A Terrifying Taste of Short & Shivery Page 7

  When the runaway horse reached the village, it was foaming and panting with exhaustion. The merchant’s corpse lay slouched over the saddle, his legs tangled in the stirrups. When they lowered the man’s body to the ground, they found that his nostrils and mouth were clogged with mud. A piece of moldy black cloth was twisted tightly around his throat, and two gold pieces had been jammed into his eye sockets.

  The Interrupted Wedding

  (Norway)

  It was late in summer, and most of the cattle had been driven from the high pastures to the meadows near town. But one young woman, Elli, remained behind in the hills to herd her cows through the last warm days of the year. Her friends had warned her against staying alone for fear that the huldre folk, the fairies who lived in the hills, might cause her harm. But she assured them, “I’m not worried. The hill people have never bothered me or my cows.” People knew better than to argue with her: Elli was as strong-willed as she was pretty.

  At night she slept in a little hut high on the moor, with her dog, Rapp, as company. But her loneliness didn’t bother her; her mind was filled with thoughts of her upcoming wedding to handsome Olav.

  Elli had just finished dinner, and the last rays of the sun had faded from the mountains, when there came a knock at the door. At first she was startled. But when she peeked out, she recognized Olav standing there. Delighted, she threw open the door.

  “I thought you had to stay in the valley this week to help your father get the house ready for winter,” she said. “How did you get away?”

  “I was so lonely,” he answered, “I thought we should get married tonight.”

  She was surprised at this. She was more surprised to see that a great number of folk had come with him. In the light of the full moon, she recognized Olav’s father, as well as many friends and neighbors from the village. Tied nearby were the dark horses the company had ridden.

  Suddenly her dog, Rapp, began to growl and snap. Elli scolded him, but Rapp only grew more frantic. Then the dog ran off into the night. “Good riddance!” said Olav. “Quick, now! Will you marry me on the spot?”

  Feeling a bit strange but loving Olav very much, Elli cried, “Yes! If it’s what you want.”

  Some of the women had brought a bridal gown and a crown of flowers for her to wear. While they dressed her and put rings on her fingers, others set out long tables laden with the finest foods. It was a wonder to Elli that they had carried so much all the way up from the village.

  Soon she was sitting beside Olav, being toasted by his father. Then the priest stepped forward to marry them.

  They had just reached the point where she would say the words that would make them man and wife when a rider came charging in, scattering the guests. To Elli’s amazement, it was Olav’s double. In puzzlement, she looked into the face of the bridegroom standing beside her. His handsome features were distorted with rage.

  The rider raised his rifle and fired a bullet over the heads of the crowd. Elli screamed and clutched at Olav—but the man beside her was no longer Olav. He was not even a man! She realized that she had almost married herself to a huldre being. All around, the other guests had vanished, and she was surrounded by a throng of huldre folk. Their skin was blue; each had a long, ropelike cow’s tail. The fine food on the tables had turned into moss and toadstools and cow dung.

  Then the real Olav reached down, gathered up Elli, placed his sweetheart on the saddle in front of him, and spurred his horse away. Behind them, the angry huldre folk mounted their own dark horses and gave chase. They rode hard. But Olav suddenly wheeled his mount. He reloaded his rifle. In the moonlight, Elli saw that his bullets were silver. This was what had broken the spell the huldre folk had cast to make things appear as they were not.

  Olav fired over the heads of the advancing dark riders. Instantly they fled in all directions. Then Olav and Elli galloped over field and stream until they had left their pursuers far behind.

  They continued until they saw the house that belonged to Olav’s father ahead, and the lights of the town beyond.

  “We’re safe at last!” the young man cried, hugging Elli in relief.

  “But how did you know to come for me?” she asked.

  “Your dog came to our house and whined and barked until I knew something was amiss.”

  “Good Rapp,” said Elli. “Only a few minutes more and I would have been a huldre wife.” She shivered at the thought. “But everything is right again,” she said with a smile.

