Southern Fried Rat and Other Gruesome Tales

by Daniel Cohen

  He was asleep in the camper one night when he thought he heard some strange noises outside. In his semiconscious condition Willis decided that the noise was nothing more than a marauding raccoon, and so he went back to sleep.

  The next morning when Willis stepped out of his camper, he found that the noise had not been made by a raccoon. Someone had been trying to siphon gas out of his spare tank. There on the ground lay a siphon hose abandoned by the would-be thief, plus unmistakable evidence that after trying to suck the "gas" out of the spare tank, the thief had been very, very ill.

  —————

  Dr. Gray had seen a lot of strange injuries in his time, but nothing quite like the one suffered by the patient who now lay before him on a table in the emergency room.

  "How did it happen?" asked the doctor.

  The patient, who obviously was in great pain, merely groaned and turned his head away.

  "How did it happen?" repeated the doctor. "You can tell me."

  "Well," said the man. "My wife saw a spider in the toilet bowl. She's deathly afraid of spiders, so she tried to kill it with her hair spray. She sprayed the toilet bowl full of the stuff.

  "I didn't know anything about that and a couple of minutes later i went into the bathroom. I was just sitting there smoking a cigarette, and I dropped the lighted butt into the bowl. It exploded and blew me halfway across the room."

  All of these embarrassing tales and scores more like them are funny. They make you laugh. But they are not jokes—that is, they are not obvious fiction. They are almost always told as true stories, and they are widely believed, even by people who should know better. Accounts of a man in his shorts found wandering around on the highway have frequently appeared in newspapers, and the story of the nude surprise party once popped up in Ann Landers's column.

  The Wendango

  John Reynolds and Ross McRaye from Philadelphia were going on a long-planned camping and hunting trip to western Canada. For two weeks they would get off into the wilds, far, far away from civilization. They were going to a place where they didn't have to worry about running into a lot of other campers or hunters.

  John had heard about a little town on the edge of the forest that they could use as a jumping-off place. When they got to the town, they found it was barely a town at all, more like a trading post where the local Indians would come to buy whatever supplies they needed. Though John and Ross were experienced woodsmen, they knew that they would need a guide to take them into the rugged country.

  They thought it would be easy to hire a guide, but they soon discovered that it was nearly impossible. Though the Indians were very poor and quite obviously needed work of some sort, when they were asked about becoming guides they always came up with an excuse as to why they couldn't. Either their wife or mother was sick, and they had to stay behind to attend her. Or they were waiting for another party that they guided every year and could not disappoint. Or they had to go somewhere else and didn't know anything about the woods. These excuses were all transparently false. What was clear was that the local Indians didn't want to go into the woods, no matter how much money they were offered. After hanging around the trading post for a couple of days, John and Ross discovered the real reason. The Indians were afraid to go into the woods because the woods were said to be inhabited by the Wendango.

  The men from Philadelphia were not quite sure what the Wendango was supposed to be—some sort of real creature or a demon or spirit of the woods. But whatever it was, it had the Indians of the area terrified. They said that no one who had ever seen the thing remained alive and sane.

  The Wendango worked in strange ways. It would pick out a particular person in a group. The person would begin to hear strange noises and smell strange smells that no one else in the group could hear or smell. Sometimes the man who had been chosen as victim by the Wendango would say that he could see the creature's eyes glowing in the darkness beyond the firelight. But no one else was ever able to see the glowing eyes.

  Finally the Wendango would begin to call to its victim, and that would be the end. No one could resist the call of the Wendango. The victim would rush out into the woods and never be seen again—or almost never. A few of the Wendango's victims had been found later. What had happened to them? When asked that question, the Indians would just turn away. They did not want to talk about it. It was too horrible.

  Now, John and Ross regarded all of this business about the Wendango as ignorant superstition, and they didn't want to have their trip ruined because of it. They persisted in trying to find a guide and finally they found one. He was an Indian named DaFago, who was desperately in need of money. When they offered DaFago twice the usual guide's fee, he reluctantly agreed to take the men into the woods.

  DaFago was silent most of the time. He marched grimly through the woods ahead of his charges and communicated mainly by pointing, or with an occasional grunt. After they had been in the woods for two days, DaFago's manner changed. From time to time he would stop suddenly and look around, as though he had heard a strange noise. John and Ross heard nothing unusual. Then DaFago would put his nose in the air and begin to sniff, as though he had caught the faint odor of something strange. John and Ross could smell nothing unusual. When they asked the Indian what was going on, he would not answer.

  The hunters had been out for a week, and each day DaFago's actions became stranger and stranger. He never seemed to sleep but sat up all night listening and watching. But for what? He said nothing. John and Ross became genuinely concerned for their guide's sanity and for their own safety, for they would be lost in the woods without him.

  Then one evening a snowstorm hit. Such storms were not uncommon in autumn in that part of Canada. Though they might be violent, they usually didn't last too long.

  The men built a fire and prepared to spend the night. DaFago assumed his usual attitude, sitting by the fire listening and watching, but this night, in the storm, he seemed to be more tense and alert than ever.

