C&S' World of Weird

[Typhus]

 

[Typhus]

 

The Bacon King and his Golf-Club Massacre!

 

 

Hey there C&S'! Long time reader, first time writer.

I know that you've heard a LOT of crank theories and stories with no proof to back them up. But mine actually has some truth behind it. And it concerns the long forgotten "Bacon King" of Efforwich; Mr. Eddie Ginger.

Eddie Ginger is not a composite character, he is not a fabricated boogey man or a man I pulled out of my arse. If you care to research these things you will know that Eddie (Born 1945, Died 1993) inherited the family business once his father died. Ginger Farms made pork products and sold them on to butcher shops around Dryeton, these were business relationships that went back for decades. Ginger, Coberg, Savini and Roth, all these people dealt with each other and enjoyed mutual prosperity.

But by the time Eddie took things over Efforwich was changing. Small businesses were being crushed by the big corporations, it was a world that seemed to be moving too fast and many were swept away.

But Eddie seemed to be doing relatively well, he was affectinately knowns as "The Bacon King" by the local press and at one point had enough money to try and run for Mayor. He was well liked, the kind of man you looked up to, a good natured fellow who would accept your greetings with a courteous tip of his hat.

"Oh, he was a great actor all right." His ex-wife, Julia, told reporters after the incident. "If you saw him on the street he could be the most charming man you ever met but behind closed doors he was very different. Very angry. Only a few people ever saw the real Eddie Ginger."

 

The remains of Ginger Farms are not a place you'd want to visit at night, it's deeply unnerving to walk through the grounds and be left with nothing but the sound of your own footprints. You can't help but wonder who else is there, are you suddenly going to be attacked by some tramp who's made the place his home? Or perhaps encounter someone much, much worse?. It consists of a miniscule yellow house, a large slaughterhouse and a loading bay. All of this is surrounded by a crumbling brick wall that must have been a lot taller and a lot more imposing back in the day. But now it's worm eaten. The tree in the centre of the grounds (More on that later) had no leaves even in Spring. You know what it's like? A plate of half eaten food. All gravy-stained clumps of potatoe and strips of meat leaving a trail of juice behind them. It's a dirty, leaking mess.

When I looked in the slaughterhouse I found, to my very vocal disgust, that the hooks and knives were covered with the blood of the last pig to be gutted here.

I had to remind myself that his victims were never dragged into this dull, cancerous abbatoir.

This place was not suddenly abandoned, the employees didn't just run away, it was a gradual descent. One day they just stopped caring, they got sloppy, their ship was sinking and everyone knew it. With these falling standards it was just a matter of time until the authorities got involved.

 

The truth was that despite the brave face he put on things Eddie Ginger was running out of time. His business was failing, the high standards Ginger Farms had prided themselves on were slipping away and at some point in 1992 a formal investigation began after several cases of food poisoning were reported. But to Mr. Ginger it was a clear cut case of discrimination. He had always had a tenuous relationship with the city council and had long complained that they were picking on him and other small businessmen.

"He used them as a scapegoat I think." Said former employee Perry Moore. "Even though he did nothing to make his business better and more compliant with regulations he still blamed the council for all his misfortunes. We could all hear him in his office, screaming and swearing at them over the phone. He was a nice guy sometimes but I think he was paranoid to the core."

Even his closest friends, who he would play golf with every Sunday, remembered his vendetta against local authorities.

"We'd meet up every Sunday to play some golf and shoot the breeze. But towards the end he would keep going on about an inspection. 'Jimmy, Jimmy, they're gonna' close me down', he always said that but we just passed it off as Eddie being Eddie. He had a habbit of being a little dramatic sometimes and we just thought he was blowing the whole thing out of proportion."

But what his friends didn't know, what nobody in Efforwich knew, was that the Bacon King would go to insane lengths to protect his kingdom.

 

The inspection was scheduled for a foggy November afternoon. For the three health inspectors the sight of Ginger

 

engulfed in dancing wisps of fog must have been very disconcerting. They were alone and could barely see where they were walking or, worst of all, who was walking towards them.

They communicated with their superiors by radio but it was little comfort, Ginger was supposed to meet them at the gates but he was nowhere to be found. And now they had to grope their way through the dense grey smoke and find out where he was holed up.

What they didn't realise was that Eddie Ginger was watching them from his little yellow house, glaring out from an upstairs window. They were at the tree, it seemed as though they were walking around in circles.

"This fog is making things impossible," one inspector complained, "we should really come back tommorow or something."

They called out again and again.

"Hello? We're here from the council! Is anyone here?"

But Eddie Ginger had sent his workers home, this was his hunting ground, he wanted to be alone. No one knew he had a rifle, he had been keeping it under his bed, and now he was going to put it to good use. He had often confided in his friends that he wanted to shoot up city hall, they thought he had been joking. Now though was the chance to make his grusome mark. They were tresspassing, they were hounding him and looking to bring him down.

The inspectors heard a strange jangling sound, like glass being broken. None of them realised that Eddie had smashed a pannel of the window and was now pointing his gun straight at them, intending to slaughter them all.

He pulled the trigger four times, the sound echoing above all else, above the whistling of the wind, above the tender song of the windchimes outside his front door, above even the spluttering cries of agony from his unfinished victims.

He hadn't killed any of them, they were just in a heap, swearing into their radios and clutching their leaking wounds, trying to stand but finding their knees suddenly unable to support their weight. But this wasn't poor shooting, he just wanted them immobile for what he planned next.

He took his favourite golf club, a nine iron his wife had gotten him on their last anniversary together, and sauntered towards the health inspectors, representatives of his most hated enemy.

The radio picked up his mocking, high pitched voice.

"My farm!" He decared. "My business, my family, my right! Look at you now, eh? Just look at you now! Council maggots, council lice, trying to rob a man of his living. I ought to smack you one, I should smack you one."

And that is exactly what he did.

With fifty strokes he battered them to death, squealing all the while, The Bacon King squealing like a pig.

 

Officially Eddie Ginger died that day, the police claiming that he shot himself after the golf club massacre. It was just the usual business, horrific yes, but horribly run-of-the-mill. Man gets angry, man butchers whole bunch of people, man kills self. But there were a number of oddities surrounding the case that were never addressed.

Where was his body? Why was Ginger Farms not demolished? Why was a gag order placed on the local press to give the story only minimal coverage?

Detractors will tell you that there are perfectly reasonable explainations for all these questions. Eddie was cremated in private, no one wanted to build on the land, the police didn't want to inspire any copycat killings.

But what if maybe, just maybe, things were not as they seemed?

Whilst researching this issue I ploughed through the darkest recesses of the world wide web. I searched and searched and searched. Few people had heard of Farmer Eddie and there were even fewer articles on the actual event. But the most interesting source turned out to be from New York City. It was a blog by someone who came down to these parts to visit some relatives.

He claimed that an old man still lived in the house and summarised that 'some old dude lives there, he killed some people in the 1990s, now he ties cans to his tree and takes shots at you if you try and take one.'

Ludicrous? Nonsense? Lies?

Sure, if you ignore the fact that the dead tree at Ginger Farms does indeed have numerous tin cans tied to the branches.

Suffice to say that I wasn't rushing to take a swig of Mr. Gingers Dr. Pepper.