The hearse screeched to a stop. The men jumped off and stared up at her, their eyes glowing with a soft, yellow light, like cats’ eyes. She watched with horror as they disappeared into the house.
An instant later they were back, lifting something into the hearse. Then they drove off at high speed, wheels squealing, the gravel in the driveway flying in all directions.
At that moment the nurse came in to say that Jim Brand had died.
On the Edge
You will say that these stories could not happen.
Yet some say they did happen.
Bess
John Nicholas raised horses. He had many horses of all kinds, but his favorite was Bess, a gentle old mare he had grown up with. He no longer rode her, for all she could do now was just amble along. Bess spent her days grazing peacefully in a meadow.
That summer, for the fun of it, John Nicholas went into a fortune-teller’s booth. The fortune-teller studied her cards. “I see danger ahead for you,” she said. “Your favorite horse will cause you to die. I don’t know when, but it will happen. It is in the cards.”
John Nicholas laughed. The idea that Bess would cause his death was nonsense. She was as dangerous as a bowl of soup. Yet from then on, whenever he saw her, he remembered the fortune-teller’s warning.
That fall a farmer from the other end of the county asked if he could have Bess. He had been thinking that the old horse would be perfect for his children to ride.
“That’s a good idea,” John said. “It would be fun for them, and it would give Bess something to do.”
Later John told his wife about it. “Now Bess won’t kill me,” he said, and they both laughed.
A few months later, he saw the farmer who had taken her. “How’s my Bess?” he asked.
“Oh, she was fine for a while,” the farmer said. “The children loved her. Then she got sick. I had to shoot her to put her out of her misery. It was a shame.”
Despite himself, John breathed a sigh of relief. He had often wondered if in some crazy way, through some strange accident, Bess would kill him. Now, of course, she could not.
“I’d like to see her,” said John. “Just to say good-bye. She was my favorite.”
The bones of the dead horse were in a far corner of the man’s farm. John kneeled down and patted Bess’s sun-bleached skull. Just then a rattlesnake, which had made its home inside the skull, sank its fangs into John Nicholas’s arm and killed him.
Harold
When it got hot in the valley, Thomas and Alfred drove their cows up to a cool, green pasture in the mountains to graze. Usually they stayed there with the cows for two months. Then they brought them down to the valley again.
The work was easy enough, but, oh, it was boring. All day the two men tended their cows. At night they went back to the tiny hut where they lived. They ate supper and worked in the garden and went to sleep. It was always the same.
Then Thomas had an idea that changed everything. “Let’s make a doll the size of a man,” he said. “It would be fun to make, and we could put it in the garden to scare away the birds.”
“It should look like Harold,” Alfred said. Harold was a farmer they both hated. They made the doll out of old sacks stuffed with straw. They gave it a pointy nose like Harold’s and tiny eyes like his. Then they added dark hair and a twisted frown. Of course they also gave it Harold’s name.
Each morning on their way to the pasture, they tied Harold to a pole in the garden to scare away the birds. Each night they brought him inside so that he wouldn’t get ruined if it rained.
When they were feeling playful, they would talk to him. One of them might say, “How are the vegetables growing today, Harold?” Then the other, making believe he was Harold, would answer in a crazy voice, “Very slowly.” They both would laugh, but not Harold.
Whenever something went wrong, they took it out on Harold. They would curse at him, even kick him or punch him. Sometimes one of them would take the food they were eating (which they both were sick of) and smear it on the doll’s face. “How do you like that stew, Harold?” he would ask. “Well, you’d better eat it—or else.” Then the two men would howl with laughter.
One night, after Thomas had wiped Harold’s face with food, Harold grunted.
“Did you hear that?” Alfred asked.
“It was Harold,” Thomas said. “I was watching him when it happened. I can’t believe it.”
“How could he grunt?” Alfred asked. “He’s just a sack of straw. It’s not possible.”
“Let’s throw him in the fire,” said Thomas, “and that will be that.”
“Let’s not do anything stupid,” said Alfred. “We don’t know what’s going on. When we move the cows down, we’ll leave him behind. For now, let’s just keep an eye on him.”
So they left Harold sitting in a corner of the hut. They didn’t talk to him or take him outside anymore. Now and then the doll grunted, but that was all. After a few days they decided there was nothing to be afraid of. Maybe a mouse or some insects had gotten inside Harold and were making those sounds.
So Thomas and Alfred went back to their old ways. Each morning they put Harold out in the garden, and each night they brought him back into the hut. When they felt playful, they joked with him. When they felt mean, they treated him as badly as ever.
Then one night Alfred noticed something that frightened him. “Harold is growing,” he said.
“I was thinking the same thing,” Thomas said.
“Maybe it’s just our imagination,” Alfred replied. “We have been up here on this mountain too long.”
The next morning, while they were eating, Harold stood up and walked out of the hut. He climbed up on the roof and trotted back and forth, like a horse on its hind legs. All day and all night long he trotted like that.
In the morning Harold climbed down and stood in a far corner of the pasture. The men had no idea what he would do next. They were afraid.
