Terrifying Tales to Tell at Night

by Stephen Jones

  Real estate agent Heather Woodrow says she attempted to sell or even rent the house several times on behalf of Adam Beaumont, a descendent of the brother of former State Sen. Nathaniel Beaumont, who, along with his family, was last seen at the home in 1968. Woodrow says despite the house’s remarkable features and long history, potential buyers were always put off by what they said was a “bad feeling” they got on walk-throughs.

  “I never felt anything like that myself,” Woodrow acknowledged. “I think they probably heard stories and that influenced how they felt about it when they finally got around to looking at it.

  “Still, you’d think some people would believe it was fun to live in a haunted house! I guess it just never found the right buyers.”

  The Beaumont House was brought to America in 1899 by Ralph Brightman, a railway baron who wanted a “castle” for his wife. It seems likely that if Brightman or his wife had done any research into the house that was nestled deep in the Devon countryside and sold for a pittance to the rich American on the grounds that it be moved but not destroyed, they might have chosen a different dwelling.

  According to the local historical society there, the house, which was built in the seventeenth century, had long been the focus of stories about wealthy peers dabbling in occult rites. One old legend in particular concerned an entity known locally as the “Sydewise Lady.” Half-woman and half-demon, she lured people with her unearthly beauty before turning to reveal her demonic other half. It was said that many a weary traveler vanished in the vicinity of the house, which had been abandoned for decades by the time Brightman purchased it.

  Over the years, there were local efforts from time to time to have the city of Ellington purchase the home and use it for community events, but these plans always stalled.

  Now Ellington’s peculiar landmark is no more.

  Stevie kept the article, folded up in her desk drawer. She went back to the True Hauntings website a few times to reread the story there, but she wasn’t able to find it again.

  A few weeks after the tornado, she rode her bike over to the site of the Beaumont House one Sunday afternoon. A demolition crew had clearly been working to clean up and haul off the debris the storm left behind. Their equipment—a bulldozer, an excavator with a long yellow arm crooked up toward the sky—sat amid neatly stacked piles of rubble. Nothing was left that was recognizable as a house. The storm’s fury had been precise and thorough.

  All the same, there was something strange in the air where the house had been. An emptiness, as if a void could have a presence and a shape.

  Stevie left her bike on the sidewalk and ignored the signage warning her to keep off the property. She stood where she remembered the porch had been, then took a few steps further into the hallway, the room with the candles, and the terrible place where she had seen the Sideways Lady.

  Ever since the tornado, a thought had haunted her, and she could not make it go away.

  The storm might have destroyed the house, but what if instead of destroying the Sideways Lady along with it, the wind had scattered her far and wide, releasing her from the walls that kept her captured for centuries? What if now the Sideways Lady could be anywhere she wanted to be?

  A shadow moved across the sun, and the warm spring day went cold.

  HERE THERE BE TYGERS

  STEPHEN KING

  CHARLES NEEDED TO go to the bathroom very badly.

  There was no longer any use in trying to fool himself that he could wait for recess. His bladder was screaming at him, and Miss Bird had caught him squirming.

  There were three third-grade teachers in the Acorn Street Grammar School. Miss Kinney was young and blond and bouncy and had a boyfriend who picked her up after school in a blue Camaro. Mrs. Trask was shaped like a Moorish pillow and did her hair in braids and laughed boomingly. And there was Miss Bird.

  Charles had known he would end up with Miss Bird. He had known that. It had been inevitable. Because Miss Bird obviously wanted to destroy him. She did not allow children to go to the basement. The basement, Miss Bird said, was where the boilers were kept, and well-groomed ladies and gentlemen would never go down there, because basements were nasty, sooty old things. Young ladies and gentlemen do not go to the basement, she said. They go to the bathroom.

  Charles squirmed again.

  Miss Bird cocked an eye at him. “Charles,” she said clearly, still pointing her pointer at Bolivia, “do you need to go to the bathroom?”

  Cathy Scott in the seat ahead of him giggled, wisely covering her mouth.

