Since I have such a huge collection of stories, I figure, why not share? If I can't tell my SD.net friends a good couple of classic ghost stories on Halloween, what *can* I do? Read in the dark if you can. You just can't get chills in broad daylight.
Different people have different layers of personal space. This board is a good example of that. You can be close to someone here without violating your personal space. That's marvelous to hear in modern, liberated, let's-have-sex-on-the-first-date America. Some people, of course, don't have a problem with physical closeness. You've seen these people. They touch each other a lot and their conversations are filled with little noises of affirmation. I say good for them. The rest of us, however, don't always appreciate an unwanted grasp. But that's why we have a punitive legal system. You can lobby, protest, harass, and theaten to sue the pants off, so to speak, of anyone who looks at your brassiere the wrong way. But who do you appeal to when you can't avoid the grasp of something that doesn't feel threatened by lawsuits and prison? Certain politicians cry for tough laws to punish people who can't keep their hands to themselves. But try asking them to come to your house and use their moral superiority to threaten a ghost. Then again, maybe a politician isn't the best friend to have on your side during a chilling supernatural event...
Cold Hands
Not all ghosts are dangerous. Not all are even scary, by some accounts. The ambiguousness of some hauntings are such that people confuse physical nerve jostlings and the like with the caress of a supernatural entity. There is a supposedly true story about a ghostly feeling far worse than that.
Don't shed a tear
or Old Man Fear
will grab your ear
and eatcha.
- Children's poem told by Pennsylvania miners in the 1880's
In the early part of the century a young man by the name of Clarence Walsh was working in the mines in Pennsylvania. He was an immigrant to America and, like many such then, could find no better employment. Working conditions in the coal mines were awful. In the days before the labor unions were formed, men lived terrible lives in the mines. There were virtually no safety measures taken to ensure the safety of the workers. Often workers were very young boys. Usually there was a company store and a company shantytown nearby, where workers could buy the things they needed to live on company credit. If they were paid at all, they made horrible wages. All of the mines were looked over by the powerful mine bosses.
If there was any hint of resistance or protest at their conditions, men were roundly fired and in some cases troops would be called in to suppress the riots. To further their ills, there were often secret societies of men, such as the famed Molly Maguires, dedicated to violence and terror to further the cause of the poor workers. These groups organized accidents, thefts, and murder on mine bosses who oppressed the miners. In turn, the mine bosses planted spies among the workers. None ever knew who was a terrorist and who was a company spy. Collapses were frequent and those that survived the mines were usually cursed to die of the dreaded black lung disease. But yet they did the hardest, roughest work of the nation, and at least were free men.
This was the world into which Clarence Walsh put himself.
He was not, at first, truly acclimated to life in the mines. He was a better-bred man than the usual fare of the mines, and at first there was much distrust of him for the way he dressed, that he might be a company spy. What was particularily unusual about a man working in the mines was that he could both read and write. He was nothing if not persistant and honest, though. After a little time, however, a small few of the men warmed up to him and they became friends.
Clarence, of course, had no knowledge of what life was like in the mines, so he asked his friends as much as he could. They told him about the terrorists, and the mine bosses, and the company store, and things that he would need to stay alive long in the mines. Eventually, Clarence met a pair of men, named only in his journal as Patrick and Ethan. They spent what free time they had together.
One night, they had been assigned to an older tunnel, in Shaft 4, where they had apparently struck an especially hard vein. They were being pressured and threatened by the bosses to continue into the late night, but by the stroke of eleven, most of the men had cleared out of the tunnels. Clarence, unused to this deep, old section of the mines, asked why the men were so eager to get out.
It was Patrick who responded, all the while gathering up his tools to leave. "The mines are always a dangerous place, lad, and we go where we must, but none with any sense inside of him stays in Stewart's tunnel past midnight."
"Stewart's tunnel?" asked Clarence.
"Aye. Old Stewart MacLaren, who died a hunted man right here in the earth." whispered Ethan.
Ethan told Clarence about the story of Stewart MacLaren, a man who'd been a member of a group of terrorists known as the Molly Maguires. Little is known today about the Mollies, except that they were a terrorist group of Irish bandits and mine workers who used murder and subertfuge to fight the mine bosses. It was said that Stewart, a long time mine worker, had raped and killed the daughter of a mine boss on orders from the Mollies. It was also said that he did not. Stewart himself protested that he was innocent. However, there was no defense against an accusation from the rich bosses and he had no useable alibi. So when they came to arrest him, knowing that he was as good as hanged, he fled.
Stewart had been a desperate man. He killed one man who tried to stop him and plunged into the mines late at night. Once down there, he destroyed as many of the lights and torches as he could find. By the time the authorities had word that he'd entered the mines, he'd plunged a good part of the mines into darkness, including that section that Clarence and his friends now wanted to get out of. In blackness so total that not a hint of even the rocky wall could be seen, Stewart waited. A bull of a man who'd lived all his life in the darkness, he knew only that he had to wait out the authorities and flee, thinking that they'd not pursue him into the depths of the mines, where danger could collapse upon them from any direction.
Stewart had been wrong. With lamps, a group of hired men went into the mines that night to apprehend and kill Stewart MacLaren. None returned. No one knows how it happened, but it seemed that Stewart, waiting for them in the darkness, or else the men who were sent in, somehow triggered the collapse of a mine shaft, killing the posse and, they thought, killing or trapping Stewart inside. When the tunnel had been dug back out again and supported, workers found the remains of seven men who'd gone in after Stewart, but never found any trace of Stewart himself.
That was ten years back. Since then, men had reported odd things happening in the tunnels of Shaft 4. The greatest of these was something the men called the 'Cold Hands'. Men would be working in the mines late, and would feel something grab at them, their tools, or their clothes. A grasp as chill as ice. One miner reported that something had grabbed his wrist and held his arms at his side for several minutes. Another had told of something placing its hands on his shoulders and grasping him with chill claws. Still another bore bruises on his throat from where he swore an invisible thing with icy hands had tried to throttle him.
The men soon learned to stay out of the shaft late at night. Some nights they would desert the tunnels late, and come back the next morning to find that tools left behind had been tossed all about. And some men had found long, deep shapes like handprints pressed into the dust of the floors and walls. Clarence, too, left when the others left and never strayed too far from the lights. It was not out of any fear of any ghosts. It was pure common sense. A man alone could die in the mines if he wandered down the wrong path.
A month past. They were still cutting and blasting against the ends of Stewart's tunnel. Clarence became acclimated to life in the mines, came and went as the men did, saw tragedy and joys among the men who worked there. One night, however, something terrible happened. The men were getting themselves out of the mines at seven, others waited a little later. Clarence was among these. Ethan had already gone home that night, as had many others. Patrick and Clarence were about to leave when something shook the earth underneath them.
It seemed to the twenty or so men still in the tunnels as if the earth had tilted to the right. The next they knew, rock was pouring down on them from above. Most of the men were killed outright in the cave-in, buried under tons of rock. Others who had escaped on the far side of the collapse, ran off to the surface to find help to dig back in.
Clarence awoke with blood on his scalp and himself plunged into utter black. Only a single flame a few metres away lighted the cave. The wall ahead had collapsed, trapping Clarence, Patrick and one other miner in the end of the tunnel. The top and sides of the cave-in were still slightly open, but not enough so that a man could crawl through.
Patrick lay near the torch with the other miner. The unfortunate miner had a large rock that had crushed his leg below the knee and he whimpered in pain as Patrick tended to him.
"Lucky for us there's a bit of a hole there." said Patrick when he saw Clarence had awakened, "or else we'd soon run out of air."
Clarence mopped at his brow and queried, "Can we dig ourselves out?"
Patrick gave him a pitying look. "An you want to be the one to clear through this rubble with nothing but a shovel, yes. Look around; that's all we have that's not broken." Indeed, truth matched his assertion. "Just wait for the lads. We've got air in here and we can go a night without food. We'll just have to wait it out."
The three men huddled around the warmth of the torch and waited, Patrick trying his best to stem the flow of blood from the wounded man's leg. Clarence tried to remain calm, but was deeply frightened. As time wore on, Patrick knew the wounded man would not live to see the dawn if he did not recieve medical help. By the eleventh hour, that unfortunate miner had fallen unconsious and was bound to die.
Patrick and Clarence, still whole, knew there was nothing left to be done for him, said prayers over him, and determined to wait it out. Patrick was a little less upset. He was frightened, but had been in similar situations before and at least didn't panic. Poor Clarence was a bundle of nerves. Eventually Patrick declared that they had to extinguish their light, lest the fire burn up the oxygen faster than it could trickle in.
Clarence watched in horror as the last thing he saw that night was Patrick grimly beat the fire out against the rocks. For a while a mild glow came from the ashes, and both men sat close to each other and the air-bringing fallen wall. Then there came nothing.
To maintain their spirits, Patrick kept talking, urging Clarence to keep conversation with him so that he'd know that they both were alright. Clarence, of course, was shaken to death, fearing not only dying under rock, or being trapped in darkness with a corpse and near to no air, but also the thought that at any moment he might feel a pair of cold, long fingers touch his skin.
By one o'clock the next morning, men had begun to round themselves up to go in and save their co-workers. But the men in the tunnel had no way to know that. They sat in darkness so absolute that they could not even tell they were still alive could they not hear the pound of their hearts and the voices with which they talked to each other. Patrick stayed hopeful, asking questions to keep the younger man sane, reassuring him over and over that they'd be fine. Clarence responded with short comments and noises of affirmation, interjecting when he could with responses to Patrick's questions.
In the next few moments, the conversation continued as it had before:
"Don't you worry, lad," Patrick was saying, "Just a few more hours till dawn, and the men will be soon to rescue us."
"Umm-hmm."
"Stay awake, there. You don't want to nod off in a place like this."
"I won't."
"Is your head still hurting, lad?"
"No."
"How about that...uhh!"
The gasp came from Patrick's lips. Clarence waited a moment, listening for sounds of the larger man's movement. There was nothing. He could see absolutely nothing, not the nose on his face. And he could hear no more than his fluttering heart.
"Patrick?" Clarence called.
There was no answer. Clarence turned his head, called again, fearing that maybe a loose rock had tumbled down and struck him.
"Patrick?"
Nothing.
Worried, his breath coming in gasps, Clarence reached out to where he knew Patrick to be, to see if he were alright.
A first finger curled around his outstretched wrist. A second, then a third, then a fourth followed. Clarence screamed in terror, and a thumb rounded the wrist and completed the grasp and held him. Clarence tugged and shrieked and pulled and the grasp that held him in total darkness. Rising as best he could and shouting at the top of his lungs, he heaved backwards, fear lending him supernatural strength. At once, the thing's grasp tore free, and Clarence lunged into the darkness, running down the corridor. Almost a moment later he ran into a rock face in the utter nothingness of the dark mine. He righted himself, cowered against the wall, and waited. For moments, nothing happened. Then a chill wind sprang up and brushed past his face, then past his hands. It was a single wind, not a full breeze, that caressed his bare skin. A light weight, as if a hand lain down, touched Clarence's shoulder.
