The Book of the Living Dead

by John Richard Stephens

  The sun was fast rising as he finished his work, and the first thing he did was to return to the road, and look out for a house to rest himself in. He found an inn at last, and lay down upon a bed there, and slept till night. Then he rose up and ate a little, and fell asleep again till morning. When he awoke in the morning he hired a horse and rode home. He was more than twenty-six miles from home where he was, and he had come all that way with the dead body on his back in one night.

  All the people at his own home thought that he must have left the country, and they rejoiced greatly when they saw him come back. Everyone began asking him where he had been, but he would not tell anyone except his father.

  He was a changed man from that day. He never drank too much; he never lost his money over cards; and especially he would not take the world and be out late by himself of a dark night.

  He was not a fortnight at home until he married Mary, the girl he had been in love with; and it’s at their wedding the sport was, and it’s he was the happy man from that day forwards, and it’s all I wish that we may be as happy as he was.

  THE NAME ON THE STONE

  Lafcadio Hearn

  Lafcadio Hearn was a journalist and author who is famous for his many books on Japan, the Caribbean, and New Orleans. He grew up in Greece, Ireland, England, Wales, and France and then spent the first half of his adult life in the United States and the latter half living in Japan, where he became a Buddhist and a Japanese citizen, adopting the name Yakumo Koizumi. While he is primarily associated with Japan, he is also very well-known for his writings on New Orleans and its culture. This impressionistic sketch was written for his New Orleans newspaper column.

  “As surely as the wild bird seeks the summer, you will come back,” she whispered. “Is there a drop of blood in your veins that does not grow ruddier and warmer at the thought of me? Does not your heart beat quicker at this moment because I am here? It belongs to me—it obeys me in spite of your feeble will—it will remain my slave when you are gone. You have bewitched yourself at my lips; I hold you as a bird is held by an invisible thread; and my thread, invisible and intangible, is stronger than your will. Fly: but you can no longer fly beyond the circle in which my wish confines you. Go: but I shall come to you in dreams of the night; and you will be awakened by the beating of your own heart to find yourself alone with darkness and memory. Sleep in whose arms you will, I shall come like a ghost between you; kiss a thousand lips, but it will be I that shall receive them. Though you circle the earth in your wanderings, you will never be able to leave my memory behind you; and your pulse will quicken at recollections of me whether you find yourself under Indian suns or Northern lights. You lie when you say you do not love me!—your heart would fling itself under my feet could it escape from its living prison! You will come back.”

  And having vainly sought rest through many vainly spent years, I returned to her. It was a night of wild winds and fleeting shadows and strange clouds that fled like phantoms before the storm and across the face of the moon.

  “You are a cursed witch,” I shrieked, “ but I have come back!”

  And she, placing a finger—white as the waxen tapers that are burned at the feet of the dead—upon my lips, only smiled and whispered, “Come with me.”

  And I followed her.

  The thunder muttered in the east; the horizon pulsated with lightnings; the night-birds screamed as we reached the iron gates of the burial-ground, which swung open with a groan at her touch.

  Noiselessly she passed through the ranges of the graves; and I saw the mounds flame when her feet touched them—flame with a cold white dead flame, like the fire of the glow-worm.

  Was it an illusion of broken moonlight and flying clouds, or did the dead rise and follow us like a bridal train? And was it only the vibration of the thunder, or did the earth quake when I stood upon that grave?

  “Look not behind you even for an instant,” she muttered, “or you are lost.”

  But there came to me a strange desire to read the name graven upon the moss-darkened stone; and even as it came the storm unveiled the face of the moon.

  And the dark shadow at my side whispered, “Read it not!”

  And the moon veiled herself again.“I cannot go! I cannot go!” I whispered passionately, “until I have read the name upon this stone.”

  Then a flash of lightning in the east revealed to me the name; and an agony of memory came upon me; and I shrieked it to the flying clouds and the wan lights of heaven!

  Again the earth quaked under my feet; and a white Shape rose from the bosom of the grave like an exhalation and stood before me: I felt the caress of lips shadowy as those of the fair phantom women who haunt the dreams of youth; and the echo of a dead voice, faint as the whisper of a summer wind, murmured—“Love, love is stronger than Death!—I come back from the eternal night to save thee!”

  THE VAMPIRE OF CROGLIN GRANGE

  (as recorded by Augustus Hare)

  This is one of the most popular “true” vampire stories. The narrative was told to Augustus Hare in 1874 by Edward Rowe Fisher-Rowe, late captain of the Fourth Dragoon Guards. Hare quoted it in his book The Story of My Life, with little comment other than saying it is a “really extraordinary story” connected with Captain Fisher’s own family. A number of people have tried to determine how much of this story is true. Certain elements of the story indicate that it is from the 1600s, while others place it in the 1800s.

  Croglin Grange—now known as Croglin Low Hall—is a rural farmhouse in what is now Cumbria, in northwestern England. Croglin, which means “crooked river,” is the name of a brook that flows about 350 yards to the northwest of the hall.

