FLUMP!
Brandon wanted to ignore the sound—or pretend he had imagined it. Was it—she—still alive? Was it possible?
“Where’s she from, Cooper?” Brandon asked. Was it true? Did Cooper actually know what this thing was?
FLUMP!
“She’s from…the place.”
“What place?”
“Where I go when I’m sad or mad or alone,” he said irately, and then shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“And where is this place? How do you get there?” Brandon asked.
FLUMP!
FLUMP!
“I don’t know. I just sit here and go there,” Cooper said, his chin quivering. “But this time I wanted her to come here.”
His rambling was madness, some kind of dissociation, Brandon thought, but then…there was that thing outside.
FLUMP! FLUMP!
FLUMP!
FLUMP! FLUMP! FLUMP!
“Are there more of these, Cooper?” Brandon asked, looking up at the ceiling, where the last sound seemed to have originated.
“Yes. When I was on the roof, I told them you were hurting her. They are really mad you killed her.”
FLUMP! FLUMP! FLUMP! FLUMP! FLUMP!
FLUMP! FLUMP!
FLUMP!
FLUMP! FLUMP! FLUMP!
FLUMP!
“How many are there, Cooper?” Brandon asked
“As many as I want.”
A TRUNK STORY
As proprietor of Huddy’s Quality Used Autos and father to thirteen offspring of varying intellect and repugnance (who local folk referred to as the Brood for want of a more appropriate designation), Fergus Huddy was a busy man. His dedication to the former was fueled more by his aversion to the latter than by necessity, so his car lot generated plenty of revenue.
Overburdened by neither instinct nor morals, Fergus Huddy was not a man to turn his back on opportunity, and a pristine Mercury Grand Marquis—regardless of its age, and especially considering it was offered to him for free—spelled opportunity in bright, Day-Glo splendor. That the trunk of said vehicle had once served as a makeshift casket for a number of weeks was not a deterrent to our less-than-upright car salesman, and it seemed too good an opportunity to risk losing by asking too many questions—so he asked none.
So, the car has a bit of history and the trunk has a lot of stink… big deal, Fergus figured. He could remedy that! Wash the offending trunk lining, give it a good citrus douche, and voila! Or so he thought. That had been his belief when he’d first agreed to take the four-wheeled atrocity in 2013, four years prior.
It had been sitting for five years by that point, awaiting a beneficiary who never turned up. The attending lawyer, of whom Fergus had never heard, despite being local, seemed oddly anxious to put the abandoned car in Fergus Huddy’s hands.
In hindsight, Fergus should have seen these as omens, but the old weasel had never believed in omens. He did now, because he had no doubt the 1994 Mercury Grand Marquis was haunted. He believed the lawyer knew it, too—sure as the sun sets.
Fergus was seated inside his office the day the tow truck dropped off the car. He watched the driver back the car into a spot near the overhead doors and was surprised to see someone sitting in the front passenger seat of the towed vehicle. This was highly frowned upon from a safety aspect, but when he got outside to accept the delivery, the car was empty and the truck attendant swore no one had been inside.
Deal done, Fergus returned to his office, settled behind his desk, but soon became aware of a hollow, rhythmic hammering that seemed omnidirectional.
After nearly an hour of the incessant banging he was ready to pop a vessel. He followed the sound outside where it surrounded him, filling the air, the ground, and his head, but seemed to originate from the trunk of that wretched 1994 Mercury Grand Marquis. It sounded as if someone were inside, hammering for escape, but it stopped as soon as Fergus opened the trunk.
Nothing was inside—ever—except for an astounding stench that never dissipated, even after half-a-dozen cleanings by his son, Henson. Fergus personally stripped the trunk interior down to the metal and pressure-washed it with an industrial-strength detergent.
It intensified.
His next endeavor was to isolate the trunk from the cabin of the car, closing the access behind the rear seat with six-mil poly sheeting and silicone sealant. This stopped the permeation of stench from the trunk to the car’s interior, though a hint of the abhorrent scent was always present. All he or Henson had to do was to keep prospective buyers from opening the trunk. Once the car was off the lot, it would no longer be his concern.
