Terrifying Tales to Tell at Night

by Stephen Jones

  “Are you ready?” she asked, standing on the hearth.

  Jeremy looked toward the stairs that led to the first floor. “But we can’t,” he said. “We gotta wait for Will.”

  “The hell with Will,” Stacey said with a sneer. “He’s got his dumb candy, now he’s just playing. We oughta let him stay wherever he is all night.”

  “That’s not fair!”

  “If that’s the way Will wants it,” Bernie said softly, “then that’s the way he’ll have it. If he’s not back before we finish the next game, he’ll forfeit his prize.”

  “Yeah,” Stacey said. “Way t’go, Bernie.’

  She smiled briefly, and he smiled back. She was really queer, but she had bigger tits even than his mother, and he didn’t think she knew that he’d been trying to look down her dress all night. He’d whispered that to Jerry while they were waiting for Will, and the dip had blushed. He really had blushed. Stacey figured the kid didn’t know anything about women, and wasn’t surprised. His old man was the strictest parent in the world, and wouldn’t even let him look at photography magazines. That was dumb. That was really and truly dumb.

  “So,” he said, “when do we start?”

  “Stace . . .”

  “Aw, c’mon, huh? They’re gonna be back soon. We gotta get a move on.”

  “Stacey’s right,” Bernie said. She reached into the apron pocket, then, and pulled out something wrapped in white cloth. Slowly, she pulled the corners aside, and he saw in her palm a massive red jewel. It caught the dim light and doubled it, seemed to quiver when thunder rumbled through the room.

  “Wow,” he said.

  “This,” she said, “was taken from a very rich man. He has the police looking for it. He’s given them one hour to find it or else.” She smiled without showing her teeth. “We’re going to play:”

  cops and robbers

  Stacey knew he had made a mistake. He should have found some place inside to hide the jewel, but had convinced himself that Jerry would have found it in less than ten minutes. After all, it was his house, and he knew all the good places where such a thing could be hidden.

  But this was silly.

  He stood on the patio, the wind tearing at his hair and lashing it in his face, making him squint, hunching his shoulders, making his arms tremble as he considered digging a hole in one of the potted plants and burying it there.

  No. Once Jerry knew he’d left the house, that would be the first place he’d look. And there wasn’t time to dig a hole in the yard because the ground was still hard and he didn’t have any tools.

  Dumb, Parsons, he told himself when the wind turned him around. Really and truly dumb.

  Then a streak of cloud-smothered lightning illuminated the backyard, and he grinned so hard his cheeks began to ache.

  The well. That stupid plaster well Mrs. Kneale had bought last summer. They were forbidden to go near it, to touch, even to breathe on it, which didn’t bother him because he thought it was stupid. What good was a well when it didn’t go anywhere? All Mr. Kneale had done was take it out of the station wagon with Jerry and his help, and carried it to the yard, plunked it down, and got himself a beer to celebrate. Mrs. Kneale had applauded like they’d moved the stupid damn Empire State Building, and after that she and Jerry’s father would sit on the patio and toss pennies at it, making wishes. She’d wanted Stacey to do it once, and he did because Jerry was his friend, but he’d felt dumb and he made Jerry swear later he wouldn’t tell a soul.

  Then, in August, he’d had an idea.

  Mr. Kneale was getting pretty good at pitching the coins in; he could even do it most times with his eyes closed. So one night, when they were supposed to have been over at Will’s, they snuck through the hole in the hedge and moved the well over. Just a few inches, not enough to notice.

  Mr. Kneale missed, moved his chair, and recovered his aim.

  They moved the well again, back where it was, and sat on the other side of the hedge in Will’s yard and laughed themselves into hiccoughs when they heard the guy swearing.

  They managed it twice more, until the night Jerry slipped on the damp grass and the well landed hard. One side cracked. A small split they didn’t think anyone would notice.

  Mrs. Kneale did, and that stupid Jerry broke the minute she asked him if they’d been fooling around.

