More Short & Shivery

by Robert D. San Souci

The Duppy

  (Haiti)

  Jubal Lescot was only six when his Aunt Albertine died. The old woman had been sharp-tongued, and quick to accuse the child of misdeeds—more often imagined than real. So the boy was more relieved than sorry. He was glad not to have her scolding him all the time, calling him “lazy” and “good-fo’-not’in’.”

  Albertine Lescot was buried in a small churchyard on a hillside near the shanty where she had lived with her brother and his family. Through the banana trees, mimboms, and palm fronds that grew all around the cemetery, the mourners now and then got a glimpse of the distant roofs of Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti.

  Before the funeral, Jubal overheard several of the neighbors saying that a duppy—a kind of ghost—was sure to rise from the old woman’s grave at cock crow on the third night after her burial.

  “What’s dat duppy?” he asked his mother.

  “Somet’in’ you don’ never want t’ meet up wit’,” she told him. “Somet’in’ dat can take hold o’ you if you not careful—or if you don’ believe.”

  “It a ghost, but not a ghost,” his father said. “Everyone have evil in him; but when he alive, his brain and his heart control dat evil. After de spirit go away, dat evil part be lef’ behin’. If it don’ have nothin’ t’ keep it from doin’ whatever it want, it go out into de worl’, where it do terrible t’ings.”

  “So we get a magic man t’ put a spell on dat duppy an’ keep it stayin’ in de grave,” his mother explained. “It a bad t’ing to let a duppy stay ’mong Christian folk.” Then she shook her finger at Jubal. “Any child dat ain’ a foolish child will keep in his bed wit’ de shutters close’, ’til magic make dat duppy res’ quiet fo’ all time,” she warned him.

  Because he was a curious boy, Jubal quietly got out of bed on the third night after Albertine’s funeral. While his parents slept in their little bedroom behind a heavy blanket that served as a door, Jubal stepped out into the warm night.

  In the moonlight—so bright it almost felt hot—the boy had no trouble picking out the trail that led from the shanty to the neighborhood cemetery. There he found he wasn’t quite brave enough to set foot inside the graveyard. So he climbed a huge mango tree that overhung the rusty iron fence surrounding the burial ground. From here he had a clear view of his aunt’s grave, halfway up the slope.

  He perched where several massive branches joined, to watch. But as time slipped by and the night grew darker around him, Jubal remembered the warnings his parents had given him. He began to think he would be better off back in his bed. He was already risking a scolding and a spanking for leaving the house after dark. Now he began to be afraid of what else he might be risking, alone in the dark, spying on ghosts.

  No! he told himself, I come dis far, I ain’ gonna give up now. So he clung stubbornly to his perch as the night yawned toward morning. He dozed a little, unaware for the most part that he had slept at all.

  Then, in the last hours before sunup, Jubal saw a huge bubble of white light squeeze out of the mounded earth of his aunt’s grave. It made a wet, popping sound as it floated free of the ground.

  The moon had set, but it seemed to Jubal that the earth had given birth to a second moon. Inside the man-sized globe of light swam a lazy swirl of shadow, like a just-forming chicken in an egg held up to a candle. It was lit by an unhealthy glow that seemed to seep out, rather than shine, from inside. The surface had a damp look to it.

  For a moment the slimy bubble hovered just above the grave. Then, as if it sensed the boy in hiding, it began to move toward the mango tree. The lower half of the bubble slid right through the stone and metal grave markers that dotted the hillside.

  Jubal knew that it was coming for him. He scrambled down from the tree and began running through the thick jungle toward home. With only starlight to help him pick out the thread of the path, he stumbled often over roots and rocks. He did not dare look back, because he knew he would see the terrifying bubble of white light stained with shadows following him, getting closer.

  Light from behind made the path ahead easier to see; he knew that meant the deadly glowing thing had almost caught up with him. When he rounded a bend in the trail and saw that he was near home, Jubal began to scream for help.

  Then, trying to force his aching legs to go faster, he tripped. He tumbled forward into a puddle that soaked his clothes and filled his nose with a rotten smell.

