Southern Fried Rat and Other Gruesome Tales (2 page)

The final version of the tale says that the troubles of the Boggs place began more recently—long after the house was abandoned, by Boggs or any other legitimate owners. This version holds that a homicidal maniac who escaped from a nearby mental institution took up residence in the house, and that he lives there still, making horrible noises and doing strange things in order to frighten away those who might want to disturb his hiding place.

No one has ever actually seen anything, be it ghost, demon, or maniac, at the house. They have just heard about others who have seen strange figures. Occasionally people would report seeing a light in the house. Just reflected sunlight, say the skeptics. Others report hearing strange noises coming from the empty house, or just getting a weird feeling whenever they get near it. Skeptics scoff at such stories, but they don't go near the house, either.

So the Boggs place, which stands starkly alone at the top of a hill in the midst of what was once a large lawn, but is now overgrown with waist-high weeds, is rarely troubled by visitors. Still, there are always a few brave or foolhardy souls for whom something like the Boggs place holds an irresistible, even a fatal, attraction.

Such a pair were Chris and Lisa. They weren't local—the locals were scared off long ago. They were counselors at a summer camp nearby. They had come up from the city, and they viewed the town with the same sort of amused contempt that most city people showed for it. When they heard about the tales surrounding the Boggs place, they decided that they were going to go up and explore it. No haunted house was going to scare them—they faced the subway every day.

So one evening late in August, Chris and Lisa could be found making their way through the high weeds up to the front porch of the Boggs place. It had to be evening, for there was no challenge in visiting a haunted house in the middle of the day. And of course the weather had to be threatening. A summer thunderstorm was about to break at any moment. What is a haunted house without thunder and lightning and the wind howling outside?

Chris and Lisa got to the front door just as the first few drops of rain began to fall. The door was open. The lock had long since rusted.

Chris switched on his flashlight, and they began looking around. The house was not completely empty of furniture as they thought it might be. One room contained an easy chair and several old wicker rocking chairs.

Everything in the place was covered by a thick layer of dust. When Chris flashed the light around the rooms, Lisa pointed out that in some places the dust seemed to be disturbed, as if by footprints.

"Mice," said Chris, confidently. "Or squirrels."

As they worked their way from room to room, a creaking sound was heard coming from one of the upper stories.

"That sounds like footsteps," said Lisa, in a hushed and frightened voice.

"Mice," said Chris, "or squirrels." But he was no longer so confident, because the noises really did sound like footsteps.

"Let's get out of here," said Lisa. "I think we've explored enough."

Chris eagerly agreed, and they made their way back through the room with the chairs and toward the front door. The storm had begun in earnest now, and there was a flash of lightning followed by a tremendous clap of thunder. In the flash, both Chris and Lisa saw, or

thought they saw, a form standing in the waist-high weeds in the front of the house. There was another flash. The form was still there but it had moved.

"Someone's out there," said Lisa, "or something."

"If we get out in those weeds," said Chris, "whatever it is can sneak right up on us. We'd never know until it was too late. I think we'll be safer here in the house until it's light."

Spending the night in that house was not a pleasant prospect, but Lisa saw the wisdom of the suggestion. So they went back to the room with the chairs. Lisa sat down in the armchair, and Chris pulled one of the wicker rockers over next to it.

The flashlight, which had been growing weaker by the minute, finally gave out entirely, and Chris and Lisa sat there in total darkness.

"I'm scared," said Lisa.

"So am I," said Chris.

"Hold my hand, maybe we'll feel better."

Chris reached over and grasped Lisa's hand and gave it a squeeze. It made them both feel better, momentarily. There was nothing that either one of them could do or say. They just sat there holding hands in the darkness, waiting for morning to come. Lisa could hear Chris rocking back and forth, and every once in a while he gave her hand a little squeeze.

Lisa dozed off for a moment, but when she awoke she was still holding Chris's hand, and she could still hear his rocking chair squeaking. But slowly she became conscious of the fact that something was different, something had changed. It took a while to realize what had happened or not happened—Chris had not squeezed her hand for some time. Perhaps he was asleep. But no, she could still hear the rhythmic squeaking of the rocking chair. She wanted to call out to Chris, but terror had robbed her of her voice.

Finally a smear of grayish light could be seen through the window. It was dawn. And as the room in which Lisa sat was illuminated, she saw what had happened.

She was still holding Chris's hand—just his hand. The rest of him was hanging from a beam in the ceiling. And rocking rhythmically in a chair across the room was a huge, wild-looking man, dressed in rags and clutching an enormous, bloody knife.

Sally had never been the most popular girl in school.

It wasn't her looks. She was really quite pretty. It wasn't her personality. She was bright, cheerful, friendly, and interesting. Sally's problem was money. She didn't have any, and most of the other girls in the school did. While other girls wore Calvins, Sally had to get along with jeans from Sears. Her sweaters had been worn and washed so many times that they lost whatever shape they may have had in the first place. They certainly didn't do anything for Sally's shape. And her coat, as someone rather cruelly pointed out to her, looked like it belonged in the ancient-history museum.

