It is my opinion that Charles Dickens wrote the scariest short story of all time. Dickens was an acquaintance of Edgar Allan Poe, and I believe that Poe was inspired (in more ways than one) by the Englishman’s literature.
Poe lavished praise on him.
And Poe hated almost everybody else. What sparked the relationship between these two pen-and-ink titans was the following very short, very scary story. A Madman’s Manuscript—only eleven paragraphs long—appeared in Dickens’ first novel, the world-wide hit, The Pickwick Papers.
Yes!—a madman’s! How that word would have struck me dumb years ago! How it would have sent my blood hissing and tingling through my veins, till the cold dew of fear stood in large drops upon my skin. I like it now though. It’s a fine name. Show me the monarch whose angry frown was ever feared like the glare of a madman’s eye—whose axe was ever half so sure as a madman’s grip. Ho! Ho! It’s a grand thing to be mad!
I remember days when I was afraid of being mad; when I used to start from my sleep, and fall upon my knees, and pray to be spared from the curse of my race; when I rushed from the sight of merriment or happiness, to hide myself in some lonely place on the internet, spending weary hours watching the progress of the fever that was to consume my brain.
At last it came upon me, and I wondered how I could ever have feared it. I could go into the world now, and laugh and shout with the best among them. I knew I was mad, but they did not suspect it.
How I used to hug myself with delight and laugh for joy, and thought how well I kept my secret, and how quickly my kind friends would have fallen from me if they had known the truth. I could have screamed with ecstasy when I dined alone with some fine roaring fellow, to think how pale he would have turned, and how fast he would have run, if he had known that the dear friend who sat close to him, sharpening a bright, glittering knife, was a madman with all the power, and half the will, to plunge it in his heart.
Oh, it is a merry life!
I had money. I had time. I spent much of my time on daily kos. I made friends. Yes, they thought me a friend, but I had to smile. To smile! To laugh outright, and tear my hair, and roll upon the ground with shrieks of merriment. Kossacks little thought they had made friends with a madman.
In one thing I was deceived with all of my cunning. If I had not been mad—for though we madmen are sharp-witted enough, we get bewildered sometimes—I should have known that my madness and jealousy would overtake me one day.
That one day I would murder.
And so I stand outside of the dwelling place of noble Angmar with a razor held tight in my madman’s grip. Yes, proud and loyal Angmar. You know how you feel when somebody you hate is so God-Damned honorable while you are so God Damned?
I spent months finding him, and then days making sure I had the right man. How funny it was when I knocked on his door and introduced myself, facemask on, as the person who had moved in next door! Angmar didn’t know who I was, but I knew who he was, and I danced a merry jig inside! I kept my eyes carefully from him at first, for I knew what he little thought—and I gloried in the knowledge—that the light of madness gleamed from them like fire. After introductions, we stood in silence for a moment. Then, after some few gay words, he had something to do, the proud and fine fellow, and bid me adieu.
Stay your hand on your cellphone, friend!
You cannot save him. You don’t know where he lives, and I am outside right now waiting to strike. I have seen his shadows dance upon the window. He is home.
You are my audience. Let me take a bow! Welcome to Angmar’s murder.
Oh! The pleasure of stropping the razor day after day, feeling the sharp edge, and thinking of the gash one stroke of its thin, bright edge would make! At last the old spirits who had been with me so often before whispered in my ear that the time was come, I had my audience, and now I grasp the razor and enter through the window.
Say goodbye to your dear friend Angmar!
And by now, as you read these short paragraphs, there has been a struggle, and the struggle always goes to the madman, and your good-natured friend is dead. His blood congealing on the carpet.
Blood! Blood! I will have it!
Straight and swift I will run, and no one dare to stop me. I can already hear in my mind the noise of the feet behind, and so redouble my speed. It grows fainter and fainter in the distance, and at length dies away altogether; but on I bound, through block after block, over fence and wall, with a wild shout which is taken up by the strange beings that flock around me on every side in my mind; the sound swelling until it pierces my eardrums. I am borne upon the arms of demons who sweep along upon the wind, and spin me round and round with a rustle and a speed that makes my head swim, until at last they throw me from them with a violent shock, and I fall heavily upon the earth.
Laughing, laughing.