Best New Horror #26

Edited by Stephen Jones

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

THE EDITOR WOULD like to thank Kim Newman, David Barraclough, Ellen Datlow, Gordon Van Gelder, Robert Morgan, Rosemary Pardoe, R.B. Russell, Amanda Foubister, Andrew I. Porter, Johnny Mains, Mandy Slater, Jason V. Brock, Andy Richards, Shawn Garrett (Pseudopod), Andy Cox, Michael Kelly, David Longhorn and, especially, Peter and Nicky Crowther, Michael Smith, Marie O’Regan and Michael Marshall Smith for all their help and support. Special thanks are also due to Locus, Ansible, Classic Images, Entertainment Weekly and all the other sources that were used for reference in the Introduction and the Necrology.

TESTIMONY OF SAMUEL FROBISHER REGARDING EVENTS UPON HIS MAJESTY’S SHIP CONFIDENCE, 14-22 JUNE 1818, WITH DIAGRAMS copyright © Ian Tregillis 2014. Originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, July/August 2014. Reprinted by permission of the author.

THE COLLECTED SHORT STORIES OF FREDDIE PROTHERO, INTRODUCTION BY TORLESS MAGNUSSEN, PH.D. copyright © Peter Straub 2014. Originally published in Turn Down the Lights and Conjunctions: 62 Exile, Spring 2014. Reprinted by permission of the author.

INTRODUCTION. HORROR IN 2014

A NEW SURVEY by Nielsen Books & Consumer found that 67% of books sold in America were in print format, with just 23% reading e-books. Audiobooks accounted for 3% and the remaining 7% consisted of mysterious “other formats”. Of those figures, 42% of books sold were published in paperback and 25% in hardcover.

Nielsen also reported that sales of print books increased 2.4% over 2013. Unfortunately, this was mostly driven by sales of children’s literature and adult non-fiction, whereas adult fiction actually declined by 7.9%—the only publishing category that did not show an increase.

Meanwhile, book industry research company Bowker released the results of a six-year overview that revealed that the growth of self-publishing was slowing down on a year-on-year basis in both the print and e-book markets. However, the survey did not include self-published works available on Amazon without an ISBN.

In January, almost exactly five months after the death of founder and publisher Nick Robinson, UK imprint Constable & Robinson was sold to Little, Brown Book Group, part of Hachette UK Ltd. That same month independent publisher Quercus, which includes genre imprint Jo Fletcher Books, was put up for sale following a “significant trading loss” for 2013.

Three months later, Quercus was sold as an independent division to Hodder & Stoughton, which is yet another Hachette subsidiary. However, Hachette’s planned purchase of the Perseus Book Group (which includes Running Press) was cancelled in July, after the parties could not reach agreement.

The Denmark-owned Egmont Publishing Group decided to sell its Egmont USA division, which publishes YA and children’s books, while Osprey Publishing Group’s SF imprint Angry Robot cancelled its young adult genre imprint, Strange Chemistry, letting editor Amanda Rutter go. Osprey then subsequently sold the Angry Robot imprint to American entrepreneur Etan Ilfeld, before itself being sold to Bloomsbury.

Stephen King’s novel Mr. Mercedes involved a former policeman’s hunt for a psychopath who used a stolen car as a murder weapon. An excerpt from the novel appeared in the May 16 issue of Entertainment Weekly. The author’s second blockbuster book of the year, Revival, was dedicated to H.P. Lovecraft, amongst others. It was about a small-town Methodist minister who had started experimenting with “secret electricity” in the 1960s, and disappeared following the loss of his family in a freak accident.

Meanwhile, King’s 2009 novel Under the Dome (the basis of the CBS-TV series) was reissued in two volumes.

Thirty-eight years after she made her debut with Interview with a Vampire, Anne Rice returned to her bloodsucker roots with Prince Lestat, the thirteenth volume in The Vampire Chronicles.

In Jeffery Deaver’s The Skin Collector, quadriplegic investigator Lincoln Rhyme was on the trail of a psychopath who kidnapped women with perfect skin and tattooed cryptic messages on their flesh with deadly bio-toxins.

John Connolly’s The Wolf in Winter, the twelfth volume in the author’s “Charlie Parker” series, was available in a 3,000-copy signed edition exclusive to Waterstones bookshops. It came with a bonus CD.

Neil Gaiman promoted the single-volume reprinting of his short fantasy/ horror story The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains with live appearances in London and Edinburgh in July, supported by Eddie Campbell’s projected illustrations and music by Australia’s FourPlay String Quartet.

Meanwhile, Gaiman’s Newbery Medal-winning The Graveyard Book was reissued as a two-volume graphic novel illustrated by P. Craig Russell, Scott Hampton, Galen Showman and others, and in a “Commemorative Edition” featuring bonus material. A new audio version of the same title featured a cast that included Derek Jacobi, Miriam Margolyes, Julian Rhind-Tutt, Reece Shearsmith, Lenny Henry and Gaiman himself.

Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, who lives in Edinburgh, donated £1 million to the “Better Together” campaign to keep Scotland in the United Kingdom. In September, the majority of four million Scottish residents voted against going independent.

In a shock revelation posted on an online blog, author Marion Zimmer Bradley’s daughter Moira Greyland accused her late mother of molesting her as a child, along with her father, Walter Breen, a convicted long-time molester who died in prison.

Charlaine Harris’ Midnight Crossroad (aka Midnight) was the first in a trilogy set in the near-deserted town of Midnight, Texas.

A Detroit policewoman was on the trail of a ritualistic serial killer in Broken Monsters by South African author Lauren Beukes.

A troop of boy scouts encountered a bio-engineered horror in the Canadian wilderness in The Troop by the pseudonymous “Nick Cutter” (Craig Davidson), which came with a cover quote by Stephen King that described the novel as “old-school horror at its best”.

Keith Donohue’s The Boy Who Drew Monsters was set at Christmas, as the behaviour of a young boy with Asperger’s may have been connected to a shipwreck that occurred near his home.

Valerie Martin’s historical novel The Ghost of the Mary Celeste combined the mystery of the famously abandoned ship and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Set in Victorian times, the worlds of two Yorkshire orphans and London’s mysterious Aegolius Club collided in The Quick by Lauren Owen, while the long-dead V.C. Andrews® was credited as the author of The Unwelcomed Child, about a girl who was considered evil by the religious extremists who raised her.

Twin sisters had to quieten the souls of the damned in the Forest of the Dead in Sea of Shadows, the first in a new trilogy by Kelley Armstrong.

Pandemic was the third and final volume in Scott Sigler’s “Infected” series about a plague of alien parasites.

Kim Newman’s long-awaited haunted house novel, An English Ghost Story, was published by Titan Books, who also issued an updated edition of Newman’s 1990 novel Bad Dreams, which included the novella ‘Bloody Students’ (aka ‘Orgy of the Blood Parasites’) and a new historical Afterword by the author.

Steve Rasnic Tem’s Southern Gothic Blood Kin alternated between the Great Depression and the present day, and a plague of insomnia left victims unable to differentiate between dreams and reality in Kenneth Calhoun’s Black Moon.

In Christopher Fowler’s Nyctophobia, an architect became convinced that something lived in the perpetual shadows of her new house in Spain, which was built into the side of a cliff.

A woman rented a room in a house of horrors in No One Gets Out Alive by Adam Nevill, and a woman inherited a haunted home in The Unquiet House by Alison Littlewood.

Children started disappearing from a quiet suburb in the early 1990s in December Park by Ronald Malfi.

A restored Southern plantation mansion was beset by evil forces in The Vines by Christopher Rice, and strange things happened in a hospital for soldiers recovering from the First World War in Silence for the Dead by Simone St. James (Simone Seguin).

Red Delicious was the second volume about a werepire demon hunter by Kathleen Tierney (Caitlín R. Kiernan).

Something blew into the town of Coventry during a mammoth blizzard that left its victims frozen in Snowblind by Christopher Golden, while the disappearance of a woman’s mother was related to past events in The Winter People by Jennifer McMahon.

A former convict forced to steal a mysterious object was pursued by a group of deadly assassins in Mark Morris’ The Wolves of London, the first in the “Obsidian Heart” series.

Three child survivors of the simultaneous crashing of four planes may have heralded the apocalypse in The Three by Sarah Lotz, and a woman and her children wore blindfolds to protect themselves from being driven mad in an apocalyptic near-future world in Josh Malerman’s Bird Box.

The owner of Poe’s Tooth Books was haunted by a bird in Wakening the Crow by Stephen Gregory, and a woman became a companion to a reclusive horror writer in The Vanishing by Wendy Webb.

The Ghoul Next Door was the eighth volume in Victoria Laurie’s super-natural mystery series about ghost hunter M.J. Holliday.

A scientist attempted to communicate with plants on a remote island in Seeders by A.J. Colucci, while mutant sea creatures attacked Long Island Sound in Mount Misery by Angelo Peluso.

Cat Out of Hell by Lynne Truss, the best-selling author of Eats, Shoots and Leaves, was published under the Hammer imprint.

Inspired by the works of H.P. Lovecraft, Pete Rawlik’s The Weird Company was a sequel to Reanimators.

Daniel Levine’s Hyde re-told Robert Louis Stevenson’s short novel from the point-of-view of the titular character. It also included the original 1886 work with an Introduction by Levine.

In The Carpathian Assignment, Chip Wagar re-told Bram Stoker’s Dracula from the point-of-view of the local authorities.

Children all over the world came back from the dead hungry for blood in Craig DiLouie’s Suffer the Children, while the protagonist of Christopher Buehlman’s The Lesser Dead was an eternally adolescent vampire living in New York City in 1978.

The Vault was the third in the vampire series by Emily McKay that began with The Farm, and A Wind in the Night was the twelfth volume in the “Noble Dead” series by Barb Hendee and J.C. Hendee.

Sustenance, the twenty-seventh volume in Chelsea Quinn Yarbro’s “Count Saint-Germain” series, was set in post-World War II Paris, as the vampire helped a group of Americans branded communists.

Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, helped a werewolf sort out his relationship problems in Jason, which also contained a preview of the next novel in the series, Dead Ice.

An ancient vampire believed that a werewolf was the reincarnation of his lost love in By Blood We Live, the third in the series by Glen Duncan, and The Frenzy Wolves was the third in the “Frenzy Cycle” by Gregory Lamberson.

The Girl with All the Gifts by M.R. (Mike) Carey was a road trip with a difference, as a 10-year-old zombie girl who was part of an experiment to give the “hungries” intelligence attempted to survive in a post-apocalyptic Britain.

Creator Stephen Jones spun his Zombie Apocalypse! franchise off into a new series of inter-connected novels with Horror Hospital by Mark Morris and Washington Deceased by Lisa Morton.

Joseph Nassise’s On Her Majesty’s Behalf was the second volume in the “Great Undead War” series set during an alternate zombie First World War, while Jonathan Maberry’s Fall of Night was a sequel to Dead of Night.

A virus turned people into flesh-eating zombies in Omega Days and Ship of the Dead, the first two books in a trilogy by John L. Campbell, and Zombie, Indiana was the second in a series by Scott Kenemore.

Dana Fredsti’s Plague World was the third book in the “Ashley Parker” zombie series.

D.J. Molles’ series The Remaining, The Remaining: Aftermath, The Remaining: Refugees and The Remaining: Fractured were originally self-published as e-books. The first volume included a “bonus novella” set in the same zombie series.

John Ringo’s To Sail a Darkling Sea was a sequel to Under a Graveyard Sky and second in the “Black Tide Rising” zombie apocalypse series. It was followed by Islands of Rage & Hope and the final volume in the series, Strands of Sorrow.

Peter Clines’ Ex-Purgatory was the fourth in a series that pitted zombies against superheroes.

Three Bayou siblings with unworldly powers teamed up to track down the monstrous serial killer that murdered their father in Deadroads, a first novel by Robin Riopelle (Elizabeth Todd Doyle).

Girls were disappearing along a Canadian highway in Adrianne Harun’s debut A Man Came Out of a Door in the Mountain.

Martin Rose’s debut mystery novel, Bring Me Flesh, I’ll Bring Hell, was about an undead private investigator, and Lauren Owen’s The Quick was about Victorian vampires.

A girl discovered her new boarding school held dark secrets in The Unseemly Education of Anne Merchant by new writer Joanna Wiebe.

A troubled boy discovered the titular creature in the attic that was hungry for stories in Simon P. Clark’s young adult debut novel Eren, while Mary: The Summoning was the first book by Hillary Monahan and the first in the author’s “Bloody Mary” trilogy.

Cruel Beauty, a first novel by Rosamund Hodge, was a YA retelling of ‘Beauty and the Beast’.

In June, the 7th Circuit US Court of Appeals ruled that the thirty pre-1923 Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle were in the public domain, despite attempts by the author’s estate to have copyright protection extended backwards from the remaining ten stories written between 1923-27.

Edited with a Foreword and Notes by Leslie S. Klinger, The New Annotated H.P. Lovecraft was a predictably hefty volume from Liveright Publishing. It came with an Introduction by Alan Moore and featured numerous illustrations and photographs.

Published in limited editions of 500 copies as part of the “Centipede Press Library of Weird Fiction”, H.P. Lovecraft contained twenty-four stories, while Algernon Blackwood featured twenty-two stories. William Hope Hodgson collected twenty-one stories plus the short novels The House on the Borderland (1908) and The Ghost Pirates (1909), and Edgar Allan Poe brought together thirty-eight stories, twenty-one poems and the short novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym (1838). All four volumes were edited with Introductions by S.T. Joshi.

Published by California’s Stark House, The Empty House and Other Ghost Stories/The Listener and Other Stories was an omnibus edition of two early 1900s collections by Algernon Blackwood with Introductions by Storm Constantine and Mike Ashley.

From the same publisher, The Slayer of Souls/The Maker of Moons was an omnibus of two collections by Robert W. Chambers that dropped three non-supernatural stories. Gregory Shepard supplied an Introduction.

Translated from the original French by Brian Stableford and published in three hefty print-on-demand volumes by Black Coat Press, The Mysterious Doctor Cornelius 1: The Sculptor of Human Flesh, 2: The Island of Winged Men and 3: The Rochester Bridge Catastrophe reprinted all eighteen instalments of the mad doctor serial by Gustave Le Rouge.

From the same imprint and also translated by Stableford, The Vampires of London reprinted the 1852 French novel by Angelo de Sorr (Ludovic Sclafer).

The Sorcery Club was a special Centenary Edition of the 1912 occult novel by Elliott O’Donnell from Ramble House/Dancing Tuatara Press. The book included an Introduction by editor John Pelan, a short essay by Gavin L. O’Keefe and original illustrations by Phillys Vere Campbell.

The same PoD imprint also published Death Rocks the Cradle and Other Stories, the second volume in the “Weird Tales of Wayne Rogers”, the pulp author whose real name was Archibald Herbert Bittner and who also wrote under the pseudonyms “Grant Stockbridge”, “Curtis Steele” and “A.H. Bittner”.

The first volume in the “Weird Tales of Arthur J. Burks” series was Cathedral of Horror, which reprinted eleven stories by the pulp author.

The second volume in the “Selected Stories of Russell Gray” series, My Touch Brings Death and Other Stories, collected ten pseudonymous stories by the pulp author Bruno Fischer, while The Corpse Factory and Other Stories, containing eight stories, was the second volume in the “Selected Stories of Arthur Leo Zagat”.

Editor John Pelan also supplied Introductions for reprints of Edmund Snell’s rare Borneo-set novels The Crimson Butterfly (1924) and The Back of Beyond (1936).

Laughing Death reprinted Walter C. Brown’s 1932 novel, and The Tomb of the Dark Ones was a reprint of the 1937 novel by J.M.A. Mills.

Also from Ramble House, Vampire of the Skies and The Ghost Plane were reprints of the novels by James Corbett, originally published in the UK in 1932 and 1939, respectively, while Food for the Fungus Lady and Other Stories collected ten pulp stories by pulp author Ralston Shields.

Editors John Pelan and D.H. Olson supplied the Introduction for Echo of a Curse, a reprint of the 1939 novel by R.R. Ryan.

The Dark Eidolon and Other Fantasies from Penguin Classics collected eighteen stories, seventeen prose poems and forty-two poems by Clark Ashton Smith, edited with an Introduction and notes by S.T. Joshi.

To celebrate the centenary of Robert Aickman’s birth, Faber & Faber reissued the author’s collections Dark Entries, The Unsettled Dust and The Wine-Dark Sea in attractive new editions with cover quotes by Neil Gaiman, S.T. Joshi and Kim Newman, while Cold Hand in Mine included a new Foreword by Reece Shearsmith.

A 40th Anniversary edition of James Herbert’s The Rats included a new Introduction by Gaiman.

Robinson reprinted two classic supernatural novels by “Jonathan Aycliffe” (Denis MacEoin), Whispers in the Dark (1992) and The Vanishment (1993), in new trade paperback editions.

The Weiser Book of Horror and the Occult featured fifteen early horror stories by H.P. Lovecraft, Bram Stoker, Aleister Crowley, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and others, along with a historical Introduction by editor Lon Milo DuQuette.

Penny Dreadfuls: Sensational Tales of Terror edited by Stefan Dziemianowicz for Barnes & Noble/Fall River, collected twenty stories from the 19th century, including the 1818 version of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.

Dziemianowicz also contributed an Introduction to Beyond the Pole from Black Dog Books. The volume collected eleven weird stories from the pulp magazines, written by Philip M. Fisher, Jr. and published between 1917-24.

Fear Street: Party Games was the latest title in the enduring young adult horror series by R.L. Stine.

When teenagers performed an exorcism on a girl at school, there were unforeseen consequences in The Merciless by Danielle Vega (aka “Danielle Rollins”/”Ellie Rollins”), and the donated organs of a dead high school girl gave her a connection to the four teen recipients in Amber Kizer’s Pieces of Me.

A group of girls began convulsing and foaming at the mouth in Megan Abbott’s The Fever.

Teenagers found themselves trapped in a reality based on a dead author’s work in Ilsa J. Bick’s White Space, while more teens were caught up in re-enactments of a horror director’s movies in Welcome to the Dark House by Laurie Faria Stolarz.

An ouija board connected a group of teenagers to a malevolent spirit in Teen Spirit by Francesca Lia Block, and a girl was apprenticed to the terrifying titular character in Michael Grant’s The Messenger of Fear.

A pair of Irish orphans found themselves working on a creepy Victorian estate in Jonathan Auxier’s The Night Gardener, and a group of teens ended up working in a haunted psychiatric hospital in Susan Vaught’s Insanity.

Madeleine Roux’s Sanctum was a sequel to Asylum and illustrated with photos and postcards.

Darkest Fear was the first in the “Birthright” series by Cate Tiernan, while Page Morgan’s The Lovely and the Lost was the second book in the “Dispossessed” series, set amongst the demons and gargoyles of Paris. Endless was the third volume in Kate Brian’s “Shadowlands” trilogy.

Somebody was killing small town girls in The Vanishing Season by Jodi Lynn Anderson, and a house turned people to evil in Amity by Micol Ostow.

Something was forcing animals to attack humans in Robert Lettrick’s Frenzy, while a boy was the only person who remembered his brother who disappeared into a Louisiana swamp in Beware the Wild by Natalie C. Parker.

Jessica Verday’s Of Monsters and Madness was the first book in a Gothic YA series inspired by the works of Edgar Allan Poe and Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, while Alexandra Monir’s Suspicion took its inspiration from Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca.

Unhinged, A.G. Howard’s darker Gothic version of Alice in Wonderland, was a sequel to the same author’s Splintered, with the text printed in red. The Glass Casket was a twisted take on Snow White by McCormick Templeman.

Nighmares! by actor Jason Segel and Kirsten Miller was a children’s book about how you can accomplish anything, so long as you are brave enough to try.

Redeemed by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast was the twelfth and final novel in the YA “House of Night” vampire series, while Kalona’s Fall by the same authors was a novella set in the same series, illustrated by Aura Dalian.

Vampire Diaries: The Salvation: Unmasked by Aubrey Clark was the thirteenth book in the YA series created by a co-credited L.J. Smith.

A shape-shifter was raised by vampires in Bloodwich, the first in the “Maeve’ra” series set in Amelia Atwater-Rhodes’ “Midnight Empire” universe, and Birthright: Darkest Fear was the first volume in a new series by Cate Tiernan about a teen jaguar shape-shifter.

Rachel Neumeier’s Black Dog featured a rare shape-changer with the power to protect humanity from supernatural evil.

A girl investigating her mother’s disappearance was helped by a strange young man in the zombie novel Dark Metropolis by Jaclyn Dolamore.

The Queen of Zombie Hearts was the third book in Gena Showalter’s “The White Rabbit Chronicles”, a YA mash-up between the walking dead and Alice in Wonderland.

Zom-B Gladiator, Zom-B Mission, Zom-B Clans and Zom-B Family were the sixth to ninth novellas in the series by Darren Shan (Darren O’Shaughnessy), illustrated by Warren Pleece. The first three volumes were collected in the omnibus Zom-B Chronicles.

Canadian artist Emily Carroll illustrated her own five tales of twisted sibling relationships in Through the Woods, while Christine E. Johnson edited Grim, which contained seventeen YA stories (one revised reprint) inspired by fairy tales.

Jean Thompson re-imagined Grimms’ fairy tales in a contemporary setting in her collection The Witch, and Last Stories and Other Stories collected thirty-two supernatural tales by William T. Vollmann.

The always-busy Ellen Datlow edited Nightmare Carnival, which featured fifteen original tales about not-so-funfairs by N. Lee Wood, Nick Mamatas, Terry Dowling, the late Joel Lane, Glen Hirshberg, Robert Shearman, Nathan Ballingrud and others, along with an Introduction by Katherine Dunn.

The third and concluding volume in editor Stephen Jones’ “mosaic novel” trilogy, Zombie Apocalypse! Endgame, featured interconnected contributions from, amongst others, Ramsey Campbell, Stephen Baxter, Jo Fletcher, Gary McMahon, Michael Marshall Smith, Brian Hodge, Nancy Kilpatrick, John Llewellyn Probert, Alison Littlewood, Peter Crowther, Angela Slatter, Paul McAuley, Peter Atkins, Pat Cadigan and Kim Newman.

Edited by John Joseph Adams, Dead Man’s Hand: An Anthology of the Weird West was an anthology of twenty-three stories, featuring Joe R. Lansdale, Orson Scott Card, Kelley Armstrong, Tad Williams, Elizabeth Bear, Jeffrey Ford and others.

Dark Duets edited by Christopher Golden collected seventeen original collaborations between authors who had never previously worked together, including Michael Marshall Smith and Tim Lebbon, and Charlaine Harris and Rachel Caine.

Although most of the fiction would have been equally at home in The Pan Book of Horror Stories, the quality of contributions to Dead Funny: Horror Stories by Comedians was surprisingly high. Editors Robin Ince and Johnny Mains managed to extract mostly decent work from sixteen British comedians, including Reece Shearsmith, Sara Pascoe, Al Murray, Stewart Lee, Katy Brand, Rufus Hound, Phil Jupitus and Charlie Higson. Co-editor Ince also contributed a story to the pocket-sized hardcover.

The Baen Big Book of Monsters edited by Hank Davis featured twenty-one stories (five original) about giant monsters by H.P. Lovecraft, Arthur C. Clarke, David Drake and others.

The Madness of Cthulhu Volume 1 edited by S.T. Joshi contained sixteen stories (two reprints) inspired by Lovecraft’s work from Caitlín R. Kiernan, John Shirley, Melanie Tem, William Browning Spencer and others, along with an Introduction by Jonathan Maberry.

Edited with an Introduction by Jonathan Oliver, Dangerous Games: An Anthology of Original Short Stories contained eighteen short stories by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Lavie Tidhar, Melanie Tem, Gary McMahon, Robert Shearman, Helen Marshall and Pat Cadigan, amongst others.

Games Creatures Play was the latest in the series of themed anthologies edited by Charlaine Harris and Toni L.P. Kelner. It contained fifteen paranormal sports stories by Joe R. Lansdale, Ellen Kushner, Mercedes Lackey, Adam-Troy Castro and others, including a new “Sookie Stackhouse” story by co-editor Harris.

Harris was also the sole editor of Dead But Not Forgotten, an anthology of fifteen “Sookie” stories by Jonathan Maberry, MaryJanice Davidson, Rachel Caine and others.

Editor Stephen Jones’ The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror reached a landmark 25th Anniversary edition featuring twenty stories and Stephen Volk’s novella ‘Whitstable’ before the title was promptly dropped by UK imprint Robinson after a quarter of a century, when an American co-publisher could not be found. PS Publishing quickly stepped in to continue the series under its original title of Best New Horror, retaining the original numbering sequence.

Editor Ellen Datlow’s The Best Horror of the Year from Night Shade Books reached its sixth volume with twenty-three stories, one poem and a summation of the year, while Paula Guran’s The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror: 2014 from Prime Books contained an impressive thirty-two reprints.

Salt Publishing launched yet another “Year’s Best” anthology series with Best British Horror 2014 edited by Johnny Mains. Despite not casting its net as wide as the other “Best” volumes, it featured twenty-one stories plus a tribute section to author Joel Lane.

Datlow and Jones overlapped with just a single story by Simon Strantzas, along with authors Neil Gaiman, Lynda E. Rucker, Kim Newman and Robert Shearman. Datlow and Guran included the same contributions from Nathan Ballingrud and K.J. Kabza, and both featured different stories by Dale Bailey, Laird Barron, Neil Gaiman and Priya Sharma. The contents of the Jones and Guran books didn’t overlap at all, although they shared authors Neil Gaiman, Tanith Lee and Angela Slatter.

The Jones and Mains volumes shared three stories (by Tanith Lee, Thana Niveau and Reggie Oliver) along with authors Ramsey Campbell, Joel Lane, Robert Shearman, Michael Marshall Smith and Stephen Volk. Datlow and Mains only shared a story by Robert Shearman, and there was no overlap of either fiction or authors between the Guran and Mains volumes.

In May Amazon.com stopped accepting pre-orders for all Hachette Book Group imprints over an ongoing dispute about how much the online book retailer took from e-book sales. Amazon was also accused of delaying delivery of some Hachette books, running banner ads for deeply discounted rival titles on authors’ pages and even removing pre-order buttons for print and Kindle editions of many Hachette titles.

Heavy-hitters such as James Patterson and Jeffery Deaver came out against Amazon, and Douglas Preston circulated a series of open letters signed by a number of authors and editors. Stephen King publicly accused the bookseller of “strong-arm tactics”.

Meanwhile, writers in Austria, Germany and Switzerland also accused Amazon of using similar tactics to put pressure on Swedish publisher Bonnier Group during negotiations.

Hachette and Amazon finally announced in November that they had come to a “new, multi-year agreement for e-book and print sales in the US”. The settlement allowed Hachette to set the prices of its e-books, known as the “Agency model”, while maintaining the same royalty revenue for authors.

It was also estimated that Amazon paid around $5-10 million for the new Internet domain “.book” and $4.6 million for “.buy”.

In July, Amazon launched a new subscription service, Kindle Unlimited that, for a $9.99/£7.99 monthly subscription, gave Kindle owners unlimited access to some e-books and audiobooks on offer from Amazon, up to ten titles at a time. The majority of the 600,000 titles available were self-published and their creators, unlike traditionally published authors, shared a monthly pool of cash determined by Amazon instead of a standard royalty payment.

Tor Books announced a new imprint, Tor.com, to publish novellas, short novels and serialisations as e-books, print-on-demand and audiobooks. Authors were offered a choice of a traditional advance against net earnings, or no advance against a higher royalty rate.

Doing just what it said in the title, Bradbury/Matheson: Interviews with the Authors featured a pair of fascinating interviews with the two late masters of the genre by Dennis Etchison (with a little help from George Clayton Johnson on the second one). It was available as an e-book from Crossroad Press, which also put out digital editions of Etchison’s novel California Gothic and his collections The Dark Country, Red Dreams, The Blood Kiss and The Death Artist.

John Joseph Adams’ monthly online Nightmare Magazine featured new fiction from, amongst others, Tim Pratt, Adam Troy-Castro, Dale Bailey and Tim Lebbon, along with reprints by Lucy Taylor, Gary Braunbeck, Tanith Lee, Glen Hirshberg, Nathan Ballingrud, Lucy A. Snyder, Michael Cisco, Dennis Etchison, Tom Piccirilli, Simon Strantzas, Charles L. Grant, Lisa Tuttle, David Morrell, Christa Faust and Michael Marshall Smith. Artists showcased included Mike Worrall, Jel Ena, David Palumbo, Federico Bebber, Márcio Martins, Leslie Ann O’Dell, Galen Dara, Reiko Murakami, Sam Guay, Jeff Simpson and Brom. Kate Jonez, Ramsey Campbell, Joe McKinney, Nicholas Kaufmann, Don D’Auria, Brandon Massey, Janice Gable Bashman, Lucy A. Snyder, Lesley Bannatyne, Chesya Burke, Eric J. Guignard and Simon Strantzas all provided columns on horror, and there were interviews with Christopher Golden, Dean Koontz, Jeff Strand, Darren Shan, Nancy Holder, Mark Morris, Del Howison, Daniel Knauf, Cecil Baldwin, Joyce Carol Oates, Leslie Klinger and Robert Shearman.

The e-book editions of Nightmare Magazine included exclusive content not found on the website version, while the October issue was a special Kickstarter-funded “Women Destroy Horror!” issue guest-edited by Ellen Datlow.

The Winter edition of the excellent Subterranean magazine was guest-edited by Jonathan Strahan. Unfortunately, the free online title suspended publication with its Summer 2014 issue.

Amber Benson and Robert Picardo starred in Morganville, a six-part Kickstarter-funded digital series based on the “Morganville Vampires” novels by Rachel Caine.

Dark Hearts: The Secret of Haunting Melissa on iTunes was a horror movie app, a sequel to Haunting Melissa (2013), which changed the audio and visual clues each time an episode was re-watched.

Burnt Black Suns: A Collection of Weird Tales from print-on-demand publisher Hippocampus Press collected nine superior stories (five reprints) by Canadian author Simon Strantzas, along with a Foreword by Laird Barron. From the same imprint, Through Dark Angles: Works Inspired by H.P. Lovecraft contained twenty-four stories and poems (nine original) by Don Webb, along with an entertaining biographical Introduction by the author.

The wonderfully titled Ghouljaw and Other Stories collected fourteen stories (six original) by Clint Smith, along with an Introduction by S.T. Joshi, while Bone Idle in the Charnel House: A Collection of Weird Stories contained twenty tales (nine reprints) by Rhys Hughes.

The Witch of the Wood was a novel by Michael Aronovitz, while Donald Tyson’s The Lovecraft Coven contained two novellas, including the title story featuring HPL himself.

Edited by S.T. Joshi, the first issue of Spectral Realms from Hippocampus Press was a new journal of poetry featuring original work by Ann K. Schwader, Richard L. Tierney, Charles Lovecraft, Leigh Blackmore, W.H. Pugmire, Darrell Schweitzer, Randall D. Larson, Kyla Lee Ward, Jason V. Brock and many others. There were also classic reprints from, amongst others, George Sterling, Lord Dunsany and Bruce Boston, along with a reviews section.

Valancourt books reissued Basil Copper’s Gothic mystery House of the Wolf with the original illustrations from the Arkham House edition by Stephen E. Fabian, along with the collection Looking for Something to Suck: The Vampire Stories of R. Chetwynd-Hayes illustrated by Jim Pitts. Both PoD titles included new or updated editorial material by Stephen Jones.

Also from Valancourt, a welcome reissue of the late Michael McDowell’s 1981 Southern Gothic The Elementals came with a new Introduction by Michael Rowe.

Joe Morey’s Dark Renaissance Books continued to put out attractive PoD paperbacks and deluxe signed and numbered hardcovers, including Daniel Mills’ collection of fourteen stories (two original), The Lord Came at Twilight, featuring an Introduction by Simon Strantzas and illustrations by M. Wayne Miller.

From Chris Morey’s Dark Regions Press, Jeffrey Thomas’ Ghosts of Punktown collected nine stories (four original) set in the author’s mystical city.

Qualia Nous from the PoD imprint Written Backwards was a hefty anthology edited by Michael Bailey that included thirty-one stories (five reprints) exploring the limits of perception by Stephen King, Gene O’Neill, John R. Little, Jason V. Brock, William F. Nolan, John Everson, Lucy A. Snyder, Rena Mason, Thomas F. Monteleone, Elizabeth Massie and Gary A. Braunbeck, amongst others.

Chaz Brenchley’s novella Being Small from Per Aspera Press was a ghost story involving a dead twin and an insane mother.

From Shadow Publishing, Tales of the Grotesque: A Collection of Uneasy Tales was a welcome paperback reprinting of the classic 1934 “Creeps” collection of eleven stories by L. (Leslie) A. (Allin) Lewis. Richard Dalby’s updated Introduction to the 1994 Ghost Story Press edition shed further light on the obscure British author, who died in the early 1960s.

Rick Hautala’s novella The Big Tree from Nightscape Press came with a Foreword by Christopher Golden and an Afterword by Thomas F. Monteleone. From the same publisher, Sterling City was another novella by Stephen Graham Jones, while the The Patchwork House was a novel by Richard Salter.

Soft Apocalypses from Raw Dog Screaming collected fifteen stories (one original) by Lucy A. Snyder.

A massive monster destroyed Tucson, Arizona, in Matt Dinniman’s The Grinding, from Necro Publications. K. Trap Jones’ The Drunken Exorcist from the same imprint was about an unconventional exorcist.

When the Dead Walk was a pulp-style zombie novel by Gary Lovisi, from PoD imprint Ramble House.

Once again “Produced, Directed and Edited by Eric Miller” for California’s Big Time Books imprint, the PoD anthology Hell Comes to Hollywood II: Twenty-Two More Tales of Tinseltown Terror featured stories (two reprints) by authors mostly connected to Hollywood, including Richard Christian Matheson, Del Howison, Anthony C. Ferrante (Sharknado), Lisa Morton, Lin Shaye (Insidious), John Palisano and Eric J. Guignard, amongst others.

Haunted Holidays: 3 Short Tales of Terror was an attractive on-demand anthology from Gallowstree Press, containing three Christmas-themed horror stories by Laura Benedict, Carolyn Haines and Lisa Morton, along with a bonus novel excerpt from each author.

From Canada’s PoD imprint Innsmouth Free Press, The Nickronomicon collected thirteen humorous Mythos stories (one original) by Nick Mamatas, along with an Introduction by Orrin Grey.

Sword & Mythos edited by Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Paula R. Stiles was an impressive anthology that contained fifteen stories that combined swords, sorcery and the Cthulhu Mythos. Contributors included Maurice Broaddus, Paul Jessup, William Meikle, Thana Niveau and Diana L. Paxson, amongst others. A bonus section of five essays revealed that there was an unofficial 1950s Mexican comic based on Robert E. Howard’s Conan!

The fifteenth issue of the paperback Innsmouth Magazine, also edited by Moreno-Garcia and Stiles, contained seven stories by William Meikle and others, while Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s own collection of short fiction, Love & Other Poisons, contained eighteen stories (three original) and was also available through Innsmouth Free Press.

The Bright Day is Done, Carole Johnstone’s PoD paperback collection of seventeen stories (five original), was the third volume in the “New Blood” series from Gray Friar Press, while the anthology Horror Uncut: Tales of Social Insecurity and Economic Unease was edited by the late Joel Lane and Tom Johnstone and contained seventeen stories (two reprints) by Simon Bestwick, John Llewellyn Probert, Gary McMahon, Anna Taborska, Stephen Bacon, Alison Littlewood, Andrew Hook, Thana Niveau and others, including co-editor Lane.

Paul Finch once again edited two impressive anthologies in his ongoing Terror Tales series for Gray Friar Press: Terror Tales of Wales and Terror Tales of Yorkshire both featured fourteen stories (with two reprints in each book) by, amongst other contributors, Stephen Bacon, Mark Chadbourne, Simon Clark, Gary Fry, Christopher Harman, Stephen Laws, Tim Lebbon, Alison Littlewood, Gary McMahon, Mark Morris, Thana Niveau, Reggie Oliver, John Llewellyn Probert and Stephen Volk. Both volumes also included retold folk tales interspersed between the fiction.

Published in paperback by Bibliofear, Other People’s Darkness and Other Stories was the second collection from sometimes-actor Nicholas Vince, containing five original stories.

Edited with a Foreword by the conjoined team of Maynard Sims for Hersham Horror Books, Dead Water was an on-demand anthology of five stories of watery terror by Simon Bestwick, Alan Spencer, David Moody, Daniel S. Boucher and the two editors.

Worms from KnightWatch Press was an anthology of eight original stories, edited with an Introduction by Alex Davis.

From British PoD imprint Crowded Quarantine Publications, Aberrations of Reality was a hardcover collection of twenty-two stories by Aaron J. French, with an Introduction by Mark Valentine.

The fifth volume in JournalStone’s “DoubleDown” series contained the short novels Secrets by John R. Little back-to-back with Outcast by Mark Allan Gunnells. It was available as an e-book, trade paperback and limited edition hardcover.

From Wildside Press, The Weird Shadow Over Morecambe was a British-set Cthulhu Mythos novel by Edmund Glasby, and five of the author’s original tales were collected in Dark Shadows: Occult Mystery Stories.

From the same PoD imprint, The Passion of Frankenstein was a sequel to Mary Shelley’s novel by Marvin Kaye, while Hideous Faces, Beautiful Skull collected thirty stories by Mark McLaughlin.

Cecil & Bubba Meet the Thang was a humorous Southern horror story by Terry M. West, published in PoD format by Pleasant Storm Entertainment, Inc. with an Introduction by Rena Mason.

David Botham discovered his past catching up with him as he became involved in a series of brutal murders in Liverpool in Ramsey Campbell’s latest novel from PS Publishing, Think Yourself Lucky, which was also available in a signed edition of 100 copies.

Mark Morris’ seaside serial killer novel The Black was also available in an edition of 100 signed copies, as was Richard Parks’ Japanese fantasy To Break the Demon Gate and Nick Mamatas’ gonzo zombie apocalypse The Last Weekend.

Kate Farrell’s My Name is Mary Sutherland from PS was a grim psychological novel, while an American travel writer found himself trapped in an obscure Eastern European country in Gene Wolfe’s The Land Across.

Alison Littlewood’s second novel, Path of Needles, combined fairy tales with a serial killer, while her third, The Unquiet House, was a classical haunted house story. Originally published in trade paperback by Jo Fletcher Books, both were issued by PS in special signed hardcover editions of 200 copies apiece.

A handsome Deluxe 40th Anniversary Edition of Carrie, illustrated by Glenn Chadbourne and with a Foreword by James Lovegrove and an Afterword by Kim Newman kicked off PS Publishing’s series of classic Stephen King reprints. It was followed by the Deluxe 30th Anniversary Edition of Thinner by King writing as Richard Bachman, illustrated by Les Edwards/ Edward Miller and with an Introduction by Johnny Mains. Both books were limited to 974 slipcased copies signed by all the contributors (except King, alas).

Taking its title from a C.L. Moore story, Lavie Tidhar’s Black Gods Kiss contained five stories (including an original novella) featuring gunslinger and addict Gorel of Goliris and his battles against ghosts, necromancers and ancient deities.

Also “borrowing” its title—this time from a classic Arkham House volume—Strange Gateways was a welcome new collection of eleven stories (four original) by Simon Kurt Unsworth, which also included an Afterword and story notes by the author.

25 Years in the Word Mines: The Best Short Fiction of Graham Joyce was an impressive retrospective collection of twenty-three stories by the late British author. It came with a Foreword by Owen King, an Afterword by Kelly Braffet, and entertaining Story Notes by Joyce himself. Unfortunately, as with the Unsworth collection from PS, this volume also lacked details about the original publication appearances of the stories.

Fans of Ian Watson’s writing could get The Uncollected Ian Watson, containing stories and essays, in a special slipcase together with the author’s memoir Doing the Stanley: Encounters with Kubrick, plus the short story collection The Best of Ian Watson slipcased with Squirrel, Reich, & Lavender: Bonus Stories, containing three original tales. All four volumes were edited by Nick Gevers.

Robert Guffey’s Spies and Saucers contained three sui generis novellas exploring the anti-Communist hysteria of the 1950s, while The Metanatural Adventures of Dr. Black collected thirteen tales and fragments based around Brendan Connell’s unusual investigator with an Introduction by Jeff VanderMeer.

Shifting of Veils was the third in Tim Lebbon’s “Apocalypse Trilogy” of zombie novellas, following on from Naming of Parts and Changing of Faces, while James Cooper’s coming-of-age novella Strange Fruit was about the awakening of a young girl. Both were available from PS in special signed hardcover printings of 100 copies, along with unsigned editions.

Edited by Nate Pedersen, The Starry Wisdom Library was a fun Lovecraftian-inspired tome purporting to be a “Catalogue of the Greatest Occult Book Auction of All Time”. Amongst those contributing bibliographic descriptions were Edmund Bergland, Ramsey Campbell, Gemma Files, Robert M. Price, W.H. Pugmire, Darrell Schweitzer, Simon Strantzas, Don Webb and F. Paul Wilson, while S.T. Joshi supplied the Introduction.

Joshi also edited and introduced Black Wings III: New Tales of Lovecraftian Horror, which contained seventeen stories by Donald R. Burleson, Richard Gavin, Darrell Schweitzer, Caitlín R. Kiernan, Jason V. Brock, Don Webb, Peter Cannon, Lois Gresh, Simon Strantzas, Brian Stableford and others.

Far Voyager: Postscripts 32/33 was edited by Nick Gevers, after Peter Crowther stepped down as co-editor after eleven years. It featured an impressive thirty-two stories by Michael Swanwick, Darrell Schweitzer, Rio Youers, Angela Slatter, Paul Park, Quentin S. Crisp, Richard Calder, Thana Niveau, Gary A. Braunbeck, Robert Reed, Gary Fry, Ian Watson, Alison Littlewood and John Langan, amongst others, including three by Mel Waldman.

PS Publishing’s paperback imprint Drugstore Indian Press (DIP) put out attractive trade paperback editions with flaps of Brian W. Aldiss’ 1976 novel The Malacia Tapestry, Peter Crowther’s 2004 collection Songs of Leaving with an Introduction by Adam Roberts, and revised and updated editions of Best New Horror #1 and #2 edited by Stephen Jones and Ramsey Campbell.

From PS’ Stanza Press imprint, Tell Them What I Saw was a hardcover collection of poetry by Matt Bialer with an Introduction by Sébastien Doubinsky.

A new imprint from PS Publishing was The Pulps Library, which began reprinting classic stories by H.P. Lovecraft illustrated in psychedelic colours by Pete Von Sholly with Introductions by S.T. Joshi. The first three titles in the “Lovecraft Illustrated” series were The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, The Dreams in the Witch House and The Dunwich Horror.

To celebrate the 25th Anniversary of Cemetery Dance magazine, editor Richard Chizmar edited an anthology of heavy-hitters who “helped make the magazine what it is today”. Turn Down the Lights featured ten original stories by Stephen King, Norman Partridge, Jack Ketchum, Brian James Freeman, Bentley Little, Ed Gorman, Ronald Kelly, Steve Rasnic Tem, Clive Barker and Peter Straub, along with an Introduction by the editor and an Afterword by Thomas F. Monteleone.

Chizmar also compiled CD’s impressive-looking but ultimately disappointing anthology Smoke and Mirrors: Screenplays, Teleplays, Stage Plays, Comic Scripts & Treatments. Despite an exalted line-up of contributors that included William Peter Blatty, Poppy Z. Brite, Frank Darabont, Neil Gaiman, Mick Garris, Joe Hill and others, the oversized hardcover not only didn’t include any editorial content, but only William F. Nolan and Joe R. Lansdale put their contributions into any kind of context. A 400-copy limited edition signed by the editor and thirteen contributors was available for $150.00.

Dreamlike States collected six stories (one original) by Brian James Freeman, with an Introduction by Ed Gorman, while Weak and Wounded collected five revised stories from the same author. Both volumes were illustrated by Glenn Chadbourne, and limited to 750 signed copies. There was also a deluxe traycased lettered edition for $175.00.

Lucifer’s Lottery was a reprint of the 2010 novel by Edward Lee in a signed edition also limited to 750 copies, while Bentley Little’s 1990 novel The Revelation, reissued in trade paperback, was a winner of the Bram Stoker Award for First Novel.

Originally published in 1997, Screamplays edited by Richard Chizmar and Martin H. Greenberg was reprinted by CD with illustrations by Glenn Chadbourne. It contained seven screenplays by Stephen King, Harlan Ellison, Joe R. Lansdale, Richard Laymon and Ed Gordon, with an Introduction by Dean Koontz.

Chiliad: A Meditation from Subterranean Press contained two interrelated stories by Clive Barker set exactly one thousand years apart. A traycased, lettered edition of twenty-six copies was available for $250.00. The publisher also issued a boxed set of Barker’s six Books of Blood collections in a limited edition of 500 copies with the first volume signed by the author ($250.00), along with a traycased twenty-six copy lettered edition ($1,500.00).

Also from Subterranean, The Complete Crow collected eleven reprint stories about Brian Lumley’s psychic investigator with an Introduction by the author, and The Top of the Volcano: The Award-Winning Stories of Harlan Ellison collected twenty-three stories published over forty years.

For fans of Thomas Ligotti, The Spectral Link was a collection of two new stories that was also available in a 400-copy signed edition, along with Born to Fear: Interviews with Thomas Ligotti, containing seventeen interviews and edited with an Introduction by Matt Cardin. The latter was also available in a leatherbound 250-copy edition signed by both Ligotti and Cardin.

Subterranean reprinted Neil Gaiman’s 1998 collection Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fictions and Illusions with new illustrations by the book’s designer, Dave McKean. It was available in a 500-copy slipcased edition and twenty-six lettered copies, signed by both author and artist.

Robert McCammon’s 1981 novel They Thirst was reprinted in an edition of 1,000 signed copies and twenty-six deluxe lettered copies, illustrated with colour paintings by Les Edwards.

Nobody’s Home: An Anubis Gates Ghost Story was a novelette by Tim Powers featuring a disguised Jackie Snapp and a girl trying to escape the spectre of her husband in 19th century London. Illustrated by J.K. Potter, this was also available from Subterranean Press in a signed, leatherbound, slipcased edition of 474 copies ($75.00) and a traycased lettered edition of twenty-six copies ($350.00).

As usual edited by Rosalie Parker, Strange Tales Volume IV from Tartarus Press contained fifteen original stories by, amongst others, Christopher Harman, Rhys Hughes, Rebecca Lloyd, Angela Slatter, Andrew Hook, Richard Hill and John Gaskin. It was limited to 300 copies.

From the same imprint, The Loney was a first novel by Andrew Michael Hurley. A memoir of the 1970s, it was set on the treacherous titular stretch of Cumbrian coastline.

Mercy and Other Stories was a terrific collection of sixteen strange stories (nine original) by British author Rebecca Lloyd, while John Gaskin’s third collection, The Master of the House: Tales of Twilight and Borderlands, contained twelve beautifully written stories (nine original and one extensively re-written) with a Foreword by the author.

The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings, also from Tartarus, collected thirteen magical and macabre stories (eight original) by Angela Slatter, along with an Introduction by Stephen Jones, an Afterword by Lisa L. Hannett, and eighty-six pen-and-ink illustrations by Kathleen Jennings. It was limited to 350 copies.

The second collaborative volume of the year from author Slatter and artist Jennings was Black-Winged Angels, a reprint collection of ten stories with an Introduction by Juliet Marillier. It was published in a signed hardcover edition of 250 copies by Australia’s Ticonderoga Publications.

Written in Darkness was a beautifully produced hardcover from Egaeus Press that collected nine stories (five original) by Mark Samuels, along with an Introduction by Reggie Oliver. It was limited to just 275 copies.

From Robert Morgan’s Sarob Press, Summonings collected ten classically-styled ghost stories by Ron Weighell (three original) in a handsome signed and numbered edition, with impressive dust-jacket and signature page art by Santiago Caruso.

Edited and Introduced by Rosemary Pardoe for the same publisher, The Ghosts & Scholars Book of Shadows Volume 2 featured twelve more sequels or prequels to M.R. James stories by Peter Bell, C.E. Ward, John Howard, Reggie Oliver, Christopher Harman, Derek John, Mark Valentine and others. It was limited to 325 numbered hardcovers.

Published by NonStop Press, The Monkey’s Other Paw: Revived Classic Stories of Dread and the Dead edited by Luis Ortiz contained twelve stories by, amongst others, Barry N. Malzberg, Paul Di Filippo and Damien Broderick, based on other authors’ classic stories, along with a reprint of W.W. Jacobs’ ‘The Monkey’s Paw’.

San Francisco’s Tachyon imprint published two mostly reprint anthologies edited by Ellen Datlow. Nicely illustrated by John Coulthart, Lovecraft’s Monsters was yet another HPL-inspired volume, containing eighteen stories (one original) by Neil Gaiman, Laird Barron, Kim Newman, Caitlín R. Kiernan, Thomas Ligotti, Gemma Files, Karl Edward Wagner, Joe R. Lansdale, John Langan and others, along with a Foreword by Stefan Dziemianowicz and a useful ‘Monster Index’. The Cutting Room: Dark Reflections of the Silver Screen showcased twenty-three movie-themed tales (one original) by, amongst others, Dennis Etchison, F. Paul Wilson, Peter Straub, Ian Watson, Howard Waldrop, David Morrell, Robert Shearman, Nicholas Royle, Garry Kilworth, Douglas E. Winter, Joel Lane, Laird Barron and Kim Newman. Genevieve Valentine supplied the Introduction.

Also from Tachyon, Daryl Gregory’s novel We Are All Completely Fine featured a support group for survivors of horrific encounters who teamed up to battle a new evil.

Edited by S.T. Joshi for Fedogan & Bremer, Searchers After Horror: New Tales of the Weird and Fantastic was loosely themed around “the Weird Place” and featured twenty-one stories by, amongst others, Hannes Bok, Ramsey Campbell, Richard Gavin, Caitlín R. Kiernan, Nancy Kilpatrick, John Shirley, Brian Stableford, Simon Strantzas and Steve Rasnic Tem, along with interior illustrations by Rodger Gerberding.

From the same imprint, Ana Kai Tangata: Tales of the Outer the Other the Damned and the Doomed contained eight mostly long stories of cosmic horror (four reprints) by Scott Nicolay, along with an Introduction by Laird Barron and an Afterword by John Pelan (whose name was misspelled on the Contents page).

The Cosmic Horror and Others was the third collection from JnJ Publications of the work of early H.P. Lovecraft correspondent Richard F. Searight. The trade paperback, limited to just 100 copies, collected four stories and twelve poems, along with an Introduction by the author’s son, Franklyn Searight, and illustrations by Allen Koszowski.

The Spectral Book of Horror Stories was the first volume in a new anthology series from the British small press imprint, edited by Mark Morris. It featured nineteen original stories from Ramsey Campbell, Alison Littlewood, Helen Marshall, Reggie Oliver, Robert Shearman, Michael Marshall Smith, Angela Slatter, Rio Youers, Lisa Tuttle and Stephen Volk, amongst others.

Edited and introduced by Tony Earnshaw with a Foreword by Mark Gatiss, the Spectral Press softcover edition of The Christmas Ghost Stories of Lawrence Gordon Clark collected seven classic M.R. James stories selected by the veteran TV director for filming. The hardcover edition added some interesting photographs and an interview with Clark, while a deluxe signed slipcased edition limited to 50 copies included all the above, plus an additional story by Charles Dickens, an unfilmed treatment by Basil Copper, a play adaptation, biographies of Copper and James by Johnny Mains, and a section of colour photographs.

Ghosteria Volume One: The Stories from Immanion Press was a collection of Tanith Lee’s ghost stories (four original). It was published simultaneously with Ghosteria Volume Two: The Novel: Zircons May Be Mistaken.

Edited by Steve Berman for Prime Books, Handsome Devil contained twenty-five stories (fifteen original) about infernal seduction by Tanith Lee, Pat Cadigan and others, while editor Paula Guran’s Zombies: More Recent Dead collected thirty-three stories and three poems from the last decade by Neil Gaiman, Caitlín R. Kiernan, Mike Carey and others.

The annual Halloween treat from Paul Miller’s Earthling Publishers was The Halloween Children, a collaboration between Brian James Freeman and Norman Prentiss, with art by Glenn Chadbourne. It was available in a hardcover printing of 500 numbered copies and fifteen lettered copies.

From The Alchemy Press, Merry-Go-Round and Other Words collected twenty-two stories (eight original) by veteran Pan and Fontana horror author Bryn Fortey, with an Introduction by Johnny Mains and an Afterword by the author. A sixty-copy signed hardcover edition also included an extra story.

Dean M. Drinkel edited the anthology Kneeling in the Silver Light: Stories from the Great War, which commemorated the centenary of the First World War with twenty-one original stories, plus two reprint poems by Rupert Brooke. Contributors included Bryn Fortey, Christopher Fowler, Mike Chinn, Christine Morgan and Allen Ashley.

The Alchemy Press Book of Urban Mythic 2, edited by Jan Edwards and Jenny Barber, contained twelve stories (one reprint) by Tanith Lee, Sarah Ash, Chico Kidd, Lou Morgan and others, while The Alchemy Press Book of Pulp Heroes 3, edited by Mike Chinn, featured the same number of tales (two reprints) from Gary Budgen, Kim Newman, Rod Rees and Tony Richards, amongst others.

Nick Nightmare Investigates collected ten stories (five original) featuring Adrian Cole’s titular supernatural private eye, including a new collaboration with Mike Chinn. Illustrated by Jim Pitts, it was published by The Alchemy Press/Airgedlámh Publications in a hardcover edition of 200 signed and numbered copies.

Intended as a homage to the pulp magazine Unknown/Unknown Worlds and the digest titles Fantastic and Beyond Fantasy Fiction, the first softcover volume of Worlds of the Unknown, edited by Jon Harvey for his own Spectre Press, included fiction and poetry by Adrian Cole, Mike Chinn, Andrew Darlington and Don Webb, amongst others, along with the first part of a serialisation of Jerome Dreifuss’ 1946 novel Furlough from Heaven. Mike Ashley and Steve Sneyd contributed articles, and there was some nice artwork by Alan Hunter, Jim Pitts, Russ Nicholson, David Fletcher and Edd Cartier (whose name was consistently misspelled throughout the publication).

Borderlands Press continued its series of “Little Books” with The Little Aqua Book of Creature Tales by David J. Schow, featuring six monster stories (one original) and an Afterword by the author. It was limited to 500 signed and numbered copies.

Little by Little from Bad Moon Books was a hefty retrospective collection containing ten stories by John R. Little, along with an Introduction by Lisa Morton and story notes by the author.

Chaosium Inc.’s Kickstarter-funded anthology Madness on the Orient Express edited by James Lowder featured sixteen Lovecraftian murder mysteries by Lisa Morton, Cody Goodfellow, Christopher Golden, Darrell Schweitzer and others.

Edited by Chuck Palahniuk, Richard Thomas and Dennis Widmyer, Burnt Tongues: An Anthology of Transgressive Stories from Medallion Press contained twenty workshop stories that the editors thought were pushing the boundaries. They obviously don’t read as much horror fiction as perhaps they should.

A Dark Phantastique: Encounters with the Uncanny and Other Magical Things was a hefty 700-plus page anthology edited by Jason V. Brock and published by Cycatrix Press in a trade hardcover edition and twenty-six deluxe signed and lettered copies. Contributors included Greg Bear, Ray Bradbury, Dennis Etchison, Cody Goodfellow, Lois H. Gresh, S.T. Joshi, Paul Kane, Nancy Kilpatrick, Joe R. Lansdale, William F. Nolan, Weston Ochse, Lucy A. Snyder, Melanie Tem, Steve Rasnic Tem and Don Webb.

Fifteen stories (three original) by Steve Rasnic Tem were published in Here with the Shadows from Swan River Press, while Widow’s Dozen was a paperback collection of eleven(!) unusual stories by Marek Waldorf, published by New York’s Turtle Point Press.

From Canada’s ChiZine Publications, Helen Marshall’s second collection, Gifts for the One Who Comes After, featured an Introduction by Ann Vander-Meer and seventeen superior love stories with a decidedly dark twist (nine originals), illustrated by Chris Roberts.

From the same imprint, Knife Fight and Other Struggles brought together twelve stories (two original) and a forthcoming novel excerpt by David Nickle with an Introduction by Peter Watts, while They Do The Same Things Different There collected twenty-four reprint stories by Robert Shearman.

Dead Americans and Other Stories collected ten tales (two original) by Australian author Ben Peek with an Introduction by Rjurik Davidson.

The Hexslinger Omnibus contained all three “weird Western” novels by Gemma Files, along with three previously unpublished stories in the same series.

Editor Ellen Datlow’s Kickstarter-funded anthology Fearful Symmetries was a mixture of horror and fantasy stories by, amongst others, Terry Dowling, Garth Nix, Helen Marshall, Pat Cadigan, Stephen Graham Jones, Nathan Bellingrud, John Langan and Laird Barron.

ChiZine teamed up with Undertow Publications to produce Shadows & Tall Trees 2014, the sixth issue edited by Michael Kelly. The original paperback anthology contained seventeen stories by Robert Shearman, F. Brett Cox, R.B. Russell, Conrad Williams, Christopher Harman, Alison Moore and others.

Laird Barron guest-edited The Year’s Best Weird Fiction: Volume One from the same pair of imprints. It included twenty-two stories, an essay by the editor and a Foreword by series editor Michael Kelly.

Adrian Cole’s novel The Shadow Academy from Canada’s Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing was set in a post-apocalyptic future Britain after the Plague Wars.

Number nine in “The Exile Book of Anthology Series”, Fractured: Tales of the Canadian Post-Apocalypse was edited with an Introduction by Silvia Moreno-Garcia and contained twenty-three original stories by Michael Matheson, Claude Lalumière and others.

Angela Slatter’s psychological horror story Home and Hearth was published as a 125-copy signed and numbered chapbook by Spectral Press.

The converse narrative of a woman who was surrounded by murder and madness was revealed in the novella By Insanity of Reason, a chapbook collaboration between Lisa Morton and John R. Little from Bad Moon Books.

Tim Waggoner’s Deep Like the River was an atmospheric novella about a creepy canoe trip, nicely packaged by Dark Regions Press.

The Night Just Got Darker was a psychological horror story about a writer cursed to hold back the darkness by Gary McMahon. It was available in chapbook form from the UK’s KnightWatch Press in an edition of 100 signed copies.

From Rainfall Books, Gunthar: The Purple Priestess of Asshtar by Steve Dilks and Glen Usher and Gunthar and the Jaguar Queen by Dilks alone offered sword & sorcery fiction in the tradition on Conan, with artwork by Steve Lines.

The previously unpublished fantasy story The Horse of Another Color by artist and author Hannes Bok (1914-64) was issued by the Sidecar Preservation Society as an attractive booklet limited to 170 copies with a cover illustration by Tim Kirk.

Entering its 66th year of publication, Gordon Van Gelder’s The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction produced its usual six bumper bi-monthly issues with fiction by Dale Bailey, Scott Baker, Albert E. Cowdrey, Gordon Eklund, Paul Di Filippo, Phyllis Eisenstein, C.C. Finlay, Ron Goulart, Alex Irvine, Marc Laidlaw, Tim Sullivan, Ian Tregilli, Ray Vukcevich and Ted White, amongst others.

There were the usual book and film review columns by Charles De Lint, Elizabeth Hand, Michelle West, James Sallis, Chris Moriarty, David J. Skal, Alan Dean Foster, Kathi Maio and others, and Lawrence Forbes, David Langford, Bud Webster, Paul Di Filippo and Graham Andrews contributed to the always fascinating ‘Curiosities’ column. The July/August issue of F&SF was guest-edited by C.C. Finlay.

The non-fiction in Andy Cox’s Black Static has always had the edge over the stories, and that was certainly true for the six stylish issues published in 2014, with insightful commentary on the genre in each issue by Stephen Volk and Lynda E. Rucker; interviews with A.K. Benedict, Ramsey Campbell, Gary Fry, Carole Johnstone and James Cooper; book reviews by Peter Tennant, and DVD reviews by Tony Lee. Nicholas Royle contributed a touching personal tribute to author Joel Lane in the January/February edition, and there was also fiction from the likes of Ray Cluley, John Grant, Andrew Hook, Maura McHugh, Paul Meloy, Steve Rasnic Tem, Tim Waggoner, Simon Bestwick and others.

Cox’s companion SF and fantasy magazine Interzone boasted full colour throughout and featured book reviews by diverse hands and film reviews by the dependable Tony Lee and Nick Lowe.

Edited by Richard T. Chizmar, Cemetery Dance produced an “All Fiction Special Issue” that featured stories by Bentley Little, Simon Clark, Darrell Schweitzer, Jack Ketchum, Joel Lane and others.

Canada’s glossy Rondo Award-winning Rue Morgue magazine included interviews with writers Mike Mignola, Nancy Baker, Simon Strantzas, Aaron Sterns, Gregory Lamberson, Josh Malerman, Lauren Beukes, Anne Rice, Kim Newman and Joe R. Lansdale, and film-makers David Cronenberg, Gareth Edwards, Ty West, Robert Rodriguez, Kevin Connor, Eli Roth, Chuck Russell, Eduardo Sánchez, Jennifer Kent, Jen and Sylvia Soska, Ivan Reitman, Lloyd Kaufman and Douglas Cheek. The 17th Anniversary Halloween issue was a special tribute to artist H.R. Giger.

The seventh issue of the British Illustrators magazine featured an extensive spread on the work of Alan Lee, illustrated with many original paintings and book covers.

In April, The New Yorker presented a previously unpublished story by the late Shirley Jackson. ‘The Man in the Woods’ was an atmospheric weird tale about a man who came upon a lonely house, occupied by three strange inhabitants.

Locus included interviews with Stephen Baxter, Sir Terry Pratchett, K.W. Jeter and Michael Moorcock. To celebrate the centenary of the birth of R.A. Lafferty (1914-2002), the November issue included a short story reprint by the author, while the following month’s edition celebrated Moorcock’s 75th birthday.

The two issues of Hildy Silverman’s small press magazine Space and Time: The Magazine of Fantasy, Horror, and Science Fiction featured the usual mix of fiction and poetry, along with interviews with Catherine Asaro and Jody Lynn Nye.

David Longhorn’s Supernatural Tales managed three solid issues in 2014, with contributions from David Buchan, Michael Chislett, Tim Foley, Sean Logan, William I.I. Read and David Surface, amongst others, while Sam Dawson supplied the artwork for each edition.

With issue #27, Aaron J. French took over as editor-in-chief of Dark Discoveries (which was also available in a limited hardbound edition). With issues devoted to “Dark Mystery” and “Zombie Creature Feature”, the full-colour magazine included fiction by Douglas Clegg, Bentley Little, John R. Little, Kevin J. Anderson, Gene O’Neill and Tim Waggoner, interviews with Brian Evenson, Tom Piccirilli, Graham Masterton and Doug Bradley, and short features by Michael R. Collings, Yvonne Navarro, Frank R. Robinson, James R. Beach and Robert Morrish, amongst others.

Rosemary Pardoe’s usual two issues of her always fascinating The Ghosts & Scholars M.R. James Newsletter featured Jamesian-inspired fiction by Mark Nicholls, Derek John, D.P. Watt, Jacqueline Simpson and Peter Bell, along with articles and news. Issue #25 came with a hefty Reviews Supplement.

Tim Paxton (with help from co-editor Steve Fenton) revived his movie magazine Monster! as a monthly PoD paperback. Featuring numerous exuberant reviews and interesting articles crammed in amongst the cluttered layouts, issues also featured interviews with Joe Dante and Roger Corman, along with a Godzilla portfolio by Stephen R. Bissette.

During a turbulent year that saw the resignation of two of its quartet of editors, the four paperback issues of the British Fantasy Society’s BFS Journal contained the usual news and events, along with interviews with Mark Hodder, Richard Wright, William Meikle, Freda Warrington, Tim Powers, Helen Marshall, Lavie Tidhar, Rosie Garland, and artists Howard Hardiman, Pye Parr and Jennie Gyllblad.

There were articles about sexism in the genre, writing a television guide, Jonathan Carroll’s The Land of Laughs, John Jakes’ “Brak the Barbarian” series, Geoff Ryman’s The Child Garden, John Mansfield’s The Box of Delights, Roger Zelazny’s The Chronicles of Amber, and a delayed celebration of Peter Cushing’s centenary, along with fiction and poetry from, amongst others, Mike Chinn, Allen Ashley, Gary Couzens, Jonathan Oliver, James Dorr, Marion Pitman and Tina Rath.

It is perhaps debatable whether the world really needed yet another biography of the Gentleman from Providence, but Paul Roland’s The Curious Case of H.P. Lovecraft from British publisher Plexus did a decent enough job of summing up the influential pulp author’s life and career, with the welcome addition of two sections of photographs and various Appendices.

Boasting a delightfully perverse cover by Gahan Wilson, Bobby Derie explored the aberrant sex found in the work of Lovecraft and others in Sex and the Cthulhu Mythos from PoD imprint Hippocampus Press, who also published S.T. Joshi’s substantial volume Lovecraft and a World in Transition: Collected Essays on H.P. Lovecraft.

Edited by the busy Joshi for PS Publishing, Letters to Arkham: The Letters of Ramsey Campbell and August Derleth, 1961-1971 was exactly what the title said, with an Afterword by Campbell. Also from PS, Peter Berresford Ellis’ The Shadow of Mr. Vivian: The Life of E. Charles Vivian (1882-1947) was a terrifically entertaining biography of the prolific British novelist and pulp author whose real name was Charles Henry Cannell, but who also wrote as “Jack Mann” and “Barry Lynd”. The hardcover also included a useful Bibliography of the author’s work.

Brian Gibson’s Reading Saki: The Fiction of H.H. Munro was a not very complimentary study of the author, published by McFarland, while Robert T. Tally, Jr.’s Poe and the Subversion of American Literature was a critical examination of the author’s career.

Edited by Massimo Berruti, S.T. Joshi and Sam Gafford, William Hope Hodgson: Voices from the Borderland: Seven Decades of Criticism on the Master of Cosmic Horror brought together numerous essays about the author by, amongst others, Brian Stableford, Mark Valentine, Leigh Blackmore and Andy Sawyer, along with a terrific Bibliography compiled by Joshi, Gafford and Mike Ashley and some useful indexes.

Edited by Patrick McAleer and Michael A. Perry for McFarland, Stephen King’s Modern Macabre: Essays on the Later Works collected thirteen critical essays covering the period 1994-2013.

The third book in Phil and Sarah Stokes’ monumental project Memory Prophecy and Fantasy: The Works and Worlds of Clive Barker was subtitled Masquerades and limited to 250 numbered hardcover copies. The volume covered Barker’s theatrical career with the Dog Company.

Paul Meehan’s The Vampire in Science Fiction Film and Literature from McFarland explored the science behind the mythology, while Paul Adams’ Written in Blood: A Cultural History of the British Vampire from The Limbury Press was an in-depth guide to British bloodsuckers that also included a section of photographs.

Zombie Book: The Encyclopedia of the Living Dead by Nick Redfern and Brad Steiger covered everything that was dead…but alive. That didn’t stop editors Shaka McGlotten and Steve Jones trying to dig up a different approach in Zombies and Sexuality: Essays on Desire and the Living Dead, which contained ten critical essays.

From The Alchemy Press, Touchstones: Essays on the Fantastic reprinted twenty-two articles by John Howard on such authors as Robert Bloch, August Derleth, Robert Hood, Carl Jacobi, Fritz Leiber, Arthur Machen, William Sloane, Hugh Walpole and Karl Edward Wagner, amongst others.

Jason V. Brock’s Disorders of Magnitude: A Survey of Dark Fantasy contained essays, articles and interviews. It was published as part of the “Studies in Supernatural Literature” series edited by S.T. Joshi for publisher Rowman & Littlefied.

In Monstrous Bodies: Feminine Power in Young Adult Horror Fiction from McFarland, June Pulliam explored the roles of women in YA ghost, lycanthrope and witchcraft fiction.

Michael Howarth’s Under the Bed, Creeping: Psychoanalyzing the Gothic in Children’s Literature from the same publisher looked at Neil Gaiman’s Coraline, amongst other children’s books and stories. So, too, did The Gothic Fairy Tale in Young Adult Literature: Essays on Stories from Grimm to Gaiman edited by Joseph Abbruscato and Tanya Jones, also from McFarland.

Edited by Laurie Lamson, Now Write!: Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror included eighty-seven essays and writing exercises by Ramsey Campbell, Jay Lake and others.

Compiled by Robert Weinberg, Douglas Ellis and Robert T. Garcia, The Collectors’ Book of Virgil Finlay from American Fantasy Press featured stunning black and white and colour reproductions of the work of the “Dean of SF Artists”, taken from the original illustrations themselves. This was also published in a 400-copy limited edition signed by all three compilers, a Kickstarter-funded edition additionally signed by Finlay’s daughter Lail, and a twenty-six copy leatherbound lettered edition.

Containing more than 200 pages of never-before-seen and newly scanned images, Clive Barker: Imaginer: Paintings and Drawings Volume One 1998-2014 from Century Guild was the first in a proposed eight volumes of Barker’s art financed via Kickstarter campaigns. Featuring text by Thomas Negovan, it was issued in a 1,000-copy hardcover edition ($100.00) plus a signed bookplate, boxed, faux-leatherbound edition limited to 100 copies ($400.00).

Presented by Roy Thomas, the fourth volume in PS Art Books’ reprints of Dick Briefer’s 1940s Frankenstein comics included a wonderfully entertaining Foreword by Donald F. Glut.

Neil Gaiman had fun re-inventing the expected fairy tale tropes in his story The Sleeper and the Spindle. Bloomsbury’s beautifully produced standalone hardcover edition added copious pen-and-ink drawings by the talented Chris Riddell. Meanwhile, The Art of Neil Gaiman edited by Hayley Campbell contained illustrations for Gaiman’s work, examples of the author’s own sketches, script notes for comics, personal photographs, and plenty of other miscellany, along with a Foreword by Audrey Niffenegger.

Written by Kim Newman and Maura McHugh and illustrated by Tyler Crook, Sir Edward Grey, Witchfinder: The Mysteries of Unland was a limited five-part series from Dark Horse Comics featuring the 19th century psychic investigator created by Mike Mignola.

From the same imprint, Timothy Truman, Tomás Giorello and José Villarrubia’s King Conan the Conqueror adapted Robert E. Howard’s ‘Hour of the Dragon’, while The Strain: The Night Eternal adapted the final volume in Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan’s vampire apocalypse trilogy.

Written by Jonathan Maberry and illustrated by Tyler Crook, Dark Horse Comics’ five-part Bad Blood was about a boy dying of cancer who fought back against the vampire that attacked him.

The Premature Burial included graphic versions by the legendary Richard Corben of both Edgar Allan Poe’s title story and ‘The Cask of Amontillado’. Corben followed it up with two more Poe adaptations for Dark Horse, Morella and the Murders in the Rue Morgue.

Dark Horse’s eighteenth issue of the revived Creepy celebrated the title’s 50th Anniversary.

Clive Barker’s Night Breed from BOOM! was a new series that revisited the author’s literary and movie mythos, while the publisher’s four-issue mini-series Sleepy Hollow was based on the Fox TV show.

IDW’s The Fly: Outbreak was a five-part sequel to David Cronenberg’s 1986 movie, and Millennium from the same publisher was a sequel to the 1990s TV show, in which a reclusive Frank Black teamed up with X Files agent Fox Mulder.

Cemetery Girl: The Pretenders was the first in a YA graphic novel series written by Charlaine Harris and Christopher Golden and illustrated by Don Kramer.

Founded by writer/editor-in-chief Debbie Lynn Smith to promote creative women in comics, Kymera Press was launched with the supernatural thriller Gates of Midnight, created by Smith and developed with Barbara Hambly.

Stately Wayne Manor was turned into a home for the criminally insane in Gerry Duggan’s Batman spin-off series, Arkham Manor, from DC Comics.

George A. Romero’s Empire of the Dead from Marvel Comics was set in the director’s long-running Night of the Living Dead universe and illustrated by Alex Maleev.

Jeff Lindsay continued the exploits of his sympathetic serial killer in Marvel’s five-issue mini-series Dexter Down Under, in which Miami forensics expert Dexter Morgan travelled to Canberra, Australia, to help investigate the brutal murders of Asian immigrants.

Writer Charles Soule and artist Steve McNiven apparently killed off the most popular X-Man in Marvel’s four-issue mini-series Death of Wolverine.

As part of a special Halloween ComicFest promotion, Batman and Robin joined the Scooby gang to track down Man-Bat in DC Comics’ Scooby Doo! Team-Up, while in DC’s Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight, a decidedly darker Batman celebrated his 75th Anniversary year by battling the Scarecrow. The story was continued in the graphic novel Batman: The Long Halloween from the Eisner Award-winning team of writer Jeph Loeb and artist Tim Sale.

Viz Media participated in the Halloween promotion with a “sneak peek” issue of Resident Evil: The Marhawa Desire, written and illustrated by Naoki Serizawa.

It wasn’t a good year for Riverdale’s perennial teenager Archie Andrews. In the penultimate issue of Life with Archie, published in July, an adult Archie was shot to death while protecting an openly-gay friend, and in an alternate timeline in the decidedly adult Afterlife with Archie, the all-American town was overrun with zombies, thanks to Sabrina the Teenage Witch and a stolen copy of the Necronomicon. Sabrina Spellman also got her own supernatural spin-off title, The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, set in the 1960s.

The big movie tie-ins of the year included Godzilla by Greg Cox, Interstellar by Greg Keyes and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes by Alex Irvine.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes: Firestorm was a prequel to the movie by Greg Keyes. The Woman in Black: Angel of Death by Martyn Waites was a sequel to the Susan Hill novel and Hammer film, while Dan Abnett’s Guardians of the Galaxy: Rocket Racoon & Groot—Steal the Galaxy! was a spin-off from the Marvel comic book and movies series.

Credited to director Greg McLean and Australian horror writers Aaron Sterns and Brett McBean, respectively, Wolf Creek: Origins and Wolf Creek: Desolation Game were prequel novels to the movies.

Alien: Out of the Shadows by Tim Lebbon and Alien: Sea of Sorrows by James A. Moore were both based on an older movie franchise.

Grimm: The Chopping Block by John Passarella and Grimm: The Killing Time by Tim Waggoner were based on the NBC-TV series, while Sleepy Hollow: Children of the Revolution by Keith R.A. DeCandido took its inspiration from the Fox Network show.

Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead: Descent was the fifth tie-in to the AMC series by Jay Bonansinga (who received a solo by-line for the first time), and Seth Patrick’s The Returned was based on the French zombie TV series Les Revenants.

Nancy Holder’s Beauty & the Beast: Vendetta and Kass Morgan’s The 100: Day 21 were both based on The CW teen series, while Christa Faust’s Fringe: Sins of the Father was a belated tie-in to the cancelled Fox show.

Titan Books’ hardcover “Penny Dreadful Collection” reprinted Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Bram Stoker’s Dracula and The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde as tie-ins to the HBO series. Each volume had coloured page edges and a matching bookmark ribbon.

Doctor Who: The Crawling Terror by Mike Tucker, Doctor Who: Silhouette by Justin Richards and Doctor Who: Blood Cell by James Goss all featured Peter Capaldi’s twelfth Doctor, while the War Doctor was the focus of Doctor Who: Engines of War by George Mann.

12 Stories 12 Authors was a reprint of the Doctor Who anthology that added a new story by Holly Black featuring the twelfth incarnation of the Time Lord.

Tomb Raider: The Ten Thousand Immortals by the industrious Dan Abnett and Nik Vincent was a tie-in to the video game, while Halo: Mortal Dictata by Karen Traviss was the third volume in the gaming series, followed by Halo: Broken Circle by John Shirley.

David J. Williams and Mark S. Williams’ Transformers: Retribution was a prequel to the cartoon series based on the Hasbro toys.

Gitty Daneshvari’s Monster High: Ghoulfriends to the End was the fourth volume based on Mattel’s range of “Ghoulfriends” dolls. It was illustrated by Darko Dordevic and Chuck Gonzales.

Iron Man: Extremis by Marie Javins was a novelisation of a Marvel graphic novel, as was New Avengers: Breakout by Alisa Kwitney.

To tie in with the British Film Institute’s “Sci-Fi: Days of Fear and Wonder” season, Kim Newman’s in-depth study of Hammer’s Quatermass and the Pit (and the BBC-TV original) was published by BFI Film Classics/Palgrave Macmillan in a handsome softcover edition featuring numerous photographs from the film, plus cover art by Nathanael Marsh. Also published in the same series were books about Brazil by Paul McAuley, Alien by Peter Luckhurst, War of the Worlds (1953) by Barry Forshaw, Solaris by Mark Bould and Silent Running by Mark Kermode.

Film historian Gregory William Mank explored obscure horror history in The Very Witching Time of Night: Dark Alleys of Classic Cinema from McFarland, which included a look at the tragic life of actress Helen Chandler through the reminiscences of her sister-in-law and a candid interview with the son of actor Lionel Atwill, amongst other fascinating pieces.

Tom Weaver, David Schecter and Steve Kronenberg did just what the title of McFarland’s The Creature Chronicles: Exploring the Black Lagoon Trilogy promised. It came with an Introduction by actress Julie Adams. From the same imprint, Weaver also published paperback editions of Attack of the Monster Movie Makers: Interviews with 20 Genre Giants (with a little help from research associates Michael Brunas and John Brunas), They Fought in the Creature Features: Interviews with 23 Classic Horror, Science Fiction and Serial Stars and I Talked to a Zombie: Interviews with 23 Veterans of Horror and Sci-Fi Films and Television.

William Schoell wasn’t quite sure about his theme in Creature Features: Nature Turned Nasty in Movies, while Psycho, The Birds and Halloween: The Intimacy of Terror in Three Classic Films by Randy Rasmussen and Subversive Horror Cinema: Countercultural Messages of Films from Frankenstein to the Present by Jon Towlson were both decidedly more focussed in their scope.

Also from McFarland, Alexandra Heller-Nichols explored the subculture of Found Footage Horror Films: Fear and the Appearance of Reality, while Unraveling Resident Evil: Essays on the Complex Universe of the Games and Films edited by Nadine Farghaly tried to put the popular zombie series into perspective.

From BearManor Media, Joseph Maddrey’s Beyond Fear: Reflections on Stephen King, Wes Craven, and George Romero’s Living Dead drew upon decades of interviews with its subjects.

From the same imprint, Joe Jordan’s biography Showmanship: The Cinema of William Castle came with a Foreword by Bela G. Lugosi and an Introduction by Thomas Page. Brian Taves’ Robert Florey, The French Expressionist was a biography of the director who was originally scheduled to direct Frankenstein (1931).

Midi-Minuit Fantastique: l’intégrale Vol.1 edited by Michel Caen and Nicolas Stanzick was the first of four projected hardcover volumes from Rouge Profonde to collect and update all twenty-four issues of the influential 1960s French film magazine.

It might still not have been the film that the fans wanted, but at least Gareth Edwards’ 3-D Godzilla was better than Roland Emmerich’s re-imagining back in 1998, as Bryan Cranston’s troubled nuclear engineer uncovered the truth about seismic anomalies in Japan before being killed-off halfway through the movie.

Universal’s origin story, Dracula Untold, re-imagined how Prince Vlad Tepes (an uncharismatic Luke Evans) was turned into one of the undead by Charles Dance’s Master Vampire to defend his family and his kingdom against the invading Turks. It didn’t suck as much as some critics claimed, but could have done without the TV movie coda.

Poor old Ben Affleck’s Nick Dunne was suspected of murdering his missing wife Amy (Rosamund Pike) in David Fincher’s twisty psychological thriller Gone Girl, based on the best-selling novel by Gillian Flynn.

Despite starring Daniel Radcliffe and Juno Temple and being based on the novel by Joe Hill, Alexandre Aja’s delayed supernatural thriller Horns flopped at the box-office.

Susan Sarandon’s small town detective investigated a series of gruesome sacrificial killings in The Calling, which also featured Gil Bellows, Ellen Burstyn and Donald Sutherland.

January became the new Halloween, as American distributors opened their low budget fright-fests for a post-holidays audience.

A trio of high school graduates investigated the death of a witchy neighbour in Christopher Landon’s improved fourth sequel Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones, which neatly tied the series together, despite diminishing box-office returns.

A young boy’s obsession with a creepy pop-up storybook featuring the eponymous child-eater was the basis for Jennifer Kent’s Australian-made chiller The Babadook.

Annabelle was a prequel featuring the possessed doll first seen in The Conjuring (2013). It was even slightly better than the earlier film, which isn’t saying much. Meanwhile, after the success of The Woman in Black, Hammer’s The Quiet Ones was a dull supernatural mystery set in 1974, in which Jared Harris’ team of paranormal investigators looked into the case of a woman (Olivia Cooke) who believed that she had been possessed by a doll named “Evey”.

Set forty years after the superior 2012 film, Hammer’s sequel The Woman in Black: Angel of Death starred Helen McCrory as the headmistress of a group of young World War II evacuees forced to stay at the still-haunted Eel Marsh House.

A young woman (Karen Gillan) had to convince her brother (Brenton Thwaites) that they should destroy the haunted mirror that killed their parents in Mike Flanagan’s effective low budget chiller Oculus, which appeared to be inspired by Amityville II: The Possession and was expanded from the director’s award-winning short film.

Loosely based on an uncredited H.P. Lovecraft’s story ‘From Beyond’, Blair Erickson’s Banshee Chapter followed Katia Winter’s investigative journalist as she tried to discover what happened to a missing friend.

A group of friends attempted to discover why one of their number committed suicide after playing with an occult board in Ouija, another PG-13 horror movie from Platinum Dunes aimed at teenagers. It cost a reported $5 million to make and opened at #1 at the US box-office over Halloween with a gross of just $10.7 million.

Jim Sturgess’ new doctor arrived at a remote madhouse run by a creepy Ben Kingsley in Brad Anderson’s Bulgaria-shot Stonehearst Asylum, which was based on a well-known story by Edgar Allan Poe. The impressive supporting cast included Kate Beckinsale, David Thewlis, Brendan Gleeson, Michael Caine, Jason Flemyng and Sinéad Cusack.

A slumming Aaron Eckhart played the immortal Creature who teamed up with a race of Gargoyles to battle an army of evil demons led by Bill Nighy in Stuart Beattie’s pulpy I, Frankenstein in 3-D. It was based on a graphic novel by Kevin Grevioux.

In the British-made Evil Never Dies, a former gangster (Harry Payne) used his suppressed psychic abilities to investigate a series of occult murders in a small Norfolk village. Former Doctor Who companion Katy Manning portrayed his wife.

A couple of New York police officers (Eric Bana and comedian Joel McHale) teamed up with an unorthodox priest (Édgar Ramírez) to combat a series of demonic possessions in Scott Derrickson’s Deliver Us from Evil.

Rob Zombie wisely pulled out from reportedly directing V/H/S: Viral, the third entry in the diminishing series, while another group of uninteresting characters attempted to survive twelve hours of homicidal mayhem in Los Angeles in the violent sequel The Purge: Anarchy.

John Jarratt’s outback psycho pig-hunter returned to butcher more backpackers in Wolf Creek 2, Greg McLean’s sequel to his 2005 movie.

A newlywed couple (Rose Leslie and Harry Treadaway) discovered something nasty lurking in the woods in Leigh Janiak’s Honeymoon, and a would-be starlet (Alexandra Essoe) entered into an unholy pact with a sinister organisation to gain fame and fortune in Starry Eyes.

Tilda Swinton’s 3,000-year-old vampire found herself in a languid ménage à trois with her undead musician husband (Tom Hiddleston) and her provocative sister (Mila Wasikowska) in Jim Jarmusch’s art house horror Only Lovers Left Alive. John Hurt turned up as a vampiric Christopher Marlowe.

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night was an Iranian vampire movie, filmed in black and white by writer/director Ana Lily Amirpour and set in a ghost town haunted by a lonely undead woman (Sheila Vand). Elijah Wood executive-produced.

Flight of the Conchords comedians Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi wrote and directed the New Zealand mockumentary What We Do in the Shadows, in which they starred as vampire flatmates along with Jonathan Brugh.

Parents John C. Reilly and Molly Shannon were worried about their walking-dead daughter (Aubrey Plaza) in the zombie rom-com Life After Beth.

Proving that there was still some creativity left in the “found footage” concept, Elliot Goldner’s directorial debut The Borderlands (aka Final Prayer) channelled M.R. James in its story of two Vatican investigators (the excellent Gordon Kennedy and Robin Hill) who were sent to investigate paranormal activity at an isolated West Country church.

The helmet cameras worn by a team of explorers revealed the juddery horrors that awaited them in the catacombs beneath Paris in John Erick Dowdle’s “mock documentary” As Above, So Below. Although the plot didn’t make a lick of sense, the film’s creepy occult mythology still made it worth watching.

A honeymoon couple (Zach Gilford and Allison Miller) found themselves dealing with an unexpected Satanic pregnancy in Devil’s Due. A remote-controlled “Devil baby” was used to scare pedestrians while promoting the film in New York City.

In The Pyramid, a group of American archaeologists found themselves being hunted through a lost subterranean tomb by a flesh-eating Anubis, and an alien abductee went on a killing spree in Stephen King’s fictional town of Derry, Maine, in Almost Human.

Actor/comedian Bobcat Goldthwait directed the zero-budget “found-footage” backwoods thriller Willow Creek, about a couple of documentary film-makers (Bryce Johnson and Alexie Gilmore) on the trail of the legendary Bigfoot.

The Remaining was a faith-based horror film in which a group of wedding guests found themselves battling demons after being left behind following the Rapture. Unfortunately, co-writer/director Casey La Scala seriously botched the “found-footage” concept from the beginning.

Vic Armstrong’s Left Behind was yet another faith-based film about the Rapture, which starred no less than Nicolas Cage as an airline pilot who missed the calling. The $16 million movie, which was a remake of a 2000 direct-to-video production based on a series of apocalyptic novels, also featured Lea Thompson and William Ragsdale.

Family secrets were revealed by a torrential rainstorm in Jim Mickle’s low budget We Are What We Are, a remake of a 2010 Mexican film featuring Kelly McGillis, Michael Parks and Larry Fessenden.

Adam Wingard followed up his acclaimed home-invasion chiller You’re Next with The Guest, in which Dan Stevens’ mysterious “David” inveigled his way into a family’s home.

Jesse Eisenberg’s government clerk found his life being usurped by a devious doppelgänger in The Double, based on the novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky.

Vegar Hoel’s survivor from the enjoyable 2009 film returned to battle Nazi and Russian zombies in the even better Norwegian sequel Dead Snow 2: Red vs Dead.

In Kevin Smith’s horror comedy Tusk, Michael Parks’ backwoods seafarer transformed a visiting podcaster (Justin Long) into a walrus. Haley Joel Osment and Johnny Depp turned up in surprising supporting roles.

Minnie Driver and Meat Loaf starred in the musical/comedy/slasher film Stage Fright, while co-writer Marion Wayans starred in the comedy sequel A Haunted House 2, which once again spoofed contemporary horror movies through crude humour and stupidity.

Set ten years after the previous entry, Matt Reeves’ epic 3-D Dawn of the Planet of the Apes saw intelligent simian Ceasar (Andy Serkis in a remarkable motion-capture performance) and his genetically evolved apes forced into a war with Gary Oldman’s leader of the human survivors by vengeful, machine gun-toting primate Koba (Toby Kebbell).

Oldman was also one of the stars of Brazilian director José Padilha’s stylish reboot of RoboCop, which replaced the humanity at the heart of the 1987 original with unrelenting comic book violence. The cast also included Michael Keaton, Samuel L. Jackson and Joel Kinnaman as the cyborg cop.

Mark Wahlberg’s eccentric inventor and his hot daughter (Nicola Peltz) found themselves embroiled in yet another galactic war in Michael Bay’s overlong third sequel Transformers: Age of Extinction. Thankfully, the always-watchable Stanley Tucci and Kelsey Grammer were on hand to take audiences’ minds off the giant CGI robots beating the crap out of each other.

Antonio Banderas’ insurance investigator discovered that robots in a dystopian future were illegally altering themselves in Automata, which also featured Dylan McDermott, Robert Forster and the voices of Melanie Griffith and Javier Bardem.

Toby Stephens’ morally conflicted scientist created a self-aware cyborg (Caity Lotz) that was turned into a killing machine by the British government in Caradog W. James’ low budget The Machine.

Joaquin Phoenix’s divorced loner fell in love with his phone’s artificial intelligence (voiced by Scarlett Johansson) in Spike Jonze’s Her.

A synthetic drug allowed the titular heroine (the excellent Johansson again) to use the full potential of her mind, giving her god-like powers in Luc Besson’s bonkers action thriller Lucy while, in a very different performance, the actresses’ sexy alien travelled around Scotland picking up lonely men to feed upon in Jonathan Glazer’s low budget gem Under the Skin.

Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway’s astronauts set out to save mankind by discovering a new planet in Christopher Nolan’s overly emotional Interstellar, which featured a surprise cameo by Matt Damon as an earlier space explorer.

Tom Cruise’s cowardly propagandist found himself in a time-loop, dying over and over again alongside Emily Blunt’s seasoned soldier in a war against alien invaders in Doug Liman’s surprisingly inventive 3-D Edge of Tomorrow. A cross between a Philip K. Dick nightmare and Groundhog Day, it was based on a Japanese graphic novel and retitled Live Die Repeat for its Blu-ray release. To promote the film, Cruise and Blunt attended premieres in London, Paris and New York during a twenty-four hour period.

Actor and director Noel Clarke’s latest low budget British SF movie The Anomaly, in which he played a former soldier switching between two parallel existences, boasted a supporting cast that included Ian Somerhalder, Brian Cox and Luke Hemsworth.

Having apparently never read Donovan’s Brain or seen Colossus: The Forbin Project, Johnny Depps’ dying scientist uploaded his consciousness into an omnipotent super-computer in the Christopher Nolan-produced Transcendence, with depressingly predictable results. Meanwhile, Christopher Waltz’s near-future computer genius was tasked with proving that existence itself was meaningless in Terry Gilliam’s bewildering The Zero Theorem.

Set on the titular train circling the globe in a frozen future, Boon Joon Ho’s Snowpiercer featured Chris Evans, Ed Harris, John Hurt, Tilda Swinton and Jamie Bell. Guy Pearce and Robert Pattinson starred in the post-apocalyptic thriller The Rover, set in the Australian outback.

Three friends driving to California tracked down a mysterious signal and ended up in a secret high-tec facility run by Laurence Fishburne in The Signal.

In Mike Cahill’s thoughtful low budget I Origins, a research biologist (Michael Pitt) discovered an anomaly in the human eye that could prove the existence of reincarnation.

Brick Mansions, an inferior remake of the French film District 13 (2004), starred the late Paul Walker in his final completed film as a narcotics cop on the trail of a drug lord (RZA) with a nuclear bomb in a near-future Detroit housing project.

Patrick Wilson, Liv Tyler, Jerry O’Connell and Keir Dullea starred in Jack Plotnick’s 1970s retro sc-fi spoof, Space Station 76.

Frank Pavich’s superb documentary Jodorowsky’s Dune looked at the Chilean director’s “lost” mid-1970s movie version of Frank Herbert’s classic SF novel, with fascinating commentary from a sprightly 85-year-old Alejandro Jodorowsky, Chris Foss, Gary Kurtz, H.R. Giger, Richard Stanley and others.

Jennifer Lawrence’s personality-free Katniss Everdeen became a symbol of the revolution against the totalitarian government of President Snow (Donald Sutherland) in Francis Lawrence’s overblown second sequel The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part I, based on the best-selling young adult novel by Suzanne Collins. The film was dedicated to the late Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Neil Burger’s Divergent, set in a segregated future world ruled by Kate Winslet’s sinister official, was adapted from Veronica Roth’s best-selling YA series, while a group of teens with their memories erased found themselves competing to escape from a deadly enclosed environment in The Maze Runner, based on James Dashner’s series of YA books.

Mankind’s past memories were downloaded into the memory of a boy (newcomer Brenton Thwaites) in Phillip Noyce’s The Giver, based on the 1993 YA novel by Lois Lowry. It featured Meryl Streep (in her first bad wig film of the year) as the leader of a not-so-perfect dystopian future, and singer Taylor Swift turned up in a cameo.

Two friends (Zoey Deutch and Lucy Fry) were returned to a secret boarding school for teenage bloodsuckers in the box-office flop Vampire Academy, based on Richelle Mead’s series of young adult books.

Peter Jackson finally brought his overblown trilogy to a satisfying conclusion in the action-packed The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, which again featured Christopher Lee as the evil wizard “Saruman”.

Based on Mark Helprin’s 1983 romantic reincarnation novel, Winter’s Tale (aka A New York Winter’s Tale) starred Colin Farrell, a flying white horse and a demonic Russell Crowe.

Directed by Renny Harlin, who had an estimated budget of $70 million at his disposal, the truly awful The Legend of Hercules had little to do with the Greek myth beyond the wooden hero (Kellan Lutz) being the son of Zeus.

The same could also be said of the other two films about the character released in 2014. Based on a graphic novel and released in 3-D, Brett Ratner’s Hercules featured Dwayne Johnson as the mythological demi-god, supported by a cast that included Ian McShane, John Hurt, Rufus Sewell and Joseph Fiennes. Meanwhile, former WWE wrestler John Hennigan played the fallen hero in Hercules Reborn, which thankfully went directly to DVD.

At least Paul W.S. Anderson’s Pompeii had Mount Vesuvius erupting fireballs in 3-D, despite numerous historical and geographical goofs, and Russell Crowe’s gruff patriarch had to deal with a pesky apocalyptic flood in Darren Aronofsky’s controversial Noah. As if all that water wasn’t bad enough, he also had to contend with Ray Winstone’s scheming villain, Anthony Hopkins as an ancient Methuselah and giant stone monsters called “Watchers”.

Angelina Jolie starred in Disney’s Maleficent, which re-imagined the vengeful sorceress from Sleeping Beauty as a misunderstood feminist with an impressive pair of horns.

Set in London’s British Museum, Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb concluded the family fantasy trilogy starring Ben Stiller as museum security guard Larry Daley with support from, amongst others, Robin Williams, Owen Wilson, Steve Coogan, Ricky Gervais, Ben Kingsley, Dick Van Dyke, Mickey Rooney, Matt Frewer and an uncredited Hugh Jackman.

Meryl Streep wore another fright-wig as the blue-haired witch in Rob Marshall’s lively adaptation of Stephen Sondheim’s 1987 revisionist fairy tale musical Into the Woods. Johnny Depp turned up as a creepy big bad wolf.

Chris Evans returned as Marvel Comics’ super-soldier in the superior sequel Captain America: The Winter Soldier, which earned more than $200 million domestically in just three weeks. After Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) was apparently assassinated, Captain America teamed up with Black Widow (the busy Scarlett Johansson) and The Falcon (Anthony Mackie) to uncover a plot by HYDRA to destroy S.H.I.E.L.D. from the inside. The impressive supporting cast included Robert Redford, Toby Jones and Jenny Agutter.

Meanwhile, James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy was based on a lesser-known Marvel Comics title. A likeable Chris Pratt starred as Peter Quill, who was kidnapped by space pirates in the 1980s. Now a grown-up thief, he teamed up with a group of alien misfits (including a genetically-modified racoon and a walking tree, voiced by Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel respectively) to prevent a mystical orb falling into the hands of an alien warlord. For those who stayed for the end credits, there was also a surprise appearance by Howard the Duck.

In a crossover between the two earlier movie series, Bryan Singer’s convoluted X-Men: Days of Future Past, the latest in the Marvel mutant franchise, saw Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) sent back in time to 1973 by Professor X (Patrick Stewart) to recruit the younger Xavier (James McAvoy) and Magneto (Michael Fassbender) in a battle against the robot Sentinels, created by Peter Dinklage’s Dr. Trask.

Director Singer was forced to pull out of doing publicity for the film following a false teen sex abuse lawsuit filed against him in April.

Having successfully re-booted the Marvel franchise in 2012 with the likeable Andrew Garfield in the title role, Marc Webb’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2 in 3-D was a complete dud, thanks to its bland villains Electro (an over-the-top Jamie Fox), Rhino (Paul Giamatti) and Green Goblin (Dane DeHaan).

Nobody really needed (or wanted) a $125 million Michael Bay-produced 3-D reboot of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, even if it featured Megan Fox as investigative TV reporter April O’Neil.

Sin City: A Dame to Kill For was a belated sequel to the 2005 movie, based on the stylised graphic novel and once again co-directed by creator Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez. The all-star cast included Mickey Rourke, Jessica Alba, Josh Brolin, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Rosario Dawson, Bruce Willis, Eva Green, Powers Boothe and Lady Gaga.

Three unlikely companions (Michael C. Hall, Sam Shepard and Don Johnson) stumbled across a snuff film operation in Jim Mickle’s atmospheric Texas Gothic Cold in July, based on the novel by co-producer Joe R. Lansdale.

A trio of Nevada teenagers helped an alien go home in Earth to Echo, which borrowed from E.T. and other better children’s movies. This “found-footage” family film was originally made by Disney, who wisely sold it off to another distributor.

If you were eight years old, you might have found The LEGO Movie totally “awesome”, otherwise it was a tiresome 3-D adventure featuring CGI building block characters, including Batman (amusingly voiced by Will Arnett) and a few of the classic Universal monsters. It took more than $69 million during its opening weekend.

At least The Boxtrolls, based on the book Here Be Monsters! by Alan Snow, used 3-D stop-motion to create its dumpster-diving gremlins. It featured the voice of Ben Kingsley as the social-climbing villain in a cheese-obsessed town.

