Part One

One

It's October and a group of naked people are standing in a dark forest. As a young couple lay on the ground, a goat is slaughtered between them. The couple then have sex amongst the remains of the goat, while everyone watches.

Two

Archaeologists Kim Nichols, 25, Charles Cooper, 35, and Phillip Swanson are working on a dig 3 miles away from the town of Longfield. They have found many Celtic artefacts over the last two weeks, but no bones. Kim wonders what happened to the tribe.

Three

Frank King and John Kirkland are working on the construction of a leisure centre. They comment on the dig which is just to the west of where they are.

Four

Kim and Swanson are working together when a tremor shakes the ground. Moments later, there is a second tremor and a crack appears in the ground. The crack widens about 12 feet and Kim and Swanson fall into it. Both hold on for their lives as Cooper and some other colleagues manage to pull Kim out, but Swanson falls and disappears into the darkness below.

Five

Police and ambulancemen are at the scene, and Inspector Stephen Wallace, 30, is lowered into the pit using a winch. He reaches the bottom at just over 80 feet. He discovers the body of Swanson, which has been impaled on a fifteen-foot spike in the centre of the pit. As Wallace moves close, he realises Swanson is amazingly still alive, but he dies moments later. Over a two-way radio, Sergeant Bill Drayton asks Wallace if he is OK. He tells him he is, and to clear everyone from the pit, then send a stretcher down to him. As he looks around the bottom of the pit, he sees many artefacts and so many bones. Wallace tells Drayton he needs to come down and see something.

Six

Wallace and an ambulanceman remove Swanson's body from the spike and winch it to the surface. The ambulanceman is winched up, and Kim and Cooper are lowered down into the pit with Wallace. Cooper says the pit is a sacrificial well and they notice two large circular stones with skeletons nailed to them, propped up against the wall. Kim says the stones are gates and there are tunnels behind them. Wallace leaves the pit.

Seven

Frank King and John Kirkland drive to a wood that their boss, James Cutler, wants flattened, a short distance away from the building site.

Eight

Cooper and two other archaeologists, George Perry and Ian Russell, move the circular gates and open the tunnel. Armed with torches, they head off down the tunnel. As the tunnel splits into two, Russell tells them he will head back to the surface to tell everyone else what they have found.

Nine

Hundreds of children's skeletons were piled six high in places, preventing them from continuing down the tunnel. Cooper says they need to get them examined as soon as possible. Kim asks where the heads of the skeletons are.

Ten

About three miles outside of Longfield, Rob Hardy, Vic Regis, and Mick Ferguson are holding a dog-fight in a barn. Two dogs fight as around a dozen men watch. Regis's dog loses, so in anger he kicks the dying animal in the stomach. Ferguson finishes the dog off with a pitchfork.

Eleven

In Cooper's tent, Kim and Perry are examining one of the child skeletons when Ian Russell walks in and tells them that James Cutler is on site and would like to talk to Cooper. Land developer Cutler, along with his surveyor Stuart Lawrence, tells Cooper that Cutler's building expansion will likely encompass the dig site and Cooper and his team will then have to leave. Cooper tells him he can't do that; Cutler replies that he owns the land and he can do what he likes, and he only gave Cooper six weeks to complete his work.

Twelve

At home, Kim looks at some framed photos of her daughter Clare as a baby, that her ex-husband had taken. They split up two years ago. There is also a photo of a little girl holding a teddy bear. She puts Clare to bed when there is a knock at the door. Inspector Wallace has visited to take Kim's statement. Once that is done, over coffee, Kim tells Wallace Cutler wants to shut the dig down.

Thirteen

Teenagers Gary Webb and Laura Price are injecting heroin at Henry Dexter's house. Gary buys some heroin from Mick Ferguson. We learn that Dexter's father left him two million pounds when he died; he is into witchcraft and the teenagers are his followers.

Fourteen

Ferguson feeds his two fighting dogs in the cellar of his house, both pit bull terriers. One jet black and the other an albino. His wife comes down to see him and they argue and fight. Ferguson rapes his wife while the dogs watch and bark.

