Fighters of Fear
Page 71
He came forward with such a look of love and devotion that in spite of my persisting alarm, and due I’m sure to some occult influence rather than my own nature, I was momentarily terribly aroused. He reached outward to clasp his youthful hands at the sides of my shoulders. I held my ground, certain that my humane exorcism was having its intended effect.
When his ghostly fingers touched me, I felt a warming vibration, as though my whole upper body were encased in fine electrical wire, the voltage slowly increasing. The fan began to shine so brightly that I felt I risked blindness if I failed to close my eyes, but close them I could not.
Before my gaze, the young Jeremiah’s angelic face grew sinister by rapid degrees. Simultaneously, the electricity that held me in anguished thrall became more painful. His perfect smile became twisted; his white teeth yellowed and grew long as his gums receded; and then there was only that toothless maw yelling at me without making a sound, dreadful threats I blessedly could not hear. The young soldier had withered and wizened; it was evil rather than years that aged him; and the claws that gripped my shoulders drew blood.
When he let go of me, the light of the fan went out, and I collapsed upon the floor, half sitting against the door jamb. Jeremiah loomed over me with menace, yet my rattled thoughts were pondering in a distant, withdrawn place. I wondered idly if the electrical shock had stopped my heart. I was dimly aware that my lips were wet with froth and drool, and for a moment I was concerned mainly with the nuisance of being unable to move my arm to wipe my mouth.
If these sorts of things were the usual result of my investigations, I should not be so in love with haunted places. I have occasionally felt real danger, but this was the first time I had been so insufficiently prepared that physical harm became inevitable.
His blackening claw grasped me anew and he dragged me across the kitchen floor. His other hand wound into my hair as he pushed my face under the sink, so that I saw before my eyes a thirty or forty year old package of poison—a brand from the days when it was still possible to purchase strychnine to kill rats or even wolves—a damp-stained blue package with skull and crossbones printed in black.
And I realized at that moment what it had to have been that I had overlooked: the critical information without which I was helpless before so malignant a spirit. Gretta had indeed poisoned her husband, out of love I do not doubt, and to end his awful suffering. It explained why, on that Christmas Eve fifteen years before, she had spent only a few minutes with him. There would have been no reason for the physicians to suspect such a thing; but Jeremiah had known, though he lacked the capacity to understand it as an act of mercy.
And now my face was shoved hard against the open package of poisonous salts. I clamped my eyes and mouth shut. Jeremiah’s ghost was trying to kill me, and at that moment I felt he had a good chance at success.
Then a sad, raspy voice came from the kitchen doorway, saying, “Let her go, Jeremiah. It’s me you want.”
The calm resignation in her voice was heartbreaking.
The black claws let go of my arm and hair. I pushed myself away from under the sink. I was still smarting from the shock of Jeremiah’s first touch. I could barely see, and when I tried to focus, it looked to me as though a young woman was moving toward me in a dressing gown. She reached across my shoulder and removed the strychnine from under the sink. A sweet, youthful voice said, “I guess I should have told you all of it, Penelope, but I thought you could stop him from coming without knowing everything. I’m sorry. Now it’s left to me to finish, and there’s only one thing that will give my poor Jeremiah peace.”
“No, Gretta, no,” I said, struggling to rise, reaching outward and trying to grab the package from her hand. But I fell back all but senseless, still gripped by the paralysis of the electric shock. I watched as from a dream as Gretta moved about the kitchen, heating water on the stove, calmly making herself a cup of tea, and heaping into it a spoon of strychnine as though it were sugar.
Standing beside her the whole while was the young soldier. She talked to him in loving terms, and addressed me from time to time as well. She thanked me for a lovely Christmas Eve while I strove uselessly to break the paralysis, tears streaming down my eyes.
Then Gretta and her soldier left the kitchen. I heard her footsteps, inexplicably spritely, echoing down the hall. I heard her shut her bedroom door.
