Starring...







and...


as the just plain metaphysically sensitive co-host




The year was 1897 and the notorious ax murderer Sammy "the Chop" Henderson had just been sent up the river Stour to the infamous Tinkerton Gaol in Sussex, England, loudly protesting his innocence every step of the way while nevertheless threatening his captors with "a few good chops" of their own, if they didn't let him go at once. So violent were his protestations that the half-dozen guards on hand were forced to thrash him repeatedly with their truncheons during the entire five-mile walk to jail. Things briefly got so bad that the guards were forced to invite local villagers to lend a hand by pelting the prisoner with stones (and they even let the rustics wield the truncheons themselves for 5 minutes at a time for a then-reasonable payment of 50p). Finally, the still-untamed victim of this assault arrived at his new dismal home. During the next five years, he was to instigate a reign of terror inside the prison that is still remembered today by the knuckle-biting ancestors of the inmates and warders of the time.




His infamous acts of petty despotism at "The Old Tink" (as it was then known) included stealing the prison-supplied sandwiches of his fellow prisoners, surreptitiously shoving colleagues in the back when queuing up for the daily exercise hour, and rudely clanging his metal prison cup against the bars of his cell at all hours of the night, singing an obviously disingenuous and off-key version of "Danny Boy." ("Oh, Danny Babe, the pipes are callin', ya dig it, sweetheart?") Resentment grew among his cellmates, until one day Sammy made the mistake of stealing a prisoner's shirt, dousing it in the latrine, and swinging it over his head triumphantly, shouting: "Oi, Bozo, come and get your shirt, ya rat-fink! Heh heh!" Of course, by then Sammy had prosecuted this same stunt a hundred times with impunity, for no one dared confront him for his appalling lack of consideration for his fellows. But this time Sammy had gone too far: he had stolen the shirt of Rennie "the Knife" Wilbursmith, the one Tinkerton inmate more sinister than Sammy himself.




No one's sure precisely what happened on that fatal day in response to Sammy's brazen mistreatment of the pilfered garment, but the next morning at sunup when Warden Clarence Smith went on his usual rounds, he stopped in horror in front of cell number 42: There was Sammy "the Chop," chopped up now in his own right, lying in a muddy pool of blood, his callused right hand still clasping his latest (and, alas, last) copy of the year-end special edition of "Prison Life" magazine, no doubt stolen from the warden's office during Sammy's latest visit there, for he was eternally being ushered into Chief Willowby's personal chambers on an almost daily basis for yet another well-deserved bollicking.

Fast-forward 110 years:

The prison has long-since been closed down and turned into a struggling museum propped up of necessity for now by government subsidies (in light of which, please stay tuned to the closing credits for a mailing address to which you can send your tax deductible donations). But besides the financial shortfalls, this so-far poorly received tourist attraction in Sussex has another problem: No night watchman that they've ever hired has stayed in the job for more than one night, and most have even left in the middle of that first evening, complaining of strange noises as of inmates griping about stolen sandwiches, metallic cups clanging against prison bars, and even a distant off-key voice singing (or rather making a discordant mockery of) "Danny Boy," with improvised lyrics that might have prematurely blanched the hair of a brothel keeper.




Are the rumors true? Is Tinkerton Jail really haunted by the century-old ghost of Sammy "the Chop" Henderson?

I'm Skippy Hazleton.

Tonight we find out the truth, as I take our renowned team of psychic experts for "a walk on the haunted side" in "the Old Tink"!




The sun was just setting over Belchamp St. Paul as the nearby Stour River continued its time-honored and lazy way between the quiet hamlet of Plucks Gutter and the coastal estuary of Pegwell Bay: A beautiful sight, but one that the inmates of Tinkerton Jail no doubt rarely saw thanks to the lack of almost any windows in this daunting castle-like structure, originally built by Henry VIII as a military blockhouse to defend against the then-disturbingly frequent invasions of the French. How ironic that the real threat here almost 500 years later would prove to be from the building itself, this towering dungeon-keep with pretensions to castellated architecture, but so mewed up with fortress-like accouterments as to virtually scream the words "KEEP OUT!" to the passing mariners, from the bottom of its now-dried-up moat to the top of its now-toppling turrets. If the stories of the constantly resigning night watchmen were true, the ghost of Sammy "the Chop" Henderson walked its dark, desolate halls nightly, in an eternal quest for vengeance.

With me tonight are British clairvoyant Yvonne Wooster, a locally renowned tarot card reader and president of the Occult Society of Norwich, and Baxter Pauley, a Ouija-board-certified part-time Ghostbuster from Leeds. They're here to help me get to the bottom of these alleged strange goings-on.

What follows is a largely unedited transcript of our knuckle-biting sojourn through "the Old Tink"!

