The Ruskin Bond Horror Omnibus Read online

  The Ruskin Bond

  Horror Omnibus

  Ruskin Bond, one of India's best-loved and most prolific writers, has been writing novels, poetry, essays and short stories for over half a century now. Apart from this, over the years, he has expertly compiled and edited a number of anthologies.

  He was the recipient of the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize in 1957, the Sahitya Akadami award in 1992 (for English writing in India) and the Padma Shri in 1999 for his outstanding literary contribution.

  Other Ruskin Bond Titles

  Angry River

  A Little Night Music

  A Long Walk for Bina

  Hanuman to the Rescue

  Ghost Stories from the Raj

  Strange Men Strange Places

  The India I Love

  Tales and Legends from India

  The Blue Umbrella

  Ruskin Bond's Children's Omnibus

  The Ruskin Bond Omnibus-I

  The Ruskin Bond Omnibus-II

  The Ruskin Bond Omnibus-III

  The Ruskin Bond Omnibus-W

  The Ruskin Bond Omnibus-V

  Rupa's Supernatural Omnibus

  The Rupa Book of Great Animal Stories

  The Rupa Book of True Tales of Mystery and Adventure

  The Rupa Book of Ruskin Bond's Himalayan Tales

  The Rupa Book of Great Suspense Stories

  The Rupa Laughter Omnibus

  The Rupa Book of Scary Stories

  The Rupa Book of Haunted Houses

  The Rupa Book of Travellers' Tales

  The Rupa Book of Great Crime Stories

  The Rupa Book of Nightmare Tales

  The Rupa Book of Shikar Stories

  The Rupa Book of Love Stories

  The Rupa Book of Wicked Stories

  The Rupa Book of Heartwarming Stories

  The Rupa Book of Thrills and Spills

  The Rupa Book of Spooky Encounters

  Rendezvous with Horror

  Shudders in the Dark

  The Rupa Book of Eerie Stories

  All Roads Lead to Ganga

  The Ruskin Bond

  Horror Omnibus

  Edited by

  Ruskin Bond

  Published by

  Rupa Publications India Pvt. Ltd 2007

  7/16, Ansari Road, Daryaganj

  New Delhi 110002

  Selection and Introduction Copyright © Ruskin Bond 2007

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

  ISBN: 978-81-291-1255-2

  Sixth impression 2015

  10 9 8 7 6

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated, without the publisher's prior consent, in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published.

  Contents

  Introduction

  The Squaw

  BRAM STOKER

  The Tiger

  A.E. COPPARD

  The Doll's Ghost

  F. MARION CRAWFORD

  The Skeleton

  JEROME K. JEROME

  The Staircase

  HUGH WALPOLE

  The Haunted Doll's House

  M.R. JAMES

  The Ghost

  BY WALTER DE LA MARE

  Mrs Amworth

  E.F. BENSON

  The White Wolf of the Hartz Mountains

  FREDERICK MARRYAT

  Dracula's Guest

  BRAM STOKER

  Carnival on the Downs

  GERALD KERSH

  The House of Strange Stories

  ANDREW LANG

  The Overcoat

  RUSKIN BOND

  The Mirror

  REETA DUTTA GUPTA

  The Werewolf

  C.A. KINCAID

  At the Pit's Mouth

  RUDYARD KIPLING

  Boomerang

  OSCAR COOK

  The Hollow Man

  THOMAS BURKE

  The Beast with Five Fingers

  W.F. HARVEY

  The Lodger

  MARIE BELLOC LOWNDES

  The Last Match

  EDWARD FITZ-GERALD FRIPP

  Haunted Villages

  LT. COL. W.H. SLEEMAN

  The Vampire

  SYDNEY HORLER

  The Bordeaux Diligence

  LORD HALIFAX

  The Doctor's Ghost

  DR NORMAN MACLEOD

  All Souls'

  EDITH WHARTON

  The Phantom 'Rickshaw

  RUDYARD KIPLING

  Introduction

  All those who enjoyed shuddering their way through my earlier volumes of scary stories will find a satisfying spooky sequel in the collection of horror stories. With a repertoire of ghostly themes, claustrophobic settings, and threatening situations, the grisly tales in this volumes will not disappoint young horror addicts.

