Choir Practice

Albert Pettigrew-Manwaring, vicar of Warmsly, had spent too long in his bathtub. His skin was beginning to wrinkle. He had lost interest in his favorite duck.  The Victorian heating system was moody; and on this occasion it was sulking.  It was snowing and the vicarage was cold.

But it wasn’t the prospect of stepping onto the frigid floor that kept the vicar so long in his bath. He was lost in thought. He was unsettled by his visit that afternoon to Lady Constance up at the hall. She had never sat so close to him on sofa, or been quite that solicitous over afternoon tea. And what did she mean by referring to herself so much as—a woman?

It had been just over a year since her husband, Lord Alastair, had the unfortunate accident. The circumstances were a mystery to the vicar. It never occurred to him to ask why the two chambermaids, Cécile and Yvette, had been dismissed so promptly.

The vicar turned on the hot tap with his big toe. Boom! The ancient gas heater above the tub shot out a tongue of flame. For a moment the bathroom was filled with a deafening roar and a clanking of pipes. It was only when the noise died away that the vicar became aware of the muffled sound of the church organ. And what discordant sounds they were. It was then that he realized that he was supposed to be taking choir practice that evening because Mr. Jenkins, the choir master, was at home with a cold.

Half an hour earlier, twelve young boys arrived for choir practice. It was already dark when they leaned their bicycles against the churchyard wall and trudged through the graveyard. For eight centuries the village church in Warmsly had stood resolute against the elements.

The door creaked open into the darkness.

“You go in first,” said Doc, a boy who sported black-frame glasses.

“We’d better wait for Mr. Jenkins,” said Nigel, a tall boy whose voice was beginning to show signs of breaking. His days were numbered as a choirboy.

“I know where the light switch is,” said Tinker, the postman’s youngest.

Tinker missed the bottom step and careened into the font. After some banging and crashing he found the light switch and the boys trooped in.

“Mr. Jenkins has hay fever,” said a small boy with red hair.

“You don’t get hay fever in February,” said Doc.

“Well, he was sneezing continually when I saw him yesterday,” said the boy.

“Maybe he’s dead,” said Tinker,” If you sneeze enough your brains fly out through your nose. It’s a well known fact.”

“He should be here by now,” said the redhead.

“We’re supposed to wear cassock and surplice tonight,” said Nigel. “I think we should get ready.”

“What if Mr. Jenkins really is dead?” said Tinker.

“Or possessed by the Devil,” ventured Bob Carpenter, a thoughtful if gullible lad.

“He could be a zombie. That’s when someone is possessed and they bite you and you turn into a zombie, too. My sister told me about it,” said Doc, “Zombies walk around at night and live in graveyards.”

Outside the snow fell on the graves in the churchyard. It was quiet.

The boys looked at one another in silence.

“What if he isn’t coming?” said one.

“Nonsense! I expect he is delayed. We should at least get ready,” said Nigel sensibly.

Each boy made the sign of the cross as they filed passed the alter, and into the vestry.

The vestry was a small room at the back of the organ that smelled of damp, candle wax, and wood polish.

The Powell twins were now standing on the bench and playing ghosts with their surplices.

“I don’t think you two should do that,” said Nigel, who seemed to take it upon himself to be in charge.

Most of the boys thought that Paul Benson was more of a leader. It was Paul’s excited voice they heard coming from the other side of the organ.

“Oh! The organ is unlocked,” he shouted, “this is just like the fairground.”

His voice was immediately downed out by the earsplitting sounds of the organ. The vestry floor shook.

Paul didn’t have what you might call a natural inclination to harmony, but he did understand volume. He’d pulled out all the stops and was randomly pounding the organ’s three keyboards and dancing on the foot pedals.

“Can I have a go too?” Doc yelled in Paul’s ear.

“OK”

“And us” said one of the Powell twins who had abandoned their ghost impersonations.

Four boys had now squeezed themselves onto organ bench and were making a gigantic din. It was as if the Devil had possessed the machine.

Tinker was telling one of the younger boys that such a sound can raise the dead. He’d read about it in Zombies of the Blackness.

“It’s music to the undead. If they keep playing it will attract them,” said Tinker. The wide-eyed recipient of this message shivered. He imagined the scraping of dislodged gravestones as the dead climbed out of their resting places.

On the other side of the churchyard, the vicar leapt from his bath, dried off, wrapped a towel around his head threw on his clerical garb. He was still struggling with his raincoat when he burst through the church doors in a state of apoplexy.

“Silence!” he yelled above the noise.

But his towel had obscured his face, and his voice was unintelligible. 

“It’s the undead,” stammered a terrified boy who pointed to the bellowing figured waving its arms excitedly.

The vicar took one step forward, caught the edge of his raincoat with his foot and over he went. He was writhing on the ground as the boys screamed and fled by the vestry door.

Choir practice was cancelled that night.

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