The Valancourt Book of World Horror Stories

by James D. Jenkins

  Once they were in the retirement home, my parents wouldn’t need anything more than what was essential, so I had spent almost a week separating into piles what I would donate to charity, what I would give away, sell and auction at a good price, and also what I was going to hold onto. But first I had to get rid of all the filth. Amidst all the junk in the kitchen I found several lizards, a rat, and even a dead bat. If I thought about it carefully, the rat even appeared to be the corpse of an old hamster we lost in my childhood. As I was chasing some spiders with a shoe, I saw the tiny naked woman cross the living room in full war cry. Between all the odd things I was discovering there, a wild little woman running around didn’t seem all that incredible.

  I looked under the seat and, just as I had imagined, there was an entire civilization of diminutive women making their life. Some were seated in groups close together, combing each other’s hair, telling each other things and laughing; some others were reclining, smoking pieces of leaves torn from a fern near the sofa; and others were entwined in wars of pleasure, licking each other’s genitals and breasts by turns, as they bit the fingers of each other’s little hands or let out sharp groans of delight. These exercises I’m telling you about, they did them in general view of the entire population without shame or modesty. I didn’t see children or pregnancies among the tiny women, who were all young and slender. All of which seemed rather hedonistic to me, not to say indecent.

  In mid-­afternoon the phone rang. I answered with a mixture of courage and dismay at the tiny women who were now making my cleaning of the room difficult. It was my brother Joaquín, who was asking me for a place at the house to spend the night because his wife had thrown him out again.

  ‘She figured out that I hadn’t broken things off with Pamela like I promised her. You know that Mom always gave me a hand with this kind of thing and let me sleep on the sofa.’

  ‘I’m tidying up the house, everything’s a mess and covered in dust. But if you think you can stand it, then come.’

  ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what it is about that sofa, but it always makes me sleep well.’ Then I felt a shiver go up my spine.

  Armed with a broom I went to sweep the tiny women’s city. With the strength of my few kilos, I turned over the seat and, when it was upside down, with swipes of the broom like an expert housewife killing crawling insects, I dispersed, shook up, and killed those that I could. It wasn’t easy. They stood their ground and they had sharp little teeth; but in less than an hour I had evicted them from the sofa. One or two fled towards the bedrooms, but I was sure that it had only been a small number in comparison with those I had eliminated. Just when I had replaced the piece of furniture in its original position, the doorbell rang. Joaquín smiled at me charmingly like Clark Gable from the other side of the peephole. Together we put the trash bags full of tiny women out on the curb so that the garbage truck could collect them.

  We made a quick dinner out of some leftover soup. From time to time my glance would turn towards the floor to see the occasional tiny woman running around as she pulled her hair or wept with her mouth open, wandering aimlessly. But I managed to ignore them while my brother recounted for me the details of his sophisticated life as adviser to a politician, about the trips he was taking, the people he knew, while I discreetly kicked at the tiny women who were trying to climb up my leg.

  ‘I don’t want to have to choose any one woman because the impression I have is that they would rather me choose so they’ll have an excuse to start a fight. For women, men are just one more motive for their war, and no: I refuse to play that game. I’m happy with the two, the three, with the four women in my life,’ and I feigned an itch on my leg to scare a tiny woman who was vengefully sticking an arrow into my knee. Yes, Joaquín was awful, he had taken a philosophic stance towards his persistent infidelity. I thought that, I didn’t say it. Instead I smiled at him with an expression much like pleasure. Like Mom used to.

  Before going to bed, as I was carrying the trash to the kitchen, I saw him take off his clothes in the twilight of the living room, lit only by the electric light from the street. My brother was a very handsome man. Tall, a muscular frame, with a solid Adam’s apple visible in his strong neck, and a pair of vigorous arms forged in the gym and in arm-­wrestling contests with other men as competitive as he was. While he was throwing himself on the sofa, half undressed, ready to enter the world of dreams, hoping to continue there his conquest of places and females, the surviving tiny women huddled on the floor and plotted a defense strategy.

  One of them boldly scaled the sofa and explored my brother’s body with curiosity. I don’t know if there were tiny men in their world, but coming upon one so large had her fascinated: she sniffed and bit his skin while Joaquín scratched here and there. More tiny women managed to climb up and stopped at his hairy chest, crouching and rolling around among the hair; and others inspected the bulge that could be discerned in his pants. You could see they were comfortable in this new world they had discovered.

  Before going out, I left the kitchen light on. I silently approached Joaquín, who was breathing with a heavy rhythm while a number of armed little women insisted on clambering noisily between his legs. He displayed an impudent smile of pleasure that came from the depths of his satisfied male brain. I felt a deep disgust. Without making any noise, I took his car keys from the table as more and more fierce and disheveled little women arrived to check out the state of their new colony. When I closed the door and double-­locked the exit, I wondered if my brother’s groans, which I could hear from the other side of the threshold, were of pain or pleasure.

