Is that the way to treat such a fine creature as an elephant, I ask you?
“Topsy!” said Barney.
I looked over at Barney, who was next to me in the white, ethereal clouds. He was an interesting little after-death spiritual guide, tall, skinny as a rail, with big brown eyes, a crooked nose, and a blue robe. I would have preferred an elephant guide, but Barney explained that there weren’t a lot of those available and they were all currently occupied with other clients. So I got stuck with him. The two of us were floating in the space that Barney called the “In-Between.” No angels, no heavenly lyres or choirs. Just clouds and light and a pleasant smelling mist. For those who don’t know, the “In-Between” is where those who die come to make their final decisions on what they want to do now that they’re dead. They can either go on into eternity or be reincarnated. They have up to a year to make the decision. Most decide in a matter of minutes. And then there are those like me, who have to weigh everything carefully.
“Topsy!” Barney repeated more forcefully.
“What?” I asked.
“You can waste your year fuming about what happened, or you can make some decisions. Seriously, I have other clients and you’re driving me crazy. We’ve been at this way too long, my pachydermatous friend.”
I snorted through my trunk. It wasn’t really a trunk anymore, just a suggestion of a trunk. I was dead, I was in afterlife transition, don’t forget. And I was stuck.
“I don’t know what to do,” I said. “You gave me all the information I needed. You filled in the blanks. I was executed in Luna Park for killing the people who hurt me, even though, damn it, they asked for it! You told me how I was killed–poisoned carrots and electricity. You told me who was there to watch my demise, such as Tommy-boy Edison. You told me the film of my death was fascinating for a few months, and then people lost interest, as people usually do. You said it was my right to know all this, and that knowing it I should let it go.”
Barney ran his fingers through his thinning hair and shook his head. “And my advice stands. Listen to me. Eternity is wonderful. Just do eternity, okay?”
“I feel like my life has been turned upside down.”
“Your life’s over, Topsy. Accept it. For both our sakes.”
“I can’t.”
“Just forget everything I told you, okay? That’ll make it easier to decide.”
“Ever hear the old saying, ‘an elephant never forgets?’”
“That’s not true. Somebody just made that up.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
Barney rolled his eyes.
Then I said, “I think there’s a third option you haven’t mentioned.”
Barney drew back a little.
“Am I right?”
“Well . . . ”
“Come on. Answer me. Am I right?”
Barney nodded slowly.
“Good, then,” I said. “I want to be a ghost. I want to haunt Tommy-boy Edison.”
“Stop joking around.”
“I mean it. I want to haunt the shit out of that brute.”
And so it was that Barney gave me permission to be a ghost. I had some of my year left to torment the man who had devised the electrocution of animals and had sneaked in to watch mine.
I’ve heard people say that revenge is a dish best served cold. And Tommy-boy was going to get a huge mouthful of cold.
***
Luckily for me, not all ghosts have to stay where they were killed. Some, like me, can travel to the source of their anguish and establish themselves there. Thomas Edison was a main source of my anguish. He had a home and laboratory in New Jersey. Not hard to find for a ghost, I just followed the man’s arrogant stink. I set up housekeeping in his attic and made my plan. And then, when Mrs. Edison was gone for several weeks with a friend, Tommy was all mine.
It was late evening. He was seated in a plush chair in his plush library, reading a book of some sort, smoking a cigar, feet in slippers and propped up on a hassock. A lamp glowed on the chair-side table.
The first thing I did was blow frosty air on the back of Tommy-boy’s neck. Just for starters, you know. Just to stir things up, a bit, put him on edge. Tommy rubbed his neck and kept on reading. I blew again, harder. Again, Tommy rubbed his neck and kept on reading. Again I blew on his neck. This time he took the cigar out of his mouth, frowned, and looked around for a breeze. There was none. Good start, Topsy. I retired to the attic and waited.
