The Valancourt Book of Horror Stories, Volume Two

by James D. Jenkins

  Boss was no fool. He doubled for home. Came through the window like a rocket, leaving a rich red trail on the yellowed white paintwork and regained the fridge. Another minute, and there were ten strange cats in the room. Two minutes and there were twenty.

  Boss leapt for the high shelving in desperate evasion. A whole shelf of pots and pans came down together. The noise beggared description, and there were more cats coming in all the time.

  Next door the creature, startled, slipped clumsily in its feeding. Sally came screaming up out of nightmare and ran for the warmth of her kitchen, the creature still entangled in her mind.

  To the creature, the kitchenful of cats was like rolling in broken glass. Silently, it fled to the high shelf in the box-room.

  It was unfortunate for the creature that Boss had very much the same thought. The hall door was ajar. He was through it in a flash and up the stairs, the whole frantic starving mob in pursuit.

  Back in the near-empty kitchen, there came a thunderous knocking on the door. It burst open to reveal Mr Taverner in a not-very-becoming plum-coloured smoking-jacket. He flung his arms round Sally, demanding wildly to know what the matter was.

  Sally could only point mutely upstairs.

  By the time they got there, Boss, with slashing claws, and hideous growls that filtered past the sirloin steak, was making his last stand in the open boxroom door.

  And, confused and bewildered by so many enemies, weak from hunger and shattered by frustration, the creature was cowering up on its shelf, trying to get out into the open air through the thick brickwork of the chimneys. But it was old, old . . .

  Boss, turning in desperation from the many claws dabbing at his steak, saw the same high shelf and leapt.

  Thirty pairs of ravening cat-eyes followed him.

  The creature knew, for the first time in its ancient existence, how it felt to be prey . . .

  It lost all desire to exist.

  Nobody heard the slight popping noise, because of the din. But suddenly there was a vile smell, a rubbish-tip, graveyard, green-water smell.

  And the house was empty of anything but dust and cobwebs, woodlice and woodworm. Empty for ever.

  NOVEMBER THE THIRTEENTH by Russell Thorndike

  Russell Thorndike (1885-1972) was equally well known in his lifetime as a stage and film actor and as the author of the series of swashbuckling novels recounting the adventures of the smuggler Dr Syn. ‘November the Thirteenth’, one of Thorndike’s rare forays into horror, originally appeared in Powers of Darkness (1934), one of the volumes in the famous Creeps series published by Philip Allan, and has never before been reprinted. Thorndike seems to have enjoyed penning this macabre story, for over a decade later he revised it and included it in a modified form as a chapter in his The Master of the Macabre (1947), a remarkable novel composed of a series of linked tales, most of them rather gruesome and horrific. Both that novel and the author’s earlier The Slype (1927), a mystery with supernatural overtones that earned comparisons to the works of Dickens, are available from Valancourt.

  Everyone in the village knew that there was bad blood between Farmer Quested and the Sexton. How the quarrel had originated nobody knew, but it had grown ever since the Farmer had been elected Vicar’s Warden, and as such read the lessons every Sunday. It became violent when Kitty Quested returned from service abroad and set all the lads’ hearts hammering at her beauty.

  The Sexton’s daughter was a poor sickly imbecile, and when she died the village pronounced it a good thing, and laughed when they saw the old man transfer his affection upon the churchyard horse, which was named Scraggybones. That, his beer and his hatred for Quested, were the only things the Sexton loved.

  One night when the village was drinking at the Chequers, some wag asked the Sexton whose beetroots he had been stealing­.

  ‘Beetroots?’ repeated the Sexton. ‘Don’t like ’em.’

  ‘Then why steal ’em?’ asked the wag.

  ‘Haven’t,’ snapped the Sexton.

  The wag pointed to the Sexton’s spade. There was a smear upon its blade.

  ‘If you’ve been amongst my beetroots, old ’un,’ put in Farmer Quested, from his corner by the fireplace, ‘I’ll have the law o’ you.’ The Sexton chuckled, ‘If ever Cephas Quested takes the law o’ me, it’ll be over something more serious than beetroots, I promise you.’

