When my parents died I inherited their flat above the community hub, known officially as Angel Court and locally as just Angel's. It used to be an absolute hive of activity, every shop full of life and laughter and someone yelling at their kid to get back in the house. Always someone yelling at a kid who'd never listen.
Sometimes, if the council were prowling, you'd hear those same parents calling out late into the night until their throats were as raw as their tear stained faces. The kids would turn up days later, usually in the ditch by the road opposite the Stark Wren Park which the media dubbed "a child's playground turned burial ground".
Tasteless as they were, they weren't wrong. Five hundred years ago Angel's was Saint Angelo's Church and the park grounds stand where the graveyard was, before the church was burned down with the old congregation inside it. It was only a matter of years before the graveyard was declared unconsecrated due to the lack of church and all the stones moved to holier ground.
They left the bodies, nobody cared for the dead, they still don't.
Since I moved here five months ago I've been hearing the same cries I used to when I was younger, the same names of old friends who vanished from school and were found in the ditch. The playground rumours were that Angel's is patrolled by the old congregation, looking for whoever burned the church. The rumours also pointed at it being a child which is why nobody over fifteen goes missing.
It made sense at the time but as we all grew older, those of us that survived living in Angel's agreed with the media that there was some kind of serial killer - or killers - lurking about the area and preying on weak children.
We were partially right but so were the rumours.
I don't know how I never noticed back then but whenever a child went missing, whenever their parents began to cry out their names, church bells faintly rang. I keep hearing them now in the evenings. Five times this month and five children missing so far.
The flock of Saint Angelo's is still on the hunt.
Sometimes, if the council were prowling, you'd hear those same parents calling out late into the night until their throats were as raw as their tear stained faces. The kids would turn up days later, usually in the ditch by the road opposite the Stark Wren Park which the media dubbed "a child's playground turned burial ground".
Tasteless as they were, they weren't wrong. Five hundred years ago Angel's was Saint Angelo's Church and the park grounds stand where the graveyard was, before the church was burned down with the old congregation inside it. It was only a matter of years before the graveyard was declared unconsecrated due to the lack of church and all the stones moved to holier ground.
They left the bodies, nobody cared for the dead, they still don't.
Since I moved here five months ago I've been hearing the same cries I used to when I was younger, the same names of old friends who vanished from school and were found in the ditch. The playground rumours were that Angel's is patrolled by the old congregation, looking for whoever burned the church. The rumours also pointed at it being a child which is why nobody over fifteen goes missing.
It made sense at the time but as we all grew older, those of us that survived living in Angel's agreed with the media that there was some kind of serial killer - or killers - lurking about the area and preying on weak children.
We were partially right but so were the rumours.
I don't know how I never noticed back then but whenever a child went missing, whenever their parents began to cry out their names, church bells faintly rang. I keep hearing them now in the evenings. Five times this month and five children missing so far.
The flock of Saint Angelo's is still on the hunt.
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