7 September.—The first thing Van Helsing said to me when we met at Liverpool Street was:—
“Have you said anything to our young friend the lover of her?”
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“No,” I said. “I waited till I had seen you, as I said in my telegram. I wrote him a letter simply telling him that you were coming, as Miss Westenra was not so well, and that I should let him know if need be.”
“Right, my friend,” he said, “quite right! Better he not know as yet; perhaps he shall never know. I pray so; but if it be needed, then he shall know all. And, my good friend John, let me caution you. You deal with the madmen. All men are mad in some way or the other; and inasmuch as you deal discreetly with your madmen, so deal with God’s madmen, too— the rest of the world. You tell not your madmen what you do nor why you do it; you tell them not what you think. So you shall keep knowledge in its place, where it may rest—where it may gather its kind around it and breed. You and I shall keep as yet what we know here, and here.” He touched me on the heart and on the forehead, and then touched himself the same way. “I have for myself thoughts at the present. Later I shall unfold to you.”
“Why not now?” I asked. “It may do some good; we may arrive at some decision.” He stopped and looked at me, and said:—
“My friend John, when the corn is grown, even before it has ripened—while the milk of its mother-earth is in him, and the sunshine has not yet begun to paint him with his gold, the husbandman he pull the ear and rub him between his rough hands, and blow away the green chaff, and say to you: ‘Look! he’s good corn; he will make good crop when the time comes.’” I did not see the application, and told him so. For reply he reached over and took my ear in his hand and pulled it playfully, as he used long ago to do at lectures, and said: “The good husbandman tell you so then because he knows, but not till then. But you do not find the good husbandman dig up his planted corn to see if he grow; that is for the children who play at husbandry, and not for those who take it as of the work of their life. See you now, friend John? I have sown my corn, and Nature has her work to do in making it sprout; if he sprout at all, there’s some promise; and I wait till the ear begins to swell.” He broke off, for he evidently saw that I understood. Then he went on, and very gravely:—
trust the weaker. Even if you have not kept the good practise, let me tell you that this case of our dear miss is one that may be—mind, I say may be—of such interest to us and others that all the rest may not make him kick the beam, as your peoples say. Take then good note of it. Nothing is too small. I counsel you, put down in record even your doubts and surmises. Hereafter it may be of interest to you to see how true you guess. We learn from failure, not from success!”
“Then get ready at once. I will bring up my bag. I am prepared.”
I went downstairs with him, and as we were going there was a knock at the hall-door. When we reached the hall the maid had just opened the door, and Arthur was stepping quickly in. He rushed up to me, saying in an eager whisper:—
the not-so-far-off you will be happy that you have done all for her you love. Come now and be silent. You shall kiss her once before it is done, but then you must go; and you must leave at my sign. Say no word to Madame; you know how it is with her! There must be no shock; any knowledge of this would be one.
When I described Lucy’s symptoms—the same as before, but infinitely more marked— he looked very grave, but said nothing. He took with him a bag in which were many instruments and drugs, “the ghastly paraphernalia of our beneficial trade,” as he once called, in one of his lectures, the equipment of a professor of the healing craft. When we were shown in, Mrs. Westenra met us. She was alarmed, but not nearly so much as I expected to find her. Nature in one of her beneficent moods has ordained that even death has some antidote to its own terrors. Here, in a case where any shock may prove fatal, matters are so ordered that, from some cause or other, the things not personal—even the terrible change in her daughter to whom she is so attached—do not seem to reach her. It is something like the way Dame Nature gathers round a foreign body an envelope of some insensitive tissue which can protect from evil that which it would otherwise harm by contact. If this be an ordered selfishness, then we should pause before we condemn any one for the vice of egoism, for there may be deeper root for its causes than we have knowledge of.
“Jack, I was so anxious. I read between the lines of your letter, and have been in an agony. The dad was better, so I ran down here to see for myself. Is not that gentleman Dr. Van Helsing? I am so thankful to you, sir, for coming.”
