The Death of Halpin Frayser

"The Death of Halpin Frayser" is a Gothic ghost story by Ambrose Bierce. It was first published in the San Francisco periodical The Wave on December 19, 1891 before appearing in the 1893 collection Can Such Things Be?

Halpin Frayser, a 32-year-old resident of the Napa Valley, awakens from a dreamless sleep speaking the mysterious words "Catherine Larue" into the darkness. Earlier that day, Frayser went hunting in the vicinity of Mount Saint Helena. As he wanders the darkness and chooses a "road less travelled", it is clear there is something devious about. Halpin dreams about a haunted forest dripping with blood and is stricken with fear. In his dream, Halpin grabs a red-leather pocketbook and begins to write with blood a dark poem (in the manner of Freneau's "The House of Night") but before he can write too much, he is confronted by the corpse of his mother.

The story then switches to Frayser's upbringing in Nashville, Tennessee. He never fit in with most of his family except for his mother. His penchant for poetry (albeit bad poetry) makes him a favorite to her. As Frayser becomes a young man, the relationship between mother and son is perceived as strange as they are together constantly. One day, Frayser tells her that he will go to California and though she initially tries to go with him, she relents. She has a dream that her son will die there by strangulation. While in San Francisco, Halpin is kidnapped onto a ship and spends several years at sea.

The story switches back to the day after Halpin's confrontation with his mother's corpse. A deputy and detective are walking the roads near where Halpin was last seen, looking for a criminal named Branscom. They heard he is in town and plan to capture him. He's wanted for slicing the throat of a woman in California. While exploring an area beyond a graveyard, they find a body that clearly was in a struggle before dying. They discover that this is Halpin's body and a poem on him that he had just written. Nearby, they discover another headboard with the name Catherine Larue.

It's at this point that the officer remembers that Larue was Branscom's original last name and Frayser was the name of the woman whom Branscom killed. The detectives hear an "unnatural" and "unhuman" laugh that fills them with dread.

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