They decided to take the cows down into the valley that same day. When they left, Harold was nowhere in sight. They felt as if they had escaped a great danger and began joking and singing. But when they had gone only a mile or two, they realized they had forgotten to bring the milking stools.
Neither one wanted to go back for them, but the stools would cost a lot to replace. “There really is nothing to be afraid of,” they told one another. “After all, what could a doll do?”
They drew straws to see which one would go back. It was Thomas. “I’ll catch up with you,” he said, and Alfred walked on toward the valley.
When Alfred came to a rise in the path, he looked back for Thomas. He did not see him anywhere. But he did see Harold. The doll was on the roof of the hut again. As Alfred watched, Harold kneeled and stretched out a bloody skin to dry in the sun.
The Dead Hand
The village huddled on the edge of a vast swamp. As far as one could see, there were soggy meadows, holes filled with black water, and glistening sheets of wet, spongy peat. Skeletons of giant trees—“snags,” the people called them—rose up out of the muck, their dead branches reaching out like long, twisted arms.
During the day, the men in the village cut the peat and hauled it home to dry and sell for fuel. But when the sun went down, and the wind, sighing and moaning, came in from the sea, the men were quick to leave. Strange creatures took over the swamp at night, and some even came into the village—that’s what everyone said. People were so afraid, they would not go out alone after dark.
Young Tom Pattison was the only person in the village who did not believe in these creatures. On his way home from work, he’d whisper to his friends, “There’s one!” and they would jump and run. And Tom would laugh and laugh.
Finally some of his friends turned on him. “If you know so much,” they said, “go back into the swamp some night and see what comes of it.”
“I’ll do it,” said Tom. “I work out there every day. Not once have I ever seen anything to frighten me. Why should it be dif
ferent at night? Tomorrow night I’ll take my lantern and walk out to the willow snag. If I get scared and run, I’ll never make fun of you again.”
The next night the men went to Tom Pattison’s house to see him on his way. Thick clouds covered the moon. It was the blackest of nights. When they arrived, Tom’s mother was pleading with him not to go.
“I’ll be all right,” he said. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. Don’t be foolish like the rest.”
He took his lantern and, singing to himself, headed down the spongy path toward the willow snag.
Some of the young men wondered if Tom wasn’t right. Maybe they were afraid of things that did not exist. A few decided to follow him and see for themselves, but they stayed far behind in case he ran into trouble. They were sure they saw dark shapes moving about. But Tom’s lantern kept bobbing up and down, and Tom’s songs kept floating back to them and nothing happened.
Finally they caught sight of the willow snag. There was Tom standing in a circle of light, looking this way and that. All of a sudden the wind blew out his lantern, and Tom stopped singing. The men stood stock-still in the blackness, waiting for something awful to happen.
The clouds shifted and the moon came out. There was Tom again. Only now he had his back pushed up against the willow snag, and he had his arms out in front of him, as if he were fighting something off. From where the men stood, it looked like dark shapes were swirling in around him. Then the clouds covered the moon again. Once more it was as black as pitch.
When the moon came out again, Tom was hanging on to the willow snag with one arm. His other arm was stretched out in front of him, as if something was pulling it. It looked to the men as if a rotting, moldy hand with no arm—a dead hand—had grabbed Tom’s hand. With one final wrench, whatever had hold of Tom jerked him into the muck. That’s what the men said.
When the clouds blotted out the moon once more, the men turned and ran through the blackness toward the village. Again and again they lost the path and fell into the muck and water holes. In the end they crawled back on their hands and knees. But Tom Pattison was not with them.
In the morning the people searched everywhere for Tom. Finally they gave him up for lost.
A few weeks later, toward evening, the villagers heard a cry. It was Tom’s mother. She was rushing down the path from the swamp, shouting and waving. When she was sure the villagers had spotted her, she turned and ran back. Off they went after her.
They found young Tom Pattison by the willow snag, groaning and gibbering as if he had lost his mind. He kept pointing with one hand at something only he could see. Where his other hand should have been, there was nothing but a ragged stump oozing blood. The hand had been ripped clean off.
Everybody said it was the dead hand that had done it. But nobody really knows. Nobody will ever know—except Tom Pattison. And he never spoke another word again.
Such Things Happen
When Bill Nelson’s cow stopped giving milk, he called the veterinarian. “There’s nothing wrong with that cow,” the vet said. “She’s just stubborn. That, or some witch got hold of her.” Bill and the vet both laughed.
“That old hag, Addie Fitch, I guess she’s the closest we’ve got to a witch around here,” the vet said. “But witches have gone out of style, haven’t they?”
Bill had had a run-in with Addie Fitch the month before. He had hit her cat with his car and killed it. “I’m really sorry, Addie Fitch,” he told her. “I’ll get you a new cat, just as pretty, just as good.”
Her eyes filled with hate. “I raised that cat from a kitten,” she hissed. “I loved her. You’ll be sorry for this, Bill Nelson.”
Bill sent her a new cat and heard nothing more.
Then his cow stopped giving milk. Next his old truck broke down. After that, his wife fell and broke her arm. “We’re having a lot of bad luck,” he thought. Then he thought, “Maybe it is Addie Fitch gettin’ even.” And then, “Hey—you don’t believe in witches. You’re just upset.”
