The Puffin Book of Horror Stories

    'He might have become so. Intelligence, leadership, initiative, mobility, ingenuity, curiosity - all the warning signs were there. It doesn't pay to be sentimental, Miss Feather - I believe young tiger-cubs are quite cuddleable in their first weeks of life. Nevertheless, they become tigers. We remove the tiger-cubs so that the rest, the sheep, may safely graze, as one might put it. I only fear we might not catch enough tiger-cubs in time. The young keep on coming like an inexorable flood, wanting what their fathers and grandfathers had. They could sweep us away.'

    They sat looking at each other, in mildly depressed silence.

    'That bicycle was a sure sign,' said Boston at last. 'Most original - first I've seen in years. Originality is always a danger. I'd better get the bike off the street, before it's noticed. Ring the metal-eater people, will you?'

    Miss Feather rang; put the kettle on for another cup of coffee. Mr Boston came back empty-handed, perturbed.

    'It's gone. Someone's taken it.'

    'A sneak-thief?'

    'Then he's a very stupid sneak-thief,' said Boston savagely. 'Stealing a unique object he'd never dare ride in public'

    'You don't think one of his friends… should we ring for the police?' Her hand went to the necklace round, her throat, nervously.

    'To report the theft of a bicycle that didn't belong to us in the first place? They'd think that pretty irregular. They'd want to know where our young friend Martin had got to…'

    'Shall we ring the Ministry?'

    'My dear Miss Feather, they'd think we were losing our nerve. You don't fancy premature retirement, do you?'

    She paled. He nodded, satisfied. 'Then I think we'd better just sit it out.'

    Facing each other with a growing silent unease, as the light faded in the grubby street outside, they settled down to wait.

4/ Guy de Maupassant - The Twitch

         

    The dinner guests strolled into the hotel dining-room and sat down in their places. The waiters served them slowly at first to allow the late-comers time to arrive so that they wouldn't have to go back for more plates. And the older bathers, the regulars who had already been here for much of the season, watched with interest each time the door opened and closed, anxious to see new faces appear.

    This is the one big event in a health resort.

    We all wait until dinner to size up the new arrivals, to guess who they are, what they do, what they think. A single desire prowls through our imagination. It is the hope of meeting someone, of becoming friendly with them, even perhaps of falling in love. In a world where you're for ever rubbing shoulders with complete strangers, the people next to you take on an extra importance. Your curiosity is awakened, your fellow-feeling is sharpened and your desire to be friendly is hard at work.

    In a health spa you form serious, long-lasting relationships faster than just about anywhere else. You see everyone all day long and get to know them very quickly. And each new friendship comes complete with a sense of ease and informality as if you've known each other for years. It's a wonderful feeling to open your heart to someone who seems to be opening theirs to you.

    And the gloominess of a health spa, the boredom of so many days that are all the same, ensures that a new friendship is hatched each and every hour.

    That evening, like every evening, we were waiting for the arrival of someone new.

    Only two people came and they were very strange, a man and a woman; father and daughter. They reminded me, straight away, of characters from Edgar Allen Poe; and yet there was a sort of charm about them, a feeling of sadness. I thought they might be the victims of a bereavement. The man was very tall and thin, slightly bent. His hair was completely white, too white - for his face was still young. And there was something grave both in the way he carried himself and in his character; a grimness you would usually associate with protestants. His daughter, aged twenty-four or twenty-five, was small, as thin as him, very pale, with an appearance that was empty, tired, weighed down. You may have met people like these: too weak to handle the cares and necessities of life, too weak to get on with things, to go out and do the things that have to be done. She was also pretty, this young girl. She had the pale beauty of a ghost. And she ate with terrible slowness as if she was virtually unable to move her arms.

    It had to be her who had come here to take the waters.

    The two of them happened to sit opposite me, on the other side of the table, and I noticed immediately that the father had a most peculiar nervous twitch.

    Each time he wanted to reach out for something, his hand described a snake's tongue, making a crazy zig-zag movement before it managed to get what it wanted. The movement annoyed me so much that after a few moments I turned my head away so that I wouldn't have to see it.

    I also noticed that the young woman kept, even as she ate, one glove on her left hand.