Strangers at the Door: Twelve unsettling tales of horror

by Christopher Henderson

  Strangers at the Door

  By Christopher Henderson

  STRANGERS AT THE DOOR

  By Christopher Henderson

  First published in Great Britain 2017 by Shadowtime Publishing

  ISBN: 978-0-9541995-4-8

  Copyright © Shadowtime Publishing 2017

  Cover design: The Cover Collection

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters in this publication are fictitious, and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Shadowtime Publishing, 102 St James Road, Mitcham, Surrey, CR4 2DB

  www.shadowtimepublishing.co.uk

  Contents

  Introduction

  Stranger at the Door

  Europa Union

  As I Was Going Up the Stair

  To Make Our Bread

  Bone Idol

  Crocodile Green

  Family Secret

  Dollface

  The Zoo

  Thin Walls

  Roadkiller

  Farewell Performance

  In loving memory of my father.

  Introduction

  It is terrifying to find yourself abruptly cut off from everyday normality, a victim of invisible and capricious forces that exist in an unfathomable reality beyond your control. So, when my internet connection vanished the same day that engineers were performing their arcane rituals nearby (Virgin Media assure me that any connection between these two events was merely coincidental) and I found myself unable to do my day job, I was worried. Angry as well, but that anger was born of the fear of losing much-needed money and the spectre of losing clients if the situation continued for too long. There is horror in feeling powerless.

  After the first day or so, however, I decided that until somebody figured out how to restore my connection I should occupy myself with something productive. It was either that or continue to allow frustration and anxiety to gnaw at my mind. That’s how I ended up revising a few of the short stories I have written over the years, and collecting them here. It was interesting to look back at them.

  The oldest story in this collection is The Zoo, which I wrote way back in the mid-1990s. Looking at it now, it betrays its age here and there: Matthew is writing on a word processor, for instance, with an old-fashioned screensaver that cuts in with a ‘ftzz’ to protect his WP’s dedicated monitor. Moreover, he wants to finish his work in time to catch that day’s last postal collection, this being an era just before the ubiquity of instant and permanently available electronic communication. Most tellingly, the label on Billy’s jar is dated ‘1973 – 1996’. I did consider updating the story and changing those dates to ‘1994 – 2017’ but it felt wrong to pull the tale out of its proper time and attempt to massage it into today’s world and so I left that label as it was, together with Matthew’s clunky old equipment and his reliance on the Royal Mail. For better or worse The Zoo remains set in 1996 and, on the whole, I’m pleased with how well it stands up. It was first published in 1996 too, after being voted runner-up in the national Freestyle short story competition in the Spring of that year.

  Almost as long in the tooth as The Zoo is Crocodile Green, which started out in 1999 as an entry to a short story competition on the theme of ‘a new leaf’. I cannot remember whether I ever finished and submitted the original version, but I do know that it bore little resemblance to what this story became as I occasionally returned to and rewrote it. Darkness oozed in as it evolved, as did the outside world’s reviving interest in the sub-genre of horror that has become known as folk horror. Also, although there are no overt references, I cannot help feeling that Crocodile Green absorbed my fondness of the writings of H. P. Lovecraft.

  If so then it is not alone. Some of the other tales collected here also contain an insinuation of Lovecraft’s legacy. But while aficionados of the Cthulhu Mythos might detect the occasional teasing hint here and there – and perhaps understand what it is the magician says in Farewell Performance, for example – such references are incidental to the stories themselves, even in the case of Thin Walls and what happens to Paul and Claire after they take their holiday in ‘Lovecraft Country’.

  In any case, these tales are not set in 1920s America but (with the exception of Europa Union) in modern suburban London. On which subject, I would like to point out that the curious ruined windmill in To Make Our Bread really does exist. It squats in a pub car park beside the appropriately named Windmill Road, on Mitcham Common in south London. Also borrowed from real life – and one of two main inspirations for this story – is the rumour that the ‘ball of fire’ that destroyed this windmill during a storm was an incident of the bizarre phenomenon known as ball lightning. (This ‘ball of fire’ is one of many weird tales from this area recounted in Mysterious Mitcham by James Clark – see the Shadowtime Publishing website for details.) For To Make Our Bread, I amended the town details slightly (the main change being to alter the town’s name to Eilsham), because I didn’t want to imply that the pub in my story is the same as the real-life establishment that stands in Mitcham beside those evocative ruins. It isn’t, and to the best of my knowledge nobody leaving that establishment has ever really found themselves in a situation quite like that faced by John. The other main inspiration for To Make Our Bread was a purportedly true experience that is supposed to have occurred on Clapham Common (also in south London) in or around the late 1960s – a bizarre story that is recorded in another collection of weird London stories: Haunted Lambeth by James Clark (The History Press, 2013).

  Other stories in the present book are also set around south London, although not necessarily in places you could visit. That is perhaps something to be thankful for, unless you are foolhardy enough actually to want to enter The Travellers’ Playhouse of Farewell Performance (if you can find the door, that is) or to encounter what Dave does one night in Roadkiller, on an unnamed road somewhere in the vicinity of Crystal Palace – where sculpted dinosaurs might not be the only monsters.