  Translated from the Spanish by James D. Jenkins

  Elisenda Solsona

  Mechanisms

  Most of us know Barcelona, the capital of Catalonia, as a popular tourist destination. But Catalonia as a place in its own right, separate from Spain, wasn’t on many Americans’ radar until October 2017, when the region voted to declare independence from Spain. Catalonia is distinct from the rest of Spain not only in its language (Catalan, a Romance language in some respects closer to French or Italian than Spanish) but also in its culture and literary traditions. Catalan literature has a long history of horror and fantastic fiction, the best of which was collected in the massive, 700-­page Els altres mons de la literatura catalana [The Other Worlds of Catalan Literature] (2004). The doyenne of Catalan letters, Mercè Rodoreda, wrote a number of horror stories, and renowned writers Manuel de Pedrolo (author of the post-­apocalyptic Typescript of the Second Origin) and Joan Perucho (author of the classic vampire novel Natural History) are among those who have made important contributions to Catalan speculative fiction. Elisenda Solsona is a young writer who follows in their tradition. Her award-­winning 2019 collection Satèl·lits [Satellites] features weird tales that all take place on the same night, a night when the moon has inexplicably disappeared. ‘Mechanisms’ is the first story from that collection and the first – but we’re sure not the last – appearance of Solsona’s writing in English.

  Manel turns off the flashlight, clicks his tongue, and lowers the hood of the rental car. Slowly, with gentle movements, he wipes his large hands on his pants and turns. The tenuous orange glow of the lights on the narrow mountain road allow him to see Òscar silhouetted in the distance, taking photos of the ski lift.

  A long silhouette, making sinuous arm movements to find the perfect position. The precise angle. Carefully planting the tripod.

  And shooting.

  Manel can even make out his curly blond hair he says he wants to cut before the opening of his photographic exhibition.

  Is that what he noticed first about him? The lock of curly, almost white hair that covered Òscar’s right eye?

  He sits in the car and turns the key hanging from a ring in the shape of a wheel with the logo of the rental car company. Will it start? He has no idea what could be wrong with the engine. The car’s been stalled for
half an hour and they’re only a few yards from the hotel. He scratches his thick black beard. He turns the key again. It seems like the engine is responding now, but with a slight wheeze.

  As if coughing, wearily.

  The car had broken down close to the abandoned ski station, the landscape Òscar had chosen for the final photograph in his series, and he decided to do a first shooting session while Manel checked the engine.

  The setting didn’t disappoint him. It’s exactly like the photos he’d seen.

  He squeezes his right eye firmly and looks through the viewfinder with his left, lifting his lips slightly. He focuses on the chairs. No, on the cables. And the forest that climbs along with the chairlift up the mountain.

  His pupil moves frantically in the viewfinder. The landscape is too dark. The lights on the road give off a very faint glow.

  He blinks.

  In the background, he hears the engine of the car they rented at the airport. Manel must have already fixed it, but he wants to take one more photo before they leave. His first contact, his first caress of that landscape.

  Why had they shut down the ski resort? He read that it’d been closed for eighteen years, but if he knew why, if he knew the reasons behind it, maybe he could capture its essence in a photograph.

  The photograph.

  The abysm.

  The laughter and the friction of skis against snow, the shouting, the instructors’ advice, the music in the background with the latest hit songs. Would he be able to capture all those absent sounds in a photograph?

  The abysm: dead defense mechanisms against death.

  Suddenly, Manel places a hand on his shoulder and kisses his neck.

  Òscar spins around coldly, to shake him off.

  ‘Just a minute, shit, I was in the middle of a long exposure!’

  Manel opens his mouth a little and lowers his eyelids a milli­meter. He swallows air that, as always, turns into tension, rapidly snaking into his stomach in the shape of an S.

  As if he were swallowing Òscar’s curly locks.

  Another gulp.

  And another.

  One more and his tone of voice will be normal again.

  He’s digesting all the tension in his stomach, but his voice will be normal again.

  ‘I don’t know how, but it looks like I fixed it. Come on, it’s getting really late, Òscar. We should go.’

  Òscar lets his camera slide down to the height of his chest, held by the red strap Manel gave him for his birthday. He lifts his chin and looks at the sky. The wind lifts his hair. He furrows his brow, pushes aside that lock of curls, and looks at Manel.

  ‘I don’t get it. You said there’d be a full moon. I need it for the photos. I can’t take them without it.’

  A tango comes through the speakers of the car. It smells of new car and lemon air freshener. Manel drives in silence along a very sharp curve, ten kilometers an hour and with his head glued to the windshield. Every once in a while he blows up on his glossy black bangs. The engine seems to be making a muffled whine again, but he’s pretty sure they can make it to the hotel.

  A three-­minute drive.

  He can’t remember the distance, but he calculated it that morning at the airport, while they were waiting to board. A three-­minute drive from the hotel to the ski resort.

  From the ski resort to the hotel.

  How many times will they make that trip during their five days of vacation? Will he find the right moment to bring up the subject again?

