The Thing

Read Time:12 Minute, 52 Second

The Thing Kitty: ⭐⭐⭐ Winterjoy: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Welcome back! We are in month 7 of our Scary Stories Book Club Thing, and we are finally venturing out of the jump scare category. I’m super excited to explore this next section. If you’d like to start from the beginning of this series, please visit the original post here.

The Thing

Ted Martin and Sam Miller were good friends. They spent a lot of time together. On this particular night they were sitting on a fence near the post office talking about one thing and another.
There was a field of turnips across the road. Suddenly they saw something crawl out of the field and stand up. It looked like a man, but in the dark it was hard to tell for sure. Then it was gone.
But soon it appeared again. It walked halfway across the road, then it turned around and went back into the field.
Then it came out a third time and started toward them. By now Ted and Tom were scared, and they started running. But when they finally stopped, they decided they were being foolish. They weren’t sure what had scared them. So they decided to go back and get a better look.
Pretty soon they saw it, for it was coming to meet them. It was wearing black pants, a white shirt, and black suspenders.
Sam said, “I’m going to try to touch it. Then we’ll know if it’s real.”
He walked up to it and peered into its face. It had bright penetrating eyes sunk deep in its head. It looked like a skeleton.
Ted took one look and screamed, and again he and Sam ran, but this time the skeleton followed them. When they got to Ted’s house, they stood in the doorway and watched it. It stayed out in the road for a while. Then it disappeared.
A year later Ted got sick and died. Toward the end, Sam sat up with him every night. The night Ted died, Sam said he looked just like the skeleton.

~*~*~*~*~

Schwartz sites a 1957 book called Bluenose Ghosts by Helen Creighton (pp. 4-7) for the source of this tale. It is in the first section which talks about forerunners of death. In Creighton’s book, the story of the Thing is presented as a firsthand account told to her by a man named A. B. Thorne. Creighton claims that Mr. Thorne had been a nervous man ever since the incident took place over forty years before in his hometown of Karsdale, which is in Canada. For context, his story would have taken place between 1900 and 1910. You can borrow the book on internet archive. (1) The passage in question goes as follows:

We had a short period of conversation until the proper atmosphere was established, and then we asked Mr. Thorne if he would tell his story. After a little hesitation he began.

“I hope I’ll never have to go through that racket again,” he said. “Well, I’ll tell you. I had just come home from the States and I had a friend whose name was Joe Holmes. We were always together when I was home, but Joe wasn’t very strong. We were young men then, about twenty, and one evening we were together and I had a letter to mail. We hadn’t been drinking. I don’t want you to think we had because we hadn’t, and we didn’t imagine what we saw. About ten o’clock we took the letter to the post office. It was in the Riordens’ house, the way people often have them in the country. I lived at Thorne’s Cove this side of it, and Joe lived two houses away on the other side.
“Well, we mailed the letter, and then we sat alongside the road opposite the house and talked. It was a bright night with a full moon, and it was too nice to separate and go home so early. The Riordens’ grass was about three feet high at that time, and there was a turnip field behind it. We heard a hoe strike against a rock and it attracted our attention. We sat forward then and looked and, to our surprise, we saw a Thing come crawling on its hands and feet from the southeast corner of the house. Then it stood up and we could see that it was a man. We were on the lower or south side of the road, and it was on the upper north side. Then it went out of sight.
“In the country we often think a lot without saying anything, and anyway there’s often no need of words between friends. So we just sat there and didn’t say anything, and before long it came out again. We didn’t move an inch, but we watched, and this time it came half-way across the road. The time for keeping quiet was over now, so I said, ‘Joe, did you see that?’ He said yes, he did, and by this time it had gone back again. You might think we’d had enough, but we kept still and it didn’t keep us waiting very long.
“The third time was like the others. It came out and went back. We still sat there and in a second’s time it was back and it went under the cherry tree. There were more apple trees on our side of the road then than now, and they took to shaking and the apples fell to the ground. I was frightened by this time and I said, ‘Joe, I’ve got to go home.’ That would have been all right if we’d both lived in the same direction. Probably we’d have left even before that, but we were braver together. We decided to go to Joe’s house and we started to run. Joe wasn’t very strong as I said, but he always thought he could run, and he could, and I was afraid I couldn’t keep up with him. I guess the fear got into my feet because I ran just as fast as he did.
“When we got to his house we stood in the road and talked. We were young men and curious, and we didn’t like to leave it there because it would always pester us and we’d never know what we’d seen. It didn’t seem like a prank, but if it was, we wanted to settle it. Finally I said, ‘Let’s go back; I’m not afraid.’ I wasn’t either, so long as Joe was with me. Nothing was going to hurt the two of us and besides, it’s easy to be brave when you have company. ‘We’ll see what it is,’ I said. So we walked back and pretty soon we saw it and it was coming to meet us. It was half way between the Riordens and the Cronins, and that’s the next house, the one in between. I said ‘There it is; don’t leave me.’ As I said, I figured that with two of us it couldn’t do much harm and I wanted to find out what it was. I meant to touch it and then I’d know for sure if it was real. When we were within twenty feet of it I said again, ‘Joe, don’t leave me,’ and then I walked up till my face was close beside it. I’ll never forget that moment as long as I live.
“It had on black pants, a white shirt with a hard bosom front, and black braces. Its head was bare and he was of medium size. It looked as though its eyes were deeply sunk in, and they were very bright and penetrating, and the only thing it looked like was a skeleton. I didn’t touch it, although I would have even then, but Joe gave a scream and ran, and I was scared. I wasn’t long overtaking him, and from that time Joe had a hard time to keep up with me. It followed and kept twenty feet behind us. There were bars on the Holmes fence. We jumped them, and the Thing cut across the field to head us off, but we got there first. We stood in the doorway and watched it for half an hour. There was a stone wall with a rotten pole on top of it, and it stood on this pole. In the morning I went out and felt that pole and, do you know, it was so rotten it just crumbled up in my hands. Why that pole was so rotten it couldn’t have held a bird.
“As I said, I’ll never forget that racket as long as I live, and as for Joe, he would never talk of it except to his mother and to me. A year later he was taken sick and a while later he died, and he always claimed this was a forerunner for him. We were both sure it couldn’t have been anybody playing tricks because the moon was full and we could see everything as plain as in the day.
“Then a strange thing happened. Joe died of a tubercular throat, and he died hard, but he never rambled in his mind. It was always clear right to the end. But one day not long before his death Joe said to his mother, ‘My throat won’t hurt me any more. He (the apparition) was here and rubbed it.’ The pain had been almost more than he could bear, but from that moment it stopped and he never felt it in his throat again. I sat up with him every night, and do you know what he looked like when he died? He looked just like that man, for he was pretty well wasted away.”

