Elysburg Haunted House

"I don't mind skulls and bones," said Marie. "There's nothing even vaguely human to them.  I'm not scared of skulls and bones. They're like something insectile.  If a child was raised and didn't know he had a skeleton in him, he wouldn't think anything of bones, would he? That's how it is with me. Everything human has been scraped off these.  There's nothing familiar left to be horrible.  In order for a thing to be horrible it has to suffer a change you can recognize.  This isn't changed. They're still skeletons, like they always were.  The part that changed is gone, and so there's nothing to show for it. Isn't that interesting?"

- The Next in Line, Ray Bradbury

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The Next In Line

All of them had open mouths. Theirs was a perpetual screaming. They were dead and they knew it. In every raw fiber and evaporated organ they knew it. She stood listening to them scream. They say dogs hear sounds humans never hear, sounds so many decibels higher than normal hearing that they seem nonexistent. The corridor swarmed with screams. Screams poured from terror-yawned lips and dry tongues, screams you couldn't hear because they were so high.

The Next In Line, Ray Bradbury

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The Mummies

"Here, senora," said the caretaker.

He took them far down the hall away from the stack of bones and when Joseph paid him a peso he unlocked the forbidden crystal doors and opened them wide and they looked into an even longer, dimly lighted hall in which stood the people.

Ray Bradbury

  
































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The Next In Line

In the market, the remainder of candy skulls from the Death Fiesta were sold from flimsy little tables. Women hung with black rebozos sat quietly, now and then speaking one word to each other, the sweet sugar skeletons, the saccharine corpses and white candy skulls at their elbows. Each skull had a name on top in gold candy curlicue; Jose or Carmen or Ramon or Tena or Guiermo or Rosa. They sold cheap. The Death Festival was gone. Joseph paid a peso and got two candy skulls. 
Marie stood in the narrow street. She saw the candy skulls and Joseph and the dark ladies who put the skulls in a bag.

Ray Bradbury

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The Next In Line

"I don't mind skulls and bones," said Marie. "There's nothing even vaguely human to them.  I'm not scared of skulls and bones. They're like something insectile.  If a child was raised and didn't know he had a skeleton in him, he wouldn't think anything of bones, would he? That's how it is with me. Everything human has been scraped off these.  There's nothing familiar left to be horrible.  In order for a thing to be horrible it has to suffer a change you can recognize.  This isn't changed. They're still skeletons, like they always were.  The part that changed is gone, and so there's nothing to show for it. Isn't that interesting?"

Joseph nodded.

She was quite brave now.

"Well," she said, "let's see the mummies."

"Here, senora," said the caretaker.

He took them far down the hall away from the stack of bones and when Joseph paid him a peso he unlocked the forbidden crystal doors and opened them wide and they looked into an even longer, dimly lighted hall in which stood the people.

Ray Bradbury

The Next In Line

All of them had open mouths. Theirs was a perpetual screaming. They were dead and they knew it. In every raw fiber and evaporated organ they knew it. She stood listening to them scream. They say dogs hear sounds humans never hear, sounds so many decibels higher than normal hearing that they seem nonexistent. The corridor swarmed with screams. Screams poured from terror-yawned lips and dry tongues, screams you couldn't hear because they were so high.


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Flesh

All of them had open mouths. Theirs was a perpetual screaming. They were dead and they knew it. In every raw fiber and evaporated organ they knew it. She stood listening to them scream. They say dogs hear sounds humans never hear, sounds so many decibels higher than normal hearing that they seem nonexistent. The corridor swarmed with screams. Screams poured from terror-yawned lips and dry tongues, screams you couldn't hear because they were so high.

The Next In Line, Ray Bradbury



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The Dead

Back in the 80s, when I first discovered Ray Bradbury, I purchased THE OCTOBER COUNTRY for the Halloween-sounding title and was surprised to learn it was a collection of short stories. The notion of a novel having that title was thrilling, so I didn't know what to make of a bunch of unrelated short stories. I remember opening the book to the first short story and sitting on the floor in the dining room in my parents' home. It was a hot day in the summer and they had one of those giant old wall-unit air conditioners running. This one hummed like a massive generator about to spit out its last icy wind (which it eventually did on the day of my sister's high school graduation party - a particularly hot and violently humid day - proving that karma can affect machinery). I sat next to the air conditioner and read every story. It was the perfect way to start my love affair with Ray Bradbury. Every story was brilliant. Each one was so different than anything I had ever read before.

The story The Next In Line was about the Mexican catacombs and unfortunate mummified corpses that ended up lining the walls of the catacombs as a result of their poor families ceasing monthly grave "rental" payments. It was also the first time I had ever heard of the Mexican Day(s) of the Dead. I started collecting tiny skulls and skeletons immediately. And I started buying everything by Ray Bradbury that I could get my hands on.

"Here was a man, his stomach open, like a tree hollow where you dropped your child love letters when you were eleven! Her eyes entered the hole in the space under his ribs. She peeked in. He looked like an Erector set inside. The spine, the pelvic plates. The rest was tendon, parchment, bone, eye, beardy jaw, ear, stupefied nostril. And this ragged eaten cincture in his navel into which a pudding might be spooned."

You can read "The Next In Line" here.



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