The live-action Paddington was based on Michael Bond’s series of children’s books about a marmalade-loving bear from Peru. Nicole Kidman and Hugh Bonneville starred alongside the titular CGI character (voiced by Ben Whishaw, who replaced Colin Firth).

Good children’s cartoon movies during the year included the 3-D Mr. Peabody & Sherman (based on the 1950s TV time-travel comedy), The Book of Life (produced by Guillermo del Toro), Big Hero 6, The House of Magic, How to Train Your Dragon 2 and A Letter to Momo. Amongst the bad ones were a 3-D German-made Tarzan, the 3-D Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return, Tinker Bell and the Pirate Fairy and Tinker Bell and the Legend of the NeverBeast.

Despite respectable earners like The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 (2), Captain America: The Winter Soldier (3), The LEGO Movie (4), Transformers: Age of Extinction (5), Maleficient (6), X-Men: Days of Future Past (7), Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (8), The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (9) and Godzilla (10), all of which earned more than $200 million, the summer movie box-office in 2014 was disappointing compared the previous year (which had Iron Man 3), and overall receipts in the US and Canada were down by 5.3%. However, things picked up after the release of Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy in August, which became the highest-grossing film of the year, taking almost $94 million on its opening weekend and going on to gross more than $330 million domestically.

In the UK, box-office receipts fell by 2.9%, the most significant drop since 1991, and it was widely considered that if it wasn’t for the end-of-year release of Paddington, things might have been much worse.

The 86th Academy Awards were presented on March 2 in Hollywood. Alfonso Cuarón won the Best Director Oscar for his SF movie Gravity, which also picked up the awards for Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Original Score, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing and Best Visual Effects. Spike Jonze received the Best Original Screenplay for Her, while Disney’s Frozen not only won the Oscar for Best Animated Film, but the film’s hugely annoying ‘Let it Go’ also won for Best Original Song.

The British Film Institute’s three-month “Sci-Fi: Days of Fear and Wonder” season previewed the new series of the BBC’s Doctor Who with a screening of the first episode at BFI Southbank in early August, attended by star Peter Capaldi and other cast and crew members. The festival featured more than 1,000 screenings of classic SF films and television at 200 locations across the country, including the British Museum, which hosted outdoor screenings of movies, including a newly-restored print of The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961).

Delayed by legal disputes for nearly a year before finally turning up on video, Odd Thomas was based on the novel by Dean Koontz and directed by Stephen Sommers. Anton Yelchin was the eponymous short-order cook who could see the invisible reapers threatening his town.

Directors Jen and Sylvia Soska followed up their cult favourite American Mary with See No Evil 2, a belated video sequel to the 2006 movie, once again starring WWE wrestler Glenn “Kane” Jacobs as psychopath Jacob Goodnight.

Sean Astin and his party friends attempted to survive a flesh-eating virus on a Carribbean island in Cabin Fever: Patient Zero. The third in the series debuted on DVD and On Demand.

A group of friends visiting a forgotten mountain resort met a nasty end in the shot-in-Bulgaria Wrong Turn 6: Last Resort.

When Eric Roberts’ washed-up movie director attempted to revive his 1980s “slasher” trilogy as a reality TV show, the bodies soon started piling up in Camp Dread.

A couple documented the appearance of the titular mystery man in a wood full of totems and scarecrows in Karl Mueller’s backwoods horror Mr. Jones.

A busy Kevin Sorbo starred in the direct-to-DVD Survivor and One Shot (aka Sniper Elite), both set on alien planets, and the self-explanatory Piranha Sharks.

Vinnie Jones’ local police detective and Christian Slater’s priest battled a demonic killer in Way of the Wicked, while Danny Glover starred in the “found footage” video release Day of the Mummy.

A group of live-action role-players accidentally conjured up a demon from Hell in the direct-to-DVD comedy Knights of Badassdom starring Ryan Kwanten, Steve Zahn, Summer Glau and Peter Dinklage.

H.P. Lovecraft’s The Thing on the Doorstep was filmed by director Tom Gliserman, starring David Bunce as Daniel Upton, and an elite team of mercenaries discovered genetically modified human/alien hybrids in a secret Soviet underground laboratory in Scintilla (aka The Hybrid).

Earthquakes destroyed the West Coast in LA Apocalypse, while zombies did the same thing in Disaster LA.

Ignoring the comedy sequel that preceded it, Jaume Balagueró’s [REC]4: Apocalypse returned to its roots as Manuela Velasco’s TV reporter was rescued from the zombie-infested apartment of the first two films and transported to a research ship where, predictably, all did not go as planned.

Jesse Metcalfe and Virginia Madsen were amongst the inhabitants of a town infested by zombies in Dead Rising: Watchtower, based on the best-selling video game.

The French-made horror comedy Goal of the Dead combined zombies with soccer, while six friends found themselves facing a lake full of rabid rodents created by a toxic chemical spill in Jordan Rubin’s gory horror comedy Zombeavers, which was a great deal better than its title may have suggested.

Following an online campaign to build a potential audience, the independent Canadian movie Wolf Cop starred Leo Fafard as alcoholic street cop Lou Garou, who was transformed into an avenging werewolf during a strange ritual in the woods.

Who would ever have guessed a town called Lupine Ridge would be inhabited by werewolves? That turned out to be the case in actor/screenwriter David Hayter’s Wolves, which featured Stephen McHattie and Jason Momoa in the cast.

Filmed in Wales, the embarrassingly awful Extinction: Jurassic Predators involved a group of researchers in the Amazon rainforest being attacked by an unconvincing dinosaur.

Leprechaun: Origins was a disappointing re-boot of the popular 1990s series, while Australian producer Antony I. Ginnane remade both his original 1978 film as Patrick: Evil Awakens and his 1982 movie Turkey Shoot.

Kino Classics released a new version of the creaky murder mystery The Death Kiss (1932), starring Bela Lugosi and David Manners, on Blu-ray and DVD. The archival 35mm restoration included original hand-tinted sequences.

Long before there was Stephen King’s Under the Dome there was Arch Oboler’s The Bubble (1966), which Kino reissued in a newly restored “Space-Vision 3-D” version on Blu-ray.

The four-disc Blu-ray boxset The Vincent Price Collection II from Shout! Factory featured a mixed bag of titles, including The House on Haunted Hill, The Return of the Fly, The Raven (1963), The Comedy of Terrors, The Tomb of Ligeia, The Last Man on Earth and Dr. Phibes Rises Again, along with trailers, new featurettes and commentaries, and a 32-page booklet by David Del Valle.

Odeon Entertainment’s welcome digitally remastered release of Michael Reeves’ The Sorcerers (1967) included amongst its extras an interview with Johnny Mains (who also wrote the insert booklet) about John Burke’s neglected involvement in the film, a documentary about Reeves, and the cult director’s short film Intrusion.

Guillermo del Toro’s interview with star Paul Williams was just one of the extras on the Collectors’ Edition of Brian De Palma’s classic Phantom of the Paradise, which made its debut on Bu-ray.

Ghostbusters celebrated its 30th Anniversary on Blu-ray, while the 40th Anniversary Blu-ray of Young Frankenstein came with deleted scenes.

Halloween: The Complete Collection was a fifteen-disc Blu-ray set from Anchor Bay/Scream Factory featuring a number of new extras.

From Scream Factory, Nightbreed: The Director’s Cut restored twenty minutes to Clive Barker’s 1990 monster movie, along with a new making-of documentary. A special three-disc set only available from the distributor’s website included deleted and lost scenes, concept art and a newly restored version of the original theatrical release.

The Blu-ray of Thor: The Dark World included the fourteen-minute short film Marvel One Shot: All Hail the King, which featured a welcome return for Ben Kingsley’s Mandarin impersonator from Iron Man 3.

The British Film Institute and the BBC teamed up to release several classic DVDs just in time for Christmas, including the seven-disc set of Out of the Unknown, which included all surviving twenty episodes from the 1960s anthology SF series. The Changes, a 1975 serial based on Peter Dickinson’s trilogy of young adult books received its DVD premier, as did the 1978 adaptation of Alan Garner’s Red Shift and the 1971/1980 BBC serial The Boy from Space.

Also from the BFI, Out of This World: Little Lost Robot was based on the story by Isaac Asimov and is the only surviving episode from the ITV anthology series hosted by Boris Karloff in 1962. The extras included an audio commentary, audio-only versions of two other episodes, a downloadable script for the first episode, and an illustrated booklet.

Uncle Forry’s AckerMansions was a visual tour through all three of Forrest J Ackerman’s legendary homes, stuffed to the rafters with memorabilia.

Two years after his apparent dive off the roof of St. Bart’s Hospital, Holmes (Benedict Cumberbatch) finally resurfaced in London, much to the surprise of a still-grieving John Watson (Martin Freeman). Although the first two feature-length episodes of the third season of the BBC’s contemporary Sherlock were spoiled by too much comedy and not enough plot, the third and final show almost made up for it.

‘His Last Vow’ featured Lars Mikkelsen as master blackmailer Charles Augustus Magnussen, along with a surprising secret about Watson’s new wife Mary (the wonderful Amanda Abbington), before the cliff-hanger revelation that Moriarty was back.

In the UK, 8.8 million tuned into the final instalment and, in a nice touch, Holmes’ parents were played by Cumberbatch’s real-life parents, Wanda Ventham and Timothy Carlton.

When all three seasons of Sherlock were released on Blu-ray, the deluxe set included mini-busts of Holmes and Watson.

The long-awaited fifth season of Jonathan Creek on BBC was a huge disappointment, mostly due to the lack of on-screen chemistry between the always excellent Alan Davies and Sarah Alexander as his nagging new wife. The three cosy murder mysteries involved a “locked room” musical, a retired psychic’s unlikely prediction and an apparently cursed Aladdin’s lamp.

Vanessa Redgrave starred as a reclusive author being interviewed by Olivia Colman’s damaged journalist in the BBC-TV movie The Thirteenth Tale, Christopher Hampton’s overwrought adaptation of Diane Setterfield’s novel about sinister siblings and incestuous relationships.

Predictably, British TV and radio did almost nothing to celebrate Hallowe’en in 2014. However, the following month the BBC showed Ashley Pearce’s Remember Me, a creepy three-part contemporary ghost story by Gwyneth Hughes in which a curmudgeonly old pensioner (Michael Palin in a rare dramatic role) was haunted by water, the folk song ‘Scarborough Fair’ and a murderous guardian from his childhood. The supporting cast included Mark Addy, Jodie Comer and Julia Sawalha.

Nick Willing’s The Haunting of Radcliffe House (aka Altar) starred Olivia Williams as an interior designer who discovered that her artist husband (Matthew Modine) and two children were gradually falling under the spell of the remote old house on the Yorkshire moors that she had been hired to renovate for its mysteriously absent owners.

After the destruction of Air Force One, Linda Hamilton was an unlikely Admiral searching for the President of the United States (John Savage) in the Bermuda Triangle in Syfy’s awful Bermuda Tentacles (aka Dark Rising).

Antonio Fargas was a Louisiana bayou local dealing with a sharp-toothed fish curse in SnakeHead Swamp, while a group of guardians unwisely decided to transport the Jersey Devil and his human half-sister to a new location in Dark Haul (aka Monster Truck), starring Tom Sizemore.

The best thing that could be said about Anthony C. Ferrante’s Sharknado 2: The Second One was that it was marginally better than the first one, as returning stars Ian Zierling and Tara Reid attempted to stop it raining sharks in New York City. It included a neat Twilight Zone gag, while Vivica A. Fox, Kari Wuhrer, Judd Hirsch, Downtown Julie Brown, Billy Ray Cyrus, Andy Dick, Robert Hays, Perez Hilton, Matt Lauer, Al Roker, Kelly Osbourne, Kelly Ripper, Michael Strahan and an uncredited Wil Wheaton were amongst the celebrities who thought it would be cool to appear in this rubbish.

The concept behind Syfy’s Mega Shark vs. Mecha Shark, starring Christopher Judge, Elisabeth Röhm and singer Debbie Gibson, was a straight steal from King Kong Escapes (1967).

Ascension, a three-part mini-series on Syfy, began with a murder on a 1960s-style spaceship halfway through its 100-year journey to another galaxy, as the First Officer (Brandon P. Bell) was forced to learn investigative techniques from watching recordings of Fritz Lang’s M. As the plot became more intriguing, anyone familiar with Hammer Films’ The Damned (aka These Are the Damned) would have had a pretty good idea about what was actually going on.

Zoe Saldana co-produced and starred as the hysterical mother of the Anti-christ in NBC’s pointless two-part remake of Rosemary’s Baby, which relocated Ira Levin’s 1967 novel (and its also credited sequel) to contemporary Paris. Carole Bouquet and Jason Isaacs played her seductive Devil-worshipping neighbours.

Heather Graham and Ellen Burstyn headed the cast of the Lifetime movie of V.C. Andrews’ Flowers in the Attic, which was even worse than the 1987 feature adaptation. Incredibly, a few months later the network screened a sequel, Petals in the Wind.

Laura Allen’s wife and mother had to deal with a psycho babysitter (India Eisley) in the Lifetime movie Nanny Cam, and The Good Witch’s Wonder marked the seventh annual outing on the Hallmark Channel of Catherine Bell’s magical Cassandra Nightingale.

Sean Patrick Thomas’ New York doctor relocated his family to a small rural town that turned out to be controlled by creatures in the nearby forest in Chiller Network’s Deep in the Darkness, which also starred Dean Stockwell and was based on the novel by Michael Laimo.

Also on Chiller, a group of friends were trapped in an isolated cabin by a bloodthirsty predator in the monster movie Animal, while 5 States of Fear was an anthology of short films told through a series of nightmare hallucinations.

Produced by Ridley Scott and pieced together from a five-part mini-series on Xbox One, the mostly incomprehensible Halo: Nightfall was based on the popular shooter video game. It concerned a group of soldiers trapped in a hostile alien environment and menaced by deadly Hunter Worms.

John Hamm, Rafe Spall and Oona Chaplin starred in Black Mirror: White Christmas on Channel 4, a Christmas special of Charlie Brooker’s anthology series, which featured three interconnected stories about the dangers of technology.

In a reversal of the 1985 movie Weird Science, two tech-savvy teens (China Anne McClain and Kelli Berglund) used military software to create the perfect boyfriend (Marshall Williams) in the Disney Channels’ How to Build a Better Boy.

Probably the best genre show on television in 2014, and arguably the best for years, was HBO’s eight-part slice of Southern Gothic, True Detective, created by Nick Pizzolatto and directed by Cary Fukunaga.

Two contrasting Louisiana detectives (impeccably played by casting heavyweights Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson) were forced to revisit a case they thought they had closed in the mid-1990s, involving a cult of ritualistic serial killers whose mythology was linked with that of Robert W. Chambers’ 1895 collection The King in Yellow.

Although the show ultimately pulled back from its inevitable cosmic horror climax, other sources directly or indirectly cited included the fiction of Thomas Ligotti and Karl Edward Wagner.

Now the most expensive and most-watched TV show on the planet, the fourth season of HBO’s multi-layered Game of Thrones saw the sadistic boy-king Joffrey (Jack Gleeson) poisoned, Tyrion Lannister (Peter Dinklage) murder his father Tywin (Charles Dance), and Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) lock up her dragons, as the zombie Winter came ever closer.

In July, scripts and two rough-cut episodes of the BBC’s eighth new series of Doctor Who were leaked online prior to transmission, after a security breach at BBC Worldwide’s Miami, Florida, office.

In the show, Peter Capaldi replaced Matt Smith as a more adult Time Lord to excellent effect. Unfortunately, the stories he was stuck in (mostly co-written by Steven Moffat) weren’t up to the exuberance the actor brought to the role.

The newly regenerated twelfth Doctor and his increasingly annoying companion Clara (Jenna Coleman)—occasionally accompanied by her mopey new boyfriend (Samuel Anderson)—encountered a dinosaur in Victorian London, found themselves trapped inside a Dalek, joined forces with a robot Robin Hood (Tom Riley), battled alien spiders on the Moon and an alien mummy on an interstellar Orient Express, and confronted the Cybermen (yet again). The latter episode featured a nice tribute to the late Nicholas Courtney’s character “Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart”.

At least an old foe of the Doctor was revealed in an unexpected new guise, and Victorian detectives Vastra, Jenny and Strax showed up again (they really should have their own series). However, the BBC was criticised by gay rights campaigners when it cut a “lesbian kiss” between Vastra and Jenny when the episode was shown in Asia.

The now-obligatory holiday special, ‘Last Christmas’, found the Doctor and Clara teaming up with Nick Frost’s Santa Claus in a cut-price version of The Thing, with support from Michael Gambon, singer Katherine Jenkins, and Michael Troughton, the son of second Doctor Patrick Troughton.

Creator John Logan plundered classic literature and Hollywood “B” movies for Sky/Showtime’s handsome-looking mash-up series Penny Dreadful. Timothy Dalton’s Sir Malcolm Murray put together a league of extraordinary gentlemen (and woman)—including possessed psychic Vanessa Ives (the wonderful Eva Green), a tortured Dr. Victor Frankenstein (Harry Treadaway) and werewolf gunslinger Ethan Chandler (Josh Hartnett)—to save his daughter Mina Harker from an ancient nosferatu.

Meanwhile, Reeve Carney’s Dorian Gray hung around looking pretty, Frankenstein’s homicidal Creature (Rory Kinnear) demanded a mate, and David Warner turned up as an ill-fated Professor Abraham Van Helsing.

David Bradley played another vampire-hunter named Abraham, trying to warn the citizens of New York that the plague spreading through their city was caused by the nosferatu-like Master smuggled into the country, in the FX Network’s refreshingly adult horror series The Strain, based on the trilogy of novels by executive producers Guillermo del Toro and crime writer Chuck Hogan.

To tie-in with the premiere of the show in the UK, veteran author and paranormal researcher Lionel Fanthorpe was commissioned to discover the country’s “Horror Hotspots”. Compiling the findings from archives, police reports and eye-witness accounts over the past 100 years, he uncovered more than 200 reported vampire sightings in Britain—compared to just eight in Transylvania—and the county of Yorkshire came out top with 615 unexplained encounters.

Replace vampires with zombies, NYC with a secret Arctic research station, add a touch of The X Files, and you had the first season of Syfy’s Helix, which started off well but never really knew where it was heading.

Another group who had no idea where they were going were the meandering survivors of season five of AMC’s interminable The Walking Dead as they made their way to the supposed sanctuary of Terminus, where—predictably—all was not quite what it seemed. A documentary special, Inside the Walking Dead, was a behind-the-scenes look at the production.

Made on a fraction of The Walking Dead‘s budget, at least Syfy’s gory Z Nation was more fun, set three years after a zombie virus has decimated America, while the same network’s Town of the Living Dead was an unscripted docu-series set in a small Alabama town trying to make their own indie zombie movie. Robert Englund guest-starred.

The second, six-part season of the BBC’s thoughtful In the Flesh saw those suffering from Partially Deceased Syndrome (PDS) battling zombie extremists and an MP’s political machinations.

As always, the best thing about The CW’s Supernatural was the show’s easy humour and well-drawn supporting characters—whether it was likeable self-styled “King of Hell” Crowley (the wonderfully droll Mark Sheppard), compassionate Sheriff/Hunter Jody Mills (Kim Rhodes) or a werewolf-loving Garth (D.J. Qualls).

As the war between the angels dragged on, Dean (Jensen Ackles) was cursed with the Mark of Cain, and by the beginning of the tenth season was transformed into a devil-may-care demon himself as the series passed its 200th episode with a fun meta-episode based around a fan fiction-inspired high school show.

Supernatural‘s ‘Bloodlines’ episode was a back-door pilot for a series about five powerful clans of monsters running the city of Chicago.

Clearly inspired by Tod Browning’s Freaks, Sunset Blvd. and American Psycho, the fourth season of the Fox’s American Horror Story, subtitled Freak Show, continued to push the envelope of good taste.

Now set in 1952 Florida and based around a travelling carnival run by former cabaret star Elsa Mars (series regular Jessica Lange, camping it up with a Marlene Dietrich accent), it featured Sarah Paulson as a pair of conjoined twins (a remarkable optical effect), Kathy Bates as a bearded lady, and Michael Chiklis as a strongman with a temper, while John Carroll Lynch played a truly terrifying homicidal clown.

American Horror Story‘s two-part Halloween episode, in which the carnival was visited by the spectral Edward Mordrake (Wes Bentley), was classic Dark Shadows stuff, and there were some surprising crossovers with the earlier season’s American Horror Story: Asylum.

After the first season of the same network’s Sleepy Hollow ended with a resurrected Ichabod Crane (Tom Mison) and his witchy wife Katrina (Katia Winter) discovering that Henry Parrish (John Noble) was actually their son and the second Horseman of the Apocalypse, the second season concentrated on Henry’s attempts to raise the demon Moloch on Earth.

Meanwhile, Ichabod and detective Abbie Mills (Nicole Beharie) found themselves dealing with, amongst other things, Benjamin Franklin’s Frankenstein-like monster, a Pied Piper creature, the Weeping Lady, a succubus and a vengeful Headless Horseman.

Somewhat less fun was NBC’s Grimm, which lived up to its title as crazy Adalind (Claire Coffee) had her royal baby kidnapped by Nick’s mother (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio), a new teenage Grimm (Jacqueline Toboni) turned up in town, poor Sgt. Wu (Reggie Lee) thought he was seeing things, and the wedding between Monroe (Silas Weir Mitchell) and Rosalee (Bree Turner) didn’t go quite as planned. Season 4 opened with Nick (David Giuntoli) having lost his powers but still dealing with a golem, a werewolf, El Chupacabra and a group of Wesen purists.

With the vampires and humans of Bon Temps finally working together to survive, the talky seventh and final season of HBO’s True Blood ended with a wedding and the death of a major character, as all the loose ends were obsessively tied up and original author Charlaine Harris had a blink-and-you’ll-miss-her cameo.

Robert Rodriguez remade his 1996 movie From Dust Till Dawn as a ten-part series on his own El Ray Network starring D.J. Controna and Zane Holtz as the criminal Gecko brothers. Unfortunately, the undead bar belonging to Eiza González’s vampire strip-club queen Santánico Pandemonium didn’t show up until half way through the limited season.

Bisexual succubus Bo (Anna Silk) descended to Valhalla to save Kenzi (Ksenia Solo) in the fourth season of Syfy’s loopy Lost Girl, and although it didn’t last quite as many seasons as the British original, the fourth and final season of Syfy’s Being Human reached its own downbeat conclusion.

Based on Kelley Armstrong’s “Women of the Otherworld” books, Syfy’s Bitten starred Laura Vandervoort as the only living female werewolf called back by her Pack to help solve a series of lycanthropic murders.

Syfy’s entertaining Warehouse 13 returned for a limited, six-part fifth and final series, while the mythology behind the channel’s Haven became even more convoluted during its truncated fifth season as Nathan (Lucas Bryant) and Duke (Eric Balfour) battled to keep the Troubles under control and find Audrey’s buried personality within the evil Mara (Emily Rose).

Despite the occasional participation of executive producer Noah Wyle as Flynn Carsen, TNT’s ten-part series The Librarians was nowhere near as clever or entertaining as the three TV movies it was based on. A new team of globe-travelling Librarians, overseen by a deadpan John Larroquette, attempted to prevent The Serpent Brotherhood from bringing magic back into the world. Familiar guest-stars included ubiquitous Canadian actor Matt Frewer, Bob Newhart, Rene Auberjonois, Alicia Witt, Jane Curtin, Bruce Campbell (as Santa Claus) and Jerry O’Connell.

Created by Brannon Braga and Adam Simon, WGN’s Salem was a dull historical drama based around the 17th century witch trials, while the second season of Lifetime’s contemporary The Witches of East End was apparently aimed at a similar soap opera demographic.

Hulu’s half-hour comedy Deadbeat featured Tyler Labine as a slacker medium-for-hire who fixed ghosts’ unfinished business in New York City. Cat Deeley played his sexy rival, who wasn’t quite what she seemed.

Comedians Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim wrote, directed and starred in a series of seven eleven-minute horror stories on Adult Swim entitled Tim and Eric’s Bedtime Stories. The impressive guest cast included Zach Galifianakis, John C. Reilly, Jason Schwartzman, M. Emmet Walsh, John Heard, Jimmy Kimmel and Laurie Metcalf.

The inhabitants of Arcadia, Missouri, were concerned when the dead began returning with no memory of their demise in the ABC-TV series Resurrection which, despite having a near-identical premise to the superior French series The Returned, was not based on that show but on a 2013 novel entitled The Returned by Jason Mott. Season 2 found immigration agent Bellamy (Omar Epps) coming to terms with the knowledge that he was also one of the Returned.

Meanwhile, in a transposition of that plot, the residents of the small town of Mapleton overreacted to the Rapture-like disappearance of 2% of the world’s population in HBO’s The Leftovers. Co-created by Damon Lindelof (Lost) and original novelist Tom Perrotta, it featured Christopher Eccleston (with a dodgy American accent), a tired-looking Liv Tyler and a welcome guest-shot by Scott Glenn.

The BBC’s action-packed Atlantis jumped into Series 2, with Ariadne (Alysha Hart) now Queen and Jason (Jack Donnelly) and his loyal companions protecting her rule against exiled evil sorceress Pasiphae (Sarah Parish) and her sidekick Medea (Amy Manson), who raised an army of ravaging zombies against the city. Unfortunately, in an attempt to appeal to an older audience, the show lost some of its comedic charm.

Season 2 of Starz’s Da Vinci’s Demons found the Renaissance inventor (Tom Riley) and his companions travelling to the New World, where they discovered the mystical Vault of Heaven.

A young soldier (Christopher Egan) discovered that he was the “chosen one”, destined to lead mankind in a war against the angels in Syfy’s South African-made Dominion, which was set twenty-five years after the events in the 2010 movie Legion.

Claire Randall played a married battlefield nurse in 1945 who was mysteriously transported back to 18th-century Scotland in Starz’s Outlander, based on the romance novels by Diana Gabaldon.

The two-hour finale of Season 3 of ABC’s increasingly convoluted Once Upon a Time saw Emma (Jennifer Morrison) and Hook (Colin O’Donoghue) transported into the past, while the evil Snow Queen (Elizabeth Mitchell) turned up in Storybrooke and cast the Spell of Shattered Sight over the fairy-tale inhabitants during the fourth season.

Nobody really needed yet another version of the story, let alone Peter Pan Live!, a musical adaptation on NBC in December starring Christopher Walken as Captain Hook and Allison Williams as the titular boy who never grew up.

When he wasn’t working on The Librarians, Noah Wyle was off starring in and co-producing (along with Steven Spielberg) TNT’s relentlessly grim Falling Skies, in which Tom Mason and his bickering companions escaped an alien prison-camp, but still had to contend with the hybrid Lexi’s growing powers as they planned to destroy an Espheni base on the Moon.

Also executive produced by the busy Mr Spielberg, Halle Berry’s astronaut returned to Earth after a thirteen-month solo space mission to discover tat she was pregnant in CBS-TV’s Extant, which also included sub-plots involving a creepy cyborg child and some kind of corporate conspiracy.

The second season of the same network’s Under the Dome, yet another Spielberg-produced series, kicked off with a game-changing episode scripted by executive producer Stephen King (who had a cameo) in which a major character was shockingly murdered. It then went downhill from there, as the endlessly bickering inhabitants of Chester’s Mill discovered a mysterious tunnel that led to the world outside the increasingly inhospitable dome.

In a near-future dystopian world facing extinction, 100 embryos were successfully fertilised and put up for surrogacy in Lifetime’s ten-part series The Lottery, supposedly inspired by Shirley Jackson’s superior short story.

Eric Dane commanded the crew of naval destroyer USS Nathan James in a world where a pandemic virus had destroyed most of the Earth’s population in TNT’s The Last Ship, while the J.J. Abrams-produced post-apocalyptic series Revolution dragged on for a second series on NBC, as the two factions of survivors continued to battle it out for supremacy in a world without electricity.

Troubled detective John Kennex (Karl Urban) and his android partner (Michael Ealy) ended their futuristic investigations after just thirteen episodes when the Fox Network cancelled Abrams’ other series, derivative Almost Human.

New York City was destroyed in the second season of Syfy’s post-apocalyptic Western-with-aliens Defiance, while the second season of Channel 4’s conspiracy thriller Utopia revealed where the humanity-sterilising virus “Janus” originated and how it came to turn up in the DNA of Jessica Hyde (Fiona O’Shaughnessy).

Norman Bates (Freddie Highmore) finally recalled killing his high school teacher, but his dysfunctional mother (Vera Farmiga) wouldn’t believe him in the soporific Season 2 of the A&E Network’s Bates Motel.

Troubled FBI agent Ryan Hardy (Kevin Bacon) discovered that Joe Carroll (James Purefoy) was still alive and controlling another cult of serial killers in the second season of Fox’s The Following, while pretty much everybody had finally worked out that Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen) was not only a good chef but also a sophisticated serial killer by the end of Season 2 of NBC-TV’s elegant Hannibal.

Confusingly credited to “Michael Marshall Smith”, BBC America’s bleak eight-episode Intruders was actually based on a novel published under the genre author’s mainstream pen-name, “Michael Marshall”. A former LAPD cop (British actor John Simm, with an unconvincing and unnecessary American accent) discovered that his wife (Mira Sorvino) was actually part of a secret immortality cult. Child actress Millie Bobby Brown stood out in a cast that also included James Frain and Robert Forster as a pair of hit men.

Having had to consult with Moriarty (the wonderful Natalie Dormer), deal with the inflated ego of Gareth Lestrade (Sean Pertwee) and prove his brother Mycroft (Rhys Ifans) innocent of treason, the second season of CBS-TV’s entertaining Elementary ended with Johnny Lee Miller’s Holmes and Lucy Liu’s Watson going their separate ways. For Season 3, Holmes returned to New York City with a damaged new protégé (Ophelia Lovibond) and investigated a case where an A.I. computer was suspected of murdering its creator.

In yet another twist on the TV detective genre, charming Welsh actor Ioan Gruffud played immortal medical examiner Henry Morgan, who teamed up with glamorous NYPD Detective Jo Martinez (Alana De La Garza) to solve crimes with his Holmesian deductions in ABC’s cosy Forever. The supporting cast included veteran Judd Hirsch as Henry’s older-looking son.

A Texas death row escapee (Jake McLaughlin) found himself protecting a 10-year-old girl with paranormal powers (the oddly named Johnny Sequoyah) from Kyle MacLachlan’s sinister billionaire scientist in NBC-TV’s Believe, which lasted for just thirteen episodes despite counting co-creator Alfonso Cuarón (who also directed the pilot) and J.J. Abrams amongst its numerous producers.

Josh Holloway’s high-tec operative had a super-computer microchip imbedded in his brain in CBS-TV’s by-the-numbers spy drama, Intelligence.

Having started out on shaky ground, ABC’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. returned after the Christmas hiatus with more focussed plot-lines that firmly tied Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg) and his team into the Marvel’s Thor, Captain America and Guardians of the Galaxy movie franchises, as Nick Fury’s disappearance and HYDRA’s infiltration destroyed all trust in the organisation.

Unfortunately, Season 2 quickly lost its way again as the rogue agents investigated a subterranean alien city and uncovered the annoying Skye’s (Chloe Bennet) hidden past.

As female crime-fighter The Canary (Caity Lotz) was murdered by a mysterious assassin, The CW’s increasingly grim and flashback-laden Arrow introduced Brandon Routh’s future superhero The Atom. Meanwhile, crossover series The Flash featured another DC Comics superhero (played by the likeable Grant Gustin) trying to prove that his father (original 1990s TV Flash, John Wesley Shipp) was not responsible for the death of his mother.

Fox Network’s Gotham got off to a painfully slow start, despite being a prequel to the Batman story. It followed idealistic detective James Gordon (Ben McKenzie) and his more cynical partner Harvey Bullock (Donal Logue) as they attempted to clean up the corruption and crime in Gotham City. The only fun was in identifying such proto-villains as Cat Woman, The Penguin, The Riddler and Two-Face before they were infamous, while Sean Pertwee turned up as an unusually hardened Alfred Pennyworth, Bruce Wayne’s faithful butler.

Also based on a DC Comics character, Constantine starred miscast Welsh actor Matt Ryan as the eponymous down-at-heel psychic detective investigating ghosts and demons. NBC wisely cancelled the show after just thirteen episodes.

For the all-important young adult demographic, the networks continued to churn out insipid series based on well-established genre concepts: Stefan (Paul Wesley) and Elena (the usually glum Nina Dobrev) got to experience an inevitable It’s a Wonderful Life episode in Season 5 of The CW’s The Vampire Diaries, while the sixth season opened with Mystic Falls a supernatural-free zone and Damon (Ian Somerhalder) and Bonnie (Kat Graham) trapped on the Other Side.

Meanwhile, tensions continued between the New Orleans vampires, were-wolves and witches in the second season of companion series The Originals.

Having exhausted Brian McGreevy’s 2012 source novel in the first season, a new show-runner was brought in for Season 2 of Hemlock Grove, Netflix’ answer to Dark Shadows executive produced by Eli Roth.

Based on the YA novel by Kass Morgan, a spacecraft containing mankind’s last survivors dumped 100 annoying juvenile delinquents back on a post-apocalyptic Earth, with predictable results, in The CW’s The 100. Meanwhile, a human girl and an alien boy attending the same high school fell in love in the sappy Star-Crossed.

Another misfire from the same network was its ill-judged reboot of the UK SF series The Tomorrow People, which lasted just one stupefyingly dull season, while Season 2 of The CW’s Beauty and the Beast continued with New York detective Cat Chandler (Kristin Kreuk) having to decide between her current unsuitable boyfriend and her former one, mysterious super-soldier Vincent (Jay Ryan).

The best young adult show on TV continued to be MTV’s Teen Wolf, which got progressively darker as its likeable young cast grew older. During the third season, high school werewolf Scott McCall (Tyler Posey) tried to help Stiles (Dylan O’Brien), who was possessed by an evil entity after returning from the dead, and Scott’s former girlfriend Allison (Crystal Reed) met a heroic demise saving her friends. Season 4 found Scott’s “Alpha” teaming up with unlikely allies and some new faces as the mysterious “Benefactor” used assassins to target the supernatural creatures of Beacon Hills.

The Clone Club (Tatiana Maslany in a variety of roles) found out more about their past and the sinister Dyad Group in the second season of the BBC America/Space series Orphan Black which, despite its vocal Internet supporters, attracted disappointing viewing figures.

Teenager Emma Alonso (Paolo Andino) moved to Miami, Florida, and discovered she was the “Chosen One” in Nickelodeon’s Every Witch Way, and an urban American teenager (Naomi Sequeira) and her extended family moved to the eponymous spooky English village in the Disney Channel’s four-part Evermoor.

The third series of BBC’s Wolfblood found the half-wolf school pupils still trying to hide their secret from Dr. Whitewood (Letty Butler) and the rest of humanity, while the third and final series of Wizards vs. Aliens featured teen schoolboy wizard Tom (Scott Haran) and his friends uncovering an alien zombie labour force and battling an old witch.

In Series 5 of BBC Wales’ Young Dracula, Vlad (Gerran Howell) finally met his human mother.

The thirteen unaired episodes of Cartoon Network’s Star Wars: The Clone Wars were finally shown on Netflix starting in March, along with the previous five seasons.

Meanwhile, Disney XD’s fourteen-part animated Star Wars: Rebels, about the rise of the Rebel Alliance, was set between Revenge of the Sith and the original Star Wars and even utilised some of Ralph McQuarrie’s previously unused concept designs. James Earl Jones, Frank Oz and Anthony Daniels all returned to voice their original movie characters.

Created by Patrick McHale and featuring the voices of Elijah Wood and Collin Dean, Over the Garden Wall was a ten-part fairy tale which aired over five consecutive evenings on Cartoon Network.

Inspired by Jonny Quest and other Hanna-Barbera shows, Adult Swim’s series of ten animated Mike Tyson Mysteries featured the former heavyweight boxer teaming up with his adopted daughter, an alcoholic pigeon and a friendly ghost.

Season 25 of Fox Network’s The Simpsons continued with an episode set thirty years in the future, one set in the Lego world, and another based around a voodoo doll. The show’s subsequent season celebrated its 25th Anniversary ‘Treehouse of Horror’ with three stories in which Bart and Lisa were transported to a demonic alternate universe, Homer was a member of A Clockwork Orange-style gang, and the dysfunctional family were visited by earlier 1980s incarnations of themselves. A couple of weeks later, the characters from Matt Groening’s cancelled companion show Futurama travelled back to the past to prevent Bart from destroying the future.

The Cartoon Network/Adult Swim’s unusually dark animated series Beware the Batman, teamed the Caped Crusader (voiced by Anthony Ruivivar) with a young female ninja warrior (Sumalee Montano) to battle such familiar foes as Harvey Dent/Two-Face (Christopher McDonald), Mr. Toad (Udo Kier), Metamorpho/the Golem (Adam Baldwin) and Ra’s Al Ghul (Lance Reddick).

ABC-TV/Pixar’s half-hour Christmas special, Toy Story That Time Forgot, found Woody (Tom Hanks), Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) and the other toys were captured by the Battlesaurs, an army of prehistoric reptilian action figures.

During the shortened eighth and final season of the USA Networks’ hugely entertaining Psych, Gus (Dulé Hill) thought his nightmares were coming true in an episode featuring Bruce Campbell.

Season 6 of ABC-TV’s Castle included an episode in which the eponymous author (Nathan Fillion) and his detective fiancée Beckett (Stana Katic) investigated a Carrie-like murder in a high school, before Castle’s car was forced off the road on their wedding day. Having returned for a seventh season with no memory of where he had disappeared to, Castle found himself involved in a murder committed by an invisible man and was transported by an Inca artefact to an alternative reality in which he had never met Beckett.

The Halloween episode of CBS-TV’s latest spin-off, NCIS: New Orleans, had Dwayne Pride (Scott Bakula) and his team investigating the death of a Naval Judge Advocate found in a cemetery with apparent vampire bites on her neck.

The second series of the BBC’s Father Brown found G.K. Chesterton’s mystery-solving priest (Mark Williams) called in to exorcise a supposedly haunted house, while Series 16 of ITV’s Midsomer Murders included an episode in which detectives Barnaby (Neil Dudgeon) and Nelson (Gwilym Lee) investigated a series of murders inspired by macabre images on a Medieval fresco discovered in a church crypt. Guest stars included Roy Hudd and Michael Jayston.

The third series of Death in Paradise on BBC featured a new detective (Kris Marshall, replacing Ben Miller) investigating murders on the Caribbean island of Sainte-Marie. Michelle Ryan guest-starred in an episode involving the death of a stand-in during the filming of a zombie movie.

The seventh season episode of Murdoch Mysteries (aka The Artful Detective), ‘Friday the 13th, 1901’, involved a series of killings at a remote cabin on a lake, while the Season 8 episode ‘The Death of Dr. Ogden’ dealt with a puzzle published by Edgar Allan Poe years earlier.

Written by, and featuring Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith, Inside No.9 was a six-part anthology series on BBC 2 set inside various buildings and rooms with that number. The majority of the half-hour episodes were dark gems of macabre humour and the final episode, about a teenage babysitter’s night of terror, was full-on Gothic horror. The show’s impressive list of guest stars included Gemma Arterton, Oona Chaplin, Tamsin Greig, Denis Lawson, Helen McCrory, Sophie Thompson and Timothy West.

Sky Arts’ half-hour short film series Playhouse Presents included Peter Straughan’s black comedy Nosferatu in Love, which starred Mark Strong as an actor on location in the Czech Republic who had a nervous breakdown when his wife left him and went on a journey of self-discovery dressed as a toothy vampire.

As part of the same series, Richard Wilson and Simon Callow’s elderly space explorers found themselves at the mercy of their ship’s computer (silkily voiced by Robert Vaughn) when their mission turned out to be no longer relevant in Lawrence Gough’s Space Age.

Despite featuring on-screen interviews with Christopher Lee, Douglas Wilmer, Nicholas Meyer, Benedict Cumberbatch, the ubiquitous Mark Gatiss and others, BBC 4’s hour-long Timeshift documentary, How to Be Sherlock Holmes: The Many Faces of a Master Detective featured some surprising omissions, and an annoying narration by veteran Peter Wyngarde.

The independently produced Doc of the Dead was described as “the definitive zombie culture documentary”. It featured interviews with, amongst others, Charles Adlard, Max Brooks, Bruce Campbell, Alex Cox, Stuart Gordon, Robert Kirkman, Simon Pegg, George A. Romero and John Russo, but nothing about the Italian zombi movies of the 1970s and ‘80s.

Emily Vancamp hosted ABC-TV’s Marvel: 75 Years, from Pulp to Pop!, which looked at the success of the comics publisher turned mega-movie studio.

Produced for the BBC by Oxford Scientific and narrated by Claire Foy, Frankenstein and the Vampyre: A Dark and Stormy Night was a drama-documentary recreation of the night in 1816 that led to the creation of Frankenstein and the first modern vampire story. Hannah Taylor Gordon portrayed Mary Shelley, and Miroslav Zaruba played her literary Monster.

Smugly presented by historian Dominic Sandbrook, the BBC’s four-part series Tomorrow’s Worlds: The Unearthly History of Science Fiction (aka The Real History of Science Fiction) gave the impression that most SF was based on films and TV shows, despite commentary from the inevitable Neil Gaiman, William Gibson, Kim Stanley Robinson, Brian Aldiss, Audrey Niffenegger and Ursula K. Le Guin. My Life in Science Fiction was a series of three spin-off shows, narrated by the indefatigable Mark Gattis.

During the lead-up to Hallowe’en, historian Andrew Graham-Dixon led viewers through the BBC’s three-part series The Art of Gothic: Britain’s Midnight Hour, which looked at the literature, art and architecture of the period.

TCM premiered the documentaries Edgar G. Ulmer: The Man Off-Screen and George Lucas & the World of Fantasy Cinema. In the latter, the film-maker looked back over a century of fantasy movies, with clips from A Trip to the Moon (1898) to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011).

In February, BBC Radio 4 broadcast Robert Forrest’s two-part adaptation of William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist, starring Robert Glenister as Father Karras, Iain McDiarmid as Father Merrin and Lydia Wilson as the possessed Regan.

Sebastian Baczkiewicz’s cursed immortal wanderer (Paul Hilton) helped an old friend who was being haunted by a malevolent spirit in the four-part Afternoon Drama: Pilgrim.

In Baczkiewicz’s ‘Ghosts of Heathrow’, broadcast in the same slot, Paul McGann’s businessman encountered various phantoms at the busy London airport. The forty-five minute drama was interspersed with interviews with real Heathrow workers. A young woman (Indira Varma) discovered that there were legal consequences to using pixie blood for her tattoos in Ed Harris’ fifteen-minute Afternoon Drama: ‘Pixie Juice’.

Good Omens was a six-part dramatisation by Dirk Maggs of the comedic fantasy novel about the son of Satan by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. The voice cast included Mark Heap, Peter Serafinowicz, Josie Lawrence, Phil Davis, and the two authors themselves playing policemen.Maggs also reunited original radio cast members, including Simon Jones, Stephen Moore and John Lloyd, to relive their adventures for Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Live at the BBC Radio Theatre in March.

In Sean O’Connor’s re-imagining of Blithe Spirit, fictional characters from the Archers radio series were cast as characters in Noël Coward’s classic wartime supernatural comedy. Real-life cast members included Julian Rhind-Tutt and Eleanor Bron.

BBC Radio 4 also presented a five-part serialisation of Peter O’Donnell’s Modesty Blaise, featuring Daphne Alexander as Modesty and Neil Maskell as Willy.

Having appeared in the 1969 movie version, actress Joanna Lumley was back as the lethal henchwoman to Alfred Molina’s Blofeld in Martin Jarvis’ ninety-minute production of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, which once again featured Toby Stephens as James Bond.

Meanwhile, an episode of The Reunion was devoted to the Roger Moore era of James Bond films, with contributions from Britt Ekland, Richard Kiel and Moore himself.

Brian Sibley dramatised an epic six-part retelling of T.H. White’s The Once and Future King for BBC Radio 4’s Classic Serial, starring David Warner as Merlin.

Book at Bedtime: The Bone Clocks was a fifteen-part serial based on David Mitchell’s time-spanning metaphysical novel, read by Hannah Arterton and Luke Treadaway, while Ian McKellen read a ten-part adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle’s 1914 Sherlock Holmes novel The Valley of Fear in the same slot.

James Purefoy starred as bounty hunter “Rick Deckard”, alongside Jessica Rain and Nicky Henson, in Jonathan Holloway’s two-part adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, part of the summer “Dangerous Visions” series on BBC Radio 4.

As part of the same thematic stream, Brian Sibley dramatised Ray Bradbury’s The Illustrated Man into an hour-long radio show starring Iain Glen in the title role, while Richard Kurti and Bev Doyle’s adaptation of Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles starred Derek Jacobi and Hayley Atwell.

The “Dangerous Visions” season continued in Afternoon Drama, which presented a series of short plays that explored future dystopias. These included Anita Sullivan’s The Bee Maker, which was set in the year 2020, when artificial insects were used to help pollinate fruit trees across the planet; Miranda Emmerson’s Iz took place in the segregated world of 2091, ravaged by Avian flu; Trevor Preston’s two-part The Zone unfolded in a world where the criminal elite controlled the trade in body parts, while Stephen Keyworth’s The Two Georges looked at how paranoid SF writer Philip K. Dick (Kyle Soller) was investigated by the FBI in the early 1950s.

Robert Powell played Ebenezer Scrooge in Saturday Drama‘s festive musical version of Charles Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’.

Film expert Matthew Sweet investigated the creative rivalry between British film studios Hammer and Amicus during the 1960s and ‘70s in the half-hour Radio 4 documentary Houses of Horror.

In November, BBC Radio 4 Extra presented a welcome repeat of Robert Holmes’ creepy six-part drama Aliens of the Mind, originally broadcast in 1977 and starring Vincent Price and Peter Cushing.

A month later, the same broadcaster presented a rare repeat of the 1981 production of Gregory Evans’ The Hex, loosely based on M.R. James’ ‘Casting of the Runes’ and featuring Conrad Phillips and Kim Hartman.

The free weekly horror fiction podcast Pseudopod marked its 400th episode with a classic story by James Tiptree, Jr. and partnered with John Joseph Adams’ Nightmare Magazine for its “Women Destroy Horror” project. It also offered readings of work by such contemporary authors as Joe Hill (available to North American subscribers only), Daniel Mills, Silvia Moreno Garcia, David Nickle, Christopher Fowler, Elizabeth Hand, Simon Kurt Unsworth, Terry Dowling, Paul Finch, Reggie Oliver, Mark Samuels, Kim Newman and Darrell Schweitzer, along with classic authors like Charles Dickens, Irvin S. Cobb, Gertrude Atherton, Elliott O’Donnell and Alfred Noyes.

On May 27, film legend Sir Christopher Lee celebrated his 92nd birthday by releasing a heavy metal album. Metal Knight featured seven tracks, including two covers from the musical Man of La Mancha.

Veteran British-born actress Angela Lansbury returned to the London stage after thirty-nine years to portray muddled medium Madame Arcati in Michael Blakemore’s impressive revival of Noël Coward’s supernatural comedy Blithe Spirit at the Gielgud Theatre. Jemima Rooper played the seductive but irritating ghost accidentally called up by the flamboyant clairvoyant.

Acting scion Jack Fox starred as the eponymous immoral immortal in Linnie Reedman’s reworking of Oscar Wilde’s Dorian Gray at the Riverside Studios in London, alongside Vanessa Redgrave’s granddaughter Daisy Bevan.

Risteárd Cooper, Brian Cox, Dervla Kirwan, Peter McDonald and Ardal O’Hanlon starred as five men telling ghost stories to each other in a remote Irish pub in Josie Rourke’s revival of Conor McPerson’s 1997 play The Weir at Wyndham’s Theatre.

Robert Icke and Duncan MacMillan’s new adaptation of George Orwell’s 1984 ran for twelve weeks at London’s Playhouse Theatre in April, while Jennifer Haley’s The Nether at the Royal Court took place in an Internet-obsessed future.

Mark Hollimann and Greg Kotis’ Urinetown: The Musical was set in a dystopian future where private lavatories were banned because of ecological drought. It had its UK premiere at the St. James Theatre.

Natascha McElhone, Mark Bazeley and Kristin Davis starred in Trevor Nunn’s production of Fatal Attraction, based on the 1987 movie, which had its world stage premiere in March at the Theatre Royal Haymarket.

In July, Benjamin Britten’s opera The Turn of the Screw, based on the short novel by Henry James, was performed at the open air Opera Holland Park in London.

The Theatre Royal Plymouth’s production Grand Guignol, a revival of the 2009 black comedy by the aptly named Carl Grose, played a five-week run from September at London’s Southwark Playhouse.

The live-action musical production Scooby-Doo! The Mystery of the Pyramid toured the UK throughout the summer,

The Marvel Universe LIVE! played arenas in eighty-five cities across America from July, while Disney’s musical version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, featuring music by Alan Menken and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz, had its American premier at San Diego’s La Jolla Playhouse in October.

Halo publisher Activision Blizzard reportedly spent $500 million (£300 million) creating and marketing Destiny, another multi-player alien shooter game and the first in a series that will span ten years. The impressive voice cast included Peter Dinklage, Bill Nighy, Gina Torres, Nathan Fillion, James Remar and Claudia Black, while Sir Paul McCartney was one of several music composers.

Detective Sebastian Castellanos investigated mass murders at a mental hospital and found himself battling nightmarish monsters known as “The Haunted” in Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami’s new survival game, The Evil Within, while gamers were armed with just a video camera as they investigated the horrific events that occurred at Mount Massive Asylum in Outlast for PS4.

Following its successful origin reboot in 2013, Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition had a 3-D graphics upgrade, while Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris saw the kick-ass heroine (once again voiced by actress Keeley Hawes) battling the evil Egyptian god Set.

With the franchise getting its second reboot since 2009, Wolfenstein: The New Order was set in an alternative 1960 where Nazi robots won World War II.

A companion to the big PS3 horror game of 2013, The Last of Us: Left Behind was a downloadable new sequence that was available for the remastered version for PS4. It featured Ellie and Riley exploring a mall and trying to stay out of the way of the fungally-Infected.

Filling the gap before the release of Dead Island 2 in 2015, Escape Dead Island was a cartoon zombie adventure, while The Walking Dead: Season Two allowed players to control a young girl in a world full of zombies.

Watch Dogs was set in an alternate Chicago where everything was linked by a network of computers, and a bespectacled witch used her magical hair and bullet-shooting boots to battle evil angels in Bayonetta 2, which also included the original game as a free download.

Sigourney Weaver reprised her role as “Ripley”, along with original stars Tom Skerritt, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton and Yaphet Kotto in Crew Expendable, a free downloadable extra for those who pre-ordered Alien: Isolation.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 video game was just as good as the movie it was based on, which wasn’t saying much.

Set between The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor featured a ranger of Gondor’s attempts to revenge the killing of his family by the dark lord Sauron’s armies, while Christopher Lee narrated and also voiced “Saruman the White” for LEGO the Hobbit: The Video Game.

In November, a boxed copy of Atari’s E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial—widely considered to have been one of the worst video games ever produced—raised $1,537.00 (£980.00) at a charity auction in America. It was one of 800 unwanted Atari 2600 cartridges recovered from a New Mexico landfill site seven months earlier.

As part of its Pop! Movies series of cute vinyl figurines, Funko released big-eyed versions of Dracula, Frankenstein, The Bride of Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, The Mummy, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Metaluna Mutant and The Phantom of the Opera, which were also available in “metallic” painted variations.

Funko’s series of moveable ReAction Figures also included licensed Universal Studios Monsters versions of all the above, except for the Metaluna Mutant, which was replaced by The Invisible Man.

A nicely sculpted figure of Boris Karloff’s Frankenstein’s Monster was issued as part of Hallmark’s 2014 series of Keepsake Christmas tree ornaments.

LEGO’s Ghost Busters Ecto-1 car set celebrated the movies 30th Anniversary, and the US Post Office released a set of stamps in October featuring Batman, to mark the Caped Crusader’s 75th Anniversary.

On October 30th, a life-size bronze bust of Edgar Allan Poe, created by Bryan Moore, was unveiled at the Boston Public Library. It was funded by a Kickstarter campaign, with Guillermo del Toro as the project’s largest financial supporter.

The British Museum’s “Terror and Wonder: The Gothic Imagination” exhibition ran in London from early October until January 2015. It featured more than 200 rare objects—including posters, books, films and even a vampire-slaying kit—tracing 250 years of the Gothic tradition. Amongst the highlights were hand-written drafts of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

In July, one of only four known one-sheet posters of a specific design for The Phantom of the Opera (1925) sold at auction for $203,150. It had formerly belonged to the actor Nicholas Cage.

At the same auction, a 1931 German poster for Fritz Lang’s M sold for $50,787, a rare 1941 insert poster for The Wolf Man went for $47,800, a “style B” half-sheet from War of the Worlds (1953) realised $35,850 and a French grande for King Kong (1933) made $25,095.

Four months later, the only known version of a stone litho American one-sheet for the lost Lon Chaney movie London After Midnight (1927) sold for $478,000, making it the most expensive film poster ever sold at public auction.

The same sale also saw a French four panel King Kong realise $65,725 and a Ghost of Frankenstein one-sheet sell for $26,290.

In August, one of only 100 known copies of Action Comics No.1 (June, 1938), featuring the first appearance of Superman, sold through an online auction to an unnamed bidder for £1.95 million—more than £600,000 over the previous record realised for that issue. The 9.0 graded copy was initially listed by its owner for just .99 cents.

Earlier in the year, Fred Guardineer’s original cover art for Action Comics No.15 (August, 1939), depicting the Man of Steel lifting a submarine off the ocean floor, sold at auction for £175,000.

In April, Pan Macmillan and the Serendip Foundation announced that they were creating the James Herbert Award for Horror Writing, in memory of the late author. Open to horror novels written in English and published in the UK in 2014, the winner received a £2,000 prize and commemorative statuette. The judging panel, chaired by Tom Hunter, consisted of Herbert’s eldest daughter Kerry, authors Ramsey Campbell and Sarah Pinborough, Total Film acting editor Rosie Fletcher and academic Dr Tony Venezia.

The 24th Annual World Horror Convention was held in Portland, Oregon, over May 8-11. Author Guests of Honor were Nancy Holder, Jack Ketchum and Norman Partridge, Artist Guest of Honor was Greg Staples and Editor Guest of Honor was Paula Guran. Special Guests were John LaFleur, John Shirley and Victoria Price (Vincent Price’s daughter), Edward Gorey was Ghost of Honor, and artist Alan M. Clark made an excellent Toastmaster in light of a convention committee who were barely around.

Brian Keene was the previously announced recipient of the convention’s Grandmaster Award, and the Horror Writers Association presented its 27th Annual Bram Stoker Awards at a buffet meal on the Saturday night, hosted by Jeff Strand.

Stephen King’s Doctor Sleep won for superior achievement in the Novel category, Rena Mason’s The Evolutionist picked up First Novel and Dog Days by Joe McKinney collected Young Adult Novel.

Long Fiction went to ‘The Great Pity’ by Gary Braunbeck and Short Fiction to ‘Night Train to Paris’ by David Gerrold. Eric J. Guignard’s After Death… won Anthology, Laird Barron’s The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All and Other Stories won Collection, and William F. Nolan’s Nolan on Bradbury: Sixty Years of Writing About the Master of Science Fiction won Non-Fiction.

The Poetry award went to Four Elements by Marge Simon, Rain Graves, Charlee Jacob and Linda Addison, Graphic Novel went to Caitlín R. Kiernan’s Alabaster: Wolves, and Screenplay went to the ‘Welcome to the Tombs’ episode of TV’s The Walking Dead by Glen Mazzara.

Gray Friar Press won the Specialty Press Award, The Silver Hammer Award for outstanding service to HWA went to Norman Rubenstein, while J.G. Faherty won The President’s Richard Laymon Service Award.

Horror Writers Association Life Achievement Awards had been announced previously for R.L. Stine and Stephen Jones.

The British Fantasy Convention was held in a nicely old-fashioned railway hotel in the city of York over September 5-7. The Guests of Honour were authors Charlaine Harris and Kate Elliott, scriptwriter Toby Whithouse and digital artist Larry Rostant (even though there actually wasn’t an Art Show).

The British Fantasy Awards were presented at a banquet on the Sunday afternoon. The Best Fantasy Novel (Robert Holdstock Award) went to A Stranger in Olondria by Sofia Samatar, and the Best Horror Novel (August Derleth Award) went to The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes.

Sarah Pinborough’s Beauty won for Best Novella and Carole Johnstone’s ‘Sign of the Times’ was the recipient of Best Short Story. Stephen Volk’s Monsters in the Heart won the award for Best Collection, and editor Jonathan Oliver’s End of the Road was voted Best Anthology.

Peter Coleborn’s The Alchemy Press received the Best Small Press award, Speculative Fiction 2012 edited by Justin Landon and Jared Shurin won Best Non-Fiction, Clarkesworld was Best Magazine/Periodical, and Becky Cloonan’s Demeter was deemed Best Comic/Graphic Novel.

Joey Hi-Fi was voted Best Artist, and Game of Thrones: ‘The Rains of Castamere’ won for Best Film/Television Episode. Ann Leckie was presented with the Best Newcomer (Sydney J. Bounds Award) for her novel Ancillary Justice, and the British Fantasy Society Special Award (The Karl Edward Wagner Award) went to Farah Mendlesohn.

World Fantasy Convention 2014 celebrated the gathering’s 40th Anniversary in Arlington, Virginia, over November 6-9 with Guests of Honor Guy Gavriel Kay, Les Edwards, Stuart David Schiff, Lail Finlay and Mary Robinette Kowal as Toastmaster.

Unfortunately, for such a prestigious event, the souvenir book was incompetently edited, with features apparently inserted randomly into the publication and typographical styles changing between each contribution. Attendees also received Unconventional Fantasy, a USB Flash Drive containing fiction, artwork and photographs from previous World Fantasy Conventions.

As usual, the World Fantasy Awards were presented at a banquet on the Sunday afternoon.

Sofia Samatar’s A Stranger in Olondria won for Novel, ‘Wakulla Springs’ by Andy Duncan and Ellen Klages received the Novella award and Short Fiction went to ‘The Prayer of Ninety Cats’ by Caitlín R. Kiernan.

Dangerous Women edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois was awarded Anthology, Collection went to The Ape’s Wife and Other Stories by Caitlín R. Kiernan, and Charles Vess won the Artist award.

Special Award—Professional was a tie between Irene Gallo for art direction at Tor.com and William K. Schafer for Subterranean Press, while Kate Baker, Neil Clarke and Sean Wallace won Special Award—Non-Professional for Clarkesworld.

The previously announced recipients of the Lifetime Achievement Awards were editor Ellen Datlow and author Chelsea Quinn Yarbro.

As a writer and editor, I have always preferred to work with smaller, independent publishers…not only does this allow me greater creative freedom with the projects I want to undertake, but it also usually allows me more input on such things as cover design and jacket copy.

However, the world of publishing is changing rapidly, and these days smaller imprints are either being squeezed out of the market altogether or being assimilated into larger conglomerates. In just the past few years, three individual publishing houses that I work with have been swallowed up by the same publishing group.

Whereas I can see how this might make good business sense, it is possibly the worst thing that could happen to the authors who are published by those separate imprints. Not only have we already seen a “streamlining” of such departments as design, publicity, sales—which in real terms translates into good people being made redundant—but for such niche genres as horror, fantasy and science fiction, it means that—even when those imprints are supposedly still “independent” of each other—in real terms it will be more difficult for authors to sell a book to what is, basically, now the same company. It will also be harder for commissioning editors to get their projects passed through acquisition meetings.

None of this will of course affect those working at the top of the food-chain—the blockbuster novels, the celebrity biographies, the self-help guides—but for the mid-list fiction titles (and, let’s face it, that is where much of our genre in published), things have already got worse. Lists are being trimmed, print-runs are being cut back, and advances are being reduced. Add to this the virtual stagnation of the e-book market and the squeeze being put on publishers’ prices by Amazon, and you have the recipe for a perfect storm.

It’s obvious—if publishers can’t pay authors a living wage for their books (and remember, it can take anything from eight months to a year for a writer to produce a decent novel), then those authors are going to have to find other ways of earning money elsewhere. Which means that they can’t be full-time writers. Which means that the number of books being published will decrease, to say nothing of the quality of those books. Which means that, ultimately, there will be less choice for the readers, and genres such as mainstream horror fiction will get even smaller than they already are now.

Of course, many would argue that this is a good thing—that too many books are being published anyway, or that the small presses, print-on-demand or self-publishing can step in and pick up the slack. Unfortunately, except in very rare instances, none of these outlets are likely to produce enough money for any author to seriously consider giving up their day job.

Unless publishers start investing in authors again—not just in monetary terms, but also in areas such as publicity and marketing—then the irony is that ultimately it will be the publishers themselves who will be responsible for killing off publishing…

—The Editors

August, 2015

In memory of

old friends, colleagues

and acquaintances

Ted Ball

Eric Caidin

Brian Clemens

Jack Gold

Sir Christopher Lee

Tanith Lee

Chuck Miller

Tom Piccirilli

Sir Terry Pratchett

and Melanie Tem

Helen Marshall

SECONDHAND MAGIC

HELEN MARSHALL is a critically acclaimed Canadian author, editor, and medievalist. Her debut collection of short stories, Hair Side, Flesh Side won the British Fantasy Award for Best Newcomer in 2013. Her second collection, Gifts for the One Who Comes After, was released in September the following year and was short-listed for the Horror Writers Association Bram Stoker Award, the Aurora Award from the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association, the World Fantasy Award and the Shirley Jackson Award, winning the latter in the “Single-Author Collection” category. She lives in Oxford, England, where she spends her time staring at old books.

“Practical magic has always been a fascination of mine,” she explains. “Magic in the real world is the art of illusion, of making something extraordinary appear to have happened when, in fact, the world is the same as it ever was. In that sense, it’s simultaneously wonderful and heart-breaking.

“With ‘Secondhand Magic’ I wanted to write a story about the loss of innocence, the quest for the miraculous, and the huge gap there is between the world as we want it to be, the world of splendour and awe, and the world as it actually is with its reversals, its disappointments, its tiny moments of grace and its inevitable tragedies.”

A BAD THING is going to happen at the end of this story. This is a story about bad things happening, but I won’t tell you what the bad thing is until you get there. Don’t flip ahead to the end of the story. Stories like this only work if you don’t know what the bad thing is until you get there. Wait for it to happen, don’t try to look ahead, don’t try to stop it from happening. Because you know how magic works? When you try to cheat it, it just gets worse and worse and worse. That’s the way of it. So, please. Just wait for it. I’ll ask nothing else from you. Cross my heart.

Sayer Sandifer had very few of the ingredients necessary to be a true magician. His patter? Weak and forced on account of a childhood stutter he got when he turned four. His fingers? Short, stumpy things that couldn’t make a silver dollar disappear no matter how long he practised. His sense of timing? Awful. And worse yet—crime of all crimes!—he had no assistant. The fact of the matter is that lacking any of these things might not have been enough to sink him, but all of them? What chance did the poor boy have? And at twelve years old he was just learning the first and only real lesson of being grown-up: that wanting a thing so bad it hurt didn’t mean getting a thing, not by a long shot.

The only thing Sayer did have going for him was the prettiest set of baby blues you ever saw. That wasn’t nothing. Not for a magician. And those eyes were only useful for one thing: getting an audience. When Sayer put on his star-spattered cloak and the chimney-pot hat he had swiped from Missus Felder’s snowman the winter before; when with utter seriousness and intent he knocked on your door at eight in the morning while the coffee brewed and the scent of fresh-mown grass drifted through the Hollow; when you had just kicked up your heels to browse the paper in search of discount hanger steak and sausages, then Sayer would be there.

“Missus S-S-Sabatelli,” he would stutter. Or if he was having a particularly bad day then he might not get that far, you might see him swallowing the word like a stone and searching out a new one. The first name instead, “Marianne,” he might say and bless him for being so formal. “I require your attendance this afternoon at the house of my mother and father. Please bring gingersnaps.”

And maybe you’d fall in love with him just a little bit right then, the way you could tell just by looking that he knew he didn’t have the right stuff in him yet for magic, but he wanted it, oh, he wanted it. He’d chase it even if it meant looking a fool in front of all his mother’s friends. He’d stand there, trembling, waiting for you to deliberate. Waiting for you to make some sort of pronouncement upon him. And you’d know how badly you could hurt him, that was the thing, you’d know you could crush him right there if you were of a mind to do so.

“Whatever for?” you might ask, hoping to surprise him, hoping to give him a moment to deliver a staggering statement of pomp and circumstance of the kind you knew he ought to have rattling around inside his head, because, God, you just wanted this kid to have it in him. Have that special something, even if it was just a flair for the dramatic. But, no, Sayer didn’t know the turns of phrase yet, he didn’t know that a magician was supposed to do something besides magic. You couldn’t expect him to, not at twelve years old, not even if he had studied the masters like Maskelyne, Thurston, Houdini and Carter. Which he hadn’t. All he had was a Magic for Beginners tin set an uncle had gotten him for Christmas—the same Christmas Missus Felder’s snowman had lost its chimney-pot hat and knitted scarf.

What Sayer didn’t know was that magic was never at the heart of being a magician. There was supposed to be something else. Something kinder.

But, as I said, what Sayer did have—what made you say “Yes, sir, gingersnaps it is!”—were those wide baby blues of his. Eyes a kind of blue I never saw before, blue like a buried vein. His father’s eyes.

Joe Sandifer had all the things that Sayer lacked: clean and polished patter; his fingers long and grateful like he’d filched them off a piano man; a near perfect sense of when to come and when to go; and you can bet your bottom dollar that he was never without a partner. Us girls, married though we were, still resented Lillian Sandifer a little for managing to grab hold of good old Joe. Handsome Joe. Joe who could lie like it was easy and beautiful.

Sayer might have had the beginnings of what Joe had, and would surely have discovered more as he passed the five-foot mark, but for now he was too much of a kiddie. A little lamb. All he had was his dignity, which he tugged as tight about him as that star-spattered cloak. And that dignity was the one thing that we in the Hollow were scared to death to take away from him.

Thus, we dreaded that Tuesday morning knock.

Thus, we dreaded that chimney-pot hat.

We dreaded the hungry eyes of Sayer the Magnificent.

Maybe it seems cruel to you that I’m talking like this about a poor runt of a kid with his heart stitched onto the red-and-black satin handkerchief he tugged out of his sleeve—courtesy, again, of that Magic for Beginners tin box. I swear I’m not trying to be cruel. It’s the world that’s wild and woolly. The world that cursed a stutterer—who couldn’t holler “sunshine” or “salamander”—with a name like Sayer Sandifer.

You want to know I’m not cruel? Shall I prove it to you? Let’s make him a Milo. Milo’s a good name for a kid his age. Milo Sandifer. Easier with that “M”. At least for a little while. Until he grows out of it. We can do that much for the little guy, can’t we? The poor duckling?

When the time came, and we all knew it without really having to look, we went over as late as we possibly could. We being the women of the Hollow, me with my plate of gingersnaps. Just as the boy asked.

Lillian had set up the backyard with lawn chairs. An old red-striped beach umbrella in the northeast corner, just past the rhododendrons. Card tables covered with plastic cups and lemonade for the parents. Nothing is quite so apologetic as home-made lemonade in these circumstances.

“Thanks for coming, Minnie,” Lillian whispered as I laid down a plateful of gingersnaps like the boy asked.

“It’s nothing worth mentioning,” I told her. “I need me some magic today, you hear? Must be he’s got a sense for these kind of things after all.” I let her smile at that. “It’s a good day for it too.”

“Some kind of good day,” Cheryl Felder muttered. She scowled at the top of her chimney-pot hat poking out from behind the stage and curtains that Joe constructed special. Poor Milo. He never quite figured out that of all the women in the Hollow, Cheryl was the one you didn’t want to mess with. Most kids know this sort of thing; they can sense a real witch with a bee in her bonnet if you catch my drift. Or maybe he was just bolder than we gave him credit for.

The other women were coming in then. They laid out liquorice strands and tuna fish sandwiches with trimmed corners, whatever the boy asked for. Lillian didn’t meet our eyes at first, but then she all of a moment did and, you know what?—give her credit, her eyes were just blazing with pride for little Milo. That buttered us up some. You could see it changing people. Missus Felder’s face, well, her face was the kind of face you might associate with sucking lemons, but even it got a little bit of sugar into it.

And the rest of us? Well, I’d always liked the boy. He had a proper kind of respect and reverence, and if there’s two things a magician ought to fluff his hat with, it’s respect and reverence, magic being no easy business, magic being a thing that ought to be done carefully. Not that I ever suspected poor Milo could mend a cut rope or pull the secret card, but there you have it. He would try, and we, the ladies of the Hollow, we kept company mostly by Hoovers and the Watchtower babble and crap society; we would smile those husband-stealing smiles of ours come Hell or high water.

And so the show began.

“And now for the Lost Suh-suh-suh…”

Milo’s face screwed up with concentration so hard you could see a flush of red on his neck. Lillian was saying the word alongside him in the audience, but he wouldn’t look at her. Missus Felder shifted in her chair.

“And now for the…”

His hands palsied and twitched as he shuffled the oversized Bicycle deck, patterned blue flashing in front of our eyes. But no one was watching the cards. We were all watching his mouth. We were all clenching the edges of the Sandifers’ lawn chairs.

“For the Lost Suh–s–s…”

He paused again. That moment stretched on and on like putty. Just when we thought it was about to snap. Just when we thought he was about to snap—you could see Missus Felder leaning forward now, she might’ve said something, none of us would’ve dared, we knew you didn’t speak for a stutterer, not ever, but she would’ve, she had the word on her lips and she was going to give it to him—that was when Milo swallowed, pushed up the brim of the chimney-pot hat with his wrist.

“Beg pardon, ladies,” he murmured ruefully, but it was out and the words were solid. “And now for the Lost…Sisters.”

The applause was bigger than it had been for any of the other tricks. Milo took it as his due.

“For this I need a volunteer. Anyone?”

No one budged. We couldn’t, not yet. We weren’t ready for it.

“Anyone? Ladies, please. Ah, good. You there. The…missus is the blue dress.”

It was Ellie Hawley from across the street in the blue cotton frock with the raglan sleeves her husband brought back from Boston. We were all a bit thankful. She was a good sort. The type who knew to bring liquorice strands to a boy’s magic show.

“I’m hard of hearing, boy,” Missus Felder said. “Which was that?”

God, we were thinking together, do not make him say it again.

It was no good though. She was smiling. Her words were sweetness and light, and she was smiling like she was some sort of old biddy about to offer him tea and biscuits. You couldn’t trust a smile like that. Oh, boy, not ever.

“I, uh, suh-suh–s–sorry, folks.” The hat tilted forward again. Milo pushed it up, and licked his lips. “I meant…” He paused. Why was he pausing? Don’t pause here, boy, we were thinking. Stick with Ellie Hawley. She’s already getting up. She’s halfway to the stage now, boy. Stick with her.

But we could see the look coming over his face. It was a proud look…and something else, something I couldn’t quite tell yet. A look older than he was. He knew that Ellie was the easy choice. He knew it the same way we knew it. He knew this was a trap, but there was something in him that wouldn’t let it go. We were watching. We were waiting. Milo was fighting with this thing, and we let him do it.

“…You there, in the front. Missus Felder. Puh-puh-please. Come on up here. Ma’am.”

No, we were thinking together, do not ask for her. Do not do it, boy. Do not call on her, boy. Can’t you see the Devil has come to your garden party? Can’t you see the Devil has gotten into Missus Felder, and there ain’t no way to cheat the Devil if you let her up on stage with you?

Missus Felder, she just smiled.

She took her time getting there, walked almost like an old woman even though she didn’t look forty yet. Passed Ellie Hawley along the way, just swished past her blue dress with the raglan sleeves.

“Well, boy,” said Missus Felder.

“Thank you, Missus Felder,” Milo said like he meant it. He shuffled the cards again, each of those big, blue Bicycles. Missus Felder watched primly, patiently, hips swaying slightly as she shifted her weight from side to side. As he was shuffling, you could see Milo starting to look for the words, starting to line them up in his mind like bowling pins so they’d fall down easily once he got going.

Just as he opened his mouth to start the patter, Missus Felder piped up:

“Aren’t you going to ask me my name?”

Milo paused at this, chewed back those words he had all lined up for the show. “Nuh-no, Missus Felder. They all nuh-know it already.”

She nodded at this, like it was what she had been expecting all along. We all breathed a sigh of relief, but half of us were saying something pretty foul with that breath, let me tell you. Milo smiled a little wobbly smile and got with the shuffling again until he was all good and ready.

This time he got three words into the patter—three perfect words, three flawless, ordinary, magical words—

Then: “Aren’t you going to ask me where I’m from?”

Milo shook his head, and his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. His hands missed the cards and three of them went flying out: an eight of spades, a red jack, and the two of diamonds. Milo tried snatching them out of the air, but he missed with those little hands of his and they fluttered like white doves to the grass.

He placed the deck down steadily on the card table, and all the while Missus Felder was watching him with a look as wide and innocent as his own. There was a hush. We all knew something was coming. The kid knew something was coming. The kid was the kind of kid born with enough sense to know when something was coming but not enough to figure how to get out of the way. We could see the poor kid’s hands were trembling. He stooped to grab the cards, and as he was stooping, off slid that the black magician’s hat.

Missus Felder was faster than a rattler. Like lightning striking or tragedy.

The hat was in her hand then. She was holding it up to the audience. She was squinting at the inside of the brim of it.

“My boy,” she said, squinting away, “my boy, it seems as if you’ve dropped this.”

Milo straightened up right away with only the red jack in his hands. He was staring at the hat. He was staring at Missus Felder.

“Aww, c’mon,” someone whispered in the audience; we didn’t know who, but we loved that person.

“Come now, Milo, we can’t have the magician without his hat, can we?”

Milo didn’t move. No one moved. No one dared to. Only the breeze tickling at the edges of his star-spattered cape.

“Come here, boy. Now.” Her voice cracked like a whip. Milo couldn’t ignore it. None of us could ignore it, our feet itched to stand. Ellie Hawley went so far as taking that first step forward before she caught hold of herself and paused.

Milo, though, he was too young to know better. He had been trained to obey voices like Missus Felder’s. He was stepping forward, he was stepping forward, and there—he was forward, he was just in front of her, and she was putting down the hat, she was resting it gently on his head, and she was tugging just so at the brim to set it straight.

And she was tugging at it.

And down came the hat an inch farther.

And down came the hat another inch.

She was still tugging at it, still smiling like she was doing a favour for Milo, but none of us could see his face anymore. The hat was past his nose. The hat was past his mouth. The hat was past his chin, but Missus Felder just kept tugging it down and down and down. Now his shoulders were gone, and it was taking the boy up into it, Milo, he was just disappearing into the hat, disappearing to his knees and his shin and his ankles until the hat was resting on the ground.

Missus Felder blinked as if she was confused. She blinked as if she didn’t understand what had happened. Then she picked up the hat. Quizzical. She held it out to the audience, showed us all the inside and it was empty. Perfectly empty.

“Well,” she said, almost apologetically. “I guess that’s that, then.”

And she stepped off the stage.

The thing about magic is it only works when you let it. It only works when you believe in it entirely, when you give yourself over to it entirely. Magic can only give you a thing you want that badly, that desperately. No one can work magic over you. You can only work magic over yourself.

Cheryl Felder knew something about magic.

There were stories about Cheryl Felder, stories that poor Sandifer kid ought to have known the way that all kids know whose trees not to filch apples from and which backyards shouldn’t be ventured into for Frisbees and baseballs. Some might say that these sorts of stories were nonsense and spoke only to the curmudgeonly tendencies of the grumbles who reside in any town block.

But those people would be dead wrong.

After Sayer disappeared not a single soul spoke, not a bird twittered, not a skirt fluttered in the breeze. You could see those faces, each of them white as snow, white as a snow-woman caught in a melt.

Lillian trembled, but she said nothing.

She watched Missus Felder pluck a crustless tuna fish sandwich off the platter and vanish it with three remorseless bites.

“Could use some cayenne,” she said with a sprung smile, “but all around, fine work, Lillian. Thanks for the show.”

Cheryl Felder knew something about magic, and the biggest trick she knew was that people don’t like messing with it. Messing with magic was like sticking your hand down a blind hole, you never knew if there might be treasure at the bottom or if it might be some rattler’s hole. And all those women, they had something to lose, they had sons of their own, they had husbands, they had pretty hair or blue cotton frocks—something they didn’t want vanished. So after a while each of them stood up and collected leftover plates still piled high with uneaten liquorice strands or oatmeal-raisin cookies and then each of them filed silently past Lillian Sandifer with neither a glance nor a touch nor a whisper of comfort.

Don’t be too hard on them.

They had loved that boy. We had all loved that boy.

They tried to make up for it over the next couple of months, knowing as we all did what a bad time Lillian would be having with that empty room at the top of the stairs, the room filled with arithmetic workbooks and bottle rockets and adventure paperbacks. They dropped off casseroles. Their sons took over the raking of the lawn and the watering of the flowerbeds. Ellie Hawley brought over a fresh-baked apple pie every Sunday. But it was never spoken of, why this neighbourly hospitality was due.

And Missus Felder, she did the same as she had always done. She shopped at the grocery store, squeezing peaches and plums to be sure they were ripe. She got her hair done once a week at the salon at the corner of Broad and Vine.

The missuses of the neighbourhood never spoke to her of it. None could manage it. I wanted to. I did. That little boy had a way of being loved that seemed a brand of magic all his own, but if there was one thing I knew it was that I couldn’t meddle in this.

Once I saw Lillian try, but only once.

This was about three weeks after it had happened. Poor Lillian was looking wasted and fat at the same time, her cheekbones sharp as fishhooks but her chin sagging like a net. Joe had gone on one of his business trips out of town, leaving her by her lonesome for the big old holiday weekend. All the ladies of the Hollow were bringing out bowls of punch and wobbling gelatine towers filled with fruit and marshmallows, while the children lit up Burning Schoolhouses and Big Bertha firecrackers. There was a fizzy feeling to the air on those kinds of days, as it exploded with pops and whistles and sparks and the smell of hamburger sizzling on the grill.

Missus Felder, she came out too for the block party and she brought with her a bowl of plump, red strawberries. She set them up at the end of her driveway on a little wooden table with a lace cloth thrown over, and she handed them out to kiddies as they whizzed by.

Now she was trimming the hats off them, one by one. Snip! A little stalk and a flourish of leaves went skidding onto the sidewalk. Snip!

And there was Lillian standing in front of her, trembling, thin-boned, in a yellow print dress that made her skin seem old as last year’s newspaper.

“Please,” Lillian said. Just that. Just that word.

“Careful,” said Missus Felder, never looking up, her fingers dusted white to the knuckle as she pinched strawberries out and laid on the confectionery sugar. “You’ll spoil your make-up if you keep up with that. You’ve too pretty a face for tears and if I’m not wrong there’s others around here that’d be willing to hook that husband of yours. A nice man, Joe. A handsome man. He deserves a pretty wife.”

Lillian didn’t say anything. Her lips trembled. They were chapped and unrouged, and maybe she was wondering why she hadn’t put a touch of red on them. Missus Felder plucked up another strawberry and she looked at it carefully.

“You’re a beautiful woman, Lillian, and children wear you out. They trample the roses of youth, leave a woman like some tattered thing hanging out on the clothesline. Let the boy go. He was ungrateful, selfish. Have another one if it’s in your heart to do so, but let that one go.”

“But he’s my son, Cheryl. Please.”

“Son or no son.” Now Missus Felder sighed a worn-out, old sigh as if the weather had gotten into her bones and really, she was just an old woman, why was she being troubled with this? “Do as you like, Lillian. But I’ll tell you for nothing that some children are best let go.”

And that was that.

The last flickers of September’s heat burned out in the flood of a ravenous, wet November that shuttered the windows and played havoc with the shingles; by the time December whispered in, we were all thankful for it. All of us except for Lillian Sandifer.

There were some women who could take a loss and find their own way through, but Lillian, bless her, had had an easy life. Joe was everything you ought to have in a husband. He treated her gently. He brought her back fine cotton sheets from Boston, dresses and trinkets, a music box, a tiny wind-up carousel. Lillian loved all beautiful things. She had come as close to a life without loss as one can. But when December blew in—an easy December, full of light snows and bright silver days—it was like she took all the harshness, the cold, the cutting, fractured freeze into herself, and she let it break her.

And then we all saw the snowman in Missus Felder’s yard.

The snows had been light, as I said, barely enough for a footprint, really, but there it was: round as a turnip at the bottom; a thin, tapering carrot for a nose; two silver dollars for eyes; and a fresh knitted scarf in green and gold hung beneath its hawkish, polar jowls. It was a king snowman, the kind of snowman that children dream about making before their arms give out from pushing the ball around the yard, the kind of snowman that wouldn’t melt until halfway through May.

And on its head was a black chimney-pot hat, creased somewhat at the brim with a red silk ribbon drawn around it to set off its colouring.

A beauty, that hat; gorgeous to the eyes of a child and pure pain to his mother.

I could never do a big thing with magic, and that has always been both a blessing and a curse to me. Oh, there are ways and there are ways, and I know this is true, but the ways have never worked for me. It’s an easy thing to change a boy’s name. It’s a little thing, particularly if it is a thing done kindly, if it is a thing that might be wanted. Then the change comes easily. But I cannot get blood from a stone, nor flesh from bread, nor make healthy a woman who wishes she were sick.

That is the province of my sister. And if it is none of mine to meddle with that greater magic, then it is at least something of mine to meddle with her.

It was a month into the hard end of winter I finally broke my silence.

“You must let the boy go,” I told Cheryl, stepping in out of the cold, stamping my boots off to shed them of the slush that had begun to freeze around the edges. Winter always followed the two of us, winter and spring, summer and autumn, they had their own way about us whether we willed it or no.

“I will not, Minnie…” She paused like the name was bitter to her. “Minnie, they call you. Ha. They have a way with names, don’t they? Marianne. No, Marianne, I cannot.” She closed the door quickly. She hated the cold, kept a thin blanket wrapped around her in the winter. I could see her curved fingers clutching at the edges. Winter turned her into an old woman as surely as summer made her a young one.

I gave her a look. It was not the dark and hooked scowl that came so easily to her face, no, it was a look entirely my own.

“It’s time. It is long past time.”

“Too skinny, and what has that husband of yours got you doing with your hair? I could never abide him, you know.” Her mouth twisted as she looked me up and down

“I know. You could never abide any of them.”

“I abided my own well enough,” she said. “The poor duckling. The little lamb. Let me fetch you some cake.” She did. Tea, as well, the heat of it warming through the bone china cup. Her movements were quick and sharp as a bird’s.

She settled us at the kitchen table. I remembered this house, I knew the ins and outs of it. The gold December light filtered softly through the window, touching a lace cloth, a badly polished silver candle-holder. She never had an eye for the details, no, and this was what came of it.

“Where is the boy, Cheryl?”

She touched her tongue to her lip, scowled something fierce. “You know as well as I do.”

“Let him out.”

“No.”

“They will come to hate us.” I knew she knew this. I could see it in her eyes, in the way she twisted at the lace cloth, but she could be a stubborn old biddy sometimes. “He was a good boy, and it was a small thing,” I said.

“It was not a small thing!” she cried so harshly it took me by surprise, that her voice could go so ugly. So sad. I looked at my sister, and I saw then the thing that they all saw. That missus of nightmares and twisted stories, the hooked woman, the crone; she who devoured baseballs and Frisbees and footballs; she who stole the bright heart of summer and cursed the strawberries to wither on the vine; the son-stealer, the child-killer.

“It was,” I said gently. “You know as well as I do that it was, and it is only spite and pride that keeps you from letting him go.”

“You are a meddler too, Marianne, so mind your tongue,” she muttered but the words stung nonetheless. “No,” Cheryl whispered, chin curved down, and she was retreating, drawing in upon herself. “I know it as well. It was a mistake, all of it, nothing more than that.” She cupped the bone china in her hand and blew on the tea to cool it. “I did not mean for it to happen, you know I did not, I would not do such a thing to a child. To his mother.” She paused, took a sip, eyes hooded, lips twisting. “I know that the woman is dying. I know she will not live through the winter, but I cannot touch her, don’t you see that? Don’t you see, sister? I cannot heal the mother, I cannot summon the child. I cannot force a thing that is not wanted, and the boy will not come out!”

I could see the truth of it written on her face.

She was not a monster, she had never been a monster, and how I wished I could take her in my arms, her frail bones sharp and splintering as a porcupine; how I wished I could whisper the words of comfort to her. But she did not wish to be comforted. Her spine was made of sprung steel. She would not break herself upon this, for she knew what loss was and what mistakes were and the hardness of carrying on anyway. My sister knew this. She had buried a husband she loved. She had cried tears for her own lost boy, and knitted a scarf for him in green and gold, and hung it upon the cold reminder of his body in the yard.

Her fingers twitched, knuckling the bone china cup. I wanted to take her hand, but I knew something of her pride, the pride and the grief and the love of all of us missuses of the Hollow.

“Let us do something,” I say. “Even if it is a small thing.”

It is an easy thing to take a handful of snow and fashion it into a boy, easier than most anyone would believe. Snow longs to be something else. Bread does not wish to be flesh, water does not wish to be wine, stones do not wish to bleed—but snow, snow wishes always to be the thing that is not, a thing that might survive the spring thaw and live out its days whole and untouched. And a boy, a boy who is loved, well, what finer shape is there?

And so we two fashioned it into a shape, and we set the silver dollars for its eyes and we wrote its name upon its forehead. Then, of course, it was not a thing of snow any longer but a thing of flesh: a thing with Milo Sandifer’s bright blue eyes, barely nudging five-feet, and still as tongue-tied as any boy ever was.

“Missus Suh-s-sabatelli,” he whispered, trying out that fresh new mouth of his.

“Yes, boy,” I allowed with a sigh. “That I am. Now get you home to your mother, she’s been calling after you, and don’t you bother her with what you’ve been getting up to. Just give her a kiss, you hear?”

“Right,” the boy said, “Yes, of course. I’ll do that. Thank you, ma’am.”

Already his tongue was working better than poor Milo’s ever did. But it wouldn’t matter none, I reckoned. Missus Felder unwound the scarf from around the king snowman’s neck. The hole in its chest where we had dug out the boy yawned like a chasm. Like Adam’s unknit ribcage.

“Here,” she said, and she wrapped the scarf around Milo. “You ought to keep warm now. Little boys catch cold so easily.”

He blinked at her as if trying to remember something, but then he shrugged the way that little boys do. Then he was off, scampering across lawns and driveways, home to his mother. I looked on after him, staring at the places where his feet had touched the ground, barely making a dent in the dusting of white over the grass.

“What do you reckon?” I asked Cheryl. She’d gone to patting away at her snowman and sealing him up again, eyeless, blinded, a naked thing without that scarf, only the hat on him now, only that gorgeous silk thing to make him a man and not just a lump.

“He’ll last as long as he lasts,” she said with a sniff. “Snow is snow. Even if it wants to be a boy.”

“And Lillian?”

She didn’t speak for a time, and I had to rub at my arms for warmth. For me it had already gone February and the little snowflakes that landed upon my cheeks were crueller things than the ones the other missuses would be feeling as they took their sons and daughters to church.

“Maybe it’s a kindness you’ve done here, and maybe it isn’t.” She wasn’t looking at me. Cheryl couldn’t ever look at you when she was speaking truths. She smoothed the freeze over the place where she drew out the boy, and her fingers were like twigs, black and brittle, against the white of it. “You can’t ever know the thing a person truly wants, but you keep on trying, don’t you? I hope your husband is a happy man, I hope you give him children of your own one day.”

“Well,” I said, but I didn’t know what more to add to that.

She was right, of course, she always was about such things: maybe it was a blessing and maybe it wasn’t, but the boy came home to find his mother curled up in his bed surrounded by arithmetic workbooks and bottle rockets and adventure paperbacks. And he kissed her gently on the forehead, and she looked at him and smiled, her heart giving out, just like that, at the joy of seeing him once again. But the boy had been made good and sweet, and so he wrapped himself in her arms, and he lay next to her until the heat of her had faded away entirely.

That heat.

Poor thing didn’t know any better. But snow is snow, even when it is flesh. A thing always remembers what it was first. When Joe Sandifer came home it was to find his wife had passed on, and from the dampness of the sheets he knew she must have been crying an ocean.

Joe was a good man and a strong man; his fingers were long and graceful. He pulled up the sheet around his wife, and he kissed her gently, and he buried her the following Tuesday. Perhaps it was hard for him for a time; it must have been, for he had loved his wife dearly, and he had lived only to see her smile, but the spring came and went, and then a year, and then another year, and he was not the kind of man who needed wait long for a partner. It was Ellie Hawley in the end, childlike and sweet, whose husband had brought her the blue dress with the raglan sleeves, whose husband had left her behind when he found a Boston widow with a dress that didn’t make it past the knees and legs that went all the way to the floor. Ellie was the one who managed to bring a smile to Joe’s face and to teach him that there were still beautiful things left in the world for a man who had lost both wife and son.

And so it goes.

And it goes and it goes and it goes.

Until one day Milo came back.

“Missus Sabatelli,” he said when I opened the door to him, that bright June Tuesday with the scent of fresh-mown grass drifting through the neighbourhood, nine in the morning, just like he used to.

He was a grown man then, the height of his father, with his father’s good looks and easy smile. A handsome man. The kind of man you’d fall in love with, easy, but the kind of man you’d never know if he loved you back.

“Milo,” I said, and I had to hold on to the doorframe. I was half expecting him to be wearing that star-spattered cloak of his, to chew on his words as if they were gristle in his mouth. But he didn’t.

“Thank you for that kindness,” he said, “but I’m not Milo any longer. I’ve learned a thing or two since then.” I saw then that he was right. Whoever he was, he wasn’t little Milo Sandifer.

“You’ve come back,” I said. I shivered. For him it was June, but for me the wind was already blowing crisp and cool, carrying the smoky scent of September with it. Time was running faster and faster ahead of me.

“Yes,” Sayer said, lingering on that “s” with a lazy smile as if to show me he could do it now and easily at that. “I’ve come home again. Would you mind if I stepped inside, Marianne? I’m not one to gab on porches, and if it’s not too impertinent I could use a cup of coffee something fierce.”

“Of course, boy.”

He chuckled, and the sound was rich and deep and expansive. I stepped aside, and he took off his hat as he came in. Not the hat, of course. The one he wore was an expensive, grey Trilby that matched his expensive, grey suit and his expensive, leather shoes. He followed me into the kitchen: I regretted that I hadn’t had time to clear up properly that morning, but he didn’t seem to mind so much. He said nice, polite things about the colour of the curtains and about the state of things in general, and when he sat it seemed as if he were too big for the chair, as if that chair wanted to hold a small boy in it but had now discovered a man instead. The coffee’s aroma was thick in the air, and I found I could use a cup myself so I poured for both of us, and served it plain. He seemed the sort to take his coffee black.

I was nervous. It had been some time since there had been a man in my house.

“You found your way then?” I asked him.

“I did, ma’am. I surely did.”

“And you know about your mother?”

He smiled, but this time there was something else to the smile. “I do,” he said. “Missus Felder told me of all that, and I’m sorry for it, I suppose. She whispered it to me while I was gone. She cajoled, she begged, and she pleaded. She has a tongue on her could scald boiling water, Missus Felder does, could strip paint off a fence.”

His eyes were bright blue, and surprisingly clear. I wondered if he was lying to me. I could see he had learned how to lie. Like lying was easy and beautiful.

“You didn’t come back for her,” I said.

“I did not.” He paused, and breathed in deep, like he never smelled coffee before and found it the finest thing in the world. “I could say that I was unable.” He glanced at me underneath a fan of handsome eyelashes, quick as a bird. “But you know that’s not true, you know that’s not how magic works, don’t you? I wanted to stay. I wanted to stay, and it didn’t matter. What Missus Felder did—your sister, yes, I know about that—what she did was cruel in its own way, sure, but not in the way you’d think—”

“No, boy,” I cut him off. He looked surprised at that, like he was not used to people cutting him off. I wondered who this new boy was, this boy that Cheryl and I had made. “We figured it out, of course, though it was too late for anything to be done. You were always a boy who was looking for magic, even then, even then you were, and we knew it, Cheryl and I both knew it, but we had hoped it might be a different sort of magic. A kinder sort.”

“But it wasn’t,” he said.

“No, it wasn’t. You found something in there, didn’t you?”

“I did.”

“And you stayed for it.”

“I did.”

“And now?”

“Now I have taken what I need from it,” he said, and he flexed his fingers, long and graceful. They were not the fingers he had when he was a boy, those poor stubby things that couldn’t palm a quarter or pull off a faro shuffle. These were magician’s fingers.

“So I see you have, my boy. Has it done ill for you or aught?”

At this he paused. I could see he wanted to get into his patter now, and it was not the same kind of pause as when he was young, when he knew the word but still it tripped him up; this was a different beast.

“I don’t know,” he said at last. “I want you to tell me. That’s why I’m here, I suppose, Marianne.”

“No one can tell you that, Sayer.”

He took to studying his fingernails. Maybe he learned that trick from Cheryl, not looking at a person. “I think you can. I think you are afraid to tell me.”

A shiver ran down my spine like ice melting. I tried to shake the feeling though.

“No, boy.” He looked up at that word. “Your sense of timing was always characteristically awful. You never learned how to wait for a thing. Don’t you know that? When you try to cheat magic, it just gets worse and worse and worse. What you found in that hat—some sort of secondhand magic I’m reckoning, that piece of truth you were looking for all that time—it’s yours now. It ain’t your daddy’s magic. It ain’t Lillian’s either. Poor, sweet Lillian. You’ve suffered for it, and you’ve caused suffering for it, so it’s yours to own, yours to do with as you will.”

“There is a bad thing coming at the end of this,” Sayer told me. He reached out that long-fingered hand of his, and he touched me on the wrist.

“I know, boy,” I said. “We always know these things. Time’s always racing on for us; even if most other folk can’t see it properly, you can. But, God, the thing we never learned right, Cheryl and I, is that magic is about waiting, it’s about letting the bad things happen. It’s about letting the children pass on into adults, and the mothers grieve, and the fathers lose their way, or find it, and the sons come home again when they are ready to come home. That is the thing you will not have learned in that place you went to, because that is only a thing you can learn out here. What are you going to be, Sayer Sandifer? Why, whatever it is you choose to be. You saw what was coming that day when you invited her up on the stage with you. Boy, there were twenty people out in the audience who loved you, who would have waited with you, who would have helped you get there on your own, but you wanted what she had and so you took it.”

The words were hard stones in my own mouth, but I had chewed them over so long that I had made them round and smooth and true.

“Where is my sister?” I asked him.

“She’s gone now,” Sayer told me, and this time I could tell that he wasn’t lying. I didn’t know what kind of a thing he was, this man drinking his coffee in front of me, this man who had taken power into himself but not knowledge, not wisdom, not the patience of a boy who learns to speak for himself.

“Well,” I said, and the word hung between us.

I felt old. I felt the weight of every summer and winter hanging upon me.

I knew it would only happen if I let it. I knew it would only happen if I wanted it to happen. I knew this just as my sister knew it.

Then Sayer laid down his grey Trilby on the table, and, lo and behold, it was the thing I’d been looking for after all. The hat, the chimney-pot hat. That little piece of secondhand magic. He turned it over so that I could see that yawning chasm inside—the pure blackness of it, deep and terrifying. The place he disappeared to. The place he found his way out of.

“You could marry me,” he said. “You always loved me, and I can see there’s no man about now. Living like that can be awful lonely.”

The words pulled at something inside me. He was right. I was lonely. This life of mine felt old, misshapen, stretched out by the years. But I did not want him. I did not want that stranger. “No,” I said.

He sighed and shook his head like it was my tragedy. My funeral.

“I’m not cruel,” he said to me in that handsome, grown-up voice of his. And he looked at me with eyes wide as two silver dollars, but flat-edged and dull as if the shine had been worn off them by residence in too many dirty pockets. “I swear I’m not trying to be cruel. It’s the world that’s wild and woolly.”

And I knew that magic only worked if you let it. I knew that magic only worked on a thing that wanted it. But I was tired, and I was tired, and I had lost my husband, and I had lost my sister, and I had lost that little boy I loved.

Sayer pushed the hat toward me.

I took it up carefully, studied the dilapidated brim, fingered the soft black silk of it.

And Sayer smiled. Just once.

And then the bad thing happened.

Dale Bailey

THE CULVERT

DALE BAILEY recently published a new collection, The End of the End of Everything, followed by the novel, The Subterranean Season. He has published three previous novels—The Fallen, House of Bones, and Sleeping Policemen (with Jack Slay, Jr.)—and one earlier collection of short fiction, The Resurrection Man’s Legacy and Other Stories.

His work has been a finalist for the Nebula Award, the Shirley Jackson Award, and the Horror Writers Association Bram Stoker Award. The author’s International Horror Guild Award-winning novelette ‘Death and Suffrage’ was adapted for the Showtime Network’s Masters of Horror TV series. He lives in North Carolina with his family.

“As is usually the case,” reveals Bailey, “I have no clear idea where the concept for this story came from. I only knew that I wanted to play with the theme of identity.

“I set myself a technical challenge: since I usually write ‘long’ (novelette or novella length), I wanted to compress the narrative as much as possible, while still maintaining emotional resonance—thus the brief telegraphic bursts which I hoped would communicate the speaker’s inability to face his own sense of grief and loss.

“I can only hope it worked.”

