Dark Days of Winter

DARK DAYS OF WINTER...BY JUSTIN BARWICK

My name is Jacob Delaware.  In the summer of 1776 I was hung from a gibbet in Helston market place, until, I was dead.  They left my corpse hanging from the noose for seven days, the cold flesh rotting away, until, my wretched bones were visible to the naked eye and I was cut down to be buried in unconsecrated ground.  My dreadful crime was that of mass murder.  I was a notorious raider.  I must have killed something like twenty seven innocent people with my flintlock pistol, then I would ransack their valuables to sell on to a crooked dealer that I knew who lived in Falmouth.  Finally I would burn their houses down to the ground, before fleeing on my jet black stallion - Icarus.  Then one fateful night one of my intended victims fought back.  He had been warned of my imminent arrival at his door and had set a trap.  As soon as I kicked open his front door I unwittingly jerked a string that was attached to the trigger of his own shotgun.  After being blasted in the shoulder I was disarmed and tied up before being dumped in his cellar to await my doom. 

After I was killed my soul was dragged down to hell, where it was tortured unmercifully for nigh on two hundred years.  I knew that my punishment lasted that long because the dates were branded on my bare arms with a white hot poker.  Then early one evening, (the words: 31st December 1976 had just been burned into my heavily scarred ectoplasmic flesh) .  I was summoned to appear before Satan himself.  I cowered at the foot of his satanic throne which was carved from the skeletons of a great many of his hapless victims.  This is what he said: “Jacob Delaware, for two hundred years my servants have enjoyed tormenting your evil soul.  Now it is time that you gave something back to me.  I want you to ascend to the mortal plane to gather several very special souls all of whom I will relish torturing unmercifully.  Here are your instructions.” and he handed me a wad of papers which stank of the blood that his devilish majesty’s clawed hand had used to write my infernal orders in.  “This task should be completed in precisely four months.  If you fail to gather all of my intended victims by the 30th of April 1976 then your torment will continue for all eternity.  If on the otherhand you succeed in your task then you will be granted a very rare honour.  You will be pardoned and shall ascend to the astral plane, where your tortured soul may live in luxury, until, the day of judgement when the great war between good and evil shall be fought on earth.  I of course fully intend to be victorious on that fateful day.  But in the meantime  I will bid you bad day and good luck in your quest for spiritual release.  Farewell Jacob Delaware.”

As the first day of a new year dawned on an unsuspecting world I emerged from the sulphurous depths of hell.  I found myself drifting along a winding country road.  As it happens it was snowing rather heavily, of course I felt nothing as the feathery flakes fell through my murderous spectral form to choke the narrow highways and by-ways of Cornwall.  The first soul that I was destined to capture haunted a notorious tavern that was known as the Angel Hotel.  It just so happens to be located in the town of Helston.  My bloody orders spoke of an ancient legend attached to that particular drinking den.  There is a large boulder embedded in the building’s wall. The particularly weighty stone was allegedly dropped from a great height.

The devil himself was allegedly mobbed by a flock of crows on his way to drop it from a great height on a recently built village church.  They built the Angel Hotel around the daemonic rock way back in the 16th century and named the place: Hell’s Stone.  Ever since then a malevolent poltergeist has been industriously creating havoc in that accursed tavern.  Barrels are regularly smashed to splinters in the beer cellar, bottles behind the bar float through the air to empty their contents over the heads of the Angel Hotel’s brave patrons.  Sometimes they explode in mid-air, inflicting terrible injuries with deliberately targeted jagged shards of glass.  An unseen perverted hand has been known to grope and pinch the bottoms of that wretched establishment’s comely barmaids.  On one memorable occasion blood dripped from the ceiling of every bedroom, drenching the slumbering occupants in crimson gore.  To cut a long story short a great many people have owned the Angel Hotel over the past four hundred years.  As 1976 dawns it has been empty for the past forty five years.  Although rumours have persisted of loud bangs, eerie drumming noises and strange lights having been seen flickering behind its boarded up windows. 

