The Most Frightening Story Ever Told

by Philip Kerr

  Billy read the last story in the book and it was so creepy that Billy had to read it again just to make certain that he hadn’t imagined any of this. Because the last story in the book was completely different from all of the stories preceding it, Billy almost wondered if the editor of the book, who was called Octavian Girdlestone, had made a terrible mistake and included the last story in the wrong book. And he asked Mr. Rapscallion about it.

  “I wondered that,” said Mr. Rapscallion. “And then I discovered that before he was a book editor, Octavian Girdlestone was a disgraced schoolmaster at an English boarding school who was obliged to resign when it was discovered that he had gone around the school at night pretending to be a ghost, with the intention of scaring the boys witless. It’s my belief that he hated boys because of their persistent misbehavior in his class and sought to be revenged upon them. And I think the book of stories was compiled with much the same motive, this being exactly the kind of book that a mother or a father might easily purchase for their son. You see, the book lulls you into a false sense of security that all is well with the world, and then bam! he hits you with the last story, which is a real shocker.”

  “Ingenious,” admitted Billy. “So the last story becomes more frightening because of the twelve others that are before it.”

  “Exactly.”

  “What happened to this guy Girdlestone?”

  “He won the Spanish lottery and spent the money opening an amusement park in Indianapolis that had the scariest roller-coaster ride in the Midwest,” said Mr. Rapscallion. “Probably the world. The roller coaster was called the Indy 300 because it took three hundred seconds—or about five minutes—to complete. Most rides these days last around ninety seconds. The Indy 300 had two four-hundred-foot drops at a seventy-degree angle where the car actually traveled at more than a hundred miles an hour. And six three-hundred-sixty-degree loops. People on the ride were subject to forces that were almost four times that of gravity.”

  “Wow,” said Billy. “Some ride.”

  “You bet it was. Apparently it went so fast the riders in the front car used to believe that the car had actually left the track. And people used to scream so loud they couldn’t speak for hours after they got off. NASA used to send guys there to see if they were up to joining the space program; it was said that if you could get off the Indy 300 with a smile on your face, you were in. They had to have volunteers from the American Red Cross working full-time beside the ride to deal with all the people who fainted, or barfed.”

  “Gee, I’d love to go on a fairground ride like that,” said Billy.

  “Too late,” said Mr. Rapscallion. “You see, a family of five all died of a heart attack while riding the Indy 300. And both the park and the ride were closed down, forever.”

  Billy winced. “Oooh,” he said. “That’s too bad.”

  “Girdlestone went bankrupt. And that was the last anyone ever heard of him.”

  [Author’s Note: Space does not permit the inclusion in this book of all thirteen stories in Octavian Girdlestone’s no-longer-in-print book, Uplifting Stories for Boys; however, the last story, which is entitled “New Shoes,” is included here so that the reader who wishes to measure his or her bravery against that of Billy may get at least a taste of what he found so unsettling about this particular tale.]

  “NEW SHOES”

  There are few places in the world that possess as many churches as the ancient capital of Scotland and, of these, there are few churches that require such rigorous, unswerving devotion as the Free Church of Edinburgh. In truth, there is little or nothing about this church that is free, for it is a forbidding, granite-built institution of injunction, proscription and prohibition as opposed to one that is truly characterized by liberty of conscience, license and indulgence. Even in Edinburgh, which is not a city known for its good humor, the Free Church is a byword for small-mindedness.

  Rare is the Sunday when the members of this strict Presbyterian sect are not rebuked by brick-faced pulpiteers for their worldliness, and sternly reminded of the many temptations in life that the devil has prepared for us and which must be avoided at all costs. Even the children are subject to thunderous, scary sermons on the eternal torments that await anyone who sins—perhaps them most of all, for in any normal child a natural lust for life outweighs a strict observance of rules and regulations.

