Changeling

by Matt Wesolowski

  —I still jump, mate. I still wince if I hear it.

  Callum raps on the underside of the table with his knuckles. He winces and swirls the dregs of his drink. I am about to offer to buy him another, but he waves me back.

  —Don’t. Let me get this out.

  —OK, no problem. You said the knocking was constant.

  —I don’t know how no one went insane. All day and all night it went on. On all the Portakabins – the doors, the windows, the walls. Sometimes it would stop for a bit. Five minutes, an hour, sometimes nearly a whole day. There was no pattern to it. It was cold but no one wanted to be inside. We spent as much time as we could outside, grafting. You couldn’t hear it when you were shifting logs and pulling up roots. There were these rocks as well, and we had to get the JCBs in for most of them. But the lads that were working them soon stopped.

  —Why?

  —It was the knocking – on the doors, the windows, the ceilings of the vehicles. I remember going and sitting in with someone once, so they could prove they weren’t losing their mind. It was fucking insane. That knocking came from anywhere you weren’t looking. Above your head, behind your back, over your shoulder, it was horrible. If you tried to look round it would move. It was like it knew.

  —And everyone heard it?

  —Everyone. More of the lads left the site cos they couldn’t take it. And I don’t blame them.

  The tabloid press had a field day with the knocking and tapping stories. They ran a few sensationalist pieces, comparing Wentshire Forest with Borley Rectory, ‘The most haunted house in England’. Callum tells me that, oddly, these headlines helped; they diffused a lot of the tension and fear that was spreading around the site.

  —It just became normal, like a running joke on site. We even gave it a name: Bob. You’d be doing some digging or trying to get the machines to start, and you’d hear it on the side of the concrete mixer, even on your lunch box. ‘Piss off, Bob,’ you’d say.

  —And you’re sure it wasn’t someone playing a joke?

  —I can’t put me hand on me heart and say I’m sure it wasn’t. But I really have no clue what it was. A ghost? The Wentshire Witch? Some stupid bugger? To this day, I’ve no idea.

  By now, there’s a question forming in my head – and I’m sure in yours as well: what does any of this have to do with Alfie Marsden? It is true that stories about strange and unexplained things abound in Wentshire Forest. Now we have Callum’s sighting of an old lady and the disruption on the building site. Let’s also not forget Sorrel Marsden’s claim of a ‘knocking’ sound in the engine of his car as he drove through Wentshire Forest.

  We have to ask ourselves some questions as we proceed into this case: whether there was indeed something in Wentshire Forest – some spirit, some willo’ the wisp? And if so, does it explain Alfie Marsden’s disappearance? We should also ask whether those who walked beneath those trees had prior knowledge of the forest’s legends. I’m certainly not trying to pave the way for a paranormal explanation for what happened in 1988, rather I’m trying to get a side of the argument that perhaps has been dismissed outright. Was Sorrel aware of Callum Wright’s story? The ‘Witch’s Curse’ story Callum mentions was certainly prevalent in the local and national press at the time and brought unwanted attention to the area. Could these claims have influenced Sorrel’s story, perhaps motivating his own claims about a ‘knocking’?

  Callum continues.

  —One time, there was a couple of us in the Portakabin: me and a couple of the others, and the knocking starts up. We were tired, pissed off, freaked out, you know? We were sick of it – sick of being scared.

  —That’s pretty understandable…

  —We looked outside – we just did it automatically by then – but there was no one there, as usual.

  So you know what we did? We started knocking back. Just copying the pattern, you know? It was me that was doing it, trying me best to make the same sound. I used me fist at first, then I tried using me knuckles, but I couldn’t get it loud enough.

  —Did it … well, did it hear you?

  —So I felt like a proper divvy but I says out loud, ‘One knock for yes, two for no.’ And I’m only half joking. But then it just goes quiet. And … it’s hard to explain, but it suddenly felt full in there, like, you know when you’ve been swimming and you’ve got water in your ears. Your whole head feels full to the brim. It was like that. I dunno if the others felt it.

  Then someone says, ‘Ask Bob something, then.’

  I remember being suddenly scared. I had this whirling feeling in me belly. The last fucking thing I wanted to do was ask a question.

  —Why?

  —Because in that moment, mate, I thought … no, I knew that something really was listening.

  —Go on.

  —So I said something daft like ‘Who are you?’, and there was just nothing, no knocking, just this sort of waiting. I tried again, I said, ‘Why are you doing this?’ And there was just silence again. Eventually one of the lads goes, ‘You’re not asking yes or no.’ So I plucked up me courage then and took a big deep breath.

  ‘Do you want us out of here?’ I says. We stood there, all of us, just listening. But there was nothing.

  Callum stares into his glass, lost in the memory. He tells the next bit of the story in a whisper that’s so low, I’ve had to enhance the audio for you to be able to hear it.

  —We were about to leave. That strange feeling in me ears was gone and it was like we’d just woken up from a dream or something. I remember walking towards the door, putting me hand on the handle and there’s just this huge bang – like the whole cabin has been hit with something. It wasn’t a bang on the door; it wasn’t on the walls. It’s … it’s too hard to put into words, but it was like … an earthquake, but from all over. It just shook the place.

