The Best Horror of the Year. Volume 6

THE TIN HOUSE Simon Clark

The young detective looked out of the window. The killing happened right there in front of him. He watched the stoat chase the rabbit across the meadow — the gold-coloured predator appeared tiny in comparison to what seemed almost a behemoth of a rabbit. The stoat ran alongside its fleeing prey before burying its teeth into the rabbit’s neck. From here, in the Chief’s office, the young detective heard the agonised scream of the rabbit as it fell to the ground, kicking and dying.

The Chief studied a computer screen so Mark Newton had ample time to consider this undeniable fact: life and death battles are constantly being fought just a few yards away from us: whether it’s the stoat slaying the rabbit, or a neighbour struggling with terminal illness, or entire armies of bacteria waging war beneath a single fingernail. Life vs. Death. Forever and ever, amen.

After closing the computer file, the Chief took a swallow of coffee, and said, “The Tin House. Heard of it?”

“It’s before my time with this squad, but I remember it from the news. The owner of the Tin House went missing.” Too light on detail, Newton warned himself; he still wanted to impress his new boss, so he dug deeper into his memory. “A man in his seventies by the name of Lord Alfred Kirkwood lived alone at the house. His neighbour found the lights out, a rear door open, and a bowl of tomato soup on the kitchen table. It was still warm.”

“You’ll go far,” grunted the Chief, “or you’ll go insane. There’s only so many details of a case that a policeman should memorise, you know? Particularly if it’s not their case.”

“It’s an old habit from when I was a boy. I loved mysteries. Probably even quite a bit obsessed by them.”

“Well, you better not admit to your colleagues that you have obsessions; they’ll get the wrong idea entirely.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Anyway, back to business. The Tin House case is unsolved. Lord Kirkwood never turned up, either dead or alive. Seeing as six months have gone by since he vanished, I’m putting the case into deepfreeze. When there’s a legal presumption of death, Kirkwood’s nephew will inherit everything. What I want you to do is take these keys — one will open up the Tin House — I want you to photograph every room. And I mean every room, no matter how small.”

Newton frowned. “Surely we’ve a detailed photographic record of the house already?”

“We have — from six months ago, but it’s a requirement of the police authority’s insurance company that we photograph houses, cars, livestock, every blessed thing that we hand back to owners, just in case the owner decides we’ve damaged their property in some way and hits us with a compensation claim: believe me, it happens. Once you’ve done that, give the keys to Kirkwood’s nephew. Jeremy Kirkwood is meeting you at the house.”

Newton had a suggestion. “I could show the nephew that the house is in good order. After all, don’t we trust him?”

“No. We do not.” The Chief spoke with feeling. “The Kirkwood family is famous for suing people.” He shot Newton a telling look. “I also learned that the first Lord Kirkwood, back in the eighteenth century, made a fortune from the slave trade.”

“Really?”

“Kirkwood shipped thousands of Africans to the Caribbean where he sold them to plantation owners. With the proceeds, he bought twenty thousand acres of land near the coast and built a mansion.”

As a new detective, Newton was conscious that he should question his own superior, to prove he was listening — that and thinking analytically. “The Kirkwood trade in slaves must have been over two hundred years ago. That can’t be relevant to a man going missing six months ago, surely?”

“Can you immediately assess what is relevant to a case?”

“It’s ancient history.”

“Ancient history or not, the Kirkwood family are, at this present time, still living on proceeds earned from selling slaves. All that capital generated from kidnapping African men, women, and babies was invested here in Britain. The man you will meet …” He glanced at his watch. “… forty minutes from now enjoys a luxurious life style as a result of one of the most barbaric commercial enterprises in the history of the human race. Okay, detective … time you went to the Tin House.”

The drive from town to the coast took thirty minutes. Newton went alone. He remembered the route from childhood when his family spent two weeks here every August. The only thing markedly different from back then was the weather. Today, fine snowflakes tumbled from a November sky, and even though it was only mid-afternoon, he drove with the headlights burning into a gloomy landscape.