And that, Jane, is the gist of a sad adventure. It was over. Oh, I had to suffer interviews with police and coroner. But it didn’t take long, because, unfortunately, suicide is the commonest thing among the elderly. I was not pressed to tell the whole story, which they certainly would not have believed. As to myself, I suffered no ill after effects of the spiritual electrocution, which was, after all, less dangerous than actual electricity. In fact, if you will believe it, the next day I felt partially rejuvenated, and seem since that night to have gotten over my mild arthritis.
And now you may open the gift box I sent along, and which said on it not to open until after you read my letter. As you will see, it is Gretta’s paper fan. I bought it at the estate sale, together with a few other small mementos of a brief friendship.
You will observe that the fan, for all its simplicity, is of the finest craftsmanship, completely hand-made in a manner not seen in over half a century. When I first saw it, it was faded, dusty, and tattered to thinness as though occasionally sampled by moths. And the fan I’ve sent you is the same one, miraculously restored, as though cut and pasted recently, the classic floral design as bright as though painted yesterday.
I take this surprising restoration as evidence that Gretta is forgiven by Jeremiah and that they are now happily reunited—out there in the “somewhere” we’re all destined one day and eternally to know.
COPYRIGHT ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AND STORY SOURCES
ALL THE STORIES IN THIS ANTHOLOGY ARE IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN unless otherwise noted. Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and the publisher apologizes for any errors or omissions and would be pleased to be notified of any corrections to be incorporated in reprints or future editions. The following gives the first publication details for each story and the sources used. They are listed in alphabetical order of author.
“The Stranger” by Claude & Alice Askew, first published in The Weekly Tale-Teller, 11 July 1914 and collected in Aylmer Vance: Ghost Seer (Canada: Ash-Tree Press, 1998).
“Mystery of Iniquity” by L. Adams Beck, first published in The Openers of the Gate (New York: Cosmopolitan Book Corporation, 1930).
“The Dead of Winter Apparition” © 1975 by Joseph Payne Brennan. First published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, February 1975, and collected in Chronicles of Lucius Leffing (West Kingston: Donald M. Grant, 1977). Reprinted by permission of the agent for the estate.
“The Soldier” © 1927 by A. M. Burrage. First published in The Blue Magazine, September 1927, and collected in The Occult Files of Francis Chard (Canada: Ash-Tree Press, 1996). Reprinted by permission of the Author’s Estate.
“Samaris” by Robert W. Chambers, first published in Saturday Evening Post, 5 May 1906, and in The Idler, January 1907, and incorporated in The Tracer of Lost Persons (New York: Appleton, 1906).
“The Villa on the Borderive Road” by Rose Champion de Crespigny, first published in The Premier Magazine, 24 October 1919, and collected in Norton Vyse: Psychic (Canada: Ash-Tree Press, 1999).
“The Seven Fires” by Philippa Forest, first published in Pearson’s Magazine, March 1920.
“The Subletting of the Mansion” by Dion Fortune, first published in The Royal Magazine, December 1922, and collected in The Secrets of Dr. Taverner (London: Noel Douglas, 1926).
“The Story of Yand Manor House” by E. & H. Heron, first published in Pearson’s Magazine, June 1898, and collected in Ghosts, Being the Experiences of Flaxman Low (London: Pearson, 1899).
“The Whistling Room” by William Hope Hodgson, first published in The Idler, March 1910, and collected in Carnacki the Ghost-Finder (Londo
n: Eveleigh Nash, 1913).
“The Horror of the Height” by Sydney Horler, first published in Mystery Stories, April 1928. Unable to trace author’s estate.
“The Sanatorium” © 1919 by F. Tennyson Jesse, first published in The Premier Magazine, June 1919, and collected in The Adventures of Solange Fontaine (London: Thomas Carnacki, 1995). Reprinted by arrangement with the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
“The Haunted Child” by Arabella Kenealy, first published in The Ludgate, June 1896, and collected in Belinda’s Beaux and Other Stories (London: Bliss, Sands, 1897) as “An Expiation.”
