The Mammoth Book of Modern Ghost Stories

by Peter Haining

  For a moment there was not a sound audible. The little spread of trees and houses lay almost dreamily under the blue, blue sky.

  Kent thought quietly: He had made no mistake in deciding to spend the rest of the summer here, while, in a leisurely fashion, he carried on negotiations for the sale of the farm his parents had left him. Truth was he had been overworking.

  He went downstairs and amazed himself by eating two eggs and four slices of bacon in addition to cereal and toast. From the dining room he walked to the veranda – and there was the ghost sitting in one of the wicker chairs.

  Kent stopped short. The tiny beginning of a chill formed at the nape of his spine; then the old man saw him and said:

  “Good morning, Mr Kent. I should take it very kind if you would sit down and talk with me. I need cheering up.”

  It was spoken with an almost intimate pathos; and yet Kent had a sudden sense of being beyond his depth. Somehow the old man’s friendliness of the day before had seemed unreal.

  Yet here it was again.

  He shook himself. After all, part of the explanation at least was simple. Here was an old man – that ghost part was utterly ridiculous, of course – an old man, then, who could foretell the future. Foretell it in such a fashion that, in the case of Mrs Carmody, he, the old man, had actually had the impression that she had been around for months before she arrived.

  Apparently, he had had the same impression about Kent. Therefore –

  “Good morning, Mr Wainwright!” Kent spoke warmly as he seated himself. “You need cheering up, you say. Who’s been depressing you?”

  “Oh!” The old man hesitated, his finely lined face twisted into a faint frown. He said finally, slowly. “Perhaps, it is wrong of me to have mentioned it. It is no one’s fault, I suppose. The friction of daily life, in this case Mrs Carmody pestering me about what her sister was doing in court.”

  Kent was silent, astounded. The reference of the old man to the only part of the story that he, Kent, knew, was – shattering. His brain recoiled from the coincidence into a tight, corded layer of thoughts:

  Was this – alien – creature a mind reader as well as seer and ghost? An old, worn-out brain that had taken on automaton qualities, and reacted almost entirely to thoughts that trickled in from other minds? Or –

  He stopped, almost literally pierced by the thought that came: Or was this reference to Mrs Carmody, this illusion that Mrs Carmody was still looking after him, one of those fantastic, brain-chilling re-enactments of which the history of haunted houses was so gruesomely replete?

  Dead souls, murderess and murdered, doomed through all eternity to live over and over again their lives before and during the crime!

  But that was impossible. Mrs Carmody was still alive; in a madhouse to be sure, but alive.

  Kent released carefully the breath of air he had held hard in his lungs for nearly a minute. “Why don’t you tell her,” he said finally, “to ask her sister about what she was doing in court!”

  The thin, gray, old face wrinkled into puzzlement. The old man said with a curious dignity:

  “It is more complicated than that, Mr Kent. I have never quite understood the appearance of so many twins in the world during the recent years of my life; and the fact that so many of them are scarcely on speaking terms with each other is additionally puzzling.”

  He shook his head. “It is all very confusing. For instance, this courtroom appearance of Mrs Carmody’s sister – I seem to remember having heard something else about it, but it must have struck me as unimportant at the time, for I cannot rightly recollect the details. It’s not a pleasant situation for a harmless old man to handle.”

  Harmless! Kent’s eyes narrowed involuntarily. That was what people kept saying about – the ghost. First, the driver, Tom; then, according to Tom’s story, the girl Phyllis, and now the old man himself.

  Harmless, harmless, harmless. Old man, he thought tensely, what about the fact that you drove a woman to murder you? What is your purpose? What—

  Kent loosened the tight grip his fingers had taken on the arms of the chair. What was the matter with him, letting a thing like this get on his nerves?

  He looked up. The sky was as blue as ever; the summer day peaceful, perfect. All was well with the world of reality.