As a child, Newton had loved his time at the coast; in his imagination, the vast sandy beaches became transformed into mysterious deserts that contained secret castles and hidden treasure. The real mystery occurred there when he was ten years old; his mother asked him to bring her glasses from a drawer. That’s where he discovered a letter from his mother’s sister. The letter clearly revealed that they’d had a major falling out, and the letter closed with a stark PS in capital letters: SO YOU’RE FINALLY GOING TO LEAVE YOUR MARK ON THE WORLD. He interpreted YOUR MARK as referring to him. The comment was clearly designed to hurt his mother. Though he loved solving mysteries, the ten-year-old Mark Newton decided not to delve into this particular one. He had a lurking sense of dread that some family disaster would happen if he ever discovered the truth behind that letter’s bitter postscript.

Satnav efficiently directed him to the Tin House. The building stood on a narrow coastal road with its back to the beach and the sea. There were no other houses within half a mile — so the neighbour who discovered that Lord Kirkwood had vanished, leaving a still warm bowl of soup, must have happened by due to sheer good chance. With no sign of the Lord’s nephew, Newton decided to start work immediately and photograph the building’s interior as his superior had ordered. Photographs would prove that while under the protection of the police, the property hadn’t been burgled or vandalised, so no claims could be lodged by the next of kin.

After parking at the side of the road, which seemed to be one of those quiet, backwater ones, he headed up the drive. A plaque above the front door announced: THE TIN HOUSE.

“And, yes,” he murmured, “the house is actually made of tin.”

The two-story house had been clad in corrugated tin sheets, which were green in colour. They even covered the roof. At some point after Kirkwood’s disappearance, the windows had been covered with mesh security screens. From the outside, anyway, the house looked in a perfectly good state.

As he tapped his knuckles on a tin wall, he imagined what the din would be like inside during a fierce hailstorm. Meanwhile, he breathed deeply, enjoying the tang of salt air. From the distance came the forceful hiss of surf. He pictured himself on that very beach twenty years ago: an adventurous child with senses tuned for the next mystery that came his way.

“Hey you … get out of there; it’s private property.”

Newton saw a man striding through the drive gates. Aged about forty, he wore a bulky jacket in brown leather; he also wore an expression several degrees nearer anger than irritation.

“Mr. Kirkwood?” he asked pleasantly.

“Who are you?”

“I’m Detective Newton. You are Mr. Jeremy Kirkwood?”

“Of course I am. Who else would be hanging around this Godforsaken hole?”

“I’m here to photograph the house; then I’ll give you back the keys.”

“Photograph the house? Whatever for?”

Newton explained that taking photographs before handing over keys to next-of-kin was standard procedure.

“Police rules and regulations, eh?” snorted Kirkwood. “You’d think taxpayers’ cash would be better spent on catching murderers.”

Newton’s professionalism dictated that he would neither like nor dislike the man, although he suspected Kirkwood’s face probably always wore an expression of bad temper. This gentleman had been born with angry bones. For some reason, Kirkwood didn’t approach Newton, and he remained near the driveway gates, hunching his shoulders against the cold.

The man shot him a sour look. “So this it, you’re closing the case on my uncle?”

“Lord Kirkwood is still listed as missing.”

“But scaling things back, eh? Taking things easy on the investigation?”

The Chief had told Newton that the case would be going in the deepfreeze, seeing as investigations had reached a dead end; however, the case wouldn’t be officially closed. After Newton politely stated that the investigation would continue, he pulled the keys from his pocket and nodded in the direction of the front door.

“I’ll take the photographs,” Newton told him. “You might want to check inside for yourself.”

“No, thank you.” Jeremy Kirkwood spoke primly. “I’m staying out here.”

“It’s starting to snow again.”

“If I go in there, I’ll be sneezing all night.” He scratched his throat as if he’d started to itch. “My family used that shack as a beach house. Whenever I stayed here, I’d have a violent allergic reaction to the place: spores, or dust, or something. Wild horses wouldn’t drag me in there.”

“It’ll probably take me about ten minutes.”