  —Was that your answer, do you think?

  —I don’t know, mate, but we got the fuck out of there as quick as we could.

  I have no way of verifying any of this. I have been unable to track down the other workmen who were at the site at the time, so all we have to go on is Callum’s word.

  There have been numerous requests by paranormal investigation groups to conduct experiments, vigils and investigations in Wentshire Forest. The Ministry of Defence, which has owned the land since 1999, has never, to my knowledge, allowed any such thing.

  Callum makes no attempt to leave the pub. His coat hangs from the back of his chair. He stares into his empty glass, shoulders rising and falling rhythmically.

  —OK, if that’s all you’ve got to tell me, would you like me to leave you to it…?

  —Just wait there, lad. This story’s far from told.

  Callum’s clearly fighting some internal battle, while all around us there is the cheery tinkle of the fruit machines and the occasional blast of traffic as the front door opens to admit more drinkers. No one acknowledges the quiet man in front of the recording device in the far corner.

  —After that, mate. It was hell, being on the site.

  —How so?

  —Something changed. I can’t put me finger on what, but everything just got worse.

  —The knocking?

  —The knocking more or less stopped. But now it was the least of our worries. The lads started waking up with these scratch marks on them – their arms and their sides, sometimes on their backs. Like something had been at them in the night. And there were a few fights, people started blaming each other, saying the joking had gone too far.

  —Did you get any scratches?

  —A couple of times, yeah. And I had bruises as well. It was proper horrible, on parts of your body you don’t really look at. They didn’t hurt or nowt, they were just there. It was like someone had punched the tops of me arms a few times, you know? But there was even more than that…

  —Go on…

  —That’s when it – whatever it was – started messing with the vehicles and that, too. We had this excavator: one of them with a big a
rm and a claw, you know? I don’t think I’d ever seen it work since it arrived. Now, you’re gonna think I’m having you on, but I swear, I was walking past and that arm came swinging round – silent, no engine on. Nearly took my head off. Would have done if I hadn’t ducked.

  —Wow.

  —Sounds mad, doesn’t it? But stuff like that happened to the others too. One of the lads said he was walking past one of the front loaders one night on his way back from the bogs, and its lights and its engine turned, just on like that. No warning. He said he ran, cos he thought it was gonna come after him.

  —Did this happen to anyone else?

  —No. But it was like the banging. Stuff was going on all over the place, just random. But it was what happened with Clive that made me think enough was enough.

  —What happened?

  —Some of the older lads were saying that he’d been funny lately; they’d seen him at the edge of the tree line, just stood there, like, leaning into the forest, as if he was looking or listening for something. They said he stood there like that for hours sometimes.

  So that particular day was brutal. The site was a mess, the rain never stopped; it was never heavy, just this fine sort of mist that soaked your clothes. There was rubbish everywhere and half-filled holes, tape and that all over, a proper shambles.

  Clive was on one, proper raging he was. He couldn’t get any of the machines to start and so he got us carrying a load of chainsaws into the forest. No one dared to say nowt to him; we just followed. Even though it was daytime, that forest was dark. It was like we were walking for hours through the bracken and great coils of brambles and goose grass that grabbed onto your trousers and bit at your legs. That’s when some of the other lads started sharing their stories: they were saying they’d heard things in the forest – shouts and cries.

  —Were you tempted to tell the others about what you’d seen? The old lady?

  —No way. Like I said before, I never told no one about that. I was too scared. I thought something bad would happen if I did. Some of the others were talking about hearing the same kind of stuff I had. Voices. Whispering words that weren’t words, that were sort of half formed. What everyone said, though, was that there was something that made them feel like they wanted to follow those voices into the trees.

  —So, you were telling me about Clive that day?

  —Yeah, so he’s up ahead of us, storming through the trees, and eventually he stops, waits for us to catch up. He was just stood there, in this little clearing, like he was lost. Like he’d walked into a room and forgotten why. Then it’s like he suddenly snaps back into life. He’s mad again, raging.

  ‘All of these!’ he’s shouting and pointing at these massive oak trees. Huge they were, thick as owt. ‘Get them down!’

  I was shitting myself. He never wanted us using them chainsaws till now. It was like he didn’t care no more. So we all start trying to get the chainsaws going, but none of them’d start. It was the rain, it must have been, cos they was just dead. Clive’s getting more and more angry. He’s screaming at us to get the trees cut down. Eventually he picks up this axe and starts laying into one of the trees, just hacking at it like a madman. That’s when it happened.

  —What?

  —The accident.

  —Go on…

  —Thing is, everyone had a different story. Some of the lads said they’d seen something up in the tree. Some of them said they’d seen something on the ground, under his feet. Whatever it was, Clive’s grip on the axe slipped, it bounced off the tree and the blade hit his knee. His screaming was like nothing on earth. But that’s not what I’ll remember all me life. It’s not his screams that still come back in me dreams.

