The Haunts & Horrors Megapack: 31 Modern & Classic Stories

by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

  Pile each on your platter a mountain of beef,

  For ’tis eating and drinking that bring us relief:

  So fill up your glass,

  For life will soon pass;

  When you’re dead ye’ll ne’er drink to your king or your lass!

  Anacreon had a red nose, so they say;

  But what’s a red nose if ye’re happy and gay?

  Gad split me! I’d rather be red whilst I’m here,

  Than white as a lily—and dead half a year!

  So Betty, my miss,

  Come give me a kiss;

  In hell there’s no innkeeper’s daughter like this!

  Young Harry, propp’d up just as straight as he’s able,

  Will soon lose his wig and slip under the table;

  But fill up your goblets and pass ’em around—

  Better under the table than under the ground!

  So revel and chaff

  As ye thirstily quaff:

  Under six feet of dirt ’tis less easy to laugh!

  The fiend strike me blue! I’m scarce able to walk,

  And damn me if I can stand upright or talk!

  Here, landlord, bid Betty to summon a chair;

  I’ll try home for a while, for my wife is not there!

  So lend me a hand;

  I’m not able to stand,

  But I’m gay whilst I linger on top of the land!

  About this time I conceived my present fear of fire and thunderstorms. Previously indifferent to such things, I had now an unspeakable horror of them; and would retire to the innermost recesses of the house whenever the heavens threatened an electrical display. A favourite haunt of mine during the day was the ruined cellar of the mansion that had burned down, and in fancy I would picture the structure as it had been in its prime. On one occasion I startled a villager by leading him confidently to a shallow sub-cellar, of whose existence I seemed to know in spite of the fact that it had been unseen and forgotten for many generations.

  At last came that which I had long feared. My parents, alarmed at the altered manner and appearance of their only son, commenced to exert over my movements a kindly espionage which threatened to result in disaster. I had told no one of my visits to the tomb, having guarded my secret purpose with religious zeal since childhood; but now I was forced to exercise care in threading the mazes of the wooded hollow, that I might throw off a possible pursuer. My key to the vault I kept suspended from a cord about my neck, its presence known only to me. I never carried out of the sepulchre any of the things I came upon whilst within its walls.

  One morning as I emerged from the damp tomb and fastened the chain of the portal with none too steady hand, I beheld in an adjacent thicket the dreaded face of a watcher. Surely the end was near; for my bower was discovered, and the objective of my nocturnal journeys revealed. The man did not accost me, so I hastened home in an effort to overhear what he might report to my careworn father. Were my sojourns beyond the chained door about to be proclaimed to the world? Imagine my delighted astonishment on hearing the spy inform my parent in a cautious whisper that I had spent the night in the bower outside the tomb; my sleep-filmed eyes fixed upon the crevice where the padlocked portal stood ajar! By what miracle had the watcher been thus deluded? I was now convinced that a supernatural agency protected me. Made bold by this heaven-sent circumstance, I began to resume perfect openness in going to the vault; confident that no one could witness my entrance. For a week I tasted to the full the joys of that charnel conviviality which I must not describe, when the thing happened, and I was borne away to this accursed abode of sorrow and monotony.