  Just then the Vicar came in, and called for a glass of old ale. He was popular because he was not above drinking in his own parish inn. His arrival checked the angry retort which his Warden was about to make to his Sexton. But it did not check the Sexton’s chuckles, which developed into a sinister giggling as the old man cleaned the blade of his spade with his thumb, flicking the bits of dirt across the farmers’ knees into the fire. The Vicar, having nodded to all the cronies, addressed himself to his Warden:

  ‘You’ll be glad to hear, Quested, that we have started carrying out the improvements you suggested re the churchyard at our last Council Meeting. Our worthy Sexton has been digging up the bones from behind the old wall above the Bier-Walk. Such a pile.’ He turned to the doctor. ‘As a man of science, I should like you to look them over. Your judgment must sort the Christian from the heathen. I think they’re all heathen, buried there long before the Church came, and if so they need not harbour up consecrated ground when we’re so short of space.’

  ‘Very foolish to have built a churchyard on the side of a hill,’ laughed the doctor. ‘Naturally the bones work their way through the cracks in the old wall. Many’s the mischievous limb I’ve prevented from tumbling out upon the Bier-Walk.’

  ‘Yes, it’s quite uncanny the way they work themselves out,’ agreed the Vicar. ‘I suppose it’s something to do with the wet soaking through to the lower level. It carries them along.’

  ‘It’s not the wet,’ contradicted the Sexton, still flicking bits of dirt into the fire. ‘If you wants to know what it is, I’ll tell you. It’s the worms.’

  They all laughed at this, which annoyed the old man. ‘I tells you they finishes what the Sexton begins. When I buries you there,’ and he struck the floor with his spade, ‘I don’t flatter myself you’ll stop there. They’ll come and scatter you, and never leave you till they’ve got you where they wants you. They’re always on the march manoeuvring the dead.’

  ‘Horrible thought,’ laughed the Vicar.

  ‘If there’s any truth in Parson’s yarns about the dead rising again with their bodies, I’ll guarantee some confusion in this churchyard, where Smith’s finger-bones have been creeping into Jones’ eye-sockets. The Quested marble slab won’t keep Cephas still, for all its weight. His mother ain’t under it now. They’d shifted her sideways last time I give her a look-up. Making room for the next. Ha, ha!’

  ‘Stop your blasphemy!’ shouted the farmer.

  ‘Now then. Now then,’ warned the Vicar.

  ‘More ale,’ laughed the Sexton.

  ‘No, you’ve had enough. Go home,’ ordered the Vicar.

  ‘All right, sir,’ answered the Sexton. ‘But if Farmer Quested wants to see for himself, he’ll find me up in the churchyard. I’m going to put away my spade.’ The Sexton slapped the blade of it with the flat of his hand, then looked at his enemy, and said, ‘Beetroots, eh? I like that.’ He turned the spade upside down and began to walk it about the bar-parlour. He looked like a child playing with a doll. ‘I never had a pretty daughter, I didn’t. Mine was as ugly as sin, as I overheard Farmer Quested say the day of her funeral. But my spade ain’t ugly. You’re a beauty, ain’t you?’ He kissed the blade, and catching it up in his arms, hugged it.

  ‘Go home at once,’ commanded the Vicar. ‘You’re drunk.’

  ‘That’s good too,’ sniggered the Sexton. ‘But the best thing I’ve heard to-night was beetroots,’ and clutching his spade in high glee he trotted towards the door, where he collided with Johnny Jolt, the hangman.

  ‘Wait till I gets you, you clumsy digger,’ cried Mister Jolt.

  ‘Wait till I
gets you, you clever stringer,’ chuckled the Sexton.

  ‘Birds of a feather,’ laughed the doctor.

  ‘You needn’t talk, you old poisoner,’ chaffed the Vicar.

  Everybody laughed, and the wag capped the joke with, ‘Where’s the body? For the vultures are gathered together.’

  Johnny Jolt, fresh from a job at the County Gaol, enlivened the company with gruesome details. Cephas Quested was not listening. No. Cephas Quested was sniffing. Sniffing audibly.

  Mister Jolt broke his talk to scowl at his interrupter. Quested sniffed again. ‘I recommend hot Hollands for a cold,’ snapped the hangman.

  Quested took no notice, but sniffed again, then said, ‘Can any of you smell anything? What did that Sexton flick in the fire?’

  A faint crackle came from the hearth. Cephas Quested leaned forward and stared.

  Just then young Piper came in, looking sorry for himself. The wag had a new victim, for the village knew that he had been captivated by the Quested girl.

  ‘Cheer up,’ cried the wag. ‘There’s more than one rosy apple in any orchard. Besides, I ain’t sure but that Miss Kitty don’t favour you above us all.’

  ‘Then why did she appoint a meeting which she never meant to keep?’ answered the dejected lover.

