The Year's Best Horror Stories 16 Part 19

RACK ME HIGH UPON THE TREE OF PAIN.

THE THIN PEOPLE.

by Brian Lumley.

Born in Horden, Durham on December 2, 1937, Brian Lumley joined the army at age 21 and served twenty-two years in Berlin and Cyprus among other postings. Retired from the army, he writes full time now and lives with his wife, Dorothy, in Devon. At conventions Lumley has been known to share a bottle of brandy with other late-night program partic.i.p.ants, and he's a good man to have on your side if a fight erupts afterward in the bar.

In addition to numerous short stories, Brian Lumley has published some twenty-five books-most recently, Necroscope II. Many of his earlier books-The Caller of the Black, The Burrowers Beneath, Beneath the Moors, The Transition of t.i.tus Crow-were rooted in Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, and while he has not abandoned this interest, Lumley's recent novels-Psychomech, Necroscope-have been ambitious delvings into more contemporary horrors. A case in point is "The Thin People"-certainly not a Cthulhu Mythos story. However, after reading this I intend to examine closely the next bottle of brandy Lumley offers to share.

1.

Funny place, Barrows Hill. Not Barrow's Hill, no. Barrows without the apostrophe. For instance: you won't find it on any map. You'll find maps whose borders approach it, whose corners impinge, however slightly, upon it, but in general it seems that cartographers avoid it. It's too far out from the center for the tubes, hasn't got a main-line station, has lost much of its integrity by virtue of all the infernal demolition and reconstruction going on around and within it. But it's still there. Buses run to and from, and the older folk who live there still call it Barrows Hill.

When I went to live there in the late '70s I hated the place. There was a sense of senility, of inherent idiocy about it. A damp sort of place. Even under a hot summer sun, damp. You could feel blisters of fungus rising even under the freshest paint. Not that the place got painted very much. Not that I saw, anyway. No, for it was like somewhere out of Lovecraft: decaying, diseased, inbred.

Barrows Hill. I didn't stay long, a few months. Too long, really. It gave you the feeling that if you delayed, if you stood still for just one extra moment, then that it would grow up over you and you'd become a part of it. There are some old, old places in London, and I reckoned Barrows Hill was of the oldest. I also reckoned it for its genius loci; like it was a focal point for secret things. Or perhaps not a focal point, for that might suggest a radiation-a spreading outward-and as I've said, Barrows Hill was ingrown. The last bastion of the strange old things of London. Things like the thin people. The very tall, very thin people.

Now n.o.body-but n.o.body anywhere-is ever going to believe me about the thin people, which is one of the two reasons I'm not afraid to tell this story. The other is that I don't live there anymore. But when I did ...

I suspect now, that quite a few people-ordinary people, that is-knew about them. They wouldn't admit it, that's all, and probably still won't. And since all of the ones who'd know live on Barrows Hill, I really can't say I blame 'em. There was one old lad lived there, however, who knew and talked about them. To me. Since he had a bit of a reputation (to be frank, they called him "Balmy Bill of Barrows Hill") I didn't pay a deal of attention at first. I mean, who would?

Barrows Hill had a pub, a couple of pubs, but the one most frequented was "The Railway." A hangover from a time when there really was a railway, I supposed. A couple of years ago there had been another, a serious rival to "The Railway" for a little while, when someone converted an old block into a fairly modern pub. But it didn't last. Whoever owned the place might have known something, but probably not. Or he wouldn't have been so stupid as to call his place "The Thin Man!" It was only open for a week or two before burning down to the ground.

But that was before my time and the only reason I make mention of pubs, and particularly "The Railway," is because that's where I met Balmy Bill. He was there because of his disease, alcoholism, and I was there because of mine, heartsickness-which, running at a high fever, showed all signs of mutating pretty soon into Bill's problem. In short, I was. .h.i.tting the bottle.

Now this is all incidental information, of course, and I don't intend to go into it other than to say it was our problems brought us together. As unlikely a friends.h.i.+p as any you might imagine. But Balmy Bill was good at listening, and I was good at buying booze. And so we were good company.

One night, however, when I ran out of money, I made the mistake of inviting him back to my place. (My place-hah! A bed, a loo and a typewriter; a poky little place up some wooden stairs, like a penthouse kennel; oh, yes, and a bonus in the shape of a cupboard converted to a shower.) But I had a couple bottles of beer back there and a half-bottle of gin, and when I'd finished crying on Balmy Bill's shoulder it wouldn't be far for me to fall into bed. What did surprise me was how hard it was to get him back there. He started complaining the moment we left the bar-or rather, as soon as he saw which way we were headed.

"Up the Larches? You live up there, off Barchington Road? Yes, I remember you told me. Well, and maybe I'll just stay in the pub a while after all. I mean, if you live right up there-well, it's out of my way, isn't it?"

"Out of your way? It's a ten minute walk, that's all! I thought you were thirsty?"