  I should not have ventured out that night; for the taint of thunder was in the clouds, and a hellish phosphorescence rose from the rank swamp at the bottom of the hollow. The call of the dead, too, was different. Instead of the hillside tomb, it was the charred cellar on the crest of the slope whose presiding daemon beckoned to me with unseen fingers. As I emerged from an intervening grove upon the plain before the ruin, I beheld in the misty moonlight a thing I had always vaguely expected. The mansion, gone for a century, once more reared its stately height to the raptured vision; every window ablaze with the splendour of many candles. Up the long drive rolled the coaches of the Boston gentry, whilst on foot came a numerous assemblage of powdered exquisites from the neighbouring mansions. With this throng I mingled, though I knew I belonged with the hosts rather than with the guests. Inside the hall were music, laughter, and wine on every hand. Several faces I recognised; though I should have known them better had they been shrivelled or eaten away by death and decomposition. Amidst a wild and reckless throng I was the wildest and most abandoned. Gay blasphemy poured in torrents from my lips, and in my shocking sallies I heeded no law of God, Man, or Nature. Suddenly a peal of thunder, resonant even above the din of the swinish revelry, clave the very roof and laid a hush of fear upon the boisterous company. Red tongues of flame and searing gusts of heat engulfed the house; and the roysterers, struck with terror at the descent of a calamity which seemed to transcend the bounds of unguided Nature, fled shrieking into the night. I alone remained, riveted to my seat by a grovelling fear which I had never felt before. And then a second horror took possession of my soul. Burnt alive to ashes, my body dispersed by the four winds, I might never lie in the tomb of the Hydes! Was not my coffin prepared for me? Had I not a right to rest till eternity amongst the descendants of Sir Geoffrey Hyde? Aye! I would claim my heritage of death, even though my soul go seeking through the ages for another corporeal tenement to represent it on that vacant slab in the alcove of the vault. Jervas Hyde should never share the sad fate of Palinurus!

  As the phantom of the burning house faded, I found myself screaming and struggling madly in the arms of two men, one of whom was the spy who had followed me to the tomb. Rain was pouring down in torrents, and upon the southern horizon were flashes of the lightning that had so lately passed over our heads. My father, his face lined with sorrow, stood by as I shouted my demands to be laid within the tomb; frequently admonishing my captors to treat me as gently as they could. A blackened circle on the floor of the ruined cellar told of a violent stroke from the heavens; and from this spot a group of curious villagers with lanterns were prying a small box of antique workmanship which the thunderbolt had brought to light. Ceasing my futile and now objectless writhing, I watched the spectators as they viewed the treasure-trove, and was permitted to share in their discoveries. The box, whose fastenings were broken by the stroke which had unearthed it, contained many papers and objects of value; but I had eyes for one thing alone. It was the porcelain miniature of a young man in a smartly curled bag-wig, and bore the initials “J. H.” The face was such that as I gazed, I might well have been studying my mirror.

  On the following day I was brought to this room with the barred windows, but I have been kept informed of certain things through an aged and simple-minded servitor, for whom I bore a fondness in infancy, and who like me loves the churchyard. What I have dared relate of my experiences within the vault has brought me only pitying smiles. My father, who visits me frequently, declares that at no time did I pass the chained portal, and swears that the rusted padlock had not been touched for fifty years when he examined it. He even says that all the village knew of my journeys to the tomb, and that I was often watched as I slept in the bower outside the grim facade, my half-open eyes fixed on the crevice that leads to the interior. Against these assertions I have no tangible proof to offer, since my key to the padlock was lost in the struggle on that night of horrors. The strange things of the past which I learnt during those nocturnal meetings with the dead he dismisses as the fruits of my lifelong and omnivorous browsing amongst the ancient volumes of the family library. Had it not been for my old servant Hiram, I should have by this time become quite convinced of my madness.

  But Hiram, loyal to the last, has held faith in me, and has done that which impels me to make public at least a part of my story. A week ago he burst open the lock whic
h chains the door of the tomb perpetually ajar, and descended with a lantern into the murky depths. On a slab in an alcove he found an old but empty coffin whose tarnished plate bears the single word “Jervas”. In that coffin and in that vault they have promised me I shall be buried.

  GONE, by Nina Kiriki Hoffman

  She had a name from a madrigal, and I met her in my namesake, the reeds.

  We were both in our second year at college, and we’d both gone to feed stale bread to the ducks at the bird sanctuary when we should have been studying for midterms. I’d seen the back of her head in our History and Philosophy of Education in America class—she always sat near the front, and I liked to lurk in the back row. Her hair color was a bright yellow-orange I knew must come from a kit, but it appealed to me anyway, so I spent time studying her. I’d watched her profile, seen her laugh, knew her eyes were wide and sea-gray. I knew her last name was Hardesty; the teacher called on her a lot, and she always answered questions well.