He took off again, no wind left to scream, all into running. He sprinted into the darkness, unable to see, unable to speak, only dreading the chill hands that he felt only steps behind him as he raced into the darkness of the mine shaft.
And tripped over the prone body of the unfortunate miner.
Clarence felt a cold wind creep up his back, long, spiraling fingers as cold as death reaching him. Just before the cold hands reached his throat, Clarence heard Patrick's voice yell out, and the cold hands suddenly retreated. There were sounds of a scuffle, but Clarence could see nothing.
In a blind panic, Clarence caromed headlong, struck his head solidly against the rock wall, and fell unconscious.
When Clarence awoke it was on a bed on the surface. A fellow miner's wife was tending to his head, which had been bruised and bloody. She smiled at him. Clarence's face flooded with horror as memories of where he'd been came back to him. He rose stiffly, demanded to know what had happened.
The miner's wife answered him. "Why, when the men dug back through, they found many of the dead lying twisted under the rocks. They eventually found you lying next to a man whose leg had been crushed. They thought you dead along with the others, but when you showed signs of breathing, they brought you here to be cared for."
"What of Patrick?" Asked Clarence. "He was with me in the mines most of the night when..." he could not repeat what he had felt and experienced. "...when we became separated in the darkness."
She looked at Clarence with a quizzical look. "Why, you must be mistaken. No one was found with you besides the one man."
Clarence insisted that she was wrong, that Patrick *had* been there, and related to her that it was because of him that Clarence had saved his sanity, and perhaps his life. To that she cut him off sadly. "No, you don't understand. Patrick could not have been with you. They found his body crushed under all those rocks. Poor Patrick must have been one of the first, to die."
Clarence fell onto his bed and wept.
Halloween stories!
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Lagmonster
- Master Control Program
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Halloween stories!
Note: I'm semi-retired from the board, so if you need something, please be patient.
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Lagmonster
- Master Control Program
- Posts: 7719
- Joined: 2002-07-04 09:53am
- Location: Ottawa, Canada
Do events leave a mark or impression on the place that they happened? Some people believe that they do. Others contend that ghost and spooks are merely impressions of things long gone, or events of the past that have left their imprint on a particular place or thing, rather than energies or conciousnesses of sentient beings. Since no one knows for sure, there is alwauys much speculation and searching, most of it based in faith and vague experience.
Nevertheless, some people believe that a prescence of evil or good is a tangible thing, able to effect the surroundings that they once inhabited as living people. In other cases, they say, such energies are merely imprints of emotions so strong that their feelings covered their home or the place of their death with a power or a blanket of their parting or living feelings, shall we say a mental residue of a life lived in emotional passion?
This is about such an impression. It is an old story too, such that few people truly recognize it in its roots, and has been lost in translation and in local legendry and folklore. This is how I heard the tale, and alas I have no dates or places, they have been lost in the sands and winds of antiquity:
The Red Mist
When you got right down to it, no one really liked Doctor Emmerson Brawn. it wasn't that he was a bad person. He never spoke ill of anyone, nor did he treat anyone unfairly. His skills were efficient and his practice clean and cheap. But there was something unmistakable about him; perhaps it was just that people felt uncomfortable in his presence.
The doctor ran a small practice out of his home, and for a long time was the only practice around town. As time wore on, the towns grew and eventually became incorporated into the greater nearby city. Yet Dr. Brawn's practice continued. As his age and the times wore on, he began to lose clientele to the newer hospitals and clinics of the city. But his prices stayed cheap and he survived off of a stream of steady clientele made up of the older folks of his neighbourhood, people who were too old to make the long drive to the city and for whom the doctor's inexpensive and careful treatments were sufficient to cure the aches and ills of the elderly.
The doctor was near to retirement when John and Elizabeth Mayer moved to the neighbourhood. A young couple from the midwest, they were big city folk who had moved to the town to try their luck. As most young couples are, they had arrived with little more than the wishes of their family and a few pieces of furniture to their name. Being poorer folk, they welcomed the services of Doctor Brawn for his inexpensive treatments.
John was an educated man who had studied law at university and who was hoping to make a name for himself here in a smaller town than Boston, where he'd grown up. His wife, Elizabeth, was the daughter of a local artist who'd hardly given his blessings to the couple. Elizabeth's father had wanted her to marry a rich, social man rather than a poor, however educated, dreamer like John Mayer. Nevertheless, the couple wed and moved out of Boston as soon as possible to try and make a future for themselves.
Doctor Brawn was near to seventy at the time the couple moved to town. His elderly composure and gentlemanly bearing did not change the couple's opinion of him. Like the others in town, they too felt a little uncomfortable around him, but unlike the more polite townsfolk, who had lived with the good doctor all their lives, the newcomers did not feel themselves held back. They gossiped openly about the doctor and how he made them and others feel so cold. John ridiculed him for his age among the neighbours and was disdainful of him in his presence. Being educated and from the city, John felt himself above the workings of a small-town doctor. Elizabeth admonished her husband to leave the poor man alone, but John merely laughed. Little of this, of course, fell on the doctor's ears. Elizabeth was worried about what the doctor, who had done no one any harm, would think, and John was too careful of his reputation. He was arrogant, but polite, whenever he went to the doctor's home.
For a while, it seemed that all would be well. The newcomers settled in as best they could and John took a job in town. But the couple did not realize their dreams so quickly. Money was hard to come by. John had settled them into a house in the doctor's neighborhood, an enjoyable old house that was certainly well beyond their means. In time, they found themselves at odds to pay the bills. In order to keep on living, they took loans, and established accounts at the local stores, promising on credit to pay when money came in. Most were agreeable with that, feeling that the young man's talents would soon come to use in the city. The only person who did not agree to the idea of accepting payment at a later date was the doctor. He maintained that his practice relied on his customers paying right away, else he could not afford to purchase new supplies.
John was not quite as bright a man as people thought. He felt himself far above the doctor. He decided that his credit was as good as his word, and that if the doctor could not accept that, then he would simply not pay until he was ready. When they went for medicine or a checkup, they wrote checks that immediately bounced. They promised to rectify the situation, but never paid. The doctor was becoming angry. Elizabeth urged her husband to pay, but John assured her that the old doctor would eventually comply and offer the couple credit. What the doctor did instead was declare that he would no longer treat the Mayers in his practice. He also sent their names to other doctors in town with the news that the Mayers were bad creditors and should not be treated without cash up front.
John was furious at this declaration. Despite Elizabeth's protests, he stormed to the doctor's office and yelled at him. Neighbors said they could hear John's voice loudly in the house for over two hours. John was in a rage, obsessed with the idea that the doctor was incompetant and that his age had brought senility. He went to the press with the story that the doctor had rendered bad practice due to his advanced age. There was, of course, no founding to the story. The locals were as quiet as ever, and the press had nothing to report. The doctor said nothing throughout the proceedings.
Finally John quieted down and got over his rage. Despite his problems, his obvious talents were gaining him prestige in his field and money began to flow more frequently. John consoled Elizabeth that they could pay for medical service when they needed it.
That happened more often than they had expected.
Elizabeth became pregnant, and John lamented the expenses this was to bring. By then, Elizabeth had begun to re-think her decision to marry John Mayer. He no longer seemed the young dreamer that she had known. However, she was pregnant and in her family, divorce was out of the question. Still, she loved John and was certain that all would turn out for the best.
John sought out a doctor to help counsel his wife through the birthing process, but most had been warned of their tendency to not pay and at the very least, respected the old doctor more than the upstart newcomers. Upset that John's rashness would hurt her physically, Elizabeth went to see doctor Brawn to apologize. She promised him that she would pay right away if he would help her. She had never given birth before, of course, and was worried that because of her very petite frame, that complications might arise in the birth. Reluctantly, the doctor agreed.
When John found out, of course, he was furious. He told Elizabeth not to go to Dr. Brawn. He told her they would find someone else. Elizabeth reminded him that there *was* no one else, and that at least for her sake, they should pay him. John tried to suggest that they didn't need a doctor for the birth, but Elizabeth was too scared. She knew that John only suggested that because he himself wasn't the one at risk. She did not feel like having her life or her health, or that of the baby's, endangered because of her husband's hard-headedness. She conspired to take the money when John was at work and go to the doctor herself.
The day of the birth arrived and Elizabeth arranged to meet the doctor that evening. He told her sternly to remember to bring what she owed. She arrived at the doctor's late that evening and already in contractions. Neighbors told what happened after.
John arrived at the house shortly after nine, having gone home and expecting his wife there and waiting for him to take her to hospital, where he had decided that if she were obviously in labour, they would deliver the baby and care for it and her without question. When he got home, he realized where she had went. Neighbors said that they saw John entering the doctor's house with a knife in his hand.
There is little mention of what happened next. The papers told only of a murder, but spoke nothing of the details. They were afraid of alarming the townspeople of the truth, and of attracting a horde of media-types in from the big cities to their small town. The police chief's story, however, eventually made the rounds in the pubs and street corner gossip.
The police arrived at the doctor's home two hours later, after the neighbors reported what they had seen of John. The doctor stood at his table. Elizabeth was on it. John was on the floor. Neither of the couple were alive. The doctor had apparently shot John in the stomach and left him there. While he lay dying on the floor, his blood pooling all over the room, the doctor had methodically tortured and killed Elizabeth, carving her and the baby inside her to pieces with his surgical tools. The doctor had thrown her carved organs at John, smacking him in the face with them and forcing them down his throat as he lay dying. The police spoke of the doctor as a man posessed, with eyes wider than the skull would seem to permit. He held his surgical knife in his hand with grim and surreal strength as the police battered down the door, finding him with Elizabeth's heart in his hand.
The police had shot the doctor dead on sight.
The story was described over and over, and eventually all manner of lore crept into the tale. People began to suggest that the doctor was never human at all, but a devil in disguise. Others say that John had killed his wife and that the doctor had been trying to save her but had been mistaken for the murderer. We may never really know. But for many, the dark feeling that everyone seemed to have had for the doctor in life made more sense now that this ghastly tragedy had taken place.
The doctor's house was destroyed and a generation came and went, and the youth of the city a generation beyond that forgot about the doctor.
As the city grew, all manner of people came to live there. Odd things began to be reported, but in a large city, odd things are the norm. The place where the doctor's house once stood now formed part of a public garden which extended back to a park through which people strolled day and night. In this park, odd things began to be reported. Couples strolling through the park at night reported hearing voices in their heads. Never anything clear, just voices arguing and screaming in distant, far-off tones. Sometimes it would be scarcely louder than a whisper. Other people reported hearing a sound that followed them through the park. They would hear a sound as of a knife cutting through flesh and bone, and then nothing. They would stop and turn, but there would be no one around. But the most feared thing that people saw there was something that came to be called the Red Mist.