But Bill’s grandpa believed in witches. He had once told Bill that there was only one sure way to stop a witch from causing trouble. “You find a black walnut tree,” he said, “and you draw her picture on it. Then you mark an X where her heart is, and you drive a nail into the X. Every day you drive it in a little deeper.
“If she’s causing the trouble,” he said, “she’ll feel pain. When she can’t stand it anymore, she’ll come to you, or send somebody, and try to borrow something. If you give her what she wants, that breaks the power of the nail, and she’ll go on tormenting you. But if you don’t, she’ll have to stop—or the pain will kill her.”
That’s what his nice, gentle old grandpa believed. “It’s pure craziness,” Bill thought. Of course, his grandpa didn’t have much schooling. Bill had been to college. He knew better.
Then Bill’s dog Joe, a perfectly healthy dog, dropped dead, just like that. It made Bill angry. Despite all his schooling, he thought, “Maybe it is Addie Fitch after all.”
He got a red crayon from his son’s room, and a hammer and a nail, and went into the woods. He found a black walnut tree and drew a picture of Addie Fitch on it. He made an X where her heart was, like his grandpa had said to do. With the hammer he drove the nail a little way into the X. Then he went home.
“I feel like a fool,” he told his wife.
“You should,” she said.
The next day a boy named Timmy Logan came by. “Addie Fitch isn’t feeling well,” he said. “She wonders if she could borrow some sugar from you.”
Bill Nelson stared at Timmy in amazement. He took a deep breath. “Tell her I’m sorry, but I don’t have any sugar right now,” he said.
When Timmy Logan left, Bill went back to the walnut tree and drove the nail in another inch. The next day the boy came back. “Addie Fitch is pretty sick,” he said. “She’s wondering if you’ve got any sugar yet.”
“Tell her I’m sorry,” Bill Nelson said. “But I still don’t have any.”
Bill went out into the woods and drove the nail in another inch. The following day the boy was back. “Addie Fitch is getting sicker,” he said. “She really needs some sugar.”
“Tell her I still don’t have any,” Bill answered.
Bill’s wife was angry. “You’ve got to stop this,” she said. “If this mumbo jumbo works, it’s like murder.”
“I’ll stop when she does,” he said.
Toward dusk he stood in the yard staring at the ridge where the old lady lived, wondering what was going on up there. Then, in the half darkness, he saw Addie Fitch coming slowly down the hill toward him. With her pinched, bony face and her old black coat, she did look like a witch. As she got closer, Bill saw that she could barely walk.
“Maybe I’m really hurting her,” he thought. He ran to get his hammer to pull the nail out. But before he could leave, Addie Fitch was in the yard, her face twisted with rage.
“First you killed my cat,” she said. “Then you wouldn’t give me a bit of sugar when I needed it.” She swore at him, and fell dead at his feet.
“I’m not surprised that she dropped dead that way,” the doctor said later. “She was very old, maybe ninety. It was her heart, of course.”
“Some people thought she was a witch,” Bill said.
“I’ve heard that,” the doctor said.
“Somebody I know thought Addie Fitch had witched him,” Bill went on. “He drew a picture of her on a tree, then drove a nail into it to make her stop.”
“That’s an old superstition,” the doctor said. “But people like us don’t believe in that sort of thing, do we?”
Running Wild
A young child is stolen by wild animals.
For some reason the animals raise the child instead of eating it.
It learns to make the sounds they make.
It learns to eat, run, and kill the way they do.
After a while it only looks human.
The Wolf Girl
Travel northwest int
o the desert from Del Rio, Texas, and eventually you will come to Devil’s River. In the 1830s a trapper named John Dent and his wife Mollie settled where Dry Creek runs into Devil’s River. Dent was after beaver, which were plentiful there. He and Mollie built a cabin from brush, and near it they put up an arbor to give them shade.
Mollie Dent became pregnant. When she was ready to have their child, John Dent raced on horseback to their nearest neighbors, several miles away.
“My wife is having a baby,” he said to the man and his wife. “Can you help us?” They agreed to come at once. As they got ready to leave, a violent storm came up and a bolt of lightning struck and killed John Dent. The man and his wife managed to find his cabin, but did not arrive until the next day. By then Mollie Dent was dead, too.
It looked as if she had given birth before she died, but the neighbors could not find the baby. Since there were wolf tracks all around, they decided the wolves had eaten it. They buried Mollie Dent and left.
A number of years after she died, people began to tell a strange tale. Some swore it was a true story. Others said it never could have happened.
The story begins in a small settlement a dozen miles from Mollie Dent’s grave. Early one morning a pack of wolves raced in from the desert and killed some goats. Such attacks were not unusual in those days. But a boy thought he saw a naked young girl with long blond hair running with the wolves.
A year or two later, a woman came upon some wolves eating a goat they had just killed. Eating the goat with them, she claimed, was a naked young girl with long blond hair. When the wolves and the girl saw her, they fled. The woman said that at first the girl ran on all fours. Then she stood and ran like a human, swiftly as the wolves.
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