Supernatural Tales 30

By David Longhorn

In '30' by Helen Grant, a room at an Oxford college contains something that should never be confronted. But inevitably, someone does. 'Tears From An Eyeless Face' is a bizarre prose-poem by Canadian author Michael Kelly. 'An Element of Blank' by Lynda E. Rucker sees three friends revisit an ill-starred house where, as teenagers, one of them was assailed by an occult entity. 'Wild Dogs' by Adam Golaski takes us out to a night club where the floor show leaves something to be desired - survivors. And in 'Even Clean Hands Can Do Damage' two women who have suffered terrible loss are brought together by the ghost of a child, but it seems that closure is not always on offer to those who deserve it most. Mark Valentine's story 'Vain Shadows Flee', a tribute to the late Joel Lane, sees a man haunted by a hymn-singing vagrant.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Longhorn
• Release date: Jul 30, 2015

David Longhorn

David Longhorn was born in North East England long before the internet, but fortunately they had plenty of books in those days! He enjoyed reading all sorts of fact and fiction in childhood and also became a huge fan of old horror movies and the BBC’s Ghost Stories for Christmas on television, despite losing a lot of sleep as a result.He went on to get a degree in English Studies, which somehow led him to a career in local government, which in turn took him into a recording studio where he provided voice-overs, read news, and did a lot of other audio stuff. It’s been that kind of life, really – a bit random but quite interesting. All the while he was reading and writing supernatural fiction, influenced by both the classic tales of writers like Ambrose Bierce, M.R. James, and Edgar Allan Poe, but also by modern masters such as Stephen King. He hopes to write a lot more about the world of the dead and undead, assuming they let him...

Book preview

Supernatural Tales 30

Autumn 2015

Contents

'30' by Helen Grant

'An Element of Blank' by Lynda E. Rucker

'Vain Shadows Flee' by Mark Valentine

'Tears From An Eyeless Face' by Michael Kelly

'Wild Dogs' by Adam Golaski

'Even Clean Hands Can Do Damage' by Steve Duffy

About the Authors

Reviews

Editor: David Longhorn

Assistant Editor: Stephen Cashmore

Cover art: Sam Dawson

All stories  the authors

suptales.blogspot.com

'30'

by Helen Grant

The night the future Master of Old’s was born there was a great calamity in the ancient college.

There was hoarse shouting, and the ringing of a bell, and the frantic sound of boots on the stone flags. The head porter, Mr Drummond, a dour diasporic Scot, broke with sacrosanct college practice and actually hurried straight across the green lawn of the quadrangle. Only Job, the Old College handyman, remained unmoved by the disaster. He did not set foot on the grass. In fact, he did not attempt to intervene in what was going on at all. He stood by the weathered stone archway that led from the quad past the porters’ lodge to the street, and watched the rumpus in silence. The dancing yellow flames that illuminated a certain first floor window gilded his rugged features, revealing an expression of grim satisfaction. It was the face of a man who was thinking: I told you so.

The following morning one person left the college, and another one joined it.

The future Master, not a day old, was borne into the precincts of the ancient building by his father, Dr Longhorn, a Fellow of Old’s. The future Master was wrapped in a soft blue waffle blanket from which his tiny fists and wrinkled pink face protruded. Dr Longhorn was conscious of a sense of occasion as he bore his first born (and as it proved, only) son into the college. He turned the child in his arms so that its shortsighted blue eyes and pouting mouth faced the venerable stone walls, wincing a little as he did so at a suspicious dampness in the future Master’s lower regions.

Welcome to Old’s, James, he pronounced portentously. Shortly after that, he hurried back to his own lodgings and handed the baby back to his wife’s sister, remarking vaguely that he thought something ought to be done with it.

A few minutes after this tender scene, someone else was carried out of Old’s in a stout oaken casket. If the baby had taken little heed of its surroundings, the occupant of the box took none at all, being borne unprotesting towards the gates in spite of jolts and stumbles. It was taken to the back gates, since the current Master wished to avoid making a grim spectacle of it. The coffin lid had been nailed down very tightly too, to avoid any unintended revelation of the ugly contents. It was hardly to be supposed that the family of the deceased would want to look upon those seared and blackened features.

Job the handyman had managed, with an ease born of long experience, to make himself absent at the moment when coffin bearers were required, thus sparing himself an unpleasant exertion. All the same, as he stood in the shadows watching the casket being carried out, he took off his hat in respect for the deceased. The dead man had been the son of a Lord, after all.

