The Seventh Pan Book of Horror Stories Part 1

The Seventh Pan Book of Horror Stories.

Selected y Herbert van Thal.

Acknowledgements.

Mr Charles Benfleet for the man who hated flies.

Mr R. Chetwynd-Hayes and London Authors for the thing.

Mr G. M. Glaskin and David Higham a.s.sociates Limited for the return.

Mr David Grant and London Authors for the bats.

Miss Dulcie Gray and London Authors for the fur brooch and dream house.

Mr Harry Harrison and Victor Gollancz Limited for the streets of ashkelon from Two Tales and Eight Tomorrows.

Miss Patricia Highsmith and A. M. Heath & Company Limited for the snail watcher.

The Executors of the late W. W. Jacobs and The Society of Authors for the monkey's paw.

Mr John D. Keefauver and London Authors for the last experiment and mareta.

Mrs Irene Morris for I'll never leave you - ever.

Mr William Sansom for a smell of fear, Mr William Sansom and The Hogarth Press for the little room from Something Terrible, Something Lovely.

Miss Rosemary Timperley and Harvey Unna Limited for street of the blind donkey.

Mr Martin Waddell and London Authors for cannibals and the old adam.

Miss Elizabeth Walter and The Harvill Press Limited for the island of regrets from Snowfall.

THE MAN WHO HATED FLIES.

By Charles J. Benfleet.

I first knew Hugo Latymer when he was a newly-appointed a.s.sistant housemaster and I, a mere ten years his junior, was in my final year at school. He took the Upper Sixth for Chemistry, but the main appeal of his cla.s.ses was the way he could be side-tracked into talking about virtually anything else under the sun. Most of all I enjoyed the lengthy discussions on quasi-scientific subjects - telepathy, telekinesis, spiritualism and the like.

After I left we still used to see quite a lot of each other as I had taken a position with a firm in Horsham and so within easy reach of Cranleigh. Before long he ceased looking on me as Benfleet, C. J., but rather as Charles and we established a fairly regular routine whereby I dined with him once a year and returned his hospitality at similar intervals.

Hugo was in no sense a crank nor, indeed, am I (or so I firmly believe) but it seems to me wrong to accept modern science as the be-all and end-all of our understanding of the Universe. Many of the ideas that were scorned in their day have now become accepted and it is not so very long ago that men were put to death for believing that the Earth revolved around the Sun. No, we both believed that Man has only just begun to understand the great, universal Truth as a small child might take its first, tottering steps.

As the years went by Hugo became Housemaster and got married. I, too, married and with our greater responsibilities our meetings became less frequent. Dinners were supplanted by letters and occasional phone calls. Hugo's success as Housemaster earned him the offer of a Headmastership in India which, after some prompting by his wife, he accepted.

After the first year, when his new surroundings and experiences had prompted him to correspond quite frequently, our letters became fewer and farther between and, up to a short while ago, I had not heard from him for nearly a year.

Then, one Friday, an envelope with the familiar handwriting dropped through the letter-box. The letter bore, though, an English stamp and I tore it open eagerly.

'Dear Charles,' I read, 'You will be surprised to see that I am back once more in dear old England. I have managed to take the lease of a small cottage only a mile or two from the School. Though small it will be adequate for me now that my dear wife has pa.s.sed away.

I feel only guilt that I agreed to go to India for it was there that Constance contracted the disease that was to prove fatal. The anguish her illness and my great sorrow since have conspired to prevent me from writing to you earlier.

There seemed no reason for me to stay on after Constance's death; indeed the bungalow held only sad memories for me, so I decided to return and live out my days close to the school where I found such happiness in the past.

'My sojourn abroad was, I now know, a mistake and has brought me not only great unhappiness but ill health too. Dirt and disease were only too prevalent out there. Financially I am fortunate to be reasonably independent so do not have to seek a position of any sort but, nevertheless, I would dearly love to restore my connections with the School be it only in some part-time or occasional capacity: which is all, I fear, that my present health would allow.

'But enough of my tribulations. Charles, I long to see you once again. Can you find the time to come to supper? Any day at all would be fine for me - just drop a line to let me know. The telephone is not yet installed so I cannot suggest ringing.

'As ever, Hugo.'