  The people featured in the account—Amelia, Michael, and Edward Cranswell—subleased the house from the Fishers in the mid to late 1800s, but it’s noted in the narrative that it was a single-story house, although by then the house had two floors. According to local tradition, the second story was built in the 1720s, and it was at this time that Croglin Grange became known as Croglin Low Hall. The Fishers leased the house from 1809 up until this story was told to Augustus Hare.

  Some suggest the church and graveyard in the story are the ones in Ainstable, a mile and a half to the northeast, but there were a small church and graveyard very close to Croglin Grange, though they were destroyed by Oliver Cromwell’s brother-in-law in the mid 1600s during the English Civil War. The window next to the front door, which tradition says is the one through which the vampire entered, is now bricked up, along with at least four other windows. It’s suggested this was done to avoid a window tax that began to be levied in 1696.

  There are indications that this story was associated with the house at least as far back as the early 1800s, which would support an earlier date. Augustus Hare probably wrote Captain Fisher’s narrative down from memory and may have introduced some of the confusing elements from his personal knowledge of the house. At any rate, here is what Hare quoted the captain as saying.

  Fisher may sound a very plebeian name, but this family is of a very ancient lineage, and for many hundreds of years they have possessed a very curious old place in Cumberland, which bears the weird name of Croglin Grange. The great characteristic of the house is that never at any period of its very long existence has it been more than one story high, but it has a terrace from which large grounds sweep away towards the church in the hollow, and a fine distant view.

  When, in lapse of years, the Fishers outgrew Croglin Grange in family and fortune, they were wise enough not to destroy the long-standing characteristic of the place by adding another story to the house, but they went away to the south, to reside at Thorncombe near Guildford, and they let Croglin Grange.

  They were extremely fortunate in their tenants, two brothers and a sister. They heard their praises from all quarters. To their poorer neighbors they were all that is most kind and beneficent, and their neighbors of a higher class spoke of them as a most welcome addition to the little society of the neighborhood. On
their part, the tenants were greatly delighted with their new residence. The arrangement of the house, which would have been a trial to many, was not so to them. In every respect Croglin Grange was exactly suited to them.

  The winter was spent most happily by the new inmates of Croglin Grange, who shared in all the little social pleasures of the district, and made themselves very popular. In the following summer, there was one day which was dreadfully, annihilatingly hot. The brothers lay under the trees with their books, for it was too hot for any active occupation. The sister sat in the veranda and worked, or tried to work, for in the intense sultriness of that summer day, work was next to impossible. They dined early, and after dinner they still sat out on the veranda, enjoying the cool air which came with the evening, and they watched the sun set, and the moon rise over the belt of trees which separated the grounds from the churchyard, seeing it mount the heavens till the whole lawn was bathed in silver light, across which the long shadows from the shrubbery fell as if embossed, so vivid and distinct were they.

  When they separated for the night, all retiring to their rooms on the ground-floor (for, as I said, there was no upstairs in that house), the sister felt that the heat was still so great that she could not sleep, and having fastened her window, she did not close the shutters—in that very quiet place it was not necessary—and, propped against the pillows, she still watched the wonderful, the marvelous beauty of that summer night. Gradually she became aware of two lights, two lights which flickered in and out in the belt of trees which separated the lawn from the churchyard, and, as her gaze became fixed upon them, she saw them emerge, fixed in a dark substance, a definite ghastly something, which seemed every moment to become nearer, increasing in size and substance as it approached. Every now and then it was lost for a moment in the long shadows which stretched across the lawn from the trees, and then it emerged larger than ever, and still coming on—on. As she watched it, the most uncontrollable horror seized her. She longed to get away, but the door was close to the window, and the door was locked on the inside, and while she was unlocking it she must be for an instant nearer to it. She longed to scream, but her voice seemed paralyzed, her tongue glued to the roof of her mouth.

  Suddenly—she could never explain why afterwards—the terrible object seemed to turn to one side, seemed to be going round the house, not to be coming to her at all, and immediately she jumped out of bed and rushed to the door, but as she was unlocking it she heard scratch, scratch, scratch upon the window, and saw a hideous brown face with flaming eyes glaring in at her. She rushed back to the bed, but the creature continued to scratch, scratch, scratch upon the window. She felt a sort of mental comfort in the knowledge that the window was securely fastened on the inside.

  Suddenly the scratching sound ceased, and a kind of pecking sound took its place. Then, in her agony, she became aware that the creature was unpicking the lead! The noise continued, and a diamond pane of glass fell into the room. Then a long bony finger of the creature came in and turned the handle of the window, and the window opened, and the creature came in; and it came across the room, and her terror was so great that she could not scream, and it came up to the bed, and it twisted its long, bony fingers into her hair, and it dragged her head over the side of the bed, and—it bit her violently in the throat.

  As it bit her, her voice was released, and she screamed with all her might and main. Her brothers rushed out of their rooms, but the door was locked on the inside. A moment was lost while they got a poker and broke it open. Then the creature had already escaped through the window, and the sister, bleeding violently from a wound in the throat, was lying unconscious over the side of the bed.

