What he had just heard confirmed what Maggie had suspected but before Josh could say anything else, the cage was opened and he was dragged out by the two burly women, with the crowd all cheering as he was led out through the curtain and into the main circus ring.
In the centre of the ring was a large, circular cage that was raised up about a foot from the ground. High above the cage and hanging from the ceiling, Josh saw a network of razor-sharp spikes, all eagerly waiting to come crashing down and impale whoever was unlucky enough to be inside the cage. Josh knew that he would be that person; however, he noticed that some of the spaces between the bars were wider and big enough to run out through.
He was then bundled into the cage and the door was slammed shut behind him, trapping him in one of the Entertainer’s evil contraptions. Josh got to his feet, but was unsteady as the whole cage wobbled and slowly turned. He then realised why the cage was a foot off the ground: it spun round on a central pivot underneath the floor like a large child’s spinning top toy. He stumbled to the edge and held on to the bars to become steady. Through the bars of the cage Josh saw the cheering crowd, all keen to see what was going to happen next; men, women and children all eagerly waiting to witness his demise.
He saw one child with a yellow flower in her hair she must have only been about four years old and he couldn’t believe that her parents were letting her witness this event, but this was the entertainment of the day.
The Entertainer walked into the ring, and as he spoke, the two women started to slowly turn the cage.
“Now, my people, the next test begins!” he announced as the crowd went wild. “Can this man survive the cell of doom?”
There were shouts of “No!” and “Just kill him now!” from the horrid audience as the cage was spun around.
The Entertainer walked up to the cage and spoke to Josh. “All you have to do is run out of the cage when it stops spinning before the spikes come down on you. Easy, isn’t it?”
Josh didn’t speak; he knew there would be a catch or a trick somewhere.
The Entertainer then raised his arms high and shouted “Let the test begin!”
The crowd shouted louder as the two women spun the cage a bit quicker. Josh closed his eyes, but he was still getting dizzy and knew he’d have to keep his wits about him to survive this and also that there would be a trick involved. While the cage was spinning and Josh was getting dizzier, some other aides wheeled out some spikes which were attached to boards, and placed them outside the cage behind where some of the larger gaps on the edge of the cage would stop, so if Josh ran out of the wrong exit, he would be impaled. Special mirrors slid out from between the bars and covered the spaces in between them so Josh couldn’t see out; he could only see what the mirrors reflected.
These strange mirrors somehow reflected images of the crowd behind them who were outside the cage and Josh had to try to find the only safe way out, Josh knew that he would be confused by the false reflections of the crowd and that he had got to work out the real exit. The cage turned faster and faster and the crowd clapped as the spikes started their descent from the ceiling. When they had reached the top of the cage, the Entertainer gave the signal for the cage to stop spinning. One of the women pressed a pedal in the floor and the cage came to an abrupt and violent halt.
Josh was thrown from the relative safety of the bars and was sent flying into the centre of the cage. He stood up, and through the bars of the larger gaps he saw what he thought was the crowd, but it was really the reflection on the mirrors coming from the false exits. He looked up and saw that the spikes were about a foot above his head, and he knew that he only had seconds to run out of the cage however he was confused, which reflections were false and which was the real exit?
The crowd all clapped and cheered, and the Entertainer shouted, “Come on, run out – you’ve not a lot of time, my friend!”
Josh was dizzy and didn’t really know which exit to choose, and the watching crowd wanted to see him run out of a wrong exit and be killed by the waiting spikes.
The noise was deafening and confusing, and the crowd were shouting and stamping their feet as the Entertainer bellowed, “Choose quick, run out!”
The spikes were about to scrape the top of Josh’s head. He started to run at one of the exits, but it was the wrong one. However, just before he ran out to be killed by the razor-sharp spikes, he suddenly stopped. He looked around, and as he became less disorientated he realised that the crowd he could see through the bars all looked identical. He then realised that they were in fact reflections in a mirror, but he still had to find the correct exit, and fast!