  Alone among the stories in this collection, Europa Union is set in the (not-too-distant) future. Science Fiction and Horror are genres that readily bleed into one another, the human urge to expand the boundaries of the Known not necessarily preparing us for what lies waiting out there in the Unknown. Europa Union started as a reworking of some ideas I had played with a few months previously, in a novella with the working title Artemis One-Five-Zero, although the story presented here took a very different direction. Europa Union was originally titled Europa’s Song but, being written during the ongoing social tumult catalysed by the UK’s 2016 decision (by a dangerously slim margin) to leave the European Union, certain themes dominating the news at the time inevitably seeped into the story’s undercurrents. This was something I only really appreciated when I came to revise what I had written. The new title loomed into possibility and, like Fergus Marsh, I felt a pull.

  I had been trapped in electronic Limbo for almost a fortnight when my internet connection came back to life. Unfortunately, its reanimation remains as unexplained as its death and so my relief
at its return is tempered by a lingering fear, that whatever forces hold sway over eReality will one day offer another demonstration of their power.

  At least next time I will know how to occupy myself if I am to preserve my sanity.

  What is left of it.

  Christopher Henderson, 2017

  Stranger at the Door

  ‘Door chimes?’

  The copper was trying not to sound sarcastic. It wasn’t working. He was a big bloke, a good six-and-a-half feet tall and solidly built. Definitely not the sort you’d want to wind up. To his credit, though, he was at least attempting to take this seriously, unlike his colleague whose heavy sighing made his own thoughts perfectly clear.

  Not that Andy could blame either of them. He knew his story sounded ridiculous but he had to tell the truth, didn’t he? He took a deep breath and pressed on.

  ‘That’s right. One of those electronic doorbells, you know? The sort that come pre-programmed with a selection of tunes. You set the one you want to play whenever someone rings the bell?’

  The big copper nodded impatiently. Of course he knew what an electronic doorbell was.

  ‘Well,’ continued Andy, ‘he was convinced the bell had started to play this one tune in particular. Except it wasn’t the tune he’d asked it to play, and anyway it wasn’t any of the ones that should have been programmed into the thing in the first place. Plus, he said, after a bit it had begun to play that tune at all sorts of times, whether anybody pressed the button or not. It was weird.’

  ‘Short circuit?’ suggested the second policeman, sounding bored and gazing around the room as if wondering what colour he’d repaint the walls if he moved in. He was young, even younger than Andy, and in Andy’s opinion too well-groomed to be taken seriously in his job. He looked as if he’d rather be a professional footballer. ‘Bit of rain gets under the cover and the current makes a connection?’

  ‘That was my first idea,’ said Andy. ‘And I started trying to tell him that, except…’

  ‘Except what?’ asked Big Copper.

  Andy took another deep breath. Here we go, he thought.

  ‘Except that Mr Kendry had this idea that the new tune had…. Well, that it had escaped. Got out, that is. Out of the bell.’

  There was an uncomfortable pause before the officer replied.

  ‘And that’s why he got in touch with you? Because you’re a, how did you describe it?’

  ‘A bleedin’ ghostbuster,’ muttered Boy Copper.

  ‘I’m a fully accredited paranormal researcher,’ said Andy. It sounded silly when he said it out loud.

  ‘A fully accredited nutter.’

  ‘Give it a rest, will you, Phil,’ said Big Copper. ‘Ok, fella, let’s see if I’ve got this straight. Mr Kendry bought himself this doorbell gadget…’

  ‘Yes, just your bog-standard thing. From one of those little shops that sell all sorts, near Stockwell tube. I’ve got a note of the address if you need it?’

  ‘And he installed it, what, himself?’

  ‘That’s right. I made a point of asking him that. He was adamant that nobody had ever had the opportunity to mess around with it after it was installed.’

  ‘And everything was working as it should for the first two weeks or so, then it started playing this new tune that freaked him out. Why?’

  ‘Why was he so worried?’

  ‘Exactly. I mean, it was only a bit of music.’

  ‘Yes. Well…’ This was going to be tough to explain. ‘Well, he – Mr Kendry – thought there was something strange about that music. Something to do with the way the notes related to each other, he said. I don’t know, I’m not a musician. I didn’t really get what it was he was trying to tell me.’

  Boy Copper arched a perfectly groomed eyebrow.

  ‘But it wasn’t just that,’ said Andy. ‘It was more that the music, well, like I say, “got out” was how Kendry put it. I guess he meant the tune got stuck in his head. He told me that it started popping into his thoughts every now and then. Interrupting him. That he kept finding himself humming it when he was watching TV, or having a bath, or trying to sleep or whatever. Which must have been bad enough, but then it just got more and more insistent. He kept hearing it again and again and again, all the time, and he just couldn’t turn it off, no matter what he did.’

  Big Copper frowned in empathy.

  ‘He was in a hell of a state when I first met him,’ said Andy, recalling the pale, anxious face of the man who had opened the door to him last week. The disturbing mix of terror and despair in those sleep-deprived eyes. ‘He was convinced the music was haunting him. Wanted me to arrange an exorcism, in fact. Said it was driving him crazy.’