When first the Professor’s eye had lit upon him he had been angry at his interruption at such a time; but now, as he took in his stalwart proportions and recognised the strong young manhood which seemed to emanate from him, his eyes gleamed. Without a pause he said to him gravely as he held out his hand:—
“Sir, you have come in time. You are the lover of our dear miss. She is bad, very, very bad. Nay, my child, do not go like that.” For he suddenly grew pale and sat down in a chair almost fainting. “You are to help her. You can do more than any that live, and your courage is your best help.”
“What can I do?” asked Arthur hoarsely. “Tell me, and I shall do it. My life is hers, and I would give the last drop of blood in my body for her.”
“You were always a careful student, and your case-book was ever more full than the rest. You were only student then; now you are master, and I trust that good habit have not fail. Remember, my friend, that knowledge is stronger than memory, and we should not
I used my knowledge of this phase of spiritual pathology, and laid down a rule that she should not be present with Lucy or think of her illness more than was absolutely required. She assented readily, so readily that I saw again the hand of Nature fighting for life. Van Helsing and I were shown up to Lucy’s room. If I was shocked when I saw her yesterday, I was horrified when I saw her to-day. She was ghastly, chalkily pale; the red seemed to have gone even from her lips and gums, and the bones of her face stood out prominently; her breathing was painful to see or hear. Van Helsing’s face grew set as marble, and his eyebrows converged till they almost touched over his nose. Lucy lay motionless, and did not seem to have strength to speak, so for a while we were all silent. Then Van Helsing beckoned to me, and we went gently out of the room. The instant we had closed the door he stepped quickly along the passage to the next door, which was open. Then he pulled me quickly in with him and closed the door. “My God!” he said; “this is dreadful. There is no time to be lost. She will die for sheer want of blood to keep the heart’s action as it should be. There must be transfusion of blood at once. Is it you or me?”
The Professor has a strongly humorous side, and I could from old knowledge detect a trace of its origin in his answer:—
“My young sir, I do not ask so much as that—
“What shall I do?” There was fire in his eyes, and his open nostril quivered with intent. Van Helsing slapped him on the shoulder. “Come!” he said. “You are a man, and it is a man we want. You are better than me, better than my friend John.” Arthur looked bewildered, and the Professor went on by explain-
“I am younger and stronger, Professor. It
We all went up to Lucy’s room. Arthur by direction remained outside. Lucy turned her head and looked at us, but said nothing. She was not asleep, but she was simply too weak to make the effort. Her eyes spoke to us; that was all. Van Helsing took some things from his bag and laid them on a little table out of sight. Then he mixed a narcotic, and coming over to
“Now, little miss, here is your medicine. Drink it off, like a good child. See, I lift you so that to swallow is easy. Yes.” She had made the
It astonished me how long the drug took to act. This, in fact, marked the extent of her weakness. The time seemed endless until sleep began to flicker in her eyelids. At last, however, the narcotic began to manifest its potency; and she fell into a deep sleep. When the Professor was satisfied he called Arthur into the room, and bade him strip off his coat. Then he added: “You may take that one little kiss whiles I bring over the table. Friend John, help to me!” So neither of us looked whilst he
“Young miss is bad, very bad. She wants blood, and blood she must have or die. My friend John and I have consulted; and we are about to perform what we call transfusion of blood—to transfer from full veins of one to the empty veins which pine for him. John was to give his blood, as he is the more young and strong than me”—here Arthur took my hand and wrung it hard in silence—“but, now you are here, you are more good than us, old or young, who toil much in the world of thought. Our nerves are not so calm and our blood not so bright than yours!” Arthur turned to him and said:—
“If you only knew how gladly I would die for her you would understand——”
He stopped, with a sort of choke in his voice.
“Good boy!” said Van Helsing. “In
“He is so young and strong and of blood so pure that we need not defibrinate it.”
