An Agent of KAOS

 

If you're as old as I am, you will remember the 1960s TV sitcom Get Smart, created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry. (If you're too young to have seen it, you might have seen the 2008 film that was based on it—although probably not; it was a pretty big flop.) The series was a parody of another popular TV series, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., which itself capitalized on the popularity of the James Bond franchise. Don Adams and Barbara Feldon played agents 86 and 99 of the secret government agency CONTROL. They were the good guys. Their chief adversary was Siegfried, an agent of KAOS.

His supporters think Donald Trump is one of the good guys—an agent of CONTROL, if you will. He certainly seemed to be in control on July 13th, when a would-be assassin's bullet took off the tip of his ear and he had the presence of mind to pause for a photo op before the secret service hustled him offstage.

But Trump is obviously an agent of KAOS.

His speeches are insane, incoherent rambles on windmills, toilets, sharks, Hannibal Lecter, Arnold Palmer's... you know. (He calls it "the weave," but a more common term is "dementia.") And have you forgotten his presidency? Apparently half the country has. They claim they were better off four years ago. Apparently they completely forgot about COVID-19. It's been estimated that his reckless handling of the pandemic caused hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths. Remember the constant turnover in the west wing? It seemed that every day someone was being fired or resigning in frustration, something he was apparently proud of. ("I like turnover. I like chaos.") As expected, his Supreme Court nominees voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, turning the country into a chaotic crazy quilt of conflicting abortion laws.

And how can anyone forgot the chaos of January 6, 2021, when he became the first president in our history to refuse to peacefully transfer the reins of power, instead opting to incite a violent insurrection?

In a couple of months, our country will once again be thrown into Donald Trump's chaos, and this time it will be even worse. Last time, there were people who were able to control his craziest impulses. (Drop a nuclear bomb into a hurricane?!) This time, there will be no guard rails. He will surround himself with sycophants who will serve without question. The judicial branch won't control him; the Supreme Court has granted him immunity. And if the Christofascist Heritage Foundation has its way, Project 2025 will undermine the legislative branch. The checks and balances carefully put in place by our founding fathers will effectively be removed, turning our country into a fascist autocracy.

Republicans I have admired—Lincoln, Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Ford—would never have stood for this. Even the ones I don't have much use for wouldn't. (We live just a few miles from where Reagan is buried; lately, I sometimes imagine I hear him spinning in his grave.) They would be appalled that their party elected a corrupt, pathologically dishonest demagogue like Trump, much less enabled him, with the aid of the Heritage Foundation, to systematically dismantle our government. But the Republican Party no longer exists. There is only the party of Trump, the party of chaos.

I could cry, but as Siegfried would say, "This is KAOS. We don't cry here."

Bernie Kopell as Siegfried

Is Anybody There?

 

It's been well over a year since my last post. Is anybody there? Does anybody care? Does anybody read blogs anymore? Does anybody write them? It seems to me that the blog is becoming as much a thing of the past as the Christmas ghost story. Speaking of which...

(Speaking of which, have you noticed that nobody says "Speaking of which" anymore? Now it's just "Speaking of." What happened to the "which?" But I digress. As I was saying...)

When I started this blog, I vowed to write a post every week. My weekly posts dwindled to the point where I was only posting once or twice a year—generally at Christmastime and generally ghost stories, because I've always been intrigued by ghost stories, and because I'd read several articles about reviving the tradition of sharing them at Christmas.

Last Christmas I was unable to post anything, and for a very good reason. (It's a long story; maybe someday I'll share it.) Now I'll go back to posting a Christmas ghost story or two each year for as long as I am able (whether anyone reads them or not).

The following is the most recent example I've come across; it’s only a couple of years older than I am. It was written by Rosemary Timperley. Ever hear of her? Neither have I. In fact, an article I found referred to her as “The Greatest Horror Writer You’ve Never Heard Of.” I don't know about that; since I started this project, I've come across a number of excellent horror writers I'd never heard of. However, I did thoroughly enjoy this little story, and I think you will too.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Meeting
by Rosemary Timperley (1952)

I have never spent Christmas alone before.

It gives me an uncanny feeling, sitting alone in my “furnished room,” with my head full of ghosts, and the room full of voices of the past. It’s a drowning feeling – all the Christmases of the past coming back in a mad jumble: the childish Christmas, with a house full of relations, a tree in the window, sixpences in the pudding, and the delicious, crinckly stocking in the dark morning; the adolescent Christmas, with mother and father, the war and the bitter cold, and the letters from abroad; the first really grown-up Christmas, with a lover - the snow and the enchantment, red wine and kisses, and the walk in the dark before midnight, with the grounds so white, and the stars diamond bright in a black sky - so many Christmases through the years.

And, now the first Christmas alone.

But not quite loneliness. A feeling of companionship with all the other people who are spending Christmas alone - millions of them - past and present.

A feeling that if I close my eyes, there will be no past or future, only an endless present which is time, because it is all we ever have.

Yes, however cynical you are, however irreligious, it makes you feel queer to be alone at Christmas time.

So I’m absurdly relieved when the young man walks in. There’s nothing romantic about it - I’m a woman of nearly fifty, a spinster schoolma’am with grim, dark hair, and myopic eyes that once were beautiful, and he’s a kid of twenty, rather unconventionally dressed with a flowing wine-colored tie and black velvet jacket, and brown curls which could do with a taste of the barber’s scissors. The effeminacy of his dress is belied by his features - narrow, piercing, blue eyes, and arrogant, jutting nose and chin.

Not that he looks strong. The skin is fine-drawn over the prominent features, and he is very white.

He bursts in without knocking, then pauses, says: “I’m sorry. I thought this was my room.” He begins to go out, then hesitates and says: “Are you alone?”

“Yes.”

“It’s - queer, being alone at Christmas, isn’t it? May I stay and talk?”

“I’d be glad if you would.”

He comes right in, and sits down by the fire.

“I hope you don’t think I came in here on purpose. I really did think it was my room,” he explains.

“I’m glad you made the mistake. But you’re a very young person to be alone at Christmas time.”

“I wouldn’t go back to the country to my family. It would hold up my work. I’m a writer.”

“I see.” I can’t help smiling a little. That explains his rather unusual dress. And he takes himself so seriously, this young man! “Of course, you mustn’t waste a precious moment of writing,” I say with a twinkle.

“No, not a moment! That’s what my family won’t see. They don’t appreciate urgency.”

“Families are never appreciative of the artistic nature.”

“No, they aren’t,” he agrees seriously.

“What are you writing?”

“Poetry and a diary combined. It’s called ‘My poems and I,’ by Francis Randel. That’s my name. My family say there’s no point in my writing, that I’m too young. But I don’t feel young. Sometimes I feel like an old man, with too much to do before he dies.”

“Revolving faster and faster on the wheel of creativeness.”

“Yes! Yes, exactly! You understand! You must read my work some time. Please read my work! Read my work!” A note of desperation in his voice, a look of fear in his eyes makes me say:

“We’re both getting much too solemn for Christmas Day. I’m going to make you some coffee. And I have plum cake.”

I move about, clattering cups, spooning coffee into my percolator. But I must have offended him, for, when I look around, I found he has left me. I am absurdly disappointed.

I finish making coffee, however, then turn to the bookshelf in the room. It is piled high with volumes, for which the landlady has apologized profusely: “Hope you don’t mind the books, Miss, but my husband won’t part with them, and there’s nowhere to put them. We charge a bit less for the room for that reason.”

“I don’t mind,” I said. “Books are good friends.”

But these aren’t very friendly-looking books. I take one at random. Or does some strange fate guide my hand?

Sipping my coffee, inhaling my cigarette smoke, I begin to read the battered little book, published, I see, in Spring, 1852. It’s mainly poetry - immature stuff, but vivid. Then there’s a kind of diary. More realistic, less affected. Out of curiosity, to see if there are any amusing comparisons, I turn to the entry for Christmas Day, 1851. I read:

“My first Christmas alone. I had rather an odd experience. When I went back to my lodgings after a walk, there was a middle-aged woman in my room. I thought, at first, I’d walked into the wrong room, but this was not so, and after a pleasant talk, she disappeared. I suppose she was a ghost. But I wasn’t frightened. I liked her. But I do not feel well tonight. Not at all well. I have never felt ill at Christmas before.”

A publisher’s note followed the last entry: Francis Randel died from a sudden heart attack on the night of Christmas Day 1851. The woman mentioned in this final entry in his diary was the last person to see him alive. In spite of requests for her to come forward, she never did so. Her identity remains a mystery.

 

Drama in the ER

You can count my visits to the emergency room on one hand. Literally. There have been exactly five—three of which were due to chest pain. All three of those turned out to be false alarms, but when it comes to chest pain, they say you can never be too careful.

The latest false alarm was Tuesday night. I started experiencing the pain just as I was about to go to sleep, and it steadily got worse. Loretta drove me to the hospital. By the time we arrived at the ER the pain was gone, but I figured I should probably get checked out anyway.