  Two such children were eleven-year-old Stephen Lang and his sister, Evelyn. They went to church on Sunday twice with their parents—morning service at eleven a.m. and evening service at six-thirty p.m.—and once by themselves to Sunday school at three p.m. Consequently, “the prince of the power of the air” and “the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience”—which was what the church minister, Mr. Redpath, used to call the devil—was never very far away from their youthful thoughts. And yet these two children were not without their jests and their diversions. They read books. They played games. Once a day, for an hour, they were even allowed to listen to the radio. But they were never allowed to watch television, which was generally perceived as the devil’s favorite mouthpiece by all right-thinking members of the Free Church of Edinburgh. On Tuesday nights they went to church for what was called a “prayer meeting”; and on Thursday evenings they went to church again for Bible study. Secretly Stephen and Evelyn disliked going to church so much, but there were two events on the calendar they did enjoy: the Sunday school Christmas party, and the Sunday school summer picnic.

  Of these Stephen Lang much preferred the picnic at Carberry Tower—paid for by one of the church elders, Lord Dull—for the freedom it afforded him to roam through the many beautiful acres of grounds without interference from his religious-minded parents. Later on there were races and, after prayers and Bible readings, of course, the picnic itself. But it was the races Stephen enjoyed most of all, since there were many prizes to be won. And win them he did. For Stephen Lang was a powerful and determined runner at almost any distance and it was generally held that he had the legs of a gazelle. Every Sunday school picnic, year in and year out, without fail, Stephen won all of the races he entered, and sometimes he would go home with so many prizes that he needed the help of his mother and father to carry the footballs, books, games, puzzles—there were even a few cups and medals in his haul of triumph. This did not meet with his father’s approval, however, for although Mr. Lang was proud of his son’s natural athletic ability, he was also a man who strongly believed in the virtue of humility.

  “I think you’ve won everything that could have been won,” exclaimed his sister as they carried his prizes to the car. “I’ve never seen so many prizes.”

  It was the wrong thing to say at that particular moment.

  “ ‘Pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall,’ ” Mr. Lang told his son. “Proverbs, chapter sixteen, verse eighteen.”

  “Yes, Father,” said Stephen.

  Mr. Lang opened the car trunk and placed the prizes on the neatly folded tartan rug that lived in there. “ ‘And he said unto them, Take heed and beware of covetousness: for a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.’ ”

  As the months went by, the year ended and a new year began and Stephen forgot his father’s words. But Mr. Lang did not forget and, the following summer, on the day of the Sunday school picnic, Mr. Lang took Stephen aside in order to speak to him.

  Stephen was seldom invited inside his father’s study. There was a large roll-top desk with a little wooden lectern on which a heavily underlined Bible lay open; and on the wall there was a fine print of a painting that depicted the temptation of Christ.

  Mr. Lang sat down behind the desk and admonished his son solemnly.

  “I think you should give one of the other boys a chance of winning something at this year’s picnic races,” he said.

  “They have as much chance as I have myself,” said Stephen. “We all start from the same position. With that in mind, how can I give them what they don’t hav
e, which is the ability to run as fast as I can? It’s not my fault if they can’t run as fast as me.”

  “You don’t understand,” said Mr. Lang. “Your winning everything there is to win is beginning to look like greed. It looks as if you are seeking glory on this earth when we both know that real glory can only be had in heaven. You see, Stephen, we must always be on our guard against the devil’s earthly temptations that are offered by winning things.”

  “But these things are prizes from the church,” said Stephen. “I don’t see what on earth the devil can have to do with those.”

  “On the face of it, that’s true,” admitted his father. “But the devil takes pains to hide or disguise the hoof. It may be that this is some kind of test, as Satan himself tested our Lord when he took him unto a high place in the desert and offered him the whole world if Jesus would kneel down and worship him.” He nodded at the painting on the wall as if to emphasize the point he was making. “Yes, Stephen, even our Lord was tempted. So what I’m saying is that you should let one of the other boys win a race. That you should allow someone else to get a prize this year.”

  “But how will I do that?” Stephen asked his father, genuinely puzzled.

