Legacy Of Terror

cover and the spine were devoid of lettering. She had to open the book to the title page to see what it was.
    Recognizing the Possessed, a Detailed Guide to the Interpretation of the Damned and a Reference of Case Histories in Exorcism, by Anonymous.
    Ordinarily, she would have found the excessively wordy title amusing. Now, however, it was somehow chilling, as she tried to put together a meaning for that string of phrases. What on earth would such a book be concerned with?
    Turning the page, she found a handwritten note, faded with age. She read it twice before she understood that it was a prayer of sorts, twisted in its form and purpose but a prayer nonetheless:
    “Dear Jesus, Spirits of the Holy Dead, White Souls and Bemused Angels-watch over this book and keep this book safe. Be always conscious of the value of this book to mortals and see that it is transferred to those who require it, bringing light into an otherwise vast darkness. Make safe this book against the touch of those who would destroy it and the spells and stories it contains, those who would benefit from man's ignorance-meaning especially keep it from Satan, Spirits of Evil, Black Souls and Fallen Angels.”
    Below the prayer on the blank page, someone had drawn a cross. And below the cross was lettered, INRI, the Latin abbreviation for Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.
    She had begun to suspect who had left the book for her. When she looked over the contents page and found that the book dealt with the possession of the living by the spirits of the dead, she was certain that either Jerry or Bess, and most likely both, was to blame.
    Why?
    What did they expect to tell her by leaving this book in her room? They must know that she would not be converted to accept their silly string of demons and ghosts, witches and warlocks, their world of spells and hexeroi and liberating chants. Certainly, too, the conversion could not be accomplished with a single book, even if she were amenable to their viewpoint.
    She flipped through the pages to the first chapter and began to read the fine, sober print:
    “Some say that the Dark Things have passed into antiquity and that they no longer have meaning. It is now, these people tell us, in condescension they carefully nourish for those who would disagree with them, the Year of Our Lord Nineteen Hundred and Twenty-Eight. Such a year, they say, demands that man observe science as the only god and anti-god. In a time of automobiles and airplanes, of electric light and modern medicine, ghosts and spirits, so they assure us, have no place.
    “But they are ignorant. And they refuse to be taught the truth, so content are they in their blindness.
    “I, John Martin Stoltz, resident of York County, Pennsylvania, have therefore commissioned the printing of a thousand copies of the book you now hold in your hands. I have paid for the printing from my own pocket and do not wish profit on the venture. I will be content if, instead, those who own this book profit by the information it contains.”
    Elaine put the book in her lap and stared at the television screen for a long moment. A silly situation comedy was playing, one of those in which the wife is always an utter lamebrain and the husband continually misunderstands everything he hears and runs around half-cocked, messing up the situation even more than it was before he tried to fix it. Until that went off, at least, she might just as well see what Jerry and Bess had meant for her to understand.
    Stoltz' introduction was a pompous mess, as smug throughout as in the first paragraph. And it was a tedious bore as well. Gratefully, she finished it and turned to the actual text which had been written by “Anonymous” sometime in the early part of the 19th Century.
    The first third of the book was a compilation of the “case histories” upon which a thousand superstitions had grown, each more fantastic than the one before it. The first tale dealt with a boy named Zachary Taine who, according to Anonymous, was an infantryman in the Colonial Army during the Revolutionary War. He had come of good Boston stock and was well liked by all-until it was discovered that Zachary was a ghoul and that it was he who had been responsible for the crude violation of a number of recent graves in military cemeteries during seven months of 1777.
    As if this were not gruesome enough, the second story was about a Philadelphia shopkeeper who, in 1789, murdered his family while they slept and went on a