The Big Book of Ghost Stories

by Otto Penzler

  My eyes were still on the flames when a sound from Mrs. Vanderbridge—half a sigh, half a sob—made me turn quickly and look up at her.

  “But this isn’t his handwriting,” she said in a puzzled tone. “They are love letters, and they are to her—but they are not from him.” For a moment or two she was silent, and I heard the pages rustle in her hands as she turned them impatiently. “They are not from him,” she repeated presently, with an exultant ring in her voice. “They are written after her marriage, but they are from another man.” She was as sternly tragic as an avenging fate. “She wasn’t faithful to him while she lived. She wasn’t faithful to him even while he was hers—”

  With a spring I had risen from my knees and was bending over her.

  “Then you can save him from her. You can win him back! You have only to show him the letters, and he will believe.”

  “Yes, I have only to show him the letters.” She was looking beyond me into the dusky shadows of the firelight, as if she saw the Other One standing there before her, “I have only to show him the letters,” I knew now that she was not speaking to me, “and he will believe.”

  “Her power over him will be broken,” I cried out. “He will think of her differently. Oh, don’t you see? Can’t you see? It is the only way to make him think of her differently. It is the only way to break for ever the thought that draws her back to him.”

  “Yes, I see, it is the only way,” she said slowly; and the words were still on her lips when the door opened and Mr. Vanderbridge entered.

  “I came for a cup of tea,” he began, and added with playful tenderness, “What is the only way?”

  It was the crucial moment, I realized—it was the hour of destiny for these two—and while he sank wearily into a chair, I looked imploringly at his wife and then at the letters lying scattered loosely about her. If I had had my will I should have flung them at him with a violence which would have startled him out of his lethargy. Violence, I felt, was what he needed—violence, a storm, tears, reproaches—all the things he would never get from his wife.

  For a minute or two she sat there, with the letters before her, and watched him with her thoughtful and tender gaze. I knew from her face, so lovely and yet so sad, that she was looking again at invisible things—at the soul of the man she loved, not at the body. She saw him, detached and spiritualized, and she saw also the Other One—for while we waited I became slowly aware of the apparition in the firelight—of the white face and the cloudy hair and the look of animosity and bitterness in the eyes. Never before had I been so profoundly convinced of the malignant will veiled by that thin figure. It was as if the visible form were only a spiral of grey smoke covering a sinister purpose.

  “The only way,” said Mrs. Vanderbridge, “is to fight fairly even when one fights evil.” Her voice was like a bell, and as she spoke, she rose from the couch and stood there in her glowing beauty confronting the pale ghost of the past. There was a light about her that was almost unearthly—the light of triumph. The radiance of it blinded me for an instant. It was like a flame, clearing the atmosphere of all that was evil, of all that was poisonous and deadly. She was looking directly at the phantom, and there was no hate in her voice—there was only a great pity, a great sorrow and sweetness.

  “I can’t fight you that way,” she said, and I knew that for the first time she had swept aside subterfuge and evasion, and was speaking straight to the presence before her. “After all, you are dead and I am living, and I cannot fight you that way. I give up everything. I give him back to you. Nothing is mine that I cannot win and keep fairly. Nothing is mine that belongs really to you.”

  Then, while Mr. Vanderbridge rose, with a start of fear, and came towards her, she bent quickly, and flung the letters into the fire. When he would have stooped to gather the unburned pages, her lovely flowing body curved between his hands and the flames; and so transparent, so ethereal she looked, that I saw—or imagined that I saw—the firelight shine through her. “The only way, my dear, is the right way,” she said softly.

  The next instant—I don’t know to this day how or when it began—I was aware that the apparition had drawn nearer, and that the dread and fear, the evil purpose, were no longer a part of her. I saw her clearly for a moment—saw her as I had never seen her before—young and gentle and—yes, this is the only word for it—loving. It was just as if a curse had turned into a blessing, for, while she stood there, I had a curious sensation of being enfolded in a kind of spiritual glow and comfort—only words are useless to describe the feeling because it wasn’t in the least like anything else I had ever known in my life. It was light without heat, glow without light—and yet it was none of these things. The nearest I can come to it is to call it a sense of blessedness—of blessedness that made you at peace with everything you had once hated.

