The Valancourt Book of Horror Stories, Volume Two

by James D. Jenkins

  The headmaster was backing his car out of the stable. It was big and green and very old-looking. It rumbled and smoked tremendously. It had no roof. Brutus was sitting in the back, grinning.

  ‘Alvis!’ the headmaster barked to him. ‘It’s an Alvis! They don’t make them anymore! I’ve had it for years, since I was your father’s age, I suppose! Get in now. Hurry up!’

  The boy slid onto the smooth red leather of the front seat, and the man eased the car down the gravel drive. They wound through the woods; they rumbled through Sixpenny Handley and Tollard Royal; they sped across the high, bare downs towards Shaftesbury. The town was lit for Christmas. The headmaster stopped the car beside a tinselled tree.

  ‘Take the dog now, Stott,’ the headmaster said. ‘Go on, Brutus, take the boy for a walk! I’ve got things to do in town. Go on, off you go, the two of you.’

  For the rest of the morning, long into the afternoon, Ian and the dog dragged one another about the cobbled lanes of Shaftesbury. They shared a pork pie in a leafless park. As the day grew misty and cold, the boy managed to haul the dog back to the headmaster’s car in time to see Mr Hoddesdon and a shop assistant from a nearby store manhandling a wicker hamper into the boot of the Alvis.

  ‘Had a good walk? You’ve eaten? Good, back to Foxwood now,’ the headmaster said. ‘Come on, Brutus, jump in! And you, Stott! Collars up, scarves and gloves on. We’re off!’

  It was a freezing dusk. The sky turned grey. The air crackled with frost. The car ran hot and loud up Zig-Zag Hill and left the town behind. They stopped at the top and let Brutus run for rabbits on the downs; there was a twinkling, twilit view of all England spread below them. The drive back, as darkness fell, was colder still, although the car smelled sweetly of warm leather and burning oil. In starlight, in moonlight, deer drifted like ghosts in the silvery fields. A badger shuffled across the narrow lane. Caught for a second in the headlamps, the fox was a quick, hot flame. The woods closed on either side, bristling and black, and at last there was the school, quite dead and silent and empty. Mr Hoddesdon stopped the car at the front door.

  With difficulty, they lifted the hamper out of the boot and put it down inside the panelled dining-hall. Then, they went up the stairs to the old man’s tower. This time, as Mr Hoddesdon seemed grey and worn and tired, Ian lit the fire and made tea for him. The dog collapsed on the rug. As the room grew warmer, the headmaster nodded in his armchair. His eyes closed, his chin dropped, his mouth fell open. He started to snore.

  Ian waited until the man was soundly asleep. Then, holding his breath, afraid that the headmaster might wake up, he tiptoed around the room, turning over the cluttered knick-knacks, riffling the pages of dusty books, scanning the yellowed photographs until at last he found the one he was looking for. He picked it up from the sideboard and studied the faces: a seven-year-old Mr Hoddesdon and the rest of his dormitory . . . a dozen tousled boys, some smiling, some serious, and, lean and tall and frowning, unmistakably the headmaster now snoring in front of the fire.

  Ian picked up the photograph and turned back to the man, who was still sleeping: head on chest, feet outstretched so that one of his boots was steaming close to the fire, twitching one of his gnarled, brown-spotted hands. On a little table beside the armchair there was a saucer full of needles from the cedar tree. Kneeling with the photo, Ian took some of the needles and, without thinking, he threw them on the fire. The room was straightaway filled with a sharp, strong scent of resin.

  At this, the headmaster woke up. He sprang to his feet. Sniffing, staring madly around him as though he were trapped in a nightmare, he lashed at the boy. He snatched the photograph, shouting so angrily that Ian recoiled from him and sat down on the rug with a thump. The dog fled to a corner.

  ‘Damn you, you interfering boy!’ the headmaster cried, his voice blurred, his eyes wild. ‘Damn you! Why do you have to meddle? They’re all gone! They’re dead and gone! They wouldn’t wake up! There’s only me left!’

  And he slumped into his armchair again, clutching the photograph to his heaving chest. Sitting on the rug, Ian stared at him. For a minute, the only sounds were the spit of the fire, the rustle of wind in the woods and the old man’s tortured breathing. At last, seeing the hurt and loneliness on the boy’s face, the headmaster grunted. He lit his pipe. He kicked at the fire until it flared alive. And then he started to talk, softly and gently, as though to make up for his outburst.

