Carousel

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. The absence of sound was matched by the complete absence of moonlight. Outside the cabin it was impossible to determine what was ground, trees nor sky. Only the candle light showed a brief path towards the cabin. Amongst this dark universe, moments were not measured as none existed. Only the flicker of candlelight implied any passage of time. And so it was for what seemed like an eternity. A single flickering star against an ancient landscape.

And then there was something else. The single room cabin erupted with sound causing the screech and scatter of crows. The incomprehensible babble of a toddler, straining to be heard above adults, was accompanied by the playful sounds of carnival music. The adults debated in low conspiratorial tones, both male and female, no one waiting their turn to speak. And then, from outside, the unmistakable sound of a broken twig. Like a candle snuffer made of sound, a commanding hiss came from within the cabin to extinguish each of the noises in turn; the music, ‘shhhh’; the toddler, ‘shhhh’; the adults, ‘shhhh’. The cabin appeared to be holding its breath.

A long guttural expulsion of air was accompanied by the opening of the cabin door.

A woman, dressed only in a white nightdress, slowly emerged from the woods. Bare foot, but without hesitation, she walked towards the cabin. As she came nearer to the candle light, shadows that danced across her nightdress showed that she walked rhymically though perhaps not voluntarily. Her head was tilted slightly to the left, her expression vacant, her eyes as black as swollen ink wells. She did not hesitate at the cabin door. The darkness quickly swallowed her whole and the door closed. The candle extinguished with a final ‘shhhh’

Silence resumed. It was impossible to determine whether a cabin continued to exist nor had ever existed amongst the vastness of space.

.........

Jack Reilly was drinking at the local village pub, the Nag’s Head, with his best friend and business partner Ian Grisleton (‘Grizzy’) the next day. Both tree surgeons, they had reason to celebrate. The local council wanted space for outdoor events and at 10am this morning they had successfully pitched an idea to rejuvenate the local woods. Whilst no one would guess from his current state, shoving crisps into his mouth with giant hand shovels, Grizzy had been particularly majestic in his performance. Like a muse, he had helped the audience to visualise an eco-paradise. A forest school would stand in place of the lonely abandoned cabin and this would sit at the centre of an elaborate and educational forest trail. They proposed to clear an adjoining paddock for outdoor festivals.

Measuring time through pints, Jack suspected he might need to get home for his 10 year old son, Jack Junior. He’d be about to finish school. Closing his good eye by mistake, giggling, then closing his other eye, a squint at the clock behind the bar confirmed his suspicions. ‘Bag of chips and a couple of sausages from the chippy’ he thought, ‘and still home before the boy’. Though mentally ready to skip out the bar like a true hero, he stood and barrelled into his friend mid shovel, causing a cocktail of scampi fries to land onto Grizzy’s lap. Both feigned offence before collapsing into an embrace. “Laters lad” chuckled Jack, who stopped to steal a crisp and settle his sea legs before attempting further movement.

Jack felt a gentle breeze as a nymph entered the bar. She had shoulder length red hair, wore no make-up and was dressed in a simple dress. ‘Ah perfection’ he thought as he turned to Grizzy to acknowledge the siren’s presence. Grizzy was completely oblivious, busy checking for crumbs and giving himself a belly rub. The women had now walked past Jack and was scanning the room. Jack was curious to know who knew this beauty. He was astounded to see her make her way towards Grizzy. ‘Well there’s no accounting for taste’ mused Jack to himself. He watched as the young women bent down and whispered into his friend’s ear. Jack could not make out the words but he worried that something might be wrong. He waited a second to see his friend’s reaction and was reassured to see Grizzy burst out in a giant smile of recognition. ‘Stand down, Jack’ he thought as our hero turned to battle his way through the pub door and claim his bounty of chips in the path that lay ahead. Entertained by his own mental fanfare, he did not hear the bar manager Owen wishing him well. He did not see his friend stand up to leave with the young woman. Nor did he see that the young woman was wearing no shoes.

.......

At 9.35am the following morning, Jack was at the agreed meeting place in the local woods waiting for Grizzy to arrive. Jack sought the sanctuary of a giant oak tree that offered some protection from the bright speckled sunlight blasting through the trees. He was nursing a headache, acid burps and aversion to sunlight. He cursed his decision to drink 8 pints and no water. He then cursed Grizzy for keeping him waiting. He looked down at his phone but there was insufficient coverage to ring his friend. He decided to check out the job himself.

