The Swing

The Swing

Tall, mellowed beams of deep, rich grain united at their joins to hold aloft to heaven their cross beam. Two heavy chains sank from this beam plummeting to earth. Their progress was stunted by a heavy plank worn smooth by the swinging of countless children’s bottoms.

Towering over the small park in the middle of this small town, the swing majestically commanded its audience from the visiting children. Regal in its pendulum arc, it allowed the smooth movement of each long, perfect swing.

It remained aloof to the piercing shrieks and giggles of the playing children. Swift punishment was metered out for those ignorant enough to disregard the force generated by the swing.

Catherine Asterfe hated the swing but loved the smooth ride and graceful arch. Her mother loved to shorten her name and call her ‘Cat’ and so everyone else followed her mother’s example.

Cat would always feel a sense of dread as she neared the park. The high beam could be seen over the tops of the trees as they drove into town. While in town, the trees tended to hide the arch but each gap in the trees flashed the solid brown of the beams. Cat’s heart briefly forgot to beat.

As she neared the monster, her heart raced in excitement at the thought of swinging those long arcs. Underneath the excitement lay the subtle conflict of fear.

Cat once heard the swing laugh as a child lost their grip and tumbled off the swing. That little boy had broken his left forearm and they had closed the swing for a week. After that, the town had built a fence around the swing and only one at a time was allowed on the swing.

Cat neared the swing. Another little girl leapt off the seat and ran to her mommy so they could resume their shopping. The seat swung gracefully back and forth invitingly. Cat wanted to swing but it was so dark and heavy. Mom was sitting near the fountain pretending to watch her but was more interested in her magazine.

This was always the hardest part, touching the swing! After that she could jump on the seat and ignore the beast but it was getting to the seat that was the hardest. The swing could feel she was near and she could feel the force dwelling within it.

Cat closed her eyes and lunged at the swing. A voice said, "Find his name and end our pain." Cat quickly grabbed the swing and jumped onto the seat. She threw her legs forward and arched her back. She leaned back as the swing headed backwards then repeated the motion as the swing moved forward.

Cat was breathing heavy and her heart raced. She tried to block out the voice because it did not exist. There had been no one there to say anything and so nothing had been said. She did not want to know his name!

She repeated her actions, impelling the swing to arc higher and higher. With each arc she passed the dark wood of the base. With each pass, she felt something cold. The air was cold at the base of the swing.

She wanted to get off the swing now. It was getting too scary for her. She called to her mom before going backwards into the cold air. A quick scream escaped her mouth just before she felt the cold air.

She glimpsed a hood as the momentum lifted her out of the cold and high onto the back arc. She was now staring straight at the base of the swing. She could see nothing but was so scared. She could hear herself calling "MOMMY, MOMMY, MOMMY!"

Then the swing started forward into the cold air. She could do nothing to stop the swing’s progress. There was a mist as she entered the cold. She moved her left arm to her chest without knowing she had done so. She was sobbing as she heard a different man speak.

<<Sing for your forgiveness!>>

She did not see the flash of the hood but this time she saw the flash of wood as something swung towards her. It hit her left arm and the splintering of her forearm sending blue pain flashing through her brain. Cat screamed. Waves of unconsciousness wrapped her up and sent her spiraling backwards. She dimly felt herself hit the cold, bitter ground. The swing laughed at her.

Cat felt as though an eternity had passed when she finally felt the warm hands of her mother lift her head. Other warm hands reached her and lifted her up. They put her on a soft bed and she felt the wheels of her trolley groan and squeak as it rolled away. It rolled away from the swing but the one cold hand was still touching her. She didn’t know where it was touching her but she could feel it.

The ambulance crew checked Cat out and wrapped up her arm. They bandaged her head before putting her into the ambulance.

"Mommy! Mommy! I don’t want to sing for him!" Cat repeated over and over. No matter what her mother said, Cat would not stop repeating it.

Cat and her mother arrived at the triage section of the hospital and Cat was x-rayed, examined, set, plastered and re-examined before being admitted for the night for observation.

