Cases in the Boot

"That's the lot, mate" the removal lorry driver said out of the cab
window as he started up the engine.
Jack watched the truck pull away and rumble down Acacia Drive, round
the corner and out of site. Behind him, the July sun beat down on
stacks of tawdry cardboard boxes and crates containing his worldly
possessions. There were more piled inside the doorway of his new home,
twenty-four Acacia Drive. A well-kept semi-detached on a pleasant,
quiet street. It was his first proper house and he was very proud to
have got it.
Jack glanced lazily over the boxes. He considered getting on with
unpacking, and hastily abandoned it. It was too beautiful a day to be
cooped up unloading the stuff. From somewhere a long way off, a siren
wailed but on Acacia Drive everything was peaceful, broken occasionally
cars trundling past over the speed bumps.
The boxes sat there, mocking him. He threw them a contentious look,
locked the door and strolled away with the idea of getting to know the
area and perhaps meeting some of his new neighbours. As he went, he
pulled a cigarette out of his pocket and lit up. He got particular
enjoyment out of this in knowing that his smoking days were well and
truly numbered, Kath was getting broody and said that when they had
children he would be giving up. Under the thumb, his (still single)
mates would say, knowing full well the same would probably happen to
them.
Kath was his wife, had been for two months, and this was their first
home together. Right now, she was at a friend's house twenty minutes
walk away. If she thought Jack would do the unpacking while she was
gone, she had another thing coming, he thought.
Even the casual observer could tell Acacia Drive was a comfortably
middle class road. The gardens were neatly planted and trimmed, and
being July there were vibrant, brightly coloured flowers in all of the
front gardens. Every playing field and park may be yellow with parched
grass, but the little front lawns of Acacia drive were bright green
from daily hosing.
There were not many people around as Jack ambled up the road. He
passed a man polishing an immaculately kept car, and someone mowing an
already neat lawn. This seems to have become the number one summer
activity in Britain, Jack mused. Just past that a group of kids were
playing some basic form of cricket in the middle of the roadway with a
tennis ball.
And then he saw it. Ridiculously out of place, standing out as if it
was on fire. There was a house opposite him, a semi like the others.
But that was about as far as the similarity went. The house was in
appalling repair, every window on the front was smashed. The windows
were not modern double glazing like every other house in the road, but
they were the old-fashioned sort, probably dating to when the house was
built sometime in the 1950's or 60's. The jagged edges of glass that
still remained in them stuck out grotesquely from flaking lead frames,
bearing testament to a time when window glass could be smashed with a
stone and was potentially lethal. Through one of the upstairs windows,
Jack could make out yellowed, peeling wallpaper and a bare bulb hanging
from the ceiling. White, damp-stained curtains blocked out the other
windows.
There was no immaculate garden with a little privet hedge at the front
here. There was just foot-high grass, yellow from the sun, swaying
slightly in the breeze, with powdery seeds on the end of the higher
stems. Dotted about in the meadow-like front lawn were the odd wild
cornflowers and dandelions. There was no path up to the front door.
There might have been once, Jack considered, but it had long since
grown over. So much paint had flaked off the front door that it was
impossible to tell what colour it had once been. Where the letter box
once was there was merely a dark hole.
To the left was a lean to garage, the same kind attached to every
house in the road. To his own, for that matter. In front was a short
gravel drive leading up to it, into which the grass and weeds were
slowly encroaching, invading the stones.
The garage door was an old one constituted of two doors that opened
outwards, made of horizontal wooden slats and two frosted windows at
the top. One of the doors was slanted at a slight angle, betraying
hinges that were nearly rusted through. Half of the slats were missing
(Jack noticed one or two rotting slats among the weeds at the side of
the drive) and daylight shone through them into the space within.
The bright sunlight was shining in through the gaps, and reflecting
off something shiny towards the bottom. Jack walked cautiously up the
drive, with the vague sensation that he was doing something wrong, like
a kid jumping into a stranger's garden to retrieve a football. Stopping
just before the door he could see what was reflecting the light so
uncharacteristically from a building where everything else in sight was
derelict, dull and decaying. A chrome bumper.
Looking closer, Jack could see the curvy, sloping back end of an old
car- it looked like a light blue Morris Minor saloon. Jack had a
passing interest in classic cars, and besides that its situation
intrigued him. There was little room around the car in the small
garage, and it would have been impossible to walk around the car. The
space between the sides of the car and the walls was stuffed with junk:
old boxes, brown blankets, a roll of carpet, newspapers and various
bags, sacks and other worthless rubbish, all covered in a thick layer
of dust and grime. Even from where Jack was standing outside of the
garage, the musty smell unique to an abandoned place was
detectable.
