Before becoming known for such SF classics as The Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury wrote a number of bizarre horror and fantasy tales. (The best of these can be found in the collection, The October Country.) His most effective horror story, in this writer's opinion, was "The Crowd" (1943).
"The Crowd" is the story of Mr. Spallner, who is involved in an auto accident and is amazed at how quickly a morbid crowd assembles to stare. Studying pictures of and newspaper clippings about auto accidents, he notices that the same people are standing in the background -- part of the crowd that always gathers to stare at tragedy. No matter where in the city, or at what time of the day or night, the same ghoul-people emerge from the shadows to form the Crowd. "They have one thing in common, they always show up together. At a fire or at an explosion or on the sidelines of a war, at any demonstration of this thing called death." [1]
Sheer horrific fantasy? Ray Bradbury claims this story was based on an actual occurrence. In an article called "Run Fast, Stand Still, or, The Thing at the Top of the Stairs, or, New Ghosts from Old Minds," he discusses how certain story-ideas came to him, and he elaborates on "The Crowd" in particular.
It is Bradbury's manner of writing to scribble down lists of possible titles, most simple nouns, which often suggest stories to him. Once he wrote the words THE CROWD, and he was reminded of something that happened when he was fifteen. He heard a terrible crash while at a friend's house, and he ran outside to find that a car full of people had hit a telephone pole head-on. Four passengers died immediately, and the fifth died the next day. It took the young Bradbury months to recover emotionally from the scene.
The accident had occurred at an intersection surrounded on one side by empty factories and a deserted schoolyard, and on the opposite side, by a graveyard. I had come running from the nearest house, a hundred yards away. Yet, within moments, it seemed, a crowd had gathered. Where had they all come from? Later on in time, I could only imagine that some came, in some strange fashion, out of the empty factories, or even more strangely, out of the graveyard. [2]
Reporter Connie Fletcher has written a number of books about real police on the beat, beginning with What Cops Know (1990). The stories are given by the officers themselves, in their own words (but anonymously, for their protection). An arson squad detective from Chicago PD told Ms. Fletcher the following:
We see the same people all the time, every fire scene. They all look like suspects. They look catatonic . . . You could arrest a lot of these people just on looks alone. [3]
As John Keel might say, "Who are these 'people'?" Perhaps the present readers will watch for them, if they ever find themselves at the site of a disaster or wreck. But be careful on the way home . . .
1. Bradbury, Ray. "The Crowd." In The October Country (New York, NY: Ballantine Books, 1972 [1955]), p. 153.
2. Bradbury, Ray. "Run Fast, Stand Still, or, The Thing at the Top of the Stairs, or, New Ghosts from Old Minds." In How to Write Tales of Horror, Fantasy, and Science Fiction, ed. by J. N. Williamson (Cincinnati, OH: Writer's Digest Books, 1987), pp. 16-17.
3. Fletcher, Connie. Pure Cop (New York, NY: St. Martin's Press, 1991), p. 48.