The Mammoth Book of Haunted House Stories (Mammoth Books) (97 page)

“For I met Alcide Lamotte.

“He had come back – but, of course, he was not the wild, half-civilised lout –
le roux
– of a lifetime ago. He was, actually, a naturalised American, and a rich and successful man.

“There was no one left to recognise him, and, indeed, he now even called himself by a different name, and was Al Mott, from Pittsburg.

“You understand – I am not telling you a detective story, and trying to make a mystery. It
was
Alcide Lamotte, but when he came to the old wine merchant’s house, Amede and his father didn’t know it. That is to say, the old man certainly didn’t – and Mr. Mott called, the first time, with a business introduction, in regard to a sale of land. Amede, when he found that, in spite of his Americanised appearance, the visitor was not only a Frenchman, but also conversant with the immediate neighbourhood, connected him with the district of Les Moineaux, but only in that vague, unemphatic fashion that just fails to put two and two together until, or unless, something happens that produces a sudden, blinding flash of illumination.

“There was certainly nothing about Al Mott, from Pittsburg, to recall the half-legendary figure of
le roux
.

“He was a big corpulent man, perfectly bald, with a hard, heavy face, and great pouches below his eyes.

“His manners were not polished, but noisy and genial.

“Neither Amede nor his father took a fancy to him, but they were
hommes d
’
affaires
, there was a transaction to be concluded, and one evening he was asked to supper, and came.

“It was an evening in late October.

“The old man, of course, was there, and Amede and his young, newly married wife. The aunt – the one that lived with them – had gone away for a few days.

“The evening, from the beginning, did not go very well. Madame Amede, the bride, was an inexperienced hostess, and the guest was not of a type to put her at her ease.

“Amede, who was madly in love with his wife, kept on watching her.

“For my part, I felt an extraordinary uneasiness. You all know, I believe, what is usually meant by the word ’psychic’ applied to an individual, and you know, too, that it has often been applied to me. I can only tell you that, in the course of that evening, I knew, beyond any possibility of doubt, certain things not conveyed to me through the normal channels of the senses. I knew that the other guest, the man sitting opposite to me, had, somehow, some intimate connection with tragedy and violence, and I knew, too, that he was evil. At the same time I was aware, more and more as the evening went on, that something which I can only describe as a wave, or vibration, of misery, was in the atmosphere and steadily increasing in intensity.

“Afterwards, Madame Amede told me that she had felt the same thing.

“She and her husband, it is worth remembering, were in the keyed-up, highly wrought state of people still in the midst of an overwhelming emotional experience. That is equal to saying that they were far more susceptible than usual to atmospheric influence.

“The old wine merchant, Amede’s father, was the only person, beside Mott himself, unaware of tension.

“He made a casual allusion to the countryside, and then to Les Moineaux – but not referring to it directly by name.

“Mott replied, and the conversation went on.

“But in that instant, without any conscious process of reasoning or induction, the connection was made in my mind.

“I knew him for Alcide Lamotte, and I saw that Amede did too. My eyes, and those of Amede met, for one terrible second, the knowledge flashing from one to the other.

“Both of us, I know, became utterly silent from that moment. Alcide, of course, went on talking. He was very talkative, and under the influence of wine, was becoming loud and boastful. He began to tell the old man, who was alone in paying attention to him, about his early struggles in America, and then his increasing successes there.

“He spoke in French, of course, the characteristic, twanging drawl of the midi, and with, actually, a queer kind of American intonation, noticeable every now and then. I can remember very vividly the effect of relentlessness that his loud tones, going on and on, made in the small room.

“He was still talking when – the thing happened.

“You can, of course, call it what you like. An apparition – a collective hallucination – or the result produced by certain psychological conditions that are perhaps not to be found once in a hundred years – but that were present that night.

“The feeling of unease that had been with me all the evening was intensified, and then – it suddenly left me altogether, as though some expected calamity had taken place, and had proved more endurable than the suspense of awaiting it. In its place, I experienced only a feeling of profound sadness and compassion.

“I
knew
, with complete certainty, that some emanation of extreme unhappiness was surrounding us. Then Madame Amede, who sat next me, spoke, just above her breath:

“ ‘
What is it?
’

“There were two sounds in the room. . . . One was the excited, confident voice of Alcide, now in the midst of his triumphant story, the other was a succession of sobs and stifled, despairing wails.