The next evening, as Tommy-boy sat in his chair in the library, another book in his lap and another cigar in his mouth, I used my ghostly trunk to flip over the page Tommy was reading. He flipped it back. I flipped. He flipped. I flipped. He grunted, slammed the book shut, and stubbed the cigar out in the ashtray beside him. He stood, turned around and around, cursed under his breath, then sat back down and continued reading. Yes, this was good.
The following evening, I went for the chair side lamp. It had one of Tommy’s precious light bulbs screwed in it. I rocked the lamp back and forth. Tommy reached out and stopped it. I rocked it again. He stopped it again. “Damn it, what’s going on?” he muttered. But he didn’t seem completely frightened, which was what I was after. No problem. I had time. Over the next few nights I was going to unnerve him, then terrify him, then make him piss his pants, choke on his cigar, and die.
Simple as that.
And so I picked up the lamp, dangled it in front of Tommy, and slammed it to the floor. It didn’t smash well, so I stepped on it. Right there on the Oriental carpeting. Crunch went the lamp frame! Smunch went the bulb!
Ha!
Tommy scrunched up in his chair. He nearly swallowed his cigar. “Okay, this is not normal,” he stammered. “I’m a scientist. I’m a highly intelligent, rational human being. There is a reason for this.”
I grinned.
But then his expression changed. He relaxed. “Ah, yes. I know what this is,” he said. “And of course it’s not ghosts, for there are no such things.”
Wait . . . what? My grin died right there on my elephant lips.
Tommy unfolded in his chair and suddenly looked quite at ease. “It’s life units.”
No ghosts? Au contraire, Tommy! And what the hell was a life unit?
It was time for some terrifying vocalizing. That should convince Tommy that ghosts were real and some of us meant business.
“Whooooooooo hooooooooo boooooooooo!” I howled. And as an elephant, even a ghost elephant, that’s quite a loud and frightening sound.
Tommy took a puff on his cigar, tapped the ash off in the ashtray stand. “I hear you, life units. Where did you come from? Possibly from my parents, or friends who have died? I hear you. Don’t worry, my dear ones. You will settle soon. You will come together into a new life form, and all will be well.”
Settle soon? All will be well? Oh, I don’t think so!
I knelt on my big fat ghostly elephant knees and leaned into Tommy’s face. I howled with all my might “WHOOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOO BOOOOOOOO!” Come on, Tommy, be scared! Come on Tommy, clutch your chest in fear!
Tommy didn’t clutch his chest in fear. He merely waited ‘til I’d run out of air, shook his head, picked his book up again, and started to read.
I retreated to the attic. I sat on an old trunk to think. I’d hoped to prolong the dread. I’d hoped to reduce him to a quivering, shivering blob of weeping humanity. And then I’d hoped to give him one final shock and watch him keel over, dead as a stone. But that hadn’t happened. Tommy was one cool cucumber.
Time to release the Pachen.
The next evening, with Tommy settled yet again in his library, this time with a glass of wine as well as the cigar and a new lamp on the chair-side table, I drifted down and entered the room.
No more playing around, Mr. Moving Pictures. This time, you’re going to die.
I hovered before the man, swung my trunk out to the side, then whipped it back again, slamming Tommy in the face hard enough to snap the man’s neck.
Die
, Tommy, die!
But my trunk went right through and out the other side with no effect on Tommy.
I tried again. I wrapped my trunk around Tommy’s neck to lift him up and slam him down, just like I had the man with the pitchfork and the man with the lit cigarette. But I couldn’t grasp him. It was like he was a ghost to my ghost, with no substance at all.
I bellowed, and then went for the bookshelf. At least ghosts can pick things up–that’s one small thing in our favor. And what a nice, hefty bookshelf it was. I lifted it high, dumping books in a scatter, then hurled it at Tommy. Tommy, surprisingly quick for a man of fifty-six years, leapt out of the way. The bookshelf struck the floor and fell into three large pieces.
“No need for that,” he said calmly, peeking around the room to see what might be next. “Time for peace, life units.”
Next was the elegantly carved sideboard. Up in my trunk it went, sending glassware and a silver tray flying, and I flung with everything I had, right at old Tommy. Again, he ducked out of the way and it shattered on the far wall.
