Horror Stories from Horrified - Volume One (2)

The war den show ed me to a pile of paper s on a desk in the office. The office was cold and
gr ey w ith a w ooden desk pushed against one wall, the chair an or ange fabr ic cover ed thing
w ith its back to the door. Ther e was a filing cabinet on one wall and a shelf w ith a kettle
and tea making comestibles. I told the war den that I should like to make an immediate
star t and he dutifully left me in peace.
The documents w er e, at fir st glance, r ather uninspir ing. Wor th making a r ecor d of as
they w er e an ar chive of pr ovincial East Anglian life in the 1500s, but gener ally about the
mor e mundane matter s and full of facts w hich ar e alr eady a par t of our know ledge. The
manuscr ipt took the for m of a diar y, of sor ts, of a r ector at the chur ch sometime in the
middle of the sixteenth centur y.
I endeavour ed in my w or k for some hour s, making meticulous notes on meals cooked,
financial tr ansactions and the like, all to illuminate the w ell of know ledge on this time in
histor y but as I said, all mer ely r einfor cing w hat w e alr eady knew. I w ent to the tea making
shelf and pr epar ed the kettle. The only milk available was of the pow der ed var iety so I
decided to take it black. As the kettle was boiling I took a walk dow n the chancel to inspect
the chur ch. Much like the manuscr ipt, ther e was little of inter est. An unsympathetic
nineteenth-centur y r estor ation had destr oyed much of the char acter of the place, I
supposed, but ther e was one inter esting r elic left. A pair of slabs in the chancel w ith the
cr oss of the Knights Templar engr aved upon them. I made an educated guess at a
tw elfth-centur y time fr ame and spent some moments consider ing how differ ent life must
have been dur ing the High Middle Ages.
Back in the office to attend to the boiled kettle, I peer ed out of the w indow and was
somew hat saddened to see that it had alr eady become dar k. It was the end of November
and the sun dr ops so suddenly in this par t of the w or ld that I was taken by sur pr ise by it. I
had hoped to finish my w or k mor e hur r iedly than I appear ed to be and did not fancy
staying in Nor folk for too long if possible. I r esigned myself to having to stop for the night
and was about to fish the teabag fr om my tea w hen I noticed a faint glow coming fr om a
near by field. The lights flicker ed and seemed to me to be as though from a fire.
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