Wilkie Collins: Blow up with the brig, a sailor's story

I HAVE got an alarming confession to make. I am haunted by a Ghost.

If you were to guess for a hundred years, you would never guess what my ghost is. I shall make you laugh to begin with--and afterward I shall make your flesh creep. My Ghost is the ghost of a Bedroom Candlestick.

Yes, a bedroom candlestick and candle, or a flat candlestick and candle--put it which way you like--that is what haunts me. I wish it was something pleasanter and more out of the common way; a beautiful lady, or a mine of gold and silver, or a cellar of wine and a coach and horses, and such like. But, being what it is, I must take it for what it is, and make the best of it; and I shall thank you kindly if you will help me out by doing the same.

I am not a scholar myself, but I make bold to believe that the haunting of any man with anything under the sun begins with the frightening of him. At any rate, the haunting of me with a bedroom candlestick and candle began with the frightening of me with a bedroom candlestick and candle--the frightening of me half out of my life; and, for the time being, the frightening of me altogether out of my wits. That is not a very pleasant thing to confess before stating the particulars; but perhaps you will be the readier to believe that I am not a downright coward, because you find me bold enough to make a clean breast of it already, to my own great disadvantage so far.

Here are the particulars, as well as I can put them:

I was apprenticed to the sea when I was about as tall as my own walking-stick; and I made good enough use of my time to be fit for a mate's berth at the age of twenty-five years.

It was in the year eighteen hundred and eighteen, or nineteen, I am not quite certain which, that I reached the before-mentioned age of twenty-five. You will please to excuse my memory not being very good for dates, names, numbers, places, and such like. No fear, though, about the particulars I have undertaken to tell you of; I have got them all ship-shape in my recollection; I can see them, at this moment, as clear as noonday in my own mind. But there is a mist over what went before, and, for the matter of that, a mist likewise over much that came after--and it's not very likely to lift at my time of life, is it?

Miguel Ángel Roa: Es tarde

...porque grité pidiendo ayuda...y no me escuché.

Richard Matheson: 'Tis the Season to Be Jelly

Pa's nose fell off at breakfast. It fell right into Ma's coffee and displaced it. Prunella's wheeze blew out the gut lamp.

'Land o' goshen, Dad,' Ma said, in the gloom, 'If ya know'd it was ready t'plop, whyn't ya tap it off y'self?'

'Didn't know,' said Pa.

'That's what ya said the last time, Paw,' said Luke, choking on his bark bread. Uncle Rock snapped his fingers beside the lamp. Prunella's wheezing shot the flicker out.

'Shet off ya laughin', gal,' scolded Ma. Prunella toppled off her rock in a flurry of stumps, spilling liverwort mush.

Tarnation take it!' said Uncle Eyes.

'Well, combust the wick, combust the wick!' demanded Grampa, who was reading when the light went out. Prunella wheezed, thrashing on the dirt.

Uncle Rock got sparks again and lit the lamp.

'Where was I now?' said Grampa.

'Git back up here,' Ma said. Prunella scrabbled back onto her rock, eye streaming tears of laughter. 'Giddy chile,' said Ma. She slung another scoop of mush on Prunella's board. 'Go to,' she said. She picked Pa's nose out of her corn coffee and pitched it at him.

'Ma, I'm fixin' t'ask 'er t'day,' said Luke.

'Be ya, son?' said Ma, 'Thet's nice.'

'Ain't no pu'pose to it!' Grampa said, 'The dang force o' life is spent!'

'Now, Pa,' said Pa, 'Don't fuss the young 'uns' mind-to.'

'Says right hyeh!' said. Grampa, tapping at the journal with his wrist, 'We done let in the wavelenths of anti-life, that's what we done!'

Ana María Shua: La caricia perfecta

No hay caricia más perfecta que el leve roce de una mano de ocho dedos, afirman aquellos que en lugar de elegir a una mujer, optan por entrar solos y desnudos en el Cuarto de las Arañas.

Patricia Laurent Kullic: Se solicita sirvienta

Si viene por el anuncio, pase. Las instrucciones están sobre la mesa. Kushner.

Señor: Me llamo Regulema y leí su recado. Fui a la tienda con el dinero que estaba sobre la mesa. Le dejo una coliflor cocida y un caldito de pollo. Espero que le guste. Firma, Regulema.

Regulema: Le doy la bienvenida. Disculpe usted que no lo haga personalmente pero soy un hombre enfermo. En el recado de ayer olvidé decirle que su horario será de diez a cuatro, pero si termina antes puede irse. Hay un cuarto en el fondo del pasillo que está bajo llave, no se preocupe en limpiarlo. Cada viernes dejaré su sueldo sobre esta misma mesa. Atentamente, Jonas Kushner.