The ER was busy, but when it comes to chest pain, they don't mess around. Within the first half hour, they had taken an EKG, chest x-ray, and several vials of my blood. After that I spent about a half hour in the waiting room before the doctor told me that everything looked good, but that they would have to do another EKG and blood work in a couple of hours. He said they would put me in a bed as soon as one was available. I sent Loretta home and told her I would call when I was done. I regretted not bringing my Kindle, but as it turned out, there was no shortage of entertainment. I now know why so many movies and television shows are set in hospitals, and especially in emergency rooms.

The majority of the patients were children, all accompanied by exhausted-looking mothers. One mother fretted to her husband on the phone over how they would be able to afford the copay. Another wondered how she would have the energy to go to work in the morning. Her son, Coby, seemed like a happy, normal child; it was hard to believe he was sick. But I overheard Coby's mother tell a nurse that he had EoE and had been vomiting all day. I had never heard of EoE, so I used my phone to Google it:

Eosinophilic (e-o-sin-o-FILL-ik) esophagitis (EoE) is a recognized chronic allergic/immune condition of the esophagus.

The doctor had given Coby anti-nausea medication, and he seemed to be fine now. He chattered away non-stop to his mother and, at one point, to his father on the phone. About all I could understand were the words "Mommy" and "Daddy," until he loudly and proudly announced, “I have to poop.”

When they finally got me into a bed surrounded by a curtain, I could still hear everything going on around me. In the bed next to mine, a succession of nurses unsuccessfully attempted to insert a catheter into a man's—well, you know: "This time we’ll try the smallest one we have, and first we'll numb you with lidocaine. It's the same stuff your dentist uses.” (I bet he never used it there.) I cringed every time I heard the man yelp in pain. On the other side, a woman who thought she might have swallowed too many pills was being asked if she had ever had thoughts of suicide. Across the room, someone's groans called to mind Disney's Haunted Mansion.

Later, I heard the friendly young tech who had just administered my second EKG being reprimanded by his supervisor: “You take too much time, and you’re too familiar with the patients. It took you twelve minutes to put on that knee immobilizer. That’s much too long. And when the patient said his leg was too short, you said something about other parts being longer. You can’t say things like that.”

But the main event of the evening occurred while I was still in the waiting room. Just outside the door, in the hallway, we could hear sheriff's deputies talking to a man who was under arrest. "Why?" he complained. "I didn't do anything. My brother's the violent one. He punched me in the nose. You should be arresting him, not a seventy-one year-old with a heart condition. This is the worst day of my life!”

The deputies patiently explained, again and again, that he had to come with them to jail. After several minutes of this, the prisoner cursed under his breath. There were sounds of a scuffle, followed by the prisoner crying out in pain and shouting, "You broke my arm!"

"You're lucky I didn't knock your teeth out," the deputy growled. "What were you thinking, grabbing for my gun? Were you planning to shoot me or yourself?"

"I just wanted to end it all," the prisoner whined.

A few minutes later, I saw the deputies march him past the door in handcuffs: a dejected, disheveled old man, half the size of the deputy he had attacked. A doctor accompanied them, to examine his "broken arm." I never saw them again, so I don't know if the arm was truly broken. I suspected he was faking it, until I later overheard a witness tell another deputy that during the scuffle he had heard a "pop."

As I said, my chest pain turned out to be a false alarm. It was probably a muscle spasm—either that, or gas. It was nearly 3:00 AM when the doctor released me. I didn't want to disturb Loretta, so I asked the receptionist to call me an Uber. She called, but she told me it would be a while before one was available. A man sitting next to me in the reception area kindly offered to take me home. I politely refused his offer, but he pointed out that I was unlikely to get an Uber at that hour, and that for him it was better than just sitting there, waiting to hear about his mother, who had suffered a stroke. So I took him up on his offer.

An exciting night, and through all the drama, the staff maintained their composure, compassion, and professionalism. As far as I know they only lost one patient: that woman who took too many pills.

She didn't die—at least not that I know of. She just wandered off. They were still looking for her when I left.

The Crown Derby Plate

Six years ago, after reading an article about "the great English tradition of Christmas ghost stories," I began posting one or two examples of the genre every year. You could say that collecting Christmas ghost stories became something of an obsession with me.

As obsessions go, mine is a relatively safe one. Not so with the obsession of the protagonist of The Crown Derby Plate. The title refers to a piece of china, which Martha Pym will risk just about anything—even a "fearful," "indescribable smell"—to possess.

c1880 /1900's Royal Crown Derby Bone China Scalloped Plate

Margaret Gabrielle Vere Long was a 20th century English writer of history, historical fiction, and horror who wrote prolifically under several pen names, including Marjorie Bowen. One reviewer described her as "one of the great supernatural writers of this century." After reading The Crown Derby Plate, I'm sure you'll agree.

Merry Christmas!

The Crown Derby Plate
by Marjorie Bowen (1933)

Martha Pym said that she had never seen a ghost and that she would very much like to do so, “particularly at Christmas, for you can laugh as you like, that is the correct time to see a ghost.”

“I don’t suppose you ever will,” replied her cousin Mabel comfortably, while her cousin Clara shuddered and said that she hoped they would change the subject for she disliked even to think of such things.

The three elderly, cheerful women sat round a big fire, cosy and content after a day of pleasant activities; Martha was the guest of the other two, who owned the handsome, convenient country house; she always came to spend her Christmas with the Wyntons and found the leisurely country life delightful after the bustling round of London, for Martha managed an antique shop of the better sort and worked extremely hard. She was, however, still full of zest for work or pleasure, though sixty years old, and looked backwards and forwards to a succession of delightful days.

The other two, Mabel and Clara, led quieter but none the less agreeable lives; they had more money and fewer interests, but nevertheless enjoyed themselves very well.

“Talking of ghosts,” said Mabel, “I wonder how that old woman at ‘Hartleys’ is getting on, for ‘Hartleys,’ you know, is supposed to be haunted.”

“Yes, I know,” smiled Miss Pym, “but all the years that we have known of the place we have never heard anything definite, have we?”

“No,” put in Clara; “but there is that persistent rumour that the House is uncanny, and for myself, nothing would induce me to live there!”

“It is certainly very lonely and dreary down there on the marshes,” conceded Mabel. “But as for the ghost—you never hear what it is supposed to be even.”

“Who has taken it?” asked Miss Pym, remembering “Hartleys” as very desolate indeed, and long shut up.

“A Miss Lefain, an eccentric old creature—I think you met her here once, two years ago——”

“I believe that I did, but I don’t recall her at all.”

“We have not seen her since, ‘Hartleys’ is so un-get-at-able and she didn’t seem to want visitors. She collects china, Martha, so really you ought to go and see her and talk ‘shop.’”

With the word “china” some curious associations came into the mind of Martha Pym; she was silent while she strove to put them together, and after a second or two they all fitted together into a very clear picture.

She remembered that thirty years ago—yes, it must be thirty years ago, when, as a young woman, she had put all her capital into the antique business, and had been staying with her cousins (her aunt had then been alive) that she had driven across the marsh to “Hartleys,” where there was an auction sale; all the details of this she had completely forgotten, but she could recall quite clearly purchasing a set of gorgeous china which was still one of her proud delights, a perfect set of Crown Derby save that one plate was missing.

“How odd,” she remarked, “that this Miss Lefain should collect china too, for it was at ‘Hartleys’ that I purchased my dear old Derby service—I’ve never been able to match that plate——”

“A plate was missing? I seem to remember,” said Clara. “Didn’t they say that it must be in the house somewhere and that it should be looked for?”

“I believe they did, but of course I never heard any more and that missing plate has annoyed me ever since. Who had ‘Hartleys’?”

“An old connoisseur, Sir James Sewell; I believe he was some relation to this Miss Lefain, but I don’t know——”

“I wonder if she has found the plate,” mused Miss Pym. “I expect she has turned out and ransacked the whole place——”

“Why not trot over and ask?” suggested Mabel. “It’s not much use to her, if she has found it, one odd plate.”

“Don’t be silly,” said Clara. “Fancy going over the marshes, this weather, to ask about a plate missed all those years ago. I’m sure Martha wouldn’t think of it——”

But Martha did think of it; she was rather fascinated by the idea; how queer and pleasant it would be if, after all these years, nearly a lifetime, she should find the Crown Derby plate, the loss of which had always irked her! And this hope did not seem so altogether fantastical, it was quite likely that old Miss Lefain, poking about in the ancient house, had found the missing piece.

And, of course, if she had, being a fellow-collector, she would be quite willing to part with it to complete the set.

Her cousin endeavoured to dissuade her; Miss Lefain, she declared, was a recluse, an odd creature who might greatly resent such a visit and such a request.

“Well, if she does I can but come away again,” smiled Miss Pym. “I suppose she can’t bite my head off, and I rather like meeting these curious types—we’ve got a love for old china in common, anyhow.”

“It seems so silly to think of it—after all these years—a plate!”

“A Crown Derby plate,” corrected Miss Pym. “It is certainly strange that I didn’t think of it before, but now that I have got it into my head I can’t get it out. Besides,” she added hopefully, “I might see the ghost.”

So full, however, were the days with pleasant local engagements that Miss Pym had no immediate chance of putting her scheme into practice; but she did not relinquish it, and she asked several different people what they knew about “Hartleys” and Miss Lefain.

