The Big Book of Ghost Stories

by Otto Penzler

  Suddenly I sprang from the bed, impelled thereto by an impulse I was bound to obey, and by the same impulse was drawn towards the door. I laid my hand on the handle. I turned it, opened the door, and gazed into the long dark corridor. A sigh fell upon my ears. An unmistakable human sigh, in which was expressed all intensity of suffering and sorrow that thrilled me to the heart. I shrank back, and was about to close the door, when out of the darkness was evolved the glowing figure of a woman clad in blood-stained garments and with dishevelled hair. She turned her white corpse-like face towards me, and her eyes pleaded with a pleading that was irresistible, while she pointed the index finger of her left hand downwards, and then beckoned me. Then I followed whither she led. I could no more resist than the unrestrained needle can resist the attracting magnet. Clad only in my night apparel, and with bare feet and legs, I followed the spectre along the corridor, down the broad oak stairs, traversing another passage to the rear of the building until I found myself standing before a heavy barred door. At that moment the spectre vanished, and I retraced my steps like one who walked in a dream. I got back to my bedroom, but how I don’t quite know; nor have any recollection of getting into bed. Hours afterwards I awoke. It was broad daylight. The horror of the night came back to me with overwhelming force, and made me faint and ill. I managed, however, to struggle through with my toilet, and hurried from that haunted room. It was a beautifully fine morning. The sun was shining brightly, and the birds carolled blithely in every tree and bush. I strolled out on to the lawn, and paced up and down. I was strangely agitated, and asked myself over and over again if what I had seen or dreamed about had any significance.

  Presently my host came out. He visibly started as he saw me.

  “Hullo, old chap. What’s the matter with you?” he exclaimed. “You look jolly queer; as though you had been having a bad night of it.”

  “I have had a bad night.”

  His manner became more serious and grave.

  “What—seen anything?”

  “Yes.”

  “The deuce! You don’t mean it, really!”

  “Indeed I do. I have gone through a night of horror such as I could not live through again. But let us have breakfast first, and then I will try and make you understand what I have suffered, and you shall judge for yourself whether any significance is to be attached to my dream, or whatever you like to call it.”

  We walked, without speaking, into the breakfast room, where my charming hostess greeted me cordially; but she, like her husband, noticed my changed appearance, and expressed alarm and anxiety. I reassured her by saying I had had a rather restless night, and didn’t feel particularly well, but that it was a mere passing ailment. I was unable to partake of much breakfast, and both my good friend and his wife again showed some anxiety, and pressed me to state the cause of my distress. As I could not see any good cause that was to be gained by concealment, and even at the risk of being laughed at by my host, I recounted the experience I had gone through during the night of terror.

  So far from my host showing any disposition to ridicule me, as I quite expected he would have done, he became unusually thoughtful, and presently said:

  “Either this is a wild phantasy of your own brain, or there is something in it. The door that the ghost of the woman led you to is situated on the top of a flight of stone steps, leading to a vault below the building, which I have never used, and have never even had the curiosity to enter, though I did once go to the bottom of the steps; but the place was so exceedingly suggestive of a tomb that I mentally exclaimed, ‘I’ve no use for this dungeon,’ and so I shut it up, bolted and barred the door, and have never opened it since.”

  I answered that the time had come when he must once more descend into that cellar or vault, whatever it was. He asked me if I would accompany him, and, of course, I said I would. So he summoned his head gardener, and after much searching about, the key of the door was found; but even then the door was only opened with difficulty, as lock and key alike were foul with rust.

  As we descended the slimy, slippery stone steps, each of us carrying a candle, a rank, mouldy smell greeted us, and a cold noisome atmosphere pervaded the place. The steps led into a huge vault, that apparently extended under the greater part of the building. The roof was arched, and was supported by brick pillars. The floor was the natural earth, and was soft and oozy. The miasma was almost overpowering, notwithstanding that there were ventilating slits in the wall in various places.

