After the place was abandoned in the Nineties, the flame went out at Saltersgate Inn. It was a bad omen on the moors.
Long had it been said should the flame expire then the Devil would have his day.
The tabloids picked up on the story. Garish headlines with pictures of the Inn in its heyday, an important watering hole for man and horse on the lonely moors between Whitby and York. It was also a smugglers snug where fish was salted away from prying government eyes.
Those days were long gone and demolition began shortly after all the brief fuss. It was a flash in the redtop pan.
Local contractors quickly smashed the ancient white Inn to bits and hauled it off in wagons to the yard in Staithes.
After a month, all that remained was the flag floor.
Legend had it that it was here that fish was squirreled away by smugglers beneath the Inn. Carted over from Robins Hood and brined in the cellar vats far from the beaks of the Excise men.
Demolition men began hammering the flags. Soon they were through and a small digger made short work of the rest.
Suddenly, a set of stone steps appeared in the murk, terribly worn and calcified white over the centuries.
The men descended and crunched across the cellar floor, now exposed to the daylight for the first time since the fifteenth century.
As the mortar and dust settled the men saw a wooden arched door at the far end of the ruined space. It wasn't on the plan they had, even the older chart the gaffer held.
"What's that boss?" Said the team's apprentice.
"Dunno Runswick. Damn old plans. Let's get it open then lad!"
Runswick nervously pushed the old handle and the door creaked loudly.
"Here, give Runswick a torch!"
The teenage worker stared at his gaffer and took the torch. He looked at his older workmates who all gawped at him.
"Go on Runs! 'Bout time you did summat useful!"
He went in and the torch had to fight hard to find purchase in that treacled dark, which seemed to cling to him like his own enveloping fear.
Canker festooned the low curved ceiling. Runswick removed his hard hat. Oozing fluid tickled and dripped onto his face.
"Ugh!"
He wiped it off and swung the torch round the room frantically. He wanted to get out of there as fast as he could.
The weak beam picked out details of an ancient place. A row of decrepit wooden chairs. A small dais in front and at the rear a recess in the crystalline stone wall.
Runswick inches closer. Slowly. He stumbled over a chair and steadied himself on the timber dais. It was draped in a moth-eaten cloth bearing the symbol of a fish.
Staring forward and targeting the cut recess he realized that there was a light flickering within it.
He rubbed his eyes and moved his bulk nearer.
Now standing directly in front of it he could see that it was a small flame stuttering in the gloom. Barely visible in the darkness it appeared to come directly from something sticking up through the ledge. He peered at it.
"What the....!"
Runswick shuddered. In the light of his torch he could see clearly that the thing sticking up was a finger. A leathery ancient taloned finger. The talon and the tip were lit like a candle and it was from this that the small red flame flickered.
"Jesus!" He screamed and began to stagger towards the door.
Before he got there his Gaffer and workmates trudged in.
"Boss! Boss! There's a flame! In the wall! It's a burning f - finger!" Runswick spluttered.
"It's OK Runsy. It's OK" reassured the gaffer.
"Just sit here and tell us what you've seen"
Runswick sat on a chair at the side of the dais.
"Look for yourselves! It's right here!"
The gaffer stood next to the flame
"What. This?"
He blew as hard as he could and the flame went out.
"Nothing there Runsy!"
Runswick glared at his old plump boss.
"You blew it out! But, the legend!"
"Oh yes we know the legend. That's why we're here!
His workmates all took off their hard hats and put up their sweatshirt hoods. They then sat in the chairs in front of the dais. In the arcane dark they looked like monks.
"You see Runsy. We are the devil's men. Each generation has them and it's our turn. We've been praying for this day, the day we could enter the Saltersgate cellar"
"What are you on about!"
The old man nodded to the one hooded worker not sat down.
He stepped forward and brought out a pick axe from behind him.
"Where was I? Oh yes. Look at the finger now Runsy."
The young man turned to face the recess. To his utter horror the wizened finger was clawing at the ancient mortar holding it in place.
"Soon the whole hand will be free Runsy. The devil's whole left hand. He was bricked up centuries ago by the salters. It wasn't just fish they were salting in these grounds. They salted the devil too! Yes, ha ha. The whole damn thing and buried him in this chapel wall."
"What. You mean the devil's behind there?" He stammered, not really believing what he was hearing.
"Yep. He's in there alright and he's waiting for us to free him. But there's just one thing we need to do before."
"W-whats that?" Whispered Runsy.
"Slay a virgin .....
That'd be you Runsy!"
Runswick stiffened and as he turned his head to find the door he saw his workmate lift up the pick-axe and bring it swiftly down on his skull.
"Noooooooooooo!"
Runswick's scream ended with an abrupt gargle as the pick entered his head.
"Runsy. Runsy. At last you're doing something useful! Ha ha"
The young man's body was dragged onto the stone dais and the gaffer positioned his head so that the brains ran out onto a mouldy mound at the base of the wall.
The hooded men chanted with their heads bowed, a black mass in the filthy salters cellar.
Almost imperceptibly the ancient wall began to crack. The finger in the ledge became a whole clawed hand and pushed the crumbling sill away.
Suddenly the edifice gave way and out of the rubble and motes a figure began to emerge.
"Lucifer!" The men whispered "we are your servants!"
The figure stood. It shook of it's salted crust. It's skin was leathered and burned. Scars mapped it's limbs and its long tail was broken. Huge patches of skin hung loose like cloth and it was glistening with what remained of the salt grains.
"We bid you welcome Our Lord!"
The Devil glowered at the souls before him. He was desolate with a century's hunger and thirst.
"We have brought you a sacrifice Master. A virgin boy."
The creature nodded and devoured the corpse of Runswick greedily, splashing the congregation with thick blood.
The Devil licked his lips.
"You have done well men".
"Thank you Our Lord."
"Centuries of this accursed salted cell have left me ravenous. I need much more meat to eat, the hot meat of humankind!"
"We can help you oh great Lucifer," the gaffer offered.
"Indeed you can. My thirst is the problem. Brine has burned my very being. I need the sustainence of true believers to quench this intolerable ache."
"Yes Master. We can find them"
"But they are already found," hissed the Devil.
"Any believers will do. It matters not"
"Who Dark Lord?"
"Why you of course! Nice local meat and willing souls! Delicious!"
There was no-one to hear the muffled shrieks of the doomed demolition men as the Fallen one fed.
When it had finished it stood atop the fetid pile that had once been his prison and with outstretched crimson wings rose into the pitch night towards the glowing and seductive lights of Whitby Town and it's ten thousand sleeping souls.