What the Mist was, no one knew. It has only appeared a few times, and people die when it does. The park is a large place. Muggings do happen. Not at all often, but violence is no stranger to that, or any other large park of the city. The first time the mist came, onlookers reported a man "fleeing on foot from what seemed like a pink fog". The man, a local native of the city, was found later in his home, having slashed his own throat.
The second time it appeared, it was to a couple from in town. The woman screamed and fled the Red Mist. Her lover cowered on the ground and said that he lay there while the Red Mist, like a roving red fog, dissipated. The woman had fled in terror and had run out in front of a moving car. The man was held in custody, for more people believed that he had chased her than that she had been pursued by an ethreal evil. The man stayed silent the whole time charges and accusations were laid against him. When he was allowed to go home, he silently left. Police later found him at home dead, where he'd stabbed himself.
In all, the Red Mist has appeared over twenty times, though no stories of it have appeared recently. The town in question in the story is alternately told as being in either England or one of the Eastern States of America, lending an air of suspicion to the tale that no exact places can be named. Those who study folklore claim that the residents who know merely wish to keep the secret of the true location of the Mist sightings hidden, lest they frighten people away. Newspapers can do no more than report a suicide, a slaying, or an accident. It is difficult to trace such deaths to a supernatural evil. The exact nature of the Red Mist is unknown, merely that death and madness always follow its arrival. It is, perhaps, the one supernatural phenomena on earth that no one tries too hard to find! People who have heard the stories have, over time, mixed up the story of the Mist and the doctor with all sorts of fairy tales and lore. For the most part, such confusion was encouraged, perhaps to keep the truth shrouded in romanticism and speculation, perhaps to keep would-be ghost seekers safe from the folly of encountering the malevolence. Whether the Red Mist is the spirit of the mad doctor or a vengeful John or a tortured Elizabeth, or something else entirely, no one knows.
And no one wants to find out.
Nevertheless, some people believe that a prescence of evil or good is a tangible thing, able to effect the surroundings that they once inhabited as living people. In other cases, they say, such energies are merely imprints of emotions so strong that their feelings covered their home or the place of their death with a power or a blanket of their parting or living feelings, shall we say a mental residue of a life lived in emotional passion?
This is about such an impression. It is an old story too, such that few people truly recognize it in its roots, and has been lost in translation and in local legendry and folklore. This is how I heard the tale, and alas I have no dates or places, they have been lost in the sands and winds of antiquity:
The Red Mist
When you got right down to it, no one really liked Doctor Emmerson Brawn. it wasn't that he was a bad person. He never spoke ill of anyone, nor did he treat anyone unfairly. His skills were efficient and his practice clean and cheap. But there was something unmistakable about him; perhaps it was just that people felt uncomfortable in his presence.
The doctor ran a small practice out of his home, and for a long time was the only practice around town. As time wore on, the towns grew and eventually became incorporated into the greater nearby city. Yet Dr. Brawn's practice continued. As his age and the times wore on, he began to lose clientele to the newer hospitals and clinics of the city. But his prices stayed cheap and he survived off of a stream of steady clientele made up of the older folks of his neighbourhood, people who were too old to make the long drive to the city and for whom the doctor's inexpensive and careful treatments were sufficient to cure the aches and ills of the elderly.
The doctor was near to retirement when John and Elizabeth Mayer moved to the neighbourhood. A young couple from the midwest, they were big city folk who had moved to the town to try their luck. As most young couples are, they had arrived with little more than the wishes of their family and a few pieces of furniture to their name. Being poorer folk, they welcomed the services of Doctor Brawn for his inexpensive treatments.
John was an educated man who had studied law at university and who was hoping to make a name for himself here in a smaller town than Boston, where he'd grown up. His wife, Elizabeth, was the daughter of a local artist who'd hardly given his blessings to the couple. Elizabeth's father had wanted her to marry a rich, social man rather than a poor, however educated, dreamer like John Mayer. Nevertheless, the couple wed and moved out of Boston as soon as possible to try and make a future for themselves.
Doctor Brawn was near to seventy at the time the couple moved to town. His elderly composure and gentlemanly bearing did not change the couple's opinion of him. Like the others in town, they too felt a little uncomfortable around him, but unlike the more polite townsfolk, who had lived with the good doctor all their lives, the newcomers did not feel themselves held back. They gossiped openly about the doctor and how he made them and others feel so cold. John ridiculed him for his age among the neighbours and was disdainful of him in his presence. Being educated and from the city, John felt himself above the workings of a small-town doctor. Elizabeth admonished her husband to leave the poor man alone, but John merely laughed. Little of this, of course, fell on the doctor's ears. Elizabeth was worried about what the doctor, who had done no one any harm, would think, and John was too careful of his reputation. He was arrogant, but polite, whenever he went to the doctor's home.
For a while, it seemed that all would be well. The newcomers settled in as best they could and John took a job in town. But the couple did not realize their dreams so quickly. Money was hard to come by. John had settled them into a house in the doctor's neighborhood, an enjoyable old house that was certainly well beyond their means. In time, they found themselves at odds to pay the bills. In order to keep on living, they took loans, and established accounts at the local stores, promising on credit to pay when money came in. Most were agreeable with that, feeling that the young man's talents would soon come to use in the city. The only person who did not agree to the idea of accepting payment at a later date was the doctor. He maintained that his practice relied on his customers paying right away, else he could not afford to purchase new supplies.
John was not quite as bright a man as people thought. He felt himself far above the doctor. He decided that his credit was as good as his word, and that if the doctor could not accept that, then he would simply not pay until he was ready. When they went for medicine or a checkup, they wrote checks that immediately bounced. They promised to rectify the situation, but never paid. The doctor was becoming angry. Elizabeth urged her husband to pay, but John assured her that the old doctor would eventually comply and offer the couple credit. What the doctor did instead was declare that he would no longer treat the Mayers in his practice. He also sent their names to other doctors in town with the news that the Mayers were bad creditors and should not be treated without cash up front.
John was furious at this declaration. Despite Elizabeth's protests, he stormed to the doctor's office and yelled at him. Neighbors said they could hear John's voice loudly in the house for over two hours. John was in a rage, obsessed with the idea that the doctor was incompetant and that his age had brought senility. He went to the press with the story that the doctor had rendered bad practice due to his advanced age. There was, of course, no founding to the story. The locals were as quiet as ever, and the press had nothing to report. The doctor said nothing throughout the proceedings.
Finally John quieted down and got over his rage. Despite his problems, his obvious talents were gaining him prestige in his field and money began to flow more frequently. John consoled Elizabeth that they could pay for medical service when they needed it.
That happened more often than they had expected.
Elizabeth became pregnant, and John lamented the expenses this was to bring. By then, Elizabeth had begun to re-think her decision to marry John Mayer. He no longer seemed the young dreamer that she had known. However, she was pregnant and in her family, divorce was out of the question. Still, she loved John and was certain that all would turn out for the best.
John sought out a doctor to help counsel his wife through the birthing process, but most had been warned of their tendency to not pay and at the very least, respected the old doctor more than the upstart newcomers. Upset that John's rashness would hurt her physically, Elizabeth went to see doctor Brawn to apologize. She promised him that she would pay right away if he would help her. She had never given birth before, of course, and was worried that because of her very petite frame, that complications might arise in the birth. Reluctantly, the doctor agreed.
When John found out, of course, he was furious. He told Elizabeth not to go to Dr. Brawn. He told her they would find someone else. Elizabeth reminded him that there *was* no one else, and that at least for her sake, they should pay him. John tried to suggest that they didn't need a doctor for the birth, but Elizabeth was too scared. She knew that John only suggested that because he himself wasn't the one at risk. She did not feel like having her life or her health, or that of the baby's, endangered because of her husband's hard-headedness. She conspired to take the money when John was at work and go to the doctor herself.
The day of the birth arrived and Elizabeth arranged to meet the doctor that evening. He told her sternly to remember to bring what she owed. She arrived at the doctor's late that evening and already in contractions. Neighbors told what happened after.
John arrived at the house shortly after nine, having gone home and expecting his wife there and waiting for him to take her to hospital, where he had decided that if she were obviously in labour, they would deliver the baby and care for it and her without question. When he got home, he realized where she had went. Neighbors said that they saw John entering the doctor's house with a knife in his hand.
There is little mention of what happened next. The papers told only of a murder, but spoke nothing of the details. They were afraid of alarming the townspeople of the truth, and of attracting a horde of media-types in from the big cities to their small town. The police chief's story, however, eventually made the rounds in the pubs and street corner gossip.
The police arrived at the doctor's home two hours later, after the neighbors reported what they had seen of John. The doctor stood at his table. Elizabeth was on it. John was on the floor. Neither of the couple were alive. The doctor had apparently shot John in the stomach and left him there. While he lay dying on the floor, his blood pooling all over the room, the doctor had methodically tortured and killed Elizabeth, carving her and the baby inside her to pieces with his surgical tools. The doctor had thrown her carved organs at John, smacking him in the face with them and forcing them down his throat as he lay dying. The police spoke of the doctor as a man posessed, with eyes wider than the skull would seem to permit. He held his surgical knife in his hand with grim and surreal strength as the police battered down the door, finding him with Elizabeth's heart in his hand.
The police had shot the doctor dead on sight.
The story was described over and over, and eventually all manner of lore crept into the tale. People began to suggest that the doctor was never human at all, but a devil in disguise. Others say that John had killed his wife and that the doctor had been trying to save her but had been mistaken for the murderer. We may never really know. But for many, the dark feeling that everyone seemed to have had for the doctor in life made more sense now that this ghastly tragedy had taken place.
The doctor's house was destroyed and a generation came and went, and the youth of the city a generation beyond that forgot about the doctor.
As the city grew, all manner of people came to live there. Odd things began to be reported, but in a large city, odd things are the norm. The place where the doctor's house once stood now formed part of a public garden which extended back to a park through which people strolled day and night. In this park, odd things began to be reported. Couples strolling through the park at night reported hearing voices in their heads. Never anything clear, just voices arguing and screaming in distant, far-off tones. Sometimes it would be scarcely louder than a whisper. Other people reported hearing a sound that followed them through the park. They would hear a sound as of a knife cutting through flesh and bone, and then nothing. They would stop and turn, but there would be no one around. But the most feared thing that people saw there was something that came to be called the Red Mist.
What the Mist was, no one knew. It has only appeared a few times, and people die when it does. The park is a large place. Muggings do happen. Not at all often, but violence is no stranger to that, or any other large park of the city. The first time the mist came, onlookers reported a man "fleeing on foot from what seemed like a pink fog". The man, a local native of the city, was found later in his home, having slashed his own throat.
The second time it appeared, it was to a couple from in town. The woman screamed and fled the Red Mist. Her lover cowered on the ground and said that he lay there while the Red Mist, like a roving red fog, dissipated. The woman had fled in terror and had run out in front of a moving car. The man was held in custody, for more people believed that he had chased her than that she had been pursued by an ethreal evil. The man stayed silent the whole time charges and accusations were laid against him. When he was allowed to go home, he silently left. Police later found him at home dead, where he'd stabbed himself.
