Horror Stories to Tell in the Dark

by Anthony Masters

  It only took him five minutes to run back to the cemetery, but so great was Carlos’s sense of urgency that he arrived puffing and panting, hardly able to get his breath. Then he saw the dogs – dozens of them. All were thin and emaciated, which was bad enough, but worse was to come. The gate of the mausoleum was hanging open.

  Normally speaking, Carlos would have been afraid of so many strays, but this was his family’s tomb. He pushed his way through their flea-bitten flanks and hurried on into the darkness of the interior. He had a box of matches on him and he struck one, the flame leaping in the musty space. Immediately, he saw that his father’s coffin had disappeared and there was only a mass of withered flowers to mark where it had been. Who could have robbed the grave – and why? He was so deeply shocked that he could hardly think.

  The disappearing coffin must have something to do with the mysterious stranger, but why were all these dogs here? Some were in the darkness with him even now, brushing against his legs, and there was an angry howl as he accidentally stepped on a paw. Another snarled as he pushed his way out. Then, to his amazement, he saw the stranger walking between the graves, this time without his handcart. Head down, he strode past without looking up.

  ‘Wait!’

  The stranger unwillingly turned round. ‘Yes?’

  ‘My father – his coffin has gone. He was only – only buried a few days ago. And what are these dogs doing round here? There’re dozens of them.’

  ‘Have you forgotten your father’s profession?’ asked the stranger.

  Carlos shook his head, staring up again at the photograph and the inscription underneath:

  ANDREAS MARTINEZ

  CITY DOG CATCHER

  1929—1993

  A LOYAL AND DILIGENT PUBLIC SERVANT

  ‘So?’

  ‘Your father was a good man?’

  ‘To us.’ Carlos was desperately trying to force out the knowledge that he had always kept in the back of his mind.

  ‘He was not a good man to the dogs.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘He put them in a compound – he never fed them. Many died.’

  ‘I see.’ How could the father he knew as a good, kind man do something like that? But then why should Carlos believe the stranger? For the first time, he looked up into the man’s eyes. They were a liquid brown.

  ‘You run the dog sanctuary, do you?’ Carlos asked fearfully.

  ‘I help.’

  Then Carlos noticed something else about the stranger. He had an almost canine look to him, with his long nose and lean body, his rather bent-forward way of walking and his low, rather harsh voice. He laughed a low, barking sound. ‘You might say I have had a dog’s life.’

  ‘I don’t understand –’

  ‘Reincarnation,’ said the man softly. ‘We remember little flashes of our other lives – if we believe, that is.’ He paused. ‘I can remember the scents of the city, and of the seashore. I can see my companions running beside me, sometimes in twos or threes, sometimes in a pack. I can hear the insults of the humans – the sharp pain of their kicks.’

  ‘You were –’

  ‘A stray? I’ve always been a stray. This life is no different from the previous one. I gravitated naturally to the sanctuary.’ He paused. ‘The dogs are starving there too.’

  A horrible thought came into Carlos’s mind. He tried to reject it but found that it kept returning – an impossible, barbaric idea. He remembered reading in a newspaper a few months ago about grave-robbing at another cemetery in Tijuana, further out of town. A number of freshly buried corpses had been taken. He looked at the white carnation in the stranger’s buttonhole and saw that it was drooping a little.

  ‘My dogs need meat,’ said the stranger, ‘and it is so easy to remove the dead – even tonight.’

  ‘You can’t —’

  ‘The dogs come with me.’

  ‘Please let me have my father back.’ Carlos’s heart thudded painfully.

  ‘I’m often mistaken for an undertaker.’

  ‘It’s not too late, is it?’

  The stranger looked intently into Carlos’s eyes, but said nothing.

  ‘Please let me have him back.’

  ‘You don’t know what it’s like,’ said the man, ‘being starved and kicked.’

  ‘My father did,’ replied Carlos with a burst of anger. ‘He lost his building business because his partner stole the money. He lost everything – and he had to feed eight of us. He knew what it was like to starve and be kicked around, and so do we. OK, he got the job as dog catcher and that fed us and I know how much he hated the job and I’m sorry he was bad to the animals –’ Carlos ended his speech in a gabble. ‘But I loved him. We all loved him – and we want his spirit to join us tonight.’