Señor Kushner: Compré veneno para ratas y un líquido para limpiar la vajilla del vitrinero. Mañana voy a ir a pagar los recibos de luz y agua que estaban amontonados en el buzón. No estaré por la mañana. Firma, Regulema

Regulema: El caldo de ayer tenía especias. Le pido por favor que el pollo lo hierva en agua solamente. Lo que compró para limpiar el oro y la plata no era necesario, como quiera se lo agradezco. Atentamente, Jonas Kushner.

Señor Kushner: Ya lavé su ropa y perdone usted la libertad que me tomé para tirar una camisa blanca que por más que lavé y lavé, olía muy feo y estaba rota del cuello. Si usted quiere yo le puedo comprar una en el centro. Hasta mañana. Firma, Regulema

Señorita Regulema: Yo no uso camisas de colores y si llego a hacerlo, son lisas y muy discretas. Por favor compre siempre camisas blancas de manga larga. Gracias. Kushner.

Señor Kushner: Perdone el error de las camisas, pero me parecieron bonitas y modernas. No vuelve a pasar. ¿No cree que es mucho el dinero que me dejó de sueldo o son varios meses por adelantado? Regulema.

Regulema: No le pagué por adelantado, simplemente estoy muy contento con usted. Compre más coliflor. Kushner.

Poppy Z. Brite: A Taste of Blood and Altars

In the spring, families in the suburbs of New Orleans--Metarie, Jefferson, Lafayette--hang wreaths on their front doors. Gay purple straw wreaths of yellow and purple and green, wreaths with bells and froths of ribbons trailing down, blowing, tangling in the warm wind. The children have king cake parties. Each slice of cake is covered with a different sweet, sticky topping--candied cherries and colored sugar are favorites--and the child who finds a pink plastic baby in his slice will enjoy a year of good luck. The baby represents the infant Christ, and children seldom choke on it. Jesus loves little children.

The adults buy spangled cat's-eye masks for masquerades, and other women's husbands pull other men's wives to them under cover of Spanish moss and anonymity, hot silk and desperate searching tongues and the wet ground and the ghostly white scent of magnolias opening in the night, and the colored paper lanterns on the verandah in the distance.

In the French Quarter the liquor flows like milk and strings of bright cheap beads hang from wrought iron balconies, adorn sweaty necks, scatter in the street, the royalty of gutter trash, gaudy among the cigarette butts and cans and plastic Hurricane glasses. The sky is purple, the flare of a match behind a cupped hand is yellow, the liquor is green, bright green, made from a thousand herbs, made from altars. Those who know well enough to drink Chartreuse at Mardi Gras are lucky, because the distilled essence of the town burns in their bellies. Chartreuse glows in the dark, and if you drink enough of it, your eyes will turn bright green.

Christian's bar was way down Chartres away from the middle of the Quarter, toward Canal Street. It was only nine-thirty. None one ever came in until ten, not even on Mardi Gras nights, no one except the thin little girl in the black silk dress, the thin little girl with the short, soft brown hair that fell in a curtain across her eyes. Christian always wanted to brush it away from her face, feel it trickle through his fingers like rain. Tonight, as usual, she slipped in at nine-thirty and looked around for the friends who were never there, and the wind blew the French Quarter in behind her, Rue de Chartres warm as the night air slipped away toward the river, smelling of spice and fried oysters and rum and the dust of ancient bones stolen and violated. When she saw Christian standing alone behind the bar, narrow and white with his black hair glittering on his shoulders, she came and hopped onto a bar stool -- she had to boost herself -- and said, as she did most nights, "Can I have a screwdriver?"

"Just how old are you, love?" Christian asked, as he did most nights.

Hipólito G. Navarro: Meditación del vampiro

En el campo amanece siempre mucho más temprano.

Eso lo saben bien los mirlos.

Pero tiene que pasar un buen rato desde que surge la primera luz hasta que aparece definitivamente el sol. Manda siempre el astro en avanzadilla una difusa claridad para que vaya explorando el terreno palmo a palmo, para que le informe antes de posibles sobresaltos o altercados. Luego, cuando ya tiene constancia de que todo está en orden, tal como quedó en la tarde previa, se atreve por fin a salir. Su buen trabajo le cuesta después recoger toda la claridad que derramó primero. Por eso se ve obligado a subir tan alto antes de caer, para que le dé tiempo a absorber toda esa luz y no dejar ninguna descarriada cuando se vuelva a hundir por el oeste.