“Go and take your ten minutes, then.” The man visibly shuddered as he gazed up at the bedroom windows. “What a God-awful box it is. Being in there’s like being in a tin coffin. The place scared me half to death when I was a boy. I’d lie in bed at night and hear the entire house squealing, tapping, clicking, moaning. That God-awful racket kept me awake for hours.” He permitted his stone-hard features to soften into something near a smile. “I didn’t realise back then that the sounds were caused by all those tin sheets contracting as they cooled after the heat of the day. Ergo: contraction of metal, not noisy ghosts.” He briskly cleared his throat. “My sisters tried to convince me it was haunted. Nothing like siblings to tease one, eh? Especially at the witching hour.”

“What made your uncle choose to live out here?”

“Pardon?”

“After all, he’d have been an extremely wealthy man, so what made him want to spend his time in a small beach house made from tin?”

“Well, detective, that’s none of your business, is it?” Jeremy Kirkwood thrust his clenched fists into his jacket pockets. “Didn’t you say ten minutes?”

People often describe a haunted house as an Unquiet House. The Tin House wasn’t the least bit quiet — though whether that suggested this quirky building was actually haunted wasn’t, he decided, for him to judge one way or the other. As Newton walked along the hallway toward the kitchen, he heard a series of clicking sounds, together with squeaks, loud popping noises, and the creak of timbers under pressure. He recalled Jeremy Kirkwood talking about the racket the tin cladding made during the night as it cooled.

“This is November,” he told himself. “It’s been cold all day. This can’t be the metal contracting.”

He rested his palm on the kitchen doorframe. The woodwork trembled as it might do if the house was hit by a storm. But outside was relatively still. Just a few snowflakes drifted by. This is a mystery. He loved myster-ies — he’d love to spend time investigating the popping noises and the sharp tapping coming from upstairs, but he’d been ordered to take the photographs then hand the keys to Jeremy Kirkwood. Perhaps there were rats in the walls — however, rodent infestation wouldn’t be a police matter.

Newton switched on the kitchen light. The place had been left tidy by the forensic team. Of course, the bowl of soup that the missing man had abandoned had gone — no doubt for fingerprint and DNA testing. He photographed the old fashioned stove, the Belfast sink, then moved onto the lounge. Again — tidied, vacuumed, and untouched by man or rat … at least, untouched in the last six months anyway. After taking photographs of the 1950s era armchairs, he worked his way through the ground floor rooms. Meanwhile, the scratching, tip-tapping, and popping continued. Dear God. Who’d live in a house made of tin?

Upstairs, he photographed tidy bedrooms and a trim bathroom. He’d been ready to head back downstairs when he recalled the Chief’s order: I want you to photograph every room. And I mean every room, no matter how small.

He checked the master bedroom. Straightaway, he realised he’d missed a narrow door in the corner. As he walked toward it, he glanced out through a window that was covered by steel mesh. From up here, he could see the dark expanse of ocean. While on the driveway stood Lord Kirkwood’s nephew, and heir to his fortune. A man with a motive. Though no doubt the Chief’s team would have scrutinised that angle already: greedy, impatient nephew murdering rich uncle would top the list of suspects. Jeremy Kirkwood had retreated to the driveway gates where he stood, glaring at the house. The man’s expression was strange. He looked as if he expected the building to lunge forward and bite him. Kirkwood appeared decidedly scared of the Tin House.

Newton took a moment to scrutinise details of the master bedroom. Several framed photographs of Lord Alfred Kirkwood hung from the wall. The missing man clearly preferred to see photographs of himself when he woke in the morning. On a table beside the window was a hairbrush. He noticed long, white hairs sticking to the bristles. When he glanced back at photographs of the elderly Lord he saw the same white, shoulder-length hair. In his youth, the man must have been an aristocratic dandy.

He opened the narrow door in the bedroom to discover a small antechamber. Perhaps four feet by eight feet, the vestibule might have been used for storage, although now it was completely empty.

After taking the single photograph, he’d have walked away if it wasn’t for a sudden, frantic clatter from the far end of the room, which formed part of an outside wall. There was a rapid, metallic popping, as if tiny, bone-hard fists rapped on the tin sheet at the far side. For some reason, he felt compelled to rest his palm against that part of the wall. This was the only section to be covered in wallpaper; the paper itself had a furiously busy pattern of tiny red roses peeping out from green leaves.

The wall vibrated powerfully against his hand. A mystery all right; however, a mystery he wasn’t ordered or paid to solve, and one hardly relevant to the case of the missing lord.

