Scary Stories Treasury – Something Was Wrong – Silent Photoplay: A Place for Stories of All Types

Read Time:6 Minute, 21 Second

Something Was Wrong

Kitty: ⭐⭐⭐ Winterjoy: ⭐⭐⭐

This month, we start a new book, More Scary Stories To Tell In the Dark!

The first story in the book is the classic Something Was Wrong. This one was, for some reason, seared into my mind forever. Even the picture is forever associated with this type of story for me. At this age, I was obsessed with the Encyclopedia Britannica publication Mysteries of the Unexplained, and I guess it’s because of this that I also associate this story with that book, even though it didn’t appear there, or it could be that it reminds me of time slip stories, which probably were part of the Britannica book.

Something Was Wrong

One morning John Sullivan found himself walking along a street downtown. He could not explain what he was doing there, or how he got there, or where he had been earlier. He didn’t even know what time it was.
He saw a woman walking toward him and stopped her. “I’m afraid I forgot my watch,” he said, and smiled. “Can you tell me the time?” When she saw him, she screamed and ran.
Then John Sullivan noticed that other people were afraid of him. When they saw him coming, they flattened themselves against a building, or ran across the street to stay out of his way.
“There must be something wrong with me,” John Sullivan thought. “I’d better go home.”
He hailed a taxi, but the driver took one look at him and sped away.
John Sullivan did not understand what was going on, and it scared him. “Maybe somebody at home can come and get me,” he thought. He found a telephone and called his wife, but a voice he did not recognize answered.
“Is Mrs. Sullivan there?” he asked.
“No, she is at a funeral,” the voice said. “Mr. Sullivan was killed yesterday in an accident downtown.”

*****

Schwartz cites Cerf, Try and Stop Me pp275-276.

Here’s another exciting one for me! The source is a story from author Bennett Cerf, as you may remember, was the creator and owner of Random House. I love him, and mostly know his personality from the 1950s game show What’s My Line.

Well, this one is 1944’s Try and Stop Me (1), a collection of stories. The book was scanned from microfilm, and can be found on archive.org.

It’s an untitled story, and gives much more detail on our buddy Mr. Sullivan.

*****

John Sullivan was the only son of a doting mother, widowed during the First World War. He was handsome, richly endowed with Irish charm, and a particular favorite of the ladies. They could not resist his fetching smile. In fact, they never tried.
John couldn’t explain how he suddenly came to be walking up Euclid Avenue. He had no memory of how he got there, or of what he had been doing previously that morning. “I must be walking in my sleep,” he said to himself in some perplexity. Two lovely young girls were approaching him. John stopped them with the confidence born of years of easy conquest. “Could you be telling me the time?” he asked with his easy smile. To his surprise, one of the girls screamed, and both of them careened past him. Several other people, he noticed, seemed terrified by the sight of him. One man flattened himself against a show window of the Halle Store to get out of his way.
Greatly puzzled, John Sullivan started to climb into a taxi. Just as he was giving the address of his home, however, the driver looked at him for the first time, smothered an exclamation, pushed him out of the cab, and drove off with a grinding of gears.
John’s head was spinning. He entered a drugstore, and phoned to his mother. A strange voice answered.
“Mrs. Sullivan?” it echoed. “Now who would be expecting to find her in now? Don’t you know that her poor son John was caught in a machine at the bindery yesterday and mangled to death? She’s out at the cemetery where they’re burying him now!”

Kitty

In what environment did you read the story? Sitting on the couch with my dog staring at me. Why is he always staring at me?
Do you remember having read this story as a kid? Absolutely! This is one of my favorites, and even more so now that I’ve read the source!
Analyze the actions of the characters in the story. Did they make sense? Would you have done anything differently? I don’t think I’d scream when I saw a mangled person, as long as he wasn’t acting menacing. I think I’d try not to stare. John Sullivan acted totally normal, and didn’t deserve the treatment that strangers gave him. Schwartz’s story didn’t say he was mangled, though. It just said he died in a car accident, which doesn’t necessarily mean he was gross looking afterward.
Which was your favorite and least favorite characters and why? My least favorite characters were the strangers. There is an obviously hurt man, and their first inclination is to run and scream. My favorite character was the telephone, because it seems to me like it wasn’t a payphone (where would the money have come from?) and it did what it was supposed to do.
What did you think of the storytelling style? I liked this one. It was short and sweet, and had a one line punch line.
Examine the art for the story. What are your thoughts on it? I love this one. I also like the bricks, which remind me of my childhood day camp.
Your overall rating and why: ⭐⭐⭐ because even though I love it so, it’s not an extraordinary story.

Winterjoy

In what environment did you read the story? I read it at the Key West Cemetery! I live around the corner now! I took my book early in the morning and sat down in the grass (above someone RIP) and read my story and listened to the cemetery roosters crow.
Do you remember having read this story as a kid? I don’t remember this one and probably won’t remember much from this book, to be honest.
Analyze the actions of the characters in the story. Did they make sense? Would you have done anything differently? Everything Mr. Sullivan did made sense. If I found myself somewhere and didn’t remember anything, I would try to get home or call someone.
Which was your favorite and least favorite characters and why? My least favorite characters are everyone that ran away from Mr. Sullivan. Like can you just help a ghost out??
What did you think of the storytelling style? It’s ok. I think it would have been more creepy if people didn’t see him but he didn’t realize it until later that they never saw him. Basically, I want The Sixth Sense lol.
Examine the art for the story. What are your thoughts on it? From an artist point of view and not so much for the scariness off it, this is one of my favorites. The extreme contrast of dark and light against each other is so intriguing. Very haunting illustration!
Your overall rating and why: ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ only because it was ruined by the chapter introduction page. Even if obvious, maybe I would have thought he had a 2nd head growing out of his neck and that’s why people were running instead of the fact he was dead. Oh well!