MY BROTHER NEVER had a grave. No funeral service. Not even a real obituary. Just a handful of articles I scissored from the front page of the city’s newspaper when I was thirteen years old. I have them still. I can fan them out like a hand of poker, yellow as old ivory, fragile as pressed flowers: LOCAL BOY GOES MISSING, STILL NO SIGN OF MISSING CHILD, PARENTS CLEARED IN MISSING CHILD CASE.

Soon after the authorities gave up on finding Danny, we moved to a town three hundred miles away. My father retired from a lucrative profession to take a job at a fencing company, wrestling coils of wire. I spent my adolescence there, friendless as a leper. So I learned the shape of loss, its scope and its dimensions.

Danny was exactly two minutes and thirty-two seconds older than I was. Even our mother could not tell us apart.

Grizzled men that smelled of cologne and cigarettes interviewed me in the days after Danny disappeared. Over ice cream. In the park. They seemed impossibly old to me, though I suppose they couldn’t have been much older than I am now. As the years slip by, old age perpetually recedes before you. In our hearts we never change.

Sometimes I dream of the tunnels.

We lay each alike in our twin beds, watching the closet door, ajar like a fissure into the night, our hands crossed atop our chests like dead men, and drew in the same breath and blew it out into the blackness in accidental harmony and whispered to one another almost below the threshold of sound. Sometimes now I wonder if we really spoke at all, if we didn’t have access to one another’s thoughts themselves, if we didn’t share the same geographies of boyish desire.

I’ve drifted from job to job all my life. I suppose it was inevitable that I’d drift back to the city sooner or later. But this barren apartment over an empty storefront doesn’t feel like home.

Did you see your brother get into a stranger’s car? they would ask. Did he have an accident? What happened, Douglas? How was it that I could not recall?

That was the worst thing of all, losing my best friend and my brother in a single blow.

I used to ride my bike to Deet’s Grocery, on the corner of Main and Hickory, to exchange a handful of grubby coins for a hoard of green-apple Jolly Ranchers or Double-Bubble bubble gum, with the riddle inside the wrapper—but it wasn’t the same without Danny. After that I’d hike up to the highway and stare at the cars zipping by, aching to be somewhere, anywhere, else.

We’d stolen flashlights from our father’s toolbox. They felt heavy and reassuring in our hands.

Everything is dead here.

I remember the day we discovered the culvert. Icy rain needled our slickers. Mountains shouldered up around the highway, dun-hued mud squelched underfoot, dank trees turned their leaves to clouds the colour of soured milk. Yellow headlights smeared the mist, the blur of cars rocketing past. The culvert beckoned like a dark eye, cloacal and alluring.

When we were seven years old, we stood naked in front of our bedroom mirror and gazed at the mystery of ourselves, twins twinned. I occasionally find myself before one of those three-panelled department-store mirrors and stare at myself replicated to infinity, wondering which, if any of them, is me.

We fascinated our classmates. Sometimes they ran cool fingers across our face.

Inside the culvert, a flood gushed around our feet, sweeping before it a wrack of clotted leaves and sticks. At the near end, rain hammered the culvert’s concrete apron; at the far, an ashen circle of light disclosed an arm of deeply forested mountain. As our eyes adjusted to the silky darkness in between, a rift of more tenebrous gloom summoned itself into being: a cleft just wide enough to slide through sidewise. We felt its clammy breath upon our face. The dark seemed suddenly ominous and strange.

I haven’t thought of them in years, those bikes. After Danny disappeared, his leaned untouched on its kickstand in the garage for months. Then we moved, and I never saw it again.

I remember the sky, a soulless arc bleached the colour of bone by the heat.

In the glare of the flashlights, the culvert unveiled itself: moss grown and functional, without beauty. Half an inch of coffee-black water stood in its leaf-choked channel, emitting a rich, peaty stench. Shadows fled before us like flights of bats. Traffic thundered overhead. The dread of underground places, the burden of the planet bearing down upon us.

That was the summer of our thirteenth birthday.

The cleft was choking, claustrophobic. Four or five feet of sliding sideways, sucking in your belly, your head wrenched to one side. It narrowed until we thought we could neither pass nor return. Panicked, we strained forward. Abruptly, the walls fell back. Darkness cradled and embraced us.

My parents fell silent in the months after Danny disappeared. I think his loss broke something inside them. They had a way of looking past me, like they were looking for the part of me that wasn’t there.

The sweep of our flashlight beams revealed a perfectly arched atrium a dozen feet in circumference. A dry, level floor. Twin archways that opened into intersecting corridors. We shone our flashlight into each of them. Black and unrelenting, they gave nothing to the light.

I’ve been divorced three times.

I remember my father’s work-thickened knuckles, nicked and scarred with the dozens of tiny wounds inflicted by coils of wire.

We chose the left-hand way.

The tunnel spiralled deep into the earth. Cold pimpled our skin and frosted our breath. The air smelled of stone and time. Our sneakers scuffed the floor, unleashing choruses of whispers. The gravity of the tunnels drew us inexorably downward. The enchantment of the secret and the subterranean.

Deet’s Grocery is gone. There is little commerce here anymore, just blocks of abandoned storefronts, windows soaped over, sun-faded FOR LEASE signs taped up outside. Traffic swishes by in the mountains above the valley. Few cars renounce the highway to descend into these empty streets. I will leave this city soon. There is nothing for me here.

Still the passage spiralled down, deeper, deeper, until at last, impossibly, it deposited us through the neighbouring tunnel into the arched atrium where we had begun.

We celebrated our thirteenth birthday at a restaurant that catered to children. I can’t remember how many of our schoolmates attended, but I still recall the red bunting our parents draped around the room where dinner was to be served. A clown ushered us screaming into a towering maze of plastic ducts where we chased one another breathless. Afterward, our father distributed tokens for skee-ball and video games. We measured our winnings in tongues of extruded tickets, and traded them for plastic trinkets at a counter manned by bored teenagers. We ate two slices of pizza at dinner and shared a single chocolate-glazed cake with thirteen candles. We blew them out together, as though we had not lived twenty-six full years between us.

We chose the right-hand path. It spiralled ever upward. Surely it must soon pass beyond the asphalt surface of the highway into the daylit world beyond. Yet it did not. It spilled us into the atrium instead. This time we emerged from the left-hand tunnel. We turned back to follow it a hundred yards or so, and found that it descended as far as we could see.

Like all children, we had our secret lives. We orbited a star of our own, as isolate and self-sufficient. Secrets were our watchword, lies our sigil of conspiracy.

We rarely spoke of the tunnels. But at night in our dark bedroom, with the closet door ajar like a portal into a labyrinth, we shared the same uneasy dreams.

The tunnels were utterly silent.

At the party, my mother knelt to hug me. Tears glinted in her eyes. When she drew me close to whisper in my ear, her voice broke. It’s so hard to see you grow up, Danny, she said. Her embrace was suffocating.

Time did not pass there. No matter how long we spent exploring the maze of corridors, when we emerged once again from that fissure in the concrete, the world was unchanged. The sun shot its rays at the same angle into the culvert’s mouth. Stepping out into the air, we saw the same clouds hanging unmoved in the same blue and depthless sky.

We used to test our mother. I’m Danny, I would say, and Danny would respond, No, I’m Danny, you’re Doug, and You’re Danny and I’m Doug, and so on, until finally we could not be certain even ourselves which of us was who.

One morning we squeezed through the cleft to discover an even dozen arch-ways radiating from the atrium. By then we’d procured supplies for exploring the corridors: sweatshirts against the cold, knapsacks to carry spare batteries, a snack, a thermos of our mother’s tea. And though we’d grown confident that all paths circled back to the atrium by some mechanism we could not understand, we did not that day care to venture the dark.

After that, we used red spray paint to blaze the walls with arrows, like Hansel and Gretel scattering breadcrumbs to mark their way.

I parked in the gravel turnout where Danny and I had once stashed our bikes and climbed toward the highway. I heard it before I saw it: the rumble of behemoth trucks downshifting on the long grade out of the mountains, the tyre-hiss of cars darting among them, nimble as pilot fish. I scrambled up the final slope, digging for purchase, and stood at the guard-rail, watching the traffic slip eternally past.

Our mother insisted that we dress identically. Even afterward, she shopped in duplicates.

We were too old for that kind of party.

I had trouble finding the culvert. I had to work my way through dense brush before I stumbled upon the drainage ditch that paralleled the highway. I walked alongside it for fifteen minutes, studying the embankment. Even then I almost missed it. A thicket of weeds and junk trees had sprung up in the stony breakwater below its concrete apron, obscuring the culvert’s black and abiding eye.

The last time we pushed through the crevice, there was but a single archway in the atrium. The tunnel beyond was broader than any we’d yet taken. As we walked, it broadened still, so that we could no longer touch the walls with our outstretched hands. After a long time, it steered us into an immense square. An elaborate fountain—angels with trumpets, long dry—stood in the centre, Italianate buildings and arcades to either side. Winding streets branched off here and there, lined with vacant shops. If there was a ceiling, our flashlight beams could not reach it.

That was the day after our thirteenth birthday.

We crossed the square and took a narrow street. At each intersection we marked our way. Meandering alleys delivered us into lavish piazzas, endless colonnades, stately domes and galleries: the city of our dreams.

I stood at the mouth of the culvert, knuckles nicked and scarred from the climb. Ducking my head, I stepped inside. Nothing had changed. The same half-inch of stagnant water, the ruin of rotting leaves.

Danny! I called. Danny! The culvert shouted back at me in diminishing echo, until it no longer sounded like a name at all.

We walked the cobbled streets and after a time they became the same streets, crowded and narrow, with the same turnings of the way and the same buildings leaning over them and the same fathomless sky between. Time and again we found ourselves in the same square with the same ornate fountain at the centre. No matter how many forking paths we took away from that place, they always led us back.

When I took my first college girlfriend home to meet my parents, she studied the photos of my brother and me that my mother had propped in their dozens around the house. I didn’t know you had a brother, she said. I didn’t know you were a twin. We broke up six months later.

How long we wandered that labyrinthine city, I cannot say. We ate the last of our snacks on a balcony overlooking that central plaza, we drank the last of our tea. Exhaustion took us. We slept curled together in the anteroom of an opulent palace, and woke unrested, to terror and despair.

I remember a time my father took my mother in his arms. I want to know what happened to him, she wept.

I must have slipped ahead of Danny—a few steps, half-a-dozen yards or so, no more, that is all I can know or surmise. But when I turned to find him, a maze of branching streets intersected where before there had been but a single way. My brother was gone. The red arrows had evaporated. Jackdaws had eaten our crumbs.

I have studied the blueprints for the city’s drainage system. The highway sweeps out of the mountains far above. There are no tunnels there.

They are there. They are.

No photos of me without Danny adorn my parents’ house.

How long I sought my brother among those shifting streets, I do not know. I called for him until I grew hoarse. But the city’s acoustics betrayed me: my voice boomed back at me down empty avenues and across abandoned courtyards. His name sounded like any other name.

Sometimes I think of all the things Danny never got to do.

She was a pretty girl, lithe and blonde. I can’t remember her name.

The way narrowed, the city fell behind me. I descended a cramped defile, the arched ceiling close above me. It wound finally back to the atrium. Twin tunnels converged there. The fissure cleaved the stone on the other side. Danny! I called, Danny! The corridors threw my voice back at me, the name indistinct; it could have been any name. It could have been mine.

Perhaps he was waiting for me on the other side, I recall thinking as I squeezed through the crevice, but he was not there. When I turned to look behind me, the fissure was gone.

Three times I walked the culvert end to end. Two dozen times I have walked it since. The walls are smooth and uninterrupted. If there is a crevice in its concrete length, I cannot find or see it.

I will never leave this city.

I wish I’d never had a brother. Sometimes I think I never did.

Two of us went in. Only one of us came out. And dear God, I don’t know if it was me.

Richard Gavin

THE PATTER OF TINY FEET

RICHARD GAVIN has authored four volumes of supernatural fiction—Charnel Wine, Omens, The Darkly Splendid Realm and At Fear’s Altar—with a fifth collection due in 2016. His stories have been selected for several “Year’s Best” anthologies and have been translated into Finnish, Italian and French.

In 2015 he co-edited (with Daniel A. Schulke and Patricia Cram) Penumbrae: An Occult Fiction Anthology. His esoteric writings include the study The Benighted Path: Primeval Gnosis and the Monstrous Soul and various essays, and he has also published poetry and examinations of the horror genre. He lives in Ontario, Canada.

“I have always been something of a searcher after horror,” explains the author. “Wayfaring through neglected locales is one of my greatest pleasures. One summer evening, some twenty years ago now, I was enjoying an off-trail hike with a friend when we happened upon an abandoned house. It was so decrepit it seemed ancient. There was no door in the doorframe, no glass in the window apertures.

“Much like my protagonist, my companion and I let our enchantment get the better of us and we brazenly (perhaps foolishly) explored the house inside and out. Fortunately our discoveries were far less dramatic than those in my story. Nevertheless, I vividly recall how unworldly the house seemed, with the smears of dried mud and curled leaves carpeting its floorboards, and the morose patches of floral wallpaper that tenaciously clung to the water-damaged walls.

“What struck me most indelibly was how incongruous the house appeared, standing there surrounded by untamed wilderness. Though the landscape had undoubtedly changed in the decades since the house had served as someone’s home, I couldn’t shake the notion of an utterly isolated abode being deliberately built where there were no roads, footpaths, or farming fields in sight.

“This concept remained with me until it finally shone through my writer’s lens as ‘The Patter of Tiny Feet’.”

AGAINST HIS BETTER judgement Sam stopped the car and allowed his smart phone to connect with Andrea’s. The ear-piece purled enough times to allow him to envision Andrea sitting smugly cross-armed, eyeing her vibrating phone, ignoring his extension of the olive branch. Choking back the indignation he still believed was truly righteous, Sam obeyed the recorded instructions and waited for the tone.

“Hi, it’s me,” he began, trying not to be distracted by the escarpment’s belittling sprawl of glacial rock and ancient forests. “Look, I’m sorry I stormed out like that. It was childish of me, I admit. I’m happy about your promotion, I truly am, it’s just…well…I suppose I was a little shocked by how much your new position alters our plans.” He was lecturing again. Andrea had accused him of it often enough. Was he also being high-handed, as she liked to claim?

“Anyhow, I really do have some scouting to do, that wasn’t a lie. But I wanted to call you before I got too far out and lost the signal. I’ve got my equipment in the car with me. I’m going to snap a few locations just to get Dennis off my back. I should be back in a few hours, so hopefully we can talk more then. Don’t worry, I’m not going to try and get you to change your mind about anything. I…I guess I just need to know that a family’s not completely off the table for us. It doesn’t have to be tomorrow, but at some point in the not too distant future I’d…”

He could feel himself babbling. Already his first few statements had grown hazy; he winced at their possible fawning stupidity.

“I’ll see you when I get home. Love you lots.”

The jeep that was scaling the mountain behind him gave Sam an unpleasant start when he spotted its swelling reflection in his rear-view mirror. The deafening beat of its stereo, no doubt worth more than the vehicle itself, caused the poorly folded maps on Sam’s dashboard to hum and vibrate as though they were maimed birds attempting to flap their crumpled wings. The jeep rumbled past and the girl in its passenger seat was whooping and laughing a shrill musical laugh that Sam half believed was directed at him. He started his engine and cautiously veered back onto Appleby Line to resume his half-hearted search for a paragon of terror.

He’d not been lying about the mounting pressure from Dennis, a director who possessed the eccentricities and ego of many legendary cineastes, but completely lacked their genius. After helming two disastrous made-for-television teen comedies Dennis broke off to form his own minuscule film production company, Startling Image. Freak luck had furnished his operation with a grant from the Ontario Film Board, which Dennis said he planned to stretch as far as it could go. His scheme was to produce shoestring-budget horror films that would be released directly to DVD. Dennis believed this plot was not only foolproof but, in fact, an expressway to wealth and industry prestige.

Although Sam’s experience in movie-making allowed him to see the idiocy of Dennis’s delusions, being a freelancer required Sam to accept any jobs that came his way during leaner times. Location Manager was an impressive title on paper, but with anorexic productions such as Gnawers, Startling Image’s inaugural zombie infestation film, Sam found himself working twice as hard for a third of his usual compensation. He was contracted for a major Hollywood studio film that was going into production in Toronto next spring and had only accepted Dennis’ offer in order to bring in some extra money. The draconian hours, the director’s tantrums, and the risible script for Gnawers would have all been worth it had Andrea kept her word.

But now it seemed there would be no need to furnish their guest bedroom with a crib and rocking chair and a chiming mobile on the ceiling. Instead there would only be Andrea’s customary seven-day workweeks, her quarterly bonuses spent on ever-sleeker gadgets and more luxurious clothing. Sam’s wants were simple: to know the pleasures of progeny, fatherhood, to watch someone born of love and blessed with love growing up and sequentially awakening to all the wonders of life. His grandfather had advised Sam years ago that there comes a time in every man’s life when all he wants is to hear the patter of tiny feet.

Now thirty-eight, Sam had come to appreciate the wisdom of the cliché, and also the cold sorrow of realising that this natural desire might shrivel up unfulfilled. What then? Sunday afternoon cocktails with Andrea’s fellow brokers, with him chasing an endless string of movie gigs until, perhaps, he could found a company of his own?

Only when the car began to chug and lurch in an attempt to scale the road’s sudden incline did Sam realise he’d allowed his foot to ease off the gas pedal. He stomped down on it, and the asthmatic sounds the engine released made him wince. This far up the escarpment, well past the Rattlesnake Point Conservation Area, the road hosted surprise hairpin turns that required a driver’s full alertness. Sam shook the cobwebs from his head and willed his focus on the narrow road before him.

Had he not been so determined to exceed Dennis’ expectations, Sam might have let the peripheral image pass by unexplored. But his determination to prove his worth, now not only to Dennis but also to Andrea (maybe even to himself as well), inspired Sam to edge his car onto the nearest thing the narrow lane had to a shoulder. He gathered his hip-bag and exited the vehicle. With eyes fixated on the alluring quirk in the landscape, he began to climb the rocky wall that fed off the laneway.

The stiff pitch of a shingled roof was what had commanded his attention after a rather long and uneventful drive around the escarpment. It jutted up, all tar shingles and snugly carpentered beams, amidst the leafless knotty tree-line. As he climbed upward and then began to wriggle across the inhospitable terrain, Sam questioned the housetop’s reality. Had his anxious state conspired with his imagination to impress a structure where one could not be?

A few more cautious footsteps were all that was required to confirm the substance of his glimpse.

It was a wooden-frame house whose two storeys might have sprouted stiffly from the overgrown rockery that ringed its base. Blatantly abandoned, Sam couldn’t help but note how the house’s battered walls, punctured roof, and boarded windows did not convey the usual faint melancholy or eeriness that most neglected homes do. Instead, there was an air of what might be called power. Sam wondered if the house had drawn strength from its solitude, become self-perpetuating, self-sufficient, like the mythical serpent that sustains itself by devouring its own tail.

The site was so tailored to his wishes that for a moment Sam almost believed in providence. Lugging the film crew’s equipment up and along this incline would be arduous, but he was confident that it would be worth the extra effort. Given the anorexic budget for Gnawers, even Dennis could not balk at the richness of this location.

The place was almost fiendishly apt. They would have to bring generators here to power the equipment, and a survey of the house would be required to gauge its safety hazards, but it could work. More than work; it could shine.

As he entered the clearing where the farmhouse stood, Sam lifted his hands to frame his view in a crude approximation of a camera lens. Yet this simple gesture was enough to transform his roaming of the derelict grounds into a long and elaborate establishing shot. One by one he took in the set-pieces that may well have been left there just for him: the crumbling stone steps that led up to the empty doorframe, the rust-mangled shell of a tractor that slumped uselessly at the head of the gravel clearing, the wind-plucked barn whose arches resembled the fossilised wings of a prehistoric bird of prey. It was glorious, perfect.

Sam wished he had someone there to share it with. But surely Andrea would not draw as much pleasure from this as he did. Her interest in movies extended only as far as attending the local premieres of any productions Sam had worked on. Beyond that, Andrea’s world revolved around crunching numbers for her clients.

For a cold moment Sam imagined one day teaching his son or daughter the thrill of seeking out the special nooks of the world. For Sam, movies were secondary. Their presentation invariably paled against the sparkling wonder of discovering the richly atmospheric settings that often hide out from the rambling parade of progress: art deco bars, grand old theatres, rural churches, and countless other places like this very farm.

He fought back the wring of depression by freeing the camera from his hip-bag and beginning to snap photos of the potential set. Moving around to the rear of the house chilled Sam, even though the April sun was still pouring modest warmth on the terrain. Perhaps the sight of the high shuttered room unnerved him. Regardless, it would make an excellent shot in Gnawers. With this many possibilities Sam’s mind began to thrum with startling revisions that could be made to the script.

A wooden well sat at the edge of the property, mere inches from the untamed forest. Sam approached it, struck by just how crude it was. The surface had not even been sanded. It still bore the mossy flaking bark of the tree from which it had been hewn. Sam might have mistaken it for the stump of a great evergreen had the mouth of the stout barrel not been secured with a large granite slab that was held in place by ancient-looking ropes. Or were they vines?

Regardless, the well or cistern could have been part of the topography, for it did not look fashioned in any way, merely capped. It was as if a massive log had been shoved down into the mud. Its base was overgrown with weeds so sun-bleached they resembled nerves.

Sam frowned at the thought of how its water might taste.

The house had no back door, so Sam hastened his way to the open door-frame that faced the incline, excited by the prospect of the house’s interior.

The forest had shared its debris with the main hall. The oiled floorboards were carpeted with broken boughs and leaves and dirt. Sam clicked several shots of the living room with its lone furnishing of a broken armchair, of the pantry that was lined with dusty preserves, of the kitchen with its dented wood stove.

To his mind he’d already collected more than ample proof that this location would suit the film, but just to cross every “T”: a few quick shots of the second storey. After that he would go back home. He had a strange and sudden need to snuggle up to Andrea, in a well-lit room, with the world held at bay beyond locked doors.

Something in the way the main stairs creaked underfoot gave Sam pause. He came to question whether the house was truly abandoned after all. It must have been the echo of the groaning wood, but the sound managed to plant the idea that the upper floor was occupied.

“Hello?” he called, only scarcely aware of the fact that his hand had begun fishing one of the contracts for location use out of his hip-bag. Drawing some absurd sense of security from the legal papers in his fist, Sam scaled the steps, listening all the while for noises that never managed to overpower his own.

An investigation of the first two rooms revealed precious little beyond more dust, greater decay. Sam’s discovery of a dismantled crib in the front bedroom did summon a lump in his throat. Why should he be so moved by so banal an image—slatted wood stacked in a corner? No doubt because he and Andrea would likely never have to do the same in their home.

His emotions were running unbridled, a delayed response to his argument with Andrea. One last room and then home to see if his own desire for a family could be rescued or simply left to erode until his heart became as rotted and hollow as this house.

The final room sat behind a door that was either locked or merely stuck in a moisture-warped jamb. Amidst the gouges on its surface was a carving of a humanoid figure dancing upon what Sam assumed was intended to be a tomb. In place of a head the figure bore an insect with thin legs represented by jagged slashes in the door wood. Beneath this glyph the word SEPA had been scratched.

Sam wriggled the iron doorknob until frustration and mounting curiosity impelled him to wrench it, slamming his weight against the door itself.

If the owner had secured the door with a lock, it had snapped under Sam’s moderate force. Still, Sam allowed a quick pang of guilt to pass through and punish him for the damage he’d wrought. But really, who would ever discover it?

The window in the room was half-covered by planks, but poor workmanship did not allow the wood to block out the light or protect the grimy glass. A cursory glance led Sam to believe that this room has been used for storage, for there were more items here than in all the other rooms combined: a long table, a wall-mounted shelf upon which books and what looked to be little wooden toys or figurines had been set, even a thin cot mattress carpeting the far corner. Bulging black trash bags were heaped along the wall. Sam daringly peeked into one of the open hems, discovering a bundle of old clothing, men’s and women’s both, wadded up in a gender-bending tangle.

All the items in the room suddenly quilted themselves together in Sam’s mind, forming a larger picture that suggested the house was someone’s home. He felt his bones go as cold and stiff as pipes in midwinter. Fear had bolted him to the spot. He listened, cursing himself for lumbering through the house so brazenly, so noisily.

Ribbons of sunlight poured in between the askew planks. Sam’s gaze followed them as they seemed to spotlight the coating of dust that covered the mattress, the rodent droppings that littered the brownish pillow. The table reposed under streamers of cobweb and the titles on the book spines were occluded by dirt. A bedroom or squatter’s den it might have been, but no longer. Sam exhaled loudly with relief.

After three or four shots of the room he indulged himself by stealing a few pictures of the neglected items: first the grubby bed, then the desk, and finally the items that lined the bowing shelf.

He regretted blowing on the row of books once the dust mushroomed up, flinging grit into his eyes and choking him. When the cloud settled Sam squinted his runny eyes at the spines: The Egyptian Book of the Dead, De Vermis Mysteriis, The Trail of the Many-Footed One. Leaning against these clothbound books was what looked to be a photo album or scrapbook. Sam carefully shifted this volume to face him and pulled back its plain brown leather cover.

Photographs that looked to have been torn from entomology textbooks were sloppily pasted next to Egyptian papyri that, if the ugly hand-written footnotes were to be trusted, all dealt with an Egyptian funerary god named Sepa. There were also sepia-toned photographs of tiny churchyards. Some of the graves appeared upset. Repeated misspelled notes praised the Guardian of the Larvae of the Dead. Upon one of the pages was a poem in faded pencil scrawling:

Arise O Lord of the Larvae of the Dead! Burrow! Race! Appear! Your tendrils drip with dew from the caverns of Hades, the jewelled filth from Catacombs of Ptolemais, & the great silent dark that holds fast between the worlds. Glut on the meat of the temporal realm so that I may gain yet one more day of life above the tombs!

Sam closed the cover and wiped his fingers on his jacket. His attempt to return the scrapbook to its perch was made sloppy by his unsteady hand. Something fell from the shelf and landed on the table with a clunk. Not wanting to touch anything else in the room, Sam tugged his jacket sleeve down to protect his hand while he lifted the Mason jar from the tabletop. Whatever the brownish substance was inside, it certainly had heft. Sam rotated the jar slowly, trying to discern its contents without truly wanting the answer. He took a step toward the window. Through the boards he could see the capped well, looking much like an ugly coin lying within the weedy lawn.

Holding the jar up to the light, Sam saw enough to suggest that what it held was indeed a wad of centipedes preserved in some sludgy liquid. His stomach turned, and he quickly returned the jar to the shelf. Next to it Sam noticed what looked to be a wooden phallus. But this sexual aid was spiked with a number of toothpick legs. He did not bother to count them.

Shock was the only force that retarded Sam. Had his brain not registered the sight of the closet door opening, had his eyes not caught the suggestion of the shape in the darkened alcove, he would have run wildly, been out of this house, been racing through the sunlit woods, his car keys in his fist.

But the image of the seated cadaver was strange enough, stunning enough, to momentarily stifle Sam’s instinct to flee. Its flesh was the colour of fresh concrete, causing it to glow like greying embers within the lightless closet. The legs were spindle-thin and the chest was sunken. Its head was obscured by a cowl of some kind.

What an awful way to be interred, Sam thought. He marvelled at how the mind almost short-circuits when its limitations are exposed.

When the figure suddenly rose and bounded into the room it was clear it had not been left to rot in some locked farmhouse room. It had been waiting in the closet, like an ascetic in a confessional. Its face was shaded by what looked to be a flowing habit of fringed brown leather that crackled as the figure advanced, sounding like something dry, something moulted.

Sam wondered if he had stumbled into one of the improved scenes he’d been imagining.

But in the movies the dead do not move this quickly.

In a swift and seamless motion the monkish figure reached into one of the piled trash bags, causing it to tip. The bones it held clattered out onto the dusty floor like queerly shaped dice. The skulls stared with grinning indifference as the figure clutched Sam with one hand, while the other raised the chunky femur and brought it down like a primitive club. Sam never even had time to scream.

The pain in the back of his skull woke Sam and also played havoc with his perceptions. What else could explain the presence of the moon or the fact that everything else around him had been swallowed by darkness?

He pressed his hands down on the cushiony surface beneath him and slowly, achingly, pushed himself upright before slumping right back down again. The air was frigid and damp. He could see his breath forming ghosts on the blackness. Confusion over where he was gave way to a sharp panic as memories of the farmhouse shuffled their way back into Sam’s consciousness like cards being dealt: the tomes and the symbols and the grey attacker…

With an unsteady hand Sam prodded his trouser pockets, pleading silently that his smart phone was still there. It was, though its screen was cracked. He mashed at it with bloodless fingers, trying to connect with the world by any means possible. But the device’s only use was as a source of weak glowing light. Its graphics were but a smear of colour.

Sam waved the phone about like a torch. What it illuminated was an upright tunnel of textured wood. Grubs and clumped soil dangled here and there. The atmosphere was uncomfortably moist.

The well…

Craning his aching head, Sam watched as clouds scuttled across the moon’s face and he wondered how long he had been down here. The light on his phone began to flicker like a guttering candle.

Another shadow suddenly blocked the moon. This one did not pass but instead stretched across the crude mouth of the well.

The figure that was bent over the rim then made a gesture.

Only after Sam had screamed out “Help me! Please!” did he conclude that this shadowy visitor must be the man who’d attacked him.

Words came down the chute, ricocheting off the wooden walls. They were indecipherable, guttural, almost inhuman. Whether there was meaning to them or whether it was merely the vibration of the alien voice, the ground began to shift in response to the stimuli. And soon Sam felt himself being flung as the cushioned base upon which he’d been lying began to rise and scale the side of its den.

It was immense. Sam foolishly wondered how long it must have taken his attacker to find a log large enough to shelter such a creature. By the moon’s pallor-glow Sam could just see the man raising his arms to imitate the flailing mandibles of the great scuttling thing that bucked its head in mirror-perfect mimicry of these gestures. The barbarous words were now being bellowed in a euphoric tone. Their rhythm matched the clacking of the thick stingers that parted and shut on the insect’s rump.

Horror and irony besieged Sam in a great steely wave. He could only listen to the sound he’d so longed to hear: the patter of tiny feet. Only this time they were multiplied a hundredfold. Sam almost laughed, and a second later his light went out.

Ron Weighell

THE FOUR STRENGTHS OF SHADOW

RON WEIGHELL lives in Horndean, Hampshire, with his wife Fran. Published story collections include The White Road, The Irregular Casebook of Sherlock Holmes, Tarshishim and Summonings.

A novella, ‘The Chapel of Infernal Devotion’, was recently been published in the Sarob Press anthology Romances of the White Day: Stories in the Tradition of Arthur Machen. He is currently working on another novella for a follow-up volume from the same publisher, and is engaged in the Sisyphean task of trying to get The White Road reprinted.

“‘The Four Strengths of Shadow’ reflects an interest in Cabinets of Curiosities, macabre holy relics and Venetian Renaissance books,” Weighell reveals. “It is informed by many hours seeking out the secret gardens, hidden water gates and old libraries of Venetian palazzi.”

THE STORM, WHICH had been prowling the lagoon all morning, fell with a roar upon Venice just as Summers alighted at the fondamenta of Ca’ Mortensa. As he raced the rain to the marble encrusted water gate, he saw Signor Bramanti waiting for him, his bulk dwarfed by winged lions of corroded bronze that flanked the entrance. A cordial shaking of hands, a gesture of mock despair to the heavens, and Bramanti led the way into the Andron.

Skirting an ancient well head, they climbed a winding marble stair into the Portego, an echoing space that ran the depth of the building. It was floored with terrazzo, its walls decorated with once exquisite architectural features in stucco, now crumbling into picturesque ruin. The space struck cold, but not, Summers noted with relief, particularly damp.

Having been told that Ca’ Mortensa was unoccupied, he was surprised when a door opened and a woman every bit as round as Bramanti, but resplendent in a flowing gown, and what looked like a fright wig of bright red hair, began to shout in a dialect too thick for Summers to follow. Two pairs of short, fat arms waved madly in the air as Bramanti shouted back. At length the woman withdrew with a parting curse. Bramanti shook his head.

“I must apologise, Signor Sommer, this woman, she was the—compagno—of the Contessa who was the last occupant. This woman, she should go, she has no right to be here, but here the Law! Festina Lente—make haste slowly, as they say. She is convinced we have come to steal the Contessa’s things.” He grimaced, and gave a shivering shrug, as if the woman’s belief was a contamination of which he must rid himself.

Summers nodded. He was all too familiar with the myth of that last descendant of a noble line, withdrawn into a single room of the palazzetto, holding court among the remnants of her art collection in a huge gondola bed, her growing bulk swathed in Fortuny fabrics, tangled mane covering her pillows. Her companion had evidently adopted the same uniform, down to the untended hair.

“Well you can inform her that I am here only to research the life of Sigismondo Mortensa. The Contessa, or any other past occupant of the house, is of no interest to me. By the way, no one recognised the name of this place when I gave it to the taxi men. I got here by describing the location, but they kept calling it something else.”

“Ca’ Maledetto—accursed, damned.” Bramanti flushed and examined the floor. “It is a local name—no doubt because the fortunes of the Mortensa family have fallen so low.” He led the way into a shuttered space haunted by melancholy, contemplative ghosts of marble and bronze. The walls were decorated with panels cut from ancient Roman sarcophagi, reinforcing the sepulchral atmosphere.

Bramanti seemed to read Summer’s thoughts. “I will of course have the rooms aired and a heater brought for you. No fires, I am afraid. We must be strict about such things. And I must ask you please to be most careful about turning it off before you leave each day.” A distressing thought seemed to strike him. “You were of course informed that it is not possible to sleep here?”

“Oh please don’t worry about that, I have lodgings arranged, I am well aware how privileged I am to get access at all!”

This seemed to please Bramanti. He nodded and allowed himself a tight smile. “Now, I think you will want to see the library!”

The room was very dark. Bramanti began to throw open shutters, revealing a glorious, if rain-lashed, view of the Church of San Bartolomeo. Summers realised that his hero, Sigismondo Mortensa, must have stood where he was now standing, looking proudly every day upon the Baroque structure that was the architect’s greatest work.

The library was even more beautiful than he had imagined. The ceiling and walls were covered with frescoes faded to the colour of autumn fruits, except where immense bookcases in Palladian architectural form climbed, by Corinthian columns and wrought-iron walkways, to the painted heavens, their shelves a treasure-trove of vellum and calf.

The most remarkable object in the room was a clock over ten feet high, a kind of miniature Torre dell Orologio, with a clock face depicting Saturn devouring his children and a group of automata on top.

“Do you think it would be possible to get this going?” Summers asked.

“I could try to locate the key,” Bramanti replied doubtfully. “If I can, I will have it left here for you.”

When Bramanti was gone, Summers pulled off a few covers, releasing clouds of dust into the slanting shafts of light that fell through the tall Serlian window. A gigantic desk, big enough for six people, was revealed, along with some very beautiful and surprisingly comfortable chairs and couches. With some form of heating he would be quite at home.

This was one of his favourite moments, before the hard work began, when he could give himself up to the pleasures of his surroundings. This was doubly true in Venice. He was as susceptible as anyone to what Henry James had called “the sweet bribery of association and recollection”. Crossing to the window, he took in the mellow golden splendour of the church façade, a late Baroque extravaganza of columns, scrolls and statues, with rain pouring in cascades from every slanting surface. Behind the glassy sheets of water, the shadows gathered under the entablatures and arches which seemed cavernous, looming spaces in which the carved figures of stone seemed to move uneasily.

“Terribilità,” Summers intoned to himself Mortensa’s own favourite word for the architectural effect he sought to create. “Terribilità in spades!”

Turning to the nearest bookshelf, he took down a volume at random. The complete works of Angelo Ambrogini Poliziano, tutor to the son of Lorenzo de Medici, the first edition in its original binding! Again a book at random; a treasure from the Press of Aldus Manutius, a Greek bible of 1518. More, a copy of the Aldine Editio Princeps of Aristotle’s works; and a 1495–96 Idylls of Theocritus. Many bore the mark of the Florence Academy.

A beam of sunlight broke through the storm clouds and penetrated the chamber, turning the dancing motes of dust to gold. Summers smiled contentedly to himself.

“Ca’ Maledetto! Accursed, damned! If so, then let me be accursed and damned forever!”

In the days that followed, Summers settled into a pleasing routine. A bracing walk from his lodgings to Via Serpente, where he entered the palazzetto by the much less salubrious landward entrance. Bramanti had been as good as his word, for he found an adequate if unsafe looking heater in the library. Two large keys, joined with string, lay on the desk; one quite plain, the other beautifully ornate, with a gorgon head embossed upon it. Summers assumed that the more ornate one would wind the clock, but it was the plain one that worked. The hours struck with a mellow sound, like distantly heard church bells, and the automata moved.

On examination, Summers concluded that the scene was the flaying of Marsyas. On the left-hand side stood Apollo playing his lyre; on the right the L’arrotino or knife-sharpener crouched to whet his blade. Between them Marsyas hung by his wrists in preparation for his bloody punishment. At every hour Apollo plucked his lyre, the crouching figure sharpened his little knife, and Marsyas opened his mouth in a silent scream, turning his head stiffly from side to side. The clock was charming, and the sound pleasant, but Summers was aware at every chiming that a gathered silence of many years was being disturbed.

Every morning he researched among the Mortensa books and papers, had lunch at a local trattoria recommended by Bramanti, wandered back through the convolutions of Via Serpente, spent the early afternoon browsing over some interesting volume, then worked again until early evening. On Sunday he went to Mass in a local church, but not Mortensa’s, a visit to which he was saving as a special treat.

Rain swept in waves over the roofs and cupolas of Venice, but lost in his work, Summers hardly noticed. On days of particularly foul weather he took to bringing his lunch with him and not leaving the palazzetto at all.

The library was a delight. Once he approached a door alongside the great clock and only realised as he reached out to open it that it was a staggering piece of trompe l’œil. The bibliophilic joys, too, were unending. One afternoon he wasted hours, lost in a 1499 Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, the vellum binding and heavy, hand-made paper of which were just as ravishingly sensuous as the adventures conveyed by the text and illustrations. With a pang of envy, he came upon a long shelf of books on anatomy by the likes of Guido Guidi, Realdo Columbo and Gabrielle Fallopio, though surprisingly (and for Summers disappointingly) not a sign of an Andreas Vesalius De humani corporis fabrica, the one book on the subject he would have bet on finding.

Perhaps the explanation for this last mystery lay in an annotation in one of the other works:

Arteries are long and hollow with a double skin to convey the vital spirits; to discern which the better, they say that Vesalius the anatomist was wont to cut men up alive.

Had that rumour offended the devout Mortensa’s Christian spirit so much that he would not allow a copy in his library?

Every day something memorable occurred. Once he took down a set of matching “volumes” with no labels and found they were false books full of mounted cameos and intaglios, each set enriched at the centre with a gold Tiberius. Most exciting of all, when he examined the section of the shelves devoted to architecture, he found that the copies of Vitruvius, Alberti, Palladio and the anonymous Sepulchres of Etruria, were all annotated by Mortensa himself!

At least they were in part so annotated. Summers found two similar but distinguishable hands, and realised with a flutter of excitement, that here before him was the first record of a relationship mentioned by Vasari.

For surely the second hand must belong to Antonio Borsini, Mortensa’s protégé, who had been groomed to take over the master’s mantle, and had so spectacularly betrayed him by disappearing with their work on San Bartolomeo scarcely begun, escaping just before anonymous denunciation for heretical and blasphemous activities.

On first reading Vasari’s account, Summers had been humbled by Mortensa’s Christian forbearance. Such a blow might have justified a bitter denunciation from the great architect, but this was a man who habitually dressed in skull-cap and cassock, and donated many holy relics to the churches he built. All that he had allowed himself was a gentle statement of disappointment and a heartfelt offer of forgiveness and support, if only the young man would return.

The two hands were similar, but Summers thought he could discern which was which by the tone of the annotations. This surely was Mortensa, writing of The Knowledge of perfect proportions, the harmony which produces beauty, and beside an exquisite little sketch of the human form within a church ground plan, the words The interior of the body is a divine secret. The character of Borsini, on the other hand, was readily identified in such passages as Some divide demons into nine degrees, standing contrary to the nine orders of angels. The first of these are called false gods, who would be worshipped as gods and would demand sacrifices and Adorations. Another example, on sculptural decoration, recorded, The rams heads refer to the power of destruction as the ram is the acknowledged symbol of Pluto, Lord of the Dead. And perhaps worst of all: Even as our brother in the divine Counsels of Night, Morto da Feltre, descended into the subterranean fastnesses of Rome’s ruins, there to draw the grotesques, and from such inspiration invented sgraffito, whereby a design in white is only delineated by the presence of its black ground, so do we seek the ancient wisdom that we may build in marble that which depends, for its true meaning, upon the Four Strengths of Shadow.

Perhaps Mortensa had been too kindly and naïve to recognise the dangerous drift of such comments.

Summers came upon another troubling example of Borsini’s influence on the Mortensa Library during these first days, a huge canvas-bound folio among the architectural volumes. As he turned the pages he found a fabulous scrapbook of carefully tipped-in drawings, on carta bombasina, of mythological scenes. The style and the medium—bistre, Chinese ink and chalks—were so reminiscent of Tiepolo that a less academic mind might have become excited. Summers had seen enough of such works in researching his books to know that drawings in the style of great Venetian artists had been a speciality of many highly talented contemporary fakers. Still, even if these works were to be categorised as “After Tiepolo”, they were still very fine.

What did shock Summers slightly was the subject matter. There must have been twenty or more studies of the Centaur Nessus raping the nymph Dejanira, and a very large number depicting what he could only describe as families of satyrs eating, dancing, making sacrifice to their gods and even making love.

Now this would not be surprising in the library of almost any other architect of that era—all of whom were in some way products of the classical tradition—but Mortensa had been such a devout man, all but saintly in his embodiment of the Christian virtues.

The clue lay in the annotations that accompanied certain drawings, quotations from Pomponius Mela on the subject of satyrs, and extensive references to the Diversorum veterum poetarum in Priapum Lusus, an Aldine edition published in Venice in 1517. All were in the same hand as the previous annotations on demons. Summers recognised here, quite literally, the hand of Borsini.

A single bell began to toll mournfully from the tower of San Bartholomeo. The clouds had parted and the sun was beating on the rooftops of Venice. He would get some fresh air, and perhaps visit Mortensa’s church at last, before a bite of lunch.

Crossing the canal by the nearest bridge, Summers navigated a tangle of calli and cortes to the church. Before entering, he could not resist a look back at the windows of Ca’ Mortensa, thinking how strange it was that he had been inside that beautiful building only minutes before. A shadow passed across the library windows. It was so fleeting that he could not tell its shape. The source must be some passing bird, but it troubled him enough to pause and satisfy himself that there was no recurrence before entering the church.

If Mortensa had been aiming for terribilità with his exterior, the intention inside must have been very different. Summers had never seen a more pious, contemplative church interior in his life. Austere enough indeed to justify the claim once made that Mortensa was the Savanarola of architecture! The green, yellow and black marble created a soothing, submerged atmosphere that suited the rippling greenish light from outside. Summers wandered around in quiet delight, wondering why this architect had never been numbered among the great. Perhaps it was the obvious piety and Christian virtue of the man that was out of step with the tenor of these cynical times. There were no concessions to irreligious sensibilities.

There was a particularly gruesome martyrdom of Saint Bartholomew after Tiepolo (a good deal further “after” than the drawings in the library), and Summers’ eye was also caught by an oblong of murky light that turned out to be a case full of sacred relics. These included some implements of torture, a few leathery rags of skin stretched over ornate frames, and some shrivelled, unidentifiable body parts including a delicately beautiful human head, all mummified by time.

Kneeling there, he tried to see them devoutly as holy objects, but found that he could not banish from his mind the guilty idea of condemned meat in some nightmarish butcher’s window.

There was a danger that this would spoil his lunch. In any case, a cleric in a cassock was approaching, no doubt with some prepared lecture he did not want; he left swiftly.

On his way to the trattoria, Summers thought the cleric had followed him as far as the bridge, but the dazzle of the low sun was playing tricks, for the shivery reflection in the waters below showed a bridge but no figure.

A good meal and a half carafe of red wine later, Summers made his way happily back to the palazzetto. The late Contessa’s devotee was leaving as he let himself in by the landward door, and she tried to engage him in conversation. He could understand little of her quickly-spoken Venetian dialect, and merely nodded politely as he pushed by. Clearly, Bramanti had failed to pass on the message that he was not out to pillage the relics of her devotion. In her distressed state, the oddly pronounced slang was all but impenetrable, but he caught enough words to feel offended. She seemed to be calling him an uninvited intruder, and used words such as monstrous and horrible. The pleasant mood created by his lunch was quite ruined.

In the murky light within, the Venetian mirrors distorted shapes, so that a bronze Antinous or Furietti centaur of red marble glimpsed in their mottled depths seemed to shift and gesture as he passed. In the library he was troubled to find that his books and papers on the desk had been disturbed. At once the idea came to him that the mad acolyte had been snooping, and had acted out her show of welcome merely to throw him off the scent. If so he was at a loss to know what the faintly reddish mess was that dappled the papers and books. Could it be henna, rouge or lipstick? A volume of classical verse lay open, and a smudgy stain lay like a clumsy underlining on the page.

The dappled worm is the murderer within the eye of blooming vines

A veiled threat? Or was she mad enough to see anyone who threatened her shrine as a murderer? He would make sure he locked the door from now on.

And so he did. The papers and books were undisturbed next day. Pleased with himself for having thwarted her, he worked well all morning, lunched contentedly and returned to the library rubbing his hands in anticipation. While all of Venice lay under a spell of sleep, he would select some choice volume and browse away an hour or two. Almost he was tempted to take down the folio of mythological drawings, but after a few drinks the subject matter might turn his thoughts in unwonted directions, so instead he chose a treasure of Venetian printing that was hardly conducive to lascivious thoughts: The Feast of the Sensa, being an account of the ceremony of the Doge’s ritual espousal of the Sea on Corpus Christi day.

Summers had heard of this charming ritual enacted yearly, when a wedding ring was cast by the Doge into the waters to ensure the favours of the ocean, so necessary for a sea-faring empire. That indeed was how the account began, but when the Doge set off in the ceremonial splendour of his bucintoro for the open sea, a second Doge similarly clad was described leaving in a covered gondola through the canals to a certain house, named Phytonteo, where he descended by secret ways to a chamber deep below the level of the waters, a dark and noisome place, hung with weapons of torture. There, at an altar raised to other, older gods, he performed a very different rite.

Summers considered his Italian better than adequate, but the strange archaic mixture of Italian, Venetian dialect and Latin in which the book was written confused him. Which of the two Doges was the real one? What did Phytonteo mean? Did the rite culminate in the Doge sacrificing a victim to the waters, or was it the Doge himself who died in monstrous butchery? The tone and subject matter of the book brought to his mind some words of Lawrence on Venice with which Summers had felt no empathy until now

Abhorrent green slippery city, whose Doges were old, and had ancient eyes. * * *

The day was beginning to fade down the long reaches of the library. He should really turn on a lamp, but his surroundings were more than usually beautiful at this time, disclosed and concealed in perfect measure, and even one lamp might spoil a light so richly insufficient. Letting the book slip into his lap, he dozed.

The chiming of the great clock awoke him. He was looking downwards at a shiny expanse of frozen swirls and eruptions of faded colour, fired to life by a strange, tawny light. Faint, reflected images hung inverted just below the smooth surface, but he knew he was not looking at liquid. He was slumped forward in his chair, looking down at the terrazzo floor of the library, now ablaze with the last, low shafts of the setting sun.

There was a sound of movement across the floor in his direction. He remained still, in the posture he had assumed in sleep. If it was the Contessa’s acolyte, she was in for a big surprise.

He could recognise the sound now, bare feet slapping wetly on the cold, marble floor in an uneven, shambling step that seemed too light for one of such rotund form. He became aware of a smell, like stagnant well water; a reflection swam over the undulating surface, into the range of his downcast eyes, and he knew with a horrible certainty that it was not her. The outline he saw was much taller, and much, much thinner, with a head hairless enough to form a bony outline, and gnarly limbs trailing ragged shreds that the figure was attempting to gather around itself with weak, ineffectual movements. It shook and shivered as it moved, and Summers heard a low moan of pain or despair. He was unable to move, or raise his eyes to look fully on what approached him in a wave of ever colder, ever more foul air. As it drew closer, he closed his eyes and clenched himself, still unable to move or breath.

Nothing happened. He risked opening his eyes.

The shape was passing to one side of his seat, towards the nearest book-shelves. By peering out of the corner of his eye, he saw the dimly reflected figure reach towards the books, touch one, and resolve itself into the veins and swirls of colour in the stone. Forcing himself to look up, he confirmed that the figure was gone.

It was just possible that he had confused sleeping and waking, and what he had just seen had not really happened. The test of that theory could hardly be avoided. Crossing to the spot where the reflection had last been, he examined the books before him and found—let him admit it at least to himself, with no real surprise—a familiar dapple of reddish dampness on one of the vellum spines.

Summers drew it out and looked at the title page. It was a volume of Herodotus published by Gregorio de Gregoriis. Returning a little shakily to his seat, he examined it.

There were no annotations or apparent insertions, but the book would not close properly, springing open at a page with no obvious significance. The cause was a piece of paper slipped into a split in the vellum at the head of the spine. It was written in a hand that Summers now recognised, but was a rough draft for a letter, and therefore difficult to decipher. The writer could no longer tolerate the blasphemous and cruel actions in which he had been forced to participate, and unless they ceased, he would have no choice but to denounce the perpetrator, destroying his high renown.

The choice of words was a little convoluted, and the writing scarcely decipherable, so perhaps his translation was faulty. What he had found must be a last attempt by Mortensa to warn Borsini of the consequences of his actions. Yes, that was surely what it must be. In any case, it was high time he got away from this place for a while. With some relief he returned to his lodgings.

That night sleep did not come easily to him. The events of the day replayed themselves in his head. Frightened as he had been by the moment of its appearance, Summers felt that the apparition had done nothing to suggest that it meant him any harm. On the contrary, the whole effort of the poor creature had been to draw his attention to the letter. Was it then Mortensa who had returned? But if so, why had he ever hidden the rough draft, and why was it so important that Summers be shown its hiding place?

The water taxi was late, and he had an urgent letter to post. To make things worse, the water level was rising, lapping the steps of the fondamenta and soaking his feet. It was his sense of urgency rather than whim that led him to hail a gondola, a ridiculous extravagance he would not otherwise have countenanced. Still, he had to admit, as he settled back into the dark leather seat, that his decision had been the right one. For all its image as a tourist cliché, the gondola was undeniably the essential Venetian experience. For a while he lay back and watched the slow, hypnotic parade of elegant bridges, scarred brickwork, crumbling plaster and peeling shutters, his senses lulled by the slap of water on weed-smothered stone and the rhythmic swish of the oar.

The people leaning over the pergoli were all in Renaissance costume, because of course it was Carnival, and everyone had joined in the spirit of Masquerade. Even he had not forgotten, for on looking down he saw buskins, hose and the rim of his cloak. Some people were taking the festivities a little too far, for they had lit fires on the rooftops, and as Bramanti had made so clear, the regulations concerning fire in Venice were strict.

Was it, he wondered, really necessary to travel by such a convoluted route just to post a letter? It had not occurred to him before, but the canals of Venice were nothing more or less than a gigantic aquatic labyrinth with Mystery at its heart. Was it the sunset which turned the sky blazing red, or those fires, which he now saw lined the canal, licking over ruinous buildings, silhouetting figures who teemed around vast engines that turned and swung in the glare. They were clearly devices of torture, hoisting bodies by the neck or stretching them cruelly between chains. And what he had taken for ruined houses were gigantic sarcophagi towering to the sky, mausolea raised by giants, burial chambers of the gods, all lit by the glare of funeral pyres.

Bodies were being broken upon wheels, torn apart, flayed alive. Fortunately, the gondola had become a funeral barge that carried him swiftly, nearer and nearer to the massive bridge, hung with gargantuan chains, that was his destination. Yes, there it was, the keystone carved into the form of a great face swathed in shroud like folds of cloth gathered on top of the head, its mouth the slit into which he must post his message.

Just as he was wondering how to reach the slot, the whole face began to grow, to fill the space under the bridge. Now he wondered how they could navigate the slit of a mouth. When he turned to ask, he saw that the gondolier had been replaced by something whose outline, so black against the glare, he did not wish to see. In any case, the problem was no more, for the stone head on the bridge, which now resembled Sigisomondo Mortensa, had grown snaky hair, and the mouth was gaping wide. Blood rained down from the machinery of death on either side as they swept on, into the gaping maw of darkness.

Summers awoke gasping and running with sweat. Even at that moment he confronted the truth he had not wished to admit to himself, and knew what he must do about it. Why would a successful architect write a letter to his apprentice threatening his high reputation? The answer was that he had not. The apprentice had threatened the Master. And if that was so, then the hand, and the dark utterances, he had taken for Borsini were those of Sigismondo Mortensa.

The implications were inescapable. Vasari had been wrong, or intentionally misleading. The darker annotations had come from the hand of the supposedly saintly paragon. Borsini’s threat of denunciation—the first draft of which he had concealed—had been forestalled by counter denunciation and “disappearance”. Mortensa, it seemed, had not even risked leaving Borsini to the judgement of the Council of Ten, for fear of what might emerge. And now the mills of a very different kind of Venetian justice were grinding on, while lawyers droned like blowflies in courts and offices, and the hand of decay spread a grey benediction of dust over the furniture and statuary of the palazzetto. If an unquiet spirit haunted Ca’ Mortensa—or Ca’ Maledetto as he now agreed it must be—there could be little surprise. Unquiet it would remain until someone at long last exposed the truth.

The next day he returned to Ca’ Mortensa and worked all morning as usual. At noon he ate and drank nothing. Then he waited. He would make himself available for any further communication the apparition wished to reveal about its fate. And he would change the book on which he had been working from the naïve hagiography he had intended to an exposé of the true nature of Mortensa and his heritage.

To pass the time, he read more of what he now knew to be Mortensa’s annotations in the works of architecture:

For by our use of full columns, detached columns, half columns and pilasters, so are the formulating shadows summoned or banished, starved or fed, and these are the four strengths of shadow. There can be no beauty of detail without shadow, and out of shadow comes all things. There is no Wisdom without the science of shadow and light. The architect can form no shape of meaning or purpose were his Orders not defined by darkness, nor offer to heaven what rises in light above, if not for what lies in darkness below.

Thus no Temple was raised by the Ancients without its sacrifice immured beneath, this and other more exquisite methods devised in the knowledge that success in such a work of creation requires the help of those who draw life from that particular vitality liberated by the fear and agony of a living human being. Were not the dismembered limbs of Dionysus boiled beneath the Pythia’s tripod?

It had not escaped him that the previous event had occurred at the striking of the Great Clock. As the same hour approached, Summers tried to keep calm, repeating inwardly to himself, I am ready, if there is anything more you wish to show me.

The silence of the library was eventually broken by the striking of the clock, and Summers was afraid. If he was approached again, would he be able to raise his eyes? What would he see? He waited breathlessly, but there were no slapping steps, no stagnant smell, and above all, no swimming, rippling form pouring horribly across the marble floor. He felt a mixture of disappointment and relief. Perhaps the message had been delivered, and the need for visitation ended?

He rose from the chair, turned, and there it was, there at the other end of the library, as though looking at him. It turned stiffly and moved through the shadows with slow, agonised steps. Passing the shelves with no effort to touch them, it walked deliberately up to the trompe l’œil door and disappeared through it. This was so surprising that Summers stood for some seconds before collecting himself and following its path through a channel of foul, bitterly cold air, to the painted door.

He examined the door more closely this time. The rippling canal light played over medallions and swags of muted purple and brown, over the old reddened gold of the door, scalloped and guarded by garland bearing cherubs, for all the world like marble. The panels were studded with metal bosses so real that he had to touch one to be sure they were illusions of paint.

He noticed something else too. The painted keyhole was formed by the mouth of a little gorgon head, and the effect of shadow in the hole was remarkably real, even by the door’s stupendous standards. He put his finger to the place and found a real keyhole.

At once he remembered the two keys on the string Bramanti had left, one of them with a gorgon head decoration. It was still connected to the one in the clock. He retrieved it, and unlocked the panel painted with a fake door that pretended to be real in order to conceal the fact that that was just what it was. The fleeting question of whether a Venetian painter could be correctly described as Machiavellian rose in his mind and was brushed aside.

The pressure it took to open the panel suggested a spring or counterbalance closing mechanism. No light switches met his fumbling hand so he concluded that the room had been unknown when electricity was being installed in the 20th century. His heart pounded with the thought that no one had entered the door for so many years, and of what might be there. Lighting a lamp, he stepped into the space. The door swung closed behind him on a counter balance. Stopping it before it closed fully, he satisfied himself that there was a handle on the inside and that it would open the latch. Only then did he let the door close, tried it once more for peace of mind, and gave his attention to the room.

The first sweep of lamplight revealed a kaleidoscopic rush of strange objects to his sight. He knew at once it was a wunderkammer or cabinet of curiosities, a cramped, oppressive space whose walls were lined with pitted Venetian reflecting glass, at least in those places where it was possible to see the walls at all. Here Mortensa had gathered the dark mysteries of the world into one place. He saw the branches of corals and the tusks of narwhals, festoons of bones, stuffed reptiles. Everywhere stood jars of preserved specimens, some stewed by time into unspeakable broth, others still clear enough to reveal heads with too many mouths or eyes, claws, or humped backs. Magnificent écorché, surely the work of Lodovici Cardi, capturing every sinew and tendon of their skinless torsos in marble. Chalices of bone and many books, some with great metal clasps, and all bound in the same pale hide.

There were foetuses, human and animal, mandrakes and baby dragons, dry withered mermaids and other unrecognisable monsters. Summers was horrified to see sections of human bodies and internal organs, but realised that they were far too highly coloured and solid, too sharply, glitteringly fresh to be anything but perfect wax models. It was a treasure-trove, even for a building such as this. Keep calm, he told himself, remember this moment. For if his lungs and nostrils were sending accurate messages, no one had entered this space for a very long time.

He glanced over the titles of the books. Liceto: De monstrorum causis natura et differentiis. Aldovrandi: Monstrorum historia. Giovanni Rinaldi: Il mostruosissimo mostruo. Despite the tension and fear, Summers had to smile at the last of these titles, at the linguistically monstrous idea of the expression “monster-est of monsters”.

The next book was a once-sumptuous elephant folio of Andreas Vesalius’ De humani corporis fabrica. Clearly that dark rumour about Vesalius’ methods had not put Mortensa off after all; quite the reverse it seemed. On examination it proved to be no ordinary edition of the work. Bound in that troubling, pale soft hide, not quite like pigskin, the pages finest vellum that had resisted the atmosphere of some damp place sufficiently to retain a kind of warped, chlorotic integrity. The printing was blurred in places but was quite decipherable.

The contents were quite unlike any copy of Vesalius that Summers had ever seen. The known work is unforgettable enough, a haunting combination of beauty and horror produced by those images of flayed, dissected bodies strung up on cruel systems of pulleys, twisted into elegant contortions on ropes, or just gracefully walking, muscle and sinew hanging in shreds from delicately poised limbs, a dead parody of graceful sentience. But those plates seemed to have been intended to serve a noble purpose, to unlock the mysteries of human life. This black, occult Vesalius, stamped on its title page with a head of Tiberius, depicted its frayed, skeletal bodies in parodies of The Stations of the Cross, and delineated tortures devised for one purpose only—the infliction of insufferable pain. The text was equally grotesque. One chapter, entitled ‘De Monstris’, was devoted to the creation of monsters, and told how demons assumed the form of their tortured offerings. An architectural sketch in the margin showed a body laying below the foundations of a church accompanied by the words Aufer caput, corpus ne tangito. (Carry away the head, but don’t touch the body.)

The illustrations gradually descended into madness, depicting anatomical specimens slaughtering and butchering each other, skeletal figures locked in cannibalistic embraces, a world in which the tortured and the torturer had become indistinguishable.

Summers put down the book and wiped his hands along his sides. His first instinct was to leave that oppressive, foul-smelling place, but something had caught his eye. A small doorway stood in the wall opposite the entrance. So there was more. The door concealed a cramped stair that coiled down into darkness. Cautiously descending the slimy steps, he came into a chamber constructed of huge stone blocks.

The walls were disfigured with a lacteal canker of mineral damp. Slippery mosses flourished on the floor, forming a spongy, saturated carpet under foot. What he could see of the roof was covered with dripping stalactites and tumorous green humps. At intervals around the walls were gruesome variations of the Karyatid, marble figures of Marsyas suspended by his wrists and flayed, the torn raw condition of the body depicted with repulsive skill by the choice of red and white porphyry.

Between the figures the walls were hung with mirrors, but not the Venetian glasses of the cabinet. These were huge, irregular, dully tarnished as sheets of old corroded steel, but still throwing back contorted reflections of strange tools or weapons that hung from the walls or lay in heaps. In the middle of the chamber stood a Roman altar, once finely carved with Tritons and Nereids, now worn until its figures looked deformed or maimed, its darkly-stained top rounded off and scarred by countless cuts that made it resemble the butcher’s block it undoubtedly had been. Setting down the lamp, he peered around him.

Now he could make out some of the protuberances jutting from the ceiling, corroded metal rings that still held fragments of chains and pulleys.

From the moment he had entered the chamber it had been strangely familiar to him. He knew it from something he had read recently. Then it came back to him. The book of the secret ritual of the Doge.

As he stood wondering over the purpose to which those rusty tools had once been put, a wave of chill, stagnant air swept over him, and a cold hand clamped around his wrist. He cried out and struggled to pull away, but the grip was at once sinewy and slick, five bands of clammy steel around his arm, radiating a chill that flooded through him like an evil injection. A redly-glittering, venous head came thrusting towards him, its thin lips working as they whispered something unintelligible. Reaching the other sinewy claw to the surface of the altar, as though drawing strength from contact with the place of its last pain and ruination, that which had once been Borsini seemed to burgeon for a second into human likeness, so that Summers found himself looking into the face of a young man still full of hope and belief. Something very like a human mouth opened, and a single word issued like sirocco through parched grass.

“Guistizia.”

The hand fell from the altar, and humanity dropped away from the figure as quickly as it had come. Summers last vestige of nerve broke then and, pulling free, he fled. By the light of the lamp—which he was leaving behind at every step—he just about made the foot of the stairs, and buffeted his way up through a narrow, slippery spiral of darkness.

The cabinet was, of course, pitch-black, and he scrambled blindly through that cluttered space, his hands falling upon objects whose yielding or bony contours felt more horrible for being indefinable. A glass jar toppled with a deafening crash, spilling its contents in a wave of unutterably nauseating odour. Slithering through the spilled mess, he overturned a stack of books and fell against a panel with a handle on it, which he turned.

The panel would not open. He threw himself against it, but it would not give. As he struggled a voice close to his ear whispered, “Guistizia!“

In desperation he tried pulling instead of pushing and was released into light and space. The panel slammed behind him as he fled from the palazzetto. He was dimly aware of running beside water, then nothing until, some while later, he stopped and looked around.

It was as if the fate the world had long dreaded had come to pass, and Venice was already fathoms deep in stagnant water. The city was engulfed in a fog that swirled around a crumbling well head and a saturated line of clothes strung across a corte. He had absolutely no idea where he was. His mind was a flood of confused images and realisations. This was the full truth of the saintly Mortensa and the villainous Borsini. He knew now the fate of the young man who had disappeared so abruptly. That dreadful, tragic wreck of a thing had led him, weakly at first, then with growing strength of purpose, to let the world know what had occurred, the real nature of the relics they worshipped, and what lay buried beneath Mortensa’s church. Summers shivered, clutched his thin jacket about him and began to look for a sign that would tell him where the hell he was.

After some minutes of searching he came upon a wall of yellow plaster crumbling away to reveal ancient brickwork, in the centre of which was a great face of stone grimacing out of the fog at him. Carved folds of fabric swathed the head and were gathered at the top like a shroud. Below, familiar words were carved.

Denontie Secrete Contro chi occultera Gratie et officii O collundera per nasconder la vera rendita D’essi

He was standing before the Bocche di Leone, its mouth a slot into which accusations had been placed. That he should stumble upon this of all places at that moment could hardly be chance. This was the very mouth into which Mortensa had posted his denunciation, and by so doing saved his own skin by blackening the name of his innocent victim.

With an overwhelming sadness he thought of that wretched spectre walking the dusty shelves of the library through how many years, clutching his own ragged shreds of skin around him like the mantle of some acolyte in agonised devotion to the cruel god who had torn him from himself. Summers found some comfort in the thought that he at least had the power to set the record straight.

Perhaps, he reflected, the Contessa’s companion might not be as mad as she seemed. Had there not been a desperate tone of warning in those weirdly expressed effusions? She had been speaking of something horrible, monstrous, an intruder, but she had not meant him. Something other than eccentricity had driven the women to the cramped confines of one barricaded room. They had seen what he had seen.

Finding the way around Venice was hard enough on a clear day. In the fog it was impossible. He stumbled upon a café and sat for a while, warming his chilled hands around a cup of coffee. The fog began to clear. Armed with detailed directions back to the Via Serpente, he became lost again almost immediately, and may have wandered off his course but for a cleric in a skull cap and cassock glimpsed through the thick veils of mist. When he called out the name of his destination the figure pointed the way. Passing through the narrow calle indicated, Summers came to a halt, facing the mist—wreathed waters of a canal lapping at the green step before his feet. The smell of rotten vegetables was on the air. Evidently, the cleric had directed him into an alley used for loading and unloading barges. Now he would have to retrace his steps.

A bell began to toll very close by, and he recognised it: San Bartholomeo must be directly in front of him. At that moment the mist parted to reveal the pale façade of Mortensa’s creation. So he could be no more than a turning or two from the palazzetto, perhaps almost alongside it, though the view was a little different.

The tolling of the bell was subtly hypnotic, bringing to mind the movement of weed in ocean swell. The mist was dispersing swiftly and the great façade was becoming clearer. In the growing light the shadows on its surface shifted like expressions on a vast, pallid face. What had Mortensa written about the power of shadows? They certainly made the church façade look deep and hollow as a cave, an infinite distance out of which a familiar cassock-clad figure emerged, gesturing rhythmically to the tolling of the bells.

And Summers saw then who—or what—was approaching him with those hypnotic passes of the hands, and realised too late how naïve he had been to think that so formidable a being, capable of raising a temple to the ancient gods under the very noses of the Council of Ten, would allow him to destroy a reputation so cunningly created, and so ruthlessly preserved.

Summers felt compelled to look down and saw on the slimy stone between his feet a symbol or hieroglyph deeply carved. He peered at it, the bell booming through his head, as the symbol filled his vision. It was as if the very stones of Venice were speaking through the cold metal tongue of the bell, telling him to come down and learn what only the stones could know, what they kept hidden from the eyes of man.

He was dully aware that he was toppling into water, was sinking. Despite the bell and the hieroglyph that filled his mind, his desire for life was strong. Gulping in foul water through nose and mouth, he kicked desperately, felt himself sucked down, kicked again and felt his face, a mask of green slime, rise into the air. He took a mouthful, half water, and went down again, his limbs working madly. But something in him could not deny the cruel knowledge of the bell and the symbol. Even as his body struggled, he continued to sink, deeper, it seemed, than a canal could possibly be, down past hieroglyphic-carven walls and shattered columns and vast, impassive faces of stone. The cold arms of the sea embraced him, and still he seemed to sink, married forever, like the Doges of old, to the dark green waters.

Simon Kurt Unsworth

THE NIGHT RUN

SIMON KURT UNSWORTH was born in Manchester in 1972 and is beginning to despair of ever finding proof that the world was awash with mysterious signs and portents that night. He lives in an old farmhouse miles from anywhere in the Lake District with his wife, the writer Rosie Seymour, and assorted children and dogs, where his neighbours are mostly sheep and his office is an old cheese store in which he writes horror fiction (for which pursuit he was nominated for a World Fantasy Award for Best Short Story in 2008).

PS Publishing released Strange Gateways, his third collection of short stories, in 2014, following Quiet Houses (Dark Continents Publishing, 2011) and Lost Places (Ash Tree Press, 2010). His fiction has been published in a number of anthologies, including Exotic Gothic 3 and 4, Terror Tales of the Cotswolds, Terror Tales of the Seaside, Where the Heart Is, At Ease with the Dead, Shades of Darkness, Haunts: Reliquaries of the Dead, Hauntings, Lovecraft Unbound, and Year’s Best Fantasy 2013 and Best British Horror 2014. This is his seventh appearance in Best New Horror, and he was also included in The Very Best of Best New Horror (2010).

He has a further set of stories due out in an as-yet-unnamed collection that will launch Spectral Press’ Spectral Signature Editions imprint. His debut novel, The Devil’s Detective, appeared from Doubleday in the US and Del Rey in the UK in 2015, with a sequel due next year.

“‘The Night Run’ is one of those stories that came from a single image nestling in my head, and simply unfurled from there,” recalls the author. “I kept seeing a woman driving a private ambulance along a lonely midnight road, hearing the beating of wings, and turning to see something terrible in the seat next to her.

“When it came time to write it, I started to think about journeys—about the prices we pay for them sometimes and the debts incurred—and this story is the end result of those thoughts. It’s short but, I think, one I can be proud of.

“The paramedic’s line about the brain looking like a snail, by the way? That’s genuine, and is written here pretty much verbatim from how it was told to me.”

ELISE DROVE A private ambulance. Unlike most ambulances, this one was dressed in a monotone, sombre grey, had no sirens or flashing lights, and the patients it carried were beyond treatment or help or hope of recovery. There was no need for rush, no pressure on Elise to arrive at her destination quickly, there was simply smooth movement of the world rolling past the windows and the knowledge that in the vehicle’s chill rear, her passengers rode in silence. She never turned the radio on when she drove, despite the fact that the ambulance’s cab was separate from the back section, feeling somehow that it would be disrespectful during these final journeys. Elise gave the dead serenity and grace wherever she could, quietness after life’s noise.

These night-time rides were the ones that she enjoyed the most; there was little traffic, especially out here where the buildings had given way to farmland and the ground rose to hills, and she could drive without effort or concentration, letting her mind reach out into the sky and land around her and find shapes and scents and sounds that, she thought, few other people ever felt or smelled or heard.

Old man Tunstall’s funeral parlour was out in one of the villages, serving the isolated communities scattered throughout the farmlands. Actually, they maybe weren’t isolated communities, Elise thought, but one huge community stretched thin and laid across the hills and valleys and fields like a net, hundreds of individual strands twisting around each other in links that stretched from farmhouse to terraced street to barn and back to farmhouse. Few people escaped the area, once arrived, not for any length of time. Tunstall had once told her that most of his business was what he called “in-house”, people from the area dying at home and being buried in the land that had sustained them. It was only occasionally that Elise was called on to take a body from the hospital in the city to Tunstall’s, and the runs were always at night.

Outside, the ground was dusted with frost and occasional banks of snow. It had been bitterly cold these last few weeks, the earth hardening, becoming frigid, and Elise drove slowly, letting the vehicle’s weight give it grip on the iced surface. The roads glistened in the dying moonlight and, around her, the fields drowsed under a caul of ice and the journey was all that mattered, this last journey between the places of life and the places of death.

Elise carried only one traveller that night. “He killed himself,” the morgue attendant had told her in a voice somewhere between glee and horrified awe, “and we don’t know who he is!” The man had apparently walked to the banks of the river that wound down from the hills, passing through the town on its way to the sea, stripped, knelt down on the ridged and furled mud at the bitter water’s edge and frozen to death. His clothes were in a bag next to Elise now, neatly folded, the top of the bag rolled and held down with tape.

“He was frozen solid,” the morgue attendant had said, “and we had to defrost him like a piece of chicken!” Elise had met people like the attendant before, people for whom the mechanics of death were the most fascinating part of the journey, for whom the biology of things was the most important. There had been the paramedic who had told her, voice rich with undisguised fascination, about the suicide who had jumped from a tall building and landed on the ground at an odd angle. Their head, said the paramedic, had connected hard with a kerbstone and cracked open and their brain had burst free and slithered, almost intact, across the road “like a big pink snail”.

He had asked her out for a drink after telling her this. She had refused, politely, and taken the suicide’s body into her private ambulance to begin its next stage of the procession into the ground. For Elise, death wasn’t a moment; rather, it was a string of moments, a set of markers that led from life to burial or cremation, to earth or fire, and she saw herself as a companion and guide to these, the most significant of journeys.

The rear of the ambulance shifted slightly as she went around a corner, the wheels slipping over ice, and she slowed.

The dead man was being delivered to Tunstall’s Funeral Home simply because Tunstall had a council contract to deal with the unidentified dead; there were spaces in the graveyards out here. In the cities, space for the departed was rapidly being filled and the real estate of passing on carried heavy costs that councils couldn’t pay, so people like Elise’s passenger were sent out, to where populations were lower and the grounds cheaper.

The rear of the vehicle shifted again. There was a noise as it shifted, a gentle knocking.

Elise slowed again, dropping smoothly through the gears, letting the engine quieten. There was another thud from behind her, and a slight shiver ran through the vehicle. Had she run over something in the road? A rock or branch, maybe an animal? She glanced in her wing mirror but the road behind her, painted in fragile moonlight, was clear. She let her speed creep back up, happy that all was well. Elise took the dead man on.

Another thud, another slight shiver. Movement. In the rear of the vehicle.

Elise’s first thought was that something had come loose back there, one of the straps holding the man’s coffin possibly, that it was flapping, but no—the thud had been too loud and the shiver too heavy to be caused by a simple loose strap. Perhaps the coffin itself was moving, slipping on its base and banging against the vehicle’s wall when she went around corners?

Another corner, slower now, but no accompanying shift or thud, the road straightening, letting the ambulance speed up and then a definite bang from the rear. Elise started, the tyres shimmying across the surface of the frozen road before she grasped the wheel and brought the vehicle back into line. The bag of belongings next to her fell from the seat into the footwell with a rustle of plastic that sounded almost organic, like an owl opening its wings and stretching. Making sure the road was straight ahead for a while, Elise turned and tried to peer through the small observation window between the cab and the refrigerated rear section.

The glass was dark, throwing back a reflection of her face, eyes inked pools below her pale forehead.

She turned back to the road, lifting her foot from the accelerator and taking the vehicle gently left, in towards the roadside. When it came to a halt, she put the ambulance in neutral and unclipped her seatbelt, turning properly to the observation slit. Cupping her hands around her eyes, she peered into the blackness that travelled at her back. It was almost absolute, a gloom that was broken only vaguely by pale edges and shapes.

Something moved loosely in the dark and then the engine of the ambulance abruptly cut out.

Elise jerked back from the glass. What had that been? She twisted back around and turned the key, starting the vehicle again. The engine sputtered for a moment, caught and slipped, caught again and grumbled to full life. She opened the driver’s side door and stepped out, leaving it open so that the cab lights fell across the road. There were no other lights out here, no street lamps, no cars or trucks barrelling along the road, just the stars above her and the moon dipping low as the night came to its end.

She made her way to the rear of the ambulance, reached out and took hold of the handles, felt the cold bite of chill metal against her fingers and palms, felt rather than heard something bump behind the doors, and then swung them open.

Everything was in its place. The coffin and its inhabitant were still on the lower ledge off on the right side, where she had placed them, and the straps around the wooden box were still tight and fastened. She climbed in, crouching and pulling on the padded nylon cables; there was no give in them. She looked around, seeing nothing that shouldn’t be there, nothing loose that would have explained the movement or the sounds. Experimentally, she placed her hands on the end of the coffin and pushed, wondering if the noises had been caused by it moving up and down rather than swinging sideways, but the casket remained still. Something inside it, then? No, she had watched as the dead man had been placed inside, the padding arranged around him to prevent precisely the kind of movement she was wondering about.

There was nothing on the other ledges, three of them, which could have moved. The rear of Elise’s ambulance was, as ever, neat and clean and a fitting cradle for the dead on these, the last of their courses.

The engine, then, or something mechanical underneath the vehicle. She would simply have to drive carefully and hope she made it to Tunstall’s, then make a judgement there about whether it was safe to drive back. She returned to the front of the ambulance and climbed in, shivering in the warmth. With the door shut and the belt back across her chest and securely clipped she pulled away, keeping her speed low.

The road was rising now, curling around one of the fells. It would fall and rise several more times before she reached Tunstall’s, she knew, and wondered if the ambulance would make it. She dug her phone from her pocket and checked it; a good charge but not much signal.

Another curve in the road and this time something definitely moved in the rear of the ambulance, banging hard against the side and setting the vehicle rocking outwards on its axles before it fell back to stability, distorting the vehicle’s balance for a moment. This time, the bang had been accompanied by a noise that might have been a sheet tearing or something flapping—a long low noise, only just audible above the sound of the engine. Her foot jerked on the accelerator, sending the ambulance lurching forward and onto the other side of the road before she could bring herself and it back under control, return them to the right side of the centre line and to a safer speed.

Before Elise could do anything else there was another bump, this time even harder, jolting the vehicle and making the wheel twitch in her hands, along with a long, drawn-out noise like something dragging across metal from somewhere behind her.

The dead man’s bag of belongings slithered across the footwell, the top pulling open and spilling the contents out. There were jeans and a dirty brown coat, pieces of paper covered in writing, and feathers. They must have been in the pockets of the jacket, dozens and dozens of them, hundreds of them, small and large, black and white and brown, speckled and plain, floating out in drifts. The smell of them, of the clothes, was rich and earthy, grimy with sweat and death and cold. One of the feathers settled on Elise’s hand and she shook it off violently, not liking the greasy feel of it.

Another bang, another moment where the ambulance belonged not to Elise but to itself, another correction and control regained and still they were travelling on, Elise wanting to get to Tunstall’s now, to get out of the ambulance and into light and company.

Feathers drifted around the cab, dancing and spinning, as she pressed down on the accelerator, urging the vehicle to gather up the road and loose it out behind them, now sure that the problem wasn’t the ambulance or its engine but whoever was in the ambulance’s rear, whatever was in the ambulance’s rear.

She risked a glimpse behind her. As she turned, there was a long cracking noise and the unmistakeable sound of wood splintering and something falling, the vibration of it rattling through the floor, heavy against her feet. There was a dash of pale movement in the slit, a pallid shape that rose behind the pane and then fell again, not a hand or a face but something indefinable, as though it was wrapped in linen or muslin.

The engine cut out as Elise jerked back from the glass, reaching out to turn the key even though she was still coasting forward, gears in neutral and nothing, nothing, no reaction from the ambulance except to slow and slow, inertia and the slope bringing it to a halt soon, too soon.

The internal lights clicked off with a sound like a gunshot, the dashboard’s glimmer suddenly extinguished. She put the handbrake on, ignoring the increasingly loud, repeating sound of flapping behind her, not looking at the glass, not looking at whatever might be peering through at her, turning the key again and again trying to start the vehicle.

And then the thing with the head like a dog seated next to her turned and drew back lips from teeth that were huge and which were the colour of old, tarnished ivory. She shrieked and jerked back from it, fumbling for the handle and opening the door and falling out into the road a single frenzied jumble of flail and cry. Her shoulder struck the gritted concrete and an off-colour bolt of pain leapt through her upper body and she cried out again, helpless.

A series of taps and shudders ran through the vehicle, tiny vibrations that she could hardly see, visible only as a shiver against the distant night. Feathers, more feathers than she had ever seen before, more than could have possibly been in the bag, drifted out after her, curling and circling in thick clouds, floating upwards instead of down, rising on breezes Elise could not feel.

There was another bang, this from the centre of the ambulance, as though something had struck the partition between the space of the dead and the space of the living, then the long drawn-out groan of something opening and the unmistakeable sound of coins falling into a dish or cup.

For a moment Elise had the terrible sense of having offended something vast and old and she screamed, a wordless apology wrenching out of her. In the now-dark cab of the ambulance, the dog-headed thing shook its head and grinned and held its arms out, and from all around her she heard the sound of beating wings.

Angela Slatter

HOME AND HEARTH

ANGELA SLATTER is an author who specialises in dark fantasy and horror. She has won five Aurealis Awards, been a finalist for the World Fantasy Award, and is the first Australian to win a British Fantasy Award.

She’s the author of, amongst other collections, The Girl with No Hands and Other Tales, Sourdough and Other Stories and The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings. Recently she has had two novellas published: ‘Ripper’ in Horrorology: The Lexicon of Fear, and ‘Of Sorrow and Such’ as one of the new Tor.com novella series. Forthcoming from Jo Fletcher Books are the novels Vigil and its sequel, Corpselight.

“‘Home and Hearth’ originally appeared from Spectral Press,” she explains, “as part of their chapbook series. The story came about when publisher Simon Marshall-Jones asked me if I’d write him a ghost story. I’ve always wondered about parents whose children kill—those who go to any lengths to protect their little monster, and those who decide they’re responsible for protecting the world.

“I wondered what it must do to you, to think that this is your baby—they come from you and yet they’ve done something dreadful that you’d never dream of doing…what does it to do your sense of self? I wondered about such parents, how they cope, and what their lives become. Thus ‘Home and Hearth’ was born.”

CAROLINE HELD THE door open, listening to the keys make that gentle clink-clank as they hung from the lock. He pushed past her and she could smell the peculiar odour he gave off now: puberty and a state institution. As he crossed the threshold, his too-small shoes leaving mud on the new welcome mat (she’d thrown out the one exhorting a universal power to “Bless this mess”), the house seemed to sigh.

Then again, maybe it was her, but she couldn’t remember the air leaving her lungs.

Then again it might have been the heating system as it puffed out warmth.

“Coke?” she asked, following him down the long hallway. “Or hot chocolate? Crisps? Marshmallows? I baked your favourite biscuits. They’re not hot but I can warm them in the microwave. There’s a cake, too. Banana. Or—or—what would you like?”

She knew she was overcompensating, had schooled herself not to during the weeks and months, but he was back in the house not five minutes and already she was failing. She reached out and touched his face.

It was a mistake. The feeling against her palm, the slight sweatiness, the burgeoning pimples beneath the skin, combined to make her shudder. She hoped he didn’t notice.

“It’s fine, Mum. I’m going to my room.”

Simon hadn’t called her that in months, not since the trial started. Not since Geoffrey had his heart attack and told her as she sat by his hospital bed that he didn’t think he could continue with, well, everything. Turning up at the court every day, dodging and weaving reporters and cameras, listening to their son’s legal reps talk and excuse and obfuscate. It was all lies, he’d said. They both knew it.

She could have the house. And the money.

(It’s mine anyway, she wanted to say, but didn’t. It always was.)

He had to go, he’d said. For his health.

Then she had to tell their son what his father had decided—that he was opting out of the family. Men never like to clean up their own mess, she’d thought at the time as she’d watched a light go out in him. His answers had whittled themselves down to monosyllables. He stopped referring to his father. Stopped calling her “Mum”, or indeed anything but “her”.

Ask her, he’d say to the barrister. Avoiding her gaze.

Caroline thought her eyes should probably be misty, a little heated with some kind of emotional response, but there was nothing. Oh well. Perhaps it would come later, when they got used to each other once more.

“Okay,” she said belatedly. He was already gone, disappeared up the stairs, closing the door. She walked into the sitting room, which was directly beneath his room and listened.

A few steps as he walked from one wall to the next, stopped at the desk, the bookshelves, the wardrobe (she heard the creak of its hinges), then to his bed. She’d left his presents on the duvet, neatly stacked—he’d missed his thirteenth birthday in all the chaos. There was the whump as he sat down, then the double thud of his shoes hitting the floor. Then a steady series of noises as each carefully wrapped gift followed the footwear. Finally, silence.

She stood beneath him for a while, then turned to one of the front windows and tweaked back the edge of the long cream-coloured curtains. Through the wrought bars of the fence she couldn’t see anything but cars parked in the street, the houses opposite, each like hers, tidy, fenced, tall, manicured gardens, quietly comfortable. No one. No reporters. No yelling at the house, no trying to get into the yard, no knocking at the door, no flashbulbs blinding Caroline before she learned not to open it for them. In a deep, damned part of her soul she was grateful for the bombings that had made her son old news.

She took a deep breath and headed towards the kitchen.

The frozen foods aisle seemed colder than usual. Or maybe it was the collection of eyes boring into her back that were giving Caroline the chills. She reached into the freezer and pulled out ice cream (vanilla), a chicken (medium), then packets of peas, beans, carrots and chips. They all made a metallic sound as they hit the bottom of the trolley.

She’d left Simon sleeping; a note on the table gave him strict instructions not to leave the house and not to open the door to anyone. But she’d had to go out, had to stock up—two days home and he’d eaten most everything she had. That was what he did now: eat and play computer games in his room. Soon she would have to talk to him about school. He’d have to return to the world, but that was fraught with complications. They would have to move, she thought. A new house, a new town, a new life. Maybe she’d dye his hair, have it cut so he didn’t look like the boy on the news reports. Mind you, if he kept eating this way, it wouldn’t be an issue. Her son would disappear beneath layers of fat and be cleverly camouflaged by his own body.

She couldn’t think about all those details now, so she did what she could, which was to reach out and load up on cheeses, yoghurt, custard and milk. As she turned, fighting the trolley’s recalcitrant wheels, she looked up and saw them. The herd.

Twelve housewives, nearly identical: corduroy trousers in greens and browns, sharply pressed collared shirts under V-neck sweaters in various hues, with barely-worn Barbour jackets and scarves hanging loose around necks that showed signs of wrinkling. Caroline knew them—she’d been one of them herself, once.

It wasn’t hatred, precisely, that they were staring at her, nothing so strong, nothing so moral. It was just a kind of intense distaste: her dirty laundry had been aired very publicly. All the nasty domestic worms had poked their heads out of the shit-stirred soil of her home. They could look down on her…but it was something more. She made them nervous. She’d been a carbon copy—her fall made them feel exposed, vulnerable. There but for the grace of God go I and so on. Caroline’s son had made them afraid of their own children.

Now, people stared at them and associated them with her. Their neat, tidy houses, highly financial husbands, over-achieving children, all held up to scrutiny by the lower orders. Caroline almost smiled; then did. Waved and resisted the urge to walk up to them and chatter inanely about scone recipes or some such. She knew she looked manic, the smile pinned to her lips, eyes fever-bright.

She made her way to the junk food aisle and began to stack brightly packaged carbohydrates and preservatives into the trolley. The more she bought now, she reasoned, the less often she’d have to come back.

At the checkout, the spotty teen ignored her for a while, grabbing items in a podgy hand with chewed nails and chipped pink polish and dragging them over the scanner, then tossing them behind where an equally spotty boy jammed the items into bags. Eggs beneath tins of ham and tomatoes, bread beneath frozen things. When the girl finally looked up to mumble the total, Caroline could almost see the cogs in the brain wake and haltingly turn themselves; could almost hear the grinding. She watched as the blood-shot eyes widened and the lips trembled, the bottom one dropping open like a drawbridge on a slow timer. The girl stammered; she fumbled with Caroline’s credit card; dropped the docket; stared and stared and stared.

The bag boy didn’t look up.

As Caroline packed the food into the back of the Land Rover, she felt as if she was being watched. Expecting one of the mums brigade, she straightened and looked around.

A dishevelled figure stood motionless in the corner of the parking lot. Scuffed boots, thick trousers; bulked up by a couple of men’s coats and a disreputable sweater, the figure removed its bright pink beanie only when it met Caroline’s eyes.

It was the woman. The other mother.

Caroline didn’t—couldn’t—budge. She and the Traveller watched each other forever until the woman shoved her hat back over the dark tangled hair and shuffled off. The spell broken, Caroline could shift again, but her joints ached. It seemed every move she made hurt, every bag she heaved was filled with wet sand.

It was a long time before her hands stopped shaking enough for her put the keys in the ignition. She was dripping with sweat in the cold, cold car.

“Mum? Mum!”

Simon’s voice in Caroline’s ear and his hands on her shoulder shocked her awake. She’d been dreaming somewhere dark, somewhere the blackness was deathly-thick.

“Mum! Wake up!“ He was yelling, her son. She could smell fear on him; it came off his skin in waves, mixed with the scent of adolescence. He stank.

Caroline recoiled, trying not to do so, managing to shuffle herself across the sheets without actually seeming to move. Her head felt full of cement. Only the sheer terror of having Simon’s fingers anywhere near her had the power to shock her awake as surely as an icy bath.

She cursed herself for having taken a sleeping tablet—what was she thinking making herself vulnerable?—but there were so many in the bathroom, hers, Geoffrey’s, all the enthusiastically doled-out tranquillisers the doctor had heaped upon them early in the piece. And she hadn’t slept properly in…

She so needed to sleep.

And now her son had crept into her room and gotten close enough to touch her with hands that had—

“Mum, there’s someone downstairs.”

“What’s the time?” She struggled into a sitting position and squinted at the shining digital face on her bedside table. She could hear someone battering at the front door. It was 2:00 a.m. Surely not reporters. Surely not at this hour. Nor the police—double jeopardy and all, and he hadn’t been out of the house since he’d been given back to her. He couldn’t have done anything else, not yet.

Simon’s face was white, his eyes huge. My child is afraid, she thought, admonished. His blond hair stuck up at all angles; coupled with his terrified stare it made him look very, very young.

Caroline felt a deep stab of shame. He needed his mum. She wrapped a thick chenille dressing gown around herself and tied it tight.

She crept along the hallway, past the grandfather clock with its regular rhythmic tick-tock, and down the stairs, Simon behind her, his hands holding onto the train of her gown just like he did when little and she was in the kitchen making his buttery toast. Back when he couldn’t bear to be parted from her.

The door was shuddering and shaking under the force of the blows—she thought she could see periodic slivers of the world outside as the wood warped inwards with each hit. She wondered if the leadlight panels would break, but they seemed to bend and curve like rubber. She opened the hall cupboard and pulled out a cricket bat—Simon’s when he was eight. It wasn’t huge but it was hefty and she’d get in a good swing, by God. Caroline pushed her son away so she could have space. As she took the last two steps forward there was one final slam and the door vibrated on its hinges, then all was still.

She flicked on the porch light, wrenching on the door-handle and pulling at the same time.

Nothing. A pool of yellow light trickled down into the garden like something spilled, and beyond its reach there was the moonlight, giving everything a strange blue tint. The front yard was empty as was the street beyond and there was nowhere for anyone to hide. There weren’t even any desperate reporters staked out in battered Vauxhalls, snoring or smoking or main-lining bad coffee from the all-night service station fifteen minutes away. The cars sparkled with the night’s frost as if someone had scattered diamond chips over them.

Caroline stepped out, her feet cold. A few more paces and something stuck to the sole of her left foot. She bent down and picked it up, glanced briefly at the piece of faded photographic paper.

“What is it?” Simon’s voice quavered from well back in the hallway and she couldn’t help, was devastated by, the wave of contempt that washed over her.

“Nothing. Just some rubbish.” She pocketed the photo before she turned and went inside. “Hot chocolate?”

He surprised her by nodding, by choosing her company instead of retreating to his cave yet again. Instead of making her feel that she was alone in the house despite his presence.

The kitchen was bright and warm and for a while she could pretend everything was normal.

The ground was hard-frosted and the grass crunched and crackled like broken glass beneath her boots. Far behind her were the house and its rear garden backing onto the common, the drunken fence and the squeaky gate that led out.

White mist hung in front of her face and she struggled to breathe in the cold air. Sweat ran its way down her spine. Caroline chided herself: she hadn’t been to the gym in months; her thighs felt like jelly and she couldn’t even manage a brisk walk without puffing. As she reached the top of the incline, she stopped, trying not to gasp for breath, and surveyed the land below.

A curious combination of painted wagons, battered four-wheel drives and camper vans were scattered in a loose configuration someone might mistake for a circle. In what passed for the centre was a fire pit, with smoke still rising from last night’s embers. There was a bustle of activity: the Travellers were preparing to move on. This was probably the longest they’d stayed in any one place, she thought, then tried to un-think the reason why.

She took a deep gulp of icy air that made her lungs burn in protest, and started down the slope.

It took them a while to notice her as they packed up like efficient little ants, but she stood at the edge of their campsite and eventually someone spotted her. Looked closer. Recognised her features. Nudged the person next to them. And so on.

Eventually they all gathered around, so many of them, but kept a few metres between her and them, as if she might be contaminated and this was judged the safe distance. Pinned beneath their collective gaze, Caroline felt thin—no, not just thin, but starving, soul-famished, as if nothing good had ever come from or gone into her.

The men looked at her hard, although some seemed to pity her, but the women…the women judged. They peered at her as if they knew what she suspected, that somehow her son’s rot had started with her, begun in the womb and come to fruition months and months ago. She felt as if she were a specimen, an experiment that had gone horribly, openly wrong. Just when she thought she couldn’t take anymore and was about to turn tail and run, the crowd parted, split by a knife of a woman.

Caroline opened her mouth but no words came. Instead she stood there for the longest time, lips parted, tongue wetly visible but mute. Then the other nodded and turned, gliding through the press of bodies. Caroline followed and the Travellers shifted, maintaining the safe corridor as she passed between them.

Without the layers of clothes, she was tall and thin. Her hair, pulled into a black plait, hung down below the waist of a long green skirt. As she walked, Caroline could hear bells and she remembered from all the days of the trial that the Traveller was weighted down with jewellery: bracelets, earrings, necklaces, anklets; her fingers were swollen with rings, silver, gold, with stones of every colour. She led Caroline to one of the painted wagons, up the wooden steps of faded red and into a warm, dark, musty space. The door closed behind them without either of them drawing it shut.

The space stretched forward but seemed smaller than it should have, a dim tunnel stuffed with boxes and books and stray items of clothing. The built-in bed was piled high with blankets and newspapers. An unlikely chaise longue took up space, lying on an angle as uncomfortable as a lizard in a too-small container. The walls were hung with paintings and tapestries, some things that looked like pages from illuminated manuscripts, pendants, misplaced wind-chimes, strands of crystals, strings of dried garlic and flowers and, in one instance, what looked like animal paws.

Caroline glanced away.

A pot of tea sat in the centre of a small table, neatly placed within the edges of an embroidered circle of birds and horses. Two cups. Like the teapot they were once fine porcelain, now crackle-glazed, their floral pattern faded. Caroline thought her grandmother might have had the same set once upon a time. Her hostess sat and waved that she should do the same. Caroline hoped the woman—her name was Aishe, Caroline reminded herself—would speak first, but she knew it was her place to do so. She, Caroline, even if not the sinner, bore the sins of her child.

Finding her throat closed, she put a hand in her coat pocket and pulled out the photo, laying it on the cloth between them.

Aishe ignored it, instead pouring tea. The liquorice aroma was strong, the liquid deepest black. Only when she had pushed the cup across the cloth to Caroline’s side of the table did the woman let her eyes stray to the small, sad square of paper.

A little boy smiled up at them. He had black eyes and coal-scuttle curls; his skin was olive and he wore a patched red sweater, worn cord trousers too large for him and boots. He held the reins of a shaggy-looking pony and his joy was like a bolt of sunshine. Aishe’s hand hovered over the snapshot, one finger lowered tantalisingly close to the boy’s face, but at the last minute not touching it. She sat back, resigned, weary, and looked expectantly at her guest. Still she did not speak.

Caroline, never good with silence, scootched forward. She pushed the edges of the photo with the tips of her nails, as if to draw the woman’s attention to it—to make her consider it more seriously.

“Yours,” she pushed out of her mouth. “This is yours.”

Aishe shook her head, lids dropping heavily.

“Yes, it’s your son.” Caroline’s tone was sharp, a touch of desperation, a need to convince the other of what she was saying.

“No.” The word, when it rumbled out, showcased how deep her voice was. Caroline sat back; she couldn’t recall ever hearing her speak, not during the whole of the trial. But surely…surely she must have. The no-longer-mother had given evidence, hadn’t she?

“No?” she asked.

“No,” repeated Aishe. “Not mine. Not anymore.”

Caroline shook her head. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for what happened. I’m sorry for your son, but this photograph is yours. Please, please don’t bother us again.”

“Drink. It will help.”

Against her will, Caroline did, sipping at the black brew.

“Your son,” said Aishe, “has something inside him. Something wrong.”

“You think he’s possessed?” Caroline scoffed. She’d been brought up in a home where religion was politely ignored except at Easter and Christmas, and she’d raised Simon the same way. Geoffrey was an atheist.

“So are all who do such things. The thing inside makes them so.” Aishe wrapped her hands around her own cup, ignoring its handle and drinking deeply.

“So…so you say it’s not Simon’s fault?” As Caroline wondered at this offer of absolution, the other woman laughed.

“We still have a choice—free will. We always have the power to say yes or no. Your son has something inside him, yes; but he chose to give in to it.”

Caroline felt the words like a slap. She put the teacup down, her shaking hands clattered it on the saucer. She stood.

“I am sorry. Sorry about your son.” She made her way to the door, fumbled with the handle until it gave and let the cold sunlight in. She had her feet on the top step before she heard Aishe’s last words.

“He’s not mine anymore.”

Caroline stumbled but kept her balance. She tried to leave the rapidly shrinking laager with dignity, but the weight of eyes returning to her and the ringing of the woman’s voice in her ears was a goad. In the end she ran. Ran out of the camp, up the hill and then started down the other side, losing her footing and slipping and sliding on her arse to the bottom. She was up again in a second, running with a limp this time, tears freezing on her cheeks as she hurried towards the rickety gate and the drunken fence and what seemed like safety only in the vaguest of ways.

“Hello, Caroline.”

She’d made it to the entry to the back garden but found she couldn’t go in. Found her hand wouldn’t move to push the gate open, that her feet refused to turn. So, she’d kept going, wandered a while, tried to lose herself in the woods. Stumbling through a stream that sluggishly dribbled along its wintery path, she’d fallen, torn the left knee of her trousers and the skin beneath. Eventually, she’d come out near the local shop and made her limping way home until her front door loomed large. Just as she pushed the wrought iron front gate (unlike the back gate the one in the front yard was respectable—it could be seen), that voice called softly from a car she hadn’t recognised.

