The Vermin in the Vestry

In my junior year, I spent a semester in Edinburgh, and a friend from my art history seminar, a quiet, intense girl named Elspeth, invited me to crash at her place in York the following summer. Her family had a flat above a bookshop. I was thrilled—free lodging in a city I’d never explored. When I arrived in August of 2003, Elspeth had changed. She’d become a lay minister at the medieval church of St. Anne’s, a squat, stone monolith wedged between the shops on a narrow lane. Her flat was in the church’s crypt, which she called ‘the undercroft.’ She’d converted the space into a cozy, if damp, living quarters, and she proudly showed me my bed: a cot squeezed into what had once been a stone shrine, now a shallow alcove, barely a closet. I was not thrilled, but I’d agreed to come, and I had a job lined up at a tavern called the Rat and Raven. I figured I’d be out most days, seeing the Minster and the shambles, and the creepy alcove would just be for sleeping.

My first night, I was exhausted from the train and the walk across the cobblestones. Elspeth had left a note saying she’d be at evening prayer and to make myself at home. I fell into the cot, the smell of old stone and candlewax filling my nose. I woke in the pitch dark to a scrabbling sound, like claws on rock. I thought it was rats. The church was old, after all. I lay still, listening. The scrabbling grew closer, and I felt a cold draft seep into the alcove. A faint, high-pitched ticking began, like a clock, but erratic. I sat up, heart pounding, and fumbled for my phone. The screen lit up, showing the alcove walls—carved with faded, twisted faces. The ticking stopped. Then a voice, dry and soft, whispered from the stone, ‘You’re in my bed.’ I bolted, but the crypt door was locked from the outside.

In the morning, Elspeth found me huddled against the far wall, my phone dead. She acted as if it were nothing, saying, ‘Oh, the stones settle. And there’s a peculiar cricket in the walls that sounds like a clock.’ But her eyes were dark, and she avoided the alcove. Over the following days, I noticed things: the church had a faint, sweet smell like rotting flowers, and the congregation was small, all elderly, all with a faraway look. Elspeth spent hours in the back room—the vestry—which she kept locked, saying it held vestments and old records. But I saw her slip in with a bundle of herbs, and once, I heard her chanting low in a language I didn’t know.

The tavern was lively, and I made friends, but every night when I returned, the church seemed to press closer. The alcove became worse. I’d wake with scratches on my arms, and dust in my mouth as if I’d been breathing dirt. One night, I decided to confront Elspeth. I found her in the vestry, the door ajar. Inside, she was kneeling before a small altar, but on the altar was a grotesque figure: a carved wooden rat, life-sized, its eyes glinting with what looked like real agate. She was whispering, ‘Feed it, feed it, it keeps the old one asleep.’ I stepped in, and she whirled, her face a mask of terror. She grabbed my arm, her nails biting in, and hissed, ‘You must not speak of this. The old one slumbers beneath the church. The rat is its warden. I feed it what it wants—the prayers, the memories—and it keeps the old one from rising. But you’re a non-believer. You’ve brought a void. The old one senses it.’

I tried to leave that night, but the crypt door was jammed. I felt a vibration under my feet, and the stone walls seemed to breathe. The tick-tick-tick started again, but now it was a chorus, coming from every direction. The wooden rat’s eyes glowed in the dark. Elspeth vanished. I spent the night in the nave, among the pews, listening to the scraping beneath the flagstones. By dawn, I was a wreck. Elspeth reappeared, calm, as if nothing had happened. She said, ‘The rat has accepted your fear. You may go now.’ She opened the door, and I fled without packing, leaving everything behind.

Years later, I read a local history book about York. It mentioned that St. Anne’s was built on the site of a much older Anglo-Saxon burial ground, and that in the 18th century, a plague of rats had swept through, forcing the church to be reconsecrated. But the book also had a footnote: ‘In 2003, the church was closed for a year due to a suspected rodent infestation. The lay minister, Elspeth Thorne, was found dead in the vestry, her body covered in bites, though the coroner could not identify the animal responsible.’ I still have a recurring dream: I’m in that alcove, and the ticking is loud, and a dry voice says, ‘You’re in my bed.’ I wake, and for a moment, I see two glowing eyes in the dark of my room—then they blink out. The fear never leaves. It’s a part of me now, gnawing at the edges of my mind like a hungry rat.””,
“Title”: “The Vermin in the Vestry