Fifteen

Kim, Cooper, and Perry have moved some of the skeletons and found another stone. They open that and make their way into a chamber behind. Kim hears a noise that the others don't, then she faints. When she comes round, they examine the room and find hundreds of skulls, other relics, and some stone tablets with inscriptions on them. Kim asks Charles to get the tablets taken to the surface so that she can decipher them, then she almost faints again but makes her way back to the tunnel. On her way up the rope ladder, she hears the sound she heard earlier.

Sixteen

At 7.46am, Kim heads to the museum in Longfield, with some relics and the twelve stone tablets that had been put into a box and loaded into her Land Rover. On the way, her brakes fail and she almost collides with a tractor. But with seconds to spare, the brakes work.

At the museum, Kim meets up with colleague Roger Kelly, 22, who helps her unload the relics from the Land Rover and take them into the museum. As they lift the stone tablets out of their box, they notice the wood underneath has turned almost black, as if it has been scorched.

Seventeen

Still at the museum almost nine hours later, Kim has finished dating the relics. The bones are over 2,000 years old and the tablets maybe a thousand years older. Roger Kelly comes in and asks her if she knows what the writing on the tablets means, but she hasn't studied them yet. Kim can smell burnt plastic and notices that the plastic sheet the tablets have been covered with has begun to melt. Suddenly, a cupboard door flies open and a bottle of nitric acid topples over and smashes onto Kelly's head, face, and chest. Kim is helpless as the acid burns its way through him. As she calls for an ambulance, she once again hears the high-pitched, inhuman wail she heard in the pit.

Eighteen

Twenty-year-olds Sue Hagen and David Christie have driven to the woods and walked off to find a place to have sex. Almost finished, David feels something wet drip onto his face. He looks up to see the remains of a goat in the branches of a tree above them. Half-naked and feeling sick, they flee back to their car while something in the blackness watches.

Nineteen

Constable Mark Buchanan and Wallace visit the clearing where the remains of the goat are. Constables Denton and Greene are also at the scene. Constable Buchanan tells Wallace that over the last two months, farmers have been reporting livestock going missing. Five goats or sheep have been found in that very wood, skinned and gutted. People have also reported that their pets have gone missing. Wallace says that he is going to visit Henry Dexter at Dexter Grange, which is a mile away, to see if he has seen anything.

Twenty

Wallace drives to Dexter Grange and Laura Price opens the door. She tells Wallace Dexter is with someone and says he will have to wait. While he waits in the library, Wallace notices handwritten books about satanism, demonology, Pagan rites, necrophilia, and sacrifice. Wallace hears Dexter rowing with Cutler in another room about who the woodland belongs to. Cutler leaves and Wallace introduces himself to Dexter and they sit down in the study. Wallace tells Dexter about the goat remains and the other missing animals. Dexter says technically the wood isn't his land, but the surrounding area is. He asks Dexter who Laura is and her age. Wallace asks Dexter why he was arguing with Cutler. He tells him that he doesn't want builders ruining land less than a mile from his house. Wallace leaves and Dexter talks to Laura about what the policeman wanted to know.

Twenty-One

Perry and Russell are at work in the tunnel, commenting that Charles has hardly left the chamber with the skulls since they found it. The lights have been flickering, so Perry makes his way up the ladder to check on the generator. His limbs suddenly feel like lead and he almost slips off the rope ladder leading to the surface. Once at the top, he notices the grass and bushes surrounding the pit have blackened and withered, looking as if they have been killed with poison.

Twenty-Two

Clare Nichols awakes from a nightmare in which she and some other children were being chased through the darkness by a clawed creature. She feels like she somehow knows the creature and that the creature knows her. She wonders if she should tell her mum about the nightmare.

Twenty-Three

At 1am, Rob Hardy and Mick Ferguson meet up in a country road 3 miles outside of Longfield. Ferguson has his albino terrier and Hardy is carrying a sack. They walk to a field and, one by one, Hardy pulls out a cat, two kittens, and a small labrador, each of which the terrier savagely tears apart.

