The Valancourt Book of World Horror Stories
Page 7
Hearing the sound of steps on the gravel path, the mastiffs came. They were enormous and so similar to each another that one would have said it was just a single dog that had inexplicably multiplied, like a Cerberus duplicated beyond just the heads. Their eyes shone in the darkness, their butchering fangs, their drool. But when Ángela held out towards them the lit hand that she held in hers, they dropped drowsily to the ground. Lupo, who had been terrified at seeing them approach, stood still with his ears perked up, looking at them incredulously. Then he approached them with great caution, with movements more of a cat than a dog, and seeing them so docile, he dared to confront them, showing his teeth and growling.
Black like the night thanks to her cloak and light as a breeze, Ángela headed for the door of the house. The dogs followed her, wagging their tails. And this time too the dark door opened soundlessly, slow and solemn, leaving an open passage towards the shadows of the hall. Everything was perfectly calm and in darkness. Lighting her way with only the light of her bandit father’s hand, she ascended the stairs to the bedrooms of the upper floor, where Catuja’s chamber was.
It is bad to let a sorceress rot away alone, sounded an echo in the girl’s head. She couldn’t allow herself to be scared, but fear comes whenever it wants. It had entered the house like a breeze and it was in her heart and in her legs. Lupo felt it too. He trembled and was wary of the other dogs, although they remained docile and behaved with Ángela like loving pets.
The old usurer’s door opened, at first so slowly that Ángela feared the talisman was failing. But it ended up opening all the way, revealing the immense room, whose size made it seem an attic or a barn. There were dozens of candles burning in it, whose light cast a glimmer on the objects placed on the furniture. On one rough and peeling wall hung many floor-to-ceiling mirrors that cried out for a return to reflecting scenes from palace ballrooms, and paintings and tapestries dulled by dust, in which the gold threads gleamed and the silver ones were turning black. On a sideboard there was a little coffer with the appearance of containing jewels.
Catuja was sleeping in a bed that was somewhere between a straw mattress and a nest. One would have said she was dead if it weren’t for her breathing, which though not quite a snore, was at least a happy snorting. She must have been dreaming of something pleasant, for in her face was reflected a happiness that came from within.
Ángela had placed the hand of glory on a nightstand and took the coffer in her hands. It was small but very heavy. When she opened it, she was dazzled. Diamonds like raindrops wounded by the sun and a bleeding ruby necklace sparkled in the light of Madruga’s fingers. Let’s go, don’t get bewitched now, said a man’s voice, and another: There’s no need to rush, kid, you did enough of that when you left the sorceress unburied. The girl looked around. She didn’t know what to grab. Everything was within reach and everything was tempting. The fingers of the talisman had burned down halfway. There is time. But when she was putting a handful of beautiful, worthless necklaces that she had found in a drawer into the bag, she heard a loud noise behind her. Lupo had stumbled against the nightstand that was serving as a pedestal for the hand, which had fallen to the ground. Bad, very bad. Three fingers had gone out, and on the others the little flames were in their death throes. They didn’t take long to go out.
All of a sudden, the mastiffs recovered their ferocity. As if they were coming out of a dream, they shook themselves, stretched, and turned fierce again. Their barks awakened the whole house. Catuja shot up in bed as if propelled by a spring, yelling:
‘Burglars, burglars, burglars!’
The hunt began.
Lupo and the girl flew down the corridors, descended the stairs in the blink of an eye, crossed the hall, went out into the garden like in a dream. They carried the mastiffs with them, fastened to their bodies. They felt their fangs tearing their flesh, cracking their bones. In the night, sweet with blood and noisy like a celebration, shouts were heard and lights were lit. The thorns of the rose bushes caught in the folds of the cloak, feet tripped over paws, hands groped desperately at the garden gate until managing to open it.
No one had ever been able to catch Ángela, who knew how to scurry through cracks like a little viper and knew all the city’s labyrinths. Though she was injured now, they weren’t going to catch her this time either. She hid in a doorway. She descended stairs to forgotten basements, sneaked like a rat, coughing bloody froth, through damp passages, then along tunnels, through sewers, until she emerged at the surface, very far away.
Finding herself once more under the stars in the serene night, without shouts or commotion, or any other danger now that death was nesting in her wounds, she sighed with relief. Lupo had followed her. He was missing an ear, he was limping so much that he was really just dragging himself along on his stomach. He was black with blood in the moonlight. How much blood it costs to reach the end.
‘Stupid fucking mutt . . .’ she murmured with something vibrating in her voice, perhaps a little tenderness.
What shone in front of her like a white ribbon wasn’t the river but the wall of the cemetery.
‘Look! We were always meant to wind up here!’
The next morning when Bastián neared the pit he had left half dug the previous night, he knew that something was going on. It wasn’t merely a feeling: a trail of blood, coming out of a bush, came to a stop at the hole.
‘Damn it! Now the dead are coming on their own two feet and putting themselves in the hole all alone,’ he said aloud to relieve himself from the sudden terror that had gotten the better of him.
