Supernatural fiction is sometimes described as the special province of women writers, as there have been a number of highly effective and successful female practitioners in the Victorian and modern periods. But this may reflect an economic reality rather than any greater psychic susceptibility on the part of women. Ghost stories were eagerly sought by magazines, and women writers found that even a relative unknown could enter the market.
But the substantial representation of women writers and a high demand among middle-class readers no doubt accounted for the relative domestication of the ghost story. City flats and country houses located at the end of long roads leased by thoroughly modern couples became choice locations, the ghosts having followed their readership to the world of the middle class. A solid realistic setting often worked best, pitting a stubbornly intrusive spirit against the modern skepticism of daylight and common sense.
Modern ghost stories have also turned more frequently to the haunting of the human mind. Henry James, in some of the most enduring ghostly writing of the early-modern period, focuses on the unreliable perceptions of the living, as in The Turn of the Screw or “The Jolly Corner,” where the ghosts play a somewhat secondary role and the haunted minds of the governess or the returned exile Spencer Brydon are in the foreground.
The twentieth and twenty-first centuries have continued a kind of open-eyed interest in the paranormal, often employing a new type of professional either to mediate or to “ghost bust.” In films like The Sixth Sense and The Others, the ghosts are at the center of the narrative and have a dramatic arc. Joyce Carol Oates, in a story collected here, gives James’s Turn of the Screw a further twist, telling the story from the point of view of the ghosts of the dead servants Quint and Jessel.
Yet another variation on the ghostly worth noting is the haunting of places and even objects not by the spirits of the dead, but by another sort of indwelling spirit. Examples can be found in the fiction of Algernon Blackwood, whose specialty is the dangerous spirits who inhabit woods and forests. A common device for the horror writer M. R. James involves a scholar who unearths an ancient object and unwittingly unleashes its inner spirit, as in the famous “Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad.” Cabinets, clothing, mirrors and statues have had dangerous and even murderous resident spirits.
One of the best known is found in the opening of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House (1959), much admired by Stephen King and Joyce Carol Oates:
No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there walked alone.5
Freud’s term “return of the repressed” has been applied to zombies, because of their relentless attack on civilization, which seeks to suppress them; the tearing and consuming of flesh is the id rampage of self-satisfaction against that which seeks to repress raw gratification in the name of progress.6 In truth, all of these dark others—vampires, werewolves, ghosts, as well as zombies—are manifestations of the “returned repressed,” taking their revenge on the human mind filled with dread and guilty desire.
The threatening undead continue to appear; there are frequent calls for an end to the soft side of horror. Let’s kill and be killed. In spite of this, the tendency is toward the more human, more complex. We want to tame these revenants, see them as aspects of, or analogies for, our own repressed selves, to commune with them, and ultimately “mate” with them in a psychic and even physical sense. They make our world richer, more dimensioned. In taming them, we may be trying to understand and forgive ourselves.
If the shape-shifting werewolf and the others—the ranks of the undead—can continue to be imagined as analogues of our isolation, our repressed longings, and our murderous impulses, if they can be made into playfellows and foolish entertainments, then perhaps we can hold on to those echoes of other dimensions that we want desperately not to lose. Then perhaps the skeletal ladies and gentlemen of the Capuchin Catacombs won’t remain forever as lifeless and empty as they seem; maybe they will yet kick up their bony heels and dance.
These stories are, in their various ways, a testament to such “immortal longings.” In the words of two contemporary filmmakers, “Monsters will always provide the possibility of mystery in our mundane ‘reality show’ lives, hinting at a larger spiritual world; for if there are demons in our midst, there surely must be angels lurking nearby.”7
May it be so.
