Terrifying Tales to Tell at Night

by Stephen Jones

  But he wasn’t telling me either. He was looking at me as if I were a stranger he had to chat to. I felt uneasy, unsure now that I wanted to hear what he had to say. A man was approaching the shop. I stood up, hoping he’d interrupt.

  He did, and I served him. Then, to delay my father’s revelation, I adjusted stacks of tins. My father stared at me in disgust. “If you don’t watch out you’ll be as bad as your mother.”

  I found the idea of being like my mother strange, indefinably disturbing. But he wouldn’t let me be like him, wouldn’t let me near. All right, I’d be brave, I’d listen to what he had to say. But he said “Oh, it’s not worth me trying to tell you. You’ll find out.”

  He meant I must find out for myself that Father Christmas was a childish fantasy. He didn’t mean he wanted the thing from the chimney to come for me, the disgust in his eyes didn’t mean that, it didn’t. He meant that I had to behave like a man.

  And I could. I’d show him. The chimney was silent. I needn’t worry until Christmas Eve. Nor then. There was nothing to come out.

  One evening as I walked home I saw Dr. Flynn in his front room. He was standing before a mirror, gazing at his red fur-trimmed hooded suit; he stooped to pick up his beard. My mother told me that he was going to act Father Christmas at the children’s hospital. She seemed on the whole glad that I’d seen. So was I: it proved the pretence was only for children.

  Except that the glimpse reminded me how near Christmas was. As the nights closed on the days, and the days rushed by—the end-of-term party, the turkey, decorations in the house—I grew tense, trying to prepare myself. For what? For nothing, nothing at all. Well, I would know soon—for suddenly it was Christmas Eve.

  I was busy all day. I washed up as my mother prepared Christmas dinner. I brought her ingredients, and hurried to buy some she’d used up. I stuck the day’s cards to tapes above the mantelpiece. I carried home a tinsel tree which nobody had bought. But being busy only made the day move faster. Before I knew it the windows were full of night.

  Christmas Eve. Well, it didn’t worry me. I was too old for that sort of thing. The tinsel tree rustled when anyone passed it, light rolled in tinsel globes, streamers flinched back when doors opened. Swinging restlessly on tapes above the mantelpiece were half a dozen red-cheeked smiling bearded faces.

  The night piled against the windows. I chattered to my mother about her shouting father, her elder sisters, the time her sisters had locked her in a cellar. My father grunted occasionally—even when I’d run out of subjects to discuss with my mother, and tried to talk to him about the shop. At least he hadn’t noticed how late I was staying up. But he had. “It’s about time everyone was in bed,” he said with a kind of suppressed fury.

  “Can I have some more coal?” My mother would never let me have a coal scuttle in the bedroom—she didn’t want me going near the fire. “To put on now,” I said. Surely she must say yes. “It’ll be cold in the morning,” I said.

  “Yes, you take some. You don’t want to be cold when you’re looking at what Father—at your presents.”

  I hurried upstairs with the scuttle. Over its clatter I heard my father say “Are you still at that? Can’t you let him grow up?”

  I almost emptied the scuttle into the fire, which rose roaring and crackling. My father’s voice was an angry mumble, seeping through the floor. When I carried the scuttle down my mother’s eyes were red, my father looked furiously, determined. I’d always found their arguments frightening; I was glad to hurry to my room.

  It seemed welcoming. The fire was bright within the mesh. I heard my mother come upstairs. That was comforting too: she was nearer now. I heard my father go next door—to wish the doctor Happy Christmas, I supposed. I didn’t mind the reminder. There was nothing of Christmas Eve in my room, except the pillowcase waiting to be filled with presents on the floor at the foot of the bed. I pushed it aside with one foot, the better to ignore it.

  I slid into bed. My father came upstairs; I heard further mumblings of argument through the bedroom wall. At last they stopped, and I tried to relax. I lay, glad of the silence.

  A wind was rushing the house. It puffed down the chimney; smoke trickled through the fireguard. Now the wind was breathing brokenly. It was only the wind. It didn’t bother me.

