| Webb Pages: The Chamber of the Crystal Stallion By K. Edgar Winchester copyright © 2009 Excerpted from: THE HAGGARDLY HAINT IN THE HEAVENLY HALLOWS All rights reserved |
“Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path,” I uttered into the darkness, and Rhema Logos was suddenly ablaze with a bright white light
that lit up that old backwoods church hallway like a powerful flood lamp, chasing the shadows away both this way and that.
"I just don't understand why you're so against us goin' down there," I spoke into the gloom. "Isn't God all about folks helpin' other folks?"
"Listen here, ya' whippersnapper," a sharp reply flew from the shadows. Jedidiah stepped into the light wearing a backpack, and carrying a hammer and
crowbar in his right hand, waving them in my face as he spoke, his fierce, bulging, egg-shaped eyes darting around this and that'away. "God has his reasons fer
ever'thin he ever does, and ain't you, ner none otherns, got no place in tryin' ta' alter his will!"
"So why are you here helpin' me now?" I asked.
Jedidiah chuckled softly.
"Cuz' the irony is...God wants me here," he replied, "to look after y'uns, I reckon. I Don't rightly know ma'self. You just remember all them things I've been
teachin' ya', ya‘ hear? Y'uns might just need 'em up here."
Jedidiah's been training me in the art of spiritual warfare for some few months now, since we first met at his home, The Stronghold Of Fortitude, another
creepy church in the middle of nowhere. Tilly Run Church was a bit creepier, however, as the windows were completely boarded over, and the cobwebs were
thicker, and the musty dusty air was a’might mustier and dustier.
“Which way?” I asked the old man, who angrily cocked his egg-like eyes in my direction once again.
"Now how in blazes am I s'posed ta' know?" he grumbled, then mumbled, "Smart mouth mo'bugger," as he turned and started down the hallway.
Warbucks whined.
"I know," I replied. "He does seem a bit grumpier than usual."
"I heard that, whippersnapper!" Jedidiah barked back without turning around.
While holding Rhema Logos out in front of me like a lantern we slowly trudged onward, looking for the sanctuary, that old wooden floor just a’squeaking
and a’creaking with every step. There was an array of creepy sounds all through the rooms of that little eighth-of-an-acre sized church house, which kept the
hairs on the back of my head plenty on end. As we wound around through them cramped little halls, carefully peeking into each and every room we passed, I
could smell something terrible permeating the air; It smelled like, like...like burning hair!
I mumbled a quick prayer, just to make sure angels were around in case them old ghost stories just happened to not be malarkey; and I could then hear their
faint voices singing their eerie mismatched harmonies in my inner ear. I tightly gripped a blessed cross that hung around my neck, a new one that Jedidah’d
give me, but I wasn’t sure it would help me much as Jedidiah had made me bless it myself, and the idea that I was supposed to be some "holy warrior" still
hadn’t quite set right with me just yet.
We came to a bend in the hallway at a door which led back outside where, after wiping down the window, I could see a tiny old cemetery all lit up under the
soft glow of a blue moon. Then I noticed Jedidiah’d disappeared.
“Jedidiah?” I whispered.
I don’t rightly know why I felt I had to whisper; weren’t nobody in that crickety old church but the three of us. But on the outskirts of Rhema’s radiant
flush, off to our right, was an intimidating pitch black, a darkness so seemingly infinite that my heart thumped wildly inside my chest as I peered into its
abyssal depth. Warbucks growled, reiterating the same feeling of dread that burned inside me. I heard the floor creaking behind us, and I quickly jerked Rhema
Logos around to lean her light on the darkness, but again the sinister abyss beyond her glow taunted me.
"STOP FOOLIN' AROUND!" I about jumped right outta' my pants and into the hereafter! "We ain't got alotta' time. It'll be midnight soon!" Jedidiah
exasperated.
"Wha... What happens after midnight?"
"Nothin'," he spouted. "Just gives me the creeps t' be up after midnight. Com'ere, I found what weez a'lookin' fer."
We followed him to the right of the door, proceeding down the gloomy hallway, the sounds of our footsteps on that hollow wooden floor bouncing off the
walls around us as we went. Jedidiah disappeared again as he passed through a menacingly darkened archway. I took a moment to shake off the willies,
gulped, "Come on Warbucks," then trudged on through behind him.