  Not until afterwards did I realize that it was the victory of good over evil. Not until afterwards did I discover that Mrs. Vanderbridge had triumphed over the past in the only way that she could triumph. She had won, not by resisting, but by accepting; not by violence, but by gentleness; not by grasping, but by renouncing. Oh, long, long afterwards, I knew that she had robbed the phantom of power over her by robbing it of hatred. She had changed the thought of the past, in that lay her victory.

  At the moment I did not understand this. I did not understand it even when I looked again for the apparition in the firelight, and saw that it had vanished. There was nothing there—nothing except the pleasant flicker of light and shadow on the old Persian rug.

  BUT AT MY BACK I ALWAYS HEAR

  David Morrell

  WHEN DAVID MORRELL (1943–) wrote First Blood (1972), it was described as “the father of the modern adventure novel.” It introduced the world to Rambo, who has gone on to become one of the most famous fictional characters in the world, largely through the movies that starred Sylvester Stallone. John Rambo (the famous name came from a variety of apple) is a Vietnam war vet, a troubled, violent, former Green Beret warrior trained in survival, hand-to-hand combat, and other special martial skills. The film series began with First Blood (1982), and has continued with Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985), Rambo III (1988), Rambo (2008), with perhaps more to come.

  Morrell was born in Kitchener, Ontario, and was still a teenager when he decided to become a writer, inspired by the Route 66 television scripts by Stirling Silliphant and encouraged by Philip Young, the Hemingway scholar at Penn State University, where he eventually received his M.A. and Ph. D. In 1970, he took a job as an English professor at the University of Iowa, and produced his initial novel, First Blood, two years later. He has enjoyed numerous other bestsellers in various genres among his twenty-nine novels, including The Brotherhood of the Rose (1984), which became a popular TV miniseries starring Robert Mitchum in 1989. In addition to his ambitious international thrillers, he has written highly popular horror fiction, notably Creepers (2005), which won the Bram Stoker Award from the Horror Writers association. He is also the cofounder of the International Thriller Writers association.

  “But at My Back I Always Hear” was originally published in Shadows 6, edited by Charles L. Grant (New York, Doubleday, 1983).

  But at My Back

  I Always Hear

  DAVID MORRELL

  SHE PHONED AGAIN LAST night. At 3 a.m. the way she always does. I’m scared to death. I can’t keep running. On the hotel’s register downstairs, I lied about my name, address, and occupation, hoping to hide from her. My real name’s Charles Ingram. Though I’m here in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, I’m from Iowa City, Iowa. I teach—or used to teach until three days ago—creative writing at the University. I can’t risk going back there. But I don’t think I can hide much longer. Each night, she comes closer.

  From the start, she scared me. I came to school at eight to prepare my classes. Through the side door of the English building I went up a stairwell to my third-floor office, which was isolated by a fire door from all the other offices. My colleagues used to joke tha
t I’d been banished, but I didn’t care, for in my far-off corner I could concentrate. Few students interrupted me. Regardless of the busy noises past the fire door, I sometimes felt there was no one else inside the building. And indeed at 8 a.m. I often was the only person in the building.

  That day I was wrong, however. Clutching my heavy briefcase, I trudged up the stairwell. My scraping footsteps echoed off the walls of the pale-red cinderblock, the stairs of pale-green imitation marble. First floor. Second floor. The neon lights glowed coldly. Then the stairwell angled toward the third floor, and I saw her waiting on a chair outside my office. Pausing, I frowned up at her. I felt uneasy.

  Eight a.m., for you, is probably not early. You’ve been up for quite a while so you can get to work on time or get your children off to school. But 8 a.m., for college students, is the middle of the night. They don’t like morning classes. When their schedules force them to attend one, they don’t crawl from bed until they absolutely have to, and they don’t come stumbling into class until I’m just about to start my lecture.