Then with swiftness, but with absolute method, Van Helsing performed the operation. As the transfusion went on something like life seemed to come back to poor Lucy’s cheeks, and through Arthur’s growing pallor the joy of his face seemed absolutely to shine. After a bit I began to grow anxious, for the loss of blood was telling on Arthur, strong man as he was. It gave me an idea of what a terrible strain Lucy’s system must have undergone that what weakened Arthur only partially restored her. But the Professor’s face was set, and he stood watch in
GHOSTS, WITCHES AND HAUNTED DOLLS: SUPERNATURAL STORIES AROUND OGDEN
By TENAYA HYDE Reporter
With Halloween approaching, many people like sharing their paranormal stories, and Wildcats are no different.
Weber State University student Gissel Santoya was around 17 years old when she
visited her family in California.
“I heard that my aunt was a bad witch, and she practiced black magic,” Santoya said. “I was pretty skeptical about it. It wasn’t really something I believed in.”
Santoya said her mother warned her not to take anything the aunt offered her. However, she did accept a drink. Santoya choked on the
drink for a few minutes before regaining her breath.
“I just forgot about it and then went on with my life until I started getting this really bad cough, and it was so bad that I would wake up and I wouldn’t be able to even breathe.”
Santoya’s mother told her enough was enough, and it was time to see a doctor. When
she went to the doctor, they treated her as if she had bad allergies. She was prescribed some generic medicine for post-nasal drip, but that didn’t help with her symptoms. She continued to cough and cough with no relief.
“Finally, my mom thought it would be best if I got a cleanse,” Santoya said.
An energetic cleanse is a way natural healers
St. Benedict’s Manor is hidden away in northern Ogden.
are said to use their senses or clairvoyance to cleanse your energy or spirit. Healers use their hands and usually an object to clean the aura of negativity.
“She rubbed an egg all over my body and said some prayers, and when that was done, they cracked the egg, and inside the egg, they saw what looked like a bat covered with a sheet. Then, after that, my cough went away,” Santoya said.
Another ghost story comes from WSU instructor of communications Stephen Salmon, a self-proclaimed believer in the supernatural.
Salmon said that before returning to school, he worked at several places in the northeast, specifically upstate New York, with ghost stories, entities and hidden secrets where weird things would happen.
He said that while working at a restaurant, he had gone up to the attic to grab more coffee lids and cups.
“On my way back down, the door closed,
and I couldn’t open the door,” Salmon said. Salmon said no one was around to close the door, but he was able to knock loudly, and the people in the kitchen came and got him out. Salmon said there were always stories about strange happenings, like random toilets flushing or running and unexplainable moments.
Salmon said he also worked at a haunted theater. It was a traditional vaudeville theater with many stories of weird things happening in the back rooms.
“I’m a firm believer in spirits and things happening,” Salmon said. “I have had a couple of car accidents where it should have probably been far, far, worse, but there was somebody out there looking out for me to protect me, to make sure that I was okay.”
MaKaydee Copeland, a cosmetology student, lives in an apartment in St. Benedict’s Manor, located at 3000 Polk Ave. in Ogden.
“A lot of people have had experiences here,” Copeland said. “When I first moved here, I had
night terrors about a shadow figure pulling me into my closet.”
Copeland said weird things would occur every night until she saged her apartment.
She hasn’t had the terrors since.
“I’ve had things fall off of my shelves,” Copeland said. “Things randomly move or fall in a different room than me. I nicknamed my ‘ghost friend’ Albert.”
Copeland said the ghost seems friendly. She said the ghost has made a decoration play music all on its own, but she isn’t frightened.
“The laundry room is in the basement, and there are also vending machines. I once saw someone in the reflection of the vending machine and assumed it was one of my neighbors, but when I turned around, no one was there,” Copeland said.
Ogden City has many stories running its streets and paranormal activity playing through the walls. Velda Stewart, a retired intuitive, shared a few of her experiences.