And no one knew anything save that the house was supposed to be haunted and the owner “cracky.”

“Is there a story?” asked Miss Pym, who associated ghosts with neat tales into which they fitted as exactly as nuts into shells.

But she was always told: “Oh, no, there isn’t a story, no one knows anything about the place, don’t know how the idea got about; old Sewell was half-crazy, I believe, he was buried in the garden and that gives a house a nasty name——”

“Very unpleasant,” said Martha Pym, undisturbed.

This ghost seemed too elusive for her to track down; she would have to be content if she could recover the Crown Derby plate; for that at least she was determined to make a try and also to satisfy that faint tingling of curiosity roused in her by this talk about “Hartleys” and the remembrance of that day, so long ago, when she had gone to the auction sale at the lonely old house.

So the first free afternoon, while Mabel and Clara were comfortably taking their afternoon repose, Martha Pym, who was of a more lively habit, got out her little governess cart and dashed away across the Essex flats.

She had taken minute directions with her, but she had soon lost her way.

Under the wintry sky, which looked as grey and hard as metal, the marshes stretched bleakly to the horizon, the olive-brown broken reeds were harsh as scars on the saffron-tinted bogs, where the sluggish waters that rose so high in winter were filmed over with the first stillness of a frost; the air was cold but not keen, everything was damp; faintest of mists blurred the black outlines of trees that rose stark from the ridges above the stagnant dykes; the flooded fields were haunted by black birds and white birds, gulls and crows, whining above the long ditch grass and wintry wastes.

Miss Pym stopped the little horse and surveyed this spectral scene, which had a certain relish about it to one sure to return to a homely village, a cheerful house and good company.

A withered and bleached old man, in colour like the dun landscape, came along the road between the sparse alders.

Miss Pym, buttoning up her coat, asked the way to “Hartleys” as he passed her; he told her, straight on, and she proceeded, straight indeed across the road that went with undeviating length across the marshes.

“Of course,” thought Miss Pym, “if you live in a place like this, you are bound to invent ghosts.”

The house sprang up suddenly on a knoll ringed with rotting trees, encompassed by an old brick wall that the perpetual damp had overrun with lichen, blue, green, white colours of decay.

“Hartleys,” no doubt, there was no other residence of human being in sight in all the wide expanse; besides, she could remember it, surely, after all this time, the sharp rising out of the marsh, the colony of tall trees, but then fields and trees had been green and bright—there had been no water on the flats, it had been summer-time.

“She certainly,” thought Miss Pym, “must be crazy to live here. And I rather doubt if I shall get my plate.”

She fastened up the good little horse by the garden gate which stood negligently ajar and entered; the garden itself was so neglected that it was quite surprising to see a trim appearance in the house, curtains at the window and a polish on the brass door knocker, which must have been recently rubbed there, considering the taint in the sea damp which rusted and rotted everything.

It was a square-built, substantial house with “nothing wrong with it but the situation,” Miss Pym decided, though it was not very attractive, being built of that drab plastered stone so popular a hundred years ago, with flat windows and door, while one side was gloomily shaded by a large evergreen tree of the cypress variety which gave a blackish tinge to that portion of the garden.

There was no pretence at flower-beds nor any manner of cultivation in this garden where a few rank weeds and straggling bushes matted together above the dead grass; on the enclosing wall which appeared to have been built high as protection against the ceaseless winds that swung along the flats were the remains of fruit trees; their crucified branches, rotting under the great nails that held them up, looked like the skeletons of those who had died in torment.

Miss Pym took in these noxious details as she knocked firmly at the door; they did not depress her; she merely felt extremely sorry for anyone who could live in such a place.

She noticed, at the far end of the garden, in the corner of the wall, a headstone showing above the sodden colourless grass, and remembered what she had been told about the old antiquary being buried there, in the grounds of “Hartleys.”

As the knock had no effect she stepped back and looked at the house; it was certainly inhabited—with those neat windows, white curtains and drab blinds all pulled to precisely the same level.

And when she brought her glance back to the door she saw that it had been opened and that someone, considerably obscured by the darkness of the passage, was looking at her intently.

“Good afternoon,” said Miss Pym cheerfully. “I just thought that I would call to see Miss Lefain—it is Miss Lefain, isn’t it?”

“It’s my house,” was the querulous reply.

Martha Pym had hardly expected to find any servants here, though the old lady must, she thought, work pretty hard to keep the house so clean and tidy as it appeared to be.

“Of course,” she replied. “May I come in? I’m Martha Pym, staying with the Wyntons, I met you there——”

“Do come in,” was the faint reply. “I get so few people to visit me, I’m really very lonely.”

“I don’t wonder,” thought Miss Pym; but she had resolved to take no notice of any eccentricity on the part of her hostess, and so she entered the house with her usual agreeable candour and courtesy.

The passage was badly lit, but she was able to get a fair idea of Miss Lefain; her first impression was that this poor creature was most dreadfully old, older than any human being had the right to be, why, she felt young in comparison—so faded, feeble, and pallid was Miss Lefain.

She was also monstrously fat; her gross, flaccid figure was shapeless and she wore a badly cut, full dress of no colour at all, but stained with earth and damp where Miss Pym supposed she had been doing futile gardening; this gown was doubtless designed to disguise her stoutness, but had been so carelessly pulled about that it only added to it, being rucked and rolled “all over the place” as Miss Pym put it to herself.

Another ridiculous touch about the appearance of the poor old lady was her short hair; decrepit as she was, and lonely as she lived she had actually had her scanty relics of white hair cropped round her shaking head.

“Dear me, dear me,” she said in her thin treble voice. “How very kind of you to come. I suppose you prefer the parlour? I generally sit in the garden.”

“The garden? But not in this weather?”

“I get used to the weather. You’ve no idea how used one gets to the weather.”

“I suppose so,” conceded Miss Pym doubtfully. “You don’t live here quite alone, do you?”

“Quite alone, lately. I had a little company, but she was taken away, I’m sure I don’t know where. I haven’t been able to find a trace of her anywhere,” replied the old lady peevishly.

“Some wretched companion that couldn’t stick it, I suppose,” thought Miss Pym. “Well, I don’t wonder—but someone ought to be here to look after her.”

They went into the parlour, which, the visitor was dismayed to see, was without a fire but otherwise well kept.

And there, on dozens of shelves was a choice array of china at which Martha Pym’s eyes glistened.

“Aha!” cried Miss Lefain. “I see you’ve noticed my treasures! Don’t you envy me? Don’t you wish that you had some of those pieces?”

Martha Pym certainly did and she looked eagerly and greedily round the walls, tables, and cabinets while the old woman followed her with little thin squeals of pleasure.

It was a beautiful little collection, most choicely and elegantly arranged, and Martha thought it marvellous that this feeble ancient creature should be able to keep it in such precise order as well as doing her own housework.

“Do you really do everything yourself here and live quite alone?” she asked, and she shivered even in her thick coat and wished that Miss Lefain’s energy had risen to a fire, but then probably she lived in the kitchen, as these lonely eccentrics often did.

“There was someone,” answered Miss Lefain cunningly, “but I had to send her away. I told you she’s gone, I can’t find her, and I am so glad. Of course,” she added wistfully, “it leaves me very lonely, but then I couldn’t stand her impertinence any longer. She used to say that it was her house and her collection of china! Would you believe it? She used to try to chase me away from looking at my own things!”

“How very disagreeable,” said Miss Pym, wondering which of the two women had been crazy. “But hadn’t you better get someone else?”

“Oh, no,” was the jealous answer. “I would rather be alone with my things, I daren’t leave the house for fear someone takes them away—there was a dreadful time once when an auction sale was held here——”

“Were you here then?” asked Miss Pym; but indeed she looked old enough to have been anywhere.

“Yes, of course,” Miss Lefain replied rather peevishly and Miss Pym decided that she must be a relation of old Sir James Sewell. Clara and Mabel had been very foggy about it all. “I was very busy hiding all the china—but one set they got—a Crown Derby tea service——”

“With one plate missing!” cried Martha Pym. “I bought it, and do you know, I was wondering if you’d found it——”

“I hid it,” piped Miss Lefain.

“Oh, you did, did you? Well, that’s rather funny behaviour. Why did you hide the stuff away instead of buying it?”

“How could I buy what was mine?”

“Old Sir James left it to you, then?” asked Martha Pym, feeling very muddled.

“She bought a lot more,” squeaked Miss Lefain, but Martha Pym tried to keep her to the point.

“If you’ve got the plate,” she insisted, “you might let me have it—I’ll pay quite handsomely, it would be so pleasant to have it after all these years.”

“Money is no use to me,” said Miss Lefain mournfully. “Not a bit of use. I can’t leave the house or the garden.”

“Well, you have to live, I suppose,” replied Martha Pym cheerfully. “And, do you know, I’m afraid you are getting rather morbid and dull, living here all alone—you really ought to have a fire—why, it’s just on Christmas and very damp.”

“I haven’t felt the cold for a long time,” replied the other; she seated herself with a sigh on one of the horsehair chairs and Miss Pym noticed with a start that her feet were covered only by a pair of white stockings; “one of those nasty health fiends,” thought Miss Pym, “but she doesn’t look too well for all that.”

