Running through the field, flying their kites, cycling their bikes. The children played together every day over the summer, not a care in the world. Long stalks of wheat surrounded them as they found hiding spots and pounced on each other in movements that were almost predatory in nature. Innocence and youth flowed from their very being, no one would dare stop them from letting their imaginations run wild. Their shouts and chants of joy were heard throughout the small village, everyone wanted to be them again, to be untouched by the harshness of the world. Alas, this kind of unfiltered enjoyment can never last. That summer, Mark Davitt was the first of many children to go missing in that very same field that had brought so much joy and every year more seemed to join him. Every few years more and more children went missing without a trace, and every year more children were kept inside, behind closed, locked doors, so that they could not add to the body count. No one had ever seen anything, but the ghost stories and tales of ‘spirits’ and ‘apparitions’ were inevitable. Tales of “The Bogeyman”, “Evil Spirits” and more followed, many with fake eyewitness accounts, but none actually knew what was happening. For over a century, children went into the field and never came out, no bodies, no evidence, just loss after loss, they say you could hear children laughing and playing, echoing through that field. “The Echo Field”, became a mystery that none would dare solve, for fear of what they would discover. Benjamin Harris had gone missing four years ago, no body was found and the last place he was seen was near the field. Nine years old, tall for his age, light brown hair with blue eyes, the son of Ryan and Deborah, he was a playful child but shy and his death was about to change the story of the Echo Field forever.
Two pints of water and three cappuccinos later, Inspector Charles Skinner was wallowing in his office having come into the station that morning with a horrendous hangover. “This is it… I’m never drinking again,” he moaned. “Of course ya won’t boss,” agreed Detective O’Reilly dryly, with slightly more than a flavour of sarcasm in his response. “I don’t know what it is about that wife of mine, but she can get me to drink more than anyone else can get me to.” The two men had accidentally become friends, having had a patchy start to their relationship. Skinner had been brought in from England to be made Inspector, and O’Reilly saw bringing an Englishman in to do a job that an Irishman was perfectly capable of doing as a bit of an insult. Having slowly realised that Skinner was more than worthy of the position, O’Reilly had leaned on him more and more for guidance detecting a fatherly element to the otherwise stoic man, which he felt the man had not even considered and so, kept it to himself.
This morning was not a morning for guidance though, but for repair, as the detective plied the Inspector with caffeine and water to get him into a functioning condition. The case of Benjamin Harris was into its 4th anniversary, the local Garda had been petrified by the idea of even being around the Echo Field, having grown up hearing the stories of the children going missing. Skinner was astounded by the stories, “poppycock,” and “nonsense,” he labelled them. O’Reilly agreed with him for fear of disappointing the man that he had come to admire, but he too believed the stories. Opinions of the stories would have to be put to one side though, as the Chief Superintendent wanted an investigation carried out on the field, to try and prevent any more casualties. O’Reilly drove on this day, for fear that the Inspector was not in a condition to drive legally on public roads. The 1971 blue Ford Zephyr had been a reliable car for almost its entire life with the station, serving Skinner and O’Reilly well, but today seemed to be a strange day. First, they got a flat tyre, which was arduously changed, “in the pissings of rain,” as O’Reilly’s so eloquently put it, then the engine overheated and needed to be left to cool and then the comms unit signal was down. There were more problems in one day than in the last 2 years that the car had been in service. Something strange was happening that day, even Skinner could feel it.
Having made the drive to the village eventually, Skinner and O’Reilly elected to find something to eat, as the trip had become much longer than anticipated. A hungry silence descended as they waited for their food to be brought to the table, which was only broken when the Inspector had his first chip, the salt revitalising his entire being. “What is it, John? Why are the Irish so superstitious, especially out in these parts?” the Inspector pondered. “I don’t know sir, we’re a traditional people sir, we haven’t invested ourselves into the pursuits of science and reason yet sir, but things are changing sir, slowly.” The food almost put colour back into the Inspector’s grey/whitening hair, such was the extent of his resurrection. The world appeared to acquire a translucent grey filter when within the boundaries of the village, to an even more severe degree than the rest of Ireland had. The clouds seemed darker, the shadows felt more solid, the people seemed…off. The antics of the people of the town were erratic at best, people parked wherever they saw fit, and the rules of the road were ignored almost entirely.
