Spooky South

by S. E. Schlosser

  And that was all she would say.

  But after Charles Larendon passed away, the Jacqueses purchased the stately mansion on St. Charles Avenue, and Mrs. Jacques was a good friend of my mother’s. So sooner or later we would have to pay a social call at the mansion. I was afraid Mama would leave me behind when she went to call on Mrs. Jacques in her new home, but Mrs. Jacques must have reassured Mama that there was nothing there to harm her only child, because Mama took me with her.

  When the coach pulled up in front of the house, I got my first clear look at the strange head on the gable. It was a gruesome piece of sculpture with an angry face, two horns just above the forehead, and eyes that seemed to look right into your soul. The head appeared to be almost real, and it made my skin crawl. I hurried after Mama. The door was opened by the butler, who showed us into a very beautiful sitting room where Mrs. Jacques was entertaining callers. I looked around as best I could while we were being escorted to the sitting room. The mansion was as lovely inside as I thought it would be, but it seemed completely unexceptional. Except for the gruesome head on the gable, there was nothing that seemed out of the ordinary here.

  Mrs. Jacques greeted us with delight and introduced us to the other callers. We spent quite some time there, and did not leave until after tea. When we left the mansion, I was no closer to knowing what was wrong than when we arrived.

  I don’t think I would have ever learned the secret of the mansion if Mrs. Jacques hadn’t invited the family over for dinner one evening. I was rather surprised when the dinner was served in a small family dining room that had once been a large sitting room. It seemed rather inconvenient to crowd so many people into such a small room, but Mrs. Jacques explained that her formal dining room was being renovated.

  After dinner, the ladies excused themselves while the men drank port around the table. We went into Mrs. Jacques’s sitting room and drank tea. While Mama and Mrs. Jacques were discussing the latest scandal, I slipped away, determined to have a good look around the mansion. I headed immediately toward the dining room. Mrs. Jacques’s story about the renovation just hadn’t rung true. She seemed very nervous when she mentioned the dining room. I took a candelabra from a side table and crept into the room, closing the door carefully behind me. The large room was completely empty. I stood staring about in disappointment. Mrs. Jacques had been telling the truth about the renovation, I decided, turning back toward the door.

  And then the room lit up. I turned, my hand on the doorknob. Two brilliantly lit crystal chandeliers had appeared out of nowhere. Below them was a large dining-room table filled with mouthwatering things to eat. I stared in wonder as a beautiful young woman wearing an expensive if rather old-fashioned dress came in with a handsome young man. They sat down to eat, waited upon by silent servants while they held a silent conversation with one another.

  The candelabra in my hands started to shake as I realized that I was seeing ghosts. I wanted to run away, but I was frozen to the spot. At the table, the young man was talking earnestly to the young woman. As I watched, her face turned pale with fear and anger. She started to shout at the young man, although there was still no sound to be heard in the room. Then, to my horror, the girl rushed around the table, a white napkin clutched in her hand, and twisted it around the neck of the young man. Her face contorted with fury, the woman strangled the man to death.

  I screamed, dropped the candelabra, and covered my eyes, but only for a moment. I was afraid the ghost of the woman would come after me next, and I wanted to be ready for her. When I looked again, the young man lay dead on the floor, the young woman standing over him, clutching her hands together as if she could not believe what she had just done. Her hands were suddenly covered with blood, although no blood had been spilled. She looked disbelievingly at her hands and tried to rub them clean on her dress. No matter how hard she rubbed, the blood still stained her hands. Silently, she began to weep and wail, rubbing and rubbing at her hands.

  There was a commotion in the hall, and the door burst open behind me. My parents and Mr. and Mrs. Jacques came running into the room. They stopped when they saw the ghost, who gave one last, silent wail and then disappeared. I gave a not-so-silent wail and ran to my mama, weeping. Suddenly, I didn’t feel so grown-up, and I never wanted to set foot in that mansion again.

