The 2014 Halloween Horrors Megapack
Page 1
Contents
COPYRIGHT INFO
A NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER
The MEGAPACK™ Ebook Series
THE EYES, by Edith Wharton
MYSTERIOUS MAISIE, by Wirt Gerrare
THE OPEN DOOR, by Margaret Oliphant
THE MOONLIT ROAD, by Ambrose Bierce
NIGHT SHOULD BE BLACK, by Everil Worrell
COPYRIGHT INFO
The 2014 Halloween Horrors MEGAPACK™ is copyright © 2014 by Wildside Press, LLC. All rights reserved.
* * * *
The MEGAPACK™ ebook series name is a trademark of Wildside Press, LLC. All rights reserved.
* * * *
“Night Should be Black” is copyright © 2014 by Wildside Press LLC. It is original to this publication.
A NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER
Welcome to our first Halloween Horror MEGAPACK™! This time we offer a selection of 4 classic ghost stories, plus as an added bonus “Night Should be Black,” by Everil Worrell.
Enjoy!
—John Betancourt
Publisher, Wildside Press LLC
www.wildsidepress.com
ABOUT THE SERIES
Over the last few years, our MEGAPACK™ ebook series has grown to be our most popular endeavor. (Maybe it helps that we sometimes offer them as premiums to our mailing list!) One question we keep getting asked is, “Who’s the editor?”
The MEGAPACK™ ebook series (except where specifically credited) are a group effort. Everyone at Wildside works on them. This includes John Betancourt (me), Carla Coupe, Steve Coupe, Shawn Garrett, Helen McGee, Bonner Menking, Colin Azariah-Kribbs, A.E. Warren, and many of Wildside’s authors…who often suggest stories to include (and not just their own!)
RECOMMEND A FAVORITE STORY?
Do you know a great classic science fiction story, or have a favorite author whom you believe is perfect for the MEGAPACK™ ebook series? We’d love your suggestions! You can post them on our message board at http://movies.ning.com/forum (there is an area for Wildside Press comments).
Note: we only consider stories that have already been professionally published. This is not a market for new works.
TYPOS
Unfortunately, as hard as we try, a few typos do slip through. We update our ebooks periodically, so make sure you have the current version (or download a fresh copy if it’s been sitting in your ebook reader for months.) It may have already been updated.
If you spot a new typo, please let us know. We’ll fix it for everyone. You can email the publisher at wildsidepress@yahoo.com or use the message boards above.
The MEGAPACK™ Ebook Series
MYSTERY
The First Mystery MEGAPACK™
The Second Mystery MEGAPACK™
The Achmed Abdullah MEGAPACK™
The Bulldog Drummond MEGAPACK™*
The Carolyn Wells Mystery MEGAPACK™
The Charlie Chan MEGAPACK™*
The Craig Kennedy Scientific Detective MEGAPACK™
The Detective MEGAPACK™
The Father Brown MEGAPACK™
The Girl Detective MEGAPACK™
The Second Girl Detective MEGAPACK™
The First R. Austin Freeman MEGAPACK™
The Second R. Austin Freeman MEGAPACK™*
The Third R. Austin Freeman MEGAPACK™*
The Jacques Futrelle MEGAPACK™
The Anna Katharine Green Mystery MEGAPACK™
The Penny Parker MEGAPACK™
The Philo Vance MEGAPACK™*
The Pulp Fiction MEGAPACK™
The Raffles MEGAPACK™
The Red Finger Pulp Mystery MEGAPACK™, by Arthur Leo Zagat*
The Sherlock Holmes MEGAPACK™
The Victorian Mystery MEGAPACK™
The Wilkie Collins MEGAPACK™
GENERAL INTEREST
The Adventure MEGAPACK™
The Baseball MEGAPACK™
The Cat Story MEGAPACK™
The Second Cat Story MEGAPACK™
The Third Cat Story MEGAPACK™
The Third Cat Story MEGAPACK™
The Christmas MEGAPACK™
The Second Christmas MEGAPACK™
The Classic American Short Stories MEGAPACK™, Vol. 1.