In all, the Red Mist has appeared over twenty times, though no stories of it have appeared recently. The town in question in the story is alternately told as being in either England or one of the Eastern States of America, lending an air of suspicion to the tale that no exact places can be named. Those who study folklore claim that the residents who know merely wish to keep the secret of the true location of the Mist sightings hidden, lest they frighten people away. Newspapers can do no more than report a suicide, a slaying, or an accident. It is difficult to trace such deaths to a supernatural evil. The exact nature of the Red Mist is unknown, merely that death and madness always follow its arrival. It is, perhaps, the one supernatural phenomena on earth that no one tries too hard to find! People who have heard the stories have, over time, mixed up the story of the Mist and the doctor with all sorts of fairy tales and lore. For the most part, such confusion was encouraged, perhaps to keep the truth shrouded in romanticism and speculation, perhaps to keep would-be ghost seekers safe from the folly of encountering the malevolence. Whether the Red Mist is the spirit of the mad doctor or a vengeful John or a tortured Elizabeth, or something else entirely, no one knows.
And no one wants to find out.
Note: I'm semi-retired from the board, so if you need something, please be patient.
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Lagmonster
- Master Control Program
- Posts: 7719
- Joined: 2002-07-04 09:53am
- Location: Ottawa, Canada
I can't think of a good way to prelude this one, but it is one of my more unusual ghost stories. I have only had and handful of what you might call spooky experiences, despite my history of exploring wierd places, and provided you don't count the visions of odd shapes and sounds that accompany a bottle of bourbon. My cat was seven years dead - I can't say I remember it, but I am told that as a toddler, I used it as a mace and chain against the furniture. It couldn't have been a happy animal, but it was swift and agile. When I was no more than ten, I was in the bath - darndest place for an encounter with the abnormal - and walking across the sinktop was a shadow of a cat, as if there should have been a cat on the sink to cast it, but there was none. It stopped, sat, and turned its head to look at me. Where its eyes should have been were white spaces in the shadow, as if the invisible cast light from its eyes. There were, I should point out, no cats in the house, and no moving objects in the room, and of course, no windows in the bathroom.
I don't know if it's against the law to streak in one's own house while shrieking, but I don't imagine that I cared.
The spooky nature of the haunt we fear and the potergeist we loathe is always less real in stories, and even when you're in its domain. A haunted house is just a house with a temper or a reason here and there to put on your warm woolies. But when a night-wierd suddenly targets *YOU*...well...that's when horror really sets in. No one is afraid of a ghost that doesn't have an emnity for the living, after all.
The Murderer's Skull
Ghostly lore is filled with stories of murdered people that have returned to the land of the living to seek out revenge on the one who wronged them in life, or perhaps in death. In many such stories the ghost succeeds in frightening its subject to death. This is a vengeance story with a twist: The ghost is that of the murderer. And he is not looking for revenge. He is looking for his head.
The year was 1889 in the countryside of England. A young man by the name of William Corder was courting a woman named Maria. They had known one another for many years and she was very much in love. Maria's family was putting pressure on William to marry her. So was his family. William, however, had other plans. He had tired of Maria and saw no way out of a proposed marriage between what he saw as more of their families uniting than him marrying.
One morning, he told Maria that they would run off together and get married. They got no farther than a place later called the Red Barn. There William shot poor Maria and buried her under the dirt floor.
For a while no one remarked on her disappearance. He might have gotten away completely, except that he put the noose around his own neck. He was really a very stupid man. He could not stop talking about Maria. He went on incessantly about her. He even wrote letters about her. Maria's family began to become suspicious.
Finally, a young cousin of Maria's named Anne Morley claimed she had a dream. In it, she claimed that she had seen William kill Maria and bury her under the floor of the Red Barn. She told everyone about her dream. Finally, people looked into it. People later on talked with great suspicion about Anne's dream. Some said that she and William were in love, and that she had helped plan the murder and later decided to turn him in. Other claimed that she had never had a dream at all, and just had suspicions about William, but had no way of knowing how to make her accusations public. We will probably never know. At any rate, William Corder was taken, arrested and hanged. In those days, a public hanging was a true spectacle. Hundreds of people from the surrounding towns and countryside came to witness the event. After he was dead, there was a public dissection of his body. We know today that over 1,200 people paid to see the murderer's cut up remains.
Some people of the nineteenth century were not delicate about death.
Afterwards, the body was taken to a university in London where the body was further dissected and examined. They say that further bizarre and grisly things were done with the corpse. All of the experiments were written down and bound in pieces of Corder's tanned skin. The book still exists today. So does Corder's scalp, which was preserved.
As for the skeleton, it was taken and used in medical classes at the university. It may still be in use today. Twenty years passed and the sensationalism of the corpse itself gradually wore out of the people of England.
Not so the Red Barn. It became a tourist attraction. People flocked from everywhere to see it. Miniature copies of the Red Barn were sold all over England. There was a story at that time of a man who'd come early in the morning to see the barn. Finding himself alone, he'd descended into the grave from where they'd taken Maria's corpse. Soon after, a pair of ladies from town arrived. The man hurredly scrambled out of the grave and the two ladies fled, thinking they had seen poor Maria's ghost.
Five years later, the senior professor at the university was bound for retirement, Dr. Enfield. He'd grown up in the town where Maria had lived and had worked with the skeleton of William Corder for many years in teaching his pupils. And so, he decided to keep a piece of the famous skeleton for himself. At the end of the day, he secretly switched the murderer's skull for another one from the labs. The two were obviously not a perfect match, but that did not matter for what the skeleton was used for. The skull he had polished and waxed and wrapped in cloth and put in an oak box as a souvenir.
The doctor took the skull home with him and placed it, in its box, on a shelf in his study. Almost immediately, bad things began to happen. On the way home, he stumbled and broke his shin. The skull rolled out of its box and onto the floor. A woman who saw the skull promptly fainted.
At home at night, sitting in his reading chair, he would feel something watching him. He would feel a cold breath on his shoulder as if something were standing right behind him and when he would turn, there would be nothing. The doctor's maid began complaining of working in the study. No one wanted to go in there. Visitors to the house complained of being watched and of sudden chills that would descend on the study.
The final straw for the Doctor was in the middle of one night when he heard a loud crash from the study. The doctor rushed downstairs and into the study, to see the skull lying on the floor, grinning up at him. The box had been destroyed as by an explosion, the pieces scattered all over the room.
That was enough for the ex-professor. He gathered up the skull and determined to get rid of it. He could not take it back to the university. It was so highly polished that it would stand out from the rest of the skeleton. Then everyone would know of the theft. Instead, he took it to the warden of the jail where Corder had stayed before he'd been hanged, giving it to him as a present, with these words: "Here, take it. As you own the gallows where they hanged him, perhaps it would not trouble you to look after his skull".
The warden fared little better. In addition to the odd feelings of being watched, he also heard doors slam for no reason, and heard a voice about the room where he kept the skull. He began to feel odd sensations at night. The warden told his friends that in the dead of night, he would be awakened by feelings that someone's hands were on his scalp, "...pulling at my hair as if to cause me to rise."
The doctor, meanwhile, continued to have plaguing dreams about the skull. In his dreams, he would see it placed before him, where it would explode into a thousand pieces, ripping everything around him apart. The foreboding became overwhelming, and both men feared it was only a matter of time before the horrors became truly insistant. Within a few months both men were bankrupt. Both blamed the evil influence of the skull.
Finally, Dr. Enfield decided to take the skull out and give it a proper burial. The night he arrived at the warden's home was dark and cloudy, and it had rained terribly all day. He and the warden rode by horseback to take the skull to a local cemetary to bury it. After that the two men were troubled no more. The murderer's skull was apparently satisfied.
I don't know if it's against the law to streak in one's own house while shrieking, but I don't imagine that I cared.
The spooky nature of the haunt we fear and the potergeist we loathe is always less real in stories, and even when you're in its domain. A haunted house is just a house with a temper or a reason here and there to put on your warm woolies. But when a night-wierd suddenly targets *YOU*...well...that's when horror really sets in. No one is afraid of a ghost that doesn't have an emnity for the living, after all.
The Murderer's Skull
Ghostly lore is filled with stories of murdered people that have returned to the land of the living to seek out revenge on the one who wronged them in life, or perhaps in death. In many such stories the ghost succeeds in frightening its subject to death. This is a vengeance story with a twist: The ghost is that of the murderer. And he is not looking for revenge. He is looking for his head.
The year was 1889 in the countryside of England. A young man by the name of William Corder was courting a woman named Maria. They had known one another for many years and she was very much in love. Maria's family was putting pressure on William to marry her. So was his family. William, however, had other plans. He had tired of Maria and saw no way out of a proposed marriage between what he saw as more of their families uniting than him marrying.
One morning, he told Maria that they would run off together and get married. They got no farther than a place later called the Red Barn. There William shot poor Maria and buried her under the dirt floor.
For a while no one remarked on her disappearance. He might have gotten away completely, except that he put the noose around his own neck. He was really a very stupid man. He could not stop talking about Maria. He went on incessantly about her. He even wrote letters about her. Maria's family began to become suspicious.
Finally, a young cousin of Maria's named Anne Morley claimed she had a dream. In it, she claimed that she had seen William kill Maria and bury her under the floor of the Red Barn. She told everyone about her dream. Finally, people looked into it. People later on talked with great suspicion about Anne's dream. Some said that she and William were in love, and that she had helped plan the murder and later decided to turn him in. Other claimed that she had never had a dream at all, and just had suspicions about William, but had no way of knowing how to make her accusations public. We will probably never know. At any rate, William Corder was taken, arrested and hanged. In those days, a public hanging was a true spectacle. Hundreds of people from the surrounding towns and countryside came to witness the event. After he was dead, there was a public dissection of his body. We know today that over 1,200 people paid to see the murderer's cut up remains.
Some people of the nineteenth century were not delicate about death.
Afterwards, the body was taken to a university in London where the body was further dissected and examined. They say that further bizarre and grisly things were done with the corpse. All of the experiments were written down and bound in pieces of Corder's tanned skin. The book still exists today. So does Corder's scalp, which was preserved.
As for the skeleton, it was taken and used in medical classes at the university. It may still be in use today. Twenty years passed and the sensationalism of the corpse itself gradually wore out of the people of England.
Not so the Red Barn. It became a tourist attraction. People flocked from everywhere to see it. Miniature copies of the Red Barn were sold all over England. There was a story at that time of a man who'd come early in the morning to see the barn. Finding himself alone, he'd descended into the grave from where they'd taken Maria's corpse. Soon after, a pair of ladies from town arrived. The man hurredly scrambled out of the grave and the two ladies fled, thinking they had seen poor Maria's ghost.
