Carnival of Souls 2004
Spirits, spirits, from the other side!
Let this mortal body serve as your guide!
Appear before us in your spectral shroud
I give the dead voice, now speak ye, aloud!
The Carnival of Souls has always been a point of curiosity for spirit seekers, mystics, and mediums. For the safety of the public, its location (and even existence, when possible) was covered up by those unfortunate people who had encountered it.
But the terrifying events of 2003 had made their way into the general public, and 2004 saw a horde of brave - or perhaps foolhardy - individuals who came to see the ghostly carnival for themselves. With well over three hundred people gathering in that lonely spot, the carnival shimmered into view with a strength heretofore unseen.
Previously, the presence of the departed had manifested itself as a breeze in a closed room, a chill running down your spine, or your skin suddenly crawling along your arms. But this year, the dead appeared directly!
The Crypt
The first sign of extranatural activity was the crumbling edifice that thrust its way up out of the ground in the middle of the night. We walked out to see what it was, and were shocked to discover it was a crypt!
But the real surprise would come at night, when we glanced inside and saw the haunting form of a shrouded ghost beckoning to us from within! The otherworldly shade glowed with a vibrant blue light, and its ghostly motion transfixed us until our horror overcame us, and we fled.
(You can recreate this spooky effect yourself.)
The Seance
At first, we thought we were the first to notice the presence of visible spirits, but Madame Sarita, the talented spirit medium, had discovered it, too, and was determined to contact the spirits of the Carnival that night when it appeared.
She set up her gypsy tent nearby, and we heard her murmuring her mystic incantations through the lonely flapping tent canvas. Before long, our curiosity got the better of us, and we went in.
Once inside, we came to understand Sarita's purpose: to discern nothing less than the origin of the Carnival! Eager to learn the result, we stayed as she performed her ritual. It would cost us much of our sanity, for that night, we saw not a single ghost, but many, and we had a brush with a specter so vile and evil that not even death had mellowed him : Marius Blackwood.