  It wasn’t until that Saturday on the edge of the bird sanctuary that I discovered her first name was Amaryllis. Other people called her Maryl, but I never did. Sometimes I called her Ama, sometimes Ryllis, and sometimes her full name. I never tired of finding new ways to talk to her. She had a one-sided smile that let me know she liked the joke. She used it even when I was serious, which was another thing I loved about her.

  We discovered much common ground. We played music and sang together. For a while we sang folk songs every Saturday night in a coffee house; I played guitar, and she played the fiddle. We moved in together a month after we met, and married a month after we moved in together.

  She was crossing the street to come to me when the car hit her. We planned a special date to celebrate our tenth anniversary. We left our eight-year-old daughter Samantha with a babysitter, snuck out in separate cars, parked the cars and walked toward each other on opposite sides of the street. We pretended we were meeting by mistake, as though we’d just glimpsed each other across the street and had to rush together.

  We never reached each other.

  * * * *

  A month after Amaryllis died, the school where I taught high school music and where Amaryllis had taught high school history let out for the summer. On the last day of term, my friend Nick Allen, who coached boys’ sports, said, “Reed, you’ve been running on autopilot since your wife died. Snap out of it.”

  We were in the teachers’ lounge. Someone had left the window open. The early summer air felt soft. I looked out toward the lawn. There were daisies in the manicured grass, the pink-edged ox-eye daisies that Amaryllis had made into chains for Sam to wear like haloes when Samantha was four.

  Nick shook my shoulder. “Stop it.”

  I stared at him.

  He frowned. “Stop it, Reed. Stop it with the blank eyes. Say something.”

  I had been able to talk with music, enough to keep the students going till the end of the term, anyway. I could conduct. I could instruct. I could test. Normal conversation was still beyond me.

  I dredged up some words. “It’s not something I can turn off.”

  “You have to do something. Have you noticed how thin Sam looks lately?”

  I blinked. I hadn’t noticed Sam. What I had noticed about Sam was that she was being very good, very quiet, didn’t ask for anything. She made it okay for me to ignore her. I made a sack lunch for her every morning, and made sure she ate breakfast. We both came straight home from school, me an hour or so later than Sam. Before dinner we did homework, often in the kitchen together. Dinner—takeout, McDonald’s, microwave things, nothing like the dinners Amaryllis had concocted—we ate together. After dinner, we watched TV. The upright piano against the wall, where we used to gather with Ama after dinner to make music, stood shut and silent. Sometimes Sam leaned against me on the couch and I put my arm around her.

  She probably had a great big empty hole in her chest like the one I had. I hadn’t even noticed.

  “You should get away,” Nick said. “Go somewhere you never went with Maryl.”

  * * * *

  “It’s creepy,” Sam said.

  I squinted at the house. It sparkled in the bright June sunlight, the walls white, the roof red, with light green trim. White lace curtains graced every window. Once the assistant lightkeepers’ duplex for the Bodega Head Lighthouse on the Oregon Coast, the house had been turned into a bed and breakfast by the Forest Service.

  A white picket fence surrounded the house and stretch of velvet lawn, keeping nonpaying visitors away. Green plastic Adirondack chairs stood scattered across the front porch, perfect perches for looking out to sea.

  Up the headland, through a gap in the trees, Bodega Head Lighthouse stood, a clean white pillar surmounted by the glass-sided chamber that held the light, capped with a red roof. Its light flashed even in daylight.

  I glanced around. Sam and I stood, suitcases in hand, on a gravel drive in front of the fence. Our car was parked in a gravel lot beyond some trees. Behind the house rose the heavily forested headland. The house was perched above a steep, wooded slope. On the beach below, waves marched in to shore, and tourists who had paid three dollars for day-use permits parked their cars and wandered the beach, or followed trails up to the lighthouse.

  Amaryllis and I had never come here. We had explored other Oregon Coast spots together, but we’d never stopped at Bodega.

  I glanced back at the house and frowned. “What’s creepy about it?” I asked my daughter.

  She wrinkled her nose, then sucked on her bottom lip. “It’s just—” She stared up at the third-story windows. Her shoulders rose and fell.