“Hello, Caroline,” he said again as he unfolded himself from the driver’s seat.

Geoffrey was still tall, but he’d become very thin. And not been-to-the-gym-got-himself-in-shape-thin either. Skeletal thin; not eating thin; heartsick thin and it was almost enough to give her a little thrill of pleasure, to see he was still suffering.

“What the hell do you want?” She felt suddenly focused. The pain in her knee, which had been dull at best, burst into vibrant throbbing life. Anger flowed through her veins like molten silver. She was very much alert, alive and she owed it all to the rage Geoffrey conjured in her.

He seemed to realise it and his steps faltered. “I…I came to see you. And Simon.”

“I’m surprised you haven’t let yourself in, made yourself at home,” she snarled, gloved hands clutching at the gate.

“You took my key away.”

She’d forgotten that. It had been the same day she’d taken his name off the joint accounts, and cut up his credit card. The same day she’d watched him stuff as many clothes as he could into a big bag on wheels and listened to it thump down the stairs. The same day he’d come home from the hospital and spent a grand total of forty-five minutes packing up the bits of his fifteen-year marriage he wanted to keep. He took no photos, no keepsakes; just his thirty-two pairs of argyle socks and his collection of cotton boxers, his jeans, sneakers and sweaters and polo shirts. He’d left his suits and his business shirts and the three pairs of leather shoes, which had given off a stench when Caroline burned them all in the back yard later that afternoon, watching the flames flare and glare and crackle and burst.

Now he was back with a “Hello, Caroline” as if they were meeting for coffee.

“And anyway, I knocked. I knocked a lot. I could hear music and someone moving around inside—is it Simon? It must be Simon—I kept up with the coverage, so I know he’s home—but no one answered the door. So I thought I’d wait.”

“Simon doesn’t answer the door. He doesn’t go out anymore, Geoffrey,” she said in a tone that told him these were important things to know. “Our son doesn’t have a life anymore.”

She bit her tongue and stopped herself from adding: We don’t have a son anymore.

“I thought…I thought I’d like to see him.”

“You thought? You thought?” Her voice began to rise. Soon only dogs will be able to hear me. She had to bite down on the giggles that threatened. “When did you start thinking, Geoffrey, about anyone but yourself?”

“Caroline, I’m sorry—I know I did the wrong thing. It was just so hard—”

“Yes, it fucking was! It was very fucking hard—for me! You just gave up. You just left, you shit!”

“Now there’s no need for that sort of language…”

“You fuck! Fuck you! You leave me to clean up this mess and you’re telling me to mind my language? What? Do you think I’ll be a bad influence on Simon?” She let the gate go and turned to fully face him, taking deliberate steps towards him as he backed away.

He paled and she knew he was terrified of her, of this strange new woman who was walking about in her skin. She wondered what he saw in her that made him know she was something different now. She idly wondered if it was the same thing that showed in Simon’s face when he—

“I’m sorry, Caroline, this was a bad idea.” She could barely hear him over the sound his keys made as he tried to get them into the car door. She noticed that his vehicle was old, no central locking, no blipping noises from electronic entry—no heated seats either, she imagined. A far cry from the Merc he’d driven away in. She wondered what had happened to it, but guessed that if he was trying to visit, he was trying to come back to the comfort of her money. Caroline smiled at him.

He got the door open and put it between them as if it might keep him safe. But he didn’t get into the car, he seemed to be about to say something else, and that was his mistake.

Caroline gathered herself, drew upon all the saliva she could muster and spat in his face. Pity it’s not acid, she thought, but for his expression it may as well have been. It dripped from the tip of his sharp nose, and slid lazily down his left cheek.

“Don’t come back, Geoffrey.”

“What’s that?”

Simon dropped the item in question, startled by his mother’s sudden appearance. Caroline caught sight of herself in the mirror above his desk. She looked wild, angry and sick. She stalked into the room. He hunched down and swept the thing up, trying to hide it.

“Nothing,” he grunted. It was the same tone he had used for the last year and she’d thought herself inured to it, but this time she snapped. She swooped on him, shrieking, pushing her face into his until he was almost flat on his mattress as she screamed.

Whatisit, whatisit, whatisit, whatisit?

He threw it on the floor and she stepped back, his movement breaking her tirade. It was a knife. A pocket knife. The one Geoffrey had given him the Christmas before in spite of her objections. The one the police had been unable to find. The one that still had thin brown stains where the blade met the casing.

Time seemed to freeze around them as they stared down at the thing on the blue carpet.

Caroline had steadfastly lied for her son. Yes, he was home that afternoon. No, he had not left his room. They’d had hot chocolate at precisely three o’clock and they had watched cartoons together. No amount of nit-picking or white-anting by the Prosecution had shifted or shaken her, and she’d taken a kind of perverse pride in that.

In truth, Caroline didn’t really know why she’d lied.

To protect her child, yes, but she didn’t understand why she did it when she knew deep down he was guilty. She’d had hope, of course, all mothers have hope beyond hope, a deep abiding belief that a miracle will occur and their child will be proven innocent—because when the guilt is beyond doubt, is known, the world changes irrevocably.

And here it was. Undeniable proof of what he’d done.

Caroline felt something somewhere in her chest give way, cave-in and leave a pile of rubble in its wake. Inside, an already hobbling part of her died.

But it didn’t matter. They couldn’t charge him again, couldn’t retry him. He was out and he’d got away with it. And he was in her house. He’d come out of her. Whatever was in him had come from her.

Slowly she bent down, the cut in her knee re-opening, and picked up the knife. Her knuckles turned bone-white around it and she could feel the metal cutting. She squeezed her hand tighter, felt satisfied as the blade cut further and blood began to pool in her palm, then drip out between her fingers. In the cup of her hand, the new blood liquefied the old, mixed with it.

Caroline lifted her fist and shook it at Simon. Red spattered across his shirt, face and the blue duvet. Behind his eyes she saw something stir; something that wasn’t afraid of her. Not yet.

She moved towards him and the thing inside him began to shift, to squirm. Ah! At last.

Then the window shattered, showering them both with glass, and the spell was broken. Time stumbled forward again. She became aware of the clock in the upstairs hallway, ticking and tocking, reliable as ever. On the bed lay half a brick. Tied to it with a piece of twine was a familiar crumpled square of off-white.

Simon didn’t even twitch, still paralysed. Still frozen. Only his eyes swept around, as if looking for escape. Caroline collected the brick, and untied the twine. Resignedly, she pulled the photo away from the rough surface of the concrete carrier pigeon and put it into the pocket of her Barbour. She felt the blood from her hand oozing across the surface smoothly melting away the emulsion. Caroline straightened, cleared her throat.

“Lunch in ten minutes. If you want food you’ll come downstairs like a human being. No more skulking up here. I’m not a zoo-keeper to keep bringing meals to your door.”

She turned to leave.

“It wasn’t anyone important!”

His voice, his words, made her nauseous. She felt hot waves of sick rising, lapping at the back of her throat. She swallowed it down. He wouldn’t see—couldn’t see—any weakness. Caroline kept moving, towards the door, was almost into the hallway.

“Just a filthy little Rom. Filthy Traveller. Who’d miss him? Mum? Who’d miss him?”

She locked the door of her bedroom that night; thought about pushing a set of drawers in front of it, then decided she was being silly. The rage-invigorated woman who had so scared her husband and son seemed to have disappeared. She couldn’t, she supposed, burn that brightly for too long. She went to sleep quickly, though, as if all her energy had evaporated. She didn’t even take a tablet.

Something woke her in the dark watches.

At first she thought it was Simon and cried out, then remembered he couldn’t get in. Anyway, what woke her was a weeping, a whimpering Simon had never made, not even when he was small.

Her heart clenched when she saw the figure standing solidly black silhouetted on the pale curtains, back-lit by the streetlights.

But she realised the shape, the shadow, was too small.

Caroline sat up slowly and squinted hard into the dimness. Slowly details made themselves known: a patched red sweater, coal-scuttle curls, the dirty marks on his face cut by lines of clean where tears had fallen. She didn’t turn on the bedside lamp for fear he would disappear. She didn’t speak for the same reason.

She offered her hand and held her breath.

He settled beside her under the sheets, beneath the blankets, snuggling into the curve of her as if he belonged there. His skin was so cold she shivered. But she welcomed the sensation—any sensation, any feeling at all that was not despair or contempt or fear or hatred or grief.

The thin little back pressed against her stomach; the little knuckles of the spine stood out and she ran her fingers down them, almost expecting the sound of a xylophone. And he stopped crying. She brushed a hand across his face, felt the still-wet tears and put her fingers to her tongue. They burned, salt and ice, stung her mouth like lemon juice poured into a wound, but she didn’t care.

“Mum?” Simon was scratching at the door. “Mum, are you okay?” he paused. “It’s just I thought I heard you yell…”

The child beside her stilled like a small animal trying to escape notice and then she smelled ammonia. She gathered her breath, kept her voice steady and said, “Yes, I’m fine. A dream is all. Go back to bed.”

She listened as his heavy footsteps receded and his bedroom door closed. She could feel the little boy relaxing.

“It’s all right,” she whispered. “It’s all right.”

Ignoring the wet stink, the warm damp that was rapidly turning cold, Caroline wrapped her arms around the child and slept soundly.

“I want to go outside,” Simon mumbled through his food.

He wasn’t using a knife—she hadn’t put one out—and hacked away great chunks of French toast with the edge of his fork, then shovelled each one loaded with disks of banana into his mouth. Syrup dripped down his chin.

Caroline turned back to the stove and deftly flipped over another piece of bread dipped in egg mix. It sizzled as it hit the pan and the smell of heated butter filled her nostrils. She nodded, as if buying herself a few moments. In truth she felt guilty, guiltier than at any other time in her life. She told herself it was because she’d been a bad mother, because she’d feared him, and because of that fear she’d hated him. But it was worse and she knew it.

She hadn’t simply hated him. She’d forgotten him. For the briefest of hours she had forgotten him altogether and she had loved another child. Another child who was everything Simon no longer was—vulnerable, innocent. A child who’d filled her need for such a short time. But had done so nevertheless, and in doing so had widened the fractures between Caroline and her son.

So she nodded again and said, “Where would you like to go?”

“The park? Just out, Mum. Just…out.”

“The park it is, when I finish the dishes. Wrap up, it’s cold.”

She could feel, tight by her left leg, the cold weight of the ghost child leaning on her. The small frozen hands gripped her mid-thigh, hampering any movement, but she didn’t shift; didn’t want to dislodge him, just stayed in place revelling in the sensation of being essential.

When Simon finished jamming breakfast into his maw and brought his plate over to the sink, she felt the ghost child dissolve, his presence melt away, leaving only his fear of Simon and a disturbing sense of resentment in Caroline’s chest.

It was okay, she thought. It was going to be okay.

The bench was warm beneath her; an unseasonal burst of sun had burned away the chill and the damp and she was toasty in a bubble of light, hidden from the wind by a stand of trees and the toilet block not far behind her. She snuggled down in her coat and closed her eyes for a moment.

The park had been a good idea. Stiff and formal at first, they’d eventually relaxed. Simon had scraped together a tiny, wet ball from remnants of snow (but mostly mud) and thrown it at her. The mark was still visible on her coat; any other time she would have lost her temper, seen it as mean, but there was a kind of relief in seeing him behave like a child for the first time in what seemed an age.

It made her remember how it had been when he was small. When loving him wasn’t something she thought about, wasn’t something she resented, but something she simply did; something she did not question. So she laughed and made snow-mud pies of her own and threw them until they were both breathless with laughter and covered with cold, dripping brown.

When she sat to catch her breath, Simon played on the swings. The park started to fill up with other children but he didn’t seem to notice them. More importantly, they didn’t appear to notice him. The few parents standing around smoking and watching their own offspring didn’t recognise her son either. He took to the slides, then the roundabout, climbed the tree fort, then told her he needed to go to the loo.

She’d smiled and nodded, touched his arm and squeezed to let him know it was going to be okay.

Now she sat, warm and drowsing, as close to happy as she’d been in…she didn’t know. They would move, yes. Up north, somewhere with a small school, but close enough to a city with good psychologists; Simon would need help. He would need someone to talk to—as she would, let’s face it—someone who could get him to speak about what made him do what he did. Someone who could make him face what he had done, look at it and see it for what it was, and then turn away in disgust—aversion therapy, she thought. He would realise that his choices in future must always turn away from whatever the voice inside him advised. He would recognise his action had been an aberration. He’d acted on a whim, a curiosity. It was hideous, terrible, but he had to be allowed to move on. If he didn’t, her son would be tied to that awful, awful thing forever.

And so would she.

But they could get past it.

They could work together.

Everything would be okay.

The hand was small and frigid on her face. At first she thought it was Simon, but the hand was too small. Too tender. The touch was sad, tentative, but somehow determined. She moaned no, but it didn’t help. Caroline didn’t want to, but the tiny fingers brushed across her lids, made her blink, let the smallest sliver of daylight in and she had to come back to the world.

When she opened her eyes, the ghost child was a few feet away. He wasn’t looking at her, but staring towards the toilet block. She felt as heavy as she ever had, cemented to the wooden bench, but she heaved herself upwards. Every step was leaden, and she couldn’t make herself run. Her legs operated independently of her will and resolutely brought her to the entrance to the male toilets.

The smell of urine assailed her. The floor was tiled and damp. She rounded the corner and peered into the dim-lit rectangular room.

Stalls to the right. A urinal against the far wall. A row of sinks to the left. And in the far corner, her son just visible in the doorway of the furthest stall. Caroline approached quietly, oh so quietly. Behind her she could feel the arctic presence of the ghost child, his little hands holding onto the bottom of her coat. In the moment before Simon sensed her and turned around, she saw into the stall.

An elfin girl this time.

Caroline felt her heart stop, leap, thud like a drum.

The child’s face was pinched and pale but she seemed otherwise unhurt. She was crouched on top of the closed lid of the toilet, curled in on herself like a terrified hedgehog. She looked clean and cared for in jeans with sequins along the line of the pockets, a pink, puffed jacket, and purple gumboots decorated with flower-shaped raindrops and umbrellas held by black and white cows. Not a Traveller’s child this time, not a child Simon might think no one would care about. Caroline couldn’t help the flare of irritation that after everything that had happened he could be so stupid.

The little girl caught sight of Caroline and her mouth opened in a wail of relief and fear.

That was when Simon turned, his eyes widening, pupils dilating, his mouth working like a fish trying to gather breath on land.

“I wasn’t! I wasn’t doing anything!” He cowered. “I wasn’t going to…”

Caroline had thought her son’s lies had no more power to hurt her. The moment her hand grasped the collar of his jacket and began to shake him, the girl used the chance to dart out, haring through the tight space between their bodies and the stall door. She let loose a steam train squeal as she passed them by.

Caroline had enough presence of mind to drag him outside and to the car before the shouting started, her own and that of the outraged parents gathering around the little girl who’d made her way to the far side of the park with amazing speed.

In her bathroom, everything was arrayed tidily, in the order she needed.

They had to be ground down, she decided; one simply couldn’t swallow so many any other way. Caroline had taken the boxes from the medicine cabinet, popped the pills out of the blister packs, each one making a satisfying metallic crackle as they broke through the silvery packaging. She’d brought the small mortar and pestle up from the kitchen, the one she kept for dry ingredients, and stood it on the white marble of the vanity unit. She dropped the tablets in, absently counting them as if it mattered, then began the painstaking process of turning them into dust.

In the end, the small mound of white powder wasn’t enough. Or perhaps it was, but she didn’t really believe it. She wanted to be certain; didn’t want to leave anything to chance. Next came the bottles—so many bottles!—the pills larger, harder to crush, but she managed it. She could do it. She could do anything, as long as she concentrated on one task at a time. Behind her, cold radiated, a frigid comfort.

Then the stairs, one at a time, carefully cupping the mortar with both hands. Easy. Down was easiest. One thing at a time.

In the kitchen, she poured milk into a saucepan and put it on the stove, the click of the lighter making her flinch until the gas caught with a blue sigh. From the pantry, the canister and the sugar bowl. From the cupboard over the sink, a mug, the biggest, his favourite.

The powders, the mixing of white and brown, until no one could tell the difference; the sound of the milk as it heated, simmered, threatened to boil over.

And finally, she stood at the bottom of the stairs, took a breath, kept her voice steady and called upwards.

“Hot chocolate?”

Rebecca Lloyd

DUST

REBECCA LLOYD, an author and fiction editor from the south of England, writes short stories and the occasional novel. She was the developmental editor of The Female Ward by Debalina Haldar (Thames River Press, 2013), and the co-editor of Pangea: An Anthology of Stories from Around the Globe, (Thames River Press, 2012).

She had two short story collections published in 2014—Mercy and Other Stories from Tartarus Press and The View from Endless Street by WiDo Publishing. A third collection, Whelp and Other Stories, was a finalist in the Paul Bowles Short Fiction Award that same year. Her story ‘The Reunion’ was reprinted in Best British Horror 2015, and her novel Oothangbart will be published by Pillar International Publishing in 2016.

“In ‘Dust’ I was attempting to write an ambiguous story in which it wasn’t clear if the subject matter was about ghosts or really about madness.” reveals the author. “The story concerns a ferocious married couple who continually fight but are unable to leave each other, and the effect they have on their two daughters.

“The setting for the story is based on a house with extensive gardens that I once knew, and scenes at the dinner table are very roughly based on dinner table scenes from my own childhood…so they came in handy, after all.”

MUCH HAS DEVELOPED since the day in April I stumbled out of the Quiet Garden with blood running freely down my cheek. The intensity that has arisen over the months cannot be quelled, and I find myself engaged now in a monstrous negotiation, the nature of which I scarcely comprehend, and one that shifts ground continually. As much as I would keep Beth naïve, I sense in her silences that she is on the edge of recognition. I am touched as much by her innocence as I am by her fierce protectiveness of me—but I would keep her in ignorance for I have yet to comprehend the matter myself. I know only that I am involved in urgent entreaty on her behalf, yet I feel my resourcefulness weakening daily.

It is already November and the numbing draughts have taken up their habitual places and creep at will though the old kitchen. Beth has padded the windows with newspaper, and outside the sky is inky and swollen. She is determined to stay, and I can do nothing more to urge her to leave. There are many repulsive details I keep from her, but lately she has come to understand a little of what we are up against, although she struggles to deny it.

She has locked all the doors to the unused rooms upstairs, thinking to make the top corridor safe. At night she is anxious, and would have it that we sleep in the same room together as we did when we were children, as if by doing so things would change. I do not try to convince her otherwise; conversation between us has taken a strange turn lately. She and I should have much to talk about for we have not seen each other since the day she left in 1905, less than a six month after our parents died.

She does not tell me about her life in Edinburgh, and she does not ask me how I have fared here alone—as she would have it. She asks me oblique questions and watches me all the time when we are together in the house. She wishes to protect me, she says, just as she did when we were children. She is older than me by seven years and her memories of our childhood differ from mine; I do not recall her protection. I remember only suffocating resentment should I find her in my hiding places. On many occasions in the summer months, I spied on her from the Quiet Garden, daring her to tread the path that would lead her to me, but she never did. She stayed instead in company on the south lawn playing with the dogs. She fancied that were one of us to be there, the other could be free. She declares that we were close as children, and would be so again, were I to allow it.

The Quiet Garden stands above the lower lawns. Curved steps spotted with orange lichen lead up to a platform of ancient pitted stonework no bigger than a large room, and surrounded on three sides by gigantic yew hedges. The place has a penitent heavy feeling about it that attracted me singularly when I was a girl. A stone ornament in the shape of a Greek urn stands off centre in the square, and it was close to this, on an old bench, that I would sit reading. Chinking blackbirds warned me if someone was approaching, and there was time to slip away through a narrow passageway between two overlapping hedges before I was found. The place was my refuge. As soon as I was released from company, I hastened there to the silence, relieved to be cut free from the panting of the dogs, my sister’s pale face, and the rough bitter jokes our parents flung at each other between their deck chairs all through the summer days.

I am certain that it is Beth’s return that has brought about the feverous escalation. Although through the years, I have been aware that the two of them do linger, it is only since Beth came home that they have made themselves so very obvious. It was barely two weeks after she arrived when I first found myself in conflict with them. I had walked the gardens, the south lawns, the nut tree path, and up to the stables and fields beyond. I returned then to sit in the Quiet Garden. It was late afternoon, chilly but bright, the sun silvering the air around me. I cannot tell now if the phenomenon had been sudden or gradual, and as useless as it is to say, the only words I can find to describe it are that things started to bend. It was as if I had swooned, but the swooning was outside me. The edges of the flagstones appeared to warp, and staring at them did not return them to their proper place. I looked away and noticed that the yew hedge on the west side was curving inwards.

I became aware that there was moisture on the back of my neck, and reached my hand up. A bubbly wetness covered my palm. I stood up quickly and looked behind me, and as I did so, what I took to be a shower of small stones slashed at my face. I was conscious of the abnormality of the thing; the force with which the objects hit my cheeks and brow would have needed some visible person to be no further away than three or four paces.

I noted that my body was afraid; my blood had quickened and brought about a pulsing in my ears, and my cheek stung. In my thinking, I was as yet too startled to be frightened even though I sensed a frisson of malice that transcended the ordinary. I was instead, indignant and very repulsed. I backed away slowly and then turning, took the steps too quickly, twisting my ankle as I went.

“Some small cuts on my cheek, Beth,” I said later. “It must have been one of the village children, they’re quite rough nowadays, their fathers, you know, so many of them died in the war.”

The following morning I found Beth standing in the gap between the yew trees at the edge of the Quiet Garden. I do believe she was searching the flag-stones, looking for a scattering of small sharp objects to give credence to my story. “What are you doing out here?” I asked.

“I was concerned about the attack on you, Annie,” she said, “and you do look very wan.”

“Life has been a great strain hereabouts. Goodness, it is only two years since the end of the war, and there cannot be a soul in England who has not been dreadfully upset by the whole thing,” I told her.

For a while, the Quiet Garden reclaimed its tranquillity and June passed by pleasantly enough, although there was a faint chill in the air. I sensed nothing immediately harmful, although I had become nervous enough to be startled even by the movement of birds in the bushes beyond. Beth and I had agreed to stay within calling distance of each other and come together again as dusk distorted the shadows of the trees on the lawn.

They did not return again until late in October, and this time I confronted them boldly by calling out their names. I have wondered if it was my insolence that gave them vigour, for they were upon me suddenly with brutal energy. Sometimes I fancied my neck was kissed or my hair brushed, and if I resisted I was beaten. On one occasion, I was obliged to slip back into the house quietly and dispose of my frock that had been badly torn such that mending it would have been pointless. They would pull at me so and pester me, and it was as if I was mesmerised as their administrations became more intimate in nature.

I tried, at first, to keep a record of the particulars, as if by doing so I could assert the authority of all my forty-five years, but when later I read my jottings I found that my writing was always the nonsensical scribbling of a child, and I could make no sense of it.

I have failed to keep the dark business away from Beth, she has become so nervous and brooding that the slightest matter upsets her terribly; she has but to drop a spoon on the floor and she will be in tears. She has set about once again, finding ways to stop the vicious draughts moving freely in the house and banging shut the doors as they always have done. She insists that we keep an electrical light on during the night. “Where do you go for such long stretches of time?” she whispers at me repeatedly. She has become so persistent in her questioning that I am obliged to reveal a little of what is unfolding. “But why must you go to the Quiet Garden? It is winter now, and I know you go there even at night.”

“I go because I must. Concern yourself only with inside matters. I alone am responsible for things outside, and for finding ways to keep them there.”

“But what is out there that pulls at you so, Annie dear?”

“It is just a habit.”

“It is very eccentric, and I’ve become dreadfully fearful for you.”

“Some small eccentricities are unavoidable in those who have lived lonely for so long.” I did feel a great tenderness for Beth in her bewilderment, but I could not tell her then that I had no will in the matter. I could not say that the compulsion to keep tryst in the Quiet Garden was outside my own making; that the meetings were as unavoidable as when I was a child mute with obedience, bolstered only by the belief that eventually adulthood would free me from further misery. Sometimes I could see them clearly, before ever I reached the garden; they paced up and down along the yew hedges, impatient with my slowness.

In the middle of November, an occasion arose when Beth looked at me very levelly; she had led me to the kitchen, and stood with her back against the door. “Be truthful with me, it is to do with them, is it not? You think they are out there in the Quiet Garden.”

“I cannot deny it. Of course it is them. The spitting and stones—who else would engage in such puerile activities?” I did not describe how once my head was pulled sharply backwards so that I struggled for breath, or how on one occasion they would have my clothes from me and leave me to stand naked, and I witnessed my garments hanging in the air unsupported.

“I did not realise you thought about them so much anymore. I do not,” Beth said.

“Why should you? You have been gone all this long time, and I have been here with them.” She came towards me and I moved away, she could not change things that had already been done. “They are here, and they are very eager to make acquaintance with you again,” I shouted.

“Annie, hush, I cannot bear to see you so tormented. They are merely memories.” I saw her shudder.

“You do not believe me, do you, Beth?”

“How has this all come to be, do you suppose? Ever since I came home you have been fitful and really quite strange, Annie.”

“It is because of what we did.”

“But it was you who first suggested it, if I recall.”

“Perhaps, but you agreed. They have been about since then, sometimes together and sometimes separate. I have seen them by the water’s edge, or up by the stable. Never have they ventured into the Quiet Garden until your return. And they come back ferocious, more so than they were in life.”

I felt quite broken up and I did not resist her when she took my hand in hers and looked down upon it as if it were her very own. “Annie, perhaps if it really is us who have caused it, stopping it would also be possible, do you not think?” There was a curious tone to her voice that made a child of me.

“How, how could we stop it?”

“Perhaps you alone can stop it. Where is the fine spirit I so envied you when we were little? You were not afraid to move away from them and find your childish sanctuaries.”

“I think you should leave, Beth. That is the only way this business can be halted.”

“I do not regret what we did, it was not malicious. Besides, I do not wish to leave you again.”

“You did so without hesitation the first time.”

“Poor Annie. I did not know you suffered because of that, truly I did not.”

I let her take me in her arms and pull my head down onto her shoulder, for I was all done in with my torment. “It was monstrous and pagan, the thing we did,” I whispered.

I felt her tremble against me. “Can one be guilty of a thing if one does not understand the implications of it, do you imagine, Annie?”

“Of course!” I pulled away from her, “if those you have harmed think otherwise. That was exactly what our parents did think, as you very well know. We were guilty of things we had no knowledge of at the time.”

The relationship between our parents was debauched, and my sister and I lived in the murkiness of it, we crept between the intensity of the hatred they felt for each other and the extravagant ways they menaced each other’s bodies and thoughts. We spent time in the kitchen with our silent cook when we felt the need for the company of an adult through days in which our parents did not leave their bedroom, or days in which they grappled together through the rooms of the house, shouting. There were times of quietude, but these were brief and their length unpredictable.

We did not think they would damage us when they were alive. They seemed hardly to notice we were there, and when they did, they looked at us as if surprised. Father spoke to us with a hesitating formality that seemed to suggest that had things been otherwise, his enthusiasm for our company would have been boundless. Our mother had a myriad of different ways to show us that her life before our births had been thrilling.

I would not have minded those facts alone; the house with its two staircases and extravagant gardens supplied much of what I needed as a child, and Beth tells me now the same was true for her. We would come across each other in the old sure places of sanctuary—in the cupboard under the back stairs, or in the spidery storage room in the winter. In the summer, we would find our way separately to the stables or the broken greenhouse and curse and rejoice at the same time if the other was there. Only the Quiet Garden remained mine, for it was too queer and sombre for Beth.

Despite their depravity, our parents were conservative people in the 1880’s, and in the way of Queen Victoria, they never changed their opinions about the vileness of cremation. Beth believes it was because the first enthusiasts were gifted people such as Mr Millais and Mr Trollope. We suffered through many mealtimes listening to them threaten each other with cremation when death mercifully freed each from the other.

I recall one conversation over lunch—I believe it was in 1885 when Beth was seventeen, and I, ten years of age. The Woking Crematorium had just been opened, and a Mrs P., very well known for her opinions and presence in literary circles, was cremated there. In December of that year, the body of an extra-large woman was also subjected to the same treatment, successfully.

“So then,” began our father, “it occurs to me that this cremation business is a fitting end for obnoxious women, be they vile of body or mind, or in some cases both.”

Mother blanched. “The entire business of course was started by an individual who could be regarded as a true example of the stupidity and vanity of men.” She coughed loudly and drank noisily from her water glass, “a ridiculous old Welsh man who claimed to be a Druid, if I recall correctly. Last year, wasn’t it Teddy dear, you remember, he tried to cremate the body of his infant child and was arrested for his foul behaviour.”

I cast a glance at Beth and she looked away, we shared the same goal at that moment of judging a suitable pause in the sharpening exchange so that we could beg to leave the table. But our father turned his eye upon us. “Ask your mother to pass the salt cellar, Beth,” he said. His moustaches were horridly wet.

“Mother, Father would like the saltcellar,” Beth mumbled.

“Inform him that he must obtain it for himself.”

Beth lent forward towards her plate and began to weep silently. As often occurred, I intervened. “Oh, do let me get it, it is nearest to me,” I said, as if the task would give me pleasure.

I watched my mother’s dark eyes travel across the vegetable dishes, the water glasses, the napkin rings, and up my neck until they rested on my face. “Do eat up, Annie. Otherwise what a surprise you will have at breakfast tomorrow.”

Beth fumbled for her handkerchief and buried her face in it so that our parents were not visible to her. Father began his customary tapping of the tines of his fork on the table edge as mother positioned the water jug and gravy boat around her as if building a fortress.

We were eating mutton and peas. To this day, the thought of it fills me with horror. I had devised a way of disposing of mutton and other meats as a child. I was frequently abandoned at table when Beth and my parents had left to go about their chores. At a chosen moment, with only the cook as guard, I slipped the meat into my pocket and claimed to have eaten it. Released from the table I went quickly to a spot on the edge of our land and buried the flesh, trying at the same time to push away the curious fantasies that came to me in the process.

Our parents died quite suddenly within hours of each other in 1905. In this, their last year, they had been shadows to each other about the place. They were like two deranged beings looking constantly for ways to thwart the other, their war poisonously silent. I was thirty and Beth nearing forty. We had made nothing much of our lives, for it was difficult in our circumstances to engage with the outside world. I knew Beth had a small circle of friends in those days, but of course she never did bring them back to the house. I, on the other hand, had only my books and my thoughts.

Mother died first. She dropped onto the dining room floor by the window quite suddenly and with no sound. He came in to stare at her as he often did—sometimes for half an hour without blinking. He made a small noise at the sight of her and wandered off into the garden. We found him later dead under the willow tree, his face still moist with tears. We had them cremated at West Norwood. For Father we chose a simple ceramic urn in the Greek style, for Mother a smaller, more rounded clay vessel. We stood them side by side on the dining room table and looked at them.

Beth laughed hard and for a long time, until I began to smile. “Don’t look so rueful, Annie, we are free.” We had on the table between us a small bottle of Father’s malted whiskey. As the last remnants of the spring sunlight fell on the urns, we finished the liquor. “Are we in a ghastly stupor?” Beth asked me, as we gazed at each other.

“Putting them in these awful vessels would suggest it, I suppose,” I replied.

“No, they’re very fitting, Annie. The proud one is for a man and the little bevelled one is for a woman.” She jabbed her finger at them, “A gentleman and a lady, a lady and a gentleman,” she announced with unnecessary loudness.

I reached out and moved the vessels closer together. “What on earth are we going to do with them now?”

“Put them in the attic out of harm’s way,” she whispered. “I cannot tell you, Annie, how I cherish the silence now that they have gone. I too have plans to go.”

“Did they really do some of the things I remember, Beth? Did I see them rolling down the lawn together when we were children and falling into the stream, both naked?” I recalled the scene often, the spongy flesh of my father reddening in the grip of my mother’s bony fingers as they propelled each other towards the wet edges of the stream.

Beth nodded. “It is true that the relationship between them was frenzied at the time, but later on they did not box each other around so much; their wickedness became more subtle, and I was glad you were too young to notice what they next embarked upon. They started to hide each other’s things and Father cut holes in her dresses, little discreet ones nastily placed. From time to time, she tried to damage his automobile. Then, for a while she hunted him as though she was a different person.”

“Say what, Beth?”

“She wrote menacing little letters, she would go to London and post them from there. I read a couple of them once; they were in the pocket of her outdoor cape. He knew of course. When she came back he would tell her earnestly what had happened, and what he would do to the person were he to catch them.”

“You said you have plans, what plans?”

She frowned. “Oh, not this very minute, Annie. I’ll tell you later.”

I thought about my mother’s face, porcelain white and sharp jawed. “Even so, Mama and Papa could not have lived without each other, could they?”

“Well, that is it exactly, Annie. It was as though they had cast a fairy spell upon each other. It is strange to think that love between two people could be so vile a thing for other people to witness.”

“I think we should scatter them in the garden, I believe that is a fashion now. We should get rid of these hideous things they are trapped in. Maybe they could make peace if we did so. Indeed I know the very place; there is a tree on the edge of our land.” It was an idle thought, spoken only to cast aside the gloom that had descended upon us. I reached out and took the lids off the urns. Beth stood up and peered into each of them cautiously. “Let us put them together,” I said. We were drunken I suppose—but funeral drunk with a steadiness of purpose.

I picked up Father, and she took Mother. We laid a cloth upon the table and let the gritty grey particles trickle together, moving our heads back as fine dust began to form around the urns. And then we dared to go further, we mixed them with the tips of our own fingers, mingling them into one pile.

“Do you think this is legal, Annie dear?”

“They belong to us. I suppose we could eat them if we wanted to, with peas,” I replied frivolously, and to my utter shame.

All is now in the open between myself and Beth, I have shown her the recordings I made of their appearances and she affirms that they made no sense. “Perhaps you were in a trance, Annie,” she murmured. “But even if we must live once more with Mama and Papa, they cannot harm us one jot, you know.”

She was very calm, and I could not help but feel furious with her. “You make so little of it,” I shouted. “You think your sophistication can expunge them.”

“It is you who can expunge them, Annie, you alone. You must try mightily to let them go. They haunt you because you allow it.”

“Why can you not own that it is something we did together, and why can you not see that if you had not left, they would not be so very angry with us now?”

So our positions in this matter became fixed. We agreed that under no circumstances should we let our troubles become known to others. When tradesmen call it is she who has the task of speaking to them, and it is she who attends to our meals and comfort in the house. Although I feel she could be close to nervous exhaustion, she is wonderfully attentive to me most of the time; on that, I cannot fault her.

Now that November is nearing its end, strong winds blow against the yew hedges and the Quiet Garden is very much alive. Some dry snow has fallen, and more is likely in December. The bench close to the stone urn is swollen with damp and its tendrils of lichen so milky green in the summer, have taken on a darker hue. I spend much time there.

I wear the wide blue ribbons that hung limp in my hair when I was a child, so that they do not mistake me for Beth. I find new ways to appease them, thinking to charm them into placidity; I dance for them and sing the songs of our childhood that they never heard. I take meals to the garden for them. I lay the plates out carefully upon the ground; I fancy that mutton and peas are well tolerated. Sometimes I sense that the plates have been disturbed and call to Beth in my excitement. But it may be as she says—that an animal has ventured by and taken parts of the food, a fox, she suggests, or a domestic cat—for it is not I who eats them.

But lately a further development has occurred which has cast a new light on my duties. I have not yet told Beth because it is an escalation of a horrible kind, and the thing I most feared. It has become essential that I find a way of containing Mama and Papa within the Quiet Garden, for they have begun to venture from it in the last few days. It is as if over the months since my first encounters with them, they have gained new knowledge. They are like two children on the verge of intellectual discovery, and I sense their excitement, and with it their increasing malevolence. They wish to gain entry to the house, and I must at all costs stop this happening, for it is clear to me that once inside they will find Beth, for whom they hunger terribly.

Robert Shearman

SUFFER LITTLE CHILDREN

ROBERT SHEARMAN is an author and playwright who is probably best known for reintroducing the Daleks to the BAFTA-winning first season of BBC-TV’s revived Doctor Who.

His four short story collections—Tiny Deaths, Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical, Everyone’s Just So So Special and They Do the Same Things Different There—have, between them, won the World Fantasy Award, the Shirley Jackson Award, the Edge Hill Readers Prize and three British Fantasy Awards. Remember Why You Fear Me: The Best Dark Fiction of Robert Shearman is a recent omnibus collection of the author’s work.

“When I was a little boy,” recalls Shearman, “I was scared of stories. The ones read to me in class, the ones I was told on television. Words on the page used to scare me. Book covers alone could make me scream.

“My parents were concerned. The doctor suggested that maybe, to calm me down, I might like to think of numbers instead.

“I liked numbers. ‘3’ looked smiling and happy. ‘7’ was a bit stuck-up until you got to know him better, then he was all right. And every night I’d lie in my bed and stare up at the ceiling and think of numbers, my new friends.

“My bedroom ceiling was made up of fifteen unbroken tiles. (There were the edges of other tiles around the cupboards, but I didn’t count those, they had to be unbroken for the game to work. One of the fifteen was partially interrupted by the light hanging from it, and sometimes I counted it, and sometimes I didn’t.) And I would imagine on the first tile I would place the number ‘1’. And on the second, I’d double that, and I’d place the number ‘2’. And I’d carry on doubling, and by the time I reached my fifteenth tile, right above my head, I’d be up to ‘16,384’. I liked playing with doubling numbers. Whenever I felt awkward or nervous, I’d start doubling them in my head, and see how far I could get until I felt better. (And in fact, all these years on, I still do this.)

“The nightmares started when I began to believe the numbers might eat me. Because there weren’t just fifteen tiles in the world, there were billions. You carry on doubling the numbers on that many tiles, who knows what monsters you’ll end up with? And I dreamed regularly of armies of numbers, and an ever growing single number that just kept getting bigger and bigger, and I couldn’t squeeze all its digits on to a tile, no matter how small I tried to write it. And there are so many people in the world, but there are many more numbers than people—in a very real sense, the numbers will always outnumber us. And if they turn against us, if they even choose to see us, that’s it—we’re dead, we’re dead, we’re all dead.

“I had this nightmare a lot, until my parents weaned me off numbers and back on to books, back on to Enid Blyton.

“I still have the nightmare, once in a while. The last time was five months ago.

“This is a story about that nightmare.”

EVERYTHING SHE TAUGHT she’d learned from the books in her father’s study—and even then, only from the bottom shelves, she couldn’t have reached the top shelves without the ladder, and the ladder’s wooden rungs were lined with cracks that looked like spider webs. So, no geography, then (but her pupils would be English, so how much did they need to know about foreign lands?). Plenty of history, she liked the way the past could be packaged into neat little romances; they were like fairy tales but the difference was, these fairy tales were true. A smattering of French. A smaller smattering of Latin. Poetry. Fine art. She liked simple mental arithmetic, something about its solid rightness made her happy.

But what she taught didn’t matter; she was left under no illusions about that. Her task was to ensure the children were occupied and well-behaved, and that their wits were kept sharp to prepare them for proper education later. Children liked her, and that was the main thing. Adults didn’t, much; adults never quite knew what to say to her. She was unfailingly polite, but somehow always at one remove, everything she said sounded too considered and deliberate. But children seemed charmed by her.

In part, perhaps, that may have been the way she looked. She had such a very young face. Her cheeks were full and red like a baby doll’s. Her eyes, wide and innocent. The children instinctively might have recognised her as one of them, that for all the authority bestowed on her she belonged to their world, not the world of their parents. It was true that she always looked so serious and thoughtful, and she only rarely smiled. But that didn’t mean she ever looked disapproving, or in judgement of them. She seemed to be a little girl who wanted to be all grown up. Children understand that. They want the same thing.

It was only natural that Susan Cowley would be a governess. Even as a girl she’d had a calming effect on the other children playing around her; she didn’t seem to have any friends amongst them, not as such, but what of that? And Susan seemed to accept that role with incurious equanimity. Her little sister would be given all manner of pretty clothes; Susan, more and more, would get formal dress, bordering even upon uniform in its austerity, all befitting her future career. She never complained.

When she reached seventeen, her great aunt found her a placement at Exley Hall, to look after two young children of friends of hers.

It was impossible to judge how responsible Susan Cowley was for the Exley Hall scandal. Certainly, she never tried to offer any defence, and that may well have been her undoing. She seemed only too willing to take the blame, and so the blame was put squarely on her shoulders. And maybe that was right. The children were in her care. Whether or not she had done anything directly to influence events, that, surely, cannot be disputed.

There were no criminal proceedings, and that was just, for it was hard to see how anything that had happened could be called a crime. The Exleys did not want any muck clinging to their son’s name. They did not want any word getting out. That said, Susan Cowley was unable to find herself another position afterwards, so someone must have talked.

Mr and Mrs Cowley did not know what to make of it all. Susan had always been such a quiet child, the reliable one, the boring one truth be told. They did not discuss the matter. They tried to pretend nothing had happened. Mr Cowley only lost his temper the once, and that was not even with Susan; at the dinner table the little sister began asking how it was that Susan was home again, didn’t she like being a teacher?—and at that, without a word, Mr Cowley had got up and slapped the girl around her face. The girl was so shocked she even forgot to cry.

One night, when he couldn’t sleep, Mr Cowley found Susan in his study. She was sitting on the floor, a stack of books by her side, and she was leafing through them slowly. All her old favourites—Arthurian legends, a Latin primer, and tomes and tomes of rudimentary calculus. “Susan?” he asked softly, “are you all right?” It was the gentlest thing he had said to her since her disgrace; Susan looked up at him, but her face registered no surprise at his new tenderness. She nodded. Mr Cowley stood there in the doorway, and he knew that this was the moment he should reach out to her, try to talk to her, maybe find out what had happened. This was his chance. And he couldn’t take the chance, or didn’t, at any rate; he nodded back, quite formally, turned, and went back to bed.

There came in the post one morning a letter for Susan. Inside there was a newspaper clipping advertising for young teachers at H___ Priory. There was no letter, no indication who it might have been from; Mr and Mrs Cowley wondered whether the great-aunt was offering some help, just as she had done before; she hadn’t spoken to the family since the incident but maybe she had relented. It was not a governess’ position; it was not ideal; it was to teach a class of young children of no discernible means or background, and the wages offered were meagre. But, as Mr and Mrs Cowley said, beggars could not be choosers. They looked for H___ on the map. It took them a while to find it; it was far away, and seemed very small, tucked away at the edge of the page.

Susan replied to the advertisement. She did not expect an interview. By return of post she received notice that the job was hers.

There was no direct railway line to H___. Susan was obliged to make no fewer than four connections, and each train she boarded was smaller and slower than the last—and emptier too, so that by the last service Susan was the only person in the carriage. It fell dark. It began to rain hard. No one came to inspect Susan’s ticket, and as the train crawled on she began to fear that the driver would just decide to stop, that he’d feel the journey wasn’t worth the effort, and that she’d be stuck there in the blackness and the wet forever. And she had the absurd desire to start shouting, to chivvy the driver on, to assure him he had a passenger and that he mustn’t give up, for her sake. Of course, she did nothing of the sort. She kept her composure, and only by hugging her suitcase close would she have given any outward sign that she was afraid. She sat still, looked out of the window into the pitch black, and hoped that soon she would reach her destination.

And, at length, she did. She hauled her suitcase on to the platform. The station was dark, and she could not see an exit. The rain sliced through her. “Over here!” she heard, and she realised that the platform wasn’t deserted after all; it was a woman’s voice, low in pitch, and she was gesturing at Susan to come and take shelter beneath her umbrella. The woman was large, and Susan couldn’t quite fit under the umbrella beside her; generously, the woman side-stepped and stood out in the rain to keep Susan dry.

“You’re Miss Cowley?” she said.

“Yes,” said Susan.

“Good! Follow me!”

And the woman marched on into the night, still holding out the umbrella for Susan, but she was striding away so fast that both of them got soaked. “It’s not always like this, sometimes the weather is quite nice!” And soon they were outside the station, and there was a little jalopy waiting for them. “Hop right in, the door’s open!” Susan took the passenger seat, and watched as the woman struggled against the wind and the pelting rain to get the umbrella shut. And then the woman was in the car beside Susan, and so drenched through that she couldn’t help but spray Susan with water as she shifted into her seat, like a dog shaking itself dry without worrying about the soaking it will give its owner. She beamed at Susan. She offered her hand, and Susan took it, and the woman pumped it up and down like a piston.

“I must say, I’m glad you’re you,” she said, and then blushed.

“Are you?” asked Susan.

“I thought you might be one of those dreadful old women! The school always gets dreadful old women, they never last long. Stay a term or two, and then go off to die somewhere, I’ll bet. Ha! Miss Susan Cowley, you must admit, the name sounds a bit elderly and a bit dreadful.”

“I had never thought,” said Susan.

“Like some Godforsaken spinster! Not that I’m judging. I mean, Valerie Bewes. That sounds shocking, doesn’t it? That sounds positively decrepit! I’m Valerie, by the way.” And she offered her wet hand again, and Susan had to take it. “I’m just so pleased you’re young, like me! We can be proper girls together!”

Susan didn’t think that Valerie looked especially young, she must have been thirty if she were a day. “Is the school very far?” asked Susan.

“Lord love you, you’ve travelled all day, and here I am jabbering! Yes, it is quite far. About nine miles, which isn’t too bad, but it’s uphill and this old girl doesn’t like climbing hills, and it’s dark and it’s wet—we’d better go slow. We should get moving, we can chat along the way!”

But they didn’t chat much. Valerie pointed at the hills and countryside (“Really, it’s quite nice when it’s daylight, and dry”), and talked all about herself, and Susan quickly realised that the information offered was neither interesting nor pertinent. When Susan declined to join in the conversation, even Valerie at last ground to a halt. “You’re tired, poor darling, I’ll let you have some peace!”

And—”Here we are!” said Valerie, at last. And there was the school in the distance. Ever since she had accepted the post Susan had wondered what the school might look like, and the reality of it was that it was small and flat and rather unassuming. She felt some relief, and also a little disappointment.

Valerie explained that, its name notwithstanding, the school had really very little to do with H___. It was simply the closest town, and no one could agree what the name of this bit of countryside precisely was. The children were taken from the various villages and hamlets around, sometimes to a distance of fifteen miles—all the communities who didn’t quite belong to anyone else, they could fit in here. Most of the children boarded; it was simply too much effort for them to go back to their parents very often. There were never more than a hundred pupils in the school at any one time, and they were divided into three classes. The youngest, and largest, were the eight to ten year olds, who’d be taught by Miss Cowley. The middle class was for the ten to twelves, taken by Miss Bewes herself. The remaining class ranged all the way from twelve to seventeen, and Mrs Phelps was in charge of them. That said, very few of the children were seventeen; in fact, very few of the children stayed at the school once they were teenagers.

“And what happens to them after that?” asked Susan.

“Oh, Lord knows. They probably go off and marry each other! I don’t think there are any pupils from H___ Priory who have ever amounted to much. They come from the countryside, they just drift back into it again.” Valerie laughed. “No, they’re fine, they’re good kids, mostly.”

Bordering the school was the little cottage that Susan and Valerie would share. Valerie seemed to think Susan already knew and had agreed to this arrangement, and Susan had no desire to disabuse her. “It’s nice and homely,” said Valerie. “Shared bathroom, shared kitchen, shared personal area, you know, all mod cons. Separate bedrooms. Let me show you your bedroom.”

The bedroom was plain. It was not as pretty as her bedroom at Exley Hall, or even her bedroom at home. The bed looked hard, the single pillow lumpy. The walls were bare.

“It just needs to be lived in a bit,” said Valerie. “It’s wonders what you can do with a few pictures around. I’ll show you my bedroom, later, if you like.”

Valerie offered to make them both some supper, she had soup on the stove. Susan declined, but thanked her. Valerie said that she would introduce her to Mrs Phelps the next day, and then to the children.

“All right,” said Susan. “Thank you. Good night.”

Valerie laughed, and said, “My darling, whatever must you have done to end up here!”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Oh, I don’t mean anything by it! I’m sorry. But as if anyone would choose to come here. Most of them can’t get away from the place fast enough. Like Miss Fortescue, good riddance, the miserable old trout. Oh, I tell you, my darling, it’s going to be so much more fun living with you than it was with her!”

The Bewes woman left her then, mercifully, but not before once more offering Susan her hand to shake. And Susan got undressed, and lay on her bed, and propped her head up on the pillow as best as she could, and stared up at the ceiling, and listened to the rain, and tried not to dream about Edwin this time.

In the morning it was still raining hard, and Susan and Valerie had to run from the cottage to the school, Valerie whooping with joy as if it were some great game.

Susan was introduced to Mrs Phelps. Mrs Phelps did not shake her hand. Mrs Phelps had no interest in her hand whatsoever.

“The headmaster and I are sure you’ll be most suitable, Miss Cowley,” she said. “I doubt we’ll have much cause to speak again, we’ll be in different classrooms, of course.”

“Of course.”

Susan wondered whether she was going to meet the headmaster as well. Valerie laughed, and said she hadn’t seen Mr Phelps in simply ages; he stayed in the house, bedridden most likely, and passed on instructions through his wife. “Or maybe he’s run away,” she joked. “Or maybe he’s dead! Anything rather than live with that old dragon.”

Valerie took Susan to her own classroom. The children were already inside.

“Just don’t let them know it’s your first time,” she said.

“How do you know it’s my first time?”

“Oh, my dear, it’s so obvious! To me, I mean, not to them. Just try to keep them occupied. There’s a whole stack of books in the cupboards, get them reading, that eats up the time. And if anyone misbehaves, just strike them with the cane.”

“Oh!” said Susan. “No, I couldn’t!”

“You’ll be doing them a favour,” said Valerie. “That way they’ll know you’re in charge. You’ll be doing me a favour too, I’ll be inheriting some of these kids next term! The cane is your friend. Miss Fortescue, she got through half a dozen of them, we had to get in a fresh supply!”

“Yes,” said Susan. “All right.”

“Don’t you worry, you’ll be wonderful. You’ve got just the face for it! The children will adore you. And tonight I’ll make us some nice supper, and you can tell me all about your adventures.”

Susan entered the classroom then, and shut the adult world out. She immediately felt calmer. She looked out across the children, all of them eyeing her warily. Little girls in pretty blouses, boys big before their time with dirty faces and dirty fingernails.

“Good morning, class,” she said. And they all got to their feet then, and mumbled good morning back. She hadn’t expected that. She rather liked it. She hoped she’d kept it off her face, that surprise, and that pleasure. She was sure she had.

“My name is Miss Cowley,” she told them. “And I’m here to look after you.”

She looked through the cupboards. The children helped her. There were the books, as Miss Bewes had promised. There was also a map, as big as the blackboard. There were drawing pads. There was a whole colony of wooden abacuses.

She put the map up on the wall. It was an old map, and she knew some of the countries didn’t exist any more, not since the war. The children were still able to point out some of the better ones, like France and Spain, and show her where England was. Afterwards, she set the children on to the drawing pads, told them they could draw whatever they liked, and use crayons to colour the pictures in. Some of the drawings were really rather good, and she took the map down and put the drawings in its place.

After lunch she asked the children what subjects they most liked, and they all said they liked stories, and that meant history. So she told them an Arthurian legend. The children listened, quite spellbound, as if they’d never even heard of Sir Gawain or his green knight, and at one point the realisation that these thirty young strangers were hanging on her every word made Susan freeze with stage fright; they waited patiently; she recovered; she began to enjoy herself. Already in her head she was planning other stories she could share with them the next day, and the day after that, and all the days following.

It only went wrong towards the end of the afternoon.

Susan suggested they move on to mathematics. She was pleased that none of the children groaned, or looked unhappy at the prospect; by this point, it seemed, they would have followed her anywhere, even into the realms of simple arithmetic. “Why not show me what you already know?” she said. “Who here would like to stand before the class, and recite the times tables with me?”

No one volunteered. But then, no one resisted either. “How about you?” she asked a little girl sitting near the front, and the little girl got to her feet quite happily.

“What’s your name?” she asked the girl. But the girl just shook her head.

“Don’t be shy,” said Susan. “We’re all your friends here. Do you know the five times table?” The little girl looked at her blankly.

“I’ll demonstrate,” Susan said. And she began to recite. “Once times five is five. Two times five is ten. Three times five…”

“Fifteen,” said the little girl.

“That’s right.”

“Four times five is twenty. Five times five is twenty-five.” And on the girl went, all the way to a hundred.

Susan gave her a little clap. “Well done,” she said. “Does anyone else want to…?”

The little girl took a deep breath. And then she started on the six times table.

“Yes,” said Susan. “All right.”

“Ten times six is sixty. Eleven times six is sixty-six.”

“That’s very good. Well done!”

“Fifteen times six is ninety. Sixteen times six is ninety-six.”

“Big numbers now! Can you go any further?”

But the girl stopped dead, looked at Susan, frowned.

“That’s very good,” said Susan once more. “Yes. I shall give you a merit point. What is your name, again…?”

And the little girl, once again, was taking a breath of air. A deeper one this time. The effort of it meant she had to clutch on to the teacher’s desk, and her face turned red. A great wheeze there was, and Susan thought it sounded like it came from an old man, an old man close to death, and the girl’s face was contorted with the force of it—she hunched over, gripping at her stomach, and Susan reached out for her, and the little girl just pushed her away. She steadied herself. She calmed. She looked her teacher right in the face.

“One times seven is seven,” she informed her. It was almost conversational. “Two times seven is fourteen.”

“Yes,” agreed Susan.

And onwards. “Thirteen times seven is ninety-one. Fourteen times seven is ninety-eight.”

Susan felt the question rise within her—does she know the eight times table? “Thank you,” she said, and she hoped from her tone it was clear that the thank you was conclusive.

But the little girl had gone back to the beginning. She was reciting the seven times table again, and this time it was faster, more confident.

“Three times seven is twenty-one, four times seven is twenty-eight, five times…”

“You need to sit down now,” said Susan.

“…ninety-one, fourteen times seven is ninety-eight, one times seven is seven…” There was no pause for breath this time. Two times seven, three times, four, and there was a smile on her face, as the pace began to accelerate still further.

“You need to sit down now,” said Susan. “That’s enough.”

“Ten times seven is seventy, eleven times seven is seventy-seven, twelve…”

“I said, enough!”

Susan looked at the class, to see how they were reacting to this open display of mockery. They didn’t seem amused, and that was good, she supposed—they didn’t seem shocked, or even interested. They stared out at the little girl with frank indifference.

And still the girl was tearing into the seven times table, so fast now that the words were starting to blur, the numbers running into each other and in the collision causing bigger numbers yet to appear, and Susan had her hands around the girl’s shoulders and she was shaking her, “Stop!” she said. “Stop this instant!” She looked at the class. “Fetch me my cane.”

No one moved.

“I said, the cane!” And a few of the children exchanged glances, and one boy at the front got to his feet, walked slowly to Susan’s desk, so slow it was nearly insolent, but not quite, nothing quite so obvious; he pulled open a drawer, and took out an ugly thin wooden stick.

The little girl was babbling out the words now, but she didn’t look afraid, she was exultant. “Don’t make me do this,” said Susan. “I don’t want to hurt you. Do you hear me? Stop. Stop. Hold out your hand. Hold out your hand.”

And, without pausing, the numbers still spilling forth, the little girl did so, she opened her palms ready for punishment.

Susan hit her. She didn’t want to hit her hard. But the stick was designed to hurt, and as it swung down it made the air crack, and the explosive pop it made against the little girl’s hand seemed too loud and too too angry, and Susan at once regretted it, but it was too late.

The girl stopped immediately, somewhere between forty-two and forty-nine. She looked at Susan in bewilderment. Then down at her hand, and Susan could see that the blow had broken the skin. She looked back up at Susan, and there were tears in her eyes, and there was disappointment too.

“That’s enough now,” said Susan quietly. “Sit down.”

The little girl did so.

“I will not,” said Susan, “tolerate insubordination. Not in my class. I’m here to help you. I want to help you.” She added, “And I read to you all about Sir Gawain!” It didn’t come out too plaintively, she hoped.

For the rest of class she had them read to themselves. There was only another fifteen minutes to go. The children were all perfectly silent, but Susan felt relieved when the bell sounded. She dismissed them, and smiled at them as they filed out, to show that everything was forgiven and forgotten. And the children seemed to hold no grudges, quite a few of them smiled back, even the little girl she’d beat.

Valerie Bewes made stew for them that evening. Susan did not want to discuss the incident with her, but there was no one else she could tell. Valerie laughed at the story, and told her not to worry.

“They’ll always try something,” she said. “It was your first day, and they have to find out how hard they can push you. I say you made it perfectly clear! Well done, you!” She helped Susan to another helping of stew. Susan didn’t like it much, the vegetables were nearly raw, the chunks of beef too stringy.

“I must go to bed,” said Susan. “I’m tired.”

Valerie looked disappointed, just for a moment, and then she smiled. “Of course. First day of term is the worst, you know! It’ll be easier tomorrow, you’ll see!”

Susan thanked her for supper, and went up to her room.

The room had changed. Susan stood in the doorway and stared at it. And then she heard Valerie chuckle, she hadn’t realised she’d come up the stairs behind her.

“I did a bit of furnishing for you!” she said. “Miss Fortescue left all her pictures behind. She’ll probably come and collect them at some point, but until she does, you may as well benefit from them…! She liked natural history. Natural history was her favourite subject.”

“Yes,” said Susan.

There were a dozen different paintings on the wall, and all of birds. Some of them were life studies, some of them were anatomical examinations. But even the skeletal bodies still had their wings intact, jutting out the sides, and that gave Susan the oddest impression that the poor creatures had had their skin and organs only selectively removed. She didn’t know what type of birds they were. She recognised an eagle.

“It makes the room feel more lived in, doesn’t it?”

“It does indeed.”

“Do you like it?”

“Very much.”

Valerie was pleased by that, and seemed about to start another conversation. “Good night,” said Susan, quite firmly, and Valerie nodded, gave a flash of a smile, and closed the door behind her.

Susan lay on the bed. No matter how tightly she drew the curtains, enough light got in to pick out the birds. The eyes seemed to follow her, and if they had no eyes, then the eye sockets followed her instead. When shadows passed over the feathers it made them come alive, to flex and ripple; the rain spattered hard on the windows, and sounded like the flutter of a thousand wings.

When Valerie knocked at the door, maybe half an hour later, Susan was almost grateful.

“I’m sorry,” said Valerie. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to disturb. I’m sorry. May I come in, my darling?”

“Just a moment,” said Susan, and she put on her dressing gown, turned on the light, and answered the door.

Valerie was smiling at her, but it was a brave smile; she had been crying. She came with a bottle of brandy, and two glasses. “I’m sorry,” she said again.

“What’s the matter?”

Valerie came in, and sat upon the bed. In her beige dressing gown, with her hair loose and messy over her shoulders, she looked even older than she had by day. She smelled of brandy, and Susan supposed she’d had rather a lot of it.

“Sometimes I have bad nights,” said Valerie. “May I confide in you? Can I trust you enough so I can confide?”

“I imagine so,” said Susan.

Valerie then burst into tears, and told Susan some ghastly little story about how she’d once worked as a governess, many years ago now, and how she had been seduced by her employer—or perhaps she had seduced him, the story wasn’t very clear. She had fallen pregnant, much to the horror of the man, who had thrown her out of his house and away from his children, denouncing her as a slut. She had tried to lose the baby, she really had, she’d drunk gin, she’d even thrown herself down the stairs once. But it was no good, the baby had been born, and had been taken away from her.

“Would you drink with me?”

“No, thank you.”

“Please drink with me! So I’m not drinking alone…!”

Susan sipped at her brandy, and it didn’t sit well with the stew, and she felt a little sick.

“My life was over,” said Valerie. “Until I found this place. The school took me in. They forgave me.”

“Yes.”

“Did something like that happen to you, my darling? Do you need to be forgiven?”

“No,” said Susan. “Absolutely not.”

If Valerie was offended by the vehemence of this, she didn’t show it. She just nodded, poured herself another glass. “I’m sorry,” she said. “The first day of term does this to me. Seeing the children again. And thinking, one of them could be mine! Do you see? Any one of them, how would I ever know? I’ve never told anyone this before”—and Susan rather doubted that, Susan imagined Valerie Bewes told the same story to every new teacher who arrived, maybe that’s why Miss Fortescue had fled H___ Priory as soon as she got the chance—”but you’re like a little baby, aren’t you? You look just like a baby doll. You could be my daughter. You could be. I know you can’t be, you’re too old, but. You could be mine.” She stroked at Susan’s cheek.

“Yes,” said Susan.

“May I stay here tonight?”

“No.”

“No. Of course. You need to sleep. Yes. I’ve been selfish. I’ll see you in the morning. Yes.”

Susan didn’t think Valerie was all that drunk, she got up from the bed and made it to the door steadily enough.

Before she put out the light, Susan removed every bird picture from the wall, and put them, face down, under the bed.

Most nights Susan dreamed of Edwin. And sometimes they weren’t nightmares. Sometimes she actually missed him.

Susan hadn’t much liked Edwin Exley at first. She preferred his little sister, Clara. Clara was six, and shy, and not very pretty, and Susan’s heart went out to her. At eight years old Edwin was already tall and arrogant; Mr Exley told Susan on her first day that Edwin was going to have a stellar career in the army, and that there was no limit to what the boy would achieve for his country. Edwin himself certainly seemed to believe that. His father had already taught him a lot of the basics of being a soldier, and when he met his new governess he stood to attention, and gave her a salute that Susan suspected was a little too clipped and far too ironic.

Mr and Mrs Exley were kind to Susan. They let her eat with them of an evening, and treated her quite like she was an elder daughter rather than an employee. They gave her a comfortable bedroom, with a soft bed, and drapes, and lots of pretty pictures on the walls. When the family took a few days in the south of France during the autumn, they wanted Susan to come with them; she still was required to teach the children in the mornings, but the afternoons were her own, and they encouraged her to sit on the beach with them and enjoy the sun.

The nursery at Exley Hall was turned into a little classroom. All the toys and games were put away each morning before lessons started; for a few hours, at least, this was to be a place of learning. Susan directed most of her classes towards Clara in particular; Edwin was not exactly bad mannered, but he made it clear he wasn’t much interested, and any attention he gave was bestowed upon his teacher as if it were a great gift for which she should be grateful. He was not very good at mathematics, he enjoyed history only when it was something he’d already heard about from his father. He discovered he had an aptitude for Latin which delighted him, and his face lit up like a little boy when Susan complimented him upon it.

Both Clara and Edwin would listen when their teacher told them ancient stories of heroism and derring-do. Edwin liked the tales of King Arthur, but only when there were quests and fighting; he didn’t like Guinevere or Lancelot, he didn’t want to bother with all that mushy stuff.

One night Susan couldn’t sleep, and she went downstairs to Mr Exley’s study. It was even better furnished with books than her father’s, and she thought something to read would help her rest. She was surprised to find a light burning. There on the floor was Edwin, and all about him were texts he had taken from the shelves. He started when he realised Susan was there.

“Don’t tell my father,” he said.

“Your father wouldn’t mind,” Susan told him. “He’d be pleased you want to learn things!”

“No,” said Edwin. “He wouldn’t.”

Susan often found Edwin in the study at night times. They never discussed their secret rendezvous during the day, and Susan tried not to go down there too often—maybe no more than once, say twice, a week. Edwin would show her new books he had found; sometimes they were geography, and as he enthused about Africa and the colonies she rather got the impression that he was teaching her. He was taller than she was, he had no problem reaching the higher shelves. And he had no fear of the step-ladder, he’d race up to the very top of it to fetch books that were brushing at the ceiling, with a fearless speed that sometimes made Susan’s heart stop.

She showed him some poetry. He was resistant at first. She made him read it out loud to her, and he began to like it more, he began to enjoy the rhythm of it.

On his birthday she bought him a little notebook in which he could write his own poetry. She bought him a sketchpad, so that he could draw.

One day Mr Exley put down his newspaper at the breakfast table, and the rare act of that caused his wife to stop her chatter. Mr Exley said to Susan, “And how are the children getting on? Learning things, are they?”

Susan told him they were both doing admirably.

Mr Exley nodded at this. “That’s good,” he said. “What they learn now, they’ll never forget. I’ve got such stuff in my head, all the kings and queens from William the Conqueror, times tables, things like that. Useless, of course, but it’s nice to have.”

Mrs Exley said that the children seemed very happy.

Mr Exley said, “We should have a demonstration some evening. Nothing too fancy. Just you and the children, showing us what they’ve learned.” Mrs Exley looked quite excited by that. Susan told them she’d make preparations.

Edwin could soon list all the kings and queens, just like his father, and as an added bonus Susan felt he should also indicate the dates of famous battles they had fought; Hastings, Agincourt, the Boyne. Clara could read some poetry; for all her shyness and plain features she had such a sweet voice. And both children could conclude with a recitation of their times tables, five, six, seven and eight, all the way to a hundred.

The evening went very well. Both the parents looked proud and indulgent as their children stood tall and parroted out all the facts they knew. Clara read three poems: one by Keats, one by Shelley; the final one was by Edwin Exley, although the author’s name was not mentioned. Susan thought it would be a charming little secret. It wasn’t necessarily a very good poem, and was rather cruelly exposed beside the Victorian Romantics that had inspired it, but Mr and Mrs Exley couldn’t tell the difference.

Mr Exley gave the children a round of applause, and a shilling each, and told Susan that they would have to have a similar soirée at some point. Maybe at Christmas, when all their friends were there?

That night Susan visited Edwin in the study.

“I love you,” said Edwin, suddenly.

“Well, I love you too.” Susan thought nothing of this: Clara was always telling Susan she loved her, and putting her arms around her, she was such a needy girl. And Edwin was studying a book at the time, he wasn’t even looking at her.

“Will you marry me one day?”

Susan laughed. “Oh, I shouldn’t have thought so!”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re a little boy.”

“I won’t be a little boy forever. I’ll get older soon. And I’ll go and fight. I’ll be brave and defend my country, and I’ll never be afraid. Do you believe me?”

“Yes. Yes, I believe you.”

“I’ll be fighting for you.” Edwin had put aside the book now, he had abandoned cover, and he was staring at Susan, and he was beginning to cry, but he didn’t seem sad, he seemed fierce.

Susan didn’t know what to say. “You’ll marry someone else, Eddie. You’ll see. Someone better than me.”

“And when I do, will you come to my wedding?”

“Of course I will!”

“Good. I want you there. I want you to see my bride. I want you to know that I shan’t love her. That I’m marrying her out of spite. That I’ll be cruel to her, and punish her, because she’ll never be you. I want you to know it’ll be your fault.”

“That’s a wicked thing to say,” said Susan. Edwin didn’t care. He shrugged.

“I pray to God each night that you’ll love me,” he said.

“God can’t answer prayers like that.”

“Not the God of Jesus,” he sneered. “There are older gods. The things I’ve read. The things that are in the books on the top shelf.”

Christmas Day, Mr Exley said, would be for the family alone. Cook and the two maids were given time off. Susan was put right at the heart of the celebrations, and it was tacit proof of acceptance that she found very touching. Mrs Exley gave her as a present a pink dress—”You don’t seem to have anything nice, my dear,” she said, and the dress fitted perfectly. Clara gave Susan a piece of embroidery she had stitched herself. Edwin didn’t give Susan anything, but he was a boy.

And in the evening they all went to a carol service at the church, and sang hymns together. Mr Exley sang with particular gusto. Edwin sat at the end of the pew, away from Susan, and barely even mouthed any of the hallelujahs to Christ.

On Boxing Day Cook and the maids came back, and everyone prepared for the party. Lots of Mr Exley’s old friends came with their twittering wives, and in honour of this Mr Exley wore his regimental uniform. There was a turkey dinner, and crackers, and cigars, and a game of charades. Susan didn’t join in, but she enjoyed watching all the grown-ups play. Before the children’s bedtime they were presented, newly dressed in smart clothes; the Exleys said Clara and Edwin would perform for them. Edwin stiffly recited the crowned heads of England once more, and the men especially gave hearty applause. Clara performed from memory a short poem by Keats. As a grand finale, the children would chant the seven times table.

It began well enough. Everyone looked on kindly, knowing that it would all be at an end soon, and they could get back to their sherries and jokes and fun. No one even appeared to notice how Edwin’s delivery was somewhat forced and sarcastic; Clara, at least, was a perfect angel.

Somewhere in the middle Edwin broke rank, and began to deliver a poem of his own. Clara didn’t know what to do, she floundered on for one more calculation, then came to a stop, and stared at her brother open-mouthed and dumb.

It wasn’t a love poem. That was the first thing to say. There was really very little about love in it.

It was a wonder Edwin got as far through it as he managed. He told, in doggerel verse, how he and his governess would meet regularly at night and have sex in his father’s study. There was nothing tender to it. It was blunt and pornographic.

And it was something more too. There was something animal about it. Not merely the sex itself, as rough and primal as it was. But a suggestion too in the act of congress, that as Edwin performed acts he should not have known about, and that surely most humans weren’t even capable of, there was something monstrous being born, that these writhing creatures were no longer simply boy and woman but something not of this world; there were beaks, and scales, and talons, and tongues that were impossibly, terrifyingly, long.

Mrs Exley just said, “No, no, no,” over and over again, as if her quiet denial of it could really matter a jot. Mr Exley roared at his son to stop, and when he didn’t, he got up, marched over to him, and clipped him hard around the head. At that point only did Edwin fall silent; he glared at his father, glared at the room, and glared at Susan most particularly. Then he ran from the room.

Susan ran too. She didn’t know where to go. She went to her room. She sat on the bed, numbed. She wasn’t there for long. Mr Exley banged upon the door, told her to get out, and come with him.

She had never been to Edwin’s room before. Now she saw that all over his bed were pages and pages of scribbled verse, ripped out of the notebook she’d bought him, and sketchpad drawings. The drawings were of her, she recognised herself at once. In most she’d been given claws and wings, it was her head on the body of wild beasts—lions, dogs, birds. In all she was naked. Human breasts, obscenely large, grew out from trunks of fur and scales, and dangled.

Edwin stood there, frightened, but acting brave, acting like a man.

Mr Exley picked up some of the writings, looked them over briefly. Threw them on the floor. “Filth,” he said.

He turned to Susan. “I do not believe. I cannot believe. Any of the things he writes here are true.”

“No,” she said. “No.”

“But how,” he said. “How?” And in that moment he looked at her so imploringly, like a little child himself, begging her to make things all right again. The face clouded; his teeth clenched; he was an adult once more. He said to Susan, “I want you to beat him. You must beat him. To within an inch of his life.”

And she saw then that in his hand, lying almost nonchalantly against the seam of his regimental uniform trouser leg, was a cane. “No,” she said.

“If you don’t beat him, I will,” said Exley. “And it will be easier on him if it’s you.”

“I can’t. I can’t. I’m sorry.”

“Very well. But you will watch.”

She did watch. And just before Edwin bent over there was still something of the man in him, staring down his father defiantly, staring down the world. But it didn’t last long. And as he struck his son, again, and again, and again, Mr Exley would glance at Susan to check she was still watching, to check she appreciated what her bad teaching had forced a loving father to do—and she could see that he wished he could beat her as well, that he could put her over his knee and beat her senseless.

Susan left Exley Hall the first thing the next morning. She left behind the pink dress, taking it now seemed wrong. She didn’t see any of the family. It was one of the maids who saw her off. She’d never really spoken to the maids, but this one was kindly enough.

“And Miss Clara still hasn’t spoken,” she said. “Not a single word, though they do try and coax ‘em out. Shock, I shouldn’t wonder.”

A taxi took her to the nearest railway station. Because it was Christmas, she had to wait some hours for a train, and she was cold.

She found in her coat pocket a letter. Miss Cowley, it said on the envelope, and she recognised the handwriting as Edwin’s. She opened it with strange excitement. She didn’t know what to expect. An apology. Or some words of new tenderness?

Inside there were just two words. Something’s coming.

In her dreams, the rain stopped. Or, rather, in her dreams she could make it stop. If she only gave up struggling. If she just let things be.

But when she woke to her second day at H___ Priory, the rain was still battering hard against the windows. Even Valerie took no pleasure in it today, and when they ran for the school they were drenched from head to foot in an instant.

The children in the class were neat and dry, of course. And Susan feared that they would laugh at her when she came into the room looking like a drowned rat. Not a bit of it; and if they harboured any grudge towards her for what had happened yesterday, there was no indication of it at all. They stood to attention when she addressed them; one of them had even left an apple on her desk.

“Where is the little girl from yesterday?” Susan asked. She didn’t know what she wanted to say to her. She knew she mustn’t apologise, or show weakness. The little girl wasn’t there. No one seemed to know where she might be, or gave her answer at any rate. Perhaps it was just as well.

For the morning they drew pictures and sang roundelays. Before lunch she told them another Arthurian legend; Edwin might have thought that Guinevere and Lancelot was mush, but it was a lovely story, and Susan saw to her satisfaction that even some of the boys’ eyes watered at the telling.

She knew she could not avoid the matter forever. And in the afternoon she fetched from the cupboard all the abacuses they had, and distributed them liberally about the room.

“Mathematics,” she said.

That was all it took.

Some boy, some wag, suddenly piped up with the seven times table. He sang it out, bold and confident. Susan opened her mouth to stop him, and then decided she’d have more power if she let him proceed. If only for a little while.

Maybe if she’d spoken up then she could have stopped it. Maybe she missed her chance. But as the numbers grew bigger, so more of the children picked up the mantra. By the time they reached fifty-six, all of the boys were at it—by the time they reached ninety-eight, all the girls were at it too.

“All right,” she said. “Very clever. That’s enough.”

But it wasn’t enough, was it? Because numbers don’t stop at one hundred. “Fifteen times seven is one hundred and five. Sixteen times seven is one hundred and twelve.” And for a moment Susan was floored, it was almost as if she’d forgotten you could get any higher than the little abacuses allowed her! “Nineteen times seven is one hundred and thirty-three. Twenty times seven is one hundred and forty.” And by now the voices were in utter concert, all keeping the same pace exactly.

“Please stop,” she said.

They didn’t stop.

She got out her cane. “You know I can use this,” she said.

They didn’t care.

Susan stared at them in silence. She put the cane down.

The numbers reached seven hundred, and showed no signs of stopping, chuntering on towards the first millennium.

Susan left the room and went to get help.

She didn’t know whether the nearest classroom would be Miss Bewes’ or Mrs Phelps’. On the whole, she was glad that it was Miss Bewes’. She could at least trust her to want to help, and when she saw Susan through the glass panel door she beamed in delighted surprise and was quite prepared to abandon her own class in an instant.

Susan’s pupils were no longer sitting down. By the time Susan and Valerie got to the classroom, they had pushed all the desks and chairs to the back, and now stood in a rough circle. Susan could no longer pick out boys’ voices or girls’ voices—it seemed to her more like a sexless chant, something almost monastic; indeed, there was a cool emotionless to it all that made it sound strangely reverent. Valerie strode into the room, Susan trailed behind her. The children turned to them. “Two hundred and forty-one times seven is one thousand six hundred and eighty-seven,” they informed the teachers.

“Sit down! Sit down, all of you, and shut up!” Valerie Bewes raged at them. Susan hadn’t realised Valerie had such fire in her, and for a second she was quite impressed. Only for a second, though; it was quite clear that that the children weren’t going to obey her, or even take any notice of her—they all turned away, and looked back into the circle. Valerie had no further fire to offer. She was spent.

“Which one started this?” she asked Susan. “There’s always a ringleader.”

It was a boy, Susan knew, but she couldn’t remember which one. Now they were standing up, uniformed from head to foot, they all looked eerily the same. She pointed vaguely at one boy, thought he would do.

“Right,” said Valerie. “You’re coming with me.” She grabbed at the boy. He might have struggled, but Valerie’s fat piston arms were strong, and she pulled him out of the circle, pulled him out of the classroom.

As soon as he was free, the boy stopped chanting. He looked baffled by this turn of events, and then frightened; he jerked in Valerie’s grasp like a fish on dry land.

“What are you playing at?” Valerie demanded to know.

But the boy looked at Susan, and gave her one long despairing glance—help me, it seemed to be saying, but help him with what?—and then the boy lashed out, he kicked at Valerie’s shins. Valerie grunted with surprise, and let go. In a trice the boy had rushed back into the classroom, and slammed the door behind him.

“The little bastard,” Valerie muttered, and rubbed at her legs—but Susan had no time to waste on her. She was looking through the window at the boy. He was back in the circle now. He was starting to chant. But he’d lost his way. The other children were up to two hundred and eighty-three times seven, he was still only at two hundred and sixty. He croaked and stopped. He looked about, confused, as if woken from a dream. He walked slowly into the middle of the circle. Without missing a beat, as one, the children closed in on him. Susan couldn’t make him out through the press of bodies. And then, soon, too soon, the children parted once more, they stepped back and let the circle widen—and the boy was gone, and no trace of him was left.

“Two hundred and ninety-nine times seven is two thousand and ninety-three,” they intoned. “Three hundred times seven is two thousand one hundred.” If three hundred were any sort of landmark they didn’t show it, there was no hint of achievement. On they marched to three hundred and one, and beyond.

“Go and get Mrs Phelps,” said Susan.

“You don’t want to involve Mrs Phelps,” said Valerie. “Not on your second day!”

“Go and get her.”

Mrs Phelps looked angry when she arrived. “What is the matter, girl?” And then she looked through the glass door, and listened to the children, and frowned.

“One boy has already gone missing,” said Susan.

“They ate him,” said Valerie. And that seemed such a ludicrous thing to say that Susan wanted to laugh—but then she realised Valerie was perfectly right.

Mrs Phelps peered at the circle of cannibals coolly. “What would be interesting,” she said at last, “is finding out how high a number they reach.”

Susan didn’t know what to say to that.

“If you can, make a note of it,” said Mrs Phelps, and then she walked away, and was gone.

Valerie tried to open the door to the classroom again, but pulled away with a cry. The handle was burning hot. And now, yes, they could see there was a certain haze to the room, as if the children were standing at the heart of an invisible furnace.

Presently, another boy lost his place. He seemed to stumble, and then couldn’t find his way back into the chant. He gave a sort of smirk, as if to accept the fun was over—and it was such a human thing for him to do, and cut clean through all the madness, and Susan felt that it was going to be all right, whatever this was, it was just a children’s game after all. He walked into the centre of the circle, and he was eaten alive, the jaws of his killers bobbing up and down as the seven times table reached ever higher numbers, they tore into him with mathematics on their lips and not a single one of them broke rhythm and the sound of their calculations was loud and crisp and clear.

Some fifteen minutes another child perished: a girl, clearly weaker than the rest, she’d been hesitating for a while, Susan was amazed she had lasted that long. After that, there were no more casualties for several hours, not until it was dark.

And the numbers kept on growing, into the tens of thousands, into the hundreds of thousands. She watched the numbers. She watched how beautiful they were, she could hardly tear her eyes off them.

Valerie came back for Susan. “We have to go,” she said. “There’s nothing to be done here.”

“No.”

“You don’t understand! Mrs Phelps has gone. Her class has gone, my class, all gone. We’re the only ones left!” Susan didn’t know what she meant by gone, she didn’t want to think about that—didn’t need to, they weren’t her class, weren’t her responsibility.

“These are my children,” said Susan. “I won’t leave them, not this time.” And until she said those words she hadn’t realised how true that really was.

“Then I shan’t leave you either.” And Valerie took her by the arm, hard.

“Let go of me,” said Susan, flatly. “Let go, and leave me alone. Or I’ll hurt you.”

Shocked, Valerie released her grip. Her bottom lip wobbled. Susan turned back to the classroom window, watched her children play. She heard Valerie go, didn’t see her.

Once the children began to tire, then they fell in quick succession. They’d put in a good effort. They had nothing to be ashamed of. And as the numbers continued to multiply, so the children seemed to divide; the greater the number chanted the fewer the children left alive to chant it.

They became expert at eating the stragglers without losing time. Swallowing the frail down in the little gasps taken between words, and in three bites. Three bites, that’s all you need, even to consume the very fattest child.

The boys were long gone. Four girls were left—then, in a minute, one faltered, and another faltered in response. The two survivors continued to chant in unison for hours, one as soprano, the other’s alto playing descant and giving the song such depth. And the numbers were so vast now, Susan had never dreamed numbers could get so big, or so wonderful—before them mankind seemed like crippled fractions, vulnerable and so very petty and so very very easy to crush. Those numbers—each one took a full ten minutes even to enunciate.

The alto stopped. Just stopped. She didn’t seem in any difficulty, one moment she was enumerating, the next she’d had enough. The last little girl ripped her apart.

And still, impossibly, she kept the circle, now just a circle of one. She had her back to Susan, and she was still staring into the heart of that circle she was creating, a void at the very heart of herself. Still singing out the numbers—and Susan wanted to tap on the glass and let her know she had won the game, let her know she wasn’t alone if nothing else. But it was still so hot, and the glass had warped with the heat, through it the little girl was distorted and inhuman.

At length she reached the final number in the world. And when Susan heard it she knew that it was the final one—ludicrous, but true, they had reached the limit of the seven times table, there was no higher they could go.

The handle to the door was cool to the touch. Susan pulled at it. She entered the classroom.

The girl didn’t seem to hear her, and it was only when Susan touched her shoulder that she turned around.

“Hello, Clara,” Susan said.

Clara didn’t reply.

“Where’s your brother, Clara?”

And Clara didn’t reply, Clara didn’t reply—and of course, she couldn’t reply, could she? She couldn’t speak. Once shy, now struck dumb. But—she had recited all those numbers, the long numbers, all that weight of mathematics had come out of her mouth—she must be able to talk, she would talk, she would tell Susan what she needed to know. Clara gestured that Susan lean forward. She wanted to whisper in Susan’s ear.

It came out like a hiss.

It was one word. It was an impossible word. It could not be spoken aloud. It had too many consonants, not enough vowels, it was a hateful word, it could not be spoken. It was spoken. It was spoken, it was in Susan’s head now. It was there in her head, and the head tried to fight it, tried to expel it, this word that no human being was ever meant to know, a word that had nothing to do with humanity or any of the physical laws that make up their universe.

She felt the ground rush up to meet her, and that was welcome.

When Susan awoke she was safe, and lying on her bed, and Valerie Bewes was looking down at her.

“Oh, my darling!” said Valerie. “My poor child! Your breathing was very strange, I was worried sick!”

Susan’s breathing did feel a little shallow. Breathing was something she’d always done without thought, but now she seemed to have to want to do it. How odd. She sucked air into her mouth, tasted it, blew it out again. “How did I get here?”

“Oh, I carried you! Carried you in my arms! If anything had happened to you, I…I’ll go and get you some brandy.”

“What about the girl?”

“I shan’t be long, you just rest,” said Valerie. She left the room.

“What about the girl?” Susan called after her, and then realised the girl didn’t matter any more. She had delivered the message. The girl was done.

She did another one of those breaths. It seemed such unnecessary effort. She decided to stop breathing for a while. That felt better.

She got up from her bed, went to the window. Through the heavy rain she could see, standing in front of the house, Edwin. He was looking up at her.

He raised a hand in salute. She raised hers back, and it clunked awkwardly against the glass.

He spoke to her. She couldn’t hear what he said. But it was just one word, and as his lips moved she knew precisely what it was.

She whispered it back, that impossible word, the name of her new god.

She dimly heard Valerie return. “What are you doing out of bed?” she asked from the doorway. Susan didn’t even look at her, she thrust her hand out somewhere in her direction. She was too far away to reach her, but as her arm moved she was aware of wings and claws as sharp as knives. Valerie gave a quiet little croak, and then shut up at last.

She wondered at her arm. Looked at from one angle, it was thin and fleshy and weak. From another, it was something glorious, something of power and great age. She tilted her head from side to side, so she could see it one way then another. It made her laugh. Her laughter was silly and girlish. Her laughter was a roar.

She could hear the flutter of wings under her bed as the birds flapped their excitement.

Susan left the room, stepping over the spilled brandy, the smashed decanter, the body, and went downstairs. She stepped out into the rain.

There Edwin was waiting for her. He was a little boy, but he looked so grown up, she felt so proud of him. He was a little boy, trying to look big before his time. He was a creature of scales and horns and misshapen flesh.

She took him by the hand. And, as the dream had promised, she made the rain stop. Or maybe it rained, but she just didn’t feel it any more.

Susan looked down at her hand in his, and saw that it was dripping with blood. She saw that Edwin’s hand was sticky with blood too.

And slowly, they walked into town.

Steve Rasnic Tem

THE NIGHT DOCTOR

STEVE RASNIC TEM’s most recent novel, Blood Kin—a Southern Gothic/horror blend of snake-handling, ghosts, granny women, kudzu and Melungeons—won the Bram Stoker Award in 2014. PS Publishing recently released his novella In the Lovecraft Museum, and Centipede Press has scheduled Out of the Dark: A Storybook of Horrors—225,000 words of the best of his uncollected horror tales.

Early in 2017 Solaris will publish his new novel Ubo, a dark SF meditation on violence as seen through the eyes of some of history’s most dangerous figures.

“For me, some of the most compelling horror fiction both to read and write are stories in which all the fear in the story becomes embodied in a central figure,” Tem reveals. “I envy those writers who seem to be able to create a new monster (for lack of a better term) whenever needed. It’s never worked that way for me. I find I can’t force such creations to appear—when I do they seem unconvincing and arbitrary. The good ones never make themselves known simply to fill a need in the narrative—so you won’t find that many such creatures in my oeuvre.

“‘The Night Doctor’ came to me one afternoon while I was half-dozing in my reading chair, meditating on some rather serious life issues. I fell asleep, and when I woke up he was standing there in the corner, gazing at me. The story he was part of came to me immediately.

“The real work was sharpening that image, getting the details right, getting closer to that thing I never wanted to get close to.”

ELAINE SAID THE walk would be good for them both. “We don’t get enough meaningful exercise these days. Besides, we might meet some of the new neighbours.” Sam couldn’t really argue with that, but he couldn’t bring himself to agree, so he nodded, grunted. Although his arthritis was worse than ever, as if his limbs were grinding themselves into immobility, it hurt whether he moved them or not, so why not move?

He would have preferred waiting until they were more comfortable in the neighbourhood—they’d been there less than a week. Until he had seen a few friendly faces, until he could be sure of their intentions. People here kept their curtains open most of the time. He supposed that was meant to convince passers-by of their trusting nature, but he didn’t like it. Someday you might see something you didn’t want to see. You might misinterpret something. Since they’d moved in he’d glanced into those other windows from time to time—and seen shiny spots back in the darkness, floating lights with no apparent source, oddly shaped shadows he could not quite identify and didn’t want to think about. He was quite happy not knowing the worst about other people’s lives. He could barely tolerate the worst about his own.

Not that he had justification for much complaint. He’d always known the worst was somewhere just out of reach, so it shouldn’t have affected him. Like most people, he supposed. Human beings had a natural sense for it, the worst that was just beyond the limits of their own lives. The worst that was still to come.

What with one minor annoyance or another—finding pants that didn’t make him look fat, determining what pair of shoes might hurt his feet the least, deciding on the correct degree of layering that wouldn’t make him wish he’d worn something else as the day wore on—they didn’t leave the new house until almost 11:00. Sam worried about getting his lunch on time. If he didn’t get his lunch on time his body felt off the rest of the day.

“I’ll buy you some crackers at the drug store if you need them,” she said. “Don’t fret about it.”

“Crackers? What kind of meal is that? You’re always saying I should eat healthier.”

“For heaven’s sake, Sam, let it go. Crackers to tide you over. Wheat, something like that. A lot of small meals are better for you anyway. That’s the way the cave people ate—they grazed all the time.”

“Cave people,” he repeated, as if reading some absurd road sign. He didn’t say anything more. He didn’t want to whine like Bryan, thirty-four years old and he still whined like a little boy. They’d done something terribly wrong for Bryan to be that way, but Sam still had no idea what it was. Parenting was a mystery, like diet, like exercise, like how to still keep feeling good about yourself in this world.

Sam felt uncomfortable most of the time. Physically, certainly. And as much as it annoyed him to think about it, emotionally as well. A walking mass of illogic, and that was no way to be.

After they left the house they turned onto the long lane that meandered through the neighbourhood. When he realised how long the street was, and how far away they were from the tiny mall—not so bad if you were driving, but Sam had stopped driving two years ago—he felt on the verge of tears. Just like some kind of toddler. Humiliating.

As they were starting out a large black bird landed in the street beside him. It threw its head back, shuddering, something struggling in its mouth. Sam glanced at his wife to see if she had noticed this. But her eyes were fixed forward, and he decided not to mention it. He twisted his head around to look at the bird. Still there. Was it a crow? It looked too big to be a blackbird. In fact it might be the biggest bird he’d ever seen up close. Its beak was so sharp. It could take your eyes out and there was nothing you could do about it, it would happen so quickly. Just like they were grapes.

His knees were hurting already. There were tears in his eyes, but at least they weren’t yet running down his cheeks. Birds didn’t cry. He should be like the birds.

He wasn’t sure how it had come to this—he’d always been such an optimist. And he’d always been healthy—no, it was too late in life to exaggerate, relatively healthy. But relatively healthy still meant you could drop dead at any time. So he walked around sore much of the time, each step like a needle in his heels and a crumbling in his knees, and attempted to think about everything but death.

They passed another older couple. Elaine would have said “elderly” but Sam hated that word. Elaine smiled at them and said hello. The couple nodded and said hello back. They had already passed the couple when Sam managed to speak his delayed “nice day!” The man said “oh, yes,” awkwardly turning his head to Sam in order to be polite, but staggering a little, almost falling off the kerb. Sam could feel the warmth flooding his face. He’d caused that distraction, and the resulting stumble.

“We should have introduced ourselves,” Elaine said a few minutes later. “They may have been neighbours.” Sam hoped the couple didn’t recognise him the next time they met. “Sam, did you hear me?”

“Of course I heard you, you’re right here.”

“Then why didn’t you say something?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t know it needed answering, I guess.”

“I don’t talk just to hear myself.”

“Maybe they’re not neighbours. Maybe they’re just passing through, taking a walk. They might live several blocks away—they look pretty healthy. They could probably walk that far.”

“Uh huh,” she said, her head down, walking a little faster. It hurt to try to keep up with her. Too late. That’s what she would have said if he asked her what was wrong, so he didn’t. She deserved better—he didn’t understand how he’d gotten so fuzzy-headed. There was probably a pill for that, something to erase a certain percentage of your thoughts, clear out some space so you could pay better attention to the people you loved. So much for the benefits of exercise. Sam was feeling worse and worse.

By the time they reached the drug store Sam was ravenous. He sat on the padded bench and devoured two packets of crackers while Elaine got her many prescriptions. He’d already filled his last week before they moved. The lady across from him frowned. He looked around—he was spraying cracker crumbs everywhere. He didn’t know what to do—he couldn’t very well get down on his hands and knees right there in the store and sweep them up. He closed his eyes so he wouldn’t see either the lady or the crumbs and continued to eat.

When he was small his mother would drag him all over town on her errands. She took him along even if he was sick, but that was just what you had to do when you were a single mother. The worse he felt the more clothing she put on him; he supposed it was meant as a kind of protection. Sometimes he’d get so hot his head would swim. She’d sit him down somewhere in a chair, or in the shopping cart, or even in some out-of-the-way corner of the floor and let him nap. He’d dream he was a bug in a cocoon, waiting to be someone else. That night she’d reward him with a long bath before he went to bed.

“Sleep is what you need,” she’d say, stroking his forehead. “Go to sleep and let the night doctor take care of you.”

Over the years he’d tried to make some sense out of it. Plentiful sleep, of course, was bound to help, to lower stress, to permit the body to bring its own healing. However it worked, he almost always felt better the next day. He didn’t even have to wait until the day arrived, he could take a nap in the middle of the day, and then the night doctor could come. The night doctor didn’t necessarily require night, he simply required that you be asleep so that he could properly do his business on you. All that was needed was that it be night-time inside your head.

Had he really believed that the night doctor was an actual person? He’d never believed in magic, exactly—a person or a thing had to act, had to do something. So as a child he’d believed in Santa Claus because he was a person, sort of, this larger-than-life thing, an agency. He didn’t believe in the Easter Bunny because he knew a kid who had a rabbit who’d smelled and bitten him once.

It had been oddly reassuring, and yet not reassuring at all. Because if Santa were a person, then he was fallible. He could be late, or if you moved he might not find your house. The same with the night doctor. And he had had proof—he’d once visited his grandparents for two weeks and he’d been sick the whole time. The night doctor obviously couldn’t find him.

It had all been a great cause for anxiety. The fact that no one but his mother ever talked about the night doctor had only made it worse—he’d never even seen a picture of the man. Or woman, or whatever.

“Sam, darling? Are you ready to go?”

He blinked. Elaine was looking down at him, smiling. Had he overslept? Suddenly he felt lost, outside his body and not quite knowing the way back in.

“I fell…” He yawned. “I fell asleep waiting. Sorry.”

“You must have needed it,” she said, helping him to his feet. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. Maybe I’ve pushed you too hard today.”

“Exercise is good for me. I don’t get enough,” he said, moving slowly with her arm in his as they rocked their way down the aisle, Elaine’s bag full of pill bottles rattling at her hip. He willed the blood to flow; his feet were numb. By the time they got out of the store they were better, he could feel them tingling. He supposed the day would eventually come when they didn’t get better, when they didn’t start tingling but remained as dead as fallen logs. But not today, thank God. Not today.

It was strangely dim outside, and Sam wondered if they could have been there at the pharmacy all day. How long had he been asleep? Then he realised it was simply the clouds rolling in, and he hoped they could get home before it rained. He never liked getting rained on, not even as a child. He usually got sick afterwards. There must have been something in the rain, not just water.

They were at the highest point in the road, the remainder of the neighbourhood receding gradually below them. Had they really climbed such a hill? Maybe they were lost—they didn’t know the neighbourhood well. They could wander for hours and not find their way back. Sam gazed around in a futile search for recognisable landmarks. But he had no landmarks in his memory for their new home.

From here they had a clear view of the afternoon sky. The clouds were heavy, laden—it might begin raining at any moment. The dark shapes of birds were darting in and out between the banks of clouds as if knitting them together. Sam thought of the giant bird he’d seen earlier and wondered if these were more of the same. They appeared to be rising up from the roofs of the neighbourhood where they’d been resting, rushing up to join the others as if in collusion.

Then he saw that larger dark shape depart an upstairs window of one of the houses, climbing onto the sill like a suicide, but leaping up instead of down, rising with a swirl of its long dark coat, the bag trailing from the skinny fingers of one hand, more claws than fingers, as the figure attempted to blend in with those other flying shapes.

Sam couldn’t be sure, they were too far away, but that figure seemed so very familiar. As if sensing Sam’s attention the head of the thing turned back an instant over its shoulder, large eyes staring, narrow face so pale and long as a blade.

Although he didn’t intend to, Sam sat down on the sidewalk then, his knees giving way. Elaine yelled in alarm as he almost dragged her down with him. He heard the panic in her voice as she screamed for someone to help them. But there was nothing he could do, as he was too busy elsewhere. Sixteen years old and walking home in the dark from the movie with his friends. He’d just left them to turn in to his own front walk, the darkness denser now because of the trees that used to shade their lawn.

His mother had been ill for several weeks, keeping to her bed except to feed him his meals and prepare his lunch for school. At times like these he’d think a father would have been useful, for her if not for him, because she had to do everything, and Sam was very aware he did not appreciate her nearly enough. But a father had never been more than a story as far as he was concerned, a few photographs that might not actually have been the man. How could he know for sure?

As he was walking up the sidewalk he felt a change in the air. It wasn’t a smell, although he felt it in his nose. It was more like a heaviness had entered the space around him, a pressure increasing in his ears, his nose, his skull, and a strong sense of vertigo as if he were looking down from a very high place.

He glanced up, cowering, feeling as if the sky were about to slide down on top of him. His mother’s bedroom window was open, her twin pale curtains reaching outside the frame to the night beyond like a frantic signal. Something membranous and black flapped. He could hear her moaning from where he stood, or thought he could.

Sam ran into the house and up the stairs. He came to her door and stopped because he was afraid. He thought he should knock—she would be furious if he went inside without knocking, but that didn’t apply in this case, did it? Even the memory made him feel ashamed, and he could hear Elaine’s voice somewhere above him attempting to offer some comfort.

He eased open the door even as the figure crouched over his mother was mucking about with her bare torso, taking something from her, sliding some spidery thing that struggled and screamed soundlessly out of her side and into his leathery dark bag. Sam cried out and the night doctor turned his head slightly to look at him with those cold pale eyes, those wet globes glistening yellow from the dim light in the hall, and that oh so elongated face which made no sense, the lower bit coming down into a kind of open snout, the upper half curved into a kind of bony blade. Before Sam could say anything else the night doctor had slid off the bed and through the window into the night and wind with a flap flap flap and a drawn-out sigh.

For days she seemed better, and Sam had begun to think the creature had simply removed the thing that had done her harm. And then his mother took a turn for the worse. And then she was gone.

And next he woke up an old man again, in the bedroom he shared with the wife who took care of him now, who’d been taking care of him since the first day they’d met back in college. The bed stand was covered with his pills, or hers, he couldn’t really tell anymore. He could barely remember the names of the pills. Not because he couldn’t, but because he didn’t want to be that interested.

“Sam, you scared me half to death.”

He shifted his head around and saw Elaine’s grey face there floating within the darkened chair, propped up by a pillow under the back of her head. The rest of the room was so deeply in shadow he wondered if his eyes were going, then saw the dark in the window and realised it was night. The window was open, the curtains stirring, beginning to flap. He held his breath and twisted his head, trying to examine the room. Things stirred there beyond his ability to actually see them, and he tried to blame it on the wind and his anxiety. “How long have you been sitting there?” he asked, trying not to search the room anymore.