Anyway my task is to ensnare this vicious poltergeist in my patented soul trap.  As I approach the slumbering building I hear the sound of mindless cackling laughter from deep within its accursed walls.  My weightless soul drifts into the Angel Hotel through the boarded up doorway.  I choose to set my soul trap in the beer cellar, right beside hell’s stone itself.  As I begin to drift down a steep flight of wooden steps the manic laughter becomes deafening.  Despite being a strictly non-corporeal form I suddenly feel a sharp pain in my chest.  It is as if a vice is being relentlessly tightened around my throbbing heart, although I don’t have one so how can such a thing be possible?  Anyway I quickly recite a protective chant and the pain gradually ebbs away.  When I reach the pitch black beer cellar I hear a series of sharp explosions.  I sense that the musty chamber is rapidly being filled by a great many gallons of ancient ale.  Had I been alive then I would surely have drowned.  As it is I dive down to ground level and etch a pentagram with a jagged fragment of chalk.  I proceed to add several powerful mystic symbols to my soul trap, then all that I have to do is to repeatedly chant a powerful summoning poem.  It takes about nine hours, but eventually the poltergeist reluctantly allows itself to be drawn into the influence of my pentagram.  There is a loud bang and the entire derelict building implodes around me.  When the filthy black smoke gradually clears I see that the only remnant of the Angel Hotel is Hell’s Stone itself.  Satan’s words of thanks echo resoundingly through the place where my brain would have been had I still been alive. 

I will now be permitted to rest for four days.  I find a quiet garage and try to regain my psychic strength in preparation for the second infernal task.  On the 5th of January 1976 I emerge through the garage door and leave Helston behind forever.  I must find another notorious drinking den which is located in the picturesque cornish village of Penryn.  The Green Dragon is another haunted tavern.  The story behind its family of four restless ghosts is a deeply tragic one.  James Shawcross - the son of a penniless couple returned to his childhood home many years after leaving without warning on a fateful July morning in the year of our lord 1594. 

For a harmless joke James had disguised himself as a wealthy merchant carrying several bags of gold.  They were in fact packed with innocuous pebbles.  It was a bitterly cold winter’s night in January of the year of our lord 1632 when he boldly knocked at  his poverty stricken parents humble door.  They welcomed him with open arms and bid him sleep on a pile of rough blankets in front of their fireplace.  In the wee small hours just before dawn they took it in turns to beat the apparently wealthy merchant to death with coal shovels.  As they proceeded to strip James body of its recently stolen garments they both immediately recognised a vivid red birthmark on his right shoulder.  Weeping with shame they buried his body in the back garden behind their cottage before swallowing lethal quantities of poison intended to kill vermin.  Their  twenty five year old daughter Mary Shawcross returned very late the next day from visiting her dying aunt Susan. She was devastated to discover the corpses of her parents Daniel and Rebecca Shawcross still sitting around the kitchen table with their heads buried in their roughly folded arms.  Mary heard a strange scratching noise coming from outside.  She found a neighbour’s dog frenziedly digging at the soil of her parents back garden.  When the curious creature suddenly uncovered the face of James her long lost brother, Mary collapsed where she stood, her grief stricken heart had stopped before she hit the ground. 

Now the four tormented Shawcross ghosts continue to haunt their cottage, even though it has been turned into a public house called the Green Dragon.  Bottles are regularly smashed and barrels broken open in the  beer cellar.  One family of five including three children complained of suffering crippling stomach pains after eating a tuna salad.  Although no cause was found for the agonising stomach pains that the Godwits suffered on the 19th of May 1957, the Green Dragon was forced to close due to unsubstantiated rumours of poor food hygiene.  The pub reopened in 1961 and has been plagued by inexplicable paranormal disturbances ever since.

Anyway it is the early hours of the 6th of January 1976 as I approach the Green Dragon.  I drift in through the securely bolted front door and immediately suffer agonising stomach pains, where my stomach would be if I still had one!?  I waste no time in chanting a spell of protection and the psychic attack is swiftly repulsed.  I float through the bar and on through a locked door beyond to emerge in the kitchen.  Then I find a felt tip pen lying on a counter top and scrawl a pentagram on the kitchen table.  When I have added the necessary occult symbols to my first soul trap I begin the summoning chant.  Two hours later at around 2.30.a.m. the ghosts of Daniel and Rebecca Shawcross materialise in the two antique chairs set around the kitchen table.  They are rapidly drawn into the pentagram and down into the fiery bowels of Hades.  The Devil will be pleased!  Now I leave the kitchen and find my way to the small front parlour.  Very little has changed in that room since the murder of James Shawcross took place there way back in 1632!  After drawing a second soul trap on the smoothly varnished floorboards I begin the summoning chant.  This time the ghost of James Shawcross materialises very quickly and appears to be indecently eager to experience the exquisite torments of the damned, being drawn down to Hell as fast as a bolt of lightning!