  ‘Where were you to meet my daughter?’ demanded the farmer. Young Piper was too miserable to care whether the father was annoyed. ‘By the churchyard wall above the Bier-Walk. I was late. I warned her that I might be. She promised to wait.’

  ‘God grant she didn’t,’ muttered the farmer, still staring into the fireplace.

  ‘But she did, and she is,’ laughed the wag, looking through the casement. ‘You gave up too soon, my lad. She’s up there now. Look.’ Young Piper ran to the window. On the other side of the street, high above the chimneys of the shops, stood the church, with its burial ground braced with an ancient wall, from the top of which was suspended a lantern which gave light to the Bier-Walk beneath. The silhouette of a girl stood out against the skyline. She was sitting on the wall with one arm leaning upon the lamp-bracket.

  ‘I could only just have missed her,’ cried young Piper, bounding towards the door.

  ‘Stop,’ thundered Cephas Quested.

  Everyone thought that the farmer was about to play the heavy father against young Piper.

  ‘Do you love my girl?’ he asked.

  It was not a reasonable question to put in a public bar, but the young man answered bold as brass, ‘I do, sir.’

  ‘Then what is the colour of her hair?’ asked the farmer. Everyone thought this an odd question.

  ‘The harvest moon tries to copy it, sir,’ replied the lover poetically.

  ‘The harvest moon, eh? And what is the colour of this?’ The farmer plunged his hand across the fire and drew out a piece of dirt from the hearth-back. He did not seem to notice that he burnt his hand. With his finger and thumb he dangled the piece of dirt from a hair which stuck to it.

  ‘Don’t do that,’ laughed Johnny Jolt. ‘Is a man always to be reminded of his work?’

  ‘If this is what I think it be,’ whispered the farmer, ‘your work ain’t finished to-night, Johnny Jolt.’ The farmer’s manner was very odd.

  ‘Have they all been drinking?’ asked the Vicar of the landlord. The door swung back. Everyone turned at the bang. Young Piper had run out. The wag looked through the window, but started back with his hands over his eyes. The window glass had been shattered in his face. A large bone fell on to the floor. The doctor picked it up. ‘A human thigh-bone. Very ancient,’ he said.

  ‘The Sexton’s throwing bones into the High Street,’ cried someone, from the door. Then there arose a murmuring like the rumble of an accumulating storm. It rose and rose. Then the screams of women pierced the growling of the men. Doors banged. Lanterns waved. Lights in every window, and casements thrown wide.

  The wag called for someone to pull the glass from his eyes, but everyone was looking through the smashed window up at the churchyard.

  The limp form of a girl was being swung to and fro. She was suspended by her skirt, which the little Sexton was gripping with both hands as he stood upon the wall. From the Bier-Walk beneath young Piper was leaping, trying to get the girl from the Sexton’s grasp. He looked like a dog jumping for a bone. The news spread like wild-fire. The quarrel of the Sexton and the farmer had come to a head. To what had been the very pretty head of Kitty Quested, but was now horrible, nearly severed as it had been by the Sexton’s spade.

  There was a great pot-hook hanging in the chimney. The farmer dropped the piece of hair and dirt upon the floor. Somebody repeated young Piper’s words, ‘Copies the harvest moon.’

  Quested seized the pot-hook and wrenched it from the chain, bringing down a quantity of soot and a bat which flew about the room.

  Up under the churchyard wall the young man snarled and leapt. He leapt high and touched the body several times, and then the skirt ripped, and what should have been the light form of a girl leaning shyly against her lover, dropped heavily upon a maniac and knocked him to the gravel. The Sexton had no time to gloat upon this horror, for the whole village swarmed like a pack of wolves into the Bier-Walk. They were met with a fusillade of heathen bones.

  In the deserted bar-parlour of the Chequers, Johnny Jolt took his tankard of ale to the fireplace, kicked up the logs into a blaze, seated himself in Quested’s corner and stretched his long legs towards the warmth. It was not his business to arrest a murderer. He was the hangman, and had to wait for the law to take its course. Besides, it was pleasant to get the chimney-corner to himself after a trying day, and everyone had rushed out of the inn in such excitement, neglecting to finish their tankards. The bar-man brought them one by one for the hangman to drink. At the risk of offending the whole parish, it was his maxim to keep on good terms with the hangman. That gentleman of ghastly trade closed his eyes. ‘What are they doing now?’ he yawned. Beer was good. The fireplace was warm. He decided not to return to his lonely cottage till the inn closed for the night. ‘What’s all that infernal banging noise?’ he asked.

