The Most Frightening Story Ever Told

by Philip Kerr

  “And I was thinking,” continued Elizabeth Wollstonecraft-Godwin, “that it might be excellent publicity for your bookshop if you yourself were to read the story to a group of modern children. Good publicity for you and an excellent case study for me to write about in my book.”

  “Not a bad idea at that,” admitted Miss McBatty.

  “I dunno,” said Billy. “It sounds kind of cruel.”

  “Billy’s right,” said Mr. Rapscallion. “I’d have to read the story myself to make sure that modern kids could actually stand to hear it.”

  “Of course,” said Elizabeth.

  “After all,” said Mr. Rapscallion, “I wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to anyone.”

  “Not even some really naughty children?” said Elizabeth Wollstonecraft-Godwin. She chuckled. “Oh, come on, Mr. Rapscallion. Surely you’d like to scare the wits out of a few of them?”

  “The idea does have its upside, I’ll admit,” said Mr. Rapscallion.

  “For example, the kids who painted your mummy pink.” She nodded. “Miss Bertolucci told me all about it after your speech. Scaring some of them just a bit would only seem like payback, right?”

  “Now you’re talking,” said Mr. Rapscallion.

  “If they came,” said Billy.

  “Besides, only volunteers would be allowed to hear the story,” said Elizabeth. “And only provided their parents let them.”

  “But why would anyone volunteer to hear a really scary story?” asked Billy.

  “For the honor of being declared the child not scared by anything,” said Mr. Rapscallion. “Any kid would love to have that badge of honor, don’t you think?”

  “Honor?” Miss McBatty shrugged. “Are kids interested in that?”

  “She’s right. There’s only one reason to do something that I know of that always works in all circumstances in this country,” said Elizabeth.

  Mr. Rapscallion nodded. “Yes, of course. Some sort of financial reward. I know. I could offer a prize to the boy or girl who is the least scared by the story. Say a thousand dollars’ worth of books.” He flinched as he used the number.

  Miss McBatty laughed. “I can see you know absolutely nothing about modern children, Mr. Rapscallion. I think you’d get a much better result if you just offered a prize of a thousand dollars. What do you say, Billy? Am I right? Or am I right?”

  Billy nodded. “She’s right. There’s not much most kids today won’t do for a thousand dollars.”

  “That’s enough numbers, I think,” muttered Mr. Rapscallion.

  “In cash,” said Miss McBatty.

  “But how will we be able to measure who is scared by the story and who isn’t?” Mr. Rapscallion asked Elizabeth.

  She looked blank. “Hmm. That’s a point.”

  “Obviously the ones who actually die of fright won’t be eligible for the prize,” said Billy. “And anyone whose hair turns white or faints or runs away or ends up in the loony bin like those other kids from the All Hallows Barking by the Tower workhouse will also be disqualified.”

  “Yes, that’s right, Billy,” said Mr. Rapscallion, his face bright with excitement. “Go on, go on.”

  “If more than one kid manages to stick it out, then you could have some sort of a tiebreaker,” said Billy. “Like an ordeal. You could send them up to the Red Room and see which of them screams the loudest.”

  “Either that or I could devise a new horror,” said Mr. Rapscallion. “A new room, with a new theme. Just in case any of the little brutes who come and hear the story are familiar with what’s already in the Haunted House of Books.”

  “That’s a great idea,” said Billy.

  “Very well, I’ll do it,” said Mr. Rapscallion. “The minute we get back to Hitchcock, I’ll call the local newspapers and television and tell them all about the scary story and the contest and the prize.”

  “Brilliant,” said Elizabeth. “It’ll be a bit like the cash reward that Madame Tussauds in London used to offer anyone who would dare to spend the night in their Chamber of Horrors.”

  “Yikes,” said Billy. “You mean people used to do that?”

  “That’s what I’ve always been led to believe,” said Elizabeth.

  “Where’s the story now?” asked Mr. Rapscallion.

  “In my handbag,” said Elizabeth.

  “In your handbag?” exclaimed Mr. Rapscallion. “You mean it’s with us? Here? Now? In this room?”

  “I always take it with me wherever I go,” explained Elizabeth. “There’s a copy at home, of course, in London, but I couldn’t ever bear to be parted from the original.”

