Doug Bradley reads The Terror By Night by E F Benson

Hello, I'm going to read a short story called The Night Terror which sounds like it should have been written by H.P Lovecraft but is actually another short ghost story by the English writer E F Benson and if you are interested in any biographical material about Benson then you can go to my reading of the bus driver on this channel where I provided some brief introductory biographical details about him and I also recorded The Upper Room by EF Benson on this channel so this is the third of his stories I imagine there will be more to come because he was a prolific writer.

This volume is entirely ghost stories and they are pretty good. I think by including this I hope you agree. This is very much a story that reflects the The fact that Benson was both a writer on ghosts and the supernatural and an enthusiastic explorer and observer of exactly what phenomena involved in what appear to be hauntings or hauntings of ghosts may be the supernatural in general and this story in particular. It's about how different people can perceive the same ghost in different ways at the same time. So this is the horror By Night by ef Benson.

The transference of emotions is a phenomenon so common and so constantly witnessed that humanity in general has long ceased to be aware of it. of its existence as something worthy of admiration or consideration, considering that it is as natural and common as the transfer of things that act according to the proven laws of matter, no one, for example, is surprised if when the room is too hot, the opening of a window causes the cold, fresh air from outside to be transferred into the room and in the same way no one is surprised when in the same room that we perhaps imagine populated with boring and gloomy people, someone with a fresh and cheerful mind enters who instantly brings in the suffocating mental atmosphere a change analogous to that of open windows exactly how this infection is transmitted, we do not know considering the wireless wonders that act according to material laws that are already beginning to lose their wonder now that we have our newspaper as a Of course , every morning in the Mid-Atlantic we would perhaps not be too quick to surmise that, in some subtle and hidden way, the transference of emotions is actually material too surely to take another example: the place of decidedly material things like writing on a page transmits. emotion apparently directly to our mind, as when our pleasure or compassion is stimulated by a book, and therefore it is possible that the mind can act upon the Mind by such material means as that, yet we occasionally encounter phenomena that , although they can easily be as material as any other.

Some people call them ghosts, some magic tricks and some nonsense, it seems easier to group them under the heading of transferred emotions and they can appeal to any of the senses. Some ghosts are seen, heard, felt and Although I know of no case in which a ghost has been proven, in the following pages it will appear that these occult phenomena can appeal in any case to the senses that perceive heat, cold or smell, since, to take the analogy of wireless telegraphy, we are all. probably receivers to some extent and catch from time to time a message or part of a message that the eternal waves of emotion shout incessantly aloud to those who have ears to hear and materialize to those who have eyes to see, not being as a rule Perfectly Attuned, we pick up only bits and pieces of such messages, some coherent words, they may be, or some words that seem to make no sense.

The following story, however, is interesting in my opinion because it shows how the different parts of what was undoubtedly a message were formed. received and recorded by several different people simultaneously ten years have passed since the recorded events occurred, but they were written at the time Jack Larimer and I were very old friends before he got married and his marriage to a first cousin of mine did not work out So very often a decrease in our intimacy occurs within a few months of learning that his wife had consumption and without loss of time she was sent to Davos with her sister to care for her, the disease having evidently been detected at a very early age.

At an early stage and there was excellent reason to hope that with proper care and a strict regimen she would be cured by the life-giving frosts of that wonderful valley. The two had come out in the November I'm talking about and Jack and I joined them for A Month at Christmas and found that week after week he was steadily and rapidly gaining ground. We were due to return to the city at the end of January, but it was agreed that Ida should stay away with her sister for another week or two. Both. I remember he came to the station to say goodbye and I am not likely to forget the last words we spoke.

I don't look very good. Jack, his wife, had said, "You'll see me again soon," and then the finicky little mountain motor screeched. he squeals like a puppy when his toe is stepped on, and we huffed and puffed our way through the area where London was in its usual desperate February situation when we returned full of fog and dead frost that seemed to produce a cold far more bitter than the piercing temperature of the In those sunny heights from which we had come, I think we both felt quite alone and even before reaching the end of our trip we had decided for the moment, it was ridiculous that we should keep two houses open when one would be enough and also It'd be enough. much happier for the two of us, so since we both lived in almost identical houses on the same street in Chelsea, we decided to live in the house that the coin indicated was mine.

