The Most Frightening Story Ever Told

  Her dark brown eyes narrowed and she let out a little sigh that drew her hand to her mouth.

  “Oh,” she said, as if something had been awoken in her mind. “Yes. I do begin to remember something. From long ago. Before I came here. Yes. It’s been so long, I had quite forgotten, yes. Forgive me, Edgar, yes. I remember now.”

  I moved to embrace her but found my guide interposing his twin selves between my mother and myself.

  “Time’s up,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Five minutes,” said the one.

  “You agreed,” said the other.

  A curious thing now happened. The twins separated at the hip. One took hold of my mother around the waist and the other took firm hold of my arm and began to lead me away from her, back to the stairs.

  “Please,” I said. “Give us two more minutes, I beg of you.”

  “He begs,” said the man holding my mother. “Here, of all places. He begs and expects us to listen. Can you credit it?”

  “Please,” wailed my mother. “Don’t go.”

  The man holding me laughed and led me to the stairs, for he was much too strong to resist. “Is it possible that you still do not understand where you are, boy?”

  “Edgar, my son.”

  My mother’s little hand reached out for mine and our fingers touched fleetingly.

  “Edgar, my boy. Don’t leave me here. Forgive me, son. Yes, it’s true, I had forgotten. But I remember now. I remember everything. You, Henry, your father. Our house in Richmond. When we were a family. Everything. Please, don’t abandon me here. Please.”

  This last word was not spoken so much as screamed in anguish, cutting through my chest like a huge, sharp blade.

  “Please,” she screamed again. “Don’t leave me, Edgar. Please!”

  “Momma, I’m right here. I’m here.”

  And then she was gone, although that terrible scream stayed ringing in my ears for several hours after I saw her no more. No more!

  Suddenly it was horribly plain to me the awful truth of what I had done. Until she had seen me again, my mother had been reconciled to our being parted by the grave; but now, as a result of my stupid underworld tourism, she would have to endure the awful torment of our being parted once again, only this time until I myself was dead.

  Why had I never perceived any of this before? Why had I not recognized where I was and the true identity of my smiling Oriental guide?

  “What have I done?” I whispered as he led me back upstairs. “What have I done?”

  “Done?” He grinned a sulfurous, evil grin that was part man and part wolf. “Why, you’ve done my job for me, old fellow. You’ve done my job for me.”

  I heard a hum of voices, only some of which belonged to him.

  “Normally we try to discourage contact between the living and the dead. But, all things considered, your visit has been a great success. It’s always a challenge devising new torments for our guests. And I don’t mind confessing that I thought I had seen every torture known to man or imp. But this was something special. I congratulate you, old fellow. And offer my humble thanks. For this was the first time that a torment worked in this world and yours. As I know you will soon discover.”

  And then I must have fainted.

  When I opened my eyes again, I was in my own bed at home and sick with a fever. Mammy was there with a cold cloth to mop my brow. I have no idea how I got there. Had the whole thing been a dreadful nightmare? Or had I really visited the underworld like Orpheus? I cannot say for certain, because by the time I was well enough to speak to Scipio again, he himself was sick of the same fever and, very soon afterwards, was dead by it, for which I was extremely sorry.

  But a strange thing happened while I was helping to nurse poor Scipio. When I took out my own handkerchief to mop his brow, as Mammy had mopped mine, a second handkerchief fell out of my pocket. But it was not one of mine. It was made of lace.

  Mammy picked it up. “What’s this, Master Edgar?” she said. “You got yourself a lady friend?” She was about to hand it back to me when she noted the initials “E.P.” on the corner. She lifted the little handkerchief to her nose and then sniffed it. Her eyes widened like she had seen a ghost. “Where’d you get this handkerchief?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, looking at it.

  “Don’t lie to me, Master Edgar,” she said.

  “Really, I don’t. I’ve never seen it before.”

  “Your momma, Elizabeth, she been dead these four years but her perfume is mighty powerful on the material,” said Mammy. “Extract of jasmine and violet. Like she just got done holding it.”

  “E.P.,” I said, looking at the initials. “Was it my mother’s?” I asked.