The Classic Humor MEGAPACK™
The Dog Story MEGAPACK™
The Doll Story MEGAPACK™
The Horse Story MEGAPACK™
The Military MEGAPACK™
The Pirate Story MEGAPACK™
The Sea-Story MEGAPACK™
The Utopia MEGAPACK™
THE GOLDEN AGE OF SCIENCE FICTION
1. Winston K. Marks
2. Mark Clifton
3. Poul Anderson
4. Clifford D. Simak
5. Lester del Rey
6. Charles L. Fontenay
7. H.B. Fyfe
8. Milton Lesser (Stephen Marlowe)
SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY
The First Science Fiction MEGAPACK™
The Second Science Fiction MEGAPACK™
The Third Science Fiction MEGAPACK™
The Fourth Science Fiction MEGAPACK™
The Fifth Science Fiction MEGAPACK™
The Sixth Science Fiction MEGAPACK™
The Seventh Science Fiction MEGAPACK™
The Eighth Science Fiction MEGAPACK™
The Ninth Science Fiction MEGAPACK™
The Edward Bellamy MEGAPACK™
The First Reginald Bretnor MEGAPACK™
The Fredric Brown MEGAPACK™
The Fred M. White Disaster MEGAPACK™
The First Theodore Cogswell MEGAPACK™
The Ray Cummings MEGAPACK™
The Philip K. Dick MEGAPACK™
The Dragon MEGAPACK™
The Randall Garrett MEGAPACK™
The Second Randall Garrett MEGAPACK™
The Edmond Hamilton MEGAPACK™
The C.J. Henderson MEGAPACK™
The Murray Leinster MEGAPACK™***
The Second Murray Leinster MEGAPACK™***
The Jack London Science Fiction MEGAPACK™
The Lost Worlds MEGAPACK™
The Mad Scientist MEGAPACK™
The Martian MEGAPACK™
The A. Merritt MEGAPACK™*
The E. Nesbit MEGAPACK™
The Andre Norton MEGAPACK™
The H. Beam Piper MEGAPACK™
The Pulp Fiction MEGAPACK™
The Mack Reynolds MEGAPACK™
The Milton A. Rothman Science Fiction MEGAPACK™
The Darrell Schweitzer MEGAPACK™
The Science-Fantasy MEGAPACK™
The Robert Sheckley MEGAPACK™
The Space Opera MEGAPACK™
The Space Patrol MEGAPACK™
The Steampunk MEGAPACK™
The Time Travel MEGAPACK™
The Second Time Travel MEGAPACK™
The Utopia MEGAPACK™
The William Hope Hodgson MEGAPACK™
The First Willam P. McGivern Science Fiction MEGAPACK™
The Second Willam P. McGivern Science Fiction MEGAPACK™
The Willam P. McGivern Fantasy MEGAPACK™
The Wizard of Oz MEGAPACK™
HORROR
The Horror MEGAPACK™
The Second Horror MEGAPACK™
The Achmed Abdullah MEGAPACK™
The Second Achmed Abdullah MEGAPACK™
The E.F. Benson MEGAPACK™
The Second E.F. Benson MEGAPACK™
The Algernon B
lackwood MEGAPACK™
The Second Algernon Blackwood MEGAPACK™
The Cthulhu Mythos MEGAPACK™
The Erckmann-Chatrian MEGAPACK™
The Ghost Story MEGAPACK™
The Second Ghost Story MEGAPACK™
The Third Ghost Story MEGAPACK™
The Haunts & Horrors MEGAPACK™
The Lon Williams Weird Western MEGAPACK™
The M.R. James MEGAPACK™
The Macabre MEGAPACK™
The Second Macabre MEGAPACK™
The Third Macabre MEGAPACK™
The Arthur Machen MEGAPACK™**
The Mummy MEGAPACK™
The Occult Detective MEGAPACK™
The Darrell Schweitzer MEGAPACK™
The Vampire MEGAPACK™
The Weird Fiction MEGAPACK™
The Werewolf MEGAPACK™
The William Hope Hodgson MEGAPACK™
WESTERN
The Western MEGAPACK™
The Second Western MEGAPACK™
The Third Western MEGAPACK™
The Andy Adams Western MEGAPACK™
The B.M. Bower MEGAPACK™
The Max Brand MEGAPACK™
The Buffalo Bill MEGAPACK™
The Cowboy MEGAPACK™
The Zane Grey MEGAPACK™
The Lon Williams Weird Western MEGAPACK™
YOUNG ADULT
The Bobbsey Twins MEGAPACK™
The Boys’ Adventure MEGAPACK™
The Dan Carter, Cub Scout MEGAPACK™
The Dare Boys MEGAPACK™