  What is real and what is imaginary? Do ghosts really exist? Over the years, story-tellers have given substance to our worst fears. Here, too, readers are invited to let their imagination run amok. These are some of the spookiest tales ever written by masters of the macabre. Terror and adventure lurk in the pages of these varied horror stories.

  Included in this collection are some classic tales, the period chillers, written by undisputed masters of the genre—Bram Stoker, Rudyard Kipling, A. E. Coppard, Hugh Walpole, and others—as well as numerous lesser-known hair-raisers from across the world. While Bram Stoker's 'The Squaw'retells the story of a cat that will have her revenge, Edith Wharton's All Souls" transports us to the eerie world of black magic. Other masters of the art featured here are F. Marryat, who takes us on a terrifying journey through the Hartz Mountains; E. F. Benson, who discovers a vampire in a sleepy village; and M. R. James, whose haunted doll's house will scare you out of your wits. From phantom rickshaws to haunted houses, werewolves to vampires, prepare to encounter dangerous elements and explore uncharted territories.

  So watch your step. Look around. These hair-raising stories are guaranteed to make your flesh creep. This is a perfect book for long winter evenings of drawn curtains and dim lights. Or summer nights with the moonlight streaming in at the window and a jackal howling outside the door?

  Ruskin Bond

  The Squaw

  BRAM STOKER

  Nurnberg at the time was not so much exploited as it has been since then. Irving had not been playing Faust, and the very name of the old town was hardly known to the great bulk of the travelling public. My wife and I being in the second week of our honeymoon naturally wanted someone else to join our party, so that when the cheery stranger, Elias P. Hutcheson, hailing from Isthmian City, Bleeding Gulch, Maple Tree County, Neb., turned up at the station at Frankfort, and casually remarked that he was going on to see the most all-fired old Methusaleh of a town in Yurrup, and that he guessed that so much travelling alone was enough to send an intelligent, active citizen into the melancholy ward of a daft house, we took the pretty broad hint and suggested that we should join forces. We found, on comparing notes afterwards, that we had each intended to speak with some diffidence or hesitation so as not to appear too eager, such not being a good compliment to the success of our married life; but the effect was entirely marred by both of us beginning to speak at the same instant—stopping simultaneously and then going on together again. Anyhow, no matter how, it was done; and Elias P. Hutcheson became one of our party. Straightaway Amelia and I found the pleasant benefit; instead of quarrelling, as we had be
en doing, we found that the restraining influence of a third party was such that we now took every opportunity of spooning in odd corners. Amelia declares that ever since she has, as a result of that experience, advised all her friends to take a friend on the honeymoon. Well, we 'did' Nurnberg together, and much enjoyed the racy remarks of our Transatlantic friend, who, from his quaint speech and his wonderful stock of adventures, might have stepped out of a novel. We kept for the last object of interest in the city to be visited, the Burg, and on the day appointed for the visit strolled round the outer wall of the city by the eastern side.

  The Burg is seated on a rock dominating the town, and an immensely deep fosse guards it on the northern side. Nurnberg has been happy in that it was never sacked; had it been it would certainly not be so spick and span perfect as it is at present. The ditch has not been used for centuries, and now its base is spread with tea-gardens and orchards, of which some of the trees are of quite respectable growth. As we wandered round the wall, dawdling in the hot July sunshine, we often paused to admire the views spread before us, and in especial the great plain covered with towns and villages and bounded with a blue line of hills, like a landscape of Claude Lorraine. From this we always turned with new delight to the city itself, with its myriad of quaint old gables and acre-wide red roofs dotted with dormer windows, tier upon tier. A little to our right rose the towers of the Burg, and nearer still, standing grim, the Torture Tower, which was, and is, perhaps, the most interesting place in the city. For centuries the tradition of the Iron Virgin of Nurnberg has been handed down as an instance of the horrors of cruelty of which man is capable; we had long looked forward to seeing it; and here at last was its home.