“So you don’t think that you could let me have the plate?” she asked briskly, walking up and down, for the dark, neat, clean parlour was very cold indeed, and she thought that she couldn’t stand this much longer; as there seemed no sign of tea or anything pleasant and comfortable she had really better go.

“I might let you have it,” sighed Miss Lefain, “since you’ve been so kind as to pay me a visit. After all, one plate isn’t much use, is it?”

“Of course not, I wonder you troubled to hide it——”

“I couldn’t bear,” wailed the other, “to see the things going out of the house!”

Martha Pym couldn’t stop to go into all this; it was quite clear that the old lady was very eccentric indeed and that nothing very much could be done with her; no wonder that she had “dropped out” of everything and that no one ever saw her or knew anything about her, though Miss Pym felt that some effort ought really to be made to save her from herself.

“Wouldn’t you like a run in my little governess cart?” she suggested. “We might go to tea with the Wyntons on the way back, they’d be delighted to see you, and I really think that you do want taking out of yourself.”

“I was taken out of myself some time ago,” replied Miss Lefain. “I really was, and I couldn’t leave my things—though,” she added with pathetic gratitude, “it is very, very kind of you——”

“Your things would be quite safe, I’m sure,” said Martha Pym, humouring her. “Who ever would come up here, this hour of a winter’s day?”

“They do, oh, they do! And she might come back, prying and nosing and saying that it was all hers, all my beautiful china, hers!”

Miss Lefain squealed in her agitation and rising up, ran round the wall fingering with flaccid yellow hands the brilliant glossy pieces on the shelves.

“Well, then, I’m afraid that I must go, they’ll be expecting me, and it’s quite a long ride; perhaps some other time you’ll come and see us?”

“Oh, must you go?” quavered Miss Lefain dolefully. “I do like a little company now and then and I trusted you from the first—the others, when they do come, are always after my things and I have to frighten them away!”

“Frighten them away!” replied Martha Pym. “However do you do that?”

“It doesn’t seem difficult, people are so easily frightened, aren’t they?”

Miss Pym suddenly remembered that “Hartleys” had the reputation of being haunted—perhaps the queer old thing played on that; the lonely house with the grave in the garden was dreary enough around which to create a legend.

“I suppose you’ve never seen a ghost?” she asked pleasantly. “I’d rather like to see one, you know——”

“There is no one here but myself,” said Miss Lefain.

“So you’ve never seen anything? I thought it must be all nonsense. Still, I do think it rather melancholy for you to live here all alone——”

Miss Lefain sighed:

“Yes, it’s very lonely. Do stay and talk to me a little longer.” Her whistling voice dropped cunningly. “And I’ll give you the Crown Derby plate!”

“Are you sure you’ve really got it?” Miss Pym asked.

“I’ll show you.”

Fat and waddling as she was, she seemed to move very lightly as she slipped in front of Miss Pym and conducted her from the room, going slowly up the stairs—such a gross odd figure in that clumsy dress with the fringe of white hair hanging on to her shoulders.

The upstairs of the house was as neat as the parlour, everything well in its place; but there was no sign of occupancy; the beds were covered with dust sheets, there were no lamps or fires set ready. “I suppose,” said Miss Pym to herself, “she doesn’t care to show me where she really lives.”

But as they passed from one room to another, she could not help saying:

“Where do you live, Miss Lefain?”

“Mostly in the garden,” said the other.

Miss Pym thought of those horrible health huts that some people indulged in.

“Well, sooner you than I,” she replied cheerfully.

In the most distant room of all, a dark, tiny closet, Miss Lefain opened a deep cupboard and brought out a Crown Derby plate which her guest received with a spasm of joy, for it was actually that missing from her cherished set.

“It’s very good of you,” she said in delight. “Won’t you take something for it, or let me do something for you?”

“You might come and see me again,” replied Miss Lefain wistfully.

“Oh, yes, of course I should like to come and see you again.”

But now that she had got what she had really come for, the plate, Martha Pym wanted to be gone; it was really very dismal and depressing in the house and she began to notice a fearful smell—the place had been shut up too long, there was something damp rotting somewhere, in this horrid little dark closet no doubt.

“I really must be going,” she said hurriedly.

Miss Lefain turned as if to cling to her, but Martha Pym moved quickly away.

“Dear me,” wailed the old lady. “Why are you in such haste?”

“There’s—a smell,” murmured Miss Pym rather faintly.

She found herself hastening down the stairs, with Miss Lefain complaining behind her.

“How peculiar people are—she used to talk of a smell——”

“Well, you must notice it yourself.”

Miss Pym was in the hall; the old woman had not followed her, but stood in the semi-darkness at the head of the stairs, a pale shapeless figure.

Martha Pym hated to be rude and ungrateful but she could not stay another moment; she hurried away and was in her cart in a moment—really—that smell——

“Good-bye!” she called out with false cheerfulness, “and thank you so much!”

There was no answer from the house.

Miss Pym drove on; she was rather upset and took another way than that by which she had come, a way that led past a little house raised above the marsh; she was glad to think that the poor old creature at “Hartleys” had such near neighbours, and she reined up the horse, dubious as to whether she should call someone and tell them that poor old Miss Lefain really wanted a little looking after, alone in a house like that, and plainly not quite right in her head.

A young woman, attracted by the sound of the governess cart, came to the door of the house and seeing Miss Pym called out, asking if she wanted the keys of the house?

“What house?” asked Miss Pym.

“‘Hartleys,’ mum, they don’t put a board out, as no one is likely to pass, but it’s to be sold. Miss Lefain wants to sell or let it——”

“I’ve just been up to see her——”

“Oh, no, mum—she’s been away a year, abroad somewhere, couldn’t stand the place, it’s been empty since then, I just run in every day and keep things tidy——”

Loquacious and curious the young woman had come to the fence; Miss Pym had stopped her horse.

“Miss Lefain is there now,” she said. “She must have just come back——”

“She wasn’t there this morning, mum, ‘tisn’t likely she’d come, either—fair scared she was, mum, fair chased away, didn’t dare move her china. Can’t say I’ve noticed anything myself, but I never stay long—and there’s a smell——”

“Yes,” murmured Martha Pym faintly, “there’s a smell. What—what—chased her away?”

The young woman, even in that lonely place, lowered her voice.

“Well, as you aren’t thinking of taking the place, she got an idea in her head that old Sir James—well, he couldn’t bear to leave ‘Hartleys,’ mum, he’s buried in the garden, and she thought he was after her, chasing round them bits of china——”

“Oh!” cried Miss Pym.

“Some of it used to be his, she found a lot stuffed away, he said they were to be left in ‘Hartleys,’ but Miss Lefain would have the things sold, I believe—that’s years ago——”

“Yes, yes,” said Miss Pym with a sick look. “You don’t know what he was like, do you?”

“No, mum—but I’ve heard tell he was very stout and very old—I wonder who it was you saw up at ‘Hartleys’?”

Miss Pym took a Crown Derby plate from her bag.

“You might take that back when you go,” she whispered. “I shan’t want it, after all——”

Before the astonished young woman could answer Miss Pym had darted off across the marsh; that short hair, that earth-stained robe, the white socks, “I generally live in the garden——”

Miss Pym drove away, breakneck speed, frantically resolving to mention to no one that she had paid a visit to “Hartleys,” nor lightly again to bring up the subject of ghosts.

She shook and shuddered in the damp, trying to get out of her clothes and her nostrils—that indescribable smell.

A Ghost Story Before Christmas

Happy December!

As you know if you've read my blog, I'm a firm believer in the tradition of the Christmas ghost story. I generally post one or two of them this time of year, and I've even written a couple myself.

I thought about giving it a rest this year, but I was inspired to write something after a recent trip to Disneyland. It's not a great story, but it has one thing going for it.

It's short.

Recurring Christmas Nightmare
by John R. Logue

I hate this time of year.

There's nothing the least bit scary about the place. They've "Jacked" it up with their "Nightmare Before Christmas" crap, sickeningly sweetened with incessant Seussian rhymes.

Hold on, here comes the best part. Listen...

Jack’s holiday vision was unlike no other,
So ring out the bells! There’s more cheer to uncover.

There! Did you hear it? "Unlike no other," a double negative.

The scariest thing about the place is the grammar.

Walt wouldn't stand for that sort of thing. He must be spinning in his grave. (Or, if you believe the rumors, his head must be spinning in its cryogenic chamber.)

I miss Paul Frees, the original Ghost Host. Now there was a pro. If someone handed him a script with a double negative, you can be damned sure he'd demand a rewrite, and make damned sure it was scary.

With no goddamned rhymes.

Here's the ballroom. See what I mean? What's scary about a damned gingerbread house?

Plenty of people seem to like it though, judging from the crowds this time of year. Maybe that's why they like it—because it isn't scary.

But shouldn't it be scary? I mean, isn't that the point? People who visit a haunted house want to be scared.

They’d be plenty scared if they knew about the scattereds.