  We proceeded to explore this vast cellar, and found that there was an air shaft which apparently communicated with the roof of the house; but it was choked with rubbish, old boxes, and the like. The gardener cleared this away, and then looking up, we could see the blue sky overhead.

  Continuing our exploration, we noted that in a recess formed by the angle of the walls was a quantity of bricks and mortar. Under other circumstances this would not, perhaps, have aroused our curiosity or suspicions. But in this instance it did; and we examined the wall thereabouts with painful interest, until the conviction was forced upon us that a space of over a yard in width, and extending from door to roof, had recently been filled in. I was drawn towards the new brickwork by some subtle magic, some weird fascination. I examined it with an eager, critical, curious interest, and the thoughts that passed through my brain were reflected in the faces of my companions. We looked at each other, and each knew by some unexplainable instinct what was passing in his fellow’s mind.

  “It seems to me we are face to face with some mystery,” remarked Dick, solemnly. Indeed, throughout all the years I had known him I had never before seen him so serious. Usually his expression was that of good-humoured cynicism, but now he might have been a judge about to pass the doom of death on a red-handed sinner.

  “Yes,” I answered, “there is a mystery, unless I have been tricked by my own fancy.”

  “Umph! it is strange,” muttered Dick to himself.

  “Well, sir,” chimed in the gardener, “you know there have been some precious queer stories going about for a long time. And before you come and took the place plenty of folks round about used to say they’d seen some uncanny sights. I never had no faith in them stories myself; but, after all, maybe there’s truth in ’em.”

  Dick picked up half a brick and began to tap the wall with it where the new work was, and the taps gave forth a hollow sound, quite different from the sound produced when the other parts of the wall were struck.

  “I say, old chap,” exclaimed my host, with a sorry attempt at a smile, “upon my word, I begin to experience a sort of uncanny kind of feeling. I’ll be hanged if I am not getting as superstitious as you are.”

  “You may call me superstitious if you like, but either I have seen what I have seen, or my senses have played the fool with me. Anyway, let us put it to the test.”

  “How?”

  “By breaking away some of that new brickwork.”

  Dick laughed a laugh that wasn’t a laugh, as he asked:

  “What do you expect to find?” I hesitated what to say, and he added the answer himself—“Mouldering bones, if our ghostly visitor hasn’t deceived you.”

  “Mouldering bones!” I echoed involuntarily.

  “Gardener, have you got a crowbar amongst your tools?” Dick asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Go up and get it.”

  The man obeyed the command.

  “This is a strange sort of business altogether,” Dick continued, after glancing round the vast and gloomy cellar. “But, upon my word, to tell you the truth, I’m half ashamed of myself for yielding to anything like superstition. It strikes me that you’ll find you are the victim of a trick of the imagination, and that these bogey fancies of yours have placed us in rather a ridiculous position.”

  In answer to this I could not possibly resist reminding Dick that even scientists admitted that there were certain phenomena—they called them “natural phenomena”—that could not be accounted for by ordinary laws.

&
nbsp; Dick shrugged his shoulders and remarked with assumed indifference:

  “Perhaps—perhaps it is so.” He proceeded to fill his pipe with tobacco, and having lit it he smoked with a nervous energy quite unusual with him.

  The gardener was only away about ten minutes, but it seemed infinitely longer. He brought both a pickaxe and a crowbar with him, and in obedience to his master’s orders he commenced to hack at the wall. A brick was soon dislodged. Then the crowbar was inserted in the hole, and a mass prized out. From the opening came forth a sickening odour, so that we all drew back instinctively, and I am sure we all shuddered, and I saw the pipe fall from Dick’s lips; but he snatched it up quickly and puffed at it vigorously until a cloud of smoke hung in the fœtid and stagnant air. Then picking up a candle from the ground, where it had been placed, he approached the hole, holding the candle in such a position that its rays were thrown into the opening. In a few moments he started back with an exclamation:

  “My God! the ghost hasn’t lied,” he said, and I noticed that his face paled. I peered into the hole and so did the gardener, and we both drew back with a start, for sure enough in that recess were decaying human remains.

  “This awful business must be investigated,” said Dick. “Come, let us go.”

