The Valancourt Book of Horror Stories

by James D. Jenkins

  Christian glanced into the mirror again, this time seeing his own face, sixty-eight years of deep lines and broken blood vessels. Or was it sixty-nine? When he first slipped into the driver’s seat his arthritis made his joints scream as he bent his legs. ‘No. A deal’s a deal.’

  He counted off the intersections, scanning the sides of the street for landmarks, looking for that certain spot he remembered from decades ago. He couldn’t remember precisely where, until the parts man said, ‘Stop!’

  Christian hit the brakes and saw the church through the split windshield, and that tan apartment building still standing on the corner. He remembered. This was more or less where it occurred.

  ‘First, the payment,’ the parts man said, and reached around the back seat and between the buttons of Christian’s shirt.

  Christian gasped as he saw the fingers go in – so terribly long and pointed, spiderleg narrow, slim enough to go through a key hole. They entered somewhere below his heart, pinched, and withdrew. The sensation of a cold wind leaking into his insides consumed him. ‘What was it?’

  ‘I took nothing you cannot live without. A surgeon’s exam would find nothing missing. Still, you have paid a dear price.’

  Christian reached under his shirt but felt neither blood nor wound. But that notion of a cold leakage continued. He stared out the driver’s side window. A glossy spot shimmered in the pavement a few feet away, an oil stain perhaps. But as he watched it spread into a pool, shimmered, and then long tendrils of smoke and liquid rose into the air, entwined, filling in with patches of pale mesh, dripping, bleeding into veins and arteries and the brilliant white of bone, red of muscle, wrapped rapidly by umber flesh, flowering into a brain, eyes, tongue and head, the coiled corkscrews of her Afro, and then that face that still haunted his dreams: it was Cheryl, still wearing the yellow sundress she’d died in.

  The rear driver side door opened and Cheryl staggered toward the car with a dazed expression. The door closed around her as if she’d been swallowed. Christian watched her in the mirror. When he caught her eye she leaned forward and grabbed his arm. ‘Christian? What happened?’

  The parts man was now seated in the front passenger seat. His head was long and triangular-shaped, snailskin pale, topping a long too-pliable neck whose many creases suggested segments. He was enveloped in a soft gray coat which flapped and shuddered with a life of its own. The parts man murmured with his lipless mouth, ‘Tell her she had a bad moment, but that she’s fine now. She will be, until tonight’s ride is over.’

  Christian shook his head, more at the parts man’s proximity than the lie he had to tell his long dead girlfriend. ‘It’s okay, honey,’ Christian said. ‘You’re okay. You just had a bad moment. Everything’s fine – just enjoy the ride.’

  She laughed hazily. ‘I’m just so tired. Don’t take it personally if I can’t hold up my end of the conversation, ’kay?’

  Christian watched her reflection as her eyes closed, then caught a glimpse of himself: the smooth brow and the clear eyes, maybe eighteen years old. He’d been driving a ’71 Mercury Comet back then, blue as the sky. He and Cheryl had been arguing all afternoon about something – he couldn’t even remember what – something unimportant, with him not understanding what she was even talking about, and her furious with him for not caring enough to understand. She’d shouted at him to stop the car – she was getting out. He’d been so mad he’d foolishly slammed on the brakes, right there in traffic. He knew he’d made a terrible mistake when she grabbed the door handle. Before he could object she’d opened the door and was standing out there on the pavement, not even a second before something large and silver slapped her away.

  So forty-five plus years later when the parts man dragged Christian out of bed and made his offer, how could he refuse? A few hours more life for Cheryl, and for all the others he’d let down over the years, the ones he’d left behind dead or dying while he survived. And at such a reasonable cost for an old man, although the pricing details had not yet been specified when he’d accepted the deal.

  He heard the sounds behind him, and twisted around as the parts man touched her with his spider leg fingers, pulling her close for an intimate whisper. Christian wanted to object, but had no idea what he was objecting to.

