Helen is doing a thesis on graffiti. She visits an estate, left to its occupants, vandalised and full of material for her thesis. She gets to speak with a woman who tells her that a crime was committed in the surroundings, and then she meets two others that say that a young man was emasculated. Helen’s friends laugh at these recountings and toss them away, saying they are lies. Helen goes back and learns that a young boy has been killed, and back again, but this time she will not leave the place. This short story gave the basis for the film “The Candyman”. Nicely spooky.
“Forget the dog,” Trevor said. “And the child. There’s nothing you can do about it. You were just passing through.” His words only echoed her own thoughts of earlier in the day, but somehow – for reasons that she could find no words to convey – that conviction had decayed in the last hours. She was not just passing through. Nobody ever just passed through; experience always left its mark. Sometimes it merely scratched; on occasion it took off limbs. She did not know the extent of her present wounding, but she knew it more profound than she yet understood, and it made her afraid.”