The hellish drumming became his daily companion, a personal solo that assaulted only his ears during the workdays, and resided in his memory’s ears during the nights; Fergus hadn’t enjoyed a decent night’s sleep since the car was towed onto his lot.
A sensible man would have surrendered the car to the depths of Lake Winnipesaukee long before, but Fergus Huddy had never been a sensible man, just greedy, hopeful… and now scared. Not afraid of the car so much, but of the headaches.
Dear God, what headaches!
The few times he had come close to selling the car—if the smell didn’t discourage the buyers, which it usually did—he suffered nauseating, crippling migraines that throbbed in tempo with the pulsing trunk music. If he tried to get rid of the car, have it towed, give it away, or junk it, he would suffer the same ailment, and would have to terminate the transaction for fear his head would explode.
But, this particular day, it wasn’t happening. When Henson informed him that a couple was interested in the Mercury Grand Obscenity, he realized there hadn’t been any drumming that day.
“It’s hideous. I hate it.”
Todd Ingram didn’t disagree with Rachel’s assessment, she could read it in his expression, but at nine hundred dollars—three hundred less than the Kelley Blue Book suggested price—the 1994 Mercury Grand Marquis was difficult to resist… and the dealer was currently presenting Todd’s six-hundred-dollar offer to his boss.
“Aw, it ain’t that bad,” he countered.
“My father drove one just like this. Same color, same fake convertible roof and everything.” Rachel squinted at him, trying to shield her eyes from the brilliant late-morning sun that haloed Todd’s head. “It’s a gas-guzzling beast with a hundred-eighty thousand miles on it. It’ll probably keel over as soon as it makes the street.”
“One-eighty’s great for a twenty-three-year-old car, and it’s in solid physical shape!” He pointed at the data sticker on the rear driver-side window. “CARFAX says it ain’t never been in an accident.”
“And you believe that?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Of course, Mr. Gullible,” she said, walking to the opposite side of the car. “You believed I was still cherry when we met,” she muttered under her breath.
“What?”
“I said it ain’t exactly a cherry-red Corvette!”
Todd nodded and settled his non-existent rump against the front fender. He barely broke one hundred and forty pounds and was rail-thin at five-eleven, despite a perpetually ravenous appetite. Rachel was five-two and—as Todd put it—a salacious one-forty-five. She often bemoaned the unfairness of their dissimilar metabolisms, though much of the blame lay in her penchant for Ben & Jerry’s Cookie Dough ice cream and most any form of chocolate, the latter of which she surreptitiously stashed throughout their apartment: tucked under couch cushions, wrapped in her winter socks, and even secreted in tampon boxes.
Rachel had a natural beauty and the good fortune that her extra weight migrated mostly to the areas enhancing her hourglass contours, making her more enticing to the male eye—and a fair share of female eyes, too.
“Well, we can’t exactly afford a cherry-red Corvette…or any other color, for that matter. This here car’s about all we can manage. Plus it has an engine that actually works.” Todd slapped the dulled black hood. “And barely any rust.”
“Well, Bondo ain’t rust!” Todd responded, the words leaving his lips like a bullet. “Christ in a rickety rowboat, Rachel! I can’t exactly yank ten thousand dollars out of my pucker-hole, now, can I? We either get this here car, or we just keep on walking ever-where!” Todd seldom became angry; he was so even-keeled that it startled her when he did.
Her feet still throbbed from the three-plus-mile walk from their apartment, and they still needed to fetch groceries at The Bargain Basket. The thought of lugging a dozen bags all that way nearly brought her to tears.
“You’re right,” she agreed, averting her pretty blue eyes.
As if on cue, Henson Huddy exited the office and headed their way. A mile-wide charlatan’s smile beamed on his pasty face and Rachel wondered if he’d been listening in on them.
A thought occurred to her. “Did you look in the trunk?”
“What for?” Todd asked.
“Remember the Camaro?”