  Stupidass Jerry. Him and his stupidass books and his posters and not even knowing what Bernie looked like without her clothes. Damn, but they’d gotten into a hell of a lot of trouble, especially when Stacey had let slip a bad word when his mother grabbed for his arm. Christ, that had put him in his room for a whole goddamned week.

  The well, then. Jerry was still too scared to go near it, and wouldn’t dream that his old pal still had the nerve.

  He hurried off the patio onto the grass, crouched over and running on his toes, stopping once when lightning put a shadow in front of him and it took him a moment to realize it was his own. A look back over his shoulder, the draperies were still closed, and he dove around the side of the well, out of the wind.

  Buried lightning again, and the mutter of thunder, and he whirled around when he thought he heard something coming through the hedge.

  Nothing. It was nothing.

  The leaves husked and branches rattled, and grass crawled toward his legs, and all the houses he could see were perfectly dark. Holes in the night; mouths of black monsters that ate people after sunset.

  “Damn,” he said into the wind. It made him feel better, because the wind was getting on his nerves. “Damn, crap, blast, hell.” He smiled, and pulled the ruby out of his pocket, lifted his hand to drop it in the well when he stopped, frowned, and wondered just how stupid-dumb Jerry really was. He just might think of the well, he just might, and if he looked inside with a flashlight he’d see it right away and get all the chocolate. Worse; he’d brag about it to every kid in the school, every day for a goddamned year. Worse yet, he’d prove he was such a good little boy that his parents would lift the grounding, and leave Stacey stuck in his room.

  What he had to do then was think like a robber, a crook who was going to come back real soon and take the loot and run away once the cops had been by. He nodded to himself, looked back to the toolshed and knew that was too obvious. If he was going to hide it out here, then, he would have to put it in the well, but cover it with something. Grass, maybe some dirt, so the light wouldn’t shine off it.

  Suddenly, lightning sheered out of the clouds, ripping a hole in the night like a sheet tearing in half. He jumped and clutched the jewel to his stomach, closed his eyes and waited for the thunder.

  When it came, cracking the air and smashing over his head, his ears stoppered, and he yelled, jumped to his feet, and stared wide-eyed at the house.

  This was nuts. He was going to fry out here, all for a stupid piece of chocolate. Then he put a hand on the plaster lip and looked into the well.

  And blinked.

  The edge only came to his waist, but it looked like it dropped a hundred miles into the ground. Maybe even a million. Mr. Kneale must’ve dug a hole under it, to pretend it was real and keep them from playing their trick on him again. He smiled; it was perfect. And he leaned over, reached out his hand, and when lightning flared again he could see all the way to the bottom. To the grass. To the lousy damned grass.

  “Well, damn,” he said, and without wasting any more time, he hitched himself onto the lip and dropped in.

  The wind passing over the mouth sounded like hollow trumpets, and the sides quivered, the peaked roof shook, and the plastic bucket on the chain rocked alarmingly fast. It was a tight fit, but he had plenty of room to dig a small hole between his shoes with his fingers, place the jewel carefully inside, and cover it again. Then he waited for the next bolt to be sure his work couldn’t be seen.

  When it came, he saw the water, and couldn’t stop himself from falling toward the red eyes floating toward him.

  This isn’t funny anymore, Jeremy thought, hut he didn’t
have the nerve to leave the deacon’s bench and complain. Bernie was in the kitchen again, making something on the stove, rattling pans and banging spoons and whistling so far off-key the noise scraped his spine like claws on a blackboard.

  This isn’t fun.

  He looked over his shoulder, out the window to the yard that flicked in and out of his vision, white, black, white again and jumping over the well in the center. He had thought, a few minutes ago, that he’d seen Stacey creeping around there, but when the lightning came again and there was nothing to see, he changed his mind. Stacey was crazy, but not crazy enough for that.

  His tongue touched his upper lip.

  His left foot tapped on the floor.

  He looked to the stairwell when he thought he heard Will, then looked to the back door when he thought he heard Stace.

  Then the kitchen door slammed open, and Bernie walked in.