  Then they saw Olav’s father’s house burst into flames, while the laughter of countless voices swept down on the wind from the hills.

  The Mulombe

  (Africa—Zimbabwe)

  There was once a wicked man who was very poor. He was jealous of his uncles and cousins, who had herds of cattle and fields of yams, plantains, and bananas, and households with many servants. He wanted to make their wealth his own. So he went to a wizard who could make a mulombe, a magical, deadly creature that can kill a man’s enemies.

  He traveled with his only servant, Mbizo, an orphan boy, who was paid with scraps and beatings. When they reached the wizard’s hut in a distant grove, the man told Mbizo, “Stay outside and wait for me. What goes on inside is not for you to know.”

  Mbizo, being curious, slipped around the side of the hut and peeped through a crack. He saw his master sitting across a small fire from the wizard, who wore many necklaces and held a walking stick carved with figures of snakes and birds and fish.

  “What will you give me if I make a mulombe?” asked the sorcerer.

  To the boy’s astonishment, his master promised many head of cattle and bushels of yams. The man had no such wealth—how would he pay? And what was a mulombe? Mbizo wondered.

  The wizard accepted the promised payment. Then he rose and took medicines from pots and jars. These he put on a piece of bark and mixed with water. Next he took some grass and braided it into a plait about eighteen inches long and one inch wide. He placed this on a mat between the man and himself.

  Then the sorcerer nicked the man’s forehead and drew a drop of blood. He added this to the medicine on the piece of bark. He gave a bit to the man to eat; then he sprinkled the rest over the braid of grass three times.

  The first sprinkling turned the braid ashy white. The second turned it into a pale snake. At the third sprinkling, the snake’s head turned into the image of the man. There was even a tiny mark on his doll-like forehead that was the same as the mark where the wizard had drawn blood.

  Mbizo, watching, was shivering with excitement.

  The mulombe reared itself up on its tail and spoke to the man, saying, “You know me and recognize me?”

  “Yes,” said the man.

  “You see that your face and mine are the same?” As it spoke, a snake’s forked tongue darted between the human lips.

  “I see that,” the man answered.

  Then the wizard placed the creature in a small basket and handed it to the man, saying, “This is the mulombe that you asked me for. Take it and tend it carefully. Keep it hidden wherever you wish. It will always be with you now. So long as you treat it well, you will not die—until all your relatives are dead.”

  As the man rose, Mbizo hurried away from the hut. A moment later his master emerged, carrying the little basket. On their return journey, it was all the boy could do not to keep staring at the grass basket.

  When they returned to the village, the man told Mbizo to sweep his hut. Then he went away; when he returned, he no longer had the basket. The boy guessed he had hidden the mulombe.

  Soon after this, the man’s uncle died. And his uncle’s sons. All died without a mark upon them. Much of their wealth fell to the wicked man. Over the next weeks and months, more of the man’s kin died, and their lands and cattle became his. He built a bigger hut and hired more servants. All around, the village mourned the passing of so many good people. Mbizo’s master made a great show of mourning, also; but his sharp-eyed little servant saw how quickly his sad look g
ave way to one of triumph when he thought no one was looking.

  Surely, Mbizo reasoned, the mulombe is the cause of all these deaths. But he was afraid to betray the man, for fear the mulombe would come after him.

  Still, Mbizo tried to find out where his master had hidden the creature. When he could, he would follow his master in the hope of discovering something. Early one morning he trailed the man to a distant stretch of river. The man halted and gave a short whistle. Up from the river reeds rose the mulombe.

  “You came to me in my dream last night,” the man said.

  “I want a person to kill,” the mulombe whispered. “Give me the name of a person whose life force I may eat.”

  “All my relatives are dead,” the man protested.

  “If you do not name a person,” the snake with a human head said, “I will become sick, and so will you. If I die, so will you. That is the bond between us. Give me a name.”

  In horror, Mbizo heard the man say, “Mbizo. The boy is of little use to me.”

