The Year's Best Horror Stories 1

by Richard Davis (Ed. )

  If only they could stay in Inkoo Land all day! Such a lovely game it was—there were moments when Hilda caught herself thinking how good it was for them, on the grey winter afternoons, to have all that exercise, rushing through the sunny glades, and clambering about in the forest trees. So much better for them than the steely winter park, with its asphalt paths and "Keep Off the Grass" notices.

  Then she would recollect herself, smile a little wryly at her own childishness in getting so caught up in her children's fantasies, and set herself to preparing tea ready for their "return."

  But at last, inevitably, the novelty of the game began to wear off: the "return" became earlier and earlier; and one day, a grey, hopeless day of fog and cold, the twins refused to go to Inkoo Land at all.

  Hilda was conscious of a sickening, overmastering despair. They must get to Inkoo Land. In vain she pleaded, bribed, even scolded. Go to Inkoo Land they would not.

  "We've got nothing to do, Mummy," the old cry began again; and as if at a pre-arranged signal the voices returned:

  "It's my nerves, Mrs. Meredith."

  "It's my head, Mrs. Meredith."

  "I don't want to complain, Mrs. Meredith."

  "The doctor says I need rest, Mrs. Meredith."

  The voices seemed to go on and on, whispering in the air, sighing in through the window, seeping in under the doors, and suddenly Hilda knew what she must do.

  "I'll come with you to Inkoo Land," she declared. "You must show it to me—I've never seen it, you know."

  The twins' interest was at once revived; they scrambled eagerly on to the carpet.

  "Mummy come too! Mummy come too!" they chanted; and when they were all seated on the carpet, Martin gave his orders in a clear little treble. "Inkoo Land, please!" he told the carpet; and they all clutched each other tight against the tipping and rocking to be expected as the carpet lifted itself off the floor.

  But what had gone wrong? The carpet didn't move at all! Hilda stared stupidly round the walls that still enclosed them.

  "Say it again, Martin!" she urged him; and, a little surprised, the child obeyed.

  Still nothing happened. Hilda felt her heart beating strangely. Was it too heavy for the carpet, having to carry an adult as well as the two children? Or—why, that was it! They should be near a window! How could they expect the carpet to fly if there was no window to fly out of? Jumping up, she hurried into the living room and opened the window wide to the foggy winter air.

  "Bring the carpet in here!" she called, and hurried out to help the twins drag it in from the hall.

  She was surprised to see them both looking a little frightened. Sally's lips were quivering. "Play properly, Mummy!" and:—"Oooo—it's cold in here!" complained Martin, as they laid out the carpet in the sitting room, now slowly filling with swirls of icy fog.

  "Never mind. We'll soon be in Inkoo Land," Hilda encouraged them. "On the carpet, both of you. We'll soon be in the lovely warm forest now, with the sun shining, and all the monkeys and the elephants. Say the words, Martin; say them again."

  And still the carpet didn't move. The three of them together must definitely be too heavy, decided Hilda; they would have to help the carpet. One could see how hard it must be to lift the whole lot of them bodily off the floor; but if they were to give it a start by launching it off the window sill, then it would be able to glide along easily above the roof tops.

  But why were the twins crying? Backing, hand in hand, away from the window, refusing to help as she dragged the unwieldy thing on to the ledge of the open window?

  What a floppy sort of magic carpet it was! How it hung limply, half in and half out of the window, dangling down on either side! But of course it would stiffen up when it began to fly. She clambered awkwardly on to the ledge and sat, as well as she could, balancing, on the carpet-covered sill. She began to feel excited. In a minute now she would be in Inkoo Land. Instead of this chilling fog, there would be a tropic sun beating down upon her; leaves on the great trees would shimmer in the golden light; bright tropical flowers would be there, and luxuriant creepers; and she would see her little twins romping joyously at last; running, shouting, jumping in the sunshine, far, far from the complaining voices.

