenings, but in my book that counts as ‘something’ happening.”

“Careful now, son, you’re getting worked up over…” He almost said “nothing,” then realized this might not be entirely helpful given Constable Peel’s current mood.

“… over, um…”

Constable Peel folded his arms and waited, then said, “Over what, exactly, Sarge?”

“…over…”

“… over, let me see, a demon in the back of the car?” finished Constable Peel. “That about covers it, I think. Oh, and he says the world is coming to an end. That qualifies as ‘something’ too.”

“Well, there you have it, then,” said Sergeant Rowan. “We can’t just sit around doing nothing while the world is coming to an end.”

“So what are we going to do, Sarge?”

“We’re going to put a stop to it, Constable,” said Sergeant Rowan, with the kind of assurance that had kept the British empire running for a lot longer than it probably should have.

The sergeant walked over to the car and leaned in close to the window, where Nurd waited expectantly.

“Now look here, sir,” he began, “what’s all this stuff about the world coming to an end?”

“Well,” said Nurd, “I thought I was the only one who’d come through.”

“Through from where, sir?”

“From Hell.”

“The Hell.”

“That’s the one.”

“What’s it like, then?” asked Constable Peel, who had reluctantly joined them.

“Not very nice,” said Nurd. “You wouldn’t like it.”

“There’s a surprise,” said Sergeant Rowan. “What did you think he’d say, Constable? That it was pleasant on a sunny day? It’s not the beach at Eastbourne, you know.”

“I was just asking,” said Constable Peel.

“Anyway, back to the issue at hand,” said Sergeant Rowan. “So, you’ve come from Hell, and you thought you were alone, but you’re not.”

“No, I’m not.”

“And these, er, ‘ladies’ who may have attacked our police station, friends of yours, are they?”

“No, they came some other way.”

“How, exactly?”

“I don’t know how,” said Nurd. “Someone must have opened a portal, and now they’re spilling through.”

“This portal, sir? What would it look like?”

Nurd considered the question. “I think it would be sort of bluish,” he said, finally. “It probably started off quite small, but now it’s getting bigger and bigger. And when it gets big enough, then…”

then…”

“Then what?”

“Then he’ll come through. Our master. The Source of All Evil. The Great Malevolence, along with his army. And that’ll be that, really. Hell on Earth.”

“Do you think you could find this portal, sir?”

Nurd nodded. He thought that he could already sense it. He felt the presence of the blue energy; it made the hairs on the back of his neck tingle. He knew that the closer he got to its source, the more he’d be aware of it. He was like a walking Evil Energy Detector. Now his hope was that, if he could get near enough, he might be able to sneak back to the Wasteland unobserved. Better yet, if Hell was empty because all the demons had moved here, he might find a way to leave the Wasteland altogether. He could go and live somewhere else, perhaps in a cozy cave with a nice view of some burning lakes.

“That‘s decided then,” said Sergeant Rowan. “This gentleman will show us where the portal is, and we can set about stopping all this nonsense. Get on the radio, Constable. Make sure everything is fine back at the station, and then tell WPC Hay to alert the army. We’ll need all the help we can get.”

Constable Peel prepared to do as he was told. Before he could make the call, WPC Hay came on the radio herself.

“Base to Tango One, over.”

“This is Tango One,” said Constable Peel. “Is everything all right, Liz? Over.”

“Those flying women have gone, and we’ve got the doors locked, but now we’re getting calls left, right, and center. People’s houses are being attacked; there are monsters crawling and flying all over the place. And there’s some trouble over at the church. Over.”

“What kind of trouble? Over.”

“According to the verger, the dead have started to rise. Over.”

Constable Peel, who already looked unhappy, now looked very, very unhappy. He’d joined the police to stop bank robberies, and solve the odd murder, neither of which he had yet managed to do as Biddlecombe was rather quiet, and so far the combined total of bank robberies and murders in the town was precisely nil. [25] Constable Peel had most certainly not joined the police to fight demons, not unless he was going to be paid overtime, and danger money, and given a great big gun.