Five years later, the senior professor at the university was bound for retirement, Dr. Enfield. He'd grown up in the town where Maria had lived and had worked with the skeleton of William Corder for many years in teaching his pupils. And so, he decided to keep a piece of the famous skeleton for himself. At the end of the day, he secretly switched the murderer's skull for another one from the labs. The two were obviously not a perfect match, but that did not matter for what the skeleton was used for. The skull he had polished and waxed and wrapped in cloth and put in an oak box as a souvenir.
The doctor took the skull home with him and placed it, in its box, on a shelf in his study. Almost immediately, bad things began to happen. On the way home, he stumbled and broke his shin. The skull rolled out of its box and onto the floor. A woman who saw the skull promptly fainted.
At home at night, sitting in his reading chair, he would feel something watching him. He would feel a cold breath on his shoulder as if something were standing right behind him and when he would turn, there would be nothing. The doctor's maid began complaining of working in the study. No one wanted to go in there. Visitors to the house complained of being watched and of sudden chills that would descend on the study.
The final straw for the Doctor was in the middle of one night when he heard a loud crash from the study. The doctor rushed downstairs and into the study, to see the skull lying on the floor, grinning up at him. The box had been destroyed as by an explosion, the pieces scattered all over the room.
That was enough for the ex-professor. He gathered up the skull and determined to get rid of it. He could not take it back to the university. It was so highly polished that it would stand out from the rest of the skeleton. Then everyone would know of the theft. Instead, he took it to the warden of the jail where Corder had stayed before he'd been hanged, giving it to him as a present, with these words: "Here, take it. As you own the gallows where they hanged him, perhaps it would not trouble you to look after his skull".
The warden fared little better. In addition to the odd feelings of being watched, he also heard doors slam for no reason, and heard a voice about the room where he kept the skull. He began to feel odd sensations at night. The warden told his friends that in the dead of night, he would be awakened by feelings that someone's hands were on his scalp, "...pulling at my hair as if to cause me to rise."
The doctor, meanwhile, continued to have plaguing dreams about the skull. In his dreams, he would see it placed before him, where it would explode into a thousand pieces, ripping everything around him apart. The foreboding became overwhelming, and both men feared it was only a matter of time before the horrors became truly insistant. Within a few months both men were bankrupt. Both blamed the evil influence of the skull.
Finally, Dr. Enfield decided to take the skull out and give it a proper burial. The night he arrived at the warden's home was dark and cloudy, and it had rained terribly all day. He and the warden rode by horseback to take the skull to a local cemetary to bury it. After that the two men were troubled no more. The murderer's skull was apparently satisfied.
Note: I'm semi-retired from the board, so if you need something, please be patient.
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RayCav of ASVS
- Jedi Council Member
- Posts: 1546
- Joined: 2002-07-20 02:34am
- Location: Either ISD Nemesis, DSD Demeter or outside Coronet, Corellia, take your pick
- Contact:
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Lagmonster
- Master Control Program
- Posts: 7719
- Joined: 2002-07-04 09:53am
- Location: Ottawa, Canada
I have no real prelude to this story. It happens to be one of my favorites, since it's one of the first ones I ever heard.
The Passenger in Black
The year was 1951. The terrible wounds of the war in Europe were healing themselves. Men were being decommissioned, and rehired into booming new economies in the United States and Great Britain. Among these was a man named Colonel John Ewert. The Colonel was a very rigid and respected man. He was on route back to London from Carlisle, after having served a long term in the military. A retired man, he was looking forward to getting back to his house and his books.
He bought a ticket at the train station, hoping to get a private coach. The colonel liked his privacy above all, and didn't want to spend the long ride sharing a cabin with anyone else. It wasn't that he was a rude man; he was just very used to military discipline and didn't really think much of enduring the babble of strangers.
He boarded the train and found his coach, and was pleasantly suprised to find it empty. Storing his few pieces of solid luggage in the compartments above his head, he took off his shoes and hat and settled in for a long ride. After a few hours of reading a good book, Colonel Ewert put his reading aside and fell asleep.
Colonel Ewert woke up a short while later with an uneasy feeling. He looked across to the bench opposite him and noticed that there sat a woman in a black dress and veils. Shocked awake, he fumbled into a sitting and upright position. A very proper man, he pulled on his shoes and hat while murmuring, "I'm sorry, madam. I hadn't heard you come in."
The woman did not answer him. Her veils covered her eyes, and she seemed to be looking into her lap. The Colonel repeated his apology, in case she were deaf. She neither answered nor acknowledged him. Judging from the way her head was bowed that she might be asleep in her seat, he let the matter lie. He assumed she was a late passenger who'd boarded the train and gotten lost on her way to her cabin, and then entered while he was sleeping.
He studied her abstractedly, having nothing else to do. It was considered rude to be too much at ease with a strange lady present. Whatever it was that she held in her lap, she held it quite closely in the folds of her skirt. The Colonel could not see what it was.
Then, to his surprise, she began to rock back and forth. She seemed to be singing something into the folds of her skirt, in a far-off and quiet voice. The Colonel listened, a look of puzzlement on his face, then recognized the song as a lullaby, and it struck the Colonel aghast that the woman might be cradling an infant in her lap.
The Colonel hated babies. He imagined a child crying and squalling all the way to London. He tried to peer over her hands into the folds of her skirt, but could not lean too far forwards without being rude. It was then that he noticed that she hadn't brought in any luggage with her. It seemed to the Colonel to be quite odd. He remembered that in order to care for a child, a mother would often bring armloads of luggage along for even the shortest of trips. The Colonel was not an overly curious man. But the woman in black had aroused what curiosity he had. He really did want to see what she held in her lap. Leaning forwards as far as he dare, he was trying to peer over when a sudden screech filled the air.
The train lurched violently forwards and back, and then a piece of the Colonel's luggage tumbled down from above, knocking him unconsious.
When the Colonel awoke, it was groggily and with a dull pain at the back of his head. He knew he'd been struck by the falling luggage as the train had stopped. He was a brave man and had faced danger many times. As a military man, he felt it behooved him to go to the front of the train and offer his assistance. As he stepped out of the train, he knew there'd been an accident. The cars had all stopped suddenly. At the front, he met with the conductor and the hired men of the train. The train had come to a fault in the tracks and they'd had to stop suddenly. They'd been very lucky to have not all derailed.
The Colonel helped issue orders, tended to some of the wounded, none of whom had suffered more than a bruising in the stop. It was then that he remembered the woman in the black veils. He returned to his cabin to find it empty. He looked all over the train, but could not find her. He even asked the other passengers and the conductors. No one had seen her.
Furthermore, the conductors assured Colonel Ewert that he had been alone in his cabin. No one had bought a ticket for a seat adjoining him. The Colonel was thoroughly perplexed, but let the matter stand to rest.
It was not until much later in life that he ever learned the truth. He was once again on the London to Carlisle run, speaking beforehand with the engineer, an older man who'd worked the lines for many years. As he often did, he told the engineer the story about the mysterious woman in black veils. As he told the story, the engineer went dead white.
"So it happened again." he said.
"What happened?" asked the Colonel.
The engineer went on to explain that many years ago, a tragic accident had taken place on the London to Carlisle run. A newlywed couple was leaving for London. It was their first time on a train, and the young man didn't want to miss a thing.
Leaning halfway out the window to see fore and behind, his head caught a wire and was completely severed. The headless body fell back into the lap of his astonished bride. When they found her, she was rocking back and forth, singing a lullaby to it. The shock had driven her completely mad. She was placed in the care of an asylum, but never regained her sanity. She lived only a few months. To the end, she would rock back and forth, singing the same lullaby.
After that, passengers on the London to Carlisle train would report seeing the awful, and tragic, figure.
The Passenger in Black
The year was 1951. The terrible wounds of the war in Europe were healing themselves. Men were being decommissioned, and rehired into booming new economies in the United States and Great Britain. Among these was a man named Colonel John Ewert. The Colonel was a very rigid and respected man. He was on route back to London from Carlisle, after having served a long term in the military. A retired man, he was looking forward to getting back to his house and his books.
He bought a ticket at the train station, hoping to get a private coach. The colonel liked his privacy above all, and didn't want to spend the long ride sharing a cabin with anyone else. It wasn't that he was a rude man; he was just very used to military discipline and didn't really think much of enduring the babble of strangers.
He boarded the train and found his coach, and was pleasantly suprised to find it empty. Storing his few pieces of solid luggage in the compartments above his head, he took off his shoes and hat and settled in for a long ride. After a few hours of reading a good book, Colonel Ewert put his reading aside and fell asleep.
Colonel Ewert woke up a short while later with an uneasy feeling. He looked across to the bench opposite him and noticed that there sat a woman in a black dress and veils. Shocked awake, he fumbled into a sitting and upright position. A very proper man, he pulled on his shoes and hat while murmuring, "I'm sorry, madam. I hadn't heard you come in."
The woman did not answer him. Her veils covered her eyes, and she seemed to be looking into her lap. The Colonel repeated his apology, in case she were deaf. She neither answered nor acknowledged him. Judging from the way her head was bowed that she might be asleep in her seat, he let the matter lie. He assumed she was a late passenger who'd boarded the train and gotten lost on her way to her cabin, and then entered while he was sleeping.
He studied her abstractedly, having nothing else to do. It was considered rude to be too much at ease with a strange lady present. Whatever it was that she held in her lap, she held it quite closely in the folds of her skirt. The Colonel could not see what it was.
Then, to his surprise, she began to rock back and forth. She seemed to be singing something into the folds of her skirt, in a far-off and quiet voice. The Colonel listened, a look of puzzlement on his face, then recognized the song as a lullaby, and it struck the Colonel aghast that the woman might be cradling an infant in her lap.
The Colonel hated babies. He imagined a child crying and squalling all the way to London. He tried to peer over her hands into the folds of her skirt, but could not lean too far forwards without being rude. It was then that he noticed that she hadn't brought in any luggage with her. It seemed to the Colonel to be quite odd. He remembered that in order to care for a child, a mother would often bring armloads of luggage along for even the shortest of trips. The Colonel was not an overly curious man. But the woman in black had aroused what curiosity he had. He really did want to see what she held in her lap. Leaning forwards as far as he dare, he was trying to peer over when a sudden screech filled the air.
The train lurched violently forwards and back, and then a piece of the Colonel's luggage tumbled down from above, knocking him unconsious.
When the Colonel awoke, it was groggily and with a dull pain at the back of his head. He knew he'd been struck by the falling luggage as the train had stopped. He was a brave man and had faced danger many times. As a military man, he felt it behooved him to go to the front of the train and offer his assistance. As he stepped out of the train, he knew there'd been an accident. The cars had all stopped suddenly. At the front, he met with the conductor and the hired men of the train. The train had come to a fault in the tracks and they'd had to stop suddenly. They'd been very lucky to have not all derailed.
The Colonel helped issue orders, tended to some of the wounded, none of whom had suffered more than a bruising in the stop. It was then that he remembered the woman in the black veils. He returned to his cabin to find it empty. He looked all over the train, but could not find her. He even asked the other passengers and the conductors. No one had seen her.