  In one of our pauses we leaned over the wall of the moat and looked down. The garden seemed quite fifty or sixty feet below us, and the sun pouring into it with an intense, moveless heat like that of an oven. Beyond rose the grey, grim wall seemingly of endless height, and losing itself right and left in the angles of bastion and counterscarp. Trees and bushes crowned the wall, and above again towered the lofty houses on whose massive beauty Time has only set the hand of approval. The sun was hot and we were lazy; time was our own, and we lingered, leaning on the wall. Just below us was a pretty sight—a great black cat lying stretched in the sun, whilst round her gambolled prettily a tiny black kitten. The mother would wave her tail for the kitten to play with, or would raise her feet and push away the little one as an encouragement to further play. They were just at the foot of the wall, and Elias P. Hutcheson, in order to help the play, stooped and took from the walk a moderate-sized pebble.

  'See!' he said, 'I will drop it near the kitten, and they will both wonder where it came from.'

  'Oh, be careful,' said my wife; 'you might hit the dear little thing!'

  'Not me, ma'am,' said Elias P. 'Why, I'm as tender as a Maine cherry tree. Lor, bless ye, I wouldn't hurt the poor pooty little critter more'n I'd scalp a baby. An' you may bet your variegated socks on that! See, I'll drop it fur away on the outside so's not to go near her!' Thus saying, he leaned over and held his arm out at full length and dropped the stone. It may be that there is some attractive force which draws lesser matters to greater; or more probably that the wall was not plumb but sloped to its base—we not noticing the inclination from above; but the stone fell with a sickening thud that came up to us through the hot air, right on the kitten's head, and shattered out its little brains then and there. The black cat cast a swift upward glance, and we saw her eyes like green fire fixed an instant on Elias P. Hutcheson; and then her attention was given to the kitten, which lay still with just a quiver of her tiny limbs, whilst a thin red stream trickled from a gaping wound. With a muffled cry, such as a human being might give, she bent over the kitten licking its wound and moaning. Suddenly she seemed to realise that it was dead, and again threw her eyes up at us. I shall never forget the sight, for she looked the perfect incarnation of hate. Her green eyes blazed with lurid fire, and the white, sharp teeth seemed to almost shine through the blood which dabbled her mouth and whiskers. She gnashed her teeth, and her claws stood out stark and at full length on every paw. Then she made a wild rush up the wall as if to reach us, but when the momentum ended fell back and further added to her horrible appearance, for she fell on the kitten and rose with her black fur smeared with its brains and blood. Amelia turned quite faint, and I had to lift her back from the wall. There was a seat close by in shade of a spreading plane tree, and here I placed her whilst she composed herself Then I went back to Hutcheson, who stood without moving, looking down on the angry cat below.

  As I joined him, he said:

  'Wall, I guess that air the savagest beast I ever see—'cept once when an Apache squaw had an edge on a half-breed what they nicknamed "Splinters" 'cos of the way he fixed up her papoose which he stole on a raid just to show that he appreciated the way they had given his mother the fire torture. She got that kinder look so set on her face that it jest seemed to grow there. She followed Splinters more'n three year till at last the braves got him and handed him over to her. They did say that no man, white or Injun, had ever been so long a-dying under the tortures of the Apaches. The only time I ever see her smile was when I wiped her out. I kem on the camp just in time to see Splinters pass in his checks, and he wasn't sorry to go either. He was a hard citizen, and though I never could shake with him after that papoose business—for it was bitter bad, and he should have been a white man, for he looked like one—I see he had got paid out in full. Durn me, but I took a piece of his hide from one of his skinnin' posts an' had it made into a pocket-book. It's here now!' and he slapped the breast pocket of his coast.

  Whilst he was speaking, the cat was continuing her frantic efforts to get up the wall. She would take a run back and then charge up, sometimes reaching an incredible height. She did not seem to mind the heavy fall which she got each time but started with renewed vigour; and at every tumble her appearance became more horrible. Hutcheson was a kind-hearted man—my wife and I had both noticed little acts of kindness to animals as well as to persons—and he seemed concerned at the state of fury to which the cat had wrought herself.