Twenty-Four

At the museum, some of the small animals they keep for the visiting young children to pet have died or are dying. Kim has translated some of the tablets. Written by a wise man, they talk about someone that is feared. Kim hears a sound in the museum and goes to investigate. She finds two ten-year-old boys that she leads to the exit. As she heads to the staff room to collect her things and go home, a figure in there makes her scream.

Twenty-Five

It's Cooper that has scared Kim. He wants to know about the tablets, where they are, and what they say. She tells him what she knows, that the tablets look to be written by the person that set up the Druid order. He asks when she will be finished deciphering all twelve tablets. He tells her that he wants them translated quickly as Cutler is going to close the dig site soon, then he leaves. Kim heads out but, on her way, notices that the animals she looked at earlier have all died, their bodies shrunken and shrivelled as if the life had been sucked from them.

Twenty-Six

Stuart Lawrence is at home reading a book, waiting for his sister Ruth to return, who is six months pregnant and living with him for three months while her husband is working away. At 11.30pm, he decides to go to bed, when he hears a noise at the front door. He expects his sister to enter the house, but it doesn't happen. Suddenly, he feels incredibly cold and there is a crash from downstairs, like a smashed window. He heads downstairs, but a figure there makes him turn and run back upstairs and into his bedroom. He places a chair under the door handle and climbs out of the window. The figure breaks the door open and grabs his wrist, pulling him back into the room and killing him.

Twenty-Seven

Wallace is at the crime scene at Lawrence's house, with Bill Drayton, Buchanan, Dr. Ryan, and photographer Rick Piper. Ryan tells Wallace the injuries were done by hand, and Lawrence's skin has been flayed. They cannot find his eyes or skin, and his large intestine has been used to form the letter 'M' on the carpet.

Twenty-Eight

Wallace goes through the ten photos of the crime scene and medical report and wonders what the 'M' stands for. His phone rings.

Twenty-Nine

Cooper has been working in the chamber with the skulls for the last four hours when Perry comes to tell him that they have found more relics in another tunnel, but Cooper isn't interested, saying that he needs to find out what the markings on the wall in the chamber mean. Cooper uncovers one sentence which he reads over and over and it scares him.

Thirty

Mike Spencer, Colin Mackay, Keith Riley, Mark Little, and Frank King are eating their lunches and talking in a Portakabin at the building site. They leave to get back to work, but Spencer stays behind to finish his coffee.

Frank King watches as a ten-tonne Scania truck rolls down an incline, gathering speed as it heads towards the Portakabin, now unstoppable.

Spencer hears shouting from outside of the Portakabin, so goes to the window to see what is going on. He sees King running towards the hut but cannot hear what he is saying. The lorry hits the Portakabin.

Riley and Kirkland also run towards the hut.

Spencer is pinned beneath the debris when the lorry drives over his legs and pelvis.

Bob Richardson stops the bulldozer he's driving, switches it off, and climbs out to run and help, when the engine starts up again. His hand, which is still on the caterpillar tracks, is ripped off.

King calls out for someone to call an ambulance.

Thirty-One

Perry loads a crate of twelve skulls into the back of Kim's Land Rover. He tells her that he's concerned about Cooper. His personality has changed and he won't let anyone into the chamber with the skulls. Kim returns to the museum.

Five hours later, Kim determines that the skulls are at least 2,000 years old. She examines the eye sockets and, to her, it looks like the eyes were gouged out by something sharp.

Thirty-Two

In a clearing in the wood, Gary Webb and another tie a youth to a makeshift wooden cross as Dexter watches. Two naked girls fellate the boy, while Dexter blasphemes. The boy ejaculates into a chalice and Laura Price, naked and on all fours, drinks some. Webb leads a collie towards Dexter and hands him the leash. Dexter lifts the dog into the air by the leash, and another youth cuts the dog's throat. Some of the blood is poured into the chalice, which Gary Webb pours onto Laura, then begins intercourse with her. Other couples are also having sex now. Dexter cuts the dog's chest open, rips out its intestines, and then skins it. He places the dog's coat onto Laura's back. Two young naked women approach Dexter as he holds a bag of heroin in the air.