  ‘Dead and gone,’ he said. ‘All of these boys in the photograph. Except for me. That’s why I came back to teach at Foxwood, so many years ago . . . Shall I tell you what happened? Well, this is the story, and it’s all true.’

  Ian sat close to the fire, on the rug, too startled and afraid to say anything at all, and he listened to the headmaster’s story.

  ‘It was wartime,’ Mr Hoddesdon began, ‘so the twelve of us stayed in school at Christmas instead of going home to the towns which might be bombed. Twelve of us boys, your age, with the headmaster and his wife. They tried to make it fun for us, Christmas Eve, with a bit of a turkey dinner in the dining-hall, with some carol singing, with a Christmas tree and candles. Then to bed, in the dormitory you’re in. As I said before, I was in the bed you’re using. We all fell asleep.’

  The man was quiet for a moment, pulling on his pipe. It had gone out again. He applied another match to it and blew a plume of smoke from his mouth and nostrils.

  ‘Smoke!’ he said. ‘The dormitory was full of smoke when I woke up. I woke up and sat up and the dorm was full of smoke. The place was on fire. It was a nightmare . . . I still dream about it sometimes. I jumped out of bed and ran around the dorm, shaking and shaking my friends in their beds, tugging at their pillows. But they wouldn’t wake up! It’s a nightmare I still have, all these years later, haunting me. In a terrible panic, I went from bed to bed and shook it as hard as I could. There were flames too, from the dining-hall beneath the dorm, licking around the floorboards, licking at the door. At last, since it was impossible to rouse the other boys, I went choking and gagging to the window, struggled to get it open and stuck my head outside for some air. There was a bright moon and deep, gleaming snow. The cedar tree was smaller then, of course, and the branches didn’t reach the building at all – this was sixty years ago – but I did the only thing I could to save myself. I stood on the window sill, took a huge breath and leapt towards the tree . . . just managed to scrabble at the nearest branch. Tearing at the needles, desperate for a grip, I fell through the branches and dropped to the ground. Even then, I shouted and shouted up at the window. No good! I must have been in shock, with fear and with choking and with the sudden icy cold, because they found me wandering in a kind of trance in the snowdrifts on the lawn, with my hands all ripped and flayed, with my feet and face all scratched.’

  There was another long pause. Another cloud of smoke blew from the pipe. Mr Hoddesdon leaned suddenly forward and tossed the rest of the cedar needles onto the fire. They hissed into sweet, scented resin.

  ‘That smell!’ the old man said, frowning, shaking his grizzled head as though the memory were as cloying and sticky as the resin itself. ‘That’s the smell. It reminds me vividly of that terrible night and my leap from the dormitory window onto the cedar tree. By the time the fire brigade had come all the way from Shaftesbury, through the snowdrifts in the lanes, all my friends were dead, smothered by the smoke. All of them dead, because I couldn’t wake them up. What more could I have done? It wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t!’

  He was distraught. He steadied himself by gulping the air, like a man drowning. Then he went on, his voice shaking.

  ‘The fire started in the Christmas tree in the dining-hall downstairs. I suppose the headmaster and his wife had had a drop to drink after they’d put us boys to bed, fallen asleep, and the candles set the tree alight. We’ll never know. However it happened, I was the only boy who survived. To be haunted ever since.’

  For a long time he looked at the photograph, thumbing the faces one by one, as though to
impress them forever on his memory.

  ‘What more could I have done?’ he whispered. ‘They wouldn’t wake up.’

  With a sigh, he handed the photograph to Ian and told him to put it back on the sideboard. Ian did so. When he turned round again, Mr Hoddesdon was staring into the fire.

  ‘Christmas Eve tomorrow . . .’ the old man said.

  He leaned to the hearth, rubbing his hands together. He bent his face to the flames and sniffed.

  ‘Christmas Eve again, and as usual, I’ve got everything ready, hoping and hoping and hoping. Perhaps this will be the last Christmas at Foxwood Manor . . .’

  Then, suddenly embarrassed, as though he’d said more than he’d meant to say, he got creakily to his feet and ushered the boy to the door.

  ‘In any case,’ he muttered, ‘at least there’ll be the two of us. Come on now, Stott – it’s time for bed. I’ve got a busy day tomorrow.’