I grabbed his chair, threw it. Missed. Then a straight-backed chair. Tommy scurried into the hallway. I followed and threw a mirror from off the wall. Missed. Damn!
Tommy went outside. I couldn’t follow him. His house had been my chosen place of haunting and so I could only watch through the window.
“I’m going into town,” Tommy called back. “You life units best calm yourselves down or Mina and I will move to Florida until you do.” Then he climbed into his Pierce Arrow and motored off into the darkness. I stood there, shaking with rage. I couldn’t scare him. I couldn’t kill him. And I couldn’t follow him to Florida because as a ghost, I’d chosen Tommy’s New Jersey house as my establishment.
Well, Hell’s bells, as I used to hear O’Malley say.
***
I returned to the In-Between. Barney was there and oh, boy, did he look perturbed. “Didn’t care for ghosting?” he asked.
“Why didn’t you tell me I could move stuff around but couldn’t move a person? I could smash a lamp but couldn’t even choke Tommy?”
“You didn’t ask.”
“And why didn’t you tell me Tommy was in good enough shape to dodge everything I threw at him?”
“You didn’t ask.”
“I couldn’t even scare him! He doesn’t believe in ghosts, did you know that? He just chalked it all up to ‘life units.’ Are you kidding me? What on Earth is a life unit?”
“It’s his concept of what happens to life-energy after death. He believes it rearranges itself and then takes up residence in otherwise lifeless matter—or bodies—and that’s how life continues on Earth.”
“That’s stupid.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
“Oh, just shut up! Being a ghost is worthless!”
“Ready to move on into eternity?”
“No! I’ve had no retaliation! My life units want to be reincarnated into someone who can carry out my revenge!”
“There are no such things as life units,” said Barney.
“I don’t care!”
We stared at each other for some very long moments there in the white clouds of the In-Between.
Then Barney said, “You do realize that when you reincarnate, you merge with the personality that is already there. You don’t totally take over that person, right?”
“As long as I can have some control, I’ll be fine!”
Barney held up his hand to shut me up. “Okay, Topsy. Your choice.”
I smiled, triumphant.
“We’ll have to look at the babies soon to be born so you can pick the best one.”
“How will I know which one is best?”
“You’ll have to figure that out on your own.”
“Really? What kind of spiritual guide are you, anyway?”
“One who is ready to call it quits and take a vacation to Florida, thank you very much.”
***
I considered several options for reincarnating. One was a baby to be named Jerome Lester Horwitz. But I had a feeling this one was going to be a lovable comedian of some sort, and not the revenge type. There was a baby to be called Vladimir Horowitz, who reeked of music and ever since my time in amusement parks I wasn’t crazy about music. Then I discovered a baby whose name would be John Herbert Dillinger. I got a good feel from this one. I told Barney of my choice. He nodded, and with a whoosh my spirit rushed down and merged with soon-to-be baby John’s.
You may have heard of us. John and I grew up to kick some major ass, as the old saying goes. Though we never got to Tommy (that man was slippery as a trout), we blew away Joe O’Malley’s second-cousin, William Patrick O’Malley, outside the First National Bank in East Chicago, Illinois. We bankrupted Carl Goliath’s son and daughter-in-law, who had their life savings in a bank in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. We ruined the career of Frederic Thompson’s nephew, who worked at the Crown Point Jail, when we planned and executed the best escape ever. Not total revenge, but we’re still going strong.
We’re heading to the theater tonight. A little R & R at the Biograph Theater in Chicago. We’re going to see Manhattan Melodrama starring John’s favorite actress, Myrna Loy. Should be a nice relaxing evening. We don’t relax much.
Then we’ll be back to taking care of business. There are lots more folks who can help pay the bill for what was done to me in Luna Park.
Ah, revenge.
And Barney thought reincarnating wasn’t a good idea.
