Greatest Ghost, Vampires and Horror Stories

[Gaurav Soni]

शानदार हे मित्र

[Dark Saint Alaick]

I look over at the cop’s body. Maybe Martin could fix the neck. Find his car and crash it into
a wall and make it look like an accident. Use a little Jedi Mind trick to create some witnesses…
I was a vampire after all.
I wipe another red tear from my face before it falls onto my burnt shirt. Bloodstains don’t
come out, you know. Of course, neither do phosphorous burns, but still…Martin pats me on the shoulder and gets up to leave as I start crying like a 12 year old that
can’t find her N’Sync CD. Good, I think to myself. So long as I can still cry, I haven’t truly
become one of them.
Not yet.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

His Dead Wife's Photograph

by S. Mukerji


This story created a sensation when it was first told. It appeared in
the papers and many big Physicists and Natural Philosophers were, at
least so they thought, able to explain the phenomenon. I shall narrate
the event and also tell the reader what explanation was given, and let
him draw his own conclusions.

This was what happened.

* * * * *

[Dark Saint Alaick]

A friend of mine, a clerk in the same office as myself, was an amateur
photographer; let us call him Jones.

Jones had a half plate Sanderson camera with a Ross lens and a Thornton
Picard behind lens shutter, with pneumatic release. The plate in
question was a Wrattens ordinary, developed with Ilford Pyro Soda
developer prepared at home. All these particulars I give for the benefit
of the more technical reader.

Mr. Smith, another clerk in our office, invited Mr. Jones to take a
likeness of his wife and sister-in-law.

This sister-in-law was the wife of Mr. Smith's elder brother, who was
also a Government servant, then on leave. The idea of the photograph was
of the sister-in-law.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

Jones was a keen photographer himself. He had photographed every body in
the office including the peons and sweepers, and had even supplied every
sitter of his with copies of his handiwork. So he most willingly
consented, and anxiously waited for the Sunday on which the photograph
was to be taken.

Early on Sunday morning, Jones went to the Smiths'. The arrangement of
light in the verandah was such that a photograph could only be taken
after midday; and so he stayed there to breakfast.

At about one in the afternoon all arrangements were complete and the two
ladies, Mrs. Smiths, were made to sit in two cane chairs and after long
and careful focussing, and moving the camera about for an hour, Jones
was satisfied at last and an exposure was made. Mr. Jones was sure that
the plate was all right; and so, a second plate was not exposed
although in the usual course of things this should have been done.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

He wrapped up his things and went home promising to develop the plate
the same night and bring a copy of the photograph the next day to the
office.

The next day, which was a Monday, Jones came to the office very early,
and I was the first person to meet him.

"Well, Mr. Photographer," I asked "what success?"

"I got the picture all right," said Jones, unwrapping an unmounted
picture and handing it over to me "most funny, don't you think so?" "No,
I don't ... I think it is all right, at any rate I did not expect
anything better from you ...", I said.

"No," said Jones "the funny thing is that only two ladies sat ..."

[Dark Saint Alaick]

"Quite right," I said "the third stood in the middle."

"There was no third lady at all there ...", said Jones.

"Then you imagined she was there, and there we find her ..." "I tell
you, there were only two ladies there when I exposed" insisted Jones.
He was looking awfully worried.

"Do you want me to believe that there were only two persons when the
plate was exposed and three when it was developed?" I asked. "That is
exactly what has happened," said Jones.

"Then it must be the most wonderful developer you used, or was it that
this was the second exposure given to the same plate?"

[Dark Saint Alaick]

"The developer is the one which I have been using for the last three
years, and the plate, the one I charged on Saturday night out of a new
box that I had purchased only on Saturday afternoon."

A number of other clerks had come up in the meantime, and were taking
great interest in the picture and in Jones' statement.

It is only right that a description of the picture be given here for the
benefit of the reader. I wish I could reproduce the original picture
too, but that for certain reasons is impossible.

When the plate was actually exposed there were only two ladies, both of
whom were sitting in cane chairs. When the plate was developed it was
found that there was in the picture a figure, that of a lady, standing
in the middle. She wore a broad-edged _dhoti_ (the reader should not
forget that all the characters are Indians), only the upper half of her
body being visible, the lower being covered up by the low backs of the
cane chairs. She was distinctly behind the chairs, and consequently
slightly out of focus. Still everything was quite clear. Even her long
necklace was visible through the little opening in the _dhoti_ near the
right shoulder. She was resting her hands on the backs of the chairs and
the fingers were nearly totally out of focus, but a ring on the right
ring-finger was clearly visible. She looked like a handsome young woman
of twenty-two, short and thin. One of the ear-rings was also clearly
visible, although the face itself was slightly out of focus. One thing,
and probably the funniest thing, that we overlooked then but observed
afterwards, was that immediately behind the three ladies was a barred
window. The two ladies, who were one on each side, covered up the bars
to a certain height from the bottom with their bodies, but the lady in
the middle was partly transparent because the bars of the window were
very faintly visible through her. This fact, however, as I have said
already, we did not observe then. We only laughed at Jones and tried to
assure him that he was either drunk or asleep. At this moment Smith of
our office walked in, removing the trouser clips from his legs.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

Smith took the unmounted photograph, looked at it for a minute, turned
red and blue and green and finally very pale. Of course, we asked him
what the matter was and this was what he said:

"The third lady in the middle was my first wife, who has been dead these
eight years. Before her death she asked me a number of times to have her
photograph taken. She used to say that she had a presentiment that she
might die early. I did not believe in her presentiment myself, but I did
not object to the photograph. So one day I ordered the carriage and
asked her to dress up. We intended to go to a good professional. She
dressed up and the carriage was ready, but as we were going to start
news reached us that her mother was dangerously ill. So we went to see
her mother instead. The mother was very ill, and I had to leave her
there. Immediately afterwards I was sent away on duty to another station
and so could not bring her back. It was in fact after full three months
and a half that I returned and then though her mother was all right, my
wife was not. Within fifteen days of my return she died of puerperal
fever after child-birth and the child died too. A photograph of her was
never taken. When she dressed up for the last time on the day that she
left my home she had the necklace and the ear-rings on, as you see her
wearing in the photograph. My present wife has them now but she does not
generally put them on."

[Dark Saint Alaick]

This was too big a pill for me to swallow. So I at once took French
leave from my office, bagged the photograph and rushed out on my
bicycle. I went to Mr. Smith's house and looked Mrs. Smith up. Of
course, she was much astonished to see a third lady in the picture but
could not guess who she was. This I had expected, as supposing Smith's
story to be true, this lady had never seen her husband's first wife. The
elder brother's wife, however, recognized the likeness at once and she
virtually repeated the story which Smith had told me earlier that day.
She even brought out the necklace and the ear-rings for my inspection
and conviction. They were the same as those in the photograph.

All the principal newspapers of that time got hold of the fact and
within a week there was any number of applications for the ghostly
photograph. But Mr. Jones refused to supply copies of it to anybody for
various reasons, the principal being that Smith would not allow it. I
am, however, the fortunate possessor of a copy which, for obvious
reasons, I am not allowed to show to anybody. One copy of the picture
was sent to America and another to England. I do not now remember
exactly to whom. My own copy I showed to the Rev. Father ---- M.A.,
D.SC., B.D., etc., and asked him to find out a scientific explanation of
the phenomenon. The following explanation was given by the gentleman. (I
am afraid I shall not be able to reproduce the learned Father's exact
words, but this is what he meant or at least what I understood him to
mean).