He retrieved his bar.
'Come on,' he snarled and they set to Work again. To Mackenzie, it had become a matter of pride; he intended moving that stump if he had to stay there all night and do it.
There was a slight creak and it lifted an inch. They pressed down harder and it lifted a little more.
'It's moving,' shouted Mackenzie, triumphantly.
Inch by agonizing inch, the tree stump rose, bringing with it more thick roots which hung like hardened veins from its dirt encrusted base.
It lifted a foot. Then eighteen inches, a great sucking sound filling the air as it began to come free.
Then they noticed the smell. A fetid, choking stench which smelt like excrement and made them gag. Steve felt his muscles contract, the hot bile clawing its way up from his stomach.
'Keep pushing,' shouted Mackenzie, tearing the lump of wood from its earthy home until the many-rooted base was at a ninety degree angle to the ground. Both men put their shoulders to it, preparing to push it over.
It was then that they looked down into the hole.
Mackenzie opened his mouth to scream but no sound would escape. The cry caught in his throat and rasped away. His eyes, riveted to the sight below him, bulged madly, the blood vessels in the whites threatening to burst. Steve made no attempt to stop himself and vomited violently, not quite daring to believe what he saw.
Lying in the hole, its body coated in thick slime, was a slug the size of small dog. Its body was a sickly greyish white colour, covered from head to tail with thick slime. As the horrified men stood transfixed, its twin antennae slowly grew towards them, lengthening like car aerials, until they had reached their full height. The bulbous eyes waved gently at the end of the antenna and the abomination slithered forward.
With a scream of sheer horrified revulsion, Mackenzie snatched up the crowbar and struck the creature. It made a hideous gurgling noise, the antenna retracting swiftly. Mackenzie struck again but, seeing that the blows were having little effect, he grabbed the axe, lying discarded by the tree stump and brought it down with terrifying force on the monstrous thing.
His blow split it in half and, a shower of virulent pus-like blood spouted into the air, some of it spattering him. Screaming like a maniac he brought the axe down again, this time splitting the thing lengthways. A reeking porridge of blackened entrails spilled onto the ground, the stench nearly making Mackenzie faint. Sobbing now, he brought the axe down once more, this time slicing off one of the antenna. He sank to his knees, the slimey mixture of yellow blood and dark viscera covering him. He gripped the axe and screamed.
Steve Pike lay unconscious behind him.
It was a full hour before Mackenzie was able to think clearly, or even to look at what remained of the thing in the hole. God alone knew how long it had been there, what it had fed on. And only now did he see that it had been lying on something. A box of some sort.
Steve had come to about twenty minutes ago, seen the creature's body and thrown up again. Mackenzie didn't blame him. Now both of them sat looking down into the hole left by the torn up tree stump, wondering what was in the box on which the slug had been lying.
'It looks like a coffin,' said Steve, quietly.
Mackenzie nodded and leapt forward, tentatively touching the wooden lid. It was soft to the touch, like mildew. He poked it with the crow bar and a lump fell off. Both men stepped back.
'What if there's another one of those things in there?' said Steve, apprehensively.
Mackenzie ignored him and stepped down into the hole. Christ, it was deep, a good three feet deep, the rim of it level with his waist.
The sky above was growing dark and he had to squint to read what was on the lid.
'It's a name or something,' he said.
Steve swallowed hard and looked around him. The wind had sprung up and the trees were rustling nervously. 'For Christ's sake hurry, Mack,' he said. Night was drawing in fast, clouds gathering like premonitory warnings above the cemetery. Birds, returning to their nests, were black arrowheads against the purple sky.
Mackenzie bent and looked closer. There was a name plate but the name had been scratched out making it unreadable. Only the date was visible, caked over with the mud of four hundred years.
1596.
'Christ, it's old,' said Mackenzie.
He slid his crowbar under one corner of the lid and wrenched it open.
Both men found themselves looking in at a skeleton.
'Jesus,' groaned Steve, noticing that the empty eye sockets had been stuffed with rag. The blackened skeleton lay in what remained of a shroud, now little more than rotted wisps of linen. The mouth was open, drawn wide in a way that made it look as though it were screaming.
But the most striking thing was the medallion.
It hung around the neck of the skeleton, almost dazzling in its brilliance. As if the rigours of time had been unable to make an impression on it.
'Fucking hell,' gasped Steve, 'it must be worth a fortune.'
The medallion consisted of a single flat circle of gold suspended on a thick chain. There was an inscription in the middle, and more jumbled lettering around the rim of the circlet but, as Mackenzie leant forward, he could see that it was no language he recognized. He hazarded a guess at Latin and would have been pleased to know that his theory was right.
'Shouldn't we tell the vicar about this?' Steve wanted to know.
Mackenzie shot him a warning glance, 'You're joking. After what we've been through getting this, I want a souvenir.' Reaching down, he ripped the medallion from around the neck of the corpse. Smiling, he studied it lying in the palm of his hand.
'A fortune,' he said quietly. It was then that he noticed the slight sensation of warmth in his palm. At first he dismissed it as imagination, or the sweat of his exertions. But the heat grew stronger, the skin on the palm of his hand began to sizzle and, as he watched, the medallion began to glow.
He dropped it with a startled grunt. It stared back at him from the damp earth.
'The bloody thing burned me,' he said, looking up at Steve.
The younger man frowned and looked down at the medallion. He reached forward and prodded it with his fingers.
'Seems alright to me,' he said, picking it up.
Mackenzie snatched it from him, holding it for a moment or two. Nothing happened. Perhaps it had been his imagination. He looked down at the palm of his hand. There was a scorch mark the size of a milk bottle top on the flesh of his hand. He dropped the medallion into his pocket and picked up his spade.
'Let's fill it in,' he said.
'I still think we should tell the vicar,' Steve persisted, shovelling earth.
'Shut up and keep digging.'
They buried the coffin and its skeletal occupant and the slug, then set off back to the cemetery proper. Mackenzie was quiet, staring ahead of him as he walked, and Steve had to hurry to keep up with him.
'What are you going to do with the medallion?' the youngster asked.
'Mind your own fucking business,' rasped Mackenzie.
Steve swallowed hard, disturbed by the tone of the older man's voice. What he had just seen had caused him enough trouble, he didn't want to end his first working day with a fight.
When they reached the van, parked outside the cemetery, they dumped their tools in the back and Mackenzie threw the ignition keys to Steve.
'You drive,' he ordered, 'I've got a blinding headache.'