The Golden Leg

by Dale Jarvis

  “No train has passed through here,” said the agent, looking at the Reverend with a look of some puzzlement.

  “But it did,” said the clergyman. “I saw it myself, felt the vibrations of the engines, and saw several people on board.”

  The agent was mystified, and stated again with great assuredness that no train had passed. He checked the timetables, and found that a train had not been scheduled, nor was one expected, but the clergyman persisted in saying he had seen one.

  News of the phantom train was telegraphed up along the line, but no train arrived at the next stop.

  Soon after, the story was made known in the community, and much to the clergyman’s relief, others corroborated his story. They too had seen the strange train at the time mentioned by the clergyman. However, no explanation was ever found. The railway hands who worked that section of the line were somewhat spooked by the story, and from that point on were always nervous about meeting the ghostly engine somewhere on the tracks.

  Today that section of the line is silent. The tracks have been removed, and only the small yellow and green station house remains. If you are very lucky, however, on rare fine evenings in the second week of the second month of the year, you may just hear the faint rumble of phantom wheels on the long abandoned track, as that ghostly train continues its journey, conveying its mysterious passengers to destinations from which no living traveller has ever returned.

  Mr. and Mrs. Murphy were on vacation, and arrived in a city they had never visited before. Not knowing where to spend the night, they consulted the local paper. From a long list of hotels, inns and boarding houses, they chose one which they thought would best suit their needs.

  When they arrived, they were not disappointed. It was a charming old hotel with a huge antique lantern hung over the entrance. The interior was just as delightful, with walls, floors, and staircases all of oak.

  The hotel was completely full, except for one room which Mr. Murphy quickly booked. The room itself was at the end of a very long passage at the back of the building. It was a surprisingly large room, with a gigantic four-poster bed carved out of black wood, and a matching wardrobe set against one wall. Mrs. Murphy unpacked their belongings while Mr. Murphy relaxed, nibbling on gingerbread and reading the newspaper.

  As the wife unpacked, her eyes were drawn for some reason to the old black wardrobe. She opened it up, and found that it was dark, deep, and completely empty. As she looked into it, she felt a curious sensation which was not entirely pleasant but which she could not exactly explain.

  Putting the strange sensation out of her mind, she firmly closed the door to the wardrobe and finished unpacking. The couple then both relaxed, and chatted about their day. It was only when a clock from a nearby church boomed twelve that the couple realized how late it had grown. They both got ready for bed, slipped between the clean white linen sheets on the four-poster bed, and turned out the lights.

  Mr. Murphy quickly fell asleep and began to snore. Mrs. Murphy lay awake and listened to her husband. Normally she found the sound of his snoring troublesome. On this particular night, it was almost comforting, for a deathlike hush seemed to hang over the house. The silence was broken by the odd creak and footstep, the rustle of curtains, and distant sighs and whisperings. All of these noises were, very possibly, the result of natural causes, but they played upon Mrs. Murphy’s imagination.

  As she listened, she became aware of a smell. At first it was just the faintest whiff of something unpleasant. Gradually, it became a most offensive, pungent odour, which seemed to creep up her nostrils. She did not know what could cause such a distasteful smell, but it seemed to come from somewhere in the direction of the black wardrobe.

  Finally, she could stand it no more. She slipped out of the bed and crept across the room. With every step she took, the stench increased. By the time she reached the wardrobe, the stink was so strong that she was almost suffocated. Mrs. Murphy longed to be back in bed, but was unable to tear herself away. She stretched out a trembling hand and swung open the door.

  As the door yawned open, the hotel bedroom was filled with the faint, phosphorescent glow of decay. The terrified woman saw, directly in front of her own face, a human head floating in mid-air. She could only guess it was the head of a man, from the matted crop of red hair that hung down over the forehead and ears. The rest of the face was a loathsome, disgusting mass of decomposing flesh, too foul and vile to even describe. Unable to move or speak, she stood there, petrified.

  With a start, the abnormal thing began to move forward. The strange spell that had rooted Mrs. Murphy to one spot was broken. With a cry of horror, she fled back to the bed and woke her husband.

  His terror was even greater than hers; neither of them could speak. The head veered around and started to move swiftly toward them. As it drew closer, its awful stench caused the couple to retch and vomit. Mr. Murphy seized a lamp from the bedside table and hurled it at the disembodied head. As they might have expected, the lamp met no resistance. It passed right through the floating head, and crashed against the wall behind.

  The Murphys made a frantic attempt to find the door. With the head pursuing them, they tripped over each other in their haste, and fell together in a heap.

  There was now no hope for the couple, as the stinking head had caught up with them. It hovered directly above them and descended lower, lower, and lower. Finally, it passed right through them, through the floor, and vanished out of sight.

  It was a long while before either of the Murphys were sufficiently recovered to rise from the floor. When they did, it was only to collapse exhausted onto their bed. They pulled the covers up over their heads and there they hid, quivering and quaking, till morning.