Having grown up in the area, he knew the woods pretty well. Both he and Grizzy had played here as children. And then as teenagers they would come to drink beer in the abandoned cabin. The cabin was not really much to speak of. It was a single room, one window, one door. A wasps’ nest had established above the door. It obstructed a carving that Jack couldn’t remember having seen before; two concentric circles. The structure of the cabin seemed sturdy but pretty basic. Jack was confident he could have that down and cleared within an afternoon.

He walked back to the car park to check for Grizzy’s late arrival. Nothing. He decided to go check out the paddock whilst he was there. A visiting carnival used to use the paddock but they had not been to town for over twenty years now. Jack had used this childhood memory as part of his pitch to secure the council contract. But he got the feeling that this hadn’t landed as well as he'd hoped causing Jack to wonder whether the council wanted to bring the carnival back. He thought about Jack Junior and how much joy it would bring him. He stood at the edge of the paddock now. Like the woodland, it had been neglected for many years and the grass had grown to chest height. “Jesus” thought Jack, “We’re gonna need farming equipment to clear all this”.

He watched the long grasses respond to the wind, remembering the fun he’d had as a small child on the carnival carousel. The carousel would always take pride of place at the centre of the paddock. He could almost hear the song it used to play. It was an unusual carousel in that there were two different tracks. The outer track moved in a clockwise direction and the inner track anti-clockwise, so that the children could ‘hi five’ each other when both tracks were in motion (albeit at very slow speed). Jack always went for the giant green emu on the inner ring whilst Grizzy went for the black horse on the outer ring. Jack wouldn’t go anywhere near that black horse. It had an unnatural, almost distorted face. Even as a child, his practical mind would wonder what had happened to get the shape of the head so wrong. The muzzle was shorter than it needed to be for a convincing horse. The lips were almost human and there was a bad paint job on the eyes, they were entirely black.

As he reminisced Jack thought he heard a voice behind him and spun to chastise his friend. Nothing. The voice was heard again, multiplied, but this time coming from the paddock. Jack had the eerie feeling the voices were commenting on him. They responded to his movements and reactions, just for a fraction of a second, and then nothing. For the next few minutes, he watched the grasses sway without any further disruption. “Mad” he said out loud, “I’m bloody hallucinating now”. As he turned back towards the car park, he thought he heard the gurgle of a toddler followed by a commanding ‘shhh’, but there was no one to be seen. “Water. You need water lad” Jack said before heading back to his truck.

..........

Later on in the Nag’s Head, Jack mulled over the information available to him with annoyance rather than concern. Grizzy had not picked up the phone. He had tried ten times. The phone was just ringing out. A few phone calls confirmed that he hadn’t turned up at his mum’s nor any other friends. This left only one other option – the red head from the bar. He’d made his way to the Nag’s to see if anyone knew anything. The Barmaid, Bev, had not been working the evening before but suggested that Jack wait for the manager Owen, who would be in work within the hour.

Whilst waiting, Jack told Bev about their plans to clear the woodland. They shared childhood memories of the carnival. When asked why the carnival stopped coming to town, Bev remembered it had something to do with a missing woman. Jack immediately understood the council’s reaction during his pitch. Bev explained that the missing woman had travelled into the carnival from out of town along with her two-year old child. The woman’s family never saw them again. The carnival staff promptly disappeared too. It was weird. No one really saw them pack away. They were just gone. Listening to Bev speak, Jack realised he did have a vague memory of this. He would have been a teenager at the time, maybe 18 or 19. He hadn’t been to the carnival himself that night, he never made it, both he and Grizzy had ended up carrying each other home after a heavy drinking session. The police searched for the woman and her child in the woods but there was very little media coverage. Bev explained that there had been one rumour the woman was unhappy at home and had left to start a new life elsewhere.

Jack hoped this was true. This was something he’d experienced himself. Jack Junior’s mum, Cyndi, had left when Junior was just one year old. They had argued a lot in that first year and she had left one day during an argument. She just didn’t come back. It had torn Jack apart at the time but he grew to love his new role as single parent. He often thought about Cyndi and where she was. He felt sorry that she did not know the love of her child. At least the young woman at the carnival was with her child, wherever they were.

Owen arrived shortly after with no further insights on Grizzy nor the red head. “Bloody Romeo” Jack joked with Owen and Bev and left to make his way home.

......

