More Short & Shivery

by Robert D. San Souci

  When darkness fell, the stranger went into the potuma, the common house, where the men slept, to spend the night. He took his son with him. But in the potuma was Kakak, a man of the village who was short-tempered and violent. When he saw the hill man’s child about to fall asleep beside his father, Kakak raised a great cry. While two of Kakak’s friends held the hill man in check, the angry villager shook Mimau. “What are you doing here, boy?” he cried. “Don’t you know that this is a house for men? Go away at once!” Then Kakak beat the little child and shoved him out of the door into the dirt beyond. The boy lay still; his spirit had fled his body.

  Inay also was expelled from the potuma. When he saw the lifeless form of his son, he gave a cry that echoed from the distant hills. Then wordlessly, he gathered the body of his little Mimau in his arms and walked away into the night. At this Kakak boasted, “That is how I will deal with all strangers who do not respect our customs.” Then, contented, he lay down to sleep.

  Only a few days after this it happened that all the people of the village were fishing at the river, so no one noticed Inay creep into the empty potuma. When the hill man entered, he carried something in his hands; but when he left, his hands were empty. Still unseen, Inay hurried back to the hills.

  At evening, the men of the village returned. After they had eaten, they went into the potuma and made ready to sleep, for they were weary after a day spent fishing. In the center of the sleeping place, Kakak saw a headrest carved of wood. Instantly, he claimed it for his own, saying, “This is my pillow. If any of you wish it, you must take it from me in a wrestling match—if you dare.”

  But the other men, knowing his fierceness and strength, refused to wrestle with him. They just shrugged and let him be. Then Kakak lay down, rested his neck on the carved wooden headrest, and was soon asleep.

  In the morning, the men awoke, stretched, and one by one came out of the potuma into the village. But Kakak was not among them. It surprised the others that he was still sleeping, for he was usually the first to arise. After a time, one man went in and tried to rouse the fierce man. But when he looked closely, he saw that Kakak was dead. Then he made a great outcry, calling to the other men. When they saw the body, the men were very much afraid. “How could he have died so quickly and quietly?” they asked each other. “Surely he was bewitched.”

  Kakak was buried, and his name was no longer spoken aloud, as was the custom when someone died. But the man who had first tried to wake him took the headrest for himself. It chanced that he was one of the two who had held back the hill man while Kakak beat his child. That night he lay down to sleep. And in the morning he also was found dead.

  “What evil comes into the potuma at night that kills men so swiftly?” the villagers wondered fearfully. “Let us watch all through the night to see what shape our enemy takes.”

  So the men sat up all through the night, but they saw nothing. In the morning they went wearily about their business, unsure whether the evil had truly gone away, or was merely waiting to strike again when they might be less watchful.

  In the warmth of the afternoon, one man crept back to the potuma to sleep, while all his fellows were fishing. As it happened, this was the second of the two men who had held the hill man while his child was beaten. Seeing the headrest in a corner, he placed it under his neck, sighed contentedly, and was soon fast asleep.

  Now his fellows, noticing that he was gone from the riverbank, sent a boy to fetch him. The child had just reached the entrance of the potuma when he saw the headrest slide out from under the sleeping man, fly into the air, then fall with great force on the sleeper’s head. The man lay dead upon the ground, with the headrest beside him, before the child could so much as cry out a warning.

  Fearful that the thing might fall on his own head, the boy ran back to the river, shouting to tell everyone what he had seen.

  For a long time the men remained outside the common house, staring at the slain man’s body and the headrest beside it. After much discussion, they gathered as much wood as possible and built a great fire in the open space outside the potuma. Then the strongest and bravest man went inside and picked up the headrest. To the touch, it seemed nothing more than ordinary wood. But when he neared the bonfire, the headrest began to twist about in his grip, as though it would break free.

  With a cry partly of fear and partly of disgust, the man cast the headrest into the hottest part of the flames. Instantly, the wood caught fire. Then, as the villagers watched aghast, it writhed and crawled about the pyre as if it were truly alive. All the while it groaned, “A-ge-ge-ge-ge-ge!” and screamed, “A-ke-ke-ke-ke-ke!” until it was burned to ashes.