Stewart moved into an old home with her
family, and they felt something disturbing in the basement. It had a little ledge that went around the circumference of the main room. Perched on the edge of the ledge were baby dolls and doll heads.
“It was really creepy down there, and my kids didn’t even like going down there, like to deal with the water heaters or the furnace,” Stewart said.
Stewart finally told the landlord about the doll heads and that she wanted them removed, so the landlords came, took out all the dolls and threw them away.
“Within two days, it was all back down there, all set up the way that it was set up before. Oh, my God, and so we just left it,” Stewart said.
Stewart invited ghost hunters to her basement, and they were very uncomfortable. She said there was definitely some activity going on down there. Stewart has since moved out of the home but continues to have strange experiences here and there.
The Bigelow stands in downtown Ogden.
FANTASMAS, BRUJAS Y MUÑECAS POSEÍDAS:
HISTORIAS SOBRENATURALES EN OGDEN
Por VICTORIA HERNANDEZ Traductor
Por TENAYA HYDE Reportero
Con Halloween cerca, a muchas personas les gusta compartir sus historias paranormales, y los Wildcats no son diferentes.
La estudiante de la universidad de Weber State, Gissel Santoya, tenía 17 años cuando ella visitó a su familia en California.
“Escuché que mi tía era una bruja mala, y que practicaba magia negra,” Santoya dijo. “Yo estaba escéptica al respecto. No era algo en lo que realmente creía”
Satoya dijo que su mamá le advirtió que no tomara nada que su tía le ofreciera. Sin embargo, ella aceptó una bebida. Santoya se ahogó con la bebida por unos minutos antes de recuperar el aire.
“Se me había olvidado de ello y seguí con mi vida hasta que empecé a tener una tos muy fuerte, tan fuerte que me despertaba y ni siquiera podía respirar”
La madre de Santoya le dijo que ya era suficiente y que tenía que ir al médico. Cuando fue al médico, la trataron como si tuviera una alergia grave. Le recetaron un medicamento genérico para el goteo posnasal, pero no alivió sus síntomas. Seguía tosiendo y tosiendo sin alivio.
“Finalmente, mi mamá pensó que iba a ser mejor si me hiciera una limpieza,” Santoya
dijo.
Una limpieza energética es una manera en la que se dice que los sanadores naturales utilizan sus sentidos o clarividencia para limpiar tu energía o espíritu. Los sanadores utilizan sus manos y normalmente objetos para limpiar el aura de negatividad.
“Me frotó un huevo por todo el cuerpo y rezó unas oraciones y, cuando terminó, rompieron el huevo y, dentro de él, vieron lo que parecía un murciélago cubierto con una sábana. Después de eso, mi tos desapareció,” Santoya dijo.
Otro historia de fantasmas viene del profesor de comunicaciones de WSU, Stephen Salmon, un autoproclamado creyente en lo sobrenatural.
Salmon dijo que antes de volver al colegio, trabajó en varios lugares en el noreste, específicamente del norte del estado de Nueva York, con historias de fantasmas, entidades y secretos ocultos donde cosas raras pasaban.
El dijo que mientras trabajaba en un restaurante, él fue al ático para agarrar más tazas de café y tapas.
“De vuelta hacia abajo, la puerta se cerró, y no la podía abrir,” dijo Salmon .
Salmon dijo que nadie estaba cerca de la puerta, pero que él pudo tocar la puerta muy fuerte, y la gente de la cocina fueron y lo ayudaron a salir. Salmon dijo que siempre se contaban historias sobre hechos extraños, como inodoros que bajaban al
azar o funcionando y también momentos inexplicables.
Salmon dijo que también trabajó en un teatro embrujado. Era un teatro de vodevil tradicional con muchas historias de cosas raras que ocurrían en las salas del fondo.
