The Undertaker's Dozen

by David Forrest

Genres: Short Stories; Horror

Synopsis

Terror can have such simple beginnings -- a child's letter to Father Christmas...a pretty girl glimpsed in a London street...a trip down the Brighton Road...a night spent in an empty mansion for a bet? And the consequences can be fearsome, as the unsleeping dead walk again, as strange emotions stir inanimate things to murderous life, as horrors beyond our imagining cross the threshold into our world; can anyone be sure that all is as it seems. After you read these thirteen tales of terror, can you?

Release date: August 13, 2015

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 160

Sample

THE THING that annoyed him most about their home was her fixation for Red Indians’ portraits. They dominated and confused the decor. Severe and haughty, these dozen Apaches stared down their noses at him as though he were nothing more than an intruder in their territory. What was even more annoying was that the paintings were all supposed to be of the same Indian guide – although no two portraits resembled each other in any way at all.

The Indian’s name was Pokahantamokkadulas; translated, it was supposed to mean ‘He who runs farthest and fastest across the great plains of the sky’.

‘There’s sausages and a bottle of wine,’ called Paula. ‘Help yourself. Oh, and half an avocado. It shouldn’t have gone brown, yet.’

‘Are the sausages cold?’

‘If they’re not, then we’ve got a fire in the fridge,’ said Paula. ‘Sorry, darling, I’m just dressing. I simply haven’t got time to make a meal tonight. Tell you what, though. You can meet me afterwards, if you like, and we can go along to the bistro and have a strogonoff.’

Greville sighed. ‘I don’t know anyone else who gives his wife twenty-five pounds a week housekeeping money and then has to either live out of the fridge, or in the local bistro. Can’t you organise yourself so’s I get some decent meals?’

‘Darling, don’t be difficult.’ Paula’s voice drifted down the stairwell.

‘Difficult? For God’s sake, woman … all it takes is a couple of hours’ work in the afternoon. I don’t give a damn about what you get up to in the evenings – although it would be nice if we could spend the occasional one together again.’

Paula came into the room, fastening her dress. ‘Afternoons are becoming a bit of a problem, you know, darling,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you do as I suggest, and have a good substantial lunch at the office? Then you wouldn’t feel like a heavy meal at night.’ She buttoned her suede coat and pulled the belt around her, knotting it carelessly. ‘Well, are you going to meet me?’

‘I suppose so,’ grumbled Greville. He would have liked an evening in front of the television, but if going out to meet Paula meant a warm meal, then out he’d go.

‘Nine o’clock, then.’ She leant over and kissed him on his forehead. ‘Don’t be late, darling. It looks like rain.’ She left the room. He heard her footsteps on the hall carpet, then the front door slammed.

He pushed himself up out of his chair and stood in front of one of the paintings of the feathered Indian. ‘I don’t know what your game is,’ he said. ‘But if you’re trying to starve me to death in my own tepee, I’ll have your scalp.’

The bistro pretended to be Russian. It was owned by an Armenian.

The interior was candlelit. Not so much for the atmosphere, Greville suspected, but more to disguise the dilapidation of the furniture and the tiredness of the decorations. The tables were small, arranged tightly along the walls. The menus were handwritten, spidery and inconsistently spelt. Candle wax, which had escaped down the sides of the old Chianti bottles, made hard lumps on the wooden tables, and the dinner plates wobbled unsteadily. Knowledgeable diners scraped a flat surface in front of them with their knives before the food was served.

Greville was certain that the only reason the bistro remained in business was its proximity to the excellent wine merchants next door. It was convenient, if not a little sacrilegious, to buy one’s wine at off-sales prices, and then take it next door to neutralise the food.

‘Absolute nonsense,’ said Paula. She shook her long red hair back off her face and studied the menu. ‘It’s just that you’ve developed some very strange ideas about food, lately.’

‘It could be because I don’t seem to be getting much food from you lately,’ grunted Greville.

‘Stop being childish about it, darling. If this is going to be the subject for every conversation we’re going to have in the future, then life is going to be an awful bore. I don’t think I’ll have strogonoff, after all. I’ll have shashlik.’

Greville looked up at the hovering Armenian. ‘A shashlik, and a peppered steak.’