  I felt startled, then, to find her waiting ninety minutes early. She sat tensely: lifeless dull brown hair, a shapeless dingy sweater, baggy faded jeans with patches on the knees and frays around the cuffs. Her eyes seemed haunted, wild, and deep and dark.

  I climbed the last few steps and, puzzled, stopped before her. “Do you want an early conference?”

  Instead of answering, she nodded bleakly.

  “You’re concerned about a grade I gave you?”

  This time, though, in pain she shook her head from side to side.

  Confused, I fumbled with my key and opened the office, stepping in. The room was small and narrow: a desk, two chairs, a wall of bookshelves, and a window. As I sat behind the desk, I watched her slowly come inside. She glanced around uncertainly. Distraught, she shut the door.

  That made me nervous. When a female student shuts the door, I start to worry that a colleague or a student might walk up the stairs and hear a female voice and wonder what’s so private I want to keep the door closed. Though I should have told her to reopen it, her frantic eyes aroused such pity in me that I sacrificed my principle, deciding her torment was so personal she could talk about it only in strict secrecy.

  “Sit down.” I smiled and tried to make her feel at ease, though I myself was not at ease. “What seems to be the difficulty, Miss …? I’m sorry, but I don’t recall your name.”

  “Samantha Perry. I don’t like ‘Samantha,’ though.” She fidgeted. “I’ve shortened it to—”

  “Yes? To what?”

  “To ‘Sam.’ I’m in your Tuesday–Thursday class.” She bit her lip. “You spoke to me.”

  I frowned, not understanding. “You mean what I taught seemed vivid to you? I inspired you to write a better story?”

  “Mr. Ingram, no. I mean you spoke to me. You stared at me while you were teaching. You ignored the other students. You directed what you said to me. When you talked about Hemingway, how Frederic Henry wants to go to bed with Catherine”—she swallowed—“you were asking me to go to bed with you.”

  I gaped. To disguise my shock, I quickly lit a cigarette. “You’re mistaken.”

  “But I heard you. You kept staring straight at me. I felt all the other students knew what you were doing.”

  “I was only lecturing. I often look at students’ faces to make sure they pay attention. You received the wrong impression.”

  “You weren’t asking me to go to bed with you?” Her voice sounded anguished.

  “No. I don’t trade sex for grades.”

  “But I don’t care about a grade!”

  “I’m married. Happily. I’ve got two children. Anyway, suppose I did intend to proposition you. Would I do it in the middle of a class? I’d be foolish.”

  “Then you never meant to—” She kept biting her lip.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “But you speak to me! Outside class I hear your voice! When I’m in my room or walking down the street! You talk to me when I’m asleep! You say you want to go to bed with me!”

  My skin prickled. I felt frozen. “You’re mistaken. Your imagination’s playing tricks.”

  “But I hear your voice so clearly! When I’m studying or—”

  “How? If I’m not there.”

  “You send your thoughts! You concentrate and put your voice inside my mind!”

  Adrenaline scalded my stomach. I frantically sought an argument to disillusion her. “Telepathy? I don’t believe in it. I’ve never tried to send my thoughts to you.”

  “Unconsciously?”

  I shook my head from side to side. I couldn’t bring myself to tell her: of all the female students in her class, she looked so plain, even if I wasn’t married I’d never have wanted sex with her.

  “You’re studying too hard. You want to do so well you’re preoccupied with me. That’s why you think you hear my voice when I’m not there. I try to make my lectures vivid. As a consequence, you think I’m speaking totally to you.”

  “Then you shouldn’t teach that way!” she shouted. “It’s not fair! It’s cruel! It’s teasing!” Tears streamed down her face. “You made a fool of me!”

  “I didn’t mean to.”

  “But you did! You tricked me! You misled me!”

  “No.”