  We needed no second bidding. We were only too glad to quit that place of horror, and get into the fresh air and bright sunlight. We verily felt that we had come up out of a tomb, and we knew that once more the adage, “Murder will out,” had proved true.

  Half an hour later Dick and I were driving to the nearest town to lay information of the awful discovery we had made, and the subsequent search carried out by the police brought two skeletons to light. Critical medical examination left not the shadow of a doubt that they were the remains of a woman and a girl and each had been brutally murdered. Of course it became necessary to hold an inquest, and the police set to work to collect evidence as to the identity of the bodies hidden in the recess in the wall.

  Naturally all the stories which had been current for so many years throughout the country were revived, and the gossips were busy in retelling all they had heard, with many additions of their own, of course. But the chief topic was that of the strange disappearance of the wife and daughter of the once owner of the castle, Greeta Jones. This story had been touched upon the previous night, during the after dinner chat in my host’s smoking room. Morgan, as was remembered had gambled his fortune away, and married a lady much older than himself, who bore him a daughter who was subject to epileptic fits. When this girl was about twelve she and her mother disappeared from the neighbourhood, and, according to the husband’s account, they had gone to London.

  Then he left, and people troubled themselves no more about him and his belongings.

  A quarter of a century had passed since that period, and Bleak Hill Castle had gone through many vicissitudes until it fell into the hands of my friend Dick Dirckman. The more the history of Greeta Jones was gone into the more it was made clear that the remains which had been bricked up in the cellar were those of his wife and daughter. That the unfortunate girl and woman had been brutally and barbarously murdered there wasn’t a doubt. The question was, who murdered them? After leaving Wales Greeta Jones—as was brought to light—led a wild life in London. One night, while in a state of intoxication, he was knocked down by a cab, and so seriously injured that he died while being carried to the hospital; and with him his secret, for could there be any reasonable doubt that, even if he was not the actual murderer, he had connived at the crime. But there was reason to believe that he killed his wife and child with his own hand, and that with the aid of a navvy, whose services he bought, he bricked the bodies up in the cellar. It was remembered that a navvy named Howell Williams had been in the habit of going to the castle frequently, and that suddenly he became possessed of what was, for him, a considerable sum of money. For several weeks he drank hard; then being a single man, he packed up his few belongings and gave out that he was going to California, and all efforts to trace him failed.

  So much for this ghastly crime. As to the circumstances that led to its discovery, it was curious that I should have been selected as the medium for bringing it to light. Why it should have been so I cannot and do not pretend to explain. I have recorded facts as they occurred; I leave others to solve the mystery.

  THE BURNED HOUSE

  Vincent O’Sullivan

  LOST TRAVELERS ARE IDEAL victims of supernatural events and horrific entities, whether vampires, monsters, or ghosts, and even those who escape unscathed have a scary story to tell, like the late night perambulator in this excellent little story. Vincent O’Sullivan (1868–1940) was born to a wealthy family in New York City and attended Columbia Grammar School, then moved to England and graduated from Oscott Roman Catholic College before attending Oxford.

  In 1894, he began to contribute stories and poems to The Senate magazine, resulting in a collection of the poems; in 1896, A Book of Bargains, one of the most important early collections of supernatural fiction, was published by his friend Leonard Smithers, a key figure in the Yellow Book decade of the 1890s. O’Sullivan was the only American of significance in the Aesthetic Movement, which was led by Aubrey Beardsley, Oscar Wilde, Ernest Dowson, and Arthur Symons. Like so many of his circle, O’Sullivan’s work was filled with morbidity and decadence. In later years, his style reflected changing tastes and he wrote with clarity and precision. O’Sullivan used his means to help friends, notably Wilde after his release from prison, and his wealth was eventually dissipated. Of his friend O’Sullivan, Wilde once wrote that he is “really very pleasant, for one who treats life from the standpoint of the tomb.” There was strong negative reaction to his support of the despised Wilde, resulting in a largely closed market for O’Sullivan’s work. He was reduced to dire poverty late in life and died in a pauper’s ward in Paris shortly after the German occupation.