The deadly spikes were now so low that Josh had to stoop a little; he knew he had to make a choice. He looked around the circumference of the cage and his gaze stopped at the little girl he saw earlier who had the yellow flower in her hair. He remembered that she wore the flower on the left side of her head.
Josh quickly spun his head all around the edge of the cage, and in every image the girl had the flower on the right side of her head, so he knew that these were all reflections. The spikes were getting lower and lower and Josh was almost on his hands and knees when he finally saw the girl and the yellow flower on the left side. Now he knew that he must be looking at the real girl through the real exit.
Without any further hesitation, he ran as fast as he could and dived out of the exit to safety as the spikes came slamming down into the ground. He looked up at the girl with the flower in her hair and gave her a big smile. What he didn’t see was the Entertainer standing behind him.
The Entertainer hit Josh over the head with his cane, and when Josh regained consciousness, he was back in the field where Midway once stood, and back in his own time, but he now knew a lot more of the Entertainer and his evil plans.
Dust to Dust
The next morning Dawn was at home doing the housework. She was dusting the various ornaments that stood on small tables and sideboards in her large old manor house. There was a grand staircase in the centre of the hallway with a very large and impressive crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling. Dawn looked up at it.
“Damn it, I hate cleaning you,” she said to herself while looking at the mass of expensive glass hanging high above her.
She picked up a long handle and attached the duster to the end. Letting out a long, hard sigh, Dawn climbed up the stairs and walked along the landing. She peered over the banister at the staircase below; it seemed even higher to her from where she stood and she never did like that particular spot, but it was the best place to stand in order to actually reach the chandelier.
Dawn stood as close to the banister as she could and leant over the staircase, stretching out the duster to clean the light fitting. The duster, although extended by the long pole and Dawn’s outstretched arm, only just reached the crystal, and it was softly tickling the sparkling glass. Dawn hated this task, but it had to be done.
As the crystal turned slightly, the sun reflected off it and shone directly into Dawn’s eyes. Dawn stepped back and shook her head. She didn’t see the shape of a young girl, about eleven years of age, forming at the bottom of the stairs, starting out very faint but quickly becoming more solid.
The girl was a deathly shade of grey and dressed in old clothing which had seen better days. She had long dark hair which looked like it hadn’t been brushed for a month, and ripped canvas like shoes on her cold, thin feet. The mischievous child also had a piece of thick cord wrapped a few times around her slim waist for a belt. The girl slowly began to climb up the stairs with her thin hand softly dragging along the handrail behind her.
Dawn composed herself, and once again she stretched out over the long drop above the stairs to clean the chandelier, but then she saw the ghostly figure of the girl climbing up. Dawn screamed and stepped backwards onto the landing. She started to tremble and was scared stiff at what she had just seen. She put both of her hands ove
r her open mouth and breathed deeply. Calming herself, she muttered, “No – it must have been a trick of the light.”
Getting her nerve back, Dawn walked back to the railing and slowly looked down the stairs. There was no sign of the ghostly child, just the glint of sunlight shining off the overhanging chandelier. Dawn sighed once again.
“I really hate these damn stairs,” she whispered to herself.
She picked up the long duster, but this time she didn’t just lean over the banister; she actually climbed over it to be able to reach out further to access a few more of the crystals. It was a dangerous position to be in, but she had done it many times before.
“Let’s get this over with,” she said with a shake of her head.
Dawn held on to the banister with her left hand while stretching out as far as she could with the duster in her right hand. She was smiling as she cleaned, probably thinking about the ghost she didn’t really see, but as we all know, the child was really there and she did see her. The girl was in fact now standing on the landing, watching her victim leaning out over the dangerous drop. With an evil grin, the girl slowly walked towards Dawn, who was now singing, oblivious to her imminent demise. Dawn leant out as far as she could and the duster was making the crystals clatter softly against each other, giving out a sound like that of a wind chime swinging in the breeze.
