A Face in the Dark and Other Hauntings

Book excerpt: Ruskin Bond Once Famously Remarked That While He Does Not Believe In Ghosts, He Sees Them All The Time&Mdash;In The Woods, In A Bar, In A Crowd Outside A Cinema. Not Surprising, Then, That In His Stories, Ghosts, Jinns, Witches&Mdash;And The Occasional Monster&Mdash;Are As Real As The People He Writes About. He Makes The Supernatural Appear Entirely Natural, And Therefore Harder To Ignore. This Collection Brings Together All Of Ruskin Bond'S Tales Of The Paranormal Written Over Five Decades. It Opens With Perhaps His Best-Known Story, The Unforgettable `A Face In The Dark', Set In A Pine Forest Outside Simla, And Ends With The Shockingly Macabre `Night Of The Millennium', Where The Scene Of The Action Is An Abandoned Cemetery. In Between Are Tales Featuring Monkeys And A Pack Of Dogs Come Back From The Dead, An Elderly Lady Who Is A Witch After Dark, A Schoolboy Riding His Bicycle Up And Down The Country Road Where He Was Killed, And Kipling'S Ghost In London'S Victoria And Albert Museum. Comprising Twenty-Eight Classic Stories That Range From The Chilling To The Whimsical (For `The Supernatural Has Its Funny Side Too'), A Face In The Dark And Other Hauntings Is The Perfect Collection To Have By Your Bedside When The Moon Is Up.