  Again, as the night before, he took the boy down the stairs and along the corridor to the dormitory. He waited while Ian changed into his red and white striped pyjamas, while the boy washed his face and brushed his teeth and then climbed into bed. The man looked up and down the other eleven empty beds, shaking his head sadly. He said goodnight, turned off the light and went out. His footsteps faded along the corridor and then there was silence.

  Ian was alone in the big, old house, surrounded by the dense, dark, frozen woodland . . . alone, except for the headmaster, haunted in his firelit tower.

  An owl hooted in the cedar. The branches scratched at the window. Ian fell asleep.

  *

  The next morning, Christmas Eve, Ian found Mr Hoddesdon as crusty as ever. Perhaps the man regretted that he’d taken the boy to his private tower and told him the story of the fatal fire. He had no time for the boy. His mind was on something else. He gave Ian a quick breakfast in the chilly dining-hall and then packed him off with a few sandwiches and a flask to go walking with Brutus. Ian did as he was told. It was a steely, freezing day; the sky was heavy with snow. Ian and the dog stepped out as far as the Roman camp, they shared the picnic and they explored together; but it was a cold, lonely, desultory day out. Brutus stared in the direction of the house, whimpering pathetically, finally urging the boy back to the school.

  The front door was locked. Ian knocked and knocked, frightened to knock too hard but so cold that he rapped until his knuckles were blue. At last Mr Hoddesdon opened up, with a turning of keys and a shooting of bolts. He peered out, blinking and staring as though he could hardly recognise the boy at all. Then, to Ian’s amazement, he let the dog in and slammed the door again. The old man’s voice rang behind the locked and bolted door.

  ‘Not ready yet! Nowhere near! Go and clean the car, if you want something to do! Go on, boy! Not ready!’

  In gathering dusk, in icy twilight, Ian trudged around to the stables. There, quite lost and utterly miserable, he slipped behind the steering wheel of the car and wept for his mother and father. He was seven years old, and this was Christmas: no friends, no family, no home. No cards, no presents. No love. He sobbed until his little heart ached with sobbing.

  At last, conjuring the image of his father, he took a deep breath, gathered the shreds of his courage, slid out of the car and busied himself polishing the chrome on the bumpers and the grille. At least it was a bit warmer in the stable; lit by a hanging bulb, it was quite cosy with the smells of polish and leather and oil. Ian worked until the day outside was as dark as night. When at last he went into the yard and shut the stable doors, he was astonished to find that the world was covered in snow. The school buildings and all the fields and trees were covered by deep, soft, moonlit snow. The world was quite altered. Open-mouthed with astonishment, he went crunching to the front door again.

  It was locked. The building was in darkness, apart from the single, golden light high up in the tower. Knocking fearfully at the door, afraid that Mr Hoddesdon would be crabby and cross again, Ian peered through the windows into the dining-hall: pitch blackness. At last he heard the headmaster’s slow, irregular footsteps and the door creaked open. Without saying anything, he let the boy inside.

  It was very dark in the hall. At first, Ian could see nothing at all, although the smell of the man’s smoky clothes was strong. He could smell Brutus too. But then, gleaming in the moonlight reflected from the snow outside, there were glasses and cutlery on one of the long refectory tables. It was set for a meal.

  ‘Light the candles, boy,’ the headmaster said softly, and Ian felt the man’s horny hand pressing a box of matches at him. ‘Light the candles on the table. My hands aren’t so steady these days.’

  So Ian struck a match. He went down the table on one side and up the other side, lighting all the candles; the whole table was set, six places on each side and one at the head – thirteen settings. As the candlelight flickered and then settled into a golden glow, Ian saw that there were cakes and pies, all kinds of jellies and fruit and syrupy drinks.

  ‘The tree as well,’ the man said, and Ian made out the bristling shape of a Christmas tree nearby. He lit the candles on it.

  ‘And the fire.’

  The huge fireplace was laid, ready with kindling and fir cones, with stacks of firewood on either side. Ian applied a match, and soon there was a crackling blaze. Mr Hoddesdon sat at the head of the table, and Ian sat next to him.

  ‘Well, shall we start?’ the headmaster said.

  But they did not start. They simply sat, silent and still, and the feast was untouched.