Furthermore, the conductors assured Colonel Ewert that he had been alone in his cabin. No one had bought a ticket for a seat adjoining him. The Colonel was thoroughly perplexed, but let the matter stand to rest.
It was not until much later in life that he ever learned the truth. He was once again on the London to Carlisle run, speaking beforehand with the engineer, an older man who'd worked the lines for many years. As he often did, he told the engineer the story about the mysterious woman in black veils. As he told the story, the engineer went dead white.
"So it happened again." he said.
"What happened?" asked the Colonel.
The engineer went on to explain that many years ago, a tragic accident had taken place on the London to Carlisle run. A newlywed couple was leaving for London. It was their first time on a train, and the young man didn't want to miss a thing.
Leaning halfway out the window to see fore and behind, his head caught a wire and was completely severed. The headless body fell back into the lap of his astonished bride. When they found her, she was rocking back and forth, singing a lullaby to it. The shock had driven her completely mad. She was placed in the care of an asylum, but never regained her sanity. She lived only a few months. To the end, she would rock back and forth, singing the same lullaby.
After that, passengers on the London to Carlisle train would report seeing the awful, and tragic, figure.
Note: I'm semi-retired from the board, so if you need something, please be patient.
-
Lagmonster
- Master Control Program
- Posts: 7719
- Joined: 2002-07-04 09:53am
- Location: Ottawa, Canada
I'm not a ghost seeker or interested in the occult or the religious or even the supernatural, besides having a healthy enough sense of self to not enter a darkened basement when I hear spooky noises eminating from same, or cross the path of pea-soup-emitting children with pox faces. No, I'm interested in *stories*. And to that end I love to offer them to you.
Maybe - who knows? - I'm just lonely. No, wait - I doubt that. I have friends and family. But what would become of me when I die? Will I still be lonely then? Some say that ghosts are people who don't know that they've died, or else feel that they shouldn't have left, that they need to stay behind to keep a loved on company, or take care of unfinished revenge, or are just afraid to leave. And sometimes, just sometimes, taking away that one thing that the ghost has stayed behind to watch over has drastic reprocussions...
Alone in Pairs
Gerald Despatis was a good man. A very (or so all the charaties said of him to the newspapers) generous man. A patron of the community.
Gerald, a gentlemanly figure at 75 years of age, was the major beneficiary of his father's will, and he of his father's will before that. Each had inherited a prospering English factory that was reknown during the dreadful war years for supplying Great Britain with some much-needed supplies during the dark times. As a widower twenty years gone, Gerald Despatis had resigned himself to his life alone with his sizeable house and his wife's multitude of trinkets: Dolls from across the globe, plates of crystal and china and ceramic, and many things in between. if anything could be said of him, it was his odd habits. He was extraordinarily punctual. He always insisted, be he delivering a speech to aspiring young entrepreneurs or gifting a check upon one of the country's more prominent charities, that he be home before seven. But most people thought no more than that he was a kindly, old man who behaved in no more dottering a fashion than any other old man of town, be they rich or poor.
Mr. Despatis employed a small number of servants - one to cook, two to clean, and two local boys to care for his yard. They spoke nothing ill of the good old man, except for his incessant mumbling, both to himself and to no one in particular. He was not senile - he was nothing if not sharp-witted. But his hearing and eyesight were near to gone and they felt they could understand him speaking at walls. Even with the servants, Mr. Despatis insisted on a regular schedule. The cleaning ladies would come by twice a month in the morning, and were to be done by seven, when Mr. Despatis took his meal. The cook was in at dawn and left at eight, prompt. The yard-boys could come and go as they liked, but were not to enter the house. For their convenience, Mr. Despatis had erected a locked shack out back with such things as the boys might need. Again, his habits were eccentric, but from a man of his age and upbringing, strict eccentricity was to be expected.
The only pleasure that Mr. Despatis got since his wife had died was in visiting his nephew in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He took the time to go there at least once a year for a period of no more, and no less, than three weeks. Three weeks was the longest, he would say, that he could afford to be away from his house and his home and - most importantly - his wife's paraphnelia. Normally he left his house locked, and only the yard-boys came to call during his vacation time. No one entered his home whie he was away.
In the year of his 76th birthday, however, there came a string of bizarre break-ins around town. No one had as yet been arrested, and Mr. Despatis was at odds to decide whether to leave the house abandoned or not. He finally decided to go, and one of his neighbours agreed that their son could live in the house in Mr. Despatis' absence. Mr. Despatis was mildly reluctant, but the young man was the son of an old business associate and a good up-and-coming gent in his own right. Gerald finally agreed.
The young man, whose name was Simon, arrived at the house early in the morning on the day that the old man was leaving. He received a tour of the house, during which Simon remarked at the truly remarkable number of knick-knacks and trinkets that Gerald's wife had accumulated during her lifetime. Most impressive was the living room's collection of dolls - a case seven feet up and ten feet wide, with etched and colored glass for doors, locked tight, displayed the dolls on rows of shelves behind. The dolls were locked up tight and wouldn't have to be dusted. Other trinkets could be ignored until the old man returned, for he had graciously paid for his cleaning ladies to have the time off to visit with their families. During the time, Mr. Despatis informed Simon, only the yard-boys would come by, and they had no need to enter the house. What follows is the narrative of Simon himself, from the time he stayed in the house, and his account of the three weeks, in summation.
"The old man Despatis welcomed me early in the morning. The house was, as my father had mentioned, far larger than a man of his age, living alone, should need. But even so the place seemed small and cluttered with the vast array of collectable trinkets that Mrs. Despatis had amassed. I could not pretend to count the volume, or wealth, of the toys, centrepieces, or art that decorated the Despatis house. I was grateful just to not have to clean them, and I said as much. The old man merely smiled and patted me on the shoulder, saying that there was no need to vex myself in any way during my stay. He had a room set aside for me, not the master bedroom of course. He had forbidden me to stay in that room, where he slept, and I readily understood. I could not imagine having strangers in my house, let alone sleep in my bed.
The man left in the cheeriest of mornings, his baggage packed away and waiting outside with the footman. It was only on his parting that he said and did something odd. As he stood in the doorway, he reminded me again to stay only where I was put to stay, and not to concern myself with wandering about, lest I accidentally break a vase or somesuch. Then he reached up and patted the wood of the doorframe as if petting a loyal dog and remarked, "This old house, it misses me dearly when I'm gone."
I should only have understood him literally, I now know.
The first week was quiet as can be. I spent most of my time in town at my job. I would return to the house and fix myself a bite, or else head downtown to eat with my lady-friend, Bethany. I would certainly have treated her to a well-presented meal in the man's spectacular dining room, but I feared that he might not be pleased if I were to entertain guests in his absence.
I would then arrive home, sometimes late, and settle in to the room that was set for me. I slept most comfortably, for the old man's standards of comfort are beyond compare. He is no miser, like so many rich men are, supplying only for themselves what they need to be comfortable. No, he spent as lavishly as certainly his wife had in her life, but on more solid comforts, whether he needed them or not. Most certainly, he and his late wife were more than matched together for their way of spending.
At the end of the first week, was when I first noticed that anything was amiss. I arrived home that night from a late night of work - it was near to ten o'clock. I turned the key in the lock and opened the door, and of course the house was dark. He'd had the old place wired with electric lighting, so I flicked the switch at hand. As I did so, I caught the faint, but very clear impression of someone fleeing from the room. It was no larger than a very small child, and I'd only caught the last moment of a fleeting shadow before my hand reached the switch. It had seemed to stand in the entrance to the living room, ahead and to my left, before darting into the still-darkened living room. Worried that burglars had entered the house, I called out a warning in what I hoped was my most serious voice, but of course there was no answer. Listening a moment, I heard nothing. Convinced that perhaps want of sleep and the lighting had caused me to see that which was not there, I walked into the living room, turning on the light. Nothing was amiss, not a doll out of place. I gave the matter up for naught. If there had been anyone, I would have heard more, for the old man's floors creak like the devil's knees when walked upon in places.
That night passed without further incident, and I slept well, feeling myself at ease in the comfort of the old man's luxury. How much a fool I now know I was.
The next evening, just after eight, the sun had dipped low. The yard boys had come and gone, and I was settled into the old man's great chair in the living room, comfortable and reading a good book, the name of which I cannot remember. I was, however, engulfed in it when a feeling overtook me - the feeling of being watched, of being scrutinized. If ever there was a feeling that could be said to match that of an insect under the magnifying lens, this would be it. I felt it from all angles, all directions, a wonderment of who I was, a puzzlement of why I was there. After an hour or so and a few stiff shots of the man's whisky, the feelings finally ebbed away, or else the liquor had a stronger effect than usual on me. Either way, I stumbled off to bed.
Now I tell you, I was nowhere near to drunk, especially as the next event took hold. I had just risen up the stairs to the bedrooms when near the bedroom ahead, one that I had never entered, I once again caught the fleeting shadow. It darted out of view, as if it had been crouching in the doorway of the room and now retreated from view. It certainly moved like a child, quickly, like it was playing hide-and-go-seek. I struck the light of the room on, and saw nothing. Not even a whisper of a feeling. Whatever I had felt, I shrugged off to drink and the general atmosphere of the house, and let it be. Despite the obvious oddity of the situation, whatever I felt seemed only curious about me, as if I were out of place and it did not understand why, as a dog who has been sold and does not know its new owners. After a short ponder I realized that I most certainy *was* out of place here, and that it was no more than the feelings of intimidation any man should feel at being in a large, unfamiliar place. I attributed it only to my own mind and drink, and slept well.
Four days passed without incident, then, on the fifth day after the first weekend, I once again arrived home to an odd feeling. I saw no fleeting shadows, ones that always hid from me and fled at my approach. No - I heard forthright movement upstairs. Again my impression was of a child, running lightly, so as to not be heard, from room to room. Searching, perhaps. The whole house was quiet, and the atmosphere still, yet I could swear that I could make out the noise of padded footsteps, running, searching the house. It lasted only a moment, but in that moment the full realization of what I was feeling came upon me, And such was the weight of that revelation that I stood aghast in the doorway for several minutes, numbed by its prospect.
"The house misses me," the old man had said. Just then, the statement, the odd and strict hours of the staff, the admonitions to stay where I'd have been put - all crashed down upon me in my understanding. For I then realized that the only way to truly describe the feelings I had was of a tiny presence in the house, searching for its owner, or companion, the old man. And who it found instead was me, in his place. Now it searched the house, trying to find where its master, or love, or companion had gone.
And as it seemed a child, alone, my heart felt for its solitude, even as I shook despite myself at the thought of what it would think when it discovered that he was most certainly not here. At that moment, the remaining week I had to spend here before the old man's return seemed entirely too long.
Despite the thought, I still could not believe that the house was alive, or that any such mummery had placed spirits here. I slept fitfully, my imagination peppering the distance and the darkness with all sorts of sorry nightmare shapes.
