Category: Writing Skills

He stared at the phone as it rang.

We sat in his office at Miskatonic. I smoked my pipe, and John Hawthorne sat in silence.

The phone rang, sharp and punctual.

Neither he nor I made any move to answer it.

John watched the phone, and two minutes later, it went silent. His hands trembled as he took out his own pipe, packed it, and lit it. His teeth clattered against the stem of the pipe, and the bowl bobbed with the gait of a mad horse.

“What can I do, John?” I asked.

A weak smile appeared. “There’s nothing you can do, Duncan. It’s my own damned fault. I knew what could happen.”

The phone rang again, and John swore.

After three minutes, it stopped.

“I’ll have to answer it soon,” he whispered.

“You’ve answered it once?”

John nodded. “Shortly after I opened the book. The phone rang, and even as I translated the warning on the first page, I was answering the call. It was too late.”

“Where’s the book now?”

He tapped his desk. “Top drawer. Locked, of course. Doesn’t do any good.”

“No,” I sighed. “Usually doesn’t.”

The phone rang, and John jumped in his seat, the springs creaking and the wood groaning beneath the shock of it. Sweat beaded upon his brow, and after four minutes, the phone ceased its ringing.

“Have you bound it?” I asked.

“Yes,” he murmured. “Silver locks. You’ll take it?”

“I will.”

“And keep it safe?”

I smiled. “Yes, John, I’ll keep the book safe. There are others like it.”

He plucked a pocket square from his suit coat and dabbed at the sweat. John returned the square to the pocket, took out a key and unlocked the top drawer. From it, he withdrew a thin volume. The book was locked with silver clasps, each one intricately carved. The binding itself was a wonder to behold, the leather tooled in a fashion I’d not seen before.

And the book stung my fingers as I took it, the leather cold and the silver sharp to the touch.

The phone rang, John set his pipe down and answered it.

“Hello?”

The word left his lips, and he slumped forward, dead.

I stood up, tucked the book beneath my arm, and left the office.

It was time to bring the book home and to keep it safe, just as I’d promised.

#books #horrorstories #supernatural

Higgins Barrow was a miserable bastard.

He delighted in the torment of others.

Higgins developed a technique designed to inflict emotional injury to others, and he taught this to select students at the university using wards of the state.

Two months ago, I learned of this, and it took me less than a day to confirm it.

Doctor Allen Rigby made a profit on the side by renting out the feeble-minded in his care at the sanitarium. Since Higgins returned the wards without any physical marks on their bodies, Rigby was satisfied that he was doing no wrong.

At first, Rigby refused to speak with me. It was only after I threw his assistant down a flight of stairs and broke all the fingers on Rigby’s left hand that he began to talk. He showed me the contract he had with Higgins and even a large sum of cash which Rigby hadn’t yet deposited.

I stuffed the money down Rigby’s throat and watched him choke to death.

I found Higgins in his office at the university reading a proof of his newest work. He started to speak, but I didn’t let him.

Twice I punched him in the face, the second blow rendering him unconscious. And although he was heavy, I managed to get him back to the farm without interruption.

When he came to, we were in one of the rooms I generally keep closed off. I had bound him naked to a chair, and in the semidarkness, I waited.

“My mind is too strong,” he chuckled. “You can’t break me with torture.”

“I’m not going to do anything,” I told him.

He grinned. “You’re a weak man, aren’t you. The stories about you are merely that. Stories.”

“Mm. Possibly.”

I lit my pipe and smoked.

He was about to speak again when they came into the room.

Dark shadows peeling away from the walls. They whispered and crept closer. Long and paper-thin, hands cold and eyes dead. I saw the gooseflesh rise on Higgins. One of the shadows leaned in and whispered in his ear.

Higgins’ eyes widened, and he shook his head. The others crept close, long fingers trailing along his arms.

I stood up, and as I closed the door behind me, I heard Higgins let out a long, low whimpering, “No.”

It turns out he wasn’t difficult to break at all.

#books #horrorstories #supernatural

Their books betrayed them.

Lawrence and Rebecca Archer took a job they shouldn’t have. They became book buyers for Miskatonic. They were aggressive in their quest to obtain certain volumes, and soon they were unwelcome in the book world.

They heard rumor of my collection, but neither was foolish enough to approach me. The couple knew what fate lay in store for those who did.

Because of this, I thought I would need to pay only the slightest bit of attention to their activities.

I was wrong.

They didn’t enjoy taking ‘no’ for an answer. So much so that they ended up breaking into the home of Oscar Lorde. Oscar had gone off to visit his daughter in Providence and had a bad fall and died a few days later. When word reached Cross, Lawrence and Rebecca forced their way into Oscar’s home and stole his fine collection of books on arcane lore.

It was a poor decision.

Oscar had been a fair hand at magick. He’d had a bit of natural ability and an affinity for the fey, so they had taught him that which he didn’t have at birth.

Oscar had put spells of protection on his books. When Lawrence and Rebecca kept several for themselves, the spells were triggered.

From what I’ve been able to gather – and what the fey have told me about those books of Oscar’s which are now in my collection – Lawrence and Rebecca sat down to enjoy some of their own books.

As they settled in and enjoyed the evening, Oscar’s magick awoke.

The Archers’ prized books, kept in a nearby secretary, slowly shed their bindings. Leather and coarse string slipped down and made their way across the rug. The leather and the string curled up and around the legs of the chairs, stitched themselves together, and then bound the thieves in their seats.

Legs to legs and arms to arms, the husband and wife struggled to free themselves, but to no avail.

Leather wrapped around their heads, binding their chins as the cloth had for old Jacob Marley. The couple could moan and whimper, but naught else.