RAY AND THE MARTIAN
BEV VINCENT
A resounding boom shook Ray’s bed, arousing him from a deep sleep. He pried open his eyes and tried to recall where he was. Then he heard his older brother snoring in the bunk above—Skip could sleep through anything—and he remembered. Still, the room felt unfamiliar—they’d only been in this house a few days.
His father had lost his job, so the whole Bradbury family had packed their belongings into a $20 Buick and headed southwest, their destination influenced by Leonard Bradbury’s fascination with the American West. They had ended up in Roswell, New Mexico, where Mr. Bradbury was trying to find work. Ray missed his relatives and friends back in Waukegan, but his father had promised an adventure, and five-year-old Ray loved nothing more than an adventure.
It was just after midnight, but light flickered through the bedroom curtains. At first Ray thought it was lightning, but the color wasn’t right and the sound had been more of a crash than a rumble. He threw back the covers, his head filled with images of cannon fire and natives on the warpath, like in the stories his father and his aunt read to him.
When he drew open the curtains—slowly to avoid waking his brother—it looked like the back yard was on fire, but that couldn’t be. Unlike in Illinois, there was nothing here to burn. Only cactus and mesquite grew in the rocky ground, and even they struggled.
Ray threw on his clothes and ran downstairs to the kitchen, where his father was putting on his boots. “Keep the boys inside,” he told Ray’s mother.
Ray pressed his nose against the window and watched the flashlight beam bob and sway across the yard. The flames were dying down by the time his father reached the water trough. He was about to beg his mother to let him go out, but stopped. Easier to ask forgiveness than permission, he decided. While his mother busied herself making coffee, he stuck his feet into his shoes without tying the laces, eased open the back door and crept outside.
He pretended he was a cowboy tracking a wild animal, walking as quietly as possible to avoid detection. He closed his eyes and sniffed the air like he’d seen a man do in a Western movie. It took him a few seconds to figure out what was wrong: it was too quiet. Although there was a steady breeze, he couldn’t hear the tall, rickety windmill that a previous owner had built to pump water to the cattle trough. In the few days since they’d arrived, he had grown accustomed to the way it creaked when the blades turned and squealed when the vane swung into the wind. He should have been able to hear it. He should have been able
to see its silhouette in the moonlight, too.
Had lightning struck it? Ray crept closer, staying in the shadows and avoiding cactuses. He watched his father fill a bucket from the trough and carry it across the yard. The water hissed when he poured it on something. His father turned his flashlight on the steaming object, a misshapen, dark lump that came up nearly to his shoulders.
Ray had learned about meteorites, and he’d seen shooting stars in the night sky, but he’d never expected to see one up close. What bad luck that it had knocked down the windmill.
As he knelt behind a gnarled mesquite tree, he noticed something moving nearby. He also detected a strange odor, like one of the spices his grandmother used when baking. He peeked around the tree trunk and saw a dark figure. It crouched beside a cluster of prickly pear cactus, watching his father. A low rattle emanated from its throat—a growl, like a dog might make when defending its territory. Ray thought he saw claws at the end of its misshaped fingers. He’d read stories about ogres and trolls, but none of those tales featured anything like this.
A cloud passed over the moon. In the darkness, Ray sensed the creature creeping away. It seemed to be dragging one of its cornstalk legs. He tried to trail the shambling figure, but it eluded him. The strange aroma grew fainter and before long he was left with nothing to follow.
He heard footsteps approaching from the direction of the meteorite. He had to get back to the house ahead of his father or he’d be in big trouble! He scampered to the porch as quickly and quietly as possible, eased open the back door, kicked off his shoes and crept up to his room.
Skip was still asleep. Ray climbed into bed and listened for the sound of the door opening and closing. When it did, he waited for his parents’ voices, but they never came.
Later that night, the creature scratched at his bedroom window. It pressed its elongated face against the dust-covered glass. Its eyes were as large as goose eggs and as black as ebony. Its mouth was crooked and full of teeth that jutted every which way. After he awakened from this nightmare, covered in sweat, Ray clung to his blanket and slept fitfully until he heard the comforting sounds of his mother preparing breakfast.
Fantastic Tales of Terror Page 6