As he walked away, the metallic popping changed. The sound morphed from pell-mell clattering to a unified rhythm: whatever objects or vermin that attacked the metal cladding had now begun to strike it at the same time; pretty much in the same way a dozen different drummers in a percussion band would strike the same beat.

The door swung shut behind; immediately the room crashed to darkness. He could see nothing. The pounding on the wall intensified — growing louder as it did so. Maybe it was Kirkwood’s claim that he was allergic to the house that caused the effect. But suddenly Newton’s skin began to itch. His chest tightened and breathing in that dark, little chamber became difficult. Quickly, he tugged open the door. The light from the bedroom spilled in. He quickly strode back along the narrow room to where the sound seemed to emanate from the rose-covered wallpaper. He balled his fist and slammed it against the wall. The drumming sound irritated him. For a moment, he even told himself that the metallic popping coming from the other side made his skin itch. His fingernails scratched at his face, making the looser parts of the skin slide over the jawbone.

The clatter from the other side grew louder.

“Shut up.”

He pounded the side of his fist against the wall again. If there were rats in there, they’d get a nasty shock. But the rodents or whatever made the noise didn’t scarper; instead the rapping grew louder. The sound goaded him. It demanded to know if Mark Newton HAD LEFT HIS MARK ON THE WORLD.

Remembering that line in his aunt’s letter twisted a nerve to the point he felt a blaze of fury. As the metallic drumbeat reached a crescendo, he stood back then delivered such a hell of a kick to the wall. His police training had taken over. He used that particular kick he’d practiced so often to kick down some drug peddler’s front door. The loud drumming against the metalwork had stopped at least. Now he could hear nothing but his own heartbeat.

When he looked down he saw, to his surprise, that he’d managed to slam the toe of his shoe through not only the wallpaper with its blood red roses, but the plywood panel. Damn it. Now he’d have to photograph the damage he’d inflicted on the house. Cop turns vandal. He imagined the Chief’s anger when Jeremy Kirkwood submitted the repair bill.

He crouched down before the hole he’d made … a gaping one at that, almost a foot wide. Outside, Jeremy Kirkwood must have clearly heard the crash, so no use in pretending this injury to the house had happened a long time ago. Duty and honesty dictated that he would report truthfully that he’d inflicted the damage.

The hole, large though it was, revealed nothing but shadow. No rats, no vermin of any kind. He raised the camera, centred the yawning black void on the screen, then took the picture. The brilliant flash dazzled him; however, a moment later his vision had returned to normal, and he could check that he’d accurately recorded the effects of his violence against the Tin House.

He studied the photograph on the camera’s screen. A second later, he scrambled to his feet and was running for the door. The image of what had been revealed behind the wall had fixed itself as firmly in his mind as it had been fixed into the camera’s memory card. He had not only photographed broken plywood, he’d also taken a photograph of a face. A human face.

Snow was falling again. November gloom crept in from the ocean so that the house resembled a block of shadow.

Newton hurtled outside through the front door. He raced past Jeremy Kirkwood at the driveway gates.

“Hey! What’s wrong?” bellowed Kirkwood. “Hey! Answer me!”

Newton threw himself into the driver’s seat, started the engine, and slammed the car into reverse. Jeremy pounded on the car’s roof as he hit the accelerator pedal.

The man yelled, “What are you running away from? What’s in there?”

He glanced up at Kirkwood’s stark, white face. There wasn’t just anger in his eyes, there was dread, too. Newton felt a huge lightning bolt of fear, because he remembered seeing the photograph of the face he’d just taken — the face in the wall.

He punched the vehicle forwards across the road, through the driveway gates, and across the lawn. When the headlamps blazed fully on that forlorn building, he braked, leaped out, and a moment later he pulled a crowbar from the back of the car. Before Kirkwood had time to react, Newton attacked the front of the house. He jammed the sharp end of the crowbar between where two sheets of tin cladding overlapped; once he’d done that, he began to lever them apart with a furious strength.

“Hey you!” Kirkwood actually screamed the words. “Hey! Leave that alone! Stop that!”

Newton put his foot against the wall to brace himself and heaved. Nails that fixed the tin cladding to the wooden frame began to snap with brittle-sounding bangs.