He leaned over and cast a fearful glance: for the moment, he didn’t want to notice too many details of whatever was there, he only wanted a general idea. The first thing he saw was a wrinkled cloak that seemed familiar to him. He forgot the blood and felt better.
‘Eh, girl! Having a free sleep in my inn again?’
She didn’t move. Nor did the shapeless and dirty lump that lay curled up in her lap.
‘Oh, Lupo, you senile old bastard! I knew things weren’t going to go well for you out there! Why did you need to suffer hardships at your age?’
And although prudence didn’t advise it, he filled the pit with dirt, planted a white rose bush on top, and kept that little secret in his old heart.
Translated from the Spanish by James D. Jenkins
Attila Veres
The Time Remaining
Hungary, a relatively small country of fewer than 10 million people, has always had an outsized literary and artistic production, but horror fiction seems to be a relatively recent phenomenon there. One author working to put Hungary on the horror map is Attila Veres (b. 1985), a novelist, short story writer and screenwriter. His first novel, Odakint sötétebb [Darker Outside] (2017) was a surprise success in his native country and was followed by the story collection Éjféli iskolák [Midnight Schools] in 2018. ‘The Time Remaining’ is one of his most recent stories, first appearing in the anthology Aether Atrox (2019), a volume that features a lineup of Hungary’s best contemporary horror authors. We think he’s a writer to keep an eye on and whose work we’re confident will continue to make its way to English readers.
My therapist urges me to picture a different story, a story in which Vili doesn’t die, or at least not like that. But before I can rewrite my past, first I need to face it – recount everything that happened exactly as it happened, up to the point when I lost control.
Vili’s death struggle started on a Friday. It was pouring outside, giving the perfect melodramatic tone for announcing bad news. The three of us, my mother, Vili and I, were sitting in the kitchen.
Vili was given to me by my maternal grandmother on the 1st of May. I remember this because I was desperately trying to decipher the meaning of this celebration, but no one was able to give me a satisfactory answer. In a way, the 1st of May celebration continues to be a mystery for me to this day.
Grandmother slipped the gift into my hand, and she yelled – and this was the first time she yelled at me, though it was driven only by the need to be heard over the raging wind – to take care of Vili and always remember her. I could not make sense of that request at the time, for she was my grandmother, how could I ever forget her? Standing in the windstorm, I suddenly had an eerie vision. I felt like the world was about to fall to pieces, the wind would soon rip through the field and tear apart people and the past and the future, and I would fall into a dark abyss beyond time. I embraced Vili, and I found his touch rather comforting. He was soft and warm, and he made me feel that together we were solid enough to withstand the violent force of the wind. Vili’s charm rested in his smile; not a clumsy grin, nor a condescending half-smile, not even the downward-facing, bitter grimace that so often featured on his fellow toys. Vili had a friend’s smile, empathetic, approving, animating, but also with a touch of adult-like solemnity.
The sense of apocalypse ceased in the car. I clutched Vili in the back seat, and I knew that everything was all right. Grandmother was sitting next to me. I saw tears blurring her eyes, but she smiled at me, assuring me it was only sand. My mother turned back and looked at grandmother with that stern look I thought she exclusively reserved for me when I did something wrong or when she assumed I had done something wrong, which were basically the same after all. I didn’t think she could give that look to others, especially not to her own mother. They did not say a word to each other, and I soon fell asleep, grasping Vili.
After that, I saw grandmother very rarely, until one day my parents explained that she had gone to Australia on a family visit and would not return for a while. They showed me where Australia was on a world map to address my confusion, and they also showed me kangaroos and other peculiar animals in a book, which intrigued me. I hoped we would soon visit grandmother so we could maybe watch kangaroos together. My father and my mother agreed that if I behaved well enough throughout the year, this wish of mine might become reality and sooner or later we could visit grandmother.
I was a kid, surely that’s the reason why I was so blind to the truth, although they say that children have heightened sensitivity to the minor changes in their environment. Perhaps I am the exception, or my mother was especially skilled at lying, even to herself. What is important to note is that I was not in possession of that information then: I did not know that my grandmother had passed away during that year. My mother asked her not to visit us, and we did not visit her either. My mother did not want me to remember my grandmother as a sick old woman, as her illness had consumed her body little by little, though I only know this from my father’s account. He told me when he was drunk, decades later. I know that my mother wanted to protect me when she decided to lie. I know that she wanted the best for me: what else could a parent possibly wish for her offspring but the very best? My father, inebriated, made wise by long years of experience, thought otherwise – he believed that my mother was scared to pronounce the words, she was scared to verbalize that her own mother was dead. In any case, for me my grandmother was a living person for years to come, even though she had long been buried under the ground at the time when Vili started dying.
I only understood this later, in adulthood, partially due to my therapist’s help. My mother thought I was too attached to Vili. She wanted me to be the best, the most successful, the most confident. In her view, life was an ice-cold forest, children being wolves in it, who think they form a pack, but at the end of the day they will all aim for the same job, same house and same female. Emotional overreliance on the false sense of security bestowed by a plush toy weakens one’s character in the long term, and the weak fall prey to wolves.
