DARK COUNTY Read online

  While waiting for the capture crew to arrive, Zala wondered why it had chosen to become a midwife in the first place.

  A CAMPFIRE TALE

  Darton woods were not overly large. If you got lost in them it would only take you ten minutes walk in any direction to find an edge. That said, though, when you were in the woods it was still quite easy to feel isolated from the world. The woods were quiet, in some ways far too quiet for a place that was surrounded on one side by a housing estate and on another by an industrial estate. Yet even in the daytime, there was a great sense of quiet and peace within the woods. At night, this sense of isolation increased dramatically. If you were out there on your own at night it sometimes felt as though you might as well be on the moon.

  Near the centre of the woods there lay the fire pit. No one knew who had built this area, but it had been there as long as anyone could remember. There was a large dugout pit; you could build a sizable campfire in it. Around the pit, a ring of heavy rocks had been carefully placed to stop the fire from spreading out, and there were three tree trunks laid at the perfect distance away from the pit. You could sit on them and feel the warmth of the fire, but without that sense that your eyebrows were burning. Whoever it had been that had built the fire pit, they had thought it out carefully.

  For generations teenagers had been coming to the fire pit to enjoy themselves, away from their parents, away from the world. Bizarrely for a place like this, the teenagers always treated it with respect. It was as though they knew how special the place was, and how lucky they were to have it.

  Mike, Chelsea, Alex and Sarah had all been there before. They had parties down there with large groups of friends, but tonight was different. Tonight was special. It was Halloween, and it was just the four of them going into the woods. They planned to sit there all night telling ghost stories and trying to scare each other.

  Mike and Alex had gone into the woods earlier in the day to build the fire up ready, it was a given rule that if there was already wood in the fire pit ready to burn, that the area was in someway booked for the night. If anyone else had got the idea to go into the woods for Halloween and go to the fire pit, they would see the wood that the two boys had placed in it and see that the spot was taken.

  So they were all shocked as they walked through the woods towards the fire pit.

  ‘What’s that glow?’ Sarah asked.

  They all looked ahead and saw the flickering light near the centre of the woods.

  ‘Someone’s lit our fire,’ Alex said, the annoyance in his voice evident to all.

  ‘Cheeky fuckers,’ Mike said.

  ‘Oh well, let’s do something else instead,’ Chelsea said. They all knew that she was the biggest coward of the group, so it was no surprise that she suggested this. Mike, on the other hand, was fuming. He had not spent two hours in the woods that afternoon collecting up the best firewood, and building it up ready to light, only to have some other group of pricks come along and take it for their own. He was not going to stand for that, and he led the march towards the flickering fire.

  He was psyching himself up for potential conflict as they walked towards the fire pit. When they reached it, though, thoughts of violence were soon replaced by confusion. There was no other group of teenagers partying at their fire, instead there was one, solitary old man sat on one of the tree trunks.

  He was tall and thin, gaunt almost. His hair was long and wild, and completely grey. He had a mustache that ran into his overgrown sideburns. His eyes looked sunk and tired. He wore a frayed, long, old coat. At one time, the coat may have been red, but now it had faded to a point that determining its colour for sure was virtually impossible. His feet were bare and he sat smoking an overly large, old pipe.

  ‘Good evening,’ he said, smiling as they approached.

  ‘Hello,’ Mike said. The others mumbled greetings.

  ‘I take it you built this fire?’ the old man said.

  ‘Well, yes, actually we did,’ Mike said. ‘We were planning to come here tonight, so built it up in the daytime.’

  ‘Very wise,’ the old man said. ‘Very wise indeed.’

  The four teenagers felt uncomfortable. The old man sat there smiling and smoking his pipe for a few moments.

  ‘I’m sorry I lit it,’ he said finally. ‘I was just passing by and saw it, I needed to take the weight off my feet for a while, and it’s not exactly warm out tonight. Please sit down, though, and enjoy your night, I shall be on my way soon enough.’