Anita and the children were enjoying a late holiday at her sister's home in Kingswear and would not be back until the Sunday evening so I thought I would take advantage of my temporary gra.s.s-widowerhood by calling to see Hugo on the morrow, Sat.u.r.day. To avoid any possibility of a letter not being delivered in time, I sent a telegram advising him to expect me at about seven in the evening.

Sat.u.r.day turned out to be dank and foggy. The local train that clanks wearily from Horsham to Cranleigh and on to Guildford was late but, even so, it was only 7.1' when I was knocking on the door of the gaunt and rather unlovely building that was Hugo's new home.

Seldom have I seen so great a change in any man. He seemed to have shrunk a full six inches and to have aged three times faster than the calendar would have conceded. His skin, too, had taken on an ashen, sickly hue.

I hid the shock I felt as best I could, allowed him to hang up my coat and followed him to a roaring fire which did much to dispel the chill from my bones and the oppressive gloom of the rather drably furnished room. The thin film of dust on the less accessible surfaces showed that much in the way of housekeeping was either beyond him or no longer of consequence.

The room served as both dining-room and drawing-room for a table was already laid out for supper. After a few minutes of rather stilted conversation, during which I extended my condolences for his wife's death, he excused himself and disappeared briefly, returning with two bowls of steaming hot soup.

On that chill night the soup was doubly welcome and served to melt the barrier that had formed between us after so long a separation. Over the cold meats that followed, and the apple pie, the clock turned back and we were once again the close friends that we had been in the years gone by.

A decanter of port had been standing on a side table. Hugo unstoppered it and pa.s.sed it to me saying I have not lost my taste for this, you see, nor for a good cigar to accompany it!

'Now tell me, Charles, you must, from time to time, have pondered the mystery of death. We all of us do as the years weigh more heavily upon us. What do you think happens to us after death? To the essential "us", to the Ra of the ancient Egyptians, to the soul, if you prefer to call it that?'

'Well, that's quite a question to throw at me out of the blue.

I suppose that, basically, it seems both wrong and illogical that we should each exist for a mere drop in the ocean of time and then, suddenly, cease to exist, completely, utterly and for ever.

'I don't, personally, believe in reincarnation here on earth, but I feel that we must go on to another existence, somewhere. Not, of course, to a Heaven, all harps and clouds and long flowing robes, nor, indeed, to a h.e.l.l of smoke and eternal fires. If I have a conviction at all it is that the whole of life here, or on any other planet, is part of an experiment in some vast Laboratory and that we each possess a small spark, an infinitesimal subdivision, of the intellect of some Great Experimenter.

'After death we will coalesce and fuse together once more into that one Being. I believe, too, that that Being is what we speak of as G.o.d but that, beyond Him, there are other G.o.ds ad infinitum. In other words the Experimenter I speak of is, in turn, part of some even greater, even more incomprehensible Experiment. There is no Supreme Being since we are speaking of Infinity and the Infinite has no beginning and no end, no top and no bottom.'

'You have put it well, Charles, and you seem to have given the matter much thought, as I was sure you had. I am not sure that I agree with your conception of the Infinite: any mathematician could define for you a series that is infinite yet has both definite beginning and end. But that is by the way and, in general terms, I go along with your ideas. You say that, eventually, we shall all be joined in some super-Intellect. This means that, four-dimensionally, we are one now but, living in a three-dimensional world, can only perceive ourselves as discrete ent.i.ties. The p.r.o.ngs of a three-dimensional fork thrust into a two-dimensional surface show up only as separate points. Therefore, in a sense, I am you and every other living thing, or will be.

'Personally I believe in reincarnation or, if you prefer the technical term, metempsychosis. Such belief is as old as the hills and can be found in the religions of every race. Now how on earth did they all come to the same conclusion, long before they could communicate with each other?'

'You sound very positive, Hugo, but what proof have you?'

'Proof? Evidence abounds, but let me tell you of a case which occurred in India and of which I have some first-hand knowledge. Names and places do not matter but the whole affair is recorded and attested.'

'A young girl of eight or nine, who had always been quiet and somewhat morose, began increasingly to pester her mother to let her go "home" and to speak of her "real" family. The mother, uncomprehending, ascribed this to some complicated game of make-believe. Nevertheless the girl insisted that she was really a married woman with two children and lived many miles away. Her parents could only shake their heads and sigh.