Thirty-Three

Perry decides to go and see why Cooper is being so secretive about the chamber. Once there, he writes down the shocking words he sees on the walls in his notebook.

Thirty-Four

Kim awakes and hears noise coming from somewhere. She goes into Clare's room and sees her asleep and obviously dreaming, whispering that someone is coming and cannot be stopped. Kim goes back to bed but struggles to get back to sleep. Some time later, Clare goes into her mother's room and stares at her sleeping. She doesn't go back to sleep that night.

Thirty-Five

Ferguson meets Dexter at 6.30am at a roadside to sell him some heroin.

Thirty-Six

Kirkland returns home and thinks about the accidents at the building site. The vehicles have been examined but there were no electrical or mechanical faults of any kind. He speaks to his six-months-pregnant and diabetic wife, Jacqui, lying on their bed. She tells him she doesn't feel well. He tells her he will finish dinner and then heads out to lock his garage door. He notices a figure by his car which vanishes, but moments later he's picked up by his throat and thrown at his car. He's then hit in the face with a rake, which pierces his eye.

Jacqui hears his scream and rushes downstairs and into the garage. John is lying there dead, his body ripped open and his intestines ripped out. Some of them have been used to make the letter "M" on the windscreen of his car.

Thirty-Seven

Doctor Ryan goes through Kirkland's autopsy report with Wallace. No fingerprints or fibres were found on the body. The skin and eyes were both missing, in the same way as the first victim. Ryan thinks the murders are ritualistic. Both victims had massive cardiac arrests as if fear had caused their hearts to burst.

Thirty-Eight

Kim is translating another tablet when Wallace arrives at the museum. He asks her if the museum has any books on ritual murder, as the library he's visited had none. Kim shows him some and he sits down to read them.

Wallace has underlined the word "witchcraft" a few times. Kim comes in and Wallace asks her if she has heard what has happened on the building site. Did she know the victims? Did Cooper get on with Lawrence? She tells him the site is very important. He asks her if she thinks it is worth killing for. Kim asks him over to her house that night for dinner.

Thirty-Nine

In Ferguson's cellar, he cleans up the remains of two cats his albino terrier has just killed while Hardy watches. Someone from Belfast is coming to watch the albino fight and Ferguson might sell the dog. But before that, Ferguson wants to put the dog up against something that could put up a real fight.

Forty

Six-year-old Jonathan Ashton is walking home, taking a short cut along a footpath that his Mum has always told him not to. He hears a sound of someone approaching, so he starts to run. A jogger passes him. Relieved, Jonathan laughs, just as two hands grab him and drag him out of sight.

Forty-One

Over dinner, Wallace and Kim share details about their pasts and their lives now. He asks her about the Celts. She tells him they foretold the future by studying the entrails of sacrificial victims. He tells her what happened to Kirkland and Lawrence. She tells him that the Druids thought that different parts of bodies carried different powers, and by destroying the body, they would destroy the soul, and it could not be possessed. Wallace receives a phone call at Kim's house and has to leave. A child has been kidnapped. They kiss and he leaves.

Part Two

Forty-Two

Kim dates one of the skulls to be circa 1490, and she doesn't understand why this one is so different from the rest. Cooper calls her from the dig and asks her how she is getting on with translating the rest of the tablets. She offers to come to the site to pick more of the skulls up, and he abruptly tells her not to, saying that he will get them brought to her. She locks up the museum but suddenly notices Perry standing there. He tells her that he needs to see the tablets, but she tells him to come back tomorrow. She drives home as he watches her go.

Forty-Three

Cutler's secretary, Sarah Potter, 30, asks her lover, Penny Allen, 29 and a teacher, to go and take a shower together.

A figure outside their house is watching them and waiting.

Sarah and Penny are in the shower and don't hear the noise of breaking glass from downstairs.

The figure enters the house and, not liking the light, smashes a lamp, then makes its way upstairs.

Penny sees the figure but, before she can say anything, it smashes the shower cubicle and kills them both.

