Beware! Read online

  I picked this story because it’s actually told by a dog. It’s a funny story, but there is a very scary idea behind it. After all, if you were a dog, what would you do if you ran into a ghost?

  A GRAVE MISUNDERSTANDING

  by Leon Garfield

  I am a dog. I think you ought to know right away. I don’t want to save it up for later, because you might begin to wonder what sort of person it was who went about on all fours, sniffing at bottoms and soiling lampposts in the public street. You wouldn’t like it, and I don’t suppose you’d care to have anything more to do with me.

  The truth of the matter is we have different standards, me and my colleagues, that is; not in everything, but in enough for it to be noticeable. For instance, although we are as fond of a good walk as the next person, and love puppies and smoked salmon, we don’t go much on reading. We find it hard to turn the pages. But, on the other paw, a good deep snoutful of mingled air as it comes humming off a garbage dump can be as teasing to us as a sonnet. Indeed, there are rhymes in rancid odors such as you’d never dream of, and every puddle tells a story.

  We see things, too. Only the other day, when me and my Person were out walking through that green and quiet place of marble trees and stony, lightless lampposts, where people bury their bones and never dig them up, I saw a ghost. I stopped. I glared, I growled, my hair stood up on end—

  “What the devil’s the matter with you now?” demanded my Person.

  “What a beautiful dog!” said the ghost, who knew that I knew what she was, and that we both knew my Person did not.

  She was the lifeless, meaningless shell of a young female person whose bones lay not very far away. No heart beat within her, there was wind in her veins, and she smelled of worm crumble and pine.

  “Thank you,” said my Person, with a foolish smile, for the ghost’s eyes were very come-hitherish, even though her hither was thither, under the grass. “He is rather a handsome animal. Best of breed, you know.” The way to his heart was always open through praise of me.

  “Does he bite?” asked the ghost, watching me with all the empty care of nothingness trying to be something.

  “SHE’S DEAD—SHE’S DEAD!”

  “Stop barking!” said my Person. “Don’t be frightened. He wouldn’t hurt a fly. Do you come here often?”

  “Every day,” murmured the ghost, with a sly look toward her bones. She moved a little nearer to my Person. A breeze sprang up, and I could smell it blowing right through her, like frozen flowers. “He looks very fierce,” said the ghost. “Are you sure that he’s kind?”

  “COME AWAY—COME AWAY!”

  “Stop barking!” commanded my Person, and he looked at the ghost with springtime in his eyes. If only he could have smelled the dust inside her head and heard the silence inside her breast! But it was no good. All he could see was a silken smile. He was only a person and blindly trusted his eyes. . . .

  “Dogs,” said the ghost, “should be kept on a leash in the churchyard. There’s a notice on the gate.” She knew that I knew where she was buried and that I’d just been going to dig up her bones.

  My Person obeyed, and the ghost looked at me as if to say, “Now you’ll never be able to show him that I’m dead!”

  “SHE’S COLD! SHE’S EMPTY! SHE’S GRANDDAUGHTER DEATH!”

  “Stop barking!” shouted my Person, and dragging me after, he walked on, already half in love with the loveless ghost.

  We passed very close to her bones. I could smell them, and I could hear the little nibblers dryly rustling. I pulled, I strained, I jerked to dig up her secret. . . .

  “He looks so wild!” said the ghost. “His eyes are rolling, and his jaws are dripping. Are you sure he doesn’t have a fever? Don’t you think he ought to go to the vet?”

  “He only wants to run off and play,” said my Person. “Do you live near here?”

  “YES! YES! RIGHT THERE! SIX PAWS DEEP IN THE EARTH!”

  “Stop barking!” said my Person. “Do you want to wake up the dead?”

  The ghost started. Then she laughed, like the wind among rotting leaves. “I have a room nearby,” she murmured. “A little room all to myself. It is very convenient, you know.”

  “A little room all to yourself?” repeated my Person, his heart beating with eager concern. “How lonely that must be!”

  “Yes,” she said. “Sometimes it is very lonely, even though I hear people walking and talking upstairs, over my head.”

  “Then let me walk back with you,” said my Person, “and keep you company!”