  There was silence, a deep, peaceful quiet during which Kent studied that long, aged face from half-closed eyes. The old man’s skin was of a normal grayish texture with many, very many crisscross lines. He had a lean, slightly hawklike nose, and a thin, rather fine mouth.

  Handsome, old man; only – that explained nothing, and—

  He saw that the old man was rising; he stood for a moment very straight, carefully adjusting his hat on his head; then:

  “I must be on my way. It is important, in view of our strained relations, that I do not keep Mrs Carmody waiting for lunch. I shall be seeing you again, Mr Kent.”

  Kent stood up, a little, fascinated thought in his mind. He had intended to walk over to the farm that had belonged to his parents and introduce himself to the tenants. But that could wait.

  Why not go with the – ghost – to the deserted Wainwright place, and –

  What?

  He considered the question blankly; then his lips tightened. After all, this mysterious business was on his mind. To let it go would be merely to have a distraction at the back of his head, sufficient perhaps to interfere with anything he might attempt. Besides, there was no rush about the business. He was here for a rest and change as much as anything.

  He stood there, still not absolutely decided, chilled by a dark miasma of mind stuff that welled up inside him:

  Wasn’t it perhaps dangerous to accompany a ghost to a hide-out in an isolated, old house?

  He pressed the clammy fear out of his system because – it wasn’t Mrs Carmody who had been killed. She was out of her head, yes; but the danger was definitely mental, not physical, and—

  His mind grew hard, cool. No sudden panic, no totality of horrendous threats or eerie menaces would actually knock his off its base. Therefore—

  Kent parted his lips to call after the old man, who was gingerly moving down the wooden walk to the wooden sidewalk. Before he could speak, a deep voice beside him said:

  “I noticed you were talking to the ghost, Mr Kent.”

  Kent turned and faced a great, gross fat man whom he had previously noticed sitting in a little office behind the hotel desk. Three massive chins quivered as the man said importantly:

  “My name is Jenkins, sir, proprietor of the Agan Hotel.”

  His pale, deep-set eyes peered at Kent. “Tom was telling me that you met our greatest local character yesterday. A very strange, uncanny case. Very uncanny.”

  The old man was farther up the street now, Kent saw, an incredibly lean, sedately moving figure, who vanished abruptly behind a clump of trees. Kent stared after him, his mind still half on the idea of following as soon as he could reasonably break away from this man.

  He took another look at the proprietor; and the man said heavily:

  “I understand from Tom that he didn’t have time to finish the story of what happened at the Wainwright farm. Perhaps I could complete the uncanny tale for you.”

  It struck Kent that the word “uncanny” must be a favorite with this dark mountain of flesh.

  It struck him, too, that he would have to postpone his visit to the ghost farm, or risk offending his host.

  Kent frowned and yielded to circumstances. It wasn’t actually necessary to trail the old man today. And it might be handy to have all the facts first, before he attempt to solve the mystery. He seated himself after watching the fat man wheeze into a chair. He said:

  “Is there any local theory that would explain the” – he hesitated – “uncanny appearance of the ghost. You do insist that he is a ghost, in spite of his substantial appearance.”

  “Definitely a ghost!” Jenkins grunted weightily. “We buried him, didn’t we? And unburied him again a week
later to see if he was still there; and he was, dead and cold as stone. Oh, yes, definitely a ghost. What other explanation could there be?”

  “I’m not,” said Kent carefully, “not exactly – a believer – in ghosts.”

  The fat man waved the objection aside with a flabby hand. “None of us were, sir, none of us. But facts are facts.”

  Kent sat silent; then: “A ghost that tells the future. What kind of future? Is it all as vague as that statement of his to Mrs Carmody about her sister coming out of the courthouse?”

  Sagging flesh shook as Mr Jenkins cleared his throat. “Mostly local events of little importance, but which would interest an old man who lived here all his life.”

  “Has he said anything about the war?”