  “Och, I mean just don’t try so hard to win, laddie,” he said, with great severity. “Surely that must be possible.”

  “Wouldn’t that be dishonest?” objected the boy. “Not to try one’s best is surely to deny what the Lord has given me, which is my God-given ability to run faster than anyone else.” He shrugged. “For all you or I know, Father, I run for the glory of God.”

  It was a clever argument. His father seemed to reflect upon it for some minutes with an effort of mind.

  “Aye, you’re right,” he said. “Perhaps it would be dishonest at that. Ecclesiastes nine tells us, ‘Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might.’ And Colossians three reminds us that ‘whatsoever ye do, do it heartily as to the Lord and not unto men.’ It would be wrong to throw a race you have entered.

  “So, I think it would be best, Stephen, if perhaps you simply did not enter more than half the races you did last year. By all means win the ones you’re in, Stephen. But stay out of the others. For remember what the apostle Matthew tells us. That ‘whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abused; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.’ ”

  Stephen was about to make another point in his case, because as well as being a fine runner he was also tenacious in argument, but his father raised his hand and said, “I’ve said all I will say on this matter. You will do what you’re told.”

  Stephen blushed with anger and somewhat hung his head, for he had been looking forward to carrying all before him on the sports field that afternoon as usual.

  “Have I made myself clear?”

  “Yes, Father,” said Stephen, and regained his own room in brooding, resentful silence.

  Now, for as long as Stephen could remember, it had always been his mother’s habit on the morning of the day of the Sunday school picnic to take her son and daughter to the local shoe shop to buy them each a new pair of sandals. Stephen was looking forward to it because he liked the shoe shop. It was on the North Bridge and he loved peering over the bridge parapet at the many steam trains passing underneath in and out of Waverley Station. It looked like an infernal place, full of smoke and noise and far removed from the enforced quiet of home and church. It was like looking into the dark entrails of Edinburgh itself. Better than that, however, the trains went to places he had only ever dreamed of going. Places his parents hardly thought it fit to mention in pious company. Cities like Glasgow and London, which his father often described as “dens of iniquity.” Stephen knew that “iniquity” meant injustice and wickedness, but that only made a place like London seem all the more exciting and attractive.

  Stephen was also looking forward to sitting in the little blue wooden toy cars that were inside the shoe shop, where a boy might sit while he was waiting for his sister to have her sandals fitted. But most of all he was looking forward to visiting the shoe shop because he was keen to try out a large wooden cabinet that X-rayed your feet. Stephen had never had an X-ray before and he was anxious to see what the bones of his feet really looked like.

  They went inside the shop, where a salesman approached unctuously. He was a small but handsome man with a high forehead and dark hair. He wore a little beard and a mustache that made him resemble a French king of the Renaissance.

  “Can I be of assistance, madam?”

  Evelyn went first. And while Stephen drove one of the wooden cars spiritedly—which was very unlike the way his father drove the family car—Evelyn’s feet were measured, whereupon it was discovered that these had grown a whole size since the year before. A pair of brown leather sandals was produced and Evelyn put them on. Finally the moment came when Evelyn’s feet in her new sandals were to be observed, scientifically, and the salesman moved Mrs. Lang and her daughter toward the shoe-fitting machine.

  This was made by the Pedoscope Company of St. Albans, England, and in Stephen’s eyes it looked more like something that belonged properly on a submarine. There were several knobs and switches and three viewing ports, like binocular cases, where the salesman, the customer and the customer’s mother could all view an image of the customer’s feet at the same time.

  “There are twenty-six bones in the human foot,” said the salesman. “And this machine allows us to make sure that none of them are squeezed by a pair of new shoes. Och, the wonders of science, eh? What could be more modern?”

  When his mother had finished viewing Evelyn’s feet, Stephen took her place and marveled at the milky green image of his sister’s toes wiggling inside her new sandals.

  “It’s like looking at your skeleton,” he told her. “In fact, I wish I was.”

