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63 SUPERNATURAL TALES

Short stories on spiritism, witchcraft, the occult, paganism, animism, the unusual and the mistery.

Tales of sorcery, of spiritualism, of occultism, of paganism, of animism, of the unexpected, of mystery, all of them inspired by real cases.

Beyond all common experiences. These situations that reach the extreme borderline of reality, these happenings that are hardly within bound of imagination, are proposed to us in order to widen our perception of the Universe and to lead us to the vertical path of evolution.

SERGIO BISSOLI 

The author is a writer by profession and vocation. He has studied occultism, spiritualism and witchcraft. He is a member of the Spiritualist Association of Great Britain, of the Society for Psychical Research, of the Society of Metaphysicians, of the Pagan Federation, of the Gothic Society, of the Ghost Club, of the Horror writers’ Association, Kinseyi Institute.

He has had many supernatural experiences.

A STORY:

THE DEVIL’S TAIL

"The devil’s hen! The devil’s hen..." the woman cries rushing in through the kitchen.

Her husband, the host, who’s standing behind the counter busy at filling up glasses with wine, tries to minimize the matter :

"Get along with the devil, don’t tell me that we must send for the priest now, solely because of a hen..."

But his wife, a stout, fat woman visibly upset and in a sweat, doesn’t give any sign of calming down :

"It’s possessed, I tell you, Alan, that one is not a hen like all the others; it has made our dog run away, I doubt it is a hen, that one..."

Her husband, who is also a fat guy and bald into the bargain, keeps grumbling in a low voice and tries to quiet her :

"What rubbish you come out with!; it’s nonsense, it’s absolutely foolishness... You and your odd nonsense words..."

The tavern is overcrowded with half-drunk people playing cards and talking about this and that, and nobody, I think, is lending an ear to this curious dialogue.

Not a long time has gone by since I’ve come to and entered this place with low ceiling and tarred by the smoke of oil-lamps and pipes. I elbow my way through a group of old customers and get to the large counter, the top of which is made of stone.

The woman is cooking quite a few sausages. The chimney has little suction because there’s a lot of steam spreading from the boiling water of the pots. A candle-holder, a little salt and a coffee-mill are on the mantelpiece.

"What’s wrong with this hen?" I begin to ask in a reassuring way.

The woman turns all of a sudden. She still feels the effect of her suffered fright, that is just what she’s betraying.

"Good gracious, sir, there’s the devil’s hen in our hen-house!"

"But what is it that makes this hen unlike all the other hens?" I keep asking her.

"Its eyes are as red as fire. It’s evil. It’s neither male nor female and attacks our frightened dog".

"Oh that’s really a good one! It doesn’t seem at all possible" I tell her just to make her talk more.

"I assure you, sir, that I’m telling the truth. There is the devil I tell you..."

And at my look full of curiosity mixed with puzzlement she goes on : "Better still, come and see, come and see yourself down there in the hen-house!"

We get to a semi-dark, damp back-kitchen which is crammed with big boxes and bottles.

After going beyond a space under the stairs we go downstairs and get to an old laundry. Hardly any light filters through the little window and the cold is biting inside that large room full of fissures and draughts. I nearly regret having going away from the smoky warmth of the tavern to come downstairs up to here. I move amidst the tanks along the threadbare stones and the stained rinsings.

The woman unbolts and opens wide the small door there at the end of the passage.

A gloomy court-yard appears illuminated by the ashy light of a January afternoon. It’s bitterly cold all around us.

"Look there, there it is" the woman tells me in her excited voice pointing at the hen.

In the little court-yard set between the bare vegetation and the old buildings, some plucked hens are scratching about and they all seem alike at first sight. I turn to look at the stretched arm of the woman and then I suddenly see it.

It’s quite different from the other ones, it is indeed.

All the other hens have gathered together within only a few steps from us, but that one on the the contrary keeps itself to itself, at the end of the court-yard. Differently from the other hens, this one behaves as if we didn’t exist at all, so I try to step further on in order to eye it better.

It hasn’t got a the common shape of a hen, it’s dumpier because of the feathers making its tail bifurcate downwards. On top of its head it has got a feathered, hardly outlined comb. And, furthemore, it’s ugly. With red eyes it keeps coming and going up and down the court-yard, with air of superiority, so to speak, utterly regardless of us.

I turn my sympathizing eyes towards the woman and with a little nodding of my head I make her understand I have seen enough of it.

Then, to my great relief, we get back to the tavern and she hastily shuts  the little door that is strong enough to shelter us and to keep that devilish thing away.

DECEMBER  1982

NOTE

For order the book contact the editing: redazione@clubghost.it 

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