I'm talking about the real ghosts: the dead people whose relatives snuck them in here. Strictly illegal, of course, and most of them are found and vacuumed up. But some of them aren't, and I feel sorry for them. They're stuck haunting whatever spot they happen to have been dumped in.

Compared to them, I've got it good.

I wasn't scattered. Nobody had to sneak me in.

I died right here, on the ride.

And before you ask—no, I was not "frightened to death." Please! It was a ruptured aneurysm. It could just as easily have happened on "It's a Small World."

Wouldn’t that be a nightmare?

True, I'm stuck in this Doom Buggy. (That's right, it's a Doom Buggy, not a damned sleigh. Such a clever play on words, "sleigh" and "slay." Ho. Ho. Ho.)

But at least I get a change of scenery. At least I get to ride.

I guess you could call me a genuine "Hitchhiking Ghost." (Sigh. I miss those guys, too.)

“Hurry back?" Don't worry, I will.

Again, and again, and again.

Sigh.

Oh, don't get me wrong; I love this place. It's just that sometimes this holiday stuff gets me down.

Especially that double-damned double negative.

Speaking of which, here we go again...

Jack’s holiday vision was unlike no other,
So ring out the bells! There’s more cheer to uncover.

I hate this time of year.

 

 

Snakes in a Play

Word has it that Shakespeare wrote one of his greatest plays, King Lear, while he was sequestered from the plague. Not to be outdone, I wrote two plays while sequestering from COVID-19. One of them was actually performed. And while it may not have the depth, power, or significance of King Lear, it has two advantages over it: it’s about 300 pages shorter, and there are snakes.

A year ago I was working on an interactive mystery script for a teacher friend’s drama class, when she informed me that the school would have to remain closed. Would it be possible to adapt the script so the actors could perform it remotely, via the Internet?

"No problem," I replied.

But there was a problem. How do you stage a murder mystery when the actors are all in different locations? I came up with what, in my humble opinion, is a pretty neat solution. And if you haven't figured it out (hint: “there are snakes”), the answer will be revealed in scene two.

Murder at Wonder-Comic-Alooza-Con

A Socially-Distant Murder Mystery

Cast of Characters:

CHRIS CARSON: panel moderator

VIVIAN HARDWICK: red-haired creator of Lady Raid and Black Flag, ex-wife of Roger Hardwick and soon-to-be ex-wife of Arthur Laine.

ARTHUR LAINE: creator of Waste Manager and Trashy, soon-to-be ex-husband of Vivian Hardwick

TINA RANDOLPH: actor portraying Jane Johnson, aka “Lady Raid”

PENNY BRIGHT: actor portraying Jane’s younger sister Jill, aka “Black Flag”

ROGER HARDWICK: actor portraying Donald Debris, aka “Waste Manager,” also ex-husband of Vivian Hardwick

BUDDY GRAY: actor portraying Randy Refuse, aka “Trashy,” Waste Manager’s young sidekick

Setting:

The setting is a virtual comic book convention panel discussion during the pandemic. Roger, Buddy, Tina, and Penny are wearing superhero costumes. Tina’s and Penny’s costumes have black capes, Roger’s has a red cape, and Buddy’s costume has no cape.

Scene 1: Introductions

CHRIS: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the final event of Wonder-Comic-Alooza-Con 2021! I’m Chris Carson, your moderator for tonight’s panel. And let me tell you, it’s a dandy. First, we have Vivian Hardwick, creator of Lady Raid and Black Flag. Hello, Vivian!

VIVIAN: Hello, Chris.

CHRIS: Also with us tonight is Arthur Laine, the man responsible for creating the popular Waste Manager and Trashy series.

VIVIAN: Ha! Arthur Laine never “created” anything. He stole every character and plot from somebody else.

ARTHUR: Red, this is neither the time nor the place…

VIVIAN: Don’t call me that!

ARTHUR: What, “Red?” You never used to mind it.

VIVIAN: I never used to mind milk, either—until I discovered that it made me physically ill. Funny—I discovered I was lactose-intolerant about the same time I discovered I was Arthur-intolerant.

CHRIS: Ha-ha. Ladies and gentlemen, as I’m sure you all know, Vivian and Arthur are not only former business partners, but former domestic partners. And Vivian was also once married to another member of our panel—Roger Hardwick, star of Waste Manager and Trashy—so this is sure to be a lively discussion. Now, although none of these people really need introductions, allow me to introduce the rest of our panel.

(As each actor is introduced, they strike a pose and say their catchphrase.)

CHRIS: Tina Randolph as Jane Johnson, better known as “Lady Raid”…

TINA: “Lady Raid’s here!”

CHRIS: Penny Bright as her little sister and pesti-sidekick, Jill Johnson, also known as “Black Flag”…

PENNY: “Bad guys check in, but they don’t check out!”

CHRIS: Roger Hardwick as Donald Debris, aka “Waste Manager”… (No response.) Roger? Roger, can you hear me? Roger, turn on your audio.

(Roger turns on audio, but turns off his camera.)

ROGER: Hello?

CHRIS: Well now we can hear you, but we can’t see you.

ROGER: Hello?

CHRIS: Roger, you need to turn your camera on.

ROGER: How’s that?

CHRIS: It’s still off.

ROGER: Is that better?

CHRIS: Still off, Roger.

ROGER: (He turns his camera on, but we only see the top of his head.) How about now?

CHRIS: Okay, the camera is on, but we can only see the top of your head.

(Roger adjusts the camera, but we still only see part of his face.)

ROGER: How’s that?

CHRIS: Good enough.

ROGER: Hello, everyone!

(There’s an uncomfortable pause.)

CHRIS: Go ahead, Roger.

ROGER: Go ahead with what?

CHRIS: Your catchphrase?

ROGER: Oh, right. “It’s time to take out the trash!” How was that?

CHRIS: Great, Roger, great. Finally, we have Buddy Gray as Randy Refuse, or “Trashy.”

BUDDY: “Good riddance to bad rubbish!”

CHRIS: Since we’ve broached the subject, now is as good a time as any to discuss the rise and fall of VivArt Comics. And who better to talk about the historic pairing of Vivian Hardwick and Arthur Laine than the person who introduced them to each other? Our final guest this evening is the award-winning artist who brought many of your favorite comic book characters to life, including Lady Raid, Black Flag, Waste Manager, and Trashy. Ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to introduce Frank Kirby!

(No response. He gives the cue again.)

CHRIS: Here he is, Frank Kirby!

(Still no response.)

CHRIS: Well, apparently Frank is having technical difficulties. Arthur, I was hoping to talk to you and Frank about the new project you’re working on together. Perhaps you can tell us a little bit about that?

ARTHUR: Well, I don’t want to give too much away, but we’re planning to add a new character to the Artistic universe, beginning with the next issue of Waste Manager and Trashy.

VIVIAN: And tell us, who did you steal this idea from, Arthur?

CHRIS: I should point out, for those of you who are unaware of the fact, that Vivian is not only suing Arthur for divorce, but for “Theft of Intellectual Property.” I don’t suppose your lawyers will allow either of you to comment on the lawsuit?

ARTHUR: That’s correct, Chris. No comment.

VIVIAN: Oh, I could give you plenty of comments. However, because this is a family event, I will restrain myself. However, perhaps no one would object if I quoted something from Shakespeare?

ARTHUR: Go ahead, Vivian. You always were a show-off.

VIVIAN: Me? I’m a show-off! This from the guy who thinks he has to imitate Darth Vader every time he puts on a mask. (putting her hand over her mouth) “Luke, I am your father.” It gets old, Arthur.

ARTHUR: As do you.

VIVIAN: Why you, you… “Thou subtle perjur’d, false, disloyal man!”

ARTHUR: Very good! Is that from Richard III?

VIVIAN: No, The Two Gentlemen of Verona.

ARTHUR: See what I mean? Why do English majors feel they have the right to bore everyone to death with Shakespeare?

VIVIAN: Oh, shut up, “You poor, base, rascally, cheating lack-linen mate!”

ARTHUR: Henry IV, if I’m not mistaken.

VIVIAN: Part two.

ARTHUR: Are you finished?

VIVIAN: Just one more, from King Lear: “Thou art a boil, a plague sore, an embossed carbuncle.”

ARTHUR: Ah, “the rule of three.” Well, here’s one for you, Red: “Thou art wasting thy breath, which be no great loss.”

VIVIAN: I don’t recognize that quote. Is it from one of the history plays?

ARTHUR: A comedy: Monkey Business.

VIVIAN: That’s not a Shakespeare play.

ARTHUR: No, it’s a Marx Brothers movie.

VIVIAN: Philistine!

ARTHUR: Snob!

CHRIS: Er, let’s get back to this new character. Anything else you can tell us, Arthur?

ARTHUR: Well, as I was saying, they will make their first appearance in the next issue. On television, they will be introduced in the next crossover episode, which will hopefully air next year. We plan to eventually spin them off into their own series, both in the comics and on television. Like I said, I don’t want to give too much away, but I can tell you that the character is complex—a bit of an anti-hero. “Ambiguous” would be a good word to describe them.

CHRIS: You’re being pretty ambiguous yourself, with your pronouns. You’re not even going to tell us if it’s a man or a woman?