Jack's eyes narrowed in curiosity. He stepped up to the garage door,
which had no lock of any kind, and opened one of the half width doors,
which creaked painfully. Yes, Jack decided, it was a Morris, even
though he could only see the back of it. It wasn't as rusty as he would
have imagined, the paintwork seemed okay, although there was a telltale
group of rust bubbles above the bumper. He doubted it would run,
though. It must have been here for years, he thought, and the engine
will have long since seized up.
As he opened the door he could see that the boot was open, and it was
laden with three or four suitcases, coated with a thick layer of dust.
Cobwebs, long abandoned by the spiders and encrusted with dust,
stretched in their spooky way between the open boot lid and the
suitcases. The cases looked very old, and seemed to be made out of
brown leather, now hardened and cracked. Jack gave the boot lid an
experimental pull, but it was rusted open. As he did so, his hand
caused a cloud of dust to engulf him momentarily and he coughed the
stuff out of his way with an unhealthy sounding hacking. Perhaps he
should stop smoking before Kath forces it, he considered absent
mindedly.
As the dust cleared he found his hand moving towards the closed
suitcases piled up in the open boot. It looked as if someone had thrown
them in hurriedly, ready to drive off, and then? the car had been
abandoned, along with the house? Jack, bemused, furrowed his brow and
wondered why, he didn't understand it.
Just as he was about to go for the suitcases, he heard footsteps
behind him and span round, surprised. Kath was standing on the
footpath, a few metres away, with her hands on her hips.
"What the hell are you doing, Jack?"
"Erm? I was checking out the neighbourhood and I noticed this? have a
look, its really strange?"
Kath didn't seem interested, and was looking at Jack, not the
half-open garage behind him.
"Never mind that, Jack, we've got unpacking to do! Lets get this done
quick and then in the evening we can go to this wonderful Chinese place
Jane was telling me about?"
Jolted back to reality, he closed the garage door and walked back to
his new home down the road with his wife.
For the next few days, he almost completely forgot about the strange
house down the road. Him and Kath worked endlessly on unpacking and
what would go where (Kath's idea that it would all be done by that
evening turned out to be hopelessly optimistic). Kath milled around the
house on the bare floorboards and ancient, worn-down carpets of the
last owners. "This could be the baby's room", she shouted happily from
the smaller bedroom, to which Jack kept diplomatically quiet.
Kath had got to know the next door neighbours, a nice couple of about
their age who had lived there for five or six years. With the beautiful
weather and long evenings, Steve and Mary, the couple next door, had
invited them to a barbecue in the evening, so Jack set off to the local
shops fifteen minutes walk away to pick up something for the
barbecue.
He ambled cheerfully along Acacia drive, but suddenly his pace
slackened as he came level with the derelict house. The sunlight was
sparkling off the Morris's bumper through the gaps in the door, and
Jack stopped altogether. There was something strangely fascinating
about that place, perhaps only because it was so ridiculously out of
place on the respectable suburban street. He eyed it curiously. What
was it about it? It was weird, full of unanswered questions. It was the
sort of place that, as kids, him and his friends would dare each other
to go up and knock on the door of, before running away.
As if a cue, a small group of kids was coming up the road towards him,
perhaps aged eight or nine.
"That house is haunted, you know" one of the boys instructed him
without any initiation on his part. The boy's statement sounded a bit
cheeky, like all kids willing to go up and speak to strangers in the
street despite a comprehensive education warning them not to.
"Yeah" agreed his mate. "There's ghosts in there."
"What makes you say that?" said Jack, fighting back giggles.
"Well it's scary, isn't it?"
"You're stupid" spat a slightly older girl in the group. "That's
bullshit" she said to Jack, who was thinking how quickly kids learn
swearwords these days. "There's no ghosts, that's for babies. But there
is a sex pervert, there is really. There's one that lives in there. One
of my friends said he tried to rape her!"
She paused to let the enormity of this sink in. Jack seriously doubted
she knew what she was talking about, and smirked as the kids walked on.