WOODY ALLEN
( 19 35–)
Best known as a filmmaker and actor, Allan Stewart Konigsberg was born in Brooklyn, New York. After studying at New York University and the City College of New York, he quickly became a comedy writer for popular television programs such as The Ed Sullivan Show, The Tonight Show, Sid Caesar specials, and Candid Camera. A successful Broadway playwright and screenwriter, he is the author of four volumes of essays, stories, and one-act plays: Getting Even (1971), Without Feathers (1975), Side Effects (1980), and Mere Anarchy (2007). Among his well-known films are Annie Hall (1977), Manhattan (1979), Hannah and Her Sisters ( 1 986), Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), and Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008). Allen has won three Academy Awards, an O. Henry Award, Golden Globe Awards for both Best Screenplay and Best Motion Picture, a Career Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, and the Palme des Palmes Lifetime Achievement Award at the Cannes Festival.
Count Dracula
(1966)
Somewhere in Transylvania, Dracula the monster lies sleeping in his coffin, waiting for night to fall. As exposure to the sun’s rays would surely cause him to perish, he stays protected in the satin-lined chamber bearing his family name in silver. Then the moment of darkness comes, and through some miraculous instinct the fiend emerges from the safety of his hiding place and, assuming the hideous forms of the bat or the wolf, he prowls the countryside, drinking the blood of his victims. Finally, before the first rays of his archenemy, the sun, announce a new day, he hurries back to the safety of his hidden coffin and sleeps, as the cycle begins anew.
Now he starts to stir. The fluttering of his eyelids are a response to some age-old, unexplainable instinct that the sun is nearly down and his time is near. Tonight, he is particularly hungry and as he lies there, fully awake now, in red lined Inverness cape and tails, waiting to feel with uncanny perception the precise moment of darkness before opening the lid and emerging, he decides who this evening’s victims will be. The baker and his wife, he thinks to himself. Succulent, available, and unsuspecting. The thought of the unwary couple whose trust he has carefully cultivated excites his bloodlust to a fever pitch, and he can barely hold back these last seconds before climbing out of the coffin to seek his prey.
Suddenly he knows the sun is down. Like an angel of hell, he rises swiftly, and changing into a bat, flies pell-mell to the cottage of his tantalizing victims.
“Why, Count Dracula, what a nice surprise,” the baker’s wife says, opening the door to admit him. (He has once again assumed human form, as he enters their home, charmingly concealing his rapacious goal.)
“What brings you here so early?” the baker asks.
“Our dinner date,” the Count answers. “I hope I haven’t made an error. You did invite me for tonight, didn’t you?”
“Yes, tonight, but that’s not for seven hours.”
“Pardon me?” Dracula queries, looking around the room puzzled.
“Or did you come by to watch the eclipse with us?”
“Eclipse?”
“Yes. Today’s the total eclipse.”
“What?”
“A few moments of darkness from noon until two minutes after. Look out the window.”
“Uh-oh—I’m in big trouble.”
>
“Eh?”
“And now if you’ll excuse me . . .”
“What, Count Dracula?”
“Must be going—aha—oh, god . . .” Frantically he fumbles for the doorknob.
“Going? You just came.”
“Yes—but—I think I blew it very badly . . .”
“Count Dracula, you’re pale.”
“Am I? I need a little fresh air. It was nice seeing you . . .”
“Come. Sit down. We’ll have a drink.”
“Drink? No, I must run. Er—you’re stepping on my cape.”
“Sure. Relax. Some wine.”
“Wine? Oh no, gave it up—liver and all that, you know. And now I really must buzz off. I just remembered. I left the lights on at my castle—bills’ll be enormous . . .”
“Please,” the baker says, his arm around the Count in firm friendship. “You’re not intruding. Don’t be so polite. So you’re early.”
“Really, I’d like to stay but there’s a meeting of old Roumanian Counts across town and I’m responsible for the cold cuts.”
“Rush, rush, rush. It’s a wonder you don’t get a heart attack.”
“Yes, right—and now—”
“I’m making Chicken Pilaf tonight,” the baker’s wife chimes in. “I hope you like it.”
“Wonderful, wonderful,” the Count says, with a smile, as he pushes her aside into some laundry. Then, opening a closet door by mistake, he walks in. “Christ, where’s the goddamn front door?”