  A half-hour later they were parked in front of a block-long brick box of a building. It looked grayish, wrapped in dirty fog. The upper story was ragged and transparent. It was the old YMCA building, torn down ten years ago.

  ‘We’re here for Tommy, aren’t we?’

  ‘Thomas O’Toole. Less accomplished than your other friends. “Slow,” you thought.’

  Actually they’d called Tommy much worse. It wasn’t that they disliked him. Tommy had been quiet, didn’t defend himself, and they had no one else to pick on.

  ‘I don’t think he was even slow. He was probably as smart as the rest of us. Maybe if we’d left him alone he would have been okay.’

  They walked up the steps and a slight tug opened the double doors. The parts man apparently knew the way, guiding them through a series of halls until they entered the dusty gym. Christian avoided looking at the far end of the court. The bleachers on both sides were partially collapsed, the wall banners in tatters. Moonlight made a series of narrow vertical shadows on the far wall. One of the vertical shadows suddenly began to swing.

  He followed the parts man until they were almost under the hoop. A small boy hung from a clothesline tied to the rim. Christian hadn’t looked at the body when it happened; he felt he had to now. The noose made such a deep crease in the neck the folds of skin obscured it. ‘There’s a ladder leading up to the beams,’ Christian said. ‘He must have climbed up with the clothesline, walked the beam to where the backboard supports are attached, and then shimmied down those supports to the hoop. That took a lot of guts.

  ‘We didn’t know why, if it was something we did. There was no obvious . . . precipitating incident.’

  The parts man ignored him. He was staring at the little boy. ‘Thomas? Are you ready to come down and join us?’

  Tommy’s head rose from its hinged position. Small hands dug into the groove in dull pewter flesh and pulled the noose out. He dropped gently to his feet and looked around. He stared at Christian but said nothing.

  The parts man came up to Christian and one hand went deep into his upper belly, fumbling around. Christian heard a loud snap and felt intense pain. He doubled over as the parts man brought out a bloody piece of rib.

  ‘Not so bad,’ the parts man said. ‘I understand that some starlets choose to have the lower ones removed. It makes them look thinner.’

  Tommy and the parts man strode for the doors. Christian, still in pain, struggled to keep up. When they got to the car Cheryl looked curious as Tommy climbed in. Later, when Christian checked his rear-view, the parts man was whispering to Tommy, who appeared to be laughing hysterically, but no sound came out.

  Several more stops followed, picking up people Christian hardly knew. The choices surprised him: former neighbors and distant relatives, casual college friends, a remote co-worker. The locations weren’t always familiar; some he didn’t remember at all, but they stirred feelings strong enough to make him weep.

  The fares for these passengers were modest. Whatever the parts man took from Christian caused barely a twitch or strain. Yet damage adds up, as someone of Christian’s age knew all too well. Soon enough he suffered from a constant barrage of aches.

  The bald man with the sad eyes waited at the curb in front of his decaying cottage as if this was a ride he’d expected. He stepped gingerly onto the running board and then appeared confused as to what to do next. After a rush of offered hands and a tangle of advice he stumbled in and navigated to the back, so far into the rear of the vehicle the car appeared to stretch to accommodate his desire for isolation.

  Christian said to the parts man, ‘I think this is a mistake. I don’t recognize him.’

  ‘You were a child. Perhaps you recognize his home.’


  The cottage had a partially collapsed roof and sagging windows, large water spots patterning the warped lap siding. ‘I’ve dreamed about this house.’

  The parts man was now in his ear, whispering. ‘When you first read that John Donne poem in college, you thought of him. “Any man’s death . . .”’

  ‘. . . Diminishes me,’ Christian finished. The man’s name had been Wilson, and he’d lived at the end of their street. The neighborhood kids teased the poor man, ringing the doorbell and running away, throwing trash in his yard, calling him names as they hid in the bushes. Christian didn’t know why they’d singled the guy out. Maybe because he was one of the few adults they knew who seemed totally powerless, and who was so frustrated by their actions.