  “Ain’t possible that it is,” she said fearfully. “And yet that’s what it looks and smells like.”

  “It’s just a handkerchief.” I shrugged. “I really don’t see why you’re looking so alarmed about it.”

  “I knew your momma’s linen, Master Edgar. That woman owned but six handkerchiefs with her initials on them and every one had blood on it on account of the fact that she had the consumption. Like this.”

  And she showed me a spot of blood on the handkerchief. The blood hardly looked old. Surely this was fresh blood. As she spoke I felt a chill come over me. Was it possible that she was right?

  “Which is why I burned them all when she died,” said Mammy. “So you go ahead and tell me, boy. Where’d you get this? ’Cos it seems to me that it couldn’t ever have been got in this world. Not ever.”

  Now, when I am asked why in my life I have more often thought upon certain apprehensions and unendurable tortures than upon the free air of heaven, by way of an answer, I recount this story. It is, I do solemnly declare, no bugaboo, no mere fanciful tale, and I can honestly state that there are indeed moments when, even to a skeptical scientific eye, this living world and the sepulchral realm of terror appear as one, and man and a grim-faced demon do indeed walk, hand in hand, along the banks of the river Styx.

  —

  Billy closed the book and shook his head. “Wow,” he said.

  “So what did you think of it?” asked Mr. Rapscallion as he tied his curious-looking tie. It had a picture of a woman screaming on it that was a copy of a famous painting by a Norwegian artist called Edvard Munch.

  “Awesome,” said Billy.

  “What made you want to read it, anyway?”

  “I dunno. It looked like an interesting book, I guess. And it was on your special shelf so I figured it might be, er…special.” Billy tried to change the subject so as to avoid talking about Redford. “You really think it’s by the young Edgar Allan Poe?”

  “This side of a séance, I don’t suppose we’ll ever know for sure,” said Mr. Rapscallion. “But I kind of think it might be.”

  “If it was true, it would certainly explain a lot about Poe,” observed Billy.

  “How do you mean?”

  “The kid in the story is only twelve, right?” Billy shrugged.

  “As far as I can remember, yes.”

  “If you really did visit the underworld at that age, then it would kind of affect your whole outlook on life. I think it would make you kind of morbid. So perhaps it’s no wonder that he wrote all those creepy stories like ‘The Masque of the Red Death’ and ‘The Pit and the Pendulum.’ I mean, if that had happened to me, it would totally freak me out.”

  Mr. Rapscallion smiled.

  “What did I say?” asked Billy.

  “Nothing. It’s just nice to talk to a kid who’s interested in books, that’s all. Makes a pleasant change from being told what was on the idiot box last night.”

  Billy looked at Mr. Rapscallion blankly.

  “Television,” said Mr. Rapscallion by way of explanation.

  “We don’t watch much TV in our family,” confessed Billy.

  “Now that you’ve read ‘The Pocket Handkerchief,’ I’ll be interested to see what you make of Uplifting Stories for Boys.??
?

  Billy repeated the title with some suspicion. “It doesn’t sound like my kind of book,” he said.

  “On the contrary,” said Mr. Rapscallion. “It’s exactly your kind of book. One of the scariest things I’ve ever read.”

  “Yeah, sure.” Billy smiled wryly.

  “No, really,” said Mr. Rapscallion. “When we get back to Hitchcock, I’ll lend you a copy. It’s kind of old. Published in the nineteen-sixties. But it still has the power to shock.”

  “Just like that tie,” said Billy.

  “Isn’t it a doozy?” Mr. Rapscallion straightened his Scream tie and slipped on his jacket. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go to this stupid dinner.”

  The Kansas City Public Library, located on Tenth Street, in the center of Kansas City, is opposite the largest bookshelf in the world. Or so it appears. Because opposite the actual library is a large parking garage with an exterior that has been designed to look like a row of book spines that is twenty-five feet high. These books include Invisible Man, A Tale of Two Cities, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Lord of the Rings, Charlotte’s Web, Catch-22, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and several others.