Tails, his shared expenses, tries to leave the other houses and, yes, he tries to beg by trying to rent the other house and, if successful, share the profits, a French five-franc piece from the Second Empire told us it was expensive. We had been back for about 10 days, receiving every day the most excellent accounts from Davos, when first we attacked it and then upon me descended like a tropical storm a feeling of indefinable fear, quite possibly this feeling of apprehension because there is nothing in the world so virulently contagious. It came to me through him and on the other hand both attacks are vague forebodings, they may have come from the same source, but it is true that he did not attack me until he talked about it, so the possibility perhaps leans towards having infected him. .

He talked about it first. I remember one

night

when we got together for a good late

night

chat after we had returned. of separate houses where we had dined I have been feeling terribly depressed all day, he said, and just after receiving this splendid account from Daisy, I cannot understand what is the matter, he poured himself some whiskey and soda while he spoke, oh, touch of liver. I told him he shouldn't drink, that if I were you you would give it to me, I was never better in my life. He said he was opening letters while we talked and I found one from the house agent which with trembling enthusiasm I read. he shouted offer of five guineas a week until Easter for number 31, let's roll in guineas oh but I can't stop here until Easter, he said, I don't see why not, I said and, by the way, neither can Daisy.

I heard this from her. tomorrow and she told me to persuade you to stop well that is to say if you really like it it is happier for you here yes I forgot that you were telling me something the Glorious news about the weekly guineas did not cheer him up in the least thank you terribly he said Of course I'll stop, he moved up and down the room once or twice, no, it's not me that's wrong, he said, it's whatever, the night

terror

that you're told not to be afraid of, I commented, I know. He said it's easy to command and scared something is coming five guineas a week I said I'll sit down and catch your fears everything that matters Davos is going as well as it can what was the last report incredibly better take that to bed with you The infection, if it was infection, did not take hold of me at that time because I remember that I went to sleep feeling quite cheerful, but I woke up in a quiet, dark house and the

terror

of the night had come while I was sleeping, the fear and suspicion blind, unreasonable and paralyzing had taken hold of me.

And she grabbed me, what was it? Just as with an anaroid we can predict the approach of a storm, because of this sinking of spirit, such as I had never felt before, I felt sure that some kind of disaster was coming. Jack saw it immediately when we met at breakfast the next morning, in the dull brown light of a misty day, not dark enough for candles, but depressing beyond explanation, so I It's gotten to you too, he said, and I didn't even have the fighting power left to tell him that it was just slightly. bad also never in my life had I felt better for the entire next day or the day after that fear lay like a black blanket over my mind I didn't know what I feared but it was something very acute something that was very close it was getting closer and closer moment It spread like a pool of clouds over the sky, but on the third day, after shrinking miserably under it, I suppose some kind of courage came back to me, or this was pure imagination, some trick of disordered nerves or something, in which case we were both getting restless. in vain or because of the immeasurable waves of emotion that hit the men's minds, something within both of them had caught a current, a pressure in any case, it was infinitely better to try, however ineffectively, to face it during these two days.

I didn't work or play I had just shrunk and shivered I planned a busy day with fun for both of us in the evening we will have an early dinner I said and I'm going to the blanket man I already asked Philip to come and he comes and I I have called on the phone to order tickets for dinner at seven. Philip. I can comment that he is an old friend of ours, a resident of this street and a very respected doctor by profession. Jack left the newspaper behind him. Yes, I hope you are right. He said that it's no use doing nothing.

Help, did you sleep well? Yes, wonderfully. I said rather sharply because I was nervous with the added burden of a nearly sleepless night. I wish I had said this wouldn't work. We have to play. I said here we are. two strong, burly people with as many reasons for satisfaction in life as anyone you can name, letting us behave like worms, our fear may be of imaginary things or of real things, but it is the fact of being afraid that is so despicable that there is nothing. What to fear in the world except fear. You know that, as well as I do, we now read with interest our newspapers, which support Mr.

Druz or the Duke of Portland Or the Times Book Club. That day, therefore, passed very busy for me and there were enough events moving in front of that black background of which I was aware that it was there all the time to enable me to keep my eyes away from it and I was stopped quite late in the office and I had to drive back to Chelsea to get there on time. getting dressed for dinner instead of walking back as I had planned, then came the message that for these three days had been chirping in our minds, the receivers just making them tremble and rattle.