  The stranger stared at him. Some of the strays began to whine plaintively. ‘We must hurry. I have my van at the gate.’ The stranger strode off and Carlos had to run to keep up with him.

  ‘You mean you’ve changed your mind?’

  ‘I can’t let my dogs die.’

  Carlos was thinking, Suppose he’s crazy; suppose he really wants live people for meat?

  Eventually they arrived at a battered van, and as they clambered in he saw the handcart wedged in the back. Carlos began to tremble.

  ‘Don’t be afraid,’ the man said. ‘You will be safe.’

  The stranger drove to one of the poorest parts of Tijuana – a shanty town in a canyon, where hundreds of naked electric bulbs shone, powered by makeshift generators. The dogs that had followed them on the short journey from the cemetery ran in to meet others – and there was a cacophony of barking. All looked pitifully thin and mangy.

  ‘I had promised myself I’d stop,’ said the stranger.

  ‘Robbing graves?’

  ‘But what will the dogs do? They’ll all die. They’ll have to fend for themselves. But then I suppose I’ve had to do that all my life,’ he added bitterly.

  They drew up at a large tin shack at the end of the canyon, surrounded by desert scrub and cacti. Carlos had never been so afraid. He was certain now that the stranger was crazy and all he was doing was providing his dogs with another meal – for the first time a living one. He looked down at his bare, brown arm. There was meat there, good fresh meat.

  ‘Don’t be afraid.’ The stranger put his arm round Carlos’s shoulders as he opened the door of the shack. Instantly Carlos was almost overcome by the smell, but it was the sight that was the most horrific. Dozens of dogs of all possible sizes were gnawing at bones on the floor.

  ‘Not my father –’ he pleaded.

  ‘No.’

  He glanced up and saw the coffin on a broad shelf above.

  ‘Come – we shall return the body.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  The stranger seemed immensely strong as he levered the coffin from the shelf on to the handcart, and as he began to wheel it away the dogs set up a howling that was dreadful to hear.

  When the corpse had been replaced in the mausoleum the stranger offered Carlos his hand, which was warm and dry and strong.

  ‘This is the end of my search for food. They must survive on their own now. Perhaps they’ll have some luck – some of them, at least.’ He paused, and then continued more rapidly. ‘But I shall give them one last treat.’

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Carlos.

  But the stranger turned, and without looking back began to walk away past the graves, a tall, bent, already seemingly spectral figure in the night. Somewhere on the light breeze, Carlos thought he could still smell the faint scent of his carnation. A terrible thought occurred to him, but he put it to the back of his mind. ‘One last treat …’

  The crowds gathered in Tijuana cemetery, the trestle-tables were laden with food and the band had just struck up. As couples danced around the headstones, bottles of wine were opened and a man set up a taco stand. At the same time, a child ran past him, gnawing at a sugar skeleton. In the distance Carlos could hear a distant howling. He felt the panic
rising. Of course, he thought, once they had tasted warm flesh, their ‘one last treat’, they would want more. And where would they get it, this night of all nights? Then he saw them, swarming up the hill, their teeth bared, their mouths salivating. The dogs were coming.

  ‘I’ll never think about dogs the same way again,’ shuddered Jamie.

  ‘But you’d think you might be safe with nice ladies in tearooms, wouldn’t you?’ asked Tom. ‘They wouldn’t hurt anyone.’

  ‘I’m not so sure now,’ returned Jamie sharply. ‘But tell us your story.’

  8

  Sunday Roast

  ‘We’ll have scones, jam, fancy cakes and a pot of tea – and be quick about it.’ The middle-aged woman with the powder-caked face and mascara-caked eyes was incredibly rude and even Sam, used to the shouted commands in the Nell Gwyn Tearooms, was taken aback by her tone. What was more, this time it was not even directed at him – for he had sometimes upset the customers by slopping tea, or even forgetting them completely – but was all too clearly designed to upset Lady Poynton.