That night, Jack Junior was awoken from his sleep by a heavy pressure against his chest. This was followed by a sinking feeling, as though he was being pushed through the mattress into a shallow grave. He peered up into darkness, paralysed and terrified. There were whispers, many whispers, though he couldn’t make out what was being said. He tried to shout for his dad but couldn’t get any sound past his throat. A tiny flickering light began to appear amongst the darkness. A low gravelly voice whispered from within Jack Junior’s ear - one word ‘Come’

From that point, Junior felt no fear. He felt an absence of anything other than compulsion. His body rose horizontally as though levitating, up through the shallow grave to a point where he was hovering six inches above his bed. His knees raised, his core muscles contracted and he was in an unnatural sitting position. ‘Stand’ commanded the voice and Junior was puppeted to his feet. As he walked past his bedroom mirror he was an automaton; he did not see his reflection nor the shiny black of his eyes. He made it to the front door, turned the key that was always kept in the lock, and went outside. The whispers compelled him towards the local woods. A sound beckoned him, like a fun fare or merry-go-round, along with a child’s laughter. Junior vacantly smiled and headed in that direction.

At the entrance to the woods, by the overgrown paddock Junior stopped and stared into the field. In the middle of the paddock stood a partially erected carousel. There was the floor, the central tower and the roof but none of the animals that would normally go with it. There was no lights, no music, everything was in greyscale. Next to Junior now stood a peculiar figure. It was all dressed in black with what looked like a wasps nest in place of a face. It raised its left hand and pointed into the woods. Junior continued until he saw a candle light in the old abandoned cabin. The whispers that had accompanied him on his journey abruptly stopped at the cabin. There was a engraving above the door that transfixed Junior. Two concentric circles started moving in opposite directions and the cabin door was opened. As Junior walked through he felt as though he was descending back into the shallow grave. As the door shut behind him, a gravelly voice whispered ‘shhh’ and the candle went out. For Junior, everything then ceased to exist.

........

Jack was stretching in bed, watching the daylight filter through the bedroom curtains, when he was startled by the sudden appearance of Jack Junior at his bedroom door. Junior walked towards him, bent down and whispered ‘Come’. Jack laughed and tried to pull his son into the bed for a cuddle. His son was stuck to the floor like a lamp post. Jack looked into his son’s eyes but realised his son was not looking back at him, rather past him or through him. “Junior, you ok mate?”

Junior reached out his left hand and pulled his father from his bed with an unnatural strength. Jack started to feel uneasy, “What is going on, buddy?” Junior was walking him out the bedroom door and down the narrow landing towards the stairs. Jack’s mind was racing; “Is this a game, should I let him continue?” He thought. He decided to be led downstairs without further protest. As they descended down to the ground floor he noticed Junior’s feet, completely covered in mud and scratches. “Hang on right there, mister. You are going to tell me what is going on. What time is it? Where have you been this morning? Why are your feet so filthy?” Junior ignored him and headed towards the front door.

As the door opened, Jack was affronted by a series of whispers. Angry whispers, voices, male and female, of all ages. They were beckoning him to come, blaming him for something, insisting he explain his actions. He inhaled so sharply with fright he felt his chest burn. There was nobody there. Across the road, a figure walked slowly into view. Tall and dressed in black, Jack couldn’t make out his face, it looked like wasps or bees were flying directly into its mouth? The creature raised it's left hand and pointed down the road. Jack looked down as his son, who now looked back at his father with jet black eyes.

‘Move’ came the command from within Jack’s head. Panic set in. He was no longer able to form words. He went into full survival instinct and attempted to grab his son so that he could run away but nausea and compulsion kept him grounded to the spot. The only movement that appeared to be allowed was that moving towards the path indicated by the strange creature across the street. The harsh whispers also propelled him forward; “explain yourself”, “be held accountable”, “such sorrow”, “how could you”, “he must have known”, “we will have clarity”. Jack wanted to slap himself awake but his arms would not respond. Still holding Junior’s hand, he walked monotonously out the door, staring ahead with a vacant expression on his face.

Jack saw his neighbour, Gary, about 20 metres ahead and his soul burst with relief. “He can get help! Thank God for Gary” thought Jack. But he was unable to utter a word. He was unable to quicken his step. A series of events had been set in motion that Jack was powerless to break free from. He prayed Gary didn’t go back inside his house before he had covered the next 20 metres. Up ahead Gary turned towards Jack and Jack Junior, a change in expression suggested he had noticed something peculiar about the scene. After all, father and son were both in nightwear and wore no shoes. “You alright, lad?” shouted Gary from now 10 metres away. Junior squeezed his hand. “Heavy night” came the casual reply from Jack’s own mouth. His body, now his mouth had been hijacked. “Catch up with you later Gary” he said outwardly as he whimpered inside. He resigned himself to being controlled, but attempted to test the control every few minutes – in case there was even the smallest chance he could break free. He saw that he was being led to the local woods.

......................................................