  When the bright morning sun chased away their fears, they got up and hurried downstairs and demanded to see the hotel manager. At first, the manager tried to tell them it had all been a dream, but the Murphys were adamant that they had both seen the floating head. They were about to leave when the manager stopped them, and offered them another room for free if only they would stay and keep the terrifying tale to themselves.

  “I know what you say is true,” he confessed, and he explained to the couple the origin of the head.

  A hundred years earlier, a wandering peddler had been murdered in the building. The unfortunate man’s body was walled up behind the oak panelling of the room, and his head was hidden underneath the floor below the wardrobe. It was only when the smell of the rotting head started to seep out into the room that the murder was discovered.

  The otherwise charming old hotel is still there, with the same huge antique lantern hanging above the main entrance, though the haunted room is seldom used. If, like the Murphys, you arrive there late at night, and the only room available is one at the end of a very long passage, with a gigantic four-poster bed and a matching black wardrobe, you may wish to find lodgings somewhere else.

  Grandfather King was a farmer. But back in the 1930s, in the height of the Great Depression, things were not very good for farmers. So, to help out his family and keep food on the table, Grandfather King turned to a much more lucrative business. He started selling bootleg rum.

  No matter how bad times got, it seemed people always had money for a bottle of rum. Perhaps it was because of the fact that times were so bad that people always wanted it. So Grandfather King helped them out, and made a few pennies doing so.

  Now, it was hard to keep something like that perfectly quiet, and before too long the police heard rumours of strange goings-on down at the King family farm. Every so often they would stop by to visit Grandfather King, to see if they could catch him in the act.

  But Grandfather King was too smart for the police. He never kept his rum anywhere they might find it. Instead, he carefully buried the bottles of rum up in the back garden, in different places, under the cover of darkness. No matter how hard they searched, the police could never find a thing.

  One night, when it was nice and dark, Grandfather King we
nt up to the back garden as usual to get a bottle of rum. He took his shovel, paced off the right number of steps from the fence post, and started to dig. He had just reached the first bottle of rum when he saw a very bright light coming toward him.

  Grandfather King’s first thought was that the police had finally cottoned on to his tricks. The light came closer, so bright that he could not look at it directly. Grandfather King was not frightened, but he did not know what to do. The light was so bright it almost blinded him.

  As the light came closer to where Grandfather King was standing, it started to dim. When it got dull enough that he could look at it, the man saw that it was not the police with a lantern, but something much more unusual.

  The light was coming from the very bright eyes of what could only be described as a monster. In size it was taller than the tallest man, over nine feet in height. It was jet-black and covered all over with hair an inch to an inch and half long, and its eyes were like two big saucers. It had no clothing whatsoever.

  The Devil himself could not frighten Grandfather King, but Grandfather King had never seen anything like the monster with the two glowing eyes. He started digging again to see what would happen. The two great eyes grew brighter and brighter, and the monster drew closer and closer.

  Grandfather King stopped digging. The eyes grew dim once more and the monster backed away, farther into the shadows. In haste, he started shovelling dirt back into the hole, and as he filled in the hole the monster disappeared.

  Grandfather King took up his shovel, put it over his shoulder, and hurried home. The next day he thought about what he was going to do. That precious rum was still buried up in the back garden, but he was not about to go dig it up during the day when people would be able to see. So he waited until nightfall. When it was dark, he took his shovel and ventured up into the back garden once more.

  He found the fence post, measured off the right number of paces, and started to dig. Just like the night before, as soon as he started to dig, the bright light returned. As he dug, the hairy monster with the two great eyes drew closer and closer. When he stopped digging, the eyes grew dim and the monster moved farther away. He dug a bit more, and the eyes grew so bright he was almost blinded again. Eventually, Grandfather King had to fill in the hole and go back to bed.

  Grandfather King became convinced that the monster was guarding something buried in the back garden. He was certain the monster was afraid he was going to find it, and this is why it appeared each night, warning him away.

  Being a cautious man, Grandfather King decided to leave well enough alone. He had no desire to enrage a monster nine feet high, covered with black fur, and with eyes that shone like headlights. So from that point on he gave up the bootleg rum business, and put his energies into more legal activities.

  There are those who say the monster was guarding a great treasure. The treasure had been hidden by pirates, and they had left the monster behind to act as its protector until such a time that they could return. But the pirates never came back.

  It is said that the buccaneers’ treasure, along with a few bottles of well-aged rum, still lie safely hidden, buried deep somewhere up in the back garden of Grandfather King. If you don’t mind nine-foot monsters lurking in the darkness, covered in fur, and with eyes as big as saucers, you are welcome to go and try to find it for yourself.

  Ayoung lady was touring, travelling by herself, when she became lost in a thick grey mist. Through the fog she could see a light burning in the window of a remote cottage, and she knocked on the door, asking if she could spend the night.

  The couple who owned the cottage was an older man and woman. They took pity on the girl and invited her in. They gave her a good hot meal, showed her to a spare bedroom, and wished her a good night.

  The room had a musty smell, as if it had been closed up for many years. A single candle, her only source of light, cast eerie shadows on the wall. The wind howled outside, and with it the girl could hear the howl of a dog somewhere in the distance. The girl went to the window and made sure it was closed tightly, then bolted the door. Tired out from her day, she soon fell asleep.