Now there is just one more ghost still at large in the vicinity of the Green Dragon to ensnare in one of my soul traps.  I drift out through the bolted back door of the pub and scrawl a final soul trap on the paved patio area.  The summoning of Mary Shawcross is a long and drawn out process.  I am still chanting when the Green Dragon’s owner arrives to open up at around 7.30.a.m.  When Bill Baxter hears a disembodied voice speaking in latin he runs back to his van and speeds away on screeching tyres.  Luckily not long after that Mary Shawcross’s corpse materialises beneath a wooden picnic table.  There is a very loud bang and the entire table implodes as it is drawn down to Hell along with the ghost of Mary Shawcross.  My second task has been successfully completed.  The Green Dragon has been exorcised and his satanic majesty has four more souls to torture for all eternity, or at least, until the day of judgement whenever that happens to be.

I must rest for sixteen days now (four days for each one of the Shawcross spectres) , before my third task which is scheduled to take place at Tintagel.

Whilst the ghost of Jacob Delaware recovers his psychic powers in a derelict barn near Penryn he is oblivious to the fact that an eager reporter for the Fortean Times magazine is hot on his ectoplasmic trail!  Marcus Teesdale has already spoken to a small number of admittedly drunken witnesses with regard to the sudden disappearance of the notorious Angel Hotel in Helston.  One incredibly brave witness actually dared to touch the still smouldering Hell’s Stone to find it red hot to the touch.  He suffered nasty burns to his left hand.  Nine days later on the 10th of January 1976 the owner of the Green Dragon public house responds to a small business card placed in newsagents windows in towns and villages across Cornwall.  During a telephone conversation with Marcus Teesdale Bill Baxter claims that he heard strange disembodied chanting in the beer garden of his pub on the morning of the 6th of January 1976.  He ran to his van and sped off, only to screech to a halt when he heard a loud bang emanating from the aforementioned beer garden.  He swears blind that a large wooden picnic table with attached benches simply vanished into thin air.  Bill also notes the sinister stench of sulphur that chilled the cold wintry air of an early January morning.  Since then to the relief of the permanently jittery bar staff of the Green Dragon, no more bottles have been smashed or barrels broken into. There is  a new and refreshing atmosphere of peace and tranquility.  Marcus Teesdale wastes no time in cobbling together a mostly fictitious story that links the Angel Hotel to the Green Dragon.  He describes a mysterious and vengeful entity that appears to be on a remorseless quest to exorcise every haunted tavern in Cornwall and possibly beyond.  Then he searches for that rare beast, a one hundred percent authentic medium, capable of summoning up ethereal spirits at a moment’s notice.  He eventually finds Susannah  Stagsmith residing in a gypsy caravan parked up for the winter on a caravan site near Newquay.  It is the evening of the 23rd of January 1976 when Marcus joins four other brave souls to witness the unearthly powers of mediumship belonging to Susannah Stagsmith.  They are forced to hold their seance in the cramped confines of the medium’s caravan.


Meanwhile the ghost of Jacob Delaware has reached legendary Tintagel.  His daunting third task is to ensnare the restless phantom who was known during his extraordinarily long life as none other than the mighty wizard Merlin.  As Jacob drifts aimlessly about the castle ruins, he senses a very dark and evil atmosphere. 

A lengthy footnote on one of the Devil’s pages of bloody instructions mentions a character known only as the Black Prince.  Apparently he was infamous for dabbling in black magic during his short reign, which took place way back in the late thirteenth century.  There were rumours that he summoned up the spirit of Merlin to aid him in his reign of terror.  But was almost destroyed both mentally and physically by the immensely powerful warlock’s long deceased mind. The Black Prince finally managed to trap Merlin’s soul in a vast cavern located beneath the dungeons of Tintagel Castle.  That is where he resides to this day, imprisoned by one of his own spells.