We entered the sanctuary, a big open hall full of old wooden fold-out chairs. Some were still set up, and others were folded and leaned up all around the
walls, and others still were folded up and laying around on the dusty floor. Cobwebs covered it all, but Jedidiah cleared us a path; he just walked on through,
followed by billowy clouds of dust that wafted gently to the floor. The far wall was lined with six tall boarded-over windows, and in the middle of that wall,
at the base, was the pulpit with an old rickety wooden Bible stand.
"Now git ta' work, sonny," Jedidiah said. "Take this here hammer, and this here crowbar, and pry up the pulpit floor."
I pulled off my backpack and set it down, then took Jedidiah's tools and stepped up onto the pulpit. I gazed down at the floor, uneasy... I don't particularly
care for rotted corpses much. After mumbling a quick prayer, and taking a deep breath, I knelt down and got to work, hammering that crowbar down in
between the boards and prying them up, one at a time.
"Oh," Jedidiah flickered as he pulled his pack off and set it to the side, " ...don't fergit ta' sprinkle that thar holy water down first, before ya' go fer th'
crystal."
With that he stooped and pulled a Bible from his backpack, then stood up and started praying. I didn't know whether to feel reassured by that, or petrified;
What was he trying to protect me from?
It didn't take long for me to pry up the boards. I reached over and picked Rhema off the ground and held her over the hole. I didn't see nothin' but dirt.
"Now what do I do?" I hollered over at the old man. "There's nothin' but dirt under here."
"Well, th' whole reason they call it buried is cause it's under th' dirt, I reckon," he answered. "Git ta' diggin'."
I looked down into the hole, then back up at Jedidiah and asked, "With what?"
"With what?" he again distressed, "With yer dern hands, boy, what else?"
He mumbled and grumbled under his breath, shaking his head in utter dissatisfaction. I stared at the black dirt down in the bottom of that hole, then looked
up at the ceiling.
"Why me?" I whispered so the old man couldn't hear. "Warbucks, com'ere. Hold Rhema over the hole so I can see what I'm a’doin'."
Warbucks trotted over ever-so obediently, panting away, with his long tongue dangling from his huge fuzzy face. He took Rhema Logos betwixed his
powerful jaws and held it over my head as I bent down and began to move the moist soil with my hands. I grimaced with each and every handful of dirt I slid
to the side, anticipating the inevitable rotted-corpse encounter that was mere seconds away. I dug down about a foot before I finally uncovered her decayed
skull.
"AAAAHHH!" I jumped back, breathing like I couldn't get enough air ta' breathe.
"Oh, I see y'uns found her," Jedidiah piped up, then chuckled, "What's th'matter? She ain'tchee type?"
"Funny," I replied.
I carefully swept away more dirt, revealing more of the old witch’s carcass, until I noticed a faint glow beneath a thin layer of soil next to her left shoulder. I
removed the soil and there it was, the crystal clavis, glowing as pretty as you please. I was dazzled by it, and I suddenly found myself totally lost in its
glimmer. I heard voices whispering to me, beckoning me, and suddenly I had lost my senses altogether. I couldn't think, I couldn't move. All I could do was
stare.
"Well... Jee find it yet?" I vaguely heard Jedidiah ask, from somewhere very deep, and very hollow.
I couldn't think; I had no control over my mind, or my body. I slowly leaned down, reaching for the shard.
"NO!" I heard a faint voice call out to me, just before I clasped my fingers around the crystal and lifted it out of the hole. “THE HOLY WATER!!”
I awoke flying across the room in an explosion of dirt and splintered wood, then hit the floor, and was almost completely buried under falling debris. I heard
Warbucks yelp as he landed somewhere nearby, and then I heard the most frightening sound I think I ever heard! A loud screeching cackle of laughter
ominously reverberated around that old dusty sanctuary, and a whirling wind arose that blew the debris off of me completely; the rubble rose into the air and
began blowing around the circumference of the room. I sat up and there, rising from beneath the pulpit floor, was a ghastly and ghostly apparition.