Kids are so stupid, he thought. But once the kids had disappeared round
the corner, what they'd said seemed more believable. He wouldn't want
to go in there at night, he thought. Hell, he wouldn't even want to go
in there now. Looking up at the building, it now looked sinister and
slightly dangerous in the way that you know something is, like a faulty
electrical appliance, but you don't know how the danger could manifest
itself. An old, faulty TV could electrocute you when you turn it on,
but it could not. Alternatively it could overheat and catch fire if you
left it plugged in and went to bed, but it could not. The possibility
of some demented, disgusting paedophile hiding out somewhere in that
place was plausible, although unlikely. And somehow, he couldn't rule
out ghosts either. Maybe that was why it was derelict?
He shrugged and set off again. A two-storey high conifer hedge was
growing in between the gardens of the ghost house and the semi-detached
property joined to it. It had obviously been grown by the owners of the
typically immaculate adjacent house to disassociate themselves with it,
and Jack couldn't blame them. The hedge was immaculately trimmed on the
opposite side, but the ghost house's side was sprawling and
overgrown.
By all rights, Jack should have had more important things to think
about. There was tons of work to be done in their new house. New
carpets would have to be fitted, and the tasteless old-lady-style
wallpaper would need to be replaced. Furniture would need to be
arranged. His leave from work he had taken for moving house ended
tomorrow, and he would be up all night doing a backlog of paperwork.
And then his wife was still making hints about babies? but in between
that stuff, his mind was hopelessly pre-occupied with the strange ghost
house and the old car hidden away in the garage.
He was still thinking about it hours later as he and Kath went round
to Steve and Mary's for their barbecue. They arrived to find Steve
shrouded in sweet-smelling charcoal smoke from his brick built barbecue
and a cooler full of beer next to the garden table which was stacked
with salad, rolls, and meat for the barbecue. Jack was always wary
about 'nosy' neighbours but it pleasantly surprised him to find out
that Steve and Mary were very similar to Kath and himself. Like them,
they were in their mid-twenties, although unlike them they had been
married for several years.
While they sat out in the cool evening drinking beer, Jack brought up
the subject of the ghost house.
"We've been here for five years and it's always been like that, far as
I remember" Steve told him. "I've often noticed that old Minor in
there, you know, through the holes in the garage. But when it comes
down to it, I don't like the place."
"Jack seems to have an obsession with the place, he hasn't talked
about anything else since we moved in" Kath said, more to Mary than
anyone else. "You know what men are like with their obsessions."
The conversation moved onto other things; other people in the street,
work, football, cars. Later Jack decided to try bringing up the subject
of the house again.
"So? does anyone live there?"
"Erm? I don't think so, mate. Squatters have come and gone, from what
I hear, but we've had no real problems."
"When was it last lived in, then?"
"How should I know?" Replied Steve, slightly irritated now. "I'd say
ask other people in the street, but it seems like everyone I've spoke
to hasn't been here more than, um, fifteen years or so and they say
it's always been like that."
"Well who owns it, then? Why hasn't someone bought it to do it up? I'd
have thought that?"
"Bloody hell, Jack, do you ever stop thinking about that place? I
don't care, it really doesn't affect me."
There was an uncomfortable period of silence, and eventually the
conversation got onto other, more trivial matters. But Jack's curiosity
was insatiable. Some strange, unseen force was pulling him to that
house. Begging him to go, to go in and see, find out? whatever it was.
Jack couldn't wait any longer. He excused himself on the pretext of
needing a piss, and snuck out down the street.
The light was beginning to die as he crept towards the ghost house.
The sun had sunk below the horizon leaving a deep orange glow that
saturated everything in a blanket of light unique to clear summer
evenings.
The house loomed up to him as before, but this time he knew exactly
what he was going to do. He strode up the weed strewn gravel drive and
tugged open the rotten garage door, revealing the gaping mouth of the
Morris Minor's open boot, displaying its contents of old, leather
suitcases. It was as if a magnetic force was drawing Jack's hand to the
brass catch of the suitcase. His heart pounded in anticipation, his
legs wobbled and he felt an adrenaline rush, he was right on the
edge.
He undid the catch, which was surprisingly free moving, and flung open
the suitcase. He leaned over close to see what was inside.
His body went cold and he tried to scream, but he couldn't. His body
tried to throw up but he couldn't. One of his legs involuntarily gave
way and he collapsed backwards onto the gravel. He tried to move but he
couldn't, and as his mind screamed his eyes began to go. His head was
screaming like a magnified migraine, a biting pain, and his eyes
clouded over with pulsating black and white fuzzing, like a detuned
television.