  Ever since he had taken a holiday job serving teas in the rundown old café in the high street he had felt sorry for its owner. She hadn’t been there very long and was just about as hopeless at the job as Sam was.

  ‘I’m not used to this kind of work,’ she had told him when he had answered the advert. ‘I’m used to, well – a better position in life.’ Lady Poynton had sighed. ‘But all that’s over now and I’ll have to get used to what I’ve got.’

  She was an incredibly dignified figure, despite a certain all-round tattiness: tall, with snowy-white hair and aristocratic, rather spaniel-like features. Lady Poynton always wore the same outfit in the tearooms – polka-dot pinafore dress, white blouse, sensible shoes and a set of imitation pearls at her withered throat. Her whole appearance underlined the genteel state of poverty she lived in and her hands were calloused and blistered with the unaccustomed labour.

  ‘Who’s that woman then?’ asked Sam as they clattered plates together in the tiny and rather bedraggled little kitchen that should have smelt of baking, but instead had the unpleasant aroma of damp dishcloths. Lady Poynton bought her cakes in – as well as the scones – and they were often hard, stale and unappetizing.

  ‘Oh, her.’

  ‘Her?’

  ‘She’s just here to crow.’ She leant on the stained Formica, her lips pursed and her pale-blue eyes looking darker and angrier than he had ever seen them before. At once, Sam’s heart bled for her; she was so clearly shaken and miserable.

  ‘Crow?’

  ‘She’s the second Lady Poynton,’ she declared.

  Sam picked up the kettle and doused the two meagre teabags in the teapot. Customers sometimes complained about the strength of the tea, but Lady Poynton always said that was all she could afford. ‘You mean –’ he began.

  ‘My ex-husband’s married her at last. She’s awful – her name used to be Jocelyn Onions and she only married him for his money. I hate her – I wish she’d roast in hell.’ Lady Poynton swallowed and took a couple of her indigestion tablets. ‘I’ll pay her out for coming in here and mocking me in my hour of need. You see if I don’t.’ For a moment, all Lady Poynton’s dignity had evaporated and she looked like a spiteful child. ‘Gerald treated me badly – cut me off without a penny – and fought me through the courts to get his own way. He’s an old man though – almost eighty now – and half crazy what with his war injuries and gout, but she – she’s no more than a strumpet.’

  Lady Poynton crashed the crockery together on a tray and, slapping two gloomy-looking scones, a scraping of jam and some dusty coconut cakes on to a random assortment of plates, she hurried out of the kitchen. ‘I hope it all chokes her,’ she muttered.

  Sam peeked round the door to see the reaction of the second Lady Poynton to the unpalatable tea she was being ungraciously presented with. It wasn’t long in coming.

  ‘Why, Irene – you can do better than this.’

  ‘It’s all you’re getting.’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Mrs Pits.’ The second Lady Poynton turned to her table companion, a meek-looking woman who had obviously been brought along to witness the humiliation she intended to pour on her enemy. ‘This isn’t the kind of tea I’m used to. Why – it’s absolutely second-rate.’ She raised her voice so that the other scattered occupants of the Nell Gwyn Tearooms could hear all too clearly what was being said. ‘I mean – it’s unacceptable, dear. Substandard.’ She rose to her feet purposefully. ‘I’ll be back,’ she promised.

  ‘Back?’ the first Lady Poynton echoed doubtfully. ‘What are you coming back for?’

  ‘I want to talk to you about Gerald.’

  ‘I’ve nothing to do with him now.’

  ‘I’ll come back.’ She looked round at the intent faces, eyes alight with curiosity. ‘We need to have a little private chat.’

  When the tearooms were closed, Lady Poynton broke down. Sam did his best to comfort her, but it was an impossible task for she was far too distraught to hear anything that he tried to say.

  ‘That evil woman,’ she sobbed. ‘She’s taken everything away from me – everything. And now all I have is this!’ She looked around her miserably, and Sam saw the Nell Gwyn through her eyes: its glass fibre mock Tudor beams, the torn lace curtains, the dusty lattice windows and the fake inglenook where the imitation coal fire flickered dimly yet balefully. She was dead right; the place was a dump.

