I told Mary Lou about the Minton house and something that had happened to me there that was a secret and she didn’t believe me at first saying with a jeer, “Was it a ghost? Was it Hans?” I said I couldn’t tell. Couldn’t tell what? she said. Couldn’t tell, I said. Why not? she said.
“Because I promised.”
“Promised who?” she said. She looked at me with her wide blue eyes like she was trying to hypnotize me. “You’re a goddamned liar.”
Later she started in again asking me what had happened what was the secret was it something to do with Hans ? did he still like her? was he mad at her? and I said it didn’t have anything to do with Hans not a thing to do with him. Twisting my mouth to show what I thought of him.
“Then who – ?” Mary Lou asked.
“I told you it was a secret.”
“Oh shit – what kind of a secret?”
“A secret.”
“A secret really?”
I turned away from Mary Lou, trembling. My mouth kept twisting in a strange hurting smile. “Yes. A secret really,” I said.
The last time I saw Mary Lou she wouldn’t sit with me on the bus, walked past me holding her head high giving me a mean snippy look out of the corner of her eye. Then when she left for her stop she made sure she bumped me going by my seat, she leaned over to say, “I’ll find out for myself, I hate you anyway,” speaking loud enough for everybody on the bus to hear, “– I always have.”
Once upon a time the fairy tales begin. But then they end and often you don’t know really what has happened, what was meant to happen, you only know what you’ve been told, what the words suggest. Now that I have completed my story, filled up half my notebook with my handwriting that disappoints me, it is so shaky and childish – now the story is over I don’t understand what it means. I know what happened in my life but I don’t know what has happened in these pages.
Mary Lou was found murdered ten days after she said those words to me. Her body had been tossed into Elk Creek a quarter mile from the road and from the old Minton place. Where, it said in the paper, nobody had lived for fifteen years.
It said that Mary Lou had been thirteen years old at the time of her death. She’d been missing for seven days, had been the object of a countrywide search.
It said that nobody had lived in the Minton house for years but that derelicts sometimes sheltered there. It said that the body was unclothed and mutilated. There were no details.
This happened a long time ago.
The murderer (or murderers as the newspaper always said) was never found.
Hans Meunzer was arrested of course and kept in the county jail for three days while police questioned him but in the end they had to let him go, insufficient evidence to build a case it was explained in the newspaper though everybody knew he was the one wasn’t he the one? – everybody knew. For years afterward they’d be saying that. Long after Hans was gone and the Siskins were gone, moved away nobody knew where.
Hans swore he hadn’t done it, hadn’t seen Mary Lou for weeks. There were people who testified in his behalf said he couldn’t have done it for one thing he didn’t have his brother’s car any longer and he’d been working all that time. Working hard out in the fields – couldn’t have slipped away long enough to do what police were saying he’d done. And Hans said over and over he was innocent. Sure he was innocent. Son of a bitch ought to be hanged my father said, everybody knew Hans was the one unless it was a derelict or a fisherman – fishermen often drove out to Elk Creek to fish for black bass, built fires on the creek bank and left messes behind – sometimes prowled around the Minton house too looking for things to steal. The police had records of automobile license plates belonging to some of these men, they questioned them but nothing came of it. Then there was that crazy man, that old hermit living in a tar-paper shanty near the Shaheen dump that everybody’d said ought to have been committed to the state hospital years ago. But everybody knew really it was Hans and Hans got out as quick as he could, just disappeared and not even his family knew where unless they were lying which probably they were though they claimed not.
Mother rocked me in her arms crying, the two of us crying, she told me that Mary Lou was happy now, Mary Lou was in Heaven now, Jesus Christ had taken her to live with Him and I knew that didn’t I? I wanted to laugh but I didn’t laugh. Mary Lou shouldn’t have gone with boys, not a nasty boy like Hans, Mother said, she shouldn’t have been sneaking around the way she did – I knew that didn’t I? Mother’s words filled my head flooding my head so there was no danger of laughing.
Jesus loves you too you know that don’t you Melissa? Mother asked hugging me. I told her yes. I didn’t laugh because I was crying.
They wouldn’t let me go to the funeral, said it would scare me too much. Even though the casket was closed.
It’s said that when you’re older you remember things that happened a long time ago better than you remember things that have just happened and I have found that to be so.
For instance I can’t remember when I bought this notebook at Woolworth’s whether it was last week or last month or just a few days ago. I can’t remember why I started writing in it, what purpose I told myself. But I remember Mary Lou stooping to say those words in my ear and I remember when Mary Lou’s mother came over to ask us at suppertime a few days later if I had seen Mary Lou that day – I remember the very food on my plate, the mashed potatoes in a dry little mound. I remember hearing Mary Lou call my name standing out in the driveway cupping her hands to her mouth the way Mother hated her to do, it was white trash behavior.
“’Lissa!” Mary Lou would call, and I’d call back, “Okay, I’m coming!” Once upon a time.
Video Nasty
Philip Pullman
Location: Oxford, England.
Time: November, 1994.
Eyewitness Description: “David looked at the strange boy. His eyes were wide and fixed intently on the screen, and bis lips were moving unconsciously with the words. David felt queer. He knew now very strongly that he didn’t want to watch the film at all . . .”
