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The Man in the Black Suit
I loved everything about 'Everything's Eventual' and feel sad if King is right and the short story is really on its way out. But this story, even if it is based on someone else's recollection, is special. It comes across as completely authentic and radiates genuine fear.
How do I know? I suspect that quite a few people have had such an experience. Here is mine. No doubt it could be worked up into a short story, but I am not Stephen King.
I have been reminded of an episode from long ago. It happened in about 1965. As you walk out of Edinburgh towards the Pentland Hills from Colinton, past Henry Cockburn's folly (Bonaly Tower), you pass first through a wild, bushy park; then a conifer plantation; and then along an old drove road that leads across the moor to Harelaw and Thriepmuir Reservoirs and other interesting destinations.
While I was at school I had one particular friend who shared my cult of natural history. He later became a published poet and a diplomat, and died quite young of a rare form of cancer. His poetry attracted critical acclaim and earned him a Times obituary, but did not make him wealthy. He is buried in Tomnahurich Cemetery near Inverness. This is appropriate for a poet. Tomnahurich is supposed to be one of the 'hollow hills', within which the queens of Elfin hold their courts. I now think that Hugh, who had been born in Edinburgh but was pure Highland Celt by descent, and I, born likewise of a complicated mix of Breton, Cornish, and Scots, were probably both highly psychic and intuitive.
One day, when we were on the hill above Bonaly, the coniferous plantation suddenly seemed to us an intensely evil place that we had to get out of very quickly. It was the purest terror that I have ever experienced. I would not wish to experience it again. We ran and ran and ran. Yet there was nothing visible to frighten us; just the old, twisted pines and larches, festooned with moss and lichen.
There was no logical reason for this. While Edinburgh has more than its fair share of ghost stories, I was not aware of any associated with the environs of Bonaly Tower (though Lord Cockburn would no doubt have welcomed one, as it would have added je ne sais quoi to his mini-Abbotsford). The plantation was not very old either; it probably dates from some time before World War I. But for some reason most wildlife avoids it. It is a silent wood with not much birdsong. Years later I learned that there was a possible explanation; at least if you believed in ghosts.
To the left, as you leave Edinburgh behind, and visible from the drove road, runs a small stream in a steep-sided miniature glen, that gushes down to join the Water of Leith. Not visible from the drove road, but close to it, adjacent to the plantation, is a cave. This (I later learned) is called the Reindeer Cleft. It was first noticed by a geologist in the nineteenth century and was found to be full of bones; mainly reindeer ones, although the remains of other animals were also present. Clearly it had been the den of a large and ferocious carnivore; possibly a wolf, bear, or even a gigantic cave-bear, a long time ago. The last reindeer in Scotland were wiped out in Caithness in about the twelfth century, so it must have been well before then.
I think that for a moment we were telepathically in contact with some long-dead terrified Pict who had suddenly become aware that there was something very wrong in the atmosphere on that same spot (see Jim Corbett's Man Eaters of Kumaon); no birds singing; no squirrels about; a feeling of unexplained unease, that crystallised when it dawned on him that he was probably near the lair of the fearsome beast that he had been (a) trying to avoid or (b) had been stalking, but realised that it was now stalking him! Certainly, that is what it felt like. I still recall it.
Another possibility, which did not occur to us at the time, and which I would not like to think, is that we had had a brush with the Devil.
Neither Hugh nor I was aware of the story of the Reindeer Cleft, so we could not have imagined it. We knew the Pentlands (or thought we did) like the back of our hands. And it was daylight on a sultry, overcast summer afternoon; not yet the mysterious twilight.
For some reason we never mentioned the episode to our parents; yet, had we done so, I now know that my father at least was well aware of the story of the Reindeer Cleft and could have shown me the bones whenever I liked. I suppose that we were afraid of being laughed at. For once we were home in good time for tea. The reindeer, etc. bones were presented to the Turner Museum of the Anatomy Department in the University's Faculty of Medicine. I gather that they have now been gifted to the National Museum of Scotland. I do not think that they are on display.
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