Over the succeeding days there was no possibility of Job escaping the work that was necessary to repair the effects of the fire. The severe damage from burning was limited to the room in which it had started, but a cloying residue of black soot covered a far larger area. The soot had a slightly greasy quality to it that suggested an unpleasant provenance. The sweetish burnt odour in the room itself was even worse.

After a considerable amount of labour, the room was restored to its untainted state, although it was not refurnished. Instead it was locked up and left untenanted. Job took the key with its charred wooden fob down to the porter’s lodge where Mr Drummond took it from him with an expression of disdain and hung it on a little hook. There were rows of these hooks, one for each of the rooms that comprised the accommodation inside the college. Under each of the hooks were brass numerals. The ones under this particular key read 30.

The keys for room number 30 stayed on the hook, quite undisturbed, for a very long time.

James Longhorn grew from a damp infant into a thin, pale boy with light hair and a permanently perturbed expression, as though he were overly troubled by the difficult question of whether to channel his future studies towards mathematics or ancient languages. He attended a school in the town, but he spent the rest of his time at Old’s. He was a solitary boy. The undergraduates (all male at this time, although it was 1960) humoured him because he was Dr Longhorn’s son, but discouraged a too close acquaintance in case he went off with tales of illicit consumption of spirits or smoking in the library. The academic staff were mostly too grand to notice a small boy, and the other staff privately thought he was a nuisance.

If James didn’t have his precocious nose in a book, he was always exercising his intellectual curiosity by poking it into parts of the college where he had no business to be. He was discovered in the kitchen trying to weigh the college cat in the scales, and caught red-handed in the library reading the obscenest poems of Catullus with the assistance of a Latin dictionary.

Generally he succeeded with his investigative endeavours because he was very persistent; once he had decided upon a certain plan he wouldn’t give it up. Room 30, therefore, was a constant thorn in his young side.

As soon as he was old enough to run around the college unsupervised, he had made it his business to examine every single room in it. Most of the undergraduates could be relied upon to let him in at least once, and when they wouldn’t, he simply waited until the vacation and looked when they weren’t there. In time he had seen nearly every single one, from the dingy corner room with only half the usual window space to the interestingly circular turret room. The only one he hadn’t been into was room 30.

Applications to Mr Drummond for the loan of the key were all in vain.

Now, Master James, the head porter would say, You’ve got no call to go poking about in there.

But why?

The answer was always the same. Mr Drummond would draw himself up to his full height, sniff disapprovingly, and say, Because there’s nothing in there.

As the porters’ lodge was never left unmanned, there was no opportunity to take the key by stealth. The question remained, and it still rankled.

Although Mr Drummond’s reason for disallowing visits to room 30 was so vague and unhelpful, some of the undergraduates were more informative on the topic.

Number thirty’s haunted, of course, said one of them in the junior common room one Saturday evening. Someone died in there.

What rot, said one of his friends.

No, it’s true, said the first one earnestly. My cousin was here when it happened. It was hushed up because the chap who died was the son of Lord somebody. He leaned forward, conspiratorially. The room burnt out, you know. He died in the fire. And this is the strange thing. He was sitting in a chair by the window when they found him. Hadn’t made any attempt to get away. Just sat there and burned to a crisp.

Suicide? said the friend.

Maybe, said the first student, shrugging. They said it wasn’t, apparently, but they would say that, wouldn’t they?

Perhaps he was dead before the fire started, cut in James. He could have had a heart attack, and then he wouldn’t move, would he?

The two undergraduates exchanged uneasy glances. They hadn’t realised Dr Longhorn’s wretchedly precocious son was listening to them talking.

Well, said the first one, It’s just a story, you know. I wasn’t here at the time.

Isn’t it a bit late for you? asked the other. Run along, kid.

James looked at them in silence for a moment and then walked out of the room. As soon as he was out of sight he stopped. Experience had taught him that there was more to be learned from silence and stillness than direct interrogation. He pressed himself close to the wall and listened to the continuing discussion. Predictably, it was not long before one of the students proposed spending the night in room 30.

How will they get the key? James wondered. But what had proven impossible for one ten year old boy was easier for two or three grown students. They were still discussing the best way of creating a distraction to lure Mr Drummond out of the lodge so that one of them could swipe the key when James heard footsteps and saw one of the dons coming down the passage. To hold an audible conversation outside the common room would mean discovery. Regretfully, he slipped away, promising himself that he would try to find out when the undergraduates intended to carry out the plan at some later time.

On the Sunday morning, James awoke with the disconcerting sense of having slept too long. Generally he and his parents attended the Sunday morning service in the