At the paddock the long grass had been flattened. It looked manicured, like a recently groomed long-haired dog. Jack was bewildered to see, there in the centre, stood the carousel from his childhood memory. Junior let go of his hand and waited behind as his father was commanded forward. As he moved, the carousel music begin to wind up and the animals he remembered (horses, emus, giraffes, pigs, zebras, tigers) started to rotate in opposite directions depending upon their position on the inner or outer track. Every blink of Jack’s eyes revealed that he had moved much further forward than his own feet could carry him. With every leap forward the music and the spinning of the carousel got faster and faster until he was but a foot away. The sheer velocity of the carousel at this distance seemed to both pull him forward as well as push him away. His face was now within an inch of the carousel. Agonising seconds passed like this. He heard a heavy lever being pulled and welcomed the merciful slowing of the carousel.

As it slowed he realised there was a break in the animals. An animal appeared to be laying down rather than being stood up like the others. He tried to remember from his childhood the order of the animals so that he could figure out which one was now disturbed. He had an eery feeling and prayed it was not the black horse as that would imply it had come alive. As the carousel slowed to a fraction of its speed – Jack felt two emotions. First, one of relief that it was not the black horse. This appeared to be missing from the carousel entirely. Second, the sinking realisation that the animal laying down was his best friend. As the carousel came to a stop he came face to face with Grizzy. He was chained to the giant green emu and was struggling to orientate himself. A distraught moan told Jack everything. He needed to help his friend.

Then the whispers started again; “How was it done”, “We demand answers”, “Speak now”, “You must atone”. Jack now saw shadowy forms scattered irregularly around the carousel and throughout the paddock. The whispers came from all directions, speaking out of turn, from within and outside of his head. He felt so disoriented he wished to raise his hands to help drown out the voices, but could not. He saw the strange creature from before now amongst the shadowy forms, hopping from one foot to the other, whispering along with the others, and yearning for blood. Jack’s spiral into madness was only spared by a sudden grab of his shoulder from behind. He was yanked 180 degrees to stare into nothingness – a great black empty abyss. A candle appeared amongst this desolate wasteland, forcing him to focus out away from the darkness and to the contextual periphery beyond the midnight desert. Cheeks, lips, red hair, a white dress.... he was looking directly at the siren. She held him firmly by the shoulder. Her eye sockets were liquid black like oceans of over lapping oil slicks. “Now we begin”, she said.

Jack first felt a sensation like G force in every muscle of his body. His eye brows, his cheeks, his chin, his arms, his elbows, his knees, everything seemed to be weighed down and his body began to twist downwards towards the earth. The sensation was so powerful that even a movement of millimetres felt like his body was turning inside out. Jack sensed one side of his face drooping as his gaze was turned towards the entrance of the woods. In between leaves and tree trunks he saw the movement of a large object. Every cell in his body now screamed from a primal space of fear, something alien, something non-human and something vastly superior was emerging from the woods. Suspended in his grotesque posture, Jack’s alarm grew at the recognition of the black horse. His body allowed a gurgle in this paralysed state. He heard a similar noise from Grizzy behind him.

The Being eluded detail. Its appearance was somehow smudged like a Rorschach inkblot. Detail would emerge and then disappear. It was as though you were not allowed to see it. It walked first on four legs like a prize stallion, but as it approached it became bi-pedal until it stood at its full height, over 8 feet tall, and only a few metres away from Jack. The surroundings had taken on a ceremonial air. The siren, the strange wasp creature and the shadowy forms bowed their heads. Jack dared not think, nor feel, nor know anything. He knew the creature was inside his head. He knew it knew that he knew. He was totally exposed. It was everywhere. It had always been everywhere.

Peering down at Jack then looking over to Grizzy, its mouth opened but the words vibrated like Sanskrit through every inch of Jack’s soul “Who dares demean my passage?” Jack dare not look directly at the beast. As it had moved towards him and detail faded in and out, he had made out something of the shortened muzzle, the mottled pink-black human lips, and soulless back eyes. Jack knew that to look directly into this horrendous face would be to invite extinction. He thought innocent thoughts, he implored the beast, he did not know what it wanted. He assumed it might have something to do with the woods rejuvenation project and vowed to cancel it. “No. My ward will have her revenge”, The Being spoke. To hear its voice felt like every genetic code in Jack’s body was being rewritten. How could he ever be the same again?

He felt a surge in his chest, a sudden rush of movement, air blowing onto his face causing him to close his eyes against the forced influx. When he opened his eyes again he was in the cabin, not in body but in mind. Beer cans and cigarette butts were all over the floor. He heard a man’s voice approaching, he recognised it as Grizzy. “If you just wait there, I think I left my wallet in here, I’ll be right out”. Grizzy, as he is now, 39 years old had been unchained from the carousel and was acting the scene like an automaton. There was an unseen actress off stage. Grizzy looked around the cabin. There was no wallet. A child could be heard giggling from outside. It was playing a game with the female and laughing with delight – a mother and her child. “Hey, why don’t you come in here and help me find it?” A growing sense of alarm grew in Jack. What was he about to witness?