It was then that Dawn’s singing stopped and she became aware of someone watching her. Turning her head, she saw the ghost child she had seen earlier, which made her let out a sharp yelp of surprise. Realising her precarious position, Dawn knew she had to do something and although she was terrified, she had to give the impression that she was in control.
“Who are you?” the scared woman asked the urchin. “What are you doing here?”
The young girl then walked over and stood opposite Dawn, on the other side of the banister. She looked directly into Dawn’s face and opened her mouth unnaturally wide. Her long, unkempt hair started to writhe about in the air, and then the child gave an ear-piercing shrill which made Dawn stumble in fright, but she managed to grip the banister to prevent a fatal fall onto the stairs below.
Dawn was still holding the long-handled duster, and she plucked up some courage and raised it above her head. She screamed at the spiteful degenerate, “Get away! Get out of my house!” But this only pleased the sinister offspring more as she saw Dawn’s fright.
The child suddenly lunged forward and pushed Dawn away from the banister, but Dawn was lucky. She didn’t fall to a crashing death on the stairs because as she was pushed back, her arms swung in the air and the long duster got caught up in the chandelier.
Dawn was hanging in mid-air high above the drop down onto the staircase by the duster lodged in the crystals. She screamed as her hands slipped down the handle as she knew she wouldn’t survive the drop if she let go. She gripped the handle as tight as she could and her knuckles turned white. Dawn knew that her only chance of survival was the strange, pale young girl.
“I don’t know who you are but please help me.”
The child then removed the cord from around her waist and tied a loop at the end. She tossed it towards Dawn to try to pull her in, but she failed.
“Try again,” a more hopeful Dawn said. “This time I’ll try to grab it.”
The girl was ready to try again, and Dawn carefully took one hand away from the duster handle. Her grip was failing and she slipped down to the very end of the handle.
“Quick, hurry!” the frightened woman yelled. “I can’t hold on much longer.”
The youngster then spun the cord around her head like a cowgirl with a lasso, and with an evil smile she again tossed it towards Dawn. But she wasn’t throwing it at Dawn’s outstretched hand; she was aiming for her head. The cord flew through the air and went over Dawn’s head, landing around her neck. The wicked brat pulled it tight around and then tied her end to the railings, stood back and waited. You could see the warped nestling longing for her victim’s grip to fail, and she didn’t have to wait for too long.
Dawn was gasping for air as the cord slowly drained her breath, and panic set in. She grabbed at the bond around her throat and tried to loosen it while still holding on to the duster with her other hand. She had started to swing and sway in the air, but her grip remained. Dawn was actually freeing herself from the cord and her other hand tightened even more around the end of the handle, but the evil child still looked on with stone-cold eyes, knowing the end was near.
The duster suddenly slipped from the chandelier, sealing Dawn’s fate. She swung down through the air, but she didn’t fall onto the stairs below as the cord remained tied to the railings above and also to her neck.
Dawn’s eyes widened with fear as she swooped through the air waiting for the sickening jerk of the cord. There was a horrible crack as the cord became taut and her slender neck was snapped. Dawn was hanging from the banister and her lifeless hands slowly slipped away from the cord around her throat, leaving the hangman’s scene to be discovered by the next unfortunate person to enter the manor house.
The beaming child expertly spun a King of Clubs playing card towards Dawn’s suspended corpse and it landed perfectly on her angled head, yet another victim of the Entertainer’s demonic family.
Blind
Eddie and his wife Jane had finished doing their weekly shopping and had just dumped six heaving carrier bags full of groceries onto the hallway floor.
“You go and run your bath; I’ll put this lot away,” Eddie said to Jane, kissing her on the cheek.
She smiled and teased, “Why, what are you after, then?”
With a broad grin on his face, Eddie quipped, “There’s football on tonight, so you’ve got the TV in the bedroom.”
“Ah, that’s it,” Jane chuckled. “I knew there was something.”