During the summer, when most of the other girls and most of the boys in the school were off at the seashore or some other vacation spot, Sally could be found behind the counter at the local junk-food joint. The hours were long, the work was hard, and the pay was terrible, but she needed whatever she could get.

Sally's father had walked out on the family when she was six, leaving her mother as the sole support for three small children. Her mother had worked at a series of low-paying jobs in order to hold the family together, which she did—but just barely. In short, Sally was poor.

Sally wasn't in the top clique in school, or the next to the top clique, or any clique at all. She just didn't have the time. When she wasn't taking care of her younger brother and sister or cooking and cleaning at home, she was out working somewhere or doing her schoolwork. Since she was naturally quiet, the most popular kids in school barely knew she existed.

Therefore it was a major shock to Sally and to every other girl in the school when Davey Phillips asked her to go to the prom. Davey was not only the best-looking boy in the senior class, he was also the best basketball player, he had the flashiest car, and he had the reputation of being a pretty nice guy, too.

Sally knew who he was. They had been in some classes together, and they had talked from time to time. But she had no idea that he liked her, or that he had ever even really noticed her. He had, however, and when he went over a list of possible dates for the prom, they all seemed vapid or dumpy when compared to Sally. He knew all about the hard life she had led, and he admired her. Although there was a good deal of nasty whispering when word of whom he had asked got out, Davey was the top dog of the top clique, and no one would dare tell him what to do.

Sally was overjoyed at the invitation. She was also

frightened and almost desperate because she didn't have anything to wear. At the prom all of the other girls would have gorgeous new evening dresses. Sally not only didn't have a new dress, she didn't have any dress at all.

Now in stories, a fairy godmother appears and turns the poor girl's rags into a beautiful dress. Or the girl's clever mother turns the kitchen curtains into something that would not look out of place on the pages of
Vogue
. This is not a story. There are no fairy godmothers, and Sally's mother couldn't even do a hem. Neither could Sally.

"Maybe we could get a secondhand dress cheap down at the pawnshop," said Sally's mother.

Sally wasn't too proud to wear a secondhand gown. Besides, there was no other alternative. So she and her mother went down to the pawnshop, and there it was: a beautiful satin evening gown in the most delicate shade of pale blue. It was Sally's favorite color. She hardly dared hope that the dress would fit, but it did—perfectly. And the price was just a few dollars.

When Sally and Davey arrived at the prom, the envious whispers grew louder and more persistent than ever. She looked truly beautiful in her pale blue evening gown. A lot of the other boys began to notice Sally for the first time. They all wanted to dance with her. But Davey chased them all away. He wanted every dance for himself.

It was a magical evening. Sally danced and danced, until she began to feel a little dizzy. She tried to shake off the feeling, for she didn't want anything to spoil her evening. But her dizziness grew worse, and she got a headache and a feeling of nausea too.

"Sally, what's the matter? You look as if you feel sick," said Davey.

"Yes, I do," she answered. "I think you had better take me home."

On the drive home, Sally was feeling worse by the minute, and Davey was really getting concerned. But SaUy's mother wasn't worried at all. "It's just the excitemerit," she said. "She was looking forward to this evening so much, she became overexcited. That's how girls are. I remember I was the same way when I was her age. It's a shame to ruin such a lovely evening, but I'm sure there will be others."

Davey agreed that there would be.

Sally's mother took her upstairs, put her to bed, and told her she would feel much better after a good night's rest. But when her mother went to awaken her in the morning, she found that Sally didn't feel anything, beeause Sally was dead.

At first the doctors couldn't figure out what had killed her. Chemical tests showed that she had a high content of embalming fluid in her blood, and that's what did it. Heavy traces of the fluid were found on the pale blue satin dress she had worn. The doctors speculated that the fatal fluid had entered Sally's body when she perspired while dancing.

The pawnbroker was questioned, and he finally admitted that he had received the dress from an undertaker's assistant. It turned out this assistant had been regularly stealing clothes from corpses before they were buried and pawning them at this particular shop. This was the first time any of the clothes had caused a problem.

Stories of poisoned garments go back to the days of the ancient Greeks.

Dr. Cartwright was just getting ready to leave his office after a long day of seeing patients when his nurse in the outer office buzzed him on the intercom.

"Doctor," she said, "there is a woman out here who insists on seeing you."

"Tell her to come back in the morning. Office hours are over for the day."

"I've told her that already, but she won't go away. She says it's an emergency. She's very upset. I think you had better see her."

The doctor sighed and began thinking about the ingratitude of patients who didn't think doctors had a right to a personal life. But he was a doctor. It was his job to heal and comfort the sick. Even if it was late, one more patient . . . "All right. Send her in," he said. "And you can go for the evening. I'll lock up."

A moment later a middle-aged woman in a dark and rather old-fashioned dress entered the room. She looked pale and ill, clearly in need of medical attention.

"What seems to be the trouble, Mrs.—Uh, I don't know your name."