The Most Frightening Story Ever Told (13 page)

“Yikes,” said Billy. “You mean people used to do that?”

“That's what I've always been led to believe,” said Elizabeth.

“Where's the story now?” asked Mr. Rapscallion.

“In my handbag,” said Elizabeth.

“In your
handbag
?” exclaimed Mr. Rapscallion. “You mean it's with us? Here? Now? In this room?”

“I always take it with me wherever I go,” explained Elizabeth. “There's a copy at home, of course, in London, but I couldn't ever bear to be parted from the original.”

“Could we see it?” asked Mr. Rapscallion.

“Of course,” said Elizabeth, and, opening a satchel as big as a pillow, she took out a book and laid it carefully on the bed.

With Billy looking over his shoulder, Mr. Rapscallion picked the book up like it was something really valuable.

Which it was.

Really
valuable.

It was an old book, of course. Any book privately printed in 1816 would have looked old. And it was a slim volume, as might have been expected of a book that contained just one short story. The binding was polished dark green morocco leather decorated with the intertwined initials of the authors,
M
.
S
.
and
J
.
P
.
, in gold. Around these four initials were other inlaid and gilt figures of skeletons and gravestones and the faces of two very frightened-looking people—a man and a woman. Billy could tell that they were very frightened because their eyes were wide open and their hair was standing on end.

“Gilt titles,” said Mr. Rapscallion. “Marbled endpapers, some skillful repairs to the joints, but still a very fine copy.”

Mr. Rapscallion opened the cover, which creaked loudly like an ancient wooden door in a remote Romanian castle, and a rather damp musty smell filled the air, as if a coffin had been opened.

“That's unusual,” said Miss McBatty.

“Yikes,” said Billy.

Mr. Rapscallion grinned. “It sounds and smells as scary as it looks, right?”

And then he said, “I don't believe it.” He shook his head in apparent wonder. “It's signed, by both of the authors. Mary Shelley and John Polidori. I can't believe you're carrying this around with you, Elizabeth.
In a handbag.
This book must be worth tens of thousands of dollars. Probably more.”

“As a matter of fact, I had it valued in New York just a few weeks ago,” she said. “An antiquarian bookseller estimated it's worth at least five hundred thousand dollars. Not that I could ever sell it, of course. It's been in the family for so long it feels like some aged great-aunt or -uncle.”

“Wow,” said Billy. Which Mr. Rapscallion thought made a very welcome change from “yikes.” “Five hundred thousand bucks.”

“Anyway,” she added. “As a child I was always told that some terrible disaster would befall us all if ever this book went out of our immediate family. Which, given the book's curious history, does seem like a rather dreadful possibility.”

This prompted Miss McBatty to go and fetch one of her ghost-hunting devices and to point it at the old leather book in Mr. Rapscallion's hands.

“I don't think the book is actually cursed or haunted,” said Elizabeth.

“I've seen stranger things than an old book that had a peculiar effect on my equipment,” murmured Miss McBatty. “Such as a cigar box, a doll's house, a rabbit's foot on a key ring, a pennywhistle, a teddy bear.”

“A teddy bear?” said Billy. “You're joking.”

Miss McBatty shook her head. “Sometimes it's the smallest or least likely objects that end up producing the creepiest results.”

“The book does do one rather peculiar thing,” admitted the Englishwoman. “Not including that rather frightening creaking sound you heard a minute ago. It happens as soon as you read the book's title aloud. So, do be warned, Mr. Rapscallion. This book is not to be read lightly or without careful consideration of the possible consequences.”

Mr. Rapscallion read the title aloud he found on the first page: “
The
Modern Pandora,
or
The Most Frightening Story Ever Told.
By Mary Shelley and John Polidori.”

The second that Mr. Rapscallion finished reading out the title and before he could read any more of what was printed there, a very peculiar thing happened. The book seemed to produce a knocking, hollow sound, like someone banging the tip of a walking stick on the bare wooden floor of an empty old house.

At the same time the nameless electronic device in Miss McBatty's hand lit up like a lightbulb.

Mr. Rapscallion shivered and almost dropped the book in surprise. “Ooooer,” he said, and immediately put it down on the bed. Then he rubbed his fingers nervously on his body. “Weird, or what? I actually felt the vibration of that sound in my hands. Which are now quite cold. Here.” He held out his hands to Miss McBatty. “Feel them.”

Miss McBatty touched them for a moment and nodded. “Gosh, they're freezing.”

“Yes, I forgot about that part,” admitted Elizabeth. “I should have warned you to wear gloves.”

