Ghostly: Stories by Niffenegger Audrey

Author:Niffenegger, Audrey [Niffenegger, Audrey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Horror, Fantasy, Anthologies, Paranormal
ISBN: 9780345810335
Goodreads: 25241281
Publisher: Knopf Canada
Published: 2015-09-24T07:00:00+00:00

‘CLICK-CLACK THE RATTLEBAG’

NEIL GAIMAN (BRITISH, 1960–)

First published in the collection Impossible Monsters in 2013.

I am very partial to the boy’s admonition that Click-Clacks look like ‘what you aren’t paying attention to’. That’s a good summing up of the modus operandi of many ghost stories: they sneak up on you. In this story Neil Gaiman does some especially skilful sneaking.

CLICK-CLACK THE RATTLEBAG

Neil Gaiman

‘Before you take me up to bed, will you tell me a story?’

‘Do you actually need me to take you up to bed?’ I asked the boy.

He thought for a moment. Then, with intense seriousness, ‘Yes, actually I think you do. It’s because of, I’ve finished my homework, and so it’s my bedtime, and I am a bit scared. Not very scared. Just a bit. But it is a very big house, and lots of times the lights don’t work and it’s a sort of dark.’

I reached over and tousled his hair.

‘I can understand that,’ I said. ‘It is a very big old house.’ He nodded. We were in the kitchen, where it was light and warm. I put down my magazine on the kitchen table. ‘What kind of story would you like me to tell you?’

‘Well,’ he said, thoughtfully. ‘I don’t think it should be too scary, because then when I go up to bed, I will just be thinking about monsters the whole time. But if it isn’t just a little bit scary then I won’t be interested. And you make up scary stories, don’t you? I know she says that’s what you do.’

‘She exaggerates. I write stories, yes. Nothing that’s been published, yet, though. And I write lots of different kinds of stories.’

‘But you do write scary stories?’

‘Yes.’

The boy looked up at me from the shadows by the door, where he was waiting. ‘Do you know any stories about Click-Clack the Rattlebag?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Those are the best sorts of stories.’

‘Do they tell them at your school?’

He shrugged. ‘Sometimes.’

‘What’s a Click-Clack the Rattlebag story?’

He was a precocious child, and was unimpressed by his sister’s boyfriend’s ignorance. You could see it on his face. ‘Everybody knows them.’

‘I don’t,’ I said, trying not to smile.

He looked at me as if he was trying to decide whether or not I was pulling his leg. He said, ‘I think maybe you should take me up to my bedroom, and then you can tell me a story before I go to sleep, but a very not-scary story because I’ll be up in my bedroom then, and it’s actually a bit dark up there, too.’

I said, ‘Shall I leave a note for your sister, telling her where we are?’

‘You can. But you’ll hear when they get back. The front door is very slammy.’

We walked out of the warm and cosy kitchen into the hallway of the big house, where it was chilly and draughty and dark. I flicked the light-switch, but nothing happened.

‘The bulb’s gone,’ the boy said. ‘That always happens.’

Our eyes adjusted to the shadows. The moon was almost full, and blue-white moonlight shone in through the high windows on the staircase, down into the hall.

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