by Stephen King
“Someone want to tell me what in the name of Christ Jesus the Redeemer went on here?” he asked.
No one replied, and after a moment Johnny Marinville realized they were all looking at him. He stepped forward, read the little plaque pinned to the pocket of the man’s crisp uniform blouse, and said: “Outlaws, Captain Richardson.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Outlaws. Regulators. Renegades from the wastes.”
“My friend, if you see anything funny about this—”
“I don’t, sir. No indeed. And it’s going to get even further from funny when you look in there.” Johnny pointed toward the Wyler house, and as he did suddenly thought of his guitar. It was like thinking about a glass of iced tea when you were hot and thirsty and tired. He thought of how nice it would be to sit on his porch step and strum and sing “The Ballad of Jesse James” in the key of D. That was the one that went, “Oh Jesse had a wife to mourn for his life, three children they were brave.” He supposed his old Gibson might have a hole in it, his house looked pretty well trashed (looked as if it was no longer sitting exactly right on its foundations, for that matter), but on the other hand, it might be perfectly fine. Some of them had come through okay, after all.
Johnny started in that direction, already hearing the song as it would come from under his hand and out of his mouth: “Oh Robert Ford, Robert Ford, I wonder how you must feel? For you slept in Jesse’s bed, and you ate of Jesse’s bread, and you have laid Jesse James down in his grave.”
“Hey!” the cop who looked like Ben Johnson called truculently. “Just where in the hell do you think you’re going?”
“To sing a song about the good guys and the bad guys,” Johnny said. He put his head down and felt the hazy heat of the summer sun on his neck and kept walking.
Letter from Mrs. Patricia Allen to Katherine Anne Goodlowe, of Montpelier, Vermont:
June 19, 1986
Dear Kathi,
This is the most beautiful place in the whole world, I’m convinced of it. The honeymoon has been the sweetest nine days of my whole life, and the nights—! I was raised to believe that certain things you don’t talk about, so just let me say that my fears of discovering, too late to do anything about it, that “saving it for marriage” was the worst mistake of my life, have proved unfounded. I feel like a kid living in a candy factory!
Enough of that, though; I didn’t write to tell you about the new Mrs. Allen’s sex-life (superb though it may be), or even about the beauty of the Catskills. I’m writing because Tom’s downstairs for the nonce, shooting pool, and I know how much you love a “spooky story.” Especially if there’s an old hotel in it; you’re the only person I know who’s read not just one copy of The Shining to tatters, but two! If that was all, though, I probably would have just waited until Tom and I got back and then told you my tale face-to-face. But I might actually have some souvenirs of this particular “tale from beyond,” and that has caused me to pick up my pen on this beautiful full-moon evening.
The Mountain House was opened in 1869, so it certainly qualifies as an old hotel, and although I don’t suppose it’s much like Stephen King’s Overlook, it has its share of odd nooks and spooky corridors. It has its share of ghost stories, too, but the one I’m writing you about is something of an oddity—not a single turn-of-the-century lady or 1929 Stock Market–crash suicide in it. These two ghosts—that’s right, a pair, two for the price of one—have only been actively haunting for the last four years or so, as far as I have been able to find out, and I’ve been able to find out a fair amount. The staff is very helpful to visitors who want to do a little ghost-hunting on the side; adds to the ambience, I suppose!
Anyway, there are over a hundred little shelters spotted around the grounds, eccentric wooden huts which the guests sometimes call “follies” and the Mohonk brochures call “gazebos.” You find these overlooking the choicest views. There’s one located at the north end of an upland meadow about three miles from the Mountain House itself. On the map this meadow has no name (I actually checked the topographical plats in the office this morning), but the help has a name for it; they call it Mother and Son Meadow.