  “Could we see it?” asked Mr. Rapscallion.

  “Of course,” said Elizabeth, and, opening a satchel as big as a pillow, she took out a book and laid it carefully on the bed.

  With Billy looking over his shoulder, Mr. Rapscallion picked the book up like it was something really valuable.

  Which it was.

  Really valuable.

  It was an old book, of course. Any book privately printed in 1816 would have looked old. And it was a slim volume, as might have been expected of a book that contained just one short story. The binding was polished dark green morocco leather decorated with the intertwined initials of the authors, M.S. and J.P., in gold. Around these four initials were other inlaid and gilt figures of skeletons and gravestones and the faces of two very frightened-looking people—a man and a woman. Billy could tell that they were very frightened because their eyes were wide open and their hair was standing on end.

  “Gilt titles,” said Mr. Rapscallion. “Marbled endpapers, some skillful repairs to the joints, but still a very fine copy.”

  Mr. Rapscallion opened the cover, which creaked loudly like an ancient wooden door in a remote Romanian castle, and a rather damp musty smell filled the air, as if a coffin had been opened.

  “That’s unusual,” said Miss McBatty.

  “Yikes,” said Billy.

  Mr. Rapscallion grinned. “It sounds and smells as scary as it looks, right?”

  And then he said, “I don’t believe it.” He shook his head in apparent wonder. “It’s signed, by both of the authors. Mary Shelley and John Polidori. I can’t believe you’re carrying this around with you, Elizabeth. In a handbag. This book must be worth tens of thousands of dollars. Probably more.”

  “As a matter of fact, I had it valued in New York just a few weeks ago,” she said. “An antiquarian bookseller estimated it’s worth at least five hundred thousand dollars. Not that I could ever sell it, of course. It’s been in the family for so long it feels like some aged great-aunt or -uncle.”

  “Wow,” said Billy. Which Mr. Rapscallion thought made a very welcome change from “yikes.” “Five hundred thousand bucks.”

  “Anyway,” she added. “As a child I was always told that some terrible disaster would befall us all if ever this book went out of our immediate family. Which, given the book’s curious history, does seem like a rather dreadful possibility.”

  This prompted Miss McBatty to go and fetch one of her ghost-hunting devices and to point it at the old leather book in Mr. Rapscallion’s hands.

  “I don’t think the book is actually cursed or haunted,” said Elizabeth.

  “I’ve seen stranger things than an old book that had a peculiar effect on my equipment,” murmured Miss McBatty. “Such as a cigar box, a doll’s house, a rabbit’s foot on a key ring, a pennywhistle, a teddy bear.”

  “A teddy bear?” said Billy. “You’re joking.”

  Miss McBatty shook her head. “Sometimes it’s the smallest or least likely objects that end up producing the creepiest results.”

  “The book does do one rather peculiar thing,” admitted the Englishwoman. “Not including that rather frightening creaking sound you heard a minute ago. It happens as soon as you read the book’s title aloud. So, do be warned, Mr. Rapscallion. This book is not to be read lightly or without careful consideration of the possible consequences.”

  Mr. Rapscalli
on read the title aloud he found on the first page: “The Modern Pandora, or The Most Frightening Story Ever Told. By Mary Shelley and John Polidori.”

  The second that Mr. Rapscallion finished reading out the title and before he could read any more of what was printed there, a very peculiar thing happened. The book seemed to produce a knocking, hollow sound, like someone banging the tip of a walking stick on the bare wooden floor of an empty old house.

  At the same time the nameless electronic device in Miss McBatty’s hand lit up like a lightbulb.

  Mr. Rapscallion shivered and almost dropped the book in surprise. “Ooooer,” he said, and immediately put it down on the bed. Then he rubbed his fingers nervously on his body. “Weird, or what? I actually felt the vibration of that sound in my hands. Which are now quite cold. Here.” He held out his hands to Miss McBatty. “Feel them.”

  Miss McBatty touched them for a moment and nodded. “Gosh, they’re freezing.”

  “Yes, I forgot about that part,” admitted Elizabeth. “I should have warned you to wear gloves.”