Luego en el campo, paradójicamente, se hace de noche también muy pronto.

Los mirlos apagan sus picos naranjas y se confunden con el paisaje.

Y agradecido yo, me descuelgo y salgo.

Lisa Morton: Children of the Long Night

Dracula finds himself ever more disgusted with humanity and what it is becoming...

“C’MON, TET, YOU know you can’t spend the night here.”

The ragged man in filthy combat fatigues looked up from under his thin stringy hair. His real name was John Douglas Black, but he’d earned his street name by begging passers-by to “spare some change for a vet, man, I was in the Tet Offensive, had the skin on my back torched by napalm.” Tet didn’t appear to have any war injuries, but, on the other hand, no one had ever seen his back, either.

Tet staggered to his feet, half-leaning against the wall beside him for support. The two beat cops eyed him with a mix of disgust and pity, then the female one leaped forward to steady him when he almost fell.

“You all right, Tet? We can take you to a clinic, get you some help ...”

Tet flinched away from her hand. “Already been. They couldn’t do shit for me.”

The cop reluctantly let her partner lead her back to their car, the game finished for tonight. It was always the same—they knew Tet was one of the harmless ones, didn’t really want to roust him, but if they didn’t some Yuppie on his busy way back from the video store would complain, then they’d have to arrest Tet. It was easier this way for everyone.

Except Tet really did need help. Something was wrong with him. Every morning he awoke feeling weaker, more feverish. He wondered if he’d caught some disease from a rat—there were bite marks on his wrists, small gaping pink spots standing out from the grime.

Tet reached the side street and turned the corner. There was an alley down here that was little more than a walkway and trash storage between buildings. Tet could store himself there with all the rest of the garbage and no one cared.

He stumbled past the first two dumpsters, then let himself collapse. He was almost asleep when he realized he wasn’t alone. He looked up blearily and made out a figure standing over him, a silhouette. Then the blackness was dropping beside Tet, and he heard a noise, a hideous noise like a cross between a guttural laugh and an animal snarl.

He realized he’d been hearing that sound every night for nearly a week.

Fernando Iwasaki: Monsieur le revenant

Todo comenzó viendo televisión hasta la medianoche, en uno de esos canales por cable que sólo pasan películas de terror de bajo presupuesto. Luego vinieron el desasosiego y los bares de mala muerte, las borracheras vertiginosas y las cofradías siniestras de la madrugada. Por eso perdí mi trabajo, porque dormía de día hasta resucitar en la noche, insomne y hambriento.

No es fácil convertirse en un trasnochador cuando toda la vida has disfrutado del sol y de los horarios comerciales, pero la noche tiene sus propias leyes y también sus negocios. Así caí en aquella mafia de hombres decadentes y mujeres fatales. Malditos sean.

Siempre regreso temeroso de las primeras luces del alba para desmoronarme en la cama, donde despierto anochecido y avergonzado sobre vómitos coagulados. Tengo mala cara. Me veo en el espejo y me provoca llorar. Lo del espejo es mentira. Lo de los crucifijos también.

Salomé Guadalupe Ingelmo: God save the Queen: Capriccio Steampunk

En el vigésimo aniversario de la publicación de Anno Dracula,
bajo la amenaza hecha realidad,
como humilde homenaje al visionario Kim Newman

Bajo la luz artificial del inflexible farol, la muchacha ofrece mecánicamente el gesto lascivo tantas veces ensayado. Está tan desmejorada que no parece una cálida.

La respiración afanosa de la desventurada acaba en un gemido sofocado. El sonido del impasible metal marca el final del acto, íntimo y sórdido al tiempo: las escasas monedas rebotan contra el empedrado. Ruedan aquí y allá, produciendo un sumiso tintineo. Yace tendida en el suelo, ojerosa, demacrada: tan débil que apenas puede arrastrarse para recogerlas. A medida que él penetraba la carne, su menudo cuerpo iba resbalando sobre la pared del patio en el que desempeña con discreción su oficio. La mente se ha deslizado también: ahora reposa en una indulgente inconsciencia, un lugar en el que no debe preocuparse por el alquiler del cuarto compartido, ni por los chulos para los que son obediente rebaño. Ni siquiera, por los clientes que las ordeñan a su antojo. Los caballeros se adentran en el East End sólo para saciar su apetito.

El cielo del gueto hierve de rudimentarios ingenios voladores, de alas membranosas. Únicamente las gafas de visión nocturna evitan las colisiones. Funesta bandada eclipsa la pálida luna. Su sombra se proyecta amenazadora, avanza imparable. Aunque la clase humilde es prolífica, en pocos años esas criaturas desnutridas no podrán alimentar a los aristócratas y burgueses que viven de ellas, a los miles de devotos neonatos y a los pocos fríos antiguos ‒las ávidas sanguijuelas de rancio linaje‒.