Was this then the explanation, and had Joe seen his own apparition as he was to appear in death? Was that the meaning of it all?

When Mr. Thorne was through we sat quietly and, after a while, I said jokingly that he would be telling me soon what colour the man’s eyes were. To my surprise he took this seriously and pondered the matter. Finally he said, “No I can’t quite do that, but his hesitation showed how vivid the experience was even to that day which would be forty or more years after the event.

~*~*~*~*~

I did a bit of digging and actually found Joe Holmes’ memorial on findagrave! (2) I honestly am shocked that I did. I fully expected the Joe Holmes character to be totally made up. Since I found Joe, I decided to find A. B. Thorne, which was a little more of a challenge, since everything I could find on him called him A. B., no full name. My search proved fruitful, though! His name was Abram Bogart Thorne, so I get why he always went by A. B.! (3)

As for the above story that was related to Helen Creighton by A. B. Thorne, I personally feel like it’s a bunch of bull-hockey, especially the “I was-scared-but-then-I-wasn’t” narrative. You’re trying to tell me that a couple of young men from the country in 1907 (by the way, Joe Holmes died in 1908 according to the findagrave entry, this is how I got this exact year) stood around to watch a weird Thing walk out of the field on all fours, walk around back and forth and didn’t immediately think, ‘monster’ and run for safety? It’s not like they weren’t sure what they were seeing. Unlike the story in the Scary Stories book, the moon was bright, and A. B. claims that there was no mistaking what they saw. I find it interesting that his story follows the “three-time” rule, the rule where everything must come in threes.

Joe also doesn’t say a word the entire story, but for some reason he felt that the spectre was the forerunner for his catching a deadly disease and dying a year later. For another thing, the story was just too detailed to be believable, right down to the little scene where he went back out the next morning to check the pole that the Thing was supposed to have stood on. Why would he even think to check the pole the next morning, anyway? He sure does remember a lot of details for something that supposedly happened 40 years ago.

Ratings time once again!

Kitty

In what environment did you read the story? Sitting at my computer.
Do you remember having read this story as a kid? Yes.
Analyze the actions of the characters in the story. Did they make sense? Would you have done anything differently? The actions of the characters in the story were not believable, because I think most people would run for the hills if they saw something creepy crawling out of the woods. It does not make sense, and why would you even think to touch it? I would have done everything differently, right down to making a bee-line to my house.
Which was your favorite and least favorite character and why? My favorite character was the skeleton, because he seemed to be just out for a stroll. My least favorite characters were Ted and Sam. I think this is a Dale and Tucker vs. Evil type situation.
What did you think of the storytelling style? The storytelling style was fine. It was pretty mysterious overall.
Examine the art for the story. What are your thoughts on it? Very creepy! I definitely wouldn’t want to look out the window and see that image in the middle of the night.
Your overall rating and why: ⭐⭐⭐ There wasn’t much to the story except two guys watching a weirdo crawl out of a field and walk back and forth into the street. Then one guy died a year later.

Winterjoy

In what environment did you read the story? In my apartment with my cat, Cubic, watching me type this. She wants food but first things first!
Do you remember having read this story as a kid? It wasn’t until I got to the end that I remembered this one!
Analyze the actions of the characters in the story. Did they make sense? Would you have done anything differently? Personally, I would have ran at the first encounter and not the third. Also, I WOULD NOT TRY TO TOUCH IT.
Which was your favorite and least favorite character and why? My favorite character is Ted because he seems a little more sensible than Sam. I’m not sure why Sam is going around touching skeleton creatures. Like, can you not. My least favorite is the skeleton thing because it’s scary, ew!
What did you think of the storytelling style? I enjoyed the short, straight to the point sentences. I loved the shocking ending!
Examine the art for the story. What are your thoughts on it? It’s so great! The eyes and stupid teeth will haunt me tonight!
Your overall rating and why: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ The twist at the end makes you pause and consider the skeleton once again. I love the ending makes you think you might have missed something.