  The wind was howling through the trees, and the noise kept John and Ross awake. As they listened to the wind, it began to sound as if it was a voice in the distance calling, "Da-Faaaaaay-go! Da-Faaaaaaaay-go!"

  "Do you hear that?" said John.

  "No I don't," said Ross, "and you don't either. It's just the wind. You can't let your imagination get the better of you. We're in enough trouble already. We're in the middle of the woods in a snowstorm, and our guide is going nuts."

  The two men finally fell asleep. They were awakened again by a scream—not an imaginary scream but a real scream, very close. They crawled out of the tent and saw DaFago standing by the fire with his hands over his ears—and screaming.

  Then from out of the woods, the wind, or something, called: "Da-Faaaaaaaay-go! Da-Faaaaay-go!" Out there in the darkness John and Ross thought they saw two red glowing eyes. Or was it just an illusion?

  DaFago gave one more scream. "My feet are burning! They are fiery wings and I must fly!" Then he rushed off into the darkness.

  John and Ross were terrified, but they knew there was nothing they could do until the sun came up. As soon as it did, they tried to follow DaFago's trail in the snow.

  His moccasin prints were easy to see in the fresh snow. After a short while they were joined by another set of prints. These seemed to have been made by a creature with gigantic bearlike feet. The two sets of prints ran side by side, and it looked as if the guide and the creature had been walking together.

  As they followed the trail, John and Ross noticed that the human prints began to change. They began to resemble more and more those of the creature. Finally they were exactly the same shape as those of the creature, only smaller.

  Then suddenly and mysteriously, both sets of prints vanished.

  The two men now realized that they were in great danger. They decided that nothing could be gained by searching for their missing guide. They had better try to get back to civilization as quickly as possible, before DaFago's terrible fate overtook them. />
  It was to be a hard trip back, for without a guide the men could not find the trails.

  Three days later John and Ross were sitting by their campfire when they heard a noise in the woods. Out from among the trees staggered a figure. It took a moment for them to recognize that the figure was the missing DaFago. He had been greatly changed in so short a period of time. His face was cut and scarred, and his clothes, or what was left of them, were in tatters. He barely seemed able to speak; he just cried and groaned. He could say only one word, Wendango.

  John and Ross rushed to help the guide. They half dragged, half carried, poor DaFago to the fire. In the flickering light he looked even worse than he had in the shadows—he looked barely human. Then, remembering the footprints he had seen in the snow, John glanced down—and screamed.

  "Oh, my God! Look at his feet!"

  "The Wendango," in one version or another, is one of the most popular of campfire tales. It is based only very loosely on genuine Indian lore, but it has been making the rounds of summer camps since at least the 1920s.

  The most effective way to end the story is to lower your voice progressively until you get to the last line, and then scream it out and point at the feet of someone in the group. Everyone will automatically look at the feet of the person you have pointed out.

  The Missing Bride

  Just outside of town there is a very large old house. Most people can't see it too well anymore, because it's pretty far back from the road. The bushes around it have grown very high and haven't been trimmed for ages. It's abandoned, and it has been for a long time. But in its heyday it was the finest house in town. Everybody admired and envied the people who lived there.

  The house was owned by the Sanderson family, maybe it still is. But there are no Sandersons around to live in it. They all moved away a long time ago, and when they left they closed the house up. They never came back, and never will. They'll never be able to sell that house, either, not after what happened there on the day that young Bruce Sanderson was married.

  Young Bruce was one of those fellows upon whom one could say fortune had smiled. He was handsome, intelligent, rich, and above all he was happy. His enthusiasm and the sheer joy he got out of life were almost childlike. They were also infectious. People in town used to say that there was no such thing as a good party if Bruce wasn't there, and no possibility of a bad one if he was. Everybody liked Bruce, and Bruce liked everybody. He particularly liked Mary Burnham. In fact, he loved her. He had loved her since they were children.

  At first glance you might think that they were the perfect couple. She was as beautiful as he was handsome. Everyone said they looked wonderful together. She was also rich. The Burnhams weren't quite as rich as the Sandersons, but quite rich enough. Both families certainly encouraged the relationship.

  In temperament, however, Mary and Bruce were as different as two people could possibly be. While he was always talking and laughing, she rarely said more than two words to anyone. People who wanted to be kind said that she was reserved, but most people described her as depressed and gloomy. She was so morose that people used to wonder if there were something that had happened to her, or something that she knew but couldn't talk about, that made her so unhappy. There was lots of speculation and gossip, but no one really knew anything for sure. Still, it had to be admitted, even by those who didn't like Mary very much, that walking around with a frown all day didn't hurt her looks one bit. In fact, it made her look more beautiful and appealing than ever, sort of like an enigmatic tragic heroine.

  That must have been the way Bruce felt about Mary. He had pursued her with a single-minded devotion for years. Finally she agreed to marry him. No one thought she really wanted to marry him. She was just worn down by his energy, his persistence, and by the entreaties of her own family.