  He heard a sound like a rushing wind coming down the path behind him, followed by another sound, as though a great fire was sizzling and crisping the leaves on the trees.

  Too scared to move, Jubal buried his face in his arms and waited for the duppy to touch him, to burn him to ashes.

  Something grabbed him roughly by his shirt collar and jerked him, screeching like a crazy gull, to his feet. He windmilled his arms, keeping his eyes tightly shut.

  He felt himself shaken fiercely by the shoulders while his father shouted, “Open yo’ eyes, boy! And shut yo’ mout’! What givin’ you such fits?”

  Carefully, Jubal opened his eyes and looked around the starlit glade. They were alone; the forest was silent and dark. “Tell me what you be doin’ here,” his father said angrily, his strong hands never loosening their grip on Jubal’s shoulders.

  “A duppy, Papa,” Jubal said when he could catch his breath. “It be tryin’ t’ touch me and kill me!”

  “Why it be chasin’ you?”

  “At de graveyard—” Jubal began.

  But his father interrupted him. “You been spyin’ on dat duppy? Don’ you know dat vexes him?” He looked nervously around the clearing. “Get ’long home, quick as you can. In de mornin’, you gotta fetch de priest t’ lay dat duppy t’ rest.”

  As they hurried along, with many glances back over their shoulders, Jubal’s father said, “I should whip you so’s you never forget what you done tonight. An’ so’s you won’ do it no more. But I can see by yo’ face dat you won’ go vexin’ no duppy ever again.”

  And Jubal, seeing their cabin ahead, with his mother standing anxiously in the doorway, felt he was the luckiest boy alive—just to be alive.

  Two Snakes

  (China)

  In ancient China, there was once a man who decided to hunt on a certain mountain people said was the home of many strange creatures. But the hunter paid no attention to these old stories. He climbed high up the wooded slopes in search of game. Though he often heard the calls of birds and the sounds of animals in the thickets, and though he kept his bow and arrow at the ready, he did not catch sight of a single pheasant or deer.

  At night, discouraged, he built a rude shelter of branches, telling himself that the next day would bring him the bounty that had so far eluded him.

  As he huddled in his cloak, trying to fall asleep, he was startled to hear the sound of a heavy footfall in the clearing outside. Peering out of his lean-to, he saw a tall, thin figure dressed in white robes. The man, who was more than ten feet tall, spoke in a thin, piping voice.

  “I have come to ask your help,” the stranger said. “I am going to fight against my enemy tomorrow. Help me, and you will be abundantly rewarded.”

  The hunter was delighted. “I am more than willing to help,” he said. “What must I do?”

  “Tomorrow at mealtime, go to the stream that flows to the east of here,” the visitor said. “My enemy will be coming from the north, and I shall be meeting him from the south. Remember that I shall be the one in white, and he will be the one in yellow.”

  “I promise,” said the hunter, puzzled at the words.

  With a nod, the tall figure turned and disappeared into the shadows of the forest.

  The hunter spent the next morning looking for game, but again returned to his shelter empty-handed. The gnawing hunger in his belly reminded him that it was mealtime. It was time to make good his promise to his night visitor.

  He had only traveled a short distance when he came to the stream, just as the stranger had described it. From the heavy growth on the n
orth bank he heard a crackling and hissing like wind and rain. Listening, the hunter could make out the sound of bushes being uprooted and trees falling. Then he heard a similar sound from the south side of the stream.

  Suddenly two huge snakes, each nearly a hundred feet long, burst forth from the underbrush—a yellow one from the north, and a white one from the south. They met in the middle of the stream and encircled each other with their powerful tails.

  At first the hunter thought them evenly matched. Their coiled bodies churned the stream to muddy froth, while their immense tails lashed the water and bank with sounds as sharp as thundercracks. Neither seemed to have the advantage in the deadly struggle. Each opened its immense jaws as if to swallow the other, but now the yellow, now the white snake fended off the attack by twisting its body or using its own jaws.

