The 3rd Fontana Book of Great Horror Stories (1968)

GREEN FINGERS

By R.C. Cook

Despite being well into her seventies Widow Bowen's cottage is meticulously kept.  Her well-tended garden is her pride and joy, she seemingly having the ability to coax anything to grow there.

Even a piece of firewood, which she pushes into the ground on a whim soon sprouts a tall shoot.  Her own hair and fingernails also flourish when planted in the soil of her garden.  Even a few discarded rabbit bones grow into a whole rabbit, which bounds off one winter's day.

After a gardening accident severs one of the old lady's fingers she decides to plant it as well.

What could possibly go wrong?

Once we read of Widow Bowen's hair strands growing in the soil, it is not too difficult for the reader to second guess the destination of this one.  Not that this fact detracts from what is a very disturbing read.  

And I occasionally wonder of the tale played at least a small part in the germination of Stephen King's novel Pet Sematary.

The story did, I am sure, form the basis of the Siouxsie and Banshees 1982 tune of the same name.  Even if the song lyrics do appear to inject a carnal aspect to the resurrection sadly missing from R.C. Cook's text.

   

THE SPECIALITY OF THE HOUSE
By Stanley Ellin

Costain is invited by his boss Laffler to a discrete, select restaurant called Sbirro’s to dine.  The food is so delicious both men end up visiting each day after work.  One evening they are informed “The Special” is to be served, and express their sympathy that one of the regulars will miss out, noticing his chair is empty.

I am unsure quite how I feel about this one.  I know its charm is the fact the real meat of what is going on is only ever hinted at, never blatantly stated.  And, while I can appreciate a tale which uses subtlety rather than brutality, Ellin’s yarn always leaves me rather unsatisfied.

The whole premise that there could be a select group of diners, who every few months unknowingly feast upon one of their (former) fellows, without someone becoming at least a bit suspicious over the regular disappearances, is frankly laughable.  And the entry into the story of the drunken sailor to progress the plot is clumsy at best.

What I do like however, are the little jokes Ellin puts in, which are often missed upon first reading:  One former patron who has “disappeared” is noted to have been “greater in his death than in his life” and Laffler, as he is innocently led into the kitchen, requests of his friend Costain “I hope you’ll continue to dine here until we meet again.  It shouldn’t be too long”.

THE ROOM IN THE TOWER

By E.F. Benson

After a short ramble on his opinions why we should not be surprised if dreams occasionally come true, the narrator relates an incident from his own past where such a thing did in fact happen.

On and off for 15 years, the narrator had been visited by the same recurring dream.   One wherein, as a guest in a large country house, he is directed to his room for the night by his sinister elderly hostess – one Mrs. Stone.  This being a creepy room on the top storey of an old tower attached to the main building.

Visiting a friend’s house for the first time, he is disconcerted to note he recognises the place from his dreams, and is therefore not totally surprised when the lady of the house places him in The Room in the Tower.   Arriving in the room he is more than a little startled to find, on the wall next to his bed, a self-portrait painted by the same Mrs. Stone from his dreams.

He asks his friend to remove the picture from the room, which he does.  But waking in the middle of the night, he finds the picture is back on the wall.  And that he also has company.

Very much of its time this one I feel – it was first published in 1912 – with its straight-laced dialogue, sprinkled with the likes of “Good Heavens”, “By Jove”, “My Dear Fellow” and the like. But Benson’s talents as a storyteller shine through, and the reader soon becomes sufficiently invested in the narrative to be keen to discover just what the heck is going on.

That being said, there are two plot holes which irk:

We are never given the remotest inkling as to why the narrator has been picked out by the nasty Mrs. Stone.  He has never been anywhere near the house in his life before, and even his friend’s link to the place is tenuous at best.

Secondly - there is something ever so slightly silly in the way he successfully fights off his attacker.  One would have thought the redoubtable Mrs. Stone, having previously escaped from a buried coffin on three separate occasions in the past would have posed a formidable foe.

But, apparently, by the simple act of flailing and kicking out wildly, the narrator is able to not only ward off his assailant, but seemingly also destroy it.  No crucifixes or garlic required here then.  Just a good old panicky flap needed.

But for all that, this a well-written and enjoyable ghost/vampire story, penned by an author better remembered these days for that light-hearted comedy of manners series Mapp and Lucia.

