| He would look up
from his book in the playground to see the circle forming and the fingers pointing and so
the game would begin once more.One bright Tuesday lunchtime, Geoffrey sat contentedly in
the middle of the playing field with a notepad and his favourite pen. He drew shapes and
he wrote lists. He scribbled and shaded. He was far from the other children and he was
happy. He smiled as the pen arced across a clean new sheet of paper. This was going to be
a rainbow, he told himself. A black rainbow.But as he lifted the pen from the page, he
sensed that he was being watched. He raised his head. The circle was forming. “Poke Stokes! Poke Stokes! POKE STOKES!!!” came the criesWithin seconds, Stokes was surrounded. The girls and boys began to spin. Around and around, they ran. Chanting and laughing. And unthinking, he played his part in the game. Without a noise he stood up. Then the blows came. One by one he was jabbed by the little fingers. “Poke Stokes! Poke Stokes!”..He felt each finger pushing into him again and again.But this time something was different. After a dozen or so jabs, he felt something snap inside him, like a dry stick cracking under a heavy boot. He dropped the notebook to the floor and raised the shiny steel pen above his head and brought it down hard into the nearest face. The pen sank into the rosy cheek of a grinning girl. He lifted the pen again and lashed out once more, poking a boy straight in the eye. He jabbed again and again, striking into clothing and soft flesh repeatedly as the chanting turned to screams. In the short time before the children scattered, wailing and sobbing, Stokes had stabbed seven of his fellow pupils. When the teachers came, Geoffrey had disappeared and was never to be seen again.For years after the incident, unexplained red marks would appear on numerous school children while they were out on the playing field. Reports of some children acting ‘violent and possessed’ began to circulate around the local community and the school was eventually forced to close. On the last day before the closure, the tragic and unexplained death of eight year old Adrian Brown occurred. He was found in exactly the same spot that Geoffrey had disappeared from. The Chaplin Junior School in Yorkshire, England was closed in 1992 and remains derelict to this day. Many believe that the restless spirit of Geoffrey Stokes still haunts its playing fields, and so the legend goes, if you go to the playing field alone and repeat the phrase “Poke Stokes”, Geoffrey’s wrath will be unleashed upon you. by Matthew J Woods |