  The loud moaning of the wind woke her. There was a crash at the window, followed by the sound of shattered glass falling on the floor. The curtains billowed into the room and the girl suddenly felt that she was no longer alone. Outside, the dog howled again, much closer this time.

  As she lay there, not certain what to do, she felt a cold, clammy hand grab her ankle. It wrapped itself about her bones with fingers of steel. Her fear was so great that she could not move or cry out. Then the hand started to move like a cold, fleshy spider. It inched upward, over her knee, crawling up her leg, crossing over her body and travelling to her throat.

  Convinced that her last hour on earth had arrived, she summoned up what little courage she had remaining. Desperately, she seized the clutching hand, only to find it was connected to a sinewy arm, an arm that ended in space. There was no body attached! This revelation was too much for the girl, and she collapsed unconscious onto the bed.

  In the morning, when she woke healthy and unharmed, the broken window glass on the floor of the bedroom proved that what she had experienced during the night had not been a dream. When she told her hosts of her terrifying experience, they related the following story.

  Many years before, the cottage had been occupied by an old woman. The old woman lived alone, and had the reputation of being the sort of woman who knew ancient, secret things that other people did not. In time, in spite of her knowledge of herbs and healing arts, the woman grew very ill. When the doctor finally came to see her, the old woman lay dying in the upstairs room of the cottage. Knowing that death was coming to collect her, the woman confided in the doctor that all her earthly wealth, a bag full of golden coins, was hidden in the mattress of the bed.

  The doctor was a very greedy man. Pretending to help the old woman, he slipped his hand down under the sheets to steal the woman’s gold. Realizing what he was doing, the dying woman rose up in the bed, and with her final breath laid a powerful curse upon the man.

  “Your clutching hand will never find peace in the grave!” commanded the woman. “Instead, it shall ever wander the earth, until the end of all time!”

  Having uttered her curse, she fell back on the sheets, dead. The doctor quickly closed the door, and hurried into town. He told the woman’s friends that she had passed away, and quickly arranged for a coffin to be taken back to the house. When the friends arrived for the funeral, they found the coffin already in the parlour of the cottage, the lid securely nailed down.

  As the coffin was carried to the churchyard, the pallbearers remarked at how much weight the old woman must have lost in her final sickness, for the coffin was unnaturally light. Nevertheless, the coffin was buried in the churchyard with due ceremony. Imagine the friends’ shock, however, when they returned to the old woman’s cottage, went upstairs, and found her body still in her bed!

  A second coffin was called for, and a second funeral was held for the old woman. When they returned to the graveyard, they found that the first coffin had been dug up, and was empty. The doctor, not wanting to be seen removing the gold from the house, had smuggled it out in the first coffin. He had then waited until after dark, dug up the first coffin, and had removed his prize. Neither he nor the gold were ever seen again.

  It was said that every year on the anniversary of the old woman’s death, the clutching hand was fated to return to the location where it had been cursed. In the excitement of receiving an unexpected visitor, the couple had completely forgotten that the day of the girl’s visit was the anniversary of the cursing, and they had unwittingly placed the girl in the room where the old woman had died.

  Agroup of young men went out to a local dance, looking for a good time, and hoping to meet girls, but they had no luck. After the dance, they found themselves back out on the street. It was late, but none of them wanted to go home. Instead, they decided to go wander among the twistin
g alleys of Chinatown, looking for adventure.

  Eventually the group of friends stumbled across the entrance to Dragon Alley, a long narrow laneway which in the day was crowded with shoppers, curious tourists, and business people selling everything from live chickens to charms to keep away evil spirits.

  Tonight, Dragon Alley was deserted, and the tiny shops that lined its length were all tightly barred up, with great iron gates pulled across the doorways. As they walked down the alley, however, the friends found one shop that was still open.

  It was a fortune teller’s stall, and the entrance was lit with lights that burned in red paper lanterns. The sweet smell of incense drifted out into the night air. Laughing, the group pushed one of their number forward, into the shop. An old woman sat there playing with cards. She sat cross-legged at a low wooden table, her feet hidden underneath her.

  As the noisy young men entered, she looked up, a smile flickering across her wrinkled face. She indicated with one hand that the young man should sit across from her at the table, and he lowered himself down onto the cushion.

  “Ask her if you will meet any girls tonight!” one of the friends suggested, and the others all laughed.

  The woman only smiled, and reached out with aged, yellowed fingers. She took the young man’s hand into her own. She turned his hand palm side up, and began to trace the lines in his palm. She was silent for a moment, hunched over, examining his palm intensely. Then she looked up. The woman’s eyes were a deep, rich brown, so dark they were almost black. She stared into the young man’s eyes. What she said next got the young man’s full attention.

  “Tonight, you will meet a ghost,” said the woman, staring intently at him.

  For that moment, it was as if all sounds other than the woman’s voice had faded away. Caught in the woman’s gaze, he felt a sudden coldness which sent a shiver down his spine, even though the night was very warm.