  “The Burned House” was first published in the October 1916 issue of The Century Magazine; it appears to have remained uncollected until the publication of Master of Fallen Years: The Complete Supernatural Stories of Vincent O’Sullivan (London, Ghost Story Press, 1995).

  The Burned House

  VINCENT O’SULLIVAN

  ONE NIGHT AT THE end of dinner, the last time I crossed the Atlantic, somebody in our group remarked that we were just passing over the spot where the Lusitania had gone down. Whether this were the case or not, the thought of it was enough to make us rather grave, and we dropped into some more or less serious discussion about the emotions of men and women who see all hope gone, and realise that they are going to sink with the vessel.

  From that the talk wandered to the fate of the drowned. Was not theirs, after all, a fortunate end? Somebody related details from the narratives of those who had been all-but drowned in the accident of the war. A Scotch lady inquired fancifully if the ghosts of those who are lost at sea ever appear above the waters and come aboard ships. Would there be danger of seeing one when the light was turned out in her cabin? This put an end to all seriousness, and most of us laughed. But a little, tight-faced man, bleak and iron-grey, who had been listening attentively, did not laugh. The lady noticed his decorum, and appealed to him for support.

  “You are like me—you believe in ghosts!” she asked lightly.

  He hesitated, thinking it over.

  “In ghosts?” he repeated slowly. “N-no, I don’t know as I do. I’ve never had any personal experience that way. I’ve never seen the ghost of anyone I knew. Has anybody here?”

  No one replied. Instead, most of us laughed again—a little uneasily, perhaps.

  “All the same, strange enough things happen in life,” resumed the man, “even if you leave out ghosts, that you can’t clear up by laughing. You laugh till you’ve had some experience big enough to shock you, and then you don’t laugh any more. It’s like being thrown out of a car—”

  At this moment there was a blast on the whistle, and everybody rushed up on deck. As it tur
ned out, we had only entered into a belt of fog. On the upper deck I fell in again with the little man, smoking a cigar and walking up and down. We took a few turns together, and he referred to the conversation at dinner. Our laughter evidently rankled in his mind.

  “So many strange things happen in life that you can’t account for,” he protested. “You go on laughing at faith-healing, and at dreams, and this and that, and then something comes along that you just can’t explain. You have got to throw up your hands and allow that it doesn’t answer to any tests our experience has provided us with. Now, I’m as matter-of-fact a man as any of those folks down there; but once I had an experience which I had to conclude was out of the ordinary. Whether other people believe it or not, or whether they think they can explain it, don’t matter. It happened to me, and I could no more doubt it than I could doubt having had a tooth pulled after the dentist had done it. If you will sit down here with me in this corner, out of the wind, I’ll tell you how it was.

  “Some years ago I had to be for several months in the North of England. I was before the courts; it does not signify now what for, and it is all forgotten by this time. But it was a long and worrying case, and it aged me by twenty years. Well, sir, all through the trial, in that grimy Manchester court-room, I kept thinking and thinking of a fresh little place I knew in the Lake district, and it helped to get through the hours by thinking that if things went well with me I’d go there at once. And so it was that on the very next morning after I was acquitted I boarded the north-bound train.

  “It was the early autumn; the days were closing in, and it was night and cold when I arrived. The village was very dark and deserted; they don’t go out much after dark in those parts, anyhow, and the keen mountain wind was enough to quell any lingering desire. The hotel was not one of those modern places which are equipped and upholstered like the great city hotels. It was one of the real old-fashioned taverns, about as uncomfortable places as there are on earth, where the idea is to show the traveller that travelling is a penitential state, and that, morally and physically, the best place for him is home. The landlord brought me a kind of supper, with his hat on and a pipe in his mouth. The room was chilly, but when I asked for a fire, he said he guessed he couldn’t go out to the woodshed till morning. There was nothing else to do, when I had eaten my supper, but to go outside, both to get the smell of the lamp out of my nose and to warm myself by a short walk.