The Mammoth Book of Modern Ghost Stories

Ashland blinked. The man inclined his head. “Pull at it. Go on – as a favor to me!”

Ashland tugged at the fringe of Abe Hockstatter’s curly hairpiece.

“Tight, eh? Really snug. Stays on the old dome.”

“Indeed it does.”

“They cost a fortune. I’ve got a wind-blown one for outdoor scenes. A stiff wind’ll lift a cheap one right off your scalp. Then I got a crew cut and a Western job with long sideburns. All kinds. Ten, twelve . . . all first- class.”

“I’m certain I’ve seen you,” said Ashland. “I just don’t—”

“ ’S’awright. Believe me. Lotta people don’t know me since I quit the Terry thing. I booze like crazy now. You an’ me, we’re among the nation’s six million alcoholics.”

Ashland glared at the actor. “Where do you get off linking me with—”

“Cool it, cool it. So I spoke a little out of turn. Don’t be so touchy, chum.”

“To hell with you!” snapped Ashland.

The bald man with curly hair shrugged and drifted into the crowd.

Ashland took another long pull at his Scotch. All these neurotic conversations. . . He felt exhausted, wrung dry, and the Scotch was lousy. No kick to it. The skin along the back of his neck felt tight, hot. A headache was coming on; he could always tell.

A slim-figured, frosted blonde in black sequins sidled up to him. She exuded an aura of matrimonial wars fought and lost. Her orange lipstick was smeared, her cheeks alcohol-flushed behind flaking pancake make-up. “I have a theory about sleep,” she said. “Would you like to hear it?”

Ashland did not reply.

“My theory is that the world goes insane every night. When we sleep, our subconscious takes charge and we become victims to whatever it conjures up. Our conscious mind is totally blanked out. We lie there, helpless, while our subconscious flings us about. We fall off high buildings, or have to fight a giant ape, or we get buried in quicksand . . . We have absolutely no control. The mind whirls madly in the skull. Isn’t that an unsettling thing to consider?”

“Listen,” said Ashland. “Where’s the host?”

“He’ll get here.”

Ashland put down his glass and turned away from her. A mounting wave of depression swept him toward the door. The room seemed to be solid with bodies, all talking, drinking, gesturing in the milk-thick smoke haze.

“Potatoes have eyes,” said a voice to his left. “I really believe that.” The remark was punctuated by an ugly, frog-croaking laugh.

“Today is tomorrow’s yesterday,” someone else said.

A hot swarm of sound:

“You can’t get prints off human skin.”

“In China, the laborers make sixty-five dollars a year. How the hell can you live on sixty-five dollars a year?”

“So he took out his Luger and blew her head off.”

“I knew a policewoman who loved to scrub down whores.”

“Did you ever try to live with eight kids, two dogs, a three-legged cat and twelve goldfish?”

“Like I told him, those X rays destroyed his white cells.”

“They found her in the tub. Strangled with a coat hanger.”

“What I had, exactly, was a grade-two epidermoid carcinoma at the base of a seborrheic keratosis.”

Ashland experienced a sudden, raw compulsion: somehow he had to stop these voices!

The Chinese gong flared gold at the corner of his eye. He pushed his way over to it, shouldering the partygoers aside. He would strike it – and the booming noise would stun the crowd; they’d have to stop their incessant, maddening chatter.

Ashland drew back his right first, then drove it into the circle of bronze. He felt the impact, and the gong shuddered under his blow.

But there was no sound from it!

The conversation went on.

Ashland smashed his way back across the apartment.

“You can’t stop the party,” said the affable fat man at the door.

“I’m leaving!”

“So go ahead,” grinned the fat man. “Leave.”

Ashland clawed open the door and plunged into the hall, stumbling, almost falling. He reached the elevator, jabbed at the DOWN button.

Waiting, he found it impossible to swallow; his throat was dry. He could feel his heart hammering against the wall of his chest. His head ached.

The elevator arrived, opened. He stepped inside. The doors closed smoothly and the cage began its slow, automatic descent.

Abruptly, it stopped.

The doors parted to admit a solemn-looking man in a dark blue suit.

Ashland gasped “Freddie!”

The solemn face broke into a wide smile. “Dave! It’s great to see you! Been a long time.”

“But – you can’t be Fred Baker!”

“Why? Have I changed so much?”

“No, no, you look – exactly the same. But that car crash in Albany. I thought you were . . .” Ashland hesitated, left the word unspoken. He was pale, frightened. Very frightened. “Look, I’m – I’m late. Got somebody waiting for me at my place. Have to rush . . . He reached forward to push the LOBBY button.

There was none.

The lowest button read FLOOR 2.

“We use this elevator to get from one party to another,” Freddie Baker said quietly, as the cage surged into motion. “That’s all it’s good for. You get so you need a change. They’re all alike, though – the parties. But you learn to adjust, in time.”

Ashland stared at his departed friend. The elevator stopped.

“Step out,” said Freddie. “I’ll introduce you around. You’ll catch on, get used to things. No sex here. And the booze is watered. Can’t get stoned. That’s the dirty end of the stick.”

Baker took Ashland’s arm, propelled him gently forward.

Around him, pressing in, David Ashland could hear familar sounds: nervous laughter, ice against glass, muted jazz – and the ceaseless hum of cocktail voices.

Freddie thumbed a buzzer. A door opened.

The smiling fat man said, “C’mon in fellas. Join the party.”

Underground

J. B. Priestley

Location:  Northern Line, London Underground.

Time:  December, 1974.

Eyewitness Description:  “Through the gap, he saw for the first time a small figure sitting down. It had the face of an old-looking boy or rather a young-looking dwarf. He stared at this creature, who then met his stare with a widening of the eyes, old eyes, yellowish . . .”

Author:  John Boynton Priestley (1894–1984) was another of the 20th century’s most popular novelists and playwrights whose work, like that of A. E. Van Vogt, was influenced by the theories of J. W. Dunne. Initially a critic and journalist, he enjoyed a great success with The Good