Post Scriptum

It had been overcast for most of the day which was typical for Ormskirk in late October. I had bought a caravan on its outskirts just four miles due east of the sea-side town of Southport along the A570. Ormskirk had stolen my heart. I was in love with that olde English village with its cobblestone streets; its Pubs loaded with history going back beyond the twelfth century; its pastry shops; and its butcher shoppes which still hung freshly killed turkeys, pheasants and rabbits inside their front windows. But,...most of all, I loved their magnificent olde parish church, St. Peter's and St. Paul's; one of only three in the British Isles that was gifted with both a tower and a steeple. Today, however, I felt different. I felt as though something ominous was going to befall me. I wasn't able to explain it but I couldn't shake the feeling.

For lunch I'd eaten a meat and potato pasty sitting by the Obelisk in the town centre. School children were walking through the square wearing their pristine school uniforms. The girls in their spotless white blouses and the boys in their starched white shirts with a tie. It was their lunch time and they were on their way home from school. They brought back memories of my wonderful days at Hesketh Fletcher Secondary Boys' school in Atherton, almost a half century ago.

I spent the remainder of the day at the local swimming baths and then at the library until it began to get dark. When I started to leave I couldn't help but notice that the intermittent drizzle had developed into a full-blown thunder storm complete with ear-splitting thunder claps and lightening flashes. I had forgotten to bring my umbrella with me.

My caravan was thirty minutes walk. Taking a taxi was too expensive and buses were too few and far between during the late evening so no-matter what I did I was going to get soaked. But, I could reduce my walking time from thirty to fifteen minutes if I took a short cut through the church graveyard. It was dark and wet but there was just enough moonlight for me to see my way through the walking paths between the gravestones. It was eerie but I wasn't scared – not until I began to hear a repetitive metallic click coming from over there. Then I began to get scared and my knees went weak. Water was dripping down my face. I was shivering but I went to investigate anyway.

The sound was that of a metal hammer tapping on a metal chisel but the strikes were not strong. I noticed a dim oil-lantern glowing yellow leaning against a gravestone. There was a fresh hole where the coffin should have been and a very small, ugly, old man with a hunchback was trying to chisel some new letters onto the gravestone. I couldn't believe what I was seeing! I bent over to ask him what on earth was he doing working so late on such a dark and cold rainy night.

He turned slowly and looked up to me. A lightening-flash illuminated his ghastly features. Then he said in a strained and crackling voice ….“They spelled my name wrong!”