Southern Fried Rat and Other Gruesome Tales (11 page)

The practice of initiating new campers by taking them off into the woods was stopped. In fact, Camp Strongbow was closed down and had to reopen under another name.

But many people have seen a mysterious light in the woods around the camp during the summer. When the source of the light is discovered, people find the remains of a small campfire and two spent matches. But there is never a trace of the person who built the fire.

—————

At Paola High School there was once a trumpet player who played second chair, that is, he was number two in the trumpet section. He was an ambitious young man, very anxious to make first chair. He practiced and practiced, and although he was very good, he was never quite good enough to make first chair. Still, he kept on practicing.

One night when the band was playing out at the football stadium, the band director sent this boy back to the high school for some equipment that had been forgotten. The equipment was stored in a room above the stage. There was a winding flight of metal stairs leading to the storage room. The footing on the stairs was tricky, and when the trumpeter was coming down the stairs, his arms full of equipment, he slipped, banged his head on the metal stairs, and was killed.

Even today, practically any time you drive past the main door of the high school you can hear him practicing, still trying to make first chair.

The story of the Indiana University ghost was collected by Terresa House. The ghostly trumpeter was collected by Anne Schlaegel and comes from the William E. Koch Folklore Collection.

Louise Curtis had just graduated from nursing school, and she felt that she had been very lucky to land a job in one of the big, fancy private hospitals. She was terribly, terribly anxious to do well in her new job.

To tell the truth, Louise wasn't the brightest person in the world. She had gotten through school by working twice as hard as anybody else. She intended to get through her job the same way. Louise was at the hospital early every day. She never left until the job she was doing was completed, even if it meant working an hour or two overtime. She never complained about extra work.

But most of all, Louise Curtis followed orders. If the head nurse told her to change the sheets, she would change the sheets. If the head nurse told her that all the patients in the ward had to have orange juice at 11 A.M., they would have orange juice at 11 A.M. even if they didn't want it and didn't need it. You could count on that. Louise was a good soldier. Once she was given an order she carried it out—without questioning and without grumbling—even if the order didn't make any sense.

This quality didn't make Louise very popular with the other nurses. "She's just like a robot," they would say. "Wind her up and she walks, and if she hits a wall she keeps right on walking till she runs down."

"She certainly doesn't have any initiative," said one of the kinder nurses. "But you have to admit she's a hard worker."

"So's a mule," said an angry nurse. "She'll never get anywhere because she hasn't got any brains. But the administration will always use her example to try to make the rest of us look bad. You're always hearing things like, 'Nurse Curtis doesn't mind cleaning all the bedpans,' or 'Nurse Curtis doesn't mind working an extra shift.' I'm sick of hearing about what Nurse Curtis will do."

Although the other nurses wouldn't speak quite that frankly, most of them agreed.

The head nurse, of course, realized Louise's shortcomings and her good points. One day she went up to Louise and said, "Nurse Curtis, I've had my eye on you for quite a while now. You're not like most of the women today. You're a hard worker and you know how to follow directions. So I have a special job for you."

She led Louise through a long corridor into a part of the hospital she had never been in before. At the end of the corridor was a locked room. The head nurse took a key that she wore on a chain around her neck and unlocked the door. Before she opened the door she said,

"Nurse Curtis, what you see and hear from now on is for you, and you alone. It is never to be spoken of to anyone except me. Do you understand?"

Louise said she did.

"Good girl," said the head nurse. "I knew you could be trusted."

She then opened the door and led Louise inside. The room contained an astonishing array of medical machinery, some of which Louise recognized but much of which was totally unfamiliar to her. At the center of the room there was a bed, and on the bed was a very old man. The thin, corpselike figure did not move. Wires and tubes led to various parts of the body. The only signs of life from the old man's form were very faint breathing and the responses of the various monitoring machines to which he was attached. Some wires and tubes led from machines that kept him alive. Others led to machines that kept track of the faint flickering of life that remained within the shrunken body.

The old man's face looked vaguely familiar to Louise.

"Do you recognize him?" asked the head nurse. Louise shook her head.

"Of course he's changed a good deal, but that's ———" The nurse spoke a name that anyone would recognize.

Louise gasped. "I thought he was dead. He died years ago.

"The world thinks he's dead. But as you can see, he isn't. There's no telling how long he can go on this way. Now, your special duties are to come into this room three times a day to take the readings from these machines and record them on this chart. You are to change the fluids in these containers, and to . . ." The head nurse went through a long list of instructions. Finally she said, "This is most important. Under no circumstances are you to touch the patient.
Don't touch him!
"

Louise understood what she was supposed to do. Being diligent, she came into the locked room three times a day and did everything she was supposed to do. She followed her instructions to the letter. She never talked to anyone but the head nurse about what she did. And she never touched the body of the old man. The head nurse was very pleased with Louise's work.

Louise did not have much imagination or curiosity, but after a few months even she became a bit curious. Day after day the patient just lay there without moving, barely breathing. The readings on the machine were always the same. Nothing ever seemed to change. Why, she began to wonder, can't I touch him? In his condition, he would never even feel it.

The thought grew in Louise's mind until it became very nearly an obsession. Many days she would go into the room and reach out, nearly but not quite touching the old man. It was beginning to drive her mad.

Then one day she could stand it no longer. She reached out and touched the old man lightly on the arm. Instantly his eyes opened. It was the first time that Louise had seen any movement other than shallow breathing in the corpselike figure. Then his head turned from side to side, until he fixed his staring eyes on Louise. She stepped back from the bed in terror.

The frail form sat up, pulling out a mass of tubes and wires, spilling fluids all over the bed, and starting the machines beeping and whirring frantically. A second later the old man was on his feet and advancing slowly toward Louise. His eyes were glazed and his mouth hung half open. That sight propelled Louise into action. She dashed for the door, but found that it had iocked automatically when she shut it. The old man was coming closer and closer.

She ran to a corner of the room. With surprising speed the old man followed her. She ran to another corner. Again he followed, this time getting closer. She ran again, and again the old haan followed.

Louise was beginning to get tired, but the horrible old man seemed to gain strength each time she ran. Finally she felt she was trapped and could run no more.

The old man reached out a skeletonlike hand and touched Louise's shoalder, causing her to shudder.

"Tag!" shouted the old man. "Now you're it!"