  I waited, but she didn’t say anything else.

  Should we give up on this expedition, go back to the car? Drive home in silence, the way we had driven here? Hole up in our respective rooms at home and think about what we missed most?

  Sam looked so small and lost. She had shadows under her eyes, and her pale hair was lank; the gold had drained from it, leaving it the flat color of unpulled taffy.

  “Let’s look inside,” I said. We had a reservation for Thursday through Monday for two of the three guest rooms, courtesy of my buddy Nick and his wife Joan, who had made plans eight months earlier to come here with their teenage daughter for the start of summer vacation. I had known Nick was right, that I needed to snap out of my grief somehow and take care of Sam, but I hadn’t been able to think what to do next. Somewhere under the dead surface of my mind, I knew I owed Nick a lot. Maybe later I’d be able to figure out how to repay him. I couldn’t focus on much at the moment.

  Sam shrugged. We lifted the latch on the gate and walked past the signs on the fence that told the daytrippers to leave the residents alone. We crossed the porch and knocked on the right-hand glass-paned front door, the one with a stained-glass sign above it that said, “Manager.”

  After a couple of minutes a woman came to the door. She looked plump and as if she might be pleasant if she smiled, but she frowned at us. “Yes?”

  “We have a reservation?” I said. I couldn’t even state it; I had to ask.

  She frowned more deeply. “Are you the Allens? I thought there would be three of you.”

  “Nick Allen said we could take their place. He gave me his confirmation number. I’m Reed Wilcox, and this is my daughter Samantha.”

  Her face smoothed. As I had suspected, her smile was wide and friendly. “Oh. Sorry, I thought you were tourists. Sometimes they come up on the porch in spite of the signs. Hi. I’m Lucy Travis. My husband Ike and I manage the place.” She held out her hand.

  For a few seconds I stared at it. Her smile melted. Then I remembered, and shook her hand. “Sorry,” I said. “Sam and I are both pretty tired.”

  “Ah.” She stood back. “Come on in. I’ll get you set up here, and then maybe you can rest.”

  We stumbled up the stairs after her, and she showed us into two spacious bedrooms furnished in Victorian style, side by side. One room had a view of the lighthouse, and the o
ther looked out at the dark forest behind the house.

  Sam stepped on the braided rag rug in the middle of the lighthouse-view room, then glanced back at me.

  “Okay?” I asked.

  She shrugged. Her shoulders sagged.

  Someplace Amaryllis had never been. It was a start. “You take this room,” I said.

  She blinked, nodded, and set her suitcase on a chest of drawers. I went into the other room, set my suitcase on the floor, and stood, staring at the dark spruce trees out the window.

  “Mr. Wilcox?”

  I shook my head, then turned to glance at Mrs. Travis. I had forgotten she was there.

  “Bathroom you and your daughter are sharing is through this door,” she said. “This other door goes to the third guest room, but it’s not reserved this weekend, so it’s locked. There’s a public kitchen area downstairs where you can fix yourself instant cocoa or coffee or tea. There’s one of those little fridges for your groceries. This house used to be two houses, mirrors of each other, so we have two of everything, except we took down the wall between the two dining rooms. You’re welcome to use the dining set on this side of the house, and this side’s front parlor. Ike and I have the other suite, up the other set of stairs, and we have our own kitchen. That’s where we’ll fix you breakfast, so you can come in there in the morning, but the rest of the time, it’s off limits. The doors to the private areas on the caretaker side of the house are shut; we prefer to keep it that way.”

  “Thank you.”

  She seemed taken aback. “Will you be all right?” she asked after a moment. “There’s extra blankets and pillows on the shelf in the closet.”

  “We’ll be fine.”

  “You’re on your own for lunch and dinner, though you’re welcome to eat at the dining table, like I say, providing you bring your own food. I’ll fix you breakfast tomorrow. Hope you like eggs and pancakes.”

  “We’ll be fine,” I said again. “Thank you.”

  Her smile crumbled. She handed me two labeled keys, shook her head, and left, her footsteps heavy on the stairs.