  “I am so sorry, Matilda,” Mrs. Jacques cried as my parents bundled me up into my cloak and rushed me to the door.

  “It is my own fault,” Mama said. “If I had told Elizabeth the truth about this house, she wouldn’t have gone looking for it by herself. I think we have all learned a lesson.”

  My parents took me home, and Mama tucked me into bed and told me the whole story. It was even more gruesome than I had imagined. The pretty young woman I had seen in the dining room was a French coquette whom the devil himself had taken as his mistress. The devil had bought her the mansion on St. Charles Avenue and lived with her there. But the devil was very busy with his devilish concerns, and he was away most of the time. The French girl grew lonely, and she took a dashing young Creole man as her lover.

  The devil was fond of his mistress, and he was very jealous when he discovered she had another lover. He waited for the young man one night, leaning against a post outside on the street. When the young man emerged from the mansion, the devil approached him and told the young man that he had stolen the mistress of the devil himself. The young man was terrified. But the devil, having decided to discard his unfaithful mistress, told the young man he did not want her anymore. The devil offered the young man a million pounds if he would take the young woman and go far away. The only condition the devil made was that the young man and woman must adopt the names Monsieur and Madame L. The young man agreed to do as the devil said.

  The next night, the couple had dinner together. As they ate, the young man told the woman about his conversation with the devil and the condition they had agreed upon. The young woman was furious when she heard the condition, realizing that the “L” stood for Lucifer, and that they would be forever branded wherever they went. Enraged, she rushed at her lover and strangled him with her napkin. When the young man lay dead at her feet, the devil appeared and killed her. Then the devil took the bodies of the young man and his mistress up to the rooftop. The moon was full that night, and the whole city could see the devil standing on the roof of the mansion as he skinned the young man and woman and devoured their remains.

  The devil took the skin of the two unfortunate lovers and threw it to the ground to be eaten by the stray cats that wandered the streets at night. But when the devil tried to leave the roof of the mansion, he found that his head had been permanently attached to the roof’s gable. In his jealous rage, the devil had forgotten that the Lord had ordered him not to work in the light of the full moon. As punishment for breaking the ban, the Lord had gathered up the skin of the humans that the devil had tossed upon the ground and had used it to bind the devil’s head to the gable.

  Every night thereafter, the ghosts of the devil’s victims would appear in the dining room of the mansion and reenact the murder. The blood on the Frenchwoman’s hands represented the eternal guilt she felt for killing her lover, a guilt that she could not rub out, no matter how many times she tried to clean her hands.

  I was shaking violently by the time Mama finished the story.

  “I wish I had never gone there,” I cried. “I wish I had never heard that story.”

  Mama was a very wise woman. She didn’t tell me it was my own fault for wandering where I was not supposed to go, she just hugged me and comforted me until I was calm enough to sleep.

  I had nightmares about the ghosts for months afterward, and I would never let the coachman drive down St. Charles Avenue when I was in the carriage. I wondered how Mrs. Jacques could live in a house with such a horrible history and with such terrible ghosts. I didn’t have to wonder long. The Jacqueses moved out of the house not long after my encounter with t
he ghosts, and the devil’s mansion remained unoccupied until 1930, when it was finally demolished.

  The Devil’s Mansion

  30

  Chicky-licky-chow-chow-chow

  Maryville, Tennessee

  It was Pop’s idea to go and get some meat that day. I’d just finished feeding the hens when he shouted out, “Boy! Let’s go get some beef.”

  That sounded all right by me. I was tired of eating rabbit, though my Ma could do some marvelous things with them.

  So Pop and I set out for Maryville. It took us a couple of hours to get there, and then Pop had a jaw with some of his friends while I raced about with some of mine, and before you know it the day was nearly gone and we still hadn’t gotten our beef. So Pop hurried over to the market and got us a side of beef complete with the head. That beef looked mighty good to me. My stomach was rumbling something fierce as we set off down the road toward home. Pop must have been thinking the same thing, because after an hour of walking, he set that beef down under a tree next to a creek and said to me, “Boy, this looks like a good spot to stop a while and cook some of this beef.”