  He blinked, and tried to smile, but there was an ice cube settling on the back of his neck, and it grew when he heard the first spattering of rain on the window.

  Bernie sat in his father’s chair by the fireplace and looked at the charred logs, raised her head and smiled straight at him. Her face was in partial shadow, and he could see only one eye, only one part of the mouth, only a few of her teeth.

  “Are you worried about your friends?”

  He nodded, and swallowed because he thought he was going to break down and cry, and that was the one thing he’d promised himself he’d never do again. All it ever did was get a slap from his father, or a shout from his mother—act your age, Jeremy Kneale, you’re not a baby anymore.

  “I wouldn’t,” she whispered. “They’re doing just fine.”

  “How do you know?” he said, more angrily than he’d intended. “All you do is make that stupid popcorn. Will is hurt somewhere, I just know it. And Stacey must be out there in all that rain.” He rose and stood in front of her, hands clenched at his sides, fighting the burning that flushed his cheeks. “You don’t care. You just want to get us in trouble again, that’s all. Our folks are gonna come home, and we’re gonna get in the biggest trouble in the world.”

  Bernie clasped her hands in her lap and watched the logs again, as if they were burning. “Jeremy, do you know what bog butter is?”

  He frowned, looked away, looked back. “What?”

  “It’s our game, Jeremy. Surely you haven’t forgotten the third game. Now answer my question: Have you ever heard of bog butter?”

  “I . . .” He felt a tear in his right eye, a lump of coal in his throat. “Huh?”

  She smiled dreamily, and sighed. “In the old days, long before there was even a United States, they used to bury people in marshes over in England. You know what a marsh is?”

  He nodded.

  The rain slapped at the pane, ran over the edge of the gutter, and poured into the shrubs cringing under the window.

  “Well, sometimes, when they dug these people up, they found that the bodies had oozed a kind of wax over themselves. It looked a little like butter, I guess, so they called it bog butter.”

  “That’s nice,” he said, knowing it sounded stupid, but what else could he say? His friends were lost in the storm and in the house, and Bernie was sitting in his father’s chair talking about dead bodies and butter and—god! —he wished she’d shut up so he could talk to her.

  “At the time, of course, they didn’t know what had caused it, or why it was there.”

  He edged away, his head ducking, his hips turning before he did. And when she didn’t seem to notice, he backed up to the staircase, then flung himself up, racing down the hall to his room on the far end. He checked under the bed, in his closet, under his desk, in the toy chest. He looked out the window and saw nothing but the rain.

  He ducked into his parents’ room, and looked in everything that could have held Will, and everything that couldn’t, not caring that they’d find out when they saw the mess he made.

  The guest room was just as empty.

  “Will?”

  The bathroom echoed thunder.

  “Will!”

  He was sweating now, and he couldn’t stop his fingers from snapping, couldn’t stop his lips from moving as if he were talking to himself. He checked the hall closet, but it was locked. He shook the door as hard as he could, then turned the bolt over and reached in for the string that snapped on the light.

  Something fell against his legs, and he jumped back, yelping, then scowling at an empty shoebox that had dropped from the high shelf.

  When he turned the light on, he saw nothing, not even when he crammed himself in and pushed everything aside that he could move, or kick, or butt with his hips.

  Will wasn’t there.

  He stood in the middle of the hall, turning in a tight circle and yanking his head away from the lightning.

  “Will, where are you?”

  In the bathroom, a faucet began dripping.

  “Will!”

  Downstairs, then, into the living room, the dining room, the coat closet, the pantry.

  He raced through the den, and heard Bernadette still talking about corpses in old England.

  He flung open the front door and stood in the rain, not caring how wet he was getting, just hoping to catch a glimpse of Stacey returning with fat Will in tow. He ran around the house and screamed over the storm into the shrubbery, into the garage, into the hedging that whipped at his arms and drew blood on his cheek.

  “Stacey!” A cry more than a shout.

  “Will!” Begging more than demanding.

  There was no one in the toolshed, no one in the well.

