Coffin Hollow and Other Ghost Tales (14 page)

The slender creature glided silently across the carpeted floor and climbed into Edwin's large red chair in the corner of the room. Mrs. Adams was so completely awestruck that she could hardly subdue her emotions enough to speak to Edwin — for of course she was positive that the silent creature was Edwin. She had always sincerely believed that he would someday return to her from his grave, although she had not expected him to be reincarnated in the form of a beautiful black cat.

In the weeks following Edwin's reappearance, any slight doubt in Mrs. Adams's mind concerning the cat's identity was completely dissolved. Not only did Edwin, as she naturally named her feline companion, share Mrs. Adams's bed and continually occupy the former Edwin's favorite red chair, but he also retired at ten o'clock every evening and rose at seven each morning, just as Edwin had habitually done for years. Mrs. Adams's large fern plant in the living room strongly irritated the cat, just as it had done Edwin, and the latter Edwin, like the former, intensely disliked tobacco smoke. Strangely enough, the slender cat even relished Edwin's favorite dish, macaroni and cheese.

There was no doubt that this was a glorious reincarnation, and the cat's strange appearance had extinguished all Mrs. Adams's loneliness and aching desire for her husband. She was just beginning to become accustomed to the joy of Edwin's company when her world was shattered and destroyed.

While she was busy in her kitchen one clear morning, she heard the sounds of a violent struggle in the yard. She hurried to the porch and witnessed in horror the sickening, bloody sight of Edwin slumping into motionless defeat before a slender, sleek, black cat — a cat identical to Edwin.

“Ronald!” she exclaimed in a terrified whisper, as she quickly drew her face away from the horrible sight.

65: The Dog That Came Back

The area was known as Porcupine's Back, because the scrubby growth on the hill behind it reminded everyone of a porcupine. It wasn't a bad sort of farm, but it stood somewhat isolated among the pine woods at the turn of the road. The big, ancient farmhouse was squat and square as a fortress.

James Morris, the owner of the farm, was rumored to have a lot of money buried on the place somewhere. He was the most unsociable person in the area. Once in a great while he and his Australian sheep dog — a splendid, blue-white creature that you couldn't get close to — would encounter a neighbor as they walked along the woodland trails, but otherwise he was scarcely ever seen.

Thus it was that when Morris and his dog disappeared, it was days, perhaps weeks, before their absence was even noticed. A lawyer who had some business with the recluse first sounded the alarm. There was no trace of the man or of his dog either. Morris couldn't have bought a rail or bus ticket without the clerk knowing it. And his old car was still in the garage, the tank full of gas.

There was the usual sort of investigation, including a search of the woods with bloodhounds, but nobody really cared about Morris and the whole matter was soon forgotten.

In the next twenty years the place had numerous occupants; it was the talk of the town, the way nobody could hold onto it. Then David Dalton bought the farm.

The new owner, like Morris, had a fine Australian sheep dog. Flash seemed oddly excited the moment he set foot on the farm. He ran all about sniffing, then lifted his head and let out a low howl. As soon as the door to the house was opened, he rushed in and went immediately to a storeroom in the back of the house. It was a small room with a cement floor — to keep out the dampness, the new occupants thought. There the dog set up the most piteous wailing and whining you ever heard. He ran to a spot in the corner near the window and began sniffing and scratching excitedly, as a dog will do when he smells a gopher.

Nothing they said would stop him, even though he couldn't make any headway against the cement. Soon his fur bristled and his wailings and whinings gave place to growls. Those growls were ferocious enough to raise the hair on the back of your neck — and Flash rarely growled as a rule.

Every time the dog was able to gain entrance to the storeroom, the same commotion would occur, and in fact, Flash's unusual behavior became worse and worse. Finally Mrs. Dalton persuaded her husband to dig next to the window in the storeroom, just to ease their minds — and Flash's — by proving that nothing was there.