  'Wall, now!' he said, 'I du declare that that poor critter seems quite desperate. There! there! poor thing, it was all an accident—though that won't bring back your little one to you. Say! I wouldn't have had such a thing happen for a thousand! Just shows what a clumsy fool of a man can do when he tries to play! Seems I'm too darned slipper-handed to even play with a cat. Say, Colonel!'—it was a pleasant way he had to bestow titles freely—'I hope your wife don't hold no grudge against me on. account of this unpleasantness. Why, I wouldn't have had it occur on no account.'

  He came over to Amelia and apologised profusely, and she with her usual kindness of heart hastened to assure him that she quite understood that it was an accident. Then we all went again to the wall and looked over.

  The cat missing Hutcheson's face had drawn back across the moat, and was sitting on her haunches as though ready to spring. Indeed, the very instant she saw him she did spring, and with a blind, unreasoning fury, which would have been grotesque, only that it was so frightfully real. She did not try to run up the wall, but simply launched herself at him as though hate and fury could lend her wings to pass straight through the great distance between them. Amelia, womanlike, got quite concerned and said to Elias P. in a warning voice:

  'Oh! you must be very careful. That animal would try to kill you if she were here; her eyes look like positive murder.'

  He laughed out jovially. 'Excuse me, ma'am,' he said, 'but I can't help laughin'. Fancy a man that has fought grizzlies an' Injuns bein' careful of bein' murdered by a cat!'

  When the cat heard him laugh, her whole demeanour seemed to change. She no longer tried to jump or run up the wall, but went quietly over, and sitting again beside the dead kitten, began to lick and fondle it as though it were alive.

  'See!' said I, 'the effect of a really strong man. Even that animal in the midst of her fury
recognises the voice of a master, and bows to him!'

  'Like a squaw!' was the only comment of Elias P. Hutcheson, as we moved on our way round the city fosse. Every now and then we looked over the wall and each time saw the cat following us. At first she had kept going back to the dead kitten, and then as the distance grew greater, she took it in her mouth and so followed. After a while, however, she abandoned this, for we saw her following all alone; she had evidently hidden the body somewhere. Amelia's alarm grew at the cat's persistence, and more than once she repeated her warning; but the American always laughed with amusement, till finally, seeing that she was beginning to be worried, he said:

  'I say, ma'am, you needn't be skeered over that cat. I go heeled, I du!' Here he slapped his pistol pocket at the back of his lumbar region. 'Why, sooner'n have you worried, I'll shoot the critter, right here, an' risk the police interferin' with a citizen of the United States for carryin' arms contrairy to reg'lations!' As he spoke he looked over the wall, but the cat, on seeing him, retreated with a growl into a bed of tall flowers and was hidden. He went on: 'Blest if that ar critter ain't got more sense of what's good for her than most Christians. I guess we've seen the last of her! You bet, she'll go back now to that busted kitten and have a private funeral of it, all to herselfl'

  Amelia did not like to say more, lest he might, in mistaken kindness to her, fulfil his threat of shooting the cat: and so we went on and crossed the little wooden bridge leading to the gateway whence ran the steep paved roadway between the Burg and the pentagonal Torture Tower. As we crossed the bridge we saw the cat again down below us. When she saw us, her fury seemed to return and she made frantic efforts to get up the steep wall. Hutcheson laughed as he looked down at her, and said:

  'Good-bye, old girl. Sorry I in-jured your feelin's, but you'll get over it in time! So long!' And then we passed through the long, dim archway and came to the gate of the Burg.

  When we came out again after our survey of this most beautiful old place which not even the well-intentioned efforts of the Gothic restorers of forty years ago have been able to spoil—though their restoration was then glaring white—we seemed to have quite forgotten the unpleasant episode of the morning. The old lime tree with its great trunk gnarled with the passing of nearly nine centuries, the deep well cut through the heart of the rock by those captives of old, and the lovely view from the city wall whence we heard, spread over almost a full quarter of an hour, the multitudinous chimes of the city, had all helped to wipe out from our minds the incident of the slain kitten.