The Wedding

The Investigators received an invite to the wedding of Abby Barker and Isaac Martin in the village of Shelborough in Kent. Shelborough is a small, pleasant looking, village on the coast about five miles west of Old Romney. As close friends and family members, the Investigators planned to  combine the holiday with a well-earned vacation and also help out where they could. Accordingly they arrived several days early to help with the preparations and set-up. Carl, Jimmy and Billy, as relatives, were put up in the rambling house Abby and Isaac had just bought, while the rest took rooms in The Marshman, the local pub.

After lunch they were all introduced to the vicar who was to carry out the service, the Rev. Jeffrey Petersen and young and enthusiastic priest, just out of seminary and looking forward to performing his first marriage. The Investigators had a few hours to themselves to freshen up before meeting Abby in The Marshman for dinner. Max found himself in the bar, chatting to the owner, Arthur Eatwell, and quaffing a pint of the local brew Marsh Ale. He was joined one by one by the others. Billy arrived just as Arthur was relating an amusing anecdote about someone who had volunteered to stay the night in the "haunted" crypt of the church and was discovered running half-naked across the village green screaming that the trees were trying to eat him! After a pleasant evening the Investigators retired to bed... and found themselves at the ceremony!

The church was eerily silent , and everyone save them, Max included, seemed frozen in  place. Suddenly heavy footsteps were heard at the back of the church as something that looked like a small ambulatory tree moved up the centre aisle towards the frozen-in-spot happy couple.

Overcoming their initial shock, the Investigators rapidly moved into action. Basil, was quickest to react and  leaped forward to the front of the church and grabbed Abbey, hauling bodily her into the vestry. Billy, Paul and Jimmy and Carl attacked the "walking tree" while Max desperately willed himself to move from his frozen state.  He eventually succeeded only to see Young Billy grabbed by the creature and swallowed whole. Paul grabbed a candelabra and began beating at the creature, while Carl launched a series of roundhouse kicks and Jimmy beat it with a hymn book! Basil re-emerged from the vestry and after igniting them with his lighter, began to hurl burning books in the hope the creature might be flammable. Suddenly under this combined assault the tree-creature dissolved in a shower of black particles, and each of the Investigators, save Billy, woke in bed, covered in a cold-sweat!