ARTHUR: (smiling) No comment.

CHRIS: And what about the crossover episode. Can you tell us anything about that?

ARTHUR: Not really, no.

CHRIS: How about you, Vivian? Can you tell us anything?

VIVIAN: Nothing—other than the fact that, if it were up to me, there wouldn’t be another crossover. Ever.

CHRIS: Okay. Well, this might be a good time to take break, and I’ll see if I can find out what happened to our missing guest, Frank Kirby. Maybe he can tell us something about these exciting changes coming to the Artistic and Vivacious Universes.

ARTHUR: I wouldn’t count on it.

[Some comic-themed entertainment might be provided during what, under normal circumstances, would be the dinner break. Possibly guests could participate in a costume contest, with a small prize.]

Scene 2: Panel Discussion

CHRIS: Hello everyone, and welcome back to our panel discussion. I’m afraid I have to start things off with some bad news. Frank Kirby is dead.

PENNY: Jeepers!

CHRIS: This isn’t a comedy bit, Penny. Frank really is dead.

PENNY: Golly, Chris. I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to be disrespectful.

TINA: Yeah, she always talks like that.

CHRIS: Really! I’m sorry. It’s just that I’ve never heard anyone use the word “jeepers” in real life. It sounds like something your character would say.

PENNY: There was no swearing allowed in our house when I was a kid. My parents had a list of G-rated words we would use instead. They came in handy when I auditioned for the part of Black Flag.

TINA: You should hear her when she’s really upset. It’s freakin’ hilarious.

PENNY: Tina, how many times have I told you not to use the ‘F’ word?

TINA: About the same number of times I’ve told you that “freakin’” is not the ‘F’ word.

PENNY: I don’t care. I find it offensive. The only ‘F’ word I find acceptable is “fun.”

TINA: Well, “fun” you, Penny.

CHRIS: As I was saying, Frank is dead. It looks like murder, which means all of you are suspects.

PENNY: Cheese and crackers! How did it happen?

CHRIS: The police haven’t determined the cause of death, but near the body they found an open box, a black cape, and a note reading: “Karma bites, doesn’t it?” The note was signed, “R.H.”

ROGER: Say, doesn’t Lady Raid wear a black cape?

TINA: So what? Just about everyone in this business wears a cape, including you.

ROGER: Not everyone wears a black cape. Mine is red, like Superman’s.

BUDDY: I’d like to point out that I don’t wear a cape.

TINA: Who cares, Garbage Boy?

BUDDY: It’s “Trashy,” and I just wanted to point out…

CHRIS: Okay. We’ve established that Trashy doesn’t wear a cape, and that Waste Manager wears a red one…

ROGER: Like Superman.

CHRIS: Like Superman.

VIVIAN: Roger, are you also “faster than a speeding bullet?” Because some of us here might like to test you on that.

CHRIS: …but the fact is that only two people on this panel wear black capes: Tina and Penny.

TINA: Yes, and we’re currently wearing them.

(Tina and Penny show their capes.)

ROGER: They probably have a spare, like I do. It’s usually at the cleaner’s.

BUDDY: I keep telling you not to eat in your costume.

(A chorus of dings signals that all of the actors have received a text.)

CHRIS: That’s weird. It sounds like we all got messages at the same time. Mine says… (looking at phone) “Now that you’ve heard the awful news, you could probably use some clues.” It’s from an unknown number, and it’s signed “R.H.”

VIVIAN: (looking at phone) Mine says, “Ask Arthur about Tina,” also signed “R.H.” What’s going on between you and Tina, Arthur? And what does “R.H.” stand for—“Rotten Husband?”

ARTHUR: I, er… We… That is, Tina and I…

TINA: Look, Vivian. I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking, but Arthur and I had an affair. I immediately regretted it, and now it’s over.

BUDDY: Well, I guess that explains my message that says, “Ask Tina about Arthur.”

VIVIAN: I knew there was someone, but I never dreamed it was you, Tina. I must say I’m surprised. I thought you had better taste. When was this?

TINA: Last spring, just before the lockdown.

ARTHUR: You remember, darling. It was about the same time I discovered you were having an affair with Frank. Like Frank’s note said, “Karma bites, doesn’t it?”

TINA: Ouch. And I guess that explains my message: “Ask Vivian about Frank.”

ROGER: Tina, I’m shocked. What about us?

TINA: What on earth are you talking about, Roger?

ROGER: Remember? That last crossover episode?

TINA: Roger, that was our characters. That wasn’t real life.

ROGER: Oh, right.

CHRIS: Penny, what does your message say?

PENNY: I’d rather not say.

TINA: Come on, Penny. Give.

PENNY: It says, “Ask Penny about her church.”

CHRIS: Tell us about your church, Penny.

PENNY: I’d rather not.

CHRIS: It might provide a clue to Frank’s murder.

PENNY: Well not that it’s anyone’s business, but as a matter of fact, I don’t attend a church.

TINA: It probably means the church you were raised in. She was a Pentecostal.

PENNY: Thanks a lot, Tina!

TINA: Sorry, Penny, but I figured everyone knew about it. It was in People magazine.

CHRIS: Pentecostal—isn’t that the one where you speak in tongues and handle snakes?

PENNY: Some do—not all. Anyway, I left the church years ago.

CHRIS: Roger, what does your text message say?

ROGER: What text message?

CHRIS: The one you received from R.H.?

ROGER: Oh. Let’s see. (looks at his phone) It says, “Don’t forget to pick up a loaf of bread.” Oh, wait. That’s from my wife. Here it is: “Ask Buddy what he saw in Arthur’s office. R.H.”

CHRIS: What did you see in Arthur’s office, Buddy?

BUDDY: Well, I’m guessing it refers to the time I walked into Arthur’s office when he was alone with Penny.

VIVIAN & TINA: What?!

PENNY: Shipoopi!

VIVIAN: They keep getting younger and younger, don’t they, Arthur?

TINA: Hey! I’m a year younger than Penny!

VIVIAN: Sorry, dear, but you do look older.

CHRIS: I think that just leaves Arthur. Arthur, what was your message?

ARTHUR: “Who inherits the businesses? R.H.”

CHRIS: I assume the businesses are Artistic and Vivacious. Care to answer the question?

ARTHUR: Well, Frank was a partner in both companies, so when he died, his shares went to Vivian and me. And since we’re technically still married, if anything happens to me, Vivian inherits Artistic.

VIVIAN: And if anything happens to me, Arthur gets Vivacious. I need to make a note to change that as soon as possible. I certainly don’t want him getting his grubby little hands on Lady Raid and Black Flag. Oh, wait—you already had your grubby little hands on them, didn’t you, Arthur?

CHRIS: Whoever this R.H. is, they seem to have a grudge against all of you. Can any of you think who it might be?

ROGER: Richard Harris?

CHRIS: The actor? He’s been dead for twenty years.

ROGER: Rex Harrison?

CHRIS: He’s been dead for thirty years.

ROGER: Rock Hudson?

CHRIS: Can anyone think of a living person with the initials R.H.?

ROGER: Sorry, I’m drawing a blank.

VIVIAN: Roger, darling?

ROGER: What?

VIVIAN: Your initials are R.H.

ROGER. Oh, right.

ARTHUR: Wait a minute… I think I know what “R.H.” stands for.

CHRIS: What?

ARTHUR: Red Heron.

BUDDY: I think you mean Red Herring, Arthur.

ARTHUR: No, Buddy, I mean Red Heron. We’ve had this discussion before.

BUDDY: But “Red Herring” is an expression. It means something.

ARTHUR: It’s a cliché, and it’s a fish. Whoever heard of a comic book character based on a fish?

ROGER: The Penguin?

ARTHUR: What?

ROGER: The Penguin from “Batman.”

ARTHUR: What about him?

ROGER: A character based on a fish.

ARTHUR: Roger, penguins are birds.

ROGER: Oh, right. They do eat fish, though, don’t they?

ARTHUR: Yes, they do.

ROGER: What about Aquaman?

ARTHUR: Again, not a fish.

VIVIAN: Ladies and gentlemen, my two exes. I sure can pick ‘em, can’t I?

CHRIS: I think we’d all like to hear more about this “Red Heron.”

BUDDY: Herring.

CHRIS: Or “Herring.” Arthur?

ARTHUR: It’s “Red Heron,” it’s the name of the new character we’re developing, and I think maybe Buddy and I have already said too much. Everyone at Artistic signed a strict non-disclosure agreement, including me. Isn’t that right, Buddy?

BUDDY: Yes.

CHRIS: Vivian, can you tell us anything?

VIVIAN: I’m afraid not. Everyone at Vivacious had to sign the same NDA when we signed the contract with Artistic. And believe me, if I could get out of that deal with the devil, I would.

CHRIS: Great. Listen, eventually you’re all going to have to talk to the police, and I’m pretty sure they don’t give a rat’s patootie about NDAs, so…

(A doorbell rings at Arthur’s house.)

ARTHUR: Excuse me. Someone’s at the door. I’m going to mute you for a moment.

(Arthur fiddles with his computer, then leaves. When he returns, he has a package. He begins talking, but since the sound is off, he can’t hear or be heard.)