  Gradually, however, the white serpent seemed to weaken. The hunter, concealed a short distance away, decided that his visitor must have been the white snake changed to human form. True to his promise, he drew his bow and shot the yellow one. A second and third arrow also hit home, and the snake fell back, mortally wounded. The swift-flowing stream soon carried it out of sight.

  Then the white snake turned and retreated into the underbrush on the south bank. Not knowing what else to do, the hunter returned to his shelter to wait.

  At dusk, his visitor of the night before came to thank him, saying, “You may stay here and hunt on this mountain for one year. From now on, you will find all the game you want. But I warn you: You must leave this place when one year has gone by. Never come again. If you do, bad luck will befall you.”

  “I promise,” said the hunter.

  With a nod, the tall figure vanished into the gloom.

  It all came to pass as the snake had promised. From that moment on, the mountain woods and meadows provided the hunter with unlimited game, while the streams poured fish into his nets. Whenever he returned to his village, he would sell a portion of his bounty. Soon he became quite rich.

  He marked the time carefully. When a year was up he came down from the mountain one last time, vowing never to return.

  But as the years passed, the man was careless with his wealth. His money was gone, and his hunting and fishing barely brought him enough to eat.

  At night, sitting in his hut, eating a bowl of watery rice with a single piece of fish in it, he would gaze into the distance at the forbidden mountain. He would see in his mind the glades where herds of deer grazed and the streams that teemed with fish.

  Then he would remember the warning the strange visitor had given him, and turn away with a sigh.

  But when there was nothing to eat except roots and bark, and his belly rumbled as loudly as mountain thunder, the hunter finally said to himself, “Surely enough time has gone by, and my hunger is so great, that the white snake would not punish me if I returned to the mountain for only one day.”

  The very next morning, he set out with his bow and nets. As soon as he entered the woods, he found the game as plentiful as ever. Soon he had a number of fat pheasants slung over his shoulder.

  Suddenly, rounding a bend of the path he was following, he came face to face with the tall figure in white.

  “Oh, my foolish friend!” cried the figure. “Didn’t I tell you that you must never come here again? Now my enemy’s sons have grown up. They are sure to take revenge on you, and I can do nothing to prevent it.”

  These words struck fear into the hunter. He begged the tall man to tell him how to escape.

  “Too late,” said the other, disappearing into the green shade of the forest.

  At the same time, the hunter heard a sound like wind and rain moving through the trees toward him. Throwing aside the string of pheasants, he fled down the path.

  For a time, the sounds kept growing louder. But he redoubled his efforts, until he was running faster than a startled hare. Gradually the sounds of pursuit began to fade. Finally they ceased altogether. With a cry of relief, he stumbled into a clearing, and realized that he was only a few paces from the edge of the woods at the foot of the mountain.

  But when the weary man was halfway across the open space, three men dressed in yellow satin robes, all of them eight feet tall, suddenly slipped from the trees opposite him.

  To his dismay, he saw their yellow garments slide off, like shed snakeskins. The three opened their impossibly huge mouths and kept on opening them, even as their hands and feet melted into their bodies, and their bodies lengthened and coiled.

  The deer and birds, frozen in place, heard the sounds of three sets of powerful jaws clamping shut.

  Then there was only silence upon the mountain.

  The Draug

  (Norway)

  There are many stories told in Norway concerning the draug, a ghostly sailor with a mass of seaweed where his head should be. Sometimes he is no more than a menacing shape in a storm or mist. Sometimes he can be clearly seen as he sails his half-boat by night or swims in the ocean waters by moonlight.

  The word draug means “a living dead person.” Fishermen say it is the spirit of someone who was drowned at sea and who is now doomed to haunt the seaways, looking for victims to drag down and share his misery.

  In 1864, in a small Norwegian village, the town magistrate, Ola Hagen; his wife, Solvy; and a crew of four oarsmen were charged with delivering a local criminal for trial. The court was in a town far down the coast.