"Thirsty I am-always! Balmy I'm not-they only say I am 'cos they're frightened to listen to me."

"They?"

"People!" he snapped, sounding unaccustomedly sober. Then, as if to change the subject: "A half-bottle of gin, you said?"

"That's right, Gordon's. But if you want to get back on down to 'The Railway' ..."

"No, no, we're half-way there now," he grumbled, hurrying along beside me, almost taking my arm in his nervousness. "And anyway, it's a nice bright night tonight. They're not much for light nights."

"They?" I asked again.

"People!" Despite his short, bowed legs, he was half a pace ahead of me. "The thin people." But where his first word had been a snarl, his last three were whispered, so that I almost missed them entirely.

Then we were up Larches Avenue-the Larches as Balmy Bill had it-and closing fast on twenty-two, and suddenly it was very quiet. Only the sc.r.a.pe of dry, blown leaves on the pavement. Autumn, and the trees half-naked. Moonlight falling through webs of high, black, brittle branches.

"Plenty of moon," said Bill, his voice hushed. "Thank G.o.d-in whom I really don't believe-for that. But no street lights! You see that? Bulbs all missing. That's them."

"Them?" I caught his elbow, turning him into my gateway-if there'd been a gate. There wasn't, just the post, which served as my landmark whenever I'd had a skinful.

"Them, yes!" he snapped, staring at me as I turned my key in the lock. "d.a.m.n young fool!"

And so up the creaky stairs to my little cave of solitude, and Balmy Bill s.h.i.+vering despite the closeness of the night and warmth of the place, which leeched a lot of its heat from the houses on both sides, and from the flat below, whose elderly lady occupier couldn't seem to live in anything other than an oven; and in through my own door, into the "living" room, where Bill closed the curtains across the jutting bay windows as if he'd lived there all of his life. But not before he'd peered out into the night street, his eyes darting this way and that, round and bright in his lined, booze-desiccated face.

Balmy, yes. Well, maybe he was and maybe he wasn't. "Gin," I said, pa.s.sing him the bottle and a gla.s.s. "But go easy, yes? I like a nip myself, you know."

"A nip? A nip? Huh! If I lived here I'd need more than a nip. This is the middle of it, this is. The very middle!"

"Oh?" I grinned. "Myself, I had it figured for the living end!"

He paced the floor for a few moments-three paces there, three back-across the protesting boards of my tiny room, before pointing an almost accusing finger at me. "Chirpy tonight, aren't you? Full of beans!"

"You think so?" Yes, he was right. I did feel a bit brighter. "Maybe I'm over it, eh?"

He sat down beside me. "I certainly hope so, you daft young sod! And now maybe you'll pay some attention to my warnings and get yourself a place well away from here."

"Your warnings? Have you been warning me, then?" It dawned on me that he had, for several weeks, but I'd been too wrapped up in my own misery to pay him much heed. And who would? After all, he was Balmy Bill.

" 'Course I have!" he snapped. "About them b.l.o.o.d.y-"

"-Thin people," I finished it for him. "Yes, I remember now."

"Well?"

"Eh?"

"Are you or aren't you?"

"I'm listening, yes."

"No, no, no! Are you or aren't you going to find yourself new lodgings?"

"When I can afford it, yes."

"You're in danger here, you know. They don't like strangers. Strangers change things, and they're against that. They don't like anything strange, nothing new. They're a dying breed, I fancy, but while they're here they'll keep things the way they like 'em."

"Okay," I sighed. "This time I really am listening. You want to start at the beginning?"

He answered my sigh with one of his own, shook his head impatiently. "Daft young b.u.g.g.e.r! If I didn't like you I wouldn't bother. But all right, for your own good, one last time ... just listen and I'll tell you what I know. It's not much, but it's the last warning you'll get ..."

2.

"Best thing ever happened for 'em must have been the lampposts, I reckon."

"Dogs!" I raised my eyebrows.

He glared at me and jumped to his feet. "Right, that's it, I'm off!"

"Oh, sit down, sit down!" I calmed him. "Here, fill your gla.s.s again. And I promise I'll try not to interrupt."

"Lampposts!" he snapped, his brows black as thunder. But he sat and took the drink. "Yes, for they imitate them, see? And thin, they can hide behind them. Why, they can stand so still that on a dark night you wouldn't know the difference! Can you imagine that, eh? Hiding behind or imitating a lamppost!"

I tried to imagine it, but: "Not really," I had to admit. Now, however, my levity was becoming a bit forced. There was something about his intensity-the way his limbs shook in a manner other than alcoholic-which was getting through to me. "Why should they hide?"

"Freaks! Wouldn't you hide? A handful of them, millions of us. We'd hound 'em out, kill 'em off!"

"So why don't we?"

" 'Cos we're all smart young b.u.g.g.e.rs like you, that's why! 'Cos we don't believe in 'em."