  He plunged back inside and stood by the table.

  “Bernie.”

  She sighed, lightning flared, and the lamp flickered out.

  “Bernie, answer me!”

  He swung his arm and knocked over the bowl of popcorn. He kicked the table’s near leg and toppled the glasses of soda. He picked up a chocolate bar and flung it at the hearth.

  “Bernie, damnit!”

  “Now that,” she said, “is one of the things your father objects to. That kind of language.”

  “But—”

  “And not paying attention. He said—they all said—none of you pays the slightest attention to them.” She turned her head; he could see it moving though he couldn’t see her eyes. “I could see that the first time I came here. And I could see something else, something rather sad, when you think about it a bit.”

  He shook his head and felt the water scattering across the room. “I don’t give a damn about them now,” he said, grabbing the card table by its edges and tipping it to the floor. “I want to know what you did with Will and Stacey!”

  “You see, Jeremy, there are some people who just aren’t cut out to be parents. They haven’t the innate skills, or the temperament for it. Soon enough, they learn that children aren’t pets, they’re real human beings, and that’s quite a revelation, don’t you think? That children are human beings?”

  He started to cry. He couldn’t help it. Frustration at her refusal to respond made him so angry he couldn’t stop the tears, or the way his legs stiffened as he kicked aside the wreckage and started to walk towards her.

  “You, of course, didn’t help very much,” she said in light scolding.

  “Bernie, please!”

  “So your father found someone who knew me. And I came to help them get over their problem.”

  He stopped.

  He could hear the soft whisper of Bernie’s dress as she pushed out of the chair; he could hear the moist rattling of her breath in her throat; he could hear the odd way her feet struck the carpet as she walked over to meet him.

  “Now, do you remember what I said about bog butter, Jeremy?”

  He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and screamed, “I don’t care!”

  “Ah, but you should, dear, you should.”

  There was lightning, and he gasped.

  “They thought, you see, it was a curious little by-product
of decomposition.”

  There was thunder, and the lamp flickered.

  “It isn’t, you know.”

  The lamp steadied, and he saw her, saw her soft silken dress and her soft silken hair and the glistening yellow wax that covered her soft silken arms.

  “It’s protection, my love.”

  He backed away, and screamed.

  The lamp sizzled and went out.

  “It keeps us alive. So we can help those who need us.” She laughed then, and moved closer. “Now what are you afraid of, dear Jeremy my love. Why don’t you tell me so I can show you what it’s like.”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Special thanks to Kim Lim, Sara Broecker, Chad Buffington (Writers House LLC), Linda Smith, Chuck Verrill, Yessenia Santos (Simon & Schuster, Inc.), Violeta Mitrova (Hodder and Stoughton), David Drake, Kathryn Ptacek, Mandy Slater, and Jo Fletcher, for their help with compiling this volume.

  “Introduction” copyright © Stephen Jones 2019.

  “Click-clack the Rattlebag” copyright © Neil Gaiman 2013. Originally published in Impossible Monsters. Reprinted by permission of the author and the author’s agent.

  “Homemade Monster” copyright © R. Chetwynd-Hayes 1976. Originally published in The 2nd Armada Monster Book. Reprinted by permission of the author’s estate.

  “The Sideways Lady” copyright © Lynda E. Rucker 2019. Original to this anthology.

  “Here There Be Tygers” copyright © Stephen King 1968, 1985. Originally published in Ubris, Spring 1968, and Skeleton Crew. Reprinted by permission of Scribner, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.

  “The Chimney” copyright © Ramsey Campbell 1977. Originally published in Whispers: An Anthology of Fantasy and Horror. Reprinted by permission of the author. Punctuation and style follow the author’s preferred usage.

  “School for the Unspeakable” copyright © Manly Wade Wellman 1937. Originally published in Weird Tales, September 1937. Reprinted by permission of the author’s estate.

  “Granny’s Grinning” copyright © Robert Shearman 2009. Originally published in The Dead That Walk: Zombie Stories. Reprinted by permission of the author.