  Then, from the heart of the dying fire arose a whirlwind. It carried the ashes of the headrest high into the air. There other winds caught them and carried them across the river and over the trees toward the distant hills and a village high in the mountains. They would be a sign to Inay, watching silently from the door of his hut, that vengeance had been exacted for the violence done to his little son.

  The Thing in the Woods

  (United States—Louisiana)

  Once, in the Louisiana backwoods, there was a Cajun woman, Odette, who wanted nothing more than to have a child. But God had not granted her and her husband that gift. Sometimes she would be going about her housework when she would pause and gaze into the yard, imagining a child playing there. Her husband, Alcide, would often say, “I wish I had a son, me. That boy, when he grow up he would be best hunter in whole bayou country and Unite’ States, him!”

  Poor Odette spent most of her days in church, praying to the Virgin Mary. “Please let me have a bebe for Alcide,” she would plead. “I promise I would love that child so.”

  But no child was sent to them.

  Now, there was a stretch of woods haunted by the evil one, the devil himself. People were safe as long as they stayed on the path that ran through the forest, but they risked their lives and very souls if they strayed into the trees on either side.

  When Odette was a little girl, her mother had often warned her, as she set out to school, “You be careful, Odette! You keep your feets on the road, yes. Don’t you go wandering off after a flower or nothing. You walk straight to the schoolhouse and don’t pay no mind to nothing else!”

  But now, one spring day, as Odette was walking to church along that very road, she spied a beautiful flower growing right beside the path. It had long white petals surrounding a center as red as the finest ruby. So perfect was it that it might have been fashioned by an artist instead of growing wild. A little ways beyond it, she saw another such blossom and another.

  “I will take these to church and give them to the Virgin Mary,” she said. “Maybe then she will give me a bebe, yes?”

  So she began to gather a bouquet, and didn’t notice that each flower she picked led her deeper into the woods.

  Suddenly she heard a sound like a child crying. Looking around anxiously, she spotted something blue under a tree. It was a bundle wrapped in blankets, from which came the child’s cries. Instantly Odette dropped her flowers and ran toward it.

  Swaddled in the sky-blue cloth was a handsome little baby boy, with skin as white as milk. As she reached down and gently lifted the infant in her arms, he laughed and gurgled in a way that went straight to her heart.

  “Has your careless mother left you all alone here?” she asked the child. But the bebe only laughed and cooed even louder. Then Odette said to herself, “Maybe the Virgin has answered my prayers by sending me to find this child. I will take him home, yes. He will be a son for Alcide.”

  With the child gathered in her arms, the young woman hurried out of the woods. But as she neared the road, she remembered she had not thanked the Virgin for giving her this son. She carefully spread out her shawl in the shade of a tree. Upon this she gently set her blue-wrapped bundle. Then she knelt to pray.

  But as soon as she had uttered the first words of her prayer, the infant began to yell and shriek. At first she tried to
pray in spite of his cries. But he screamed louder and louder, almost as if her prayers were causing him pain.

  At last Odette whispered to the Virgin that she would say her prayer of thanksgiving when she got home. “Let me get this bebe some milk and put him to bed. Then I’ll pray some more, me,” she promised.

  So she started to pick the little one up. She raised the corner of the blanket that covered his face to speak a soothing word to the squirming baby. But when she did, her heart turned to ice.

  No perfect infant with milk-white skin was in her arms. Instead she was holding something that was all black and shiny and ugly—like some beetle. And even as she watched, the thing began to grow, getting bigger and bigger by the minute. Poor Odette was so frightened that she nearly died on the spot.

  She dropped the writhing bundle on the ground. To her horror she found she couldn’t move: Her legs felt like they were rooted to the spot. Not knowing what else to do, she made the sign of the cross in the air over the tangled blanket, from which two shiny black claws had emerged.

  To her everlasting relief, she found that she had done the right thing. The evil one hates the mark of the cross. The creature that was still half hidden gave a yell like forty devils. Then Odette saw something that looked partly like a giant beetle, and partly like a little hunched-up man with shiny insect skin, run off into the woods.