‘Vegetables?’

‘Just salad,’ said Greville. The Armenian nodded curtly, made a small mark on his notepad, and shuffled off sideways between the tables.

‘Darling,’ said Paula. Her voice took on a persuasive tone. ‘Why don’t you try coming along to a meeting with me. Just once. You’d enjoy it. It’s very interesting.’

‘Sitting in a circle, holding hands with the lights out? It’s more reminiscent of teenage birthday parties than of an adult occupation,’ said Greville. ‘I mind enough as it is you wasting your time, but don’t try to get me to as well.’

‘But you haven’t tried. How d’you know it’s a waste of time?’ She reached across the table and rested her hand on his arm.

‘I haven’t tried diving off the Eiffel Tower, either, and flapping my arms, trying to fly. For the same obvious reason. …’

‘Darling,’ she said patiently. ‘D’you know what happened this evening?’

‘Tell me,’ said Greville. His voice was bored.

‘Well … it was really terribly exciting. Mrs Parkwell got through to Napoleon. …’

‘Amazing,’ said Greville. ‘How are the poor bugger’s piles?’

‘Piles? Oh … well, if you’re not interested, darling.’

‘For heaven’s sake, Paula! How on earth can I be interested by such an absurd load of rubbish? Honestly … Mrs Parkwell got through to Napoleon! Last Monday evening it was Oscar Wilde, and Friday it was King Edward the Second. That woman has a fixation for historical figures with anal problems. She’s lucky she found someone as gullible as you to believe her.’

‘So speaks the logically-minded metallurgist,’ said Paula, coldly. ‘So long as you can find its molecular construction … relate it to atoms and protons and things … talk about it at the Institute … weld it or braze it or something, then it exists. If you can’t do any of those things, then you don’t believe in it.’

‘Love is something I believe in … and you can’t see that! I love you, that’s why we’re together. I’ve heard about love me, love my dog; but love my Indian guide no thanks! He’s just a bloody tyrant. If he existed, I’d report him to the Race Relations Board. It’s an act of racial prejudice to expect a healthy man to live on halves of antique avocado pears.’

A plate was bounced down in front of Greville. It startled him. ‘Steak au Poivre,’ said the Armenian. He pushed another plate across to Paula. ‘And pilaff for ze Madam.’

‘She ordered shash …’ began Greville.

‘It’s all right, darling,’ interrupted Paula. She smiled at the Armenian. ‘Thank you.’

The Armenian nodded and left them.

‘You fuss about everything to do with food,’ said Paula. ‘I’m quite happy with this.’ Greville shrugged. ‘Look,’ said Paula, stirring the rice with her fork, ‘just suppose I could prove to you that there are spirits, would you listen then? Maybe you’d even join us at Mrs Parkwell’s, eh?’

Greville cut fiercely at his steak. ‘I’m desperate, a starving man, clutching at straws that are breaking the camel’s back. I’ll tell you what … I’ll make you a bargain. In fact, I’ll make any bargain that looks like saving me. You prove to me there are ghosts and spirits, and not only will I join your group, but I’ll lend my hands for as much holding as necessary. But, if you fail, I mean when you fail, then you pack it all in and go back to being just a good and happy housewife. Oh, one more thing; when you fail, out go all those crummy pictures of Big Chief Pokwhatsisname, too. Okay?’

‘Any time limit?’ asked Paula.

‘A month?’

‘It’s a deal.’ Paula smiled at him. ‘Pass me the salt, please, darling?’

It took her almost three weeks to arrange everything. It wasn’t easy finding a building that contained spirits capable of convincing an embittered cynic like Greville.

There were quite a few houses around London that were ‘slightly haunted’, according to Mrs Parkwell. ‘It’s a part-time poltergiest, Paula. Seems to like throwing things, but only on Quarter Days.’ Or – ‘Something cold rushes across the lavatory and spins the toilet roll in its holder.’ Paula persisted. She couldn’t see that she’d impress Greville with the aggravated spirit of a rates defaulter, or by a situation that necessitated his sitting in discomfort for days in a small room, in the hope that something might activate a toilet roll.

Mrs Parkwell found the right house at last through one of her social contacts. Paula told Greville about it that evening.