“The Swaying Vision” by Jessie Douglas Kerruish, first published in The Weekly Tale-Teller, 16 January 1915.
“The Case of the Haunted Cathedral” © 1945 by Margery Lawrence, first published in Number 7, Queer Street (London: Robert Hale, 1945). Reprinted by permission of David Higham Associates, Ltd., on behalf of the author’s estate.
“Green Tea” by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, first published in All the Year Round, 23 October–13 November 1869, and collected in In a Glass Darkly (London: Richard Bentley, 1872).
“The Thought-Monster” by Amelia Reynolds Long first published in Weird Tales, March 1930. No record of copyright renewal.
“Dr. Muncing, Exorcist” by Gordon MacCreagh first published in Strange Tales, September 1931. No record of copyright renewal.
“The Shining Pyramid” by Arthur Machen, first published in Unknown World, May–June 1895, and collected in The Shining Pyramid (Chicago: Covici-McGee, 1923).
“The Mystery of the Felwyn Tunnel” by L. T. Meade & Robert Eustace, first published in Cassell’s Magazine, August 1897, and collected in A Master of Mysteries (London: Ward, Lock, 1898).
“The Jest of Warburg Tantavul” © 1934 by Seabury Quinn, first published in Weird Tales, September 1934, and collected in The Phantom Fighter (Sauk City: Mycroft & Moran, 1966). Reprinted by permission of George A. Vanderburgh on behalf of the author’s estate.
“The Sorcerer of Arjuzanx” © 1911 by Max Rittenberg. First published in The London Magazine, June 1911, and incorporated into The Mind Reader (New York: Appleton, 1913). Reprinted by permission of the Author’s Estate.
“The Ivory Statue” © 1913 by Sax Rohmer. First published in The New Magazine, July 1913, and collected in The Dream Detective (Jarrolds, 1920). Reprinted by permission of the Society of Authors on behalf of the Author’s Estate
“The Woman with the Crooked Nose” by Victor Rousseau, syndicated through newspapers including Stevens Point Daily Journal, starting 30 September 1910. Collected in The Surgeon of Souls (Altamonte Springs, Florida: The Spectre Library, 2006).
“Jeremiah” © 1990 by Jessica Amanda Salmonson. First published in Harmless Ghosts (Chester: The Haunted Library, 1990). Reprinted by permission of the Author.
“The Room of Fear” by Ella Scrymsour, first published in The Blue Magazine, July 1920, and collected in Sheila Crerar: Psychic Investigator (Canada: Ash-Tree Press, 2006).
“The Tapping on the Wainscot” by Allan Upward, first published in The Royal Magazine, December 1905.
“St. Michael & All Angels” © 1987 by Mark Valentine. First published in 14, Bellchamber Tower (Liverpool: Crimson Altar Press, 1987) and collected in The Herald of the Hidden and Other Stories (Leyburn: Tartarus Press, 2013). Reprinted by permission of the Author.
“The Shonokins” © 1945 by Manly Wade Wellman. First published in Weird Tales, March 1945, and collected in Lonely Vigils (Chapel Hill: Carcosa, 1981). Reprinted by permission of the agent for the estate.
“The Shut Room” by Henry S. Whitehead, first published in Weird Tales, April 1930, and collected in West India Lights (Sauk City: Arkham House, 1946).
“The Garden of Paris” © 1965 by Eric Williams. First published in Weird Shadows from Beyond, edited by John Carnell (London: Corgi Books, 1965). Reprinted by permission of the Cosmos Literary Agency on behalf of the author’s estate.
ABOUT THE EDITOR
MIKE ASHLEY is the award-winning author and editor of more than one hundred books, and is one of the foremost historians of popular fiction. His books include Adventures in The Strand: Arthur Conan Doyle and the Strand Magazine, Out of This World: Science Fiction But Not as You Know It, and the biography of Algernon Blackwood, Starlight Man.