Okay, Baxter, why don't you open this door?


Oh, that's a door? It blends right in with the rest of the brick facade.


Obviously nobody but staff was meant to be coming and going in THIS building.


Shhh! Did you hear that?


What?!


It sounded like a strange trickling noise....


Oh, sorry: I think that was my stomach. I haven't had a thing to eat today on account of my heavy Ghostbusting schedule.


Baxter!


But here, I've got the door opened now.


Well? Why is everybody looking at me? After YOU, Baxter!


Oh, no: Ladies first. Yvonne, please: After you.


Men! They're such cowards. Okay, come on, gang, I'll go first. (Honestly!)




ALL THREE: aaaaaaAH!


What was that??!


I heard it, too! It was a definite THUMP!


Uh, guys: I think I just stubbed my toe on some bricks here by misjudging the height of these apparent steps that we're walking on. Can someone hit the lights? This is not EVEN safe.


Here, let me turn on my green LED flashlight.





There we go. And there was light!


aaaaaaH!


What is it, Baxter???!


I just saw a horrible face! There! Right over there!!!!


That's ME, you idiot! Now, Yvonne, would you get that child's toy out of my face and keep walking?!


Sorry, but you looked a real fright in that green light, especially the way your eyes lit up like that, you know, like cat's eyes.


Quite. Now watch your step, guys: This seems to be a winding staircase.


Yes. According to my research, this is the path to the cell block on the second floor where Sammy "the Chop" was, well... chopped.


Live by the chop, die by the chop, I suppose.


I'm picking up a feeling...


Yes, Baxter?


Oh, God! Oh, no... No, God! No....


What's eating you?


Did Sammy himself ever walk these stairs?


He'd have to have done so, since the jail mess hall was on the first floor.


That explains it, then.


Explains what?


I'm getting these weird feelings...


Can you describe them?


I... I hear a voice...


Whose voice? What is it saying?



Oh, God! It's the voice inside Sammy's head!


What is it saying?




All: aaaaaaaaaaAH!


He doesn't like us talking about him.


It's saying.... "Must kill.... Must kill.... Must definitely kill.... Now... where did I put that.... axxxxxx?"


What? "Where did I put that ax?" Are you sure he said that?


If I'm lyin', I'm dyin', all right?


Come on, we'd better hoof it to cell 42 before Baxter here is overpowered by the voice inside Sammy's mind.


Cell 42?


Yes. The one in which Sammy was apparently sliced to pieces at the instigation of (if not by the very hands of) Rennie "the Knife" Wilbursmith.




Guys, can we stop the tape for a second: I've really got to tinkle!


Oh, now, Baxter. Now we're going to have to edit this tape when we get back.


What's wrong with saying tinkle? It's a normal body function.


Toddlers tinkle, dude. Grown men, well, they piss.


They piss, do they?


And what's more, they give God thanks and shut up about it. "Tinkle!" says he. The BBC practically invites us to swear until we're blue in the face, and all he can come up with is 'tinkle'!


From now on I'll say 'piss,' all right? Jeez.


From now on, just 'hold it' until the cameras stop rolling.


Hold it?


Of course. When was the last time you saw David Attenborough stop in the middle of a nature special to ANSWER the call of nature?


Point taken.


You don't see Scarlett O'Hara telling the furious Rhett Butler to "hold that thought" while she visits the little girls' room.


All right, all right. Sheesh!



All: Aaaaaaah!!!!!!!!!





aaaaaaAH!


What was THAT? ( and THAT? and THAT? )


It sounded like a thud followed by a thump.


And did you hear the thwack at the end of it? That was weird!


Well, at least we're in the second floor hallway now, judging by the welcomed termination of that seemingly endless staircase.


SPIRAL staircase you mean, on account of I'm now suddenly dizzy and disoriented.


Oh. You mean that's not your NORMAL condition, Yvonne? Hee hee!


Baxter!!!!


Sorry. I couldn't resist.


Keep moving --





Oh, God, another thwack. Baxter, are you picking up anything, voice-wise, in this hallway?


No. But I feel... suddenly very angry.....


Once and for all, Baxter, I told you that the BBC simply can't afford to pay you one pence more than 100 pounds for your presence here tonight!


No, I'm no longer angry about that -- I've resigned myself to my wretched financial plight, at least for the time being.


Then what are you angry about?


I'm not personally angry -- but I'm channeling someone else's anger...


Whose? Whose?


Whose? Whose?


Here, let me channel their voice... "My shirt... I am... angry... about... my... shirt."


He's angry about his shirt?