  They set sail in a small, open boat early on a September morning. The weather was fine, and they enjoyed a leisurely journey watching the unrolling panorama of steep, rock-walled fjords—many with waterfalls rushing down to the sea. From time to time they saw thick woods, or occasional patches of green farmland nestled beneath the cliffs.

  Sturdy, good-hearted Solvy welcomed this brief escape from the duties of tending her house and vegetable garden. She sang sweetly as she kept watch over the waves ahead or spelled a rower at his oar. Her husband, Ola, leaning upon the rudder, skillfully guided the boat past the often treacherous rocks. He joined Solvy in a chorus, and their high spirits soon had the oarsmen singing, too.

  Suddenly their prisoner, who had been lost in his thoughts, shouted, “Why are you mocking me this way? The devil take your accursed singing!”

  Solvy said gently, “We were singing to pass the time—not to add to your troubles.”

  But the man said, “Bah! To the devil with every one of you!”

  “Be quiet!” ordered Ola as Solvy blessed herself. She glanced around as though a horned devil might burst forth like a porpoise from the waves. Just to mention the evil one, she knew, might summon him. But the sea remained untroubled.

  The prisoner turned away and said nothing more. But the pleasant mood was broken. They continued on their way in silence.

  Toward evening, as they passed through a dangerous channel, they heard a forlorn cry.

  “It’s a seabird, nothing more,” Ola assured his companions.

  But his wife suddenly drew in her breath and pointed over the gunwale. To their horror, they saw a dark shape swimming around and around them. Abruptly it dove under the boat, setting the craft rocking to and fro. Then it shot from the water with a shriek and splashed back before any of the startled crew could see clearly what it was.

  The boat was buffeted from side to side again. The youngest oarsman cried out, “Surely it is a draug who means to sink us!”

  The craft pitched and rolled yet again.

  “Come about!” ordered Ola Hagen. “We must head for shore!”

  “Look! A light!” his wife said. “Perhaps there is a farmhouse where we can find shelter for the night.”

  The four oarsmen bent their backs to the task, while the boat continued to rock as though in a storm. But the air was calm and the sky clear. If the frightened crew had not been rowing for dear life, they might have counted the glittering stars overhead.

  When they entered a small inlet, their underwater tormentor suddenly left off its attacks. The boat sped smoothly across the
sheltered water. In a moment they had moored their craft beside a fisherman’s boat. Hurriedly, Ola and Solvy, the four oarsmen, and the prisoner in manacles hurried up the slippery path to knock on the door of a stone hut. From its single window, the butter-yellow light of an oil lamp streamed out to welcome the newcomers, who kept looking back over their shoulders at the still, starlit water of the cove.

  Once only, a dark shape leaped out of the depths and back again—so quickly that Solvy, the only one who saw it, was not sure that she had really seen anything. But she shuddered nonetheless.

  Then the door was pulled open. The fisherman inside, who recognized the magistrate and his wife, bade them all, “Come in.”

  When they had told their tale, the fisherman nodded and said, “On a moonlit night such as this, the draug shrieks so loudly that you may find sleep impossible.”

  After they had warmed themselves by the fire and had eaten some of the man’s fish stew, the weary travelers settled down for the night on straw pallets beside the hearth. Though the walls of the cottage were solid stone, and the fisherman drew the shutters tight, none of the visitors was able to sleep. They were kept awake by piercing shrieks that continued until daybreak.

  The travelers wearily shared some of their bread and cheese with the fisherman for breakfast, then continued on to their destination. There they turned the prisoner (who was only too glad to be away from the sea) over to the authorities. Because it was already late in the day, they decided to delay their departure until the next morning.

  With fresh provisions and determined to return home before sunset, the six set out at dawn. As before, Ola claimed his place at the rudder, while Solvy took up watch in the prow. The steady rhythm of the four rested rowers and a full sail sent the small boat skimming across the waves.

  But as the day lengthened, a strong headwind arose and slowed them. Soon, taking note of the westering sun, Solvy said, “I’m afraid we won’t reach home before nightfall.” Then she cautioned, “We should look for a place to tie up the boat and find shelter for the night.”