The next night, I awoke to a most peculiar feeling. Once again I felt watched, but not the same as I had before now. It was neither a curious stare nor a puzzled glance. It was just a feeling of eyes. I reached to the light and turned it on. And my heart stopped cold - such a dreadful statement to make of one's heart, but in my case, no phrase could be better. Ice seemed to chill and form about my heart, and I could hear every pound of the organ. On the ground, sitting upright, pretty as a picture, was one of the old woman's dolls.
How it might have escaped its case, I know not. It sat there with wide blue eyes, its porcelain skin a white that was too close to the unearthly for my heart that night. Its red and white skirt folded about its legs, and it faced me from the doorway. For an awful moment I thought that it had been this thing that had been chasing about the halls, but it was much too small.
Letting my fear of the old man's wrath should one of his dolls be out of place overcome my growing apprehension of the place, I got out of my bed and gathered up the doll. I located the man's keys and unlocked the case, returning the doll to its place. The case had been locked, and I re-locked it afterwards. I knew of no way that the doll could have been removed, or even removed itself, from that case. For an awful moment I feared that perhaps burglars had indeed entered the building. Else why would the case be unlocked? I resolved to do a thorough check in the morning, as by that time, not all the angels and devils of heaven and hell could persuade me to search that house in the dead of night.
The following day I looked about, but found no sign of entry, forced or otherwise. There was certainly no one but me in the house. I went to work and returned without incident. Yet that night, as I came up the steps of the porch and to the door, I tried the door handle, but to no avail. I turned the key again and pushed, but the door still would not open. I was certain that I had no blockade in the doorway, but yet I could not open the door - or was being prevented from entering. I made my way to the side door and entered there without resistance, going to the front and trying the door from the inside. Indeed, there was no blockade in the doorway and it opened smoothly from the inside. I was at a loss to explain why the front door had refused to let me in, even though a corner of my mind screamed that I was found out, and was no longer welcome in this place. Still, I was determined to last out my charge, and would not let a simple thing as an unfounded fear of the shadows and odd events stop me. There was no malevolence as yet.
The next day the yard-boys were to come by to work. They did so while I was away in town. When I returned that night, though, things had changed. One of the boys, the older one, was waiting for me on the porch. He told me that they would not be coming back to work on the yard again, and to inform Mr. Despatis as such. When I inquired why, the boy told me that during the day, his younger brother had gone to the man's greenhouse, at the back of the mansion, to trim the flowers as a favor to the old man. He'd let himself in (the greenhouse is never locked, only the door from it to the house proper is) and started work. He said that a flower pot had flown out of nowhere and smashed against the table, sending shards of pottery into his hands. The boy had gone to see a doctor. When the older brother had gone into the greenhouse to retrieve the tools, he was met at the door with the same resistance that I had - somehow he could not get in. The whole experience thoroughly terrified the lad, and he said that Mr. Despatis could keep the tools for himself.
I was no longer quite amused. I was not fully convinced that there was more than coincidental oddities in the old place, but neither would I be bullied by the place. I went in the front door without resistance and muttered as much, aloud. No wailing spectre replied, no moving shadows. I felt better, though I was still shaken and not at all happy about my remaining two nights.
That night I could not rest. There was oppression all around me. A scolding, almost. The unhappiness, the confusion, the upset nature. It was very much like a very young child, or an old pet dog. The thing I felt was so afraid of being alone, so confused, with so many questions. And at the same time mustered bold courage before me, like a young boy emulating his father, daring me to denounce it. Oh, I can tell you, before long I had attributed to the house every feeling and emotion capable of flowing from man, before I calmed down and realized that nothing was amiss. I was lost in my own imagination. I resolved to get up, find a drink, and return to bed.
I stumbled out of bed and into my robe, and walked out into the hall, turning on the hall light as I passed.
Sitting on the floor, in the hall, was another of the woman's dolls. This one was laying face-down, with one foot folded forwards under it, as if only moments before I had turned on the light, it had been walking, and was somehow now deprived of life.
How long I watched the thing lying there, I cannot say. Then I was spurred to action. I replaced the doll to its case, holding it gingerly the whole time, if expecting that at any moment it should come alive in my grasp. The house was eminently pleased, a child happy that it was having attention paid to it. It seemed to know that I was aware of its feelings.
I would never spend another moment in that house. I packed my things that very night, in the dead and early hours of the morning, and left for home. I was tired, and fitfully upset, to the point where I told my family they dare not ask me why I had returned.
That is that last of what I have to say. The man returned two days later. I met him at the house, for I would never have him think that I had deserted my post for any reason. He thanked me well, wished me the best, and made his way up the porch steps and into his home. In the daytime, just then, the house seemed the same as when I'd first set eyes on it. I can say before God that not a single thing of the like had ever happened to me before, or ever since then. I have even been a guest in that house for tea, and seen and heard nothing, nor have I before now divulged what I had seen and heard. If not for the fact that poor Mr. Despatis is now passed on, I would never have said a word. But I do recall, as he reentered his home that day, and as I turned to leave, he stepped over the threshold and into his home and said:
"My sweet dear? I'm home."
Maybe - who knows? - I'm just lonely. No, wait - I doubt that. I have friends and family. But what would become of me when I die? Will I still be lonely then? Some say that ghosts are people who don't know that they've died, or else feel that they shouldn't have left, that they need to stay behind to keep a loved on company, or take care of unfinished revenge, or are just afraid to leave. And sometimes, just sometimes, taking away that one thing that the ghost has stayed behind to watch over has drastic reprocussions...
Alone in Pairs
Gerald Despatis was a good man. A very (or so all the charaties said of him to the newspapers) generous man. A patron of the community.
Gerald, a gentlemanly figure at 75 years of age, was the major beneficiary of his father's will, and he of his father's will before that. Each had inherited a prospering English factory that was reknown during the dreadful war years for supplying Great Britain with some much-needed supplies during the dark times. As a widower twenty years gone, Gerald Despatis had resigned himself to his life alone with his sizeable house and his wife's multitude of trinkets: Dolls from across the globe, plates of crystal and china and ceramic, and many things in between. if anything could be said of him, it was his odd habits. He was extraordinarily punctual. He always insisted, be he delivering a speech to aspiring young entrepreneurs or gifting a check upon one of the country's more prominent charities, that he be home before seven. But most people thought no more than that he was a kindly, old man who behaved in no more dottering a fashion than any other old man of town, be they rich or poor.
Mr. Despatis employed a small number of servants - one to cook, two to clean, and two local boys to care for his yard. They spoke nothing ill of the good old man, except for his incessant mumbling, both to himself and to no one in particular. He was not senile - he was nothing if not sharp-witted. But his hearing and eyesight were near to gone and they felt they could understand him speaking at walls. Even with the servants, Mr. Despatis insisted on a regular schedule. The cleaning ladies would come by twice a month in the morning, and were to be done by seven, when Mr. Despatis took his meal. The cook was in at dawn and left at eight, prompt. The yard-boys could come and go as they liked, but were not to enter the house. For their convenience, Mr. Despatis had erected a locked shack out back with such things as the boys might need. Again, his habits were eccentric, but from a man of his age and upbringing, strict eccentricity was to be expected.
The only pleasure that Mr. Despatis got since his wife had died was in visiting his nephew in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He took the time to go there at least once a year for a period of no more, and no less, than three weeks. Three weeks was the longest, he would say, that he could afford to be away from his house and his home and - most importantly - his wife's paraphnelia. Normally he left his house locked, and only the yard-boys came to call during his vacation time. No one entered his home whie he was away.
In the year of his 76th birthday, however, there came a string of bizarre break-ins around town. No one had as yet been arrested, and Mr. Despatis was at odds to decide whether to leave the house abandoned or not. He finally decided to go, and one of his neighbours agreed that their son could live in the house in Mr. Despatis' absence. Mr. Despatis was mildly reluctant, but the young man was the son of an old business associate and a good up-and-coming gent in his own right. Gerald finally agreed.
The young man, whose name was Simon, arrived at the house early in the morning on the day that the old man was leaving. He received a tour of the house, during which Simon remarked at the truly remarkable number of knick-knacks and trinkets that Gerald's wife had accumulated during her lifetime. Most impressive was the living room's collection of dolls - a case seven feet up and ten feet wide, with etched and colored glass for doors, locked tight, displayed the dolls on rows of shelves behind. The dolls were locked up tight and wouldn't have to be dusted. Other trinkets could be ignored until the old man returned, for he had graciously paid for his cleaning ladies to have the time off to visit with their families. During the time, Mr. Despatis informed Simon, only the yard-boys would come by, and they had no need to enter the house. What follows is the narrative of Simon himself, from the time he stayed in the house, and his account of the three weeks, in summation.
"The old man Despatis welcomed me early in the morning. The house was, as my father had mentioned, far larger than a man of his age, living alone, should need. But even so the place seemed small and cluttered with the vast array of collectable trinkets that Mrs. Despatis had amassed. I could not pretend to count the volume, or wealth, of the toys, centrepieces, or art that decorated the Despatis house. I was grateful just to not have to clean them, and I said as much. The old man merely smiled and patted me on the shoulder, saying that there was no need to vex myself in any way during my stay. He had a room set aside for me, not the master bedroom of course. He had forbidden me to stay in that room, where he slept, and I readily understood. I could not imagine having strangers in my house, let alone sleep in my bed.
The man left in the cheeriest of mornings, his baggage packed away and waiting outside with the footman. It was only on his parting that he said and did something odd. As he stood in the doorway, he reminded me again to stay only where I was put to stay, and not to concern myself with wandering about, lest I accidentally break a vase or somesuch. Then he reached up and patted the wood of the doorframe as if petting a loyal dog and remarked, "This old house, it misses me dearly when I'm gone."
I should only have understood him literally, I now know.
The first week was quiet as can be. I spent most of my time in town at my job. I would return to the house and fix myself a bite, or else head downtown to eat with my lady-friend, Bethany. I would certainly have treated her to a well-presented meal in the man's spectacular dining room, but I feared that he might not be pleased if I were to entertain guests in his absence.
I would then arrive home, sometimes late, and settle in to the room that was set for me. I slept most comfortably, for the old man's standards of comfort are beyond compare. He is no miser, like so many rich men are, supplying only for themselves what they need to be comfortable. No, he spent as lavishly as certainly his wife had in her life, but on more solid comforts, whether he needed them or not. Most certainly, he and his late wife were more than matched together for their way of spending.
At the end of the first week, was when I first noticed that anything was amiss. I arrived home that night from a late night of work - it was near to ten o'clock. I turned the key in the lock and opened the door, and of course the house was dark. He'd had the old place wired with electric lighting, so I flicked the switch at hand. As I did so, I caught the faint, but very clear impression of someone fleeing from the room. It was no larger than a very small child, and I'd only caught the last moment of a fleeting shadow before my hand reached the switch. It had seemed to stand in the entrance to the living room, ahead and to my left, before darting into the still-darkened living room. Worried that burglars had entered the house, I called out a warning in what I hoped was my most serious voice, but of course there was no answer. Listening a moment, I heard nothing. Convinced that perhaps want of sleep and the lighting had caused me to see that which was not there, I walked into the living room, turning on the light. Nothing was amiss, not a doll out of place. I gave the matter up for naught. If there had been anyone, I would have heard more, for the old man's floors creak like the devil's knees when walked upon in places.