  “No dogs allowed,” said the ghost. “They would turn me out, you know.”

  “Then come my way!” said my Person, and the ghost raised her imitation eyebrows in imitation surprise. “‘Madam, will you walk,’” sang my Person laughingly. “‘Madam, will you talk, Madam, will you walk and talk with me?’”

  “I don’t see why not,” smiled the ghost.

  “BECAUSE SHE’S DEAD—DEAD—DEAD!”

  “Stop barking!” said my Person. “‘I will give you the keys of Heaven, I will give you the keys of my heart . . .’”

  “The keys of Heaven?” sighed the ghost. “Would you really?”

  “And the keys of my heart! Will you have dinner with me?”

  “Are you inviting me into your home?”

  “NO GHOSTS ALLOWED! SHE’LL TURN ME OUT!”

  “Stop barking! Yes . . . if you’d like to!”

  “Oh, I would indeed—I would indeed!”

  “DON’T DO IT! YOU’LL BE BRINGING DEATH INTO OUR HOME!”

  “Stop that barking! This way . . . this way. . . .”

  It was hopeless, hopeless! There was only one thing left for a dog to do. She knew what it was, of course. She could see it in my eyes. She walked on the other side of my Person and always kept him between herself and me. I bided my time. . . .

  “Do you like Italian food?” asked my Person.

  “Not spaghetti,” murmured the ghost. “It reminds me of worms.”

  It was then that I broke free. I jerked forward with all my strength and wrenched the leash out of my Person’s grasp. He shouted! The ghost glared and shrank away. For a moment I stared into her eyes, and she stared into mine.

  “Dogs must be kept on a leash!” whispered the ghost as I jumped. “There’s a notice on . . . on . . . on . . .”

  It was like jumping through cobwebs and feathers, and when I turned, she’d vanished like a puff of air. I saw the grass shiver, and I knew she’d gone back to her bones.

  “SHE WAS DEAD! SHE WAS DEAD! I TOLD YOU SO!”

  My Person didn’t answer. He was shaking. He was trembling. For the very first time, he couldn’t believe his eyes.

  “What happened? Where—where is she? Where has she gone?”

  I showed him. Trailing my leash, I went to where she lay, six paws under, and began to dig.

  “No! No!” he shrieked. “Let her lie there in peace!”

  Thankfully, I stopped. The earth under the grass was thick and heavy, and the going was hard. I went back to my Person. He had collapsed on a bench and was holding his head in his hands. I tried to comfort him by licking his ear.

  A female person walked neatly by. She was young and smooth and shining and smelled of coffee and cats. She was dressed in the softest of white.

  “Oh, what a beautiful dog,” she said, pausing to admire me.

  He stared up at her. His eyes widened. His teeth began to chatter. He could not speak.

  “GO ON! GO ON! ‘BEST OF BREED’!”

  “Hush!” said the female person with a gentle smile. “You’ll wake up the dead!”

  “Is she real?” whispered my Person, his eyes as wide and round as plates. “Or is she a ghost? Show me, show me! Try to jump through her like you did before! Jump, jump!”

  “BUT SHE’S REAL! SHE’S ALIVE!”

  “Stop barking and jump!”

  So I jumped. She screamed—but not in fright. She screamed with rage. My paws were still thick a
nd filthy with churchyard mud, and in a moment, so was her dress.

  “You—you madman!” she shouted at my shamefaced Person. “You told him to do it! You told him to jump! You’re not fit to have a dog!”

  “But—but—” he cried out as she stormed away to report him, she promised, to the churchyard authorities and the ASPCA.

  “I TOLD YOU SHE WAS ALIVE! I TOLD YOU SO!”

  “Stop barking!” wept my Person. “Please!”

  Mister Ice Cold

  by Gahan Wilson

  ILLUSTRATED BY GAHAN WILSON

  Gahan Wilson is one of my favorite cartoonists. I have been laughing at his magazine cartoons for a long time. He has an evil sense of humor. His cartoons make you laugh—and shudder—at the same time.

  I was very happy when I found some stories written by Gahan Wilson. I knew they would have the quality of being scary and funny at the same time.