I found Jack already dressed, as it was a minute or two before. At seven o'clock, when I came in and sat down in the parlour, the day had been hot and muggy, but as I looked on the way to my room it seemed that suddenly and suddenly The bitter way had turned cold, not with the dampness of the English frost, but with the clear, sharp joy of the days we had recently spent in Switzerland. The fire was placed in the great fireplace but not lit, and I knelt on the rug. of the home to light it well it is very cold here I said what donkeys are never servants It occurs to them that they want fires in cold climates and no fires in hot climates.

For the love of God, don't light the fire, he said it's the warmest, muggiest night he can ever remember. I looked at him in amazement and my hands were shaking from the cold. He saw this, why are you shivering?, he said, have you caught a cold?, but as for the room being cold, well, let's look at the thermometer, there was one on the desk. 65 said there was no doubt about that nor did I want to do it at least. At that moment we suddenly realized faintly and distantly that I was leaving. I felt like a curious internal vibration, a heat or a cold.

I must go get dressed, I said, still trembling but feeling as if I were breathing a rarefied and stimulating air, I approached my room. My clothes were already laid out but due to an oversight they had not brought up hot water and I called my man he came up almost immediately but he seemed scared or before my already surprised senses he appeared so what's wrong I said oh nothing sir he said and I could barely articulate the words. I thought he called, yeah, hot water, what's up? He shifted from one foot to the other. “I thought I saw a lady on the stairs,” he said, coming up behind me and in front.

The doorbell hadn't rung that I heard. What did you think he saw her? I asked on the stairs and then on the landing outside the parlor door, sir, he said she stood there as if she didn't know whether she would come inor not. one of the servants I said but again I felt it coming through no sir it wasn't any of the servants he said who it was so I couldn't see clearly sir it was like something dark but I thought it was Mrs Lorimer oh go and get me some water hot I said but he was late and clearly I was quite scared at that moment the doorbell rang it was barely seven o'clock and Philip had already come with brutal punctuality while I was not even half dressed that is the old Dr.

I said maybe if he is on the stairs, perhaps you can pass by the place where you saw the lady, and suddenly there rang throughout the house a scream so terrible, so horrible in its agony and supreme terror, that I simply stood still and shivered helplessly. move an effort so violent that I felt as if something had to break. I remembered the power of movement and ran downstairs with my man on my heels to meet Philip running up from the ground floor. He had heard it too. What's happening? He said what was that? Together we entered the living room.

Jack was lying in front of the fireplace with the chair he had been sitting in for a few minutes before he fell over. Philip went straight to him and leaned over him, tearing his white shirt, he opened all the windows, he said, the place stinks, let's open the windows. windows slammed and poured, so I thought a draft of hot air in the bitter Finally, Philip got up, he's dead, he said: keep the windows open, the place is still full of chloroform. Gradually, to my sense, the room became warmer for Phillips, the drug-laden atmosphere dispersed, but neither my servant nor I had smelled anything for a couple of minutes. hours later a telegram arrived I apologize a couple of hours later a telegram arrived from Davos for me it was to tell me to give the news of Daisy's death to Jack and it was sent by his sister she assumed it would leave immediately but now He had been gone for two hours.

I went to Davos the next day and found out what had happened. Daisy had been suffering for three days from a small abscess that had to be opened and, although the operation was minimal, she had been very nervous about it. After the doctor gave him chloroform, he recovered well from the anesthesia, but an hour later he had a sudden attack of syncope and had died that night a few minutes before eight o'clock according to Central European time, corresponding to seven o'clock in English time, he had insisted that Jack should not be told anything about this little operation until it was over as the matter had nothing to do with his General Health and she did not want to cause him unnecessary anxiety and there the story ends.

My servant saw a woman outside the room. door where Jack was where Jack was hesitating about his entrance at the moment when Daisy's soul was floating between the two worlds towards me came I do not think it is fanciful to suppose this the sharp and stimulating cold of Davos towards Philip came the fumes of chloroform and Jack, I guess, his wife came, so he joined her. Thanks for watching and thanks for listening.