Forty-Four

Wallace is in his office thinking about Stuart Lawrence, John Kirkland, Sarah Potter, Penny Allen, and Jonathan Ashton. Was the same person responsible for all five? The women's intestines had been fashioned into the letters "A" and "N". Cutler enters the room despite Dayton preventing him and demands to know when they are going to find the murderer of another one of his employees. Is he going to be next? What is Wallace doing to find the killer? He tells Wallace that he wants results fast. Wallace tells him to get out, which he does. Just then, Dayton tells Wallace another child has been taken, five-year-old Julie Craig.

Forty-Five

Frank King watches as tar is poured into the would-be car park at the leisure centre building site. David Holmes switches off his JCB and climbs out of it. The metal arm breaks free and the bucket swings round and cuts him in half, just above the waist.

Forty-Six

Clare and her best friend, Amanda Fraser, are at school, in Miss Tickle's class, doing a drawing in crayon. Clare goes into a trance and finishes her drawing with her eyes closed, then passes out.

Kim is called to the school nurse's office, where she sees Clare's drawing. It's of a large black figure and several small stick figures and lots of red. Above, in large letters, is written "HIS TIME IS COME".

Forty-Seven

Tony Evans arrives at Dexter Grange and demands some heroin. Gary Webb beats him up and they tell him to leave. Dexter says if he tells anyone about anything, he will kill him. Webb and Laura ask Dexter where they would get their heroin from if anything happened to Dexter. He reassures them that nothing will.

Forty-Eight

Frank King is at home with his wife, Linda, and son, Ian. He then goes into his shed at the end of his garden and a dark figure watches him. Once in his shed, someone tries the door handle. King opens the door, but nobody is there.

Linda tells Ian to take her Dad a cup of tea once she has made it.

King hears more sounds from outside and picks up a hammer just as the figure crashes through the window and uses the broken glass to almost cut King's head off.

Linda finishes making the tea and Ian takes it down to the shed and finds the remains of his father.

Forty-Nine

King, Dayton, and Ryan are in King's workshop. On the workbench are some entrails shaped into the letter "A".

Clare gets up from bed and looks out of her window, thinking to herself that it is coming soon.

Fifty

Wallace returns to his office to find his superior, Chief Inspector Gordon Macready, who tells Wallace he's taking over the case.

Wallace drives to the museum but, when he sees that Kim isn't there, drives to her house instead. After a quick talk with Clare, he tells Kim that another man has been killed. He also tells her that he's been replaced by his boss. He tells her he feels like he's looking for a ghost. He asks her why she's not at work and she replies that Clare has been having nightmares and shows him the drawing she did at school, which she doesn't remember doing. Kim has finished transcribing the tablets and lets Wallace read her transcript. The last line reads "His time has come". They kiss and Wallace leaves.

Once in his car, Wallace gets a call on his two-way radio from Dayton. The C.I. wants him back at his office. When he gets there, he is told another six-year-old, called Carl Taylor, went missing an hour ago.

Fifty-One

Cutler arrives at the dig site with many of his construction vehicles. He tells Cooper and Perry that he wants them gone, and if they are still there in the morning, he will have them prosecuted for trespassing.

Fifty-Two

Cutler is at home drinking and stroking his dog, Rebel, when Rebel suddenly becomes agitated. Cutler worries the dog can sense or hear something outside, so he lets him out. Moments later, he looks out of a window to see the dog lying in a pool of blood, its head almost severed. Cutler grabs the phone, but the line is dead. As something begins to smash the front door open, Cutler runs into his garage only to discover he has left his car keys somewhere in the house. He runs back into the house and finds the keys just as the front door is smashed open. Being chased, he manages to make his way back into the garage through the side door, which he locks behind him, and jumps into his car. He starts it and drives through the double doors, but the thing chasing him is on the roof of the car. It smashes the driver's window and strangles Cutler to death.

Part Three

Fifty-Three

Kim is explaining more of the transcribed tablets to Wallace. They speak of someone called "Dagda", who Kim says was the most powerful of all the Celtic gods. They also mention Dagda's mate, Morrigan. She tells Wallace that the Celtic year was split into two halves, the warm season and the cold. The text talks about Dagda bringing the cold season unless children are offered to him. He tells her Cutler's intestines were shaped into the letter "I". At around 1am, they kiss just as Clare screams upstairs.

