The church at the top of the hill.

It was a cold and windy evening, the wind was so strong it could almost knock you off you're feet. Edward left his house as he set out to do over 15 minutes ago, but froze at the door way and just wondered at the weather hoping and wishing that it would settle down. As soon as stepped out he instantly felt the extraordinarily strong wind hit him hard in the chest and true enough it almost knock him off his feet. He was taken back by the power of the wind. "well not going to get anywhere unless I just go for it" he thought to himself, with that he pumped his legs and started to walk up the hill, against the wind in the direction of the old church at the top of the hill.
thirty minutes had pasted and he finally arrived at the old church, Edward took a deep sigh of relive and glanced down at his wrist watch. it read "10:45"
"half an hour, bloody hell" he though to himself. he walked to the top of the hill in thirty minutes that should of been a walk no longer than ten minutes, fifteen at the very most.
he looked up at the old church, the church was old and tattered looking it had been abandoned for several years, at least for as long as Edward could remember. The church was built in the 18th centaury, there was a big rusty iron gate standing around 8 foot tall with big rusty iron handles to match. Edward took a deep breath walked forward a reached out to grab the rusty old iron handle of the big rusty gate, he grasped the iron ring of the handle the rust felt rough against the palm of Edwards hand. he took another deep breath and twisted it clockwise, the gate made a click noise and then he pushed the gate with all his might. it was extremely heavy, almost as if it were stuck shut. he really put his back into it and pushed the gate opened slowly with a very loud creak. Edward thought to himself "Bloody hell, that needs some WD40" almost chuckling to himself, as he stepped through the gate. Edward looked up towards the church and froze. he heard another loud creak and the bid iron gate and with a thud slammed shut behind him, making him jump. but he didn't look away, there was a bit more of a hill, with the church at the top completely surrounded by a enormous graveyard. Edward felt something he had not felt before, well at least not since he was a little boy scared that there was a monster under his bed. he felt fear. you know that weird feeling you get when you come to believe that something terrible has happened or is about to happen. for most people that would be the end of the journey right then and there, he would turn around and get out of there but not Edward, he was there for a reason and he was determined to discover the truth about the Old Church.

Let me explain the story, The old church (St Mathew's church of Ravenhill) had a Vicar name 'Father Christopher' he was a Vicar there between the years of 1921-1933 for twelve years he kidnapped and murdered "Sinners" mostly prostitutes and homosexuals, or anyone he deemed "unworthy to live on gods earth"
His First known murder was in 1921. 3 months after he became a Vicar for the church. June 23rd 1921, 27 year old Catharine brooks was walking home from the town centre very upset with her life and what she does to earn money. she was walking past the church and saw light coming from the inside. she walked up towards the door pushed it and entered.
she started walking up the isle towards the front of the church where she could hear someone moving around but she couldn't see anyone, as she got closer she was growing more and more convinced that there was someone there but she still couldn't see anyone. she announced her presence with a clearing of her throat, still walking forward she waited a few seconds and again cleared her throat, another few seconds passed and a Vicar stood up from behind the podium. "Hello" she said Noticing that he was the Vicar, "Father? I'm here to confess"
without a word, his arm came up and pointed towards the confession box. she turned her head to look at it. her gaze came back to Christopher, he had almost a glazed look in his eye. without a word she walked other to the confession box and entered it. Catharine sat inside the confession box in complete silence, around a minute or two had passed before she heard a door shut to her right. then Father Christopher pulled a wooden cover off the hatched confession window to her right, then she proceeded to confess. "Forgive me father for I have sinned"
"It started around 4 months ago. I've been having some money trouble. I cant even afford to pay my rent. I'm starving every day. I needed to do something to make some money otherwise..." she stopped herself took a deep breath in and slowly exhaled.
"Sorry.. basically I've been selling myself...selling my body... having sex for money!" she took another long exhale. there was complete silence still as if there was no one there. the door to her right opened and then quietly shut again. she sat there in silence and wondered why the father had left, she could hear foot steps behind the confession box. she thought that this was a little bit strange but stayed sat there for another minute. Another hatch behind where she was sat flew open startling her and making her immediately stand up fast, before she could stand up completely straight she felt a wire pulled over her neck tight. Father Christopher was strangling her with a peace of wire. "Quoting lines of the bible" he was pulling the wire tighter and tighter around her neck until she stopped breathing.
He spent the rest of the night burring her body under the floorboards in the crawlspace of the church floor.
His Murders continued for the next twelve years he was at the church, killing as many as 23 different men and women who had committed different sins. he truly believed that god wanted them to die for there sins. and when he got caught, a 17 year old choir boy found 9 bodies buried in the crawlspace. Father Christopher was arrested and charged with all 9 murders and later confessed to the other 14 brutal murders, saying and I quote "The holy spirit told him to do it" witch still to this day they cant find/ identify 4 of the bodies. so in September 1934 almost a year after he was arrest and charged with the first nine murders, he was charged with a further ten murders. after a trail he was sentenced to life serving a minimum of 142 years in custody. Later that month after lots of appointments with criminal phycologists Christopher was Declared Criminally insane. he was transferred to a maximum security mental asylum, where six years later he mysteriously disappeared physically and also all records of him other the last six years completely vanished.
Some say he escaped and returned to St Mathew's, some say he was lobotomised and set free. and others believe he was killed in the mental asylum.
However there has been continued disappearances in the local area of St Mathew's in Ravenhill since then and to this day, and is widely expected to be something to do the church.
Recently there was a particular disappearance that took the interest of Edward, the disappearance of 20 year old Katie Hewitt. The Reason why this particular disappearance sparked Edwards interest was because Katie Hewitt was a student at Ravenhill community collage, the same collage where Edward was studying Journalism. In fact she was in the same group as he was, they never exchanged words or even really paid any attention to each other, but Edward recognised her as soon as he saw the paper with her on the front cover stating the fact she went missing, last seen in the local area of the church. he was interested and naturally as a Journalist wanted to know more.