“Ach,” laughs the baker’s wife, “such a funny man, the Count.”
“I knew you’d like that,” Dracula says, forcing a chuckle. “Now get out of my way.” At last he opens the front door but time has run out on him.
“Oh, look, Mama,” says the baker, “the eclipse must be over. The sun is coming out again.”
“Right,” says Dracula, slamming the front door. “I’ve decided to stay. Pull down the window shades quickly—quickly ! Let’s move it!”
“What window shades?” asks the baker.
“There are none, right? Figures. You got a basement in this joint?”
“No,” says the wife affably, “I’m always telling Jarslov to build one but he never listens. That’s some Jarslov, my husband.”
“I’m all choked up. Where’s the closet?”
“You did that one already, Count Dracula. Unt Mama and I laughed at it.”
“Ach—such a funny man, the Count.”
“Look, I’ll be in the closet. Knock at seven-thirty.” And with that, the Count steps inside the closet and slams the door.
“Hee-hee—he is so funny, Jarslov.”
“Oh, Count. Come out of the closet. Stop being a big silly.” From inside the closet comes the muffled voice of Dracula.
“Can’t—please—take my word for it. Just let me stay here. I’m fine. Really.”
“Count Dracula, stop the fooling. We’re already helpless with laughter.”
“Can I tell you, I love this closet.”
“Yes, but . . .”
“I know, I know . . . it seems strange, and yet here I am, having a ball. I was just saying to Mrs. Hess the other day, give me a good closet and I can stand in it for hours. Sweet woman, Mrs. Hess. Fat but sweet . . . Now, why don’t you run along and check back with me at sunset. Oh, Ramona, la da da de da da de, Ramona . . .”
Now the Mayor and his wife, Katia, arrive. They are passing by and have decided to pay a call on their good friends, the baker and his wife.
“Hello, Jarslov. I hope Katia and I are not intruding?”
“Of course not, Mr. Mayor. Come out, Count Dracula! We have company!”
“Is the Count here?” asks the Mayor surprised.
“Yes, and you’ll never guess where,” says the baker’s wife.
“It’s so rare to see him around this early. In fact I can’t ever remember seeing him around in the daytime.”
“Well, he’s here. Come out, Count Dracula!”
“Where is he?” Katia asks, not knowing whether to laugh or not.
“Come on out now! Let’s go!” The baker’s wife is getting impatient.
“He’s in the closet,” says the baker, apologetically.
“Really?” asks the Mayor.
“Let’s go,” says the baker with mock good humor as he knocks on the closet door. “Enough is enough. The Mayor’s here.”
“Come on out, Dracula,” His Honor shouts, “let’s have a drink.”
“No, go ahead. I’ve got some business in here.”
“In the closet?”
“Yes, don’t let me spoil your day. I can hear what you’re saying. I’ll join in if I have anything to add.”
Everyone looks at one another and shrugs. Wine is poured and they all drink.
“Some eclipse today,” the Mayor says, sipping from his glass.
“Yes,” the baker agrees. “Incredible.”
“Yeah. Thrilling,” says a voice from the closet.
“What, Dracula?”
“Nothing, nothing. Let it go.”
And so the time passes, until the Mayor can stand it no longer and forcing open the door to the closet, he shouts, “Come on, Dracula. I always thought you were a mature man. Stop this craziness.”
The daylight streams in, causing the evil monster to shriek and slowly dissolve to a skeleton and then to dust before the eyes of the four people present. Leaning down to the pile of white ash on the closet floor, the baker’s wife shouts, “Does this mean dinner’s off tonight?”