“This lot make you look like a city boy O’Reilly”, the Inspector joked in his deep, rumbling Sheffield voice.
“Yeah chief…they really do”, the young man’s reply had a surprised lilt to it. “These are pure bog people chief, bit like the land, dense and miserable looking-”
“That’s a bit harsh, isn’t it?”, he asked, surprised with the young man’s callousness.
“You’ll see what I mean,” O’Reilly replied.
It seemed unfathomable that this many disappearances could have occurred in this area, there were hardly enough people in the town to make the number of children who had gone missing. Many were presumed dead because of the amount of time that had elapsed since their disappearances. Everything felt wrong here, it was like this town existed in its own little bubble. The town looked decent enough, with a sufficient number of amenities available for the population, and the roads had only recently been resurfaced. It looked a typical country village, but it felt different, like time did not exist here, the outside world seemed to have no influence on this place. Skinner had asked for a list of the names of the children who had gone missing before he left and was staggered when he saw the length of it. Names dated back as far as the 19th century were on this list, it was like it was being added to before his very eyes.
“O’Reilly? Is this right?” he asked puzzled.
“I’d love to say no boss, but it is. This was happening long before I was born and back when you would have been in your forties at least,” the young man chuckled.
“Smartarse,” the Inspector replied. “Is this some kind of family of serial kidnappers or something? Six generations of kidnappers would surely have to have been caught?”
“Everyone tends to point back to the ghost stories sir,” O’Reilly responded, doing his best to mask the slight tremble in his voice.
“We’ll see about these ghost stories,” the Inspector proclaimed.
Questioning the people of the town appeared a fruitless task. What they shared was not helpful and they either did not know or were not sharing the useful information. It was a precarious situation to say the least, there appeared to be a fear of something in the field. It was definitely the ghost stories, but it was like these people knew more about it than those outside the town did. The way they looked when talking about it, how they tensed up. Normally that was to be expected when disappearances happened near people, but this was definitely different. It was like they were all holding back things that they knew. O’Reilly put it down to fear, that they had been too terrified to recall anything of note; Skinner did not believe that. There was something more to this story. This was pure petrification, they had seen something, and they were not too scared to remember it, they were scared out of talking about it. A shroud of terror lingered in the air the closer the houses got to the fabled field. It was thick and almost felt like it could choke you. O’Reilly got more skittish the closer they got to the ‘Echo Field’, he swore that he started hearing the voices of children, their laughter, their cries, their screams. The population swore that they had never seen anything, that the children would just be there and then…not. Transforming into nothingness, as if by magic. It was echoed by each member of the community; they didn’t know what was going on but that they were scared and swore that the town was cursed/haunted/hexed and whatever other words they used to describe what was going on. It was one of the few times in Skinner’s career that everyone seemed to tell the same story which immediately made him suspicious. Whatever was scaring these people, he had to find out what it was and bring it to justice.
Deciding that the best way to attack this was head on, Skinner wanted to question the family that owned the field. An obvious suspect, Skinner would have thought, he didn’t notice that O’Reilly was apprehensive of the idea. The young man was not a superstitious sort by any means, but the stories of this place had not been lost on him. His fear was sufficient to make him feel that dropping the investigation may have been in everyone’s best interest. Marching up to the front door of the old farmhouse on its small, elevated mound, Skinner rapped on the door with impatience. No answer. He tried again accompanied with the words, “I’m Inspector Charles Skinner and this is Detective O’Reilly, we’d like to ask a few questions.” Still no answer. Skinner signalled to O’Reilly to head around the back of the house to see if anything was going on and he obliged, albeit begrudgingly. One more set of raps on the door, “excuse me, this is Inspector Charles Skinn…” the door finally opened and a lanky, frail looking man half-stood in the doorway.