‘Darling, I’ve arranged it. It’s an old place, just off the M4. Burchetts something. An old manor house. It’s absolutely crawling with spirits.’

‘Good,’ said Greville. He was feeling pleased with himself. Paula respected ‘deals’. She wouldn’t break the bargain. In another few days, life would be back to normal.

Paula was excited. ‘It’s got everything, Mrs Parkwell says. There was a monastery there before the manor. And there’s supposed to be the ghost of an evil monk who wanders around just a few inches from the floor. …’

‘Considerate of him to respect the carpeting,’ said Greville.

‘Shush, darling. And there’s something that rattles chains and makes the boards creak as it slides across them. She says it smells of the grave, all damp and earthy – really most interesting. And there’s a grey woman who glides everywhere. …’

‘Don’t tell British Airways,’ said Greville. ‘They’ll go into liquidation.’

‘I’ve fixed it up for Friday,’ said Paula triumphantly. ‘Mrs Parkwell’s getting me the key.’

‘Hurrah for Mrs Parkwell,’ said Greville.

Friday the thirteenth was fine and sunny in the morning when Greville took the Tube to the city. By lunchtime, when he went with his partner for a snack in a Fleet Street wine house, it was overcast and heavy. As he reached Bayswater in the evening and unlocking his front door, the first heavy drops of rain were darkening the pavements and turning the dust on the leaves of the trees around the square into a fine mud that dripped dirtily on to the shoulders of passers-by.

‘I’ve got everything,’ said Paula, as he walked through the door. ‘We’ll skip dinner. I’ve made some sandwiches for you. You can have them with a flask of coffee when we get there. And I’ve got a torch, and candles, and matches and. …’

‘All right, all right,’ interrupted Greville, holding up his hand to silence her. ‘Suppose you kiss me hello, for a start. Then I’ll change out of my suit and we’ll push off. God, it’s filthy outside.’ There was a sudden grinding roar of thunder. Sheet lightning turned the glass of the windows momentarily blue.

‘Isn’t it a lovely night for a ghost hunt?’ Paula hugged him. ‘Friday the thirteenth AND it’s thundering and everything.’

‘Yes, dear, it’s lovely,’ agreed Greville with no enthusiasm whatsoever.

The wheels of the Scimitar Estate squashed wetly on the polished surface of the M4 Motorway as Greville drove out of London. Once clear of the raised section through Chiswick, he increased the speed along the outside lane to avoid the spray thrown up by the lorries as he passed them. Ignoring the seventy mile an hour limit in a clear section of road he pushed the car up to a steady ninety-five until he reached the turn-off signposted to Oxford. The short spur road ended at a roundabout a mile further on. At a second roundabout a signpost to the left indicated Burchetts Green.

‘Mrs Parkwell says it’s along on the left somewhere, down a narrow lane,’ said Paula, peering through the mud-splashed windscreen. ‘There … it must be down there.’

The lane was so narrow that Greville missed it. He had to brake fiercely, and then reverse until he could swing the long nose of the Scimitar between the high hedges. ‘Gosh, I’m excited,’ said Paula, squeezing her hands together on her lap. ‘You know, darling, this is really going to make a big difference to our relationship. You see, once you’re a believer, like me, we’ll be able to do all sorts of exciting things together. …’

‘Or, when you’re a disbeliever, like me,’ began Greville, wincing as the front wheel thudded into a deep, mud-filled, pot-hole. ‘Just think, we’ll be able to do all sorts of exciting things together like eating properly at home each evening.’

‘There it is, there it is!’ Paula bounced up and down in her seat and pointed to the left.

The house, once grand, a mixture of tile-hung walls and Tudor timbering, with a stone courtyard before it, merged with a group of tall elm trees fighting for survival against disease and old age. It was dusk now, and the house seemed to fade into darkness as they watched, as though it were trying to shrink from the gaze of living beings. The tyres of the Scimitar skidded as Greville braked harshly to a halt. It was raining more heavily now. Great sheets of squally rain slashed down across the courtyard.

‘A ghost would have to be insane to haunt this place,’ he said, peering upwards through the arcs cut by the windscreen wipers. ‘Quite mad. It looks damp and draughty. Besides, what’s the point of haunting when there’s no one to haunt. Rather. . .