The wire began to swoop and arc at a greater speed than before and with a last show of energy, the girl leapt as high as she could, but it wasn’t high enough. As she jumped up, the sharp wire turned again and sliced through her legs at the knees. The bottom halves of her legs were flung out across the ring, leaving strings of thin, bloody sinew in their path.
The poor child landed upright and was balancing on the stumps where her knees once were, but before she had the chance to scream out in pain, the wire swooped around again. This time it sliced straight through her neck, beheading the unlucky volunteer. Her decapitated head spun through the air, shooting out blood all over the crowd, and landed on the table where the bag of money sat. There were screams of terror from the onlookers as they couldn’t believe what they had just witnessed.
The Entertainer became a bit confused as he sensed the disapproval of the audience. They had seen his acts before so he wondered why the crowd were more rowdy than usual. The Entertainer then shouted, “They all knew the rules and accepted the challenges.” To loud boos, he added, “This show is now over – see you all next time!”
Despite this slight unrest from the crowd he sensed that they would be back; if not in this village, then in other ones, as people always wanted to win money.
The two burly women walked out into the ring, each holding two of the wild boars on strong leather straps, and the Entertainer left the ring as the crowd vacated the tent.
Suddenly Maggie found herself witnessing the forming of a lynch mob in what was the main street of Midway. There were about twenty or more in the rabble, and some of them held lit torches while the others had pitchforks, shovels, or any other weapon they could get. The village’s elder, Mr Cedric Hannah, whose daughter had just been killed by the skipping device, was crying as he led the mob up to a house at the end of the street. The crowd faced the house and the elder shouted, “No mercy – burn the demons!”
The mob all yelled out and threw their lit torches onto the roof of the house. The straw quickly caught fire. A man then said “Mr Hannah, shall we burn the inside as well?”
Cedric nodded, and the door was broken down by the mob and more torches were thrown inside the house. A woman’s screams were heard from inside – “No, my children!” but the lynch mob didn’t care as they watched the house burn and listened to the people inside perish to tragic screams and wails.
From a short distance away, a shout was heard; it was the Entertainer himself, and he yelled from a type of crow’s nest at the top of his marquee, “No, what have you done to my family!”
A voice rang out from the crowd “Look he’s there!” as fingers were pointed up to the Entertainer high above his tent.
The mob all turned and ran towards the circus tent as it was clear from their shouts that they had just torched the Entertainer’s home thinking he was inside it.
They reached the marquee and Bartholomew Smith was still at the top of the tent. He had seen the smoke and flames and had climbed up to see what was happening, but he didn’t expect to see his own house ablaze.
The mob set fire to the tent and the animals and assistants all ran out and sprinted off into the distance. The tent burned quickly and Bartholomew had nowhere to go; he was trapped up the main pole, high up in the air.
Knowing he was doomed, he shouted down to his murderers, “Mark my words: I curse you all and your families, and I will have my revenge. I will be back; one day I will be back!”
Then, without any hesitation at all, he just let go of the pole and fell to his death in the inferno below.
Maggie seemed to recognise some of the lynch mob, but she knew that she couldn’t know them as this village existed hundreds of years ago. Then she heard the Entertainer scream out from the flames, and she woke up.
Maggie composed herself and muttered, “My God.”
She took a notepad from the drawer of her bedside table and wrote down what she could remember about her vision, and as she did, she had a look of dread and foreboding on her face. Maggie knew that she had discovered something of great importance about the strange deaths.
Grimes
Early the next morning, Maggie went to Josh’s house. She knocked on the door and Rosie answered. This surprised Maggie, and she said “Oh, I’m sorry it’s a bit early but I really need to speak to Josh.”
Rosie didn’t know who this strange necklace-covered woman was, so she called Josh to the door. He was surprised to see Maggie so early.
“Maggie!” He beamed. “Please come in.”
Maggie went inside, and Josh closed the front door and introduced his guest to his wife. “Rosie, this is Maggie; I have mentioned her to you before.”
The two women shook hands.
“I’ve heard a lot about you,” admitted Rosie. “You’ve helped my husband quite a lot lately.”
Maggie replied, with a smile, “Well, I do try to do my bit.”
Rosie sensed that Josh and Maggie needed to talk about work, so she kissed Josh on the cheek and whispered into his ear, “I’ll leave you two to it.” She then went upstairs, and Josh led Maggie into the kitchen.
“Coffee, Maggie?”
“Yes please, I think I need one.”
Josh boiled the kettle and made the drinks. They sat at the table for a while then Josh broke the silence.
“Go on then, what have you got for me?”
Maggie looked directly into Josh’s eyes and said, with a slight tremble in her voice, “I had a vision last night. It was about a village called Midway and a man who called himself the Entertainer. This all happened hundreds of years ago and he had a sort of circus show where people accepted his challenges for money, but I never saw anyone actually survive the tests to collect their reward. After a young girl was killed, a lynch mob burnt his house and his circus tent to the ground and killed the Entertainer and his family.”