  “He talks as if it’s over, and therefore acts as if the least said the better.” Mr Jenkins laughed a great husky, tolerant laugh. “His point about the war is amazement that prices continue to hold up. It confuses him. And it’s no use keeping after him, because talking tires him easily, and he gets a persecuted look. He did say something about American armies landing in northern France, but” – he shrugged – “we all know that’s going to happen, anyway.”

  Kent nodded. “This Mrs. Carmody – she arrived when?”

  “In 1933, nearly nine years ago.”

  “And Mr Wainwright has been dead five years?”

  The fat man settled himself deeper into his chair. “I shall be glad,” he said pompously, “to tell you the rest of the story in an orderly fashion. I shall omit the first few months after her arrival, as they contained very little of importance—”

  The woman came exultantly out of the Wholesale Marketing Co. She felt a renewal of the glow that had suffused her when she first discovered this firm in Kempster two months before.

  Four chickens and three dozen eggs – four dollars cash.

  Cash!

  The glow inside her dimmed. She frowned darkly. It was no use fooling herself; now that the harvesting season was only a week away, this makeshift method of obtaining money out of the farm couldn’t go on— Her mind flashed to the bank book she had discovered in the house, with its tremendous information that the Wainwrights had eleven thousand seven hundred thirty-four dollars and fifty-one cents in the Kempster Bank.

  An incredible fortune, so close yet so far away—

  She stood very still in front of the bank finally, briefly paralyzed by a thought dark as night. If she went in – in minutes she’d know the worst.

  This time it wouldn’t be an old, old man and a young girl she’d be facing. It would be—

  The banker was a dapper little fellow with horn-rimmed glasses, behind which sparkled a large pair of gray eyes.

  “Ah, yes, Mrs Carmody!” The man rubbed his fingers together. “So it finally occurred to you to come and see me.”

  He chuckled. “Well, well, we can fix everything; don’t worry. I think between us we can manage to look after the Wainwright farm to the satisfaction of the community and the court, eh?

  Court! The word caught the woman in the middle of a long, ascending surge of triumph. So this was it. This was what the old man had prophesied. And it was good, not bad.

  She felt a brief, ferocious rage at the old fool for having frightened her so badly – but the banker was speaking again:

  “I understand you have a letter from your sister-in-law, asking you to look after Phyllis and the farm. It is possible such letter is not absolutely necessary, as you are the only relative, but in lieu of a will it will constitute a definite authorization on the basis of which the courts can appoint you executrix.”

  The woman sat very still, almost frozen by the words. Somehow, while she had always felt that she would in a crisis produce the letter she had forged, now that the terrible moment was there—

  She felt herself fumbling in her purse, and there was the sound of her voice mumbling some doubt about the letter still being around. But she knew better.

  She brought it out, took it blindly from the blank envelope where she had carefully placed it, handed it toward the smooth, reaching fingers – and waited her doom.

  As he read, the man spoke half to himself, half to her: “Hm-m-m, she offers you twenty-five dollars a month over and above expenses—”

  The woman quivered in every muscle of her thick body. The incredibly violent thought came that she must have been mad to put such a thing in the letter. She said hurriedly: “Forget about the money. I’m not here to—”

  “I was just going to say,” interrupted the banker, “that it seems an inadequate wage. For a farm as large and wealthy as that of the Wainwrights’, there is no reason why the manager should not receive fifty dollars, at least, and that is the sum I shall petition the judge for.”

  He added: “The local magistrate is having a summer sitting this morning just down the street, and if you’ll step over there with me we can have this all settled shortly.”

  He finished: “By the way, he’s always interested in the latest predictions of old Mr Wainwright.”

  “I know them all!” the woman gulped.

  She allowed herself, a little later, to be shepherded onto the sidewalk. A brilliant, late July sun was pouring down on the pavement. Slowly, it warmed the chill out of her veins.

  It was three years later, three undisturbed years. The woman stopped short in the task of running the carpet sweeper over the living-room carpet, and stood frowning. Just what had brought the thought into her mind, she couldn’t remember, but—

  Had she seen the old man, as she came out of the courthouse that July day three years before, when the world had been handed to her without a struggle.