“A few hours. You missed dinner. Do you want something?”

“I don’t know.” Was he hungry? He made himself sit up in bed. His right leg hurt—he recognised the feeling. He must have been asleep for a while, his right leg pinched beneath his left. “I really missed dinner?”

“It’s been about six hours. I decided to let you sleep. Sam, do you remember anything? I thought you’d had a heart attack at first, the way you just collapsed, like you’d been hit on top of the head or something.”

“I just…just had a moment I guess. What, did I black out? How did you get me home?”

“That couple came by, the one we ran into earlier? The Hernandezes. You don’t remember? Apparently they live only three houses down. He ran back to their house and pulled his car around, they helped you into the seat, and after we got here he helped me get you into bed. I kept wanting to call the doctor but you insisted you were okay, that you just needed to rest, but that you didn’t want to fall asleep.”

Sam did remember some of this, but it was like an imperfectly recalled dream. He couldn’t explain the lapse, which was disturbing. But he’d been distracted, hadn’t he? It seemed he hadn’t thought about his mother’s death in years. “But you still let me sleep?”

“I couldn’t keep you awake if I tried! You were so tired you could barely lift your head.”

So he had slept. He couldn’t stop himself from searching the room with his eyes again, straining himself, his chest beginning to hurt. He was being a whiny thing. He was going to make himself sick. It would be an open invitation for the doctor to slip in and meddle with his insides. He made himself stop, even though promising details were resolving out of the dark as his eyes adjusted.

“Sounds pretty embarrassing. I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me.” Maybe he was better, maybe the doctor had already done his work. He could only hope it didn’t cost him too dearly. “Did they, the Hernandezes, did they say anything?”

“Just how concerned they were. Janet and Felix. I told Felix you take blood pressure medication and he wondered if the dosage might be wrong. I’ll call Doctor Castro tomorrow and tell him what happened.”

You don’t know what happened, he thought, but left it unsaid. “Of course. But this is all backwards. You should be the one resting. I’m putting all this extra stress on you.” He glanced at the sea of medicines on her side of the bed. There were new bottles, he thought, the ones from today.

“I’m fine. We’re not our illnesses, Sam. That’s what you always say, remember? We’re much more than that.”

He couldn’t quite interpret her tone. Had there been resentment in the way she’d quoted him? “I could use a ham sandwich, I think,” he said.

“Fine.” She got up and started toward the door, then stopped, smiled. “And if you’re better tomorrow, I’ve invited them over for dinner.”

“What?”

“Janet and Felix. The Hernandezes. They’ll be our first dinner guests.”

After she closed the door behind her he glanced at the shadowed incomprehensibility of the room and rolled over, turned his back to it. He’d allow himself to be healed or taken, and at the moment he wasn’t sure he cared which. He waited a long time, but nothing occurred.

He did feel better when he woke up the next day, although tired and a bit on edge. The room felt empty, however. He could hear Elaine in the next room running the vacuum cleaner. When the noise stopped he heard her singing. It had been a while since he’d heard her singing. He smelled disinfectant, furniture polish. He glanced around—all their medicine bottles were gone.

“Elaine!”

She came running, out of breath. She grabbed the footboard and leaned over. “Are you…okay?” She wheezed, paused, then asked more steadily, “are you still ill?”

“No, no, I’m fine. You shouldn’t have run, honey. Where are all the medicines?”

“The Hernandezes may want to see the house, and it hasn’t had a really good cleaning yet.”

“But the medicines?”

“I put the over the counter stuff in our respective bathroom cabinets, depending on who uses what the most. The prescriptions, and the supplements—since we don’t take the same—are in a box in each bathroom closet. But I took out a week’s worth of dosages and put them into two of those weekly pill organisers—his and hers. I even split the ones that needed it into quarters and halves.”

“But why? Do you want them to believe we’re the super healthy older couple or something?”

“No, but I don’t want them to think the opposite, either. And it was just too much—I started to realise that as I tidied up. It needed to be handled—we’re both lucky we didn’t grab the wrong pills one day, or even overdose. It looked—I don’t know—it didn’t make us look like sick people so much as crazy people.”

In the bathroom Sam found the pill dispenser (blue, hers was probably pink) and took his daily dose. He pulled off his T-shirt and examined his pale torso. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for, some kind of markings. Cuts or worn places, incisions or maybe even bite or chew marks. There was nothing definitive, but when had he gotten so pale? He looked almost slug-like in parts.

Elaine cleaned well into the afternoon, then she started cooking. Sam didn’t like the dark half-moons under her eyes. He stepped in with the cleaning, although he suspected he didn’t do it well, scrubbing obsessively in some areas and neglecting others. Before dinner he did a final sweep, jammed some random flowers from the back yard into a vase, and set the table. By this point he desperately didn’t want to interact with anyone new, but he understood they were fully committed now.

From the time the Hernandezes arrived the evening became a blur for him. They seemed like perfectly nice people but he didn’t understand a thing they were talking about.

It seemed that Felix Hernandez had just acquired a new car, one of those boxy affairs with a small body and high ceiling. He used it to drive to the golf course, another habit newly acquired. Janet Hernandez talked endlessly about their son, an apparently always well-meaning young man who could not hold a job. Elaine commiserated and shared stories about Bryan which Sam was sure he had heard nothing about. A fall from a tree? When had that happened? Could Elaine possibly be making these things up in order to have something to share with the new neighbours?

They sat down girl-boy-girl-boy about an L-shaped portion of the dinner table, with Sam at the top of the L’s stem and Elaine at the end of the L’s arm. Sam wasn’t sure how this had happened, but it seemed to have been Felix’s idea.

Janet Hernandez was sitting next to Sam. He hadn’t realised before how tall she was—at least her torso was tall. She also seemed to have an unusually large head, although that might have been an illusion because her forehead was quite high, and white hair showered down the back of the skull to float just above her shoulders. She leaned forward over her food somewhat, as if afraid it might escape the plate. And she trembled slightly. He noticed because she was sitting right beside him. The profile of her face practically vibrated.

Sam was thinking then that the Hernandezes were older than them by a few years. He looked down the table, but his view of Felix was completely blocked. He tried to catch Elaine’s eye, but she was leaning over slightly, probably talking to Felix.

Suddenly Janet leaned back, her face pale, her expression puzzled. Felix seemed blurry and out of focus on the other side, but then Sam determined that something between Felix and Janet was making him difficult to see, something smearing the air, as if Sam’s vision had suddenly gone greasy.

The night doctor appeared to unfold from inside that black leathery coat of his, his shoulders going up like axe blades. He turned one globular eye Sam’s way. He tilted his elongated head slightly as if inviting Sam to protest. Sitting this closely, Sam could see small finger-shaped bits of flesh down around the end of the doctor’s snout. They stirred slightly. Some appeared corrupted by some sort of skin cancer.

Sam felt suddenly ill, his head slipping sideways. The night doctor disappeared, and Sam now had a clear view of Felix, who appeared to be in shock. Elaine was shaking the man’s shoulder in concern, saying his name. Then Sam moved his head again, and the night doctor was back in focus. Sam experimented, moving his head this way and that. He could see the doctor only at certain angles, the rest of the time the figure disappearing completely.

Suddenly Felix coughed explosively and a pale chunk of chewed-up food—at first Sam was convinced it was some damaged organ—bounced off the table and onto the floor. Sam thought he heard the cat scramble for it, then remembered they hadn’t had a cat in years.

Felix was laughing, tears rolling down his cheeks. Elaine was laughing as well, but Sam recognised it as the laugh she made when she was under great stress. Any minute now she would sob. Janet was pushing something around her plate with her fork. Sam saw that it was another piece of what had just come out of Felix’s mouth.

A sidelong glance brought the night doctor into focus again. He sat still and erect, as if listening, or at least sensing, things Sam couldn’t even begin to imagine. The night doctor’s skin was soft and translucent, slightly yellow. Sam thought he could see the sharp skeleton underneath, like a gathering of blades fashioned from bone and then covered in this somewhat transparent epidermal goop.

They all sat that way an uncomfortable period of time. Felix quietly shared his recent health issues with Elaine. Elaine shared things back, but with less detail. Janet continued to move things about her plate with her fork, but ate nothing. Sam watched them all. He wondered if he was the only one aware of the fifth presence at the dinner table—he was pretty sure he was.

Periodically the night doctor stroked the leather bag he wore hanging from his shoulder. It squirmed in various directions, as if containing more than one captive.

Felix was taken to the hospital a few days later. Sam and Elaine watched as Janet rode off with a young man Sam assumed was their son. They never saw any of them again.

For several weeks Elaine became increasingly frenetic. She cleaned the house constantly, and reorganised the medicine cabinets more than a few times. Sometimes Sam would wake up in the middle of the night and find the bed empty. He’d go downstairs and discover her at the table quietly drinking coffee or taking down notes. Usually the night doctor sat there with her.

Often she would work herself into exhaustion and sleep late the following morning. He would come downstairs by himself and find the night doctor already waiting for him, standing in a corner or staring out the window.

It dragged on this way for months. One night Elaine woke him up in the middle of the night, her pale face hanging over him. He gently lay his hand on her wet face—she’d been crying. “I don’t want to leave you by yourself,” she whispered hoarsely.

He glanced past her, his eyes scanning the room, finding the tall quiet figure with the large eyes and the too-narrow face, the squirming bag. “You won’t be,” Sam replied.

Derek John

THE DESECRATOR

DEREK JOHN is the author of the novella The Aesthete Hagiographer (Ex Occidente Press, 2012), and his stories have appeared in magazines such as Supernatural Tales and Ghosts and Scholars. His most recent appearance in print was in the anthology Dreams of Shadows and Smoke: Stories for J.S. Le Fanu (Swan River Press, 2014).

“Although I grew up in Dublin,” recalls the author, “I moved to England in my early twenties and spent several years living in Cambridge where I experienced first-hand many of the eerie locations from the stories of M.R. James, one of the acknowledged masters of the ghostly and strange.

“The anthology in which my story ‘The Desecrator’ originally appeared is the second in a series from Sarob Press (edited by the doyenne of Jamesian fiction, Rosemary Pardoe) where the remit for the authors was to compose a sequel or prequel based on one of James’ classic tales.

“I chose to write a sequel to one of James’ perhaps lesser-known pieces, ‘The Uncommon Prayer-Book’. Like many of James’ tales, there are plenty of questions left unanswered that invite speculation. Without wishing to completely remove the veil, in my story I ventured some answers to the various points that have perplexed me over the years: who is the mysterious Anthony Cadman and just what exactly is the significance of the blasphemous frescos in Brockstone Court? What was the nature of the awful ritual of execration chanted by Dame Alice Sadleir from the heretical prayer-book and who (or what) is the revenant that relentlessly pursues Mr Poschwitz to his doom?”

“AND THIS…,” SAID the tour guide, posing theatrically before the wall of the bedchamber, “is the secret priest hole of Gaulsford House!” With a deft gesture she pressed her fingers against a section of wainscoting which pivoted upwards to reveal a gloomy recess set into the thickness of the wall. One by one, the tourists took turns to peer inside as the guide played the beam of her torch around the dark and airless cavity.

“How awful!” said one. “Why there’s barely room for a person in there!”

“Yes, it’s a bit of a squeeze, isn’t it?” replied the guide. “And I wouldn’t recommend that anyone try to climb inside. The last visitor who did so ended up in a dreadful pickle—just like Pooh Bear in Rabbit’s front door!”

“So why were they called priest holes then?” asked a bemused American tourist.

“Well, it’s all to do with the Reformation, you see. From the time of Elizabeth the First right up until the accession of Charles the Second, Catholic priests in England were ruthlessly persecuted by the Protestant authorities. They were, to all intents and purposes, outlaws. And so, they were forced to lead a clandestine existence, moving from safe house to safe house under cover of darkness, where they performed the sacraments for those families who stayed true to the old faith. Recusant was the term of abuse directed at these die-hard Catholics. And the fate of those captured was a grim one: to be hung drawn and quartered at Tyburn—and I needn’t remind you how awful a punishment that was! The priest holes, like the one you see here at Gaulsford, were intended as a last ditch place of refuge for a priest during a surprise raid. Many of them are ingeniously constructed in order to avoid detection and, indeed, this particular one was only rediscovered in Victorian times, so cunning is the concealment.”

“That’s all well and good,” said a man at the back of the group. “But there’s no evidence at all that the Leventhorps of Gaulsford were secret Catholics is there? Wasn’t Sir Samuel Leventhorp an ardent Puritan and a colonel in the New Model Army during the Civil War? And it was he who built this house was it not? Why would he put a priest hole in it? It just doesn’t make sense!”

The guide sighed to herself; there was always one know-it-all in every tour.

“That’s a good point,” she said, smiling politely, “but if we take the examples of any number of wayward politicians in recent times, we often find that the public persona and the private individual can be shockingly and even hypocritically at odds with each other. Yes, in public, Sir Samuel was the epitome of Puritan righteousness, but the existence of the priest hole tells otherwise. And now, ladies and gentlemen, let’s make our way back downstairs via the servants’ staircase.”

As the gaggle of tourists followed her out the door of the bedchamber, a solitary figure lingered behind. He flexed his fingers against the wainscoting to see if he could reveal the secret hiding place, but try as he might it remained firmly shut. There must be some knack to it, he guessed, and resolved to ask the guide for a quick demonstration after closing time.

He wandered back down the steps of the Great Staircase with its ancient walls lined with the stern portraits of his ancestors and paused before that of Sir Samuel Leventhorp, founder of the dynasty. The oil painting was rumoured to be an original by Sir Peter Lely, albeit created long after the death of the subject as a commission by one of his descendants. He studied the portrait with interest, and wondered idly what obscure genes from this long dead grandee were now forming part of his own make-up. Sir Samuel had an angry, intolerant face, deeply unlikeable, and his sombre, black-clad figure was every inch the model of puritan probity. The man smiled at the thought that his ancestor was as much a hypocrite as those ‘whited sepulchres’ his fellow Protestant dissenters fulminated against in their lengthy sermons. In a moment of hubris, he had himself recently sat for a new portrait to be hung at the top of the staircase; perhaps his own naturally sunny disposition would ameliorate the dour centuries of sour-faced and glowering Lords of Gaulsford.

He was the latest in a long line of Leventhorps, but he, at least, had no pretensions to religious enthusiasm. In fact, until a few months ago, he had no pretensions to anything much at all. He was plain Jonathan Leventhorp of Melbourne, Australia, and although dimly aware of his connection to Gaulsford, it came as a complete shock when he opened the door of his apartment to the private detective hired by the executors to track him down. A combination of childlessness, illegitimacy and premature death amongst the heirs-apparent had determined that the cadet bloodline from his great-grandfather’s side, of which he was the sole representative, suddenly stood to inherit the entire estate.

Jonathan had lived a feckless life in Melbourne, and cash was always tight. A hefty pile of final demand letters was accumulating unopened on the occasional table in his hallway, and the rancorous knocking and peering in the front window by assorted debt collectors left him cowering behind the sofa for significant portions of the day. For a brief instant, after the news of his inheritance had sunk in, he had envisaged himself living a country squire’s life: strolling his acres, maintaining a discreet pied-à-terre in London, nights at the casino with a charming debutante on each arm, polo matches, riding with the hunt and countless others of those pointless pursuits favoured by the English aristocracy. And not to forget, his heritage of fine estates, a household of fawning servants and endless rooms stuffed with priceless antiques and objets d’art.

But alas, even though Gaulsford House did indeed possess all these attributes, they were not his. The Leventhorps had, it seemed, been mostly absentee landlords through the generations, as if Gaulsford held some special repugnance for them. They preferred, instead, to spend the majority of their lives overseas in their Jamaican plantations, or latterly, in the upper echelons of the diplomatic service; and they had let the estate become run down. In recent years, crippled by death duties and unable to maintain the house from the meagre income of the estate rentals and home farm, they had gifted it to the National Trust. As a result, Jonathan’s inheritance merely amounted to a grace and favour apartment in the east wing and a small stipend from a trust fund at Coutts. Small though the allowance was, it was still considerably greater than his income from bartending and odd-jobbing in Melbourne, and the prospect of an early retirement at the age of thirty-eight was more than enough inducement to pack his bags and take the next flight to England.

For his first few weeks at Gaulsford, he had contented himself with simply exploring the house and grounds. The stately home was laid out much as it had been in Victorian times: a grand suite of master bedrooms were located on the upper floor, whilst on the ground level could be found the dining room, library and assorted day-rooms. The meagre servants’ quarters were hidden out of sight in the discreet service wing, and down in the basement stood the kitchens and pantries which were now peopled during the daytime with voluble re-enactors eager to expound on the drudgery of their everyday life below stairs to the tourists. In the stables, a short distance from the main house, could be found the cafeteria which sold cream teas to the coach-loads of hungry visitors after their obligatory rounds of the National Trust gift shop, where, if they so wished, they could purchase an assortment of scented soaps, tins of shortbread biscuits and other mass-produced bric-à-brac stamped with the coat of arms of the Leventhorps.

His new apartment looked out over a formal parterre towards the dark façade of Gaulsford woods in the distance. The house had remained largely unoccupied during the stewardship of his ancestors and of necessity, he supposed, all the lower ground floor windows, including those of his own rooms, were barred on the inside with substantial rods of iron to deter burglars and other undesirables. Though the east wing was officially out of bounds to the public, bands of horrible schoolchildren running riot in the grounds would still peer and make faces in through the windows as he sat and watched television, forcing him to jump up and shout some very unaristocratic language after them.

He found that he had the house to himself on most nights, after the National Trust staff had closed up and left. A security cum odd-job man lived in the Gaulsford gate lodge and was supposed to do the rounds once or twice during the hours of darkness, though Leventhorp very much doubted his dedication in keeping to this schedule. At night, Gaulsford was filled with the cacophony of creaks and groans made by all old buildings, but it didn’t feel haunted in the least, which was, he supposed, mildly disappointing to him. The only sounds that came to his ears were the distant barking of foxes in Gaulsford woods and the unearthly shrieks of the barn owls as their ghostly figures flitted back and forth across the lawns in search of their prey.

The old library held a particular attraction for him. Although not much of a reader, there was something about the smell of old volumes that resonated deeply with him: how the effluvia of leather and paper mingled in the air to create a subtle incense that seemed to distil the very essence of Gaulsford House itself. The books covered the library walls from floor to ceiling, with the upper tiers only accessible by an ancient and somewhat unsteady rolling ladder.

He spent hours perusing the shelves with their cargo of unread and mostly unreadable volumes: a full series of Migne’s Patrologia, multi-part expositions on turgid theological subjects by long-deceased Protestant divines and innumerable bound volumes of pamphlets on obscure 17th century political controversies which he guessed must date from Sir Samuel’s era. On the lower levels was to be found a selection of more practical reading material: manuals of agriculture, animal husbandry and household management, plus some collected volumes of Punch, Country Life and Horse and Hound which, he supposed, would probably not have met with Sir Samuel’s approval quite so much.

As he made his way along the library shelves one evening, he heard a sudden loud report against the windowpane. Outlined against the glass was the dusty imprint of a bird strike, with the wings splayed wide like some impromptu visitation of the Holy Ghost. He rushed over and, reaching through the bars, raised the window and looked outside. Lying on the windowsill was a young barn owl, still stunned and confused from the impact. He gently picked up its quivering body and smoothed the ruffled feathers as the pathetic bird regarded him with cold unblinking eyes. Then, with a sudden spasm of flapping wings, it wrenched itself free from his grip and took off into the darkness. He yanked his hand back in pain and saw the bloody scratch where one of its talons had cut deeply into the flesh.

He patched himself up with some TCP and a plaster from the first aid box in the front desk and returned to his exploration of the library. In the upper ranks were some remarkable old volumes, with the most exquisite tooled and gilded bindings. Perched high on the rungs of the rolling ladder which wobbled and bowed alarmingly under his weight, he took down a fine example bound in blue morocco leather and decorated with gilded armorials. Even though it had been many years since Leventhorp had darkened the door of a church he recognised it immediately as a Book of Common Prayer. The title page confirmed his intuitions.

THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER & ADMINISTRATION OF THE SACRAMENTS AND OTHER RITES ACCORDING TO THE USE OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND

Printed by Anthony Cadman, at the Sign of the Oak, Boscobel, MDCLIII

He took it over to the reading desk and examined it under the light. The fly-leaf was inscribed in a fine flourishing hand:

Anne Sadleir. Her Booke.

Underneath this was written:

May God in his good time restore this land to its pristine happiness, the Vulgar People to their former obedience, and God bless and restore Charles the Second, & make him like his most glorious Father. Amen.

April 1653, Anne Sadleir, Brockstone Court.

But below, in a different hand, was scrawled.

Blasphemy! Treason! Papists to a man!

As Leventhorp flicked through the pages, the fragmented childhood memories of dull Sunday mornings at the interminable cathedral services at St Paul’s in Melbourne came flooding back: prayers to be used in storms at sea; earth to earth, ashes to ashes; not three eternals, but one eternal; a man may not marry his father’s mother. When he came to the readings for April 25th he saw that the page had been torn out as if in a fit of rage. In the shredded remnants of the margin were traces of annotation in the same intemperate hand as before.

Treason! Popery and witchcraft!

For an instant, he saw the scowling face of Sir Samuel Leventhorp swim before him. The date on the flyleaf was 1653, which fitted well with the likelihood that it was he who was the author of the accusatory marginalia. He read the inscription again, and he supposed that unless it was a gift (which seemed most unlikely) the book properly belonged to Lady Sadleir of Brockstone Court or her heirs.

The name Brockstone was vaguely familiar to him. On the wall of the library was a framed map of the Gaulsford Hundred, broken up, no doubt, from some dull compendium of county history from the 1800s. And sure enough, it showed that Brockstone was a stately home just a few miles further down the River Tent from Gaulsford. But who was Anne Sadleir? He lifted down a hefty volume of Burke’s Landed Gentry. Brockstone Court, it related, had been built in 1554, by one Sir Thomas Sadleir. His son Ralph Sadleir, known to many as the “Noble Mr Sadleir” from Walton’s Compleat Angler, had married Anne, the daughter of Sir Edward Coke a noted Jurist, in 1601. It seemed that Lady Sadleir had spent the majority of her life in quiet retreat at Brockstone and was a collector of obscure manuscripts including a curious illuminated Apocalypse later donated to Trinity College, Cambridge.

He looked again at the map; as the crow flies, Brockstone was barely three or four miles away. Perhaps he might pay a visit, use the book as an introduction, anything to combat the dreary isolation of his days at Gaulsford.

Behind the house stretched the vast and dark demesne of Gaulsford woods. According to the map, a path led through its gloomy recesses emerging after a couple of miles onto the banks of the river Tent, where it followed the meandering watercourse until it came to the gates of Brockstone Court. And so, on a fine autumn day, Leventhorp decided to walk the three miles or thereabouts to his neighbour’s estate, clutching the prayer-book, safely cocooned in a parcel of bubble-wrap and yesterday’s newspapers.

The walk through the woods took longer than he expected. Though it was indeed a public right of way, it was clearly one of the less frequented ones, and several times it dwindled to little more than a dirty rabbit track through the undergrowth. Eventually, he heard the gentle sounds of running water and the path emerged onto the bright and green banks of the upper reaches of the river Tent, where a much more pleasant stroll could be had through the fields and pastures of Hertfordshire. The path finally disgorged itself over a stile a few yards away from the grand Tudor gateway to Brockstone Court. Through the trees he could see the grey walls of a chapel and further beyond, the grand elevation of Brockstone Court itself.

Leventhorp called at the gate lodge, hoping to enquire if it were possible to talk to the current owners.

The building was unoccupied and seemed to be in use as a lumber-room for various agricultural implements; he heard the purr of a ride-on lawnmower not far away and flagged down its driver. The owners of Brockstone were, it seemed, absentee landlords just like the Leventhorps and the house and its demesne were run by an estate manager. The gardener rang through to the house and announced (to Leventhorp’s parvenu delight) that Sir Jonathan Leventhorp of Gaulsford requested an audience.

“Go right up,” he said. “But use the back way; the front door hasn’t been opened in ten years. No need for it now with the house being empty.”

Leventhorp walked the short distance up the drive to the house. It had an imposing Tudor façade but, like Gaulsford, the building was clearly in its declining years, having reached the point where restoration had been abandoned and the occupants were merely erecting a temporary bulwark against the erosive forces of decay. A middle-aged man, sharply dressed, was waiting to meet him outside.

“Sir Jonathan! Well, this really is an honour for us! I’m Daniel Clark, the estate manager.”

“That’s certainly a big responsibility,” said Leventhorp, shaking hands and looking around at the wide expanse of house and grounds. “Have you been long in the job?”

“All my life,” said Clark, smiling. “My family have served the Sadleirs for six generations as loyal agents and retainers. I know of nothing else.”

“Ah, yes, the Sadleirs. That’s the reason for my visit. I have, what you might call, a piece of lost property to return.”

Leventhorp proffered the ragged package.

“I was rummaging in our library at Gaulsford when I discovered this book. It’s very old and, judging by the inscription, it belongs to one of the Sadleirs from way back. I thought I’d return it to its rightful home as a neighbourly gesture.”

Mr Clark accepted the ill-wrapped package with an air of bemusement, but as he finished unravelling its layers and began to examine the contents, he uttered a sudden cry of joy.

“The missing prayer-book! I can’t believe it! You know this has been considered irretrievably lost for over three centuries?”

Leventhorp saw how he handled it with the reverence of a holy relic.

“And you say it was in your library?”

“Yes. I have a horrible feeling that one of my ancestors may have borrowed it and forgotten to bring it back!”

“We’ll waive the late fees in this case, I think!” said Clark. “You have no idea what a priceless treasure it is that you have returned. On behalf of the Sadleir family, we are eternally grateful for your generosity.”

“Is it really that special?”

“Ah, so you have never heard of the prayer-books of Brockstone? You are not a bibliophile then, I guess? Well, let me explain. During the Commonwealth, the use of the Book of Common Prayer was banned outright. Even to own a copy was punishable by a fine, let alone having a new edition printed. Which is exactly what Lady Sadleir did in 1653, and so far as we know, these are the only examples from that period. I hope you realise that there are more copies of the Gutenberg Bible in existence than there are of the Brockstone prayer-book! There were, until now, just eight copies extant at Brockstone. The prayer-books used to be kept here in the chapel before an unfortunate incident of attempted robbery early in the last century necessitated their removal. As a result, they are all now safely stored in a vault at Lloyd’s Bank in the City of London.

“There are eight stall-boxes here in Brockstone Chapel and so, naturally, they required eight books, one for each stall. But of course, Lady Sadleir, as a woman, would not have been permitted to sit in the choir and would have followed the service from her private box pew. Hence there has to have been a ninth copy, her own personal one, which has been missing for over three centuries. Missing…well, until now that is!”

He opened the book at the title page.

“Hmm, I see someone has been scribbling in it at some time in the past.”

“Yes, I must apologise; I have a horrible feeling it’s in the hand of my ancestor Sir Samuel Leventhorp.”

“I expect that’s probably true. There was no love lost between your ancestor and the Sadleirs, that’s for sure. It almost had the aspect of a feud. It all came down, like so many things at that period, to religious and political differences. They were, you might say, natural enemies—like fox and hound, or barn owl and shrew.

“You must forgive me for saying that Sir Samuel was the worst sort of Puritan: bigoted, narrow-minded and puffed-up on the certainty of his own election to Paradise. Lady Sadleir’s royalist views were, of course, well known, but in addition to that, she had pronounced high church leanings, was certainly a staunch supporter of the unfortunate Archbishop Laud, and there was much speculation at the time that she may have harboured secret Catholic sympathies.”

“Ah, but you have no priest holes here at Brockstone Court, have you?” said Leventhorp.

“No, the only one you’ll find in this area is at Gaulsford. Now that’s very curious, don’t you think?”

Clark escorted him inside on a tour of the house, which was much the same as Gaulsford with its dreary accumulation of Grand Tour detritus and middle-range art and furniture. What did come as a surprise were the paintings on the walls and ceiling of the Great Hall. In the style of the Baroque master Andrea Pozzo, they receded in perspective to infinite heights in a virtuoso display of trompe l’œil, as if the ceiling itself had been lifted away to reveal a starry Empyrean.

At the centre, ascending to the glories of Heaven and supported by crowds of winged cherubim, was the figure of a crowned king, presumably Charles II, while at the edges of the triumphal scene, trampled underfoot in the outer darkness, crouched the squat figure of Satan and his attendant minions, a parade of grotesques straight out of Dante’s Inferno. Around His Satanic Majesty there writhed various figures in aspects of eternal torment. Not quite the Sistine Chapel, but effective nonetheless.

“Impressive, isn’t it?” said Clark. “It was one of the last commissions by Lady Sadleir, and dates from around 1665. It’s called The Triumph of Loyalty and the Defeat of Sedition. Those unfortunate chaps getting their what-for from the Devil are the Regicides. Cromwell, you can recognise by his grotesquely exaggerated wart; there’s Ireton, Harrison, Pride and all the rest.”

One corner of the room was covered in scaffolding and the entire framework was draped in cotton sheets as if to contain the spread of dust. At the bottom, a corner of the covers flapped open and Leventhorp peeked inside. The scaffolding was protecting a wall painting of the Doom or Last Judgement. It was a continuation of the torment of the Regicides from the ceiling, as a further series of unfortunates was dragged into the gaping jaws of Hell by eager demons. There was something odd about it, but before he could formulate just exactly what it was, the fabric was plucked out of his hand and firmly tied back in place by Mr Clark.

“It’s just some remedial work I’m doing on the wall paintings,” he said. “I’m a trained art restorer as well, you see. I learnt my trade at the Courtauld Institute in London when I was younger. The paintings are showing their age, three centuries of candle smoke and oil lamps has left them looking a little tired, shall we say, and in need of some curatorial TLC.

“I suggest we go and visit the Brockstone Chapel, and take the prayer-book back to its original home. Though of course, alas, it will have to end up in the bank vault with the rest of them.”

It was a short walk across the lawn and through a copse of beech trees to reach the chapel which, although small, had a certain quiet grandeur to it.

Once inside, the two men stood at the head of the nave.

“Let’s see what the psalm for today is,” said Clark. But as he flicked through the pages, the prayer-book sprang open at the missing leaf. “Oh, it’s been defaced! Not the first time that Sir Samuel has vandalised Sadleir property, I fear.”

“How so?” said Leventhorp.

“Well, this is called the new chapel, but in fact, it was built in the mid 1650s or thereabouts to replace the one desecrated by Sir Samuel. That unfortunate edifice was the original chapel at Brockstone and was built, as was standard at the time, as an annexe to the house in 1554.”

“Desecrated? I hope you’re not suggesting Sir Samuel was one of these Aleister Crowley black magic types?”

“Oh no, not at all! In fact, quite the opposite—though Lady Sadleir might well have said he worked at the Devil’s prompting.

“I’m sure you’ve heard of the iconoclasts, those Puritans who interpreted the commandment against graven images to the letter of the law. William Dowsing in East Anglia was the most celebrated example, a self-appointed ‘Inspector of Monuments’ who went from church to church shattering statues, destroying rood screens and altars, stained glass and anything else that smacked of high church tendencies. Many people admire the austere beauty of East Anglian churches; little do they realise that it’s mostly the result of Dowsing’s destructive rampage!

“The scourge of iconoclasm did not confine itself to East Anglia: the contagion soon spread over the border here into Hertfordshire as well. Fired by Puritan zeal, Sir Samuel Leventhorp commissioned himself as the iconoclast inquisition in the Gaulsford Hundred, and together with a band of thugs armed with pickaxes and mallets he sought out every country church and chapel for some twenty miles around. And, eventually, in his rounds of destruction he paid a visit to Brockstone in 1648. There is an extract of his report to Parliament in the Victoria County History which we have reproduced in the guide to the chapel—it’s rather a depressing thing to read.”

He handed Leventhorp a photocopied piece of paper which gave a history of the fabric and integuments of the chapel and indicated the relevant passage in his ancestor’s own words.

At the Chappell of BROCKSTONE, we brake down XIV superstitious pictures and crucifixes, IX winged angells on the chancel and VII cherubim on the roof, and a Popish inscription in brass Sancta Maria ora pro nobis. XVI windows to be broken down and the chancel cross taken down. Gave severe instruction to my Lady Sadleir to level the altar steps, brake down the communion rails and remove the Popish silver ere I return.

“How appalling!” said Leventhorp.

“Yes, Lady Sadleir was most upset, and was said to have cursed the Leventhorps and their heritage, in true Old-Testament fashion, yea, unto the tenth generation and all that.”

Clark stopped and suddenly flushed red. “Oh dear, I forgot about your relative’s recent passing. Please excuse my insensitivity and accept my sincerest condolences.”

Leventhorp shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. I’m sure you can tell from my accent I’ve not had much doing with the English branch of the family. I never met him or indeed any of the Gaulsford Leventhorps. I have no idea even how he died.”

“Probably just as well not to know,” Clark said, quietly. “Those sorts of details can upset one unnecessarily.”

After a brief moment of uncomfortable silence, Clark conducted Leven-thorp down the nave and pointed out the various features of interest to him.

“The original Brockstone chapel was an opulent affair erected during the reign of the Catholic Queen Mary when certain Protestant ordinances were being relaxed. After the desecration by Sir Samuel, it seemed that Lady Sadleir considered the whole edifice to be irretrievably defiled and as an act of defiance she demolished it and built the chapel we have today in a secluded location away from the house. After the Restoration in 1660, it was redecorated in the high church fashion you see around you.”

“And nothing from the original chapel survives?”

“Not quite. By sheer chance, one or two relics are still with us. If you follow me to the chancel you’ll see in this display cabinet that we have the remains of some paintings on wood, dating from about 1430 or thereabouts, perhaps salvaged by the Sadleirs from the dissolved priory of Stanford Magdalene. These images formed the lower part of a rood screen in the original Brockstone chapel, and it is conjectured that there would have been several other panels, all of which are now unfortunately lost. This particular panel was hidden in the rafters of one of the local tithe barns and only rediscovered quite recently, when they were being converted to holiday lets as is the fashion around here. You can see the results of your ancestor’s iconoclasm, a pretty thorough job I fear. The painting depicts three saints, and though severely damaged, by the various accoutrements, we can identify them as St Michael, St George and St Thomas Becket.”

The cabinet was opened so Leventhorp could inspect the images up close. The faces had been gouged out, quite literally de-faced. A fanatical assailant had attacked the painting in a frenzy of religious enthusiasm with a chisel or some other sharp instrument and the scarred woodwork remained as a testament to the grim determination of Puritan iconoclasm.

Identified by their accoutrements, Leventhorp thought to himself; so tragic really, like some poor murder victim who can only be identified from their dental records.

“So how do you think Sir Samuel came by the prayer-book?” he asked.

“I suspect he probably paid a visit to the new chapel soon after its opening, looking for evidence of Romanizing tendencies, and seized the volume as ‘Exhibit A’ in his ongoing persecution of the Sadleirs.”

“So why wasn’t Lady Sadleir hauled before the courts? If this book was, as you say, pretty strong stuff.”

“Well, she might have been, but looking at the dates: Sir Samuel passed away not so very long afterwards, in December 1653, perhaps before he had time to press for prosecution. And of course, in the turmoil after the dissolution of the Rump Parliament in April of that year and in the interregnum before Cromwell was named Lord Protector, perhaps the times were simply not conducive for these sorts of petty witch hunts.”

Clark gently closed the door to the cabinet. “Thankfully, your family became less enthusiastic about religious matters and I think it was in a moment of mischief that one of Sir Samuel’s sons commissioned the portrait of the great iconoclast which hangs on the staircase at Gaulsford. How droll, immortalising him in the very format he took to be the deepest blasphemy!”

“Yes, I suppose it was,” smiled Leventhorp.

“Isn’t it good to live in the age of reason where we can put these unfortunate misunderstandings behind us!” said Clark. “I must return and do a bit more work on the wall paintings before it gets dark, but please feel free to wander about. Just let the gardener know at the gatehouse on your way out and he’ll come and lock up.”

The sun was declining behind the surrounding trees, and their wavering shadows played on the chapel window-glass like gesticulating figures from an angry crowd. Now that Leventhorp was alone, the silence of the building was unnerving. He clapped his hands to test the acoustics and tunelessly whistled a few bars of Jerusalem. An old organ stood at the rear of the chapel, and he sat down at the pedals, switched on the electric blower, engaged vox humana and allowed himself a little tootle of ‘chopsticks’ on the keys.

There was little else of interest in the chapel, save for one curious discovery. Amidst the florid dedications to the Lords of the Manor and their various incumbents over the years, Leventhorp noticed a curiously plain marble slab set into the floor of the nave and inscribed simply with the initials A.C. Into the centre of the slab was attached a metal ring, standing slightly proud of its surroundings, as if inviting the onlooker to grasp its circumference and haul away the deadweight to reveal whatever secret charnel-house lay concealed beneath. Leventhorp nudged the ironwork gently with his foot and it left a faint, iridescent sheen on the leather of his shoe as if it had just been recently oiled.

Returning through Gaulsford woods in the late evening, he caught glimpses of a white figure flitting through the branches, seemingly keeping pace with him as he trudged through the overgrowth—the local barn owls out hunting, no doubt, he thought to himself. And he shuddered at the fate of whatever poor field creatures were venturing abroad that night, oblivious to the silent death which awaited them from above. The keen talons that would pierce the skin in a swift and bloody embrace; the relentless beak tearing into the still quivering flesh…

When Leventhorp arrived home to Gaulsford, footsore and slightly dishevelled, the house was closing-up for the day and he engaged the tour guide in conversation as she was bolting and locking the main door after the last coach-party had departed.

“What do we really know about this chap?” he said, indicating the portrait of Sir Samuel at the foot of the stairs. “How did he die, for instance?”

“He suffered from a mental breakdown,” replied the guide. “At least that’s what the National Trust archivist tells us. According to the fragments of his letters that remain in our collections, he seems to have developed some sort of acute persecution mania in the last few months of his life. It was Sir Samuel who put up all these ugly bars on the inside of the windows and made the place a regular fortress. He became a recluse, refused to leave the house for any reason whatsoever and was found dead in his bed not long after. There’s a potted biography of him in the official guidebook; you’ll find copies by the front pay-desk. Help yourself!”

He thanked the guide and picked up a copy of the glossy National Trust guidebook to Gaulsford which had been written some years previously by a retired academic from Cambridge. According to the author, Sir Samuel suffered a sudden mental decline in the six months before his death in December 1653: an illness comprising paranoia, hypochondria, a black depression and most significantly, an obsessive persecution mania (hence the bars on the windows) as a result of which he never once ventured outside the house again. Some contemporaries said it was the result of the pox: the dementia praecox of tertiary syphilis, contracted from a mistress of ill-repute. But such scurrilous Royalist propaganda was typical for the times and highly unlikely to be true.

He saw from the blurb at the back of the book that the same author had written a history of the churches of Hertfordshire and with his master key he let himself into the gift shop and scanned the shelves until he found a copy. Looking up the index, he turned to the entry on Brockstone Court.

The account of Sir Samuel and his wanton desecration of the earlier chapel was substantially the same as he had been told by Mr Clark. There was an exhaustive description of the decoration of the new chapel, all rather dull, and a lengthy encomium on the church organ, which certainly hadn’t sounded so very special when he was playing ‘chopsticks’ on it. It was all as dry and tedious as any copy of Pevsner’s Buildings of England. But the author finally got into his stride once he began to relate the legends associated with Brockstone Court and the curious prayer-books:

A fascinating relic. The order of service is the same as the common edition except for the service for St Mark’s Day on April 25th, which is, significantly, also the day of Cromwell’s birth. The psalter and collects for this day are highly irregular. Psalm 109 is to be sung, a most terrible cantrip, both a curse and an invocation of God’s wrath upon the unnamed tyrant, and the subsequent petitionary prayers are equally bloodcurdling. As convinced Royalists, it is strongly suspected that the Sadleirs and their retinue would gather each year on this appointed date to invite divine execration on the head of Cromwell and his minions. It is said that all nine books—nine being the Ennead, the mystical number of creation—needed to be present together in order for the charm to work. And one supposes it must have been efficacious after a fashion, because Cromwell did indeed pass away in unspeakable agonies within a few years of the book’s printing.

Amongst the other passages of local colour, one in particular grabbed his attention:

The stone with the mysterious and laconic inscription ‘A.C.’ is often pointed out as evidence for Lady Sadleir’s unhealthy interest in occult matters. It is said by local people that the slab covers the tomb of one Anthony Cadman, infamous to all bibliophiles as the London-based printer of the sacrilegious Brockstone prayer-book. Cadman was suspected by many contemporaries of being a noted continental magician living incognito in the city and a confidante of the exiled Queen Henrietta Maria. According to the account rendered in John Evelyn’s Diary, the ‘gentleman calling himself Cadman’ was rumoured to have dabbled in alchemy and those areas of mystical theology which are perhaps best avoided by the unwary.

These murmurings reached a climax during the June of 1653, when, shortly after the printing of the infamous prayer-book, he was publically accused of ‘attempting to procure the deaths of divers persons by necromantic means’. While such accusations were not unusual for the times; Cadman’s links to the Royalist cause were doubly damning and he was swiftly trialled and hanged for the alleged offence. His wry-necked corpse was gibbeted at the crossroads at Hampstead Heath as a gruesome landmark for the populace and a warning to the curious. It has long been rumoured that his cage was blown down from the gibbet not long afterwards during a great tempest of allegedly supernatural origin, and the mummified remains secretly removed by agents of Lady Sadleir for burial in the new chapel at Brockstone.

Leventhorp was awakened the next morning by the screech of an angle-grinder. A workman was removing the bars in the library windows, apparently at the insistence of their insurers for health and safety reasons. The house was being shut up for the winter, and he could finally expect some peace from the screaming hordes of bored schoolchildren. The housekeepers moved methodically from room to room, giving the silver and ceramics a last clean and polish before boxing them away and covering the furniture and statuary in commodious dust-sheets, leaving each room with the faintly ridiculous appearance of an eerie tableau from some forlorn seaside ghost train.

As he sat down to watch television one evening after the final departure of the house staff, Leventhorp found his mind wandering. He was strangely troubled by the paintings in the Great Hall at Brockstone; there was something about the images under the scaffolding, that had registered subliminally in his brain, but which he could not recall to conscious scrutiny. Unable to concentrate on the programme he retreated to the library, reached down one of the collected volumes of Country Life, and began leafing randomly through it to pass the time.

Amongst the articles, one from the early 1990s caught his attention: a typical lightweight puff-piece entitled ‘Springtime at Brockstone Court’.

The article was mainly comprised of elegiac soft-focus scenes of the gardeners at their seasonal round: digging the beds, planting the walled garden with annuals and pruning the espaliers as the lawns and arbours of Brockstone bloomed with a glorious carpeting of snowdrops and crocuses. Inside the house, the winter cobwebs were being chased away by the housemaids; the rooms illuminated in the weak spring sunlight as they performed their duties. There was a photo of Mr Clark, then a much younger man, barely in his thirties, mentioned in the caption as having recently returned to his family sinecure after a stint at the Courtauld Institute. The various artworks of note were enumerated, mostly uninspiring 18th-century studio copies, and the article ended with a double-page spread of the paintings of the Great Hall.

The ceiling was no less impressive in reproduction, but something else caught Leventhorp’s attention. A small inset photograph clearly showed the section of wall painting depicting the torments of Hell, of which he had previously only caught the barest of glimpses behind the scaffolding. The artist had clearly taken great relish in enumerating the miseries of the damned Parliamentarians and their fellow-travellers—as inventive and gruesome as any medieval Doom. Leventhorp studied the agonised faces of the unrepentant sinners as they were crammed into Hell’s gaping maw: naked, shivering, and somehow very familiar.

Still clutching the heavy volume, he ran out to the Great Staircase, and compared each face from the Brockstone wall paintings with his ancestors’ likenesses. They were identical. Each face, from his recently deceased third cousin to the scowling enmity of Sir Samuel had been incorporated into the apocalyptic wall painting, and each writhing victim had been given their own attendant demon and unique mode of torture. At the very edge of the dismal procession, one figure had been left seemingly unfinished, as if the space were being readied to take the artist’s impression.

He put the volume down and went searching for his car keys. He decided that he would drive over to Brockstone and get to the bottom of whatever mischief was going on. No matter what obscure genealogy had led him here to Gaulsford, he felt some sort of family honour was at stake and the memory of Clark’s deliberate shielding of the wall painting from him smacked of subterfuge and contempt. He would demand to see it, and observe Clark’s reactions: even if it were a mere bagatelle and mockery on his part, it was certainly in dubious taste and he would have no compunction in venting his disgust to the supercilious estate manager.

The gates of Brockstone were locked, but a small postern gate was open and Leventhorp entered unseen. He walked through the landscaped gardens and past the chapel, which was wreathed in a sombre gloom. There were no owls in flight tonight; only strange rustlings and cries from the nocturnal fauna in the surrounding undergrowth broke the stillness of the moonlit night.

As he approached Brockstone Court, the house was in darkness except for a single light which blazed in the Great Hall. Leventhorp crept up to the mullioned windows and peered inside. The dust-sheets had been removed from the scaffolding and Clark was kneeling on the upper tier with an artist’s palette and brush in his hands. After a few minutes of thoughtful dabbing at a segment of the wall painting, he climbed down from the scaffold and stood back to admire his handiwork. Leventhorp threw himself down amongst the shrubbery as Clark strode over and flung open the window to dispel the lingering paint fumes. From his den amongst the leaves, Leventhorp could see the light in a far annexe switch on and then a gurgle of steam rose from the drains. Clark was obviously cleaning himself up, having finished his artistic efforts for the day.

Leventhorp rose again from his hiding place and leaned over the windowsill to better observe the wall painting, which was now clearly visible through the unencumbered scaffolding. He saw his ancestors held up for public humiliation in various ridiculous and lurid scenarios, just as the magazine article had reproduced, except now, viewing the images in person, their impact was exponentially greater. At the sight of this obscenity, he felt the old familial acrimony against the Sadleirs rise within him like a sudden delirious fever. It was just as Mr Clark had described: an instinctive, almost genetic hatred. Like fox and hound, like barn owl and shrew. Before he knew it Leventhorp had scrambled over the windowsill and made his way into the Hall.

Up close, the images were detailed and exact renditions of Sir Samuel’s lineage, with the likenesses of each figure deliberately copied from the family portraits in the Great Staircase at Gaulsford. And now, he saw to his disgust that the final figure had been completed by Clark with Leventhorp’s own visage, with his doppelgänger staring gormlessly into the Hellmouth whilst being intimately skewered by the red-hot poker of his demonic companion.

He climbed up onto the scaffolding for a closer look at this outrageous work of pictorial libel. And as he regarded the awful images he felt a destructive urge rise with in him, an iconoclastic zeal as fanatical as any of his forebears. A drum of turpentine stood amidst the painterly paraphernalia on the topmost tier of the scaffold. Leventhorp unscrewed the cap and began to fling the contents at the wall paintings, feeling a deep satisfaction as the images dissolved into chaos, their outlines collapsing and streaming down the walls in streaks of colour like some abstract expressionist mess by Jackson Pollock.

Leventhorp broadcasted the solvent without discrimination. Cromwell and Ireton faded into nothingness, angels and demons were united in their common fate; even the majestic finery of Charles II took the brunt of a well aimed squib and dissolved into a gelatinous ichor which dripped onto the floor in variegated puddles. The images were fading into obscurity, evaporating into the bare outlines limned by their under-drawings. The air was now shimmering with fumes and Leventhorp ran to the window to escape the choking vapours of the turpentine. The distant sound of a door slamming signalled to him that Clark was returning for a final review of his work. Leventhorp eased himself back out the window and hurried through the grounds to his discreetly parked car before the alarm could be raised.

Back in the safety of Gaulsford, he poured himself a large whiskey and retired to the library to contemplate the consequences of his impetuous actions. He was at a loss to explain himself. It was as if the vengeful spirit of his ancestor’s Puritanism had short-circuited the centuries to possess his soul for a brief moment of insanity. Thankfully, more by good luck than by good judgement, he had kept his leather driving gloves on, so no incriminating fingerprints had been left at the scene should the police be called.

Yet the question still remained unanswered: what was Clark doing painting an image of him on the walls of Brockstone Court? He had told Leventhorp that his family had served the Sadleirs for generations—did their service include more than just simply rendering the daily round of household duties? Was Mr Clark the hierophant of some vengeful ritual against the Lords of Gaulsford: a legacy of Dame Sadleir’s unquenchable ire? And what was the meaning of the strange prayer-book and its vicious and unauthorised psalmody?

The words of the local historian circled in his mind: Highly irregular. Both a curse and an invocation.

He needed to consult a bible, and unsurprisingly, there were several to choose from in the Gaulsford library. He climbed the unsteady ladder, lifted down an old Victorian leather-bound copy of the King James Version and opened it at the Book of Psalms, number 109.

Let the iniquity of his Fathers be remembered with the LORD…

Was he, Jonathan Leventhorp, being cursed somehow for the iniquity of his own forebears? Cursed via some unforgiven hereditary guilt for the grotesque vandalism of Sir Samuel so many generations before?

Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg: let them seek their bread also out of desolate places.

Leventhorp thought about his previous life eking out a pathetic existence on the other side of the world, and the equally peripatetic careers of his forebears at Gaulsford—was the line meant to apply to him as well? It seemed eerily apposite.

But this surely wasn’t fair; this couldn’t be the actions of a beneficent deity, one who begged us to turn the other cheek, to love one another as ourselves? Leventhorp began to wonder what strange being the Sadleirs had invoked: this demiurge of Brockstone, this jealous God, brimming with wrath and vengefulyea, unto the tenth generation. He read the awful maledictions of the psalm again.

Let his posterity be cut off; and in the generation following let their name be blotted out.

Now that the nine prayer-books were together again for the first time in three centuries, was some strange conclave of shadows reaching its blasphemous apogée in the chapel this very night under the direction of Mr Clark?

In the corner of his eye he caught a brief flash of white against the outer darkness of the lawns and then a crash and tinkle of breaking glass sounded in the shadows at the far end of the room. One of the barn owls must have dashed itself against the glass of the library again, he thought, no doubt attracted by the glimmer of lights inside. He saw that the lower part of the window had been completely smashed by the impact and a glittering spray of shards littered the floor of the room inside. The shattered remains of the windowpane were covered with the same dusty traces as before, but there was nothing to be seen either within or without the library walls.

Leventhorp felt utterly alone in the midnight emptiness of Gaulsford and was seized by a sudden unaccountable chill of anxiety. The National Trust had installed a central fuse-box by the main desk, which controlled all the internal and external lighting in the house, and he ran and grappled with the switches until the entire building was a blaze of light. Outside, the blue-grey nocturnal landscape of the lawns brightened as if at the impending approach of dawn, but the shadows cast by the house lights were deeper, more impenetrable, more concealing.

The lights of the upper landing came on behind him and he turned and gaped at the scene of wanton destruction which had been revealed on the Great Staircase.

The Leventhorp family portraits had been utterly defaced by some unseen hand. Each one had had its face roughly scraped away just as on the medieval rood screen at Brockstone, and to his disgust he saw that his own portrait had not been spared the outrage. He climbed up the stairs past each ruined picture until he came to the remnants of his own self-commissioned likeness. His face had been gouged out in a series of deep scars through the canvas and, as if to heighten the atrocity, a single eye remained visible between the vicious stripes, peering out sorrowfully from the midst of the surrounding carnage.

Clearly a gang of local yobs had found their way inside somehow and had embarked on a vandalism spree. If they came across him in the midst of their mindless rampage he would probably end up with a good kicking, or worse. He needed to raise the alarm with the security guard, and somewhere on the upper floor, he remembered, was a house phone. As he hurried along the corridor he noticed a roll of crumpled linen, about four or five feet in length, lying in front of the door to one of the bedchambers. A dust-sheet, thought Leventhorp in passing, fallen from one the housekeepers’ baskets perhaps, while they were closing up the house. But as he moved closer, the fabric began to stir fitfully as if animated by a network of unseen puppet strings and he paused and watched with incredulous fascination as slowly, and with a snakelike undulation, it began to creep across the floor towards him, leaving a faint spoor of whitish dust in its wake.

At the last instant Leventhorp recognised it not as a piece of forgotten household linen, but as a foul and decaying roll of ancient grave cloth. And at that very moment, the creature within raised itself semi-erect like some hooded serpent to reveal the expressionless and desiccated face of one dead for centuries. Around its withered neck was traced a band of twisted flesh, the eternal imprint of the hangman’s rope. The sightless eye-sockets were crammed full with the festering dirt of the grave, and a forked tongue flickered back and forth from within the crumbling jaws, tasting the air like a ravenous viper seeking out its prey.

Leventhorp staggered back to the main bedchamber, slamming the door shut on the awful vision, but there was no lock or bolt with which to secure it. He looked around in desperation for some means of escape, but the drop from the upper windows was too great to attempt. There was only one place of concealment left to him: the priest hole.

He crammed his body inside the tiny space, and pulled the panel of wainscoting closed behind him. As he cowered in the suffocating darkness, he now realised its true significance. Sir Samuel Leventhorp was no secret Catholic, there were no renegade priests sheltering in his house, and there never had been. The priest hole had been made for himself alone. It was a sanctuary, a castle keep, a refuge of last resort from the tormenting demon sent by Dame Sadleir to plague him and his descendants. Despite his terror, vague recollections of Sunday School scripture lessons came whispering to him, echoes of yet another vengeful incantation: the awful words of Psalm 58, which now bore a stark and literal relevance.

The wicked are estranged from the womb Their poison is like the poison of a serpent They are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear…

Through the wainscoting Leventhorp heard the door of the bedchamber slowly creak open inch by agonising inch and the dark air around him seemed to thicken with the stench of decay. Then a knock came at the panelling beside him: polite, gentle, a dainty rat-tat-tat of someone requesting an entrance…

The sadly premature death of Sir Jonathan Leventhorp came, paradoxically, as rather a boon to the National Trust, because a codicil in the original deed of bequest meant that the remainder of the estate and trust fund became their prerogative with the extinction of the family title after ten generations.

The priest hole is still featured on the house tour, but thankfully for the long-suffering guide, no visitors have yet had the insensitivity to mention the unfortunate accident that occurred within its confines. Though some, thinking themselves out of earshot, will still mutter amongst themselves as they gaze into its dark airless cavity:

“That’s where they found him, you know. They say he had some sort of nervous breakdown and destroyed all the ancient family portraits that used to hang in the stairway. And he was missing for a full week before anyone even thought of looking for him in the priest hole. The police reckoned he squeezed himself inside somehow, but then couldn’t open the panel to get out again and went stark staring mad from being locked up alone in the darkness.

A pretty sight he was too when they found him. Tore his own face off with his fingernails, so they say, right down to the bone.”

Dennis Etchison

THE WALK

DENNIS ETCHISON is a three-time winner of both the British Fantasy and World Fantasy Awards. His collections include The Dark Country, Red Dreams, The Blood Kiss, The Death Artist, Talking in the Dark, Fine Cuts and Got To Kill Them All & Other Stories.

He is also the author of the novels Darkside, Shadowman, California Gothic, Double Edge, The Fog, Halloween II & III and Videodrome, and the editor of Cutting Edge, Masters of Darkness I-III, MetaHorror, The Museum of Horrors and (with Ramsey Campbell and Jack Dann) Gathering the Bones.

His latest collections are A Little Black Book of Horror Tales (Borderlands Press) and a massive career retrospective, It Only Comes Out At Night & Other Stories, from Centipede Press. His e-books are available from Crossroad Press.

Etchison has written extensively for film, television and radio, including more than 150 scripts for The Twilight Zone Radio Dramas, and he served as President of the Horror Writers Association from 1992-94.

“I once had a business lunch with someone who constantly interrupted our meeting for cell phone calls to or from his wife,” the author recalls. “At some point, perhaps out of boredom, a story popped into my head. That can happen at any time, without warning, and when it does it usually takes about eight seconds for an entire scenario to play out before my mind’s eye, sort of like a time-compressed movie.

“The meeting came to naught—the man turned out to be a con artist, of which there are more than a few in the town where I live—but I managed to jot down a title and brief description of the idea so I wouldn’t forget it.

“When I finally decided to write the story (or, perhaps more accurately, when the story decided it was time to be written), I was concerned about how improbable it all seemed, so I added an extended explanation to make it more logical. But ‘The Walk’ was overlong and peculiarly less convincing that way.

“As Terence McKenna observed, logic and reason may have been caught in bed together a few times, but it was a set-up. So goodbye, Aristotle; as far as I’m concerned he’s overrated anyway. Sometimes less really is more, after all.

“It was a film-maker, Guillermo del Toro, who said, ‘If you can live without it, leave it behind’. Good advice for any story-teller.”

THE BRIDGE WAS not very long, but after a few steps the boards began to jerk unsteadily. The writer stopped.

“Told you not to look down,” he joked without turning around. It was all of six feet to the shallow creek-bed. “Hold on and we’ll make it. Promise.”

“We can do this, Chaz!” said his wife in her best cheerleader voice.

He resumed walking, very deliberately. The ropes of the suspension bridge grew taut as the three people behind him followed. Then the boards began to sway and buck again, as if a wind had come up, though not even a breeze strafed the surface of the water.

“Everything okay back there?”

“Damn heels,” the director muttered.

The writer moved to one side. “Amber, why don’t you take the lead? So I can help our friends.”

The writer’s wife, who was wearing tennis shoes, slipped easily around him, rolling her eyes as she passed.

“Sorry,” said the director’s wife, embarrassed. “They keep getting stuck.”

The writer reached back, waving her forward. What was her name? “Chanel. Put your hand on my arm. Can you do that?”

“Not her heels,” said the director miserably.

Now the writer glanced over his shoulder. Chanel was wearing sensible flats but he hadn’t noticed the director’s cowboy boots. One tapered heel was wedged in the gap between two planks. Well, he thought, what do you expect? Chanel lowered her cell phone and smiled patiently at her husband.

“Give it a little jerk, Gerry,” she told him.

“Lean on me.” The writer grasped the padded shoulder of the director’s sport-coat while the man freed himself. “There. You got it.”

Amber stepped onto solid ground and turned to the others with an exaggerated smile. “We did it! Now who’s ready for a drink?”

“Me!” said Chanel. “I mean, if everybody else…”

“Hey, no sweat.” The writer led Chanel and Gerry off the end of the short bridge. “I’ve got some cold ones in my office.”

Chanel looked around. “Where?”

“You’ll see,” said Amber, winking privately at her husband.

Chanel scrolled through the images in her phone, stopped on the last one and compared it to the landscape ahead. The writer caught a glimpse of the frame, a long shot of the path as it entered the dense foliage behind his house. From here it might have been the wildly overgrown fairway of an abandoned golf course; either that or the longest backyard in the world. The ridge was only a few narrow acres but from this angle, the trees on both sides overhung with a shroud of vines, it resembled an unlighted tunnel. In the distance, at the end of the leafy canopy, the newly-painted top of a mansard roof flashed in the setting sun.

“Is that it?” asked Chanel.

“Ah,” said her husband. “I should have known.”

The writer sighed. “It was supposed to be a surprise.”

Chanel squinted at the hillside and a crinkle appeared on her smooth forehead for what might have been the first time. “What is it?”

“Come on,” the writer said. “I’ll show you.”

They followed him carefully into the maze of damp vegetation. Too carefully, he realised. As if they’re afraid of stepping on quicksand. There was still a half-mile to go, with so many twists and turns it would be easy to lose your bearings if you didn’t know the way. Amber could walk it in her sleep, of course; she had helped with the landscaping, which he had designed to double for a forest, even a jungle, depending on the script; that was his plan. But he hadn’t considered the night scenes. It could be dangerous then. What if somebody from the crew went exploring and broke a leg? Lawsuit city, that’s what. During the shoot he would close off the footpath and put up some Tiki lights just to be safe.

“Ger?” he heard Chanel say to her husband. “What’s wrong, babe?”

The writer saw that Gerry had paused beneath a transplanted palm tree, his snakeskin boots sinking into the freshly-irrigated mulch. The director curved his fingers to form a tube, as if sighting through an imaginary viewfinder. Between the drooping fronds was a brief glimpse of the hillside ahead, where shadows collected below the truncated gables of an old-fashioned house. It was hard not to imagine a square-shouldered young man standing on the porch, about to descend the rickety steps.

“Not too shabby,” the director said admiringly.

“I know, right?” said Amber. “Chaz built it himself!”

Chaz chuckled. “Well, not with my bare hands. After our house was finished, there was a pallet of wood left over. So I had to do something with it.”

Amber beamed. “Isn’t it amazing?”

“You know how much it would cost to build a set like that?” the director said.

“How much?” said Chanel.

“Half the budget of this whole picture,” Gerry told her.

“Is it a copy?” she asked.

Amber was puzzled. “Of what?”

“The one at Universal.”

“That one’s a copy, too,” Chaz said to the director’s wife. “They reconstructed it for the tour. The original was just a façade.”

“Perfect for the frat house,” the director said. “I see why Freddie wants to shoot here.”

“Four-fifths scale, I’m afraid. And only two functional rooms—my office and a bathroom. I rigged a water tank and a pipe to the main line.”

“No problem. The interiors can be on a stage. Is there a graveyard yet?”

“Right behind it.”

“Chaz thinks of everything,” said Amber.

“Like the one in Baltimore?” asked the director.

“Who knows?” Chaz said. “Those are all night shots, anyway.”

“What’s in Baltimore?” said Chanel.

“The real one,” Gerry told his wife.

“The real what?”

“You’re supposed to know these things.”

Why? Chaz wondered. What did it matter what she knew about the film? Unless he had gotten her a job as his personal assistant. Well, of course he had. What do you expect?

The director kept his fingers curled and made a short pan between the trees: a patch of dry sage, ready to blow away in the tropical heat, on a hillside wide enough to carve faces, and the top floor of a Gothic folly where shadows grew like goatees under a waning sun.

“We’ll shoot exteriors during the Magic Hour,” he announced.

“Magic?” said Amber.

“The last hour before sunset. Everything looks fantastic, with the right lens. Technovision’s the best.”

“Don’t get your hopes up,” said Chaz. “Freddie likes to use his own equip-ment.”

“We’ll see about that,” said Gerry. He glanced at Chanel. “Are you getting all this?”

“Sure, babe.”

With what? thought Chaz. Her phone? If she’s going to be his assistant she should carry a notebook. A thin one might fit in the back pocket of those skinny jeans. Barely.

Chanel clicked off several more exposures, then balanced gracefully against a tree trunk, slipped off one of her designer flats and knocked out a gob of moist, leafy earth. “What time is it?”

“I know, right?” said Amber. “It gets dark so fast now!” Tiny goosebumps rose like lines of Braille on her perfectly-tanned legs. The writer had picked this outfit for her, white shorts and a loose, scoop-neck blouse over a neon green bikini top. A perfect image for the one-sheet. He hoped the director was paying attention.

“If Gerry doesn’t get a meal every three hours,” said Chanel, “he’s not himself.”

“Four,” said the director. “Don’t worry about it. I brought my meds.”

“We can go back to the real house,” Amber suggested. “I could whip something up. Plus there’s some wine left. Robert Mondavi. It’s awesome.”

“No worries,” the writer told his wife, reaching for the phone in his pocket. “I’ll make reservations at Ernie’s.”

“I can do it,” said Amber quickly, opening her phone. “Ooh, you’re gonna love Ernie’s,” she said to Chanel. “The chicken molé is crazy!”

But Chanel already held a clear-coated fingernail over her own phone’s keypad. “What’s the number?”

“Not yet,” Gerry said to her.

“Why?”

“You have work to do.”

“Oh.”

The director Turned to Chaz. “I was thinking.”

“Oh?”

“After she leaves the party. Cuts through the woods to her car, trips and falls in a hole, blah blah. Starts to claw her way up. Then a sound, crunch crunch. Before she can climb out, someone steps on her fingers. She screams…”

The writer nodded. “Scene fifty-eight.”

“Yeah, well,” the director said, “I don’t think so.”

“No?”

“We’ve seen all that before.”

The writer managed to control himself. “How do you mean?”

“Try this. She hears something, I don’t know, twigs, crack crack. Keeps walking, follow-shot, handheld, till she’s in the clear. She thinks she’s safe…”

“That’s not in the script,” said Chanel.

The writer was surprised. She actually read it? Why?

The director shrugged. “So? We change it. She makes it to the cars. Music cue. Peaceful, calm. Starts to call her boyfriend. Then cut to her car. The door’s already open! Her eyes bug out, she backs away—and there he is, right behind her!”

“Who is?” asked Chanel.

“Our boy Eddie. Who else?”

Amber tried a grin. “That’d be cool. I mean—d’you think so, Chaz?”

“I don’t know,” Chaz said in a low voice. Now he’s a writer, too. Sure he is. “It’s a classic set-piece. I did a lot of research…”

“I have a question,” said Chanel.

“Yes?” said the director impatiently.

“Well, what’s her motivation?”

What’s it to you? the writer wondered.

“To get away,” Amber told her.

“Oh.” Chanel considered. “Then why doesn’t she run? Instead of walking, I mean.”

“She never runs,” the director said with disdain.

“But it’s a horror movie, isn’t it?”

“Trust me.”

“Either way,” said Amber cheerfully. “I can handle it. Can’t I, Chaz.”

“Where are the cars, exactly?” The director tipped his chin at the thick copse to his left. It trapped what was left of the daylight as the sun winked its last. “What’s beyond those trees?”

“Not much.”

“That can be where she parked.”

“It drops off. Plus there’s a fence.”

“So? She climbs over.”

“Too tall.”

“Then she opens the gate.”

“There isn’t one.”

“How about the other side?” The director turned to his right.

The writer shook his head. “The same. Galvanised chain-link. Another ravine.”

“This used to be a farm,” said Amber proudly. “It was his uncle’s.”

“Really?” said Chanel. “I love farms. What did he grow?”

The director wasn’t listening. He waved a hand, cutting them off. “So we shoot an insert. Some empty lot with a sign that says Parking. We don’t have to see her come out of the trees. As long as it matches.”

“That’ll work,” said Amber.

The director ignored her.

The writer noted this. A nearly sub-audible whispering began, as a buried irrigation system released a controlled flow of water through the enclosure. The automatic timer had come on. It was later than he thought.

“Maybe we should call it a day,” he said. “It’s almost dark.”

“Okay by me.” Chanel rubbed her arms, turned up the collar of her silk blouse and started back along a winding path she could no longer see. She hesitated uncertainly. “Babe? Are you coming?”

“You’re not finished yet,” the director said sharply.

“I’m not?”

“I told you. You need to walk the walk.”

“Oh.”

Chaz felt a pulse at his temple as his blood pressure rose. His wife didn’t get it yet. But everything was adding up. He turned to her.

“Amber?” he said with calculated calmness. “Why don’t you give her the grand tour?”

Amber was confused. “Wait. What?”

“Did you bring your key?”

“My—?”

“Here. Use mine.”

The writer stepped over to his wife, whispered something in her ear, reached into his pocket, took her hand and closed her fingers firmly against her empty palm. “You two go ahead, while I walk Gerry back. We have some business to talk about.”

“Yes,” the director said.

“Meet you at Ernie’s. Say seven-thirty? Take the Escalade.”

Amber stared wide-eyed at her husband.

“I know you can handle it,” he told her.

Now there was another sound, a deep, throbbing undercurrent beyond the trees.

“What’s that?“ said Gerry.

“The hills.”

“What about them?”

“They’re—settling,” said the writer. “Happens every night, when the sun goes down.”

“Then we can’t shoot live sound.”

“No worries. We can cover it in post.”

Amber’s eyes moved between the two men, trying to understand.

Chaz nodded at her solemnly, moving his head only an inch or two at a time, until she finally blinked.

She turned away.

“Let’s go,” she said to Chanel without expression. “I’ll show you the way.”

“Wait,” said the director. He took off his sport-coat and tossed it to his wife. “Here.”

Chanel slipped it on, rolled the ends of the sleeves and took a deep breath. “Okay,” she said gamely. “Well, don’t you boys worry about us. We’ll see you at, um—Ernie’s. I guess.”

Then she raised her phone, clicking off another exposure, and followed Amber along the only path through the rest of the forest.

The table wasn’t ready so Chaz led the director to the bar, where a soccer match was in progress on a big-screen TV. Gerry made a quick call to his wife.

“So how is it?”

“Kinda spooky,” said Chanel, “actually.”

“Good,” the director said.

“Babe, you should be here. It’s got a big old staircase and everything.”

“Great. I can get some high shots. What else do you see?”

“Not much,” Chanel said. “We have to find the light switch. You go ahead and order.”

“I can wait.”

“Seriously?”

“I told you, I’m fine.”

“How’s she doing?” said Chaz as they settled into a booth.

Gerry closed his phone. “She doesn’t know how to turn the lights on.”

“No sweat. Amber does.”

The director leaned back against the leather upholstery. “Some spread you’ve got out there. Your uncle did pretty well, huh?”

“He was lucky.”

“I was wondering where got your money.” Not from writing Corman remakes for the Syfy Channel, the director thought. “What kind of crops was it again?”

“Not crops. Oil.”

“No shit.”

“Not that kind.”

“What other kind is there?”

“Polyunsaturated.”

“As in…?”

A waiter appeared, carrying menus from the dining room.

“How are you, Señor Charles?”

“The usual, Pedro.”

“One Patron Gold, with a Coke back. And your friend?”

The director saw a laminated page behind the granite salsa bowl. It pictured a selection of tequila cocktails, all made with 100% blue agave. Whatever that meant. Welcome to California, he thought.

“You have a house red?”

“Of course.” Pedro turned to the writer. “Where is the señora tonight?”

“On her way.”

“Muy bien,” the waiter said, backing off.

Chaz sat forward and steepled his fingers. “When did you talk to Freddie?”

“This morning,” said the director.

“Me, too.”

“What did he tell you?”

“He wants it wrapped by the end of the month.”

“Ah. For the EuroSales Mart.” The director squinted as the windows darkened. “Anything else?”

“He said I should talk to you.”

Thanks a lot, Freddie, thought the director. He wants me to deliver the horse’s head for him. Either that or Chaz is playing dumb.

“So,” Gerry began, clearing his throat. “Freddie’s come up with a few changes.”

“What kind of changes?” said the writer, staring him down.

He really is dumb, the director thought. Who else would write a script called Animal House of Edgar Allan Poe? And who but Freddie would buy a piece of old-school shit like that?

“Well, for starters…” The phone in the director’s shirt pocket vibrated. He took it out and looked at the screen. His wife again. He pressed the talk button. “Listen, I’ll call you back. Chaz and I are in a meeting.”

“But Ger—”

“Something wrong?”

“It’s getting so-o-o cold. And…”

“And what?”

“This place is creeping me out.”

“Why?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Did you get the lights on?”

“Yeah, no. Amber says the fuse box is toast.”

“Then…” Screw it, he thought. It was a bad idea, leaving her there. “You know what? We can come back next week, with the trucks. For now, just get over here to Ernie’s.”

“I don’t even know the way.”

“Stay with Amber. She’ll walk you through it.”

“She’s looking for a flashlight. It’s dark out.”

“Remember your chakra exercise?”

“I think so.”

“Well, call me if you need me. Remember, I’m here for you.”

He tapped the off button.

“Trouble?” said Chaz.

“Not at all,” said the director. “Now about the picture. I was saying—”

“It matters a lot to you, doesn’t it? Even a B-movie like this.”

Gerry felt his blood sugar dropping as he thought, I’ve been waiting to direct since I was ten, when my dad gave me his Bolex. And what are you, an MBA?

“I mean, it’s a start.”

“And Freddie’s your big break,” said the writer.

“He’ll let me shoot anything I want. As long as this one makes money.”

“Is that what he told you?” The writer studied him humourlessly as the windows became black. “And what do you want to shoot? Art movies, right? Excuse me—films. Oh, I know all about art films. Which no one goes to see. The kind where nobody ever runs. The Walking Dead? Forget it. How about Walking Citizen Kane? Or Walking Eight-and-a-Half? See, I know how you think. Don’t I.”

Why not? thought the director. I could do that. With digital it’s easy. All front tracking shots, all the time. I don’t even need Steadicam.

“Those were great pictures,” he said, “in the day.”

“Maybe so,” said the writer. “But I’ve done my research, and let me tell you something. The Poe flicks made Corman a multi-millionaire. You know why? Horror never dies. And neither do teen sex comedies. Animal House grossed a hundred-and-forty-mil on two-point-eight. Freddie knows a brilliant idea when he hears it. That’s why I have a contract.”

Yeah, thought the director. Especially with a freebie location thrown in. “I have a contract, too,” he said.

“I know. Because Herschel Gordon Levitt got sick.”

“Freddie…” The director felt his throat go dry. He tried to swallow. “Freddie wanted me to tell you something else.”

The writer gave him an anaconda smile. “Did he?”

“It wasn’t my decision…”

“Of course not.”

“But…”

The director’s phone buzzed against his chest.

“Go ahead,” the writer told him. “You should answer it.”

“Chanel can take care of herself.”

“Can she?”

The director opened his phone and heard frantic breathing, or was it the rustling of trees?

“Ger? Ger, do something!”

“Where are you?”

“I don’t know!”

“Take a breath. In, out…”

“We started back, but she dropped her flashlight and—” The rustling grew louder. “Babe, what is that?”

“I told you, stay with Amber.”

“I don’t know where she is!”

The signal crackled with static.

“Chanel?”

Across from him, Chaz took out his own phone, tapped his wife’s name on the screen and then said, very casually, “Amber? How’s it going?”

“I think they got separated,” the director told him.

The static cleared and Gerry heard Chanel’s voice in his ear again. “There’s something out there!“ she whispered fiercely. “I can’t see it but…”

On the other side of the table, Chaz shut his eyes, listening to his wife. “Mm-hm…”

“Gerry, honey, please…!” said Chanel.

“Perfect,” the writer told Amber.

Now Chanel was no longer on Gerry’s line. The connection had been broken.

“Maybe we should go back,” he said to the writer.

“No worries.” Chaz closed his phone. “Amber’s got it covered.”

“Are you sure?” The director’s phone dropped out of his sweating hands. He tried to steady the table as the room began to tilt.

“Sure I’m sure. She doesn’t just talk the talk.”

Pedro reappeared with their drinks and a bowl of tortilla chips and lit the candle on the table.

“You wish to order now?”

“Give us a few more minutes,” the writer said.

The director felt his lips swelling and his throat closing up, his vision as distorted as his face. Where were his pills?

“A-another wine,” he told the waiter.

“Muy bien.”

“You should eat first,” said the writer.

“I’m fine!” said Gerry, as the windows grew blacker beyond the flickering candlelight. He heard a high neural scream as his blood chemistry dropped dangerously. How many hours had it been since he ate? He had lost track. He fumbled for the medication in his pocket but could not feel it. How could that be? Did he give his jacket to the waiter? Now he remembered. Chanel had it.

“Are you?” said Chaz. “Look at you.”

“Look at you!” Gerry said too loudly, no longer able to contain himself. “Don’t you get it? Amber’s off the picture!”

“Is that what you think?” said the writer casually. “You and Freddie?”

“He doesn’t care about your script! Or your backyard set with your little prop house!”

“Then why am I co-executive producing?”

“Because you married a skateboard girl from Venice Beach! What did she do, blow him under the desk?”

“And you,” said the writer between capped teeth, his voice modulated, “married an airhead model so you could pimp her out to ugly old producers. Like Freddie. Who made his wad off Zombie Man and Zombie Man’s Revenge and Zombie Man versus the Puppeteer. Don’t you get it? He’d make a movie of dogs licking their balls in space if people would pay to see it.”

“Chan—” In desperation the director gobbled salty chips and struggled to get the words out. He stuffed the chips in his mouth and tried to chew but they fell out in sharp, dry fragments. If he did not get them down the room would start spinning like a broken carousel. “Chanel has the lead now!”

“If she still wants it,” said the writer. “If she’s not too freaked out. Maybe she went for a walk in the dark and—who knows? It’s a jungle out there.”

The director pushed out of the booth and tried to stand.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“To find her!”

“How?” The writer dangled his silver car keys above the candle. They glinted fire.

The director reeled as his phone vibrated again and skittered across the tabletop. He fumbled for it.

“Gerry, I can’t see anything! Listen! Can you hear it?”

There was a crunching and her feet slapping something wet and then what might have been the hollow beating of drums in the background, fading and returning, moving fast. Before her cell phone crackled and went dead he heard her say, “Oh my God!”

“Chan…!”

Now there was a chirp from the other cell. The writer set it on the table between them and touched the speakerphone button.

“Hey, Am,” he said pleasantly, “what’s up?”

“Chaz…” Behind her, the same sound the director had heard a moment ago, the rhythmic throbbing and pounding. “They’re coming awfully close. I was just wondering. What if they get through the fence?”

“That’s impossible.”

“For sure?”

“I built it myself.”

“But—”

There was a clanging of metal links, or was it only the clink of glasses at the next table, as the drumming grew louder.

“Sorry, honey,” the writer told her. “You’re breaking up.”

He turned his phone off.

“We have to do something!” said the director.

The other customers turned to look at him.

“Not to worry. It’s only their heartbeats.”

“What?”

“At the end of the day, they like to run back and forth. When my uncle stopped feeding them they went away. I didn’t think they could get up the gully. But I suppose if they’re hungry enough…”

“What are you talking about?”

“Know what emus are? Think ostriches. Only really big ones. His own special breed. Six-and-a-half feet, at least. You should see the claws.”

“What?”

“Hey, relax. They’re only birds.”

“That’s what’s coming? Birds?”

The writer chuckled. “So freakin’ strong. Omega-three, oleic acid, you name it. That’s why their oil was trending at the health-food stores. Till the FDA shut him down…”

The director tried to focus his eyes as he stumbled in the direction of the red dining room and the exit. His tapered heel skidded out from under him and he reached for the next table. A blonde woman in a green satin dress sipped a martini and looked up without curiosity. He staggered and collapsed back into the booth. Then the waiter was there, holding his elbow.

“Do you feel well, señor?”

“Cab,” the director choked. “Get me—”

“A little too much to drink is all,” said the writer. “Bring him one of those special quesadillas, will you, Pedro? Pronto. Por favor.”

“Muy bien.”

“Muchos gracias.“

“Por nada.“

The director struggled to think clearly but could not. He felt his inflated head bob forward until his chin touched his chest. On the TV set, someone scored a goal.

“Take my advice,” said Chaz. “Let it go.” The writer sighed with a tinge of regret, as if thinking of something that was already beginning to fade from his memory, like a favourite car that had finally failed him and would have to be replaced. He forced a crooked smile. “What did you expect? It’ll sort itself out. For now, I guess we just sit here and see who shows up. Either way, no worries, right? We’ve got our contracts.” He opened his menu. “In the meantime, I recommend the chicken molé. It is seriously insane…”

The director was not listening. The other man’s voice became one with the soundtrack of the soccer game and the ragged, guttural roar in his skull as he lost consciousness and began to snore. The last thing he heard was the crowd. They were either cheering or booing but he could not be sure which.

Clint Smith

DIRT ON VICKY

CLINT SMITH lives in the Midwest, along with his wife and two children. He is the author of the short story collection Ghouljaw and Other Stories (Hippocampus Press) and the novella When It’s Time For Dead Things To Die (Dunhams Manor Press). His story ‘The Fall of Tomlinson Hall; or The Ballad of the Butcher’s Cart’ recently appeared in the Mythic Indy anthology (Second Story Press), while ‘Animalhouse’ is included in the inaugural issue of Nightscript.

“The delicate skeleton of this story emerged in the early, rookie-era role as stepfather to a precocious young boy,” explains the author, “and began to ossify during the latter stages of my wife’s pregnancy with our daughter.

“‘Dirt on Vicky’ was one of the first stories that encapsulated a number of my recurring obsessions in a single piece: the craft of tale-telling (in forms of fiction and busybody hearsay), the distortion of memory, the spiderweb-damage of adultery, and, of course, the unshakable presence of The House—a repetitive setting which looms black and jagged along the backcountry of my mental landscape.”

Everybody loved Chick Lorimer in our town. / Far off / Everybody loved her.

—Carl Sandburg, ‘Gone’

BILL HUGHES WATCHED the children fall under the storyteller’s spell. The kids—Bill’s eight-year-old son Casey among them—were sitting on an enormous rug, wreathed around the feet of the old woman weaving tales from a wooden rocking chair at the back of the library. With Halloween days away, tonight was the final instalment of New Bethel’s annual ghost story festival: The Witching Hour.

In an exaggerated wail, the woman said, “Give me back my bones,” extending her arthritic fingers toward her devoted audience. Casey twisted around to look at his dad. Bill supplied a brief, reassuring smile before his son hooked his own fingers into tiny claws and mouthed: Give me back my bones. Bill nodded, silently indicating that Casey should return his attention to the storyteller.

The combination of pausing at critical transitions, channelling eerie voices, and calling up the occasional witch’s cackle, brought an unsettling authenticity when paired with her austere features. To Bill, it was as if one of Macbeth’s Weird Sisters had crawled off the page and slid into the creaking rocking chair. She was dressed in grey, a black shawl wrapped around her hunched back and knobby shoulders. Her wiry, iron-coloured hair was spooled into an un-ravelling bun; the ghost of a smile played at the corners of her mouth as she peered at the rapt faces of her young listeners.

Nestled near the centre of the town’s prim bosom, the library had remained frighteningly unaltered since Bill Hughes had been a kid. Originally a courthouse, the building was a repository of custodial antiquity—marble floors reflecting the green gleam of reading lamps; massive, lacquered bookcases; the warm aroma of age-worn paper. Having lived here all his life, Bill was familiar with most of these stories. His own parents had brought him to these festivals when he was a kid, and he hoped Casey would find similar contentment with the provincial tales of ghost lights, phantom trains, banshee screams echoing under bridges.

He recognised a few folks here and there, deftly side-stepping the opportunity for anyone to strike up a conversation. Bill’s threshold for tolerating these questions had grown narrow over the past three or four years. He didn’t need to rehash his humiliation every time some busybody got nosy. Of course, none of them cared about him or Casey, they just wanted more gossip, more small town dirt on Vicky.

Bill’s wife had been killed when Casey was three years old, and everyone in town, Bill was certain, had their own perverse account of what had happened—the maliciously myopic, grown-up counterpart of the children’s story circle. While Casey wasn’t the only youngster in town living in a single-parent home, he was the only kid whose father was a widower. Only in the past few years had Casey started articulating those painfully inevitable questions: “How come kids at school have a mommy and a daddy?” On these occasions, Bill sloppily cobbled something together to mollify the boy. But Casey was getting smarter, his innocent inquiries becoming more acute.

Throughout the evening, Bill abandoned being a member of the audience, opting to aimlessly pace the aisles in solitude. Lean and lanky, Bill had the aspect of a rangy farmhand. He’d played basketball seventeen years earlier in high school—the same school where he was now a science teacher—and had since strictly maintained the appearance (down to his high-and-tight haircut) of a soft-spoken ball player.

Bill checked his watch and then gave a glance through one of the skinny windows. The orange-to-mauve tint of October twilight had nearly faded completely. Night’s lithe fingers had pulled darkness up to the town’s chin. Despite this being a Friday (neither having to cope with school tomorrow) Bill still had the uneasy urge to head home.

“All right, children,” said the old spinster, steepling her crooked fingers, “are you ready for a final twilight tale?” The kids collectively acknowledged that they were. From a wicker basket near her feet, the woman produced a saddle-stitched chapbook. “Well then…our last story is a local legend…the legend of the Aikman Farm.”

Bill’s thin grin faded, his face slackened. Good God, he thought. Do people still talk about that place? But why be surprised—the town had barely changed over the past three decades, why should its superstitions?

He half-listened to the latest permutated tale of the Aikman place. Experimentally, he tried to imagine what Casey was envisioning—a grey, windowless farmhouse on a hill, under a sky the colour of dirty wool. Drifting through knee-high witch grass, he floated across the yard, toward the house, through a black, coffin-shaped threshold beneath the shadow-draped porch. By-passing a parlour covered with shattered plaster, dead leaves and debris, his imagination is dragged up a crooked flight of stairs, it slows on the second floor, and stops at a door with a gleaming brass knob. The door yawns open, revealing a narrow corridor of scuffed, severely-angled stairs leading up to the attic, up to a figure standing at the top, up to Vicky. He twists his mind away before she can do something obscene.

The applause of children shook Bill from his self-induced trance.

Parents were converging. Casey rose to his tiptoes and caught sight of Bill. Grinning, Casey jogged forward, chattering in eager tones. Bill gestured for his son to slow down and lower his voice. Casey obeyed.

In a hush-rushed breath, Casey said, “Oh my gosh, Dad, it was so spooky.”

“I’m happy to hear it. Did you thank the storyteller?”

Zipping his windbreaker, Casey turned toward the still-seated woman. “Thank you,” he said, supplying a timid wave.

The old woman remained in character—part crone, part bucolic prophet—raising several feeble fingers. “You offered some very fine questions about the fables, my boy. Perhaps there’s bit of a storyteller in you.” Casey’s face lit up. She flicked her rheumy gaze onto Bill. “You have a bright little light bulb on your hands, Mr Hughes.”

Bill was seized by a preposterous suspicion: That this was somehow the same woman who’d told stories at The Witching Hour when he was a kid. His left brain understood the impossibility of such a thing (that old fabler had been ancient thirty years ago). This idea was small, like a struck match momentarily flaring in a dark room, but it guttered with a dangerously playful possibility: that if Bill allowed his mind to get carried away, he could convince himself to believe it.

He patted Casey’s shoulder. “Oh, yes. Too precocious for his own good.” Bill cleared his throat, uncomfortable with how alive her eyes were. “Well, good-night.”

The frail woman remained rocking, staring, silent.

Casey was recapping the evening as they stepped out of the library. It was full night now. A breeze had picked up, anaemically urging clusters of brittle leaves to chatter along the sidewalk.

“We better get home,” Bill said, and shifted his voice to a light-heartedly sinister tone, “before we drift into the witching hour.”

Appearing momentarily startled, Casey looked up at his father; but he read playfulness in his dad’s expression. “Yeah, right.” As they passed under the amber halos of street-lamps lining the sidewalk, Casey drew his fingers into little claws and gave a mournful moan. Now it was Casey’s turn: “Give me back my bones!“

—They were nearly clear of Main Street when Casey said, “Do you believe in ghosts?”

“Well,” Bill began, taking the same tone as when one of his students caught him off guard. He glanced over at Casey, a sincere little frown between his large eyes. Sometimes he looked so much like Vicky. Panels of shadows passed over the boy’s face as they moved through sparse light. “I suppose I don’t.” In his periphery he saw Casey’s shoulders slump as he turned away. “But it’s all supposed to be for fun, right?” Casey mumbled something. Bill scratched his cheek. “I mean, what would Halloween be without ghosts?” This time there was no reply.

Bill slowed at an intersection, idling under a red light for a few seconds before it clicked to green and he steered onto Northeastern Avenue. After several minutes without speaking, Bill said, “Do you believe in ghosts?”

Casey, hands folded neatly on his lap, peered out the passenger window. His small voice was resolute. “I think ghosts are real.”

Bill gave an earnest nod. “And there’s nothing wrong with that, son. I believed in ghosts at your age.”

Casey shifted a bit, glancing askance at his dad. “Really?” His tone was more eager than incredulous.

“Sure,” Bill said, steering onto the road which led directly home. “You may not believe this, but when I was a kid—although quite a bit older than you—me and some of my friends used to ride our bikes out to the Aikman farm.”

“Seriously?” Casey pressed forward against the taut seatbelt. “That lady wasn’t making that up? The Aikman place is real?” He was beaming, the energy of their special evening returning.

“If I’m lying I’m dying,” Bill said, trying to sound at ease.

“What was it like?”

“The Aikman place?”

“Uh-huh,” said Casey.

“Well,” Bill took a deep breath and squinted as if straining to see through fog. He was back in front of his classroom, back in control. “It was a deserted farm house out on Haymaker Lane, mostly a place kids dared each other to explore—coaxing one another to run up and knock on the front door on Halloween, that sort of thing. The house was—” he struggled for the right words “—exactly something you’d imagine a haunted house would look like: two storeys with a few dormers around the top…a sagging porch around the bottom. I don’t think anyone really knew why it’d been abandoned…” He trailed off. Bill didn’t know if this was true or not. He’d always just accepted (and perpetuated) whatever legend or lie was circulating at the time: The Aikman woman murdered her husband and kids and buried them in the root cellar before hanging herself from the rafters out in the barn…the Aikman’s eldest son came home from college during winter break and poisoned the entire family Christmas morning before dumping the bodies out in the limestone quarry out east…the Aikman father smothered his wife and kids while they slept, placing their corpses in the cornfield shortly before tumbling them to pieces in the rusty pickers of his combine at harvest time. Grim as it may have been, Bill had always relished the autumn elements of the last legend, but was reticent to share any of these particular tales with his impressionable son.

Yet beneath all this there was that persistent image—the impression he’d suppressed since long before the library—of Vicky at the top of the stairs, only now it had taken on the photographic effect of a negative—all the colours inverted…the whites to black and blacks to white: Vicky, her teeth now pearly black, her penetrating pupils had reversed to white marbles rimmed with black sclera, her once dark hair now shredded grey drapes. Bill stifled himself from murmuring, Not real.

“Dad?”

Bill shivered. “Hm?”

“Why do you keep saying was?”

Bill said, “How do you mean?”

“Like”—Casey licked his lips—”you keep saying was and looked and used to be, and I want to know why everything is in the past.”

His son’s question had momentarily rendered Bill without words; he haplessly stammered for a few seconds before saying, “Stories, tales, are written that way—with all those past-tense verbs—so that we can…” he was desperate to conclude his impromptu lecture, “so that we can better understand the past, and help us know more about ourselves now in the present, and maybe far off in the future.”

Casey’s face was stern. “No, I mean, is the house still here in town? Is the farm somewhere out there?” He gestured vaguely at the screens of trees, at the passing fields of parchment-coloured cornstalks.

Bill inadvertently twitched a frown, uncertain. “Yes.” He supposed the sprawling property was still owned by the Aikman relatives. But the house? It was beyond condemned twenty years ago, it had surely collapsed by now. Or burned down by hoods. “I don’t know why it wouldn’t be out there.”

Casey waited a while before speaking. “Can we go see it?” Bill was already shaking his head before verbally dismissing the suggestion, but Casey pounced on his father’s hesitation. “Oh, please. We’re already having such a good time…it would be like an adventure and it would be such a nice memory… please?”

Bill stopped shaking his head. A nice memory. Guilt now. Guilt again. An odious title wormed its way into his head: Widower’s kid. He sucked in a breath. “Casey,” his delivery was sober, determined. “If we drive out there, we’re only going to look, okay? Nothing else—we stay in the car, got it?”

In the dim light cast from the dashboard, Casey’s smile was radiant. “Oh, I promise, it’ll only be for a minute.”

Bill turned the car around in a gravel driveway.

A sepia-mottled moon was lying rather low on the horizon, giving the illusion of being trapped in the black lacework of nearly bare tree limbs. They coursed along back roads, which grew narrower as they drew closer to the secluded Haymaker Lane; and each time that black-and-white image of Vicky reasserted itself, he distracted himself by entertaining Casey with another elaborately fabricated legend. All lies.

The house on the hill was worse than Bill could have imagined or described. Of all the things he’d told Casey, nothing could have prepared him for what the car’s headlights fell on. A wood-decaying horror.

After finally arriving on the cattail-lined lane, Bill had pulled the car partway into an overgrown driveway. Casey complained that he couldn’t see the house from the road. It was true—a jagged wreath of elms and pin oaks had created a barrier around the house, which was nothing more than a shapeless, night-shaded mass within the inky tangle of trees. Begrudgingly, Bill eased off the brake and the car crept forward. Making their way up the hill, he and Casey jostled and jounced over the rutted trail. Bill heard odds and ends rattling around in the glove compartment—matches, maps, junk.

Now, with the engine idling and the headlights creating a torn curtain of shadow against the house, Bill said, “Well, this is it,” startled to find his voice so thin.

With the exception of the high attic dormers, the windows had been completely knocked out—by vandals, Bill assumed—leaving only shards of glass around the casings. With the muntins and sash bars having been broken away, the black rectangles gave the illusion of absorbing light; and even with that stark illumination falling over the house, it did little to bring any colour to it. The paint had faded and flecked away, exposing rotting wood-plank siding, giving the exhausted structure a uniform slate appearance.

The whole place had been intimidating to Bill when he was fifteen, but now the dwelling had an almost cognisant quality to it. With the moon glowing on the other side of the house, the crooked columns supporting the sagging porch gave the illusion of crouching spider legs. And all at once, the circle of trees seemed like skeletal sentinels—vacantly faithful suitors holding a vigil at the skirt of this abused muse. It was remarkable but, in the silence of the car, Bill felt the image of the house transform into the medium of actual sound, a warbling whisper—the voice of the librarian. Go away, it repeated in a reedy cadence. Leave this alone. Go away.

A spell of silence had settled into the car. “Turn off the headlights,” Casey whispered, his face fixed on the house, a smile playing at the edges of his mouth.

Bill surprised himself at the ease with which he complied. Yes: this had the potential of being an indelible father-and-son memory; but they were beginning to traipse too close the sensible threshold of Bill’s comfort zone. Under the moonlight, the wild lawn acting as a dark blanket spiked with slivers of chrome.

After a while, Bill said, “We’d better get going, it’s—”

“I want to go up there.”

This time there was absolutely no negotiation—with either himself or his son. He needed to regain some semblance of control. “No, Casey.” He flicked on the headlights, re-illuminating the hideous face of the house, the open cavity that used to be the front door looked like a frozen howl. “I frankly feel a bit foolish for trespassing.”

Bill was reaching for the gearshift when Casey said, “Dad?”

“Mmm?”

The boy’s voice was soft, plaintive. “Will Mom ever come back as a ghost?”

After a second or two, Bill sank back in his seat. He’d rehearsed his answers for years, never properly polishing an adequate response. But each time, Bill had drifted back to the circumstances of Vicky’s death, and his explanations had been distorted by embarrassment and perverted by resentment. What was he going to tell him?—Your mother was sad sometimes, and it got worse after you were born…Never. Your mother was killed in a car wreck…she’d gone out for cocktails after work with a man from her office, a man Daddy didn’t like. A clerk at a local hotel said they’d spent a few hours in a room that evening before abruptly checking out. The man was probably driving Mom back to pick up her car when he clipped a guard-rail, resulting in a really awful accident. The guy lived, your mother didn’t. We went to the funeral…you were little, you didn’t understand…we threw dirt on her coffin. Christ—never.

As if a black straitjacket tightening around the fringes of his mind, the claustrophobic truth enclosed Bill’s conscience.

“No,” Bill said, “she won’t come back.” He glanced over at the pale shape of son. Silence hung between them like a solid thing. Bill peered through the windshield, the moon’s reflection making a silver, Rorschach shape on the hood of the car. “But, son, you have to know that your mother—”

In a blur, Casey unfastened his seatbelt and shoved open the passenger door.

Bill stammered—”Casey!”—and fumbled for his own door handle, making a feeble attempt to give chase before getting yanked back down by his seatbelt. He had a brief glimpse of his son running through the untended grass before disappearing between the columns of tree-trunk shadows.

Bill scrambled out of the car, sprinting up to the house. “Casey!” he called out, frantically scanning the front yard. Not knowing where to begin, Bill darted around the side of the house.

Casey was standing in the side yard, reverently facing a long row of broken windows. Bill’s initial impulse was to forgo speaking to the boy, but rather clutching hold of his son and spanking him all the way back to the car. Instead, relief spilled in to Bill.

“Casey?”

His voice was hushed. “Yes, Dad?”

Bill was panting. “Damn it, don’t ever do that again.”

“Sorry, Daddy. But I wanted to see up close—I wanted to see all that.” Casey gestured at something through the hollow socket that had once been a first floor window. The tall grass made sibilant, hissing sounds as Bill sidled up next to his son, slipping his hand into Casey’s. He was preparing to formulate some sort of scolding before glancing inside the house, into what used to be a parlour or living room. Bill was now as mesmerised as Casey. Helplessly, his mind was pushed backward, back down to his thirteen-year-old self; and while many of those memories had remained smudged and obscure, the sensation of laying eyes on the Aikman place had the effect of adjusting focus, bringing definition through an internal lens.

A memory came. The memory came. A group of teenagers, Bill one of them, a gang of six or seven local kids who’d been running together that summer, a mix of guys and girls. Victoria Sanford was there. Since elementary school, Bill had had a crush on Vicky (most guys did) but she was “wild”. Wild—that was the term Bill’s mother often used. Bill’s term would have been “out of my league”. Although years later in college, he would learn a more accurate word: “indomitable”.

Because of her exotic complexion, Vicky had always reminded Bill of a firmly-built Indian girl: nutmeg skin, long, coffee-coloured hair, and eyes so deeply chestnut that they verged on black. Throughout their elementary and middle school years, he liked most everything about her. Except, sometimes, her laugh. It took on a coarse quality as they entered their teens. It was as if there was something bitter inside her laugh now, like specks of glass in an otherwise welcomed breeze.

And there had been gossip—by adults, mostly—that Vicky’s “wild” behaviour was a result of her parents’ separation and eventual divorce, something about her father—something he did; there were even hushed discussions about “it” being something he’d done to Vicky.

It had been overcast that afternoon in July, the sky an endless tumble of soot-dusted cotton.The group leaned their bikes against trees in the front yard. Once inside they found only a few interesting items—a rust-rimmed sink with a few shattered plates, a fireplace in which someone had tried to burn a shoebox full of Polaroids. The floorboards had creaky-weak spring to them, as if a section might collapse and send someone plummeting into the root cellar.

