The Horror Megapack. Robert E. Howard

that time when one of the goth kids at school sidled up to her in the hallway and said, “Caroline, are you a witch? Wanna join our coven?”

      “Yes,” she said, “I am a witch. I’ve sold my soul to the Devil!”

      She said it with such conviction that the goth-kid seemed to just melt. He ran away, and Caroline laughed so hard and so long and so loudly that it made a scene, and everybody was staring, and she didn’t give a damn if they did.

      But most of them didn’t call her a witch. Somebody saw her scrounging for pizza out of a dumpster and the next day it was all over school and kids greeted her with, “Eew, gross…” and said among themselves, but making sure she could hear them, “Caroline’s going to be a bag-lady when she grows up. Maybe she’s one already.”

      “Yeah, everything’s fine,” she told the counselor again and again.

      So she lay in the hammock in the late October dark, on a night when she was certain that Jack and dear old Mom, who supposedly loved her no matter what, had murdered someone. She had seen them dragging a girl not much older than herself, somebody she didn’t know, who didn’t seem to be wearing much clothing, down into the basement. She had even been able to sneak a glimpse of what was going on down there, just this once. The struggling girl must have made Mom and Uncle Jack careless.

      The curtains were open, so Caroline, crouching on the back porch, could peer in through the back door and see down the basement steps. A crowd of people waited at the base of the stairs, their faces horribly pale, all of them dressed in black, their outstretched hands like claws—and then the basement door slammed shut and she knew, as she so often did, that it was time to make herself invisible.

      * * * *

      That night, after she’d screamed into her crumpled blanket for a long time and finally punched a hole through the darkness into that other place where the answers came from, the darkness began to speak to her, its voice more distinct than she had ever heard it before. The darkness touched her. Its touch was hard and warm, but somehow comforting, as if strong, invisible hands caressed her. That night she looked up from out of her hammock and saw that the whole house was ablaze with light. She watched as all of the windows of the house slid open simultaneously, silently. In complete silence her mother and Uncle Jack, now dressed in black robes, leaned out of the upstairs bedroom and floated into the air, ascending like smoke, while from all the other windows, even the barred ones in the basement window-wells, other people rose up, dozens of them, like an cloud of enormous bats, their black robes fluttering like wings as they spiraled up, up, blotting out the moon.

      Meanwhile the darkness whispered in her ear, and something with hard, warm hands touched her and comforted her.

      That night was Halloween, not that any trick-or-treaters ever came to Caroline’s house, or anyone came at this hour, as it was well past midnight, but she knew that on this night (and also in the spring, at the end of April) Mom and Jack and the rest had their big “do’s” and this must have been one of them, for which occasion they had murdered that girl, whoever she was.

      The thing in the darkness took her by the hand, and helped her out of the hammock, then led her into a dance as the bat-things scattered from the face of the Moon. Pale light rippled over the back yard and she began to see what she was dancing with, a male figure, naked, utterly black, like a computer graphic, she thought, something that could morph into any shape; but now it was this gleaming, handsome man, and she danced with him as if she were Ginjer Rogers and he was Fred Astaire; and they whirled around and around with the music turned off, listening to the darkness, which spoke to her from very far away and told her that she was safe and everything would be fine and she could be anything, anything at all that she wanted to be when she grew up.

      “Yeah, I’m a witch all right, just like my mom,” she said aloud, as if concluding that conversation with the goth-boy at school. “I’m pretty sure.”

      But all that might have been a dream. She knew she would have to wait until dawn, when Mom and Jack and the rest would return from their distant sabbat. Then the friend she had called out of the darkness would confront them, and command them, and begin to feed.

      Then she would be sure.

      She shouted. She didn’t care who heard.

      THE STORY OF MING-Y, by Lafcadio Hearn

      Sang the Poet Tching-Kou: “Surely the Peach-Flowers blossom over the tomb of Sië-Thao.”

      * * * *

      Do you ask me who she was—the beautiful Sië-Thao? For a thousand years and more the trees have been whispering above her bed of stone. And the syllables of her name come to the listener with the lisping of the leaves; with the quivering of many-fingered boughs; with the fluttering of lights and shadows; with the breath, sweet as a woman’s presence, of numberless savage flowers—Sië-Thao. But, saving the whispering of her name, what the trees say cannot be understood; and they alone remember the years of Sië-Thao. Something about her you might, nevertheless, learn from any of those Kiang-kou-jin—those famous Chinese story-tellers, who nightly narrate to listening crowds, in consideration of a few tsien, the legends of the past. Something concerning her you may also find in the book entitled “Kin-Kou-Ki-Koan,” which signifies in our tongue: “The Marvellous Happenings of Ancient and of Recent Times.” And perhaps of all things therein written, the most marvellous is this memory of Sië-Thao:—

      Five hundred years ago, in the reign of the Emperor Houng-Wou, whose dynasty was Ming, there lived in the City of Genii, the city of Kwang-tchau-fu, a man celebrated for his learning and for his piety, named Tien-Pelou. This Tien-Pelou had one son, a beautiful boy, who for scholarship and for bodily grace and for polite accomplishments had no superior among the youths of his age. And his name was Ming-Y.

      Now when the lad was in his eighteenth summer, it came to pass that Pelou, his father, was appointed Inspector of Public Instruction at the city of Tching-tou; and Ming-Y accompanied his parents thither. Near the city of Tching-tou lived a rich man of rank, a high commissioner of the government, whose name was Tchang, and who wanted to find a worthy teacher for his children. On hearing of the arrival of the new Inspector of Public Instruction, the noble Tchang visited him to obtain advice in this matter; and happening to meet and converse with Pelou’s accomplished son, immediately engaged Ming-Y as a private tutor for his family.

      Now as the house of this Lord Tchang was situated several miles from town, it was deemed best that Ming-Y should abide in the house of his employer. Accordingly the youth made ready all things necessary for his new sojourn; and his parents, bidding him farewell, counselled him wisely, and cited to him the words of Lao-tseu and of the ancient sages:

      “By a beautiful face the world is filled with love; but Heaven may never be deceived thereby. Shouldst thou behold a woman coming from the East, look thou to the West; shouldst thou perceive a maiden approaching from the West, turn thine eyes to the East.”

      If Ming-Y did not heed this counsel in after days, it was only because of his youth and the thoughtlessness of a naturally joyous heart.

      And he departed to abide in the house of Lord Tchang, while the autumn passed, and the winter also.

      * * * *

      When the time of the second moon of spring was drawing near, and that happy day which the Chinese call Hoa-tchao, or, “The Birthday of a Hundred Flowers,” a longing came upon Ming-Y to see his parents; and he opened his heart to the good Tchang, who not only gave him the permission he desired, but also pressed into his hand a silver gift of two ounces, thinking that the lad might wish to bring some little memento to his father and mother. For it is the Chinese custom, on the feast of Hoa-tchao, to make presents to friends and relations.

      That day all the air was drowsy with blossom perfume, and vibrant with the droning of bees. It seemed to Ming-Y that the path he followed had not been trodden by any other for many long years; the grass was tall upon it; vast trees on either side interlocked their mighty and moss-grown arms above him, beshadowing the way; but the leafy obscurities quivered with bird-song, and the deep vistas of the wood were glorified by vapors of gold, and odorous with flower-breathings