  Kenny Griffen sniggered and kicked Charles under his desk. Charles went bright red.

  “Speak up, Charles,” Miss Bird said brightly. “Do you need to—”

  (urinate she’ll say urinate she always does)

  “Yes, Miss Bird.”

  “Yes, what?”

  “I have to go to the base—to the bathroom.”

  Miss Bird smiled. “Very well, Charles. You may go to the bathroom and urinate. Is that what you need to do? Urinate?”

  Charles hung his head, convicted.

  “Very well, Charles. You may do so. And next time kindly don’t wait to be asked.”

  General giggles. Miss Bird rapped the board with her pointer.

  Charles trudged up the row toward the door, thirty pairs of eyes boring into his back, and every one of those kids, including Cathy Scott, knew that he was going into the bathroom to urinate. The door was at least a football field’s length away. Miss Bird did not go on with the lesson but kept her silence until he had opened the door, entered the blessedly empty hall, and shut the door again.

  He walked down toward the boys’ bathroom

  (basement basement basement IF I WANT)

  dragging his fingers along the cool tile of the wall, letting them bounce over the thumbtack-stippled bulletin board and slide lightly across the red

  (BREAK GLASS IN CASE OF EMERGENCY)

  fire-alarm box.

  Miss Bird liked it. Miss Bird liked making him have a red face. In front of Cathy Scott—who never needed to go to the basement, was that fair?—and everybody else.

  Old b-i-t-c-h, he thought. He spelled because he had decided last year God didn’t say it was a sin if you spelled.

  He went into the boys’ bathroom.

  It was very cool inside, with a faint, not unpleasant smell of chlorine hanging pungently in the air. Now, in the middle of the morning, it was clean and deserted, peaceful and quite pleasant, not at all like the smoky, stinky cubicle at the Star Theatre downtown.

  The bathroom

  (!basement!)

  was built like an L, the short side lined with tiny square mirrors and white porcelain washbowls and a paper towel dispenser,

  (NIBROC)

  the longer side with two urinals and three toilet cubicles.

  Charles went around the corner after glancing morosely at his thin, rather pallid face in one of the mirrors.

  The tiger was lying down at the far end, just underneath the pebbly-white window. It was a large tiger, with tawny Venetian blinds and dark stripes laid across its pelt. It looked up alertly at Charles, and its green eyes narrowed. A kind of silky, purring grunt issued from its mouth. Smooth muscles flexed, and the tiger got to its feet. Its tail switched, making little chinking sounds against the porcelain side of the last urinal.

  The tiger looked quite hungry and very vicious.

  Charles hurried back the way he had come. The door seemed to take forever to wheeze pneumatically closed behind him, but when it did, he considered himself safe. This door only swung in, and he could not remember ever reading or hearing that tigers are smart enough to open doors.

  Charles wiped the back of his hand across his nose. His heart was thumping so hard he could hear it. He still needed to go to the basement, worse than ever.

  He squirmed, winced, and pressed a hand against his belly. He really had to go to the basement. If he could only be sure no one would come, he could use the girls’. It was right acr
oss the hall. Charles looked at it longingly, knowing he would never dare, not in a million years. What if Cathy Scott should come? Or—black horror!—what if Miss Bird should come?

  Perhaps he had imagined the tiger.

  He opened the door wide enough for one eye and peeked in.

  The tiger was peeking back from around the angle of the L, its eye a sparkling green. Charles fancied he could see a tiny blue fleck in that deep brilliance, as if the tiger’s eye had eaten one of his own. As if—

  A hand slid around his neck.

  Charles gave a stifled cry and felt his heart and stomach cram up into his throat. For one terrible moment he thought he was going to wet himself.

  It was Kenny Griffen, smiling complacently. “Miss Bird sent me after you ’cause you been gone six years. You’re in trouble.”

  “Yeah, but I can’t go to the basement,” Charles said, feeling faint with the fright Kenny had given him.

  “Yer constipated!” Kenny chortled gleefully. “Wait’ll I tell Caaathy!”

