The Puffin Book of Horror Stories

    And I saw that indeed she was covered in blood.

    I fell to my knees, suffocating, sobbing, gasping for breath.

    Then, when I had collected my thoughts a little - I was so bewildered that I barely understood the terrible good fortune that had come my way - I made her come up to my bedroom, made her sit in my armchair. Then I rang violently for Prosper to get him to relight the fire, prepare a drink, and go for help.

    The man entered, saw my daughter, opened his mouth in a spasm of dismay and of horror, then fell over rigid, dead, on his back.

    It had been he who had entered the tomb, who had mutilated, then abandoned my child; for he was unable to wipe out the traces of his crime. He hadn't even taken care to replace the lid on the coffin, certain that he would not be suspected by me - I who had always trusted him.

    You see, Monsieur, that we are indeed two unhappy people.

    He fell silent.

    Night had come, wrapping itself around the lonely, sad little valley. A strange sort of fear took hold of me, making me feel close to these strange people; this dead girl back from the grave and this father with his dreadful twitch.

    I could find nothing to say. I murmured, 'What a horrible thing…!'

    Then, after a minute, I added, 'Why don't we go back? It's getting chilly.'

    And we returned to the hotel.

5/ Laurence Staig - Freebies

         

    The old one-eyed Chinaman who stood in the market place was giving them away. He wasn't giving them to quite everyone though. Just people who took his fancy, and who said nice things about the pile of old junk that he was selling from his stall. The old man appeared to like kids, and was acting up like some weird oriental Santa Claus.

    Dad had bought a wok from him, for Mum; it was going to be a Christmas present. I'd have preferred to go to Habitat, then you knew where it'd been, but Dad wanted to be his usual 'grassroots' self and buy the thing from the people who knew, really knew, about woks.

    Dad really can be a boring old fart sometimes.

    I wasn't so sure that Mum would know what to do with the thing anyhow, or whether or not she even wanted one. Her mind would be on other things this year, it being the first one without Grannie.

    So I ended up being dragged around Chinatown, in the middle of dirty smelly old Soho, on a busy Saturday afternoon, just to get a piece of authentic Chinese frying pan!

    The old Chinaman gave me the creeps. A wrinkled prune of a face, with green teeth in a gap-filled mouth, which gasped hot stale breath when he bent down to whisper in my ear.

    'Please take it,' he grinned, 'for you. It is present. For you, how you call it? A freebie. With every twenty wok I sell today, a freebie. Yes, it is good, eh?'

    He had to be joking, and what a coincidence.

    How'd he know about my little hobby, anyhow?

    It didn't matter, I'd got another one for the collection.

    I looked at the little black plastic box with the dangling chrome chain. He must have read ray mind and I could certainly read Dad's. He just groaned. You see, I had a thing about 'give-aways'. Collected them all the time, out of breakfast cereal packets, from petrol stations when we got petrol, supermarkets, anywhere really.

    I just liked them, like little trophies. Freebies, as the man said.

    'What is it?' I asked.

    'It doesn't matter,' said Dad through clenched teeth, 'it's kind of the gentleman to give us anything at all.'

    'It clever key-ring,' said the Chinaman, 'instructions in little panel, where battery go. Batteries not included. You like? I sell you packet, here. Special price to you of one pound ninety pence.'

    A leathery hand unfolded to reveal a packet of digital watch batteries, produced from nowhere like a card in a magician's card trick.

    Dad's face twitched. I sniggered.

    'Crafty old sod,' I said to myself, 'he's just got Dad to shell out on a couple of batteries that he wasn't expecting to have to buy.'

    Dad gave him what he sometimes called one of his 'old-fashioned' looks and pressed two pound coins into the Chinaman's palm.

    The hand closed.

    The old man wished Dad a happy Christmas, and turned to serve another customer who was interested in a wok set.

    We didn't even get the change.

    That Chinaman was smarter than he looked.

    Dad, decided that we should walk to Trafalgar Square and perhaps take a bus or taxi back to Brixton. He still wanted to poke around in a few shops, just in case he saw something else he fancied.

    'We've got to help Mary through Christmas now that Edith won't be with us this year. You know how dependent she was on the old bat -' he corrected himself, 'the old dear. Help her to take her mind off things, OK?'

    He winked at me. I smiled back to keep him happy.

    Hypocrite. I knew what he really thought about Grannie.

    I hated it, too, when he called Mum Mary, so familiar, as though I was one of their wally 'drinks party' friends instead of a kid, and I could never get used to Grannie being called by her first name. It wasn't right. As far as I was concerned Grannie was Grannie, and she'd always been around.

    'You're growing up now, Sarah,' he'd said to me once, 'you must start to behave more like an adult. I also think it's about time you stopped playing with all those stupid gimmicky toys you litter your room with.'

    He always went on and on about how we were slaves of the 'consumer society' as he called it, and how I was a mindless dingbat to go along with it all.

    That was a joke coming from a middle-aged bloke who thought he was really IT.

    Me? I just liked freebies, that was all.

    Dad hated the fact that the old Chinese prune had given me another toy. The joke was on him though: he'd bought me the batteries to go with it!

    As we walked down Charing Cross Road I turned the little plastic tag case over in my hand. I wondered at first why a key-ring needed batteries, but then I realized what it was.

    In gold lettering on one side was a line of Chinese letters; beneath that in English it simply said 'Chang's Quality Woks, Brewer Street, London, England (main distributors)'.

    On the other side of the tag it said 'Key-Finder'.

    The little yellow paper stuffed inside the base explained it all in sentences my teacher wouldn't have liked: Kee-Finder will nether let yuu down if kees yuu lose or mislay. Just whistle. If yor keys are within a 30' radios our tag will immeddiately return call with a serees of clere tones.

    It was one of those lost-key locators. I was really pleased.

    I couldn't wait to try it out.

    Dad wanted to go into a bookshop near the National Gallery, 'Better Books'. He wanted to get Mum (or Mary) another present. I followed him in while trying to fit the pill-shaped batteries into the base of the key tag.

    The shop was jam-packed. Christmas shoppers, cookery books and pictures of the Royal Family everywhere.