  One brother pursued the creature, which fled before him through the moonlight with gigantic strides, and eventually seemed to disappear over the wall into the churchyard. Then he rejoined his brother by the sister’s bedside. She was dreadfully hurt, and her wound was a very definite one, but she was of strong disposition, not even given to romance or superstition, and when she came to herself she said, “What has happened is most extraordinary and I am very much hurt. It seems inexplicable, but of course there is an explanation, and we must wait for it. It will turn out that a lunatic has escaped from some asylum and found his way here.”

  The wound healed, and she appeared to get well, but the doctor who was sent for would not believe that she could bear so terrible a shock so easily, and insisted that she must have change, mental and physical; so her brothers took her to Switzerland.

  Being a sensible girl, when she went abroad she threw herself at once into the interests of the country she was in. She dried plants, she made sketches, she went up mountains, and as autumn came on, she was the person who urged that they should return to Croglin Grange.

  “We have taken it,” she said, “for seven years, and we have only been there one; and we shall always find it difficult to let a house which is only one story high, so we had better return there; lunatics do not escape every day.”

  As she urged it, her brothers wished nothing better, and the family returned to Cumberland. From there being no upstairs in the house it was impossible to make any great change in their arrangements. The sister occupied the same room, but it is unnecessary to say she always closed the shutters, which, however, as in many old houses, always left one top pane of the window uncovered. The brothers moved, and occupied a room together, exactly opposite that of their sister, and they always kept loaded pistols in their room.

  The winter passed most peacefully and happily. In the following March, the sister was suddenly awakened by a sound she remembered only too well—scratch, scratch, scratch upon the window, and, looking up, she saw, climbed up to the topmost pane of the window, the same hideous brown shriveled face, with glaring eyes, looking in at her.

  This time she screamed as loud as she could. Her brothers rushed out of their room with pistols, and out of the front door. The creature was already scudding away across the lawn. One of the brothers fired and hit it in the leg, but still with the other leg it continued to make way, scrambled over the wall into the churchyard, and seemed to disappear into a vault which belonged to a family long extinct.

  The next day the brothers summoned all the tenants of Croglin Grange, and in their presence the vault was opened. A horrible scene revealed itself. The vault was full of coffins; they had been broken open, and their contents, horribly mangled and distorted, were scattered over the floor. One coffin alone remained intact. Of that the lid had been lifted, but still lay loose upon the coffin. They raised it, and there, brown, withered, shriveled, mummified, but quite entire, was the same hideous figure which had looked in at the windows of Croglin Grange, with the marks of a recent pistol-shot in the leg: and they did the only thing that can lay a vampire—they burnt it.

  THURNLEY ABBEY

  Perceval Landon

  Here is an interesting gothic tale, which horror author M. R. James described as “a horrid one . . . almost too horrid.” It’s the perfect story to read when you’re alone in bed on a dark, candlelit night.

  Three years ago I was on my way out to the East, and as an extra day in London was of some importance, I took the Friday evening mail-train to Brindisi instead of the usual Thursday morning Marseilles express. Many people shrink from the long forty-eight-hour train journey through Europe, and the subsequent rush across the Mediterranean on the nineteen-knot Isis or Osiris; but there is really very little discomfort on either the train or the mail-boat, and unless there is actually nothing for me to do, I always like to save the extra day and a half in London before I say goodbye to her for one of my longer tramps. This time—it was early, I remember, in the shipping season, probably about the beginning of September—there were few passengers, and I had a compartment in the P. & O. Indian express to myself all the way from Calais. All Sunday I watched the blue waves dimpling the Adriatic, and the pale rosemary along the cuttings; the plain white towns, with their flat roofs and their bold “duomos,” and the grey-green gna
rled olive orchards of Apulia. The journey was just like any other. We ate in the dining-car as often and as long as we decently could. We slept after luncheon; we dawdled the afternoon away with yellow-backed novels; sometimes we exchanged platitudes in the smoking-room, and it was there that I met Alastair Colvin.

  Colvin was a man of middle height, with a resolute, well-cut jaw; his hair was turning grey; his moustache was sun-whitened, otherwise he was clean-shaven—obviously a gentleman, and obviously also a preoccupied man. He had no great wit. When spoken to, he made the usual remarks in the right way, and I dare say he refrained from banalities only because he spoke less than the rest of us; most of the time he buried himself in the Wagon-lit Company’s time-table, but seemed unable to concentrate his attention on any one page of it. He found that I had been over the Siberian railway, and for a quarter of an hour he discussed it with me. Then he lost interest in it, and rose to go to his compartment. But he came back again very soon, and seemed glad to pick up the conversation again.

  Of course this did not seem to me to be of any importance. Most travelers by train become a trifle infirm of purpose after thirty-six hours’ rattling. But Colvin’s restless way I noticed in somewhat marked contrast with the man’s personal importance and dignity; especially ill suited was it to his finely made large hand with strong, broad, regular nails and its few lines. As I looked at his hand I noticed a long, deep, and recent scar of ragged shape. However, it is absurd to pretend that I thought anything was unusual. I went off at five o’clock on Sunday afternoon to sleep away the hour or two that had still to be got through before we arrived at Brindisi.