  “You better not!” Charles said urgently. “Besides, I’m not. There’s a tiger in there.”

  “What’s he doing?” Kenny asked. “Takin’ a piss?”

  “I don’t know,” Charles said, turning his face to the wall. “I just wish he’d go away.” He began to weep.

  “Hey,” Kenny said, bewildered and a little frightened. “Hey.”

  “What if I have to go? What if I can’t help it? Miss Bird’ll say—”

  “Come on,” Kenny said, grabbing his arm in one hand and pushing the door open with the other. “You’re making it up.”

  They were inside before Charles, terrified, could break free and cower back against the door.

  “Tiger,” Kenny said disgustedly. “Boy, Miss Bird’s gonna kill you.”

  “It’s around the other side.”

  Kenny began to walk past the washbowls. “Kitty-kitty-kitty? Kitty?”

  “Don’t!” Charles hissed.

  Kenny disappeared around the corner. “Kitty-kitty? Kitty-kitty? Kit—”

  Charles darted out the door again and pressed himself against the wall, waiting, his hands over his mouth and his eyes squinched shut, waiting, waiting for the scream.

  There was no scream.

  He had no idea how long he stood there, frozen, his bladder bursting. He looked at the door to the boys’ basement. It told him nothing. It was just a door.

  He wouldn’t.

  He couldn’t.

  But at last he went in.

  The washbowls and the mirrors were neat, and the faint smell of chlorine was unchanged. But there seemed to be a smell under it. A faint, unpleasant smell, like freshly sheared copper.

  With groaning (but silent) trepidation, he went to the corner of the L and peeped around.

  The tiger was sprawled on the floor, licking its large paws with a long pink tongue. It looked incuriously at Charles. There was a torn piece of shirt caught in one set of claws.

  But his need was a white agony now, and he couldn’t help it. He had to. Charles tiptoed back to the white porcelain basin closest the door.

  Miss Bird slammed in just as he was zipping his pants.

  “Why, you dirty, filthy little boy,” she said almost reflectively.

  Charles was keeping a weather eye on the corner. “I’m sorry, Miss Bird . . . the tiger . . . I’m going to clean the sink . . . I’ll use soap ... I swear I will . . .”

  “Where’s Kenneth?” Miss Bird asked calmly.

  “I don’t know.”

  He didn’t, really.

  “Is he back there?”

  “No!” Charles cried.

  Miss Bird stalked to the place where the room bent. “Come here, Kenneth. Right this moment.”

  “Miss Bird—”

  But Miss Bird was already around the corner. She meant to pounce. Charles thought Miss Bird was about to find out what pouncing was really all about.

  He went out the door again. He got a drink at the drinking fountain. He looked at the American flag hanging over the entrance to the gym. He looked at the bulletin board. Woodsy Owl said GIVE A HOOT, DON’T POLLUTE. Officer Friendly said NEVER RIDE WITH STRANGERS. Charles read everything twice.

  Then he went back to the classroom, walked down his row to his seat with his eyes on the floor, and slid into his seat. It was a quarter to eleven. He took out Roads to Everywhere and began to read about Bill at the Rodeo.

  THE CHIMNEY

  RAMSEY CAMPBELL

  MAYBE MOST OF it was only fear. But not the last thing, not that. To blame my fear for that would be worst of all.

  I was twelve years old and beginning to conquer my fears. I even went upstairs to do my homework, and managed to ignore the chimney. I had to be brave, because of my parents—because of my mother.

  She had always been afraid for me. The very first day I had gone to school I’d seen her watching. Her expression had reminded me of the face of a girl I’d glimpsed on television, watching men lock her husband behind bars; I was frightened all that first day. And when children had hysterics or began to bully me, or the teacher lost her temper, these things only confirmed my fears—and my mother’s, when I told her what had happened each day.

  Now I was at grammar school. I had been there for much of a year. I’d felt awkward in my new uniform and old shoes; the building seemed enormous, crowded with too many strange children and teachers. I’d felt I was an outsider; friendly approaches made me nervous and sullen, when people laughed and I didn’t know why I was sure they were laughing at me. After a while the other boys treated me as I seemed to want to be treated: the lads from the poorer districts mocked my suburban accent, the suburban boys sneered at my old shoes.