We were sitting in the kitchen – two cups of tea steaming on the table, one for her and one for me. Chamomile, I feel sick at the smell of it to this day, yet my mother made this tea to soothe the emotional impact. She didn’t make any tea for Vili, from which I deduced that something terrible must be coming.
My mother looked at me, very seriously, as seriously as when I broke expensive things, or when I ran out in the road chasing my ball. In retrospect, and I told this to my therapist as well, I suppose that in those very seconds, before articulating those words, she was thinking of my grandmother, her own mother. I am going to be straight with you, she said. There is something wrong with Vili. Vili is sick, and sadly the odds are against him.
She went on. Unfortunately, even plush toys can get sick. Maybe it’s genetic, the illness might remain latent for years before it manifests. Vili was manufactured in China, and it’s very easy to catch all sorts of nasty diseases in those factories. Vili has been examined by doctors, and the prognosis is clear as day: Vili is going to die.
I looked at Vili, who was lying on the marble kitchen table resting his friendly eyes on us, and only then did I realize Vili’s inherent nudity, which made my heart ache. I wanted to cover his little body to protect him from the coldness of the world. I grabbed Vili and squeezed him against my chest. As I glanced at my mother, I could just catch a smile on her face. You look so nice together, she said. I wish I could always remember you like this.
Vili has two months left, she continued. Take care of all his needs in the time remaining. The most important thing is to make sure Vili lives out his final days in dignity. Drink up your tea, my mother said finally, and she wouldn’t let me go to my room until I finished my tea to the last drop. That was the last time I drank chamomile tea in my life.
I retreated to my room with Vili. I sat down on the edge of my bed with him, and I felt like the world had shrunk around me, like I was locked in a cage from which there was no escape. I could have talked to my father, but I was perfectly aware of the household dynamic. My mother took care of my upbringing, while my father gave her financial stability. I knew that it would be a waste of time talking to him. In a normal situation, I would have turned to my mother to ask for her help in curing Vili – but she had just assured me that she was unable to help my plush toy.
I laid Vili on the bed, and I swept my hand over his body, not looking this time for warmth or safety, but for the symptoms of his disease. I had no idea what these symptoms could look like – Vili’s body temperature seemed just fine. I searched and searched, and I could feel that Vili was avoiding my gaze, just as I was avoiding his. In that moment he became actually naked, not for his lack of clothing – he became naked because my fingers were searching for the end of his life.
I finally found the first rupture in his armpit. The thread had started to loosen, allowing Vili’s insides to be seen through a small hole, the white stuffing that was his blood, his flesh. I knew right away that my mother’s doctors were telling the truth. Vili’s body was sick. I felt like my chest was too small for my lungs, that my brain was swelling and boiling in my skull. The world seemed darker, not in a metaphorical sense, but literally, the edge of my eyesight went black, I felt I could faint at any moment.
I knew with absolute certainty that death was real.
I grabbed Vili and threw him into the corner with all my strength. Vili bounced back from the wall, knocked his head against a shelf, and fell behind my backpack. I couldn’t explain to myself the cause of my rage back then, and it took years even for my therapist to convince me that it was a normal reaction to what had happened to me. I tried to rationalize my behavior by thinking that I on
ly wanted to save Vili: I had to hate him because he wasn’t alive – and if he wasn’t alive, he couldn’t possibly die. Perhaps I wanted to save his life by admitting that he wasn’t actually alive.
So many years have passed since then that it’s time to be honest with myself now. My therapist also encourages me and tells me these things are completely normal until a certain age. I could talk to Vili, and he often talked to me as well – in my head. I believe this phenomenon is often referred to as an imaginary friend, when certain segments of a child’s developing personality manifest as a voice or a character. That was Vili to me. He always guided me to do the right thing, to choose the harder path. I often imagined that Vili was a superhero and he saved others, my parents included, from some perilous situation like a burning car after an accident.
That night I lay in my bed and Vili was still in the corner. I found it hard to fall asleep though I was exhausted by anger and grief. And then I heard it, I heard Vili’s cry. Most likely it was all in my head, but I could clearly hear the voice coming from the corner – he was crying, not out of fear or due to his illness, but because he had let me down: he was not a good enough plush toy, so I had had to punish him. Then I realized that I was the one who had failed him, my anger was unreasonable, rather an indication of my own stupidity. I jumped out of the bed crying and I ran to the corner to hug Vili. I promised him I would never ever let him down again, I would be by his side for the time remaining.
When I finally fell asleep, Vili wasn’t crying anymore.
My mother and other mothers in the neighborhood often socialized, primarily to discuss useful tips regarding the everyday issues of raising children. Thus it is not surprising in retrospect that soon enough other plush toys at school got sick. I felt relieved, because I was not alone in this fight – others had to face the same dread as me, and we quickly found each other. I can’t recall their names, although they were my friends. My therapist says it’s one of the mind’s defense mechanisms. Apart from their names I remember everything about my friends, so if it’s a mechanism, it’s not working very efficiently.