  So the big day was finally set, and half the town was invited up to the Sanderson place for the wedding and

  reception. The other half of the town stood around gnashing their teeth in envy.

  It was, of course, the most lavish wedding this town had ever seen. There were tons of orange blossoms and hundreds of Chinese lanterns, and not one but two orchestras. And enough food to feed two towns this size, and so much drink that several men were heard to remark that they felt as if they had died and gone to heaven.

  In the middle of all of this celebration were the bride and groom. Mary in her white satin gown, looking more beautiful and more tragic than ever. And Bruce, whose usual high spirits now soared beyond all bounds.

  It was undoubtedly Bruce who had the idea of playing hide-and-seek. Party games were very unusual for a wedding celebration, but Bruce was passionately devoted to them, and everybody, at least all of the young people, were ready to follow him.

  The Sanderson house with its many rooms and extensive grounds was a perfect setting for a game of hide-and-seek. Bruce and his friends had played the game at the house many times. Bruce said that Mary should have the honor of hiding first. She shook her head and said no in her soft voice. Bruce insisted, and as usual he overwhelmed all opposition by his sheer enthusiasm. Reluctantly Mary agreed that she would hide.

  All of the guests covered their eyes and started counting, as Mary, still in her long white wedding dress, walked from the room. They gave her to the count of one hundred, and then everyone fanned out for the

  search. Practically everyone thought the game would not take more than a few moments, because Mary didn't really ever put her heart into a game. She would just pick an obvious hiding place and be found easily. At least that's what people thought at first.

  All of the obvious hiding places were searched and Mary could not be found. Some of the less obvious places were checked, and then the places that no one would ever think of. Still she remained hidden. Bruce was very pleased. Mary had gotten into the spirit of the game for the first time in her life—and she had won.

  He called for her to come out, come cut, wherever she was. There was no answer. Others began calling. Still no answer. People went all through the house and the grounds calling for Mary to come out, with an increasing sense of puzzlement shading into anxiety and even panic.

  After an hour of searching and calling, everyone in the wedding party realized that the new bride very definitely was missing. The police chief and several members of the force were already at the wedding, and they began an official investigation immediately. Nothing turned up.

  Bruce maintained a veneer of optimism, but as the days, weeks, and finally months dragged on, even his heroically cheerful spirit cracked. And he finally began to realize that Mary wasn't coming back.

  The town speculated—gossiped would be a better word—endlessly over what might have happened. The general consensus was that whatever the secret sorrow was that Mary suffered from, it had driven her to run away from her own wedding. The more ghoulish thought she ran off and killed herself at some lonely spot, while the more worldly insisted that she had a boyfriend somewhere and just took off with him.

  Bruce was broken by the ordeal, as were his parents. They determined to close up the house and go away, at least for a while. They wanted to put some distance between themselves and the scene of the disastrous wedding and the town gossip.

  All the furniture in the house was to be covered with sheets to prevent it from becoming dusty while they were away. But there was a shortage of sheets. One of the maids was told to look in the attic to see if any sheets had been stored there.

  She found an old trunk. It was locked, but with the aid of a hairpin she easily picked the lock. Inside was what first appeared to be a pile of white satin sheets. But when she reached in to pull out the sheets, she realized that there was something else in the trunk, and her scream brought everyone rushing to the attic.

  The maid had found Mary, or what was left of Mary after having been locked in a trunk for six months. Actually, she was remarkably well preserved for someone who had been dead so long. The trunk was practically airtight, so the body had not so
much rotted as it had dried out and mummified. Mary was still recognizable, though most of her flesh was gone and her skin was now stretched tightly over her highly visible bones. No one would have called her beautiful now, but she did finally look as if she was smiling—or grinning as skeletons do.

  No one knows for sure what happened, but the police guessed that poor Mary really had tried to throw herself into the spirit of the game for the first and last time in her life. She had run all the way up to the attic and hidden herself inside the old trunk. It was a good hiding place; no one would ever think of looking there. Too good, for the trunk locked when she closed it, and no one was able to hear her screams for help. Suffocation is a horrible way to die.

  That's why the Sanderson house is abandoned, and why no one wants to buy it—ever.

  Cheap Wheels

  "There's no such thing as a free lunch."

  "You get what you pay for."

  These two hoary old sayings had been guiding principles of Alexander MacLaran's life. So when he saw an ad in the paper offering an "almost new" Porsche for fifty dollars, he was suspicious, highly suspicious. Must be a misprint, he thought. Five hundred dollars for such a car would have been ridiculous, even five thousand would be an unbelievable price. Still, he came up with a couple of other hoary old sayings to fit the situation.

  "Nothing ventured, nothing gained."

  "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth."

  Fortified with this ancient wisdom, he went down to the address in the ad to look at the car. He had expected to see potential buyers lined up around the block. But there was no one else. All of the others had figured, as had Alex. that the ad must be a typographical error. Unlike Alex, they had not bothered to check it out.