It had been Vicky’s suggestion to explore the second floor.

Once upstairs they split up, giddily searching rooms. Bill was leaving an empty bedroom when he heard Vicky hiss, “Hey, Bill.” He spun around.

She was down the corridor a bit, peeking around a corner; she jerked her head. “Check it out.”

Bill pursued, rounding the elbow of wall.

Vicky was now at the far end of the hall, standing in front of a door, palming its brass knob. Her face held the expression of a magician’s assistant preparing to reveal some sort of wicked trick. Vicky was wearing cut-off jeans, clipped so high that her pockets showed from under the frayed lips of her shorts, and a black, Def Leppard T-shirt, the logo from the Hysteria album.

Bill approached but said nothing.

She turned the knob and the door yawned open. A staircase. The attic. “Come on,” she purred. “You’ve got the guts to go up with me, don’t you?”

Bill fidgeted, suddenly aware of the possibilities. It was humid up there, her cinnamon-tinted skin looked sweat-filmed. For only a moment, Bill was crippled by hesitation. But a moment was all it took.

The other kids were curiously converging now. The attic windows let in some meagre light up there, a dust-and-shadow diffuseness. Silence wore on for a stretch as Vicky scanned the group, her unnerving gaze settling on Bill for a second or two before rolling her eyes. “Jesus, you guys. Who’s coming with me?” The teenage gang murmured noncommittally. “Fine,” she said with no hint of disappointment. She dashed through the threshold, bounding up those scuffed and creaking stairs as the group watched her ascension until she was at the head of the narrow passage, supplying an impromptu victory dance. “Come on, guys, take a look,” she said. “It’s spooky as hell up here.”

And then Vicky Sanford tugged up her T-shirt and peeled down her bra, providing the group with an improvised peepshow. With something very much like awe or admiration, one of the girls, Darlene Zukowski, said, “What a crazy bitch.”

Vicky laughed, an abrasive, teasing noise that Bill would become acquainted with in the years ahead. “Hey, fellas—I’ll give you another peek if you come up and join me.” Blood rushed into Bill’s face, his pulse already hammering in his throat as Vicky—this time swivelling her hips with slow, sensual finesse—lifted her T-shirt again, this time cupping her heavy breasts. Bill’s mouth went dry at the sight of her chest, the inverted-heart-shaped curve lining her cleavage and tracing the lower crescent of each breast, the firm indention between her sternum and belly button.

The small crowd of teenagers chortled, and Bill remembered one of the guys—Luke or Davey—whistling, egging her on, making a joke about “getting it while the getting’s good,” before stepping into the corridor. Most of the others followed, including a couple girls. Only a few kids remained on the second floor, Bill being one of them, milling around while footfalls, muffled laughter, and other noises issued from the attic.

Bill never heard the story of what actually happened up there. Bill never asked.

Even though Vicky was in most of his classes that autumn semester, he never asked. In the years ahead he reluctantly listened to rumours—the pregnancy rumours which, as far as Bill knew, never turned out to be true; while other stories, the parties where Vicky got drunk, got out of control, were unshakeably accurate. During those four years of high school, Bill watched Vicky pass herself around their small group of friends, and still Bill didn’t ask. And despite their chance meeting at the nearby college—”So, Bill…when are you going to get sick of acting shy and ask me out for a drink?“—and the dates that followed, the quiet out-of-wedlock miscarriage, the hasty and tumultuous marriage, Bill never worked up the courage to ask.

Bill only had the courage to tell—he told Vicky what her problems were. After completing a few college courses, he started using words like histrionic, latent, borderline, disorder, and promiscuous. For Bill, her agreeing to marry him became an opportunity to fix—to teach—that wild girl exposing herself at the top of the stairs.

Now, standing next to his son in the untamed yard in front of this decaying house, Bill shuddered and clenched his teeth, forcibly pulling his gaze away from the high attic dormers.

It was little more than a whisper, but Bill nearly screamed at the abrupt emergence of Casey’s voice. “Dad—Dad, do you see it?”

Bill bristled. “See what?”

Casey lifted a finger, “It’s right there,” indicating a spot within the house. “See it? See it? It’s moving.”

Bill winced, growing impatient, not understanding. “Son, I—”

And then Casey squeezed his father’s hand. “Dad, look—it’s right there.”

Squinting, Bill scoured the fractured ribcage-interior of the house. A breath carrying a question was strangled in his throat, his mouth hung open. Something was…there.

The harder Bill gazed the more vivid the thing became. Vaporous at first, it gathered itself up from the overlapping gloom, squirming shapes contracting into a gauzy figure. It was drifting across the parlour now, a slender shrouded thing.

Bill’s breath caught as a face swam out of that ragged blackness—an angular, expressionless face, like a dirt-smudged cameo carved from bone. A grey hand slid from within the undulating cloak, it fingers hooked and reaching up, revealing a cadaver-pale throat, sliding further down now, exposing a grey slash of collarbone. Bill clasped his free hand to his mouth, his other hand still gripped with Casey’s.

“Do you see it?” Casey said.

Bill spoke, but it was little more than a whimper. “Yes.”

Casey tore his hand away and raced forward, running up to the open cavity where a window had once been and, as if to hoist himself inside, clutched hold of the lower lip of the sill. Casey cried out, spinning around and thrusting his hand at Bill.

“Daddy—I’m sorry, Daddy, I’m sorry.”

In the moonlight Bill saw blood glistening in Casey’s palm. Bill remembered the shards of glass in the casings of the empty window frames. He cradled Casey, calming him, guiding him back to the car, doing his best to disregard the rag-and-shadow figure hovering in the parlour.

Bill settled Casey into the passenger seat and rummaged through the glove compartment, locating a stack of napkins to staunch the bleeding.

Casey was sniffling, still apologising. “I just wanted to get a closer look.”

Bill was nodding. “I know it, I know it. It’s my own fault for coming out here.” He dabbed the napkins against the small laceration, seeing now that stitches would be unnecessary. “You’re a curious kid…it happens. Keep pressure on it…like this.” Casey winced and nodded.

Bill used his knuckles to gently swipe at the channels of tears on his son’s cheeks. He was moving to close the glove compartment when his hand froze, his fingers a few inches away from a tiny box of Ohio Blue Tip Matches. He picked it up. Bill inadvertently flicked his eyes at the house and heard a witch’s whisper. Burned down by hoods. The matches gave a bone-dry rattle as he gave the box an experimental shake.

“Dad.”

Bill trembled, shifting his gaze to Casey’s tear-swollen face. He dropped the matches back in the glove compartment and slapped it shut.

The headlights quaked as the car shook over ruts on the overgrown driveway. Bill checked the clock on the dash before giving a glance in the rear-view mirror. He stared at the vibrating, rear-view reflection of the house on the hill. With moonlight glowing from behind, the house’s silhouette appeared sharp-edged, as if crookedly cut from black paper. Something separated itself from the dwelling, a shroud shape floating into the yard, lingering in the knee-high grass. “Casey?”

His son had been facing the passenger window; now he turned, his expression and the set of his small body at ease. “Yes?”

“Will you tell me what you saw back there?”

Hitching in a breath, Casey told his story, and Bill listened. But with each bump along the narrow country road, Bill heard the box of matches shuffling around in the glove compartment, the brittle rattle of bones.

Nathan Ballingrud

SKULLPOCKET

NATHAN BALLINGRUD lives in Asheville, North Carolina, with his daughter. He is the author of North American Lake Monsters: Stories and The Visible Filth, a novella. Recent publications include ‘The Atlas of Hell’, reprinted in The Best Horror of the Year and Year’s Best Weird Fiction, and ‘The Diabolist’, published in Monstrous Affections edited by Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant.

“I wrote ‘Skullpocket’ as a deliberate stylistic break from the realist mode of horror fiction I typically work in,” Ballingrud explains. “Frankly, I wanted to have a little more fun.

“I’ve been in love with the mixture of whimsy and Gothic horror in the works of Charles Addams, Mike Mignola and Tim Burton for all my adult life. This story is my homage to them. It’s the first in what will eventually be a book-length history of the town of Hob’s Landing.”

JONATHAN WORMCAKE, THE Gentleman Corpse of Hob’s Landing, greets me at the door himself. Normally one of his several servants would perform this minor duty, and I can only assume it’s my role as a priest in the Church of the Maggot that affords me this special attention. I certainly don’t believe it has anything to do with our first encounter, fifty years ago this very day. I’d be surprised if he remembers that at all.

He greets me with a cordial nod of the head, and leads me down a long hallway to the vast study, lined with thousands of books, and boasting broad windows overlooking the Chesapeake Bay, where the waters are painted gold by an autumn sun. I remember this walk, and this study, with a painful twinge in my heart. I was just a boy when I came here last. Now, like Mr Wormcake, I am an old man, and facing an end to things.

I’m shocked by how old he looks. I know I shouldn’t be; Mr Wormcake’s presence in this mansion by the bay extends back one hundred years, and his history with the town is well documented. But since the death of the Orchid Girl last year, he has withdrawn from public life, and in that time his aspect has changed considerably. Though his bearing remains regal, and his grooming is as immaculate as ever, age hangs from him like a too-large coat. The flesh around his head is entirely gone, and his hair—once his proudest feature—is no more. The bare bones of his skull gleam brightly in the late afternoon sunlight, and the eyes which once transfixed an entire town have fallen to dust, leaving dark sockets. He looks frail, and he looks tired.

To be fair, the fourteen children crowding the room, all between the ages of six and twelve, only underscore this impression. They’ve been selected for the honour of attending the opening ceremonies of the Seventieth Annual Skullpocket Fair by the Maggot, which summoned them here through their dreams. The children are too young, for the most part, to understand the significance of the honour, and so they mill about the great study in nervous anticipation, chattering to each other and touching things they shouldn’t.

Mr Wormcake’s longtime manservant—formally known as Brain in a Jar 17, of the Frozen Parliament, but who is more affectionately recognised as the kindly “Uncle Digby”—glides into the room, his body a polished, gold-inlaid box on rolling treads, topped with a clear dome under which the floating severed head of an old man is suspended in a bubbling green solution, white hair drifting like ghostly kelp. He is received with a joyful chorus of shouts from the children, who immediately crowd around him. He embraces the closest of them with his metal arms.

“Oh my, look at all these wonderful children,” he says. “What animated little beasts!”

To anyone new to Hob’s Landing, Uncle Digby can be unnerving. His face and eyes are dead, and his head appears to be nothing more than a preserved portion of a cadaver; but the brain inside is both alive and lively, and it speaks through a small voice box situated beneath the glass dome.

While the children are distracted, Mr Wormcake removes a small wooden box from where it sits discreetly on a bookshelf. He opens it and withdraws the lower, fleshy portion of a human face—from below the nose to the first curve of the chin, kept moist in a thin pool of blood. A tongue is suspended from it by a system of leather twine and gears. Mr Wormcake affixes the half-face to his skull by means of an elastic band, and pushes the tongue into his mouth. Blood trickles down the jawline of the skull and dapples the white collar of his starched shirt. The effect is disconcerting, even to me, who has grown up in Hob’s Landing and is accustomed to stranger sights than this.

Jonathan Wormcake has not ventured into public view for twenty years, since the denuding of his skull, and it occurs to me that I am the first person not a part of this household to witness this procedure.

I am here because Mr Wormcake is dying. We don’t know how a ghoul dies. Not even he is sure, as he left the warrens as a boy, and was never indoctrinated into the mysteries. The dreams given to us by the Maggot, replete with images of sloughing flesh and great, black kites riding silently along the night’s air currents, suggest that it’s not an ending, but a transformation. But we have no experience to measure these dreams against. What waits for him on the far side of this death remains an open question.

He stretches open his mouth and moves his tongue, like a man testing the fit of a new article of clothing. Apparently satisfied, he looks at me at last. “It’s good of you to come, especially on this night,” he says.

“I have to admit I was surprised you chose the opening night of Skullpocket Fair for this. It seems there might have been a more discrete time.”

He looks at the children gathered around Uncle Digby, who is guiding them gently toward the great bay window facing east, where the flat waters of the Chesapeake are painted gold by the late afternoon sun. They are animated by excitement and fear, a tangle of emotions I remember from when I was in their place. “I have no intention of stealing their moment,” he says. “This night is about them. Not me.”

I’m not convinced this is entirely true. Though the children have been selected to participate in the opening ceremonies of Skullpocket Fair, and will be the focus of the opening act, the pomp and circumstance is no more about them than it is about the Maggot, or the role of the church in this town. Really, it’s all about Jonathan Wormcake. Never mind the failed mayoral campaign of the mid-1970s, never mind the fallout from the Sleepover Wars or the damning secrets made public by the infamous betrayal of his best friend, Wenceslas Slipwicket—Wormcake is the true patriarch of Hob’s Landing; the Skullpocket Fair is held each year to celebrate that fact, and to fortify it.

That this one marks the one hundredth anniversary of his dramatic arrival in town, and his ritual surrendering of this particular life, makes his false modesty a little hard to take.

“Sit down,” he says, and extends a hand toward the most comfortable chair in the room: a high-backed, deeply-cushioned piece of furniture of the sort one might expect to find in the drawing room of an English lord. It faces the large windows, through which we are afforded a view of the sun-flecked waters of the Chesapeake Bay. Mr Wormcake manoeuvres another, smaller chair away from the chess table in the corner and closer to me, so we can speak more easily. He eases himself slowly into it, and sighs with a weary satisfaction as his body settles, at last, into stillness. If he had eyes, I believe he would close them now.

Meanwhile, Uncle Digby has corralled the children into double rows of folding chairs, also facing the bay windows. He is distributing soda and little containers of popcorn, which do not calm the children, but do at least draw their focus.

“Did you speak to any of the children after they received the dream?” Wormcake asks me.

“No. Some of them were brought to the church by their parents, but I didn’t speak to any of them personally. We have others who specialise in that kind of thing.”

“I understand it can be a traumatic experience for some of them.”

“Well, it’s an honour to be selected by the Maggot, but it can also be pretty terrifying. The dream is very intense. Some people don’t respond well.”

“That makes me sad.”

I glance over at the kids, seated now, the popcorn spilling from their hands, shovelled into their mouths. They bristle with a wild energy: a crackling, kinetic radiation that could spill into chaos and tears if not expertly handled. Uncle Digby, though, is nothing if not an expert. The kindliest member of the Frozen Parliament, he has long been the spokesman for the family, as well as a confidante to Mr Wormcake himself. There are many who believe that without his steady influence, the relationship between the Wormcakes and the townspeople of Hob’s Landing would have devolved into brutal violence long ago.

“The truth is, I don’t want anyone to know why you’re here. I don’t want my death to be a spectacle. If you came up here any other night, someone would notice, and it wouldn’t be hard for them to figure out why. This way, the town’s attention is on the fair. And anyway, I like the symmetry of it.”

“Forgive me for asking, Mr Wormcake, but my duty here demands it: are you doing this because of the Orchid Girl’s death?”

He casts a dark little glance at me. It’s not possible to read emotion in a naked skull, of course, and the prosthetic mouth does not permit him any range of expression; but the force of the look leaves me no doubt of his irritation. “The Orchid Girl was her name for the people in town. Her real name was Gretchen. Call her by that.”

“My apologies. But the question remains, I’m afraid. To leave the world purely, you must do it unstained by grief.”

“Don’t presume to teach me about the faith I introduced to you.”

I accept his chastisement quietly.

He is silent for a long moment, and I allow myself to be distracted by the sound of the children gabbling excitedly to each other, and of Uncle Digby relating some well-worn anecdote about the time the Leviathan returned to the bay. Old news to me, but wonderful stuff to the kids. When Mr Wormcake speaks again, it is to change course.

“You mentioned the dream which summons the children as being intense. This is not your first time to the house, is it?”

“No. I had the dream myself, when I was a kid. I was summoned to Skull-pocket Fair. Seventy years ago. The very first one.”

“My, my. Now that is something. Interesting that it’s you who will perform my death ritual. So that puts you in your eighties? You look young for your age.”

I smile at him. “Thanks, but I don’t feel young.”

“Who does, anymore? I suppose I should say ‘welcome back’.”

The room seems host to a dizzying compression of history. There are three fairs represented tonight, at least for me: the Seventieth Annual Skullpocket Fair, which commences this evening; the First, which took place in 1944—seventy years ago, when I was a boy—and set my life on its course in the Church; and the Cold Water Fair of 1914, a hundred years ago, which Uncle Digby would begin describing very shortly. That Mr Wormcake has chosen this night to die, and that I will be his instrument, seems too poetic to be entirely coincidental.

As if on cue, Uncle Digby’s voice rings out, filling the small room. “Children, quiet down now, quiet down. It’s time to begin.” The kids settle at once, as though some spell has been spoken. They sit meekly in their seats, the gravity of the moment settling over them at last. The nervous energy is pulled in and contained, expressing itself now only in furtive glances and, in the case of one buzz cut little boy, barely contained tears.

I remember, viscerally and immediately, the giddy terror that filled me when I was that boy, seventy years ago, summoned by a dream of a monster to a monster’s house. I’m surprised when I feel the tears in my own eyes. And I’m further surprised by Mr Wormcake’s hand, hard and bony beneath its glove, coming over to squeeze my own.

“I’m glad it’s you,” he says. “Another instance of symmetry. Balance eases the heart.”

I’m gratified, of course.

But as Uncle Digby begins to speak, it’s hard to remember anything but the blood.

One hundred years ago, says Uncle Digby to the children, three little ghouls came out to play. They were Wormcake, Slipwicket, and Stubblegut: best friends since birth. They were often allowed to play in the cemetery, as long as the sun was down and the gate was closed. There were many more children playing amongst the gravestones that night, but we’re only going to concern ourselves with these three. The others were only regular children, and so they were not important.

Now, there were two things about this night that were already different from other nights they went above ground to play. Does anybody know what they were?

No? Well I’ll tell you. One was that they were let out a little bit earlier than normal. It was still twilight, and though sometimes ghouls were known to leave the warrens during that time, rarely were children permitted to come up so early. That night, however, the Maggot had sent word that there was to be a meeting in the charnel house—an emergency meeting, to arrange a ritual called an Extinction Rite, which the children did not understand, but which seemed to put the adults in a dreadfully dull mood. The children had to be got out of the way. There might have been some discussion about the wisdom of this decision, but ghouls are by nature a calm and reclusive folk, so no one worried that anything untoward would happen.

The other unusual thing about that night, obviously, was the Cold Water Fair.

The Cold Water Fair had been held for years and years, and it was a way for Hob’s Landing to celebrate its relationship with the Chesapeake Bay, and to commemorate the time the Leviathan rose to devour the town, but was turned away with some clever thinking and some good advice. This was the first time the fair was held on this side of Hob’s Landing. In previous years it had been held on the northern side of the town, out of the sight of the cemetery. But someone had bought some land and got grumpy about the fair being on it, so now they were holding it right at the bottom of the hill instead.

The ghoul children had never seen anything so wonderful! Imagine living your life in the warrens, underground, where everything was stone and darkness and cold earth. Whenever you came up to play, you could see the stars, you could see the light on the water, and you could even see the lights from town, which looked like flakes of gold. But this! Never anything like this. The fair was like a smear of bright paint: candy-coloured pastels in the blue wash of air. A great illuminated wheel turned slowly in the middle of it, holding swinging gondola cars full of people.

A Ferris wheel! shouts a buzz-cut boy who had been crying only a few minutes ago. His face is still ruddy, but his eyes shine with something else, now: something better.

Yes, you’re exactly right. A Ferris wheel! They had never even seen one before. Can you imagine that?

There were gaudy tents arranged all around it, like a little village. It was full of amazing new smells: cotton candy, roasting peanuts, hot cider. The high screams of children blew up to the little ghouls like a wind from a beautiful tomb. They stood transfixed at the fence, those grubby little things, with their hands wrapped around the bars and their faces pressed between.

They wondered, briefly, if this had anything to do with the Extinction Rite the adults kept talking about.

“Do you think they scream like that all the time?” Slipwicket asked.

Wormcake said, “Of course they do. It’s a fair. It’s made just for screaming.”

In fact, children, he had no idea if this was true. But he liked to pretend he was smarter than everybody else, even way back then.

The children laugh. I glance at Mr Wormcake, to gauge his reaction to what is probably a scripted joke, but his false mouth, blood-pasted to his skull, reveals nothing.

Slipwicket released the longest, saddest sigh you have ever heard. It would have made you cry, it was so forlorn. He said, “Oh, how I would love to go to a place made only for screams.” Uncle Digby is laying it on thick here, his metal hands cupping the glass jar of his head, his voice warbling with barely-contained sorrow. The kids eat it up.

“Well, we can’t,” said Stubblegut. “We have to stay inside the fence.”

Stubblegut was the most boring ghoul you ever saw. You could always depend on him to say something dull and dreadful. He was morose, always complaining, and he never wanted to try anything new. He was certain to grow up to be somebody’s father, that most tedious of creatures. Sometimes the others would talk about ditching him as a friend, but they could never bring themselves to do it. They were good boys, and they knew you were supposed to stay loyal to your friends—even the boring ones.

“Come along,” Stubblegut said. “Let’s play skullpocket.”

At this, a transformation overtakes the children, as though a current has been fed into them. They jostle in their seats, and cries of “Skullpocket!” arise from them like pheasants from a bramble. They seem both exalted and terrified. Each is a little volcano, barely contained.

Oh my! Do you know what skullpocket is, children?

Yes, yes!

I do!

Yes!

Excellent! In case any of you aren’t sure, skullpocket is a favourite game of ghouls everywhere. In simple terms, you take a skull and kick it back and forth between your friends until it cracks to pieces. Whoever breaks it is the loser of the game, and has to eat what they find inside its pocket. And what is that, children?

The brain!

Eeeww!

That’s right! It’s the brain, which everyone knows is the worst bit. It’s full of all the gummy old sorrows and regrets gathered in life, and the older the brain is, the nastier it tastes. While the loser eats, other players will often dance in a circle around him and chant. And what do they chant?

“Empty your pockets! Empty your pockets!” the children shout.

Yes! You must play the game at a run, and respect is given to those who ricochet the skull off a gravestone to their intended target, increasing the risk of breaking it. Of course you don’t have to do that—you can play it safe and just bat it along nicely—but nobody likes a coward, do they, children? For a regular game, people use adults skulls which have been interred for less than a year. More adventurous players might use the skull of an infant, which offers a wonderful challenge.

Well, someone was sent to retrieve a skull from the charnel house in the warrens, which was kept up by the corpse gardeners. There was always one to be spared for children who wanted to play.

The game was robust, with the ghouls careening the skull off trees and rocks and headstones; the skull proved hardy and it went on for quite some time.

Our young Mr Wormcake became bored. He couldn’t stop thinking about that fair, and the lights and the smells and—most of all—the screams. The screams filled his ears and distracted him from play. After a time, he left the game and returned to the fence, staring down at the fair. It had gotten darker by that time, so that it stood out in the night like a gorgeous burst of mushrooms.

Slipwicket and Stubblegut joined him.

“What are you doing?” said the latter. “The game isn’t over. People will think you’re afraid to play.”

“I’m not afraid,” said Wormcake. And in saying the words, a resolution took shape in his mind. “I’m not afraid of anything. I’m going down there.”

His friends were shocked into silence. It was an awed silence, a holy silence, like the kind you find in church. It was the most outrageous thing they had ever heard anyone say.

“That’s crazy,” Stubblegut said.

“Why?”

“Because it’s forbidden. Because the sunlight people live down there.”

“So what?”

“They’re gross!”

At this, some of the children become upset. Little faces crinkle in outrage.

Now, hold on, hold on. You have to understand how ghouls saw your people at the time. You were very strange to them. Hob’s Landing was as exotic to them as a city on the moon would be to you. People went about riding horses, and they walked around in sunlight. On purpose, for Pete’s sake! Who ever heard of such a thing?

The children start to giggle at this, won over again.

When they came to the cemetery they acted sad and shameful. They buried their dead, the way a cat buries its own scat. They were soft and doughy, and they ate whatever came to hand, the way rats and cockroaches do.

“We’re not cockroaches!” cries one of the children.

Of course not! But the ghouls didn’t understand. They were afraid. So they made up wild ideas about you. And it kept their children from wandering, which was important, because they wanted the warrens to stay a secret. Ghouls had been living under the cities of the sunlight people for as long as there have been sunlight people, and for the most part they had kept their existence hidden. They were afraid of what would happen if they were discovered. Can you blame them for that?

But young Mr Wormcake was not to be dissuaded by rumours or legends!

“I’m going down there. I want to see what it’s all about.”

Back then, the cemetery gate was not burdened with locks or chains; it simply had a latch, oiled and polished, which Wormcake lifted without trouble or fanfare. The gate swung open, and the wide, bright world spread out before them like a feast at the banquet table. He turned to look at his friends. Behind them, the other children had assembled in a small crowd, the game of skull-pocket forgotten. The looks on their faces ranged from fear to excitement to open disgust.

“Well?” he said to his friends. “Are you cowards?”

Slipwicket would not be called a coward! He made a grand show of his exit, lifting each foot with great exaggeration over the threshold and stomping it into the earth with a flourish. He completed his transgression with a happy skip and turned to look at Stubblegut, who lingered on the grave-side of the fence and gathered his face into a worried knot. He placed his hands over his wide belly and gave it gentle pats, which was his habit when he was nervous.

At that moment of hesitation, when he might have gone back and warned the adults of what was happening, some unseen event in the fair below them caused a fresh bouquet of screams to lift up and settle over the ghouls like blown leaves. Slipwicket’s whole body seemed to lean toward it, like he was being pulled by a great magnet. He looked at Stubblegut with such longing in his eyes, such a terrible ache, that his frightened friend’s resolve was breached at last, and Stubblegut crossed the threshold himself with a grave and awful reluctance.

He was received with joy.

And before anyone could say jackrabbit, Slipwicket bolted down the hill, a pale little gremlin in the dark green waves of grass. The others followed him in a cool breath of motion, the tall grass like a strange, rippling sea in the moonlight. Of course, they were silent in their elation: the magnitude of their crime was not lost upon them. Wormcake dared not release the cry of elation beating in his lungs.

But, children, they were in high rebellion. They were throwing off the rules of their parents, and riding the wave of their own cresting excitement. Even Stubblegut felt it, like a blush of heat over his moss-grown soul.

Naturally, Uncle Digby’s story stirs up memories of my own first fair.

The dream of the Maggot came to me in 1944, when I was twelve years old. The tradition of the Cold Water Fair had ended thirty years ago, on the bloody night Uncle Digby is speaking of, and Hob’s Landing had done without a festival of any sort since. But though we didn’t know it yet, this would be the year the Skullpocket Fair was begun.

I was the sixth kid to receive the dream that year. I had heard of a couple of the others, so I had known, in some disconnected way, that it might happen. I didn’t know what it meant, except that parents were terrified of it. They knew it had something to do with the Wormcake clan, and that was enough to make it suspect. Although this was in 1944, and they’d been living in the mansion for thirty years at that point—peacefully for the most part—there were still many in town who considered them to be the very incarnation of evil. Many of our parents were present at the night of the Cold Water Fair, and they were slow to forgive. The fact that the Orchid Girl came into town and patronised the same shops we did, attended the same shows we did, didn’t help matters at all, as far as they were concerned.

She’s putting on airs, they said. She thinks she’s one of us. At least her husband has the decency to keep himself hidden away in that horrible old mansion.

My friends and I were too young to be saddled with all of the old fears and prejudices of our parents, and anyway we thought the Orchid Girl was beautiful. We would watch her from across the street or through a window when she came to town, walking down Poplar Street as proud as you please, unattended by her servants or by any friends at all. She always wore a bright, lovely dress which swirled around her legs, kept her hair pinned just so, and held her head high—almost defiantly, I can say now, looking back. We would try to see the seams on her face, where it would open up, but we never got close enough. We never dared.

We believed that anyone married to the Orchid Girl couldn’t be all bad. And anyway, Mr Wormcake always came to the school plays, brought his own children down to the ice skating rink in the wintertime, and threw an amazing Halloween party. Admittedly, half the town never went, but most of us kids managed to make it over there.

We all knew about the Church of the Maggot. There were already neighbourhoods converting, renouncing their own god for the one that burrowed through flesh. Some people our parents’ age, also veterans of that night at the fair, had even become priests. They walked around town in a grubby white garb, talking on and on about the flesh as meat, the necessity of cleansing the bone, and other things that sounded strange and a little exciting to us. So when some of the children of Hob’s Landing started to dream of the Maggot, the kids worried about it a lot less than the parents or the grandparents did. At first, we were even jealous. Christina Laudener, just one year younger than I was, had the first one, and the next night it was little Eddie Brach. They talked about it in school, and word spread. It terrified them, but we wanted it ourselves nonetheless. They were initiates into some new mystery centred around the Wormcakes, and those of us who were left out burned with a terrible envy.

I was probably the worst of them, turning my jealousy into a bullying contempt whenever I saw them at the school, telling them that the ghouls were going to come into their homes while they were sleeping and kidnap them, so they could feed them to their precious Maggot. I made Eddie cry, and I was glad. I hated him for being a part of something I wasn’t.

Until a couple of nights later, when I had the dream myself.

I’m told that everyone experiences the dream of the Maggot differently. For me it was a waking dream. I climbed out of bed at some dismal hour of the morning, when both my parents were still asleep, and stumbled my way to the bathroom. I sat on the toilet for a long time, waiting for something to happen, but I couldn’t go, despite feeling that I needed to very badly. I remember this being a source of profound distress in the dream, way out of proportion to real life. It terrified me and I felt that it was a sign I was going to die.

I left the toilet and walked down the hallway to my parents’ room, to give them the news of my impending demise. In my dream I knew they would only laugh at me, and it made me hate them.

Then I felt a clutching pain in my abdomen. I dropped to my knees and began to vomit maggots. Copious amounts of them. They wouldn’t stop coming, just splashed out onto the ground with each painful heave, in wriggling piles, ropey with blood and saliva. It went on and on and on. When I stood up, my body was as wrinkled and crushed as an emptied sack. I fell to the floor and had to crawl back to my room.

The next morning I went down to breakfast as usual, and as my father bustled about the kitchen, looking for his keys and his hat, and my mother leaned against the countertop with a cigarette in her hand, I told them that I had received the dream everyone was talking about.

This stopped them both cold. My mother looked at me and said, “Are you sure? What happened? What does it mean?”

“They’re having a fair. I have to go.”

Of course this was absurd; there had been nothing about a fair in the dream at all. But the knowledge sat with all the incontrovertibility of a mountain. Such is the way of the Maggot.

“What fair?” Dad said. “There’s no fair.”

“The Wormcakes,” I said. “They’re having it at the mansion.”

My parents exchanged a look.

“And they invited you in a dream?” he said.

“It wasn’t really like an invitation. It’s more like the Maggot told me I have to come.”

“It’s a summons,” Mom told him. “That’s what Carol was saying. It’s like a command.”

“Like hell,” Dad said. “Who do those freaks think they are?”

“I think I have to go, Dad.”

“You don’t have to do a goddamned thing they tell you. None of us do.”

I started to cry. The thought of disregarding the dream was unthinkable. I felt that clenching in my gut and I feared the maggots were going to start pouring out of my mouth. I thought I could feel them inside me already, chewing away, as though I were already dead. I didn’t know how to articulate what I know now: that the Maggot had emptied me out, and was offering to fill me again. To ignore it would be to live the rest of my life as a husk.

It was a hard cry, as sudden as a monsoon, my cheeks hot and red, the tears painting my face, my breath coming in a thin hiss. Mom rushed to me and engulfed me in her arms, saying the things moms are supposed to say.

“I have to go,” I said. “I have to go, I have to. I have to go.”

I watch the children sitting there in profile, their little faces turned to Uncle Digby and his performance like flowers to the sun, and I try to see myself there all those years ago. The sun is setting outside, and in the eastern facing window darkness is hoarding over the bay. The light in Uncle’s glass dome illuminates the green solution from beneath, and his pale dead face is graced with a rosy pink halo of light.

I must have seen the same thing when I sat there with the other kids. But I don’t remember it. I only remember the fear. I guess I must have laughed at the jokes, just like the others did.

Skullpocket is, of course, a culling game. It’s not about singling out and celebrating a winner. It’s about thinning the herd.

Jonathan Wormcake does not appear to be listening to the story anymore. His attention is outside, on the darkening waters. Although her name has not come up yet, the Orchid Girl haunts this story as truly as any ghost. I wonder if it causes him pain. Grieving, to a ghoul, is a sign of weakness. It’s a trait to be disdained. The grieving are not fit for the world. I look at the hard, clean curve of his skull and I try to fathom what’s inside.

They were clever little ghouls, Uncle Digby said, and they kept to the outskirts and the shadows. They didn’t want to be discovered. A ghoul child looks a lot like a human child when seen from the corner of the eye. It’s true that they’re paler, more gaunt, and if you look at one straight on you’ll see that their eyes are like little black holes with nothing inside, but you have to pay attention to notice any of that. At the fair, no one was paying attention. There was too much else to see. So Wormcake and his friends were able to slip into the crowd without notice, and there they took in everything they could.

They were amazed by the striped, colourful tents, by the little booths with the competitive games, by the pens with pigs and mules, by the smells of cotton candy, frying oil, animal manure, electricity—everything was new and astonishing. Most of all, though, they marvelled at the humans in their excitable state: walking around, running, hugging, laughing, and clasping their hands on each other’s shoulders. Some were even crushing their lips together in a grotesque human version of a kiss!

Here the children laugh. They are young enough still that all kissing is grotesque.

There were many little ones, like themselves, and like you. They were swarming like hungry flies, running from tent to tent, waiting in lines, crackling with an energy so intense you could almost see it arcing from their hair.

It was quite unsettling to see humans acting this way. It was like watching someone indulging in madness. They were used to seeing humans in repose, quiet little morsels in their thin wooden boxes. Watching them like this was like watching a little worm before it transforms into a beautiful fly, but worse, because it was so much louder and uglier.

A little girl raises her hand. She seems angry. When Uncle Digby acknowledges her, she says, “I don’t think flies are beautiful. I think they’re nasty.”

“Well I think you’re the one who’s nasty,” Uncle Digby retorts. “And soon you’ll be filling the little tummies of a thousand thousand flies, and they’ll use you to lay eggs and make maggots, and shit out the bits of you they don’t want. So maybe you should watch your horrid little mouth, child.”

The little girl bursts into shocked tears, while the children around her stay silent or laugh unhappily.

Wormcake stirs beside me for the first time since the story began. “Uncle,” he says.

“I’m sorry,” says Uncle Digby. “Dear child, please forgive me. Tonight is a glorious night. Let’s get back to the story, shall we?”

The children are quiet. Uncle Digby forges ahead.

So they made their way amongst the humans, disturbed by their antics. They knew that it was only a matter of time before the humans all reached their true state, the condition in which they would face the long dark inside the earth; but this brief, erratic explosion of life stirred a fascinated shame in the ghouls.

“It’s vile,” said Stubblegut. “We shouldn’t be seeing this. It’s indecent.”

“It’s the most wonderful thing I’ve ever seen,” said young master Wormcake, and with the courage that had always separated him from the others, he strode out onto the midway, arms a-swing and head struck back like the world’s littlest worm lord.

You might be forgiven in thinking that someone would notice, and cause the humans to flee from them in terror, or cry out in alarm, or gather pitchforks and torches. But human beings are geniuses at self-delusion. Let’s be honest, children, you are. You believe that your brief romance with the sun is your one, true life. Our little friend here, for example, becomes upset when contemplating the beauty of the fly. You cherish your comfortable delusions. That evening the humans at the fair just looked at the ghouls as wretched examples of their own kind. Sickly children, afflicted with some mysterious wasting illness that blued their flesh and tightened the skin around their bones. Pathetic creatures, to be mourned and fretted over, even if they also inspired a small thrill of revulsion. So the humans pretended not to see them. They ushered their own children to a safe distance and continued in their revels in a state of constructed ignorance.

Mr Wormcake leans over to me and whispers in my ear: “Not entirely true. The human adults ignored us, yes. But the human children knew us for what we were. They pointed and quaked. Some burst into tears. It was all such fun.”

What was so difficult to tell my parents, all those years ago, was that I wanted to go to the fair. The summons was terrifying yes, but it was also the touch of relevance I’d been wanting so badly. I was just like Christina Laudener now; I was just like weepy Eddie Brach. Two other children had had the dream the same night I did, and by the time a week had finished, there were fourteen of us. The dreams stopped after that, and everyone understood that it was to be us, and only us.

We became a select group, a focus of envy and awe. There were some who felt the resentment I once did, of course, and we were the target of the same bullying I’d doled out myself. But we were a group by this time, and we found comfort and safety in that. We ate lunch together at school, hung out on weekends. The range of ages—six to twelve—was wide enough that normally none of us would give each other the time of day. But the Maggot had changed everything.

The town was abuzz with talk. Of the fourteen summoned children, certainly, but also of the fair itself. Hob’s Landing had been without anything like this since the night of Wormcake’s arrival, thirty years before. That Womcake himself should be the one to re-introduce a fair to the town seemed at once sacrilegious and entirely appropriate. Flyers began to appear, affixed to telephone poles, displayed in markets and libraries: THE FIRST ANNUAL SKULLPOCKET FAIR, TO BE HELD ON THE GROUNDS OF WORM CAKE MANSION, ON THE LAST WEEKEND OF SEPTEMBER, 1944. INAUGURATED BY SELECT CHILDREN OF HOB’S LANDING. COME AND PARTAKE IN THE JOY OF LIFE WITH THE GENTLEMAN CORPSE!

People were intrigued. That Mr Wormcake was himself using the nickname he’d once fiercely objected to—he was not, he often reminded them, a corpse—was a powerful indicator that he meant to extend an olive branch to the people of Hob’s Landing. And who were they to object? He and his family clearly weren’t going anywhere. Wouldn’t it be best, then, to foster a good relationship with the town’s most famous citizens?

My parents were distraught. Once they realised I wanted to go, despite my panic of the first night, they forbade me. That didn’t worry me a bit, though. I knew the Maggot would provide a way. I was meant to be there, and the Maggot would organise the world in such a way as to make that happen.

And so it did. On the afternoon the first Skullpocket Fair was set to open, I headed for the front door, expecting a confrontation. But my parents were sitting together in the living room, my mother with her hands drawn in and her face downcast, my father looking furious and terrified at once. They watched me go to the door without making any move to interfere. Years later, I was to learn that the night before they had received their own dream from the Maggot. I don’t know what that dream contained, but I do know that no parent has ever tried to interfere with the summons.

These days, of course, few would want to.

“Be careful,” Mom said, just before I closed the door on them both.

The others and I had agreed to meet in front of the drug store. Once we’d all assembled, we walked as a group through the centre of town, past small gathered clusters of curious neighbours, and up the long road that would take us to the mansion by the bay.

The sun was on its way down.

They rode the Ferris wheel first, said Uncle Digby. From that height they looked down at the fair, and at Hob’s Landing, and at their own cemetery upon the hill. Away from the town, near the coastline, was an old three-storey mansion, long-abandoned and believed haunted. Even the adult ghouls avoided the place, during their rare midnight excursions into town. But it was only one part of the tapestry.

The world was a spray of light on a dark earth. It was so much bigger than any of them had thought. As their car reached the height of its revolution, and they were bathed in the high cool air of the night, Wormcake was transfixed by the stars above them. They’d never seemed so close before. He sought out the constellations he’d been taught—the Rendering Pot, the Mouldy King—and reached his hands over his head, trailing his fingers among them. As the gondola swung down again, it seemed he was dragging flames through the sky.

“Let’s never go home again,” Wormcake said. If the others heard him, they never said so.

And unknown to them, under the hill of graves, their parents were very busy setting up the Extinction Rite. Were the boys missed? I think they must have been. But no one could do anything about it.

What’s next, children? What is it you really came to hear about?

It’s as though he’s thrown a lit match into a barrel of firecrackers. They all explode at once.

“The freak show!”

“The freak tent!”

“Freak show, freak show!”

Uncle Digby raises his metal arms and a chuckle emits from the voice box beneath the jar. The bubbles churn with a little extra gusto around his floating head, and I think, for a moment, that it really is possible to read joy in that featureless aspect. Whatever tensions might have been festering just a few moments ago, they’re all swept aside by the manic excitement generated by the promise of the freaks. This is what they’ve been waiting to hear.

Yes, well, oh my, what a surprise. I thought you wanted to learn more about ghoul history. Maybe learn the names of all the elders? Or learn how they harvested food from the coffins? It’s really a fascinating process, you know.

“Nooooo!”

Well, well, well. The freaks it is, then.

The ghouls stopped outside a tent striped green and white, where an old man hunched beside a wooden clapboard sign. On that sign, in bright red paint, was that huge, glorious word: FREAKS. The old man looked at the boys with yellowing eyes—the first person to look at them directly all night—and said, “Well? Come to see the show, or to join it?”

He tapped the sign with a long finger, drawing their attention back to it. Beneath the word FREAKS was a list of words in smaller size, painted in an elegant hand. Words like THE MOST BEAUTIFUL MERMAID IN THE WORLD, THE GIANT WITH TWO FACES, and—you guessed it—THE ORCHID GIRL.

“Go on in, boys. Just be careful they let you out again.”

They joined the line going inside. Curtains partitioned the interior into three rooms, and the crowd was funnelled into a line. Lanterns hung from poles, and strings of lights criss-crossed the top of the tent.

The first freak was a man in a cage. He was seven feet tall, dressed in a pair of ratty trousers. He looked sleepy, and not terribly smart. He hadn’t shaved in some time, his beard bristling like a thicket down his right cheek and jowl. The beard grew spottily on the left side, mostly because of the second face which grew there: doughy and half-formed, like a face had just slid down the side of the head and bunched up on the neck. It had one blinking blue eye, and a nose right next to it, where the other eye should have been. And there was a big, gaping mouth, nestled between the neck and shoulder, with a little tongue that darted out to moisten the chapped lips.

A sign hanging below his cage said, BRUNO: EATER OF CHILDREN.

The ghouls were fascinated by the second face, but the eating children part didn’t seem all that remarkable to them. They’d eaten plenty themselves.

Next up was THE WORLD’S MOST BEAUTIFUL MERMAID. This one was a bit frustrating, because she was in a tank, and she was lying on the bottom of it. The scaly flesh of her tail was pressed up against the glass, so at first they thought they were looking at nothing more than a huge carp. Only after staring a moment did they notice the human torso which grew from it, curled around itself to hide from the gaze of the visitors. It was a woman’s back, her spine ridged along her sun-dark skin. Long black hair floated around her head like a cloud of ink from an octopus.

Finally, they progressed into the next partition, and they came to THE ORCHID GIRL.

She stood on a platform in the back of the tent, in a huge bell jar. She was just about your age, children. She was wearing a bright blue dress, and she was sitting down with her arms wrapped around her legs, looking out balefully at the crowds of people coming in to see her. She looked quite unhappy. She did not look, at first blush, like a freak; the only thing unusual about her were what appeared to be pale red scars running in long, S-like curves down her face.

Well, here was another disappointing exhibit, the people thought, and they were becoming quite agitated. Someone yelled something at her, and there was talk of demanding their money back.

But everything changed when Wormcake and his friends entered the room. The Orchid Girl sat a bit straighter, as if she had heard or felt something peculiar. She stood on her feet and looked out at the crowd. Almost immediately her gaze fell upon the ghoul children, as though she could sense them through some preternatural ability, and then, children, the most amazing thing happened. The thing that changed the ghouls’ lives, her own life, and the lives of everyone in Hob’s Landing for ever afterward.

Her face opened along the red lines, and bloomed in bright, glorious petals of white and purple and green. Her body was only a disguise, you see. She was a gorgeous flower masquerading as a human being.

The people screamed, or dropped to their knees in wonder. Some scattered like roaches in sunlight.

Wormcake and his friends ran too. They fled through the crowd and back out into the night. They were not afraid; they were caught in the grip of destiny. Wormcake, suddenly, was in love. He fled from the terror and the beauty of it.

It was the Orchid Girl who greeted us at the door when we arrived. She looked ethereal. She was in her human guise, and the pale lines dividing her face stood out brightly in the afternoon sun. I was reminded, shamefully, of one of the many criticisms my mother levied against her: “She really should cover that with make-up. She looks like a car accident survivor. It’s disgraceful.”

To us, though, she looked like a visitation from another, better world.

“Hello, children. Welcome to our house. Thank you for joining us.”

That we didn’t have a choice—the summons of the Maggot was not to be ignored—didn’t enter our minds. We felt anointed by her welcome. We knew we’d been made special, and that everyone in Hob’s Landing envied us.

She led us into the drawing room—the one that would host every meeting like this for years to come—where Uncle Digby was waiting to tell us the story. We knew him already through his several diplomatic excursions into town, and were put at ease by his presence. The Orchid Girl joined her husband in two chairs off to the side, and they held hands while they listened.

I sat next to Christina Laudener. We were the oldest. The idea of romantic love was still alien to us, but not so alien that I didn’t feel a twinge when I saw Mr Wormcake and his wife holding hands. I felt as though I were in the grip of some implacable current, and that my life was being moved along a course that would see me elevated far beyond my current circumstance. As though I were the hero of a story, and this was my first chapter. I knew that Christina was a part of it. I glanced at her, tried to fathom whether or not she felt it too. She caught my look and gave me the biggest smile I’d ever received from a girl, before or since.

I have kept the memory of that smile with me, like a lantern, for the small hours of the night. I call upon it, with shame, even now.

The Maggot disapproves of sentiment.

Do you know what an Extinction Rite is, children? Uncle Digby asks.

A few of the children shake their heads. Others are still, either afraid to answer the question or unsure of what their answer ought to be.

On the night of the Cold Water Fair, all those years ago, the ghouls under the hill had reached the end of their age. Ghoul society, unlike yours, recognises when its pinnacle is behind it. Once this point has been reached, there are two options: assimilate into a larger ghoul city, or die. The ghouls under the hill did not find a larger city to join, and indeed many did not want to anyway. Their little city had endured for hundreds of years, and they were tired. The Maggot had delivered to the elders a dream of death, and so the Extinction Rite was prepared. The Extinction Rite, children, is the suicide of a city.

Like you, I am not a ghoul. I have never seen this rite performed. But also like you, I belong to the church introduced to Hob’s Landing by Mr Wormcake, so I can imagine it. I believe it must be a sight of almost impossible beauty. But I am glad he did not participate that night. Do you know what would have happened here in town, if he had?

He looks at the little girl who talked back earlier. What do you think, dear?

She takes a long moment. “I don’t know. Nothing?”

Precisely. Nothing would have happened. They would have gone back inside when called, just like old Stubblegut wanted. They would have missed the fair. They would never have met the Orchid Girl, or dear old Bruno, or the lost caravan leader of the mermaid nation. I myself would still be frozen in the attic, with my sixteen compatriots, just another brain in a jar. The Extinction Rite would have scoured away all the ghouls in the hill, and the people of Hob’s Landing would have been none the wiser. Their little town would now be just another poverty-ridden fishing village, slowly dissolving into irrelevance.

Instead, what happened was this:

The ghoul children ran out of the tent that night, their little minds atilt with the inexplicable beauties they had just seen. It was as though the world had cracked open like some wonderful geode. They were exhilarated. They stood in the thronged midway, wondering what they ought to do next. Slipwicket and Stubblegut wanted to celebrate; the memory of their unfinished game of skullpocket was cresting in their thoughts, and the urge to recommence the game exerted itself upon them like the pull of gravity. Wormcake thought only of the Orchid Girl, imprisoned like a princess in one of the old tales, separated from him by a thin sheet of glass and by the impossible chasm of an alien culture.

And unbeknownst to them, in the warrens, the Extinction Rite reached its conclusion, and the will of the ghouls was made known to their god.

And so the Maggot spoke. Not just to these children, but to every ghoul in the city under the hill. A pulse of approval, a wordless will to proceed.

The Maggot said, DO IT.

What happened then was an accident. The Extinction Rite was not meant to affect the people of Hob’s Landing at all. If Wormcake and the others had been at home, where they belonged, the Maggot’s imperative would have caused them to destroy themselves. But they were not at home. And so what they heard was permission to indulge the desires of their hearts. And so they did.

Slipwicket fell upon the nearest child and tore the flesh from his skull like the rind from an orange, peeling it to the bone in under a minute. Stubblegut, caught in the spirit of the moment, chose to help him. Bright streamers of blood arced through the air over their heads, splashed onto their faces. They wrestled the greasy skull from the body and Slipwicket gave it a mighty kick, sending it bouncing and rolling in a jolly tumble down the midway.

Wormcake made his way back into the tent, slashing out with his sharp little fingers at the legs of anybody who failed to get out of his way quickly enough, splitting tendons and cracking kneecaps, leaving a bloody tangle of crippled people behind him.

Above them all, the cemetery on the hill split open like a rotten fruit. From the exposed tunnels beneath upturned clods of earth and tumbling gravestones came the spirits of the extinguished city of the ghouls: a host of buzzing angels, their faceted eyes glinting moonlight, their mandibles a-clatter, pale, iridescent wings filling the sky with the holy drone of the swarm.

People began to scream and run. Oh, what a sound! It was like a symphony. It was just what Wormcake and his friends had been hoping for, when they first looked down at the fair and heard the sounds carrying to them on the wind. They felt like grand heroes in a story, with the music swelling to match their achievements.

Slipwicket and Stubblegut batted the skull between them for a few moments, but it proved surprisingly fragile when careening off a fence-post. Of course there was nothing to do but get another. So they did, and, preparing for future disappointments, they quickly decided that they should gather a whole stockpile of them.

Wormcake opened Bruno’s cage and smashed the Orchid Girl’s glass dome, but he was afraid to smash the mermaid’s tank, for fear that she would die. Bruno—who had become great friends with her—lifted her out and hastened her down to the water, where she disappeared with a grateful wave. When he returned to the party, the ghouls were delighted to discover that he was called the Eater of Children for very good reason indeed. The Orchid Girl stood off to the side, the unfurling spirits of the cemetery rising like black smoke behind her, the unfurled petals of her head seeming to catch the moonlight and reflect it back like a strange lantern. Wormcake stood beside her and together they watched as the others capered and sported.

Beautiful carnage. Screams rising in scale before being choked off in the long dark of death, people swarming in panic like flies around a carcass, corpses littering the ground in outlandish positions one never finds in staid old coffins. Watching the people make the transition from antic foolishness to the dignified stillness of death reassured Wormcake of the nobility of their efforts, the rightness of their choices. He recognised the death of his home, but he was a disciple of the Maggot, after all, and he felt no grief for it.

What did the two of them talk about, standing there together, surrounded by death’s flowering? Well, young master Wormcake never told me. But I bet I can guess, just a little bit. They were just alike, those two. Different from everyone else around them, unafraid of the world’s dangers. They recognised something of themselves in each other, I think. In any case, when they were finished talking, there was no doubt that they would take on whatever came next together.

It was the Orchid Girl who spotted the procession of torches coming from Hob’s Landing.

“We should go to the mansion,” she said. “They won’t follow us there.”

What happened next, children, is common knowledge, and not part of tonight’s story. The Orchid Girl was right: the people of Hob’s Landing were frightened of the mansion and did not follow them there. Wormcake and his friends found a new life inside. They found me, and the rest of the Frozen Parliament, up in the attic; they found the homunculus in the library; and of course, over time, they found all the secrets of the strange old alchemist who used to live there, which included the Orchid Girl’s hidden history. Most importantly, though, they made themselves into a family. Eventually they even fashioned a peace with Hob’s Landing, and were able to build relationships with people in the town.

That was the last night the Coldwater Fair was ever held in Hob’s Landing. With fourteen dead children and a family of monsters moved into the old mansion, the citizens of the town had lost their taste for them. For the better part of a generation, there was little celebration at all in the little hamlet. Relations between the Wormcake family and the townsfolk were defined by mutual suspicion, misunderstanding, and fear. Progress was slow.

Thirty years later, relations had repaired enough that Mr Wormcake founded the Skullpocket Fair. To commemorate the night he first came to Hob’s Landing, found the love of his life, and began his long and beneficial relationship with this town, where he would eventually become the honoured citizen you all know him as today.

How wonderful, yes, children?

And now, at last, we come to why the Maggot called you all here!

“So many lies.”

This is what Mr Wormcake tells me, after Uncle Digby ushers the children from the drawing room. The sun has set outside, and the purpling sky seems lit from behind.

“You know, he tells the story for children. He leaves out some details. That night in the freak tent, for instance. The people gathered around the mermaid were terrifying. There was a feral rage in that room. I didn’t know what it was at the time. I was just a kid. But it was a dark sexual energy. An animal urge. They slapped their palms against her tank. They shouted at her. Said horrible things. She was curled away from them, so they couldn’t see her naked, and that made them angry. I was afraid they would try to break the glass to get at her. I think it was only the fear of Bruno the cannibal, in the other room, somehow getting out too, that stopped them. I don’t know.

“And that bit about me recognising my ‘destiny’ when I saw the Orchid Girl—Gretchen. Nonsense. What child of that age feels romantic love? I was terrified. We all were. We’d just seen a flower disguised as a girl. What were we supposed to think?”

“I’m curious why you let Uncle Digby call her the Orchid Girl to the kids, when the name obviously annoys you.”

“It’s simplistic. It’s her freak name. But you humans seem so invested in that. She was no more ‘the Orchid Girl’ than I’m ‘the Gentleman Corpse.’ I’m not a corpse at all, for god’s sake. But when we finally decided to assimilate, we believed that embracing the names would make it easier. And the kids like it, especially. So we use them.”

“Is it hard to talk about her?” Probing for signs of blasphemy.

“No,” he says, though he looks away as he says it. The profile of his skull is etched with lamplight. He goes on about her, though, and I start to get a sick feeling. “He would have you believe that she was a princess in a castle, waiting to be rescued by me. It’s good for myth-making, but it’s not true. She did need rescuing that night, yes, but so did Bruno. So did the mermaid. He doesn’t talk about my ‘destiny’ with them, does he?”

I don’t know what to say.

“Nothing but lies. We didn’t want to go to the mansion. We wanted to go home. When we saw our home spilling into the sky, transfigured by the Extinction Rite…we were terrified.”

I shake my head. “You were children. You can’t blame yourself for how you felt.”

“I was frightened for my parents.”

I put a hand up to stop him. “Mr Wormcake. Please. I can understand that this is a moment of, um…strong significance for you. It’s not unusual to experience these unclean feelings. But you must not indulge them by giving them voice.”

“I wanted my parents back, Priest.”

“Mr Wormcake.”

“I mourned them. Right there, out in the open, I fell to my knees and cried.”

“Mr Wormcake, that’s enough. You must stop.”

He does. He turns away from me and stares through the window. The bay is out there somewhere, covered in the night. The lights in the drawing room obscure the view, and we can see our reflections hovering out there above the waters, like gentlemanly spirits.

“Take me to the chapel,” I tell him quietly.

He stares at me for a long moment. Then he climbs to his feet. “All right,” he says. “Come with me.”

He pushes through a small door behind the chess table and enters a narrow, carpeted hallway. Lamps fixed to the walls offer pale light. There are paintings hung here too, but the light is dim and we are moving too quickly for me to make out specific details. The faces look desiccated, though. One seems to be a body seated on a divan, completely obscured by cobwebs. Another is a pastoral scene, a barrow mound surrounded by a fence made from the human bone.

At the end of the corridor, another small door opens into a private chapel. I’m immediately struck by the scent of spoiled meat. A bank of candles near the altar provides a shivering light. On the altar itself, a husk of unidentifiable flesh bleeds onto a silver platter. Scores of flies lift and fall, their droning presence crowding the ears. On the wall behind them, stained glass windows flank a much larger window covered in heavy drapes. The stained glass depicts images of fly-winged angels, their faceted ruby eyes bright, their segmented arms spread as though offering benediction, or as though preparing to alight at the butcher’s feast.

There is a pillow on the floor in front of the altar, and a pickaxe leans on the table beside it.

The Maggot summons fourteen children to the Skullpocket Fair every year. One for each child that died that night in the Cold Water Fair, one hundred years ago, when Hob’s Landing became a new town, guided by monsters and their strange new god. It’s no good to question by what criteria the children are selected, by what sins or what virtues. There is no denying the summons. There is only the lesson of the worm, delivered over and over again: all life is a mass of wriggling grubs, awaiting the transformation to the form in which it will greet the long and quiet dark.

“The Church teaches the subjugation of memory,” I say. “Grief is a weakness.”

“I know,” says Mr Wormcake.

“Your marriage. Your love for your wife and your friends. They’re stones in your pockets. They weigh you to the earth.”

“I know.”

“Empty them,” I say.

And so he does. “I miss her,” he says. He looks at me with those hollow sockets, speaks to me with that borrowed mouth, and for the first time that night I swear I can see some flicker of emotion, like a candle flame glimpsed at the bottom of the world. “I miss her so much. I’m not supposed to miss her. It’s blasphemy. But I can’t stop thinking about her. I don’t want to hear the lies anymore. I don’t want to hear the stories. I want to remember what really happened. We didn’t recognise anything about each other at the fair that night. We were little kids and we were scared of what was going to happen to us. We stood on the edge of everything and we were too afraid to move. We didn’t say a single word to each other the whole time. We didn’t learn how to love each other until much later, after we were trapped in this house. And now she’s gone and I don’t know where she went and I’m scared all over again. I’m about to change, and I don’t know how or into what because I left home when I was little. No one taught me anything. I’m afraid of what’s going to happen to me. I miss my wife.”

I’m stunned by the magnitude of this confession. I’d been fooled by the glamour of his name and his history; I’d thought he would greet this moment with all the dignity of his station. I stand over him, this diminished patriarch, mewling like some abandoned infant, and I’m overwhelmed by disgust. I don’t know where it comes from, and the force of it terrifies me.

“Well, you can’t,” I say, my anger a chained dog. “You don’t get to. You don’t get to miss her.”

He stares at me. His mouth opens, but I cut him off. I grab the mound of ripe flesh from the altar and thrust it into his face. Cold fluids run between my fingers and down my wrist. Flies go berserk, bouncing off my face, crawling into my nose. “This is the world you made! These are the rules. You don’t get to change your mind!”

Fifty years ago, when Uncle Digby finished his story and finally opened the gate at the very first Skullpocket Fair, we all ran out onto the brand new midway, the lights swirling around us, the smells of sweets and fried foods filling our noses. We were driven by fear and hope. We knew death opened its mouth behind us, and we felt every living second pass through our bodies like tongues of fire, exalting us, carving us down to our very spirits. We heard the second gate swing open and we screamed as the monsters bounded onto the midway in furious pursuit: cannibal children, dogs bred to run on beams of moonlight, corpse flowers with human bodies, loping atrocities of the laboratory. The air stank of fear. Little Eddie Brach was in front of me and without thought I grabbed his shirt collar and yanked him down, leaping over his sprawled form in the very next instant. He bleated in cartoon-like surprise. I felt his blood splash against the back of my shirt in a hot torrent as the monsters took him, and I laughed with joy and relief. I saw Christina leap onto a rising gondola car and I followed. We slammed the door shut and watched the world bleed out beneath us. Our hearts were incandescent, and we clutched each other close. Somewhere below us a thing was chanting, “Empty your pockets, empty your pockets,” followed by the hollow pok!s of skulls being cracked open. We laughed together. I felt the inferno of life. I knew that every promise would be fulfilled.

Six of us survived that night. Of those, four of us—exalted by the experience—took the Orders. We lived a life dedicated to the Maggot, living in quiet seclusion, preparing our bodies and our minds for the time of decay. We proselytised, grew our numbers. Every year some of the survivors of the fair would join us in our work. Together, we brought Hob’s Landing to the worm.

But standing over this whimpering creature, I find myself thinking only of Christina Laudener, her eyes a pale North Atlantic grey, her blonde hair flowing like a stilled wave over her shoulders. We were children. We didn’t know anything about love. Or at least, I didn’t. I didn’t understand what it was that had taken root in me until years later, when her life took her to a different place, and I sat in the underground church and contemplated the deliqu-escence of flesh until the hope for warmth, or for the touch of a kind hand, turned cold inside me.

I never learned what she did with her life. But she never took the Orders. She lived that incandescent moment with the rest of us, but she drew an entirely different lesson from it.

“You tell me those were all lies?” I say. “I believed them. I believed everything.”

“Gretchen wasn’t a lie. Our life here wasn’t a lie. It was glorious. It doesn’t need to be dressed up with exaggerations.”

I think of my own life, long for a human being, spent in cold subterranean chambers. “The Maggot isn’t a lie,” I say.

“No. He certainly is not.”

“I shouldn’t have survived. I should have died. I pushed Eddie down. Eddie should have lived.” I feel tears try to gather, but they won’t fall. I want them to. I think, somehow, I would feel better about things if they did. But I’ve been a good boy: I’ve worked too hard at killing my own grief. Now that I finally need it, there just isn’t enough anymore. The Maggot has taken too much.

“Maybe so,” Wormcake says. “But it doesn’t matter anymore.”

He gets up, approaches the windows. He pulls a cord behind the curtains and they slide open. A beautiful, kaleidoscopic light fills the room. The seventieth annual Skullpocket Fair is laid out on the mansion’s grounds beyond the window, carousels spinning, roller coaster ticking up an incline, bumper cars spitting arcs of electricity. The Ferris wheel turns over it all, throwing sparking yellow and green and red light into the sky.

I join him at the window. “I want to go down there,” I say, putting my fingers against the glass. “I want another chance.”

“It’s not for you anymore,” Wormcake says. “It’s not for me, either. It’s for them.”

He tugs at the false mouth on his skull, snapping the tethers, and tosses it to the floor. The tongue lolls like some yanked organ, and the flies cover it greedily. Maybe he believes that if he can no longer articulate his grief, he won’t feel it anymore.

Maybe he’s right.

He removes the fly-spangled meat from my hands and takes a deep bite. He offers it to me: a benediction. I recognise the kindness in it. I accept, and take a bite of my own. This is the world we’ve made. Tears flood my eyes, and he touches my cheek with his bony hand.

Then he replaces the meat onto the altar, and resumes his place on his knees beside it. He lays his head by the buzzing meat. I take the pickaxe and place the hard point of it against the skull, where all the poisons of the world have gathered, have slowed him, have weighed him to the earth. I hold the point there to fix it in my mind, and then I lift the axe over my head.

“Empty your pockets,” I say.

Below us, a gate opens, and the children pour out at a dead run. There goes the angry girl. There goes the weepy, buzz-cut kid. Arms and legs pumping, clothes flapping like banners in the wind. They’re in the middle of the pack when the monsters are released. They have a chance.

They just barely have a chance.

Ian Tregillis

TESTIMONY OF SAMUEL FROBISHER REGARDING EVENTS UPON HIS MAJESTY’S SHIP CONFIDENCE, 14-22 JUNE 1818, WITH DIAGRAMS

IAN TREGILLIS claims to be the son of a bearded mountebank and a discredited tarot-card reader. He is the author of several novels, including The Mechanical. The second volume of the “Alchemy Wars” trilogy, The Rising, is forthcoming from Orbit Books. He lives in New Mexico, where he consorts with writers, scientists, and other disreputable types.

“The fictional and ill-fated Confidence expedition was inspired by the real-life (and much more successful) voyage of the HMS Challenger in the 1870s,” reveals the author. The Challenger (namesake of many vessels, including a space shuttle) was a Royal Navy warship outfitted with all the latest scientific and oceanographic gear. It sailed around the world for three years, taking the first comprehensive soundings of the ocean floor (the ‘Challenger Deep’ location in the Pacific is also named after the vessel) and collecting thousands of never-before-seen biological specimens. But the work was extremely demanding and backbreaking: over the course of the expedition, two sailors drowned, two more went mad, and another committed suicide.

“As a speculative fiction writer, I can’t help but wonder if there wasn’t a connection between the madness and something pulled from the depths. After all, doesn’t dread Cthulhu sleep in sunken R’lyeh?”

I JOINED HIS Majesty’s Royal Navy in 1808, and a man more grateful for the press-gangs you’ll never meet. To answer your question, Sirs, I spent four years in the service of Captain Nares ere I beheld the tentacled Bride.

A brave and virtuous soul was the captain, never given to rage nor drink during my years with him. And upon my oath, never once did he take the lash to a sailor’s back without just cause before she arrived. But he changed the moment that accursed creature slithered upon the deck.

Begging your pardon, Sirs? I lost much of my hearing on the last voyage of the Confidence.

Aye. I get ahead of myself. I’ll start at the beginning.

The Confidence cut a fine feather when we sailed from Portsmouth in March of ‘18. Just over half the full crew complement we had, plus five more souls, Doctor Thomson and his men. If you’ll have my opinion, Sirs, Thomson deserved his invitation to the gallows dance, and damn him twice for this expedition.

That dandy nearly turned our frigate into a floating laboratory. In Portsmouth we loaded the bric-à-brac of his scientifical pursuits. We removed sixteen—sixteen!—guns to make room for the nets and dredges. Thomson also brought a dozen casks of pickling alcohol aboard. He tried ordering the purser to heave the rum, but Mr Newcomb told Thomson to shove off, Royal Society or no. Still, we’d been a’sea but a few days when we found that Thomson’s men had unloaded some of the rum themselves. I’ll tell you this: the prospect of thin grog won Thomson no friends among the seamen. We’d have liked to teach that dandy a lesson and heave his precious pickling alcohol, but he kept those casks locked away in the hold along with the remainder of the rum.

No crew worked harder, even in war. Thomson enjoyed the old man’s blessing, so never a day passed when we didn’t work the dredges. “Living beings exist over the whole floor of the ocean,” was his refrain.

He’d bluster if the tiniest worm went overboard before he had a chance to examine it. Many of the beasties we culled from those nets were curious and frightful things not seen by men before: fishes that glowed like lanterns, strange creatures more mouth than body, and other oddments. If it be of interest, I’ve sketched a few as best I remember them. Our catches went into the many jars that Thomson and his men brought. Captain Nares gave them the run of the wardroom (winning Thomson no love from the lieutenants, either) and soon it reeked of preservative spirits. Often I heard those jars clinking together during high seas.

Our voyage was peaceful, but for an engagement with French pirates off Bermuda. Though we had just half our guns, we bested them easily. I do wonder what might have happened if, in our zeal, we hadn’t sunken that brigantine before we could capture it. With a prize to be had, Captain Nares would have set a different course, to claim our head and gun money.

The only casualty of French treachery on that particular day was my hearing, after a mishap with a dry sponge on one of the twelve-pounders. Wythe, our surgeon, packed my ears with flannel and wrapped my head in bandages until I looked like a sultan from Persia. I dozed much, owing to his sleeping draughts.

We swayed hard to larboard two mornings after. Another engagement if we’re lucky, I thought, else it’s another whim of that damnable Thomson. He was mad to capture a leviathan in his nets, I knew.

Phineas Grue, a waster but still my mate, he fetched me soon after. I asked if Thomson had sighted another mermaid. There was a commotion on deck, he said.

In truth, my ears rung so badly that his words to me were more a mixture of yells and gestures. But his meaning came clear, and the gist was as I described it.

I smelt an odd odour on his breath, and not the watered-down grog we hands were drinking. It stung the eyes. I wondered if he had been hoarding his tots, or somehow found a way to bolster his grog.

Up top, the deckhands were cutting away one of the dredges. It seemed we were snagged on something, and so the captain had ordered the net abandoned. I was only sorry I couldn’t hear Thomson howl in protest.

Rogers, a fo’c’sleman, dived into the sea with a line around his waist. Man overboard? I wondered. With much effort, Phineas bellowed the old man’s words into my ear:

“Hold steady, Madam!”

Madam? I craned my neck to and fro, but all I saw was a mass of seaweed tangled in the net, for we were amidst the sea called Sargasso. Black and oily, it was a scab upon the water. Wrack like this I had never seen, but it was wrapped in Thomson’s net and so had come from the depths.

I pinched my nose against the stink of rot. Mayhap Thomson had found his prize after all, and this was the carcass of some dread leviathan.

Still, I could not see the mysterious lady to whom the captain directed his encouragements. But the sun had just crossed the main yardarm and the glare on the sea was bright. Was there a dinghy caught in that mess?

As we lowered the bosun’s chair for her, Rogers swam into that stinking wrack. A wave tossed vines over his head, and he forever disappeared. If not for the glare, I might’ve seen him flailing about and raised a cry.

Worse, my mates paid Rogers no heed. They were enchanted. But I didn’t yet understand this, nor that my injury had spared me.

There was no dinghy, there was no lady, but something moved into the bosun’s chair. What I’d thought a tangle of sargassum became a mess of tentacles and claws.

But Captain Nares gave the order to heave before I could say anything, and my mates hoisted the chair over the main deck. He stepped aside as that thing slithered aboard in a quivering mass. The creature pulled itself upright, and with much stretching and slithering sorted itself into a semblance of a woman, with a head, two arms, and two legs. Its head was a coil of those same tentacles, with a single milky orb in place of an eye, and before its mouth hung a curtain of hook-tipped tendrils.

Terror etched that sight into my eyelids, whence it still comes at night to haunt my dreams. I’ve rendered to paper the truest likeness I’m able of the thing that Captain Nares welcomed aboard the Confidence. I could do better work by carving—but if you’ve seen my scrimshaw, Sirs, mayhap you’ll grant me a crumb of talent, and agree ‘twas no lady we pulled from the sea.

I made to fetch Doctor Thomson, nearly bowling ol’ Phineas aside in my hurry and my fear. But then I saw the doctor was already there, gazing upon the monster with tenderness.

Every shiver of her body sent the twin stinks of rot and death across the deck, but not a single man covered his nose. I served His Majesty in the war, and I’ve seen decks slippery with the insides of men, but I’ve never smelt anything like the tentacled Bride. I leaned over the rail and tossed my hard biscuits and grog into the sea, like some rubber-legged dandy on his first voyage.

Into my ear Phineas shouted: “She has the sweetest voice. Like an angel.”

But I could hear nothing. With much repetition, I did gain the following yarn from Phineas. He must’ve yelled himself hoarse relating it to me: a London gentleman and his new bride were bound for her uncle’s Jamaican plantation when raiders beset their sloop. They pilfered every gem and bauble, then executed the crew before her very eyes. When the bride pleaded for her beloved’s life, the raiders’ chief sliced off her man’s ear. “For whispering sweet nothings,” he said and laughed. They set the sloop aflame, took her man, and left her to die. She floated amidst the flotsam nigh three days.

Heads shook and fists clenched all around. Captain Nares ripped the ‘fore-and-after from his head and kneaded the hat in white-knuckled fury. I gather he vowed to catch the raiders and rescue her husband.

I full expected Thomson to object at the notion of his nets idle and his sample jars unfilled. But he did not.

She writhed anew, and offered the oozing vines of her arms to the captain. He held out his hands, and the beast deposited in his cupped palms something glistening and red. No surgeon am I, but as I said, I’ve seen the insides of men, and this object was just that.

But ‘twasn’t poor Rogers’ heart, no monster’s trophy, the captain saw. He declared that it would be kept in Thomson’s preservatives until we found her husband, so Wythe could reattach the man’s ear.

No, Sirs. I’ve not heard of such physic, either, but that is how Phineas told it to me, as near as I could make out. As for what evil compelled the beast to preserve a man’s heart, I could not fathom. Only much later, after our doom was apparent, did her purpose come clear.

Lieutenant Prescott ordered us back to work. The murderous beast looped a tentacle around the captain’s elbow, and she slithered away with him. But as she did, she peered at me with that hideous orb. I swear to you, Sirs, that it twinkled.

And that is how the tentacled Bride came to live with us aboard the Confidence.

After that, Captain Nares spent much time closeted with her, except when ordering a new course. Soon we would overtake her assailants, he insisted. Every man put his back—no, his very soul—into the effort. The bosun’s mates got free with their starters. I know you banned them, Sirs, and grateful I am for it, but on my oath any seaman who didn’t devote himself to the Bride’s cause felt the sting of a rattan cane across the shoulders. Even Thomson stowed his nets and dredges to speed our voyage, and voiced nary a complaint.

Aye, Sirs. I did try to warn my mates about the beast. With every breath I could spare. But they had none of it. Jack Nastyface, they called me. Soon even the other men in my mess could barely stand to take meals with me.

Their dislike for me grew daily, as did my dread of what awaited at our destination. Something far worse than a ship of rogues, I feared. Night after night, my dreams took me to a cold abyss. A slumbering presence lurked in those depths. The darkness echoed with chants in a language I could not understand, nor could any man, for I sensed it was somehow older than the sea itself.

On evenings when the sea was calm and the sun a smear of orange on the horizon, the captain escorted the Bride along the deck, tentacle in arm. She even carried a parasol the crew had made. For they saw her as a lady of milk-white skin, you see, and it was the height of summer on the open waves. The Confidence had become a ship of madmen. No image could explain that better, so I’ve sketched it, that you might see the extent of the madness that had gripped the crew. I remember the scene well because I’d watch them from my perch in the rigging, stealing glances as I struck the yards. But sometimes I’d look down only to find the Bride gazing up at me.

These evening constitutionals I hated the most, for the Bride left a trail of filth and ooze wherever she trod. And it remained, that smell, even after we scrubbed and holystoned the deck. But by now the crew was so tangled in her spell that nobody noticed, or mayhap they didn’t care.

‘Twas during one of these strolls that, in desperation, I set upon a new tack. I crept up behind a bosun’s mate and stuck my fingers in his ears, hoping to free him from her charms so he’d see the beast as I saw her. But it did no good. Her spell was not so easily broken. He responded with his starter, and so I got the cane—and worse—for my trouble. The Bride had seen me, and my attempt to put the lie to her disguise would not stand with her.

The captain jabbed a finger at me, then to the planking beneath his feet. I presented myself with all speed.

The Bride slithered close to us. It was a struggle not to befoul myself when the fullness of her putrid stink came over me. The captain leaned near to her. Her tendrils danced on the edge of his ear. Not for the first time, I wondered what he heard. He nodded, and muttered, and nodded some more. When he straightened again to glower down at me from his full height, I saw in his face no sign of the man I’d served for years.

He regarded me with cold, black eyes, more shark than man, then mustered the crew. His purpose came clear enough when the bosun’s mates stripped my shirt and seized me to the capstan bar. If the captain read the Articles and declared my guilt to the crew, I didn’t hear him.

My offence? Nothing, Sirs, and may God smite me if that isn’t the truth. I am guilty for my role in bringing the Confidence to her end, but until that last day I minded my duties. There was naught else I could do.

Twelve times the lash ate skin from my back. I couldn’t fathom the source of the bosun’s rage. He flogged me with such glee that at six lashes I cried for mercy. At ten, I begged. Another dozen might have finished me.

Phineas helped me to my hammock—he must’ve been ordered, else he wouldn’t have—both of us with unfocused eyes and unsteady gait. But ‘twas his secret alterations to the grog, not concern for me, that affected him so.

I lay there all night with the hammock pressed into my face. I didn’t sleep.

Aye. Many an hour I’ve spent wondering why she didn’t kill me straight away, and oft wishing she had. Short-handed as we were, the Confidence could not spare many crewmen if we were to reach our destination. She had other plans for us, you see. And, powerless as I was to awaken the men from their trances, I posed no threat to her.

Though I was the first, I wasn’t the only man on the Confidence to get the lash for the Bride’s amusement.

Nor was I the only one to watch the captain and the Bride together. So did Thomson. With his expedition dropped by the wayside, he had no work to occupy him, and this freed him to imagine himself on evening strolls with ladies in distress. His gaze followed the pair, envy plain on his face for all to see.

Thomson got his chance to visit with her the day after my flogging, when Captain Nares excused himself to confer with Quartermaster Pasley. Soon the two officers were embroiled in charts, headings, and the best course for laying siege to the phantom raiders. Thomson seized the opportunity. He disappeared below and quickly returned with armloads of sketches from his unused laboratory.

They stood on the main deck, lonely man and writhing beast. Did she express a ladylike admiration of his education? Whatever her act, I doubt she enjoyed that gallery of dissected sea-life. No true lady would. Yet worse for Thomson, these were the Bride’s kith and kin sliced open and catalogued.

But he smiled, and laughed, and even felt emboldened. This last I know because he laid his hand on the tendrils of her arm. I didn’t know whether to be more shocked that he would take such liberty with a hideous creature like I saw, or with a fragile and sophisticated lady as he no doubt saw.

‘Twas a hot day, and even hotter up top. I passed the pair on my way to the butt for a mug of water to quench my thirst. She had Thomson’s ear, much the way she’d whispered to the captain when she urged him to flog me. His bearing was that of a man paying the strictest attention, nodding slowly and muttering. Though my ears were improving, they still rung like church bells on Christmas, so I could not hear him. Her orb twinkled at me over his shoulder. I drained my mug with haste and got away from her.

The old man returned soon after that and sent Thomson packing. He went below with his sketches, still nodding and jabbering. I did not see him the rest of the day.

I know you are men of honour and character, Sirs, never having felt the lash yourselves, but a topman’s chores make it difficult for the wounds to heal, and the wounds turn any attempt at sleep into agony. And the dreams had long since robbed my sleep of restfulness. So I welcomed my shift on the watch that night.

I had a quid of tobacco left in my cap, and chewed all of it. It eased my pain, but not my unease. I jumped at every shadow, for fear that the Bride would come slithering out of the night and do to me what she had done to Rogers.

I longed for the soothing noises of a ship under sail at night, but these were lost to me. Yet I found I could still apprehend the familiar rhythms of our frigate. I tried to find comfort in the sway of the deck against the soles of my feet, the vibrations of the mainmast against my fingertips as cables sang through the blocks. But a new rhythm played itself out in her rigging, too. Somewhere in the shadows overhead a cable had come loose. Occasionally, on the leeward side of larger swells, the mast shuddered as if struck by one of the yards. I’d been a topman for five years but could not place that rattling. But still my ears rung badly, and so I blamed my confusion on that. Elsewise, I reckoned, I’d know the problem at once.

My dreams again took me to that watery abyss when I finally managed sleep after the watch. The chanting had reached a frenzy, as if that ageless slumber were coming to an end.

My mates woke me when they jostled my hammock in their haste for the main deck. I wondered aloud at the commotion. But none would answer me, so I followed.

Captain Nares, the officers, and the Bride ringed the mainmast. Most of the crew was there, too. All craned their necks upward, toward where Thomson swung purple and lifeless from the topgallant yard.

How that walrus managed to gain the topgallant I’ve no idea. I did get a closer look at his corpse than I’d have liked, for while the captain laughed, Lieutenant Prescott dispatched us topmen to lower the body. Thomson had tied a line about his neck and jumped, though he hadn’t made a proper noose. He’d died gasping. We lowered him hand-over-hand. The life of science must be good, Sirs, for his girth was considerable.

As I hung there in the rigging, straining to lower the body with dignity, I spotted a black stain upon the larboard sea. A writhing mass, like that which had produced the Bride, but thrice the size of our frigate. The wind had a sourness upon it, too, that brought gorge to my throat.

I lost my grip, nearly took a tumble. I caught myself but let Thomson go. I’d no time to shout a warning to the others, so they lost their grips on old Thomson, too, and he plummeted to the deck.

I scrambled down. The captain seethed. He opened his mouth, no doubt to order another flogging, when Lieutenant Prescott shouted something. From his bearing and the way he pointed, I gathered it was, “Ship ahoy!”

Captain Nares gazed through his bring-’em-near at the blotch on the sea. The Bride murmured in his ear. I didn’t need to hear him to know what came next:

“All hands to stations!” The Confidence made straight for that churning mass.

We had reached the Bride’s destination.

Of course there were no ships on the horizon, but men bolted for their stations as though the captain was Nelson and our destination Cape Trafalgar. The crew lowered the boats to clear the deck, gathered their axes and pikes, and readied the twelve-pounders to fire on our invisible foe.

Where I saw tentacles and rot, they saw a brigantine peopled with rogues and murderers. A single Bride had driven this entire ship to madness. How many monsters would join her when we entered that foul nest?

The captain’s eyes were wide. Foam flecked the corners of his mouth when he snapped at Slade, another seaman, who went below. Then the captain pulled me close and bellowed in my ear. “Fetch Wythe!” No doubt he wanted the surgeon on hand to attend the Bride’s husband.

But I am a coward, and I confess my guilt. This order I disobeyed, and so violated Article Twenty-Two. Instead, in my panic, I made to escape in one of the cutters now trailing behind the Confidence. I had to get away.

But the Bride saw this. She must have called out, for Prescott and a pair of deckhands surrounded me. Phineas Grue was one, his breath still strong enough to curl a man’s toes. Before I found the King’s shilling in my ale, Sirs, the whoring life had taught me few things of value, but brawling was one of these. So when he came for me I treated him to a solid crack across the jawbone for his trouble, and so violated Article Twenty-Three.

We shuddered to a stop just as I made to dive overboard. I fell, knocking my crown on the deck. A deckhand pinned my arms from behind when I tried to stand. Prescott rounded on me.

Past his shoulder I glimpsed tendrils of seaweed and filth slithering over the bow. It should have been the last sight of my life.

But just as Prescott drew his sword to skewer me, Slade handed the captain a jar of grey slime.

I knew right then that Phineas’s secret drink hadn’t been rum after all. He’d been drinking Thomson’s pickling alcohol. But with those casks locked away in the hold, he’d been forced to sip from the sample jars, mayhap replacing the remainder with bilge water as he went. Whatever he’d done, it had ruined the Bride’s trophy, for Rogers’s heart had rotted away.

She yanked the jar from Captain Nares, smashing it to the deck. Her head tipped back, back, back, and the curtain of tendrils on her face fluttered as though in a vicious gale. Seamen and officers alike dropped to the deck, clutching bloodied ears.

The Bride speared Captain Nares square in the chest with a single tentacle. Then she unravelled, and smothered his screams under a putrid mass while she tore a new trophy, still beating, from his body.

The tendrils streaming over the bow took new forms, each like the Bride herself, and started feeding on the crew. I nearly became a meal myself, and had to wrest the sword from Lieutenant Prescott to fend them off. One by one they claimed the crew’s hearts. And just as in my dreams, I sensed the chanting, sensed it not with my ears but deep in the marrow of my bones. With every heart they took, that chanting grew more feverish.

Why? I do not know, Sirs. Perhaps they meant to feed their trophies to that thing stirring in the deep, as a mother suckles a newborn.

They swarmed around us, but I couldn’t dive for a cutter, for the very sea was alive with tentacles that whipped the water into a froth. The Confidence reared back, tossing me aft. Then she smashed the waves and I tumbled fore again. A cavernous maw emerged from the sea, half again the height of the mainmast.

I glimpsed that thing no more than a blink, but I’ll not forget it. Look at my sketch, Sirs, and you’ll know why.

Merely abandoning the Confidence would not save me. I had to kill as many of these beasts as I could if I wished to make my escape. And if I died in the attempt then at least I’d have died a proper mariner’s death, and not in some monster’s gullet.

I fought my way to the hatch, my goal the forward magazine. So many vines of seaweed did I slice that I felt like an explorer hacking his way through the jungles of darkest Africa. Prescott’s sword was black with slime by the time I got below deck.

The magazine sentries had abandoned their posts, and for this I was grateful. I had no wish to cut down my own crewmates. I smashed the magazine window with the hilt of Prescott’s sword, then flung the magazine lanthorn inside.

Again I’m guilty, Sirs, for I thus violated Article Twenty-Five and set fire to the magazine, and so did deliberate harm to a ship of His Majesty’s Royal Navy.

I dashed back to the deck with all haste as the Confidence shuddered under the weight of the thing that now consumed her up to the foremast. Tentacles lined with suckers, stingers, and hooks flailed at me as I made for the taffrail. They grasped my ankles and my wrist, but I’d not be here now had they gained my sword-arm, too.

The magazine blew before I could dive overboard, and the Confidence‘s bow erupted in smoke and fire.

The blast hurled me into the sea, battered and bleeding. Bits of stinking wrack and charred timber rained upon me while I gained the nearest cutter. I released the boat and started rowing.

I watched her sink, Sirs. The smoking ruins of the Confidence slid into the sea, ferrying the remains of that giant beast back to the depths. I rowed long after she disappeared beneath the waves, paying no mind to the lash wounds upon my back, so desperate was I to put the horizon between me and the last resting place of the Confidence.

Little crumbs of sargassum, debris from the explosion, swirled around the oars as I rowed. But they stayed abreast of the cutter even when the only sign of our frigate was a distant smear of black smoke on the blue sky, well outside the range of the blast. The sea behind the cutter turned green, then black, as more seaweed collected in my wake. And it kept pace with me, Sirs, no matter how hard I rowed.

I collapsed from exhaustion near sunset, and remember nothing more until I awoke aboard the Vigilant.

I tried to tell my tale, but the Vigilant‘s surgeon deemed me feverish, so he plied me with sleeping draughts as Wythe had done. Even so, I found no rest. Closing my eyes put me back in the abyss where still it echoed with that damnable chanting.

Though I had no fever, I feigned delirium when the surgeon made to move me. I could not bear to go up top, out of fear I’d find a message writ upon the waters. Only when we reached Portsmouth did I venture outside. And it was there, just as I knew it would be: a ribbon of black ooze stretching from the harbour to across the sea.

So I beg you, Sirs, and pray you will not deafen your ears to me. She lurks even now in the uncharted depths and will rise again when she has healed.

I, Samuel Frobisher, do hereby swear that events upon the Confidence transpired as I have stated.

God save the King.

Ramsey Campbell

AT LORN HALL

RAMSEY CAMPBELL lives on Merseyside with his wife Jenny. Described by the Oxford Companion to English Literature as “Britain’s most respected living horror writer”, he has been given more awards than any other writer in the field, including Lifetime Achievement Awards from the World Fantasy Convention and Horror Writers Association, the Grand Master Award of the World Horror Convention and the Living Legend Award of the International Horror Guild. In 2015 he was made an Honorary Fellow of Liverpool John Moores University for outstanding services to literature.

Amongst his novels are The Face That Must Die, Incarnate, Midnight Sun, The Count of Eleven, Silent Children, The Darkest Part of the Woods, The Overnight, Secret Story, The Grin of the Dark, Thieving Fear, Creatures of the Pool, The Seven Days of Cain, Ghosts Know, The Kind Folk and Think Yourself Lucky. Forthcoming is Thirteen Days by Sunset Beach, and he is working on a trilogy, The Three Births of Daoloth. His novels The Nameless and Pact of the Fathers have been filmed in Spain.

Needing Ghosts, The Last Revelation of Gla’aki and The Pretence are novellas. His collections include Waking Nightmares, Alone with the Horrors, Ghosts and Grisly Things, Told by the Dead, Just Behind You and Holes for Faces, and his non-fiction is collected as Ramsey Campbell, Probably. His regular columns appear in Dead Reckonings and Video Watchdog, and he is the President of the Society of Fantastic Films.

“I don’t use audio guides when I’m visiting a place,” Campbell reveals. “I’d rather appreciate the architecture, or the contents or whatever’s there to be enjoyed, without an added soundtrack.

“While I don’t find other visitors’ use of headsets distracting or infuriating in the same way as personal stereos on public transport (where I’ve no wish to be treated to the insistent sneezing of percussion as I try to read a book), I do sometimes wonder what their users may be hearing and what might happen if the commentary turned stranger.

“That’s the kind of train of thought that leads to stories, and here’s where I ended up. The setting was suggested by Plas Teg, the haunted mansion between Wrexham and Mold.”

RANDOLPH HADN’T EXPECTED the map to misrepresent the route to the motorway quite so much. The roads were considerably straighter on the page. At least it was preferable to being directed by a machine on the dashboard, which would have reminded him of being told by Harriet that he’d gone wrong yet again, even when he knew where he was going. Although it oughtn’t to be dark for hours, the April sky beyond a line of lurid hills had begun to resemble a charcoal slab. He was braking as the road meandered between sullen fields of rape when he had to switch the headlights on. The high beams roused swarms of shadows in the hedges and glinted on elongated warnings of bends ahead, and then the light found a signpost. It pointed down a lane to somewhere called Lorn Hall.

He stopped the Volvo and turned on the hazard lights. The sign looked neglected except by birds, which had left traces of their visits, but Lorn Hall sounded like the kind of place he liked to wander around. The children never did, complaining to Harriet if he even tried to take them anywhere like that on the days he had them. They loved being driven in the rain—the stormier the better, however nearly blind it made him feel—and so he couldn’t help feeling relieved that they weren’t with him to insist. He could shelter in the mansion until the storm passed over. He quelled the twitching of the lights and drove along the lane.

Five minutes’ worth of bends enclosed by hulking spiky hedges brought him to a wider stretch of road. As it grew straight he glimpsed railings embedded in the left-hand hedge, rusting the leaves. Over the thorns and metal spikes surrounded by barbs he saw sections of an irregular roof patrolled by crows. Another minute brought him to the gateway of Lorn Hall.

He couldn’t have given a name to the style of the high broad house. Perhaps the stone was darkened by the approaching storm, but he thought it would have looked leaden even in sunlight. At the right-hand end of the building a three-storey barrel put him in mind of a clenched fist with bricks for grey knuckles. Far less than halfway from it on the unadorned frontage, a door twice as tall as a man stood beneath a pointed arch reminiscent of a mausoleum. Five sets of windows each grew smaller as they mounted to the roofs, where chimneys towered among an assortment of slate peaks. Even the largest of the ground-floor windows were enmeshed with lattices, and every window was draped with curtains to which the gloom lent the look of dusty cobwebs. Apart from an unmarked whitish van parked near the front door there was no sign of life.

The signpost had surely been addressed to sightseers, and the formidable iron gates were bolted open, staining the weedy gravel of the drive. One of the gateposts in the clutch of the hedge had lost its stone globe, which poked its dome bewigged with lichen out of the untended lawn. Ivy overgrew sections of the lawn and spilled onto the drive. The shapes the topiary bushes had been meant to keep were beyond guessing; they looked fattened and deformed by age. If Harriet had been with him she would have insisted on leaving by now, not to mention protesting that the detour was a waste of time. This was another reason he drove up to the house.

Did the curtains stir as he drew up beside the van? He must have seen shadows cast by the headlamps, because the movements at all three windows to the left of the front door had been identical. Nobody had ducked out of sight in the van either. Randolph turned off the lights and the engine, pocketing his keys as he turned to face the mansion. The sky had grown so stuffed with darkness that he didn’t immediately see the front door was ajar.

To its left, where he might have looked for a doorbell, a tarnished blotchy plaque said LORN HALL. The door displayed no bell or knocker, just a greenish plaque that bore the legend RESIDENCE OF CROWCROSS. “Lord Crowcross,” Randolph murmured as though it might gain some significance for him if not summon its owner to the door. As he tried to recall ever having previously heard the name he felt a chill touch as thin as a fingernail on the back of his neck. It was a raindrop, which sent him to push the heavy door wide.

The door had lumbered just a few inches across the stone flags when it met an obstruction. Randolph might have fancied that somebody determined but enfeebled was bent on shutting him out, perhaps having dropped to all fours. The hindrance proved to be a greyish walking boot that had toppled over from its place against the wall. Several pairs grey with a mixture of dried mud and dust stood in the gloomy porch. “Don’t go any further,” Harriet would have been saying by now, “you don’t know if you’re invited,” but Randolph struggled around the door and kicked the boot against the wall. As he made for the archway on the far side of the porch, light greeted him.

Little else did. His approach had triggered a single yellowish bulb that strove to illuminate a large room. Opposite the arch an empty chair upholstered in a pattern so faded it wasn’t worth distinguishing stood behind a bulky desk. Apart from a blotter like a plot of moss and earth, the desk was occupied by a pair of cardboard boxes and scattered with a few crumpled pamphlets for local attractions. The box that was inscribed HONESTY in an extravagantly cursive script contained three coins adding up to five pounds and so thoroughly stuck to the bottom that they were framed by glue. The carton marked TOUR in the same handwriting was cluttered with half a dozen sets of headphones. As Randolph dug in his pockets for change, his host watched him.

The man was in a portrait, which hung on the grey stone wall behind the desk it dwarfed. He stood in tweed and jodhpurs on a hill. With one hand flattened on his hip he seemed less to be surveying the landscape in the foreground of the picture than to be making his claim on it clear. The wide fields scattered with trees led to Lorn Hall. Although his fleshy face looked satisfied in every way, the full almost pouting lips apparently found it redundant to smile. His eyes were as blue as the summer sky above him, and included the viewer in their gaze. Was he less of an artist than he thought, or was he meant to tower over the foreshortened perspective? Randolph had guessed who he was, since the C that signed the lower left-hand corner of the canvas was in the familiar handwriting. “My lord,” Randolph murmured as he dropped coins in the box.

The clink of metal didn’t bring anyone to explain the state of the headphones. They weren’t just dusty; as he rummaged through them, a leggy denizen scrabbled out of the box and fell off the desk to scuttle into the shadows. “That’s very much more than enough,” Harriet would have said to him in the way she did not much more often to their children. If you weren’t adventurous you weren’t much at all, and the gust of wind that slammed the front door helped Randolph stick to his decision. Having wiped the least dusty set of headphones with a pamphlet for a penal museum, he turned them over in his hands but couldn’t find a switch. As he fitted them gingerly over his ears a voice said “You’ll excuse my greeting you in person.”

Nobody was visible beyond the open door beside the painting, only darkness. The voice seemed close yet oddly distant, pronouncing every consonant but so modulated it implied the speaker hardly cared if he was heard. “Do move on once you’ve taken in my portrait,” he said. “There may be others awaiting their turn.”

“There’s only me,” Randolph pointed out and stared with some defiance at the portrait. If Lord Crowcross had taught himself to paint, he wasn’t the ideal choice of teacher. The landscape was a not especially able sketch that might have been copied from a photograph, and the figure was unjustifiably large. The artist appeared to have spent most time on the face, and Randolph was returning its gaze when Crowcross said “Do move on once you’ve taken in my portrait. There may be others awaiting their turn.”

“I already told you I’m on my own,” Randolph protested. The headphones must be geared to the listener’s position in the house, but the technology seemed incongruous, as out of place as Randolph was determined not to let the commentary make him feel. “I’m on my way,” he said and headed for the next room.

He’d barely stepped over the stone threshold when the light went out behind him. “Saving on the bills, are we?” he muttered as he was left in the dark. In another second his arrival roused more lights—one in each corner of an extensive high-ceilinged room. “This is where the family would gather of an evening,” Crowcross said in both his ears. “We might entertain our peers here, such as were left. I am afraid our way of life lost favour in my lifetime, and the country is much poorer.”

The room was furnished with senile obese sofas and equally faded over-weight armchairs, all patterned with swarms of letters like the initial on the portrait. A tapestry depicting a hunt occupied most of the wall opposite the windows, which Randolph might have thought were curtained so as to hide the dilapidation from the world. Several decanters close to opaque with dust stood on a sideboard near a massive fireplace, where cobwebbed lumps of coal were piled in the iron cage of the hearth. Had the place been left in this state to remind visitors it had fallen on hard times? Everyone Randolph knew would be ashamed to go in for that trick, whatever their circumstances. Quite a few were desperate to sell their homes, but all his efforts as an estate agent were in vain just now. He turned to find his way out of the room and saw Lord Crowcross watching him.

This time his host was in a painting of the room, though this was clearer from the positions of the furniture than from any care in the depiction. Sketchy figures sat in chairs or sprawled languidly on the couches. Just enough detail had been added to their faces—numerous wrinkles, grey hair—to signify that every one was older than the figure in the middle of the room. He was standing taller than he should in proportion to the others, and his obsessively rendered face appeared to be ignoring them. “Do make your way onwards whenever you’re ready,” he said without moving his petulant lips. “I fear there are no servants to show you around.”

“No wonder the place is in such a state”—or rather the absence of servants was the excuse, and Randolph was tempted to say so. By now Harriet would have been accusing him of risking the children’s health. He loitered to make the voice repeat its message, but this wasn’t as amusing as he’d expected; he could almost have fancied it was hiding impatience if not contempt. “Let’s see what else you’ve got to show me,” he said and tramped out of the room.

All the lights were extinguished at once. He was just able to see that he’d emerged into a broad hallway leading to a staircase wider than his arms could stretch. He smelled damp on stone or wood. By the dim choked glow through doorways on three sides of the hall he made out that the posts at the foot of the steep banisters were carved with cherubs. In the gloom the eyes resembled ebony jewels, but the expressions on the chubby wooden faces were unreadable. “Do continue to the next exhibit,” Crowcross prompted him.

Presumably this meant the nearest room. Randolph paced to the left-hand doorway and planted a foot on the threshold, but had to take several steps forward before the light acknowledged him. Fewer than half the bulbs in the elaborate chandelier above the long table lit up. “This is where the family would dine in style,” Crowcross said, “apart from the youngest member.”

The table was set for ten people. Dusty plates and silver utensils stained with age lay on the extravagantly lacy yellowed tablecloth. Like the upholstery of all the chairs, every plate was marked with C. Doilies to which spiders had lent extra patterns were spread on a sideboard, opposite which a painting took most of the place of a tapestry that had left its outline on the stone wall. Although the painting might have depicted a typical dinner at Lorn Hall, Randolph thought it portrayed something else. Of the figures seated at the table, only the one at the head of the table possessed much substance. The familiar face was turned away from his sketchy fellow diners to watch whoever was in the actual room, while a servant with a salver waited on either side of him. “Subsequently the situation was reversed,” Crowcross said, “and I made the place my own.”

Was the painting meant to remind him of the family he’d lost—to provide companionship in his old age? Randolph was trying to see it in those terms when the pinched voice said “By all means make your way onwards.” He could do without a repetition, and he made for the hall. As the chandelier went dark he glimpsed somebody turning the bend of the staircase.

“Excuse me,” Randolph called, moving the earpiece away from his right ear, but the other didn’t respond. If they were wearing headphones too they might not have heard him. He’d only wanted to ask whether they knew what time the house closed to the public. At least he wasn’t alone in it, and he picked his way along the hall to the kitchen, where part of the darkness seemed to remain solid as the weary light woke up.