A second pair of footsteps could be heard entering into the cabin but no physical form appeared. Grizzy interacted with this non-entity, replaying events as they had occurred now twenty years ago. A sudden grab of an unwilling victim, a hand placed over her mouth, tackling her uncooperative body to the floor. Sheer will and determination in his friend’s now black eyes. Jack begged not to see this yet he had no eyes to close. To spare him, he was turned towards the door where he looked outwards towards the siren, who was now skipping and clapping amongst the woodland calling out ‘mama mama’. Day turned to night in an instant. The shadowy forms appeared on the horizon, rushing towards the siren’s now frantic child-like call. Jack now understood the shadowy forms were the original carnival crew and that the toddler, the siren, had become The Being’s ward. They were after Grizzy and for good reason. He could not save his friend.

The rush of wind appeared again and they were returned to the scene at the carousel. Jack was still pinned down by G force, every moment in this space felt like an offence against gravity, against the known world. “Who are you?” Jack dared to ask though he feared the answer. “You cannot know. I am within and beyond. I have been watching” answered The Being within Jack's mind. ‘But why come back now?’ asked Jack. “Time is irrelevant, we did not wait, we were elsewhere but for a fraction of a second” The Being craned it’s head downwards towards Jack “You....”, he searched Jack’s soul “...are not supposed to be here”. Grizzy moaned from behind as The Being trapped him in his gaze. To Jack, The Being spoke using his mouth for the first time “You may go”.

“There is another”, interrupted the chorus of voices from the shadowy forms, speaking in unison. The Being’s head snapped up towards the choir. “Show me”

The rush of wind appeared again but this time Jack did not move. Grizzy could be seen at the entrance of the woods. He was again under the spell of The Being and was about to re-enact events he wished to keep secret. He became animated. “Over here! I want to show you something. It’ll be a surprise for Jack. Trust me. You are going to love this. It’ll help you two love birds make it up....... Cyndi, two minutes I promise OK?”. He reached up and put his arm around an imaginary figure and started to move forward towards the cabin. Jack's mind stopped. Everything stopped. The enormity of this truth was more than he could comprehend. He could not, how could he, oh Jesus no! The choir began in unison ‘tut’, ‘tut’, ‘tut’.

Jack demanded to know what had become of Cyndi. Had she escaped, had she moved away, had he just witnessed her final mortal day? He dared to ask but he dared not know. “He demeaned my passage with the lives of two. He shall not be spared. You and my ward shall have your revenge today”. Jack felt new knowledge hardening amongst his spiritual unravelling. A resolve so strong, a surety that he would keep the death of his former friend a secret just as Grizzy had kept his own secrets. Jack blinked and Grizzy was back on the carousel but now chained to two animals, the giant green emu on the inner track and the grotesque figurine of the black horse on the outer track. Grizzy was terrified by his admissions and his predicament. His eyes pleaded with his friend but Jack felt nothing.

“Who are these people? What will happen to them now?” Jack asked of the siren, the wasp creature and shadowy forms. The Being replied “They are the Elders, they are guardians that keep watch over my passage. The carnival was only ever a pilgramage. When blood was spilled they joined me to help protect the child. They will keep watch over you. Make sure you shhhh’. As he looked over he saw a familiar face, Owen from the Nag’s. He must have been involved in Grizzy’s disappearance the whole time. Owen smiled a gentle smile.

“Now look into my eyes” said The Being. Amongst the timeless landscape of black, two candles were burning, one in each eye. The carousel started up and gained speed. Though Jack had not realised before, the Elders were positioned in two lines, one now started walking clockwise around the carousel whilst the other walked anti-clockwise. The sound of the music did little to drown out the mortal roar of his friend. As Jack became drunk in the glare of The Being, he heard the siren “Thank you father”, the Elders “do not speak of this”. A commanding hiss came from within Jack’s soul to extinguish each of the noises in turn; the music, ‘shhhh’; the siren, ‘shhhh’; the Elders, ‘shhhh’. The two candles extinguished with a final ‘shhhh’.

Jack was alone with Jack Junior in the paddock. Junior had no recollection of anything that had happened. There was nothing to suggest any of the events had been real except the manicured grass in the paddock with two giant concentric crop circles.

Jack went on to build the forest school around the existing cabin, calling the school ‘Cyndi’s place’.

Every year on the same day, without any interference, two candles can be seen burning in the cabin window.