Miss McBatty let go of Mr. Rapscallion's hands and then looked at her ghost meter. “Interesting. That's the most powerful reading I've seen in a long time.”

“What
was
that banging sound?” Billy asked Elizabeth.

“I don't know. But it always happens after anyone reads the title out loud. No one has ever explained how that happens. Creepy, isn't it?”

“It certainly is,” admitted Mr. Rapscallion. Nervously he picked the book up once again and opened it.

“There's something written in what looks like Mary Shelley's handwriting,” he said. “Underneath the two signatures.” He read it aloud:

Let the reader beware. The story contained in these pages is not to be trifled with. Frightful it is. And supremely frightful is the effect of that which lies herein. Under no circumstances should this story ever be read alone, or on a dark and stormy night. No more should this story ever be read aloud to children, to the mentally infirm, or to those of a nervous disposition. You have been warned. M.S. Villa Diodati. Italy. 1816.

“Caveat reader,” said Elizabeth.

“Is that supposed to be a joke?” said Miss McBatty.

“If it is, I don't get it,” admitted Billy.

“From the Latin
caveat emptor,
” said Mr. Rapscallion. “Which means ‘let the buyer beware.' ”

“Oh,” said Billy. “I see. It's not meant to be a
funny
joke.” He smiled all the same, just to be polite. “What's the story about, anyway?” he asked Elizabeth.

“I don't know,” she confessed. “I haven't ever dared to read it myself. I know that sounds awfully wet of me, but you see, on the very night that my father first read the story,
he died.
”

“Are you serious?” Mercedes McBatty looked and sounded disbelieving.

“I'm deadly serious,” insisted Elizabeth.

“What happened?” Billy asked her.

“Daddy had been jolly keen to read it all his life, only my grandfather had made him promise that he never would. But finally curiosity overcame him, I suppose, and so one night, he did read it. I don't think Daddy could have taken the warning contained on the book's title page very seriously, because he read it alone, and what's more, he read it on a dark, stormy night. None of us knew he was reading it, of course; otherwise we'd probably have tried to talk him out of doing it at all. The next morning we came downstairs and found him sitting in his favorite chair beside the dying embers of the fire, with the book still open on his lap at the last page. He was quite dead and as cold as ice. So, as you can imagine, when I inherited the book, I wasn't in a hurry to read it. I thought that maybe I'd wait until I was really, really old before I tried to read it myself.”

“At least fifty, yeah,” said Billy. “Good idea.”

“No one else has read it since,” added Elizabeth. “So when you do read the story aloud, in your shop, Mr. Rapscallion, it will be the first time that I've heard it myself.”

When, the next day, Billy and Mr. Rapscallion returned from Kansas City to Hitchcock, Elizabeth Wollstonecraft-Godwin and Mercedes McBatty decided to go with them.

Elizabeth had to go to Hitchcock with them because she couldn't ever allow herself to be parted from
The
Modern Pandora,
or
The Most Frightening Story Ever Told
in case something terrible happened to her. And of course to see for herself what happened at the reading so that she might write a book about it.

Mercedes McBatty decided to come to Hitchcock because she was keen to hunt for the ghost in Mr. Rapscallion's shop. And, of course, to see what happened at the reading.

And Mr. Rapscallion was pleased to see her setting up her ghost-detecting equipment, because he said it was good publicity for the shop ahead of his announcement to the local media of the reading of the story.

While Miss McBatty was setting up her camera monitors, Billy kept her company, bringing her snacks and cold drinks from the ancient refrigerator in Mr. Rapscallion's kitchen. All of this was a good excuse for him to ask lots of questions about being a ghost hunter.

One of the questions Billy asked Miss McBatty was this:

“When we were in Kansas City, and we were staying in that hotel, you said that sometimes it's the least likely objects that end up producing the creepiest results on your equipment. And one of the objects you mentioned was a teddy bear.”

“That's right,” said Miss McBatty. “In fact, that was the creepiest case I was ever on. I suppose you want to hear the story.”

“Yes, please,” said Billy.

They went and sat in the Reading Room, in some of the tatty old leather library chairs that Mr. Rapscallion had bought from the Edgar Allan Poe Club in Boston because it was rumored that Poe—himself a writer of extremely creepy stories, of course—had once sat in one of the chairs. Just above the door was the bust of Pallas, a Greek god, and sitting on top of the bust was a large stuffed raven, in honor—said Mr. Rapscallion—of Poe's greatest story-poem,
The Raven.