'One day a man called at the house who had business with the father and was admitted by this girl who, at sight of him, claimed that he was her "real" cousin - though he, of course, laughed at such fancy. Finally, to quiet the girl once and for all, her parents agreed to make the journey to this distant village (which none of them had ever visited before) where the girl claimed her "home" to be. Accompanied by the doctor and two learned men who had become interested in the case, they set out.

'On reaching the village the girl became excited and lively, directing them all without hesitation to a certain house outside which three children were playing. She rushed to the two older children, kissing and hugging them and calling them by their names - which proved to be correct.

'Hearing of these strange visitors, the children's father soon arrived. The girl, to his astonishment, embraced him with tears in her eyes. This man told the amazed onlookers that his wife had died some eight or nine years previously when giving birth to their third child - a child that she, of course, never saw.'

'And what of the alleged cousin?'

'Oh yes, he really was the cousin of the dead wife.

'Of course the experts tried to avoid drawing the obvious conclusion, claiming that everything could be attributed to mind-reading or something like that, quite forgetting that mind-reading was something they would deny was possible at any other time.

'Anyway that is but one instance. He broke off abruptly and reached out for a fly-swatter that lay near his chair.

'If there's one thing I can't stand,' he said, lunging wildly after a lone fly that, surprisingly, had not settled in some warm, dark spot for the winter, 'it's flies. Carriers of disease and filth, they are an abomination on the face of the earth. There, got him!

'As I was saying, that was but one instance of the many, many true stories that have been checked and verified. Reincarnation is a fact. After death we live again - not necessarily as another human being or even in the same place - but death is not the end.'

We argued the subject a good deal after that and it was gone eleven before either of us realised that the hour was so late. Transport back to Horsham was now impossible so I accepted Hugo's kind offer of a bed for the night.

The next morning was bright and sunny, full of browns and golds and crisp fallen leaves underfoot. I decided to catch the first bus back to Horsham - there are no trains on a Sunday - in order to prepare the house for Anita's homecoming. I must confess that I had not done even the minimum of housekeeping.

As we parted Hugo said, 'Somehow, Charles, if the power is granted to me, I will prove my beliefs of which I spoke last night.' The words, and the look in his eyes as he spoke them, have haunted me ever since.

Two weeks later Hugo was dead. His solicitors told me the sad news the day before the funeral and also informed me that it was Hugo's wish that I should take as many of his books as might be of interest to me, the remainder of his estate going to a distant cousin who was his only surviving relative.

I naturally attended the funeral - as did quite a number of the school staff. Afterwards I was introduced to the cousin and we went to the cottage - he to view the property that was now his and I to select the books which would then be crated up and sent on to me.

Hugo's library was not large but comprised many rare and valuable books on what, I suppose, most people call the occult. Each was lovingly inscribed with his initials 'HL' and the date.

I reached up for one of the volumes and, as I did so, a huge spider was dislodged on to my shoulder. With revulsion I flicked it off on to the floor and trod on it.

Then I looked up and noticed the web it had been spinning. In the middle, like a delicate piece of embroidery, were the initials HL.

I looked again at the still twitching remains of the spider. As realisation came flooding in I was violently and horribly sick.

THE THING.

By R. Chetwynd-Hayes.

The bar was not very full the evening being but middle-aged, that is to say it was too early for the after-theatre crowd, and too late for the 'a quick one for the road' school. This, in my humble opinion, is the time for civilised drinking, not that I've ever minded drinking at an uncivilised time, but its nice to be able to spread your elbows and bath your tonsils with Scotch in reasonable comfort. There are those people who go into a bar for social intercourse, at least so they say, but I being above all else an honest man must confess I go into a bar for only one reason; I like to drink. Now let us get one thing straight, I'm not an educated drinker; fancy names on dusty bottles don't mean a thing to me; as the man said when he was asked if he preferred beef to mutton: It's all meat'. Old fashioned whiskey was good enough for my father, and he died a drunkard's death at eighty-two, which was twenty years longer than his teetotal brother lived, who was knocked down by a bus in the Fulham Road after speaking at a temperance dinner on how strong drink shortens life. There must be a moral there somewhere, but frankly I've never quite seen what it is, unless it be stay quietly sozzled at home, then you won't be knocked down by a 17' bus.

