THE CENTURY'S BEST HORROR FICTION #95: A review of "The Toddler" by Terry Lamsley

Pelan really outdoes himself with this choice. What we have here is one of the most intricate ghost stories ever written, and if you read it halfheartedly, you’ll miss a lot. Lamsley’s a tricky writer, as you’ll see in just a moment.



This tale is told in two parts, and at first, a skilled writer reading this would wonder why Lamsley didn’t just tell part two and sprinkle important information from part one over the course of that story. However, by the end of “The Toddler,” it is very apparent why Lamsley chose to tell it this way.


A female cook in the 16th Century toils away in the kitchen of her master, whipping up a meal for his cousin, Sir Rufford de Quintz, the most hated man in all the countryside. He’s a coarse, scarred fiend with a taste for fucking everything that moves. He goes as far as capturing one of the maids and keeping her prisoner in his rooms while spending weeks on end raping her. He only gives her up when her younger sister comes along, begging for the poor maid’s freedom. In turn, he takes the younger sister and keeps her around for longer. Both wind up pregnant (several times, in fact), but he lets the younger sister keep one of them. However, the kid turns out to be . . . off. She doesn’t say anything, she’s ugly as sin, and she wanders around the house without any supervision. All she does is suck her thumb and avoid people, hanging on to a doll just about as ugly as she is. De Quintz is put off by this, so he ignores the kid. Oddly enough, though, he accepts this one as his own, whereas he refuses to acknowledge all the dozens of other kids he has by other women.


He’s a weird fellow, himself. Some of the older servants swore they saw him visit this place 60 years or more ago, and he looked now exactly as he had back then. Most decide that he just looks a lot like an ancestor who had come visiting. Of course, any avid horror reader knows something is amiss here.


The woman, who also happens to be the younger sister aforementioned, cooking in the kitchen (remember her?) puts the finishing touches on the meal and delivers it to de Quintz. She then goes back to the kitchen and puts the rest of the dinner in a cupboard, along with the doll the toddler used to go around with.


Whoa. Wait a minute. Upon closer reading, it seems that the cook has just fed de Quintz’s strange daughter to him. Now, she is hiding the cupboard away, where workers will seal it in the wall tomorrow.


Wow. What at first seems to be a polite horror story has taken a sudden, dark turn. That’s some TITUS ANDRONICUS shit right there. And that’s just the end of part one.


In part two, we meet Myra, an archaeologist who is excavating de Quintz’s old habitation. She’s got a few problems of her own, as her daughter has recently died, and she’s haunted by the ordeal. She buries herself in the work of digging up people’s secrets. Lo! and behold! She has just discovered the cook’s secret cupboard, and upon opening it, she finds nothing but the doll within. However, a cloud of dust emerges from the cupboard, and workers are convinced that it was in the shape of a girl. It touches Myra’s skirt, and later she discovers it has left a hand-shaped print there. In the meantime, she is aggravated by a scarred old man who makes lascivious motions at her. The workers try to catch him, but he gets away.


In the meantime, Myra tries to solve the mystery of the doll. The harder she works at it, the more crept out she gets until one night, she wakes up to feel someone holding her hand . . . . Before long, she gets the distinct impression that someone is keeping her constant company, even though she can’t see who it is. All she can hear is the sound of a toddler sucking its thumb, and she starts to suspect it’s the ghost of her daughter.


Okay, that’s pretty creepy, but what makes this different from any other ghost story? SPOILER ALERT: The workers confront Myra, demanding to know why she’s abusing this little girl. This confuses her, as there is no little girl, only what she thinks is a ghost. Others can very clearly see the toddler, though, and they’re threatening to call the police on her. She says they should do that, and she sits to wait for their arrival. In the darkness, she feels someone touching her knee. She thinks it’s the toddler again, especially since she can hear the thumb-sucking. But then, the hand goes higher. And higher. And higher. It clutches at her sex, and she hurriedly turns on the light to get her first glimpse of the toddler. Sure enough, it’s de Quintz’s daughter . . . but she’s not alone. De Quintz, the same pervert she’d seen earlier, kneels at her side, grabbing her pussy, continuing his usual crass, evil habits.


Father and daughter, ghosts together. In fact, de Quintz has always been a ghost as evidenced by the older servants in his cousin’s house. You see, the servants had tried to get their master to kick de Quintz out, but nothing ever got done because, and you can only get this if you read between the lines, the master had no idea that de Quintz was there. It seems these ghosts can make everyone except for ONE person know of their existence. END OF SPOILERS.


With a twist like that, it’s hard to not see why everyone proclaimed Lamsley as the greatest writer of ghost stories in decades. Read this tale and find out why.


[This story first appeared in GHOSTS & SCHOLARS, and it cannot be read online at this time.]