Каарон Уоррен - The Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Horror 2018 Edition

I had telephoned ahead and the occupant of the cottage came out to meet me as soon as he heard the taxi pull up outside.

He was a man in his early thirties, quite tall, very thin, with long blond hair and a goatee. Back in the doorway of the cottage I could see his partner, a woman around a decade younger than he was. She was red-headed and looked like something out of a Rossetti painting. From the way they dressed, the two of them struck me as arts and crafts types, and I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn they made a living selling pottery or jewelry to tourists at Penzance market.

“Brian Kelsey,” he said. “Pleased to meet you.”

He stuck out a hand and I shook it.

“I won’t keep you long,” I said. “I just need a quick look around.”

“Redeveloping the old place are they? Been like this for ages now I reckon,” he said.

“Possibly. I imagine it wouldn’t happen for another year, if ever,” I said.

“Don’t bother me and my girlfriend if they do,” he said. “We’re off to St Ives in a few months. Make more money up that way we will, I daresay.”

“What do you do?”

“Sculptures, small ones. Heads mostly. Hand crafted. Want to see? Have a cup of tea beforehand?”

I shook my head.

“Wish I had the time, I really do. But as you can see I’ve got the taxi waiting and this is all a bit of a rush. Can you just show me around the grounds quickly?”

He looked at me steadily. It wasn’t an unfriendly stare, but I could tell he didn’t really like what I’d just said.

“Oh yes, I see, you’re a busy man. Well, let’s get on with it then.”

He set off and I followed.

What was left of Skewjack surf village only covered a few acres.

Its series of holiday cabins, shop, reception, and bar/discotheque were all half-derelict and the pathways and grounds overgrown with weeds and brambles. Some of the roofs had collapsed into the cabins and mold had taken over the interiors. The drained, kidney-shaped swimming pool was choked with rubbish.

It seemed to me that the first thing would be to get a quote as to the cost of demolishing the buildings and clearing the whole area. I was making mental calculations when Brian Kelsey said: “Got some tenants here, you know. In the cabin right just over there, behind the old reception building.”

“Tenants? What tenants?” I said.

He grinned sheepishly.

“Four old tramps. I warned them off at first, but they kept corning back.”

“You mean squatters?”

“Call them what you want. Anyway, they never did anyone any harm. They mind their own business so I ended up leaving them alone. Live and let live. Turns out all my predecessors did likewise the same as I did in the end,” he said.

I didn’t reply.

“Let’s go and take a peek. It’s quite a show, believe me. Why not see if they’re at home?” he said.

I followed him as he rounded the reception area building and onto a path beaten through the brambles.

After several yards we stood outside a lone cabin. Its exterior paintwork depicting multi-colored sun-rays was peeling away. The entrance door hung off its hinges. There was a single dusty window, half-covered with a filthy curtain that was little more than a rag.

“Keep your voice down,” he whispered, putting a finger to his lips.

He crept up to the window, peered through it, turned and beckoned me after him.

When I got close enough, I could hear indistinct voices muttering to one another from inside the cabin. And then I looked through the window myself.

There were four people in there, huddled together in the semidarkness. They were dressed in crumpled, torn dark suits. Their scalps were either bald or shaven, the dead-pale skin pockmarked by craters and sores.

Three of them had their backs to me but I could just make out the face of the fourth, a woman, much older now than when last I’d seen her. She was facing me but staring vacantly into the distance with black-rimmed eyes.

Celia Waters.

I heard a snatch of dialogue: “The fear of masks removed…”

And then I turned away, and hurried back along the path, making straight for the taxi.

Kelsey was at my elbow.

“It’s the same old thing all the time with them,” he said. “Over and over again. Like the tide coming in and out.”

The beast in the folds of Harry’s gut had no heart and it did not need one for his was strong enough to keep them both alive. It had neither heart nor mind nor eyes to see; it was only lips and teeth and fingers like needles that slipped inside his tongue and his bowels and even those places he did not know he had. Those unfilled hollows made its gums throb with an emptiness that might have been desire.

That night a man came to the house whose face Harry remembered from the dimness of a childhood memory. His thinning hair was combed forward over the shining dome of his skull, and the line of a moustache traced the contours of his upper lip. He sweated with an unnatural persistence from the pock-like pores on his cheeks.

“You remember your Uncle Amir,” Father said, a statement.

Harry’s eyes flickered over to Mother, who stood just behind Father, her arms crossed over her stomach. The way she sucked her tongue over her front teeth told Harry all he needed to know: this man was no brother of hers.

Uncle Amir smiled. His teeth were too large for his mouth; when the smile faded, his lips still didn’t cover the thick, yellowed ends.

“It’s good to see you again, Harry. It’s been a while.”

His English was excellent, almost unmarked. He reached a hand out, and Harry took it.

“Dinner must nearly be ready,” Mother said, pulling away. “Come, Amir. Majid’s been cooking all afternoon.”

The dining room was at the end of the hallway, behind a heavy hardwood door. The table was set for four. White candles stood in pewter holders; Mother’s best plates—white and blue chinoiserie shipped all the way from London—sat perfectly centered before each empty chair. The tablecloth had begun to yellow—because of the humidity of Guyana’s summers, Father would always say, jovially cursing the tropics.

Father sat at the head of the table, striking up a conversation with Uncle Amir, and Amir immediately took the chair to his right. Harry cursed inwardly; this meant he would need to sit next to Mother.

Father took the white linen from under the fork and knife, shook it open, and placed it neatly on his lap. Everyone else did the same.

The cook, Majid, burst in from the kitchen, shouldering the door open, dinner balanced on the trays in his upturned palms. Harry had been listening to Father talk about work—a tedious monologue about the rising price of equipment for the mill, which had Uncle Amir nodding in vigorous assent at the end of every sentence—but his attention drained away as soon as Majid laid the plates on the jaundiced tablecloth.

It was a richer meal than what they had most weekdays: two large tilapia, one leaned against the other, their meaty sides slit open and stuffed with lemon wedges and sorrel; plantain baked until its edges had crisped, caramel-brown; a steaming bowl of channa spiced with cumin and ginger and topped with rings of sautéed onion—

—and back he came with still more plates: a pie of beef and goat (Majid’s poor facsimile of Father’s favorite: steak and kidney pie); okra roughly chopped and fried in ghee—oh, he could smell the fat!—and mango, sliced thin, spread like an orchid in bloom.

Harry reached a fork out to the tilapia, and Mother swatted his hand away.

“We have to say grace,” she scolded. Then, raising her eyes to Uncle Amir: “Would you mind?”