The Mammoth Book of Halloween Stories: Terrifying Tales Set on the Scariest Night of the Year!

by Stephen Jones

  “Oh, hell, man. That can’t be. They’re nuns.”

  “I don’t think they are,” Jim said. “Least not the kind of nuns you’re thinking.”

  The nun dragged Harold up the hill and dropped his leg when she reached the big black car. Another of the nuns opened the trunk and reached in and got hold of something. It looked like some kind of folded-up lawn chair, only more awkward in shape. The nun jerked it out and dropped it on the ground and gave it a swift kick. The folded-up thing began to unfold with a clatter and a squeak.

  A perfectly round head rose up from it, and the head spun on what appeared to be a silver hinge. When it quit whirling, it was upright and in place, though cocked slightly to the left. The eyes and mouth and nostrils were merely holes. Moonlight could be seen through them. The head rose as coatrack style shoulders pushed it up, and a cage of a chest rose under that. The chest looked almost like an old frame on which dresses were placed to be sewn, or perhaps a cage designed to contain something you wouldn’t want to get out. With more squeaks and clatters, skeletal hips appeared, and beneath that, long, bony, legs with bent-back knees and big metal-framed feet. Stick-like arms swung below its knees, clattering against its legs like tree limbs bumping against a windowpane. It stood at least seven feet tall. Like the nuns, its knees and elbows fit backward.

  The nun by the car trunk reached inside and pulled out something fairly large that beat its wings against the night air. She held it in one hand by its clawed feet, and its beak snapped wildly, looking for something to peck.

  Using her free hand, she opened up the folding-man’s chest by use of a hinge, and when the cage flung open, she put the black, winged thing inside. It fluttered about like a heart shot full of adrenaline. The holes that were the folding-man’s eyes filled with a red glow and the mouth-hole grew wormy lips, and a tongue—long as a garden snake, dark as dirt—licked out at the night, and there was a loud sniff as its nostrils sucked air.

  One of the nuns reached down and grabbed up a handful of clay, and pressed it against the folding-man’s arms; the clay spread fast as a lie, went all over, filling the thing with flesh of the earth until the entire folding man’s body was covered.

  The nun, who had taken the folding man out of the car, picked Harold up by the ankle, and as if he were nothing more than a blow-up doll, swung him over her head and slammed him into the darkness of the trunk, shut the lid, and looked out to where Jim and William stood recovering by the tree.

  The nun said something, a noise between a word and a cough, and the folding man began to move down the hill at a stumble. As he moved, his joints made an unoiled hinge sound, and the rest of him made a clatter like lug bolts being knocked together, accompanied by a noise akin to wire hangers being twisted by strong hands.

  “Run,” Jim said.

  Jim began to feel pain, knew he was more banged up than he thought. His neck hurt. His back hurt. One of his legs really hurt. He must have jammed his knee against something. William, who ran alongside him, dodging trees, said, “My ribs. I think they’re cracked.”

  Jim looked back. In the distance, just entering the trees, framed in the moonlight behind him, was the folding man. He moved in strange leaps, as if there were springs inside him, and he was making good time.

  Jim said, “We can’t stop. It’s coming.”

  It was low-down in the woods and water had gathered there and the leaves had mucked up with it, and as they ran, they sloshed and splashed, and behind them, they could hear it, the folding man, coming, cracking limbs, squeaking hinges, splashing his way after them.

  When they had the nerve to look back, they could see him darting between the trees like a piece of the forest itself, and he, or it, was coming quite briskly for a thing its size until it reached the lower-down parts of the bottom-land. There, its big feet slowed it some as they buried deep in the mud and were pulled free again with a sound like the universe sucking wind. Within moments, however, the thing got its stride, its movements becoming more fluid and its pace faster.

  Finally, Jim and William came to a tree-thickened rise in the land, and were able to get out of the muck, scramble upward and move more freely, even though there was something of a climb ahead, and they had to use trees growing out from the side of the rise to pull themselves upward. When they reached the top of the climb, they were surprised when they looked back to see they had actually gained some space on the thing. It was some distance away, speckled by the moonlight, negotiating its way through the ever-thickening trees and undergrowth. But still it came, ever onward, never tiring. Jim and William bent over and put their hands on their knees and took some deep breaths.