CHRIS: What’s he saying? Arthur? Yo! Arthur! He must have turned off his sound instead of just muting us. (He puts his mouth up to the camera and enunciates each word, so that Arthur can read his lips.) Arthur. Turn. Your. Sound. On.

(Still speaking, Arthur begins to open the box.)

CHRIS: I have a bad feeling about this. (Again enunciating and speaking close to the camera.) Arthur. Do. Not. Open. The. Box.

(Arthur opens the box and removes a note. He reads it to us, but of course, we can’t hear him.)

CHRIS: Arthur! We! Can’t! Hear! You! Turn! On! Your! Sound!

VIVIAN: Oh, my. The suspense is terrible. I hope it will last.

(Vivian produces a bowl of popcorn and begins eating it, as if she were watching a movie. Arthur removes a black cape from the box.)

ROGER: That reminds me, my other cape should have been back from the cleaners’ by now. I’d better give them a call.

(A snake falls out of the cape. Arthur screams silently. Vivian continues to watch and eat popcorn. The others react with gasps and screams as Arthur wrestles with the snake. Penny lets loose a stream of G-rated profanity…)

PENNY: Oh sugar! Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego! Cheese and crackers! Shatner! Oh fun! Fun! Fun! Fun!

(Arthur falls to the floor.)

VIVIAN: Well, now we know what happened to Frank.

CHRIS: Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes our panel discussion. We’re going to take a short break, and I guess I’ll be calling the police—again. You probably have questions for our panel; I know I do. Please submit them by [instructions on how to submit questions]. After the break, we’ll continue with the question and answer segment of the program.

[Break. Audience submits questions.]

Scene 3: Q&A

CHRIS: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the question and answer segment. Our panel—or what’s left of it—will now answer some of the questions you have submitted. But before we get to that, I have a question of my own. In light of recent events, I think it’s safe to say that we no longer need to worry about that non-disclosure agreement. Will one of you please enlighten us about this Red Heron character?

PENNY: Whew! Thank goodness I can tell you what that meeting with Arthur was about. We were not having an affair. Arthur called me to his office to tell me about this new character he and Frank had come up with. Originally, they planned for it to be a man, but they decided Waste Manager and Trashy needed a strong female character, and they wanted me to play her on television. That’s what the crossover episode was going to be about: Black Flag’s transformation into Red Heron.

CHRIS: I see. Did anyone else know about this?

VIVIAN: I knew, of course. I didn’t like the idea of losing Black Flag at first, but Arthur and Frank convinced me, and in the end I had to admit it was a great idea. Of course, that was before I found out that Arthur was cheating on me.

TINA: Are you kidding? Of course I knew about it. Penny couldn’t stop herself from bragging about getting her own show. Lucky bitch.

PENNY: Tina!

TINA: Oh, I’m sorry. Lucky “b-word”—not to mention “a-word” and “c-word.”

CHRIS: Roger? Buddy? Did you know?

BUDDY: Yeah, I heard enough of the conversation when I walked into Arthur’s office to figure it out.

ROGER: Nobody told me, but then nobody ever tells me anything.

CHRIS: Okay, let’s take a look at some questions from the audience.

(Chris reads questions from the audience. Hopefully, there will be some for each character.)

CHRIS: Well, I think I know who killed Frank and Arthur. Do you? Submit your solution—including who committed the murders, how they did it, and why—by [instructions on how to submit solution].

Scene 4: Conclusion

CHRIS: Ladies and gentlemen, it’s time to solve this mystery. Who killed Frank Kirby and Arthur Laine?

TINA: I hate to say it, but it must have been Penny.

PENNY: Me? You’re the one who had an affair with Arthur—probably with Frank, too. You, you…you scarlet woman!

TINA: Maybe so, but I’m not the one who grew up playing with snakes!

CHRIS: Ladies, please! I don’t believe either one of you is the murderer. Tina, you didn’t have a motive for killing Frank and Arthur. And Penny had even less reason to want them dead. Without them, there is no Red Heron, and she’s stuck playing your pesti-sidekick.

PENNY: Yeah. Fun me.

ROGER: What about Vivian? I was married to her for two years, and I can tell you that she is capable of just about anything.

VIVIAN: (sweetly) Why, thank you, Roger. I consider that a compliment. You know, if this was like most mysteries, where it’s the person you’d least expect, you’d be the murderer. No one in their right mind would suspect an idiot like you.

ROGER: Why, thank you, Viv— Hey!

CHRIS: Vivian, you’re a writer. Would you explain the meaning of the phrase “red herring?”

VIVIAN: You mean “Red Heron?”

CHRIS: No, I mean “red herring.”

VIVIAN: Well, in a murder mystery, a “red herring” is a false clue that is intended to mislead, to distract from the actual killer.

CHRIS: Exactly. If we proceed with the assumption that “R.H.” stands for “Red Herring,” I think it’s safe to assume that every so-called clue R.H. provided us with is, in fact, a red herring. In which case, the only real clue to the murderer’s identity must be the clue that was not provided by R.H.—at least not voluntarily.

BUDDY: Which clue is that?

CHRIS: It’s the one you gave us, Buddy. When Arthur first mentioned “Red Heron,” you corrected him. You told him it should be “Red Herring,” because red herring “meant something.” What did you mean by that?

BUDDY: Just that I always thought the character should be called “Red Herring,” that’s all. “Red Heron” doesn’t make sense.

CHRIS: Didn’t you always think that because Red Herring was your idea? The idea you brought to Arthur, hoping you would be paid for it and get to play the character?

BUDDY: No—

CHRIS: Vivian gave us another clue when she told us that Arthur had a habit of stealing ideas from others. Didn’t he steal Red Herring from you, changing the character’s gender and name and claiming the idea was his?

BUDDY: No—

CHRIS: Didn’t you kill Arthur—and Frank—because they killed your chance of becoming rich and famous as the creator and star of your own television series?

BUDDY: All right! Yes! I did it! But that wasn’t the reason! It was because they were going to ruin my idea! Red Herring would have been brilliant—a troubled, misunderstood vigilante who deliberately leaves behind false clues. Whereas Red Heron was destined to be nothing but a stupid, long-legged bird! Well, guess what? It’s not over yet. I have plenty more fine fanged friends! (He ducks down to grab two rubber snakes, which he holds up to the camera one at a time.) Meet “Lady Fang-dango” and “Sir Bites-a-Lot!” (He laughs maniacally.) That’s right, you haven’t heard the last of Red Herring! (The snakes “bite” him, one at a time.) Ow. Ow. (He falls to the floor.)

CHRIS: Well, I guess we have heard the last of Red Herring. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes our panel discussion—and our mystery.

 

Pandemic Party Pooper

I've been posting ghost stories every December for five years now, because Christmas has traditionally been a time for ghost stories since—well, since before Christmas. The Winter Solstice is the darkest, coldest, bleakest time of the year, so naturally it's the best time for people to think of ways to scare the bejesus out of each other.

The trouble is, this year I couldn't think of a story scary enough to compete with the horror of a deadly worldwide pandemic. I was about to give up and not post anything, when I remembered The Masque of the Red Death.

To be honest, it was never one of my favorite Edgar Allan Poe stories. His most frightening stories, such as The Tell-Tale Heart and The Fall of the House of Usher, are told in the first person—usually by a narrator who's as mad as Alice's Hatter and March Hare put together. In contrast, the detached third-person point of view Poe uses in The Masque of the Red Death makes the story seem cold and sterile—more allegory or fairy tale than horror story.

Well it's certainly horrifying now. It's also one of the few stories Poe wrote that qualifies as a ghost story. For who can the mysterious stranger be who appears at midnight, clad in "grave-cerements...untenanted by any tangible form," but a ghost?

Okay, so maybe it isn't a Christmas story. But then again, maybe it is. Who's to say Prospero's party isn't a Christmas party? It certainly sounds like one, what with the colored lights and that one party pooper everyone was hoping to avoid showing up at the last minute and spoiling everyone's good time. Sure, everyone's read it, but now's the perfect time to read it again—especially if you're considering attending a holiday party yourself.

Have a happy—and above all safe—holiday season. Stay home if possible, but if you must go out, be sure to masque up.

The Masque of the Red Death
by Edgar Allan Poe (1842)

The “Red Death” had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its Avatar and its seal — the redness and the horror of blood. There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores, with dissolution. The scarlet stains upon the body and especially upon the face of the victim, were the pest ban which shut him out from the aid and from the sympathy of his fellow-men. And the whole seizure, progress and termination of the disease, were the incidents of half an hour.

But the Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious. When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys. This was an extensive and magnificent structure, the creation of the prince’s own eccentric yet august taste. A strong and lofty wall girdled it in. This wall had gates of iron. The courtiers, having entered, brought furnaces and massy hammers and welded the bolts. They resolved to leave means neither of ingress or egress to the sudden impulses of despair or of frenzy from within. The abbey was amply provisioned. With such precautions the courtiers might bid defiance to contagion. The external world could take care of itself. In the meantime it was folly to grieve, or to think. The prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure. There were buffoons, there were improvisatori, there were ballet-dancers, there were musicians, there was Beauty, there was wine. All these and security were within. Without was the “Red Death.”