  Then one day the man was gone, and Christian’s parents said he died. It was the first time he could attach a face to death. Some of the other kids laughed about it – a forced, embarrassed laughter – and he remembered trying to join in, but couldn’t.

  ‘What’s the fare for . . . for Mister Wilson?’

  ‘Hmmm, first tell me, when you first heard about his demise, did you cry?’

  ‘I didn’t really know him. I didn’t know how to feel. I was just a child.’

  ‘Very well then.’ The parts man reached for Christian’s face, fingers hovering over Christian’s right eye. Thinking the parts man aimed to take it he closed his eyes tightly. Then he felt a tug on a single eyelash, and the swift pluck that forced a single tear. ‘That will do,’ the parts man cooed, and Christian felt ashamed.

  As he drove the car full of passengers through the long dark night and into the day and again into dusk he tried fruitlessly to keep track of where they were, in what part of his current city or in what part of his past, down narrow lantern-­lit lanes where lovers strolled, past saloon-lined blocks playing the best jazz he’d heard in decades, out into the dusty roadways between fields where the headlights were the only illumination.

  Behind him in the seats the revived chattered on as if speech were a gift soon to be taken away (which, of course, it was). He wondered how their mouths felt to be active again. He didn’t listen, too busy wondering about the next stop, the next passenger. Once you’ve lived more than six decades you become accustomed to friends disappearing from the world a few every year, and then a few every month, and then every week seems to be this march of everyone familiar into everything unknown.

  Was he expected to mourn them all? Was he supposed to think he was the one deserving to go and not them? Christian could barely remember their names. There were moments when he would wonder what so and so was up to these days before remembering that so and so had died ages ago.

  They picked up his grandfather coming out of a dilapidated church. Christian thought it might have been the church where they’d held the old man’s funeral, but he couldn’t be sure; he hadn’t attended. He’d been so busy with his own life he hardly remembered getting the news. This man had been the only grandparent Christian ever knew, the others dead before he was born.

  His grandfather was dressed in a snug-fitting sand-colored suit, blue shirt, and bright red tie. The outfit made his tawny complexion resemble gold. He sat down next to Cheryl and immediately struck up a conversation. She looked enthralled. Christian was so glad to see him he almost didn’t mind losing a kidney for it, although the taking of it proved to be a long and lingering extraction.

  Soon thereafter, the car found the factory where Christian’s father died. The angry-looking man in the blood-stained coveralls at first refused to get in when he saw that Christian was driving. Christian saw the side of his father’s face and his left hand, both chewed to pieces when he’d fallen into the machinery, and looked away. The casket at the funeral had been closed. He wondered what age he was in his father’s eyes. In his mid-twenties was when their relationship fell apart.

  He watched as the parts man tried to talk his father into getting into the car. He looked at his grandfather, who appeared to have lost his good humor. His grandfather had never approved of his son-in-law.

  Eventually the parts man re-entered the vehicle, holding onto his father’s good hand, leading him like a child. His father settled somewhere near the back, pressing himself so tightly against the window Christian could only see parts of his bloody coveralls.

  Christian clutched the wheel and jerked recklessly into traffic. It appeared as if the hood passed through a Ford station wagon without a ripple. He heard random complaints from the back but paid no attention as he hit the gas and floated into the passing lane. He was furious, but not sure why, except that his father was present. He’d been the same way at the funeral, staring at the back of the pew in front and clenching his teeth as a succession of speakers attempted to find something nice to say.

  ‘For this passenger you have a choice of payments,’ the parts man abruptly said from nearby.

  ‘For him? I’m not paying. I didn’t request his resurrection, and I’m aware of no guilt over his death. His was the funeral I should have skipped.’

  The parts man said nothing more, but Christian felt the long fingers inside his back, and the twist and jerk as additional bone was taken away. He bit into his tongue, choked on the thick metallic liquid that filled his mouth, but uttered not a sound. After a few more miles the fire of the pain had dampened, but he felt as if the parts man’s fingers were still in his back, prodding.