  According to the map, after the ski resort comes a straight stretch, then a big sharp curve and, just as it ends, you should see the hotel. Manel wiggles his fingers a little because he’s feeling the cold make its way into his joints.

  Òscar, riding shotgun, studies the three long-­exposure photographs he made, cycling through them slowly.

  He gently presses the button.

  They’re dark. All three of them are too dark.

  He pauses at the last photograph. He lifts his thumb off the button and strokes the fingerprint-­covered screen.

  He brings the camera to his face as he feels his biceps throbbing.

  There is a shadow in the trees.

  A big, curved shadow. It’s in profile, but it seems to be looking at him.

  Manel glances sidelong at Òscar. The light coming off the camera screen illuminates his intensely blue eyes and his wrinkled brow. What if he brought it up now? Is now a good time? They have five days ahead of them, but maybe now . . . No, it’s better to wait until they’re in the hot tub, after a bottle of cava, after he’s rubbed him down with the foamy pink soap he bought this morning. One that’s really foamy, please. He inhales. He hasn’t brought it up in three months, not since the last argument. He has to be subtle, speak calmly. He’s got it all planned. He blows on his bangs again. He has to tell him. Òscar, Wednesday is the information session at the adoption center, they haven’t held one in a long time. He needs to emphasize that: it’s just a first informational meeting. That will be enough for him to see if Òscar’s changed his mind.

  Òscar zooms in on the photograph.

  He zooms in more.

  But the pixels are already huge. He can’t make out anything.

  He closes the camera, puts it in its case, and looks out the window, chin in hand.

  ‘Why’d they shut down the ski resort, Manel?’

  ‘I have no idea. But that’s not important, is it? I mean, you keep focusing on that but you can still take the photographs, without knowing why it closed.’

  Òscar turns and stares at him.

  ‘Actually, no. I want to know what happened. I want to understand the landscape.’

  When Òscar came up with the idea that the final photo of his Abysms series could be an abandoned ski station, he spent a week searching on the web before finding this one: small and near a town hidden in a valley, and with a hotel nearby where he could stay. He’d have to fly in and then rent a car to get there.

  He searched for more information, but all he found out was that it’d been shut down for eighteen years. He looked at the photographs again.

  It was perfect.

  He had found the place to finish Abysms.

  The car’s headlights reveal an enormous gray square building, seven stories high. Two gilded columns ascend to an arch over the revolving door reached along a grand marble staircase.

  ‘We’re here.’ Manel looks through the windshield at the hotel’s dark windows. ‘And I was right: I think we’ll be the only ones here.’ He swallows and contemplates the hotel. ‘Maybe it will be more inviting in the daylight.’

  Weeks ago, after Òscar explained that he’d found the location for his final photograph and showed him the map online, Manel called the hotel from his office at the architectural firm, and made a reservation. Òscar had said that the most important thing was that it was during the full moon, in case he wanted to make some night shots. Manel spoke directly with the manager. He had a deep, hoarse voice, as if his vocal cords hadn’t vibrated in years and his saliva had solidified. Manel asked for a room with a hot tub. They were already spending their vacation working on Òscar’s photographic project, and he wanted to feel that he was making some decisions. At least one.

  They get out of the car. Manel rubs his arms. He looks around and smiles at Òscar.

  ‘This is all fine, right?’

  Òscar shrugs.

  ‘Should we go in? I want to download the photos.’

  Manel sees someone pulling aside the red curtain on the window closest to the door. Òscar puts his camera case carefully on his shoulder. Manel opens the trunk and pulls out their red suitcase. They hear a creak. The revolving door starts to move and out of it comes a tall man, slightly hunched over and with wrinkled, yellow skin. He walks toward them.

  ‘I was expecting you earlier.’<
br />
  The man’s voice, in person, sounds even deeper to Manel.

  The manager shakes first Manel’s hand and then Òscar’s. He’s maybe sixty years old.

  ‘Welcome, I’m Sam.’

  Sam positions himself behind the long black reception desk. Manel puts down the suitcase. Òscar looks around him. On the right-­hand side of the lobby there is a waiting room with armchairs and sofas upholstered in red and white flowers, with gilt legs. In one corner there is a small bar and a gramophone.

  Sam opens up a thick, square notebook, with hard brown covers. Its pages are yellowed. He removes the cap on a fountain pen.

  ‘I’ll need your IDs.’

  He writes their names slowly, pressing hard with the pen and making flourishes on each letter.

  ‘There is no one else staying at the hotel.’ He shakes his head and contemplates the empty room. ‘This used to be full of life. This will most likely be the last year I stay open. If you need anything,’ he turns and points to a door behind him, ‘this is my room.’

  Sam closes the notebook, turns, rummages around in some small drawers and grabs a keyring that he then gives to Manel.

  Òscar contemplates the paintings of forests that decorate the walls.

  Manel takes the key and realizes that, hanging right below the paintings, there’s a shotgun.