But all this is by the way; digression is one of my many weaknesses, for I often find that the soup is much more tasty than the main dish, and perhaps when you have heard the rest of my story you will agree with me. However, as I said, the room was not very full so I went straight up to the bar and ordered six double whiskeys, and the smart young barman looked at me, for he could see I was by myself. So I took a deep breath and explained the facts of life to him.

I could order one whiskey, take it over to that table, drink it and come back for five refills. But that would be wearing on my legs, which after the fourth gla.s.s need as much rest as they can get, and a lot of work for you.'

He grinned and said he agreed, but I don't think he was happy, for one thing I'm not what you might call a snappy dresser and they were used to dinner jackets and off the shoulder dresses, or at least a decent Jounge suit. But corduroy trousers and roller neck jersey is my stock in trade, for a writer isn't looked up to these days if he dresses like everyone else, and d.a.m.n it all, my money is as smart as the next man's. I carried my drinks on a tray the barman gave me to a table a little way from the bar, and after emptying the first gla.s.s, I sat back and took in the scenery.

The tables were little islands and most of them deserted, but here and there a few castaways sipped their nourishment and looked as miserable as most people do in bars, so I turned my attention to the tall stools that lined the bar, and thought they looked like the things in circus rings for seals to perch on. On the one nearest to my table was a girl, and I wondered how I'd missed her, but thought perhaps she'd come in when I wasn't looking, but she was there now and was presenting one of the most tasteful bare backs that I've ever seen. Now all men have their various tastes when it comes to admiring feminine beauty, some rave about legs, others b.r.e.a.s.t.s, although believe me, a lot of deception is practised in that direction these days, but for myself, show me a flawless white back and I'd raise my hat, always supposing I wore one, which I don't. This girl knew what she'd got, and made the most of it, for her dress was a mere tape that supported the legal amount of material at the front and nothing at all above the waist line at the back. She must have felt my gaze, which isn't surprising, for she turned her head, and I saw a pair of cornflower blue eyes set in a pale, beautiful, if characterless face, surmounted by a pile of artistically dressed hair. Then she winked, and without so much as by your leave, came and sat at my table. I sighed deeply and downed my second whiskey to wash away my disillusion, for surely the strangest part of man's make-up is that he will p.a.w.n his soul for what he thinks he cannot have, but will turn his head in disgust when he learns it is well within his means to buy it. She sank down in the chair opposite mine, and said in a low, husky, carefully cultivated, seductive voice: 'Aren't you going to buy me a drink?'

I said: 'Why not? But you will have to fetch it yourself, I never stir before the sixth drink and by then it's a risky business.'

She took my pound note, making a small grimace, and the small sherry must have been exorbitantly expensive, or she was very forgetful for I never saw my change. When she came back and reseated herself, and the third whiskey was doing its bounded duty so that the sharp edges of the bar were becoming nicely rounded, and a faint mist was obscuring the far end of the room, for if truth must be told, and I can see no reason why it shouldn't, this was not the first bar I had visited that evening; she said: 'You're cute, you know that don't you, you're cute.'

I nodded slowly, for I was in the mood to agree to anything. 'Yes, I know. Whenever I look into a mirror I get a shock.'

She giggled and took a ladylike sip from her gla.s.s, and I wondered if the people who owned this place knew what she was up to, or if the smart young barman who had a suspicion of a knowing smirk on his face was receiving his cut.

'What's a nice looking fellow like you doing on your own?'

'Getting drunk,' I said briefly, 'it's a hobby. Some people collect stamps, others milk bottle tops, but I get drunk. I do it very well.'

She giggled again, and there was something horrifying about that beautiful mask; she looked like an animated shop window dummy, or a body from which the soul had been sucked out.

'You're funny. I like witty men. Say something else.'

I grinned and felt my face crinkle, like a deflated balloon pressed by a child's destructive fingers. 'A fool is funny because he dare not think, for thought is the pathway to truth, and beyond truth lies madness.'

She shrugged her shapely shoulders and they gleamed in the bright light like white clouds on a winter's day, and for some reason I felt sad, which was strange for usually I am a cheerful drinker.

That's not funny, it's rather frightening. I say, you're not squiffy, are you?'