  As soon as its cries had died away, Odette found that she could move again.

  Still shaking, she hastened directly to the church, where she thanked God and the Virgin for her escape.

  The very next day, Alcide and Odette moved far away to Bayou Barataria. There they made a new life for themselves, and in time they were blessed with a family of five sons and four daughters. Odette was careful to see that each child said his or her prayers day and night, went to church faithfully, and never went picking flowers in the woods.

  King of the Cats

  (British Isles—England)

  On a chilly winter’s evening, a gravedigger’s wife sat by the fireside, waiting for her husband to come home. Across from her sat her big black cat, Old Tom, who was half asleep, like his mistress.

  “Wherever can the man be?” the woman asked.

  “Meow,” said Old Tom, stretching his legs.

  So they waited and waited.

  Suddenly both jumped to hear footsteps pounding up the path. A minute later, the gravedigger, all out of breath, came rushing into the room.

  “Who’s Tom Tildrum?” he shouted in such a wild way that both his wife and his cat stared at him in surprise.

  “Why, what’s the matter?” asked his wife. “And why do you want to know who Tom Tildrum is?”

  The gravedigger caught his breath and pulled a chair up to the fire. “What an adventure I’ve had! There I was, digging away at old Mr. Fordyce’s grave. Hard work it was, so I paused for a rest, sitting in the hole itself, where the wind couldn’t reach me. Then I suppose I dropped off to sleep. How long I remained so, I can’t say. But I woke up when I heard a cat’s meow.”

  “Meow,” said Old Tom in answer.

  “Yes, just like that! So I peeped over the edge of the grave, and what do you think I saw?”

  “Now, how could I know that?” his wife said. “Get on with the telling.”

  “Indeed, I saw nine black cats that looked for all the world like our own Tom here,” said her husband. “Each had a white spot on its chest, just like him. And what do you think they were carrying?” he asked his wife.

  “You might as well ask Old Tom as ask me,” said his wife, who was growing impatient, “since we were both of us sitting by the fire.”

  “Well, those cats were walking upright, and eight of them were carrying a little coffin on their shoulders. It was covered with a black velvet cloth, and the cloth was all bordered in little gold crowns. The ninth cat—bigger than the others—walked in front. At every third step, he would call out, ‘Meow!’ Then the others would all answer together, ‘Meow!’ ”

  “Meow!” wailed Old Tom again.

  “Yes, just like that!” exclaimed the gravedigger. “And as they came nearer and nearer to me, I could see them even more clearly, because their eyes seemed to shine with a strange green light. Well, they all came toward me, and the leader looked for all the world like—but look at our Tom!” the man said, pointing a finger at the cat on the hearth. “See how he’s staring at me! You’d think he understood every word I was saying.”

  “Go on, go on,” said his wife. “Never mind Old Tom.”

  “Well, as I was saying,” the gravedigger continued, “those cats came slowly toward me, marching as solemnly as proper mourners, and every third step crying out, ‘Meow!’ in answer to the leader’s own ‘Meow!’ ”

  “Meow!” bawled Old Tom again.

  “Yes, just like that,” the man said with a nod. “On they came, until they stood alongside Mr. Fordyce’s grave. There they stood still and stared right at me. It made me feel odd, that it did! Those nine pair of glowing green eyes peering at me.” Then the man looked at his own cat and said, “But look at Old Tom. He’s staring at me just the way they did. And—bless me!—but there seems to be more green in his eyes than I’ve ever seen before.”

  “Go on, go on,” said his wife, “finish the story and never mind Old Tom!”

  “Where was I?” said the man. “Oh, yes, I recall now. Those nine big cats just stood still, looking at me. Then the one that wasn’t carrying the coffin came forward, stood on the edge of the grave gazing down at me, and said—”

  “Are you saying that the cat spoke to you?” his wife asked, shaking her head in disbelief.