Whilst Jacob tries to find the entrance to the long disused dungeons of Tintagel Castle, (it lies buried beneath a vast and immovable heap of mediaeval masonry) far beneath his ghostly feet the frustrated mind of Merlin is stirring.  The wizard senses a remarkably powerful human mind reaching out to him from a considerable distance.

Meanwhile three women and two men, (one of whom works for the Fortean Times) are linking hands around a green baize card table in a claustrophobically small caravan near Newqay.  They watch as the medium Susannah Stagsmith lets out a low moan, her eyes rolling back in her head as she appears to speak in tongues.  Then something very peculiar begins to occur.  A long white beard begins to sprout rapidly from her chin, she gains a pair of bushy white eyebrows and her nose becomes large and bulbous.  Susannah Stagsmith has ceased to exist she has been reborn as the mighty wizard Merlin.  He is holding a stout wooden staff in his right hand which is carved with the likenesses of mythical creatures. 

Back at Tintagel Jacob has sank beneath the ruins of the castle, and travelled straight down through the murky dungeons to emerge in a huge and echoing cavern.  He swears beneath his transparent breath as he senses that Merlin’s ghost has recently left the building.

Back at the caravan park near Newquay Marcus Teesdale has fled for his life.  He bolted from the caravan as soon as he saw the long white beard sprouting on Susannah Stagsmith’s elegant chin.  Curiosity got the better of him and he peered in through a caravan window to see the resurrected Merlin jab his staff in the gobsmacked faces of the three women and one man sitting frozen in terror around a green baize card table.  The women were all transformed into squealing piglets and the man became a scrawny goat.  Marcus ran mindlessly through a maze of  eerily identical caravans, hammering on random doors and getting no response whatsoever, because, they were all completely deserted.  The caravan park was officially closed down for the winter. 

Susannah Stagsmith had been the sister in law of one of the vast site’s wealthy owners.  Unfortunately for Marcus she had been the sole occupant of the caravan site during the winter of 1976.  Merlin’s magical powers had a remarkably long range.  Marcus was just approaching the entrance to the mostly deserted site when he found himself crawling along on his scaly belly.  He had become a grass snake.  His fantastic story was destined never to be published in the pages of the Fortean Times.  After rejoicing in his new found powers Merlin suddenly felt very weak.  Susannah Stagsmith’s soul was fighting back.  Suddenly everything went into reverse, the beard  and eyebrows disappeared, the magical staff turned to dust and Susannah Stagsmith returned in all her glory.  “Did you see what just ha-” she started to say before realising that she was surrounded by three squealing piglets and a scrawny goat.  Then she dimly recalled Merlin transforming her visitors into mindless animals and wept with shame and pity for their families.

When Merlin’s ghost returned to the dark and stony prison, in which he was destined to languish, until, the day of Judgement, Jacob’s spirit had already departed that lonely cavern. An indescribably powerful force had teleported his wretchedly murderous spectral form to a location several thousand feet above the bleak moorland of Warminster, a place that was infamous for ufo activity. 

Jacob Delaware found himself floating in a transparent plastic chamber.  An alien creature with huge black emotionless eyes observed him coldly.  “Jacob Delaware, I am giving you a golden opportunity.  You will be returned to your former life in the eighteenth century, at a point in time prior to your murderous rampage through the Cornish countryside.  You can choose to repeat your ammoral crimes, or alternatively to live a good and virtuous life free of treacherous bloodshed.  It may jog your conscience to recall the two hundred years of agonising torment that you suffered in the fathomless depths of Hell before the Devil set you on a course of alleged redemption.  He was just using you.  Had you completed your arduous task of exorcising ghosts the length and breadth of Great Britain you would have been instantaneously returned to the fiery pits of Hell to continue to suffer untold torments for all eternity.  Either way the choice is up to you.  Goodbye Jacob Delaware and good luck...”

The Devil was in a foul temper.  His servant Jacob Delaware had only gathered five unquiet souls for his demons to torture and torment.  There would had been so many more if only that foul extra terrestrial rapscallion  had not chosen to interfere in his satanic plans.  His embittered conclusion was: expect the unexpected and you would not go very far wrong...