Tracey Asterfe, Cat’s mother, made several calls to her husband, Daniel, and to her work to arrange the stay in hospital for the next few days. Tracey had been an Architect with the same firm for several years. They catered mainly to the housing industry making minor changes to standard house plans to accommodate council arbitraries and buyers whims.

It was not the most fascinating job in the world but the pay was good and she could live in this moderate town. The town was neither too big nor too small for them. It is close enough to their two sets of parents but not too close. Most of all, it suited their pace.

Having organized time off work, Tracey went back to her five-year old daughter’s hospital bed. She was soundly sleeping off the painkillers. Tracey settled down in the chair next to her bed.

"Was she playing on the swing in Grove Park?" One of the attending nurses inquired. Tracey nearly jumped out of her chair at the sudden noise, "Oh! You startled me!"
"Sorry…. We practice moving around as quietly as possible on night shift. I can sneak up on my husband without his knowing every time."
"I don’t doubt that for a minute. What did you say about Grove Park?" "Oh… Did she break her arm in Grove Park…? On the swing?"
"Yes…Yes, she did. How did you know that?"
"We get many kids in here with a broken arm from that swing."
"Really?"
"Oh yes. Bed 8 and bed 12 over there are casualties and three other kids in another ward are also victims of the swing."

Tracey looked over to the beds indicated. One bed contained a young boy barely older than Cat with his left arm in plaster. The other bed contained an older girl, possibly eight years old, also with a broken left arm.

Tracey asked the nurse to show her the other three casualties. She was shown into the next ward and there were three children all with broken left arms. Tracey felt intense anger rise.

The nurse saw her anger, "It’s OK, Mrs. Asterfe. We are taking a petition to the local council to have the swing removed and destroyed. Would you like to sign it?"
"I most certainly would. I can’t believe there are so many injuries and nothing has been done about it."
"The swing’s structure has historical significance and so is protected under the Historical Society Purity Act. The petition requests that the swing be removed from the actual historical structure. The structure can then be fenced off with a plaque to explain its historical value."

The nurse took her back to the nursing station and got the petition out for Tracey to sign. She scanned down the list as people do before they sign something and several names caught her eye. She could not remember why they were familiar until she saw one of the later names, Sarah Crifice. She was the mother of one of Cat’s schools friends, Sandra. Cat’s friend had died recently and the pain was still fresh on her mind.

The nurse saw the hesitation and thought she needed to be talked into it, "Most of the names are parents of the kids hurt on the swing."
"My God!" Tracey said. There was over a page and a half of names. Tracey added hers to the list.

<<Sing for your forgiveness>>

Tracey spun around. Someone had whispered in her ear but there was no one in the hall except herself and the nurse. "Did you say something?" "Me! No." The nurse said then tidied her clipboard before continuing on her rounds.

Tracey went back to her little girl’s bed and sat on the chair. She got as comfortable as she could and tried to doze off. The memory of the swing was vivid in her mind and Tracey could not get the picture out of her head.

There was something quite odd architecturally with the structure. She designed a proper swing in her mind and compared it. The Grove Park swing was much too tall. This dictated that the length of the chain to the seat was approximately eight meters. The arc of the swing mathematically was double length of the chain and so the children were traveling sixteen meters at an overall speed of about sixty kilometers per hour at the apex of the arc.

Tracey sat up in fright. No wonder there were so many broken bones. How could the town council pass a swing like this? Tracey had many, many questions but she quieted herself and tried to sleep. She decided to investigate this swing tomorrow with a trip to the town hall records. She closed her eyes and relaxed.

<<Sing for your forgiveness>>

A man wearing a black robe and hood asked her to sing for her forgiveness. He carried an ax handle to emphasize his authority to make her sing. Her father took off his mask and gave her the skipping rope. She was standing on the platform of the swing. But the swing does not have a platform, she thought with great difficulty. Father wrapped the skipping rope around her neck and made her jump. "What if I fall, Daddy!" Tracey kept repeating but father had his hood back on again. But Tracey knows it’s not her father. He said, "Sing for your forgiveness!"