The ghosts of the eponymous mother and son were first spotted by guests in the summer of 1982. They are always seen around that particular gazebo, which is located at the top of a hill and looks down toward a rock wall which is pretty much buried in honeysuckle and wild roses. It isn’t the most spectacular place on the resort, but I think it may prove to be my favorite when I think back on my honeymoon in later years. There’s a serenity there which certainly beggars my powers of description. Some of it’s the scent of the flowers, and some is the sound of the bees, I suppose—a steady, sleepy drone. But never mind the bees and flowers and picturesque rock wall; if I know my Kath, it’s the ghosts she’ll be wanting. They aren’t spooky ones at all, so don’t get your hopes up on that score, but they are well-documented, at least. Adrian Givens, the concierge, told me they have been seen by perhaps three dozen guests since the sightings began, always in that same rough locale. And although none of the witnesses have known each other, making conspiracy or collusion seem unlikely, the descriptions are remarkably similar. The woman is described as being in her thirties, pretty, long legs, chestnut-brown hair. Her son (several witnesses have remarked on the physical resemblance between the two) is small and very slim, probably about six. Brown hair, like the woman. His face has been described as “intelligent,” “lively,” and even “beautiful.” And although they’ve been seen by a variety of people over a course of years, they are always described as wearing the same clothes: white running shorts, sleeveless blouse, and lowtop sneakers for her; basketball shorts, a tank top, and cowboy boots for him. It’s the cowboy boots that give me the most pause, Kath! How likely is it that all those people would put a kid in such an unlikely combination as shorts and cowboy boots, if they were just making it up? The defense rests.
Several people have theorized that they are real people, perhaps even a Mohonk employee and her child, because they’ve dropped a lot of empirical, lasting evidence for ghosts (who as a rule only leave a swirl of cold air or perhaps a little smear of ectoplasm behind, as I know you know). All sorts of little souvenirs have been found at that particular gazebo. You know the weirdest? Half-eaten plates of Chef Boyardee spaghetti! Yes! I know it sounds crazy, laughable, but stop and think a minute. Aside from hot dogs, is there anything in the world that kids love more than Chef’s pasta?
There have been other things, as well—toys, a coloring book, a small silver makeup case that could well belong to a little boy’s pretty mom but I admit it’s those half-eaten bowls of kid-style spaghetti that get to me. Whoever heard of a spaghetti-eating ghost? Or how ’bout this? In the fall of 1984, a group of hikers found a kid’s plastic record-player in that gazebo, with a 45-rpm record on the spindle—Strawberry Fields Forever, by the Beatles. fitting, eh?
My friend at the concierge’s desk, Adrian, smiles and nods when you suggest it’s a put-up job, that ghosts don’t leave actual physical objects behind (or trample down the grass, or leave footprints in the gazebo). “Not ordinary ones, anyway,” he says, “but maybe these aren’t ordinary ghosts. For one thing, everyone who has seen them says they’re solid. You can’t look through them, like the ones in Ghostbusters. maybe they’re not ghosts, have you thought of that? They might be real people who are living on a slightly different plane than ours.” I guess you don’t have to be a guest at Mohonk to get a little astral; just working there seems to do the trick.
Adrian said that on at least three occasions a determined effort had been made to catch the mother and son by people who believed the whole thing was a hoax, and all three efforts had come to nothing (although once the searchers came back with another of those spaghetti-bowls). Also, he said—and I found this much more interesting—the apparitions had been showing up in and around that gazebo for four years. If they were real people, hoaxes or pranksters or both, how could the boy still
be six or seven?
Okay, this is the point where, in a traditional ghost story, I would reveal that I myself had seen the ghosts or the Phantom Rickshaw. Except I didn’t. I’ve still never seen a ghost in my whole life. But I can testify that there’s something very special about that meadow, something hushed and—don’t you dare laugh—almost holy. I didn’t see ghosts, but there is definitely a feeling of presence there. I went without Tom, and will freely grant that probably made me more susceptible, but even so, I knew then and know now that I had come to a very extraordinary place. And there was a prickling along the back of my neck, a sensation—very clear and specific—of being watched.