  The car had become so hot and humid Christian was having trouble thinking. Assuming a little air on his face would clear his head he looked for the AC controls before realizing a car of this age had none. He began to turn the crank to tilt the split windshield on the driver’s side. But after only half a turn the handle broke off. Frustrated, he tossed it to the floor.

  ‘No worries,’ the parts man said, reaching past him with one hand and playing with the dashboard. When he took his hand away Christian could see that the broken handle had been replaced by the bloody rib the parts man had taken earlier. He couldn’t bring himself to touch it and cranked up the other half of the windshield instead.

  It dawned on him where they were. Large, aging maples obscured most of the houses from the street, but regularly-­spaced narrow driveways cutting between dark lawns led up to each one. ‘You must turn soon,’ the parts man said, so close behind him he might have been inside Christian’s head. ‘Remember? The alley behind the back yard.’

  The parts man didn’t have to guide him. This was where his mother moved after Christian married and moved out west, about twenty years after his father died. He turned into the alley and drove until he was behind the fourth house on the right. He could see the brilliant orange glow coming over the top of her fence.

  His mother had started to fail the next to last year of her life. It wasn’t anything obvious at first: the occasional lost name, a little more observable awkwardness, the random fall. She claimed to be okay, just a bit ‘distracted’.

  Christian had noticed these things, but they hadn’t worried him. She wasn’t that old, and she’d been living by herself for over fifteen years and doing fine. She had her friends and her volunteer work. She didn’t need him looking after her. She’d told him so herself, ‘I have lots to do, too much. You have your own life now, a family to start.’

  But something had changed. He’d noticed the accumulating differences. But he did have his own life to worry about, and a marriage to nurture, a new wife who demanded most of his attention. When he came back to visit at Christmas they would have more time together; he would be able to observe his mother and evaluate whether there was any real cause for alarm.

  There were no witnesses, but the fire department was able to piece together an approximation of what must have happened. She’d been cleaning house, getting rid of outdated files, tax returns and bank statements. She’d talked about doing that for years. The problem was how to dispose of so much paper. ‘I don’t want some criminal stealing my information.’ That had become a constant worry. Apparently she decided to carry it all into the
back yard and burn it. It must have exhausted her. The fire was going strong when she decided to add one more box to the flames. She either became unsteady and fell, or tripped.

  The parts man joined Christian at the gate. The glow was so bright it showed through the narrow spaces between the boards, casting tiger-stripe shadows over both them and the car.

  ‘What are you charging me for her?’ Christian asked.

  The parts man didn’t answer right away. Then, so softly Christian could barely hear him, ‘The price will need to be a grave one.’

  ‘Then take it now. The pain will help me focus.’

  The parts man circled in front of him. The invasion of Christian’s chest was immediate and devastating. Afterwards, the parts man held up a shapeless bag of pinkish gray organ meat. ‘You can live with only one lung. You don’t need this one.’ He stuffed it into his coat pocket.

  A corrosive ache filled the cavity where his lung had been. Christian dwelled on that as he pushed open the gate.

  What he witnessed was not fire, although it did project a kind of heat. A large volume of what was not fire but perhaps the idea of fire occupied the middle of the yard. It had much of the brilliance and the color, but was a little too transparent. It warped and mutated like some kind of amorphous organism made of light, filling the air with the smell of frying beef. Down at the bottom of it a darkened figure lay writhing, featureless head drawn back and white teeth gleaming across the gaping mouth. One cindered arm stretched in his direction.

  ‘We have to drag her out of there!’ His father was standing beside him, fresh blood like a shimmering veil obscuring the ruined part of his head. His one remaining eye locked onto Christian’s gaze. ‘Help me, boy!’ His father entered the flaming apparition and grabbed his mother’s arm, suffering no apparent harm. Christian’s remaining lung raged with pain as he involuntarily sucked in air. He stepped into the center of the flames and grabbed her around the shoulders and the two of them carried her out of the flaming illusion. It withered into nothing with a whistling sound.