“Creo firmemente en los espíritus y en los fenómenos”, afirma Salmon. “He tenido un par de accidentes de tráfico en los que probablemente debería haber sido mucho, mucho peor, pero había alguien ahí fuera cuidando de mí para protegerme, para asegurarse de que estuviera bien”.
MaKaydee Copeland, estudiante de cosmetología, vive en un apartamento de St. Benedict’s Manor, situado en el 3000 de Polk Ave. en Ogden.
“Mucha gente ha tenido experiencias aquí”, dijo Copeland. “Cuando me mudé aquí por primera vez, tuve pesadillas con una silueta oscura que me arrastraba al armario”.
Copeland dijo que ocurrían cosas raras todas las noches hasta que limpió su apartamento. Desde entonces no ha vuelto a tener pesadillas.
“Se me han caído cosas de las repisas”, dijo Copeland. “Las cosas se movían o se caían al azar en una habitación distinta a la mía. He apodado a mi ‘amigo fantasma’ Albert”.
Copeland dijo que el fantasma parece amistoso. Ella dijo que el fantasma ha hecho una pieza de decoración para tocar música por su cuenta, pero ella no está asustada.
“La lavandería está en el sótano, y
también hay máquinas expendedoras. Una vez vi a alguien en el reflejo de la máquina expendedora y asumí que era uno de mis vecinos, pero cuando me di la vuelta, no había nadie”, dijo Copeland.
La ciudad de Ogden tiene muchas historias recorriendo sus calles y actividad paranormal sonando entre sus paredes. Velda Stewart, intuitiva jubilada, compartió algunas de sus experiencias.
Stewart se mudó a una vieja casa con su familia, y sintieron algo inquietante en el sótano. Tenía una pequeña repisa que rodeaba la habitación principal. En el borde de la repisa había muñecos y cabezas de muñecos.
“Era realmente espeluznante, y a mis hijos ni siquiera les gustaba bajar, como para ocuparse de los calentadores de agua o la calefacción”, dijo Stewart.
Finalmente, Stewart le dijo al propietario que quería que se llevaran las cabezas de las muñecas, así que los propietarios vinieron, sacaron todas las muñecas y las botaron.
“A los dos días, todo estaba de nuevo allí, todo montado como estaba antes. Dios mío, así que lo dejamos”, cuenta Stewart.
Stewart invitó a cazadores de fantasmas a su sótano, y se sintieron muy incómodos. Dijo que sin duda había alguna actividad allí abajo. Stewart se ha mudado de la casa, pero sigue teniendo experiencias extrañas a veces.
The Union Station roof sign.
NATIVE Symposium NATIVE
5 - 7 p.m. Hetzel-Hoellein Room, Stewart Library, WSU Ogden YOUR VOICE, YOUR CHOICE.
DID YOU KNOW THAT THERE IS A BALLOT BOX ON CAMPUS?
Drop off your mail-in ballot in the secure ballot box outside of the Shepherd Union and it will be delivered directly to the County Clerk’s Office. Drop off your ballot by 8 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 5.
If mailing your ballot, the ballot must be postmarked by Monday, Nov. 4.
Sunrise Ceremony
Rios Pacheco, a respected Northwestern Shoshone/Kewa Pueblo Spiritual Representative Cultural Analyst and Elder of the tribe
8:30 a.m. - 9:30 a.m. Stewart Bell Tower, WSU Ogden
Learn about the legacy of the boarding school era, the resilience of its survivors, and how to support The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalitaion movement for truth, healing, and justice.
Sponsored by Stewart Library and Student Success Center.
12:30 - 1:30 p.m. Hetzel-Hoellein Room, Stewart Library, WSU Ogden Also available via Zoom
Workshop: Organizing Your Digital Footprint For Impactful Professional Personal Brand Identity
Lorato Lee, Utah Native American Chamber of Commerce. Students please bring your resumes, LinkedIn and social media accounts.
3:30 - 4:30 p.m. Shepherd Union 316, WSU Ogden
Film Screening: RezMetal
A compelling story of the heavy metal scene on Navajo reservations. Food will be provided
Mentoring, Advising & Support!