  Billy and Mr. Rapscallion were outside the library. Before the B.A.B. dinner, the bookseller had insisted on taking the boy’s picture in front of the titles on the side of the garage, with the camera Miss McBatty had given him back at the hotel.

  “It’ll be a nice souvenir of our evening.” Optimistically, he added: “We can put it in the album alongside the one Mercedes takes of the ghost.” He grinned. “Wouldn’t that be something?”

  “You bet,” said Billy, who was none too sure about this.

  Meanwhile, he was ashamed to discover that the only one of these books on the giant shelf he had read was Invisible Man.

  “Actually, you haven’t even read that one,” announced Mr. Rapscallion.

  “Yes, I have,” protested Billy. “It’s by H. G. Wells. And I thought it was pretty good.”

  “Yes, but look again,” said Mr. Rapscallion. “This book on the garage here’s not The Invisible Man, but another book altogether. This one’s just Invisible Man. And it’s by a completely different author. Someone called Ralph Ellison.”

  “So who ripped off who?” asked Billy.

  “Wells came first,” said Mr. Rapscallion. “He’s the more famous writer, of course. But as to which is the better book, I couldn’t say, since I’ve only read one.”

  Billy kept looking for a moment. “About how thick would you say these books are?” he asked Mr. Rapscallion.

  “Nine or ten feet wide,” said Mr. Rapscallion.

  Billy nodded. “That’s what I thought. Which makes you kind of wonder that there’s nothing by Esteban Rex up there. If anyone really had written a book that’s ten feet thick, it would probably have to be him.”

  “Good point.” Mr. Rapscallion chuckled. “Good point. We’ll make a critic out of you yet, Billy.”

  They went into the library, where lots of other men and women were arriving. As they arrived they left their coats in the cloakroom and then lined up to be greeted by a very large lady wearing a long purple dress and a knitted brown shawl, and next to her a very stout man with a red face wearing a dark brown suit that smelled strongly of mothballs.

  “That’s Miss Bertolucci,” said Mr. Rapscallion. “She’s the chairperson of the B.A.B. And next to her is Mr. Brando, the vice chairperson.”

  Miss Bertolucci greeted Mr. Rapscallion and then Billy warmly.

  “And who is your young friend, Rexford?” she asked in a squeaky little voice that sounded like someone polishing a windshield.

  “This is Billy Shivers.”

  Miss Bertolucci took Billy’s hand and introduced herself, and, trying to make polite conversation, Billy asked her if she was from Kansas City.

  “As a matter of fact, I’m not,” she said. “I’m from Detroit. And so is Mr. Brando.” She turned to Mr. Rapscallion. “We’re so looking forward to your speech tonight. Aren’t we?”

  Mr. Brando nodded enthusiastically. “Can’t wait.” He grinned a big grin. “Hey, Rexford, what did you think of the new Esteban Rex?”

  “I hated it,” said Mr. Rapscallion. “But don’t quote me on that. Especially to him. He’s the kind of author you don’t cross if you can help it.”

  While Mr. Rapscallion talked about books with some of the other booksellers, Billy went to explore the library. This was much bigger and better than the one in Hitchcock. From the outside it had looked like a Greek temple. And it was a little like a Greek temple on the inside, too, with marble columns and polished floors. It was full of books, of course. But it was also full of people. And none of them seemed to be paying any attention to the large sign above the main desk that read SILENCE AT ALL TIMES.

  Billy was shocked.

  Mr. Rapscallion came and found Billy in front of an enormous Leaning Tower of Pisa–pile of books that looked like it was about to topple over.

  “That could injure someone if it falls,” whispered Billy.

  “It’s a sculpture,” said Mr. Rapscallion. “It’s designed to look like it’s about to topple over. But it won’t.”

  “They should ask for their money back.”

  “I agree.”

  “Are all these people booksellers?” whispered the boy.

  “All people who are involved in the business of selling books,” said Mr. Rapscallion. “Publishers, booksellers, agents, even a few writers. See that skinny guy, by the far pillar? That’s Jonathan Graft. He writes crime and mystery. Thinks he’s the greatest writer since Herman Melville. Only he’s not. And the rather muscular lady he’s talking to? With the short hair and the motorcycle jacket. That’s Gill Razoredsky. She writes books about murder.”