  "Mrs. Meredith!" came, for the last time, the shocked voice of Miss Rice, leaning out of her window: but already it seemed far, far away, a little thread of sound from the world of fog and chill which Hilda was leaving. "To Inkoo Land!" she cried to the carpet, and together they launched forth from the High Flats into the swirling, silver emptiness of the sky.

  It was warm in Inkoo Land, just as she had known it would be; and there was grass, and great forest trees, and the sun shone. The grass was like great sweeps of lawn, and once or twice the twins had come, to run about on it, and laugh, and shout, and turn head-over-heels, just as she had imagined. But mostly it was people like herself, wandering slowly among the trees; and other people, in white coats, moving more briskly. And several times Miss Rice had mysteriously appeared, a quite changed Miss Rice, crying, and saying, "If only we had known!" and "When you come back dear, everything will be different!"

  Miss Rice, it seemed, had saved her "in the nick of time"; but somehow Hilda couldn't think about that just yet, nor about the long, long problem that lay behind. Enough, for the moment to be in Inkoo Land, and to know that, sooner or later, she would return, just as the twins had always returned, in time for tea.

  AFTER NIGHTFALL by David Riley

  1

  Eliot Wilderman never struck anyone as a person possessing that necessary instability of character which makes men in a sudden fit of despair commit suicide. Even Mrs. Jowitt, his landlady, never had even the vaguest suspicions that he would ever do anything like this. Why should she? Indeed, Wilderman was certainly not poor, he was in good health, was amiable and well liked in the old fashioned village of Heron. And in such an isolated hamlet as this it took a singularly easy going and pleasant type of person to be able to get on with its definitely backward, and in many cases decadent, population.

  Civilisation had barely made an impression here for the past two hundred years. Elsewhere such houses as were common here and lived in by those not fully sunken into depraved bestiality were thought of as the slums, ancient edifices supporting overhangs, gables, high peaked roofs, bizarrely raised pavements three feet above the streets and tottering chimneys that towered like warped fingers into the eternally bleak sky.

  Despite the repellant aspect of the village Wilderman had been enthusiastic enough when he arrived early in September. Taking a previously reserved room on the third floor of the solitary inn he soon settled down and became a familiar sight wandering about the wind-ravaged hills which emerged from the woods in barren immensities of bracken and hardy grass, or visiting various people, asking them in his tactful and unobtrusive manner about their local folklore. In no way was he disappointed and the volume he was writing on anthropology soon had an abundance of facts and information. And yet in some strangely elusive way he felt the shadow of dissatisfaction. It was not severe enough to worry him or even impede his creative abilities and cheerfulness, but all the same it was there. Like some "imp of the perverse" it nagged at him, hinting that something was wrong.

  After having been here a month his steadily growing horde of data had almost achieved saturation point and little more was really needed. Having done far better than he had expected prior to his arrival he decided that he could now afford to relax more, investigating the harsh but strangely attractive countryside and the curious dwellings about it, something he had only been able to do on a few brief occasions before.

  As he had heard from many of his antiquarian friends Heron itself was a veritable store of seventeenth and early eighteenth century buildings, with only a few from later periods. Except for the ramshackle huts. Even these, though, were perversely fascinating. None exhibited any features suggesting comfort; sanitation and ventilation were blatantly disregarded and hampered to an unbelievable extent. Roughly construct
ed from wood veneered with mould, with murky insides infested with the humid and sickening stench of sweat, they were merely dwellings to sleep and shelter in, nothing more.

  In fact the only feature which he noticed in common with the other buildings was that each had heavy wooden doors reinforced from outside with rusted strips of iron, barred by bolts or fastened with old Yale locks from within. Apart from the plainly obvious fact that there was nothing inside them to steal Wilderman was puzzled at such troublesome if not expensive precautions against intruders.