  They looked at each other. Mike shrugged and Alex nodded, Sarah smiled and nodded. It was only Chelsea who looked as though she didn’t want to, but the others weren’t surprised by this. Mike took her off to the side as the other two sat down on one of the spare tree trunks.

  ‘I don’t like this Mike,’ she said, looking over her shoulder at the old man. Mike looked over and saw that their friends already had the beers out and had even offered one to the old man, who graciously accepted it.

  ‘Why?’ Mike said. ‘What’s the problem?’

  ‘What is he doing here?’ she asked, concerned.

  ‘Like he said, he’s just having a rest.’ Mike said. ‘He’s an old man, they get worn out easily.’

  ‘Then what is he doing walking through the woods at night on Halloween? Doesn’t that seem strange to anyone else?’

  ‘He’s probably drunk,’ Mike said, trying to reassure her.

  ‘That’s supposed to make me feel better?’ she replied. ‘What if he’s some kind of pervert?’

  Mike laughed.

  ‘Then I’m sure that me and Alex could take him,’ Mike said, smirking. ‘Come on, we’ve been planning this for ages. Don’t let it spoil the night. He said he was going soon.’

  ‘Ok,’ she said in defeat.

  They went and sat on the one remaining trunk. Alex passed them both a beer, and Mike lit up a cigarette.

  ‘So what brings you youngsters in to the woods on Halloween?’ the old man asked. Chelsea did not like the way the reflection of the fire flickered in his eyes as he looked at her.

  ‘We thought we’d come out here and spend the night telling ghost stories,’ Alex said.

  The old man smiled.

  ‘Did you guys hear about the one with the hook handed killer who escapes from the asylum?’ Sarah asked excitedly.

  The others groaned.

  ‘Yes,’ Mike said. ‘Everyone on the planet has heard that one and it’s bullshit. I want to hear some true stories. Didn’t anyone find any?’

  There was embarrassed silence from his friends.

  ‘Oh great,’ Mike said. ‘So we’ve come out here and no one’s got any good stories?’

  ‘I know a good ghost story,’ said the old man. ‘A true one, about these here woods.’

  They all looked at him.

  ‘Didn’t you say you were going soon?’ Chelsea said.

  Mike nudged her.

  ‘What?’ She complained.

  ‘No need to be so rude,’ he said.

  The old man laughed a little.

  ‘No, it’s quite right, young man,’ he said. ‘I am intruding on your party. I shall be on my way.’

  He leant over and began to pull on his boots. They looked like riding boots.

  Mike, Alex and Sarah all glared at Chelsea. Eventually she cracked.

  ‘Wait,’ she said.

  The old man stopped what he was doing and looked at her.

  ‘Yes, dear?’ He said.

  ‘I’m sorry if that sounded rude. Please, we’d love to hear your story.’

  The man bowed.

  ‘Thank you for your hospitality,’ he said. ‘I think I have time to tell you this one. Tell me have any of you ever heard of the circus massacre of 1908?’

  The teenagers looked to each other, to see if anyone had heard of it. Then they all shook their heads.

  ‘That doesn’t surprise me,’ the old man said with a grin. ‘It was a black day in Darton’s history, and one they were desperate to forget. So they s
wept all memory of Canbini’s Circus and the bloodbath that it led to under the mat.’

  The campfire flickered, but a cool breeze swept by. Mike, Chelsea, Sarah and Alex all leant in slightly, already engrossed in the old man’s story and entranced by his soothing voice.

  ‘Rodrigo Canbini, the ringmaster and owner of the circus, had begun his life as plain old Rodger Canby in the cesspool that was Whitechapel, London in 1856. His parents were poor, and the whole family went into the workhouse. Rodger hated it, being forced to do such menial labour; so as soon as he got the chance, he escaped. He lived on the streets for a while, that was no small feat for a boy of seven in those days. The streets were a wretched and dangerous place. Rodger survived by stealing food from the markets and finding good places to hide.