Attached to the raven's leg was a message capsule for any ghost that was so minded to leave a message for Mr. Rapscallion—like the message capsules that are attached to the legs of carrier pigeons.

Mr. Rapscallion checked the message capsule every day and, when he was near the raven, as he was now, so did Billy. But there was never anything there.

“I'm no Mary Shelley or John Polidori,” said Miss McBatty, naming the two long-dead authors of
The Modern Pandora.
“I don't know that you could call it a ghost story, exactly. But this is the scariest story that
I
know.

“Before I went to live in Kansas City, I lived in Chicago. The city's biggest and most expensive houses are located on the shores of Lake Michigan. And in one of the largest of these lived the billionaire Dearborn Dublin and his young son, Kildare. Despite the family's massive wealth, they were not a happy family. And I was to learn why this was on the day that Mr. Dublin asked me to come and see him. He was a very tall man with a gray beard and tinted glasses. He wore a green blazer and a darker green tie.

“ ‘You come highly recommended, Miss McBatty,' he said. ‘To be honest, I'm not sure that you can help, but the fact of the matter is that you're my last resort. Believe me, I've tried everyone and everything else. I won't bore you by telling you about all that. Instead, I'll just tell you the story and let you make up your own mind.

“ ‘What I'm going to tell you is certainly strange. Possibly it's not the strangest story you've ever heard. But it's true. Every word of it, I promise you. My son, Kildare Dublin, is a spoiled child, Miss McBatty. All his life he's had exactly what he wanted. My only excuse is that his mother died when he was still a small boy and I tried to make up for her absence by indulging his every wish. Too late I've learned the importance of giving a child discipline as well as love. Well, there it is. You can't turn back history. I only wish you could.

“ ‘I mentioned the boy's mother. She died giving birth to Kildare's little sister, Liffey. It was the saddest day of my life. Kildare was about five at the time, and in a pathetic attempt to try to make it up to the boy, I took him to Grabber's, Chicago's largest toy shop, and offered to buy the boy any teddy bear in the store. Well, of course, choosing a teddy bear is no simple task for a boy or a girl. It's like choosing a puppy or a kitten and there has to be something about its face that appeals. To cut a long story a bit shorter, none of the hundreds of teddies in Grabber's appealed to my son. Not one. I tried to get him to choose a teddy but he simply wouldn't, and so we left empty-handed.

“ ‘Our way back to the car took us down an old alley, where we passed an antiques shop. In the window of the shop was a largish teddy bear, about eighteen inches high. But this was no ordinary teddy bear. This was an extremely valuable teddy bear made by the German toy firm Steiff. Old Steiff teddy bears are extremely rare and expensive. And this one was no exception.

“ ‘As soon as little Kildare saw the bear in the shop window, he wanted it. And, foolishly, I promised young Kildare that I would buy it for him. Although in truth, Miss McBatty, it was not an attractive-looking teddy bear. In fact, I would go so far as to say it was the least attractive-looking teddy bear I've ever seen. There was something nasty about its face that reminded me of a wicked goblin. Its eyes seemed rather too narrow. Its nose was rather long and hooked. And the way its mouth had been stitched made you think of a sneer instead of a smile. Also, the ears were not round but pointy. But we went into the shop and I told the man who owned the shop that I wished to buy the bear in his window for my son.

“ ‘The man shook his head and told me the bear was not a toy. That it was a Steiff and this one was perhaps the rarest of the rare, in that there was a little brass tag on the bear's ear with a number six-six-six on it and therefore this particular bear was one of the first six hundred and sixty-six ever made by that company. Consequently, the bear's price was two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Moreover, the man told me that he would not sell the bear to me, as he thought it would be a kind of crime to give a child a teddy bear that was a rare and valuable antique.

“ ‘Hearing this, my son let out such a wail that, against my better judgment, I insisted that the shop owner sell me the bear. But still he refused.

“ ‘It is not a toy, he said firmly. The man who sold it to me told me in no uncertain terms that this teddy bear was under no circumstances ever to be given to a child. That it could never be treated as a toy. And that it would be a dreadful crime if this bear was ever allowed in a nursery. And he made me take a solemn oath that I never would allow that to happen.

“ ‘At this my son began to wail even louder, and it was at this point I think I told the shop owner who I was and offered a higher price than he was asking. Three hundred thousand dollars. A strange look now came into the shop owner's eye. “You wouldn't be the Mr. Dearborn Dublin who owns the lease on all these properties in Central Chicago?” he said. “The famously fabulously wealthy Mr. Dearborn Dublin who's planning to tear down all these properties and build a skyscraper
.”
“Yes, I think that must be right,” I admitted. At which point he seemed to change his mind about selling me that bear, which, in retrospect, I now know was suspicious in itself.