  Finally when an opportunity presented itself Wilderman asked Abel Wilton, one of the degenerates inhabiting these huts, a thick set man with a matted beard and cunningly suspicious eyes, why such precautions were taken. But, despite his fairly close acquaintance with this man, for whom he had previously bought liquor and shared tobacco with for information about local legends, all the response he got was a flustered reply that they were to keep out the wild animals that "run 'n' 'ide in th' 'ills where none but those pohzessed go, where they wait for us, comin' down 'ere at night, a 'untin' "; or so Wilton claimed. But his suddenly narrowed eyes and obvious dislike of the subject belied him, though Wilderman tactfully decided to accept this explanation for the moment. After all it would do him no good, he reasoned, to go around accusing people of being liars. It could only result in his drawing onto himself the animosity of Wilton's kinfolk who, ignorant though they were, were extremely susceptible to insult.

  However, after having noticed this point about the clustered huts on the outskirts of Heron, Wilderman realised that all the other houses that he had entered also had unusually sturdy locks. Not only on their doors; most had padlocks or bolts across the shutters on their windows, too, though they were already protected by bars. But, when he questioned someone about this, he again received a muttered reply about wild beasts, as well as the danger of thieves, and again he did not believe it. He could have been convinced of the possibility of thieves, even in the worthless huts, but how could he accept the wild animals, when he had never seen a sign of them during his now frequent rambles across the hills? Certainly none that were of any danger at all to man. And so, realising then that any further approaches on this subject would probably only bring similar results he did not pursue it any further, though he fully intended to keep it in mind. Perhaps, he thought, this was what had been troubling him all along.

  It was at this time in late October, when he was beginning to pay closer attention to his surroundings, that he first realised that no one ever left their houses after dusk. Even he himself had never gone out after nightfall since he had first arrived. He had not been particularly conscious of this before since it had kept light until late, but as the nights became longer, creeping remorselessly into the dwindling days, this universal peculiarity in Heron became apparent to him, adding yet another mystery to be solved.

  The first time he had this brought to his attention was one evening when he tried to leave the inn and failed, both the front and back doors being locked. Irritably he strode up to Mrs. Jowitt, an elderly woman, grey of face and hair with needle-like fingers and brown teeth that seemed to blend in with the gloom of the sitting-room where she sat knitting a shawl. Without preamble he asked why the inn had been locked at so early an hour.

  For a moment she seemed to have been stunned into silence by his outburst and immediately stopped her work to turn towards him. In that brief instant her face had paled into a waxen mask, her eyes, like Wilton's, narrowing menacingly—or were they, Wilderman conjectured in surprise, hooded to hide the barely concealed fear he felt he could glimpse between the quivering lids?

  "We always lock up at night, Mr. Wilderman," she drawled at length. "Always 'ave an' always will do. It's one of our ways. P'raps it's foolish—you might think so—but that's our custom. Any'ow, there's no reason to go out when it's dark, is there? There's nowt 'ere i' the way entertainment. Besides, can't be too careful. More goes on than you'd suspect, or want to. Not only is there animals that'd kill us in our sleep, but some o' them in the 'uts—I'm not sayin' who, mind you—wouldn't think twice o' breakin' in an' takin' all I've got if I didn't lock 'em out."

  Her reply left little with which Wilderman could legitimately argue, without seeming to do so solely for the sake of argument: and he was loath to antagonise her. Always he was aware that he was here only on the townspeople's toleration; they could very easily snub him or even do him physical damage and get away with it. Justice, a dubious word here, was at best rudimentary, depending for a large part on family connections and as good as open bribery; or at its worst and most frequent on personal revenge, reminding Wilderman distastefully of the outdated duelling system of latter day Europe, though with less notice here taken of honour.

  Convinced that fear of wild animals was not the reason for Mrs. Jowitt's locking of the doors after dusk Wilderman became determined to delve further into this aggravating mystery.

  The next morning, rising deliberately at dawn, he hurried noiselessly down the staircase to find his landlady busy unlocking the front door. So engrossed was she in the seemingly arduous task that she did not notice his presence.

  Finally succeeding in turning the last of the keys she cautiously prised the door open and peered uneasily outside. Evidently seeing nothing to alarm her she threw the door open and knelt down to pick up an enamel dish from the worn doorstep outside. Filled with curiosity Wilderman tried to see what was on it but could only glimpse a faint red smear that might have been a reflection of the sun now rising liquescently above the hills.