Find free support resources: weber.edu/studentlife
“THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE” 50 YEARS LATER
By COOPER HATSIS Asst. Editor
Tobe Hooper’s “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” begins with an opening scroll that tells the viewer the film is based on a true story, a filmmaking trope that, in 1974, was ahead of its time. 50 years later, it is still a sense of realism that makes this classic horror film so effective today.
In terms of its narrative structure, TCSM is a fairly straightforward story. A group of young travelers find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time, everything goes horribly wrong, a final girl escapes the danger and a fairly ambiguous ending. A horror movie structure that few films inspired by TCSM would ever bother to improve upon. The side characters are annoying and poorly acted but still remain believable.
and dingey lighting throughout the various locations the characters find themselves in.
Where Hooper’s film excels is the filmmaking craftsmanship. Films like 1973’s “The Exorcist” generate a type of horror based around mythology and elements of fantasy, but TCSM finds a way to feel like a realist bad dream that lingers in the mind. The music in the film, while used rarely, is not composed of instruments but rather industrial noises that an animal might hear in a slaughterhouse. The different settings have hundreds of unnerving details spread about that would likely go unnoticed by a first-time viewer. Adding to the statements made in the film’s opening scroll, the movie is shot like a documentary, with unnatural
Despite the title of the film, the chainsaw is used quite sparingly. There is an argument to be made that this is to the film’s benefit — too much use of the motorized weapon might lessen that dreadful sense of realism, an aspect of the movie’s aesthetic the sequels seem to abandon. In fact, there is rarely any blood or gore in the film; most of the horror falls into the atmosphere of the world Hooper has built. There is intention behind obscuring the terror and letting the viewer’s imagination fill in the gaps, though this is likely to keep the film’s budget to a minimum.
The group of young travelers finds themselves in the middle-of-nowhere, Texas. Within the first few moments of the film, there is an overwhelming sense of isolation with little to no sign of civilization in any direction. Even if the characters never stumbled upon the likeness of Leatherface and his family, there would still be a sense of danger, whether it comes from a feeling of abandonment or the Texas summer heat. The decrypted home the antagonists live in feels like it has been completely left behind by any source of humanity. It becomes a gateway to Hell as our characters have the misfortune of entering the house. This version of Texas feels like an apocalyptic wasteland.
The theme of abandonment is where the argument that TCSM is “nothing more than violence” starts
to fall apart. The film explores feelings of anxiety around what it means to be left out of the rest of society and what that sort of effect has on people. While the backgrounds of the travelers are never really touched upon, it is clear that there is a class difference between the Sawyer family and the travelers. It is an examination of what it means when the American Dream fails and runs dry. The Vietnam war would end the following year, and moments in the film feel like a cynical and angry response to the political/social state of America in the mid-70s.
The final sequences of TCSM are among some of the most iconic in horror movie history. The film’s final girl, Sally, gives it her all as she screams and flails about the Sawyer property as Leatherface chases after her. The dinner scene uses quick editing techniques and unnatural camera angles to create one of the most jarring and disturbing moments in the film. The use of the sunrise during Sally’s escape shows how this character has made her way through the worst depths of humanity. Leatherface chases her as she makes her way into the back of the pickup truck and drives away to freedom, making a great callback to the hitchhiker the travelers picked up at the start of the film.
This October is the 50th anniversary of this classic horror film. Decades later, and it is clear that “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” is a seminal film that redefined what the horror genre can do.
The chainsaw-wielding murderer, Leatherface.
The 1999 horror film, “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” about a chainsaw-wielding murderer called Leatherface.
Business Manager Rob Steedley robertsteedley@weber.edu
Waldo’s Choice 2024
The Signpost at Weber State is holding a Waldo’s Choice competition to determine students favorite places in Ogden. Vote for your favorite spots now! vote for your favorite places in ogden!