  Now it was her husband’s turn to grow impatient. “Yes, I swear to you, he said to me, in a squeaky voice, ‘Tell Tom Tildrum that Tim Toldrum is dead.’ I was so unnerved, I ran from the churchyard that very minute. And that’s why, when I first came in here, I asked you if you know who Tom Tildrum is. How can I tell Tom Tildrum that Tim Toldrum is dead, if I don’t for the life of me know who Tom Tildrum is?”

  But his wife suddenly shouted, “Look at Old Tom! Look at Old Tom!”

  Then the both of them gaped, for Old Tom seemed to grow to twice his normal size, while his eyes blazed with a terrible green light. He shrieked out, “What? Old Tim dead? Then I’m King of the Cats!”

  With a howl of triumph he rushed up the chimney and was nevermore seen by the gravedigger or his wife.

  The Dead Mother

  (Russia)

  Long, long ago, in the days when the czars ruled Russia, a husband and wife lived in a small village. Though they were poor, and their life from day to day was always hard, they remained happy and loving. The mere sight of Ivan and Anya walking hand-in-hand gave pleasure to their neighbors; their shared joy lightened the labors of farmhand and housewife alike.

  When the couple found out that they were to have a child, they were delighted. This was the miracle they had been praying for for years. Now their dearest dream would be fulfilled.

  But a dark cloud cast its shadow over their happiness. Shortly after Anya bore a son, she died with the infant resting in her arms. To the last, the poor woman’s eyes were fixed on the sweet, tiny face of her sleeping child. The sadness and longing in her eyes shattered the already breaking heart of her husband. A moment later, she sighed her last. Then poor Ivan dropped to his knees beside the bed, holding his wife’s cold hand, and moaned and wept until his cries woke the child.

  Gently he gathered his son into his arms. How was he to bring up his motherless child alone? he wondered. He determined to do the best that he could. So he hired an old woman named Tatiana to look after the baby while he worked in the fields.

  But a strange thing happened. All day long the infant would cry endlessly, refusing all food, refusing to be comforted. Yet, during the deepest hours of the night, he remained so quiet that neither Ivan nor old Tatiana sleeping beside the child’s cradle was ever disturbed. One might have thought the baby wasn’t there at all.

 
; The old woman grew increasingly worried about why a child so fretful by day should remain strangely silent throughout the night. It seemed to her unnatural. Finally, determined to get to the bottom of the mystery, she decided to stay awake and watch until dawn.

  The next night, having settled the baby (who had fussed the whole day) as best she could in his cradle, Tatiana sat on the bench near the hearth. By the fire’s glow she mended one of Ivan’s shirts. From the room behind the curtain she could hear the man’s soft snoring.

  As the hour grew late, the baby stopped crying. When Tatiana leaned over the cradle to see if he was asleep, she was surprised to find the baby wide-eyed, with a look on his tiny face that suggested he was watching and listening for something. When the infant first saw her, he smiled and stretched his little arms up to her. Then he seemed to recognize her, and screwed up his face as though he would burst into tears. Startled, the old woman stepped back. Instantly the child sighed, and became as quiet and watchful as before.

  Puzzled, Tatiana retreated to her corner by the fireplace. She took up her mending, but kept her eyes on the cradle, hardly daring to breathe. An expectant hush had fallen on the room.

  Suddenly, just at midnight, she heard someone softly open the door. Looking up, she saw the figure of a woman, shrouded in veils, tiptoe to the cradle. Tatiana tried to call out, but her voice was frozen in her throat as surely as she herself was frozen to the bench.

  The stranger’s veils were draped over the cradle. From beneath came the sound of the infant’s contented gurgling and occasional chuckles of pleasure.

  After what seemed like hours, the veiled figure abandoned the cradle and once again tiptoed to the door. When the door was opened, Tatiana could see streaks of dawn light to the east.

  The moment the door shut behind the figure, the old woman was able to rise. She ran to the cradle and looked in, but the baby was sleeping peacefully. Yanking the cottage door wide, she gazed across the yard, which was lightly powdered with the first snow of winter. But she saw no trace of the mysterious woman. Not so much as a single footprint marred the smooth expanse of snow.