  She stood so quickly I flinched, afraid she’d lunge at me or scream for help and claim I’d tried to rape her. That damned door. I cursed myself for not insisting she leave it open.

  She rushed sobbing toward it. She pawed the knob and stumbled out, hysterically retreating down the stairwell.

  Shaken, I stubbed out my cigarette, grabbing another. My chest tightened as I heard the dwindling echo of her wracking sobs, the awkward scuffle of her dimming footsteps, then the low deep rumble of the outside door.

  The silence settled over me.

  An hour later I found her waiting in class. She’d wiped her tears. The only signs of what had happened were her red and puffy eyes. She sat alertly, pen to paper. I carefully didn’t face her as I spoke. She seldom glanced up from her notes.

  After class I asked my graduate assistant if he knew her.

  “You mean Sam? Sure, I know her. She’s been getting Ds. She had a conference with me. Instead of asking how to get a better grade, though, all she did was talk about you, pumping me for information. She’s got quite a thing for you. Too bad about her.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, she’s so plain, she doesn’t have many friends. I doubt she goes out much. There’s a problem with her father. She was vague about it, but I had the sense her three sisters are so beautiful that Daddy treats her as the ugly duckling. She wants very much to please him. He ignores her, though. He’s practically disowned her. You remind her of him.”

  “Who? Of her father?”

  “She admits you’re ten years younger than him, but she says you look exactly like him.”

  I felt heartsick.

  Two days later, I found her waiting for me—again at 8 a.m.—outside my office.

  Tense, I unlocked the door. As if she heard my thought, she didn’t shut it this time. Sitting before my desk, she didn’t fidget. She just stared at me.

  “It happened again,” she said.

  “In class I didn’t even look at you.”

  “No, afterward, when I went to the library.” She drew an anguished breath. “And later—I ate supper in the dorm. I heard your voice so clearly, I was sure you were in the room.”

  “What time was that?”

  “Five-thirty.”

  “I was having cocktails with the Dean. Believe me, Sam, I wasn’t sending messages to you. I didn’t even think of you.”

  “I couldn’t have imagined it! You wanted me to go to bed with you!”

  “I wanted research money from the Dean. I thought of nothing else. My mind was totally involved in trying to convince him. When I didn’t get the money, I was too annoyed to concentrate on anything but getting drunk.”

&n
bsp; “Your voice—”

  “It isn’t real. If I sent thoughts to you, wouldn’t I admit what I was doing? When you asked me, wouldn’t I confirm the message? Why would I deny it?”

  “I’m afraid.”

  “You’re troubled by your father.”

  “What?”

  “My graduate assistant says you identify me with your father.”

  She went ashen. “That’s supposed to be a secret!”

  “Sam, I asked him. He won’t lie to me.”

  “If you remind me of my father, if I want to go to bed with you, then I must want to go to bed with—”

  “Sam—”

  “—my father! You must think I’m disgusting!”

  “No, I think you’re confused. You ought to find some help. You ought to see a—”

  But she never let me finish. Weeping again, ashamed, hysterical, she bolted from the room.

  And that’s the last I ever saw of her. An hour later, when I started lecturing, she wasn’t in class. A few days later I received a drop-slip from the registrar, informing me she’d canceled all her classes.

  I forgot her.

  . . .

  Summer came. Then fall arrived. November. On a rainy Tuesday night, my wife and I stayed up to watch the close results of the election, worried for our presidential candidate.

  At 3 a.m. the phone rang. No one calls that late unless …

  The jangle of the phone made me bang my head as I searched for a beer in the fridge. I rubbed my throbbing skull and swung alarmed as Jean, my wife, came from the living room and squinted toward the kitchen phone.

  “It might be just a friend,” I said. “Election gossip.”

  But I worried about our parents. Maybe one of them was sick or …

  I watched uneasily as Jean picked up the phone.

  “Hello?” She listened apprehensively. Frowning, she put her hand across the mouthpiece. “It’s for you. A woman.”