Fifty-Four

As they rush into Clare's room, they see her thrashing her head from side to side, obviously having another nightmare. She is saying "Samain" over and over. She calms down but Kim stays with her while Wallace goes downstairs to make coffee.

When Kim goes downstairs, Wallace hands her the coffee. He asks her how Clare is and what "Samain" means. She says that it's an old Celtic word meaning "the end of summer". The tablet inscriptions mean that children were sacrificed to stop Dagda from coming. One of the skulls she has tested was from 1823, so children must have been killed in the same spot for thousands of years, on the night of Samain, in threes, as this was a mystical number to the Celts. Three children have now gone missing in Longfield. Samain is on 31st October, Halloween. It's Halloween tomorrow, the most important time of the year for witches. Why would the killer spell out the word? Who is going to sacrifice the children tomorrow? Was it Cooper who must know about the ritual? Wallace wonders if the legend is true; would killing children prevent his coming?

Fifty-Five

Wallace drives to Cooper's house, but a neighbour tells him he is out. He asks Dayton via his two-way radio to send a car to Cooper's address and watch the house. If Cooper shows up, he wants him brought in for questioning. It's 10.56am.

Wallace drives to Dexter Grange and knocks on the door. When nobody answers, he goes around the side and breaks in. He searches downstairs for evidence but finds nothing. Upstairs, he discovers that no rooms have any carpets or furniture. One of the rooms has a pentagram drawn in chalk on its floorboards. Wallace thinks of witchcraft and wonders if Cooper and Dexter are in this together. He gets into his car and drives off.

Fifty-Six

Back at the police station, Macready tells Wallace he is in breach of regulations. There is no proof of any occult links, and he had no right to do any of the things he's done. He's to stay away from Cooper and Dexter. At 12.08, Wallace leaves the station.

Fifty-Seven

Ferguson calls Dexter and tells him he has some heroin he needs to get rid of quickly, and says he's going to take it to Dexter's house, despite Dexter not wanting him to. He puts down the phone and his wife, Carol, says that he needs to just dump the heroin. If he doesn't, she'll tell the police. Ferguson grabs her.

Wallace is in his car when he gets a report involving Ferguson's address, so he heads there.

Fifty-Eight

Constables Terry Laidlaw and Roy Denton arrive at Ferguson's house to find a badly beaten Carol Ferguson outside. They speak to her as Wallace arrives and asks if Mick Ferguson is in the house. They don't know, so Wallace breaks into the house and searches for him. He hears barking coming from the cellar. As he opens the door to it, Ferguson comes crashing through and they land in the sitting room. They fight, then Ferguson makes for the front door, leaving Wallace on the floor. Seeing Laidlaw is by the door, he turns and heads down into the cellar. Laidlaw and Wallace follow. Ferguson opens a cage and the black pit bull launches itself at Laidlaw.

Fifty-Nine

The black dog is on Laidlaw as he tries to fight it off, with Wallace helping. As Ferguson attempts to open the other cage, Wallace smashes him in the face twice with a metal tray. Ferguson grabs a knife and slashes Wallace. He then opens the albino's cage, but the dog attacks him, tearing off his genitals. Armed with some wood with two nails in it, Wallace fights the dog and eventually kills it with the knife. Laidlaw passes out as Dayton appears at the top of the stairs and says an ambulance is on its way.

Sixty

Kim is in the museum lab and has finished boxing up the tablets, skulls, and other relics. She goes into the staff room to call home and let her neighbour, Wendy Barrat, know that she's about to leave, but there is no answer. She returns to the lab and can smell burnt wood. There is a crate lid on the floor. The crate and its lid both look burnt.

Sixty-One

Kim returns home and calls out to Wendy, then Clare, but there is no reply. She hears a thud from upstairs and goes into Clare's room, where she finds Wendy in the corner, badly bleeding. Kim asks her where Clare is, but she doesn't know; she never saw who it was. Kim goes downstairs and calls Longfield police station.