She fell off the platform!


Tracey jumped out of her seat. She desperately tried to orientate herself. She heard Cat call out for her and looked in the direction of her hospital cot. There was a nurse standing over her checking things and writing on a clipboard.

Tracey went over to Cat and placed her shaking hand on the child’s forehead. She coo-ed and soothed her child back to sleep then sat in her chair to wait for the morning.

The dawn sun pierced the gray night sky then worked its way down to the rooftops.

The dawn found Tracey in front of the swing in Grove Park. She analyzed the structure of the swing. In her architecturally trained mind, she constructed a platform around the base and elevated it three meters off the ground. There were even some holes in the structure’s pylons at about that height.

She deleted the swing then added stairs to the platform. A feeling of being watched crept over her. A man in a hood stepped out onto the platform.

Tracey shook her head as if to clear the vision and looked at the swing again. There was nothing there but the structure and the actual swing. In her mind, she re-constructed the platform and deleted the chain swing. This time, a thick rope replaced the swing. It dangled from the high crossbeam, through a trap door and ended under the platform.

A limp figure appeared in the noose at the end of the rope.

Tracey yelped and involuntarily jumped back. The figure remained there.

The figure raised its arms slowly and lifted its heavy head on its now useless neck. It looked directly at Tracey and opened its mouth to speak.

Tracey turned and ran. She ran as hard as she had ever run but she could not outrun the words uttered by the corpse.

<<Know his name and end our pain>>

Tracey ran several blocks before her legs gave out. She collapsed on the stairs of a building and gasped for air in her burning lungs. A feeling if sickness overtook her and she sat up with her head between her knees. She vomited.

After several uncomfortable minutes, Tracey calmed down enough to be able to think. She needed to clean herself up and get to the hospital before her little girl woke up and found her mother not there.

She was sitting in the steps of a grand old administration building. Tracey had seen this building many times and remarked upon its historic architectural features. But she had never inquired as to what its function was. The doors were open!

Tracey went in and found the bathrooms near the doors. She washed up and cleaned up her shirt. She felt better.

She exited the bathroom only to be immediately confronted by a guard.
"We are not open, Ma’am. I’ll have to ask you to leave."
"Oh. Sorry. I just had to use the bathroom."
"You don’t look so good. Are you all right?"
"Well, I just threw up on your stairs outside and I saw the doors were open…So I came in and cleaned myself up. Sorry about your stairs."
"Its been happening a lot lately. Come over here and sit down." The guard took her to a padded bench just near the reception. "Would a cup of coffee help?"
"Oh, coffee would be incredible. I would love a cup of coffee."

Security Guard Matthew Bulwark left her on a leather couch at the reception desk then went to his control center. He returned with a strong cup of coffee. Tracey accepted it with shaking hands and sipped. It helped her relax.

Bulwark said, "I have to ask, are you doing it cold turkey?"

Tracey was quite shocked and did not know what to say.

Bulwark continued, "I’m sorry. It’s just that we sometimes get these people in here. They need help but often cause a lot of damage and will steal what ever they can carry."
"Do I really look that bad?"
"No….no. It is just that you were disorientated, shaking and had thrown up. That is pretty much what happens to the drug addicts."
"I can see why you would ask that question, then. I am very glad you did not kick me out… My name is Tracey Asterfe. I am an Architect with the Lands Down Firm on Maple."
"Oh. Great. But how did you come to be throwing up on my stairs at daybreak?"
"I was with my daughter at the hospital and I…took a walk…then felt dizzy and rested on your stairs."
"What’s wrong with your daughter?"
"She broke her arm and they were keeping her overnight."
"Did she fall victim of the swing?"
As much as Tracey had been through, she still felt that slight feeling of shock. It seems that everyone know about the swing except her. But each day there were many children that used that swing. "Yes."
"And you sprinted away from the park like you were being chased by the devil himself?"
"Yes"
"Well you probably were being chased by the devil, Ma’am. Did you sign the petition at the hospital?"
"Yes.’
"Then you really have pissed off the hood!"
"The hood?"
"The man dressed in the robe with a black hood over his face."
"Yes. I saw him at the swing. The swing used to be a gallows. They used to hang people there."
"Yes Ma’am. I have had several mothers come to me in this condition. I just have to separate them from the drug addicts. However, I tell them the same thing that I will tell you."
"Several mothers? Who?"