  Eventually he fell in with a crowd of other street urchins. They taught him how to pick pockets, and it seemed that Rodger had a natural talent for it. Not only that, but as he got older he grew tall and strong; he was not afraid to kill to get what he wanted.

  He did some time in prison when he was just sixteen, for beating up a rich old man and stealing his money and jewellery. In those days, they didn’t expect young boys to survive for long in the prisons. They all had to fight for food; there were no set meals back then. All of his gang thought that poor little Rodger Canby would either starve, be beaten, or buggered to death, but he wasn’t; you see, Rodger was vicious. Despite his tender years, he made it clear that no one should try and mess with him; if they did they would rue the day.

  He was released four years later, no longer a boy, but a strong, scarred and brutal man. He rounded up the members of his old gang and told them that he was now their leader. There was some disagreement from the previous leader, but when Rodger slit his throat, everyone else seemed to get on board with the idea.

  For the next five years, the Canby gang terrorised Whitechapel. They robbed, they raped, they murdered. They ran all of the whores and the protection racket. They managed to get every other criminal off the streets. It was their own little kingdom.’

  The old man stopped and took a sip of his beer.

  ‘What has all this got to do with a circus and Darton?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘We’re getting to that,’ the old man said, grinning. ‘I’m just letting you know the kind of man we’re talking about.

  ‘You see, a lot of the other gangsters in the East End of London took exception to being driven out of Whitechapel by what they considered to be a mere boy. They had been criminals longer than he’d been alive. They all got together and decided it was time to get rid of the whole Canby gang. They planned an attack on the house they all lived in. It was a massacre. A few members of the Canby gang got killed, but Rodger and most of the gang tore their attackers apart. They would all be hanged for sure; so that very night they all fled the country, heading for Europe. That was the last anyone ever heard of Rodger Canby. When he returned to these shores twenty years later he went by the name Rodrigo Canbini, owner and ringmaster of the greatest circus in the whole of Europe.

  ‘That was in 1891, Canby, sorry Canbini, was now forty-five years old. He was still a tall and strong man and just as vicious. He ran the circus on fear. His acts were barely paid, treated horrendously and kept in line by the rest of his old gang, who now masqueraded as clowns of all thing. I assure you, though, there was nothing funny about them. Anyone who didn’t do as they were told, or complained in any way, or God forbid tried to escape, was executed in front of the others as a warning. Even the circus strong man was terrified of Canbini and his clowns.

  ‘They toured the country for the next eight years. Every night when the house was packed, the clowns would come out and do their act first. Canbini had planned it so well, his gang had learnt the art of being clowns, juggling, acrobatics, magic tricks, they did it all. Once their part of the show was over, though, they would sneak away from the circus and start robbing homes in the area. There wasn’t that much entertainment in those days, so most people would have been at the circus. While they sat enjoying the show, Canbini’s clowns were stealing anything they had of worth.

  ‘Not only this, but during the show, Canbini sent his contortionists under the rows of seating to steal people’s wallets and watches. It was a tidy profit maker for many years. Until the night they came to Darton.

  ‘What Canbini didn’t know was that a young detective from London had put two and two together and was hot on the trail of the man he knew was the wanted murderer Rodger Canby. He had been following the reports of robberies across the country connected to the Canbini Circus. In Darton, he finally caught up with them.

  ‘As the clowns started their show, the police moved in, circling the big top. They didn’t expect Canbini’s men to be so well armed. A gunfight broke out; many of the innocent people watching the show were killed in the crossfire. When they saw their chance, the other acts who had lived under Canbini’s tyranny for too long turned on the ringmaster and his clowns. They forced them back into the big top and then set the thing on fire.

  ‘They say Canbini laughed as he burnt to death, his army of clowns at his side. They could have lived if they had just given themselves up to the police waiting outside. Canbini was too proud, though, he was not going back to prison for anyone, and the clowns all gladly gave their lives for their leader.