Author: Philip Pullman (1946–) is the author of His Dark Materials (1995–2000), the biggest-selling and most controversial trilogy of modern times in which he has challenged Christian faith and attacked the constraints of dogmatism. Born in Norwich, but educated at Harlech and Exeter College, Oxford, Pullman says that he started telling stories as soon as he knew what they were and formed a lifelong fascination with the supernatural. He recalled recently, “I used to enjoy frightening myself and my friends with the tales I read and I liked making up stories about the tree in the woods we used to call the Hanging Tree. My friends and I would creep past it in the dark and shiver as we looked at the bare, sinister outline against the sky. I still enjoy ghost stories, even though I don’t think I believe in ghosts any more.” Pullman began writing while he was working as a teacher, but the popularity of his children’s titles such as Count Karlstein (1982), Frankenstein (1990) and the Sally Lockhart series of modern “penny dreadfuls”, followed by the phenomenal acclaim for his trilogy, has enabled him to devote himself entirely to the art of storytelling. “Video Nasty” is one of his few short stories, contemporary, unsettling and, as the title indicates, dealing with something very unpleasant.
It was a cold grey afternoon in November, and the three boys had Ibeen hanging around the shopping precinct since mid-morning. They’d had some chips at midday, and Kevin had nicked a couple of Mars bars from the newsagent’s, so they weren’t hungry. And until they were thrown out of Woolworth’s they weren’t cold either; but by half-past three they were cold and fed up, and almost wished they’d gone to school.
“How much longer we got to wait?” said David, the youngest boy, to Martin, the oldest.
Martin was fourteen, thin and dark and sharper than the other two by a long way. He looked at his watch. “Oh, come on,” he said. “Let’s go and see if it’s ready.”
He hunched himself inside his anorak and
led the way out of the precinct and down one of the old streets that led towards the canal. The cold wind blew crisp packets and old newspapers around their ankles. The boys turned around two corners and stopped outside a little newsagent’s, where one of the windows was filled with a display of video cassettes.
“See if there’s anyone in there, Kev,” said Martin.
Kevin opened the door, which jangled loudly. The street was empty, apart from an abandoned Datsun without any wheels that stood in a scatter of broken glass half on and half off the pavement. After a few seconds Kevin came out and said, “’S okay.”
The other two went in. The place smelled like all newsagents – a bit chocolatey, a bit smokey, a bit like old comics. There was nothing unusual about it, but David felt his stomach tightening. He pretended to be unconcerned and picked up a paperback that said AQUARIUS: Your Horoscope For 1994. He didn’t know if he was Aquarius or what, but he had to look cool.
An old man had come out from the back. He was carrying a mug of tea, and sipped at it before he spoke.
“Yes, lads?” he said.
Martin went up to the counter. “You got that video in yet?” he said. “The one you told me about last week?”
The old man took another sip, and narrowed his eyes.
“What one’s that? I don’t remember you.”
“You said it’d be in today. Snuff Park. You told me about it.”
Recognition came into the old man’s eyes, and he smiled carefully.
“Course I remember,” he said. “You got to be careful, that’s all. Wait there.”
He put his mug on a shelf and shuffled out. Kevin’s frowning, short-sighted eyes flickered to the sweets, but Martin put his hand on his arm, and shook his head. No-one spoke.
After a minute the old man came back with a video cassette, which he put in a brown paper bag. Martin passed over the money; David put back his book and opened the jangling door.
“Bye, lads,” said the old man. “Enjoy the film.”
“Let’s have a look,” said Kevin, once they were outside.
Martin took out the cassette, but there was no picture. There was just a plain white label with “SNUFF PARK. 112 mins” typed in the centre.
“What’s mins?” said Kevin.
“Minutes, you berk. That’s how long it lasts,” said Martin, putting it back. “Come on, let’s get a cup of tea. I’m perished.”
“Can’t we go to your place?”
“Not yet. I told you. They ain’t going out till six. We got to hang about till then.”
As they walked past the abandoned Datsun, one of the doors creaked open. David jumped back out of the way. A thin boy of about his age, wearing torn jeans and trainers and a dirty anorak, was sitting in the driver’s seat, with his feet on the pavement. He said something quietly and Martin stopped.
“What?” he said.
“What cassette you got?” said the boy. His voice sounded like the sound your feet make in dry leaves.
“What you want to know for?” said Martin.
The boy shrugged. David thought he could smell him: sharp and dirty and somehow cold. Kevin had his hand on the car door.
“Snuff Park,” said Martin after a moment. “You seen it?”
The boy shrugged again, and said “Yeah”. He wasn’t looking at any of them, but down at the pavement. He scuffed the broken glass with one foot.
No-one else spoke, so Martin turned and walked off. The other two followed. David looked back at the boy in the car, but he hadn’t moved. Just before they turned the corner, he shut the car door.
In the cafeteria, Martin paid for three cups of tea and brought them to the table by the window where Kevin and David had found a place. David didn’t know where Martin got his money from; he assumed Martin’s parents gave it to him. He always seemed to have plenty, but he never boasted about stealing it, as Kevin would have done.
