Howler | A Ghost Story | Podcast - Nightshade Diary

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Do you feel a shier up your spine from fear. Yes,
it's another story from the Night's Shade Diary. You know
what that means. Check under the bed and make sure
no one or nothing is there. Is the closet door
securely shut. Then leave your disbelief behind, amp up your
imagination and hang on tight for another ride into terror

(00:22):
and mystery. And like all good horror stories, just imagine
it's a dark and stormy night, and remember screaming like
a little girl is permitted Howler by Joe Banister. It
didn't look like a haunted house. It looked like a

(00:43):
nineteen fifty seaside bungalow with bow windows and pebble dash walls.
Before the garden ran right, it would have been indistinguishable
from all the other seaside bungalows in the area, prim
square gazing out over the channel with an air of
cozy smugness. But something happened at Mount Repose, which, having
no echo at Saint Susie up the lane or Dunroe

(01:06):
Amene on the corner, lifted it forever out of the
seaside bungalow main sequence. Four seaside bungalows, like stars have
their natural paths and life span. The only difference is
that stars grow to greatness, while bungalows are at their
bridest soon after construction and slipped slowly down the scale
of magnitude until they become weakened cottages for art teachers

(01:29):
from Birmingham the seaside Bungalow's equivalent of white dwarfdom. What
happened at Monte Repose was, in truth a common enough
little tragedy. A man discovered that his wife loved some
one else. His reaction was swift and extreme. When it
was learned that Arthur Smith had murdered his wife Amanda,
dismembered her, buried her in a series of small holes

(01:51):
along the garden perimeter, and planted a fast growing cypress
hedge on top of her. A queer of delicious shock
ran through the bungalow community, coupled with relief that they
had not, after all, asked him to be chairman of
the Residents Association. He might have got away with it,
except for the dog. Everyone and Channel Vista knew about Amanda.

(02:13):
Arthur may have been the last person on the South
coast to learn about her and Reginald Spink, and when
he put it about that she had left him. There
was much pensive nodding, exchanging of significant glances and offers
of tea, but the dog kept digging up the cypresses.
There was divided opinion afterward as to whether it was

(02:34):
looking for Amanda, accusing her murderer, or just digging for bones. Whatever,
its persistence seemed finally to drive Arthur mad when he
pursued it at a dead run down Channel Vista one
Sunday morning, swinging a shovel and shouting, I can dig
another hole for you, you bastard. Suspicions were aroused. The
police talked to Arthur, dug in the garden and took

(02:56):
away what they found their plastic bags. They took Arthur
as well, but there was no trial. Arthur Smith hanged
himself from the bars of his roman's cell vision the
dog's lead, which had somehow secreted about his person. That
should have been the end of the matter. There was
a brief flurry of publicity in the newspapers. Then a
member of the government was caught in a bed he

(03:17):
should not have been in, and mon reposed dropped out
of the news as if it had never been The
bungalow was sold to retired grocer and his wife. After
one summer, they put it on the market again, saying
they missed the city. The music teacher who came next
found it too remote for his pupils, and the cat
fancier said her cats didn't like it. For a few

(03:38):
years it was rented out on weekly lets for the season.
Then even the small demand dried up. For a decade,
the bungalow stood empty, and the cypresses grew tall round it,
hiding it from the road. Miss Coglin came upon Channel
Vista while on a cycling holiday, discovered mon repos, fell
in love with it, and bought it on the course

(03:58):
of one week. In April, Miss Frank, who taught with
her companion at four Winds Junior School near Slow, thought
Miss Colan had taken the over senses. But my dear,
look at the state of it. It'll be years before
you can move in nonsense, Miss Colan said briskly. No
one had ever told her that adults don't usually address

(04:18):
each other quite so dismissively. Of course, children don't like
it either, but they can't do much about it. Adults
avoid people who are rude to them, which is why
many teachers only friends are other teachers. It's easter. Now
I'll get men in right away to do any structural
work they should be through before we break up for
the summer. Then I'll give up my flat and move

(04:39):
in here. I'll put in my notice when we get
back work till July, then hang up my mortar board.
Then have all the time in the world to decorate
and do the garden. Miss Frank was almost lost for words.
But it's so sudden. It's nothing of the sort. I've
been thinking of retiring for a of years. If I

(05:01):
don't jump soon, I'll be pushed a project to sink
my teeth into is just the incentive I need. But
Joan wailed Miss Frent, almost in tears. To give up
your job and your flat and move away from the
area you know and your friends. It's so The word