There is (as of December 2020, anyway) a rather fine reading of The Room in the Tower on YouTube, which can be found here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Jzx03yfEy0

THE ACADEMY

By David Ely

Mr. Holston is visiting The Academy of the title - some sort of fee-paying residential school run along military lines, particularly suited to "problem boys".  Of which Mr. Holston has one, whom he considering placing in the school.

All seems to be in order, although one or two of the "boys" appear rather older than one may expect to see in such an establishment.

There is not whole lot really to say about this one.  Pretty much all of the ten pages are taken up with Holsten's conversations with the Academy Director or his tour of the facilities.

There are a few subtle clues within the text to the true nature of the place - a dumping ground for unwanted kids, who never leave - but mostly the tale just dribbles on.

And, because we are never introduced to Holsten's son, the boy's fate remains a matter of indifference to the reader.  

CUT-THROAT FARM

By J.D. Beresford

With a view to getting a bit of work done, a writer has rented a room at the remote west country Valley Farm - genially referred to as "coot-tho-at farm" by the local yokels.

The farm turns out to be a dirty run down affair, stocked with just a few scraggy underfed animals.  The animals gradually disappear, as the larder is regularly re-stocked.

But when, sometime after the last hen has been slaughtered, the writer is informed that the farmer's wife is ill, and "that she is not getting up", he decides to take his leave PDQ.

A short sharp shock of a tale from the pen of the father of Elisabeth (Wombles) Beresford, which is fun enough, I suppose.  I particularly enjoyed the odd man/piglet bromance which flourished.  Or at least did, until one of the parties ended up on the kitchen table.

THE ROMANCE OF CERTAIN OLD CLOTHES

By Henry James

Set in mid-eighteenth century Massachusetts, this yarn sees sisters Rosalind and Perdita vying for the affections of their brother's friend Arthur.

The chap chooses Perdita, much to the elder sister's chagrin.  But the marriage is a short one, for the bride dies soon after giving birth to a daughter.  But before dying, Perdita persuades Arthur to lock away all her fine clothes, until their daughter is old enough to enjoy them.

As Perdita perhaps suspected she may, once her sister is gone Rosalind makes her move and eventually she and Arthur are wed.  She insists she be allowed access to the chest containing her dead sister's clothing.  And a browbeaten Arthur eventually accedes to her demands.

But the chest contains more than just clothing.

"Romance" was written early on in Henry James' writing career - some twenty years before his masterpiece A Turn of the Screw, and lacks much of the latter's deft touch with both  characterisation and understated menace.

In this story, only the two sisters are written with any depth of character, with all the other cast little more than vague ciphers.  And there is no real horror in the narrative at all, until that Grand Guignol final scene.

Even reading the thing on the page is a bit of a chore; James apparently not much of a fan of those new fangled paragraph thingies.  His paragraphs here are generally whoppers, with three of them stretching over three separate pages.  Staring at the intimidating blocks of text for too long can easily bring on a moderately impressive migraine.  

I did like the neat use of Romance in the title, though - it simultaneously referencing both the old use of the term (a story exploring emotions and the imagination), as well as the more modern usage - a story based upon love.

One could also, I suppose, read the title as referring to the allure or attraction the old clothes held for Rosalind.

POISON
By Roald Dahl

Harry Pope thinks he has a poisonous snake coiled up on his tummy – he does not.

Not really Roald Dahl’s finest hour this one.  The tale dribbles on and on with most readers, I am sure, having sussed out the truth long before the end.  And, given the fact Pope is such an obnoxious toe-rag, even if he had gotten bitten I think few of us would have minded.

The Poison of the title, I am guessing, really refers to the vile racist insults Pope hurls at the local doctor (the tale is set in India) who light-heartedly suggests that Pope perhaps, just maybe, may have imagined the snake.  But even this laudable moral is rather clumsily made at the hands of the generally sure-footed (ha-ha) author.

LUCKY'S GROVE

By Herbert Russell Wakefield

Each Christmas, self-made millionaire Braxton hosts a lavish party for the great and the good of Berkshire society at Abingdale Hall.

Unfortunately for the attendees at the 1938 event, Braxton's land-agent has procured the tree to be decorated from the nearby Lucky's Grove.  This being a copse regarded as "sacred" by the locals, the name being a corruption of Loki, that capricious Norse god.

Soon, freaky stuff starts happening.