  This one is my favorite. It seems innocent at first—almost sweet. What could be sweeter than the jingle-jangle of an ice cream truck’s bell on a hot summer day?

  But watch out. This story is truly ghastly. Trust me—it’s evil and disgusting, and it will make you laugh!

  MISTER ICE COLD

  by Gahan Wilson

  Listen, children! Hear the music? Hear its bright and cheerful chiming coming down the street? Hear it playing its pretty little tune—dingy di-ding, dingy di-ding—as it sings softly through the green trees, through the blue sky overhead, as it sings through the thick, still, sultry summer heat?

  It’s Mister Ice Cold coming in his truck! Mister Ice Cold and his nice ice cream! Fat, round, cool balls of it plopped into cones! Thick, juicy slabs of it covered in frozen chocolate frosting and stuck on sticks! Soft, pink, chilly twirls of it oozed into cups!

  The music’s coming closer through the heat—dingy di-ding, dingy di-ding—and excitement starts stirring where all was lazy and drowsy just a sweaty blink before!

  Bobby Martin’s no longer lying flat on the grass, staring up at a slow-moving summer cloud without seeing it at all; he’s scrambled to his feet and is running over the thick summer grass to ask his mother—nodding on the porch over a limp magazine almost slipped from her fingers—if he can have enough money to buy a frozen lime frog.

  And Suzy Brenner’s left off dreamily trying to tie her doll’s bonnet over her cat’s head (much to the cat’s relief) and is desperately digging into her plastic, polka-dot purse to see if there’s enough change in there to buy her a cup of banana ice cream with chocolate sprinkles. Oh, she can taste the sweetness of it! Oh, her throat can feel its coolness going down!

  And you, you’ve forgotten all about blowing through a leaf to see if you can make it squeak the way you saw Arnold Carter’s older brother do it; now you’re clawing feverishly with your small hands in both pockets, feeling your way past that sandy shell you found yesterday on the beach, and that little ball chewed bounceless by your dog, and that funny rock you came across in the vacant lot which may, with luck, be full of uranium and highly radioactive, and so far you have come up with two pennies and a quarter and you think you’ve just touched a nickel.

  Meantime Mister Ice Cold’s truck is rolling ever closer—dingy di-ding, dingy di-ding—and Martin Walpole, always a showoff, wipes his brow, points, and calls out proudly: “I see it! There it is!”

  And, sure enough, there it is, rolling smoothly around the corner of Main and Lincoln, and you can see the shiny, fat fullness of its white roof gleaming in the bright sun through the thick, juicy-green foliage of the trees which have, in the peak of their summer swelling, achieved a tropical density and richness more appropriate to some Amazonian jungle than to midwestern Lakeside, and you push aside one last, forgotten tangle of knotted string in your pocket and your heart swells for joy because you’ve come across another quarter and that means you’ve got enough for an orange icicle on a stick which will freeze your fillings and chill your gut and stain your tongue that gorgeous, glowing copper color which never fails to terrify your sister!

  Now Mister Ice Cold’s truck has swept into full view and its dingy di-ding sounds out loud and clear and sprightly enough, even in this steaming, muggy air, to startle a sparrow and make it swerve in its flight.

  Rusty Taylor’s dog barks for a signal and all of you come running quick as you can from every direction, coins clutched in your sweaty fingers and squeezed tightly as possible in your damp, small palms, and every one of you is licking your lips and staring at the bright-blue lettering painted in frozen ice cubes and spelling out MISTER ICE COLD over the truck’s sides and front and back, and Mister Ice Cold himself gives a sweeping wave of his big, pale hand to everyone from behind his wheel and brings his vehicle and all the wonders it contains to a slow, majestic halt with the skill and style of a commodore docking an ocean liner.

  “A strawberry rocket!” cries fat Harold Smith, who has got there way ahead of everyone as usual, and Mister Ice Cold flips open one of the six small doors set into the left side of the truck with a click and plucks out Harold’s rocket and gives it to him and takes the money, and before you know it he has smoothly glided to the right top door of the four doors at the truck’s back and opened it, click, and Mandy Carter’s holding her frozen maple tree and licking it and handing her money over all at the same time, and now Mister Ice Cold is opening one of the six small doors on the right side of the truck, click, and Eddy Morse has bitten the point off the top of his bright red cinnamon crunchy munch and is completely happy.