  Evelyn checked that her mother wasn’t looking and then stuck her tongue out at him.

  At last it was Stephen’s turn, and as soon as the black leather sandals were on his feet—black leather was essential so that he could wear them at school—he mounted the wooden step and shuffled his feet through the shoebox-size aperture on top of the X-ray tube. Excited, he pressed his face onto the viewing port and waited patiently for the salesman to switch on the Pedoscope. For several moments he stared into blackness. It was like looking down into the nether regions of the earth.

  The man waffled on a bit to Mrs. Lang about how shoes that fitted well lasted longer and therefore SAVED MONEY—a very Edinburgh conversation—and then switched the Pedoscope on again.

  Stephen Lang gasped with horror at the sight that greeted him, for his own feet seemed quite different from those of his sister. Indeed, they couldn’t have seemed more different. He could hardly believe his own eyes. For there on the little X-ray screen was a perfect image not of two human feet with twenty-six bones each but of two perfectly shaped cloven hooves. It was as if he was looking at two feet that belonged to a goat or an antelope.

  He straightened immediately before, thinking he must have imagined this—for his mother and the salesman were talking quite normally, as if they could see nothing unusual about the X-ray—he bent down to look again into the viewing port.

  “Aye, there’s plenty of room for growth,” said the salesman. “Maybe an inch in front of the wee boy’s big toe.”

  Stephen felt a cold sweat prickle on the back of his neck. There was no doubt about it. He was still looking at the feet of some animal.

  “You don’t think he needs the smaller pair?” Mrs. Lang asked the salesman.

  “No, madam. Their feet grow so quickly at this age, what would be the point? After all, money for new shoes doesn’t grow on trees, does it?”

  “True enough,” said Mrs. Lang.

  “This is a joke,” said Stephen. “Isn’t it?”

  Mrs. Lang frowned at her son. “Whatever do you mean, Stephen?”

  “My feet,” he said. “They don’t really look like that. Do they?”

  “They do,” said the salesman
patiently. “They do. What’s under the skin may not look that pretty, son, but it’s what we are, fundamentally.”

  Stephen shook his head. “But my feet aren’t at all like my sister’s. They look…horrible. They’re hairy and, well, evil-looking. Yes, that’s it. They’re evil-looking feet.”

  “Everyone’s feet are different,” insisted the salesman. “That’s why the Pedoscope was invented. There would be no need for a machine like this if everyone’s feet looked the same.”

  But Stephen was hardly convinced. “No, this can’t be right,” he said, shifting one hoof and then the other. “Really, it can’t. You can’t be seeing what I’m seeing. It’s monstrous.”

  “Of course it is,” said Evelyn. “You’re a monster. But every time you look in a mirror you ought to know that.”

  “That’s enough, Evelyn,” said Mrs. Lang. “And, Stephen, do stand still. You’re spoiling the image.”

  “It’s all right, madam,” said the salesman. “Some people find the X-ray images of their own feet quite unnerving. It reminds some folk of our own mortal frailty. We had a woman from Corstorphine in here last week who fainted at the sight of her own feet. I was obliged to fetch a man from the St. John’s Ambulance Service to give assistance.”

  Mrs. Lang nodded. “ ‘All go unto one place,’ ” she intoned gravely. “ ‘All are of the dust and all turn to dust again.’ ” She fixed her son with a gimlet eye. “Stephen. Can you tell me which book of the Bible that text is from?”

  But Stephen wasn’t listening. He was still transfixed by the image of his own feet, if feet they were. And now he felt a distinct chill come over him as he remembered the picture on the wall of his father’s study. Surely these feet he was looking at now were the same as the ones in the painting of Christ’s temptation in the wilderness. There was only one other human-like being with cloven hooves that he knew of. And even as this frightening thought passed through his mind, he also recalled something his father had said. Something about how the devil takes pains to hide or disguise the hoof. Was that what had happened to him? Might that be the explanation why no one else seemed to see what he could see? Was that why his own hooves were disguised? Because…