It was toward the close of the fifth or sixth month of his seclusion, and while the pestilence raged most furiously abroad, that the Prince Prospero entertained his thousand friends at a masked ball of the most unusual magnificence.

It was a voluptuous scene, that masquerade. But first let me tell of the rooms in which it was held. There were seven — an imperial suite. In many palaces, however, such suites form a long and straight vista, while the folding doors slide back nearly to the walls on either hand, so that the view of the whole extent is scarcely impeded. Here the case was very different; as might have been expected from the duke’s love of the bizarre. The apartments were so irregularly disposed that the vision embraced but little more than one at a time. There was a sharp turn at every twenty or thirty yards, and at each turn a novel effect. To the right and left, in the middle of each wall, a tall and narrow Gothic window looked out upon a closed corridor which pursued the windings of the suite. These windows were of stained glass whose color varied in accordance with the prevailing hue of the decorations of the chamber into which it opened. That at the eastern extremity was hung, for example, in blue — and vividly blue were its windows. The second chamber was purple in its ornaments and tapestries, and here the panes were purple. The third was green throughout, and so were the casements. The fourth was furnished and lighted with orange — the fifth with white — the sixth with violet. The seventh apartment was closely shrouded in black velvet tapestries that hung all over the ceiling and down the walls, falling in heavy folds upon a carpet of the same material and hue. But in this chamber only, the color of the windows failed to correspond with the decorations. The panes here were scarlet — a deep blood color. Now in no one of the seven apartments was there any lamp or candelabrum, amid the profusion of golden ornaments that lay scattered to and fro or depended from the roof. There was no light of any kind emanating from lamp or candle within the suite of chambers. But in the corridors that followed the suite, there stood, opposite to each window, a heavy tripod, bearing a brazier of fire that projected its rays through the tinted glass and so glaringly illumined the room. And thus were produced a multitude of gaudy and fantastic appearances. But in the western or black chamber the effect of the fire-light that streamed upon the dark hangings through the blood-tinted panes, was ghastly in the extreme, and produced so wild a look upon the countenances of those who entered, that there were few of the company bold enough to set foot within its precincts at all.

It was in this apartment, also, that there stood against the western wall, a gigantic clock of ebony. Its pendulum swung to and fro with a dull, heavy, monotonous clang; and when the minute-hand made the circuit of the face, and the hour was to be stricken, there came from the brazen lungs of the clock a sound which was clear and loud and deep and exceedingly musical, but of so peculiar a note and emphasis that, at each lapse of an hour, the musicians of the orchestra were constrained to pause, momentarily, in their performance, to harken to the sound; and thus the waltzers perforce ceased their evolutions; and there was a brief disconcert of the whole gay company; and, while the chimes of the clock yet rang, it was observed that the giddiest grew pale, and the more aged and sedate passed their hands over their brows as if in confused reverie or meditation. But when the echoes had fully ceased, a light laughter at once pervaded the assembly; the musicians looked at each other and smiled as if at their own nervousness and folly, and made whispering vows, each to the other, that the next chiming of the clock should produce in them no similar emotion; and then, after the lapse of sixty minutes, (which embrace three thousand and six hundred seconds of the Time that flies,) there came yet another chiming of the clock, and then were the same disconcert and tremulousness and meditation as before.

But, in spite of these things, it was a gay and magnificent revel. The tastes of the duke were peculiar. He had a fine eye for colors and effects. He disregarded the decora of mere fashion. His plans were bold and fiery, and his conceptions glowed with barbaric lustre. There are some who would have thought him mad. His followers felt that he was not. It was necessary to hear and see and touch him to be sure that he was not.

He had directed, in great part, the moveable embellishments of the seven chambers, upon occasion of this great fête; and it was his own guiding taste which had given character to the masqueraders. Be sure they were grotesque. There were much glare and glitter and piquancy and phantasm — much of what has been since seen in “Hernani.” There were arabesque figures with unsuited limbs and appointments. There were delirious fancies such as the madman fashions. There was much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust. To and fro in the seven chambers there stalked, in fact, a multitude of dreams. And these — the dreams — writhed in and about, taking hue from the rooms, and causing the wild music of the orchestra to seem as the echo of their steps. And, anon, there strikes the ebony clock which stands in the hall of the velvet. And then, for a moment, all is still, and all is silent save the voice of the clock. The dreams are stiff-frozen as they stand. But the echoes of the chime die away — they have endured but an instant — and a light, half-subdued laughter floats after them as they depart. And now again the music swells, and the dreams live, and writhe to and fro more merrily than ever, taking hue from the many tinted windows through which stream the rays from the tripods. But to the chamber which lies most westwardly of the seven, there are now none of the maskers who venture: for the night is waning away; and there flows a ruddier light through the blood-colored panes; and the blackness of the sable drapery appalls; and to him whose foot falls upon the sable carpet, there comes from the near clock of ebony a muffled peal more solemnly emphatic than any which reaches their ears who indulge in the more remote gaieties of the other apartments.

But these other apartments were densely crowded, and in them beat feverishly the heart of life. And the revel went whirlingly on, until at length there commenced the sounding of midnight upon the clock. And then the music ceased, as I have told; and the evolutions of the waltzers were quieted; and there was an uneasy cessation of all things as before. But now there were twelve strokes to be sounded by the bell of the clock; and thus it happened, perhaps, that more of thought crept, with more of time, into the meditations of the thoughtful among those who revelled. And thus, too, it happened, perhaps, that before the last echoes of the last chime had utterly sunk into silence, there were many individuals in the crowd who had found leisure to become aware of the presence of a masked figure which had arrested the attention of no single individual before. And the rumor of this new presence having spread itself whisperingly around, there arose at length from the whole company a buzz, or murmur, expressive of disapprobation and surprise — then, finally, of terror, of horror, and of disgust.

In an assembly of phantasms such as I have painted, it may well be supposed that no ordinary appearance could have excited such sensation. In truth the masquerade license of the night was nearly unlimited; but the figure in question had out-Heroded Herod, and gone beyond the bounds of even the prince’s indefinite decorum. There are chords in the hearts of the most reckless which cannot be touched without emotion. Even with the utterly lost, to whom life and death are equally jests, there are matters of which no jest can be made. The whole company, indeed, seemed now deeply to feel that in the costume and bearing of the stranger neither wit nor propriety existed. The figure was tall and gaunt, and shrouded from head to foot in the habiliments of the grave. The mask which concealed the visage was made so nearly to resemble the countenance of a stiffened corpse that the closest scrutiny must have had difficulty in detecting the cheat. And yet all this might have been endured, if not approved, by the mad revellers around. But the mummer had gone so far as to assume the type of the Red Death. His vesture was dabbled in blood — and his broad brow, with all the features of the face, was besprinkled with the scarlet horror.

When the eyes of Prince Prospero fell upon this spectral image (which with a slow and solemn movement, as if more fully to sustain its role, stalked to and fro among the waltzers) he was seen to be convulsed, in the first moment with a strong shudder either of terror or distaste; but, in the next, his brow reddened with rage.

“Who dares?” he demanded hoarsely of the courtiers who stood near him — “who dares insult us with this blasphemous mockery? Seize him and unmask him — that we may know whom we have to hang at sunrise, from the battlements!”

It was in the eastern or blue chamber in which stood the Prince Prospero as he uttered these words. They rang throughout the seven rooms loudly and clearly — for the prince was a bold and robust man, and the music had become hushed at the waving of his hand.

It was in the blue room where stood the prince, with a group of pale courtiers by his side. At first, as he spoke, there was a slight rushing movement of this group in the direction of the intruder, who at the moment was also near at hand, and now, with deliberate and stately step, made closer approach to the speaker. But from a certain nameless awe with which the mad assumptions of the mummer had inspired the whole party, there were found none who put forth hand to seize him; so that, unimpeded, he passed within a yard of the prince’s person; and, while the vast assembly, as if with one impulse, shrank from the centres of the rooms to the walls, he made his way uninterruptedly, but with the same solemn and measured step which had distinguished him from the first, through the blue chamber to the purple — through the purple to the green — through the green to the orange — through this again to the white — and even thence to the violet, ere a decided movement had been made to arrest him. It was then, however, that the Prince Prospero, maddening with rage and the shame of his own momentary cowardice, rushed hurriedly through the six chambers, while none followed him on account of a deadly terror that had seized upon all. He bore aloft a drawn dagger, and had approached, in rapid impetuosity, to within three or four feet of the retreating figure, when the latter, having attained the extremity of the velvet apartment, turned suddenly and confronted his pursuer. There was a sharp cry — and the dagger dropped gleaming upon the sable carpet, upon which, instantly afterwards, fell prostrate in death the Prince Prospero. Then, summoning the wild courage of despair, a throng of the revellers at once threw themselves into the black apartment, and, seizing the mummer, whose tall figure stood erect and motionless within the shadow of the ebony clock, gasped in unutterable horror at finding the grave-cerements and corpse-like mask which they handled with so violent a rudeness, untenanted by any tangible form.

And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.

1919 Illustration by Harry Clarke