The burly black-haired man that was Madame Illusia in disguise waited until the dust had settled and the teen and his motorbike were just a speck on the horizon before turning the key to start up the truck. The engine took a few moments to splutter into life.
"Damn this rust bucket", cursed the other man, who although he looked older and greyer was really the Madame's 19 year old son Stephen. "It would have been much better if we could have made a new car last night. Why didn't you think of it?"
Jeff shuddered. He had seen his friends and other young men from his town being transformed into jackasses last night. He had watched some of them being sold at a livestock auction that very afternoon. In fact the last sight he had had of the donkey that had been his best friend John was him being forced to climb into a truck marked "T. Edgar Hopper, Petfood Dealers". Jeff had been turned permanently into a farmboy himself. Not only that, Jeff had watched helpless as one police officer became twenty years younger while the other had ceased to be a living creature through his painful transformation into a motorbike...
"What about the boy?" Stephen turned back to Jeff and snarled at him. "Do we need his stinking hillbilly body with us any longer?"
Stephen spoke directly to Jeff. "Hey, redneck boy, think how much better you would be with four wheels! That tiny dick of yours as a gear changer! Your filthy skin as the finest leather seats!" Stephen grinned at the terrified look in Jeff's eyes.
"Enough", commanded the Madame. "Jeffrey will not become our car. That would be the easy way out for him. He committed the unforgiveable crime of doubting my powers. It will be his lot to be aware of what he has done for the rest of his days.
"Anyway, we are going to pass the garage where I got this truck serviced two weeks ago. But I forgot to wear my disguise when I went there. The fool of a boy, a mechanic I think he called himself, did not agree with me that the whole engine needed replacing. Instead he just replaced the spark plugs. Incompetence! Imagine the boy smirking at me from his oily overalls. Rudeness! I should have changed him into a rat on the spot. But I though that he might be useful in the future."
The Madame's tirade took up enough time, Jeff noticed, for them to drive up to the truck stop where the garage was. Sure enough, as they approached, Jeff saw a number of twentysomething men come to the road in overalls. The Madame had clearly spotted the mechanic she had talked about earlier, and she drove the truck carefully towards him. She lowered her window.
"The engine's misfiring" she said, sounding authoritative, although privately Jeff doubted she knew much about the matter. "It's been serviced a lot recently and quite frankly it needs replacing. Where should I drive it for you to take the old engine out?"
The mechanic, whose sewed pocket badge revealed his name to be Chuck Jones, looked mystified at this instruction. The Madame's stern and direct introduction had clearly had their desired effect. He mumbled his reply.
"I normally like to have a look at the engine first just to see if it really needs doing, could be just a simple fix, maybe only the spark plugs need changing, perhaps...
The Madame spoke again in a more soothing voice. Jeff noticed the now familiar effect that she was having on this man, his eyes were becoming unfocussed and distant.
"Drive the truck to the inspection pit Chuck. Haul out the engine at once."
"Yes, Sir", replied Chuck, to the forceful male disguise of the Madame. The three of them – the Madame, Stephen and Jeff – went to wait in a side room as Chuck set about his appointed task.
Jeff waited nervously, wondering how long it would be before Chuck was transformed into the top-of-the-range car that Stephen so clearly wanted. His nerves got even worse when Stephen and the Madame abandoned their disguises and assumed their real physical forms.
It took little over twenty minutes for the truck to be driven into the inspection pit and for the old engine to be winched out of its front. Chuck walked to the side room to fetch the three of them.
“Oh evening Ma, you haven’t seen…”. Madame Illusia broke off Chuck’s surprised speech at discovering who was waiting in the side room.
“We have met before Chuck Jones. You came up with the same idea about spark plugs last time I brought the truck here.
“It seems as if you need more experience of engines.”
Chuck opened and closed his mouth silently like a goldfish as the Madame waved her hands towards him. Jeff realised that the Madame had just performed the first change on the mechanic.
“A good engine needs to be oiled inside and out”, she sneered.
Chuck’s blue overalls vanished, leaving an aura of oil and grease around his body. This rushed towards his body, coating his skin and hair.
Stephan picked up a can and then, forcing Chuck’s mouth open, he poured a good pint of oil down the man’s throat. The rest of the oil he smeared down Chuck’s body so that the very little pink flesh was left clean.
This was a new experience for Jeff. He had seen – he’d even experienced – the Madame and Stephen taunting their victims before transformation. But he couldn’t see how they would turn Chuck into a car after this – he would be far too dirty! Perhaps they were just going to leave him like this – oily, naked, degraded, as punishment for not fixing the truck correctly before.
But even as Jeff was thinking this, Stephen and Madame had picked up Chuck bodily and were hauling him towards the vehicle. Sure, Chuck was struggling in their grip – and his skin surface was well lubricated – but he could not escape. The two placed the struggling mechanic’s body in the front of the car – the space where the engine had been – and twisted his arms and legs so that they fitted in place. Immediately Jeff felt the Madame waving her hands and chanting again. He felt sickened as he realised that she was about to perform her most horrible transformation yet on a young man.