Sixty-Two

An ambulance has collected Wendy and now Wallace arrives at Kim's, where they meet on the front path. Wallace drives them to Cooper's house. They go upstairs to discover that Cooper has hanged himself. His suicide note reads that he knew how to stop what was coming—to kill children—but he couldn't do it himself. He hopes someone else can. When the end comes, he does not want to see it. Wallace wonders if Cooper had an accomplice, and calls Dayton and tells him to send a car to Dexter Grange, and if Dexter isn't there, then to the wood. He says he needs another car to meet him at the dig site in ten minutes. Dayton says that Macready has told him to ignore Wallace's orders, but Wallace tells him he thinks he knows where the kids are. Dayton tells him he will send the cars and an ambulance to Cooper's house. They both get into Wallace's car.

Sixty-Three

Gary Webb tells Dexter that Laura needs some heroin, but as Dexter goes to open the safe, he asks Webb what he would do with all the heroin. Webb grabs an ornamental dagger from above the mantelpiece and demands that Dexter opens the safe. He asks him how he would open the safe if he killed Dexter, then kicks a coffee table at him. They fight and Dexter collapses on the floor. Webb uses a poker he used on Dexter to try and break open the safe. Dexter gets up and, after a struggle, kills Webb. Laura kills Dexter with the knife and sees that the safe is open. She hears a knock at the front door.

Sixty-Four

Kim and Wallace arrive at the field leading up to the dig site. Constables Buchanan and Kendall are also there. Buchanan tells Wallace that Dexter has just been found dead and gives him the details. They all drive to the entrance of the shaft. At 11.32pm, Wallace, Kim, and Buchanan descend the rope ladder.

Sixty-Five

They find a piece of material that looks like it has come from a child's clothing. They split up, Buchanan searching one tunnel, Wallace and Kim another. They arrange to meet back there in twenty minutes. Some way down the tunnel, Wallace talks to Kim, but she doesn't answer. She's not with him. Should he go back? He hears a sound ahead of him.

Sixty-Six

Wallace wonders if Kim knows a better route, but to where?

Buchanan hears sounds from behind him and ahead of him. He carries on.

Still hearing the low moaning sounds, Wallace carries on. There is a tremor as he approaches the chamber with skulls. He doesn't see the figure approaching him.

Sixty-Seven

Back at the surface, Kendall speaks to Macready, who wants to know where he is. Why has Wallace ordered him there? Macready tells him he is coming there. It's 11.51pm.

Sixty-Eight

As Wallace is staring at the many skulls in the chamber, Buchanan appears. They hear a sound and follow it to find an oblong stone buried beneath some skulls. They lift this and find the missing children. Wallace tells Buchanan to take the children up to the surface and he will search for Kim. Suddenly, Buchanan is attacked by Perry.

Sixty-Nine

Perry tells Wallace the children have to die. He has read it on the walls of the chamber. The creature, or power, or whatever it is, has lain dormant, but the dig has disturbed it. Dagda will rise unless three children are sacrificed at midnight on the day of Samain. Wallace tells him he's insane. He asks him why he killed the others, and he replies that Morrigan killed them, the Queen of Demons, a being able to take human form. The Celts would flay the skin of sacrifices and lay the skin on the altars of Morrigan. He tells Wallace that Morrigan has possessed Kim; that's why he has brought Clare here, to lure Kim here. Suddenly, Kim appears and asks Perry to let the children go, but her skin splits open and she changes into the demon Morrigan. Wallace tells the children to run as Morrigan kills Perry. The tunnel begins to collapse, and suddenly Wallace knows it is all true and what he must do. He tries to grab one of the boys, but Morrigan stops him. Wallace grabs a sword from the floor and they fight.

Seventy

During the fight, Wallace grabs a sword and manages to decapitate Morrigan. Her body remains upright, and moments later bursts like a huge boil. At the ladder, he stops a girl and a boy, knowing he has to stop one more. But they have escaped to the surface and are with some policemen. The ground is opening up, the sky is turning red, and a huge shape is rising from the ground, growing in size, up and beyond the clouds. Then there was only darkness.

© Shaun Hutson 1986