Edward slowly walked forward, looking around and taking in the surroundings of the place that held such a dark and twisted past. as he walked up the hill through the graveyard and approached the church and its old tattered wooden door he carried on looking around taking in the terrifying place. he stopped dead as he got to the door of the church, taking another deep breath before leaning forward and pushing the door with a strong push. Nothing. it didn't budge, it was locked. What should he do know? Go home? you would think any rationale human being would surely take it as a sign and get out of there and never go back. but not Edward he was not leaving until he found some kind of answer. So he starting searching around the outside of the church and around the graveyard, looking of clues or even a key to the door anything really that may lead to an answer. After around an hour Edward was about to give up but just then he spotted something rather strange, there was a gravestone 'Micheal Stark, 1869-1927 aged 58' Edward recognised his name right away, he was the caretaker of St Mathews Church between the years of 1912-1927. some say he knew and even participated in the shocking murders while caretaker at the church, no one really knows but it is common knowledge that Micheal Stark at aged 58 was one Father Christopher's 23 victims and the investigation into his death was critical for the arrest of Father Christopher.
You see Christopher and Micheal were good friends for several years, and was the only Victim that Christopher contacted the police about. He entered the police station and stated to the officer behind the desk that he had done something terrible and that 'even god' would never forgive him. after hours of questioning and not finding out anything the police sent round officers to the church. upon there arrival the gate was ajar and the door to the caretakers shed on the right was also ajar. Micheal was found in the shed and it looked like he had fallen onto a pitch fork and it had pierced his heart. they launched a full scale investigation into his death, there was evidence that he had been strangled before the incident with the pitch fork but there wasn't enough evidence to link Christopher to the death. so the police had no choice but to let him go. but for then on they were very suspicious of the Twisted Vicar and kept a close eye on him and other disappearances in the local area, this was critical in the case to arrest him and finally charge him with the first nine murders.
on the gravestone there was a carving of a key next to his name, this could just be a symbol to mark that he was a caretaker. but Edward decided to take a chance and a wild stab in the dark and he went to the shed at the bottom of the graveyard it too was locked but this time it was only a thin peace of wood so Edward kicked it in. grabbing a large spade he headed back up to the top where Micheals grave was. approaching the grave, to most people what Edward was about to do could be seen as crazy and completely irrational but to Edward it was the logical thing to do. stopping for a few seconds he thought "Well... I've come this far" and he proceeded to dig up Micheal Stark the old caretakers grave.
after spending around an hour digging up the grave, Edward finally got to the coffin, he through the spade down into the whole in the ground and jumped in after it. grabbing the spade once again, he lunged it at the edge of the coffin and again and again. one more hard hit and it finally cracked open, Edward pulled on the wooden lid and revealed Micheal Starks Bones. Edward gasped almost with excitement as he saw a rusty old key tied to a peace of string around what used to be the neck. not thinking twice he grabbed it and pulled it up over the skull and out. just before recovering the skeleton with the wooden lid of the coffin, he stopped and took one last look at the bones then pulled the lid over the rest of the coffin.
Edward ran up the church door put the key in the lock and turned it clockwise, reached out and pushed with all his might the heavy door slowly creaked open. he entered.

At the same time, Georgina Wescott a 26 year old photographer was heading up the hill in Ravenhill agaist the wind riding on a bicycle, head in the direction of St Mathews. she had left her house around ten minutes ago, today was her day off from her day job in the local supermarket so she was off to the church and graveyard to get some cool shots of the place.
As she approached the big iron gate, she slowed down and raised to her feet. standing on the bike she finally came to a halt as she stopped she brought her leg over the top of the bike and stepped off. wheeling it to the fence next to the gate she reached into her rucksack and pulled out a bike lock and locked it up. she then walked to the gate stopped for a second reaching again into her rucksack she took out her camera, powered it up and began to take a few snaps of the church and the graveyard with the gate in the foreground. after taking a few shots that she deemed acceptable, she took a few more steps towards the gate grasped the rusty handle and turned it clockwise and pushed. the heavy gate slowly opened.
once the other side of the gate, she brought the camera up to her eye line and began taking some shots of the graveyard. she started to make her way the hill through the graveyard, snapping shots as she went. getting closer and closer to the old abandoned church she was getting more and more increasingly frightened. she couldn't put her finger on why or even what she was feeling, but all she knew was she didn't feel right, the closer to the church she got the worse and worse it got. but she wasn't about to leave until she got some cool photos, the main reason she came was to get shots from inside the church its self. Georgina was a member of a photography group that met up twice a week and showed off there work to each other. other members of the photography group had before taken photos of Ravenhill with church at the top of the hill in the background but none from inside the church or even the other side of the gate in the graveyard. They would be incredibly impressed to see her work from inside the church itself. As she approached the front door of the church, she felt truly terrified so scared she even contemplated leaving right there and then, taking one last pause and a deep breath she reached out and pushed the old heavy church door. it slowly creaked open and she sheepishly entered.