He stirred sugar into his tea and watched his reflection in the glass. It was nearly dark outside already.
“What’s it about, Snuff Park?” said Kevin. “Sounds crummy.”
“Well it ain’t,” said Martin. “It’s a real snuff movie.”
“What’s one of them?”
Martin sighed. “Tell him, Dave,” he said.
David felt a glow of pride at being called Dave.
“It’s where they kill someone,” he said. “Ain’t it, Martin?”
Martin nodded and sipped the hot tea.
“What d’you mean?” said Kevin. “I seen plenty of them.”
“No you ain’t,” said Martin. “They stopped ’em years back. You can’t get ’em no more. ‘Cept if you know how.”
“I seen all sorts,” said Kevin. “I seen Forest of Blood and Sawmill. You seen Sawmill?”
“That ain’t a snuff movie. You’re a berk, you are. This is real. There’s someone really killed on this. You see it being done. You ain’t never seen that.”
David again felt his stomach lift. He hoped desperately that he wouldn’t be sick in front of Martin when the time came. Even thinking about it . . .
“There’s that kid again,” said Kevin.
He pointed to the brightly-lit doorway of an electricity board showroom opposite. Sandwich-makers, microwave ovens, cookers, heaters, freezers, and in the doorway gazing in, the thin huddled figure from the car. As they looked he wandered away from there and stared through the window of the supermarket next door.
Martin looked away.
“If you’re scared, you needn’t watch it,” he said.
“Course I ain’t scared,” said Kevin. “I seen Sawmill and I weren’t scared of that.”
“This is different,” said Martin.
David looked out of the window again, but the other boy had gone.
Martin turned the key and opened the door. The house was full of darkness and the smell of chips and tobacco smoke. David felt the warmth on his cheeks. He’d never been to Martin’s house before, and he looked around curiously as Martin put the hall light on. There was a really smart carpet, and a mirror with all gold round it, and a TV phone. He felt reassured. It was so nice that you couldn’t imagine anything horrible happening there. Snuff Park might not be all that bad. And he could always close his eyes.
“You going to put it on then?” said Kevin. “Where’s the telly?”
“No hurry. I want something to eat first. Ain’t you hungry?”
“What you got to eat?”
“Dunno. Fish and chips’ll do. You better eat it now ’cause you won’t want to after, will he, Dave?”
“No,” said David. “Not after.”
“Here,” said Martin to David, handing him a ten-pound note. “Go round the chippy. Cod and chips three times, all right?”
“Ta, Martin,” said David, and added “Don’t start it without me.”
The chip shop was just around the corner. On his way back, with the soft hot bundles clutched to his chest, David suddenly stopped. The boy from the car was standing outside Martin’s front door.
“What do you want?” said David, before he could stop himself.
“You going to watch the video?” said the boy.
David could hardly hear what he said. He supposed the boy had got a cold, or asthma, like David’s sister.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Can I watch it?”
“I dunno. It ain’t mine, it’s my mate’s.”
The two boys stood still, not looking at each other.
“I’ll ask him,” said David finally, and rang the bell.
When Martin opened the door David said “I got ’em. Three cod and chips. And this kid was there outside the house. He says he wants to watch the video.”
Martin twisted his mouth. Kevin, behind him, said, “He’ll never take it. He’ll never take the pressure.”
“All right, let’s see if he does,” said Martin. “Let him in, then.”
The strange boy came in after David and stood in the living-room while they ate their fish
and chips. David offered him some, but he just said, “No, I don’t want none.” After a minute or two he sat down. The others didn’t say anything, but ate quickly, and dropped their papers in the fireplace. David could smell the strange boy again. The room was hot, and he dropped his anorak on the thick red carpet, but the strange boy kept his on, and sat with his hands in his pockets, unmoving.
“All right then?” said Martin. “I’ll put it on.”
He fitted the cassette into the machine and sprawled back in a big leather armchair with the remote control. David and Kevin were sitting on the settee, and the other boy was on a dining chair by the table. Martin turned the TV on.
“Smart telly,” said Kevin.
It was a 48-inch. The big screen lifted itself out of the console and filled with colour.
“You seen a snuff picture before?” said Martin to the strange boy.
“Yeah. I seen this one.” They had to strain to hear him.
“This one?” It was plain that Martin didn’t believe him. “You know what happens?”
“Yeah. I seen it hundreds of times.”
“Hundreds? Get lost.”
“Here,” said Kevin. “Let’s watch it with the light out.”
“Stay there,” said Martin. “Watch this.”
He pressed a button on the remote control, and the big centre light above them faded into darkness. Now the only light came from the screen.
“Smart!” said Kevin.
They found themselves watching a suburban street from the windscreen of a moving car. It was a sunny day. There were lots of trees covered in leaves, and the houses looked nice and big, with lots of space between them.
Then the commentary began.
“Just an ordinary road in an ordinary English town,” said a man’s voice. It was a strong deep voice, warm and concerned. “An ordinary summer’s day. But for one woman nothing will be the same again. There will never be another summer’s day for her.”
The Mammoth Book of Modern Ghost Stories Page 70