Another Couple Of Richard Matheson Short Stories

 


Way back in 2022, I rounded off a ‘Richard Matheson Short Story Post’ by saying that ‘I’ll be looking at more of these short stories in the near future’. Well, I’m not sure what the actual threshold is but I’m pretty sure that ‘four years later’ is more of a ‘medium term thing’ at the very least, more likely ‘long term’. I’m not sure what happened but, here we are ;o) Anyway…

I took a days leave, yesterday, and while the original plan was to get a few bits and pieces done, what actually happened was I spent a lot of time in the comfy chair, wrapped up in a blanket and trying to get over the Covid vaccine. And reading, I managed to get some reading done as well :o) I saw ‘The Best of Richard Matheson’ lurking on a shelf and thought it was way past time I paid it a visit so… that’s exactly what I did. Let me tell you about them.

‘Long Distance Call’

Page Count: 13 Pages

Miss Elva Keene is bed-bound and on her own, in the house, while a storm rages outside. And then the phone rings but when she picks up the receiver, no-one is on the other end. And then the phone rings again, and again, and…

I’ll be honest, I wasn’t sure if ‘Long Distance Call’ was going to be all that creepy. I mean, al you need to do is leave the phone off the hook (or unplug it from the wall) and that’s your problem sorted – Elva actually does this at one point!

Shows what I know… Matheson plays on Elva’s age, physical condition, and sense of isolation and comes up with a really tense tale off the back of a question that cannot be answered; at least not until the end when Matheson lets us know where the calls were coming from. That would be enough for most stories but Matheson gives us the ‘real ending’ about half a page later and it’s a good one.

‘No Such Thing as a Vampire’

Page Count: 9 Pages

A vampire is paying calls on the Doctors wife and nothing will keep it out of the house. As a last resort, another Doctor is called in to see if something can be done…

I won’t give too much away here, lets just say that I love a short story where the ending makes you come back and look at the title in a whole new light, as well as realizing that you were reading a completely different story the whole time.

Matheson keeps the twist well hidden here and reveals it at just the right time; I hadn’t actually planned on reading ‘No Such Thing as a Vampire’ but I’m glad I took a chance on it.

Comments

  1. Bookstooge29 May 2026 at 10:18

    Matheson was definitely a master of the twist. I think that's why so many of his stories ended up on the Twilight Zone tv show :-)

    ReplyDelete

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