Cuando la epidemia comenzó a extenderse, aceptó convertirse en hagiógrafo de los Padres Oscuros. Así logró eludir los campos para no bautizados. El escritor acelera el paso. Procura no mirar al cielo. Ni al suelo. Pero la tentación vence a la prudencia: los orificios en el cuello de la muchacha, unos ojos que se clavan en él acusadores, lo hipnotizan. Recuerda su Irlanda natal ‒abusada por los corsarios ingleses‒, los siniestros cuentos durante la eterna convalecencia infantil... Ahora los monstruos de su madre parecen seres inocentes. Es la era del hombre: ¡Dios salve a la reina!

Bram Stoker: Crooken Sands

Mr. Arthur Fernlee Markam, who took what was known as the Red House above the Mains of Crooken, was a London merchant, and being essentially a cockney, thought it necessary when he went for the summer holidays to Scotland to provide an entire rig-out as a Highland chieftain, as manifested in chromolithographs and on the music-hall stage. He had once seen in the Empire the Great Prince-"The Bounder King"-bring down the house by appearing as "The MacSlogan of that Ilk," and singing the celebrated Scotch song.

"There's naething like haggis to mak a mon dry!" and he had ever since preserved in his mind a faithful image of the picturesque and warlike appearance which he presented. Indeed, if the true inwardness of Mr. Markam's mind on the subject of his selection of Aberdeenshire as a summer resort were known, it would be found that in the foreground of the holiday locality which his fancy painted stalked the many hued figure of the MacSlogan of that Ilk. However, be this as it may, a very kind fortune-certainly so far as external beauty was concerned-led him to the choice of Crooken Bay. It is a lovely spot, between Aberdeen and Peterhead, just under the rock-bound headland whence the long, dangerous reefs known as The Spurs run out into the North Sea. Between this and the "Mains of Crooken"-a village sheltered by the northern cliffs-lies the deep bay, backed with a multitude of bent-grown dunes where the rabbits are to be found in thousands. Thus at either end of the bay is a rocky promontory, and when the dawn or the sunset falls on the rocks of red syenite the effect is very lovely. The bay itself is floored with level sand and the tide runs far out, leaving a smooth waste of hard sand on which are dotted here and there the stake nets and bag nets of the salmon fishers. At one end of the bay there is a little group or cluster of rocks whose heads are raised something above high water, except when in rough weather the waves come over them green. At low tide they are exposed down to sand level; and here is perhaps the only little bit of dangerous sand on this part of the eastern coast. Between the rocks, which are apart about some fifty feet, is a small quicksand, which, like the Goodwins, is dangerous only with the incoming tide. It extends outwards till it is lost in the sea, and inwards till it fades away in the hard sand of the upper beach. On the slope of the hill which rises beyond the dunes, midway between the Spurs and the Port of Crooken, is the Red House. It rises from the midst of a clump of fir-trees which protect it on three sides, leaving the whole sea front open. A trim, old-fashioned garden stretches down to the roadway, on crossing which a grassy path, which can be used for light vehicles, threads a way to the shore, winding amongst the sand hills.

When the Markam family arrived at the Red House after their thirty-six hours of pitching on the Aberdeen steamer Ban Righ from Blackwall, with the subsequent train to Yellon and drive of a dozen miles, they all agreed that they had never seen a more delightful spot. The general satisfaction was more marked as at that very time none of the family were, for several reasons, inclined to find favourable anything or any place over the Scottish border. Though the family was a large one, the prosperity of the business allowed them all sorts of personal luxuries, amongst which was a wide latitude in the way of dress. The frequency of the Markam girls' new frocks was a source of envy to their bosom friends and of joy to themselves.

Marcio Veloz Maggiolo: El soldado

Había perdido en la guerra brazos y piernas. Y allí estaba, colocado dentro de una bolsa con sólo la cabeza fuera. Los del hospital para veteranos le compadecían, mientras él, en su bolsa, pendía del techo y oscilaba como un péndulo medidor de tragedias. Pidió que lo declarasen muerto y su familia recibió, un mal día, el telegrama del Army: "Sargento James Tracy, Viet-Nam. Murió en combate".

El padre lloró amargamente y pensó para sí: "Hubiera yo preferido parirlo sin brazos ni piernas; así jamás habría tenido que ir a un campo de batalla".