"It's her!" Jedidiah shouted as the wind blew his grayed bangs from his wrinkled forehead. "It's the WITCH OF TILLY RUN!"
that lit up that old backwoods church hallway like a powerful flood lamp, chasing the shadows away both this way and that.
"I just don't understand why you're so against us goin' down there," I spoke into the gloom. "Isn't God all about folks helpin' other folks?"
"Listen here, ya' whippersnapper," a sharp reply flew from the shadows. Jedidiah stepped into the light wearing a backpack, and carrying a hammer and
crowbar in his right hand, waving them in my face as he spoke, his fierce, bulging, egg-shaped eyes darting around this and that'away. "God has his reasons fer
ever'thin he ever does, and ain't you, ner none otherns, got no place in tryin' ta' alter his will!"
"So why are you here helpin' me now?" I asked.
Jedidiah chuckled softly.
"Cuz' the irony is...God wants me here," he replied, "to look after y'uns, I reckon. I Don't rightly know ma'self. You just remember all them things I've been
teachin' ya', ya‘ hear? Y'uns might just need 'em up here."
Jedidiah's been training me in the art of spiritual warfare for some few months now, since we first met at his home, The Stronghold Of Fortitude, another
creepy church in the middle of nowhere. Tilly Run Church was a bit creepier, however, as the windows were completely boarded over, and the cobwebs were
thicker, and the musty dusty air was a’might mustier and dustier.
“Which way?” I asked the old man, who angrily cocked his egg-like eyes in my direction once again.
"Now how in blazes am I s'posed ta' know?" he grumbled, then mumbled, "Smart mouth mo'bugger," as he turned and started down the hallway.
Warbucks whined.
"I know," I replied. "He does seem a bit grumpier than usual."
"I heard that, whippersnapper!" Jedidiah barked back without turning around.
While holding Rhema Logos out in front of me like a lantern we slowly trudged onward, looking for the sanctuary, that old wooden floor just a’squeaking
and a’creaking with every step. There was an array of creepy sounds all through the rooms of that little eighth-of-an-acre sized church house, which kept the
hairs on the back of my head plenty on end. As we wound around through them cramped little halls, carefully peeking into each and every room we passed, I
could smell something terrible permeating the air; It smelled like, like...like burning hair!
I mumbled a quick prayer, just to make sure angels were around in case them old ghost stories just happened to not be malarkey; and I could then hear their
faint voices singing their eerie mismatched harmonies in my inner ear. I tightly gripped a blessed cross that hung around my neck, a new one that Jedidah’d
give me, but I wasn’t sure it would help me much as Jedidiah had made me bless it myself, and the idea that I was supposed to be some "holy warrior" still
hadn’t quite set right with me just yet.
We came to a bend in the hallway at a door which led back outside where, after wiping down the window, I could see a tiny old cemetery all lit up under the
soft glow of a blue moon. Then I noticed Jedidiah’d disappeared.
“Jedidiah?” I whispered.
I don’t rightly know why I felt I had to whisper; weren’t nobody in that crickety old church but the three of us. But on the outskirts of Rhema’s radiant
flush, off to our right, was an intimidating pitch black, a darkness so seemingly infinite that my heart thumped wildly inside my chest as I peered into its
abyssal depth. Warbucks growled, reiterating the same feeling of dread that burned inside me. I heard the floor creaking behind us, and I quickly jerked Rhema
Logos around to lean her light on the darkness, but again the sinister abyss beyond her glow taunted me.
"STOP FOOLIN' AROUND!" I about jumped right outta' my pants and into the hereafter! "We ain't got alotta' time. It'll be midnight soon!" Jedidiah
exasperated.
"Wha... What happens after midnight?"
"Nothin'," he spouted. "Just gives me the creeps t' be up after midnight. Com'ere, I found what weez a'lookin' fer."
We followed him to the right of the door, proceeding down the gloomy hallway, the sounds of our footsteps on that hollow wooden floor bouncing off the
walls around us as we went. Jedidiah disappeared again as he passed through a menacingly darkened archway. I took a moment to shake off the willies,
gulped, "Come on Warbucks," then trudged on through behind him.