  He ignored the smirk that the youngster wasn’t bothering to hide.

  ‘Well, I don’t do that kind of thing. Exorcisms, I mean. I explained to him that I was just there initially to document his experience and that I couldn’t guarantee to help him stop the sound. Truth be told, I thought I’d probably end up trying to persuade him to see his doctor. That maybe some sort of therapy could be what he needed.’

  ‘How did he react to that?’

  ‘A little disappointed, I think. But underneath that he just seemed glad he had somebody to talk to properly about what he was going through. Somebody who wouldn’t judge him.’

  If Boy Copper realized that Andy had aimed that last remark at him he didn’t let it register. The older policeman coughed gently to regain Andy’s attention.

  ‘Did you feel there was anything else odd about Mr Kendry’s behaviour? Apart from his hearing the tune he told you about?’

  Andy hesitated. ‘I’m not sure. I could be wrong – I mean, I didn’t know him really, but, well, he seemed to have this thing about doors.’

  ‘Doors?’ repeated Boy Copper, showing an unexpected interest.

  ‘Yes. I noticed he kept checking that all the doors in the house were closed. Not just the front door but all the interior doors too. And whenever we walked into a different room he made a point of closing the door behind us really carefully. Oh, and then he’d keep checking it again and again while we talked. Making sure it was still properly closed.’

  The two officers exchanged a look.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Andy.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Boy Copper.

  The older policeman gave Andy a look communicating that we don’t choose who we work with. ‘As my colleague says, sir, it’s probably not important. It’s just that all the interior doors were open when we searched Kendry’s address. All of them. Wardrobe, cupboards, every one. It struck us as sort of peculiar, that’s all.’

  ‘Burglars?’ suggested Andy. ‘Somebody searching for something?’

  Boy Copper shifted his feet. Now he was the one who looked uncomfortable.

  ‘That’s the line of inquiry we’re following at present,’ said Big Copper. ‘It’s just that… I dunno. It’s just that it was only the doors that were open. Boxes, drawers, everything else – they were all shut, but every single door at the address was hanging wide open. Apart from the front door, that is. It just felt a little off, that’s all. Nothing I can quite put my finger on.’

  ‘And there was no clue as to what happened to Mr Kendry?’

  ‘Not that we could find, sir. No.’

  ‘Actually, there was a bit about it on the local news last night,’ said Andy, sensing an opportunity to tease out a little more information. ‘They mentioned that Kendry’s TV was still on, and that there was a mug by the kettle that had had water poured in but the teabag was still waiting to be taken out. Is that true?’

  The policeman nodded in silence.

  ‘Well, that’s kind of odd, isn’t it?’

  ‘Oh, it’s a regular Mary Celeste,’ sneered Boy Copper. ‘I expect we’ll end up asking you and your fellow “researchers” to solve the mystery for us.’

  Andy glared at him.

  ‘So,’ interjected the older policeman, reasserting his authority. ‘This would have been last T
uesday, you saw Mr Kendry, is that correct? Exactly one week ago today.’

  ‘That’s right, yes.’

  ‘Which would make you the last person we know of who saw our missing gentleman. And you definitely didn’t see him, or speak to him again after Tuesday evening?’

  ‘No. I was supposed to meet him for a follow-up interview on Friday evening, but when I got to his place there was no answer. I tried the bell but I think he must have disconnected it because it didn’t make any sound at all. I knocked, several times actually, for about 10 minutes, but there was no answer. And I tried his mobile but it said the number couldn’t be reached.’

  ‘The front door was locked at that time, was it?’

  ‘It was, yes.’

  ‘And what did you do when it became clear Kendry wasn’t answering his door?’

  ‘I hung around for half an hour or so in case he’d just popped out to the shops or something. Then when he didn’t come back I scribbled a note to say I’d been and asking him to call me to rearrange our meeting, and I put that through the letterbox.’

  ‘And that would be the note we found, I take it.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What was the tune?’ asked Boy Copper.

  ‘Oh.’ The question caught Andy off-guard. ‘Ah, I’m afraid I haven’t been able to find out. When I was there on the Tuesday, Mr Kendry kept insisting he could hear it even when I was talking. In fact, he said three or four times that there was somebody was at the door again pressing the bell, and he got seriously agitated when I told him I couldn’t hear anything. He kept telling me, “It sounds like this, it sounds like this,” and trying to hum it to me.’

  ‘So you never actually heard the music yourself?’ asked Big Copper.

  ‘I didn’t, no.’

  ‘I suppose you tried ringing his magic bell?’ asked Boy Copper.

  ‘Of course I did. But all that ever came out was this tinny electronic version of Greensleeves. Horrible really, but Kendry kept tugging my sleeve and saying that that was the proper tune, the one the bell was supposed to play. We tried it quite a few times while I was there, but got Greensleeves every time. In the end, I had to force him to stop pressing the button because he was getting so wound up, insisting that the bell wasn’t behaving like it did when he was alone. He was desperate for me to believe him.’