“Stop that!” Kirkwood bellowed from the end of the driveway, but he didn’t come any closer. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, you little bastard! Stop it, or I’ll report you!”

“Who to? The police?”

A section of corrugated tin flapped loose. He gripped one side of it before ripping away an entire six by four sheet. That’s when the car’s powerful headlamps revealed the secret of the grim house.

“You’re insane!” screamed Kirkwood.

“I’m not the one who’s insane.” He stared at what had been stretched tightly over the building’s timber skeleton. “It’s one of your damned ancestors that was insane. See! He went and covered the framework in skin … human skin … the skin of men, women, and children.”

“What!” Kirkwood gaped; his eyes bulged. “What did you say?”

“I kicked a hole in the wall upstairs. There’s a face on the other side … at least, the skin from a face.”

“You are insane.”

“See for yourself.”

This time the man did gingerly approach the house. He gazed at what had been illuminated by the car’s lights.

Newton gazed, too, with emotions that flashed from astonishment to absolute revulsion. There, nailed across the timbers, were the skins of human beings. They’d been scraped clean of meat, blood, hair, and subcutaneous matter. Clearly, they’d been treated too; some form of hide tanning process had been applied.

The tightly stretched-out skins were dark red in colour. Originally, the skins must have been black but the tanner’s chemicals had reddened the flesh. He found himself thinking that the skins resembled sheets of red plastic. They were glossy — even wet looking. The headlights shone through them, casting a blood-red glow on the vertical plywood boards behind.

Both men stared in silence. The spectacle was horrific — it was distressing, too. The skins had been cut away from each body in a single piece. Each skin, or “hide,” contained a face — a stretched-out face, like a leather mask. Eye sockets formed gaping holes. Lips had dried into hard circles. Nostrils, too.

One of the most noticeable and unsettling features were the fingernails; these were at the ends of strips of skin that had once covered fingers. Each fingernail was white — a gleaming, pearl white, as if it had somehow been carved from an oyster shell. He knew that was hardly a rational comparison — right now, however, he found it hard to stay rational, or calm.

Jeremy Kirkwood repeatedly swallowed; he was close to vomiting. “Who are they?”

“Your ancestors traded in slaves. Your family still lives on slave money today.”

“These are the skins of slaves? But … why do this?”

“In the past, books were sometimes bound in human skin. So why not a house bound in human skin?”

“No, you’re lying!”

Newton spoke with cold certainty. “Picture this: Two hundred years ago, your ancestors kidnapped thousands of men, women, and children from their homes in Africa. They were chained together, and they were transported in ships without adequate ventilation, food, or clean water. Hundreds would have died on the way. Those that survived faced a harrowing life of forced labour until they died.”

Kirkwood stared at the dried-out face of a young child. A split in the skin ran from the corner of its mouth to the distorted opening of an eye. “But why on earth would anyone cover a house in human skin?”

“Undoubtedly, your ancestors were superstitious. They were terrified that the ghosts of slaves would come looking for revenge. Superstitious people have been doing something like this to protect themselves from vengeful spirits for thousands of years. In some cultures, they make shrunken heads from their victims, or even eat part of their bodies. In the case of your ancestors, they decided to adopt elements from voodoo cults and incorporate the skin from a number of slaves into the fabric of the house.”

Despite his fear, Jeremy Kirkwood moved closer. “If they’re stretched over the entire frame of the building, there must be dozens and dozens.”

“And dozens of your ancestors must have been involved with this barbaric ritual.”

“What do you mean?”

“Even after the abolition of slavery, your ancestors continued to be wealthy because of the money they made from selling human beings. They also continued to believe that the slaves could somehow come back from the dead and hurt them, so they made sure they still kept these talismans for protection.”

“This house … I knew this house wasn’t right … even as a child, I knew something was wrong …”

“Your uncle knew, too. That’s why he rarely left what he believed to be the magic protection of this building. But he left in the end …”

At that moment, the wind started to blow from the sea. Newton thought he could hear those grim diaphragms made from tightly-stretched human skin softly hum as they began to vibrate. When the breeze quickened, the strips of finger skin fluttered. The white fingernails attached to the ends struck the tin sheets, making a popping and clicking sound. This is must have been what he’d heard earlier. Like tiny bone-hard fists hammering at the metal.

