The Puffin Book of Horror Stories

    Mrs Hubbard started and stepped back. Peter stood motionless with the light unwavering underneath his chin. There was a gasp, Mrs Hubbard clutched at her chest, then the door slammed shut and he heard the chain rattle again and then a bolt clunk into place.

    That was very good, Peter was thinking. He did think of knocking on the door again, this time with his mask off, but thought better of it. She might not come to the door twice. So now for whoever it was who lived at number forty-seven Devonshire Road.

    This was a large, gloomy house, with some kind of tall fir trees growing in the front garden behind a thick hedge. He did not remember ever having visited this house before. He opened the wooden gate and walked up the path, to find the front door was not at the front of the house but at the side, with more thick hedge growing in front of it on the opposite side of the narrow path. He wondered how anyone ever managed to carry furniture into the house when the path was as narrow as that.

    He did not need to flash his torch to find the bell-push, because it was one of those illuminated ones, with a name on a card underneath it. Luke Anthrope, it said. So that was the name of the man who lived there, he thought; what an unusual name. He pressed the bell, and at once could hear an angry buzzing from somewhere inside, not like a bell at all. Feeling secure and safe behind his mask, when there was no answer he pressed the button again, and this time he heard a man's voice from inside the hall of this dark house. That rather surprised him, since there were no lights switched on that he could see.

    'Go round the back,' it said hoarsely.

    He walked further along the path to find a tall wooden gate, which opened easily, so he passed through it to see the back door of the house, and knocked on it. The door opened just as the moon came out again, but he was ready for it and had the torch under his chin immediately. Mr Anthrope did not frighten easily, however. He was a short man, with a thick beard and moustache, and he just stood there regarding Peter steadily.

    'I've come for the envelope for the children's homes,' explained Peter, switching his torch off since it was obviously having no effect.

    'Ah yes,' said Mr Anthrope, but made no move to go and fetch it.

    'I've got a card here,' said Peter, fumbling in his pocket with some difficulty since the hand masks rather got in the way. 'It's my father's really, but it proves that you can give the envelope to me.'

    The short man continued to regard him without moving. 'Switch that torch on again,' he said, so Peter did.

    'Do you know why you never see two robins on a Christmas card?' the man asked him suddenly.

    Peter did not.

    'It's because if you ever find two robins together, they fight each other to the death. Did you know that? You can only ever find one robin in one place at a time. The same with one or two other creatures.'

    Peter had no idea of what this Mr Anthrope was getting at. He had made no mention of robins. Robins had nothing to do with it. And what other creatures?

    The man's face was beginning to change rather strangely in the moonlight, which was now shining full upon him. If was as if his beard was growing more straggly, somehow, and the face becoming more lined, and his lips seemed somehow to be thinner and more drawn back over his teeth. Peter only just noticed, too, now that the light was brighter, how hairy this man's hands were. Peter turned off the torch, because he did not need it now.

    Then Mr Anthrope did a very strange thing. He came right out to the edge of his doorstep and leaned forward towards Peter as if he was going to whisper something to him.

    Then Mr Anthrope's mouth was somewhere near his ear, and Peter, always curious, strained to be able to hear what Mr Anthrope was about to whisper to him. He was astonished then to feel the bones in the side of his neck crunching, and blood running down inside his shirt. He didn't even have time to cry out before long nails were tearing at his flesh.

8/ John Gordon - Eels

         

    Rosemary was ten when she was smothered by Aunt Jenny and fed to the eels.

    Oh, dear me, how easy it was. Poor lamb, to go so sweetly. But I was very angry at the time. 'And the strange thing is,' said Miss Jenny Jervis aloud, 'I am a single lady without brothers or sisters, so I'm not really her aunt.'

    'Everyone knows that,' said Mrs Berry. 'When's that blasted bus coming?' They were waiting at Church Bridge for the bingo bus to take them to Terrington out across the fens.

    'But she always called me auntie - I can't think why.'

    'And I can't think why you suddenly started to come to bingo. Gambling - that ain't like you, Jenny Jervis.'

    Miss Jervis simpered. 'Maybe I'm feeling lucky, Phoebe.'

    Heavens, yes. Very lucky. First Rosemary with the eels, and now Rosemary's mother has passed away. By accident. So she'll never come looking for her darling little Rosemary again. How very convenient. No need of eels for her.

    'I feel fresh as a daisy today,' said Miss Jervis. 'Free as a bird.'

    'Damned if you don't look it.' Mrs Berry cast an eye over the flowered dress, the gloves and the white hat with a hint of veil across Miss Jervis's brow. 'It's not a wedding, you know - only bloody bingo.'

    'It pleases you to be blunt, Phoebe,' said Miss Jervis, 'but other people are not so unkind. Rosemary for one - although,' she added modestly, 'I still can't think why she has always been so nice to me.'

    'Don't come that with me,' said Mrs Berry. 'You know well enough.' The bus came drifting along the waterside. 'And for God's sake help me up these blasted steps.'

    Mrs Berry, unlike Miss Jervis, was fat and her hips were so bad she could hardly lift her feet. She handed over her stick before she grasped the handrail. 'And wipe that stupid expression off of your face, Jenny Jervis. The girl calls you auntie because she loves you, God knows why.'

    Miss Jervis held the stick by the middle and kept it clear of the ground in case germs ran up it and into her gloves. 'I've only been doing my duty by the girl,' she said.

    'Duty be blowed.' Mrs Berry's grunt was muffled in her fat bosom as she heaved her way upwards. 'Who cares about duty? - you don't, for one.'

    'You are wrong there, Phoebe.' Miss Jervis regarded the broad rear end.

    Quite wrong. My duty was to dispatch the child. She should never have been born, so it was her destiny, the darling.

    'I have a strong sense of duty,' she said.

    'Squit! You have a strong sense of looking after number one - like the rest of us.'

    'Here's your stick, dear.' Miss Jervis handed it over, and dusted off the tips of her gloves.

    'And don't call me dear!' Mrs Berry had found a seat and was peeling the wrapper from a pack of king size. 'I'm not in a bloody rest home yet.'

    The bus began to move, and Miss Jervis looked down into the river as it slid by.

    Silly to call it a river, but they all do. It's a drainage cut, as they very well know, because the water's quite still and not like a river at all. Fortunate, really, because I knew just where Rosemary was until the eels had finished with her. It was quite hygienic. All I had to do was wrap up the bones and put them in the dustbin a few at a time until there was nothing left. Nothing.

    'What are you smiling at?'

    'Just thoughts,' said Miss Jervis.

    'Once a schoolteacher, always a bloody schoolteacher. You're just the same as you was when you was a kid, Jenny Jervis. Anyone could've seen you was never really going to put that school behind you.'

    'Don't get so cross with me, Phoebe. There's nothing wrong with being a teacher.'

    Headmistress, actually, when I retired. And what did you ever do, fat Phoebe?