Bulwark gave her several names but one name stood out, Crifice, the mother of the girl that had recently died. It was Cat’s friend from school who had died in her sleep.

Bulwark continued, "The mothers have all wanted one thing more or less. They wanted to save their kid. The answer must be in here ‘cause this is where they come."
"Find his name and end our pain." Tracey repeated to herself.
"Yeah. But there is a warning to this search. My great, great Gran’pappy was hung on those gallows by the hood himself.
When I was a boy, we’d go out to Grandma’s farm on a Saturday night. My brother and I would sit on her porch and she would tell us stories from our family’s history.
This one time, she was all upset by the death of our cousin who had died in her sleep. Our cousin had broken her arm after falling off the swing. But Grandma knew more than that. She told us so we would not make the same mistake.
Grandfather had been convicted of stealing a horse and sentenced to death by hanging. The hangman was the hood. He was a man cloaked in a robe. He wore a hood with eyes cut out of it hence the name. That was to conceal his identity but no one could forget the eyes... They were ice blue and cold. He carried a wooden ax handle which looks much like the modern day baseball bat. He would ask them…."
"Sing for your forgiveness!"
"Yes. He would smash their left arm as that was the side of the devil. The Hood would make the crowd listen to their howls of pain as they sang for their forgiveness then release the trap door."
"My god!"
"They were cruel times, Ma’am. My cousin, she loved to swing in that swing. She was scared of it but she loved it also. It was fascination. No other swing was good enough. So, one day she fell off and broke her left arm but she kept repeating the phrase about forgiveness and my aunt…my grandma’s youngest daughter started asking around about the swing and found that it was once a gallows. She received several visions and soon realized that other ghosts were involved. The others told her to ‘find his name’ or ‘sing his name’ or something like that to ‘end their pain’."
"Know his name and end our pain."
"Yeah. That’s it. Anyway, my aunt came here. To the Hall Of Records to…"
"I’M AT THE HALL OF RECORDS!’
"Yes Ma’am."
"I need a phone. I have to ring my husband. Then I need access to the records. I have to know his name…"
"Ma’am!"
"The hood. I have to find his name!"
"Wait! I am trying to warn you!"
"The son-of-a-bitch broke my baby’s arm.."
"There is a warning…a curse!"
"There are dozens of kids with broken arms from this sadist.."
"I am trying to tell you…"
"Why don’t they…"
"ENOUGH!" Bulwark bellowed. "There is a warning to doing that. My aunt followed the same course you are intending to follow. She found that the hood existed but she could not find his name in the records. My cousin died a day later in her sleep. The doctor’s could not find any cause of death but her contorted face said it all. She had been scared to death."

Tracey slowly took in what Bulwark was saying. Like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, her mind connected the guard’s cousin, the death of Cat’s friend and the warning. "But why did some kids die and others lived?"
Only the kids whose mother’s looked died. All I am saying is that if you look be damn sure that you find the bastard’s name."
"My daughter…"

Tracey sprinted back to the hospital and collapsed once again to her knees. Her stomach heaved and heaved but there was nothing there. The nurses helped her to a chair so she could see her daughter sleeping peacefully.

She tried to calm herself and think clearly. If she no longer pursued the identity of the hood then he would leave them alone. They could do that. Cat’s arm would mend and they would never go near the swing again.

Tracey got up and stood over her daughter. She was breathing slowly in her sleep. If Cat could get over this experience then Tracey could too. They would never mention the swing again.

Tracey brushed away a lock of hair from Cat’s head and she touched her smooth skin. It was cold! Cat’s skin was too cold! Tracey’s heart skipped. The child’s face was not peaceful as Tracey had first thought and her little body was tense.