(05:27):
she was looking for was rash or possibly foolhardy. But
Joan Coglin let a great beam spread across her strong
face sandwich between the short iron gray hair and the
several chins, and not enthusiastically, isn't it? She agreed, absolutely splendid.
In the event, there was little structure work to be

(05:49):
done seaside. Bungalows were built well in the nineteen fifties,
and Montrepose remain basically sound despite the years of neglect,
which was just as well because Miss Coglin had unexpected
difficulties getting men to work there. The local contractor said
he had work coming out of his ears and couldn't
touch mon Repose before September. She informed them that there's

(06:10):
no such word as can't. Mister Stone explained that his
workmen were already promised to other clients, and Miss Conglin
suggested that's there's a will, there's a way. He lost patience,
then told her she could go complain to his mother
if she wanted, but he still couldn't do anything for
her until September Cycling back to the guesthouse where she

(06:30):
and Miss Frank were staying, she pondered, not for the
first time, on how unhelpful grown ups were. Just before
she had to return to Slow for the new term,
Miss Colan found a contractor five miles down the coast
who could start the repairs immediately. When the solicitor gave
her the key to mon Repose, she passed it on
to mister Wiggins. It did not at the time occur

(06:52):
to her to wonder why mister Wiggins had so much
less work on his books than mister Stone, but later
she concluded was because mister Wiggins was and incompetent and
his staff were workshylyabouts. Every time she phoned to check
on progress there was none. She accepted the first excuse
he gave that flu had been playing havoc with its schedule.
She did not query the second, that the men had

(07:13):
down tools to search for a child lost in the downs.
But when he tried to tell her that he had
three men off work attending the funerals of elderly female relatives,
she told him tersely that he would attend her at
Montrepos's at noon on Saturday to show her what had
been done and explain the continuing delays. Mister Wiggins was
waiting when she arrived, an uneasy figure in dungarees and

(07:37):
a flat hat framed by the towering cypresses. The torb
inspection did not take long. Very little work had been
done in the week since Smiths Colin gave him the keys.
A path had been cleared through the jungle to the
front door, a broken window had been removed and a
plywood square tacked in its place. Two men could have
done it in one not very energetic afternoon. The rotten

(07:59):
window frame, the rewiring, and the plastering were untouched, and
the lease of miss Collins's flat ran out in three
weeks time. Mister Wiggins, I don't know what to say.
She'd been a teacher for forty years, had never been
lost for words. Before my bags are packed. We agreed
I could move in at the end of the month.
Mister Wiggins squimmed. We've had problems, you told me, flu

(08:23):
missing children, a surfeit of funerals. He had the grace
of blush, not that the men, yes, don't like. Don't
like what he finally got out. They don't like being here,
Miss Colan. They say it's weird, spooky because of what
happened here. Miss Colin's eyebrows climbed like a couple of

(08:46):
gray squirrels. What did happen here? So he told her.
She didn't know whether to laugh or smack his wrists.
Mister Wiggins, you mean to tell me that a gang
of brawny builders are scared to work in a seaside bungalow?
And brought daylight because of something that happened twenty years ago.
They say there's something here, he muttered, something a presence,

(09:10):
A presence. She scoffed, what Amanda Smith hopping through the
living room with their left leg tucked under her right armpit.
Mister Wiggins was embarrassed. But doc, they say they've heard things,
heavy breathing groans. They've probably been listening to one another.
You ask in the village, she retorted, stung by her attitude.
They know, they know how many people have come here

(09:33):
and couldn't get away quick enough. Ask them about the howler.
They know howler? He wish he hadn't said it. His
eyes dropped from hers and settled on his reinforced toe caps. Well,
none of my lads has heard it. You wouldn't catch
them here after dark, which is when it howls. But them,
as I've heard it, say it sounds like a sullen torment.

(09:55):
They say it's enough to turn your hair white. He
looked at her again, apologetical, determined, Miss Colin, I'm sorry,
but you have to find someone else to do your work.
We can't finish. I know we're letting you down. I
won't charge you for what we've done already. But I'd
be lying to you if I said my lads would
set foot here again. He would not be argued with,
but left her standing alone outside her bungalow, astonished and alarmed,

(10:19):
not by the hangler, but by the difficulties of renovating
man repose when builders laborers were afraid to work there.
In despair, she returned to mister Stone. She rather wished
that she had not told them when they parted, that
the devil finds work vital hands. But if he remembered,
he did not refer to it. He was a younger
man than mister Wiggins. She hoped that I'd incline him

(10:40):
to be less impressionable. He received her courteously enough, but
held out no false hopes. I can't improve on September.
In fact, it'll likely be October. Now she had already
consider her options. She could camp in the bungalow as
it stood, waiting meekly for him to come and hoping
that word of her deeds with mister Wiggins would not
reach him. Or she could put her cards on the table.

(11:04):
Miss Colan had many faults, but cowardice was not one
of them. She told him that mister Wiggins had been
to mon Repose and why he had left. Her steely
gaze challenged him to make the same excuse instead of
slow smile broke across his rather craggy face. Whether like
the materials he worked with? You're kidding? Miss Colan did

(11:24):
not approve of slang, She said sternly, No, mister Stone,
I am not joking. That was the reason mister Wiggins
gave for withdrawing his services. It's only fair to give
you the opportunity to do the same. Should not wish
to be responsible for an outbreak of the screaming habdabs
among your employees. Matthew Stone had left school at sixteen

(11:44):
mainly because of teachers like Miss Colan, and learned the
building trade at the elbows of successive bricklayers, carpenters, plasterers
and electricians. He was competent in every branch of house repair.
The age of twenty seven, he took a night school,
courts some bookkeeping. Then he rented a yard and hung
up aside with his name on it. Five years unemployed bricklayers, carpenters,

(12:07):
plasters and electricians, so his own input was mainly managerial.
It was probably inevitable, but it didn't altogether please him.
He liked to feel mortar under his fingernails. He regarded
the teacher lovely. Listen, miss Colan, what I told you
was the honest truth. I can't give you men without

(12:27):
taking them away from people who've been waiting longer than
you have and more patiently. But nobody's waiting for me.
If it's any use, I'll come up to the Channel
Vista with you and see if we can work something out.
Really swept over her. Good boy, she beamed, making him WinCE.
He would never know how close he came to having
his head patted as well. He put Miss Colin's bicycle

(12:51):
in the back of his pickup when he parked in
Channel Vista. They said a moment looking at mon Repose
through the new gap in the vegetation, doesn't look like
a haunted house, said Matt Stone. Did you know about
the Smiths, Oh, yes, they were celebrities around here, small
communities like nothing better than a good grisly murder. And
when the grocer left there was talk of unquiet spirits

(13:13):
and stuff. I was at school then phew us sneaked
up here to keep watch. But either we were too
rowdy for even an unquiet spirit, or there was nothing
to see. I haven't heard mention of it for years.
I didn't know anyone still took it seriously. Perhaps only
mister Wiggins's workmen do. Perhaps it's really was only an
excuse to get out of doing the work. Let's go inside.

(13:36):
Mont Repose was a box divided down the middle by
the hall on the right, with the living room, the bathroom,
and the kitchen. On the left were the main bedroom,
the second bedroom, and a box room. Above the front door.
There was a stained glass fan light. The fireplace in
the living room was framed in imitation Dutch tiles. It
wasn't a groundhouse. Some of Miss Colan's university educated colleagues

(14:00):
would have said it was a rather common, vulgar little house.
But she liked it despite all the trouble, perhaps because
it was rather like her full bosom, down to earth,
practical rather than aesthetic endeuring. It didn't feel like a
house that would allow an unquiet spirit to take advantage
of it. Which of them is it supposed to be?

(14:21):
She found herself whispering and deliberately spoke up Amanda or
Arthur Stone shrug, Amanda, I suppose she's the one who
died here, but Arthur killed himself. It could be him.
Stone grinned at her. Miss Coglin, surely you don't believe
there's a ghost that mon repose, she frowned. Of course, not,
mister Stone. I was merely asking, since as a local man,

(14:43):
I presumed you would know which of the unfortunate Smiths
was held responsible for the phenomena known as the Howler.
The way she spoke threatened to reduce some to hysterics.
He cleared his throat, I'll take a look around, see
what needs doing first. After he closed the door, Miss
Colin thought she heard laughter. She stayed in the living room.

(15:04):
It was a tip now, but in a few weeks
or months, she'd turn it into the kind of home
she'd always wanted. The china cabinet would go there, the
floor since set ay there, and she would look out
from her bow window across a dozen downland acres to
the pewter glitter of the channel. And she thought she
would have a pet. The lease of her flat had

(15:24):
made it impossible, and anyway, she didn't approve of leaving
animals alone all day. But now she could have a cat,
better still, a dog, that she could walk along the
edge of the cliffs when the wind beat in from fans.
At first, when she heard the noise, she assumed Madstone
was playing silly devils. The little boys in her class

(15:44):
were inveterate trick players, and nothing she had seen of
men persuaded her that they matured much as they grew older.
She presumed he was breathing heavily at her through the
crack of the door, and that his reason for doing
so was that he thought it was witty. She breathed,
you'd rather heavily herself, and said, mister Stone, have you
nothing better to do then? What it was in the

(16:05):
front garden, and turned at her voice, leaning his elbows
on the window sill. The front door was only a
few steps away, the garden a few steps beyond that,
but still non plus. Miss Colan shook her head, Oh nothing.
He came back inside, joined her in the living room.
He poked at the window frame with the blunt spike.
That'll have to go. What do you want instead? Wood

(16:28):
or aluminum? While he was looking at her and her
lips were pursed to save wood. They both felt it
a quiver in the air, a shock of cold traveling
between them, as if Mount Reposed had had a close
encounter with an iceberg. That was all only from the
surprise in Miss Colan's face. Did Stone know that he
hadn't imagined it? What the hell? She didn't approve of

(16:50):
swearing either, how odd, she murmured pointedly. Stone shrugged off
the chill that had stroked them under his shirt. Okay,
so that's the first thing to do. Get a decent
window in to keep out the drafts, Miss Coglin said faintly,
mister Stone. He followed her eyes to the corner of

(17:12):
the room. Ten years of dirt and flaking wallpaper had
gathered there, and on top, as if set there by
a Japanese flowery ranger was a bone, mister Stone, You
don't think he barked a horse? Laughed? Noway? The police
took her away, didn't they in plastic bags? This house

(17:32):
has been empty for years. I expect the fox found
its way in the idea appealed to her. Foxes made
some very odd sounds, mostly after dark. Perhaps the howler
was only a vixen which had set up home in
more repose. Yes, yes, of course, she murmured, feeling foolish
of Fox, but he could see it was disturbing her,

(17:53):
so Stone bent to move the bone. Christ He straightened
up abruptly, snatching his hand back, Alarm in his eyes
and a cold sweat breaking on his skin. Forming on
top of his hand was a pattern of four red
dots that grew quickly to black bruises. Stone and Miss
Colan stared at it together. Then the sensations began in

(18:13):
earnest A cold touch behind the knees of Miss Cogglin stocking,
A dampness trailed across the back of Stone's hand. The
air in the room moved slightly, as if something were
passing unseen between them, and a feeling of deep, unsupportable
sorrow clutched each of them by the heart. Sorrow and grief,
and incomprehension and guilt. The guilt well like a fountain

(18:37):
through all the other sensations, vast and bottomless, mind sapping,
soul crushing, intolerable. A little moan that was more pity
than fear crept from Stone's lips, and then it was gone.
Miss Coglan staggered, as if a great weight she was
holding was suddenly removed, white face or eyes stretched with shock.
They stared around the room, but nothing had changed. Were

(19:00):
alone in every sense of the word. The Bonetope's mount
of rubbish had not moved by wordless agreement. They moved outside.
Dry twig snapped under their feet as they passed through
the hall. The berees and the glipse restored a little
of Miss Cogland's color, while mister Stone she managed at length,
you wanted to see my haunted house? Is there anything

(19:20):
you want to go back in and see again? He
gave her a gruff chuckle. She might be rude, we're
bearing and self important, but a nerve was steadier than his.
What are you going to do do? She echoed? I
thought we agreed first the window frame. Then you still
mean to live here? His voice cracked. I've nowhere else

(19:42):
to go. All my savings are in this house. I
thought it was a bargain, and now I doubt if
I could sell it at any price. Either I move
in here in three weeks, or I tried the white WCA.
If It's been Stone's choice, he'd have thought about it longer,
but it wasn't the only choice he had. With staying
or leaving. We could try the vicar. We he shrugged,

(20:06):
We have an arrangement about making your house habitable. It
assures How isn't hapitrable like this? She'd appreciated support, if
not his language. Her eyes thanked him. I didn't feel
it was inimical, did you? He come to his memory
for what inimical meant? Then shook his head and had
I either felt hostile nor even just very very unhappy

(20:28):
A soul that quite literally didn't know where to put itself.
Even though it had hurt and frightened him, he had
not felt it meant to threaten him. All the same,
you can't live with that much misery. We have to
try and lay it. She suggested, a faint, returning humor,
lifting one corner of her wide mouth. Exercise it set
it at peace, he countered. Refusing to be baited, she smiled,

(20:52):
you're right, let's see the vicar. As soon as they
explained the problem, the vicar warned them that he wouldn't
be able to help. Attempts had been made to exercise
mon repose ten years before as a last resort before
was abandoned. An expert had been summoned, a cleric we
victed it unquiet spirits with the practice ease of a
bouncer removing rowdy guests from a nightclub, but the presence

(21:15):
that man repose defeated his best efforts, slinking back as
soon as he had gone. On three separate occasions, was
he able to explain his failure. Osmus Coglin, the Vicar's
brow creased with remembery, not really, the thing didn't fight him.
It just got out of the way while he was there,
and came back when he left. Like you, he thought.

(21:36):
It wasn't an evil thing, no nasty smells at the
mention of the lord's name or anything like that. It
just he shrugged. It didn't seem interested in what he
had to say. As I went to leave, Miss Coglin
paused in the doorway, which of them is it Arthur
or Amanda? The vicars shook his head sadly. We failed

(21:56):
to establish even that. My colleague called it in the
names both of the victim and the perpetrator, but it
wouldn't answer. He recalled another detail. They tried to bar
his way with sticks. Wherever he went in the house,
he found sticks lying in his way. He threw them away,
but somehow they always found their way back. Glancing at her,
Matt Stone thought he saw a glimmer of understanding in

(22:18):
Miss Coglin's eye. Outside the Challenger. You've got a line
on this, haven't you, well, perhaps she allowed. I'm not sure.
There's something I can try. If I'm right, we can
solve this problem. Where now I've some shopping to do.
Them back to the bungalow. It'll be going dark in
an hour. I know that's when we can talk to him,

(22:41):
who Stone was afraid of already new. Miss Coglin nodded
the howler. The last of the day was dying out
of the sky when Stone parked his pick up in
front of man repose. Oisto colored streaks on the high
clouds pointed westward, but no light fell in the still house,
for the moon was not yet risen. A few starts,

(23:01):
frosted with distance watched the breaks in the clouds. When
Stone turned off the engine, they could hear the wind.
They could not be sure if that was all they
could hear. Miss Coglin led the way, a broad beamed
Amazon and Lyle Stockings. Stone followed her with a shopping bag.
He flashed a torch round the dark rooms. The scene

(23:22):
was as they had left it, the dirt, the dry twigs,
the bone. The only footprints and the dust were theirs
from the bagman's Conglin drew out two cushions, one of
which she passed the Stone. We may as well be comfortable.
She sat down, like a collapsing marquis. Oh, mister Stone,
if it's all right with you, I think we should
have the light out. What could he say? Certainly not.

(23:45):
I'm a bundle of nerves already. If you put the
light out, I may well cry. If he had any
function here, it always to protect her. He couldn't say
he was afraid of the dark, nor was he normally,
but this wasn't a normal sort of darkness. He turned
off the torch softly. In the blackness, Miss Coglin said,
we may have quite a weight. I'm in no hurry,

(24:06):
muttered Stone. Half an hour passed, then an hour still.
There was no moon, no light of any kind. Miss
Coglin got a cramp. Shifting her position on the cushion
on the bare boards, she made enough noise to frighten
any number of howlers. Stone wondered along she could wait
if he declined to make an appearance. Then, between one
moment and the next, it was with them. There was

(24:29):
nothing to see. They didn't even hear it at first,
but the temperature dropped abruptly, as it had that afternoon.
The air moved frantically against her cheeks, as if something
had passed close by them, and Stone felt something like
breath and something like a kiss on his sore hand.
Miss Coglin, Yes, mister Stone said quietly, I know. He

(24:51):
marveled at the massive, commoner voice. He was rigid with tension,
the hair standing up on his neck and his arms,
his skin suddenly cool with sweat. It's all right. Something
in her tone made him think she wasn't talking only
to him. Then in the darkness, the sounds began, heavy
breathing that rose quickly to a rapid pant, a clicking
on the floorboards, a soft plaintive wine, like a child crying,

(25:15):
and through it ofg in point, the grief and the
terrible guilt, the timeless damnation of blame, the overarching wretchedness.
Miss Coglan had not known that such profound, excoriating misery
could exist, even for a moment, the idea of it
persisting eternally in a single lossul appalled her. She whispered, please,
it's all right. The soft whine grew first to a plangenette,

(25:38):
keening so close beside them that it set their skin
crawling and their teeth on edge, and then to the
howling which had given the thing its name. The disembodied
voice in the darkness sword, and a crescendo of almost
tangible despair. Inconsolable are pgios of remorse and regret, playing
over the dominant theme of grief. The sound filled, the room,

(26:01):
filled the house, battered down on the crouched listeners in
a niagara of torment. Gradually, then the sounds of despair
began to abate, the terrible wailing to break, as if
for breath. Miss Cogglin began to punctuate the gaps with
her own voice, her firm but kind schoolmorm's voice, reassuring, confident,

(26:21):
promising order. It's all right, she said again, somehow, keeping
her tone low, even rhythmical. It wasn't your fault. Y're
not to blame for what happened. None of it was
your fault. Mommy and daddy fell out. Mommy was a
bad girl, and daddy got cross. Sometimes cross people do
things they don't mean to. I know you love them both,

(26:43):
and they both loved you. But when Daddy was cross
with you, it was more because of what he'd done
than what you'd done. He was very unhappy. He blamed
you for giving him away, didn't he. But you didn't
mean to. It was your nature to dig in the garden.
If he thought, he'd have known that anyway, he couldn't
have lived with what he'd done, even if no one

(27:05):
ever found out. He chose to die for what he
did to Mummy. He'd have done the same thing at home.
If he hadn't been taken to prison. You couldn't have
stopped him. If he hadn't used to lead, he'd have
used something else. Stone listening to the rhythmuchal sing song
of the teacher, of his voice, his flesh alive with
the soft keen that the unearthly howling had sunk to

(27:27):
finally understood the howler was. Of course, that was why
Miss Coglin had bought what she had, which at the
time had made him doubt her sanity, as if she
read his mind. Her broad hands moved to the shopping bag.
I've brought some things for you, unseen in the dark.
She laid them out on the floor. There's a nice
bit of steak. There's a tennis ball and an old

(27:49):
slip of mine. It's not the same as one of mummies,
I know, but you're very welcome to it. And there's
this chane jaggled in the dark. Daddy took yours, didn't he?
Never mind, you'll like this one. I thought we could
bury them in the garden, so you know where they are,
and you can come for them any time you're lonely.

(28:10):
It's bed time now. You haven't had much rest these
last twenty years, have you. Never mind, it's all over.
You're a good boy. You mustn't blame yourself for what
happened any more. Go to sleep, and you're still feeling
back Tomorrow, come back and we'll talk some more. I'm
going to be here from now on, and you're always welcome.
I'd like to have a dog about the place. Stone

(28:32):
dug a hole in the garden and missus Coglin carefully
put the contents of the bag in the bottom. She
said softly. If I knew where your body was, I
could bring it here too, But I don't know where
you died. I hope these will serve. It's quieter, isn't it,
murmured Stone, feeling the difference like fading electricity. The moon
had risen while he was digging. He saw Miss Coglin smile. Yes,

(28:56):
I think he's at peace now. They walked back to
the pick up. The channel moved below them, like a
sleeper under silk. How did you know it was the dog?
I didn't know, she said, but I began to suspect.
It didn't answer to either Arthur or Amanda, and it
wasn't interested in the exorcist homilies. The church can have
it both ways. If animals have no souls, they can't

(29:19):
be expected to acknowledge the lord's name. The poor dog
had the whole burden of what happened here dumped on him.
The mastery love murdered the mistress he loved in the
house he loved. When the instinct drove him to dig
her up, his master tried to kill him. Then he
used the dog lead to end his own life. The
poor creature has spent the last twenty years not understanding

(29:40):
why his world fall apart, but firmly believing it was
his fault. Of course, he held if you'd been wrong,
if you found yourself trying to appease something evil with
half a pound of steak and an old slipper. Oh
I was pretty sure by then, said Miss Coglin, growing smug,
now that drama was over and everything was going to

(30:00):
be all right. These things we felt and heard. The
heavy breathing was a dog panting. The cold touch was
his nose, and he bit you when you went to
take his bone. Then he licked you to say sorry.
And dogs howl when they're on happy stone frowned. Or
was that clicking sound toenails on the floorboards, But it

(30:20):
was the sticks that clinched it. He stared at her sticks.
You remember what the vicar said that the exorcists couldn't
move for the sticks the howler put in front of him.
Then he threw them away, but they kept reappearing. She laughed,
a deep ringing tone like a bell. The poor dog
wanted someone to play with him. The exorcists threw the
sticks away, and the dog brought them back.

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Howler | A Ghost Story | Podcast

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