  “I will take him tonight,” said the mulombe.

  Mbizo fled, terrified, back to the village. What could he do? Even if he ran away, he was sure the magical creature would find him and slay him. How could one escape or fight a magical being? he asked himself. His only hope would be magic of his own.

  So he went to the diviner to ask his advice. The man cast a handful of small animal bones several times, reading secrets in the patterns the bones made. Then he said to Mbizo, “Yours must be the hand that slays the mulombe, since you are his intended victim. Take this bow and poisoned arrow. You must use this to kill the thing. If you fail, you are lost.”

  Then the diviner summoned five strong men to accompany him and Mbizo to the riverbank. As they were leaving the village, they were seen by the boy’s master. He looked at the group curiously, then continued on his way.

  Near the reedy riverbank, the diviner took some medicine he had prepared and sprinkled it on the ground and among the reeds. Suddenly the ground began to rumble and the surface of the river began to churn. The water rose from the riverbed until Mbizo, his bow and poisoned arrow at the ready, and the others were thigh-deep. Fish and crabs struggled out of the water onto the land.

  Suddenly the mulombe rose up on its tail. It hissed at Mbizo. The boy tried to steady his hand; then he released the arrow. But his trembling fingers betrayed him, and the arrow only nicked the creature.

  There was a shout from the jungle’s edge; Mbizo’s master was charging down the bank. At that moment, the mulombe began to writhe and hiss in pain, for the arrow’s nick had fatally poisoned it.

  The mulombe lunged at Mbizo, then fell, curling and uncurling its length in the mud. The moment it collapsed, the boy’s master underwent a horrifying change. His arms were drawn to his sides as if by invisible threads; they melted like wax into the man’s body. The body, grown pale, began to stretch and narrow, while the man screamed as his bones and insides were pulled into a serpent shape. His bellows became hissing; his tongue, split at the end, darted serpentlike between still-human lips.

  Then, like the mulombe, he fell writhing into the mud. Master and mulombe twisted among the reeds, churning the red clay of the riverbank and the stream itself into a blood-colored mess. Suddenly the mulombe shuddered a last time, grew rigid, then sank from sight. A moment later the second mulombe, which had once been Mbizo’s master, arched its great length above the mud, then died, falling onto the riverbank with a heavy, wet sound. Only the face remained human, the features twisted into a grimace of unbearable torment.

  After that, Mbizo became the servant—and later the student—of the diviner. He was able to work great wonders himself. But neither he nor his fellow villagers ever strayed to the part of the riverbank poisoned by the evil of the mulombe.

  The Haunted Grove

  (Canada)

  A man named Angus lived with his wife, not far from a hill where a grove of maples grew around a single beech tree. The grove wasn’t dense—just about half an acre of thinly wooded land. The trees were so far apart that one could easily look between the dark trunks and see the countryside beyond.

  One autumn afternoon, Angus climbed this hill on his way home from town. Passing through the grove, he stopped when he heard someone chopping a tree. He was curious, because the grove belonged to a neighbor who had left it untouched for years. As the chopping continued, he looked all around. But he could see no woodsman with an ax.

  At last he shouted, “Who’s there?”

  There was no reply, although anyone close would have heard him. The chopping ceased for a few moments, but as his shout died away, it began again. Puzzled, Angus returned home. But he did not say anything to his wife. By the time he was safely in their kitchen, he had put the event out of his mind.

  A few days later he was on the same path when he heard the same chop, chop, chopping. Again he saw no one. But this time he told his wife and friends what had happened. Many of the townspeople went to the grove in groups or alone, but they heard nothing. They searched the little wood, but found no wood chips or cut trunks. There was no mark of any kind anywhere in the grove.

  His neighbors made fun of Angus, but his wife felt it was a warning of some kind. She could not guess who was warning Angus or what the warning meant. Still, she cautioned him to stay away from the grove. But Angus was stubborn; he ignored both his neighbors’ laughter and his wife’s advice, and continued to walk near the wood. When he was alone, he always heard the mysterious ax at work. But when he was with someone else, the ax was silent.