  Perhaps I’d put too much coal on the fire. The room was hot; I was sweating. I felt almost feverish. The huge mesh flicked over the wall repeatedly, nervously, like a rapid net. Within the mirror the dimmer room danced.

  Suddenly I was a little afraid. Not that something would come out of the chimney, that was stupid: afraid that my feeling of fever would make me delirious again. It seemed years since I’d been disturbed by the sight of the room in the mirror, but I was disturbed now. There was something wrong with that dim jerking room.

  The wind breathed. Only the wind, I couldn’t hear it changing. A fat billow of smoke squeezed through the mesh. The room seemed more oppressive now, and smelled of smoke. It didn’t smell entirely like coal smoke, but I couldn’t tell what else was burning. I didn’t want to get up to find out.

  I must lie still. Otherwise I’d be writhing about trying to clutch at sleep, as I had the second night of my fever, and sometimes in summer. I must sleep before the room grew too hot. I must keep my eyes shut. I mustn’t be distracted by the faint trickling of soot, nor the panting of the wind, nor the shadows and orange light that snatched at my eyes through my eyelids.

  I woke in darkness. The fire had gone out. No, it was still there when I opened my eyes: subdued orange crawled on embers, a few weak flames leapt repetitively. The room was moving more slowly now. The dim room in the mirror, the face peering out at me, jerked faintly, as if almost dead.

  I couldn’t look at that. I slid farther down the bed, dragging the pillow into my nest. I was too hot, but at least beneath the sheets I felt safe. I began to relax. Then I realised what I’d seen. The light had been dim, but I was almost sure the fireguard was standing away from the hearth.

  I must have mistaken that, in the dim light. I wasn’t feverish, I couldn’t have sleepwalked again. There was no need for me to look, I was comfortable. But I was beginning to admit that I had better look when I heard the slithering in the chimney.

  Something large was coming down. A fall of soot: I could hear the scattering pats of soot in the grate, thrown down by the harsh halting wind. But the wind was emerging from the fireplace, into the room. It was above me, panting through its obstructed throat.

  I lay staring up at the mask of my sheets. I trembled from holding myself immobile. My held breath filled me painfully as lumps of rock. I had only to lie there until whatever was above me went away. It couldn’t touch me.

  The clogged breath bent nearer; I could hear its dry rattling. Then something began to fumble at the sheets over my face. It plucked feebly at them, trying to grasp them, as if it had hardly anything to grasp with. My own hands clutched at the sheets from within, but couldn’t hold them down entirely. The sheets were being tugged from me, a fraction at a time. Soon I would be face to face with my visitor.

  I was lying there with my eyes squeezed tight when it let go of the sheets and went away. My throbbing lungs had forced me to take shallow breaths; now I breathed silently open-mouthed, though that filled my mouth with fluff. The tolling of my ears subsided, and I realised the thing had not returned to the chimney. It was still in the room.

  I couldn’t hear its breathing; it couldn’t be near me. Only that thought allowed me to look—that, and the desperate hope that I might escape, since it moved so slowly. I peeled the sheets down from my face slowly, stealthily, until my eyes were bare. My heartbeats shook me. In the sluggishly shifting light I saw a figure at the foot of the bed.

  Its red costume was thickly furred with soot. It had its back to me; its breathing was muffled by the hood. What shocked me most was its size. It occurred to me, somewhere amid my engulfing terror, that burning shrivels things. The figure stood in the mirror as well, in the dim twi
tching room. A face peered out of the hood in the mirror, like a charred turnip carved with a rigid grin.

  The stunted figure was still moving painfully. It edged round the foot of the bed and stooped to my pillowcase. I saw it draw the pillowcase up over itself and sink down. As it sank its hood fell back, and I saw the charred turnip roll about in the hood, as if there were almost nothing left to support it.

  I should have had to pass the pillowcase to reach the door. I couldn’t move. The room seemed enormous, and was growing darker; my parents were far away. At last I managed to drag the sheets over my face, and pulled the pillow, like muffs, around my ears.

  I had lain sleeplessly for hours when I heard movement at the foot of the bed. The thing had got out of its sack again. It was coming towards me. It was tugging at the sheets, more strongly now. Before I could catch hold of the sheets I glimpsed a red fur-trimmed sleeve, and was screaming.