She paused and took a sip of coffee. Josh saw his chance to speak.
“So, what does this all mean?” he asked the still-shaken psychic. “Who is the Entertainer?”
Maggie put down her cup and continued her story. “I think that the Entertainer has come back to get his revenge for the murder of his family, and is responsible for all of the strange deaths.”
This stunned Josh, as he found the story unlikely. “Why do you think that?” he questioned Maggie. “How can a man long dead be alive today?”
As Josh drank his coffee, Maggie dropped her bombshell.
“The Entertainer kept a King of Clubs card in his hatband, and he cursed the lynch mob and swore he’d have his revenge. Some of the mob looked a little familiar and could be related to the victims. The man is sadistic and evil and I really do have the feeling that the Entertainer has returned.”
Josh realised that his friend was deadly serious, and trusted her instincts. “OK, Maggie, if you’re right then what do we do?”
Maggie was thankful that he believed her, and stood up. “We go and see old Mr Grimes the hermit; he knows about the area’s history and other strange stuff.”
Josh agreed and shouted up to Rosie, “I’m going out, luv; see you later!”
Rosie shouted back down and said that she’d see him when he got back, and Josh and Maggie left the house and drove to see Mr Grimes.
***
They drove up a dirt track which led to an old house that overlooked the sea. It was a spooky, untidy-looking house, a bit like the ones you can see in any horror movie. They pulled up outside and walked up an overgrown path to the front door.
“Now be aware that he doesn’t like people much,” Maggie warned Josh. “He likes to be left alone unless you talk about something of real interest to him.”
“Well, let’s hope this interests him then,” a curious Josh chuckled.
Maggie was just about to knock on the door when it flew open and there stood Mr Grimes. He was an elderly man
with white hair and a short beard. He was a bit scruffy-looking, and scary with it. He had an angry look on his face, and hollered at his intruders, “Get off my property – go away!”
He raised his hand in a threatening manner, which made Josh and Maggie step back.
“Wait!” Maggie shrieked. “It’s me, Bill, Maggie!”
Bill Grimes blinked and took a hard look at her. “My God, Maggie, it is you.”
Calm fell on the three, and as Bill ushered Maggie and Josh inside he said, “Come in, come in”, and the door creaked shut behind them. He showed them into his living room and they all sat down, Maggie and Bill on the sofa and Josh in an armchair that was full of holes and needed reupholstering.
“Bill, this is Josh,” Maggie said with a smile as she introduced the two men. “We’ve got some things to ask you.”
Bill Grimes shuffled in his seat. “OK, ask away.”
Maggie began the questions. “What can you tell us about an old village called Midway and a man called the Entertainer?”
Bill got up and walked over to a dusty old bookcase. He scanned his books for a few seconds and then picked one out and sat back down.
“I think what you need is in here,” he mumbled as he patted his book tenderly. “There have been quite a lot of evil and malicious characters throughout the history of this area, and if I remember correctly, the Entertainer was the darkest of the lot.”
He opened the book, which was full of notes, diagrams and scraps of paper. It wasn’t a proper book as such; it was one that Bill had put together himself with facts and details he found interesting about history and evil in general.
He turned the pages. “Ah, here we are,” he said with a lot of interest in his voice, “I knew I was right. Midway was on the coast road and existed about 700 years ago, give or take a century or two although nobody knows exactly when it was.” He continued to read. “Small town… humble dwellings – ah, what’s this?”
Josh and Maggie suddenly became more interested as Bill carried on reading.
“I knew it – the Entertainer, real name Bartholomew Smith.”
“That’s it!” shouted an excited Maggie. “Bartholomew Smith, that’s who I saw in my dream”
Bill Grimes quickly raised his head and looked straight at Maggie. “Dream – what dream?”
Maggie’s eyes flicked to Josh and then back to Bill. “I had a sort of vision last night. I was in Midway and I saw the Entertainer’s freakish shows and the lynch mob that murdered him and his family. I heard him curse the mob and swear his revenge on all of them. He swore to return one day, and I think he’s back.”
Bill looked at Maggie and confessed, “I think you might be right.”
“What!” Josh butted in. “How can that be?”
Bill continued with his tale. “The Entertainer was a devil worshipper and into black magic and the supernatural. No one knew who he really was or where he came from, he’s a bit of a historical mystery. The lynch mob tied his charred body to horses and dragged it through the streets and out of Midway. It’s said that you could hear the screams of the dead themselves as his body was battered and pulled along the roads. It’s rumoured that the mob buried him close to the beach, under where the funfair now is.
“Bartholomew Smith’s wife was pregnant when she was killed by the lynch mob, so he swore revenge on their families and cursed any future unborn children that the mob or their relatives may have had due to the horrific killing of his family.”
Maggie and Josh were both stunned at this revelation, but things now started to fit into place.
