Herbert van Thal: The Seventh Pan Book of Horror Stories

Could it be Flora? Older than Aunt Bella, older than old grandmother Matthews? This old haggard apparition, such a parody of what Flora had been? This old, old woman saying: 'You've given her her tranquilliser? Good. You may be right: perhaps we just can't cope any more…'

And then, suddenly reminded of something she must announce, she found she could at least compose herself, stiffening her body with her last shreds of dignity and, no matter what they might think of her for it, managing to say:

'You may all have the felicity of wishing me happy returns. It's my birthday, you know. My seventeenth birthday.'

But this seemed only to infuriate the apparition before her, for the Flora-phantom was almost spitting when it said: 'O you fool, Maisie! You're seventy , not seventeen! And I've told you and told you, you're not to go out alone. Never! They'll put you away if you do, and then you'll know all about it. What did you try to do, burn the house down again? And all of us with it?'

And the apparition raised a hand to the scar on her face. 'It's my birthday , Flora, she persisted; it was all that she could say. 'It's my seventeenth birthday. Don't deny me my party, Flora. Please don't deny me my party. I warn you, I'll do something you'll be sorry for if you do…

But then, some vague recollection — or was it something she had forgotten? — gave her something to laugh at.

The Windrops had a big garden behind their house and at the end of it was a wooden hut. Originally it had been used for storing garden implements and any junk that looked as if it might be useful some day, but now it was given over solely to the use of their eight-year-old son, Mervyn. The Windrop's intention was twofold: Mervyn could have a place of his own in which he could do what he liked and make as much mess as he liked, learn to be independent and do things for himself; and also the hut would be a place where his parents could leave him if they wanted to go out without upsetting him. If they wished to go to a theatre or a dance, or for a drink with friends, they could do so, because with luck he would be so absorbed in whatever he was doing that he would not care in the least if they were away as long as they liked.

Mervyn's main preoccupation seemed to be collecting and looking after animals. He was genuinely interested, and with the information he could glean from books and his father's help which, however, he could enlist only after a great deal of persuasion, he was successful in raising broods of all sorts of small creatures from caterpillars to rabbits. Long hours would be spent by the boy peering intentiy down at the movements of the various animals as he studied their habits, their often brief, intense lives, and their almost casual deaths.

The trouble with the hut and Mervyn's exile there was that it was an easy way out for the parents. He was becoming independent too quickly, and his affection rapidly being transferred from his parents to the animals he nurtured at the bottom of the garden. If the Windrops had any inkling of this they were too wrapped up in the good time they were having and the luxury of having a child who was no trouble to them because he could be left to his own resources, to worry overmuch. Mervyn was not conscious of anything wrong, but it might have been broken to him gently and no real harm done had it not been for an accident that revealed to him, for the first time, the extent of his abandonment.

The usual procedure, when Mervyn first took over the hut, was that his parents would appear at. the door and diffidently tell him that they were going out. After a while this lapsed and they would arrive at the hut, dressed ready to go and merely say: 'Well, we're off out, Mervyn' and leave it at that. Mervyn was usually so absorbed in his collection or in something that he was making that he did little more than grunt. Seeing this almost total lack of concern the Windrops went a stage further and stopped coming down to the hut at all. Sometimes they told him when he was up at the house for a meal, but often they said nothing and just went, leaving him to fend for himself.

One evening they went out early without saying anything, while Mervyn was down at the hut busily converting an orange box into a cage for a grass snake he had found. Soon the light began to go and he switched on the electric light in the hut with the same preoccupied air which seemed to characterise everything he did now that he was left to his own resources. The bulb was dim and he was bending low over the box in his own light, chipping wood away with a chisel, which he handled somewhat uncertainly. Suddenly the chisel slipped, there was a brief moment of disbelief and there was blood welling from his left hand and a great pain shooting up his arm. The chisel clattered to the floor and Mervyn crashed out of the hut into the gloom, screaming with shock and terror. He blundered through the garden towards the house, stumbling as he went, his eyes wet with tears and his arm hanging limp by his side and dripping blood. He rushed up to the house and burst in. The house was in darkness.

'Mummy! Daddy! I'm hurt!' he screamed, but there was no reply. He paused and sucked in breath, his sobs almost silenced by disbelief that his parents should not be there to help him. He called for them again, but there was nothing. He rushed through the house, trying every room, calling for them as he went. Finally he burst into his bedroom and sank down on the bed, his body shuddering with sobs. His right hand, the good one, plucked at the coverlet and then the pluck became a grip as something in the boy asserted itself. The tears stopped flowing, although he still sucked in great gulps of air, and his grip on the coverlet strengthened until the knuckles showed white as he strove to control himself. His teeth clenched as he fought back the pain and the shock, and he found the courage to look at his shattered hand. Somehow he had missed the artery, but there was still a lot of blood flowing from the wound and the pain throbbed through the whole arm. Mervyn stared down at it, and then the months of independence came to the surface and he walked steadily from the room, holding his hand well away from him, and went into the bathroom. There he turned on the cold tap in the basin and stuck his hand under it. As the water struck the wound he nearly swooned from the pain, but his basic hardness sustained him and he left the hand there while the blood swirled round the basin, mingling with the water, and then dropped out of his life. Next he took a bottle of iodine from the cupboard above the basin and removed the cork with his teeth. Unsteadily he poured iodine on to the wound and yelled with agony. Once again he clenched his teeth and overcame the pain as he knew he must. His face was grey, but his eyes were hard and staring as he found a bandage and started clumsily to bind his hand as he had seen his mother do it. But now his mother was not there to help. This was something he would remember. They had not been there to help. Somehow he managed to wind the bandage round his hand and fix a simple kind of knot. Blood was still seeping through, mingling with the iodine, but he was past caring. Now that he had got this far he was weak from loss of blood and the shock, not only of the accident itself, but of finding that he had to care for himself when it was the duty of others to be there to aid him. He staggered back to his room and slumped over the bed where he lost consciousness.

The Windrops had a very pleasant evening and returned home late. As soon as they entered the house they saw the first signs of what had happened. A small table in the hall had been knocked over and the papers that had been on it were flecked with blood. As they went into other rooms they saw that there were splashes of blood everywhere. They regarded the scene with horror and stood speechless before Mrs Windrop recalled her duty, screamed 'Mervyn!' and raced up the stairs where a trail seemed to lead. They passed the bathroom and saw the pools of blood on the floor. Then they burst into Mervyn's room where he lay tossing feverishly on the bed, his face white and beaded with sweat, his injured hand hanging limply over the pillow which was now deeply stained.