Todd had owned a 1988 Camaro when they’d met in 2002. It had been his pride and joy; a pretty car—navy-blue with white pin-striping—but as the adage went, beauty is only skin deep, or where Todd’s Camaro was concerned, paint deep. While the surface shined, the car festered with a rusty cancer that had scabbed over the unseen parts and nearly devoured the undercarriage. The only thing between the trunk lid and the ground was a gas tank, also well on its way to demise. The floorboards were riddled with so many holes, those inside the car ended up knee-deep in water whenever he hit a sizeable puddle. Nonetheless, to a starry-eyed sixteen-year-old lass from upstate New Hampshire, it may as well have been a Bugatti.
“Yeah, I remember,” Todd said sadly, then brightened. “But this here has back doors! We can put stuff on the seat if we have to.”
Rachel rolled her eyes. “Can we please look inside the trunk?” she asked.
“No need,” said Henson Huddy. “Daddy…I mean, my boss agreed to your offer of six hundred.”
“I still want to see in the trunk,” Rachel insisted.
Henson Huddy’s smile faltered. “Why you want to do that?” he asked. He pushed back a lock of his stringy black comb-over as greasy as his reputation.
Rachel jabbed her finger against the trunk lid. “We ain’t agreeing to nothing ’til I see inside that there trunk!”
Henson Huddy changed tack. “You let your lady make all your choices?” he asked Todd, boring into him with his black pencil-point eyes.
A larva, Rachel realized. That’s what Henson Huddy resembled. She set her blazing eyes on the maggot of a salesman and Todd took a preemptive step away lest he catch some shrapnel.
“If you don’t open that trunk right now, I’ll jam my foot so far up your ass you’ll taste your colon,” Rachel warned, her words metered and menacing. “How’s them for choices?”
The black, pinpoint eyes shifted to Todd, who simply stated, “That’s my girl.”
Seeing no alternative, Henson drew a single key bearing a small white tag from his pocket and tossed it to Todd. “Be my guest,” he said, and furtively moved away from the car.
Todd slid the key into the lock and turned. The trunk popped open with ease, revealing a cavernous compartment. Rachel stepped closer to inspect its integrity. Her nose crinkled in disgust and she fought back a rising nausea. She glared at Todd.
“Did you fart?”
“Weren’t me,” said her husband, cupping a hand over his nose.
“You?” Rachel set her eyes on Henson, who shook a rapid denial.
“Ain’t no fart smells like that,” said Todd.
“Your Keystone beer farts do,” Rachel countered. Her stomach lurched again.
“Yeah, they’re pretty thick, but this ain’t the same…” Todd noticed Henson Huddy’s covert retreat. “Hey, bub!”
“I didn’t fart!” Henson insisted.
“Then what ain’t you telling us? Someone die in there?” Todd asked.
Henson Huddy shook his head again. And he wasn’t lying, for Lionel Freemont had been quite dead for nearly a week before his wife had wrestled his bloated corpse into the Grand Marquis’ vault-sized trunk on that August morning of 2008. Mildred Freemont then pulled Lionel’s beloved car behind their abandoned barn and parked it. For three weeks, Lionel simmered in the relentless summer sun by day, and cooled by night. By the time his body was discovered, he’d been reduced to a festering stew so wretched that the coroner—once he’d vomited himself dry—decided to forgo the body bag and opted for a large fishing cooler.
With the exception of her discarded muumuu and a trail of heavy footprints into the adjoining forest, no further traces of Mildred had ever been found. It was believed she’d become a hearty bear feast, though a number of locals claimed to have seen her pale, naked form dashing through the trees on moonlit nights, cackling wildly at her lunar guide.
“Nobody died in there,” Henson assured them.
“Holy shit, close it before I hurl!” cried Rachel. “We don’t want it!”
“But…” Todd and Henson started in unison, but their spoken thoughts were cut off by the impact of the dealership’s door against the building’s tin walls.
A short, rotund man hastily wobbled through the doorway, waddling in their direction. He was unmistakably related to Henson Huddy, and simple logic tagged him as Fergus Huddy, but to Rachel’s eyes there was more than sufficient evidence that somewhere in Huddy history, a Morlock and a penguin had fucked.
