San George, from where the sun rises every morning to light up the eastern sector of the earth had been plagued with silence for the last twenty years. The closest city to it, Flourish-Orwell is the direct opposite. Dwellers in the latter had been having a good time as business flourishes and industries are sites here. Before the period of dead silence, the city of San George had been the commercial hub of the whole region with the largest and most beautiful amusement park, chocolate factories, and academy.
Every October, children in San George had fun with the carnival where they carry dragon head costumes with another celebration regalia through the streets. Old and young participate alike in this carnival. The Irish traditional music is played in the streets and old men lead the dancers. It was fun watching them.
All that has gone down the drain now as dead silence has enveloped the city that once beamed with light of excitement and productive activity. While the silence lasts, Flourish-Orwell house the best shops around the hemisphere, the biggest amphitheater where most Shakespearean playlet is staged. In the beginning, it was not so. Both cities are beautiful to watch.
Before silence took over, San George first hosted the first bush baby intrusion tales as reported by some witnesses. A demon possesses some dwellers and torments them with some kind of strange behavior after which they die and after a few days resurrected. The syndrome took over the city of San George during the period.
The resurrected casualties started spreading the demons and many more dwellers got infected. The Mayor and other stakeholders started seeking a way out to secure the city before the carnival but to no avail. It became a stigma against San George, dwellers began to leave for other cities around, especially Flourish-Orwell.
The Search
Some art students who were studying the history of the region stumbled on the history of San George in a book written by Professor Pella. The book tells of a curse laid on San George by Bishop Murphy on Halloween carnival Eve, who was wrongly accused of manipulating the people. Hence, he was banished from the community. Then an argument ensued between the students who had opined on searching the truth:
Morrison: Hey guys, I feel something is wrong. Like, how would an almost perfect city turn to a ghost town overnight?
Sandra: I feel things may just be out of place. Who knows if the trend just changed.
Harriet broke in saying:
Other cities around too had fallen into the same circumstances before too. It could be just that some things were not done following the trends.
Morrison: I heard my father saying that San George had the best facilities around here. So, that point of changing trends does not align with this dead silence.
As the search for the truth continued, another book in the public library, dusty, probably haven't been touched or read for a very long time, Morrison, one of the students, sneaked it out from the library and read the whole one hundred and eighteen pages overnight. What he found was quite shocking:
Bishop Murphy was humiliated by thugs hired by some worthless fellows in San George. Around 1:00 am, they dragged him by his priestly robe out of San George with injuries deep enough to kill him. At the exit point from San George, they asked him to leave.
While all the thugs had gone into the dark street, the Bishop turned in his turmoil and came back to San George, shave off all his hair in agony, and buried it under the labyrinth tree by the amusement park then left having laid a curse or demons to infest San George residents after making an enchantment
That night, Morrison angered the resting demons by reading out the enchantment made by the Bishop and they came back alive,entering humans and the occurrence of twenty years ago started afresh. It was a night that the students will not forget in a hurry.
Harriet put a call across to Mirabel:
Strange noises everywhere. Can you find anyone of such at your end?
Mirabel: I am under the duve as we speak. The demons are out on rampage again. Or do you call it a replica, or another thing entirely?
When this had gotten out of hand, the whole city came under siege of demons, seven days to the carnival. Morrison had no choice but to contact his research friends and finally the police.
Detective Boris after the report told the students that nothing of such existed.
Detective Boris: Is this some bias research or what?
Mirabel: With due respect sir, this thing exits and as a resident of this city, an adult who had lived here for quite a while, you should know better.
Detective Boris: The law does not respect any such act. We only work with evidences and what can be seen.
Morrison read the part where the Bishop had shaved his hair and laid a curse on San George. The only solution now seemed to excavate the hair and appease the soul of the Bishop. Since no one believed the legend, the students took it upon themselves to dig up the hair. This they did for two days. In the end they find the hair and made appeasement.
In furtherance of their search, they found that the police Detective Boris and a host cowboys from the east of San George were the brain behind the thugs who traumatized the Bishop. He was from Flourish-Orwell and had wanted the development of the city whitewashed, so he conspired against the Bishop.
Delay is dangerous. So, the set out to employ the services of a dredging company with the permission of the councillor. When the digging started, Morrison and the others stayed glued to every particle that was dug up. But there was no traces of human hair. So, the resolved that they will pick the sand allover again but carefully this time.
On that second day, the demons disappeared from the city and relative peace returned to San George.
This year carnival was the best in terms of turn out and jubilation that rocked the city, many thanks to the history students who unraveled the mystery behind the dead silence in San George.
After the carnival, normal life returned to San George as investors in entertainment, farms, educations and manufacturing industries started trooping back the Sam George.
This work is submitted to the @Theinkwell prompt #37. Read the rules to the prompt @ Jack-O-Lantern