  “Sounds good, Pop. But what are we going to do about a fire?” I asked. “Did you bring your flint?”

  “Nope. I plumb forgot it in the rush to get on the road this morning,” Pop said sheepishly.

  I tried not to look too disappointed, but Pop must have heard my stomach growling because he grabbed two sticks and rubbed them together, trying to get a spark. I turned away, not wanting him to see how hungry I was. Then I saw a light at the top of one of the trees. It looked like the tree had caught fire, but as I watched for a moment, wondering if we should run before we were burned to death, I realized that the fire was only on one branch and wasn’t burning anything. It looked sort of like a square-shaped man, the kind you might see on a totem pole, with spikes of flame sticking out all over it, like the quills of a porcupine.

  “Pop, look at that,” I said, pointing up at the crazy thing. My Pop turned around and looked up.

  “Well, I’ll be d—,” Pop paused and looked sheepish again. Ma never let him swear in front of us kids. “That is, why don’t you see if you can’t get some of that fire, son, so we can roast some of this beef.”

  I nodded enthusiastically and swarmed up the tree. I’m a champion tree climber. I was real curious about that thing up there, all fiery spikes. As I neared the top of the tree, I could feel the heat coming off it. Then the thing spoke to me. It had a voice like the hiss and crackle of a fire. The sound of its voice gave me goose bumps.

  “What do you want with me?” the thing asked. This was a bit tricky. I couldn’t very well ask the thing for one of its fire quills.

  “Pop said to come down and have some beef,” I improvised. The thing considered this for a moment.

  “Very well,” the thing said. “I will come down for a while.”

  I slid down the tree as fast as I could. For some reason, the thing was making me nervous. I was sorry I had spoken to it, but it was too late to do anything about it now. I could feel the heat pouring off the thing as it followed me to the ground. Then the thing went immediately over to where my Pop was standing. It had a rolling gait and swayed a little as it approached him.

  “Where is my beef?” the thing asked my Pop. Pop must have heard our conversation in the tree, because he had the head and skin all ready for the thing. I could hear that beef sizzle as the thing devoured it in a couple of bites. The rest of the beef was smoking in the heat coming from the fiery spikes that covered the thing. It smelled delicious, and I was really hankering for a bite of it myself when the thing gave a grunt and said to Pop, “More. I want more.”

  Chicky-licky-chow-chow-chow

  I could tell Pop was just as scared of the thing as I was because he gave the thing more without hesitation. As the thing ate the beef, Pop managed to cut off a few slices for us. By this time the meat was well done. I swallowed fast, and was sure glad I had, because the thing said, “Is this all you allow me, old man?”

  Something about the hiss and sizzle of its voice made me break out into a cold sweat, in spite of the heat filling the clearing from those fiery quills. Pop gave it the rest of the beef.

  When the thing finished the beef, it let out a tremendous burp and said, “More.”

  “That is all we have,” Pop said bravely. He was sweating too, and I could tell from the sound of his voice that he wanted to get us out of this clearing as quick as he could. “We will have to go and get more.”

  The thing did not like this. Its fiery spikes began to wave about and grow hotter. I had to back up a few feet to keep from getting burned. “You will let your little boy stay with me until you return,” the thing said finally. My Pop did not like this one bit.

  “Ben must come with me,” he said firmly. “I need him to drive the cow back here.”

  The thing frowned fiercely at us, but it finally let us leave. We took off lickety-split, hurrying back the way we had come. It was getting dark, and we didn’t want to be on the road with that thing loose. Pop’s plan was to stay the night with one of the people along the road and then travel a different way home in the morning.