  “There’s an old graveyard on the far side of this stretch,” Jim said. “Near the wrecking yard.”

  “Where you worked last summer?”

  “Yeah, that’s the one. It gets clearer in the graveyard, and we can make good time. Get to the wrecking yard, Old Man Gordon lives there. He always has a gun and he has that dog, Chomps. It knows me. It will eat that thing up.”

  “What about me?”

  “You’ll be all right. You’re with me. Come on. I kinda know where we are now. Used to play in the graveyard, and in this end of the woods. Got to move.”

  They moved along more swiftly as Jim became more and more familiar with the terrain. It was close to where he had lived when he was a kid, and he had spent a lot of time out here. They came to a place where there was a clearing in the woods, a place where lightning had made a fire. The ground was black, and there were no trees, and in that spot silver moonlight was falling down into it, like mercury filling a cup.

  In the center of the clearing they stopped and got their breath again, and William said, “My head feels like it’s going to explode … hey, I don’t hear it now.”

  “It’s there. Whatever it is, I don’t think it gives up.”

  “Oh, Jesus,” William said, and gasped deep once. “I don’t know how much I got left in me.”

  “You got plenty. We got to have plenty.”

  “What can it be, Jimbo? What in the hell can it be?”

  Jim shook his head. “You know that old story about the black car?”

  William shook his head.

  “My grandmother used to tell me about a black car that roams the highways and the back-roads of the South. It isn’t in one area all the time, but it’s out there somewhere all the time. Halloween is its peak night. It’s always after somebody for whatever reason.”

  “Bullshit.”

  Jim, hands still on his knees, lifted his head. “You go down there and tell that clatter-clap thing it’s all bullshit. See where that gets you.”

  “It just doesn’t make sense.”

  “Grandma said before it was a black car, it was a black buggy, and before that a figure dressed in black on a black horse, and that before that, it was just a shadow that clicked and clacked and squeaked. There’s people go missing, she said, and it’s the black car, the black buggy, the thing on the horse, or the walkin’ shadow that gets them. But, it’s all the same thing, just a different appearance.”

  “The nuns? What about them?”

  Jim shook his head, stood up, tested his ability to breathe. “Those weren’t nuns. They were like … I don’t know … anti-nuns. This thing, if Grandma was right, can take a lot of different forms. Come on. We can’t stay here anymore.”

  “Just another moment, I’m so tired. And I think we’ve lost it. I don’t hear it anymore.”

  As if on cue, there came a clanking and a squeaking and cracking of limbs. William glanced at Jim, and without a word, they moved across the lightning-made space and into the trees. Jim looked back, and there it was, crossing the clearing, silver-flooded in the moonlight, still coming, not tiring.

  They ran. White stones rose up in front of them. Most of the stones were heaved to the side, or completely pushed out of the ground by growing trees and expanding roots. It was the old graveyard, and Jim knew that meant the wrecking yard was nearby, and
so was Gordon’s shotgun, and so was one mean dog.

  Again the land sloped upward, and this time William fell forward on his hands and knees, throwing up a mess of blackness. “Oh, God. Don’t leave me, Jim … I’m tuckered … can hardly … breathe.”

  Jim had moved slightly ahead of William. He turned back to help. As he grabbed William’s arm to pull him up, the folding man squeaked and clattered forward and grabbed William’s ankle, jerked him back, out of Jim’s grasp.

  The folding man swung William around easily, slammed his body against a tree, then the thing whirled, and as if William were a bullwhip, snapped him so hard his neck popped and an eyeball flew out of his skull. The folding man brought William whipping down across a standing gravestone. There was a cracking sound, like someone had dropped a glass coffee cup, then the folding man whirled and slung William from one tree to another, hitting the trees so hard bark flew off of them and clothes and meat flew off William.