How I would have answered this insulting insinuation I do not know, for let it be recorded, never in fifteen years of heavy drinking have I been drunk, or as my uncle (the one knocked down by a bus in the Fulham Road) would have aptly expressed himself: 'been seen the worse for strong drink', for at that moment there was a sudden influx of people who came into the room, chattering and babbling and in less than no time the place was crowded, and I was troubled by the thought that I might not have time or opportunity to buy my second consignment. But there came in with this human flood, like a piece of driftwood cast ash.o.r.e by the tide, a young man who for some reason that I could not at that time understand, stood out from the crowd and claimed my complete attention. He was young, younger than he should have been, for although there were lines about his eyes and mouth, and a certain tautness of his facial muscles that suggested maturity of years, yet he wore an air of youthfulness that did not flatter him, for one was reminded of a fruit that had hung on a tree for a whole summer but was still unripe; a soft green skin full of corruption, that will fall to the ground at the first breath of autumn. He clung to the bar like one who has walked through life looking for props, and his weak handsome face turned slowly, the pale blue eyes were lifeless blue chips of broken gla.s.s, and his full lips were moist and sagged pathetically as though he were about to cry. His neat dark suit was rumpled, and his long fingers toyed with the b.u.t.tons, then, like a startled bird, the right one flew up to the striped tie and jerked it from side to side, then abruptly he turned his back and suddenly I was aware that he was not alone.

He who drains the wine jug to its bitter dregs sees strange visions, at least so it is said, but speaking for myself, although I've seen the world through many an empty bottle, I've yet to meet a pink elephant, but of course I'm still comparatively young, and all things come to him that waits. But I knew, and don't ask me how or why, that what stood behind the young man did not come out of a bottle, but it wasn't the kind of thing you usually met in a bar either. I'll tell you something else, I was pretty certain that I was the only person who saw it, because no one else paid it the least attention and they would have if. Let me describe the Thing, because that is what it was - a Thing. Imagine something that has the shape of a man; a tall man at least six foot two, dressed in a long black robe that encased the entire figure from neck to feet, only the feet weren't too substantial, I could not be sure they were actually there; then imagine a dead white face; a face made of white wax, then give the face a pair of black gleaming eyes; eyes filled with a terrible hunger, that a thousand years of sated l.u.s.ts will not satisfy, then crown the face with a mop of coa.r.s.e hair and watch a pair of thin lips as they mouth silent obscenities, or whisper unfulfilled longings into the victim's ear, and you have a fiend that is begging someone to share its h.e.l.l.

'What's the matter, honey,' the girl spoke and her pale beauty seemed to bear a faint resemblance to that dreadful face, 'you look as though you've seen a ghost.'

'The man at the bar,' my voice betrayed nothing and I marvelled that this was so, 'do you see anything unusual about him; the young one - there?' I pointed, and she turned with little interest for I suppose I was already beginning to bore her and a more promising client would soon draw her away. Then her face flushed for a moment, then turned paler than before, her eyes glazed with sudden fear, and one hand tightened its grip about the wine gla.s.s so that I found myself watching the whitened knuckles.

'It's Rodney!' she gasped the name in a strangled voice and for an instant her beauty was wiped away, so that I saw her as she would be when time had done its work; had taken the sheen from the pale skin and wrecked the firm muscles with cruel fingers. Then she jerked her head round and I looked at a frightened child, the cultivated mask ripped aside, and she was as naked as a sinful man on judgment day. I said: 'Do you know him?' A silly question, but I wasn't really interested in her problems, because the young man was taking a drink, at least I guessed he was for although his back was towards me, the Thing had moved to a position a few feet from our table, and for a while I could not understand why its mouth was open and its throat muscles working, then I suddenly realised that it was enjoying whatever the man was drinking. I know that must sound crazy, but may I never raise a gla.s.s again if it isn't true; the white face gleamed with the look of a dipso who is having his first drink for a long time, then the man at the bar turned, a full gla.s.s was in his hand so I guessed he'd ordered a refill, and he came towards our table so that for a while they stood side by side, the Thing and him, only I knew he did not know he was not alone. Then he suddenly saw my girl friend, the Thing's eyes lit up as well, and together they approached the table, an action that didn't make me feel happy, or, if I was to judge by her expression, the little lady either, for she looked as terrified as a rabbit at a stoat's convention.