  ‘That was Halloween 1908 in the field just at the edge of the woods here.’

  The story had been more violent and sadistic than they had been expecting. All four of the teenagers wore a shell-shocked look. They could not believe that something so horrendous had happened in their sleepy little market town, even if it was over a hundred years ago.

  The old man smiled once more.

  ‘They say,’ the old man continued, ‘that the ghosts of Canbini and his clowns still haunt these woods, and that on Halloween night, they become flesh once more, hunting for victims, hunting for revenge on anyone who crosses their path.’

  There was stunned silence. Mike finally broke it with a nervous laugh.

  ‘That was a good ghost story,’ he said.

  The old man nodded.

  ‘Well, I have taken up enough of your precious time,’ he said, standing up. ‘Enjoy the rest of your evening.’ He bent down and picked up a top hat from behind the tree trunk he was sat on. He slipped it on top of his head, and for the first time they all saw just how tall this old man was. He winked at them and then headed off into the darkness of the trees.

  ‘You believe that story?’ Alex said.

  ‘No,’ Mike said laughing. ‘It’s bullshit. The old guy was just trying to scare us.’

  Chelsea shook her head.

  ‘Did you see his hat? And his boots? He was dressed like an old time ringmaster,’ she said.

  Mike laughed.

  ‘Of course he was. That was why he told us the story, he knew it would freak us out,’ he said. ‘Or do you think we just saw a ghost?’

  ‘He said they weren’t ghosts on Halloween, he said they became flesh.’

  ‘And I say bullshit,’ Mike said. ‘Throw me another beer.’

  Alex threw him another beer and they began to talk once more, gradually relaxing and enjoying their evening, completely unaware of the army of clowns circling the campfire from the tree line, waiting for the right moment to strike.

  AFTERWORD

  I hope you all enjoyed this collection of stories from the Dark County and that reading them gave you as much pleasure as writing them gave me. I made the decision that my second book would be a collection of short stories, because after spending a year or so on my debut novel I wanted to write something more varied, to explore more elements of the horror genre and more dark corners of my own imagination.

  The beauty, in my opinion, of writing short stories is that it allows you to investigate a single idea, without the need for masses of exposition or subplot. Whereas writing a novel is like a quest, writing short stories is like a day trip. It has allowed me to keep the motor running while I rech
arge my creative battery, ready for my next novel, which I will be starting work on almost as soon as I finish writing this afterword.

  One thing I have always enjoyed is when an author offers some explanation of the inspiration behind their works. So that is what I intend to do here, let you inside my mind and tell you all of the things that got the cogs whirring as it were. So please if YOU HAVE NOT READ THE STORIES YET, DON’T READ THIS! Go back and read the stories. Okay, here we go.

  A Drive in the Country

  For many years, and to many people, I have said that Lincolnshire would be the ideal setting for an English version of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It has these massive flat lands and a sense of isolation. When you drive off the main roads into the really rural areas, you often see these dilapidated farms. For me it has never been hard to imagine crazed serial killers living in these places.

  The kernel of this story actually came to me about twelve years ago. I wrote a script for a short film I never got around to making. In hindsight, it was a terrible and derivative piece, but the one element I always liked was the idea of a character who lures people to his home (and their imminent deaths) by jumping out in front of their cars. This was where the character of Smash came from. When I recently thought about this story I came up with something a lot more mature, and I hope frightening, than the original script.

  Hoodies

  Disaffected youth is a problem all over the country, but certain parts of Lincolnshire do seem to have a lot of ‘chav’ kids, who seem to enjoy intimidating other people. I have encountered some of the groups myself. Luckily, I have never been on the receiving end of violence from them, but the threat is always there, and they have made me feel uneasy in the past. This was what inspired the story. I didn’t want to completely paint them as bad, though. The character of Benton is supposed to be our eye into this world. His reasons for wanting to be part of the gang, and behave as they do, are quite understandable. When society already has made a judgment on you, why try to go against it?