It was a massive black iron range that dominated the grey room. A dormant fragment of the blackness came to life, waving its feelers as it darted into one of the round holes in the top of the range. How long had the kitchen been out of use? Surely nobody would put up with such conditions now. Chipped blotchy marble surfaces and a pair of freezers—one a head taller than Randolph, its twin lying horizontal—might be responsible for some of the chill that met him. A solitary cleaver lay on a ponderous table, which looked not just scored by centuries of knife strokes but in places hacked to splinters. Randolph looked around for a portrait, but perhaps Crowcross felt the kitchen was undeserving of his presence. “My father enjoyed watching the maids at their work,” he said. “Red-handed skivvies, he called them. I did myself. Since then the world has changed so radically that their like have been among the visitors. Perhaps you are of their kind.”

“Not at all,” Randolph objected and felt absurd, not least because he suspected that Crowcross might have disagreed with him. He was searching for some trace of the people who’d worked here—initials carved on the table, for instance—when Crowcross said “There is no more to see here. Let us move on.”

He sounded like a parody of a policeman—an officious one used to being obeyed. Randolph couldn’t resist lingering to force him to say it again, and might easily have thought a hint of petulance had crept into the repetition. The light failed before Randolph was entirely out of the kitchen, but he glimpsed a door he’d overlooked in the underside of the staircase. As he reached for the heavy doorknob Crowcross said “Nothing of interest is kept down there. I never understood its appeal for my father.”

Perhaps Randolph did, assuming the servants’ quarters were below. He wondered how his guide’s mother had felt about the arrangement. The scalloped doorknob wouldn’t turn even when he applied both hands to it. As he looked for a key in the thick dust along the lintel Crowcross spoke. “I have told you nothing has remained. Let us see where I was a child.”

His petulance was unmistakable. No doubt the basement rooms would be unlit in any case. Randolph was making his way past the stairs when he heard whoever else was in the house shuffling along an upper corridor. He wondered if there was more light up there, since the footfalls were surer than his own. They receded out of earshot as he pushed open the door of the turret room.

The room was lit, though nothing like immediately, by a single bare bulb on a cobwebbed flex. The round aloof ceiling caught much of the light, and Randolph suspected that even with the curtains open the room might have seemed like a cell to a child. It was furnished with a desk and a table in proportion, each attended by a starkly straight chair. While the table was set for a solitary meal, it had space for a pile of books: an infant’s primer on top, a children’s encyclopaedia many decades old at the bottom. Even when Randolph made the children read instead of playing, Harriet rarely agreed with his choice of books. The stone floor was scattered with building blocks, a large wooden jigsaw depicting a pastoral scene, an abacus, a picture book with pages thick as rashers, open to show a string like a scrawny umbilical cord dangling from the belly of a pig spotted with mould. The desk was strewn with exercise books that displayed the evolution of the omnipresent handwriting; one double page swarmed with a C well on its way to resembling the letter that seemed almost to infest the mansion. “This is where I spent the years in growing worthy of my name,” said Crowcross. “In our day parents hired their delegates and kept them on the premises. Now the care of children is another industry, one more product of the revolution that has overtaken the country by stealth.”

Above the desk a painting showed the room much as it was now, if somewhat brighter and more insubstantial. Crowcross stood between rudimentary impressions of the table and the desk. His arms were folded, and he might have been playing a teacher, except that nobody else was in the room—at least, not in the picture of it. “If you have learned everything you feel entitled to know,” he said, “let us go up.”

Did Randolph want to bother going on, given the condition of the house? Harriet certainly wouldn’t have, even if the children weren’t with them. He’d had nothing like his money’s worth yet, unless he retrieved the payment on his way out. Perhaps the person upstairs might know more about the history of Lorn Hall, and Randolph didn’t mind admitting to a guilty fascination, not least with the companion at his ear. “If you have learned everything you feel,” Crowcross said and fell silent as Randolph left the room.

He was on the lowest stair when he noticed that the cherub on the banister had no wings. Somebody had chopped them off, leaving unequal stumps, and he couldn’t help suspecting that the vandal had been Crowcross, perhaps since he’d found himself alone in Lorn Hall, the last of his line. He had the uneasy notion that Crowcross was about to refer to if not justify the damage. “If you have learned,” the voice said before he could let go of the shaky banister.

From the bend in the stairs he saw the upper corridor, just about illuminated by the dimness beyond several doorways. Whoever he’d glimpsed on the stairs wasn’t to be seen, and no light suggested they were in a room. Presumably they were at the top of the house by now. Barely glancing at a second mutilated cherub, Randolph made for the nearest room along the corridor.

Its principal item was an enormous four-poster bed. Burdened by plaster sloughed by the ceiling, the canopy sagged like an ancient cobweb. More plaster glistened on an immense dressing-table and an upholstered chair that must once have looked muscular. Most of the light from the few live bulbs in the chandelier fell short of a side room, where Randolph was just able to distinguish a marble bath with blackened taps and a pallid hand gripping the side to haul its owner into view, but that was a crumpled cloth. “You are in the master bedroom,” Crowcross said tonelessly enough to be addressing an intruder. “Would you expect the master to have left more of a mark?”

His portrait showed him gripping the left-hand bedpost. As well as declaring ownership he gave the impression of awaiting a companion—watching with feigned patience for someone to appear in the doorway at Randolph’s back. His imperiousness was somewhat undermined by crumbs of plaster adorning the top of the picture frame. “Will you know what robs a man of mastery?” he said. “Pray accompany me along the corridor.”

Randolph couldn’t help feeling relieved not to be given the tour by his host in the flesh. He suspected the commentary had been recorded late in the man’s life—when he was turning senile, perhaps. The chandelier in the next room contained even fewer bulbs, which faltered alight to outline another bed. Its posts were slimmer than its neighbour’s, and the canopy was more delicate, which meant it looked close to collapsing under the weight of debris. Had a fall of plaster smashed the dressing-table mirror? Randolph could see only shards of glass among the dusty cosmetic items. “Here you see the private suite of the last Lady Crowcross,” the voice said. “I fear that the ways of our family were not to her taste.”

He held a bedpost in his left fist, but it was unclear which bedroom he was in. His depiction of himself was virtually identical with the one next door. A figure identifiable as a woman by the long hair draped over the pillow lay in the sketch of a bed. Randolph couldn’t judge if Crowcross had given her a face, because where one should be was a dark stain, possibly the result of the age and state of the painting. “Please don’t exert yourself to look for any signs of children,” Crowcross said. “They were taken long ago. My lady disagreed with the Crowcross methods and found another of our fairer counterparts to plead her case.”

“I know the feeling,” Randolph said, immediately regretting the response. There was no point in being bitter; he told himself so every time he had the children and whenever he had to give them up. As he caught sight of the bathroom shower, which was so antiquated that the iron cage put him in mind of some medieval punishment, Crowcross said “You’ll have none of the little dears about you, I suppose. They must conduct themselves appropriately in this house.”

While Randolph thought his and Harriet’s children might have passed the test, at least if they’d been with him, he was glad not to have to offer proof. As he made for the corridor he glimpsed a trickle of moisture or some livelier object running down a bar of the shower cage. “That’s the style,” said Crow-cross. “There’s nothing worthy of attention here if you’ve taken in my work.”

It almost sounded as though the guide was aware of Randolph’s movements. To an extent this was how the commentary operated, but could it really be so specific? He was tempted to learn how it would react if he stayed in the room, but when the lit bulbs flickered in unison as though to urge him onwards he retreated into the corridor.

The adjacent room was the last on this side. Shadows swarmed and fluttered among the dead bulbs as the chandelier struggled to find life. All the furniture was stout and dark, the bedposts included. One corner of the laden canopy had almost torn loose. The room smelled dank, so that Randolph wouldn’t have been surprised to see moisture on the stone walls. “This was the sanctum of the eldest Crowcross,” the voice said. “His wife’s quarters were across the corridor.”

Presumably the portrait was meant to demonstrate how the room had become his. He was at the window, holding back the curtain to exhibit or lay claim to a version of the landscape in summer. His eyes were still on his audience; Randolph was beginning to feel as if the gaze never left him. He was meeting it and waiting for the next words when he heard a vehicle start up outside the house.

The bedposts shook like dislocated bones as he dashed across the room, and debris shifted with a stony whisper. The gap between the curtains was scarcely a finger’s width. They felt capable of leaving handfuls of sodden heavy fabric in his grasp, and he knew where at least some of the smell came from. As he dragged them apart the rings twitched rustily along the metal rail. He craned forward, keeping well clear of the windowsill, which was scattered with dead flies like seeds of some unwelcome growth. The grid of cramped panes was coated with grime and crawling with raindrops, so that he was only just able to make out the grounds. Then, beyond the misshapen bloated topiary, he saw movement—the van near which he’d parked. Its outline wavered as it sped along the drive and picked up speed on the road.

Was Randolph alone in the house now? In that case, how had the driver sneaked past him? As the van disappeared into the rainswept gloom Crowcross said “Will you see the woman’s quarters now? Everything is open to you, no matter what your pedigree.”

How distasteful was this meant to sound? Randolph might have had enough by now except for the weather. He felt as if he was ensuring he outran the voice by hurrying across the corridor. A few bulbs sputtered alight in their cobwebbed crystal nest to show him yet another dilapidated bed. A hole had rotted in the canopy, dumping plaster on the stained bedclothes. Crowcross was holding a bedpost again, and a careless scribble behind him suggested that someone had just left the sketched bed. “Any little treasures would be barred from all these rooms,” he said. “Have any found their way in now? Do keep an eye on their behaviour. We don’t want any damage.”

“I think you’re having a bit of a joke,” Randolph said. How senile had the speaker been by the time he’d recorded the commentary? Had he been seeing his home as it used to be? The light stuttered, rousing shadows in the bathroom and enlivening a muddy trickle on the initialled tiles above the marble trough. “If you have had your pleasure,” Crowcross said, “the eldest breathed their last next door.”

“My pleasure,” Randolph retorted, and it was a question too.

The chandelier in the adjacent room lacked several bulbs. In the pensioned light a pair of four-posters occupied much of the cheerless space. Although the canopies were intact, the supports showed their age, some of the thinner ones bowing inwards. “They came here to grow as old as they could,” Crowcross said. “Tell any little cherubs that, and how they had to stay together while they did.”

Randolph thought the commentary had turned childish in the wrong way, if indeed there was a right one. He’d begun to feel it was no longer addressed to him or any listener, especially once Crowcross muttered “And then older.”

The beds were flanked by massive wardrobes almost as dark outside as in. Both were open just enough to let Randolph distinguish shapes within. The figure with a dwarfish puffy head and dangling arms that were longer than its legs was a suit on a padded hanger. Its opposite number resembled a life-size cut-out of a woman drained of colour—just a long white dress, not a shroud. Nobody was about to poke a face around either of the doors, however much Randolph was reminded of a game of hide and seek. He’d never prevented the children from playing that, even if he might have in Lorn Hall. As he did his best to finish peering at the wardrobes Crowcross said “Are you still hoping for diversions? They await your judgement.”

Randolph was starting to feel like the butt of a joke he wasn’t expected to appreciate, since Crowcross didn’t seem to think much of his visitors, let alone their views. When a pair of the lamps in the next room jittered alight, a ball on the billiard table shot into the nearest pocket. Of course only its legs had made it look as large as a billiard ball. Packs of battered cards were strewn across a table patched with baize, and cobwebs had overtaken a game of chess, where chipped marble chessmen lay in the dust beside the board. “This is where games were played,” Crowcross said, “by those who had the privilege. Mine was waiting, and in the end I won.”

He might have been talking to himself again, and resentfully at that. “We haven’t seen your room yet,” Randolph said and wondered if all of them had been. “You aren’t ashamed of it, are you? It’s a bit late to be ashamed.”

He was heading for the turret room when Crowcross said “Eager to see where I was visited by dreams? Since then they have had the run of the house.”

After a pause the room was illuminated by a stark grubby bulb. A bed with no posts and less than half the size of any of the others stood in the middle of the stone floor. The only other furniture was a wardrobe and a comparably sombre dressing-table with a mirror so low it cut Randolph off above the waist. Perhaps the soft toys huddled on the pillow had at some stage been intended to make the room more welcoming, but that wasn’t their effect now. The pair of teddy bears and the lamb with boneless legs had all acquired red clownish mouths that contradicted their expressions. So much paint had been applied that it still resembled fresh blood.

They were in the portrait, where their sketched faces looked disconcertingly human. Perhaps the alterations to the actual toys had been a kind of preliminary study. Crowcross stood at the sunlit window, beyond which a distant figure stooped, hands outstretched. “I used to love watching the keepers trap their prey,” Crowcross said. “They are put here for our pleasure and our use.”

As Randolph turned away he saw what the painting didn’t show. The toys on the pillow almost hid the clasped pair of hands protruding from beneath the quilt, which was blotched with mould. No, they were wings, none too expertly severed from the body—a pair of wooden wings. “This could have been a child’s room,” Crowcross mused. “We always raised our children to be men.”

“Don’t we talk about girls? I thought I was supposed to be unreasonable but my dear lord, my wife ought to listen to you,” Randolph said and seemed to hear a confused violent noise in response. The window was shuddering under an onslaught of rain. He turned his back to all the eyes watching him—the portrait’s and those of the disfigured toys, which were exactly as blank—and heard soft rapid footfalls on the stairs above him.

They were shuffling along the top corridor by the time he reached the staircase. “Excuse me, could you wait?” he shouted, raising the other head-phone from his ear as he dashed upstairs so fast that he couldn’t have said whether one cherub’s face was splintered beyond recognition. Whenever he grabbed the banister, it wobbled with a bony clatter of its uprights. In a few seconds he saw that the top corridor was deserted.

None of the rooms showed a light. Perhaps whoever was about was trying to fix one, since otherwise their presence would have triggered it. Perhaps they were too busy to answer Randolph. Had the driver of the van been in the house at all? Presumably the person Randolph had glimpsed earlier was up here now. They couldn’t have gone far, and he made for the turret room in the hope of finding them.

He saw he was alone once the meagre light recognised him. A lectern stood beside an imposing telescope that was pointed at the window. Astronomical charts—some crumpled, others chewed or torn to shreds—lay on the floor. “I never saw the appeal of the stars,” Crowcross said, more distantly now. “I’ve no wish to be reminded of the dead. They say that’s how old their light is. I preferred to watch the parade of the world. The glass brought it close enough for my taste.”

He could have used the telescope to spy on the grounds and the road. Beyond the blurred fields Randolph saw an endless chain of watery lights being drawn at speed along the horizon. It was the motorway, where he promised himself he’d be soon, but he could finish exploring while he waited for the rain to stop, particularly since the family wasn’t with him. He left the turret room with barely a glance at the portrait in which Crowcross appeared to be stroking the barrel of the telescope as if it were a pet animal.

The next room was a library. Shelves of bound sets of fat volumes covered every wall up to the roof. Each volume was embossed with a C like a brand at the base of its spine. More than one high shelf had tipped over with the weight of books or the carelessness with which they’d been placed, so that dozens of books were sprawled about the floor in a jumble of dislocated pages. A ladder with rusty wheels towered over several stocky leather armchairs mottled with decay. “This might be tidier,” said Crowcross. “Perhaps that could be your job.”

What kind of joke was this meant to be? Randolph wondered if the last lord of Lorn Hall could have pulled the books down in a fury at having nowhere to hang his portrait. He couldn’t have done much if any reading in here unless there had been more light than the one remaining bulb provided. It was enough to show that Randolph was still alone, and he dodged across the corridor.

An unshaded bulb on a cobwebbed flex took its time over revealing a bedroom. All four bedposts leaned so far inwards that they could have been trying to grasp the light or fend it off. The canopy lay in a heap on the bed. Although Randolph thought he’d glimpsed clothes hanging in the tall black wardrobe as the light came on, once he blinked at the glare he could see nothing except gloom beyond the scrawny gap—no pale garment for somebody bigger than he was, no wads of tissue paper stuffed into the cuffs and collar. “This could be made fit for guests again,” Crowcross said. “Would you consider it to be your place?”

He sounded as furtively amused as he looked in his portrait, which showed him standing in the doorway of the room, gazing at whoever was within. It made Randolph glance behind him, even though he knew the corridor was empty. “I wouldn’t be a guest of yours,” he blurted, only to realise that in a sense he was. Almost too irritated to think, he tramped out of the room.

Next door was a bedroom very reminiscent of its neighbour. The fallen canopy of the four-poster was so rotten it appeared to have begun merging with the quilt. The portrait beyond the bed was virtually identical with the last one, and the light could have been competing at reluctance with its peers. Nothing was visible in the half-open wardrobe except padded hangers like bones fattened by dust. Randolph was about to move on when Crowcross said “This could be made fit for guests again. Would you consider it to be your place?”

The repetition sounded senile, and it seemed to cling to Randolph’s brain. As he lurched towards the corridor Crowcross added “Will you make yourself at home?”

It had none of the tone of an invitation, and Randolph wasn’t about to linger. Whoever else was upstairs had to be in the last room. “Have you seen all you choose?” Crowcross said while Randolph crossed the corridor. “See the rest, then.”

The last room stayed dark until Randolph shoved the door wider, and then the lights began to respond—more of them than he thought he’d seen during the rest of the tour. The room was larger than both its neighbours combined, and graced with several chandeliers that he suspected had been replaced by solitary bulbs elsewhere in the house. They were wired low on the walls and lay on the floor, casting more shadow than illumination as he peered about the room.

It was cluttered with retired items. Rolled-up tapestries drooped against the walls, and so did numerous carpets and rugs, suggesting that someone had chosen to rob Lorn Hall of warmth. Several battered grandfather clocks stood like sentries over wooden crates and trunks that must have taken two servants apiece to carry them, even when they were empty of luggage. Smaller clocks perched on rickety pieces of furniture or lurked on the floorboards, and Randolph couldn’t help fancying that somebody had tried to leave time up here to die. Crouching shadows outnumbered the objects he could see, but he appeared to be alone. As he narrowed his eyes Crowcross said “Here is where I liked to hide. Perhaps I still do.”

“I would if I were you,” Randolph said without having a precise retort in mind. He’d noticed a number of paintings stacked against the wall at the far end of the room. Were they pictures Crowcross had replaced with his own, or examples of his work he didn’t want visitors to see? Randolph picked his way across the floor, almost treading on more than one photograph in the dimness—they’d slipped from unsteady heaps of framed pictures which, as far as he could make out, all showed members of the Crowcross family. Even the glass on the topmost pictures in the heaps was shattered. He’d decided to postpone understanding the damage until he was out of the room when he reached the paintings against the wall.

Though the light from the nearest chandelier was obstructed by the clutter, the image on the foremost canvas was plain enough. It portrayed Crowcross in a field, his arms folded, one foot on a prone man’s neck. He looked not so much triumphant as complacent. The victim’s face was either turned away submissively or buried in the earth, and his only distinguishing feature was the C embossed on his naked back. It wasn’t a painting from life, Randolph told himself; it was just a symbol or a fantasy, either of which was bad enough. He was about to tilt the canvas forward to expose the next when Crowcross spoke. “The last,” he said.

Did he mean a painting or the room, or did the phrase have another significance? Randolph wasn’t going to be daunted until he saw what Crowcross had tried to conceal, but as he took hold of a corner of the frame the portrait was invaded by darkness. A light had been extinguished at his back—no, more than one—and too late he realised something else. Because the headphones weren’t over his ears any more he’d mistaken the direction of the voice. It was behind him.

The room seemed to swivel giddily as he did. The figure that almost filled the doorway was disconcertingly familiar, and not just from the versions in the paintings; he’d glimpsed it skulking in the wardrobe. It wore a baggy nightshirt no less pallid and discoloured than its skin. Its face was as stiff as it appeared in any of the portraits, and the unblinking eyes were blank as lumps of greyish paint. The face had lolled in every direction it could find, much like the contents of the rest of the visible skin—the bare arms, the legs above the clawed feet. When the puffy white lips parted Randolph thought the mouth was in danger of losing more than its shape. As the figure shuffled forward he heard some of the substance of the unshod feet slopping against the floor. Just as its progress extinguished the rest of the lights it spoke with more enthusiasm than he’d heard from it anywhere else in the house. “Game,” it said.

Lavie Tidhar

SELFIES

LAVIE TIDHAR is the author of the Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize-winning A Man Lies Dreaming, the World Fantasy Award-winning Osama, and The Violent Century. His other works include the “Bookman Histories” trilogy, several novellas, two collections and a forthcoming comics mini-series, Adler. He currently lives in London.

“I had the idea for ‘Selfies’ as a sort of modern horror film,” recalls the author, “inspired in part, I suspect, by Ringu; but I wasn’t sure what to do with it.

“In the end I wrote it as a short story. The main challenge was getting the structure right, and it took me some time to figure out how the ‘pictures’ would work. It was also fun to incorporate the idea of mimicry in objects (a throwaway to Avram Davidson’s 1958 story ‘Or All the Seas with Oysters’?) as well as the nonsensical Lovecraftian ‘mad Jesuit’ etc bit.

“Farnsworth is both a reference to—naturally—Farnsworth Wright, the famous editor of Weird Tales, and also a wink to the writer Christopher Farnsworth, as I’d promised to put him into something. Apparently, he’s written me into an upcoming novel as some mad Mossad agent as revenge!”

#733

IN ONE OF the last pictures I am running. I am running down the street and it is dark, the street lamps are dim and the light oozes down sickly and yellow. I can feel my heart almost bursting in my chest, the taste in my mouth of something sour and unpleasant. I’m running as fast as I can. I have to get away.

The moon is a sickle moon. Its cheek is pockmarked with acne scars. It looks down on me, it hangs overhead like a malformed knife. They’re running behind me and they’re gaining. They’re not even running hard. They spread out around me, they match their pace to mine, easily, without effort. They whisper my name, Ellie, Ellie. Just ahead is the rusty iron gate to the old playground. I used to play on the swings here when I was a little girl. They crowd me here. I don’t know if kids still use it. I stumble through the gate and into the playground. I just have to keep running but I take a picture then, I can’t help it, I take a picture and it’s just me and the gate and that sickle moon, and no one at all behind me.

“I heard this story about a girl who went mad a few months ago.”

“What girl?”

“Her name was Ellie and she was in my year at school. I didn’t see much of her after that until they found her dead at the bottom of the old playground down my street one night, a few months ago.”

“Oh, I’m really sorry.”

“It’s all right, I really didn’t know her that well. What was funny was, when I saw her, it was only for a moment before they zipped up the bag and took her away. It was her face, see. It was the scariest thing I ever saw, her face. Here, look. Just before they zipped her up I took a photo.”

“…”

“That’s disgusting!”

“I didn’t put it on Facebook or anything.”

“Are those eyes?”

“…”

“What is she doing with her mouth?”

“I think she’s screaming. She was still holding her phone when they found her, even though she was broken up pretty bad. My cousin Dan works in the lab and he said there were thousands of pictures on her phone. Thousands and thousands.”

“…”

“He said the police could construct her last few months almost moment by moment following the pictures. They were mostly selfies. But some of them were pretty weird. Dan said maybe someone photoshopped them. After a while they didn’t even make sense.”

“That’s pretty vain, though.”

“I guess.”

“…”

“You know what the really weird thing was, though?”

“What?”

“A couple of days later I was in the supermarket and I thought I saw her. She was standing in the aisle by the cereal shelves and she was talking on her phone. She was holding a box of Crunchy Nuts. I had this really queasy feeling when I saw her. I mean it couldn’t be her, right? Then it was, like, she knew I was standing there and she turned and she gave me this smile. She had these uneven white teeth and she had her hair in this sort of fringe. She used to be really pretty. But when she turned she looked directly at me and it was her eyes. They were like eggshells, without pupils or an iris, they were just entirely white and empty and flat and she smiled.”

“You’re making it up.”

“I had a can of Coke in my hand and it fell down and burst open, and there was a mess. When I looked up again she’d disappeared.”

“Did you pay for the Coke?”

“Yeah, I paid for the Coke. They buried her a few days later. I didn’t go to the funeral. I mean, like I said, I never really knew her all that well, anyway.”

This is right after I buy the phone. The shop behind me has a sign that says PREVIOUSLY OWNED. I don’t know if that is its name or just a description, but it is accurate all the same. I’d gone to the mall, just browsing. At the back of the lower level, all the way back, the shops turn dusty and dark. There’s a baby clothes store that hasn’t seen a baby in years, and a shop for vegan supplies, and a video store that’s permanently shut. I’d not noticed this particular shop before. I go in and it is filled with strange objects and all sorts of knick-knacks, like weird clockwork devices and creepy voodoo dolls and paintings of grotesque creatures like something on the cover of a paperback. At first I don’t see anyone in the shop but then I hear a cough and this weird old guy with a long, almost horse-like face, and pale watery eyes, appears behind the counter, almost like he’d just been somehow cut out of the shadows and given form and pushed into the light, and he coughs again and says, “Can I help you, Miss?”

I say, “I’m just browsing,” and I see his face frown in displeasure and it makes me feel uncomfortable. “You’re very pretty,” he says suddenly, and I think I blush, and I shrug a little uncomfortably.

“No, no, really,” he says.

“Thank you,” I say.

“Here,” he says. He brings something out from behind the counter and it’s so startling in the shop amongst all the old and dusty objects: it’s a brand-new phone. “Do you have one?” he says.

“A phone?”

“A phone like this one.”

“No, no,” I say. “I just have this old thing.”

“Then take this one,” he says. “From me.”

“You mean, for free?”

“No,” he says, and looks at me like I’m dim. “Of course not. I don’t run a charity here.”

“Oh. I mean…”

“Very cheap,” he says, and he pushes the phone at me aggressively. “Take it. Take it!”

He scares me so I take it but as soon as I hold the phone I feel better. It feels so smooth and warm, and it fits snugly into my palm. I swipe across the screen and the icons blink back at me. I barely hear that awful man when he says the price and like in a dream I take out some money and give it to him. He said I was pretty but I guess I never thought of myself as pretty. I mean I didn’t give it much thought one way or another. I step out of the shop and suddenly there is light around me, and air. My finger itches. I hold up the phone in front of me and press the camera button and it’s like something in me wakes up for the first time and something inside me dies—I can’t describe it. I don’t need to. I press the button and there’s the image, instead.

#736

In the last picture, I’m dead.

#112

Funny thing is, I go back to the spot where the shop was a few days later and there is no sign of it. Here’s me standing with a Cinnabon behind me and the guy behind the counter said it’s been there for the past year. In the picture I’m biting my lip and looking worried. I had to keep clicking. I had to keep taking pictures, but the pictures were beginning to lie.

#447

“That was amazing, Ellie!” Noah says. He looks hopped up or something. He gives me this beaming smile.

I say: “What are you talking about?”

I snap a picture. Me standing there looking vaguely irritated, in his kitchen. He has petunias on the windowsill. I don’t like the way the light catches them. They look ill, and the sunlight is all blotchy.

“Last night! You were amazing!” Noah says. “I never even…” he blushes. “Where did you learn to do that?” he whispers. Comes close and puts his arms around me, and I can smell him, the smell of sweat and sex. And I push him away, and I can feel the tears coming, even though I don’t want them to, and I say, “But I wasn’t here last night, Noah, don’t you remember, I went to the movies with Shelly and I stayed at her place,” and he says, “What?” and his hands drop to his sides and then he smiles and says, “You’re just fucking with me,” and I burst into tears and he stands there looking confused and then angry, and he comes to me again and I push him away and I run up the stairs to his bedroom and see the rumpled sheets and, pinned to the mirror, a photo, it must have been taken last night, and I am posing for the camera, naked, one hand held suggestively between my thighs while the other is out of sight, holding the camera. In the picture I am grinning into the camera and my teeth are a predator’s teeth and my eyes are—but there is nothing in my eyes. And I pull the photo from the mirror and I tear it up, into tiny pieces that fall to the floor at my feet.

#73

Dinner with Mum and Dad and Noah. We’re all smiling. Noah has his arm around me and he’s grinning stupidly into the camera and so am I. I’m feeling like there’s a fire inside me, burning from the inside out, like light falling on a negative, and it’s reaching everywhere, it’s touching everything with light.

#501

Me in front of the mirror, but the picture is all wrong. This is after I’d left Noah’s place and gone home. I’m crying as I press the button, but the me in the mirror is smiling.

#210

This photo’s a little blurry because I’m running. I’m on the street and a man is pursuing me.

#209

Blurry as I turn away from the man, who’s still speaking.

#208

He has a nervous excited voice and he keeps shouting about my phone. We’re both caught in the photo and for a moment his face is both almost erotically excited and incredibly terrified.

#207

A man approaches me in the street but he’s not in the photo. He wants to buy my phone. I can’t really understand what he’s saying. He is tall and thin with a straggly beard and he smells as though he hasn’t washed for a few days. He says his name is Farnsworth and that he’s a collector. He keeps asking me where I got my phone and do I know what it is. I tell him it’s just a phone but he doesn’t really listen. He says something about mimic objects, and parasite mechanics, and things that look like other things.

Dark Chamber, he keeps saying, Dark Chamber, a camera obscura. I don’t know what any of it means. I start to turn away from him. I think, from the corner of my eye, I catch my reflection, standing on the street corner, only there is no mirror there.

#600

There is someone standing outside my house under the street lamp but I don’t dare look.

It’s so quiet. It’s so quiet and nothing moves. Nothing moves but I know it’s there. The silence is like a living thing or the echo of living things. It’s like a dark chamber in my room and the only illumination comes from outside. The light presses against the curtains.

Something is standing outside under the lamp.

I pull back the corner of the curtain and I don’t look out but I take a picture.

In the picture something with my face is standing outside and it’s looking back at me and it’s smiling.

#342

Someone had slipped an envelope under my door in the night and when I open it I find a piece of paper inside torn from a book. I’m holding it up next to my face. My eyes are puffy. You can just about make out the letters. It says:

The mad Jesuit, Father Alfonse, in his 16th century manuscript, Umbra Autem Ex Tempore, first wrote of the curious properties of a certain kind of light, or rather shadow, or shadows—it is unclear in view of sometimes contradictory translations. He wrote the manuscript while incarcerated in a monastery in the bogs of Scotland, where he was held for blasphemy for some several years. In it, he describes a device which he claimed to have constructed, a sort of optical instrument or camera obscura, that is to say, a dark chamber, for the capture of such anti-light or shadows, or perhaps, in some translations, notably the French Géroux Manuscript of 1653, a soul.

The mad Jesuit committed suicide, or perhaps was killed, the record is obscure, by falling from the top of the monastery to the bogs down below. How he made his way from the stout walls of the cellars that imprisoned him, to the top, undetected, is unclear, nor was there sign of his device found after his death. Though he himself was eventually found and buried, for many months afterwards local peasants reported the unsettling sight of a man answering Father Alfonse’s description being seen far and wide, sometimes in the midst of night and sometimes, plainly, in the height of day. But the figure never spoke or, if it had, none had recorded its words.

I don’t know what it means, it’s gibberish.

#655

It’s blurry because my hand is shaking so much and you can’t make out anything.

#415

Farnsworth again. I point the phone at him and he shrieks and runs away before I can take his picture so I take mine instead.

#416

And another.

#417

And another.

#418

And another.

And another and with each one I feel better and worse like I am being cut up into a lot of tiny little pieces like bits of me are lost like there is me and me and me and me and another.

#12

Standing in the park in the sunshine with my new phone and I’m so happy and everything is going to be all right.

#469

Me with a crying face. Dark. I have red eyes. It’s night and I’ve just been woken. Farnsworth is outside shouting. An ikiryō is a spirit torn from your soul by a curse, who now lives independently.

In some cultures they believe that every photo takes away a little bit of your soul.

“I’ll pay you anything!” he says. I can hear a dog barking. “Give it to me!” His voice is so lonely and so desperate. Then the dog stops barking suddenly and Farnsworth gives a high-pitched shriek. I don’t have to look outside to see what he sees.

#652

Outside the supermarket.

#653

I go into the supermarket and I bump into another customer and I mumble, “Sorry,” and then when I look just for a moment she looks back at me and she smiles with my face.

#654

My hand is shaking. A shot of me against supermarket shelves. Shoppers pushing carts loaded with food and tins and cereal. One by one they stop and raise their heads and look up at me. They smile with my face. They have no eyes.

Someone whispers my name, Ellie, Ellie.

I run.

#729

In one of the last pictures I’m running. The road spreads out ahead of me, and the sleeping suburban homes. The moonlight is sucked into the asphalt. I run, the only sound the beating of blood in my head. The air is scented with jasmine. Ahead of me is the old playground where we used to play. I don’t look back when I take the picture, but I know they’re there.

Stephen Volk

MATILDA OF THE NIGHT

STEPHEN VOLK is a BAFTA-winning screenwriter. He recently saw the filming of his three-part adaptation of Phil Rickman’s novel Midwinter of the Spirit starring Anna Maxwell Martin as Deliverance Consultant Merrily Watkins, which premiered on ITV in September 2015.

He is best known, however, as creator of the notorious BBC-TV “Hallowe’en hoax” Ghostwatch and as lead writer of two series of the ITV paranormal drama series Afterlife starring Andrew Lincoln and Lesley Sharp, as a psychologist and spirit medium respectively. His other screenplays include Ken Russell’s Gothic starring Natasha Richardson, Gabriel Byrne and Timothy Spall, William Friedkin’s The Guardian which he co-scripted with the director, and the period ghost story The Awakening (2011).

His short stories have been selected for Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror, Best British Mysteries and Best British Horror. He has been a Bram Stoker Award and Shirley Jackson Award finalist, and his second collection from Gray Friar Press, Monsters in the Heart, won the British Fantasy Award in 2014. His highly-acclaimed Spectral Press novella, Whitstable, featured revered Hammer horror star Peter Cushing as its main character, while his follow-up, Leytonstone, centres around a young boy named Alfred Hitchcock…

“Strangely for someone who works a lot in a visual medium, I like stories about sound,” admits the author. “About tape recorders. I love Coppola’s film The Conversation. And ghost stories have always been part of a ‘telling’ tradition.

“I was very much taken with this idea of a folklorist gathering oral tales when, several years ago, I was researching Welsh mythology for a putative TV series called Welsh Tales of Terror, to be made by the BBC drama department in Cardiff. The series sadly never got underway (probably due to disinterest from London), but I returned to the story-line when Paul Finch asked me to consider contributing to his uncannily similarly-named anthology Tales of Terror of Wales.

“Revisiting it afresh, I rekindled memories of my late Welsh grandmothers (one of whom told me her mother used to leave milk out for the Tylwyth Teg) but found myself interested in probing the protagonist’s interior life: as well as a close relative of Robert Bridge in Afterlife, Dr Ivan Rees seemed to be a descendant of those bachelor scholars of M.R. James.

“And the more I wrote, the more it seemed his encounter with the Gwrach-y-Rhybin was waiting for him all along. Rather like death itself is, for all of us.”

ONLY A LITTLE dwt, I was. Four or five, see. Remember it like it was yesterday. Anyway, this day I run into our front room—the posh room, playin’ like—not allowed to but I did sort of thing, and these three people looked round, all in a row on the settee, they were. All looking identical. Like a family. Man, woman, child. Just looking at me. All dressed all in black. All tight and polite, like, with their knees together. Give me the creeps, they did. Duw, aye! I was out of there like a blummin’ shot…

The quarter-inch tape ran through the ReVox. The machine sat so that its turning reels faced the rows of semi-lit young faces.

Well, I told my mam after, and she said, “Don’t be daft. There’s nobody like that been in here. Nobody’s been in that room for a twelvemonth!” And I said, “Mam, I saw them!” But she wasn’t ‘aving it. Marched me in and showed me. Wasn’t nobody there, course there wasn’t. But, true as I’m sittin’ here, this is it—a week later my father dropped dead of a heart attack. Bang! Out like a light. Down by the Co-op. Out like a light…!

Ivan Rees switched it off with a twist of his hand, killing the old man’s rasping, heavily-accented voice.

“Phantom funeral guests.” The illumination stuttered into being. The ranks of students blinked as if awakened from slumber, which possibly they had been. “I got that from a retired collier in Pontypridd. Variation of the typical ‘spectral funeral’, also known as toili, or teulu in north Cardigan, probably from the dialectical pronunciations of the word for ‘family’; or anghladd, unburied; in Montgomeryshire, Drychiolaeth.”

Rees jabbed a button on the keyboard of his MacBook Air linked up to the overhead projector. An old woodcut of a house with a bird sitting on the roof appeared on the screen behind him.

“Other Welsh omens of death include the Corpse Candle or Canwyll Corph—lights appearing over the house of the soon to-be-deceased, or predicting the route of the funeral procession—and the Deryn Corph, or ‘Death Bird’, as you see here flapping its wings against the window of a sick person, often in the form of a screech owl…”

He brought up an engraving of witches with those birds, in one of Goya’s Caprichos.

“The word strega in Italy refers to both ‘owl’ and ‘witch’—an association that goes back to the mythology surrounding Lilith, Adam’s first wife, who became a creature of darkness and child stealer in Hebrew folklore, basically for answering back her husband. Interestingly, in China they call the owl ‘the bird who snatches the soul’. The cross-cultural connections are fascinating.”

The Edvard Munch woodcut fell over him now—a vampiric owl-death-woman.

“Then there’s the Cyhyraeth or ‘death sound’. A dismal, mournful groaning said to be made by a crying spirit. Which is nothing in comparison to the dread prediction of the banshee in Ireland. Here in Wales we have effectively her sister, the Gwrach-y-Rhibyn…”

To the audience’s surprise Marilyn Monroe appeared on the screen in titillating close-up, from Some Like It Hot.

“No, she doesn’t look like Marilyn Monroe.” Chuckles. “In fact there’s still a saying in parts of Wales if somebody’s—aesthetically challenged: ‘Y mae mor salw a Gwrach-y-Rhibyn‘—’She’s as ugly as the Gwrach-y-Rhibyn‘.”

More chuckles. His PowerPoint threw up another Goya print—a ghastly crone with monstrous visage and bat-like appendages.

“For the record, she’s a hideous hag with long, matted hair, long black teeth, one grey eye and one black eye, a nose so hooked it meets her chin, withered arms, a crooked back and leathery wings. In other words, the sort of female that doesn’t even get a shag after closing time on a Friday night in Newport city centre…Oh, I don’t know.”

Laughter, more full-bodied this time.

“Anyway you wouldn’t want to see what she really looks like, since anyone who sees her face or hears her blood-curdling cry, dies. There’s an etymological similarity here with a witch called Yr Hen Wrach, who lived on an island in a large bog inland from Borth, Cardigan, described as seven feet tall, thin, with yellow skin and a huge head covered in jet black hair. This fearsome harridan was said to creep into houses and blow sickness into people’s faces, thus causing illness. So another portent of death, of sorts, in another guise…”

Hans Baldung Grien’s The Bewitched Groom, showed a witch leering through a window at a dead man.

“Literally, for the non-Welsh-speakers amongst you, Gwrach-y-Rhibyn means ‘Hag of the Dribble’ or ‘Hag of the Mist’—connecting her to all sorts of stories of the lamia/swan maiden type we looked at on the Gower and Glamorgan coast. Sometimes she’s called Mallt-y-Nos or ‘Matilda of the Night’, who rides the night sky alongside the Devil himself and his hell hounds…”

Bottom and Titania in a scene from A Midsummer Night’s Dream superimposed themselves over Rees, rendering his plain denim jacket and jeans exotic, melodramatic. As he walked to and fro they decorated his skin like multicoloured, shifting tattoos.

“Marie Trevellyan groups her in the category of the Tylwyth Teg or Fairy Folk also known as Bendith y Mamau, Mother’s Blessing. In times past they’ve been spotted at local markets in Haverfordwest, Milford, Laugharne and Fishguard. Some sources say that, come mid-Victorian times, they were driven out by Nonconformists and temperance, but the truth is belief in them persisted until only a generation or so ago. I clearly remember my own grandmother blaming them for things going missing round the house. Neither goblin nor ghost, they supposedly had human midwives and feared iron, hence the lucky horseshoe—which as we know is always the right way up because if you hang it upside down, all the good luck runs out. According to John Rhys in Celtic Folk Lore, the Gwrach may have been a goddess of the pagan Celts, like the quasi-divine hag of Ireland. Indeed, in The Golden Bough, Fraser says the Gwrach-y-Rhibyn is the name given to the last sheaf of corn cut at the culmination of the harvest ritual. Yes? At the back? Lad in the Cardiff City shirt?”

A hand was in the air.

“Isn’t there a theory that what we call the ‘Fairy Folk’ might have been real?” The speaker was undeterred by sniggers. “Several writers suggest there was once a pygmy race on these islands, called the Cor—as in Korrigan, ‘she-dwarf’—driven underground by invaders. What I mean is, bones have been found in caves, haven’t they? Of short people. Ugly compared to human beings. With magical beliefs. Certain evidence they buried their dead, worshipped the moon, had rituals and some kind of social life…”

“Unlike most people in this room,” said Rees.

Groans.

“No, yeah. I mean, seriously,” said the boy. “We just call them Neanderthals.”

“Oh, I know what you mean. I do know what you mean. Stan Gooch eat your heart out. And the ginger-haired amongst you beware of your large big toe. They walk amongst us!”

More laughter. The boy blushed slightly and shuffled in his seat.

“Yes, there’s the theory that these imaginary creatures might be the faint memories of another, long lost indigenous species—the Bronze Age replaced by iron,” said Rees. “But as I’ve said before, it’s not the folklorist’s job to explain the inexplicable. That’s not our business—our job is to record, analyse and classify. The reality or not of what we examine is irrelevant.” He took the spool from the ReVox and held it up. “Our work—your mission, if you choose to accept it—is ecology. It’s incumbent on us to save this rich resource from being lost. Our stories are ourselves. We mustn’t let them die.”

He hoped what he said was going in. He tried to discern a glimmer of interest in their dull, placid faces, in their incuriosity, but was sure all they cared about was passing the module. Level one (CQFW level four): ten credits.

He killed the PowerPoint, closed the laptop. “Okay, go home. Start thinking about your essays. Next week we’ll be talking about the Devil’s hoof-prints and changelings.”

He saw Glyn at the foot of the steps, leaning back against a stone plinth outside the University building, flicking through a copy of GQ. Rees could not see for the life of him, and never could, why a perfectly intelligent man would buy such superficial drivel, but he knew better than to let it turn into an argument. Glyn had his childish, boorish side, which for some inexplicable reason he liked to cultivate. Rees supposed it was that macho aspect of gayness that had become all too blatant since he himself was growing up. Men beefing themselves up in the gym in an attempt to contradict the cliché of mincing effeminacy. Glyn certainly fitted into that category, biceps and pecs bulging ridiculously in a T-shirt several sizes too tight—but had just become another cliché altogether. He’d been immensely more attractive twelve years ago when they’d met, before all this nonsense, before the steroids, but Rees had given up on telling him that. How could he tell his partner that looking like a He-Man doll was bordering on the disgusting? Once, Glyn had said he wanted that: wanted to look disgusting, wanted people to stop in the street and point at him and say he looked monstrous, grotesque. Rees found he couldn’t battle such absence of logic, so had long since given up trying.

“Doctor Rees? Doctor Rees?”

The voice came from behind him. Young. Breathless. Female.

Glyn stood up straight and put the GQ under one arm.

“You’ve got a groupie.”

Rees turned.

“Can I have a quick word, please?” The girl facing him was about nineteen. He knew exactly what Glyn was thinking. Scarf. Anorak. Bless. Mouse woman. And that hair. Poor thing. Why doesn’t she do something about herself? “My name’s Katrina.” Scottish accent. Sexy. But would a little make-up kill you, love? “I’m doing your class as part of my MA in Welsh and Celtic Studies. I’m hoping to go into teaching.”

“I’m, er…running rather late, as a matter of fact.”

“It’s—it’s about the Gwrach-y-Rhibyn.”

“Oh. As I say, if you want to discuss it in more detail we can do that in the next session…”

“No, no. You don’t understand. You see, it’s quite a, well, coincidence. Do you believe in coincidences? I’d heard the name before. I thought ‘God’. I didn’t think it was real. I thought it was a made-up word.”

“It’s not. It’s really quite well documented.” Rees looked at his watch.

“No, this isn’t documented. This is from an old lady. An old lady who’s dying.”

Dying.

Rees turned to face her.

Dying?

“You can talk about it next week, love,” said Glyn. “I’m sure he’ll be all ears.” He tugged Rees’ arm but Rees wasn’t budging.

“Hold on, hold on. What old woman? Where?”

“In the nursing home where I work. Shifts. Bit of extra income to support me through college, while I’m doing my—”

“Yes, yes. I get that. What did she say, exactly?”

“She kept talking about her, this Gwrach-y-Rhibyn thing. Well, I didn’t know what it was. I just thought it was gibberish. A lot of them are in a world of their own, they just ramble and the best thing is to let them get on with it, sort of thing. But she kept saying it. ‘She’s coming, she’s coming!’ and getting really, really upset about it. Inconsolable, at times. And one night I heard her crying, and I went upstairs to her bedroom, and she said to me, ‘She’s been. She’s been!‘ All mad-looking. And that night an old man had died—Captain Birdseye we used to call him, lovely old bloke. And the thing is, there’s no way she couldn’t have known. She couldn’t have heard. She lives in a completely different part of the building. And nobody else knew until they found him the next morning. But she knew. She knew that this Gwrach-y-Rhibyn thing had come to get him. And she was right.”

It was called Morfa, which even his rudimentary knowledge of his native tongue told him meant “marsh” or “fen”. The building was one of those vast Victorian buildings on the way out of Porthcawl, formerly a grand hotel, now, with sad inevitability, a residential home for the elderly, overlooking the sweep of the appropriately-named Rest Bay. Rees had been on several holidays to the resort as a child, and remembered being confused between the local funfair, Coney Beach, and the Coney Island mentioned in American movies, in the same way he thought Dirk Bogarde and Humphrey Bogart were the same person. Strange how the embarrassment of those things came back to him now, along with memories of freezing sea and damp sand.

As he got out of his Citroën, and hoisted the Nagra out of the back, he could hear the dim strains of a karaoke version of ‘I Could Be So Lucky’ increasing in volume as he stepped into the reception area. In the Day Room he could glimpse a middle-aged woman in a sequinned dress singing into a hefty microphone with the verve of a cruise ship entertainer. A podgy, greasy-haired boy sat manning the playback machine with his back to her while she belted it out. Geriatrics in armchairs watched with loose jaws and gummy, bewildered mouths. One old dear was doing the twist in decrepit slow motion.

“Hello. My name is Doctor Ivan Rees,” he said to the pretty if overweight girl behind the desk. “I’m from Cardiff University.” He didn’t usually have recourse to the title “Doctor”, but in this instance he thought it might be helpful to oil the wheels of accessibility. Luckily, he didn’t need to explain in laborious detail that he was Associate Lecturer in the School of Celtic Studies, M. Litt (Oxford), Ph.D. (Columbia University, Bethesda, Maryland), M.A. University of Wales (Aberystwyth), or why he was there, because she was already saying she’d had a conversation with the Staff Nurse, who’d told Rees on the phone she had no objection to his visit as long as the resident in question didn’t. Which was a hurdle far simpler to cross than Rees had imagined.

The pretty if overweight girl, whose name was Tina Griffiths, led him straight upstairs. “Katrina told me about you.”

“Did she? Good. I hope.”

“I don’t know that you’ll get what you want, though. They get very confused. They can’t remember the word for ‘telephone’ or what they said five minutes ago, but they can remember years ago like it was yesterday.”

“That’s what I’m interested in.”

He had a sense of anticipation he hadn’t felt in a long time, and it had been as if Glyn resented it. Rees hadn’t been able to concentrate much on the French film about persecuted monks they went to see immediately after meeting Katrina, and when Glyn tried to discuss the movie afterwards, Rees could hardly focus on what he was saying. When they got home he hadn’t thought he was doing anything wrong by going straight to his bookshelves and taking down Giraldus Cambrensis’ Itinerary Through Wales, Nennius’s History of the Britons, Walter Map’s De nugis curialium, Rev. J. Ceredig Davies’s Folk-Lore of West and Mid-Wales and T. Gwynn Jones’s Welsh Folklore and Folk-Custom of 1930. Glyn hadn’t seemed in the least bit interested that in the next half hour he’d had it confirmed that there was no record of the Gwrach-y-Rhibyn that wasn’t at least a hundred years old, and even then quoted from the usual suspects. No doubt about it. This was the first genuine first-hand experience of a death portent in over a century. This was gold dust.

At 2:00 a.m., after tossing and turning, Glyn had stood naked at the bedroom door and asked him to come to bed. By the time Rees had registered what he had said, and turned from his computer screen, there was nobody there.

“She’ll tire very easily.”

“Of course.”

“Mrs Llewellyn gives the illusion she’s strong as an ox. She isn’t.” Tina escorted Rees along a corridor and through a fire door. “She has so much cancer in her, you could virtually scratch her skin and see it. Like one of those lottery cards.” The girl rapped the door they came to, and Rees asked if she’d heard the woman talk about the Gwrach-y-Rhibyn as Katrina had. “All that morphine if you ask me. Or whatever it is in the pills they’re giving her to stop the pain.” She raised her voice. “Bronwen? It’s only me, love. Tina. Orright if we come in? Are you decent?” She turned to Rees with wink and a whisper. “Scares easily, see. Lot of them do. Got to be careful.”

Entering the room, Rees’ first impression was the heat belting out of the four-bar electric fire. It hit him like a wave, then he remembered how old people felt the cold. The second thing was the smell, a sickly perfume odour used to cover something worse. Third was the sight of Bronwen Llewellyn lifting her body from the armchair facing the window. A small woman with thinning ginger hair, extraordinarily piercing blue eyes—had she had her cataracts done or did she need to?—and rounded nostrils that put Rees in mind of a bullock. A frail bullock.

He extended his hand. She walked straight between them and shut the door, evidently to keep the heat in. She pressed it. Opened it. Shut it again. Opened. Shut. Walked back between them to the sash window overlooking the grounds. Checked the catch. Locked. Unlocked. Locked. Unlocked. Rees could tell that Tina knew unless they broke the cycle this could go on all day.

“Bronwen, sweetheart. This is Doctor Rees from the University. D’you remember? The one who wrote you that nice letter?”

“I’m not dull.”

“Bronwen likes to make sure the doors and windows are shut tight, don’t you, Bronwen, love?”

“Because that’s how she gets in. Through cracks.”

Tina looked at Rees. The music downstairs had changed to a spirited rendition of ‘Stand By Your Man’.

“Okay. I’ll leave you to it, then.”

The girl was barely gone before Bronwen picked up a quilted draught-excluder in the form of a snake and rammed it against the bottom of the door with the toe of her slippers.

“And mirrors. She looks at you from mirrors.”

Rees looked around and saw that the mirrors in the room were hooded by supermarket carrier bags or tea cloths held in place with drawing pins. He forced a friendly smile.

“Your room looks nice.”

“This isn’t my room. The things are mine, but it’s not my room.” Bronwen Llewellyn had an unmistakable Valleys lilt, sing-songy but not unintelligible. She’d record well. That was important, and a relief.

“Well, the things are nice. What are the labels for?” He’d noticed there were coloured Post-It notes on most of the objects. Royal Doulton figurines, a glass swan, an oval frame with a Pre-Raphaelite print in it—The Lady of Shalott. Even the bedside lamp and chest of drawers.

“That’s who they go to when I pop off. No arguments. Organised, I am, see. Red is Jean. Green is Dilys. Blue is Mavis. Yellow is Oxfam.”

She lifted her swollen ankles onto the foot stool as Rees sat on the bed, the Nagra beside him, setting up the microphone on the small table at her elbow. He could have used his iPhone to record her, as his students now did, but he’d become accustomed to recording on quarter-inch. Not so much that he resisted new technology, but this was the technology he’d known and relied upon for over twenty years. Perhaps he himself was superstitious in that regard. Old habits being only one step removed, perhaps, from magical thinking. Soon this tape would join the others, hundreds, meticulously labelled by subject and location on his study shelves, dated, indexed and cross-referenced—the sound files themselves copied and saved as MP3 files in that ether tantamount to a supernatural realm called Dropbox. He’d considered her use of the Post-It notes absurd and morbid, but it occurred to him now that he himself was guilty of labelling objects for people who might look at the artefacts long after his demise, just as much as she was.

“Here, am I going to sound Welshy? Last time I heard myself on one of them things, Crikey Moses! Welsh, be damned? I used to think I sounded like Princess Margaret!”

“It’s painless, I promise.” He blew into the mic. “One, two, one, two.” The red needle wagged like a warning finger.

“Rees? That’s a Welsh name, that is. You don’t sound Welsh. English, you sound.”

“Lost a bit of it going to uni, I expect.”

“Glad to get rid of it, I expect,” she said, with no apparent disdain.

He laughed. Truth is, she was right. He couldn’t wait to get away and talk like normal people. To lose his past in RP and anonymity. To reinvent himself.

“You want to read this first.” She produced something hidden down the side of the chair. An exercise book, pink for a little girl, with cartoon horses and fairies and bunnies on the cover. She thrust it at him forcefully. He felt obliged to take it, opening it to find the first page full of a list of names and dates written in a terribly shaky copperplate hand. Old-school education never goes away, he thought. Even if the faculty to hold a pen does.

“You know what that is?” Bronwen was confident he could not answer. “That’s the name of everybody who’s died. Here, I mean. In this place.” She pointed to the floor with a finger bulging at the joints with arthritis. “Since I come here, anyway. Everybody who’s heard her and seen her.”

“You mean—I’m sorry. They told you they’d seen her? The Gwrach-y-Rhibyn?”

“Don’t be soft! How can they tell me when they’re dead? Nobody can tell you. Not once they’ve seen her.”

“No, of course not.”

“Once they see her, that’s it. You can’t get away from it, you can’t get out of it. That’s that. And I’ll be oocht when she comes for me, too. And that’ll be soon. Don’t you worry.”

He saw a cloudiness come over her eyes and thought it a kind of bewilderment. He thought of her cataracts again. Then saw the shudder of her lower lip with its aura of downy hairs, and a tremor in the hand that gripped the rim of the arm of the chair, and realised that it was fear.

“Can you—can you say that again, please? For the tape?”

He switched it on, and before he could ident the recording with his own voice, stating the day, time and full name of the subject, she spoke again, staring at a space above the fireplace as if she was alone in the room.

“They’re dead. Just like I’ll be dead, once I’ve seen the Gwrach-y-Rhibyn. Once she comes calling for me.” She blinked and with an unstable, jerky movement turned to look at him, almost as if seeing him for the first time. Then he saw a little girl eager to please. “Was that all right?”

He nodded. It was. It was perfect.

The spool turned, a stray thread curling a corkscrew admonition in the air.

The cold of the wind from the sea did not infiltrate the room but he could hear the slow fingertips of rain tapping the window-panes.

“Fifteen kids, my Mam had. Can’t remember them all. Names. Some of them didn’t live, see. They didn’t in them days.”

“Where was this?”

“Troedyrhiw. She always believed in them. Put a saucer of milk out for them every Sunday, the Tylwyth Teg. ‘Don’t you aggravate them,’ she’d say, ‘or they’ll have your guts for garters.’”

“Which one is Mary?”

Rees had the old photograph album on his lap. It felt like an alien artefact. Nobody had photograph albums these days. They just uploaded their jpegs and selfies onto Instagram, Facebook or Twitter.

“This one, bless her. Like a little doll, she was. Bronwen and May, it was. May and Bronwen…” The old woman began fiddling with the locket on a chain round her neck. “I used to torment her terrible. S’pose I was jealous, her being younger and getting all the fuss, like. We used to share a bed, and I used to tickle her till she wet herself. Wicked, I was.” She opened it and showed it to Rees, but in her trembling hands the face he could make out was blurred and indistinct. “I used to tell her I could make her hair fall out by just staring at her, and she’d scream blue murder. Then one night I started telling her about the Gwrach-y-Rhibyn.” She snapped the locket shut and let it drop onto her wrinkled, puckered chest. “I told her there was this witch outside the window who was so ugly that if anyone set eyes on her they’d die of fright, just like that.”

Rees eased forward, elbows on knees, knitting his fingers together, but said nothing. He wanted this pure. Unspoiled.

“And she said, ‘No there isn’t, Bron. Don’t be ‘orrible. It’s just the branches in the wind. I know it is!’ And I said, ‘Are you sure? Are you sure that’s all it is?’ And she said, ‘Yes!’ And I said, ‘What if it’s not branches though? What if it’s her long, long fingernails tapping the window—tap, tap, tap…”

The old woman gulped and sniffed.

“Well. She screamed the house down. I had to go and sleep in my Mam’s bed, and my dad slept with May. I was awful. Even before that night I was a handful. And after that, well…”

“What do you mean?”

Her face seemed to sag. Her hands made little folds in the knees of her dress and a frown of resistance, of conflict, of hurt, cut into her face.

“If you…”

“No, I’ll tell you. You came here to ask and I’ll tell you. The next morning, I rushed in to wake her, see. I jumped in bed and cuddled up to her and tickled her like I always did, havin’ a bit of fun. But she didn’t move. She was cold and white like one of them enamel plates we had in the kitchen. I said, “Come on, May! Play! Play with me!’ I tried to wake her but I couldn’t. Nobody could.” Her eyes fixed on the bars of the electric fire. They bulged and shone glassily, each reflecting a dot of light.

Rees found his throat dry as he listened.

“And I knew, sure as eggs, Matilda of the Night had got her. She came for my little sister all those years ago. And now she’s coming for me…”

Rees felt a faint draught on his cheek and knew that the door had opened behind him. He hadn’t heard it doing so but was now certain that somebody was occupying the space directly behind his left shoulder. He turned around.

He saw the tray with the microwave plate cover sheltering a meal, and holding it in both hands, the overweight but pretty Tina Griffiths.

“There you are. Meat and mash. It’s time Doctor Rees was making tracks.”

Rees looked at his watch and saw that it was 6:00 p.m.—he’d lost all track of time. As the girl placed down the tray he also saw a plastic container with around fifteen assorted pills inside it. Her daily dose. For what? Angina? Heart? Diabetes? Anxiety? Cholesterol? Or all of the above?

“Did I order meat and mash?”

“Yes you did, love.”

“I don’t like meat and mash. I like fish.”

“No, you ordered meat and mash. It’s beef. Beef and gravy.”

“Oh, I like beef. I just don’t like meat.” Bronwen noticed Rees unplugging his recording equipment, coiling a cable round his hand. “He—he doesn’t want to go. Does he?” Her lip shuddered with agitation. “Do you? Hm?”

“I think I have to,” said Rees. “She’s in charge here, I’m afraid.”

“But what—what if she comes? The Gwrach-y-Rhibyn? What if she comes tonight? And you’re not here? What then?” She was becoming tearful, and this upset Rees but did not seem to bother Tina spectacularly. In fact she became clipped. Firm.

“Bronwen. Now. Doctor Rees can’t stay, can he? He has to go home. He’s just a visitor. You know the rules, my love.”

“Why? You’ve broken the rules before. You know you have. When Cliff was bad, you let his wife stay. Well now I’m bad. What about me? I’m dying! And I want him to stay!” Her voice stuttered into sobs. “I want someone with me. I’m frightened, can’t you see? None of you buggers care! Nobody does!” Tears glistened on her cheeks. “Only him! He’s the only one who listens to me!”

“She’s upset, look,” said Rees, taking the strap from his shoulder. “I’ll stay. It’s no problem. I don’t mind staying. Honestly.”

He sat down and watched Tina sigh and mop the old woman’s tears with a few sheets from the box of tissues on the coffee table. Then a few sheets more. And a few sheets after that, till the childlike sniffling had subsided.

Just after midnight a thin young man of African ethnicity popped his head round the door and asked Rees a second time if he wanted a filter coffee. This time he said yes, thank you. He was tired but he had no intention of sleeping. At 2:00 a.m., quiet settling on the house with an almost physical presence, he paced up and down for a few minutes to stretch his back, then sat on the stool next to Bronwen Llewellyn’s flowery and be-cushioned armchair.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

All being recorded. Night. Branches on the far side of the curtains.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

He thought of Bronwen’s sister, Mary. May.

Eyelids heavy, he thought of the May Bride and May tree cults mentioned in Graves’ The White Goddess…the mythic significance of the horse and the hare…

May. Maybe. Might. Perhaps.

The old woman’s lips were moving slightly and he could see her eyeballs revolving under her lids. She’d been like that for five hours but he hadn’t switched off the tape except for putting on a new one. She was dreaming and he wondered what she dreamed. She was almost forming words, and he stood for almost an hour with the microphone an inch from her mouth in case she did.

Arriving home in Penarth, he found he was famished. He put on a slice of toast, booting up his computer as the toaster chirruped, and ate it standing up as he typed the details into his archive list, not sure if it was excitement, caffeine or tiredness made his hands visibly shake. Too exhausted to edit, he calculated he could get six or seven hours sleep before heading back to the nursing home. As it turned out, it was five o’clock when he woke inexplicably anxious about where he was for several seconds, and was helping himself to some brie and slices of apple with his leather jacket already on when Glyn arrived home from the Wetherspoon’s in Cardiff Bay where he worked, the old Harry Ramsden’s.

Glyn saw that Rees was dressed to leave and his face dropped. “Jesus Christ, you could’ve waited. I’ve got pasta. I was going to make meatballs.” He dumped his carrier bag of shopping on the kitchen surface. “I don’t know why I bother.”

“The ingredients will keep till tomorrow.”

“Oh, you’ll be around tomorrow?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, thanks.”

“Look, I had no idea you were cooking. I’m going out. I have to go out. How could I know?”

“You’d know if you picked up the phone. You’d know if you spoke to me.”

Rees looked at the ceiling and rolled his eyes. Glyn hated when he made him feel like a child. Rees was a year older than his father, but he didn’t want him to be his father—far fucking from it, thank you very much.

“You still don’t get it, do you?” Glyn threw a bag of tomatoes into the chiller compartment of the refrigerator. “Where were you last night—all night? Did it cross your mind I might like to know? No. Did it even cross your mind I might be worried? No. Your mobile was switched off…”

“Yes. I was working.”

“Why?”

“I had to be.”

“Why?”

“Because I have to get this story. The whole story.”

“Why?”

“For God’s sake, because time is running out, if you must know. Because if I don’t get it now, I’ll never get it.” Rees didn’t want the food any more and left the chunk of cheese and apple core on the plate. He zipped up the case of the Nagra as Glyn made great theatrics of stocking the kitchen cabinets, banging doors ludicrously. “Look, I apologise if I didn’t explain, but this is ridiculous, it really is. Why are you so angry?” Rees walked to the door, picking up his headphones en route.

“I’m angry,” said Glyn, “because it never entered your head, did it? Well, did it?”

The overcooked lamb chops defeated her. She sawed at them with a knife then gave up, exhausted, chest heaving. He made weak tea from the jug kettle. As she sipped it he thought of those thin, sipping sounds appearing on his tape.

“Bronwen, when did you first hear about Matilda of the Night?”

“When did you first hear about Father Christmas?”

“I mean, was it from a relative? Do you have relations I could go and talk to?”

“All gone,” she said. “You get old. Nobody left, see. Not much of you left either, in the brain box. You don’t want to get old, I’m telling you.”

Rees sniffed a laugh. “I am old.”

“How old are you then?”

“Fifty-three.”

“That’s no age.”

“Say that to my twenty-year-old students.” He remembered Glyn was that age at the start of it. Teacher and pupil. The old, old story.

“Then they need their bloody heads examined. Parents still alive?”

“My dad died when I was seven.”

“What about your mother?”

Rees shook his head. “Ten years ago. I was in America.”

“You weren’t there.”

“Working. Studying. Same thing. Conference. Talking to complete strangers.” He felt the warmth of the bars of the electric fire. He blinked his eyes. They were unaccountably dry. “I got a phone call in this dreadful hotel room. This Holiday Inn—you know, where all the rooms across the world are identical? There was no time to do anything. It had already happened. She was gone. The worst thing was hearing all that emotion in my sister’s voice and being so far away.” He realised he was playing with one of the day-glo Post-It notes and stuck it back where it was meant to be. “Do you want me to close the curtains?” Bronwen said nothing. He walked over and tugged them shut, then sat back down.

“Sometimes it’s easier to be on your own,” she said. “Then the people you love can’t be taken away. And sometimes you keep yourself in a box, try to pretend it’ll never hurt you again. But it does.”

Rees told himself he didn’t understand what she meant. But even as he tried to dismiss it, it made him feel raw, exposed, uncomfortable. He needed to get out for a minute.

“I’m just—just going to get some water. Is that all right? Do you—do you want some?”

Bronwen didn’t nod. She stared glassy-eyed. Her hands supported her cup and saucer and thoughts and words seemed to have deserted her, or she had absconded to memory. He left the room with the tape spools turning and gently closed the door after him.

He walked to the water cooler at the end of the landing. The floorboards did not creak under his footsteps. He yanked a paper cup from the dispenser, half-filled it and took a gulp. He poured the residue into his cupped left hand and rubbed it over his face and the back of his neck, then rubbed his eyes too.

In a nearby room he could hear an elderly person moaning in their sleep. It almost sounded like weeping. He hoped they were dreaming and this wasn’t the sound of their waking despair. When he was a child he had wondered long and hard why old people did not rage screaming and gnashing at the prospect of death, and he still could not completely understand why they didn’t. The fact they might settle into a kind of numb acceptance only struck him as even more horrifying.

A large window overlooked the garden. The wind from the bay was considerable and in the semi-dark he could make out hydrangea bushes undulating and the branches of trees gesticulating mutely in pools of artificial light. He untied the ornate tassels of the curtains and dragged them tightly across to overlap each other.

“Is that the one with George Clooney?”

The nurses down in the reception area were talking about what movie they fancied seeing. He walked back, leaned over the banister and saw them eating Jaffa Cakes below.

“Oh, is that with that comic off the telly? I can’t stand him. He really does my head in, that bloke. I’m not kidding.”

Rees opened the door to see her on her feet, swaying unsteadily, shoulders heaving.

“No, you can’t! I’m not ready! Skin off! Skin off, you bloody—!” She was facing the window with an outstretched hand. Saw him now. “She’s there! She’s out there! I can hear her! I can hear her bloody whassnames flapping!”

“Sit down. Please sit down, Mrs Llewellyn. Just sit down and I’ll take a look for you.” He managed to settle her into her armchair, then opened the drapes to see what she had seen—except he didn’t. “It’s just the canvas come loose from one of those parasol-type things in the garden…”

“No! It’s her wharracalls—wings! It’s Matilda! Matilda of the Night! She’s out there with her long hair and, and long fingers and she’s after me. She was perched on the windowsill. I know she was!”

“Shshsh. Honestly now. It’s nothing.” Rees bent down to pick up the cup and saucer, fallen from the arm of her chair but miraculously unbroken. As he stood up he felt Bronwen clinging to his sleeve, sobbing.

“You’ll be there, won’t you? When she comes back?”

“I don’t know if I…”

“When she does come for the last time, please! I promise I’ll tell you everything. You’ll have everything on your tape like you want it. I’ll tell you everything I hear and everything I see, I promise. Just say you’ll be with me.” Fear shone in the old woman’s eyes and Rees didn’t feel able to look at it.

As gently as possible he peeled her fingers off him. He sat her down and knelt and placed his hands over hers, which were ice cold. He looked at her and could feel the warmth emanating from his skin but he couldn’t feel hers getting any warmer, at all. This is the way it will go, he thought. The cold. The cold that cannot be warmed. Is this the way we all go? Grey and cold and separated and lost?

“I will. I promise,” he said.

“She wants me to do it.”

“But you want to do it, that’s the point. You want her to die, don’t you? You can’t bloody wait.”

“Rubbish.”

“How is it rubbish? When she dies you’ll have exactly what you want. You said so yourself. A recording of someone experiencing this—this ‘death visitation’, whatever the fuck that is.”

“She’s going to die, Glyn. Whether I’m there sat beside her or not. I can’t stop it happening.”

“No, but you can use it. For yourself. For your precious collection.”

Rees sighed in exasperation. “This isn’t for my ‘collection’. Christ. It’s more than that. How do I get through to you? Nobody has catalogued something like this—ever. This isn’t some piddling article in Folklore. This could be my—my Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat. Something that gets me noticed, finally.”

“Me. Exactly. You’re a bloody vulture, Ivan. Haven’t you got any feelings of—?”

“Why should I not have feelings? Of course I have feelings. It doesn’t mean I shouldn’t do my job.”

“And what’s your job? To prey off this demented old biddy who—”

“So what do you want me to do? Abandon her? She’s all I’ve got.” Rees corrected himself. “I’m all she’s got.”

“Freudian slip.”

“That’s not true.”

“It is true. It’s more important than I am.”

“Don’t be preposterous.”

“Preposterous, am I? If I’m preposterous, why are you with me? I’m serious, Ivan? Why? Because you don’t seem to want to be with me or listen to me half the time. Do you actually want to be loved?”

That made Rees laugh out loud, and it shouldn’t have, because it chilled him to the bone. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Glyn stared at him across the dining table. “What do you want, Ivan, eh? Because I’ll be honest, I don’t have a bloody clue.”

Rees stood and scraped the residue of his tuna salad into the waste disposal. He could feel Glyn smouldering but didn’t turn to face him and waited for him to leave the table. The chair rasped.

“Go. Go and watch her die, Ivan. Be there, if that’s what matters to you so much. But if I matter to you, stay with me tonight instead of her.”

She opened her eyes blearily, tortoise head sunk deep in the propped-up pillows.

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

Still half in sleep, the truth comes easier than in wakefulness or daylight. But hesitant. “I’m not scared when you’re here.”

He pulled up the fold of the blanket under her mottled, stringy chin. “Go to sleep.”

She already was.

A shadow hand crept across the wall and rested on his shoulder.

Rees shook awake with a gasp, the dream already doused. The Holiday Inn banished. The hare run to ground. Was it time to get up? Was he late for school? Mum?

“The Manager wants a word with you,” said Katrina close to his ear.

“Now?”

“Now.”

What time was it? How long had he slept? He remembered looking at his watch when it was 5:00 a.m.—what time was it now? Five past seven.

Nack-nack-nack-nack

The tape spool was spinning, its tail flapping with a metronomic tic. He switched the machine off and lifted his coat from the back of a chair.

Blinking, he felt like a little boy summoned to the headmaster’s study as he descended the stairs past a wizened monkey of an old gent hung on the elbow of an obese carer as if to cruelly emphasise the difference. But Penny Greatorex, revealed after a knock on the office door, did not look like a headmaster. She wore the hard superiority of an MBA, contrasting noxiously with a chunky cardigan depicting a timber wolf. The pleasantries were minimal. Katrina left them alone and soon he realised why.

“Dr Rees, I’m sure you’re a very bright man but do you seriously think that talking about ‘omens of death’ is really appropriate to this kind of establishment?”

Instantly on the back foot, Rees told her how he’d explained fully to the Staff Nurse and she’d given permission for him to visit.

“She had no business to. Sara is only an RSN.”

“Well, I’m sorry, but Mrs Llewellyn seems more than happy to…”

“That’s as may be, but we are the ones legally responsible for her care. And I’m afraid the feedback from some of my staff is that her mental wellbeing has deteriorated since you began coming.”

Rees stiffened. “It might seem like that, but truly, I’m not the cause of her increased anxiety at all. I’m merely listening to her.”

“Well, perhaps indulging her in her dementia and paranoia isn’t doing her a great deal of good, let me put it like that. I’m sure you’d put it differently, but that really isn’t my concern. Our resident’s welfare is. And in her current state she’s a very emotionally vulnerable lady who doesn’t require any additional stress in her life. So I’d appreciate if you would leave the premises, please.”

“What?”

“Oh, come on. Apart from health and safety concerns and insurance concerns, can you imagine what her relatives—or her relatives’ lawyers—would say about a complete stranger staying in her room overnight? Can you imagine how embarrassing that would be if some accident happened?”

“She has no relatives.” He laughed. “If you knew anything about her, you’d know that.” He tried to stop his anger from rising.

“I’m not prepared to debate this, Dr Rees. I think you can see that.”

“Yes, I can.” Afraid of adding something he might regret, he turned on his heel.

“Where are you going?”

He thought that was obvious. “Upstairs, to say goodbye to her.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t think that’s a good idea in the slightest.”

“For God’s sake. She’ll be upset if she sees I’m gone without saying something.” He looked at her in her timber wolf cardigan. “But you really don’t give a shit, do you?”

“Yes,” Penny Greatorex said, and her face showed a glimmer of hurt. “As a matter of fact I do. Very much so.” But this was her domain—alpha of the pack—and she wanted him out of it. “Jérôme will bring down your equipment to your car. There’s no point in waking her, is there? God knows, the day is long enough when you’re their age.” She didn’t look up from the year planner, which was now getting her undivided attention.

Having loaded the Nagra, his shoulder bag and laptop into the back seat, Rees sat with his hands gripping the steering wheel for several minutes before finally turning the ignition key. The engine gave its tinny French snarl. He looked up at the landing window and half-saw a face with a crayon-squiggle of hair.

He turned the Citroën in a tight three-point turn and crawled to the automatic gates, which opened as if by hauled by ghostly hands. Pausing where the driveway met the road which would take him home through Nottage, via the A48 and Culverhouse Cross, a route he infinitely preferred to the motorway, he adjusted the rear view mirror and saw his own eyes, sandpaper-dry from the kind of conflict he loathed and usually avoided, then sharply turned from their accusations.

He realised he didn’t want to arrive back at the house while Glyn was there, and Glyn didn’t normally leave for work till about eleven. Rees drove to the Museum of Welsh Life at Saint Fagan’s, his old stomping ground once upon a time, but wasn’t thinking. He should have known they weren’t open until ten. He turned around in the car park and drove to the coast. He didn’t really care where he was driving. He found himself at Llantwit Major, walking along the rocky beach where he and his father had caught crabs in a plastic bucket, the smell of bladderwrack and crushed limpets in his nostrils. Distant figures crouched and splashed. The cries of children easily entertained. Wind nice as a razor. Familiar wind, mind. He thought of rolled up sleeves and varicose veins.

His cheeks burned.

Glyn’s Doc Marten boots were not by the front door. Rees slid off his trainers. The kitchen air stung of filter coffee. He dropped the paper cone and its contents in the waste bin under the sink, swilling the black residue in the glass jug under the tap and poured it away, something he always did because his boyfriend didn’t. It wasn’t even an annoyance to him any more. He accepted it, in the way he hoped Glyn accepted the million and one ways his own habits were no doubt irritating. Tolerance. Habit. Acceptance. Wasn’t that what having a relationship was about?

Openness?

He almost heard Glyn’s voice saying it, and tightened. What if he didn’t want to be open? What then? Why was he being forced into being something he wasn’t? Why couldn’t he just be who he was?

For the next few hours he sat immobile at the kitchen table and listened to the erratic rhythms of her breathing.

He listened to her lips smacking, her occasional snort and snore and deep, long silences. His pen hovered over paper as she turned over in her slumber. As she wheezed and fretted and stretched under the starched nursing home sheets. (How many had died in those sheets?) His eyes closed as she coughed and mumbled and grunted. He was the sole and private audience to a symphony of moans. The aural hieroglyphics of her inner life.

Tap tap tap…

Branches. Trees.

He frowned, leaned forward. A thin, plaintive sobbing. Hardly audible. Reaching out to him, for comfort. Last night, yesterday, the past caught on tape.

Memory. Fear.

Rees paused it and sipped his glass of water. Glyn was normally home at five in the evening if he wasn’t working evenings. Now it was six. Rees rang The Fig Tree to book a table for dinner. Their favourite place in Cardiff, and walking distance. How many people, sir?

“Two,” he said.

Staring him in the face from the notice board was the old snapshot of Glyn and himself in Rhodes, uncannily tanned and exceptionally happy. There he was, in that rough old taverna, making a fool of himself. Deludedly happy for a passing, photographic instant. Drunk. Silly. Wasting his time. He never even liked the sun. What was he doing there? What was he pretending?

He suddenly felt completely exhausted, and remembered he’d only slept for an hour or two at the most. He went into the bedroom.

Fully dressed, he unbuttoned his collar and lay on one side of the double bed and curled up, wrapping one arm under his knees. His eyes remained open because he was so overtired his stupid body was fighting it, churning up too many random and unwelcome thoughts. Like Bronwen in her room, crying, not knowing why that nice young man (young?) didn’t come back when he said he would. When he promised! He imagined her ball-jointed paws feeling the empty place on the corner of her bed where the Nagra had sat. Her devastated expression—lost, lonely, discarded—as below at the desk two overweight nurses ate biscuits from a tin and discussed the latest Peter Andre programme. His throat felt blocked. He felt he was going to choke.

He sat up and took off his clothes. The heat was making him restless and adding to his woes. He dropped his socks and underpants on the carpet, picked up a wire coat hanger for his shirt and trousers and opened the cupboard door.

They were all gone. Glyn’s jeans. Glyn’s workman’s jacket he got in Amsterdam. The linen shirt, the one Rees always told him to wear to dinner parties. The harem pants that had seen better days. Only good enough for the bin.

Rees stood back three faltering steps and could see that the suitcase on top of the wardrobe was gone too, and his stomach lurched.

The drawers with the folded T-shirts and sweaters he knew without looking would be empty. He wondered about the toothbrush. The shampoo that gave that orange and lemon scent to Glyn’s hair he’d get a whiff of when he kissed his neck. The odour vividly came back to him. Smell. Sound. Touch.

He’d checked the land line for calls when he’d come in, always, but checked again. You have no messages. (That voice. Whose voice? Who was she? Was she alive? How did we know for sure?) Back in the bedroom he snatched up his iPhone from the bedside table where it was plugged in to recharge, tapped in his four-digit password, but could see instantly that the speech-bubble logo showed nothing. He scrolled sideways with his finger, pressed CONTACTS, then ALL CONTACTS. Thumbed down to “G”. Tapped the name. Glyn’s mobile number flashed up.

Rees stared at it. He could ring it. He knew he could. So what was stopping him? His innards felt like lead. An ache incapacitated him, physical and real. It was in control of him and he was at its mercy. He didn’t know why.

He pressed the exit button, letting it die and placing it back down where his wristwatch lay.

The wall was bereft of wallpaper, plain concrete, with thin lines of water running down it. He was puzzled why nobody was panicking and thought he should tell them there was a leak somewhere above them before a disaster happened. He might get into serious trouble if he didn’t mention it, and it worried him. Tina wore make-up. Her mascara was running, her head tilted slightly down. She was sobbing pitifully and he wanted to put his arms around her but before he could reach her she drew back the starched white sheet from the body on the slab. He was wondering why somebody didn’t answer that bloody telephone as he saw it was Bronwen Llewellyn, mouth caved in without the benefit of teeth, eyes the sky and dead as buttons, redness pooling and sticky at the back of her skull.

He woke, stabbed by reality. Not a gasp in him. The dark still had work to do. The sheet twined round one naked leg, he was alone, still.

“Hello.” The throbbing iPhone now illuminating his cheek. “Yes?”

We leave the lights on. I don’t know what she was doing up and about, but a lot of them go wandering, it’s not that unusual. You can’t lock them in like prisoners, can you? She must’ve had a hell of a bump. Tina said she was just lying there at the bottom of the stairs, groaning. Couple of minutes she had this massive bruise all up her thigh, turning purple, you could see it. God knows what she thought she was doing. She must’ve been out looking. Looking for someone…

He saw a branch. He saw its knuckles. Its mossy fingernails.

Yes. The Royal Glam in Llantrisant. Aye, I just came on and they told me. Hell of a crack, they said. Going all in and out of consciousness, really confused and in pain. They didnae try moving her till the paramedics got here. Sirens and everything. Yes, Penny went with them. She just rang with the latest. Said they’d checked for fractures and were putting her in for an MRI-type effort…

Rees threw on clothes, grabbed his jacket and patted his pockets, checking for his car keys. He reached the front door and swirled back. Cursed at his jelly-mind, foggy from sleep, the urgency of Katrina’s voice having thrown him. He’d forgotten his priority completely. He lifted the Nagra strap. Snatched a few boxes of pristine quarter-inch still in their cellophane wrapper. Hit the light switch.

It was what she wanted, he told himself. He was doing what she’d asked for.

Drizzle barely more than a mist made his view of the night semi-opaque through the thinly-speckled windscreen. He flipped the wipers.

On. Off. On. Off. On. Off.

His headlight beams picked up the wraith of a shaggy pony limping across the road through Llantristant Common, emerging from fog and disappearing into it again like a heavy-hoofed intoxication, a pagan acid flashback.

He blinked from the GIG Cymru/NHS Wales logo—BWRDD LECHYD CWM TAF HEALTH BOARD—following the arrow to the car park and snatching a ticket at the barrier, before running through the emptiness to the footbridge.

MAIN ENTRANCE/PRIF FYNEDFA

A congregation of wheelchair-users lurked under the portico, back-lit by the bilious strip-lighting of the interior, the side of them facing him in shadow. The figures seemed to have gathered as if in ritual formation around an ashtray on a stainless steel plinth. He saw their dappled skin and heard their damaged lungs crackling as they gnawed at their cigarettes.

To his left a grille covered the shop. A little boy was crying and plucking at the slats, and Rees imagined the mother was in the nearby toilet with the occupant of the empty buggy he now passed. The information desk to the left was unmanned—no one in sight—so he kept walking, lured towards a central atrium. The floors were colour-coded, he now saw—lines painted in red, blue and green running through the building like arteries, directing people obediently to their shuffling appointments with Surgical Assessment, with Anaesthesia, with Supported Recovery, with death. This was where it happened. This was where it always ended. This was the building built for it. The shininess and disinfectant not so much fighting E-coli or MRSA but fragility, despair and the fucking inevitable.

He looked at the overhanging signage and found CRITICAL CARE (ICU)—the arrow pointed right.

SOUTH WING/ADAIN Y DE

He took to the stairs three at a time because the lift was taking an age. He didn’t strictly know she was in Intensive Care. She might be in a general ward, or A&E. She might even be on her way home with cuts and bruises for all he knew, but somehow he believed his instinct was right. He felt bad when he saw that the reason the lift was delayed was a gurney with an old man lying on it fighting for breath.

Ahead of him down the corridor he saw Penny Greatorex with her mobile to her ear, and he paused, nose to a window while she passed. Not that he needed to—she was far too involved in her call to notice him. Who was she ringing? The home, or her home? Darling, sorry I’m late, but one of the old ladies is very inconveniently dying. Outside the window a coarse expanse of green plastic flapped like a sail, tethered to scaffolding poles. Once she’d got in the lift, he hurried down the corridor through the double doors from which she’d emerged.

“Bronwen Llewellyn. A patient called Bronwen Llewellyn?”

The dark-haired nurse baulked. “You’ll have to ask on the ward.”

“Which ward?”

“I’m sorry, I can’t tell you that.”

“Oh, for God’s sake.”

Seeing his obvious agitation, she pointed. “That one. Sixteen.”

His palm shoved the heavy door. It didn’t give. He looked through the glass, shielding his eyes. Pressed the intercom next to the entry phone. It squawked. He asked if he could see a patient, please, giving Bronwen’s name. The intercom went dead, cut off like the last crackling message of a Spitfire pilot.

Through the window a nurse with fat arms approached the door, opened it half way but blocked his entry with her bulk. He tried to read in her eyes what she knew, but it was impossible.

“The nursing home informed me. I know this is…but I came here as…”

“Are you a relative, sir?”

He could not think of an alternative. “Yes.”

“Siân? Diolch yn fawr i chi.“ The voice came from behind her. She stepped back, letting the door open, and Rees saw a skinny, blond man with a stethoscope curling out of his pocket finish writing something on a clip board. The chap was in his twenties and not conventionally handsome (usually a euphemism, but in this case true). “Mr Llewellyn?”

“Yes.”

“Your mam’s been in the wars, poor thing. Have you come far?”

“Quite a way.”

“Well, you’re here now. That’s what matters, eh? We put her in a room to herself. To give her a bit of peace.”

In a way he was prepared for it, in a way it hit him like a ton of bricks. He expected the hospital bed, the clouding oxygen mask, the drip, the white patches on her chest connected to the ECG flickering its digital data. What he didn’t expect was to see that vital bundle, that sprightly calf, looking like a punctured bag. Nostrils flaring under the plastic, hissing cone. Wrinkled lips pouting and twitching. Eyelids struggling to so much as flicker. Eyes—black eyes from the fall—themselves hooded, failing, pooped. The massive lump at her temple, hideously discoloured and embossed with a dozen stitches like the work of some brutal staple-gun. Worst of all, the cruel harshness of the Venflon needle rammed into that snappable forearm with its sagging skin lined like bark, the cotton wool absorbing an ooze of dark blood. He wondered how many times they’d gone for a vein and missed. He thought of her yelp and recoil and tears, and the platitudes that would have come back at her. It made him shudder.

“I know,” said the doctor, or registrar as he called himself, whose name was Sand. (Dr Sand—it sounded like a comic book hero—or villain.) “She’s getting her sleep, and that’s a good thing after what she’s been through. The fact she hasn’t broken anything is a miracle, but a bash on the skull isn’t funny for anybody—especially at her age. It looks worse than it is, with all the inflammation, but that will go down. Our worry is the impact on her system, something like this. We have to keep an eye on a head injury, in case there’s any sort of bleeding in the skull, any haemorrhaging, any swelling. So far so good, but the next twenty-four hours is the crucial time. We can’t take anything for granted. I’m sure you understand.”

Rees looked at the blue-black bruising muddied around the crook of her elbow. His mouth was desert dry. He clacked as he swallowed.

“Is she going to die?”

“I’ve told you all I can. So far she’s been a brave old thing, love her.”

“Just tell me the truth. Please. What are the chances of her pulling through?”

“I really can’t give you chances, Mr Llewellyn. All we can do is keep an eye on her and hope for the best. I’m sorry.”

“How long have I got?”

Dr Sand paused at the door. “You can stay as long as you like.”

He sat beside the bed. Did not pick up her hand as he felt, peculiarly, he might break her. Or that his gesture might be some kind of imposition, one she didn’t want or need. Old people tended to have very clear boundaries of privacy and didn’t like them abused. This is what he told himself.

Wach, the breathing in the oxygen mask said. Wachch…Waaccchhh… Waacher…Wachch-ur…

“Wrach-y-wribyn…nuh…wraaach…”

Her eyes, stuck with a rheumy, Galapagos glue, opened. A leaden cloud having moved across the sky of them.

“Tilda…Muh…Muh…”

Rees didn’t need to struggle to make out the words.

She turned a groggy inch to him, struggling to focus.

“Put it on…” Throat caked with suffering. “Put it on.”

Her arm lifted, bone, skin. He followed the line of her quavering finger. It led to the Nagra he’d placed on the chair next to the door.

The lick of leader made a rhythmic tick and tock. In a quite mesmerising way if you let it be, one spool blossomed with tape as the other slowly diminished. Luckily he had a collection of little plastic clamps and one of these held the microphone to a metal rib of the bed head, coiled with gaffer tape. It was important to position it as close to her mouth as possible to get a clean recording.

“Uh…Matilda…I…Aye…shush…shush…”

“Brownwen? Bronwen? I’m here. I’m here, look. What do you want to tell me?”

“I want to tell you…” Her feather-light fingers tugged the oxygen mask to one side, the elastic cutting a scar-line into her cheek. Its hissing became louder. “…I want to tell you you’re a good boy.”

Where was that coming from? Was that the pain-killers talking? He fought a smile.

“Bronwen, do you remember our arrangement?” He reached between his legs and brought his chair round, closer.

“Arr—arrange…?” The mask, skew-whiff, twisted, added to her look of helpless puzzlement. Resembling a dislodged red nose, it made her stray hair look like a clownish wig.

“Yes, our arrangement. What you’d tell me? If I came? D’you remember?”

She lost all her strength at that point and her arm fell from the oxygen mask to the bed. Something about the brown paw of it frightened him, but he reached out to hold it.

The door opened. He retracted his hand like a thief.

“How’s she going? Is she sleeping, still?” The camp voice and bleached hair betrayed the ICU nurse’s sexuality. The plucked eyebrows and sun-bed tan added to Rees’ impression he must be a drag queen on the quiet. “I’ve come to change her dressing.” What dressing? Of course—her thigh. Katrina had said. The rainbow bruising. Maybe other damage he didn’t know about. “Why don’t you go and get a bite to eat for ten minutes? A coffee or something? But it’s bloody dreadful, I warn you.”

“Thanks,” said Rees, easing himself to his feet.

“What’s this palaver?” Drag Queen said as he peeled down the sheet, thumbing at the mic. Slim hips and slip-ons. “It’s not interfering with our equipment, is it?”

“No, I cleared it with Dr Sand,” Rees lied. “He said it’s fine.”

The ICU nurse looked at the Nagra, then at him. Rees wondered what he was thinking, but didn’t really care. One thing he did know—if this was going to be a long night, he did need that coffee, and better to do it now whilst Bronwen was being properly supervised.

“Ten minutes,” Rees said to her, imagining she could hear.

GROUND FLOOR/LLAWR GWAELOD

The hospital café was trying hard to be a Costa but towers of plates full of chips and rejected pasties destroyed any illusion. The server clearly spent more on piercings than on personal hygiene, and the wipe of a ubiquitous cloth saturated with toxic spray only moved around the grease on the Formica tabletops.

Rees tried to concentrate on the sounds around him while his Americano cooled: the squidge of doors swinging open and closed, the squeak of nurses’ rubber soles and trolley wheels on highly-polished floors. The sounds alone gave him a sense of place. Other than that, he could have been anywhere: an airport, shopping mall. They anchored him.

He’d left the spools turning. Let it record everything, just in case. The odd word, the odd sound—it might mean everything later, when he played the reels back in the hermetic comfort of his own home. Home. He wondered what that meant now, and thought of the house in darkness, empty.

He dug out his phone. Messages? None. He looked at the back of his hand, the blue rivers running under the pink surface. He remembered an old trick a friend used to do, plucking the skin on the back of your hand and counting to ten. The longer your skin stayed pinched before becoming soft again, the older your skin was. He remembered when he did it, in his twenties, he was only fractionally a one. The last time he did it he reached four.

He looked up, aware of being watched even before doing so. The gaze came from three people seated on a lime green sofa. Man, woman, child. Dressed formally, in black, as if they’d come from a funeral. They weren’t looking at each other. They were looking at him.

Through the corridor window, the sheeting that strait-jacketed the scaffolding outside sucked in and breathed out like the building’s lungs. Its green glistened with rain.

Rees pressed the ICU intercom again and waited, rubbing the mysterious but nonetheless physical tension in his neck. He heard some whispering and light, conspiratorial chuckling behind him—his first thought being that he was being laughed at, ridiculed, humiliated. Memories of the school yard. He turned, and through an open door into the ward opposite he could see two nurses stripping a bed. They stopped laughing abruptly when they saw him, frozen until the door re-opened.

He hadn’t registered the notice board before. This time he did. The thumb-tacked greeting cards written by young hands, thanking the nurses for being lovely to Nanny or Grampa. Saying, praying, these votive offerings, that they were glad to have them back. That they didn’t want their last memory to be of them sitting in that terrible bed, yellowing and shrinking, accursed by medical bafflement. Young, unblemished faces, smooth cheeks. It seemed an act of abuse to expose them to it. And there they were—the trite pictures of dogs, cats, cuddly bunnies. Or was it a hare?

He stopped dead. Katrina stood with a semi-wet raincoat over her arm, nodding to a nurse. He felt his stomach knot at the thought of what she was being told, but when he caught her eyes and she gave the flicker of a smile by way of greeting he knew it wasn’t what he feared. As the nurse hung up her coat, Katrina took a tissue and wiped the rain from her hair and face.

He sat with elbows on knees staring at the old woman, tube trailing from the oxygen mask clamped like a vicious sucker over her puckered maw, lips forming invisible syllables, the occasional fearful gulp or gasp as if to remind them, or herself, that she was still there.

He could not hear the rain on the roof. They were isolated from it. The bastion of medicine and pharmaceuticals protected him here, he was not sure from what—he supposed, from nature. From night.

Muh…tild…

“I remember when I was about seven,” said Katrina, “or maybe six, asking my mum, ‘Mum, what’s death?’ And she said—she’d answer anything, my mum—’Och, you get a wee taste of it every time you go to sleep, hen. That’s all it is. A big, long sleep.’ I didn’t close my eyes for a month.”

Katrina wanted him to smile but Rees didn’t respond, so she filled the silence.

“Hey. She’s had a good innings. When it comes, it comes, eh?” She saw him look at the floor and misinterpreted his lack of communication. “It wasn’t me who went to Penny, by the way.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“You didn’t think…?”

“I didn’t think anything. I don’t think anything. Let’s just leave it, can we?”

“You know all that stuff about the Gwrach-y-Rhibyn? I think she was just lonely. I think she’d say anything for a bit of company.”

“And in the end,” said Rees, “who’s she got? Just you and me.”

“And her son.” Katrina saw Rees’ features jolt as he tried to make sense of what she’d said. “She never mentioned him? Kai?”

“No. What the hell? Why didn’t you mention it?”

“I didn’t think it was important. To you, I mean. Anyway, he lives in Spain. According to her, they couldn’t wait to put her in a nursing home and they were off. ‘Course, old people can be very one-sided about things like that. Maybe the guy had no choice. Maybe he lost his job, ran out of cash. Had to downsize. He had a family. Kids.”

“She has grandchildren?”

“Oh, yeah. Four. She gets photos, letters. I tried to get her to do a Skype but she wasn’t having it. It was always: ‘It’s up to him.’ She’s proud, our Bronwen—and a bit pig-headed and a bit of a well, pain in the arse, too, at times. They get like that. You can’t tell fact from fiction.”

“In your vast experience,” murmured Rees, pretending it was not for her ears.

“Well. Sorry. I’m sorry you didn’t know. Anyway, what time is it?” Katrina looked at her watch. “They phoned and e-mailed him as soon as it happened. The fall, I mean. His contact numbers were on file in case of emergencies. Obviously. He should be landing at Heathrow soon, if his flight isn’t delayed. I hope to Christ he makes it in time.”

“In time?”

His spoken thought didn’t need elaboration. He voiced it only to be cruel to her, because she was being cruel to him by saying this. He didn’t really know why. Katrina stood, and he was only dimly listening now.

“Penny’s gone off to collect him. I think it’s all the old girl has ever wanted, really, deep down. For him to be with her at the end. Isn’t that all any of us want in the end? To not be alone?”

Rees’s eyes were fixed on the old woman. He heard a sharp intake of breath, saw her jaw glove-puppeting behind the plastic hiss, the tendons stretching in her neck. “What can you hear, Bronwen, love? What can you see?” He circled the bed and lifted the microphone from the sheet to rest on her undulating chest. Held it there with the flat of his hand. “Bronwen?”

“Nnn…She’ll be here, now just…Buh, above, above us, she is, sh, she is, now just…Blummy toes scratchin’ the flamin’ roof, can you hear them? Scra-scratchity scratch-scratch…Flamin’…nggghff…puh.” The vowels drifted—consonants becoming stutters and starts and mute spits, lips contorting in some dream-life, eyes only briefly alert and cognisant and he could tell it was burdensome, a torture. She sagged, thorax lifting the black bar of the mic with each mucus-filled rattle.

“What did she say?” He looked over at Katrina but a shrug was the most the girl could offer.

Now Bronwen’s mouth flexed like a sphincter. A newborn mute and writhing for first breath. Until which, pain. Just pain.

Rees felt a wave of nausea, a scent-memory of grease and acidic coffee courtesy of the cafeteria.

Chu-kak! Chu-kak! Chu-kak! Chu-kak!

The sound—a sudden feathery slashing—startled him, tugged his chin to see the tape on the Nagra had run out and the loose tail was flailing, whipping circles, ablur. He’d seen this a thousand times before. Stupid it had made him jump, something so innocuous and banal.

He walked to the machine.

“I better ring her,” said Katrina, getting up. “See if he’s touched down. They don’t allow you to make phone calls in here. I better go outside. I’ll be back in a minute.”

Rees said nothing. She probably thought she’d got on his nerves and needed to give him a bit of space. She hadn’t. Not really. It was all petty. Pointless. She was a decent sort. There was nothing wrong with her. He didn’t like putting down people the way Glyn did. She was ordinary. She was not a deep thinker, or snappy dresser, but that wasn’t a crime. She cared. That was why she’d come, after all. And that said a lot. And for some strange reason, now, he wanted to acknowledge this to her in some way that wasn’t condescending or trite, but she was gone.

He turned the tape recorder off, took the delicate stray end between his thumb and forefinger of one hand and pulled out a length of it, enough to insert it carefully into the gap between the heads, then curled the free end back round the empty spool. He switched to REWIND for a few seconds and put on his headphones. He wanted to know what she had said—or tried to say.

He pressed STOP then PLAY.

“…can you hear, Bronwen, love? What can you see?”

The sharp intake. Disembodied now, though he knew it was from the person lying behind him. Not clearer in meaning but more ambiguous. Fright? Surprise? Discomfort?

“Bronwen?”

Rees listened to the muffled, shuffling sound as, a ghost on tape, some audio doppelganger, he had lifted the microphone from the surface of the hospital bed and placed it—pop, numb—on her hollow chest.

“Nnn…She’ll be here, now just…”

A laugh somewhere. Why had he not heard it? Faint. Several walls away. A cackle at a dirty joke, it sounded like, then stifled in a snigger by the hand of a nurse realising ICU was no place for such hilarity—or was it a patient’s relative attacked by a short, savage burst of hysteria?

“Buh, above, above us, she is, sh, she is, now just…”

Then—the other noise…Something. What was it? Even fainter…

“Blummy toes scratchin’ the flamin’ roof, can you hear them? Scra-scratchity scratch-scratch…Flamin’…nggghff…puh.”