  “Let go, will you,” my father said irritably. “Good God, it’s only me.”

  He was wearing Dr. Flynn’s disguise, which flapped about him—the jacket, at least; his pyjama cuffs peeked beneath it. I stopped screaming and began to giggle hysterically. I think he would have struck me, but my mother ran in. “It’s all right. All right,” she reassured me, and explained to him “It’s the shock.”

  He was making angrily for the door when she said “Oh, don’t go yet, Albert. Stay while he opens his presents,” and, lifting the bulging pillowcase from the floor, dumped it beside me.

  I couldn’t push it away, I couldn’t let her see my terror. I made myself pull out my presents into the daylight, books, sweets, ballpoints; as I groped deeper I wondered whether the charred face would crumble when I touched it. Sweat pricked my hands; they shook with horror—they could, because my mother couldn’t see them.

  The pillowcase contained nothing but presents and a pinch of soot. When I was sure it was empty I slumped against the headboard, panting. “He’s tired,” my mother said, in defence of my ingratitude. “He was up very late last night.”

  Later I managed an accident, dropping the pillowcase on the fire downstairs. I managed to eat Christmas dinner, and to go to bed that night. I lay awake, even though I was sure nothing would come out of the chimney now. Later I realised why my father had come to my room in the morning dressed like that; he’d intended me to catch him, to cure me of the pretence. But it was many years before I enjoyed Christmas very much.

  When I left school I went to work in libraries. Ten years later I married. My wife and I crossed town weekly to visit my parents. My mother chattered; my father was taciturn. I don’t think he ever quite forgave me for laughing at him.

  One winter night our telephone rang. I answered it, hoping it wasn’t the police. My library was then suffering from robberies. All I wanted was to sit before the fire and imagine the glittering cold outside. But it was Dr. Flynn.

  “Your parents’ house is on fire,” he told me. “Your father’s trapped in there. Your mother needs you.”

  They’d had a friend to stay. My mother had lit the fire in the guest room, my old bedroom. A spark had eluded the fireguard; the carpet had caught fire. Impatient for the fire engine, my father had run back into the house to put the fire out, but had been overcome. All this I learned later. Now I drove coldly across town, towards the glow in the sky.

  The glow was doused by the time I arrived. Smoke scrolled over the roof. But my mother had found a coal sack and was struggling still to run into the house, to beat out the fire; her friend and Dr. Flynn held her back. She dropped the sack and ran to me. “Oh, it’s your father. It’s Albert,” she repeated through her weeping.

  The firemen withdrew their hose. The ambulance stood winking. I saw the front door open, and a stretcher carried out. The path was wet and frosty. One stretcher-bearer slipped, and the contents of the stretcher spilled over the path.

  I saw Dr. Flynn glance at my mother. Only the fear that she might turn caused him to act. He grabbed the sack and, running to the path, scooped up what lay scattered there. I saw the charred head roll on the lip of the sack before it dropped within. I had seen that already, years ago.

  My mother came to live with us, but we could see she was pining; my parents must have loved each other, in their way. She died a year later. Perhaps I killed them both. I know that what emerged from the chimney was in some sense my father. But surely that was a premonition. Surely my fear could never have reached out to make him die that way.

  SCHOOL FOR THE UNSPEAKABLE

  MANLY WADE WELLMAN

  BART SETWICK DROPPED off the train at Carrington and stood for a moment on the station platform, an honest-faced, well-knit lad in tweeds. This little town and its famous school would be his home for the next eight months; but which way to the school? The sun had set, and he could barely see the shop signs across Carrington’s modest main street. He hesitated, and a soft voice spoke at his very elbow:

  “Are you for the school?”

  Startled, Bart Setwick wheeled. In the gray twilight stood another youth, smiling thinly and waiting as if for an answer. The stranger was all of nineteen years old—that meant maturity to young Setwick, who was fifteen—and his pale face had shrewd lines to it. His tall, shambling body was clad in high-necked jersey and unfashionably tight trousers. Bart Setwick skimmed him with the quick, appraising eye of young America.

  “I just got here,” he replied. “My name’s Setwick.”