  Often I’d sat praying that the teacher wouldn’t ask me a question I couldn’t answer, sat paralysed by my dread of having to stand up in the waiting watchful silence. If a teacher shouted at someone my heart jumped painfully; once I’d felt the stain of my shock creeping insidiously down my thigh. Yet I did well in the end-of-term examinations, because I was terrified of failing; for nights afterwards they were another reason why I couldn’t sleep.

  My mother read the signs of all this on my face. More and more, once I’d told her what was wrong, I had to persuade her there was nothing worse that I’d kept back. Some mornings as I lay in bed, trying to hold back half-past seven, I’d be sick; I would grope miserably downstairs, white-faced, and my mother would keep me home. Once or twice, when my fear wasn’t quite enough, I made myself sick. “Look at him. You can’t expect him to go like that”—but my father would only shake his head and grunt, dismissing us both.

  I knew my father found me embarrassing. This year he’d had less time for me than usual; his shop—The Anything Shop, nearby in the suburbanised village—was failing to compete with the new supermarket. But before that trouble I’d often seen him staring up at my mother and me: both of us taller than him, his eyes said, yet both scared of our own shadows. At those times I glimpsed his despair.

  So my parents weren’t reassuring. Yet at night I tried to stay with them as long as I could—for my worst fears were upstairs, in my room.

  It was a large room, two rooms knocked into one by the previous owner. It overlooked the small back gardens. The smaller of the fireplaces had been bricked up; in winter, the larger held a fire, which my mother always feared would set fire to the room—but she let it alone, for I’d screamed when I thought she was going to take that light away: even though the firelight only added to the terrors of the room.

  The shadows moved things. The mesh of the fireguard fluttered enlarged on the wall; sometimes, at the edge of sleep, it became a swaying web, and its spinner came sidling down from a corner of the ceiling. Everything was unstable; walls shifted, my clothes crawled on the back of the chair. Once, when I’d left my jacket slumped over the chair, the collar’s dark upturned lack of a face began to nod forward stealthily; the holes at the ends of the sleeves worked like mouths, and I didn’t dare get up t
o hang the jacket properly. The room grew in the dark: sounds outside, footsteps and laughter, dogs encouraging each other to bark, only emphasised the size of my trap of darkness, how distant everything else was. And there was a dimmer room in the mirror of the wardrobe beyond the foot of the bed. There was a bed in that room, and beside it a dim nightlight in a plastic lantern. Once I’d awakened to see a face staring dimly at me from the mirror; a figure had sat up when I had, and I’d almost cried out. Often I’d stared at the dim staring face, until I’d had to hide beneath the sheets.

  Of course this couldn’t go on for the rest of my life. On my twelfth birthday I set about the conquest of my room.

  I was happy amid my presents. I had a jigsaw, a box of coloured pencils, a book of space stories. They had come from my father’s shop, but they were mine now. Because I was relaxed, no doubt because she wished I could always be so, my mother said “Would you be happier if you went to another school?”

  It was Saturday; I wanted to forget Monday. Besides, I imagined all schools were as frightening. “No, I’m all right,” I said.

  “Are you happy at school now?” she said incredulously.

  “Yes, it’s all right.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, really, it’s all right. I mean, I’m happy now.”

  The snap of the letter slot saved me from further lying. Three birthday cards: two from neighbours who talked to me when I served them in the shop—an old lady who always carried a poodle, our next-door neighbour Dr. Flynn—and a card from my parents. I’d seen all three cards in the shop, which spoiled them somehow.

  As I stood in the hall I heard my father. “You’ve got to control yourself,” he was saying. “You only upset the child. If you didn’t go on at him he wouldn’t be half so bad.”

  It infuriated me to be called a child. “But I worry so,” my mother said brokenly. “He can’t look after himself.”

  “You don’t let him try. You’ll have him afraid to go up to bed next.”