String stitched eyes closed, lips shut, and nostrils tight.

Husband and wife suffocated in their seats, as all book thieves should.

#books #horrorstories #supernatural

I told him not to play it.

Professor Asa Bruchac taught music the first two years the Cross branch of Miskatonic was open. His skill at the piano was undeniable and remarkable.

His morals were not.

His foul temperament and his peculiar tastes left much to be desired.

Like most of those employed by the university, I spent a fair amount of time avoiding them. Two years ago, however, I learned of the school’s acquisition of a large book of music. The volume had been compiled in the 18^th century, and I remember my father speaking of it with the Coffins, back before the longevity drained from that family line.

There were songs in the book that best not be played. Music that could tear flesh asunder and grind bone to dust.

I suspect the learned folks at Miskatonic wanted to see if those rumors were true.

As much as I disliked Bruchac, I went to the university and paid him a visit. I told him about the dangers of the book and how it would be best if he didn’t play a single song from it. He sneered at me, of course, and informed me he would be playing that evening.

I decided not to go too far from the school.

Crossing the street, I settled down in a patch of woods, lit my pipe, and waited.

The afternoon passed and settled into evening. A dozen or so guests arrived at the university’s small conservatory. As the doors opened and closed, I could hear the faint sounds of a piano being tuned.

At seven o’clock, the last of the guests arrived, and a few minutes later, the conservatory trembled.

It didn’t last long. Perhaps ten seconds. Perhaps less.

It was long enough to bring the building down.

I was the first to the rubble, and I managed to pull three survivors out before students from the school arrived. Together, we saved six and recovered the bodies of all save Bruchac. He’d been crushed by the largest piece of the conservatory, and it would take far longer to retrieve his remains.

As night closed in, I slipped off to one side and found the book I’d told him to leave be. It was large and ungainly, but I bound it closed and carried it home.

There are some songs that aren’t meant to be heard.

#books #horrorstories #supernatural

Miskatonic opened a door best left closed.

Someone in the fledgling Miskatonic library learned of a book purchase I’d made, and they intercepted its delivery.

The courier was waylaid on the train from Boston, the station master finding the man unconscious in the restroom and his bag stolen. When the man came to, he handed a letter of introduction to the station master, and it was then that the master sent for me. The letter of introduction confirmed who the stranger was and what he had been carrying from Boston.

I had discovered the existence of a book in Somerville, and I had arranged for its purchase. The book was a rare, Arabic edition of a text on mad prophets, and it was known to damage – quite severely – those who read it. While I didn’t mind anyone at the university suffering, I couldn’t abide the thought of an innocent reader perusing the shelves and coming across the book.

With my Colts on my hips and anger in my heart, I left the injured currier in the care of the station master, and I went to Miskatonic.

I passed through the gates, made my way to the library, and forced my way in. Several students tried to stop me, but it’s difficult to say no when you’re staring down the barrel of a .44 Colt.

The book, they told me, was being examined by an interim library, and it was then that we heard the scream.

The students fled, and I went to the sound of screaming.

It stopped sharply, but not before I found the source.

The noise had come from behind a closed door, and with Colt in hand, I opened the door and entered the room.

Where the librarian had gotten off to, I didn’t have the slightest idea. I was more concerned with the man and child sitting and reading. The man looked up, and I knew the Colt wouldn’t work.

I slid it into the holster and waited.

After a moment, the man stated, “He was rude, so we ate him.”

“Sounds fair,” I observed.

The child smiled at me.

“We are finishing our lessons, Mr. Blood,” the man stated, turning a page. “We will be with you soon.”

I gave a nod, stepped out of the room and closed the door.

There are some men you fight and some who just aren’t men.

#books #horrorstories #supernatural

The first students of the Cross branch of Miskatonic University arrived in August.

I wasn’t pleased when the land was sold, and the university came in. We’ve had a love-hate relationship for the past ten years or so, and I doubt it will get any better. The professors and administration leave a lot to be desired, especially when it comes to the gathering of items and books for their school.

In the first week that they were here, Mr. Sherwood Babcock, a young man sent to help prepare the school, introduced himself to me, hinting – strenuously – that he knew my age and a bit of my history. He then inquired as to the location of a book in my collection. A book he most certainly shouldn’t have known about.

Few know that I own one of the magicked copies of the Malleus Maleficarum, the Hammer of Witches. My copy had been torn from the hands of Increase Mather as he lay dying in August of 1723. My father, Ezekiel Blood, had been the one to take it from the bastard.

These thoughts rose up as Mr. Babcock sat in my parlor, sipping my brandy and smiling.

“So,” the man said, “we were hoping you would be willing to part with it. Donate it, as it were, to the university. We would be certain to take care of it.”

I finished my brandy and motioned towards the tea-table on my left, where my Colts lay.

“Do you see yonder revolvers, Mr. Babcock?” I asked him.

He nodded, his smile never leaving his face. “I do. I’ve heard something of your skill with them, too.”

“You’ll see what I can do with them,” I told him, my voice cold and harsh, “if you poke too much into my business.”

The man stiffened. “Mr. Blood, I don’t think you understand.”

His mouth snapped shut as I slipped a Colt free.

“It’s time for you to leave.”

“The book,” he managed to whisper, his eyes locked on the Colt.

I shook my head. “Leave with your life, or not at all.”

When he stood, he drew a pistol, his face pale and his hand shaking.

His shot went wild, and I gunned him down.

I buried him in the orchard, where the trees could feast upon him.

Others from the school have joined him since, and I suspect they always will.

#books #horrorstories #supernatural