  Jim bolted. He ran faster than he had ever run. Finally he broke free of the woods and came to a stretch of ground that was rough with gravel. Behind him, breaking free of the woods, was the folding man, making good time with great strides, dragging William’s much-abused body behind it by the ankle.

  Jim could dimly see the wrecking yard from where he was, and he thought he could make it. Still, there was the aluminum fence all the way around the yard, seven feet high. No little barrier.

  Then he remembered the sycamore tree on the edge of the fence, on the right side. Old Man Gordon was always talking about cutting it down because he thought someone could use it to climb over and into the yard, steal one of his precious car parts—though if they did, they had Gordon’s shotgun waiting along with the sizeable teeth of his dog.

  It had been six months since he had seen the old man, and he hoped he hadn’t gotten ambitious, that the tree was still there.

  Running closer, Jim could see the sycamore tree remained, tight against the long run of shiny wrecking-yard fence. Looking back over his shoulder, Jim saw the folding man was springing forward, like some kind of electronic rabbit, William’s body being pulled along by the ankle, bouncing on the ground as the thing came ever onward. At this rate, it would be only a few seconds before the thing caught up with him.

  Jim felt a pain like a knife in his side, and it seemed as if his heart was going to explode. He reached down deep for everything he had, hoping like hell he didn’t stumble.

  He made the fence and the tree, went up it like a squirrel, dropped over onto the roof of an old car, sprang off of that and ran toward a dim light shining in the small window of a wood-and-aluminum shack nestled in the midst of old cars and piles of junk.

  As he neared the shack, Chomps, part-pit bull, part-just plain big ole dog, came loping out toward him, growling. It was a hard thing to do, but Jim forced himself to stop, bent down, stuck out his hand, and called the dog’s name.

  “Chomps. Hey, buddy. It’s me.”

  The dog slowed and lowered its head and wagged its tail.

  “That’s right. Your pal, Jim.”

  The dog came close and Jim gave it a pat. “Good, boy.”

  Jim looked over his shoulder. Nothing.

  “Come on, Chomps.”

  Jim moved quickly toward the shack and hammered on the door. A moment later the door flew open, and standing there in overalls, one strap dangling from a naked arm, was Mr. Gordon. He was old and near-toothless, squat and greasy as the insides of the cars in the yard.

  “Jim? What the hell you doing in here? You look like hell.”

  “Something’s after me.”

  “Something?”

  “It’s outside the fence. It killed two of my friends… .”

  “What?”

  “It killed two of my friends.”

  “It? Some kind of animal?”

  “No … It.”

  “We’ll call some law.”

  Jim shook his head. “No use calling the law now, time they arrive it’ll be too late.”

  Gordon leaned inside the shack and pulled a twelve-gauge into view, pumped it once. He stepped outside and looked around.

  “You sure?”

  “Oh, yeah. Yes, sir. I’m sure.”

  “Then I guess you and me and Pump-Twelve will check it out.”

  Gordon moved out into the yard, looking left and right. Jim stayed close to Gordon’s left elbow. Chomps trotted nearby. They walked about a bit. They stopped between a row of wrecked cars, looked around. Other than the moon-shimmering fence at either end of the row where they stood, there was nothing to see.

  “Maybe whatever, or whoever it is, is gone,” Gordon said. “Otherwise, Chomps would be all over it.”

  “I don’t think it smells like humans or animals.”

  “Are you joshin’ an old man? Is this a Halloween prank?”

  “No, sir. Two of my friends are dead. This thing killed them. It’s real.”

  “What the hell is it then?”

  As if in answer, there was the sound like a huge can opener going to work, and then the long, thin arm of the folding man poked through the fence and there was more ripping as the arm slid upward, tearing at the metal. A big chunk of the fence was torn away, revealing the thing, bathed in moonlight, still holding what was left of William’s ragged body by the ankle.

  Jim and Gordon both stood locked in amazement.

  “Sonofabitch,” Gordon said.

  Chomps growled, ran toward it.

  “Chomps will fix him,” Gordon said.