Maggie chimed in, “Children – there were always children seen or thought to have been seen at some of the strange deaths. I’m not too sure but I thought that I caught a fleeting glimpse of a child in the bank when Alan was killed. I’ve also got a strong feeling that these children actually knew their victims” The frightened look on Maggie’s face said it all as she looked at Josh.
“Let me get this right,” a puzzled Josh remarked. “Are you thinking that these killer children are the ghostly offspring that the victims would have had if they had stayed in a relationship, but they weren’t actually conceived because the couple broke up beforehand?”
The colour drained from Maggie’s face. “That’s exactly what I’m thinking and that’s also the reason the victims used to be lovers”
There was an eerie silence as the size of the problem became clear.
Bill then made a suggestion to Josh: “You need to find exactly where Midway used to be as I think you’ll uncover a few clues there. I visited the field where the village once stood about forty years ago, but I won’t be able to find it again now as I didn’t write down the location as I didn’t think it would be that important. All I can remember is that it was near Trusthorpe, and there was a strange circle of semi-buried stones in the corner.”
Josh stood up. “You stay here,” he ordered Maggie. “I’ll go and find the field and see what’s there.”
Maggie nodded, and Josh left to go on his journey of discovery, but what exactly would he find?
The Circle
Josh was driving along the coast road between Mablethorpe and Ingoldmells, trying to find the field where Midway once stood. It was a nice summer’s day and he had the window down to get some breeze. He pulled up alongside a field and got out of the car.
After looking around the area for a moment, he decided to walk across the field to see if he could find the stone circle or any other clues. It wasn’t a large field, and as soon as he got about halfway across he could see that there weren’t any stones there or anything else at all, so he returned to his car and drove a little further down the road to the next field.
He parked next to a larger field which went back a lot further than the others along the road. He got out of the car and took a few steps onto the lush, green grass, and immediately felt uneasy. He took out a King of Clubs playing card from his pocket which he had took from a pack of cards earlier hopefully for some kind of inspiration and walked towards what he assumed was the rear of the field as it was the furthest edge away from the road. He scanned the edge of the field and his gaze was drawn to the back left corner where the grass didn’t look quite as green as the rest, so he walked over to investigate. Straight away he could see why the grass was duller: it was growing over a cluster of different-sized, semi-buried stones, but they all looked similar and it was obvious that they had belonged to the same ancient building that once stood there. But what could it have been?
Josh knew that this must be the very field where Midway used to be, and to get some kind of inspiration he looked hard at the card in his hand.
Then suddenly the sun crept behind what must have been the only cloud in the sky, which made Josh become as cold as ice. Then, without any warning at all, the Entertainer appeared behind Josh and grabbed him by the shoulders, which made Josh feel faint and dizzy. As the Entertainer gave an evil smile, Josh fell, unconscious, to the ground.
***
When his eyes flickered open and he regained his composure, he sat up to see where he was. He was shocked to see that he was locked in a wooden cage, and there were people dressed in rags and olden-day clothes staring at him. He could hear what could only be described as loud crowd activity coming from behind a closed curtain. Looking around at the people outside, he thought he had to say something if he was to get out of his primitive prison.
“Where am I?” he said in a slightly raised voice. “Let me out of here!”
One of the men outside the cage was holding a pointed stick, and he thrust it through the wooden bars and stabbed Josh in his arm. It didn’t penetrate too deeply, but it drew blood and made Josh reel back in pain.
He knew then that he was in danger. He looked all around to assess what was going on, but he didn’t like what he saw. He knew that the old-fashioned surroundings were just too good to be replicas, a
nd that he had somehow gone back in time. Was he dreaming or was he really there? The cut on his arm seemed real enough, and so did the intimidating atmosphere.
“Ah, you’re awake at last.” An evil voice pierced the air. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
Josh turned towards the closed curtain that masked the circus activities, and his eyes widened with fear as he saw the Entertainer standing there, as bold as brass, leaning on his cane.
An apprehensive Josh muttered, “You – what do you want with me?”
Bartholomew Smith slowly walked up to the cage and glared at his helpless prisoner. “What do I want? I want you to suffer, and to leave me and my children alone to wreak our revenge on those who did us wrong. That’s what I want.”
Josh saw the chance to get some information and details, so he bravely asked, “Children, revenge – what do you mean?”
The Entertainer never missed a chance to hear his own voice, so he replied, “My children were denied the chance of life by their selfish would have been parents, so I granted them life. My family and I were murdered at the hands of their ancestors, and now I am getting the revenge that I promised would be mine, and trust me, revenge really is sweet. My mark, the King of Clubs, is the thirteenth club card, so I will have thirteen deaths as payment, apart from one or two that came from boredom.”
He then tapped the bars of the cage with his silver-topped cane and continued, “You, however, have got in the way, but fear not – I may still need you. Come, come and see your task.”
Forgotten Souls Page 6