Tracey yelled for the nurse and checked the girl for any other signs of distress.

The nurse sped over to the bed and checked the girl for vial signs then opened her eyelids. Cat responded of all the pushing and prodding. She opened her sleepy eyes and her mother swamped her in hugs and kisses.

"He was chasing me, Mommy." Cat said with a tinge of fear in her voice.
"Who was chasing you, Honey." Tracey questioned but knew the answer anyway.
"The man in the hood."

The nurse froze in her actions for the slightest second. Tracey knew that the nurse was now ignoring any talk of the hooded man from Grove Park. Tracey made her decision.

She got out her mobile phone and rang her husband. Then she rang a friend of hers from University. She was a political Researcher and knew her way around records.

Once her husband arrived at the hospital, Tracey told him to watch Cat like a hawk. He was not to let her sleep until Tracey returned and he was to watch for anything supernatural.

Tracey raced to the Hall of Records but did not go in. She stood outside on the stairs and waited. She walked across the street to get a cup of coffee and then went back to the stairs. She waited.

A car turned into the Hall of Records car park. It was Tracey’s Researcher friend. Tracey met her, hugged and then briefed her on what she wanted. They raced into the Hall of Records. Bulwark saw Tracey enter and shook his head.

Bulwark called to her and went over to meet them. "Come with me."

He led them to a large table in an alcove fenced in by shelves filled with boxes of folders, books, ledgers and lots of dust. "There have been mothers before you and this is as far as they got before… The Records staff refuses to put any of it away. They won’t even touch the records. I don’t know anymore than what I have told you."
Tracey said, "How much time do we have before…?"
"I don’t know but the child always dies in their sleep."

Tracey felt tears in her eyes and tried to speak but couldn’t. She choked it back and nodded that she understood. They got to work. Bulwark promised that they would not be disturbed.

The records were quite accurate and mostly complete. They soon found the listing of prisoners executed. The records show their names and the signatures of the judge and clerk of the court on their death warrant.

There was a signature on the execution line. It read ‘Hood. ‘Big help Tracey thought

All the warrants showed the same signature. His identity was as masked as his face. They checked some of the available medical records. They showed no information about the executioner.

"What do we do now?" Tracey asked her researcher friend Trudy.
"Well… The executioner was either doing the job for love or for money."
"Or both…"
"So we check the payroll records for the Courthouse."

A feeling settled over the room. Tracey felt as though it was all so hopeless and became sad at the impending loss of her daughter. She shook the feeling and joined the search for the payroll ledgers for the courthouse during the periods when the Hood was doing his thing.

She glanced at Trudy who had tears streaming sown her face as she also searched the table.

Tracey asked, "What’s wrong, Trudy?"
"I don’t know, I just feel so sad. I started thinking of all the things that I have never accomplished in by life. I…."
"He’s here. The Hood is here."

Trudy and Tracey looked around the room like they were expecting to see something. Then they looked at each other and frantically resumed their search. The records were not on the table.

They called for guard Bulwark and he got a records staff member to get the courthouse ledgers for the specified time period. The temperature around the table was cold and the air itself was suppressed and moody. The staff member looked up as she neared the table and yelped with fright. She threw the books at the table and ran off.

Tracey moved with a great effort to retrieve the books, then stood up. She was now standing in the same position as the staff member had been.

Condensation had gathered on the walls. An imprint could be made out in the pattern of condensation. It was the shape of a face contorted and twisted in rage. Tracey dropped her eyes and rushed to the table.

Trudy grabbed the first ledger off the stack and found the dates. She repeated this until she found one within the range of the Hood’s ‘service’ to the town.

She opened the book and a creaking sounded off in the rafters of the building. The women looked up to the ceiling about two stories above them. They could see nothing then the oppressiveness of the room lifted. Warm air flooded around them in relief and Tracey knew they were on the right track.

A feeling of danger came over Tracey like she had picked up a thought or intention left in the air. A child’s life was in danger but it was not Cat. Tracey looked over at Trudy. It could not be Trudy as she was childless.