Then, when I went into the gazebo itself to sit and rest up a little for the walk back, I found the items I’m enclosing. They are perfectly real, as you see, not a bit ghostly, and yet there is something very strange about them, don’t you think?
The little woman-figure in the blue shorts is the more interesting of the two. It’s obviously what the kids call an “action figure,” but I’ve been teaching kindergarten for three years now and thought I knew them all. I don’t know this one, though. At first I thought it was Scarlet, from the G.I. Joe team, but this little lady’s hair is a very different shade of red. Brighter. And usually kids treasure these things, will fight over them in the play-yard. This one was tossed into a corner, almost as if it had been thrown away. Save it for me, Kath, and I’ll show it to my kindergartners next fall . . . but I’m betting right now that none of them will know her and all of them will want her! I think about what Adrian said, about how the ghosts in Mother and Son Meadow might live on a slightly different plane, maybe of the astral kind, maybe of the temporal kind, and sometimes (often, really) I think Miss Red might actually come from that plane! (Does the idea give you the shivers? It does me!)
Okay, okay, so a strong wind has come up outside and the lights are flickering. Put it down to that, if you want.
Then there’s the picture. I found it under the little gazebo table. You’re the art major, kiddo, tell me what you think. Is it some kind of gag—a hoax perpetrated by a local kid who enjoys teasing the guests? Or have I found a drawing made by a ghost? What a concept, huh?
Okay, girl, that’s my creepy story for the night. I’m gonna stick the whole works in a little padded mailer from the gift-shop, then see if I can persuade Tom it’s time to stop shooting bumper pool in the game room and come to bed. Frankly, I’m not expecting it to be a problem.
I love being married, and I love this place, ghosts and all.
Still your fan,
Pat
PS: Please save the picture for me, okay? I want to keep it. Hoax or not, I think there’s love in it. And a sense, almost, of coming home. P.
Lake Mohonk, New Paltz, New York 12561
About the Author
Stephen King is the author of more than fifty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. His recent work includes Mr. Mercedes, winner of the 2015 Edgar Award for Best Novel; Doctor Sleep; and Under the Dome, a major TV miniseries on CBS. His novel 11/22/63 was named a top ten book of 2011 by The New York Times Book Review and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for best Mystery/Thriller. He is the recipient of the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters and a 2014 National Medal of Arts. He lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, novelist Tabitha King.
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Also by Stephen King
FICTION
Carrie
’Salem’s Lot
The Shining
Night Shift
The Stand
The Dead Zone
Firestarter
Cujo
Creepshow
Different Seasons
Cycle of the Werewolf
Christine
Pet Sematary
IT
Skeleton Crew
The Eyes of the Dragon
Misery
The Tommyknockers
The Dark Half
Four Past Midnight
Needful Things
Gerald’s Game
Dolores Claiborne
Nightmares & Dreamscapes
Insomnia
Rose Madder
The Green Mile
Desperation
Bag of Bones
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
Hearts in Atlantis
Dreamcatcher
Everything’s Eventual
From a Buick 8
The Colorado Kid
Cell
Lisey’s Story
Duma Key
Just After Sunset
Stephen King Goes to the Movies
Under the Dome
Full Dark, No Stars
11/22/63
Doctor Sleep
Mr. Mercedes
Revival
Finders Keepers
The Bazaar of Bad Dreams
End of Watch (forthcoming June 2016)
NOVELS IN THE DARK TOWER SERIES
The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger
The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three
The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands
The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass
The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla
The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah
The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower
The Wind Through the Keyhole: A Dark Tower Novel
BY STEPHEN KING AS RICHARD BACHMAN
Thinner
The Running Man
The Long Walk
Roadwork
The Regulators
Blaze
WITH PETER STRAUB
The Talisman
Black House
NONFICTION
Danse Macabre
On Writing (A Memoir of the Craft)
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Copyright © 1996 by Richard Bachman
Computer illustrations by Jaye Zimet; Map by Virginia Norey
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