Ambrose Bierce: The Man and the Snake

It is of veritabyll report, and attested of so many that there be nowe of wyse and learned none to gaynsaye it, that y'e serpente hys eye hath a magnetick propertie that whosoe falleth into its svasion is drawn forwards in despyte of his wille, and perisheth miserabyll by y'e creature hys byte.

Stretched at ease upon a sofa, in gown and slippers, Harker Brayton smiled as he read the foregoing sentence in old Morryster's Marvells of Science. "The only marvel in the matter," he said to himself, "is that the wise and learned in Morryster's day should have believed such nonsense as is rejected by most of even the ignorant in ours."

A train of reflection followed—for Brayton was a man of thought—and he unconsciously lowered his book without altering the direction of his eyes. As soon as the volume had gone below the line of sight, something in an obscure corner of the room recalled his attention to his surroundings. What he saw, in the shadow under his bed, was two small points of light, apparently about an inch apart. They might have been reflections of the gas jet above him, in metal nail heads; he gave them but little thought and resumed his reading. A moment later something—some impulse which it did not occur to him to analyze—impelled him to lower the book again and seek for what he saw before. The points of light were still there. They seemed to have become brighter than before, shining with a greenish lustre that he had not at first observed. He thought, too, that they might have moved a trifle—were somewhat nearer. They were still too much in shadow, however, to reveal their nature and origin to an indolent attention, and again he resumed his reading. Suddenly something in the text suggested a thought that made him start and drop the book for the third time to the side of the sofa, whence, escaping from his hand, it fell sprawling to the floor, back upward. Brayton, half-risen, was staring intently into the obscurity beneath the bed, where the points of light shone with, it seemed to him, an added fire. His attention was now fully aroused, his gaze eager and imperative. It disclosed, almost directly under the foot-rail of the bed, the coils of a large serpent—the points of light were its eyes! Its horrible head, thrust flatly forth from the innermost coil and resting upon the outermost, was directed straight toward him, the definition of the wide, brutal jaw and the idiot-like forehead serving to show the direction of its malevolent gaze. The eyes were no longer merely luminous points; they looked into his own with a meaning, a malign significance.

José Fernández del Vallado: La grieta

Un hombre viejo, en el campo, con la cabeza cubierta por un sombrero Panamá, avanza despacio, con un saco de esparto ceñido al cinto. Con sus manos rugosas toma la pértiga y bastonea el olivo para desbrozarlo. Las aceitunas verdes van cayendo como una fina lluvia de simiente. Se yergue y estira los brazos para restablecer el flujo sanguíneo. Al fondo está el cauce del río, seco, con los cantos rodados y pulidos, y al otro lado las quebradas, presidiendo el horizonte como yelmos roídos. Y detrás, una valla de alambre roñoso. Antes no había zonas acotadas sino campo abierto, y hombres que se batían palmo a palmo por una libertad bajo amenaza. Entrecierra los párpados y traga la poca saliva que le queda; una gota de sudor se desliza por su rostro y humedece y sala sus labios.

Comenzó a ver a su madre de tarde en tarde, le acariciaba la nuca y le pedía que saliera a saludar a los hombres. Pero él no quería ver a nadie, ni comer, ni moverse, sólo distinguía a los milicianos en la grieta, cercados por el ejército fascista, sudando, sabedores de que si los descubrían, estaban listos. “No hay grieta ni milicias, hijo”. Ella no los veía. Él sí: era estrecha, como la abertura de una cremallera. “Huid” les decía. “Escapad” suplicaba. Pero la noche caía como una tela de tul y allí permanecían, esperando a la muerte o al día siguiente. Cuando la fiebre lo dejó en un estado de letargo, apareció en la puerta de la habitación, casi translúcido, el padre. “¿Los ves?” le preguntó el viejo a su viejo. La madre contuvo un sollozo. Acarreó una silla y se sentó en silencio. El padre negó una vez; fue suficiente. De nuevo Navidad. Había pavo, confites y turrón de Mazarrón, bizcochos borrachos, y borrachos tambaleándose en las calles. Dentro, un viejo solitario.

Lo supo esa Navidad, no antes; el doctor vino a verlo. Lo hizo pasar a la cabaña. Se sentó frente a él en la hamaca, lo miró a la cara y pidió un vino tinto. El viejo empezó a contarle cosas del campo, cómo decaían los olivos. “Habrá que remover la tierra y dejar rastrojo. Mis padres me ayudarán…”

—No hay padres, Don Fabián —lo censuró el doctor—. Son irreales, visiones suyas. Como lo de la grieta. Vendrá conmigo al hospital.