“Hold on a moment there, folks!” said the repugnant troll. “Let’s not be hasty and miss out on this golden opportunity.” He extended his hand to Todd, who shook quickly. “Fergus Huddy,” he said.
“Were you listening in on us?” Rachel asked.
Fergus Huddy’s eyes went directly to Rachel Ingram’s breasts as if no other part of her existed. “Well, my dear,” he said to her chest, slowly advancing. “Any businessman worth his own weight puts his customer’s concerns before all else. I make sure my staff treats my customers fairly.”
“That so?” asked Rachel.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“In that case, I’m concerned,” said Rachel.
“About what, my dear?” said the squat man.
He was sweating profusely and Rachel was afraid he’d try to hug her, or something worse. “Well, I’m concerned I may have to poke your eyes out if you don’t stop staring at my tits,” she said. “And I ain’t your fucking ‘dear.’”
Stunned, Fergus Huddy quickly composed himself. His little piggy eyes seem to regain focus, but avoided looking at Rachel. Todd hid a satisfied smile.
“In that case, I apologize for offending you, young lady, and I wish to make amends,” said the porcine proprietor. “I’m determined not to let the two of you leave this property without this car, at a price you can’t refuse.”
“I said we don’t want it,” Rachel insisted.
“The trunk reeks like Satan’s asshole,” said Todd.
“Simple water stagnation,” Fergus explained. “The trunk was accidentally left open before a downpour. One of our staff closed the lid without looking inside and it sat that way for nearly a month. You may have noticed, we replaced the old lining with new one-hundred-percent polyester. The smell will fade in no time.”
Rachel stared at him in disbelief. “I said no! We ain’t paying a fucking thing for that car.”
“Deal!” said Fergus Huddy. He grabbed both of their hands and shook.
“What?” asked Todd.
“Huh?” said Rachel.
“It’s a deal. You said you ain’t paying a fucking thing for that car and I agreed. It’s yours.”
Fergus Huddy presented them the car the way Vanna White presented a new puzzle, with a big, fake flash of teeth, though his were far from pearly whites. Rachel thought she saw a nucleus of terror in his eyes, and she had no idea how right she was.
When Henson had returned with the offer, Fergus hesitantly accepted, swallowed three anticipatory
Percocet, and braced for another skull-splitter, but it never came. Encouraged, Fergus decided to monitor the interaction on the surveillance system. All seemed to be going well until they opened that goddamned trunk. When the woman said, “We don’t want it,” the hammering started and the resultant headache almost leveled him where he stood.
Fergus had had to act quickly and salvage the sale— anything to relieve the pain. He’d barreled his way through the door, approaching them as fast as his little pistoning legs could carry him. They stared at him as if he were an alien, and he guessed, in some manner, he was.
Things quickly went downhill. It wasn’t intentional, but when he noticed the young woman’s bountiful breasts and the relief they promised, all he could think about was settling his pounding head against them and going to sleep.
He slogged through his agony as the annoyed woman reprimanded him, and forcefully returned to the situation at hand. He offered a two-hundred-percent bullshit explanation for the infernal reek emanating from the trunk as the slamming in his head intensified, and he understood his chances to be rid of the car were slipping away… but then everything changed.
“We ain’t paying a fucking thing for that car,” she had said. Fergus latched onto those words like a lifeline. He knew the woman wasn’t interested in the car, but the man was.
“Deal!” he’d said, and like magic, the metallic hammering and the headache were gone. He knew he had succeeded.
Speeding northbound on Route 3 toward Holderness, Todd pushed the car to fifty, sixty, and then seventy, pleased with the power of the old V8. Rachel wasn’t moved. She didn’t like or want the car, but she couldn’t dispute Todd’s argument that it ran great and the price was certainly right. At least the trunk stench was staying in the trunk, she reasoned.
Todd ran an appreciative hand over a section of faux wood trim running the length of the dash. “Why you think he just gave the car to us like that?”
That also concerned Rachel. The previous owner had kept it in great shape, the upholstery was clean and whole, and the tires seemed deep-threaded to her untrained eye. Surely the car had some value, so why give it away?
A Variable Darkness: 13 Tales Page 9