  Weeks sped on and brought winter and a heavy snowfall. The snow that drifted over roads and fields did not clog the grove: The trees protected it from the drifts. Now Angus would always use the grove as a shortcut from town to his house. He told his wife with grim humor, “The man in the wood seems pleased I go that way. His chopping is louder and faster than ever.” But his wife just begged him again to avoid the grove.

  And again Angus ignored her advice. He continued to walk twice a day through the grove. Every day the ax chopped more loudly. But Angus had grown quite used to it.

  Late one afternoon his neighbor, the owner of the grove, went with his sons to chop down the lone beech tree among the maples. The tree had died sometime before. It was only fit for firewood now. As they began to chop, one of the sons said, “Wouldn’t it be a laugh if we are cutting down the very tree that Angus’s ghost has been working on for so long.” Soon the tree was swaying and shivering as if it was all but ready to fall.

  That evening Angus crossed the grove as usual, hearing the familiar chop, chop, chopping. But it was not the mysterious woodsman this time. It was his neighbor’s ax that delivered the solid strokes he heard.

  Now, Angus had cut trees all his life and he recognized the sound of the stroke when a tree-cutting task is all but done. But he thought this was only more goblin’s trickery, so he paid no attention. He calmly continued on his way.

  Suddenly his blood froze as he heard his neighbor’s voice cry, “Angus! Look out, man!”

  The man’s sons caught up the cry. There was noise everywhere—the crashing of branches and the rushing of feet mingled with more warning shouts.

  Poor Angus fell with the enormous tree upon him. When at last the burden was removed and his crushed body carried home, there were men who heard inhuman laughter among the trees. They were sure it came from the something that had lured unhappy Angus to his doom.

  The Tiger Woman

  (China)

  There was once a young hunter whose father and grandfather before him had also been huntsmen. While they pursued many different creatures, they most prized the hides of tigers from the southern mountains. Over the years, the family had hunted the tigers nearly to extinction.

  When the young man, named Ts’ui T’ao, had slain two male tigers—one very old, one quite young—it seemed that he had finished off the last ones. For a long time he searched, finding no trace of any remaining tigers. He was happy to return
home with the two pelts; but he was sad to think that the mountains would never again yield up such prizes.

  To T’ao’s delight, the following year brought reports that another tiger had been spotted in the same mountains. Eagerly he set out for the hunt early one morning.

  Toward evening, he reached an inn near a mountain pass. This was a place he had often visited. But to his surprise, the place was deserted. Weeds choked the courtyard; dust filled the rooms. The hour was growing late, however, so the hunter decided to take shelter for the night. He found a room that still had bedding, and a lamp and a candle.

  He had just spread out his blankets and was getting ready for bed when he heard a sound outside. At first he thought it was the wind banging the unlocked gate. Then, in the brilliant moonlight, he saw a huge paw push the gate open. A minute later, he saw a tigress move to the center of the yard. There it sat, its golden eyes staring into the hunter’s own.

  T’ao had just reached for his bow when the beast suddenly began to shrug off its skin. From beneath the striped pelt there appeared a girl of extraordinary beauty. She was well-dressed and wore jewels of the rarest sort. She bowed toward the window where T’ao stood, his hand halfway to his bow.

  After a moment, the young man invited her inside, though he kept an arrow ready. In the hall, the young woman told him her sad tale: “I lived with my father and brother nearby. Somehow they offended one of the mountain spirits. He slew them both, then cast a spell upon me, so that I must prowl the mountains as a tiger by day, though I can put off my skin for an hour each night. The only way I can break the spell is to find someone who will agree to be my husband. Such a man must be brave as well as kind. All others who have heard my story have run away in fear. Will you run away also?”

  T’ao gazed at her lovely face, wet with tears, and fell hopelessly in love. “I will gratefully welcome you as my bride.”