“ ‘But I thought no more of it, and left the shop with a three-hundred-thousand-dollar teddy bear and a very happy son. We took the bear home and I left my son in his nursery playing happily with his new teddy.

“ ‘Weeks passed. I forgot how much I'd paid for the bear. I suppose I even forgot the thing existed. Then one day my sister and her family came to stay with us. Her own two small children played in the nursery with Kildare and his toys. They brought a hamster with them. I think it may have been called Lucky. But when the time came for my sister to leave, we couldn't find it and presumed it must have escaped from its cage. We looked everywhere but with no result and my niece and nephew had to leave without poor Lucky, which upset them greatly, of course.

“ ‘While I'd been looking for the hamster I came across the teddy bear, and perhaps my imagination was playing tricks on me, but it seemed to me that it was slightly larger than I remembered. Fatter somehow. And with a slightly different expression on its face from the one I remembered. It looked sort of smug. Like it was pleased with itself in some horrible way.

“ ‘Weeks passed. And we forgot the missing hamster. We went to visit my brother and his family to see their new puppy. Kildare took the bear with him and left it on the sofa beside the puppy while we ate some lunch. When we returned the puppy had disappeared. And once again the teddy bear looked fat and horribly pleased with itself. The poor puppy was never seen again. And I told myself that I was imagining things. That teddy bears, even ones that cost three hundred thousand dollars, can't eat pets. I told myself I'd been working too hard, that I was imagining things, and decided to see a doctor. The doctor told me it was only to be expected that I should feel under strain following the death of my wife, and he gave me some pills.

“ ‘Several more weeks passed. And for a while everything seemed normal. As normal as things can be after someone's wife has died. One morning I came into my daughter Liffey's room and found the teddy bear in her cot. I assumed my son had put it there for entirely innocent reasons. All the same, a chill came over me, and you can call it fanciful but I took the bear out of her cot and put it back in my son's room.

“ ‘A little later on, Kildare went off to school, so imagine my surprise when around lunchtime I came across the teddy bear lying on the floor of the hallway that connects my son's room with my daughter's. How had the bear gotten there? I called my butler to question the servants but not one of them was prepared to admit having taken the bear from my son's room. They must have thought I was mad.

“ ‘I had to fly to New York on business the next day, but before I Ieft, I took the seemingly absurd precaution of locking the teddy bear in my study.'

“Mr. Dublin let out a big sigh and wiped a tear from his eye,” said Miss McBatty. “ ‘Go on,' I said. ‘What happened next?'

“ ‘I am not sure,' he said. ‘That night I received an urgent telephone call to tell me that my infant daughter had gone missing. And, fearing the worst, I flew back home immediately. The police were there and told me they thought Liffey had been kidnapped. Ignoring them, I went straight to my daughter's cot and breathed a sigh of relief to find that the bear was not there. Nor was it in my son's room. It was in my study and everything seemed just as I had left it except for one thing. And of this there could be no doubt: the teddy bear's stomach was larger. Much larger. And when I squeezed the thing it seemed to me that I could feel something hard inside its stomach. Not only that, but on the teddy bear's face there was a look of dreadful gluttony, as if the bear had eaten a very large meal. And, in short, I supposed that the thing had indeed eaten my baby daughter, who, like the hamster and the puppy before her, has never been seen to this day. But I could hardly bring my suspicions to the police. Not without them thinking me a lunatic. Or, worse, that I had done away with my daughter myself. So I kept silent. But not before placing the teddy bear in the safe, which is where it remains even now.'

“ ‘So what would you like me to do?' I asked Mr. Dublin.

“ ‘To be honest with you, Miss McBatty? I was hoping that you might examine the thing so that I might know for sure if I'm mad or not. That you might use your electronic ghost-hunting equipment to keep a watch on the bear and see if I'm right. To see if it's alive.'

“I asked to see the teddy bear and found that it was indeed kept inside Mr. Dublin's safe as he had said. Looking at the thing, it was hard to accept what Mr. Dublin had told me beyond the fact that it was an old and rather ugly Steiff bear. The face was much as he had described and reminded me of an old man who had stuffed himself at the dinner table. All the same, I pressed its stomach and found it quite soft to the touch. It was difficult to imagine, as Mr. Dublin believed, that this teddy bear had eaten a hamster, a puppy and a human baby girl.