uselessly into the folds of a sleeping-bag, the dim night-light not strong enough to explain the writhing shapes. The boy nearest the torch managed to push his arm free and make a grab for it. He shone the beam towards the screaming figure, but none of the boys understood just what clung to their supervisor's bloody face. A boy near the tent's wall shouted as he saw something black scramble through a gaping hole in the canvas, and the boy with the torch shone it in that direction.
Gordon choked on his own blood as he tried to push the creature away from his face, its claws raking his chest into a bloody mess. Its teeth were locked into his jaw bone and he could not tear them loose.
He knew the animal had the strength and the weapons to kill him, but what he saw made him react almost automatically, as though once more he was viewing life through a glass window. This time, though, he was on the inside he was part of that life and the others, the black creatures, were breaking through the glass to reach into his world. He knew he had to stop them.
The pain was blinding, yet it meant little as he rolled his body towards the gap, dragging the creature with him. He could feel the bone in his jaw splintering and cracking, and the blood was running down inside his body, hindering his breathing, but his mind seemed almost apart from it, telling him one thing over an dover again: Stop them coming through, block the hole with your body.
He knew he was there, knew his back covered their entrance, preventing them from pouring in. And he knew they were eating him, their teeth gnawing into his back, snapping around his spine and pulling. He knew the creature at his face was trapped by its own teeth at his jaw, but nevertheless was busy sucking his blood, draining him of life's fluid.
But he didn't know that other bulges were appearing all around the tent's walls, the scratching sounds mingling with the panic-stricken cries of the boys inside, and the canvas material puncturing in long, tearing gashes.
Dawn had begun to tip the treetops with a golden rim as the rising sun decisively cut its way through the mists. It was not unusual to find the Reverend Jonathan Matthews trudging down the lane from his vicarage towards the old church at such an early hour for, in recent years, sleeping had played a less important part in his life. The first rays of light projecting their leafy pattern onto his bedroom wall had become an increasingly welcome sight as the approaching day gave relief to the night's loneliness. Since his wife's untimely death eight years before, the vicar had had no one to confide in, no one to give him comfort. He had often considered speaking to his Bishop of his latter-day doubts, his spiritually debilitating fear of death, but had decided he would fight the battle alone. God would surely give him the grace to overcome his lack of faith.
He pulled the scarf concealing his clerical collar tighter around his neck, his frail body all too vulnerable to the morning dampness. Again and again he asked himself why such troubles of the mind should plague him in his later years when his beliefs had been so strong before? He felt somehow it was connected with the forest itself. In his imagination the brooding menace in the surrounding woodland seemed to represent death's constant presence, always there, lurking just out of sight, watching and waiting for the precise moment in which to reveal itself. For him, the forest had once been a place to love; now it had become a symbol of his own trepidation.
The vicar entered the covered gateway to the church and paused to gaze up at the ancient building's steeple. It wasn't high, the pinnacle barely topping the highest branches of the surrounding trees, yet it reached upwards in solid defrance of its earthly base as though it could pierce the heavens themselves, and feed through its funnel shape the souls of the faithful. Its spiritual brashness gave his heart a sudden uplift. Doubts were a part of serving, for if there were none there would be no searching for answers, no obstacles to surmount no tests to be judged by. This was his time of testing and when it was through he would have sturdier faith, a stronger belief in God.
The little church always gave him this sudden surge of optimism, which was why he often visited it so early in the morning. The negative thoughts of the night had to be swiftly allayed if he was to survive the day, and a quiet hour at the altar helped him build his barrier.
His feet crunched along the narrow gravel path running between the gravestones towards the church porch, his eyes avoiding the slabs of grey on either side, and it was only when his hand was on the circular metal handle of the door that he heard the scrabbling sounds that came from the rear of the building.
He slowly turned his head in that direction, a curious coldness stiffening his spine. Listening intently, he tried to place the sound.
It was as if earth was being scattered, the sound of someone or something digging. It would have to be an animal of some kind, for he could not recognize the familiar thud of a spade biting into the earth, nor the dull clump as the tossed soil struck the ground in one loose lump. This was a ceaseless barrage of scattered dirt.
The splintering of wood made him jump.
Dread rising in him, he left the porch and continued on down the path, his footsteps loud, wanting to warn whatever was behind the church of his approach, wanting the area to be deserted before he reached it.
Who's there?' he called out and for a moment, there was silence. Then the scrabbling noise began again.
The vicar reached the corner of the church, the ground beside the path dropping away to a lower level, stone steps leading down to the grass-covered graveyard. From there he could see the freshly opened grave.
It was the plot in which old Mrs. Wilkinson had been laid to rest the day before, untidy piles of earth lying in scattered heaps around the rough, circular hole. The gnawing of wood told him the worst.
Rage made him tear down the steps. What animal would burrow into the earth for the flesh of a human corpse? He reached the edge of the hole and cried out at the sight below.
The hole was wide and deep, a pit with acute sloping sides. At the bottom was a mass of squirming, black furry bodies. He could not recognize the animals at first, for the pit was darkly shadowed, the sun still hidden behind the trees, but as he watched, he began to establish individual shapes. Even then he wasn't sure what the creatures were.
One emerged from the writhing mass, its mouth full of dried meat, and scrambled over the backs of the others towards the side of the pit.
Just before the gap it had left behind was closed by other eager bodies, the vicar saw directly into the damaged coffin. The sight of white broken bones stripped of all flesh made him sink to his knees, bile clogging his throat to be expelled onto the undulating mass below.
He wanted to run from the terrible scene, but the convulsions wracked his body painfully, causing him to sway precariously, his fingers digging into the soft earth. He knew these creatures now they were the harpies of his own conscience, come to torment him, letting him know death was not sacrosanct, the body could be further defiled.
The Reverend Matthews hadn't noticed the other rats in the graveyard, hidden in the grass, behind the trees, crouching beneath gravestones; those that had silently watched him enter the church grounds, followed his progress along the path with black, evil eyes, creeping forward, their bodies close to the earth. He wasn't aware that they were all around him, moving closer, haunches quivering in anticipation. It took long seconds for him to