Of course! That's why Rennie "the Knife" stabbed Sammy in the first place! Remember? Sammy brazenly swished Rennie's shirt back and forth in the latrine (I can hear him now: "back and forth, back and forth, we wash the little clothes-ies...") probably scrunching the shirt up into a ball at some point and possibly even stomping it down with his foot for good measure (take THAT, SHIRT!) just to make sure that the apparel would be the incarnation of putrescence (the epitome of filth itself!) upon its ultimate removal from the unholy soup, at which point, it's probably a given that Sammy thrust the now-supremely minging abomination triumphantly in the air, crying, "Check it out, guys: I've cleaned Rennie's shirt for 'im, see? Heh heh heh!"







Hey, don't look at me: I'm just reading my cue cards.


Sounds like that newly hired script writer must be a seriously frustrated novelist.


Oh, I don't know: I thought it was rather good prose, myself. True, it was massively "out of place," stylistically speaking, but still...




Wait a sec: I thought Sammy was chopped up when he was found by the Chief Warder.


So?


You just said he was stabbed.


Stabbed, chopped: It's much the same.


No, it isn't!


Well, it could be.


How do you mean?


Well, if you had majored in the philosophy of linguistics like (ahem!) yours truly....


Oh, boy, here we go.


...you'd realize that, at least in certain excessively violent cases such as the one of which we are surely speaking, the connotation of the word "stabbing" could encompass the idea of extreme mutilation and violence normally adverted to as "chopping."


What? So Sammy was chopped up with a knife?





Who went to university, Baxter: You or me?


You, of course.



Well, then allow me to know a few things in this life then, okay?




All: aaaaaaH!


Baxter, please, tell me that was you!


Yes, please, Baxter: tell us it was just your stomach sounding very hungry indeed!


If only it were, guys. If only it were. But it seemed to be coming from this cell right here.


Oi! Yvonne. Stop mindlessly shining that green light at your boots and point it at the cell to your left. For god's sake!


Okay! Okay! You don't have to get snippy about it.


Oh, sorry.


I know it's getting late, but still....


That's weird: That tone of voice was so UNLIKE me. I myself must be coming under the malignant influence of this place.


Whatever. Just do try to keep a civil tongue in your head from now on.


Hey, look at that. Here, let me wipe this plaque off -- there's a number under here.


What's that, 45? 43?




All: 42!!!!!!!!!


Finally. We're here at the prison cell where Sammy "the Chop" Henderson met his fearful comeuppance.


Where he was stabbed, you mean?


Don't you mean chopped?


He was killed very sloppily, okay? Let's leave it at that.






All: aaaaaaaaaaaaaaAH!


This is more than my
job's worth to be in here!


Baxter! Where are you? Yvonne dropped the light!


Oi! Hands off, buster!


It's not me!



Which of you two just ran your apparently rough and calloused fingers through my admittedly voluptuous hair?!


Madame, please! I was across the hall when the lights went out.


Oh, yeah? Doing what?


If you must know, I was mentally canvassing the propriety of running for my bloody life!


As for me, Yvonne, I don't even swing that way, girlfriend. (Humph!)


Well, if it wasn't you, Baxter... and it wasn't you, Skippy....

All: aaaaaaAH!


This place must be TRULY HAUNTED! EXIT STAGE RIGHT!!!!!

All: aaaaaaAH!


I'm too young to be stabbed!


Or chopped!


Or both!!!!!!







And so, for the first time in the history of this television program, our entire crew was forced to flee from the building that we had come to research. What was it about the atmosphere of that ancient prison that so appalled us? The noise, perhaps? Our team of experienced Ghostbusters had heard plenty of weird sound effects like that in the past. Indeed, the building probably should have been less frightening than usual as we had encountered no mysteriously moving objects in it, no dancing chairs, no floating sets of jailer keys, no disembodied boots pacing up and down before us as if to show us the way to some significant center of spiritual activity. Yet the ambience of the place "in toto" was pure gallows -- a hellish aura which seemed, in retrospect, to have grown evermore pronounced as we made our way ever closer to cell 42, where, indeed, the influence became so overwhelming, that we were finally forced to flee lest we be driven crazy by the psychic hatred emanating thence. (Mercy on us!) Yvonne was right: It was more than any of our jobs were worth to hang around any longer -- especially Baxter's job, since, as has been noted above, he was only getting a one-time payment of 100 pounds on the day and would have no monetary interest in future royalties from either syndication or reruns. In short, the final score was Prison 1, Ghostbusters 1 (since we definitely deserve a point merely for showing up in this case!)


But don't worry: If the network renews this show for a second season, we will be back next year for the rubber game of the match -- and it will be a real grudge-fest, I assure you! No haunted premises kick Skippy Hazelton out and lives to gloat about it! So join us next time when we get our second wind, spiritually speaking, and take the fight directly to the demons here at Tinkerton Jail. Things may look bleak for us now, but come back and see if we don't kick some serious mystical butt!