  Miss McBatty let go of Mr. Rapscallion’s hands and then looked at her ghost meter. “Interesting. That’s the most powerful reading I’ve seen in a long time.”

  “What was that banging sound?” Billy asked Elizabeth.

  “I don’t know. But it always happens after anyone reads the title out loud. No one has ever explained how that happens. Creepy, isn’t it?”

  “It certainly is,” admitted Mr. Rapscallion. Nervously he picked the book up once again and opened it.

  “There’s something written in what looks like Mary Shelley’s handwriting,” he said. “Underneath the two signatures.” He read it aloud:

  Let the reader beware. The story contained in these pages is not to be trifled with. Frightful it is. And supremely frightful is the effect of that which lies herein. Under no circumstances should this story ever be read alone, or on a dark and stormy night. No more should this story ever be read aloud to children, to the mentally infirm, or to those of a nervous disposition. You have been warned. M.S. Villa Diodati. Italy. 1816.

  “Caveat reader,” said Elizabeth.

  “Is that supposed to be a joke?” said Miss McBatty.

  “If it is, I don’t get it,” admitted Billy.

  “From the Latin caveat emptor,” said Mr. Rapscallion. “Which means ‘let the buyer beware.’ ”

  “Oh,” said Billy. “I see. It’s not meant to be a funny joke.” He smiled all the same, just to be polite. “What’s the story about, anyway?” he asked Elizabeth.

  “I don’t know,” she confessed. “I haven’t ever dared to read it myself. I know that sounds awfully wet of me, but you see, on the very night that my father first read the story, he died.”

  “Are you serious?” Mercedes McBatty looked and sounded disbelieving.

  “I’m deadly serious,” insisted Elizabeth.

  “What happened?” Billy asked her.

  “Daddy had been jolly keen to read it all his life, only my grandfather had made him promise that he never would. But finally curiosity overcame him, I suppose, and so one night, he did read it. I don’t think Daddy could have taken the warning contained on the book’s title page very seriously, because he read it alone, and what’s more, he read it on a dark, stormy night. None of us knew he was reading it, of course; otherwise we’d probably have tried to talk him out of doing it at all. The next morning we came downstairs and found him sitting in his favorite chair beside the dying embers of the fire, with the book still open on his lap at the last page. He was quite dead and as cold as ice. So, as you can imagine, when I inherited the book, I wasn’t in a hurry to read it. I thought that maybe I’d wait until I was really, really old before I tried to read it myself.”

  “At least fifty, yeah,” said Billy. “Good idea.”

  “No one else has read it since,” added Elizabeth. “So when you do read the story aloud, in your shop, Mr. Rapscallion, it will be the first time that I’ve heard it myself.”

  When, the next day, Billy and Mr. Rapscallion returned from Kansas City to Hitchcock, Elizabeth Wollstonecraft-Godwin and Mercedes McBatty decided to go with them.

  Elizabeth had to go to Hitchcock with them because she couldn’t ever allow herself to be parted from The Modern Pandora, or The Most Frightening Story Ever Told in case something terrible happened to her. And of course to see for herself what happened at the reading so that she might write a book about it.

  Mercedes McBatty decided to come to Hitchcock because she was keen to hunt for the ghost in Mr. Rapscallion’s shop. And, of course, to see what happened at the reading.

  And Mr. Rapscallion was pleased to see her setting up her ghost-detecting equipment, because he said it was good publicity for the shop ahead of his announcement to the local media of the reading of the story.

  While Miss McBatty was setting up her camera monitors, Billy kept her company, bringing her snacks and cold drinks from the ancient refrigerator in Mr. Rapscallion’s kitchen. All of this was a good excuse for him to ask lots of questions about being a ghost hunter.

  One of the questions Billy asked Miss McBatty was this:

  “When we were in Kansas City, and we were staying in that hotel, you said that sometimes it’s the least likely objects that end up producing the creepiest results on your equipment. And one of the objects you mentioned was a teddy bear.”

  “That’s right,” said Miss McBatty. “In fact, that was the creepiest case I was ever on. I suppose you want to hear the story.”

  “Yes, please,” said Billy.