  Next morning, Sam woke up with a sick headache, and when his mother called the doctor flu was diagnosed, so he was not able to return to the Nell Gwyn Tearooms for four whole days. While he was ill he worried continuously about poor Lady Poynton, wondering how she was coping singlehandedly with the serving of teas and also with her recent humiliation at the hands of Jocelyn Onions – or the second Lady Poynton as she must now be known.

  When he arrived at the tearooms, Sam was amazed, for the place was packed, the tables were groaning with unfamiliar and delicious-looking cakes, there was the most wonderful smell of baking in the air, and there was a queue for tables that curled out into the street. What on earth could be going on, he wondered.

  ‘She’s got herself a new cook,’ said an old man Sam recognized as one of the few loyal customers of the old Nell Gwyn.

  ‘A new cook?’ Sam was incredulous. How had Lady Poynton afforded that? Normally she could hardly scrape up the money for the tired packets of scones from the supermarket.

  ‘She’s terrific’ There was saliva at the corner of the old man’s lips. ‘She cooks like a dream. Lemon curd tarts, gingerbread, iced buns, cream cakes –’

  Sam pushed his way through into the tearooms to avoid the remainder of the litany, and saw that although Lady Poynton was clearly rushed off her feet she was also enjoying every minute of her endeavours, as she cleverly balanced a couple of trays of walnut slices and a large marzipan cake.

  ‘Sam. Wonderful to see you. I’m so glad you’re better – and I need you more than ever. Hang on and I’ll unlock the kitchen.’

  ‘Unlock?’ he exclaimed.

  ‘Yes – Cook’s in there. I mustn’t let her out.’ She giggled rather wildly and deposited the walnut slices on the table of a young couple who could hardly wait to attack them.

  ‘Who is this cook?’

  ‘Wait a minute, dear.’ Flushed but happy, Lady Poynton took a bunch of keys from around her waist and, with a flourish, inserted the largest into a brand-new lock on the kitchen door. Sliding back a security chain, she said proudly, ‘Sam – meet Cook.’

  He gasped.

  Clad in a boiler suit, her eyes full of terror, Jocelyn Onions, the second Lady Poynton, was lifting a tray of flapjacks from the oven. Sweating, shaking, she looked at him in mute appeal, but said nothing.

  ‘I cut out her tongue,’ explained Lady Poynton.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I cut out her tongue.’ She sounded impatient now as if he was deliberately misunderstanding her. ‘I couldn’t bear the shouting when
I dragged her down here and told her what she had to do – to show she was sorry.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Yes, dear. Why do you keep repeating everything? You know how she humiliated me in front of all my customers. Of course, that was nowhere near as bad as poaching my husband. So she had to repent. I got my kitchen scissors and went snip, snip, snip – and I put the pieces in the dustbin. Pieces of her tongue, dear.’ Lady Poynton smiled sweetly. ‘Do you understand me?’

  ‘Yes,’ stammered Sam. ‘I believe I do.’ And when he looked into those pale-blue eyes, he knew that Lady Poynton had gone stark raving mad.

  ‘Now – if you’re feeling quite well you’ll have to help me out, dear. I’ve been rushed off my feet. I’ll say one thing for her – she can cook!’

  ‘Yes,’ muttered Sam, grabbing a tray, ‘she certainly can.’ He hurried out into the tearooms, trying to think what he should do. Of course it was obvious – he should phone the police immediately, have the second Lady Poynton rescued, and the first taken away by some men in white coats. It was his duty. But despite all the urgent and convincing reasons, Sam hesitated. How would she get on in the nut-house? Surely she would be even more lonely and depressed, and there was no doubt that she would be in for life. But then there was Jocelyn Onions. Unpleasant and vindictive though she was, she hadn’t deserved any of this.

  Sam dithered for another few minutes and then decided to phone the police. Placing another tray of tea and delicious-looking gingerbread on table six to rapturous acclaim, he moved towards the door of the Nell Gwyn Tearooms. There was a phone-box further down the street. He would make the call and wait for the police. Sam hoped they would come very quickly indeed, for he was afraid that Lady Poynton might hole herself up in the kitchen with her speechless rival, conducting a seige while cutting off more bits of her.