  “Why are they talking?” said Billy. “You’re not supposed to talk in a library.”

  “Ordinarily, I’d agree with you,” explained Mr. Rapscallion. “But the library is now closed to the public for the evening. So it’s all right to talk normally.” He smiled and lowered his voice. “Not that there are many normal people here. Did you ever see such a crowd of deadbeats? Booksellers. A lot of these people couldn’t sell a glass of water to a man dying of thirst.”

  Soon afterward a man wearing a tailcoat announced very loudly that dinner was served.

  It was chicken. Mr. Rapscallion didn’t eat his. He said he was too nervous about making a speech to have an appetite. “Besides, normally you don’t get chicken like this below thirty thousand feet.”

  Billy didn’t eat his chicken either. He wasn’t sure if it had ever flown as high as thirty thousand feet but it looked like it was made of rubber.

  Finally, the moment arrived when Miss Bertolucci stood up and introduced Mr. Rapscallion to all the guests. She said he needed no introduction, which Billy thought was a bit confusing given that she was supposed to be introducing him. Then everyone clapped as Mr. Rapscallion rose in his place.

  Billy thought there must have been at least five hundred people waiting to hear what Mr. Rapscallion would say.

  “Thank you, Madam Chairperson,” he said, nodding at Miss Bertolucci.

  Then he looked at the audience.

  “My fellow American booksellers. Agents. Publishers. Writers.” He grinned nervously. “If I’d known the chicken was going be as tough as that, I’d have brought a dog to chew it for me.” He swallowed nervously as no one laughed at his joke. “Now, as some of you know, I run an independent bookshop called the Haunted House of Books. We specialize in books about ghosts and horror, and vampires. The trouble is that people aren’t buying as many books as they used to. Especially kids. They used to buy a lot more than they do now. I think it’s because there’s so much for them to do these days. Television. Internet. Cellular telephones. Computer games. Grand Theft Auto. Graffiti.

  “Tell me something I don’t know, I hear you say. But it used to be that the one thing we knew they were reading was books about witches and wizards and ghosts and vampires a
nd monsters. The trouble is, they’re not reading any of those books very much either. Not anymore. And I ask myself why? Why?

  “The answer is, I think, that kids just don’t get scared like they used to. Not like when I was a kid. When I was a kid, I stood outside a movie theater where Frankenstein was on the bill and, looking at the poster, I thought it was the most frightening thing I’d ever seen. Dracula, too. And that was just the poster. I didn’t even have the nerve to go through the door. Not that I’d have been allowed, of course. I was too young. But these days, heck, the kids just laugh at something like that.

  “Nothing like that scares them today because they’ve all seen much worse on the televisions in their bedrooms. Or on their laptops. And that’s another thing. Kids don’t sleep in the dark. They sleep with the TV on, or the computer. Or even the light. And the lighting is electric, so it’s more efficient than a candle, or firelight. That means there are no shadows. It means that there are no dark places where their imaginations can run away with them. What’s more, our houses are efficiently heated. So children just don’t tremble and shiver like they used to. And if there are no creepy shadows, and no shivering, how can we ever be properly afraid?

  “The fact is that these days, scaring the kids is so much harder to do. The only thing that seems to really scare them is their friends laughing at them for being fat, or stupid, or listening to the wrong music.

  “I don’t have an answer to this. But I just wish that one of the writers here would write a book that is really scary and that maybe one of you publishers will want to publish it. So that we can scare the pants off kids again like we were scared. Because if we don’t learn how to scare our kids again—and here’s the important thing—we won’t be able to control them. They’ll just do what the heck they want, when they want. And that’ll be a bad, bad thing.

  “You see, if our kids aren’t afraid of the bogeyman, or ghosts, or vampires—if kids aren’t even afraid of the dark, then there’s going to be no way of making any of the little rats toe the line. We will be powerless to stop them answering the teacher back in class, or being rude to their parents, or trying to write their names on the wall.