  Bemused, shivering although the hall was firelit and candlelit, Ian sat by the old man. He waited for Mr Hoddesdon to do something, but there was only a long, long silence – not a sound except the crackle and hiss of the fire, the snow and wind in the forest. Ian looked up and down the table, at all the empty places. He looked up at the headmaster. The man had taken a yellowy brown photograph from his pocket and put it on his plate; himself and the other tousled seven-year-olds who had shared a dormitory so many years before. The man stared at it. Ian had never seen such a strange and terrible face in his short, young life.

  Mr Hoddesdon was crying. A silvery tear ran down his cheek, into the corner of his mouth and down his chin. It dropped with a splash on the photograph.

  The headmaster’s voice was so hoarse that Ian could hardly hear what he was saying.

  ‘I know I ought to go up and try again!’ he was whispering, smearing the faces of the dead schoolboys with a tear-stained thumb. ‘I know, I know! But I’m so tired. Every Christmas I go upstairs for them . . . and there they are. But they won’t wake up! I shake them and shake them but they won’t wake up! It’s a horrible dream that’s haunted me for years. So I leave them there and come downstairs again, on my own. Every Christmas for fifty years. Such a waste of a splendid feast!’

  He tried a laugh, but it was an ugly sound, bitter with tears.

  ‘Ha! No wonder they don’t wake up, for a crusty, bad-­tempered old fool like me! Why should they?’

  He glanced down at Ian, who was staring incredulously to see this man, whom he had feared so much, blubbering like a baby. The headmaster controlled himself with a deep, gulping breath. He wiped his eyes with the backs of his hands. He leaned down to the boy, ‘I don’t suppose you’d go upstairs for me, would you? They might wake up for you! Please go for me!’

  Too dumbfounded to refuse, and yet hardly understanding what the man had asked him to do, Ian stood up and left the hall; when he paused at the top of the stairs, he turned round to see the headmaster getting painfully to his feet, slipping the photograph into his pocket, limping to the front door with Brutus and going outside. The door clicked shut. Dazed, bewildered, Ian walked the long corridor towards his dormitory. It had never seemed so long, so long and cold and dark, like an endless tunnel. He walked and walked, seeing his dormitory door at the far end of the corridor . . . it hardly seemed to come any closer. He seemed to walk the tunnel for days and months and years. Until, at last, he was there. He pushed the d
oor open and trod softly into the room.

  It was bathed in moonlight. The air seemed to swirl with mist, an icy vapour which drifted like smoke. In every bed, a boy was asleep, lips and lashes as bright as the snow outside. No, not in every bed . . . his own bed was empty, the blankets and sheets tossed back. Beside it, the window was wide open. Ian crossed slowly to it, glancing from left to right at the faces of the sleeping boys, and he leaned out as far as he could. He could not reach the cedar tree. The nearest branch was a long way from the window sill. An avalanche of snow had fallen from it onto the ground below, as though . . .

  Ian turned from the window. Not sure if he was awake or sleepwalking in a swirling, smoke-filled dream, he went from bed to bed and woke the boys, shaking them gently. One by one, without a fuss, they sat up, rubbed their eyes and stared around. Then, without a whisper or the slightest expression of surprise, they got out of their beds in their red and white striped pyjamas and put on their dressing-gowns and slippers . . . as though they had been waiting for Ian to come for them. Without a word, the boys followed Ian out of the dormitory, along the corridor, down the stairs and into the firelit dining-hall.

  There was no one at the table. The hall was deserted. Silent, solemn, their eyes glittering and their hair tousled, the boys stared at the feast and the candlelit Christmas tree. One by one, they sat at the table. Only Ian remained standing, holding his breath, listening to the silence. When he heard a knocking and scratching on the front door, like the knock and scratch of the cedar branch on the dormitory window, he went to open it.

  A boy was standing on the doorstep. He was lean and tall and frowning, barefoot; his pyjamas were wet. He said nothing to Ian, but he seemed to stare straight through him at the boys who were waiting to start their Christmas feast. A wolfish, wonderful smile lit his face. He flicked his hands and spattered the snow with a little blood from his fingers. He walked past Ian and took his place at the head of the table. He smacked his hands together, beating off the cedar needles which had stuck to the blood on his palms . . . and this was the signal for the feast to begin. The boy beckoned Ian to come and sit beside him.