“The second sound came from the corner, exactly facing the place where Lamotte was sitting.

“There was a door there, and it opened slowly. Framed in the doorway, I saw her – a young girl, in the dress of the late eighties, with a scared, pitiful face, sobbing and wringing her hands.

“That was my
revenant
– Sophy Mason come back.

“I told you, when I began the story, that the – the apparition had not frightened me. That was true.

“Perhaps it was because I knew the story of the poor betrayed girl, perhaps because I have, as you know, been interested for years in psychic manifestations of all kinds. To me, it seemed apparent, even at that moment, that the emotional vibrations of the past, sent out by an anguished spirit all those years ago, had become perceptible to us because we were momentarily attuned to receive them.

“In my own case, the attunement was so complete that, for an instant or two, I could actually catch a glimpse of the very form from which those emotional disturbances had proceeded.

“Amede and his wife – both of them, as I said before, in an unusually receptive condition – heard what I did. Amede, however, saw nothing – only an indistinct blur, as he afterwards described it. His wife saw the outlines of a girl’s figure. . . .

“It all happened you understand, within a few minutes. First, that sound of bitter crying, and then the apparition, and my own realisation that the Amedes were terror-struck. The old man, Amede’s father, had turned abruptly in his chair with a curious, strained look upon his face – uneasy, rather than frightened. He told us afterwards that he had seen and heard nothing, but had been suddenly conscious of tension in the room, and that then the expression on his son’s face had frightened him. But he admitted, too, that sweat had broken out upon his forehead, although it was not hot in the room.”

“But Alcide Lamotte?”

“Alcide Lamotte,” said the narrator slowly, “went on talking loudly – without pause, without a tremor. He perceived nothing until Madame Amede, with a groan, fell back on her chair in a dead faint. That of course, broke up the evening abruptly. . . .

“You remember, what I told you at the beginning? It wasn’t the poor little
revenant
that frightened me – but I
was
afraid, that evening. I was afraid, with the worst terror that I have ever known, of that man who had lived a crowded lifetime away from the passionate, evil episode of his youth – who had changed his very identity, and had left the past so far behind him that no echo from it could reach him. Whatever the link had been once, between him and Sophy Mason – and who can doubt that, with her, it had survived death itself – to him, it now all meant nothing – had perished beneath the weight of the years.

“It was indeed that which frightened me – not the gentle, anguished spirit of Sophy Mason – but the eyes that saw nothing, the ears that heard nothing, the loud, confident voice that, whilst those of us who had never known her were yet tremblingly aware of her, talked on – of success, and of money, and of life in Pittsburg.”

The Boogeyman

Stephen King

“I can’t go to a priest because I’m not Catholic. I can’t go to a lawyer because I haven’t done anything to consult a lawyer about. All I did was kill my kids. One at a time. Killed them all.”

Dr. Harper turned on the tape recorder.

Billings lay straight as a yardstick on the couch, not giving it an inch of himself. His feet protruded stiffly over the end – picture of a man enduring necessary humiliation. His hands were folded corpselike on his chest. His face was carefully set. He looked at the plain white composition ceiling as if seeing scenes and pictures played out there.

“Do you mean you actually killed them, or—”

“No.” Impatient flick of the hand. “But I was responsible. Denny in 1967. Shirl in 1971. And Andy this year. I want to tell you about it.”

Dr. Harper said nothing. He thought that Billings looked haggard and old. His hair was thinning, his complexion sallow. His eyes held all the miserable secrets of whiskey.

“They were murdered, see? Only no one believes that. If they would, things would be all right.”

“Why is that?”

“Because . . .”

Billings broke off and darted up on his elbows, staring across the room. “What’s that?” he barked. His eyes had narrowed to black slots.

“What’s what?”

“That door.”

“The closet,” Dr. Harper said. “Where I hang my coat and leave my overshoes.”

“Open it. I want to see.”

Dr. Harper got up wordlessly, crossed the room, and opened the closet. Inside, a tan raincoat hung on one of four or five hangers. Beneath that was a pair of shiny galoshes. The
New York Times
had been carefully tucked into one of them. That was all.

“All right?” Dr. Harper said.

“All right.” Billings removed the props of his elbows and returned to his previous position.

“You were saying,” Dr. Harper said as he went back to his chair, “that if the murder of your three children could be proved, all your troubles would be over. Why is that?”