Tracey asked, "Trudy, you didn’t ever marry that guy you were seeing?"
"No…No. I found out he was married anyway. So I broke it off. Why." Trudy asked as she could see relief on her friend’s face.
"Oh, I just thought you may have had a child since the last time we were in contact."

Trudy did not answer. Something was not said between them. It slowly dawned on Tracey. "You got pregnant to him, didn’t you!"
"I don’t want to talk about it, Tracey. Now is not the time or the place."
"Tell me! Do you have a child?"
"…Yes"
"Oh God! Where is your child, now?"
"I have a good friend of the family that is our nanny. My boy is with her."
"NO!" Tracey grabbed her bag. She pulled out her mobile phone and threw it at Trudy.
"Ring them. The hood has left here to attack your son!"

It slowly sank into Trudy’s understanding what Tracey was saying. She went white and punched in numbers into the phone. Her voice had a slightly hysterical tinge to it as she ordered the nanny to wake her son from his nap.

Tracey grabbed the ledger from the table and tore through it. Bulwark ran over to the table. He had felt the departure of the hood. It was not what had happened before and was hoping against all odds that the woman had solved the riddle.

He heard the phone conversation and was dismayed.

Trudy talked more and more hysterically on the phone, as the nanny could not wake the boy. He was still breathing but was as cold as ice. The nanny shook him but he would not wake. He was tensed up and had a grimace etched on his face.

Tracey frantically looked through the pages of the ledger looking for payments to an executioner. There were none. She thought of other names and executioner would be classified under. She tried hangman, punisher, assassin, nooseman, etc.

The child was no longer breathing and the nanny was doing resuscitation on the baby.

Tracey felt extreme rage sweep through her. She channeled the rage to the ledger and promised to herself that she would get this bastard. She took a deep breath and concentrated on the page. She read all the posts on the payroll. She consciously pictured what each post would encompass then would continue to the next one.

She hit one post that she could not picture. The post was called ‘Swing Operator’. It had to be him. "Daniel Gleen." Tracey said to the room. "It says here they paid a Daniel Gleen as a Swing Operator. That is our Hood!"

The ledger was ripped from her grasp and exploded into pieces. Tracey was picked up and hurled against the shelving on the far wall. Falling boxes and shelving battered her.

Trudy was blown across the table and flattened against the far wall. The last thing she heard before lapsing into unconsciousness was the screaming of her infant son now alive and breathing lustily.

Tracey crawled out of the debris and stood up shakily.

Bulwark recognized the name, "Dr. Daniel Gleen?"

He receives a forceful blow sending him skidding across the floor and smashing into other tables and chairs. He sat up and gulped in air, "The same Dr. Gleen that founded the county hospital and organized the medical guild."

Boxes were sent hurled off the shelves at bulwark but with significantly less force. Most did not reach bulwark. "The same Dr. Gleen that was a serving member of the Medical Association and a trusted and upstanding member of the community."

Doors and windows were rattling and banging.

"This was the man who would hide himself in a hood, smash the arms of defenseless prisoners and then break their necks with a hangman’s noose!"

The hall was quiet except for the falling of scattered papers and shifting boxes. The presence was no longer there and its weight was lifting from the building.


The huge pylons lifted the structure’s crossbeam above the treetops of Grove Park in the middle of the town. The hooks in the crossbeam were all that was left of the swing now. The groove left from the hangman’s noose could still be seen in the middle of the crossbeam and was often the attention of many tourists and visitors to the now infamous site of ‘The Hood.’

Bulwark had told his story to a journalist. The story held all the right ingredients for a ‘news’ story and so was plastered all over the news services. It became a morbid attraction for many people and visitors flocked in from around the country.

The council erected a platform where the old one had been and plaques have the full story of the structure and the history of the now infamous Dr. Gleen, The Hood.

Some people have sworn that they have seen the ghost of the Hood on the platform but that only amuses Bulwark. There is no more mystery surrounding the Hood and so he holds no more power. In fact, you could even look at it as he was now making amends for what he had done to the town.

The End