The Doll Story MEGAPACK™
The G.A. Henty MEGAPACK™
The Girl Detectives MEGAPACK™
The E. Nesbit MEGAPACK™
The Penny Parker MEGAPACK™
The Pinocchio MEGAPACK™
The Rover Boys MEGAPACK™
The Second Carolyn Wells MEGAPACK™
The Space Patrol MEGAPACK™
The Tom Corbett, Space Cadet MEGAPACK™
The Tom Swift MEGAPACK™
The Wizard of Oz MEGAPACK™
SINGLE-AUTHOR
The Achmed Abdullah MEGAPACK™
The H. Bedford-Jones Pulp Fiction MEGAPACK™
The Edward Bellamy MEGAPACK™
The E.F. Benson MEGAPACK™
The Second E.F. Benson MEGAPACK™
The Henri Bergson MEGAPACK™
The Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson MEGAPACK™
The Algernon Blackwood MEGAPACK™
The Second Algernon Blackwood MEGAPACK™
The B.M. Bower MEGAPACK™
The Max Brand MEGAPACK™
The First Reginald Bretnor MEGAPACK™
The Fredric Brown MEGAPACK™
The Second Fredric Brown MEGAPACK™
The Wilkie Collins MEGAPACK™
The Stephen Crane MEGAPACK™
The Ray Cummings MEGAPACK™
The Guy de Maupassant MEGAPACK™
The Philip K. Dick MEGAPACK™
The Frederick Douglass MEGAPACK™
The Erckmann-Chatrian MEGAPACK™
The F. Scott Fitzgerald MEGAPACK™
The First R. Austin Freeman MEGAPACK™
The Second R. Austin Freeman MEGAPACK™*
The Third R. Austin Freeman MEGAPACK™*
The Jacques Futrelle MEGAPACK™
The Randall Garrett MEGAPACK™
The Second Randall Garrett MEGAPACK™
The Anna Katharine Green MEGAPACK™
The Zane Grey MEGAPACK™
The Edmond Hamilton MEGAPACK™
The Dashiell Hammett MEGAPACK™
The C.J. Henderson MEGAPACK™
The William Hope Hodgson MEGAPACK™
The M.R. James MEGAPACK™
The Selma Lagerlof MEGAPACK™
The Harold Lamb MEGAPACK™
The Murray Leinster MEGAPACK™***
The Second Murray Leinster MEGAPACK™***
The Jonas Lie MEGAPACK™
The Arthur Machen MEGAPACK™**
The Katherine Mansfield MEGAPACK™
The George Barr McCutcheon MEGAPACK™
The William P. McGivern Fantasy MEGAPACK™
The First William P. McGivern Science Fiction MEGAPACK™
The Second William P. McGivern Science Fiction MEGAPACK™
The A. Merritt MEGAPACK™*
The Talbot Mundy MEGAPACK™
The E. Nesbit MEGAPACK™
The Andre Norton MEGAPACK™
The H. Beam Piper MEGAPACK™
The Mack Reynolds MEGAPACK™
The Rafael Sabatini MEGAPACK™
The Saki MEGAPACK™
The Darrell Schweitzer MEGAPACK™
The Robert Sheckley MEGAPACK™
The Bram Stoker MEGAPACK™
The Fred M. White Disaster MEGAPACK™
The Lon Williams Weird Western MEGAPACK™
The Virginia Woolf MEGAPACK™
The Arthur Leo Zagat Science Fiction MEGAPACK™
* Not available in the United States
** Not available in the European Union
***Out of print.
OTHER COLLECTIONS YOU MAY ENJOY
The Great Book of Wonder, by Lord Dunsany (it should have been called “The Lord Dunsany MEGAPACK™”)
The Wildside Book of Fantasy
The Wildside Book of Science Fiction
Yondering: The First Borgo Press Book of Science Fiction Stories
To the Stars—And Beyond! The Second Borgo Press Book of Science Fiction Stories
Once Upon a Future: The Third Borgo Press Book of Science Fiction Stories
Whodunit?—The First Borgo Press Book of Crime and Mystery Stories
More Whodunits—The Second Borgo Press Book of Crime and Mystery StorieyX is for Xmas: Christmas Mysteries
THE EYES, by Edith Wharton
I
We had been put in the mood for ghosts, that evening, after an excellent dinner at our old friend Culwin’s, by a tale of Fred Murchard’s—the narrative of a strange personal visitation.