"But you do."

Bill nodded, his three or four day growth of hair quivering on jowls and upper lip. "Seen 'em," he said, "and seen ... evidence of them."

"And they're real people? I mean, you know, human? Just like me and you, except ... thin?"

"And tall. Oh-tall!"

"Tall?" I frowned. "Thin and tall. How tall? Not as tall as-"

"Lampposts," he nodded, "yes. Not during the day, mind you, only at night. At night they-" (he looked uncomfortable, as if it had suddenly dawned on him how crazy this all must sound) "-they sort of, well, kind of unfold themselves."

I thought about it, nodded. "They unfold themselves. Yes, I see."

"No, you don't see," his voice was flat, cold, angry now. "But you will, if you hang around here long enough."

"Where do they live," I asked, "these tall, thin people?"

"In thin houses," he answered, matter-of-factly.

"Thin houses?"

"Sure! Are you telling me you haven't noticed the thin houses? Why, this place of yours very nearly qualifies! Thin houses, yes. Places where normal people wouldn't dream of setting up. There's half-a-dozen such in Barchington, and a couple right here in the Larches!" He shuddered and I bent to turn on an extra bar in my electric fire.

"Not cold, mate," Bill told me then. "h.e.l.l no! Enough booze in me to keep me warm. But I shudder every time I think of 'em. I mean, what do they do?"

"Where do they work, you mean?"

"Work?" he shook his head. "No, they don't work. Probably do a bit of tea-leafing. Burglary, you know. Oh, they'd get in anywhere, the thin people. But what do they do?"

I shrugged.

"I mean, me and you, we watch telly, play cards, chase the birds, read the paper. But them ..."

It was on the tip of my tongue to suggest maybe they go into the woods and frighten owls, but suddenly I didn't feel half so flippant. "You said you'd seen them?"

"Seen 'em sure enough, once or twice," he confirmed. "And weird! One, I remember, came out of his thin house-thin house in Barchington, I could show you it sometime in daylight. Me, I was behind a hedge sleeping it off. Don't ask me how I got there, drunk as a lord! Anyway, something woke me up.

"Down at its bottom the hedge was thin where cats come through. It was night and the council men had been round during the day putting bulbs in the street lights, so the place was all lit up. And directly opposite, there's this thin house and its door slowly opening; and out comes this bloke into the night, half of him yellow from the lamplight and half black in shadow. See, right there in front of the thin house is a street lamp.

"But this chap looks normal enough, you know? A bit stiff in his movements: he sort of moves jerky, like them contortionists who hook their feet over their shoulders and walk on their hands. Anyway, he looks up and down the street, and he's obviously satisfied no one's there. Then- "-He slips back a little into the shadows until he comes up against the wall of his house, and he-unfolds!

"I see the light glinting down one edge of him, see it suddenly split into two edges at the bottom, sort of hinged at the top. And the split widens until he stands in the dark there like a big pair of dividers. And then one half swings up until it forms a straight line, perpendicular-and now he's ten feet tall. Then the same again, only this time the division takes place in the middle. Like ... like a joiner's wooden three-foot ruler, with hinges so he can open it up, you know?"

I nodded, fascinated despite myself. "And that's how they're built, eh? I mean, well, hinged?"

"h.e.l.l, no!" he snorted. "You can fold your arms on their elbows, can't you? Or your legs on their knees? You can bend from the waist and touch your toes? Well I sure can! Their joints may be a little different from ours, that's all-maybe like the joints of certain insects. Or maybe not. I mean, their science is different from ours, too. Perhaps they fold and unfold themselves the same way they do it to other things-except it doesn't do them any harm. I dunno ..."

"What?" I asked, puzzled. "What other things do they fold?"

"I'll get to that later," he told me darkly, s.h.i.+vering. "Where was I?"

"There he was," I answered, "all fifteen foot of him, standing in the shadows. Then-?"

"A car comes along the street, sudden like!" Bill grabbed my arm.

"Wow!" I jumped. "He's in trouble, right?"

Balmy Bill shook his head. "No way. The car's lights are on full, but that doesn't trouble the thin man. He's not stupid. The car goes by, lighting up the walls with its beam, and where the thin man stood in shadows against the wall of his thin house-"

"Yes?"

"A drainpipe, all black and s.h.i.+ny!"

I sat back. "Pretty smart."

"You better believe they're smart. Then, when it's dark again, out he steps. And that's something to see! Those giant strides-but quick, almost a flicker. Blink your eyes and he's moved-and between each movement his legs coming together as he pauses, and nothing to see but a pole. Up to the lamppost he goes, seems almost to melt into it, hides behind it. And plink!-out goes the light. After that ... in ten minutes he had the whole street black as night in a coalmine. And yours truly lying there in somebody's garden, scared and s.h.i.+vering and dying to throw up."

"And that was it?"