The Ghoul of Christmas Past

made no sense to do so.’
The little boat meandered along the narrow river as he talked. His air was that of a tour guide though he wasn’t saying anything about what they were seeing to the left and right. It was Mary’s first visit to the park. Though she was a fan of Dickens, she was not a fan of theme parks in general and it had not once occurred to her to visit. Now, looking about, she suspected she had missed out. Inside the attraction, an entire story was being told, scene by scene, and the scenery and figures were incredible.
Norton continued to prattle on. ‘Those three idiots sitting in the boat with you ruined years of planning just because they got nervous. The park was close to losing money and what it required was fresh investment.’ He made a fist and sneered as he claimed, ‘We could have made this into Disney World. I invested the budget for new attractions into buying adjacent properties. The derelict buildings around us are all ours; the park could have grown in footprint by almost a thousand percent. Sure, there wouldn’t be any profit for several years, maybe even a decade, but then what? Each of you damned fools would have been billionaires.’
Norton paused for a moment to check his position. ‘Ah, here we are. Excuse me for just a moment, won’t you?’
He got no response but wasn’t expecting one. Mary watched him hop off the boat and jog forward a few paces to a projector set up behind a wall. As the boat drew level with him, he stepped back on and the projector came to life, shooting a picture onto a wall ahead of them. ‘You’ll have to excuse the crudity of my equipment. I was unable to secure the funds to buy all the things I needed. Apparently, banks do not give loans to people without jobs.’ He said it with an angry growl, his remark aimed at the shareholders as they huddled, quivering in the boat.
Norton turned so he was facing away from them and looking at the images on the screen. ‘Here you see the park as I envisaged it.’ He continued to talk as the screen displayed a number of 3D images. Mary was no longer listening; she was trying to build up the courage to do what needed to be done. The ghoul was supposed to tie her bindings to a lashing point in the floor, one which had been added specially for this one trip; Norton didn’t want his captives getting out. In his haste to obey Norton’s command to kill Michael, the lashing point was forgotten, and Mary had draped her skirt so it could not be seen.
She could rise from her seat and attack him, but her hands were tied behind her back so whatever she did, she would only get one shot at it. Nervously, she watched and waited.
The current carried the boat past the projected images and onward. Norton’s voice was becoming a drone to Mary, she was tuning it out, but when he suddenly switched emotion and shouted at the people in the boat she heard him.
He raged at them, ‘You all ruined my plans for this place, and now I get to have my revenge by ruining your plans for life. You all thought you were cleverer than me, but that’s not the case, is it? You’ll all be dead soon; the plunge is right around the next bend.’
Behind their gags, the shareholders all whimpered and they thrashed against the bindings set into the base of the boat which made it rock. It made Mary feel a little queasy, which almost made her chuckle: getting seasick on a theme park ride. What would her husband, the former sailor, make of that?
‘I had to rig explosives, of course. They’ll go off before you get to them, so you know at that point that you’ve got only a few seconds left to live. I imagine it will be quite the ride though, just the sort of thing I would have added to the expanded park if you hadn’t all been so blind.’
Norton, despite his outburst a few moments ago, was enjoying himself. It was almost done. Soon the shareholders would be dead, the interfering busybodies too and then he would have to kill the ghoul. His brow knitted. Where was the ghoul? Killing Michael Michaels should have been a moment’s work. Why hadn’t he returned? Inside the ride, he couldn’t hear what might be occurring elsewhere in the building. Nor could he see what was beyond the inside of the attraction.
Feeling a little perplexed, and knowing that he was now short on time, he chose to reveal the biggest secret he’d ever kept.
‘Do you want to know what happens to me after all this? After they get my call and come to rescue the one remaining survivor among the wreckage? Well, I’m glad I get to tell you because this is the best part. The dust will settle, but not before I get my face splashed all over the headlines: the tragic hero who killed a monster. It’s not Kevin’s fault – that’s his name, Kevin – he was born like that. I found him on the internet. He worked at a circus in Blackpool where they used him as a strong man act. He’s good like that. You tell him to pick something up and he’ll do it. Even if it looks impossible to lift. Anyway, the bit these idiots in the boat don’t know is that I caught the museum curator selling artefacts on the black market.’
His revelation made all three of the shareholders stop their struggling for a second. Even behind the gag, Mary was able to understand when Elizabeth asked, ‘Really?’
Norton understood her too. ‘Yes, really. I wondered if he had debt, or perhaps gambling issues or something, but I believe