That night passed without further incident, and I slept well, feeling myself at ease in the comfort of the old man's luxury. How much a fool I now know I was.
The next evening, just after eight, the sun had dipped low. The yard boys had come and gone, and I was settled into the old man's great chair in the living room, comfortable and reading a good book, the name of which I cannot remember. I was, however, engulfed in it when a feeling overtook me - the feeling of being watched, of being scrutinized. If ever there was a feeling that could be said to match that of an insect under the magnifying lens, this would be it. I felt it from all angles, all directions, a wonderment of who I was, a puzzlement of why I was there. After an hour or so and a few stiff shots of the man's whisky, the feelings finally ebbed away, or else the liquor had a stronger effect than usual on me. Either way, I stumbled off to bed.
Now I tell you, I was nowhere near to drunk, especially as the next event took hold. I had just risen up the stairs to the bedrooms when near the bedroom ahead, one that I had never entered, I once again caught the fleeting shadow. It darted out of view, as if it had been crouching in the doorway of the room and now retreated from view. It certainly moved like a child, quickly, like it was playing hide-and-go-seek. I struck the light of the room on, and saw nothing. Not even a whisper of a feeling. Whatever I had felt, I shrugged off to drink and the general atmosphere of the house, and let it be. Despite the obvious oddity of the situation, whatever I felt seemed only curious about me, as if I were out of place and it did not understand why, as a dog who has been sold and does not know its new owners. After a short ponder I realized that I most certainy *was* out of place here, and that it was no more than the feelings of intimidation any man should feel at being in a large, unfamiliar place. I attributed it only to my own mind and drink, and slept well.
Four days passed without incident, then, on the fifth day after the first weekend, I once again arrived home to an odd feeling. I saw no fleeting shadows, ones that always hid from me and fled at my approach. No - I heard forthright movement upstairs. Again my impression was of a child, running lightly, so as to not be heard, from room to room. Searching, perhaps. The whole house was quiet, and the atmosphere still, yet I could swear that I could make out the noise of padded footsteps, running, searching the house. It lasted only a moment, but in that moment the full realization of what I was feeling came upon me, And such was the weight of that revelation that I stood aghast in the doorway for several minutes, numbed by its prospect.
"The house misses me," the old man had said. Just then, the statement, the odd and strict hours of the staff, the admonitions to stay where I'd have been put - all crashed down upon me in my understanding. For I then realized that the only way to truly describe the feelings I had was of a tiny presence in the house, searching for its owner, or companion, the old man. And who it found instead was me, in his place. Now it searched the house, trying to find where its master, or love, or companion had gone.
And as it seemed a child, alone, my heart felt for its solitude, even as I shook despite myself at the thought of what it would think when it discovered that he was most certainly not here. At that moment, the remaining week I had to spend here before the old man's return seemed entirely too long.
Despite the thought, I still could not believe that the house was alive, or that any such mummery had placed spirits here. I slept fitfully, my imagination peppering the distance and the darkness with all sorts of sorry nightmare shapes.
The next night, I awoke to a most peculiar feeling. Once again I felt watched, but not the same as I had before now. It was neither a curious stare nor a puzzled glance. It was just a feeling of eyes. I reached to the light and turned it on. And my heart stopped cold - such a dreadful statement to make of one's heart, but in my case, no phrase could be better. Ice seemed to chill and form about my heart, and I could hear every pound of the organ. On the ground, sitting upright, pretty as a picture, was one of the old woman's dolls.
How it might have escaped its case, I know not. It sat there with wide blue eyes, its porcelain skin a white that was too close to the unearthly for my heart that night. Its red and white skirt folded about its legs, and it faced me from the doorway. For an awful moment I thought that it had been this thing that had been chasing about the halls, but it was much too small.
Letting my fear of the old man's wrath should one of his dolls be out of place overcome my growing apprehension of the place, I got out of my bed and gathered up the doll. I located the man's keys and unlocked the case, returning the doll to its place. The case had been locked, and I re-locked it afterwards. I knew of no way that the doll could have been removed, or even removed itself, from that case. For an awful moment I feared that perhaps burglars had indeed entered the building. Else why would the case be unlocked? I resolved to do a thorough check in the morning, as by that time, not all the angels and devils of heaven and hell could persuade me to search that house in the dead of night.
The following day I looked about, but found no sign of entry, forced or otherwise. There was certainly no one but me in the house. I went to work and returned without incident. Yet that night, as I came up the steps of the porch and to the door, I tried the door handle, but to no avail. I turned the key again and pushed, but the door still would not open. I was certain that I had no blockade in the doorway, but yet I could not open the door - or was being prevented from entering. I made my way to the side door and entered there without resistance, going to the front and trying the door from the inside. Indeed, there was no blockade in the doorway and it opened smoothly from the inside. I was at a loss to explain why the front door had refused to let me in, even though a corner of my mind screamed that I was found out, and was no longer welcome in this place. Still, I was determined to last out my charge, and would not let a simple thing as an unfounded fear of the shadows and odd events stop me. There was no malevolence as yet.
The next day the yard-boys were to come by to work. They did so while I was away in town. When I returned that night, though, things had changed. One of the boys, the older one, was waiting for me on the porch. He told me that they would not be coming back to work on the yard again, and to inform Mr. Despatis as such. When I inquired why, the boy told me that during the day, his younger brother had gone to the man's greenhouse, at the back of the mansion, to trim the flowers as a favor to the old man. He'd let himself in (the greenhouse is never locked, only the door from it to the house proper is) and started work. He said that a flower pot had flown out of nowhere and smashed against the table, sending shards of pottery into his hands. The boy had gone to see a doctor. When the older brother had gone into the greenhouse to retrieve the tools, he was met at the door with the same resistance that I had - somehow he could not get in. The whole experience thoroughly terrified the lad, and he said that Mr. Despatis could keep the tools for himself.
I was no longer quite amused. I was not fully convinced that there was more than coincidental oddities in the old place, but neither would I be bullied by the place. I went in the front door without resistance and muttered as much, aloud. No wailing spectre replied, no moving shadows. I felt better, though I was still shaken and not at all happy about my remaining two nights.
That night I could not rest. There was oppression all around me. A scolding, almost. The unhappiness, the confusion, the upset nature. It was very much like a very young child, or an old pet dog. The thing I felt was so afraid of being alone, so confused, with so many questions. And at the same time mustered bold courage before me, like a young boy emulating his father, daring me to denounce it. Oh, I can tell you, before long I had attributed to the house every feeling and emotion capable of flowing from man, before I calmed down and realized that nothing was amiss. I was lost in my own imagination. I resolved to get up, find a drink, and return to bed.
I stumbled out of bed and into my robe, and walked out into the hall, turning on the hall light as I passed.
Sitting on the floor, in the hall, was another of the woman's dolls. This one was laying face-down, with one foot folded forwards under it, as if only moments before I had turned on the light, it had been walking, and was somehow now deprived of life.
How long I watched the thing lying there, I cannot say. Then I was spurred to action. I replaced the doll to its case, holding it gingerly the whole time, if expecting that at any moment it should come alive in my grasp. The house was eminently pleased, a child happy that it was having attention paid to it. It seemed to know that I was aware of its feelings.
I would never spend another moment in that house. I packed my things that very night, in the dead and early hours of the morning, and left for home. I was tired, and fitfully upset, to the point where I told my family they dare not ask me why I had returned.
That is that last of what I have to say. The man returned two days later. I met him at the house, for I would never have him think that I had deserted my post for any reason. He thanked me well, wished me the best, and made his way up the porch steps and into his home. In the daytime, just then, the house seemed the same as when I'd first set eyes on it. I can say before God that not a single thing of the like had ever happened to me before, or ever since then. I have even been a guest in that house for tea, and seen and heard nothing, nor have I before now divulged what I had seen and heard. If not for the fact that poor Mr. Despatis is now passed on, I would never have said a word. But I do recall, as he reentered his home that day, and as I turned to leave, he stepped over the threshold and into his home and said:
"My sweet dear? I'm home."
Note: I'm semi-retired from the board, so if you need something, please be patient.
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haas mark
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Damn...you beat me to it....RayCav of ASVS wrote:someone move this to the fanfic forum
Robert-Conway.com | lunar sun | TotalEnigma.net
Hot Pants à la Zaia | BotM Lord Monkey Mod OOK!
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Formerly verilon
R.I.P. Eddie Guerrero, 09 October 1967 - 13 November 2005
Hot Pants à la Zaia | BotM Lord Monkey Mod OOK!
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R.I.P. Eddie Guerrero, 09 October 1967 - 13 November 2005
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Lagmonster
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Lagmonster
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- Location: Ottawa, Canada
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Lagmonster
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haas mark
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Mine sucked ass.Lagmonster wrote:Hope everyone had a great Halloween!
Robert-Conway.com | lunar sun | TotalEnigma.net
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R.I.P. Eddie Guerrero, 09 October 1967 - 13 November 2005
Hot Pants à la Zaia | BotM Lord Monkey Mod OOK!
SDNC | WG | GDC | ACPATHNTDWATGODW | GALE | ISARMA | CotK: [mew]
Formerly verilon
R.I.P. Eddie Guerrero, 09 October 1967 - 13 November 2005
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Lagmonster
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haas mark
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Let me copy it from LiveJournal and create a new thread...Lagmonster wrote:Why? I got to scare kids and eat candy. It was a good night all round.verilon wrote:Mine sucked ass.Lagmonster wrote:Hope everyone had a great Halloween!
Robert-Conway.com | lunar sun | TotalEnigma.net
Hot Pants à la Zaia | BotM Lord Monkey Mod OOK!
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R.I.P. Eddie Guerrero, 09 October 1967 - 13 November 2005
Hot Pants à la Zaia | BotM Lord Monkey Mod OOK!
SDNC | WG | GDC | ACPATHNTDWATGODW | GALE | ISARMA | CotK: [mew]
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R.I.P. Eddie Guerrero, 09 October 1967 - 13 November 2005
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Kelly Antilles
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Lagmonster
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Whew, thanks. I was on pins and needles hoping for a response other than how I mis-posted them. 
Actually, they're some original interpretations of classical ghost stories (Cold Hands, the Red Mist) some translations from professionally-dictated stories (the Murderer's Skull, the Passenger in Black), and one completely fictional story that I wrote (Alone in Pairs).
Actually, they're some original interpretations of classical ghost stories (Cold Hands, the Red Mist) some translations from professionally-dictated stories (the Murderer's Skull, the Passenger in Black), and one completely fictional story that I wrote (Alone in Pairs).
Note: I'm semi-retired from the board, so if you need something, please be patient.
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Kelly Antilles
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