  “Mine’s Hoag.” Out came a slender hand. Setwick took it and found it froggy-cold, with a suggestion of steel-wire muscles. “Glad to meet you. I came down on the chance someone would drop off the train. Let me give you a lift to the school.”

  Hoag turned away, felinely light for all his ungainliness, and led his new acquaintance around the corner of the little wooden railway station. Behind the structure, half hidden in its shadow, stood a shabby buggy with a lean bay horse in the shafts.

  “Get in,” invited Hoag, but Bart Setwick paused for a moment. His generation was not used to such vehicles. Hoag chuckled and said, “Oh, this is only a school wrinkle. We run to funny customs. Get in.”

  Setwick obeyed. “How about my trunk?”

  “Leave it.” The taller youth swung himself in beside Setwick and took the reins. “You’ll not need it tonight.”

  He snapped his tongue and the bay horse stirred, drew them around and off down a bush-lined side road. Its hoofbeats were oddly muffled.

  They turned a corner, another, and came into open country. The lights of Carrington, newly kindled against the night, hung behind like a constellation settled down to Earth. Setwick felt a hint of chill that did not seem to fit the September evening.

  “How far is the school from town?” he asked.

  “Four or five miles,” Hoag replied in his hushed voice. “That was deliberate on the part of the founders—they wanted to make it hard for the students to get to town for larks. It forced us to dig up our own amusements.” The pale face creased in a faint smile, as if this were a pleasantry. “There’s just a few of the right sort on hand tonight. By the way, what did you get sent out for?”

  Setwick frowned his mystification. “Why, to go to school. Dad sent me.”

  “But what for? Don’t you know that this is a high-class prison prep? Half of us are lunkheads that need poking along, the other half are fellows who got in scandals somewhere else. Like me.” Again Hoag smiled.

  Setwick began to dislike his companion. They rolled a mile or so in silence before Hoag again asked a question:

  “Do you go to church, Setwick?”

  The new boy was afraid to appear priggish, and made a careless show with, “Not very often.”

  “Can you recite anything from the Bible?” Hoag’s soft voice took on an anxious tinge.

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Good,” was the almost-hearty response. “As I was saying, there’s only a few of us at the school tonight—only three, to be exact. And we don’t like Bible-quoters.”

 
; Setwick laughed, trying to appear sage and cynical. “Isn’t Satan reputed to quote the Bible to his own—”

  “What do you know about Satan?” interrupted Hoag. He turned full on Setwick, studying him with intent, dark eyes. Then, as if answering his own question: “Little enough, I’ll bet. Would you like to know about him?”

  “Sure I would,” replied Setwick, wondering what the joke would be.

  “I’ll teach you after a while,” Hoag promised cryptically, and silence fell again.

  Half a moon was well up as they came in sight of a dark jumble of buildings.

  “Here we are,” announced Hoag, and then, throwing back his head, he emitted a wild, wordless howl that made Setwick almost jump out of the buggy. “That’s to let the others know we’re coming,” he explained. “Listen!”

  Back came a seeming echo of the howl, shrill, faint, and eerie. The horse wavered in its muffled trot, and Hoag clucked it back into step. They turned in at a driveway well grown up in weeds, and two minutes more brought them up to the rear of the closest building. It was dim-gray in the wash of moonbeams, with blank, inky rectangles for windows. Nowhere was there a light, but as the buggy came to a halt Setwick saw a young head pop out of a window on the lower floor.

  “Here already, Hoag?” came a high, reedy voice.

  “Yes,” answered the youth at the reins, “and I’ve brought a new man with me.”

  Thrilling a bit to hear himself called a man, Setwick alighted. “His name’s Setwick,” went on Hoag. “Meet Andoff, Setwick. A great friend of mine.”

  Andoff flourished a hand in greeting and scrambled out over the windowsill. He was chubby and squat and even paler than Hoag, with a low forehead beneath lank, wet-looking hair, and black eyes set wide apart in a fat, stupid-looking face. His shabby jacket was too tight for him, and beneath worn knickers his legs and feet were bare. He might have been an overgrown thirteen or an undeveloped eighteen.

  “Felcher ought to be along in half a second,” he volunteered.