Edward walked half way down the isle of the church taking in ever last creepy detail. he stopped as he noticed a meter in diameter on the floor that was made up of wooden planks, he decided to pull them up to see what's under them. so he got on his knees and just before he went to pull them up he hear the door go behind him. he stopped and turned around to see who it was. Georgina saw him looking and began to walk towards him "He-Hello" waiting for an answer she carried on walking towards him but gradually getting slower and slower as she approached still waiting for an answer. "Hello, Who are you" he Finally said. "I'm Georgina, I'm a photographer" she said as if he had no idea, her there with a big chucky digital SLR around her neck. "Oh, I'm Edward. I'm a journalist" he replied. Georgina couldn't help but wonder if Edward was a journalist or not. if he was then where was his notepad, in fact he didn't seem to have anything at all to record what he was seeing. but she decided to not bring attention to it. She got to him and asked "What are you doing?" "I'm going to pull up these floor boards and see what's under them, it could be the crawlspace where Father Christopher hid the bodies of his victims" with that he reached down and grabbed and pulled upwards on a loose floor board and it ripped up and out. "Wait... No.. Stop! I don't think we should do this" Edward ignored her and continued to rip up the floor boards, one after the other one by one. he ripped up the last one through it to the floor and stood to his feet, Georgina took a step closer to the hole in the ground. they both looked down into the dark hole in the ground and we overcome with shock and fear at what they saw. there on the ground under the floor boards was a disfigured and rotting corpse of a young girl around Edwards age. "Its her. Its Katie Hewitt. It must be" Georgina started freaking out about what she was seeing. Edward said "you need to calm down" Georgina reached into her pocked and pulled out her mobile phone and started dialling.

Sergeant Brian Hewitt, the father of Katie Hewitt the missing girl from Edwards College group. he was a 52 year old police Sergeant in Ravenhill, been in the police service for around 30 years, he had recently returned to work since having three weeks off following the disappearance of his daughter. It was his second day back at work and was bus attending to a traffic collision, the CB radio in his police vehicle went off, "Brain.. Brain.. Sergeant Hewitt?" a voice sad from the CB Radio. Brian heard it from the other side of the road cross over and sat sideways in his car with his legs hanging out the door, picked up the radio and replied with "Yeah. What's up" a few seconds later ".... a body of a young girl has been found.... in St Mathews Church" Brian didn't say a word, he just put his legs in the car, shut the door, started the engine and drove off in a hurry.
He drove at a high speed all the way to the church. got out his car, didn't bother to even shut the door or turn off the engine just got out and ran up through the gate and through the graveyard and too the church door. stopped took a deep and pushed the door. behind the door he could immediately see where Edward had pulled up the floor boards from the middle of the church isle. he looked too his left and saw a figure stood looking up at Jesus on the cross, with a Axe dripping in blood in one hand and a bible in the other. Brian knew he should call for backup. but decided to take a chance. he slowly walked up behind the figure and announced "I'm Sergeant Brian Hewitt with the police... Drop the Axe and step backwards towards me" he said while pulling out his baton. The figure took a few steps back turned around and as he turn he swung the Axe around and struck Brian in the shoulder with the Axe, knocking him to the floor. Edward had gone insane, he raised the axe again and struck down on Brains leg. he hacked at him serval times while Brian was reaching for his baton that he had dropped. He grabbed it and fighting for his life he struck Edward with it. knocking him to the ground. He swung back and struck him repeatedly over and over on the head knocking him unconscious. he began to crawl away and noticed to his right a young girl hacked to peace's he was shocked at what he saw but he knew deep down that there was more and he wasn't about to give up until he was sure what had happened to his daughter. he pulled himself a long the church floor and eventually got to the hole in the floor. he looked down and at the sight of the girls body he began to sob as even without getting a close look he was 100% Certain it was Katie. as the girl in the hole was wearing the same clothes that Katie was wearing the night see went missing. He Lie there in a pool of his own blood an inch from death himself. with his daughter in the crawlspace and another body behind him, and Edward the suspected murder unconscious just to left of the door to the church. he led there until back up arrived around ten minutes later.

Edward was arrested and charged with the murder of both Katie Hewitt and Georgina Wescott and the attempted murder of Sergeant Brian Hewitt.

He was refused bail. and later that year he was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison serving a minimum of 40 years for both murders and a further 6 years for the attempted murder.

THE END