  ‘Fireworks,’ answered the bar-man, from the window. ‘The boys have cleared out the stock left over from Guy Fawkes Day.’

  ‘I wonders there’s any left,’ drawled the hangman. ‘To-day’s the thirteenth, ain’t it?’

  ‘That’s right, Mister Jolt.’

  ‘And what are they letting off fireworks for?’

  ‘Shooting them up at the old Sexton. The kids hate him because he never lets them play around the churchyard. I say, you should look. Everything’s a-blaze round him and he don’t seem to care. He’s flinging bones. They’re flinging fireworks, Roman candles, squibs, crackers, flares and whatnot. He don’t half look horrible.’

  ‘Why don’t they go up and get him?’ yawned the hangman. ‘I wouldn’t let no Sexton throw bones at me.’

  ‘There’s no stopping him while that pile lasts,’ answered the bar-man. ‘And when that’s done, he’s got his spade. Perhaps he’ll start the coffins going soon.’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ laughed the hangman. ‘He couldn’t get ’em out in time.’

  ‘Unless he’s got ’em ready,’ suggested the barman. ‘Sort of humour that would appeal to him.’

  ‘They should attack him from the other side.’

  ‘Climbing up from the gravel pits ain’t so easy,’ argued the bar-man. ‘Besides, it lands you right against the mortuary, which ain’t cheerful. Hallo. That’s what some of them’s done. There’s shapes on the dodge in and out behind the grave-stones at his back. They’ve got up by the mortuary. Ah. Now they’ve got him.’

  A terrible shriek made the hangman open his eyes. ‘What now?’ he asked.

  ‘He’s just seen ’em in time. Hurled a pick at one. Got him too. Now he’s over the railings of the Boggesses’ Vault. Swinging his spade. Slicing their fingers with it. They’re pulling the railings down with a rope.’

  ‘Oh, they’ve got a rope, have they?’

&
nbsp; ‘Yes, and they’ve got him, too.’

  A great shout arose. The bar-man turned quickly to the hangman. ‘They’re going to hang him from the lamp-bracket.’

  This aroused the hangman’s professional curiosity. He got up, and swayed unsteadily in the firelight. ‘I must see them do that. Hanging ain’t so easy. Let’s have a quick noggin of rum, just to keep out the cold and go along.’

  The bar-man served the hangman quickly with two or three noggins. Then they went unsteadily along the High Street and up the churchyard steps. The steps proved to Johnny Jolt that he was drunk. When they reached the Bier-Walk the bar-man thought they would never get through the crowd. He reckoned without his companion. Mister Jolt was well known, but his trade made folk avoid him, especially on a day like this, when it was known that he had launched a human soul into eternity. Thus a way was made for him, some shrinking from fear or loathing, others from a desire to see a real hangman carry out the job in hand. ‘Here’s Johnny Jolt!’ they cried, to the amateur executioners, who had already fixed a knot to the lantern-bracket and a noose round the Sexton’s neck.

  ‘We’ll do it ourselves,’ answered Quested. ‘This is lynch-law, and no interference.’

  ‘Aye, our turn now, Mister Hangman,’ called out young Piper, who was staggering aimlessly about with the body of the unfortunate girl clutched in his arms. He refused madly to put her down, and fearing for his reason, they left him alone.

  ‘Go ahead, then,’ laughed the hangman. ‘Only you won’t make no sort of job of it, I can see, and you’ll have the constables after you before you can say “Knife”.’

  ‘No we shan’t,’ answered Quested. ‘The Police Sergeant rode off with the Parson for help. They found it convenient to be out of our way. There’ll be no rescue here, I promise you. We’ll have finished with this devil by the time they gets back.’

  ‘Not at the rate you be going,’ scoffed the hangman. His professional eye was criticizing not only the noose and the length of rope, but the rope itself. They threw the Sexton into the air over the wall. The people on the Bier-Walk pushed back to get clear, but the Sexton fell on top of them, causing a panic, in which women were trampled. The Sexton scrambled to his feet, and without removing the noose from his neck, climbed up the rope and caught hold of the iron bracket in the wall. But they soon dislodged him with a pole, and then they tried pulling him up. He got his fingers inside the noose, and by swinging out from the wall, managed to kick several people in the face with his iron-tipped boots. At last Johnny Jolt’s patience was exhausted.