We entered the sanctuary, a big open hall full of old wooden fold-out chairs. Some were still set up, and others were folded and leaned up all around the
walls, and others still were folded up and laying around on the dusty floor. Cobwebs covered it all, but Jedidiah cleared us a path; he just walked on through,
followed by billowy clouds of dust that wafted gently to the floor. The far wall was lined with six tall boarded-over windows, and in the middle of that wall,
at the base, was the pulpit with an old rickety wooden Bible stand.
"Now git ta' work, sonny," Jedidiah said. "Take this here hammer, and this here crowbar, and pry up the pulpit floor."
I pulled off my backpack and set it down, then took Jedidiah's tools and stepped up onto the pulpit. I gazed down at the floor, uneasy... I don't particularly
care for rotted corpses much. After mumbling a quick prayer, and taking a deep breath, I knelt down and got to work, hammering that crowbar down in
between the boards and prying them up, one at a time.
"Oh," Jedidiah flickered as he pulled his pack off and set it to the side, " ...don't fergit ta' sprinkle that thar holy water down first, before ya' go fer th'
crystal."
With that he stooped and pulled a Bible from his backpack, then stood up and started praying. I didn't know whether to feel reassured by that, or petrified;
What was he trying to protect me from?
It didn't take long for me to pry up the boards. I reached over and picked Rhema off the ground and held her over the hole. I didn't see nothin' but dirt.
"Now what do I do?" I hollered over at the old man. "There's nothin' but dirt under here."
"Well, th' whole reason they call it buried is cause it's under th' dirt, I reckon," he answered. "Git ta' diggin'."
I looked down into the hole, then back up at Jedidiah and asked, "With what?"
"With what?" he again distressed, "With yer dern hands, boy, what else?"
He mumbled and grumbled under his breath, shaking his head in utter dissatisfaction. I stared at the black dirt down in the bottom of that hole, then looked
up at the ceiling.
"Why me?" I whispered so the old man couldn't hear. "Warbucks, com'ere. Hold Rhema over the hole so I can see what I'm a’doin'."
Warbucks trotted over ever-so obediently, panting away, with his long tongue dangling from his huge fuzzy face. He took Rhema Logos betwixed his
powerful jaws and held it over my head as I bent down and began to move the moist soil with my hands. I grimaced with each and every handful of dirt I slid
to the side, anticipating the inevitable rotted-corpse encounter that was mere seconds away. I dug down about a foot before I finally uncovered her decayed
skull.
"AAAAHHH!" I jumped back, breathing like I couldn't get enough air ta' breathe.
"Oh, I see y'uns found her," Jedidiah piped up, then chuckled, "What's th'matter? She ain'tchee type?"
"Funny," I replied.
I carefully swept away more dirt, revealing more of the old witch’s carcass, until I noticed a faint glow beneath a thin layer of soil next to her left shoulder. I
removed the soil and there it was, the crystal clavis, glowing as pretty as you please. I was dazzled by it, and I suddenly found myself totally lost in its
glimmer. I heard voices whispering to me, beckoning me, and suddenly I had lost my senses altogether. I couldn't think, I couldn't move. All I could do was
stare.
"Well... Jee find it yet?" I vaguely heard Jedidiah ask, from somewhere very deep, and very hollow.
I couldn't think; I had no control over my mind, or my body. I slowly leaned down, reaching for the shard.
"NO!" I heard a faint voice call out to me, just before I clasped my fingers around the crystal and lifted it out of the hole. “THE HOLY WATER!!”
I awoke flying across the room in an explosion of dirt and splintered wood, then hit the floor, and was almost completely buried under falling debris. I heard
Warbucks yelp as he landed somewhere nearby, and then I heard the most frightening sound I think I ever heard! A loud screeching cackle of laughter
ominously reverberated around that old dusty sanctuary, and a whirling wind arose that blew the debris off of me completely; the rubble rose into the air and
began blowing around the circumference of the room. I sat up and there, rising from beneath the pulpit floor, was a ghastly and ghostly apparition.
"It's her!" Jedidiah shouted as the wind blew his grayed bangs from his wrinkled forehead. "It's the WITCH OF TILLY RUN!"
.
.