  We stopped at the first farmhouse and asked if we could spend the night. I’d seen the man once or twice before in town. He knew Pop by name and welcomed us into his house. The family had already finished their dinner, but the wife very kindly prepared a plate for each of us. Pop and I were still eating when we heard the noise. It sounded like the whoosh of a great wind, but within it was the crackling sound of flames. I froze, the fork halfway to my mouth, and stared across the table at Pop. Now we could hear footsteps shaking the ground. And a voice like the hiss of flames cried out, “Bum, bum, Sally Lum, tearing down trees and throwing them as I come.” This was followed by the crash of a great tree falling to the ground.

  “What is that?!” cried the head of the house. Pop wiped his mouth with shaking hands.

  “Something is after me and the boy,” he said reluctantly. The man and his wife stared at me and Pop for a long moment as the sound grew nearer.

  “I don’t think you can stay,” said the man, taking his wife by the hand. “If it was just me . . .” His voice trailed off. Pop nodded at once. He wouldn’t want that thing coming anywhere near Ma or the kids, and neither would I.

  We hurried out the back door. I looked over my shoulder once as we raced across the back field of the farm. A light was coming through the dark trees toward us. It steered away from the farmhouse and headed toward the field, as if it could see where we were going. The thing was much taller now, and I could see some of its fiery spikes through the trees. I ran after Pop as fast as I could. “Bum, bum, Sally Lum,” I heard the thing chanting as we jumped a fence and zigzagged back toward the road.

  Pop must have had a destination in mind, for he turned left abruptly, back into the trees, and soon I saw a cabin ahead of us. Pop knocked on the door and an old trapper answered. Pop was just explaining that we needed a place to stay when the forest behind us began to glow as a familiar rushing, crackling wind sound filled the clearing. Above the noise, I could hear the thing chanting, “Bum, bum, Sally Lum, tearing down trees and throwing them as I come.”

  The trapper turned pale and slammed the door in Pop’s face. Pop was looking pretty grim now. He grabbed me by the hand and yanked me through the trees. I was so tired I was shaking, but I wouldn’t stop for anything. That thing was coming for us, and I didn’t want to find out what would happen when it caught us.

  Pop stopped at two or three more houses on the road, but no one would take us in. The people in the last house wouldn’t even open the door. They just shouted at us to go away. No matter how fast we ran, we could always hear the rushing, crackling sound. If we paused for too long, we could see the light moving through the darkness toward us. I was trembling with exhaustion, and crying, but I
couldn’t help myself. I kept imagining what it would be like to burn to death. And all the time I could hear faintly, in the distance, “Bum, bum, Sally Lum, tearing down trees and throwing them as I come.”

  Pop had to pick me up and carry me as he ran down the road. Town had never seemed so far away as it did now. But even if we reached it, what if no one would take us in? Pop stumbled over a rut in the road and fell to his knees.

  “Put me down, Pop. I can run,” I lied. I knew it was too much for my old man to carry me and try to keep ahead of that thing.

  “What’s your problem?” a voice asked out of the darkness. I looked around. There was no one there, except a rabbit sitting by the road. Pop struggled to his feet with me still on his shoulder.

  “Who’s there?” Pop asked shakily.

  “I am,” said the rabbit. We both stared at it, shocked. Neither of us had ever heard of a talking rabbit. But then again, neither of us had ever seen a fiery thing before either. This seemed to be a day of strange happenings.

  Pop must have come to the same conclusion. “We need help,” Pop said to the rabbit. “We are being chased by a thing made of fire.”

  The rabbit nodded. “If you go into my house, I will protect you.” The rabbit pointed one long ear toward the thicket behind it. Pop was desperate. He thanked the rabbit and put me down, and we crawled into the brush, leaving the rabbit sitting by the road.

  The sound of the crackling wind grew louder, and the forest began to glow with an uncanny light. The earth shook with the sound of footsteps, and a hissing voice cried, “Bum, bum, Sally Lum, tearing down trees and throwing them as I come.”

  I was shaking all over. I clung to my Pop’s hand like I used to when I was little and waited for the thing to come and burn me to death. After all, what could a little rabbit, even one that could talk, do to such a thing?