  —What does?

  —We heard knocking. Tapping. But it wasn’t like the tapping back at the site. This sounded like … well, like laughter.

  —What did you do?

  —There was panic. Clive was screaming. And that noise – it must have been the wind in the leaves, it must have been. There was these gusts of wind all around us. The trees and bushes were all moving, so no one knew which way to go. It was like one of them nightmares where you can’t run away. A couple of the lads ran to the Tardis – that phone box – to call an ambulance. No one would go by themselves. The rest of us stayed with Clive. We didn’t want to move him, there was blood everywhere, but at the same time we wanted to get him out of there. We wanted to get him away from…

  —What?

  —I dunno. It’s like there was something there. Something waiting.

  —What happened to Clive?

  —It was proper horrible. He was just lying there, sweating, gibbering, talking bollocks. We’d tied stuff round his knee – bits of our clothes and that. We just made this little knot of us around him, to protect him. I swear, waiting for the ambulance was the longest hour of me life. We all got to thinking that those lads who went to the phone box wouldn’t come back. We thought they’d got lost and that’s what was going to happen to us too. A couple of the younger ones couldn’t take it; they ran off into the woods. I can still remember seeing their faces – pale, their eyes huge.

  Paramedics eventually arrived and Clive was taken to hospital. He survived his ordeal but never returned to the site.

  —What about after that incident. Did you stay on site?

  —Yeah, but there wasn’t many of us. So the work was slow going. We did get a new foreman and that.

  —Were there any more incidents?

  —I don’t remember much. You’d hear knocking and that, but we all just stayed quiet, got on with the job. It was like what happened to Clive had … fed it somehow. Kept it quiet.

  —So things returned to normal?

  —It was never normal. But it was … quiet. Until … well, until that poor little lad…

  We sit in silence for a while, me with a thousand questions running through my head. Callum’s demeanour after telling his story is that of someone who’s been drained of all hope.

  He’s made some fantastic claims, none of which I have been able to verify. Certainly, there were problems, as Sir Harrison explained last episode. I do find out from Callum that the Norwegian building team who were to construct the cabins never arrived. I ask Callum about these Norwegians – whether he knew why they didn’t show up.

  —I heard two stories. One was that they were too scared to come, that they saw all that Witch’s Curse stuff in the papers and thought better of it. The other story was to do with their ship. Some technical fault or something. I dunno.

  —I have to ask about the search, when Alfie Marsden went missing. You said you were there.

  Callum visibly twitches at this, the memory jolting through him.

  —Me dad took us. Christmas Day. I was on at him from the moment I heard it on the news. He thought I was mad, but I couldn’t get the thought out of me head – that little lad lost in that fucking place. It had only been a few weeks, but I’d done me best to forget. It all came back though: the animals, that woman. What happened to Clive. I remembered how scared I’d been. Christ almighty, how would it have been for a little ’un?

  —You said you helped with the lights, that there was a problem with them.

  —The whole thing was a fucking mess, mate. Me dad’s car wouldn’t start. He was pissed off, and me mam was in tears.

  When we got there it was a shambles. The coppers’ cars stuck in the mud on the tracks. That front loader was on the road, on its side nearly. I just knew that none of the lads would have driven it there. I tried to help them. God knows why, but they let me try and help get those lights turned on to help find the kid. They were one of the things that’d always worked. But not then. And that’s when I felt it again – like that place was mocking us.

  —That must have been awful.

  —I want to cry right now, thinking about it. It was the worst night of me life. It was worse than anything that had come before – that driving rain, the coppers shouting, people crying the lad’s name. I still lie aw
ake sometimes, remembering it.

  —You’ve told me a great deal about your experiences in Wentshire Forest. The knocking, the accident. All of this occurred before Alfie Marsden disappeared. Does telling me all this now change what you think happened to him?

  —I want to believe that it was something normal. Maybe him and his dad got separated somehow and he just got lost.

  That’s what my head tells me.

  But my heart says it’s that forest. It’s pure evil. I saw first-hand what that evil could do. What if whatever was in that forest was hungry again? What if it reached out and touched that car? What if it called that little lad into the trees?

  The question of what happened to Alfie Marsden has not been answered for forty years. There are plenty of theories we can draw from Callum’s account.

  I am aware we have strayed a little way from the path with this interview, but I do feel it gives us some important information about the situation in Wentshire Forest at the time Alfie Marsden disappeared. Was Blackwood and Baxter’s strategy of employing cheap, inexperienced labour and their bad management of the site in some way responsible for what happened to Alfie?

  Or were there other things at work that defy explanation?

  There was certainly shoddy workmanship and negligence on site. If Alfie ran from the car into the forest and took refuge in the site, it is possible that some sort of accident may have occurred. Did he come across a hole, a fissure, or some faulty machinery?

  I contact my fellow podcaster Howie again to discuss the assertions about the strange occurrences at the Great Escapes site.

  —So, Howie, you’ve listened to the recording I made with Callum Wright. What do you deduce?