Trollheart

IV: Darkness on the edge of town

The old broken run-down ruin of the carnival which, once upon a time, had thrived and prospered here, in the boom times, but which had long ago fallen into disrepair, looks up at me with weary, sad, hungry eyes. Hungry for business, for the sound of running feet and delighted screams, for the smell of candy-floss and toffee apples, the wails of tiny children and the empty threats from parents about taking their children home if they don't behave. Hungry for the chiming sounds of fairground music, the shouts of the barkers and the con-men, the whoops of delight as another plastic ring settles on a prized object, the grunts of the ring-toss stall owner, who wishes he had not been so honest after all and is losing money hand over fist.

Abandoned by its owners, abandoned by its clients, The Devil's Playground (It used to be called Dave’s Playground, but one night some enterprising youngsters climbed through the fence and subtly renamed it, and ever since then this is how it’s been known) now stands empty, an eyesore, yawning its silent misery and loneliness here right on the very fringes of the town. Efforts had been made to knock it down, but there was some legal hangup – something to do with the owner, the eponymous Dave, dying and there not being any heir. I didn't understand it, never particularly cared. There were a few token protests, people concerned their kids were in danger from the crumbling former monument to the human desire to be scared, but they petered out quickly, and we all got used to the sight of the graveyard of shrieks and thrills just on our doorstep.

It is, anyway, outside of the town, so unless you really want to make the effort to visit it (as some of the local kids invariably do) it's just one of these things that exists, like a coal mine or a nuclear reactor or a firm of lawyers: unpleasant and a little scary but out of sight, out of mind. The Devil's Playground though takes on a new and disturbing aspect as I watch it now. Oddly, it's at the very mouth of the long-abandoned and shut down ghost train where .. something ... is concentrated, making me feel that it's entirely appropriate and at the same pathetic that the very ride that had so scared me as a child is now the focus of a new and seemingly very real terror. The rain, falling heavier now, beats a steady tattoo upon the deserted carousel, the eyes of the tin horses staring dumbly ahead, their backs nevermore to know the welcome burden of a child, or indeed an adult. As the rain slides down the painted faces, it is almost as if the horses are crying.

And it seems to me that the carnival now has a very different hunger...

Rain begins to pool around my feet. The road leads down, and at the bottom there are puddles forming, as the raindrops hit the ground and splat on the concrete, turning it slightly greyer and making of the surrounding fields a small marshland. If the carnival is in mourning, it would seem the sky is crying in sympathy.

It isn't so much that there is something there, more a sense of the space being occupied without there actually being anything there to occupy it. I don't know how best to describe it. It's as if the space is filled up by something ... something other. Something foreign. Something that has no business being there. It feels ... I don't know ... alien. Dark. Evil. Disquieting. Wrong.

Yeah, that's the word. Wrong.

It feels wrong.

Not just wrong that it is where it is, not wrong that it even is, but wrong that it ... exists? It's like seeing something so totally outside of your experience that you can't even begin to describe it, but you know it doesn't belong. It's not supposed to be here. It's out of place. It’s as if someone had moved the sun down on to the Earth, though of course the sun would be bright, blindingly bright, and this … whatever it is … is somehow intrinsically dark. Blindingly dark. It’s a darkness that seems to swallow the whole carnival, the whole road, and stretches shadowy fingers up the hill, towards the town itself. It’s so dark it’s like it’s as if there’s been a total eclipse, and yet it’s not even perceptible, not to the eye. The eye tells you it’s not there, it can’t be there.

And yet it is.

But what is it?

I suppose if you threatened to pull out my teeth with pincers unless I described it for you, I'd be forced to say that it was a shimmer, a haze, but not like the kind of thing you see at summer (and this is not summer) or even after rain. This is, well, an aberration, a twisting, a warping of the fabric of space itself, and the road ahead, though visible to me, is seen as if viewed through a wide angle lens with a dark filter on it. You can't really see anything, but then, if you look really carefully, you can.

Sort of.

I'd say my skin begins to crawl, but it has been moving ever since I dropped the newspaper in Benny's, and now it seems to want to run right off my skeleton and leave me a walking pile of bones, exposed and afraid, staring at something I really can't see.

But I can feel it.

Palpably.