Dalton began to dig up the storeroom that very evening. For most of the night he dug. Breaking through the cement was no easy chore. After a while he began to feel like a fool, because he had found nothing at all. He was almost ready to give up when Flash broke into the room and started to do some digging of his own. Dalton was about to stop the dog when Flash made his first find — a cigarette lighter with the initials R. E. N.

As Dalton was turning the lighter over in his hands, his wife gave a stifled cry. Flash had uncovered a bone — not a human bone, but the skull of an animal. The skull was a large one, about the size of Flash's head. Beneath this skull, which had a hole blasted through its base, was the real find—a human skull. It too was pierced by a bullet. The skeleton followed.

The police wasted no time in identifying the skeleton. The fillings and bridgework corresponded exactly with what old Doc Batlow had put in for James Morris years before; the doctor had the yellowed records to prove it. Now it was evident that old Morris had been murdered.

The initials on the cigarette lighter seemed to belong to only one local person — Richard E. Newdick, a mason and stonecutter in the next town. He had the reputation of being a hard, cruel man, and the people of the community remembered something about his coming into a large sum of money, presumably inherited from an aunt.

Newdick was arrested by the local authorities, but the crime couldn't be proved without more evidence than the cigarette lighter. The men hit upon the idea of taking him back to the scene of the crime. Perhaps that would startle him into confessing the truth.

The day they brought Newdick to Porcupine's Back would be long remembered. Flash was sleeping in the sun. Suddenly he leaped up, as animals will often do when an enemy is scented. His fur bristled. His lips opened in a snarl, revealing the white, glistening teeth. Savage growls came from his throat. His eyes gleamed with a wolflike fierceness. Then he made a frenzied dash for the people getting out of the car. In the confusion of yells and barking one of the policemen was able to get a grip on Flash's collar. The dog would not give up; still he lunged at Newdick. Had the officer not been able to hold him, he would have torn the man's throat out then and there.

Newdick's appearance became convulsed like that of a man who has seen a ghost. His face turned white. “He's come back! Come back! Come back to get me!” Then the men realized that Flash and Morris's dog were very similar in appearance. Newdick began to rave with fear. “That's him. I've seen him in my nightmares — always knew he'd come back to get me. I've seen those burning, flashing eyes, glaring at me like they wanted to eat me up, and by the hell, I knew they would sometime, too.”

Then he realized what he had said. “Yes, I killed Morris — and the dog too. I just wanted old Morris's money. I knew he had a pile hid out here somewhere. The stupid old man jumped me before I could get away, and in the scuffle I shot him through the head. I was just rising to my feet afterwards, when I saw a living thunder-bolt coming towards me. There wasn't any time to think. It was the dog's life or mine. As he fell, shot in the head, with the most pitiful moaning you ever heard, I seemed to see a look in his eyes that said, ‘You haven't seen the last of me.'”

The men sat staring for a moment. Each knew what the others were thinking. Perhaps Flash was Morris's dog reborn — reborn in order to catch the thief and murderer. Flash looked as if he understood what was going on. From that day on, Dalton reported, Flash would often get a look of delight in his eyes and jump up and lick the hand of someone who was not there.

Newdick was sentenced to the electric chair. Dalton and Flash got along fine, but Dalton knew that Flash belonged to someone else, someone who had gone. And that is why he is often known as the dog that came back.

66: Eloise

My grandmother told me that her sister Kate had a cat named Eloise that had lived with her for about ten years and was becoming rather set in her ways. She was accustomed to irregular happenings in the household, and they no longer upset her. She was even learning when to keep out from underfoot. She never struck my grandmother's sister as being particularly clever or attached to her. Eloise was just neutral and content.

But after Aunt Kate died, Eloise began to act strangely. Every evening after dinner she'd curl up and cry until my grandmother gave her milk with sugar in it. Aunt Kate had drunk sweetened milk with the chill taken out of it, and eventually my grandmother caught on that Eloise's whimpering was a signal that she wanted her milk warmed too. At mealtime Eloise would settle herself exactly under Kate's old place at the table.