A most enjoyable read this one, with all manner of little macabre vignettes coming along to keep the reader entertained, as various Norse deities gatecrash the Christian celebration.  Although, until the climactic Christmas cracker scene, one never feels any real menace from the elder gods.  

This, at least in part, due to the fact there does not really seem to be any main character in the narrative with whom the reader can identify.  And therefore, emotionally invest in.  Estate owner Braxton come closest to fitting the bill, I suppose, but he is such an unpleasant sort, one almost welcomes him receiving his comeuppance.

But the real puzzle here, is why a larch was chosen as the Christmas tree for, as a deciduous plant, it would surely have dropped all of its needles way before December!

HOUSEBOUND

By R. Chetwynd-Hayes

After being gunned down by police following a bungled bank robbery, Charlie Wheatland’s spirit appears doomed to spend eternity entombed within the walls and woodwork of the house in which he was killed.  He has found peace within "the wainscoting.....the dressing table, and sometimes the floorboards".

But Celia, the woman of the house, can somehow sense his presence, and can bend him to her will.  And her will is that Charlie helps her get rid of her bore of a husband.

A touch of typical C-H humour in the opening few paragraphs soon gives way to a story of horror lurking in the most domestic of settings, leading to a climax with a delightfully ambiguous ending.  To whit: has Celia simply exchanged one undesirable hubby for another, or is she about to meet her end?   

THE SHUTTERED ROOM

By H.P. Lovecraft and August Derleth.

Following the death of his grandfather, Abner Whatley has inherited the family house - with a mill attached - in the Massachusetts' hamlet of Dunwich.

The dead man's instruction are that Abner should have the mill buildings demolished....and to kill any creature he finds in the process.

These odd injunctions make slightly more sense when Abner finds his grandfather's journal in the house.  But, by this time, Abner has inadvertently released something hungry from the shuttered room at the top of the mill.

Although August Derleth was a good friend of H.P. Lovecraft during the latter's later life, and was responsible to a significant degree for popularising Lovecraft's work after the latter's death in 1937, he was also a bit of a scamp.

This story, like a number of others, although credited to both men, was actually written some time after Lovecraft's death, supposedly from H.P.'s notes.  "Posthumous collaborations", Derleth called them.  Although he was frequently accused of simply adding Lovecraft's name to the authorship, just to better sell his own compositions.

I don't claim to be an expert on Lovecraft's writing, but I have read The Dunwich Horror and The Shadow Over Innsmouth (both of which are heavily referenced in this yarn), and could not say I found a marked different in the writing styles between these two and The Shuttered Room.

So, ultimately, does it really matter who actually wrote the story, so long as it is a diverting read?  

Which this most certainly is.

AT THE END OF THE PASSAGE

By Rudyard Kipling

A quartet of civil servants, who have each found themselves posted to remote points of Raj-era India, travel to meet up every Sunday.  There to drink, play cards and generally bitch about the parlous state of the country.

On this occasion, host Hummill appears particularly short-tempered and stressed.  And he later confides to the doctor in the party, that he is terrified to go to sleep, lest some faceless entity escapes from his dreams to kill him.  Or something. 

When approaching the work of the the good Mr Kipling, one can generally be assured of exceedingly good writing, but I am not totally sure this is one of his better-baked efforts.

Kipling certainly effortlessly recreates the stifling heat, petty grumbles and the skull-numbing loneliness which must have been the lot for many of the civil servants posted to the remoter spots of the Empire.  And the growing fear Hummill feels is palpable.

But, I just came away from the whole story a touch underwhelmed, with the denouement simply eliciting a response in me of "Oh Dear.  So Sad.  Never Mind".

For all that, Hummill is a well-written (if rather unlikeable) character, but the other three are so interchangeable as to almost appear an amalgam of a single person.  Even my tried-and tested technique of allocating each character a broad UK regional accent when inwardly reading the text, failed to impart much individuality to the trio.

Their continued moaning and whining, I found just a touch irritating.  And when they began discussing "luck", and comparing theirs to that of an acquaintance who had recently committed suicide, the prose began to rub shoulders with Monty Python's Four Yorkshiremen sketch for a few lines.

To end on a more positive note:  I was pleased the The Fontana series did continue with its apparent aim of expanding my vocabulary, by introducing me to the delightfully bonkers word "bumble-puppy", for which I shall be eternally grateful.