E.F. BENSON
(1867–1940)
Edward Frederic Benson was one of six children born into the distinguished household of Edward White Benson, who was to become the Archbishop of Canterbury. In Greece and Egypt, he embarked on a career in archaeology for several years. The immense popularity of his first novel, Dodo ( 1893), published when he was twenty-six, demonstrated that he would be well able to support himself as a writer. A master of several genres, he published horror and supernatural novels such as The Judgment Books (1895), The Angel of Pain (1905), Across the Stream (1919), The Inheritor (1930), and Raven’s Brood (1934), as well as the Mapp and Lucia social satires (six novels and two stories), which became a highly successful television series.Among the volumes of his stories are Caterpillars (1912), The Room in the Tower and Other Stories (1912), Visible and Invisible (1923), Spook Stories (1928),and More Spook Stories (1934).
The Room in the Tower
(1912)
It is probable that everybody who is at all a constant dreamer has had at least one experience of an event or a sequence of circumstances which have come to his mind in sleep being subsequently realized in the material world. But, in my opinion, so far from this being a strange thing, it would be far odder if this fulfilment did not occasionally happen, since our dreams are, as a rule, concerned with people whom we know and places with which we are familiar, such as might very naturally occur in the awake and daylit world. True, these dreams are often broken into by some absurd and fantastic incident, which puts them out of court in regard to their subsequent fulfilment, but on the mere calculation of chances, it does not appear in the least unlikely that a dream imagined by anyone who dreams constantly should occasionally come true. Not long ago, for instance, I experienced such a fulfilment of a dream which seems to me in no way remarkable and to have no kind of psychical significance. The manner of it was as follows.
A certain friend of mine, living abroad, is amiable enough to write to me about once in a fortnight. Thus, when fourteen days or thereabouts have elapsed since I last heard from him, my mind, probably, either consciously or subconsciously, is expectant of a letter from him. One night last week I dreamed that as I was going upstairs to dress for dinner I heard, as I often heard, the sound of the postman’s knock on my front door, and diverted my direction downstairs instead. There, among other correspondence, was a letter from him. Thereafter the fantastic entered, for on opening it I found inside the ace of diamonds, and scribbled acr
oss it in his well-known handwriting, “I am sending you this for safe custody, as you know it is running an unreasonable risk to keep aces in Italy.” The next evening I was just preparing to go upstairs to dress when I heard the postman’s knock, and did precisely as I had done in my dream. There, among other letters, was one from my friend. Only it did not contain the ace of diamonds. Had it done so, I should have attached more weight to the matter, which, as it stands, seems to me a perfectly ordinary coincidence. No doubt I consciously or subconsciously expected a letter from him, and this suggested to me my dream. Similarly, the fact that my friend had not written to me for a fortnight suggested to him that he should do so. But occasionally it is not so easy to find such an explanation, and for the following story I can find no explanation at all. It came out of the dark, and into the dark it has gone again.
All my life I have been a habitual dreamer: the nights are few, that is to say, when I do not find on awaking in the morning that some mental experience has been mine, and sometimes, all night long, apparently, a series of the most dazzling adventures befall me. Almost without exception these adventures are pleasant, though often merely trivial. It is of an exception that I am going to speak.
It was when I was about sixteen that a certain dream first came to me, and this is how it befell. It opened with my being set down at the door of a big red-brick house, where, I understood, I was going to stay. The servant who opened the door told me that tea was being served in the garden, and led me through a low dark-panelled hall, with a large open fireplace, on to a cheerful green lawn set round with flower beds. There were grouped about the tea-table a small party of people, but they were all strangers to me except one, who was a school-fellow called Jack Stone, clearly the son of the house, and he introduced me to his mother and father and a couple of sisters. I was, I remember, somewhat astonished to find myself here, for the boy in question was scarcely known to me, and I rather disliked what I knew of him; moreover, he had left school nearly a year before. The afternoon was very hot, and an intolerable oppression reigned. On the far side of the lawn ran a red-brick wall, with an iron gate in its center, outside which stood a walnut tree. We sat in the shadow of the house opposite a row of long windows, inside which I could see a table with cloth laid, glimmering with glass and silver. This garden front of the house was very long, and at one end of it stood a tower of three stories, which looked to me much older than the rest of the building.
Vampires, Zombies, Werewolves And Ghosts - 25 Classic Stories Of The Supernatural Page 3