To my grandmother it seemed that the cat's behavior was growing more and more like her former mistress's. Eloise even began to crawl into bed with Uncle Harry at night, and since he was never too fond of cats, this new trick of hers didn't appeal to him in the least. He noticed, too, that she was making a nuisance of herself, and that when my grandmother spoke of the similarity of many of poor Kate's actions with those in which Eloise was now indulging, she was right.

My mother and father said my grandmother was imagining things when she pointed out the unusual habits Eloise was acquiring. They even implied that my grandmother was the one who was possessed — with the obsession of making note of a cat's ways — and that she ought to stop such nonsense.

But it surely did set my grandmother to thinking when Eloise began to take a regular walk between two and four each afternoon (for this was Aunt Kate's stroll time) and after that enjoy a snooze until dinner. Eloise even gave up running with the other cats on our street and spent the rest of her time washing and primping.

The day we bought a dog, we were really shocked into worrying about who or what was inhabiting Eloise. We had wanted a large dog for a long time, but Aunt Kate had always threatened that she'd move out if we bought one — and that she would kill it too. Well, Eloise must have housed Aunt Kate's spirit, because she ran off the day we bought a dog, never to return. And the next day, we found the dog dead.

67: Forewarned

Several years ago in Taylor County, there lived an elderly couple. One night as they slept, the woman was suddenly awakened by a noise in the room. When she sat up in bed she noticed a strange, white figure at her husband's closet. The figure appeared to be searching for something. Finally it disappeared out the door and down the steps.

The next morning the woman told her husband of this strange happening. He consoled her, as she appeared to be quite upset, and assured her that she had had a bad dream and that everything would be all right. After a while she began to believe he was right and soon forgot her supposed dream.

A few nights later she was again awakened by a strange noise. This time the figure was searching through drawers. The woman was so frightened that she screamed loudly. Awakening her husband, she was again consoled by him and reassured that it was only a dream.

The next morning the old man decided to get up early and make the journey into town to seek a doctor for his wife, since he felt she was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. While he was gone, a long black coach drawn by four black horses pulled up outside their small cottage. The man in charge, who turned out to be the mortician, came to the door seeking the body of the husband.

He told the woman that he had found her husband's clothes and personal belongings in a sack at his office that morning with a note that he had died. The note went on to tell just how he was to be dressed and put in the coffin. The body was to be picked up at the home.

Suddenly they heard a horse making a strange noise in the barn near the house. The woman was still exclaiming that the mortician had made an error as she hurried to see what all the commotion was about.

There inside the door of the barn lay her husband's dead body. The horse was their own. The husband had died in the barn even before getting started on his trip to the doctor.

The clothes the undertaker had found in his office proved to be those of her husband, and he was buried in them.

68: A Forecasted Death

Charley Hardesty and his wife had made a habit of stopping by my grandparents' house for coffee and gossip after church. One afternoon Charley told grandfather that some strange things had been happening to him all week and that he knew he was going to die very soon.

Grandfather asked him if he were ill, or what made him think that he was about to die. Charley said that he had never felt better (and indeed, he looked to be in the best of health) but while he was working in the fields or doing chores around the house, he could hear a voice calling his name and saying, “Come with me.” Grandfather said it gave him a chill when Charley, in a calm, matter-of-fact way, said that he would be going with the voice before too long.

The next Sunday, Mrs. Hardesty told grandmother that something strange was going on around their farm. Charley didn't have much livestock, and the animals he had were just like pets. Down to the last chicken he had given each a name, and the animals often followed him and his wife around the farm. There was no fence around their house, but the animals seemed to know this was “sacred ground” and, with the exception of a few bold chickens, rarely came into the yard.

But this week the animals couldn't seem to get close enough to Charley. They crowded into the yard, they followed him around, pushing each other in order to get closer to him, and stranger yet, they stood around the house at night — not making a sound, but just standing there as if they were waiting for something. And the other night the horse had come all the way down from the upper pasture and pushed his nose right into the bedroom window. The banging shutter had awakened Mrs. Hardesty, although the horse himself hadn't made any noise. He just stood there staring at Charley.