Vacation Horrors

One of my favorite things to do while on vacation is read horror stories.  If I can find ones themed to the locale we are in, all the better.  This year we stayed at Myrtle Beach.  Seeing the ocean everyday made me select tales on the high seas.  The following take place in such settings. 

SAILING THE DARK SEAS:

•          “THE UPPER BERTH” by F. Marion Crawford (1894) – This is a creepy tale about a man crossing the Atlantic aboard a steam ship called Kamchatka.  He stays in a cabin where the previous three occupants have cast themselves overboard soon after staying there.  During his stay he starts to find something unnatural in the rooms upper berth.  His description of the of the entity is very evocative with its feel of plunging a hand “into the air of a damp cellar, and from behind the curtains came a gust of wind that smelled horribly of stagnant sea-water,” and laying his hand a hold “of something that had the shape of a man’s arm, but was smooth, and wet, and icy cold.”  When it sprang against him, he described it as “a clammy, oozy mass, as it seemed to me, heavy and wet, yet endowed with supernatural strength.”

•             “THE SHIP THAT SAW A GHOST” (1902) by Frank Norris – This atmospheric tale tells the first hand account of a sailor who engaged in disreputable sailing voyages with like minded men on a mission to find an obscure island (referred to as B. 300) that lies deep in a rarely sailed section of the ocean which would bring them great fortune.  Their ship, named The Glarus, made a voyage that was both long and lonely. After weeks at sea seeing nothing but water and the sun, many of them start to feel unexplainable feelings of dread and being watched.  Soon afterwards a rotting derelict ship is spotted in the distance.  Despite the crews previous longing to see some change in the landscape, the eerie vessel unnerves them, and they do not wish it to pass their bow.  Things go worse from that point on.  Some believe this story may have inspired the great writer William Hope Hodgson.

•            “THE VOICE IN THE NIGHT” (1907) by William Hope Hodgson – At sea a small boat approaches a ship.  Someone in the boat with an unnatural sounding voice calls up to them requesting food, but will not allow themselves to be seen, claiming it is too dangerous for them.  They give him food and he relates the tale of how he and his wife were abandoned on a sinking ship.  They made a raft and eventually floated to a derelict ship filled with a strange fungus growing on it that always returned when cleared away.  They live on the derelict for a time using its supplies for sustenance.  When the strange moss starts to grow on his wife’s finger, they leave the ship and land on an island that is almost totally covered by the same stuff.  They find a small beach where it is free of the growth and set up there.  They remain undisturbed for a while until they begin to notice the stuff growing on them again.

•            “THE OCEAN OGRE” by Dana Carroll (1937) – A ship stranded at sea encounters a lone man in a small boat full of provisions.  He claims to be the lone survivor of a sunken ship.  The crew brings him aboard; a decision that is later met with regret, as he is erratic and spiteful.  During the coarse of his time on the ship, the crew starts to discover that he is an inhuman, evil creature.

 I would also include William Hope Hodgson’s great tales, “THE DERELICT”, and “OUT OF THE STORM”, but I covered them in my earlier article on Hodgson. HAUNTED LIGHTHOUSES: 

•           “MESSENGERS AT THE WINDOW” (1911) by Henry Van Dyke – A lighthouse keeper leaves his wife to tend the beacon while he makes a trip across the water to do some business on land.  When he is on his way back his boat bumps up against the floating dead body of a well-dressed man.  The body has a fancy, very expensive ring on the finger that the man decides to take for himself, but it will not pull off.  He chops off the finger, ignoring the belief that it is bad luck to mutilate the dead.  When he returns he tries to keep his new treasure secret from his wife, but starts to see the dismembered hand striking the window whenever he attempts to lie about what happened.

•            “ON THE ISLE OF BLUE MEN” by Robert W. Sneddon (1927original, restored ending 1993) – An artist and his wife living on an island in Scotland decide to travel to a nearby lighthouse on a lark.  Once there, one of the attendants becomes concerned due to an ominous legend involving their island.  No woman has ever set foot on it, and the legend says that once a redheaded woman does, she will come together with ‘The Blue Men’ and the age of man will end.  Storms force them to stay with the men in the lighthouse for several days.  During that time they start to see strange turtle-like blue men coming to the island in increasing numbers and aggression.  This is a good atmospheric tale in the Lovecraft vane. 

•            “THE DOOR BELOW” (1981) by Hugh B. Cave – A recently separated journalist and his attractive new girlfriend travel to an abandoned lighthouse in search of evidence that a millionaire, founder of a cosmetics company did not die the mysterious death most believe, but in fact faked it to disappear with his beautiful, young, Spanish mistress.  When they arrive and start to search the old place called Dolphinback, they become trapped by a sudden bad storm.  They start to find things inside that lead them to believe something truly evil and unworldly happened there just before they hear strange sounds in the lower regions of the lighthouse.

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