Suddenly, everything changed. The pain was gone. He was standing on
the lawn in front of the house. Except he wasn't, he couldn't feel his
feet on the floor and couldn't feel his body. He felt like he was
floating, half existing. Something in his mind, but not of his mind was
telling him something. Watch. It is February. 1979. Watch. The house
was pristine, like the others in the street. As he watched, a young
man, about his age, flung the front door open and skidded across the
frosty lawn. His wife, a plain but pretty brunette, followed him with a
suitcase. The man hastily opened the double garage doors and opened the
boot of the Morris, which was parked in there. Somehow Jack knew it was
going to be. He knew that they could not see him.
"He's coming!" She shouted in terror. "how did he find us?"
The woman went into the garage, and there was the sound of the car
door opening and closing, followed by the engine firing. The Morris,
wheels spinning, reversed manically out of the garage and stopped level
with the man, who was trying to lock his front door.
"For God's sake, leave the door, Peter! Get in the car!"
Peter ran round to the passenger side and jumped in. The pale winter
sun was reflecting off the car's chrome; the grille slats, the door
handles and the bumpers. The bumper which had drawn Jack to it what
seemed like ages ago.
The couple were in frenzy, frantically getting ready to go. The man
got in and the woman started reversing the car, but at that moment a
black sports car drew up and screeched abruptly to a halt next to the
house, causing the woman to slam the Morris's brakes on.
Jack watched as a man leapt out of the sports car and round to the
passenger door of the Morris. He was well built with an abundance of
long black hair, made into a ponytail at the back. The tough guy opened
the Morris's door and his vast, dangerous hands went round the man's
neck. He croaked, terrified.
"Oh god" murmured the woman. "You've found us? oh shit?"
"Don't? hurt? me" croaked the strangled, pathetic man.
"She's mine" the other man said, disturbingly calmly. "I told you
she's mine."
"I'm not!" the woman cried, hands still pointlessly gripping the
steering wheel. I don't even know you! You sick bastard!"
This seemed to make the guy madder, but instead of proceeding to kill
the woman's partner, he let go of the man who subsequently collapsed
out of the car door, gasping for air. He walked round to the driver's
side.
"You said it" he murmured. "I won't hurt you. You disgust me, you
coward. Now she's going to get it."
Jack watched in horror as he smashed the driver's window, showering
the woman with glass crystals. He reached out madly for her, but she
was too quick. Her foot went for the accelerator, and, blinded by the
glass in her eyes, released the clutch. The Morris shot forward into
the garage, disappearing out of site. Immediately a dull, metallic thud
of the car hitting the back wall of the garage emanated from it, and
the man who would shortly become a killer strode in.
"You're mine" he repeated as he dragged the unconscious woman out onto
the lawn. "And you will only, ever be mine."
Her boyfriend was lying, out cold, on the drive. He had been flung out
of the open car door as his partner drove it into the garage.
He left her sprawled grotesquely on her back on the lawn, then went
over to his car and got several objects out of the boot. As he walked
back towards the lawn where the woman lay, Jack saw in horror as the
sun shone off the shiny metallic blades of a brand new carving knife
and a large saw. He strode over to the unconscious, prostrated woman,
and dragged her by her arms into the house like a roll of carpet. Jack
covered his ears, not wanting to hear what happened next; even he was
not as curious as that. All he knew was that, when the tough man
re-appeared a chilling hour later, he was carrying two large, leather
suitcases which were beginning to go damp at the bottom. He lugged them
over to the garage, put them in the Morris's boot, ran to his car, and
sped away.
Jack wanted to vomit again, but whatever force was trapping him had
other plans. His vision blurred again and his body fluctuated in and
out of existence, spinning relentlessly, until he was back at the same
location. Only now, the house was derelict, autumn leaves built up
against the door and paintwork flaked relentlessly. Time was spinning
by. Police cars occasionally stopped briefly and carried on. Two
missing person's reports were filed. As the house fell into disrepair
neighbours sold up and moved on, estate agents took cursory looks at
the house (from the outside) and drove on. Occasional squatters took up
residence but quickly moved on, not because people complained but
because there was something about the place they didn't like.
Jack woke up, inexplicably where he had fallen on the drive. Only now
he didn't feel ill. He felt strangely satisfied, ready to go. He
sprinted breathlessly home, and burst into Steve and Mary's garden,
sweat dripping off him, half his body coated with dirt of the ghost
house's drive. Steve and the two women stared at him incredulously. His
wife decided he had cracked, he had been acting strangely ever since
they arrived. Whatever sinister undertones there could be to this
pleasant suburban neighbourhood completely evaded her.