She ran up the stairs for her bath and Eddie looked at the carrier bags.
“No problem; I’ll do it in one,” he whispered to himself. He then grabbed three bags in each hand and took them into the kitchen, putting them on the side.
He glanced out of the kitchen window, which overlooked an impressive garden. There was a nice wooden shed at the bottom and a long stone path running down the centre. Well-kept lawns lay on either side of the path and colourful flowers had been planted carefully all around the edge of the garden. Eddie sighed and smiled. It was a warm evening and the sun still shone, bringing out the rainbow of colours all over the garden.
Then he heard a rustle coming from outside, so he put his face nearer to the glass and peered out into the garden. But he couldn’t see anything amiss.
“I knew I heard something,” he muttered, so he went into the dining room where the window was larger to get a better look outside. Eddie pulled up the Venetian blind and saw a young girl in the garden. Unknown to him it was the same young girl that had killed Dawn earlier that day. Not realising that the child was pale and in rags, he banged on the window.
“Go on, get out!” he yelled, but the girl just stood there staring at him with a sad look on her face.
Eddie glanced away to get the back-door key, and as he looked back up, the girl had vanished. This puzzled him as he could see the entire garden but there was no sign of the young intruder. He laughed and shouted up to Jane, “Hey, luv, I think I’ve just seen a ghost!” But Jane didn’t reply; she couldn’t hear him due to the running bathwater.
Still smiling and a little relieved, Eddie went closer to the window and looked around the garden, where all was as it should be. He shook his head and was just about to turn away when the young girl suddenly shot up, inches away from Eddie’s face on the other side of the glass. She must have been crouching down below the window, but Eddie was sure that if she had been there he would’ve still seen her which puzzled him. This time he did realise that the malevolent kid was deathly pale and scruffy-looking. Eddie still wasn’t sure if she was a ghost or n
ot, so he again shouted, “Get out, go on!”
The unpleasant child then took a few steps backwards down the garden path. Her gaze still firmly fixed on Eddie she raised both of her arms above her head.
Suddenly, Eddie became frightened as the atmosphere became freezing cold and had an eerie feeling all around it. He didn’t speak or shout at the girl; he couldn’t open his mouth or make a sound due to the immense feeling of fear and dread. The hateful young girl then stretched out her arms either side of her sickly thin body, which made an unholy wind start up that blew all of the flower heads off and scattered them over the lawn. The wind blew through the girl’s untidy hair, giving the image of an evil Medusa with writhing snakes squirming from her head. Eddie was petrified, but he found the nerve to slowly walk backwards into the centre of the room where he stood still, peering out of the window.
Although he was standing in the middle of the dining room, he could still see the ghastly child in his garden and the wind was getting stronger. Eddie summoned up all of his strength, paced over to the window and quickly dropped the Venetian blind. He retraced his backwards steps into the centre of the room and stood staring at the lowered blind. He did feel a bit safer. He could still see the child through the open slats, but at least he was inside and this strange, ghostly mite was still outside.
Then Eddie jumped as the Venetian blind started to rattle and shake. It began to ripple in the unnatural breeze from outside that had somehow found its way into the dining room, but the breeze was silent and localised around the blind.
Eddie started to breathe a little faster, and the Venetian blind began to shake and flap more violently than before. It was flying about and banging on the window frame and the wind was more intense, but then it came to an abrupt stop and all was silent. Eddie sighed – was his ordeal now at an end?
He took a step towards the window, but then the violent wind suddenly started up again. Before Eddie could take another step, the Venetian blind came flying off the wall and shot straight towards him. The blind hurtled at the rigid man and sliced through him from the knees upwards. Some fingers dropped to the ground and his right hand fell onto the wooden floor of the dining room. Still he stood there as if nothing had happened. He was obviously dead, all of his organs now sliced into inch-thick pieces, but his sticky body fluids must have kept him upright.
Forgotten Souls Page 7