“Can I help you?” he asked.
“Eh- yes. We’re looking into several disappearances on your property, do you know anything about that?” the Inspector queried.
“Oh, I wish I did. People have been asking for years. My Grandad was locked up for a bit over it. I’ve tried helping the Garda that come out here, but we never find anything,” the man replied.
“And your name is sir?” the Inspector pressed.
“Ben Farragher,” the man replied.
He was definitely an odd sort, but he did not strike the Inspector as a kidnapper or murderer in the slightest.
“Okay, well we’ll be in touch. Detective, take his details please,” he ordered, looking for a cigarette to slow his speeding brain.
The Inspector had a warrant to search the property already and elected to do so. He would do so in the morning, for now, they would have to stay overnight in this hole of a place. The men got a room together with two single beds. Skinner took the bed nearest the window, he always slept nearest the window. During the night, he heard rumblings coming from the road. Squinting to read his watch it appeared to be a quarter past one. Who would be up at that time? There were no teenagers here to cause trouble, no one worked later than nine o’clock and the noise was too loud to be some private liaison. Rubbing the exhaustion from his eyes, the aching body rose with more resistance than he would have liked. After a few cracks from suspect areas and a pop here and there, the Inspector was functional, negotiating with a sleeping O’Reilly was going to be an altogether more difficult affair. He had to be slowly coaxed into a state of alertness, just enough to make him think he had woken up himself. “Psst, O’Reilly,” he whispered. Nothing. “Psst, you arsehole, wake up!” Still nothing. The Inspector’s shoe was much better at these negotiations as it collided with the young detective’s jaw. “What the hell?” the young man snarled, noticing the Inspector simply pointing towards the road. They watched a small crowd marching passed with torches and wearing maroon robes. What on God’s green Earth was this? They got dressed quickly and left the room as quietly as possible. Against their better judgement they decided to follow the crowd to see where what was going on, both fearing what they would find. The crowd led them through the Farragher’s field, a warning sign if ever they needed one. Deciding to press on, the two men stayed a distance away from the crowd to prevent startling them. In the middle of the field was a walled ring that looked like a protected sanctuary. Fearing the worst, they kept low to the ground and made their way the wall. Sliding along the wall, they waited until the last hood was within the ring to move towards the gate and find out what was going on. O’Reilly moved to the far side of the gate and what they saw made O’Reilly take out his rosary beads and murmur the Lord’s Prayer to himself in terror. The colour drained from both their faces and their jaws dropped to the floor. A stone altar had been carved, around which the hoods gathered. A child was tied to the alter by his limbs, barely 8 years-old, if not younger. He had been sedated. At the child’s head stood one of the hoods with a book that looked to be at least a century old. The hood was mumbling some sort of hymn and the others responded without prompt. This was it; this was where the children had been disappearing to, they were sacrifices, but for what? “We need to save him,” O’Reilly whispered, “they’re going to kill him!” The idea shook Skinner to the core. “We can’t save anyone if they kill us. We need more men. We have to go back to station,” the Inspector hissed at his partner. A faint purple flame hovered over the child. What kind of voodoo madness was this? Skinner had seen enough and, going against his own advice, leapt out form the gate yelling, “I am Inspector Charles Skinner, and you are all under arrest!” The silence was deafening. A blow came from behind him and knocked him to the floor. He could only hear O’Reilly receiving the same treatment and then, darkness.
The next morning, the two men awoke in their room with the hope that the night’s events were just a shared nightmare. Looking down to the blue Ford Zephyr, the message, “FREE US”, scrawled in blood on the bonnet told them otherwise.
By Owen Coyne
Taken to the Corner 