It’s the high-holiday weekend. So, enjoy. I leave you with this spooky story that scared the wits out of my sister and me when we were kids. It’s called, The Elevator Operator…
One October Lord Dufferin – the man who was to be British Ambassador to Paris – had decided to travel to Tullamore, Ireland. It was a long journey and when he arrived at his host’s home he immediately turned in.
In the middle of the night, Lord Dufferin was startled from a deep sleep, confused and disoriented. As his eyes were adjusting to the moonlit room, he heard a noise outside. He hesitantly got out of his bed and went to the window.
Lord Dufferin sensed something moving in the distance, but he couldn’t see for the trees and fog. And then a figure came faintly into view. It appeared to be a man with a hunchback. As he got closer, Lord Dufferin was able to determinethat the man was merely carrying something large on his back. He appeared to be dragging a large box, struggling slightly under its weight.
Lord Dufferin watched as the man approached the house moving slowly across the lawn. As the man got closer and closer, Lord Dufferin pressed his face to the glass to get a better look at what the man was carrying. When the man was almost immediately in front of Lord Dufferin, he saw that the man was dragging … a … coffin.
Just as he made this startling realization, the man stopped, lifted his head, and looked straight into Lord Dufferin’s eyes. The man was gaunt with a drawn, ashen pallor. Lord Dufferin recoiled at the chilling site. When he looked back, the man was gone. But his visage was forever burned into the memory of Lord Dufferin.
He went back to bed, but had a fitful sleep, unable to erase the image of the casket-carrying ghoul. The next day Lord Dufferin asked his hosts if there was a graveyard nearby because he had caught site of the local grave digger, he suspected. His hosts explained that this was highly unlikely and suggested it was a nightmare brought on by his difficult travels. Later in the day Lord Dufferin, unconvinced, inspected the grounds for signs of the heavy coffin being dragged across the emerald lawn. But he found nothing. However, as the years passed, he convinced himself it was indeed a vivid dream.
Several years later, Lord Dufferin was at the Grand Hotel in Paris on diplomatic business. He waited at the elevator with small group. When the elevator operator opened the door to admit the passengers, Lord Dufferin looked into the face of the man he’d seen so many years ago dragging a coffin across the lawn in Tullamore.
Lord Dufferin backed away from the elevator and, in shock, watched the elevator doors close. Shaken, Lord Dufferin explained meekly to his companions, who had waited with him, that he wasn’t feeling well.
Surreptitiously, he watched the needle indicate the elevator’s ascent. Two. Three. Four. And when the needle was almost at number five, Lord Dufferin watched it spring back to its starting place on the ground floor. And he heard the screams of the passengers as they plummeted to the bottom of the elevator shaft, killing all of the occupants.
The investigation into the accident never yielded the identity of the elevator operator. The regular elevator operator had called in sick that day, and the man hired to fill in had just walked in off the street. No one knew who he was.
After Lord Dufferin retired, he told this story and repeated it often until his death. My mother read it to us when we were kids from a book called Strange But True, that had an illustration that is burned into my brain as vividly as I suspect the elevator operator’s visage was burned into Lord Dufferin’s mind. This story terrified us for years, which is why I still know it so well.
And to this day, if I ever get a murky feeling, and that illustration of the elevator operator pops into my head, I stop and back up a step or two, always just in the nick of time.
Happy Halloween weekend, friends.
Bunche said,
October 28, 2006 at 8:52 pm
For the record, that portrait is of Uncle Creepy, the “host” of the late, lamented B&W horror antholgy comic, CREEPY, and it appears to be drawn by Jack Davis, mastermind behind many of the classic TALES FROM THE CRYPT comics from the 1950’s and far too many items from MAD to even begin to name (although “Mad’s Karate Movie Producer of the Year” immediately springs to mind).
Julie Goes German « Julie Luongo said,
November 22, 2006 at 3:31 am
[...] My mother used to read me this story when I was a kid, and for as long as I live I will never forget the step-sisters cutting off their heels and toes to fit in the glass slipper. I can still see the blood filling the shoe. (For other example of stories from my youth check out the elevator operator entry and the goblin’s poem.) [...]
Mark Sanger said,
December 12, 2006 at 1:43 pm
check this for a Lord Duffarin song!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2mNqRoD94s
julieluongo said,
December 12, 2006 at 1:49 pm
Aaaaahhhh. Very creepy. Thanks, Mark.
Bill McConnell said,
December 2, 2008 at 2:27 pm
I remember this story from a book I ordered through Scholastic. Even by 7th grade, the illustration of the coffin-carrying ghoul so creeped me out that a friend taped a piece of notebook paper over the ghoul’s face so I wouldn’t have to see it.
julieluongo said,
December 3, 2008 at 2:20 pm
Awesome! I’m so glad someone else out there was freaked out by that picture.
steve said,
December 28, 2008 at 9:45 pm
I also had the “Strange But True” book as a kid. This story scared the daylights out of me, and I also remember the picture vividly. Gives me shivers, even in my thirties. (I still have the book and I’m looking at the picture right now.)
Another story from that book was of the Chase Vault, the tomb in Barbados where coffins continually moved. I was so captivated by the story that I dragged my longsuffering wife (then girlfriend) to see the vault.
Twisted youthful memories.
julieluongo said,
December 29, 2008 at 9:56 am
Gah. Don’t look at the picture.
My sister and I loved that book so much that when my mom was asked to go to the local middle school to read to the kids as part of some RIF program, she brought it and read a couple scary stories. Other people who went read “literature.” Strange but True was voted the best of the bunch.
James Reyome said,
November 10, 2009 at 12:07 pm
Thanks for the memories! I actually still have a copy of that book, which is called “Strangely Enough!” by C. B. Colby. “Lord Dufferin’s Tale” is one of the really creepy ones…”The Haunted Sentry Box”, “The Whistle”, “The Restless Dead” (about the notorious Chase Vault in Barbados) and “No Grass on the Grave” are the ones that really stuck with me. I keep looking for a full copy of that book–the Scholastic edition has “Abridged” very prominently on its cover–but haven’t had any luck yet.
julieluongo said,
November 10, 2009 at 8:53 pm
I had to buy this one:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000R5641W/ref=ox_ya_oh_product
It has the cover from the book of my youth. Very 70s.