  Before Mrs. Jowitt could turn and see him he retraced his steps to the second floor, walking back down again loudly and calling a greeting to her. After a few brief but necessary comments about the weather he left, stepping out into the cold but refreshing early morning air to see the narrow streets still half obscured by mists through which beams of sunlight shone against the newly unshuttered windows like drops of molten gold.

  As he slowly made his way down the winding street he could not help but notice the plates and dishes left on many of the doorsteps. Some others had been shattered and left on the stagnant gutter that ran down the centre of the street to a mud-clogged grate at the end.

  It was immediately obvious to Wilderman that these dishes had contained meat, raw meat, as shown by the watery stains of blood still on them. But why should the villagers leave food out like this, he asked himself, every one of them, including those in the fetid huts, though they themselves had little enough to eat at the best of times? Such behaviour as was evident here seemed ludicrous to him. Why, indeed, should they have left food out like this, presumably for animals, when they dared not go out after nightfall for fear of those very creatures which the meat would only attract? It didn't make sense! That people in Heron were not exceptionally kind and generous to animals he knew; quite the opposite, in fact. Already he had seen what remained of one dog—a wolf hound with Alsatian blood in its savage veins—that made a nuisance of itself one Saturday on Market Street. Its mangled carcass, gory and flayed to the bone, had almost defied description after some ten or so heavy boots backed by resentful legs had crushed it writhing into the cobbles. Then why, if they had no other feelings but contempt for their own animals, should they be so unnaturally benevolent to dangerous and anonymous beasts?

  Obviously, though, no one would tell him why they did this. Already he had tried questioning them about their heavily locked doors with only the barest of results. There was, he knew, only one way in which he would have the slightest chance of finding out anything more, and that was to see for himself what came for the food.

  Preparing himself for the nocturnal vigil he returned to his room and spent the rest of the day re-reading several of his notes and continuing his treatise from where he had left off the previous day.

  Nightfall soon came, and with it an all-penetrating fog that tainted even the inside of his room with an obscuring mist. Sitting on a high backed chair by the window he cursed it, but was adamant
that the fulfilment of his malign curiosity would not be foiled by a mist.

  Almost as soon as the sun had disappeared beneath the fog-hidden mountains Wilderman heard several doors nearby being opened, though no one called out. The only sound was the indistinct clatter of plates being placed on the pavements, before the doors were hastily slammed shut and locked. Following this came an absolute silence in which nothing stirred on the fog-shrouded street. It was as though all life and movement had come to an end, disturbed only by the clock atop the hearth within his room as it slowly ticked out the laboured seconds and minutes. Then something caught his attention.

  Looking out over the worn windowsill he stared down at the street, trying to penetrate the myopic mist. Some thing or things were coming down the street. But the noises were strange and disturbing, not the anticipated padded footfalls of wild cats or dogs gone ferile from neglect or cruelty. No, the sounds that reached his ears were far from expected, like a sibilant slithering sound, as of something possessed by an iron determination dragging itself sluggishly across the cobbles.

  A tin plate was noisily up-ended and went clattering down the street, coming to a halt at the raised pavement beneath his window. As he leaned out further to look he saw a darkish, shadowy thing, a hulking shape, appear. For several moments following this intrusion he heard no more until the creature found its food and began to devour it.

  Pulling himself together Wilderman shouted to scare whatever was beneath him away; but as his cry echoed dismally down the street to the clock tower in the square at the end, sounding even more hysterical at each dinning repetition, more forlorn and pathetic, there was only an instant's pause before he heard the other milling creatures on the street begin to drag themselves across and along it, deserting their food to make their way to the inn.

  And with them came a fiendish tittering, ghoulish in its overtly inhuman form, devoid of all but the foulest of feelings: hatred, lust, and surprising Wilderman in his interpretation of it, an almost insatiable greed. So clear was it in the vague sounds shuddering below that he felt the tremors of panic growing inside him, sweat streaming down his face. Again, after an inner struggle, he called out, his voice rasping with fear.