Jeremy Kirkwood gave a shriek. “Cover them up! Cover them!”

He seized the corrugated section of metal that Newton had pried off, and tried to push it back over those tremulous skins.

The fingernails tapped against that piece of tin as Kirkwood tried to shove it back into place. Instantly, the tapping became a furious clatter. In the glare of the headlights, Newton noticed filaments attached to one of those dead fingernails.

“Wait.” He pushed Kirkwood away.

“I’ll sue you! I’ll sue the entire police force! You’ll pay for this!”

After silencing the man with an angry glare, Newton turned his attention to the pearlescent fingernail. Between finger and thumb, he carefully removed the filament from the nail then held it in front of the headlamp. A single long, white hair. Straightaway, he remembered photographs in the master bedroom of Lord Alfred Kirkwood, the white-haired man who’d lived on the wealth generated by the slave trade. And he pictured the fine white hair still adhering to the hairbrush.

He fixed his eyes on the lord’s nephew, who stood there panting, with the tin sheet in his hands. He held up the hair for him to see. “I’m certain a DNA test will prove this belonged to your uncle.”

“How did it get stuck to one of those disgusting things?” He threw a frightened glance at the red material stretched tight over the woodwork. The distorted faces pulsated as the breeze played upon them. The lips tightened and slackened as if mouthing words. “And why did my uncle disappear?”

“Perhaps the magic doesn’t work anymore. Occult protection doesn’t last forever.”

The skins billowed as the winds blew harder. Fingernails rapped louder on the walls of the Tin House.

Jeremy Kirkwood appeared to freeze, his muscles locked tight. “My God … I’m the next of kin. I inherit everything. All the slave money. They’ll try and kill me, too!” His eyes blazed with terror. “You’re a policeman … you’ve got to protect me. It’s your job, you bastard!”

The man that Newton had judged to have been born with angry bones swung the six-foot by four-foot tin panel. It struck the side of the detective’s face. That heavy piece of metal cut him down as if it were an axe. Its sharp edge sliced open his jaw, blood sprayed — an aerosol of crimson in the car’s light.

He must have passed out for a moment, because when he opened his eyes, he realised he lay on the lawn, looking up at both Jeremy Kirkwood and the front of the house.

The human skins were melting. That’s what it looked like. Those skins that were almost the size of bed sheets slipped downward from the building’s timber skeleton. Jeremy stared at what was happening. He appeared fixed there. Hypnotised.

The skins continued to slide downward. Newton saw something dripping down through the narrow gap between the tin cladding and the frame at the bottom of the wall. The dripping effect resembled dark treacle being poured from a jar. Thick and continuous. These were yet more leathery remains sliding down from behind the intact panels. He realised he should try and stop his wound from bleeding, only he found he couldn’t move, either. He lay there on the grass propped up on one elbow. He watched the skins, and he realised they weren’t melting after all — they were sloughing from the woodwork. Detaching themselves from the house. Breaking free.

The car’s headlamps not only illuminated the dark red hides, but shone through them.

He could only compare those relics as something that resembled outstretched sheets on a washing line, except they moved into the wind. The mask-like faces at the top of the hides contained distorted holes where the eyes and mouths had once been. He caught sight of the whorl of navels in the centre of the hides. He saw the black discs that were the nipples.

When the detached skins reached the inheritor of the Kirkwood’s bloody fortune, they enclosed him. Sheets of human wrapping paper. They formed a parcel of Jeremy Kirkwood. His silhouette struggled inside for a while … but as time passed the struggles stopped … then even the silhouette was gone. Dissolved away. Dissipated. Broken down into slime and hair.

Newton managed to follow the paper-thin human remains that billowed and flapped across the dunes to the sea. He glimpsed peeled faces that formed part of those rippling sheets of skin. Although his senses still reeled after being struck by a section of the Tin House, he knew deep down that those skins that had once housed the bones of men, women, and children were truly free. Now they were heading for the ocean. Newton wondered if, given the right tides, favourable currents and enough time, the waters from which all life once emerged would finally carry its precious cargo back home.