  They went and sat in the Reading Room, in some of the tatty old leather library chairs that Mr. Rapscallion had bought from the Edgar Allan Poe Club in Boston because it was rumored that Poe—himself a writer of extremely creepy stories, of course—had once sat in one of the chairs. Just above the door was the bust of Pallas, a Greek god, and sitting on top of the bust was a large stuffed raven, in honor—said Mr. Rapscallion—of Poe’s greatest story-poem, The Raven.

  Attached to the raven’s leg was a message capsule for any ghost that was so minded to leave a message for Mr. Rapscallion—like the message capsules that are attached to the legs of carrier pigeons.

  Mr. Rapscallion checked the message capsule every day and, when he was near the raven, as he was now, so did Billy. But there was never anything there.

  “I’m no Mary Shelley or John Polidori,” said Miss McBatty, naming the two long-dead authors of The Modern Pandora. “I don’t know that you could call it a ghost story, exactly. But this is the scariest story that I know.

  “Before I went to live in Kansas City, I lived in Chicago. The city’s biggest and most expensive houses are located on the shores of Lake Michigan. And in one of the largest of these lived the billionaire Dearborn Dublin and his young son, Kildare. Despite the family’s massive wealth, they were not a happy family. And I was to learn why this was on the day that Mr. Dublin asked me to come and see him. He was a very tall man with a gray beard and tinted glasses. He wore a green blazer and a darker green tie.

  “ ‘You come highly recommended, Miss McBatty,’ he said. ‘To be honest, I’m not sure that you can help, but the fact of the matter is that you’re my last resort. Believe me, I’ve tried everyone and everything else. I won’t bore you by telling you about all that. Instead, I’ll just tell you the story and let you make up your own mind.

  “ ‘What I’m going to tell you is certainly strange. Possibly it’s not the strangest story you’ve ever heard. But it’s true. Every word of it, I promise you. My son, Kildare Dublin, is a spoiled child, Miss McBatty. All his life he’s had exactly what he wanted. My only excuse is that his mother died when he was still a small boy and I tried to make up for her absence by indulging his every wish. Too late I’ve learned the importance of giving a child discipline as well as love. Well, there it is. You can’t turn back history. I only wish you could.

  “ ‘I mentioned the boy’s mother. She died giving birth to Kildar
e’s little sister, Liffey. It was the saddest day of my life. Kildare was about five at the time, and in a pathetic attempt to try to make it up to the boy, I took him to Grabber’s, Chicago’s largest toy shop, and offered to buy the boy any teddy bear in the store. Well, of course, choosing a teddy bear is no simple task for a boy or a girl. It’s like choosing a puppy or a kitten and there has to be something about its face that appeals. To cut a long story a bit shorter, none of the hundreds of teddies in Grabber’s appealed to my son. Not one. I tried to get him to choose a teddy but he simply wouldn’t, and so we left empty-handed.

  “ ‘Our way back to the car took us down an old alley, where we passed an antiques shop. In the window of the shop was a largish teddy bear, about eighteen inches high. But this was no ordinary teddy bear. This was an extremely valuable teddy bear made by the German toy firm Steiff. Old Steiff teddy bears are extremely rare and expensive. And this one was no exception.

  “ ‘As soon as little Kildare saw the bear in the shop window, he wanted it. And, foolishly, I promised young Kildare that I would buy it for him. Although in truth, Miss McBatty, it was not an attractive-looking teddy bear. In fact, I would go so far as to say it was the least attractive-looking teddy bear I’ve ever seen. There was something nasty about its face that reminded me of a wicked goblin. Its eyes seemed rather too narrow. Its nose was rather long and hooked. And the way its mouth had been stitched made you think of a sneer instead of a smile. Also, the ears were not round but pointy. But we went into the shop and I told the man who owned the shop that I wished to buy the bear in his window for my son.

  “ ‘The man shook his head and told me the bear was not a toy. That it was a Steiff and this one was perhaps the rarest of the rare, in that there was a little brass tag on the bear’s ear with a number six-six-six on it and therefore this particular bear was one of the first six hundred and sixty-six ever made by that company. Consequently, the bear’s price was two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Moreover, the man told me that he would not sell the bear to me, as he thought it would be a kind of crime to give a child a teddy bear that was a rare and valuable antique.