Seen through the haze of our cigars, and by the drowsy gleam of a coal fire, Culwin’s library, with its oak walls and dark old bindings, made a good setting for such evocations; and ghostly experiences at first hand being, after Murchard’s brilliant opening, the only kind acceptable to us, we proceeded to take stock of our group and tax each member for a contribution. There were eight of us, and seven contrived, in a manner more or less adequate, to fulfill the condition imposed. It surprised us all to find that we could muster such a show of supernatural impressions, for none of us, excepting Murchard himself and young Phil Frenham—whose story was the slightest of the lot—had the habit of sending our souls into the invisible. So that, on the whole, we had every reason to be proud of our seven “exhibits,” and none of us would have dreamed of expecting an eighth from our host.
Our old friend, Mr. Andrew Culwin, who had sat back in his arm-chair, listening and blinking through the smoke circles with the cheerful tolerance of a wise old idol, was not the kind of man likely to be favoured with such contacts, though he had imagination enough to enjoy, without envying, the superior privileges of his guests. By age and by education he belonged to the stout Positivist tradition, and his habit of thought had been formed in the days of the epic struggle between physics and metaphysics. But he had been, then and always, essentially a spectator, a humorous detached observer of the immense muddled variety show of life, slipping out of his seat now and then for a brief dip into the convivialities at the back of the house, but never, as far as one knew, showing the least desire to jump on the stage and do a “turn.”
Among his contemporaries there lingered a vague tradition of his having, at a remote period, and in a romantic clime, been wounded in a duel; but this legend no more tallied with what we younger men knew of his character than my mother’s assertion that he had once been “a charming little man with nice eyes” corresponded to any possible r
econstitution of his dry thwarted physiognomy.
“He never can have looked like anything but a bundle of sticks,” Murchard had once said of him. “Or a phosphorescent log, rather,” some one else amended; and we recognized the happiness of this description of his small squat trunk, with the red blink of the eyes in a face like mottled bark. He had always been possessed of a leisure which he had nursed and protected, instead of squandering it in vain activities. His carefully guarded hours had been devoted to the cultivation of a fine intelligence and a few judiciously chosen habits; and none of the disturbances common to human experience seemed to have crossed his sky. Nevertheless, his dispassionate survey of the universe had not raised his opinion of that costly experiment, and his study of the human race seemed to have resulted in the conclusion that all men were superfluous, and women necessary only because some one had to do the cooking. On the importance of this point his convictions were absolute, and gastronomy was the only science which he revered as dogma. It must be owned that his little dinners were a strong argument in favour of this view, besides being a reason—though not the main one—for the fidelity of his friends.
Mentally he exercised a hospitality less seductive but no less stimulating. His mind was like a forum, or some open meeting-place for the exchange of ideas: somewhat cold and draughty, but light, spacious and orderly—a kind of academic grove from which all the leaves had fallen. In this privileged area a dozen of us were wont to stretch our muscles and expand our lungs; and, as if to prolong as much as possible the tradition of what we felt to be a vanishing institution, one or two neophytes were now and then added to our band.
Young Phil Frenham was the last, and the most interesting, of these recruits, and a good example of Murchard’s somewhat morbid assertion that our old friend “liked ‘em juicy.” It was indeed a fact that Culwin, for all his mental dryness, specially tasted the lyric qualities in youth. As he was far too good an Epicurean to nip the flowers of soul which he gathered for his garden, his friendship was not a disintegrating influence: on the contrary, it forced the young idea to robuster bloom. And in Phil Frenham he had a fine subject for experimentation. The boy was really intelligent, and the soundness of his nature was like the pure paste under a delicate glaze. Culwin had fished him out of a thick fog of family dullness, and pulled him up to a peak in Darien; and the adventure hadn’t hurt him a bit. Indeed, the skill with which Culwin had contrived to stimulate his curiosities without robbing them of their young bloom of awe seemed to me a sufficient answer to Murchard’s ogreish metaphor. There was nothing hectic in Frenham’s efflorescence, and his old friend had not laid even a finger-tip on the sacred stupidities. One wanted no better proof of that than the fact that Frenham still reverenced them in Culwin.