Creeps by Night: Chills and Thrills

At this point the sequence of events suddenly galvanized him into a feverish alertness for the next thing. As Doris’ hysterical scream rang in his ears, he was abruptly released from the grip of immobility. He turned quickly and looked out of the front of the bus.

What he saw there made him throw up his hands in an involuntary gesture similar to her own instinctive gesture of terror. He heard the brakes squealing shrilly — felt the bus skid on the sleet-covered road even as he caught a side glimpse of the operator’s face — saw with sudden added horror that half the face was missing. Beyond that fleeting glimpse, he had time for no further examination; for just ahead a heavily loaded truck was emerging from a narrow bridge-end, blocking their way. Then a terrific, rending crash...

5

The six-forty-five bus was four minutes late on account of the icy condition of the roads; they had been that way for two days. A little group of commuters on the roadside were talking in subdued tones, for once unmindful of the delay as they waited.

“Personally,” a pompous, red-faced man was saying, “I believe Ranson killed and — mauled— him for attentions to Mrs. Ranson.”

“But Strite didn’t appear to be that type,” objected a young member of the group. “Nor is Mrs. Ranson the sort who would encourage him. Besides, consider the condition of the body. Why, Ranson or no one else could have so mangled another — to say nothing of leaving it in bed and persistently claiming that he didn’t know how it happened, except that he and his wife were awakened in the middle of the night by a frightful cry — and found him that way! No, I say there is some deeper mystery about the affair, the nature of which we haven’t suspected.”

The big, orange-colored bus hove into view at this juncture, interrupting the discussion for the time. Presently they all had boarded it and found seats at various vantage-points. A little distance along the road one of them pointed out to his neighbor a twisted and splintered mass of wreckage at the foot of an embankment of the narrow bridge they were just then crossing.

“Lucky it jumped off when it struck — didn’t even delay us yesterday when we followed a few minutes after it was discovered.”

“Queer thing about how it got there,” said the other. “Nobody witnessed the accident, and the defunct bus company’s officials swear that the last they saw of their ‘death trap’ was when it was locked away in an old garage on the other side of Norwood. Can you imagine any one swiping a can like that for a ride? But the present-day young coke-head will grab anything for a joy-ride.”

“No queerer than that — that mess inside the wreck — as if some one had been crushed like — well, like poor Strite, for instance. Yet they could find no trace of a body!”

Beyond the Door by Paul Suter

“You haven’t told me yet how it happened,” I said to Mrs. Malkin.

She set her lips and eyed me, sharply.

“Didn’t you talk with the coroner, sir?”

“Yes, of course,” I admitted; “but as I understand you found my uncle, I thought—”

“Well, I wouldn’t care to say anything about it,” she interrupted, with decision.

This housekeeper of my uncle’s was somewhat taller than I, and much heavier — two physical preponderances which afford any woman possessing them an advantage over the inferior male, She appeared a subject for diplomacy rather than argument.

Noting her ample jaw, her breadth of cheek, the unsentimental glint of her eye, I decided on conciliation. I placed a chair for her, there in my Uncle Godfrey’s study, and dropped into another, myself.

“At least, before we go over the other parts of the house, suppose we rest a little,” I suggested, in my most unctuous manner. “The place rather gets on one’s nerves — don’t you think so?”

It was sheer luck — I claim no credit for it. My chance reflection found the weak spot in her fortifications. She replied to it with an undoubted smack of satisfaction:

“It’s more than seven years that I’ve been doing for Mr. Sarston, sir: bringing him his meals regular as clockwork, keeping the house clean — as clean as he’d let me — and sleeping at my own home o’ nights; and in all that time I’ve said, over and over, there ain’t a house in New York the equal of this for queerness.”

“Nor anywhere else,” I encouraged her, with a laugh; and her confidences opened another notch: