True Fear

Horror Stories

Raymond's Stories

[This is a translation of a story I wrote as a school composition - in French, which explains the rather stilted use of language. It is based on "La Vrai Peur" by Guy de Maupassant. I learnt it by heart for the Matriculation exam, and, amazingly, was able to use it, with very few changes, as my French composition. French, far from being my best subject, was the only one in which I achieved a credit, thanks to this stroke of luck. The French version has been thrown out long ago, but, for some reason, I kept the translation.]

During my life I have overcome many hazards, many adventures that seemed fatal. Each time I thought myself lost, I accepted what seemed to be inevitable, without emotion and even without regret. The sensation I felt was not fear, for fear is something terrifying, an atrocious sensation like a decomposition of the soul, a frightening spasm of the mind and the heart, of which the memory itself causes one to shudder with anguish. This takes place in certain circumstances which are not normal, under certain mysterious influences, in the face of vague risks. The true fear is something like a reminiscence of the fantastic terrors of long ago. Myself, I have felt fear, three years ago. I was travelling through an unexplored forest with two companions, Jacques and Pierre. One day we found a strange old building, which we were very surprised to see in the middle of the thick forest, which seemed to us uninhabitable. Also the architecture of this abandoned house did not look like anything I had ever seen before. My friends said they had never seen such an extraordinary building, so we went up to the wall and entered through the only entrance. All the downstairs rooms were empty, but when we had climbed the ricketty old stair-case we discovered in the upstairs rooms several pieces of furniture which were out of this world. We set to work to clean them and sweep off all the cobwebs that covered them. We decided to sleep there for the night and to take, the next day, the smallest of the pieces of furniture to the village which was situated near the edge of the forest. During the night we used some comfortable furniture for our beds. I woke just before midnight and heard something scratching lightly against the wall. "There must be rats here!" I exclaimed. "I beg your pardon, Henri," said Pierre. "Ah, are you awake, Pierre?" "Yes! I heard a sound!" "This sound, was it a scratching?" "No! It was sort of like a whisper." I wondered why Pierre thought the sound was a whisper, while I distinctly heard something scratching. I remembered the incredible stories I had heard in the village. It was said that this forest was haunted. I did not believe in ghosts, but soon I felt fear, the true fear. Jacques was not there. He had disappeared. We both got up to look for him, and we spent the rest of the night searching. By morning we had still not found him. We found him in the afternoon, bathed in his blood, killed by something unknown. Jacques had been my companion, my friend, almost my brother, but he was dead. How had he disappeared from the strange house, and how had he reappeared half a mile away? Had he been followed by a huge unknown creature, a monster? Nobody knew. Pierre and I left the forest after burying the lacerated corpse, but later Pierre led an expedition to find again the house we had discovered. However, he could not find it. The strange house had disappeared forever. As for myself, I would rather relive all the hours when I have affronted the most terrible perils, than to experience again that one night, terrible and mysterious, of three years ago.

Horror Stories

Raymond's Stories