Play - Carnival of Lost Souls (Album), Ghosts of the Midway (Track)


Chapter 1 – Ghosts of the Midway

The night air was still and pleasant as a gentle breeze wrapped around two small figures on the edge of the supposedly haunted areas on the outskirts of town. The Bennett siblings were stood outside of the locked gates of the old circus ground. Unexplained disappearances of children littered the history of the grounds dating back to the first time they turned up in Burgess over four hundred years ago. Despite the grounds not being used in three hundred years, children still disappeared. Their grandmother had a friend who got up in the middle of the night after breaking into the grounds on a dare. According to the tale, this friend seemed to be in a trance and even Lenora had been for a short time. Grandma Bennett had been able to break free and run but her best friend had somehow gotten in and was never seen again. Jamie and Sophie remembered how the chilling tale had ended with their grandmother saying that she swore she saw dark fuzzy shapes as the circus lights, which shouldn't have been on at the time as they weren't wired for electricity, dimmed and blacked out, taking her best friend with them.

Jamie pushed the story out of his mind and focused on the task at hand. Though the metal of the bars were rusty, they stood strong and the gaps between them were too small for an adult to fit through. He experimentally wiggled the bars and proved his theory was correct; the bars weren't budging. He kept going, testing the bars on the gate, trying to find one that was loose enough for him and Sophie to slip inside quietly. Speaking of his seven year old sister, he was rather confused by her behaviour. She was stood there, staring into the grounds almost blankly. Just stood there, still and silent. He would have passed it off as daydreaming apart from the fact that Sophie wasn't blinking. She always blinked when she daydreamed. Abandoning his experiments on the bars of the gate for now, Jamie wandered over to his sister and put a hand on her shoulder to try and get her attention. Nothing... he waved his hand in front of her face, called her name, shook her shoulders and she still didn't respond.

Sophie couldn't respond. The man in the centre of the grounds held her attention. She couldn't quite make him out, he was a little fuzzy but she could make out that he was tall and wearing the grand red coat of a ringmaster. His deep voice boomed to her, entrancing her further.
"Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the circus of the strange!" He called to them in welcome, his voice echoing through the darkness and carrying to her despite the music of the circus playing throughout the grounds and the cheers of children that ran through. Sophie could hear the children but she couldn't see them. All she saw was the locked gate and the fuzzy ringmaster speaking to her. "The side show of the sinister and the theatre of the bizzare. Enter a world of dark wonders to indulge your wickedst dreams." The man swept his hand back as though he were introducing the circus to Sophie and she stepped forward a little to try and gain entry. Or, if you dare, explore the shadows of your most diabolical nightmares." His other hand swept in the other direction, showing a shadowy tent. Any sounds that may have been coming from it were drowned out the ringmaster's voice and the circus music. "Cast your eyes upon cruel the oddities of nature and behold monstrous creatures from the depths of the abyss. Marvel with awe and dismay at unbelievable death-defying acts that teeter on the very brink of doom." She stepped forward a few more paces, stretching her hand out. She was suddenly consumed with the desire to get into the circus. She had to see, she had to experience, she had to get in. She didn't see the smirk of the ringmaster. "Leave the mundane world behind, for those who visit this festival of phantasms are never the same again..." A stream of thin wispy light left the ringmaster's palm and Sophie's blank eyes followed it to a sizeable gap in the bars that was hidden by ivy and various other weeds. "Step this way... there is no turning back!" The ringmaster disappeared and suddenly, Sophie was rapidly blinking, wondering what had happened.

"Are you alright?" She heard Jamie ask and she nodded. "I'm fine. Maybe I'm a little tired." Jamie nodded in agreement but didn't seem convinced. "Have we tried over here?" She asked and wandered over to the spot that had been shown to her moments ago. When Jamie tested the bars, he found they were loose and could move enough for both of them to squeeze through.
"How did you know?" Jamie asked, confused. Neither of them had even considered that the gate wasn't the only way in. To his surprise, Sophie just shook her head and shrugged.
"I don't know. It just... came to me, I guess."
Well, however it had been done, Jamie put it out of his mind for now and squeezed through the bars before holding his hand out. "Step this way, Sophie." He encouraged. She unconsciously shuddered a little as her subconscious mind remembered the strange ringmaster's words.
"There's no turning back." She mumbled to herself and allowed her brother to pull her through the gap in the barred fence.