There's some sort of crackling energy coming off it, malevolent tendrils of dark power that seem to reach out for me, and I recoil from it, and yet am drawn to it. I want to run, turn and run, run far enough away that I can outdistance the very memory of this thing, but my traitorous feet will not obey me, and bring me closer and closer to the thing that is not there, and yet is. Like a man dragged to the electric chair, fighting all the way, though only in my mind and in silence, I watch as my feet proceed down the hill, closing the gap between the thing and me, drawing me closer, ever closer, bringing me into its malevolent presence. Like the weird photographs in the newspaper earlier, I feel that if I come close enough this thing will suck me in, pull me towards it, pulverise and destroy me.

And yet, I know without knowing how I know, this is not an entrance.

This is an exit.

And it can be for the use of one only.

He is coming.

For one brief, almost magical moment, I'm able to turn my head away from the encroaching darkness and turn my mind towards saner, more realistic thoughts. My brain, rebelling at the idea of the thing that is there and not there, turns itself to the problem of making sense of what has happened up to now, almost like a mother (did I ever have a mother?) telling her child everything will be all right, without any reason to assume this to be the case. I think - my brain thinks - I've solved the mystery. I think I know who is coming. Suddenly, it’s all so clear to me.

Why did Keith want to sell his tickets, what seems hours but probably is only minutes ago? What did he say: “No point, not now that He is coming.” Well of course. That has to be it. Springsteen. Springsteen is coming. The Boss is coming. I read nothing about it in the newspapers, but surely that was some crazy, nervous episode I suffered, probably as a result of being cooped up in the house (for how long now? Here is some music…) and these damn headaches, which keep getting worse, and are getting more frequent now. But that has to be it. He is coming. Bruce is coming here.

It’s all so obvious.

I almost feel the dark cloud lift from me, and a smile makes a brave attempt to curl up my lips.

But then, reality asserts itself.

Question: what would young Fiona Hutchinson care about Springsteen? She surely has no idea even who he is, so why would she talk about his coming? And what about Benny? Benny’s a classical nut, and thinks music attained its perfect peak with Mozart, so he wouldn’t give two damns about some rocker from New Jersey. And why would a priest care, especially enough to refer to Springsteen’s advent as his last words, dying in agony?

No. It can’t be that. That can’t be right. It just doesn’t make sense.

As if anything else does!

And like a man sitting in a dark room for who knows how long, who suddenly sees a flame flicker in the distance, engendering sudden and unexpected hope in his heart, only for that hope to die as the flame goes out and he is returned to the ever-present darkness, my brief shaft of light is swallowed by the night, and I am again plunged into endless black.

Then, perhaps a chink of light? I see a familiar figure standing outside the amusement park, just by the road. I recognise the short-cropped bleached blonde hair, the dark sunglasses (not mirror shades, at least, though their appearance does send a shiver of fear through me momentarily) and the silver jumpsuit, and I recognise our resident conspiracy theorist/UFO nut. I quicken my pace without making it too obvious; I want to talk to her. Hell, I want to talk to anyone whose conversation will include something other than “He is coming”. I know Janet will not have succumbed to whatever it is that has overtaken my town, the thoughts planted in the minds of everyone here bar me - and hopefully her. She will not have fallen for it. Janet Grissom is an individual. She is an outsider. To use her own description of herself, she does not drink the Kool-Aid. She may not know what is going on, but I’ll bet she has a theory. Probably more than one.

But I don’t know her that well, so I can’t call to her, and if she moves off, as she looks like she might do any moment now, I don’t have the heart or the will to follow her. After being driven (if I am being driven by some unknown agency and am not just imagining it, blaming the heaviness of my limbs on some supernatural force rather than simple weariness) to this location, and having no idea why I'm here, I’m suddenly finding every step I take more difficult, as if I’m wading through thick muck, and I’m almost surprised not to hear the squelching my shoes make as I drag them out of, and back into, the thick mire. It’s as if an invisible hand, which had been propelling me forward, is now pushing against me, forcing me back, trying to impede my progress, or make me turn back. But I’m not about to go back yet. Not to that house. My house? Not yet. Perhaps not ever. The thought of it fills me with a cold dread, and I force my legs to move, the exertion almost killing me.

In moments that seem like hours, I am standing near Janet Grissom, and she eyes me with a look that asks what the hell do I want? She’s a solitary creature, our Janet, and she is very particular about who she spends time with. She believe most people are laughing at her - and she’s probably right; I’ve done my share of mocking her in my time, though not to her face of course - but rather than feeling mocked, she feels only contempt for these people. These idiots who can’t see the truth, the plain truth of what’s in front of them. They’ll never see it, she has said before, until it’s too late.

Perhaps it’s already too late.

Here is some music…

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018