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Back in the twenty first century, a young boy is calling down through the ragged hole in the rubble of the altar inside of the ruined church.
“Sam, Joe are you all right, are you hurt?” The worried voice belongs to Isaac, their brother, not getting a reply he calls down to them again. “Joe, Sam, are you all right?”
He had seen his brothers leaving his grandparent`s home and followed them as he thought it would be nice to walk up to the shops. He had thought it strange when they had passed by the turning for the bakers, but had followed them to see where his two brothers were going, and why they hadn`t told anyone about this secret destination. He had hesitated a moment when he had seen them enter the old olive grove, for it was rather dark and gloomy, especially around the old ruined church, but as they had gone in so did he, but he had decided to hang back and watch them from behind the broken walls of the church rather than join them inside. It all seemed too much like a ghost film he had once seen at a friend’s house, a very scary ghost film. It had been a laugh until his two brothers had disappeared amidst a cloud of dust, which were mixed in with the rumble of falling stones and his brothers` screams. Now he was calling down to them through a hole in the collapsed altar, and he was beginning to feel really scared. He remembered seeing a long length of rope at the broken wall that went around the olive grove, and he quickly returned to the bright sunshine, and away from the ruined church. He picked the rope up and quickly returned to the broken altar, and here he tied one end of the rope to an olive tree that had grown within the ruined church. With this end of the rope secure, he threw the other end down through the jagged hole, and then quickly slipped down it to the vast cavern beneath the church. On the floor he found a torch, it was lying in a small patch of sunlight that had managed to penetrate this far down. Joe had dropped the torch when he had been pulled through time; Isaac quickly picked it up and saw that it was still turned on. Swinging it around the cavern Isaac saw to his growing consternation that neither of his brothers were there, they had disappeared, then he saw the four skeletons and screamed. Could the two smaller ones belong to Sam and Joe, scared out of his mind he moved away from them and stepped on to something hard, looking down he saw a rusty old pistol on the floor and he quickly picked it up. With a weapon in his hand he felt a little safer, even if the weapon was very rusty and was unlikely to work. Unfortunately, when he picked up the old pistol, he was transported back to another time, one in which Captain Jack was about to slit the throats of Joe and Sam, it is into this horror, and this fatal minute, that Isaac materialised out of thin air.
Captain Jack gasped in surprise, however, he does not see Isaac, he sees the priest, and he laughs. “Watch this Matey, while I slit the throats of these two boys, and finally I will have my revenge over Sir Percy.”
Isaac threw the rusty old pistol at the pirate captain, making him duck away from Sam and Joe, who moved hurriedly away from the captain. Then, to everyone’s surprise, the real priest appeared, he has a burning torch in one hand and the pistol that Isaac had just thrown in the other, although now it looked new.
“Not again you black hearted villain, I will not allow you to kill two young innocents a second time.” The priest swore angrily.
The priest raised the pistol and fired it just as Captain Jack made to move towards the two boys to slit their throats. Captain Jack fell back against the treasure chest badly wounded, but in one last act of villainy he lunged at the priest with his cutlass.
A bright flash lit up the cavern and the three boys find themselves flung forward through time, until finally they are back in their own time. The skeletons of the pirate captain and the priest were there, as were those of the two children, back where they were before Joe had first touched the cutlass. One thing in particular made Isaac want to leave this cavern; the bony finger of the captain was pointing accusingly right at him.
They collected some of the jewels from the chest to prove to their parents that the story that they would tell was not make believe, then they climbed up the rope that Isaac had used in his descent and hurried home. There they had to explain just what they were up to, and then endure a good telling off for being so silly, and told that they wouldn’t be allowed out by themselves until mummy thought they were old enough to know better, and as all boys know that could be a very long, long, time. As for the treasure, well the courts would have to decide to whom it belonged. The Church, for it was under their property, the State, for the treasures were stolen booty, the shop owner who originally had the map, or the boys, and all this would take almost as long as it would take for their mummy to allow the boys out by themselves again.
The End
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The Haunted Abbey