Duel: Horror Stories of the Road

Star Books, 1987

Edited and with detailed introductions by William Pattrick

The Dust Cloud by E F Benson: Benson is holidaying with a party of friends at the Combe-Martins when fellow motoring enthusiast Harry Combe-Martin tells him the story of Guy Elphinstone and how he died. Benson and Harry are both keen motorists and Harry subscribes to the belief that cars possess an independent life and personality of their own. Guy Elphinstone’s car had been “a bad-tempered beast” and Harry had been in it when Guy had driven over his own dog when it came to meet him in his driveway. Finally, Guy had run down a child then been killed when the car drove into his own gates.

Since that time there have been a number of people who have witnessed supernatural phenomena along the stretch of road where the fatal accident occurred. The curious thing is that the sightings vary; different witnesses have heard or seen things, but rarely the same things or at the same time. Not the best Benson story that I’ve read by a long chalk, but I guess I’ve come to expect a lot from his stories.

The Demon Lover by Elizabeth Bowen: London during the Blitz and Mrs Drover and her family have moved to the country; returning to fetch some things during a showery day in August she enters the familiar street.

Against the next batch of clouds, already piling up ink-dark, broken chimneys and parapets stood out. In her once familiar street, as in any unused channel, an unfamiliar queerness had silted up; a cat wove itself in and out of railings, but no human eye watched Mrs Drover’s return.

She is disturbed by the signs of her former habitation and by the atmosphere of emptiness in the house. But even more disturbing is the letter which she finds on the hall table.

Dear Kathleen,
You will not have forgotten that today is our anniversary, and the day we said. The years have gone by at once slowly and fast. In view of the fact that nothing has changed, I shall rely upon you to keep your promise. I was sorry to see you leave London, but was satisfied that you would be back in time. You may expect me, therefore, at the hour arranged.
Until then...
K.

In fact, much has changed in Kathleen Drover’s life in the past twenty-five years. Yet she knows she must keep the appointment...

This one worked for me because most of the threat exists in the reader’s imagination.

Second Chance by Jack Finney: A lot of Finney's stories in his Clock of Time collection are about second chances when you come to think about them, but everyone knows this particular story. It was screened as one of the original Twilight Zone episodes and later remade as a part of the Twilight Zone movie. It's the one where a high school kid buys a rusted and un-roadworthy Jordan Playboy - a classic car - and completely rebuilds it, using only authentic, original Jordan Playboy parts ordered from all over the country. Then, one night, he takes it for a run along a lonely road that no-one uses any more since the new carriageway was built. And after a time he notices that there are other cars on the road around him - cars suspiciously like the one he's driving - or at least from about the same age. This isn't just one of Finney's escaping-into-the-past-to-get-away-from-the-future stories, although that element is obviously present, it comes second to a good story about love and a guy who likes living life fast and racing trains and it fits
together as snugly as a jig-saw puzzle.

Stephen King is an admirer of Finney's writing, and almost certainly Second Chance planted the seed for King's own Christine, just as (previously discussed here) another of Finney’s stories Contents of the Dead Man’s Pocket inspired King’s The Ledge.

William Pattrick gives informative introductions to all the stories, and writes that Second Chance was also filmed for American TV's Dead of Night series (which I don't think I remember at all), for which it was adapted by Richard Matheson.

Trucks by Stephen King: The guy’s name was Snodgrass and I could see him getting ready to do something crazy... He was a salesman and he kept his display bag close to him, like a pet dog that had gone to sleep. Someone else singled out that line for the Stephen King thread, I think). Everyone’s either read this or has seen the film King directed (Maximum Overdrive, 1986) in a deliberate attempt to catch the sheer sense of fun of the horror B movie; or the TV version, Trucks (1997 – released in UK 2000). When I read it as part of the Night Shift collection, I remember being impressed by it, as with all the stories in the book. It still worked quite well, I thought, with the giant Mack trucks, possessed of a life of their own, prowling around the car parking lot in front of a diner where a handful of people are trapped. There’s a particularly good moment when a couple of the men decide to risk a journey to fetch water. But looked at now, it seems a bit lightweight, and the idea that a truck could use its horn for sending a Morse code message which only one of the people in the diner can decode stretched my credibility a bit. Stephen King will worry about this, we know.