  Then your heart’s desire is plucked with a neat click from the top middle drawer on the truck’s right side, which has always been its place for as long as you can remember, and you’ve put your money into Mister Ice Cold’s large, pale, always cool palm, and as you step back to lick your orange icicle and to feel its coolness trickle down your throat, once again you find yourself admiring the sheer athletic smoothness of Mister Ice Cold’s movements as he glides and dips, spins and turns, bows and rises, going from one small door, click, to another, click, with never a stumble, click, never a pause, click, his huge body leaving a coolness in the wake of his passing, and you wish you moved that smoothly when you ran back over the gravel of the playground with your hands stretched up, hoping for a catch, but you know you don’t.

  Everything’s so familiar and comforting: the slow quieting of the other children getting what they want, your tongue growing ever more chill as you reduce yet another orange icicle, lick by lick, down to its flat stick, and the heavy, hot summer air pressing down on top of it all.

  But this time it’s just a little different than it ever was before because, without meaning to, without having the slightest intention of doing it, you’ve noticed something you never noticed before. Mister Ice Cold never opens the bottom right door in the back of the truck.

  He opens all the rest of them, absolutely every one, and you see him doing it now as new children arrive and call out what they want. Click, click, click, he opens them one after the other, producing frozen banana bars and cherry twirls and all the other special favorites, each one always from its particular, predictable door.

  But his big, cool hand always glides past that one door set into the truck’s back, the one on the bottom row, the one to the far right. And you realize now, with a funny little thrill, that you have never—not in all the years since your big brother Fred first took you by the hand and gave Mister Ice Cold the money for your orange icicle because you were so small you couldn’t even count—you have never ever seen that door open.

  And now you’ve licked the whole orange icicle away, and your tongue’s moving over and over the rough wood of the stick without feeling it at all, and you can’t stop staring at that door, and you know, deep in the pit of your stomach, that you have to open it.

  You watch Mister Ice Cold carefully now, counting out to yourself how long it takes him to move from the doors farthest forward back to the rear of the truck, and because your mind is racing very, very quickly, you soon see that two
orders in a row will keep him up front just long enough for you to open the door which is never opened, the door which you are now standing close enough to touch, just enough time to take a quick peek and close it shut before he knows.

  Then Betty Deane calls out for a snow maiden right on top of Mike Howard’s asking for a pecan pot, and you know those are both far up front on the right-hand side.

  Mister Ice Cold glides by you close enough for the cool breeze coming from his passing to raise little goose bumps on your arms. Without pausing, without giving yourself a chance for any more thought, you reach out.

  Click!

  Your heart freezes hard as anything inside the truck. There, inside the square opening, cold and bleached and glistening, are two tidy stacks of small hands, small as yours, their fingertips reaching out toward you and the sunlight, their thin, dead young arms reaching out behind them, back into the darkness. Poking over the top two hands, growing out of something round and shiny and far back and horribly still, are two stiff golden braids of hair with pretty frozen bows tied onto their ends.

  But you have stared too long in horror and the door is closed, click, and almost entirely covered by Mister Ice Cold’s hand, which now seems enormous, and he’s bent down over you with his huge, smiling face so near to yours you can feel the coolness of it in the summer heat.

  “Not that door,” he says, very softly, and his small, neat, even teeth shine like chips from an iceberg, and because of his closeness now you know that even his breath is icy cold. “Those in there are not for you. Those in there are for me.”

  Then he’s standing up again and moving smoothly from door to door, click, click, click, and none of the other children saw inside, and none of them will really believe you when you tell them, though their eyes will go wide and they’ll love the story, and not a one of them saw the promise for you in Mister Ice Cold’s eyes.

  But you did, didn’t you? And some night, after the end of summer, when it’s cool and you don’t want it any cooler, you’ll be lying in your bed all alone and you’ll hear Mister Ice Cold’s pretty little song coming closer and closer through the night, through the dead, withered autumn leaves.