  The old man had predicted that moment. That meant, in some way, he must have seen it. Had the picture come in the form of a vision? Or as a result of some contact in his mind across the months? Had he in short been physically present; and the scene had flashed back through some obscure connection across time?

  She couldn’t remember having seen him. Try as she would, nothing came to her from that moment but a sort of blurred, enormous contentment.

  The old man, of course, thought he’d been there. The old fool believed that everything he ever spoke about was memory of his past. What a dim, senile world that past must be.

  It must spread before his mind like a road over which shifting tendrils of fog drifted, now thick and impenetrable, now thin and bright with flashing rays of sunlight – and pictures.

  Pictures of events.

  Across the room from her she was vaguely aware of the old man stirring in his chair. He spoke:

  “Seems like hardly yesterday that Phyllis and that Couzens boy got married. And yet it’s—”

  He paused; he said politely: “When was that, Pearl? My memory isn’t as good as it was, and—”

  The words didn’t actually penetrate the woman. But her gaze, in its idle turning, fastened on plump Pearl – and stopped. The girl sat rigid on the living-room couch, where she had been sprawling. Her round, baby eyes were wide.

  “Ma!” she shrilled. “Did you hear that? Grandpa’s talking like Phyllis and Charlie Couzens are married.”

  There was a thick, muffled sound of somebody half choking. With a gulp the woman realized that it was she who had made the sound. Gasping, she whirled on the old man and loomed over him, a big, tight-lipped creature, with hard blue eyes.

  For a moment, her dismay was so all-consuming that words wouldn’t come. The immensity of the catastrophe implied by the old man’s statement scarcely left room for thought. But—

  Marriage!

  And she had actually thought smugly that Bill and Phyllis – Why, Bill had told her and—

  Marriage! To the son of the neighboring farmer. Automatic end to her security. She had nearly a thousand dollars, but how long would that last, once the income itself stopped?

  Sharp pain of fear released the explosion that, momentarily, had been dammed up by the sheer fury of her thoughts:

  “You old fool, you!”
she raged. “So you’ve been sitting here all these years while I’ve been looking after you, scheming against me and mine. A trick, that’s what it is. Think you’re clever, eh, using your gift to—”

  It was the way the old man was shrinking that brought brief, vivid awareness to the woman of the danger of such an outburst after so many years of smiling friendliness. She heard the old man say:

  “I don’t understand, Mrs Carmody. What’s the matter?”

  “Did you say it?” She couldn’t have stopped the words to save her soul.

  “Did I say what?”

  “About Phyllis and that Couzens boy—”

  “Oh, them!” He seemed to forget that she was there above him. A benign smile crept into his face. He said at last quietly: “It seems like hardly yesterday that they were married—”

  For a second time he became aware of the dark, forbidding expression of the woman who towered above him.

  “Anything wrong?” he gasped. “Has something happened to Phyllis and her husband?”

  With a horrible effort the woman caught hold of herself. Her eyes blazed at him with a slate-blue intensity.

  “I don’t want you to talk about them, do you understand? Not a word. I don’t want to hear a word about them.”

  The old man stirred, his face creasing into a myriad extra lines of bewilderment. “Why, certainly, Mrs Carmody, if you wish, but my own great-granddaughter—”

  He subsided weakly as the woman whipped on Pearl: “If you mention one word of this to Phyllis, I’ll . . . you know what I’ll do to you.”

  “Oh, sure, ma,” Pearl said. “You can trust me, ma.”

  The woman turned away, shaking. For years there had been a dim plan in the back of her mind, to cover just such a possibility as Phyllis wanting to marry someone else.

  She twisted her face with distaste and half fear, and brought the ugly thing out of the dark brain corridor where she had kept it hidden.

  Her fingers kept trembling as she worked. Once she saw herself in the mirror over the sink – and started back in dismay at the distorted countenance that reflected there.