  The folding man dropped William’s ankle and bent forward, and just as the dog leaped, caught it and twisted it and ran its long arm down the snapping dog’s throat, and began to pull its insides out. It flung the dog’s parts in all directions, like someone pulling confetti from a sack. Then it turned the dog inside out.

  When the sack was empty, the folding man bent down and fastened the dead, deflated dog to a hook on the back of what passed for its ankle.

  “My God,” Gordon said.

  The thing picked up William by the ankle, stepped forward a step, and paused.

  Gordon lifted the shotgun. “Come and get you some, asshole.”

  The thing cocked its head as if to consider the suggestion, and then it began to lope toward them, bringing along its clanks and squeaks, the dead dog flopping at the folding man’s heel. For the first time, its mouth, which had been nothing but a hole with wormy lips, twisted into the shape of a smile.

  Gordon said, “You run, boy. I got this.”

  Jim didn’t hesitate. He turned and darted between a row of cars and found a gap between a couple of Fords with grass grown up around their flattened tires, ducked down behind one, and hid. He lay down on his belly to see if he could see anything. There was a little bit of space down there, and he could look under the car, and under several others, and he could see Gordon’s feet. They had shifted into a firm stance, and Jim could imagine the old man pulling the shotgun to his shoulder.

  And even as he imagined, the gun boomed, and then it boomed again. Silence, followed by a noise like someone ripping a piece of thick cardboard in half, and then there were screams and more rips. Jim felt light-headed, realized he hadn’t been breathing. He gasped for air, feared that he had gasped too loudly.

  Oh, my God, he thought. I ran and left it to Mr. Gordon, and now … he was uncertain. Maybe the screams had come from … It, the folding man? But so far it hadn’t so much as made breathing sounds, let alone anything that might be thought of as a vocalization.

  Crawling like a soldier under fire, Jim worked his way to the edge of the car, and took a look. Stalking down the row between the cars was the folding man, and he was dragging behind him by one ankle what was left of William’s body. In his other hand, if you could call it a hand, he had Mr. Gordon, who looked thin now because so much had been pulled out of him. Chomps’s body was still fastened to the wire hook at the back of the thing’s foot. As the folding man came forward, Chomps dragged in the dirt.

 
Jim pushed back between the cars, and kept pushing, crawling backward. When he was far enough back, he raised to a squat and started between narrower rows that he thought would be harder for the folding man to navigate; they were just spaces really, not rows, and if he could go where it couldn’t go, then—

  There was a loud creaking sound, and Jim, still at a squat, turned to discover its source. The folding man was looking at him. It had grabbed an old car and lifted it up by the front and was holding it so that the back end rested on the ground. Being as close as he was now, Jim realized the folding man was bigger than he had thought, and he saw too that just below where the monster’s thick torso ended there were springs, huge springs, silver in the moonlight, vibrating. He had stretched to accommodate the lifting of the car, and where his knees bent backward, springs could be seen as well—he was a garage-sale collection of parts and pieces.

  For a moment, Jim froze. The folding man opened his mouth wide, wider than Jim had seen before, and inside he could glimpse a turning of gears and a smattering of sparks. Jim broke suddenly, running between cars, leaping on hoods, scrambling across roofs, and behind him came the folding man, picking up cars and flipping them aside as easily as if they had been toys.

  Jim could see the fence at the back, and he made for that, and when he got close to it, he thought he had it figured. He could see a Chevy parked next to the fence, and he felt certain he could climb onto the roof, spring off of it, grab the top of the fence, and scramble over. That wouldn’t stop the thing behind him, but it would perhaps give him a few moments to gain ground.

  The squeaking and clanking behind him was growing louder.

  There was a row of cars ahead, he had to leap onto the hood of the first, then spring from hood to hood, drop off, turn slightly right, and go for the Chevy by the fence.

  He was knocked forward, hard, and his breath leaped out of him.

  He was hit again, painfully in the chest.

  It took a moment to process, but he was lying between two cars, and there, standing above him, was the folding man, snapping at him with the two dead bodies like they were wet towels. That’s what had hit him, the bodies, used like whips.