For once he wished Bronwen would shut up. It was a background drone, lifting high then dropping low…

He stopped the tape and rewound it again. Turned up the volume.

Pressed PLAY again.

“…scratchin’ the flamin’ roof, can you hear them? Scra-scratchity scratch-scratch…Flamin’…nggghff…puh.”

Of course…An ambulance. Ambiwlans. The siren and its Doppler effect, growing louder as it pulls in to A&E on the far side of the building. Not a cry at all. Not a bird-like cry or screech. Not a drawn-out screech at all…

He saw it, bright green and luminous yellow, flapping? Why did he think, flapping?

“What did she say?”

His own voice in the Sennheisers, hooking him.

He wound it back. REWIND. STOP. PLAY.

Ambulance/Ambiwlans

Too far. Earlier than the first time. Katrina’s voice.

“…should be landing at Heathrow soon, if his flight isn’t delayed. I hope to Christ he makes it in time.”

“In time?”

His own voice. Bitter. Old. Cruel. More like his father’s.

In the pause it rose again. The siren. But it wasn’t there before—it most definitely wasn’t there before, the wailing. The shift from high pitch to low—almost musical. The cawing ululation…How could it be earlier this time? How could it be growing? Getting louder even now, as he listened?

“…all the old girl has ever wanted, really, deep down. For him to be with her at the end. Isn’t that all any of us want in the end? To not be alone?”

His back to Bronwen Llewellyn, Rees switched off the Nagra and tugged away his head set as if it was on fire, her words—in reality now—suddenly sharp in his ears, as sharp as was possible from behind the oxygen mask:

“Gutter she’s hanging from now…cowing looking in at us…knows, see, she does…it’s her job, see…swining thing, she is…”

Without turning he grabbed another tape box and let it fall to his feet, sprung open on the floor, clear plastic fluttering after it. He tried with feverish fingers to lace up a new reel, yanking out a yard of the white leader. He fed it past the recording heads and made a loop, knotting it onto the empty spool before pressing RECORD and PLAY simultaneously. He realised he was panting and held his breath.

“Bronwen Llewellyn. Royal Glamorgan Hospital. Tape four. Time… Time…” It became a question—”Time?”—not even for the tape any more, and it was always for the tape. Always. Because the tape would outlast him—wouldn’t it? Though now he seemed its servant. The tape asked him for more but he couldn’t give it. Not a fact, not a confessional, nothing. The most he could give in the abject silence was his fear.

Knowing he must, he turned to face the bed.

Katrina sat with her back to him. She was facing the old woman, slightly bent forward, forearms on thighs, wearing her Dorothy Perkins raincoat. He could see in harrowing clarity dark, mercury rivulets beading down it, lines chasing each other.

“You were quick,” he said, forcing a lightness into it that stuck in his throat.

Katrina did not reply. Nor did she turn.

She extended a hand to rest gently on Bronwen’s and it was not the hand he last remembered as Katrina’s. Of course he had not examined it, not had occasion or need to, but Katrina’s had been soft and white, and now the skin was—what?—brown, if not grey, and he was sure if anything her fingers had been rather dainty, but these? These were too long, surely—far too long, and the knuckles too many…The most appalling thing of all was he now saw that the figure’s back was hunched quite notably, the head sinking low to its chest as the hand with palpable urgency squeezed and shook the old woman’s.

Almost paralysed, yet feeling the sac of his testes prickle and tighten, Rees knew that the object was to wake her and that Bronwen knew this with unique and horrible certainty. He could see that she had her eyes so tightly shut that her entire face was a route map of wrinkles pointing at a central point. Her lower lip shook in her non-babble, shining with rogue spittle as the oxygen mask misted in bursts. She resisted. She resisted. Weak as she was, enfeebled as she was, mute as she was, she was defying the night with every ounce of her embattled being. But the night was relentless. It persisted. It was waiting, predator at the water hole, with its filthy, lank, coal-black hair for her to give in, as it knew she must.

It was waiting with immoral, sickening patience for her to open her eyes.

“No,” Rees said, voice his own again, not his father’s, not on tape, not artificial or an electromagnetic reproduction but alarming real. Knowing that more than almost anything he’d had in life, or wanted in life, he wanted Bronwen’s eyes to stay closed.

“Not her,” he breathed. “Not yet.”

In bemusement or arrogance the hunched figure did not respond, and Rees knew what he had to do. Seeing past it the flickering eyelids that tried so hard to keep shut, he grabbed its shoulder and yanked it round to face him, tearing its gaze from its victim.

Two swishing curtains of thickly-matted hair fell long either side of its Geronimo cheeks, the face framed by them hard to reconcile as human. It filled his vision, riddled with warts, Neanderthal brow sloping above a bony ridge overhanging holes dug into putty. In the same instant the lips of a jutting jaw, ancient and simian, pulled back from a mouth with frightening elasticity to display gums blackened and rotten as it emitted a sound he failed to define even as it consumed him.

Strangely, he remembered seeing a programme about the making of a monster movie of the 1950s which showed the roar of a dinosaur ravaging New York created by the amalgamation of recordings of a bear, an elephant and a howler monkey. His brain tried to deduce, to codify, oddly, some similar recipe for what was assaulting his ears, but the task defeated him. Even in that grasping moment of lucidity, on another level, he understood completely that he was lost in the all-encompassing trap of it. There was no escape but to succumb, and the burden of resistance was shockingly easy to divest. He let it bathe him, that strange manufacture of the vast, insouciant yawn of a lion, the manic glee of a chimpanzee and the plaintive top C of a mezzo-soprano singing La Cieca’s aria from La Gioconda—the first opera he had seen that had made him weep. It—all of it—rose, transporting and yet holding him like a claw.

Perhaps he found beauty in that sound because he knew that if he was hearing it, Bronwen was not.

And even as the noise coursed through him, he knew that the only scream they’d hear on the tape would be his own, torn from him now as a crippling fire exploded in his chest, fissures of agony snaking down one arm. Pain choked him as he tried to blot out the inhuman howl of the Gwrach-y-Rhibyn with his own. But he was doubled, quartered, falling, fallen, as the polished floor raced to hit his splayed hand then, as it twisted, his forehead.

Hiroshima whited him back to the world. Faces? Faces he didn’t know. Demons. Saviours. Making him afraid. Fishermen hauling him back from drowning. But drowning felt best.

Two hundred joules. Stand back please!

The kick again. Cold. Shirt ripped open. Paddles descending.

Not responding. Nothing happening. One more time. Stand back please! Stand back!

“She’s coming for me,” he could hear somewhere in the room. “She came for him, and next she’ll come for me.” And he knew Katrina, upside-down Katrina, returning now from outside, would comfort the old woman in her madness.

He didn’t care. What mattered was that she was safe. That she had time. Time enough to see her son. Time to make a difference. And the light was bright. And he didn’t mind that, either. He didn’t mind anything very much at all.

And the last thing he listened to was his own voice in his own head.

“To the folklorist, nothing must die. There is life every time a mouth opens to tell a story.”

Now I am a story, he thought.

Tell me.

Peter Straub

THE COLLECTED SHORT STORIES OF FREDDIE ROTHERO

INTRODUCTION BY TORLESS MAGNUSSEN, PH. D.

PETER STRAUB’s first supernatural novel, Julia, appeared in 1975. Since then he has published If You Could See Me Now, Ghost Story, Shadowland, Floating Dragon, Koko, Mystery, The Throat, The Hellfire Club, Mr. X, Lost Boy Lost Girl, In the Night Room, A Dark Matter and two collaborations with Stephen King, The Talisman and Black House.

His short fiction has been collected in Houses Without Doors, The Ghost Village, Magic Terror, 5 Stories, The Juniper Tree and Other Stories and the forthcoming Interior Darkness: Selected Stories. He has also edited the anthologies Poe’s Children and two volumes of American Fantastic Tales.

Julia was filmed in 1977 as Full Circle (aka The Haunting of Julia) starring Mia Farrow and Keir Dullea, while the 1981 movie of Ghost Story featured an impressive cast that included Fred Astaire, Melvyn Douglas, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., and John Houseman.

Amongst many literary honours, Straub has won multiple World Fantasy Awards and HWA Bram Stoker Awards, along with the International Horror Guild Award and the British Fantasy August Derleth Award.

“I liked the idea of a story about a great writer who died in childhood,” recalls the author. “For subject matter, this great writer would have been restricted to his house, his parents, his back yard, school, trips with parents, meals at home, ordinary small-boy material.

“His language would have to be that of childhood, with misspellings, odd syntax, unintended mistakes and moments of blurriness. I like that all of this means it would have to look weird.

“What got the story off the ground for me was the idea of writing an Introduction by a literary scholar convinced that our boy author was a great modernist.”

THE PRESENT VOLUME presents in chronological order every known short story written by Frederick “Freddie” Prothero. Of causes that must ever remain obscure, he died “flying solo”, his expression for venturing out in search of solitude, in a field two blocks from his house in Prospect Fair, Connecticut. His death took place in January, 1988, nine months before his ninth birthday. It was a Sunday. At the hour of his death, approximately four o’clock of a bright, cold, snow-occluded day, the writer was wearing a hooded tan snowsuit he had in fact technically outgrown; a red woollen scarf festooned with “pills”; an imitation Aran knit sweater, navy blue with cables; a green-and-blue plaid shirt from Sam’s; dark green corduroys with cuffs beginning to grow ragged; a shapeless white Jockey T-shirt also worn the day previous; Jockey briefs, once white, now stained lemon yellow across the Y-front; white tube socks; Tru-Value Velcro sneakers, so abraded as nearly to be threadbare; and black calf-high rubber boots with six metal buckles.

The inscription on the toaster-sized tombstone in Prospect Fair’s spacious Gullikson & Son Cemetery reads FREDERICK MICHAEL PROTHERO, 1979-1988. A NEW ANGEL IN HEAVEN. In that small span of years, really in a mere three of those not-yet seven-and-a-half years, Freddie Prothero went from apprenticeship to mastery with unprecedented speed, in the process authoring ten of the most visionary short stories in the English language. It is my belief that this collection will now stand as a definitive monument to the unique merits—and difficulties!—presented by the only genuine prodigy in American literature.

That Prothero’s fiction permits a multiplicity of interpretations supplies a portion, though scarcely all, of its interest to both the academic and the general reader. Beginning in 1984 with childish, nearly brutal simplicity and evolving toward the more polished (though still in fact unfinished) form of expression seen in the work of his later years, these stories were apparently presented to his mother, Varda Prothero, nee´ Barthelmy.(Baathy, baathy, momma sai.) In any case, Momma Baathy Prothero preserved them (perhaps after the fact?) in individual manila files withinin a snug, smoothly mortised and sanded cherry wood box.

As the above example demonstrates, the earliest Prothero, the stories written from his fifth to seventh years, displays the improvised variant spelling long encouraged by American primary schools. The reader will easily decipher the childish code, although I should perhaps explain that “bood gig” stands for “bad guy”.

From first to last, the stories demonstrate the writer’s awareness of the constant presence of a bood gig. A threatening, indeterminate figure, invested with all the terrifying power and malignity of the monster beneath a child’s bed, haunts this fiction. Prothero’s “monster” figure, however, is not content to confine itself to the underside of his bed. It roams the necessarily limited map of the writer’s forays both within and outside of his house: that is, across his front yard; down Gerhardie Street, which runs past his house; through the supermarket he, stroller-bound, visits with his mother; and perhaps above all in the shadowy, clamorous city streets he is forced to traverse with his father on the few occasions when R(andolph) Sullivan “Sully” Prothero brought him along to the law office where he spent sixty hours a week in pursuit of the partnership attained in 1996, eight years after his son’s death and two prior to his own unexplained disappearance. The commuter train from Prospect Fair to Penn Station was another location favoured by the omniscient shadow-figure.

Though these occasions were in fact no more than an annual event (more specifically, on the Take Your Son to Work Days of 1985-86), they had a near-traumatic, no, let us face the facts and say traumatic, effect on Prothero. He pleaded, he wept, he screamed, he cowered gibbering in terror. One imagines the mingled disdain and distress of the fellow-passengers, the unsympathetic conductor. The journey through the streets to 54th and Madison was a horrifying trek, actually heroic on the boy’s part.

A high-functioning alcoholic chronically unfaithful to his spouse, “Sully” was an absent, at best an indifferent father. In her role as mother, Varda, about whom one has learned so much in recent years, can be counted, alas, as no better. The Fair Haven pharmacists open to examinations of their records by a scholar of impeccable credentials have permitted us to document Varda’s reliance upon the painkillers Vicodin, Percodan, and Percocet. Those seeking an explanation for her son’s shabby, ill-fitting wardrobe need look no further. (One wishes almost to weep. His poor little snowsuit too tight for his growing body! And his autopsy, conducted in a completely up-to-date facility in Norwalk, CT, revealed that but for a single slice of bread lightly smeared with oleomargarine, that Prothero had eaten nothing at all that day. Imagine.)

In some quarters, the four stories of 1984, his fifth year, are not thought to belong in a collection of his work, being difficult to decode from their primitive spelling and level of language. Absent any narrative sense whatsoever, these very early works perhaps ought be considered poetry rather than prose. Prothero would not be the first author of significant fiction to begin by writing poems. The earliest works do, however, present the first form of this writer’s themes and perhaps offer (multiple) suggestions of their emotional and intellectual significance.

Among the small number of we dedicated Protherians, considerable disagreement exists over the meaning and identification of the “Mannotmann”, sometimes “Monnuttmonn”. “Man not man” is one likely decipherment of the term, “Mammoth man” another. In the first of these works ‘Te Styree Uboy F-R-E-D-D-I-E’, or ‘The Story About Freddie’, Prothero writes “Ay am nott F-R-E-D-D-I-E”, and we are told that Freddie, a scaredy-cat, needs him precisely because Freddie is not “Monnutmann”. “Can you hear me, everybody?” he asks: this is an important truth.

This precocious child is self-protectively separating from himself within the doubled protection of art, the only realm available to the sane mind in which such separation is possible. Ol droo, he tells us: it is all true.

It should go without saying, though unhappily it cannot, that the author’s statement, in the more mature spelling and diction of his sixth year, that a man “came from the sky” does not refer to the appearance of an extraterrestrial. Some of my colleagues in Prothero studies strike one as nearly as juvenile as, though rather less savvy than, the doomed, hungry little genius who so commands all of us.

1984

Te Styree Uboy F-R-E-D-D-I-E

Ay am nott F-r-e-d-d-i-e. F-R-E-D-D-I-E nott be mee

Hah hah

F-R-E-D-D-I-E iss be nyce, tooo Cin yoo her mee, evvrrie

F-r-e-d-d-i-e iss scarrdiecutt fradydiecutt, nott mee Hee neid mee.

Mannnuttmonn hah scir him hah hah

Bcayuzz Monnntmonn hee eezzz naytt

BOOOO

Ol droo

Ta Sturree Ubot Monnnuttmonn

Baathy baathy momma sai baathy mi nom mommnas sai in gd dyz id wuzz Baaaathy

Monnoittmoon be lissen yz hee lizzen oh ho

Tnbur wz a boi nommed F-r-e-d–d-i-e sai Monnuttmon he sai evvrwhy inn shaar teevee taybbull rug ayr

F-r-e-d-d-i-e un Monnuttmin

Monnuttmoon sai gud boi F-r-e-d-d-i-e god boi

En niht sai SKRREEEEAAAKKKK her wz da bood gig

SKREEEEAAAAKK mummay no heer onny F-r-e-d-d-i-e

Ta bood gig smylz smylz smilez hippi bood gig SKKRREEEEEAAAAAKK att niht

Hi terz mi ert appurt id hertz my ertmi ert pur erzees

Bugg flyes in skie bugg waks on gras

Whi nutt F-r-e-d-d-i-e kann bee bugg

oho ha ha F-re-d-d-i-e pur boi pour boi

Ta Struuyrie Abot Dadddi

Wee go in trauyhn sai Dudddi wee wuk striits sai Duddi noon ooh sai F-r-e-d-d-i-e

Bood gig lissen bood gig lisen an laff yu cribbabby cri al yu went sai Mannuttmon

Daddi sai sit heir siitt doon sunn and te boi satt dunn onb triyn wiff Mannnottmonn ryt bezyd hum te biu wuzz escayrt att nite nooo hee sai nooo mummma nut trayn

Hah hah

Dyddi be nutt Mannuttmon F-r-e-d-d-i-e be nott Mannuttmon Mummna be nott Mannuttmon hah no Cus Mannotttmon izz mee Aruynt de Kernerr duywn de strittt ever evverweaur

Deddi sai Wak Faysterr Wak Fayster Whatt ur yu affraitt ovv WhATT

De kerner de strett F-r-e-d-d-i-e sai

1985

The Cornoo

The boy waz standing. He waz standing in the cornoo. There waz a man who caym from the sky. The sky was al blakk. I ate the starz sed the man around the cornoo. The boy cloused his eyz. I ate the stars I ate the moon and the sunn now I eat the wrld. And yu in it. He laft. Yu go playe now he sed. If play yu can. Hah hah he laft. Freddie waked until he ran. That waz suun. I waz in my cornoo and I saw that, I saw him runn. Runn, Freddie. Runn, lettul boy.

Wher iz F-R-E-D-D-I-E ??

He waz not in the bed. He was not in the kishen he was not in the living roome. The Mumma could not find littl Freddie. The man from the blakk sky came and tuke the boy to the ruume in the sky. The Mumma calld the Duddah and she sed are you takng the boy??? Giv him bakk, she sed. This iz my sunn she sed and the Duddah said cam down ar yu craazie?? Becus rembur this is my sunn to onnlee I doin havv him. I saw from the rome in the sky. I herd. They looked soo lidl. And small. And teenie tinee downn thur small as the bugs. Ar you F-R-E-D-D-I-E ?? ast the man of the ruume. No he sed. I waz nevrr him. Now I am the blakk sky and I waz alws the blakk sky.

F-R-E-D-D-I-E Is Lahst

The Mumma the Duddah they sed Were Culd Hee Bee? It waz funnee. They cri they cri OUT hiz namm Freddie Freddie you are lahst. Cann you here us?? No and yes he sed you woodunt Now. The Onne who cumms for mee sum tymes is in Feeldss somme tymes in grasse or rode or cite farr awii. He sed Boi yuu ar nott Freeddie an Freddie iz nott yuu Hee sed Boi Mannuttman iuz whutt yuu cal mee Mannuttmonn is my namm. Mannuttmonn ius for-evv-err.

The boi went dun Gurrhurrdee Streeyt and lookt for his fayce. It waz thurr on the streyt al ruff. The boi mad it smuuf wuth hiz ohn hanns. Wenm hee treyd ut onn itt futt purfuct onn hiz fayce. Hiz fayce fiutt onn hiz fayce. It waz wurm frum the sunn. Wurm Fayce is guud it is luyke Mumma Baathy and Duddah Jymm longg aggoo.

I luv yuur fayce Mumma sed your swite faycce thuer is onnye wann lyke itt in the wrld. Soo I cuuyd nott staye inn mye huis. Itt waz nutt my huis anny moire. It waz Leev Freddiue leeve boi for mee. Thenn hee the boi cam bayck and sed I went Nooweehre Noowehre thads wehre. Noo he sed I dudd nott go to the Citty no I did nutt go to the wood. I went to Noowehre thats wehre. It waz all tru. Aall tru it was sed the boi whooz fayce wuz neoo. He waz Mannuttmann insydde. And Minnuttmann sed Hah Hah Hah menny timnes. His laffter shook the door and it filldup the roome.

1986

Not Long Leftt

The boy lived in this our world and in a diffrent one too. He was a boy who walked Up the staiurs twice and Down the staiurs only once. The seccondd time he went down he was not him. Mannuttmann you calld me long ago and Mannuttman I shall be. The boy saw the frendly old enymee hyding in the doorwais and in the shaddowes of the deep gutter. When he took a step, so did Mannuttman his enymee his frend. The Mumma grabbed his hand and she said too loud Sunny Boy You are still only seven years old sometimes I swear you act like a teenager. Im sorry Mumma he saiud I will never be a teenager. Whats that I hear she said Dud you get that from your preshioys Minutman? You dont know hisz name. When they got to the cornoo at the end of the block the boy smild and told to his Mumma I have not long left. You will see. I have not long left? she said. Where do you get this stuf? He smyled and that was his anser.

What Happenz Wen You Look Upp

Lessay you stan at the bottum of the staires. Lessay you look upp. A Voice tellks you Look Upp Look Upp. Are you happy are you braav? You must look all the waye to the top. All the waye. Freddie is rite there—rite there at the topp. But you dontt see Freddie. You dont’t you cant’t see the top you dont’t see how it goes on and on the staiures you dont’t see you cant. Then the man geus out syde and agen heers the Voice. Look up look up Sullee it is the tyme you must look upp. Freddies Daddie you are,,,, so look upp and see him. Are you goud are you nise are you stronng and braav are you standing on your fruhnt lahwn and leeniung bakk to look up hiuy in the skye? Can you see him? No. No you cant’t. Beecuz Freddie is not there and Freddie is not there beecuz Mistr Nothing Nowehere Nobodie is there. He laft. Mistr Nothing Nowehere Nobodie laft out lowd. The man on his frunht lahwn is not happoy and he is not braav. No. And not Sytronng. Lessay that’s truoe. Yes. Lessay it. And the Mistr Nothing Nowehere Nobody he is not there exseptt he is nevvr at the top of the staires. And he nevvr leeves he nevr lefft. Hah!

The Boy and the Book

Once there was a boy named Frank Pinncushun. That was a comicall naaym but Frank likked his naaym. He had a millyun frends at school and a thosand millyuun at home. At school his best frends were Charley Bruce Mike and Jonny. At home he was freends with Homer Momer Gomer Domer Jomer and Vomer. They never mayde fun of his naaym because it was goode like Barttelmee. Their favrote book was called THE MOUNTAIN OVER THE WALL: DOWN THE BIG RIVVER TREEMER-TRIMMER-TROUWNCE TO THE UNDERGROUND. It was a very long long book: and it was a goid storie. In the book there was a boy named Freddie. Al Frank’s millyon frends wanted to be Freddie! He was their heero. Braav and strong. One day Frank Piunncushun went out to wlkk alone by himsellff. Farr he went: soo farr. Littel Frank walked out of his nayberhooid and wlked some more: he wllkd over streeits over britdches and throou canyhons. He was never affrayed. Then he cayme to the Great River Treemer-Trimmer-Trouynse and what dud he doo? Inn he jumped and divved strait down. At the bottom was a huug hall were he culd breeth and wassnt’t eeven wett! The waalls were hygh redd curtuns and the seelingg ewas sooo farr awaye he culd not see it. Guldenn playtes and guldenn cupps and gulden chaines laie heept up on the flore. Heloh Heloh Freddie yeled. Helo helo helo. A doore opend. A tall man in a redd cloke and werring a crownne came in the bigg roome. He was the Kinge. The Kinge lookt anguree. Who are yoo and whi are yoo yallingg Helo Helo?? I am Frank Pinncushun he sed but I am Freddie to, and I was hear befor. And we will have a greit fyhht and I wil tryk you and ern all the guld. Lessay I tel you sumethyng sed the Kinge. Lessay you liussen. Ar we kleer?? Yes, kleer, sed Frank. The Kinge walked farwude and tutchd his chisst. The Kinge said I am not I and yoo ar not yoo. Do yuoo unnerrstan me? Yes said the boy I unnerstann. Then he tuuk his Nife and killt the Kinge and walkkt into the heeps of guld. I am not me he sed and luukt at his hanns. His hanns were bluudee and drippt over the guld. He lafft thatt boy he lafft so herd hius laffter wennt up to the seeling. Freddie he kuld see his laffter lyke smoke was hius laffter lyke a twyiste roop mayde of smuck but he kuld nott see the seelingg. He niver saw the seelingg. Not wunse.

Simon Strantzas

BURNT BLACK SUNS

SIMON STRANTZAS lives in Toronto, Canada, and is the author of four short story collections, including Burnt Black Suns (Hippocampus Press, 2014). His fiction has been reprinted in Best New Horror, The Best Horror of the Year and The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, and has been a finalist for both the British Fantasy and Shirley Jackson Awards.

His most recent projects include the chapbook, These Last Embers, and the anthology, Aickman’s Heirs, both from Undertow Publications. He also has stories in the latest volumes of the Black Wings and the New Cthulhu series. ‘Burnt Black Suns’ marks the author’s sixth appearance in the Best New Horror series.

“‘Burnt Black Suns’ was a tough novella to write,” explains Strantzas. “The original germ for the story was as a potentially comic piece. I had envisioned a moment so absurd I couldn’t imagine it being anything else. But the line between absurd humour and bizarre horror has always been a murky one, and I realised as I fleshed out the idea that there was a more interesting context in which to use it.

“Writing the story, however, was a challenge. It’s the longest story in my fourth collection, and took me a couple of years to finish. There were a number of false starts and wrong directions as I teased out the conflicting threads of parenthood that run through the story and understood how to best shape them.

“In the end, despite the birthing pains, I learned a tremendous amount putting this story together, and I think it’s only a sampler of the sorts of things one will see from my pen in the future.”

I. A Long Bus Ride

NOAH SCREAMED AND opened his eyes. No one on the bus would look at him, all eyes curiously pointed down, and Noah felt the vestiges of his dream lingering in the dry oven air. The windows were tinted, but the sun still bore through them, bathing Noah in an unbearable heat, a heat intensified by his anxiety. Sweat trickled through the tight coils of his dark hair and down his face. In his hand was clenched the newspaper clipping he’d been carrying for days.

“Are you okay?” Rachel’s eyes were wide with worry. Noah’s head, a jumble as his sense of displacement ebbed.

“Yeah,” he said, folding the blurry photograph and placing it back in his pocket. “How long did I sleep for?”

“Not long, I don’t think.” She looked down at the small mound under her shirt and placed her hands upon it.

“I feel worse now than before. Still, I’m surprised I was able to sleep at all.” He swallowed. It tasted sour.

“That’s what happens when you don’t sleep for three days.”

It had taken a week to put the money for the trip together and make all the arrangements to get from their tiny house in Sarnia to Astilla de la Cruz in as straight a line as possible. Neither knew how long it would take to find Noah’s ex-wife, Sonia, in Mexico, let alone rescue his son, Eli. Sonia had been one step ahead of them for two years, and though Noah liked to believe his son cried for him the entire time, rationally he knew the boy forgot him more with each passing day. If he couldn’t find the boy and rescue him from his mother, Eli would be lost forever.

“Are you holding up? You know you didn’t have to come down with me, considering.”

“I’m okay. Just a bit tired. It’s still early enough that I don’t feel too frazzled. That will probably change soon.”

“It did with Sonia—” He stopped himself, but it was too late. The damage was done. Rachel shook her head.

“It’s okay, Noah. I’m not bothered by it.”

It was clear she was lying.

The bus hit something on the road, some rough spot that caused the entire length to shake. Noah held Rachel’s hand as she squeezed, reminding him of the delivery room when Eli was born. He tried to push the memory out of his mind, unwilling to have it contaminated by his situation. Rachel had her eyes closed as though in prayer, waiting for the disruption to end, and Noah wished he’d been able to convince her to stay at home. Already, he was terrified about what he might find when he finally discovered Eli, and Rachel’s presence only further compounded his fears.

Noah carefully took in the crowd of passengers. They barely looked human, as though sculpted from leather, not flesh, filled with sand, not blood. Their movements were sluggish and weighted, eyes half-lidded or closed—a lifetime of survival had worn them down. Across the aisle sat an elderly lady, her head covered in a thin shawl, her feet bare and calloused. In her hands was a small leather-bound book with blank earmarked covers. She stared unblinkingly at Noah and Rachel, and he had to look away as much from embarrassment as from fear; in her gaze he saw nothing but the endless expanse of desert. The woman opened her mouth to wheeze, and Noah worried the glaring heat had baked him out of reality and into some sub-reality, one in which everything moved slower than it should. She raised her hand, her crooked fingers bent in some crazy pattern, and touched her stomach in the same manner Rachel touched her own. He saw Rachel’s hands awkwardly fall away.

“Tú tienes la marca de la Madre. Bendita sea la Madre.“

“What’s she saying?” Rachel whispered to him, visibly upset. He wished he knew, but it was clear by the sudden shuffling of feet and positions that the woman’s voice was making the strangers around him and Rachel almost as uncomfortable.

“Something about you being a mother, I guess.”

The old woman nodded, smiling, repeating, “Madre.“ Rachel smiled too, hers as forced as the old woman’s crazed.

“Ya mero llega la hora,“ she said with glee, then laughing returned to her small leather-bound book. Rachel leaned toward his ear, her breath as hot as the sun.

“I remember now why I never wanted to visit Mexico. My sister had a horrible time in Guadalajara. Why the hell would Sonia have brought Eli here? What’s there to see but a whole lot of nothing?”

“I have no idea.” There was too much Noah didn’t understand, nor was he sure he wanted to. Sonia had changed after the divorce, only slightly at first, but over time the cracks grew wider and greater in number. There had always been something inside her, something he saw only on rare occasions. It was in her eyes, in the tone of her voice, but she managed to keep it hidden. When the cracks grew wide enough, however, there was no hiding it, and what she once tried to suppress she instead became. It was the only explanation he had for why she would have taken Eli from him. The boy was everything, and to have him gone for nearly half his life evoked a pain Noah could never sufficiently convey to Rachel. Sometimes he wondered if she had only become pregnant to try and replace what he had lost. But how could he ever replace Eli? It was like trying to replace a piece of his soul. “What are you looking at?” Rachel asked. Noah’s eyes were wide and dry. He hadn’t blinked in what seemed like days.

“I think we’re getting close.”

The black mark on the horizon grew as the bus approached it, peeking out from the haze of the radiating desert to form a church spire, then the rickety buildings beneath it. Within the hour the bus was close enough for Noah to point out the village to Rachel, who simply nodded solemnly. Noah itched for action, desperate to be freed from the bus he had been trapped in for so long so he might begin the search. Sonia and Eli were there, somewhere, in the small village, and he knew it. Knew he was so close. Strangely, the excitement made him salivate, and he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand in anticipation before Rachel noticed. All he tasted was salt.

As the bus pulled into Astilla de la Cruz, things became clearer to Noah. The church spire he had seen from so far away was broken, the cross hanging precariously upside down from little more than a wooden sliver. No one seemed to be tending to the church to fix it, however. The delicate stained glass was broken, the ground of the small graveyard beside it upturned until few of its tombstones remained upright. The stores along the street of the village were no better, a small step beyond wooden shacks, nearly indistinguishable from the rundown houses around them. Had the road not been paved, he would have wondered if there were a road at all. Each crack and pothole jolted the bus, shaking Rachel’s head back and forth as though she were a puppet. Noah put an arm across her chest while his other hand gripped the back of the torn vinyl seat in front of him. He squeezed tight, hoping to keep them both from being pitched to the ground. None of the other passengers, including the elderly lady, seemed nearly as concerned.

The bus came to a stop alongside a long wooden platform set in the dirt. At one end was a small wooden office with the word Estación carved in a plank hanging above the door. “I guess this is the station,” Rachel said as Noah relaxed the arm that had been holding her down. They gave the other passengers time to stand and gather their things before they retrieved their bags from under the seat and made their way off the bus. When they stepped down onto the platform—Noah taking Rachel’s hand as she navigated the stairs—he cast a glance sideways at the window he had been sitting beside for so long. The glass reflected the light from the bright streets, yet the reflection looked almost like a negative of him that had been burned in by the blazing sun. He stared at it, but did not admit it to Rachel for fear he was hallucinating. Then that image moved, and the confusion made him dizzy. Rachel tripped as she came down the stairs but Noah snapped back in time. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled, then looked again at that image in the window. It had become translucent, and when he looked again he was able to see through it to what lay beyond: the elderly woman, glaring. Noah nervously raised a hand to shield his eyes, but it was too late. She had stepped away from the window and vanished into the patterns of light.

Rachel stood on the rickety platform with her bag over her shoulder, ignoring the low creak as her weight shifted to her left foot. Noah flashed to when he’d first met her, standing much the same way outside the front of the police station. Her shape was different then—straighter, leaner. It was a good shape, but he liked the new shape better. Still, there was something there that was familiar, some older memory that the new could not successfully supplant. Without Eli, it all seemed worthless. “So,” Rachel finally said. “Where do we go from here?”

Noah sputtered.

“What do you mean?”

“Where’s the hotel? How do we get there?”

“Ah.”

“Why, what did you think I meant?”

Noah shrugged. “Why don’t we go inside and ask?”

The station contained barely more than a few chairs, fliers, and a ticket booth. He thought he saw someone behind it, but as soon as he and Rachel stepped inside, the bottled heat drove them back.

“I think I’m going to wait for you outside,” Rachel said.

Noah stepped in again and let himself get acclimated to the heat. He took deep breaths, his body struggling for oxygen, and the exertion only made him sweat more. As he walked in, he realised the station was much older than he thought. The wood was mottled and cracked, baked too long in the sun. But as old as the station appeared, it must have been built up around the station agent, who had no doubt sat slack-jawed on his stool since the beginning of time. Noah approached, but the man’s eyes did not move. Instead, the left merely drooped somewhat further than the half-lidded right, and he licked his lips with an inhuman patience. Had he not blinked, Noah might have mistaken him for a wax sculpture that the heat miraculously hadn’t touched. As though on cue, the station agent spoke in a rasp not nearly powerful enough to disturb the flies crawling over his sweating face. He moved his head with a creaking, his eyes scouring Noah and his bag. Noah did not enjoy the sensation. “Can you tell me where the Hotel Bolero is?”

“¿Que? Bolero?”

“Si, si,“ Noah repeated with exasperation. Outside, he could see Rachel standing against the side of the station fanning herself while trying to squeeze into a sliver of shade.

“No la puedes dejar afuera. Es peligroso.“

The language barrier was proving difficult for Noah, especially knowing it would likely be the biggest impairment to finding his son.

“Telephone?” he said, miming dialling a rotary phone. The station agent barked inhumanly, and with what must have been a tremendous show of strength he lifted his arm and pointed across the room. There among torn billets on the irregular walls hung a telephone, or the remains of one. It was barely more than a dangling receiver. Noah caught a glimpse of the old man’s tongue as he gummed his lips and wheezed, and the small wrinkled flesh looked like a chewed piece of leather. The station agent seemed stricken dumb, his long white moustache hanging over his mouth. It twitched and rustled as though he spoke under his breath, and Noah had to force down his paranoia in the face of that unblinking gaze.

Despite its rough-hewn looks, the telephone produced noise that seemed to approximate a dial tone, though the sound was not at all one to which Noah was accustomed—its pitch was higher, and it was a series of short bursts of varying length. Noah clicked the hook switch a few times to try and mediate the sound without success before dialling. There was a pause after the number was entered, a dead space that lasted long enough for Noah to worry nothing was happening. Then, there was a ring, a horrible ring that was like a wailing child. A voice spoke words he didn’t recognise, then a click and a voice.

“Hotel Bolero.”

Rachel was standing against the wall of the station, waiting for Noah to be done. When he opened the door she raised her hand to shade her brow. After being inside for so long, he found the baking Mexican air refreshing and wondered why Rachel was still sweating.

“Did you get the directions?” she asked.

“Eventually. It was a bit of a struggle.”

“Did they have trouble understanding you?”

“Well,” he hesitated. “That was part of it…How are you holding up?”

She shrugged. “This weather here only makes me feel more bloated than usual. At least I have this.” She lifted her arm to display the wreath circling her forearm like a large bracelet. It was made of hundreds of dried stems woven into a rough tangled circle.

“Who gave you that?”

“Some woman was passing by. She looked upset, and I suppose she caught me staring. I would have asked her what was wrong, but…” She shrugged, the reason obvious. “Then she gave it to me and said madre. I guess it’s my first baby shower gift.”

He smiled, then thought of Eli.

“We should get to the hotel. The girl on the phone said it was near the church.”

They followed the directions Noah had been given. Though he secretly doubted he’d understood the broken English correctly, he remained silent for fear of worrying Rachel. In the end, it was for naught, as he quickly recognised ahead the broken spire of the church he had seen from the bus—a black needle piercing the sky against the blinding backdrop of the setting sun. It forced him to avert his eyes as they continued toward it. Noah and Rachel passed few people, and as they did each glared back with suspicion. Noah hadn’t expected to feel so alien, so unwelcomed. The worst had been the old lady in front of the church as they passed, dressed head to toe in black, a child’s bicycle in her hands. She was wailing, yet when she saw Rachel, she stopped and looked at her growing pregnancy without a sound. It was only when she and Noah had passed that the wailing resumed.

They arrived at the Hotel Bolero just as the sun vanished behind the horizon and failed to take the stifling heat with it. The building was simply a converted two-storey house, out of place in its surroundings of poorly built shanties, but even the late addition of inexpertly installed siding could not dispel the influence of the ornate church. Positioned so close, the church made an eyesore of everything in its shadow. Insects filled the sky with an electric drone, and tiny flies preceded Noah and Rachel into the building, harbingers of the couples’ arrival. Noah could still feel them crawling on his skin, but reaching to scratch their tiny legs away only left his hand sticky with sweat. The skin of the señora behind the counter was deeply bronzed and leathery, and it folded like paper around her eyes as she glared with equal parts suspicion, worry, and fear. She said nothing, instead dropping the keys to the room into Noah’s hand as though they were slick with poison. She would not look at Rachel.

The room was barely larger than the bed, and when Rachel sat down upon it she sank with a long creak of old springs. “I guess we don’t have a lot of options,” she said. “At least we have that balcony door we can open to catch a breeze.”

“There doesn’t seem to be much hope for one,” Noah said, putting their bags in the corner and climbing onto the bed to join her. He lay down and stretched out his arm so she could snuggle close and put her head on his chest. Rachel’s flesh was on fire, but he tried to ignore it and simply enjoy the feel of her against his skin.

“So what’s the plan?” she said, looking up at him. He swept her blonde hair off her face.

“We can’t go to the police. We can’t even prove it’s her in the photo.”

“But you’re sure?”

“Absolutely.”

“Have you any ideas on how to find her?”

“I only care about finding him.”

The first moment Noah stumbled across that article in La Diario Oficial during his monthly trek to the Toronto Reference Library, he knew he was on the right track. The police did not agree. They felt the photo was too blurry, too indistinct to take seriously despite Noah’s insistence it was his fugitive ex-wife. He knew her body so well, its shape and how she held it, that there was no doubt in his mind the obscured figure was Sonia. For the police, however, it was not enough. When he finally convinced someone to listen, he was told that without more solid proof there was little they could do…even if they believed him. The Canadian police had no jurisdiction in Mexico, and the Mexican police were too corrupt to help find a missing boy when so many others disappeared daily from their overrun streets.

“Did I tell you what I was dreaming about on the bus? I dreamed I saw Sonia at a vegetable stand—a lot like the one we saw at the St Jacob’s market, do you remember?—and Eli was right beside her, holding her hand. I walked up to them without saying a word. Eli saw me first. He shouted with joy—ecstatic—and ran into my arms. I scooped him up and held him so close I could smell his hair and his skin. It was just like I remembered—comforting and sweet. Then Sonia looked at me and she was crying. She tried to speak and maybe she couldn’t or maybe I cut her off, but the words were choked. While she struggled I simply took Eli’s hand, turned around, and walked away. Somehow I knew that now I’d be the one to disappear and never be found.

“Then I woke up. Have you ever had a dream where you got just what you wanted, and for a second when you woke up you thought it might be real? There’s absolutely nothing worse than realising you’re wrong. It’s soul-crushing, absolutely soul-crushing. Still, I should know by now that nothing is ever that neat, that simple. When I finally find Sonia and Eli, things are going to be messy and painful. I just hope to shield him from as much of it as I can.”

Rachel was quiet. He hadn’t noticed her stiffen as he spoke, but now that he was done he felt her tense body and looked down. She was staring at her swollen belly, silently rubbing it with both hands. Then, with some effort, she slid off the bed and stood.

“Let’s go out. I’m feeling claustrophobic holed up in this little room after being on that bus for so long. I think a walk will do us both some good. Just give me a minute to get ready.”

Rachel left the room and he heard her feet softly pad down the hallway. Noah went over to the window and opened it, but without a breeze the air refused to move. He looked out instead at the darkening street below. The heat radiating off the ground distorted everything he saw. The village itself looked insubstantial, as though it might vanish altogether, and instinctively he worried what he would do if that happened, how he would find his Eli. He shook his head. It was crazy. All of it was crazy. But the building heat in their room only made his thoughts more muddled, and he knew Rachel was right—he had to leave before his imagination consumed him in a blaze.

There was no one at the front desk when they left, though they could hear the señora somewhere in the back, whispering or watching television. The air outside had cooled only slightly, but remained stagnant, and he was wiping his brow after only a few steps. He hated the heat, but would endure it for Eli. Rachel wasn’t as accommodating.

“I can’t stand the feeling of my skin sticking together. Or the fact that every time I lick my lips I taste salt.”

“Do you want to go back?”

“No, I need to be moving around. Dr Mielke says I need all the exercise I can get now before I can’t do it any more.”

Even in the darkness, the broken spire of the church was still darker, a black void in the evening sky. The small buildings and houses at its foot were all without lights, as though the hanging cross cast its shadow long across the Astilla de la Cruz street. Noah and Rachel walked hand-in-hand in as straight a line as they could along the uneven pavement, and as Rachel seemed focussed on remaining upright Noah spied those people they passed on the street. None were walking, all instead silently stood and glared at the couple as they approached. When Noah came alongside, he looked at their dark faces and saw the jumble of emotions he’d seen earlier on the face of the señora at the hotel. Was it so strange for the village to get visitors from outside the country? Did Sonia stick out just as much? He wanted to show the newspaper clipping to them, find out if they held the secret of his missing child, but it was clear none of them would help. He and Rachel were strangers, and small villages despise strangers.

“It’s quiet here, isn’t it?” Rachel was panting, but not enough for it to be worrisome.

“I suppose,” Noah said. Outside, in the darkness cast by the church, little was revealed of the Astilla de la Cruz streets. The houses seemed to be less built and more sprung from the ground as though a crevice had opened from which each had sprouted. Like rows of plants, each tiny house was at a different height than its neighbour, and mixed with the random sheets strung between two poles to form makeshift tents for the less-than-poor, the terracotta skyline attained a jagged uneven appearance, slightly hallucinatory in the near-dead light. The walls of the homes looked to have been crumbling for years beneath the baking sun, which had clearly bleached the colours to dusty grey. Or perhaps that was a trick of the ebbing night. Noah could just make out the advertisement for Corona painted large upon a wall, though the paint had flaked to such a degree hardly more than the name of the beer was still visible. And yet, in front of the barely legible sign a series of tables were set up with candles burning on each—a small outside cantina, under-populated. At the furthest table from the light sat a solitary old man, perhaps in his sixties, hunched so completely his head was halfway down his chest. Yet Noah could still feel the stranger’s eyes on him, and though he tried to return the intimidation with his own glare, the man seemed unmoved. “I don’t think they like foreigners here. Hopefully that will help us flush Sonia out.”

As though on cue, a middle-aged woman approached Noah and Rachel, a smile wide across her tanned face. Noah thought he saw her eyes first, like twin moons in the darkness, bright and round and moving towards him. Only when she reached the couple did he realise she was wearing glasses too large for her narrow face, too old to be anything more than second-or third-hand. She carried a bag at her side that was misshapen and lumpy, its contents having no distinct form. Noah thought he saw peeking from its opening coloured tissue paper, dulled by the absence of light.

“¿Nos has traído un bebé?“ she said with undue warmth. Noah wondered if she were as genuine as she masqueraded to be. “¿La puedo tocar?“ She made motion with her hands, as though beckoning Rachel into them. “Ella e,” the woman said to Noah, and he was stunned to see tears had welled in her eyes. “Ella es.“

Noah stammered, unsure how to respond. Rachel, uncomfortable, shrugged.

“Gracias?“ he finally offered.

The woman smiled again and wiped her eyes with the palm of her hand, then kissed it and placed it on Rachel’s belly. The contrast of foreign skin was never clearer. “Madre,” she said, then nodded her head. Rachel did the same, though it was clear to Noah she had no better clue what was occurring. The woman removed her hand and kissed it again before reaching into her bag. Rachel rubbed the spot where the woman’s flesh touched hers. From the bag, the woman produced three ochre dahlias, their stems twisted together to form some sort of wreath, and reaching up, placed it like a crown on Rachel’s head. “Una corona para la futura madre,” she said before turning and walking quickly away, back into the night. Noah watched her go, then glanced at the old bent man. His glower only intensified.

“I can see why Sonia likes it here,” Rachel said, taking the wreath off her head and smelling the flowers. She then looked at Noah with a face twisted in stunned apology.

“Sorry, honey, that’s not what I meant. I just meant it’s a nice place to raise a child.”

“I don’t think a cult is the right place for anyone, let alone a child. My child. My Eli. He doesn’t belong here.” Noah felt his anger rising, and Rachel was quick to diffuse it.

“I know, I know. We’ll find him. We’ll go out tomorrow and we’ll show the picture around. Someone has got to know where he is. The place isn’t that big. Look over there—” She pointed in the distance, up the hill that started behind the church and only went back and up into the darkness. “That’s the edge of this place. We’ve already walked across most of it. How can she possibly hide from you here?”

“If anyone could find a way to keep me from Eli,” he spat, “it would be her.”

Rachel gasped, then stopped and put her hands on her knees, her face twisted in a grimace.

For the first time since arriving Noah felt cold.

“What’s wrong?”

Her breaths were heavy, but controlled. As both she and Noah had been taught at Lamaze class.

“It’s nothing. I’m okay. Dr Mielke said I might get sharp pains in my back or stomach during the second trimester.” She continued to push air through her teeth. “I just need a second. Christ, it feels like someone stuck a knife in me.”

“Do you…Do you want me to do something?”

“No, no. I’ll be okay. Just a minute.” She breathed deeply, one final time, then straightened herself out. Her face was a bit red and swollen, but otherwise she looked okay. She sniffled. “See? All better.”

“All the same, we should call it a night.”

She took his hand again and they turned around. Other than the moon and the tiny light of the Hotel Bolero, there was nothing else to guide them through the dark.

II. Avenues of Investigation

Noah could not lie still between the hotel sheets. Sleep seemed elusive, impossible, when he was so exhausted from his journey on little more evidence than a blurry newspaper photograph. He itched with unbridled anxiety; it was like electricity travelling through his nerves into his addled brain. His ears buzzed, his eyes filled with sparks behind closed lids. Even his teeth felt slightly displaced, and biting down did not alleviate the discomfort. He was charged with the knowledge that Eli was close—closer than he’d been in years—and it became impossible to spend another moment in the shrinking bed. While Rachel slept easily and deeply, Noah pulled back the covers and slipped free.

The heat in the middle of night remained oppressive, and sitting beside the open window proved futile—the air from outside was no cooler. Still, Noah could look out from his perch at the tiny village streets lit by moonlight, and past the broken spire of the church toward the rough-edged horizon. He stared out and wondered where in all that emptiness Sonia was hiding. Sonia, and the son she had stolen from him. He boiled with impotent rage. If he only knew where Eli was being held, he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from storming over there, despite the assurance of both Rachel and the Sarnia Police that it would likely result in his death. But Noah was willing to risk it all to be reunited with his son. No one understood how much Sonia had taken with her, what emptiness Eli had left. The man Rachel met two years ago was not whole, had never been whole the entire time they’d been together. But there in Mexico, his body vibrating in anticipation of its missing piece, Noah was closer than he’d ever been. He didn’t know how things would change when he was complete, didn’t know if Rachel would reject the version of him she’d never seen before, but he couldn’t allow himself to falter with worry. Eli, his only son, was close, and his presence was stoking the fires that burned in Noah’s heart. It was burning him up.

Noah was still sitting by the window as the sun made its slow ascent into the sky, a fiery god from behind the horizon. More heat came with it, and whatever respite the dark had offered was revoked, a victim to the burning orb. Rachel opened her eyes not much later, she too finding it impossible to sleep, and when she waved her arm at Noah, beckoning him back to bed, he complied. Arm around her body, hand on their unborn child, he pressed his body into her back and fought the instinct to flee from the unbearable heat she was radiating. It was essential to his sanity that he stay tethered to her. Eli, though, was out there waiting for him.

“We have to go soon. We need to start looking.” He felt her take a deep breath, then exhale slowly. “You’re not too hot, are you? If you want to hang back here, I can meet you later.”

“No, it’s okay. I’ll be fine.” She swallowed hard. “Where to first?”

“I guess we’ll start with the photo. Show it around. See what happens.”

It did not take Noah long to get ready, but Rachel moved slower, her ligaments aching as they stretched to accommodate their growing child. Noah had not planned what to do once he and Rachel reached Astilla de la Cruz. Before they arrived, he had felt certain it would be easy to find a Canadian woman and child in a village so small, and yet once there he realised how detrimental his own foreignness was. He and Rachel had little in common with those around him. One mistake and they would get nowhere.

Downstairs, the old señora sat behind her desk as though she had been stationed there overnight, staring at a framed photograph. Rachel appeared discomfited by her presence and tugged at Noah’s arm to keep him moving past, but Noah decided if they were going to start searching there would be no place better. The señora‘s scowl did not frighten him—he would have suffered far worse for Eli.

“Excuse me? Señora?”

She grunted in response, her jowls tight over a clenched jaw. But when she looked up at him her face was wet, and those cold eyes red. He glanced at Rachel, hoping to catch her eye, but she was intentionally looking elsewhere.

“Do you know this place? Do you recognise it?”

He unfolded the article he’d been carrying. Time had already worn its creases, giving the photo an additional layer of fog. Noah flattened it out as best he could before showing it to her. Her eyes didn’t move.

“Señora, please. Muy importante.”

Her scowl deepened, scoring the flesh of her leather face like an old handbag, and she laid the small framed photo face down. “Ándale. Dámelo.“ Her hand snatched at the article, and he gave it over, albeit reluctantly. He struggled to tamp down the fear that by simply relinquishing possession of the clipping, he might lose his only clue to his son’s whereabouts. When her swollen eyes landed upon the photograph, they stretched open wide, much wider than he would have expected. She turned noticeably paler, as a dark shadow crossed her face. He worried she might scream. Instead, she shook her head vehemently and pushed the clipping as far away from herself as she could. As though it were on fire.

“No, no conozco a este lugar.“

“Please, Señora. In English.”

“No sé esto. Vete. Lleva tu hereje contigo.“

“What?”

She pointed at the photograph, and then looked at Rachel. Noah felt uncomfortable with the glare she gave his girlfriend.

“Where is the place?” he repeated.

“¡Hereje!“ she said, slamming the table. Her finger shot out, pointing at the door. “¡Vete!“

Noah picked the clipping up off the counter and backed away, his arms raised in surrender, unsure what had happened. He stopped when he felt Rachel touch his back. The old woman was still seething.

“We’d better go,” she whispered, tugging at him. Noah nodded and let her guide him outside, his eyes unable to leave the crooked glare of the señora.

Outside, the heat hit them like a wall. A glare reflected off the church across from them, though its bulk remained in shadow. Enough of a glare, at least, to disguise the presence of the priest until Noah bounced off him.

“God, I’m sorry!” he said, then immediately regretted the curse. Rachel’s mouth was agape.

“Okay, it’s okay,” the priest said, fixing his collar. He was taller than Noah and broader, built sturdy enough that he barely acknowledged Noah’s clumsiness. He scratched his wide round face with stubby fingers, and when he glanced at Rachel and saw she was pregnant, a smile overtook him. “Nobody was hurt, after all. At least, not out here. What was the screaming about?”

“I’m not really sure. I’m trying to find someone and when I showed the señora inside she went crazy.”

“Ah, Señora Alvarez. She hasn’t been the same since her granddaughter passed away. Do you mind?” He reached his large hand out and looked from Noah to Rachel and back again. Noah was confused, until he realised the folded article was still clutched in his hand. He passed it over carefully.

“Hm,” the priest said, holding the clipping an inch from his round brown eyes, then holding it at arm’s length. “It’s no use,” he sighed. “I’m blind without my glasses, and your wife shouldn’t be outside in this weather. Come, let us go inside the church. It will be cooler there.”

“How long have you lived in Astilla de la Cruz?” Rachel was sitting in the second pew, hands over the back of the first and tucked under her chin. Noah remained standing, looking at the sparse furniture and the small handful of parishioners spread out across the place, all with heads down and praying. The church was far more spartan than Noah expected, but he imagined all the money had been spent on the ornate cross that was a hanging broken shadow beyond the dull stained glass. Rustling emitted from behind the large altar, somewhere near the back of the nave, though he saw no cause. “I only ask,” Rachel said, wiping away sweat in the crook of her arm, “because your English is perfect, Father Manillo.”

“Well, it’s not perfect, but I try. I was born here, but my family was blessed enough that we moved to California when I was still a young boy. I studied there for many years. Many years until I was teenager and I felt the calling. I returned home, here to Astilla de la Cruz, and heard the voice stronger and knew I must stay. I studied here with Father Montechellio, and when he was too old to continue, I took his place. But enough of me. That’s not why you’re here. Let me get my glasses and take a look at this picture of yours. I know the village like I know my own face, and if anyone can help, I think I will!”

Father Manillo strode off toward the chancel, his shoes clapping the floor. Noah looked around the congregation but still could not locate the source of the rustling.

“I have a good feeling about this, Noah. I think he’s going to help us.”

“I hope so. I’m trying not to get my hopes up. How are you feeling?”

“I’m still a bit achy, but I’ll manage.”

Father Manillo appeared from behind the unadorned rood screen, a pair of thin glasses curled over his ears and nose. They gave his eyes a magnified appearance, like a newborn staring wide.

“Now let me take a look at that picture.”

Noah handed him the folded clipping. Father Manillo opened it up and laid it flat on the pew. He stared intently at it while Rachel and Noah watched him. A hand went to his chin, stroking the dark wrinkled skin there. Then Father Manillo nodded and looked at Noah and Rachel. He motioned for them to sit.

“I don’t know how much history you know of Mexico. When the Spaniards came in 1521, they brought God to the natives here, forced Christianity on them until it took, and over time those natives became civilised, paired with the Spanish, and developed into the Mexico we have today. Often dirty, often corrupt, but never godless is Mexico. But before this—before Columbus and Cortés and iron helmets and God himself—there were different rules the Olmec, Toltec, Teotihuacan, Zapotec, Maya, and Aztec lived by, and different gods to worship. Hexatopsodil, Quesadasidodfll, Setinodoginall—these were the ones who ruled the land, controlled air and water and earth. There was a god for everything; a separate yet no less important god to pray to, to sacrifice to, if a farmer wanted to grow a crop or heal his child. The ancient Mexican gods were not like the Christian God at all. The idea of one god instead of many would have seemed impossible, unbelievable—at least until the white men arrived and proved otherwise.

“But even that story, as widely believed as it is, isn’t quite the whole story. History is like that—never presenting everything it should, forgetting things it shouldn’t. Few people know what I’m about to tell you, fewer still actually believe it—at least, outside Astilla de la Cruz—but history has a way of changing the rules, even when time itself rejects the notion. I said that the Spanish brought the concept of the single god to the Mexican people, but that isn’t quite true. There was another cult of worshippers who believed a single god would save the world, although who or what that god would be is open to debate. The story has been lost for centuries, so very little is known; but as I’m quite interested in religion, as you can imagine, I’ve paid particular attention to talk of this nature and have pieced much together. Great Huitzilopochtli was at ancient millennial war with the other gods over the souls of all the children lost to illness and plague. He called the gods together for a truce, but Ueuecoyotl, trickster god of foulness and chaos, was not to be trusted and tricked Huitzilopochtli into transforming himself into a hummingbird, then impregnating a mortal woman whom Ueuecoyotl had already impregnated. Then Ueuecoyotl did the same to Ixtlilton and Camaxtli and so on until he had tricked them all into impregnating that woman. With each impregnation, a piece of the gods’ power was stolen, and Ueuecoyotl believed the subsequent child, the child of all the gods, would have all their power and usurp them as the one true god.”

“But wouldn’t he be usurped as well?”

“Ah, my friend, that was the beauty of Ueuecoyotl’s plan. He simply didn’t care. He was the god of chaos, after all.”

“Wait, so you’re saying this god and God-god—”

“Yes, one and the same. This is how a small number reconciled the new god the Spaniards brought with them. They believed this god, named Ometéo-tlitztl, to be the true supreme being, one which our God was only an aspect of. The cult has grown and persists, but they remain secret, unwilling to reveal their hidden selves to the world. Astilla de la Cruz is their home, and it’s everything I can do to keep the true God alive here in the face of that.”

“But does this have to do with my ex-wife and Eli?”

“I look at this photograph and even blurry it’s clear to me where it was taken. The blasted heath. Come outside once more. The sun has lowered enough that you might see.”

Noah trailed the priest to the entrance, Rachel a few steps behind. They were still in the shadow of the church’s spire, which spared them the worst of the heat, but after being inside for so long, the sun seemed doubly bright and harsh, and Noah had to squint to keep his eyes open. Father Manillo said something to a passerby, but Noah could not see much through his squinting eyes beyond a multicoloured blur. By the time Noah’s eyesight improved the person was long gone.

“There, my friend, do you see it?” Father Manillo pointed toward the distant rocky outcropping that bordered the village. “Do you see that shape at the top?” At first, nothing seemed amiss, simply acres of scrub surrounding the village, then Noah noticed something unusual. There was a hill leading back toward the mountains, and on this hill was what looked like a large rock structure. All around it there seemed to be no life at all—just rocks and what looked like a leafless tree. The entire image wavered in the heat like some blackened flame.

“That’s where your photograph was taken. That’s where the Tletliztlii worship, during the lost hours of the day.”

“How do we get there?”

“It’s not a place for going—at least, not unprepared. The woman in the photo—your wife, yes?”

“Ex.”

“Your ex-wife, she’s not the same anymore. The Tletliztlii have her, and your little boy most likely.”

“Tell me how to get there.”

Father Manillo sighed, then consulted his watch.

“I don’t have Mass for a few hours. Let me change into something more comfortable than robes. You will need an emissary, anyway, if any of them are to talk to you.”

Noah sat beside Father Manillo in the borrowed truck, while in back Rachel grabbed what she could to stay seated. Even so, Noah wished they were moving faster.

“I apologise for the ride,” the priest yelled back so she might hear him. “The terrain to the ruins is rough, but there’s no way around it. There are no roads that go there. As you can guess, if there were, the Tletliztlii wouldn’t use them. They like their privacy.”

Noah turned to look at her.

“Are you okay?”

Rachel nodded, then put a free hand on her stomach. “It’s not too bad,” she said, then was jolted harshly, lifting her off her seat a few inches.

“Maybe we should slow down.” Father Manillo looked at him, then into the rear-view mirror.

“We’re almost there, Rachel. I don’t want to risk getting stuck in one of the crevices. Can you hold on a few more minutes?”

She nodded and looked at Noah. Noah’s teeth chattered.

“Don’t worry. I’m doing my Kegels,” she said.

Noah shook with giddy anxiety, a symptom compounded as they approached the ruins, yet as the distance shrank Noah found himself increasingly puzzled. The site looked nothing like the photograph, nor like anything he had imagined. He had expected a towering altar made of stone, housing an antechamber in which the Tletliztlii—including Sonia and Eli—would be hiding. Perhaps a large carving of Ometéotlitztl’s face in the rock, overseeing everything. Instead, the ruins were just that—ruins, and consisted of little more than a few crumbling walls in a semicircle around a small raised platform that was split in two. There were no buildings, no people, no sign of life of any kind. The area was bare rock without shade or plant. Nothing grew for at least a few hundred feet in any direction, and even then only a circle of low brush that looked tiny and black against the blazing sun. The only proof life had ever existed on the rock was the lone dead tree standing at its centre, sprouting from the cleaved rock, its branches knuckled and bent, hunkered and barely unfolded in death. A thick cord was tied around one of its branches, the spot beneath worn smooth, and at its end swung what remained of a faded piñata. Noah did not know what animal it once must have been—the shape bore no resemblance to anything he’d ever seen before—but its dead eyes stared at him as it slowly spun in the breeze, yellow streamers fluttering. Its stomach has long ago been burst open, and Noah couldn’t help but wonder what had once been inside.

“Where is everyone?” Rachel asked, squinting out from behind her sunglasses. “And is it just me or is it hotter here than in the village? I’m sweating like a pig.”

The priest took off his hat and ran his forearm across his forehead. Beads of sweat ran down his arm like blood.

“This is where they’re supposed to be…” he said, but he wasn’t listening closely. Behind his tinted glasses he was surveying the scene.

Noah had known all along, but refused to let himself believe it until Rachel and Father Manillo spoke the words aloud. Eli was not there. Probably never had been. Everything was slipping through his fingers, like the scorched sand beneath his feet. Every hope he had of rescuing his son was gone at once.

“I thought you said they’d be here. There’s nothing, no sign of them at all.” It was so hard to think under that sun, and his disappointment so vast.

“Honey, it’s okay,” Rachel said, putting her hand on his arm to cool him. But her skin was like a flame and he jerked free.

“It’s not okay. Don’t you get it? Eli is gone, and we were so close. Why did we come out here? Why are we wasting our time?”

His anger flared, lit the world on fire. Noah winced, the blinding brightness needles in his skull. “I need to find Eli,” he tried to say, but his mouth refused to work. “He’s the only thing I care about.” The jumble of words faded into the distance along with all other sound, faded until nothing remained but deep endless quiet. Behind his closed eyes Noah saw Eli standing on the starkly lit barren heath, waving, his expression inscrutable. Noah reached for him and tripped forward, falling head first into the parting earth. But before the darkness could swallow him he was suddenly stopped, and the motion threw open his tear-filled eyes. For a muddled moment he wondered when he’d started crying.

“Be careful,” Father Manillo said, helping Noah up and handing him a bottle of water. “The heat—I think it’s too much for you.”

Noah wiped his face and looked at Rachel. She stood with her arms crossed over her belly, turned ever so slightly away from him. Noah wanted to say something but didn’t know what.

“We shouldn’t have come here,” he murmured.

“I understand, Noah,” Father Manillo said, his wrinkled hands held out to ease Noah’s anger. The red mist had already dissipated, but Noah’s unhappiness remained.

“We aren’t any better off than we were back home. Actually, we’re worse off. At least then this stupid photo offered hope.” He pulled the folded article from his pocket, tempted to tear it up and throw it away. “But look at this place. There’s no hope anywhere here. Everything’s dead.”

“It didn’t use to be,” Father Manillo said, bald pate gleaming with sweat. “Once this all used to be jungle. Right here where we’re standing. When the Aztecs built this temple to Ometéotlitztl, it was hidden from the prying eyes of neighbouring tribes. They called it ‘the lost temple’ because of how secret the Tletliztlii kept its true location.”

“So what happened to it?” Rachel asked, roused from her heavy-headed silence. She would not look at Noah, though. “Where did the trees disappear to?”

“Ah, you know the way of things,” he said, looking out over the rocks back toward the village. Noah looked, too, but saw only the wavering heat warping the broken church steeple. “Time has not been good to plant life anywhere, including Mexico. Perhaps even more so in Mexico where your environmental protections don’t apply. They began clear-cutting about fifty years ago, pulling down and removing more and more trees, trunk and all, until they exhausted the area. The sun here being as it is, everything beneath it was burnt to a cinder without the trees’ protection—soil simply dried up and the wind took it away, leaving behind only the bare rock beneath. In a generation, the area was transformed, and when the logging companies finally left, Astilla de la Cruz was left more destitute than it had ever been before.”

“Why didn’t anyone stop them from cutting down the trees?” Rachel’s breath was wheezing out of her. Noah’s lip curled despite his own lingering curiosity.

“No one could. A local family that did most of the cutting here—there were stories about them. They were involved in a lot of things, most illegal. You met one of their children at the hotel. Señora Alvarez? Her father was Hernando Alvarez, and when Hernando found out the trees could make him money he wasted no time cutting them down. Back then, the idea of sustaining a crop didn’t occur to anyone, especially one as hungry for money as Hernando. In the end, though, what drove him over the edge, what caused him to bleed the area dry, was a mishap with his second son. The details are sketchy, but somehow he did something to his own wife, something horrible, because when she gave birth what emerged was a dead thing, black as coal.”

“She’d had an affair?”

“No, that’s the thing. It wasn’t a black baby. Instead, its skin had been turned black and gangrenous, the same thing that had probably killed it. The son Hernando had waited so long for was dead, and his wife soon afterward once the unsettled toxic flesh flooded her body.”

Rachel gasped. Noah felt ill. The heat from the sun was starting to twist what he was seeing, and he wondered if Father Manillo was losing his cohesion.

“The story goes that Hernando wailed so loudly on their passing that it drove all life from the area, leaving only death on this hill. They buried the child here too. Underneath that slab. Some people wonder if that also had something to do with the curse here. Not me, of course. But some people. That’s why most of the villagers avoid this place. Everyone but the Tletliztlii followers. It’s the perfect spot to hide a child you don’t want found.”

The priest looked guiltily at Noah. His face was slick with sweat, and he was trying to blink it from his eyes.

“I’m sorry. I let my mouth get away from me, my friend. Maybe it’s best we all leave, I think. It’s a bad place.” He crossed himself. “Come, let me take you both back to the village. You don’t belong here. Not under this horrible sun.”

“But what about Eli?”

“Have faith, Noah. I will pray for you both.”

That answer did nothing to ease Noah’s worries.

Father Manillo left Noah and Rachel at their hotel. Noah had been silent during the trip back, weighed down by despair. What made it worse was Rachel’s demeanour. She had never spoken a word aloud, but it was clear her presence in Mexico was for his sake alone. She was not as committed to finding Eli as he was. But how could she be?

Eli. The boy had been so much a part of Noah. He filled a hole that could not otherwise be filled. Rachel did her best, and he knew that he should be happier about the new child she carried, but somehow that feeling was trapped inside of him, trapped within solid amber, visible but unreachable. Rachel, the baby—they were not his beautiful Eli. But he went through the motions. It was all he could do. It would change when they finally found Eli; there was no doubt in his mind. With the boy back in his arms, that amber would crack, would crumble beneath Eli’s beauty. Eli was Noah’s true heart. There was no way he could go much longer without the boy.

But he tried. Only a few steps away from the hotel was a small cantina, pressed into the side of a degraded brick hovel. There was no door, only a large opening and awning from which a child’s papier-mâché animal hung, its odd-numbered legs erupting from its twisted body without reason. Inside the cantina the lights were low, the air smelled of sweat and spices, and the unshaven men who sat there turned to stare eyes wide and silent at the couple as they entered. None were any younger than fifty, Noah suspected, though their faces made them look impossibly older. Noah wondered if he had ever before felt so out of place.

“Do you want to leave?” he asked Rachel under his breath.

“I think it’s fine. Look, there’s a table over there.”

She strode where Noah hesitated, deep into the heart of the place. Noah meekly followed, doing what he could to avoid eye contact. There were few women in the place, all lingering at the back of the room or behind curtains, and those he saw looked incredibly sad. He wanted to say something to help them, but couldn’t think of a single thing that might make a difference, so he did his best to put them out of mind. It was easier than having to deal with problems that had no clear solutions.

“Do you think they have menus?” Rachel asked, moving her sunglasses to the top of her head, but before Noah could respond a small man in an apron and pencil moustache approached and put a dirty paper menu in front of them. He seemed nervous and hovered over Noah and Rachel as they looked over the menu, spending most of the time looking at the other patrons behind him.

“Nopalitos con chile, por favor,” Rachel said.

“Para mí también,” Noah added. “And a beer.”

The small man nodded profusely and hurried away. Noah watched him disappear into the back. The other patrons turned partially away as well. Rachel did not blink. Instead, she put her hand on his.

“You still look upset,” she said. “Don’t worry. Today was just a minor setback.”

“It was the only lead we had, Rachel. I have no idea where we’re going to look now. We’ve come all this way, we’ve come so close. I can’t believe it was all for nothing.”

“It wasn’t for nothing,” she said. “We’ll find him. You have to believe it.”

“I don’t know what I believe anymore.”

“Believe this: we’ll find him. We’ll find him and we’ll take him away from this place, from Sonia and whatever crazy thing she’s mixed up in. We’ll take him away to a new life back home with us, and soon he’ll have a new brother or sister and all this will be like some horrible nightmare for us all, a nightmare that happened so long ago it will soon fade to nothing. We can have that, Noah. You just have to believe.”

Maybe it was the heat, or the exhaustion, or the pain of missing Eli for so long, but Noah could not keep himself from crying. It was horrible, and he felt the eyes of so many in the room staring at him once more, staring as Rachel squeezed and rubbed his hand. Like a summer storm, it passed over him as quickly as it arrived, but he was left drenched, wiping his face with the cheap paper napkin that had been laid for them on the table.

“I’m sorry, Rachel. I really am. I’ve just felt so lost for so long.”

“I know, babe. I know. Dry off, here comes our food.”

The little man was still hurrying as he delivered their plates, less setting them down than throwing them. He then retreated and brought back a warm bottle of cerveza. Noah reached out for it, but the man did not let go. Instead he leaned closer.

“Tú y la madre necesitan irse ahora mismo.“

“I’m sorry. I—”

“Es peligroso,” he said, his voice a seething whisper, and it only took a mumbled cough from behind for him to let go of the beer instantly. It kicked back, some of it spilling onto Noah’s hand, but the small man seemed to take on a completely different stance, looking at the rest of the room out of the corner of his eye.

“Cuarenta y nueve pesos,” he grunted, and left them alone as quickly as he could. They did not see him again.

Back at the hotel, Rachel insisted on standing outside their room in the warm night.

“It’s amazing; I’ve never seen anything like it,” Rachel said, staring up at the colours of ebbing dusk as her hands idled on her pregnancy. Noah followed her eyes skyward. In the dark that followed close the stars lit the sky like a thousand pricks of light. “The world is a lot different in these places. You forget what it’s like when you spend your life a few feet away from electricity at the flick of a switch. Out here, you really get an idea of what it must have been like to be alive hundreds of years ago. The Spaniards came here and conquered, brought Christianity, but you can almost feel what it was like before that, back when the sky was filled with gods of fire. I can understand why people would come here to worship Ometéotlitztl and the rest. It’s like a whole different way of being. I’m almost jealous.”

Noah bristled, but tried to hide it. He had no interest in repeating their experience on the heath. “You have a way of looking at things, you know.”

She took his arm and rested her head on his shoulder. “What do you mean?”

He shrugged, careful not to dislodge her.

“You see everything in a positive light. You look up and see a flood of stars. I look up and see the endless space around them. I wish I could be as positive as you.”

“Oh, Noah,” she said, her voice pulled into the vacuum of her disappointment. She didn’t say anything else, but instead took his hand and stood there in the dark of the blistering night. He let go first.

“We should probably go inside. Father Manillo was right. You need to rest.”

“Just stand with me for a little while. It will be good for you to stop moving—you’ve been running ragged since we left Sarnia.”

“I can’t. Not if I’m going to find Sonia and Eli before they disappear again. What if Father Manillo calls? He said he would.”

“If he calls, you’ll be able to hear it. Right now, I need you, Noah. We both need you.”

“I know that,” he said. “But what am I supposed to do? Forget Eli? Let Sonia have him? I know that would be easier, but I can’t. This is my son we’re talking about. I can’t let myself forget.”

Rachel started to say something, then stopped. She pulled him close and kissed him on the cheek, then brusquely pulled her shawl around her shoulders. “Go on in,” she said. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

He hesitated. “Are you sure? You’re going to stay out here alone?”

“You don’t have to worry,” she said. Had her tone changed, or did Noah simply imagine it? “I’m sure I’ll be safe out here for a few minutes.”

Noah opened his mouth to speak, but behind him he heard a sharp trilling from somewhere inside, and his heart skipped. With hands wet and body shaking he turned and looked at Rachel. She had turned too, but her expression was inscrutable.

“Well, what are you waiting for? Go on. I’ll be inside in a minute.”

He was already in the door when he realised she’d said something else, something like “I love you.”

Noah picked up the phone, but no one responded to his greeting. There was a wheezing sound. A snuffling. Garbled and metallic as though the line had been degraded. Noah started to get worried. He looked at Rachel through the window, her back to him, shawl pulled tight. “Hello?”

There was some more scratching, then, “Noah? This is Father Manillo. I had an idea.”

Noah’s blood raced.

“About where to find my son?”

“Yes. Of course. Villages like Astilla de la Cruz, farming villages in the depths of Mexico, are filled with children who must work the land with their fathers all day, or must scavenge the streets at night to scrape together what little they can to help their families survive. But there are some, especially those belonging to the more wealthy or foreign, who still must be educated. So a tiny school was erected a few years ago for them. There they can learn, but so few attend, or can attend often during the farming season, that it is only in session a few days a week.

“I’m not certain,” the priest continued, “but I believe there is class tomorrow. Perhaps your Eli is there? If your past wife is how you say, she might want him in school.”

Rachel entered the room and closed the door behind her. She did not look at Noah, even though it was clear she knew he was watching. Instead, she brushed past him and lay down on their bed. With some effort she turned onto her side, her back twisted toward him.

“Thank you, Father. How do I get there?”

III. Back to School

Rachel had managed to drift off while Noah was on the telephone with Father Manillo, gathering details about the nameless school’s location. She lay still, chest slowly rising and sinking, shirt ridden up to expose her swollen pregnancy. Noah lay down beside her but could not bear to put his arm around her. The room was a furnace, and the last thing he wanted was for her body’s heat to compound his own. He rolled over and tried to sleep.

He’d been warned repeatedly that the odds of finding Sonia, of finding Eli, were virtually zero, yet he could not stop himself from holding out hope. It buzzed through his head, his hands, his feet, and each remained in motion as he twisted and turned through the night. Eventually it was simpler to give up, get out of bed. Frustrated, tired, and angry, he crept to the window and sat in the dull moonlight. There, he studied the unfolded article he’d carried all the way from Sarnia, looking for some overlooked clue about where his son might be. Even that proved more than he could bear in the lingering heat, so he simply gazed out the window at the field of stars and waited for the daylight to arrive.

The broken spire was the first thing that came into view as the red morning sun crested the clay roofs. The air already smelled of frying corn, rich and bittersweet. The light of the rising sun burned Noah’s face, a giant ball of fire that seemed to hang a few feet away, not a hundred million miles. He watched it rise in starts, as though lifted on the shoulders of some great giant or dragged upward by a team of animals. As it ascended, it lit the sky further, and the silhouette of the hanging cross transformed into the cross itself, casting its long shadow over the poor village below.

Finding the school proved to be more challenging than Noah had anticipated. What should have been a walk of a few minutes was instead an hour-long odyssey without any clear sign where he and Rachel were headed. He had written down Father Manillo’s instructions carefully, but the streets of Astilla de la Cruz did not obey his crudely drawn map. In places, it was difficult to tell where roads ended or began, and at one point he was certain houses had simply been erected without consideration of anything beyond the whim of the builder. Each place was more rundown than the last, dirt yards filled with old and broken toys that were as untouched and abandoned as everything else they passed. If not for the occasional movement of curtains, or sound of someone scrambling unseen, Noah would have suspected he and Rachel had been just as forgotten.

Noah stopped and looked back for the broken cross to orient himself. It was a dark spike in the eye of the sun, and no matter where he and Rachel went, its position never seemed to change.

“Maybe we should ask someone where this school is,” Rachel suggested. Underneath her wide-brimmed hat her face was slick with sweat.

“Who are we going to ask? Do you see anybody around?”

“Let me see those directions again. Maybe we took a wrong turn.”

He handed them over reluctantly. Rachel studied them.

“I haven’t seen any of these street names. Are you sure these are right?”

“I haven’t a clue. I was hoping once we were close enough we could figure things out by looking at the signs. I didn’t count on there not being any.”

“Do you know how to get us back at least?”

Noah paused, unsure how to phrase the answer, but his silence was answer enough for Rachel.

“So we’re completely lost. Great. You do know I’m carrying a baby, don’t you?”

“Obviously.”

“Do you know my back is killing me as well? What happens if I need to sit down? Should I do it right here in the street?”

“We’ll figure it out.”

“Oh, like we figured out where the school was?”

He tried not to look at her. He would only get angry if he looked at her. How could she be so selfish when Eli was out there, somewhere?

“It can’t be far. We’ve almost reached the edge of the village.”

“I hope you’re right. I don’t know how much longer I can keep going. Remember what Dr Mielke told us.”

What she’d told them was that Rachel should stay home, something she flagrantly disobeyed. But Noah managed to bite his tongue before saying it.

He was sorely tempted to knock on a door, any door, and ask for directions. The sun was no longer inching its way into the sky but climbing swiftly, and every moment that passed intensified its heat. And yet, he couldn’t bring himself to ask for help. The houses looked too rundown, too hopeless, and he needed all the hope he could muster. Eli needed it. Even Rachel needed it. But Noah didn’t know if he had enough left to go around.

“Wait,” Rachel said, so quietly Noah wondered if she spoke.

“What is it?”

She shushed him. “Listen, do you hear it? I think it’s music. Like a flute or something.”

She cocked her head and listened; Noah remained motionless. The blazing heat on his skull, the slow thumping of his heart, deafened him, but he strained to listen for the sound she heard. He wondered if it was merely wishful thinking, an auditory hallucination charged simply by her desire, and had almost given up when he finally heard it: The trilling of the sort of pipe he hadn’t heard since he was a child.

“I think you’re right.”

A wave of relief crested, washing over him. Rachel smiled. “Someone up there must like you.”

“I guess so. Come on, I think it’s this way.”

The sound of music had long since stopped, but that did not prevent Noah and Rachel from finding their way to the unnamed school Father Manillo had mentioned.

“Let’s hurry,” Noah said. “If Sonia’s left him it won’t be for long, and I’d like to be far away from here before she realises Eli is missing.”

The school was tiny; hardly larger than the rundown houses they’d passed, with an exterior so baked by the sun it had become porous and brittle. Running his fingers along the wall, Noah’s hand came away coated with brick and dust. The remnants of childhood lay in pieces around the school’s periphery—boxes drawn in chalk on the pavement, a crumbling rubber ball on the sparse, well-trodden grass. Rachel, putting her sunglasses atop her head so the tiny black arms held the chestnut hair off her face, rattled the locked door.

“This is where Eli is supposed to be? The place looks like it should be condemned.”

She bent and inspected the sorry collection of desiccated flowers in the garden outside the door. The plants were merely husks, untended for far too long, and they surrounded a clay figure that looked crafted by a child’s hands. The unclassifiable thing was painted pink, a coloured ribbon around its neck, and had what looked like four limbs. “Look at its eyes,” Rachel said, huffing as she picked it up for inspection. “They don’t even seem to be looking in the same direction.” She dropped the figurine, and its weight buried it headfirst in the ground. Rachel wiped her hands on her pants with disgust.

“I don’t understand it,” Noah said, looking through the windows at the empty classroom. “Father Manillo said they’d be here—all of them, all the children.”

“Maybe he got the days wrong?”

“No, no.” An overwhelming wave of disappointment swept Noah. “He was so sure…”

A noise caught his attention. He looked at Rachel for confirmation she’d heard it too, then scanned the area. There was no one in sight, yet he distinctly heard the sound of someone crying.

“Do you think—” Rachel whispered. “At the back?”

The two of them walked slowly around the side of the school, Noah in front with Rachel close behind. The sun made everything too bright, and even through squinted eyes Noah wasn’t sure the shadow beside the empty playground was truly a person until it stood and looked back at them. Noah froze, motioned for Rachel to do the same, and he simply waited to see what would happen.

The shadow bolted.

“Hey!” Noah shouted, and gave chase. “Hey, come here a minute! I want to talk to you. Por favor!“ He sensed Rachel following close behind, but as Noah’s legs moved faster the distance between him and his girlfriend grew wider. When Rachel cried out his name, he was already more than a hundred feet away before he looked back and saw her doubled over. He rushed back to find her with her hands on her belly, her face contorted. His fear left him physically ill.

“Are you okay? What’s wrong?” His sentences were clipped, his attention distracted by the fleeing shadow. But when he looked up, he was startled to find the shadow too had stopped and was watching them from a distance.

Rachel breathed heavily in tight, controlled breaths.

“I’ll be okay,” she panted. “I think I’ll be okay. Go on. Go find Eli.”

He looked at her and she nodded, then winced again.

“No, I’ll stay,” he said, hoping to any god that would listen that she couldn’t see his disappointment. “I’ll stay.”

“Noah—”

“It’s fine. I want to make sure you’re all right.”

“No. I mean, look.”

Noah turned and saw that the person he had been chasing was no longer standing still, observing, but instead was walking back toward them. Noah stood and squinted for a better look.

“Are you okay if I leave for a minute?”

“What does he want?”

“I’m going to find out.”

Noah walked toward the figure as it advanced forward. The stranger was speaking loudly in order to be heard, his arms flailing animatedly, but Noah did not understand the jumbled hybrid of Spanish and English. The man was about a foot shorter than Noah, thin with a head that seemed slightly larger than the body it was on. He had a wide uneven moustache, though Noah wasn’t sure if it was only because that was the only facial hair that would grow. The stranger sounded terrified, screaming “¡Fuego!“ before making the sign of the cross across his chest and kissing his fingers.

“Calm down, I’m not going to hurt you.” Noah held his hands up to show he wasn’t a threat.

“The woman, she’s hurt?” The man breathed heavily, his face red and swollen from crying. Noah shook his head.

“She’s fine. We’re looking for the children. For a boy.” He reached into his pocket and the man flinched.

“It’s okay. I’m just going to take a picture out of my pocket, okay? I’m not going to hurt you.”

The man hesitated, then nodded.

Noah took the creased article from his pocket and held it out unfolded. The man cautiously leaned forward, watching Noah more than the photo, and when Noah didn’t move the man glanced quickly at it. Then, for longer.

“Si. I know this boy. Elias.”

Noah’s heart stopped beating.

“What do you mean? Where’s Eli? Where’s my son?”

“The madre?” he said, pointing at Rachel. “Is she Tletliztlii?”

“What? No. Not at all. She’s my girlfriend.”

“Good. We must get her inside before the sun gets stronger.”

They lifted Rachel and brought her inside the classroom. It was small, covered in paints. It took a few minutes for Noah’s eyes to adjust to the lower light, and the first thing that came into view was a purple papier-mâché elephant that stared at them from its perch on a desk. The man kept casting nervous sidelong glances at it while he poured Rachel a glass of water. She drank it quickly and without question, then thanked him.

Noah couldn’t handle waiting any longer.

“Where is Eli? Where is my son?”

The man shook, crossed himself again, and kissed his fingers before taking the folded article from Noah’s hand.

“This is your hijo?”

“Yes. My boy, Eli.”

The small man removed one of the children’s paintings from the wall of the classroom and gave it to Noah. The colours were wrong, sky yellow and ground black, but it was a self-portrait of a boy, standing with a pink, green-faced animal at his side.

“This painting? This is your boy.”

Noah took a second look, mesmerised by the thick-painted features. Could he tell, just by looking at the poorly constructed face, that it was his son? Was there any resemblance between that twisted figure and the boy he’d spent so long searching for? He couldn’t take his eyes off of it, the first artefact of his son’s existence he’d held in years. He lifted it to his face and inhaled deeply, trying to recover some sense of the boy. When he pulled the cheap paper away, he could barely speak.

“Where can I find him?”

“I don’t know. Sometimes the Tletliztlii—” He swallowed, then looked out the window of the classroom. Noah glanced, but there was nothing there. Only the sun burning in the sky. “The children, they were here. Your son, too. Then today, no children. But I find that.” He pointed toward the piñata on his desk, then crossed himself. “Eso es todo lo que queda de los niños.“

“What do you mean?”

“They are gone.”

Noah slumped down into one of the tiny desks, unable to keep his balance any longer. Knees up to his chest, he couldn’t help but laugh, the rasps swirling in his chest before erupting volcanically from between his teeth.

“My name is Señor Alfred Muñoz. I am one of the teachers here, but I am also the caretaker. The rest, they come only when they are needed. Classes for the babies on some days, classes for the older children on other days. Between, I must make sure the school is ready. But now, maybe I’m losing my job. Today, I’m supposed to have the children, but they do not come. Maybe never again.”

Noah looked around the room, needing to occupy himself to keep his heart from breaking. The walls of the classroom were covered in drawings scribbled by tiny hands, pasted upon a larger mural that swept everything else up in it—chalkboard, windows, the door. It was a row of children, their heads wider than tall, features pinched but gleeful. Each was a different colour, and they danced as though floating, all in line following behind a tall musician in some sort of parade. The musician’s face beamed like the sun as he blew notes out into the air, the string of them carrying across two walls. The line of happy children behind, all no more than four years old. Suddenly, Eli seemed so far away. Impossibly distant and irretrievable.

“Where would the Tletliztlii take them?” Rachel asked.

“Nobody will say. People, they are afraid of the gods, even if they don’t believe in them. They are afraid of what will happen.”

Noah banged his hand on the small desk.

“You have to have some idea. My son—he was stolen! I haven’t seen him in years. I don’t even know if he’s still alive.”

Rachel looked at him after his outburst in that way he hated. With well-meaning pity.

“We’ll find him, Noah. Don’t worry. If they’d left the village I bet Father Manillo would have known it. They’re still here, somewhere. We’ll find Eli somehow.”

“How can you be so sure? Even I can’t be sure. His own teacher can’t be sure.”

“I just know, Noah.”

“You know? What do you know?” Noah recognised, dimly, his frustration was misplaced, but the fire was too great; he could not stop himself. Tinder became a blaze, and he could not turn back. “We’re not going to find him. We aren’t going to find Eli or Sonia or anyone from the Tletliztlii. We’re—”

“Excuse,” said Muñoz, careful in his interruption. “You say Father Manillo is helping you?”

“Yes, Father Manillo.”

Muñoz did not get a chance to speak. A horrible moan, like the creaking of a massive door on rusted hinges, interrupted him as it echoed thorough the empty schoolhouse. The sound rattled Noah, who fell silent and cold and could not understand why—not until he saw Muñoz’s terror-filled eyes bulging wide. They were locked on Rachel, and as Noah turned he could feel the passage of time slowly stretch itself out. The room expanded outward until it fell away from the edges of world altogether, and all the while the distance between him and Rachel shrank to near nothing. He saw the web of veins standing from the pallid skin of her sweating face; saw the wrinkles around her eyes, her mouth, as she grimaced in agony. Tears fell onto her rigid arms and as she clutched at her belly trying to claw her way in to stop whatever was happening. Noah swallowed, his brain dully wanting to reconcile the sight, and it wasn’t until Muñoz finally stood and screamed that time’s normal pace resumed.

“¡Madre!“

Noah rushed over and put his hand on Rachel’s face. She was burning, and crying uncontrollably.

“My God, Rachel. What’s wrong?”

She shook her head without speaking, and Muñoz covered his own again, muttering under his breath. Noah grabbed hold of the small man so tightly he thought his fingers would puncture skin.

“Call a doctor! Do something!” he said.

Muñoz’s eyes were stuck as wide as they could go, but he still managed to whisper a question.

“The name. What is the name?”

Noah didn’t understand.

“Her what? Her name—her name is Rachel. What—”

“No, no. What is the nombre del bebé? The baby. The baby has to have a name.”

“We haven’t—we—what does that have to do with anything?”

“Noah,” Rachel managed, her voice strained. “Help me.”

Muñoz shook his head, pulling away. “El bebé necesita un nombre.“ But Noah would not let him go. Instead, he squeezed the teacher’s arms harder.

“Why do you want to know the name?”

“Noah, I need a hospital.”

“Cuando la madre de gran Ometéotlitztl’s estaba embarazada con su hermano, ella no le dio nombre al bebé y los dioses estaban tan enojados que le forzaron que lo abortara.“

“I don’t understand!”

“Help me,” Rachel cried. Noah looked down at her, his daze clearing. Panic setting in.

“¡El sin nombre se quema! ¡Un lumbre que nunca se apaga!“

He slapped Muñoz hard across the face. Muñoz stumbled.

“We need to see a doctor now,” he said, and picked Rachel up. Muñoz nodded.

“Yes, your wife. We need to help your wife.”

“We aren’t married,” Noah muttered. It was all he could think to say.

IV. The Truth Will Out

The only doctor in the village lived ten minutes away, but it could have been ten hours and the journey would have been no easier. The men carried Rachel as quickly as they could, and Noah did his best to calm her despite her delirium, while Muñoz guided them through deserted streets toward a tiny nested house.

“We’re almost there,” Noah said, but Rachel did not seem interested in being comforted. Instead, she continued to emit a high-pitched whine that steadily increased in volume. Part of Noah expected locked doors to swing open and shut windows to fly up, but as they passed rows of houses in the warm night nothing moved. They were more alone than they’d ever been.

The men burst through the door of the doctor’s house with Rachel in their arms and called out for help. A short, dark nurse with deep-set eyes and a harelip from an ancient scar appeared and looked directly into Rachel’s eyes, then at her swollen belly, then directed the two men to place her into a worn wheelchair. Noah asked if he needed to sign anything, but the nurse did not respond. Instead, she wrapped her stubby fingers around the handles of the wheelchair and pushed it forward, not waiting as Rachel weakly reached out. Before she could speak, Rachel was pushed clear of the front room.

“What are we supposed to do now?” Noah asked, eyes plastered to the door swinging unceremoniously shut.

“Now, we sit,” Muñoz said. “And we wait.”

Until then Noah hadn’t noticed his surroundings. The stress and adrenaline had narrowed his attention until he was blind to anything not directly in front of him. With Rachel taken, that adrenaline wore away, leaving behind a cold shiver in his limbs he couldn’t shake.

The front waiting room was the filthiest place he had seen since arriving in Mexico. The floor was made of press-on linoleum tiles loose from the sweat of summer heat, some missing, some cracked beyond repair. In the corner sat a small box of toys—a duck, some plastic cars—that Noah got the impression were not often played with. There seemed to be no sign of children ever having been there, which seemed appropriate, considering how oppressive the room was. But despite the small size of the room, Noah hadn’t immediately noticed that he and Muñoz were not alone. There was a lonesome couple seated in the corner, their faces long and sagging, their eyes dead. They did not glance at Noah or Muñoz. They did nothing much at all except cradle a pair of twin papier-mâché dogs in their arms. At least, Noah supposed they were dogs. Bright, multicoloured dogs; fat and malformed and without eyes.

“Why do they have those here?” Noah whispered.

“Here it is customary for the birth of a child. It’s a regalo. A gift. Our people, they are too poor to afford to give anything they cannot make.”

Noah nodded. They sat quietly, listening to the erratic tick of the old clock on the laminate wall, and to the sound of the couple’s heavy breathing as they stared at nothing and waited. Noah was in no condition to handle the silence.

“Thank you,” he whispered again. “You don’t need to stay here.”

“It’s not trouble. I have no children. No one who needs me more. Without the Tletliztlii to teach, I—”

He caught himself, and lowered his head.

“I am sorry. Your hijo—your Eli—I forgot.”

Noah swallowed. “It’s okay. I’ll find him.”

Muñoz nodded.

Noah waited on word about Rachel in silence for almost two hours, but the nurse never returned. No one else entered the office either, and the long-faced couple across the room were barely more than statues, staring up at a buzzing clock, holding their plaster gifts. Noah looked to Muñoz, who sat still, eyelids closed, and Noah wondered where the teacher had taken them. A nervous itch crept across his jittering legs. Where had the nurse taken Rachel so quickly? Noah stood, started pacing, desperate to dispel his growing unease. First Eli, now Rachel—was he doomed to have parts of who he was forever disappear, plucked from his life one at a time, until he was nothing more than a set of bleached bones? Even the article in his pocket, unfolded and folded so many times, was beginning to wear.

Muñoz opened his eyes.

“You must stop moving. It is not good for you.”

“I have to do something. I’ll go crazy if I don’t.”

“You will be crazier if you do. They will come and tell us about Rachel soon. Dr Nunio is very old, but very good.”

“If he’s so good, where is everybody?”

Muñoz shrugged.

“Maybe they are working. Even the poor must work, especially in Astilla de la Cruz. There is always much to do before the season ends.”

“But there’s no one else sick at all?”

“Maybe the people pray,” he shrugged. “Maybe that is enough.”

Noah didn’t believe it.

“The church wasn’t any busier yesterday. If it was, you’d think they’d be able to fix up the place. The steeple at least needs work.”

Noah stopped twitching at the sight of Muñoz. The teacher did not look well.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“That is no church. Manillo, él es el mal.“ Muñoz spat on the ground. Noah tried not to recoil.

“But we met Father Manillo yesterday and—”

Muñoz spat again.

“The man makes lies. Lies and half-truths. Do not listen! El anda con el Tletliztlii y—”

“Wait. ‘The Tletliztlii’? Does he know them? He told us—he told me and Rachel that…He knew where they were the whole time? Why didn’t you tell me before?”

Noah paced the room faster, hands running through hair.

“I have to do something. I can’t just—I mean, I have to go. I—I have to find Eli.”

“But your girlfriend,” Muñoz said, eyes darting back and forth, jaw trembling to speak.

Noah had no idea if Rachel was okay. But his son needed him. His kidnapped son. How could he know what to do? No matter what his choice, he might never forgive himself. But he had to choose.

“I can’t leave him there. I can’t let him slip through my fingers.”

Muñoz nodded solemnly and stood.

“Then I will take you. You cannot go there alone.”

As he spoke, the wooden door of the waiting room opened. The small nurse entered, her stony, harelipped face long and craggy.

“Ya puedes verla.“ Her voice was like gravel, slightly sibilant.

“What?”

“Tu esposa. Ya puedes verla ahora. Ella está preguntando por ti.“

“She says it’s okay to see your wife now. She is calling for you.”

“I told you she’s not—I can go see her?”

The nurse nodded, her tired eyes already bored.

“But—”

“Go, señor. I will wait out here. I do not think the Tletliztlii will go anywhere at the moment. Unless they find out you are here…” He trailed off, looking at the silent couple in the room with them. They seemed oblivious to Muñoz’s attention, yet Noah felt everything slipping as he was drawn further apart by opposite poles and did not know which direction he desired more.

“Señor?“ The nurse, impatient.

“Okay. Let’s go.”

It took too long for Rachel’s room to appear at the end of the unfinished hallway, but when it did Noah was startled. There was little equipment, and what was there appeared far too old. Light slipped past the blind slats and bisected the room, creating a staggered line across the unfinished floor. On the opposite side of the divide was a pair of single beds, but only one was occupied. Rachel sat up, her hands fidgeting absently with a small, colourful toy. It was clear from her flushed wet face she had been crying before he entered.

“They finally let you in,” she said. “I was worried they wouldn’t.”

“I don’t think they could have stopped me.”

“The doctor’s had a look, but he isn’t worried.” She sniffled, then tried to hide it behind the sleeve of her gown. “It’s a bit of hysterical labour, probably caused by the stress of the trip, and maybe from some dehydration. I felt a lot better once I got some water in me.”

“The baby?”

“The baby is fine, too.”

“Good, good,” he said, and checked the time on his watch. Rachel went quiet.

“Can’t you stop looking at that thing for a second to see how I am?”

“I’m sorry. It’s just that I have a lead on Eli. I think he—”

“You have a lead? Wait, were you going to leave me alone here?”

“You’re safe. There’s nothing wrong, is there?”

“It has nothing to do with if something’s wrong or not. I’m in the hospital. Me. The woman you supposedly love. And the child I’m carrying.”

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

“Are you? I know you, Noah. I’ve been living with that look in your eyes for years. The last thing you want is to be here with me. Sometimes I wonder if you care about me and the baby at all.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

She scoffed.

“Where are you going? To meet that bitch, Sonia? Do you think she’s going to tell you anything?”

“She’d better.”

“I love you, but you’re fucking naive if you think it’s going to be that easy. After everything she’s done to keep you from Eli, you think she’s just going to give him back to you? She has no intention of giving you anything. There’s something wrong with that woman, Noah, something that scares me, and I don’t want you going anywhere near her. Especially when I’m laid up in here with no idea what’s going on. I need you, Noah. Your child needs you.”

“Eli is my child, Rachel. He needs me too.”

“I hate to tell you this, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t need you at all. He’s got Sonia.”

“You just told me you don’t trust her. But you trust her enough to care for my child?”

Rachel was starting to cry again. Noah wanted to back off, but suddenly understood she had never wanted anything to do with Eli, didn’t even want him in her life, and she was using any weapon she could to turn Noah against his own son. The realisation made him angrier than he thought possible.

“Eli is a part of me, Rachel, and nothing you say can make that different. He’s my son, and he means more than the world to me. He means more to me than my own life.”

“Does he mean more to you than me? Does he mean more to you than your other child? The one I’m carrying?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Answer me!”

“You want me to choose?”

“Yes, exactly. I want you to choose between your fucking crazy ex-wife and a child who has no idea who the fuck you are; and me, the woman who loves you, the woman who came down here on this crazy mission with you even though she is carrying your future child, one who you’ll know and grow close to and will love you forever. Choose, Noah. If you’re half the man you believe you are, it should be easy. Choose.”

Noah took a breath, but had no idea what words were going to come out of his mouth. The anger and resentment had built up to such intolerable levels they confounded him. The pressure in his head was building, struggling for release.

Who was she? Who was she to tell Noah that Eli was nothing? That he should be forgotten? Who was this woman? Not the demure girl he’d met what seemed like only months before, the girl who once didn’t know the meaning of the word “relationship”. He had only been with her because her commitment to being noncommittal was so different from his that she seemed exciting, good for him. When had she become the yoke around his neck, telling him that he should no longer care about the only thing he’d ever cared about? Who was she? And who was the unborn child she said was his? Did it smile like Eli? Did it laugh like him? Was it as smart, as friendly, and perfect as his little son? It was nothing to him, nothing but a lump of flesh buried deep in a woman he didn’t know, didn’t recognise. She wanted him to choose between that and his perfect little boy? There was no choice. There had never been a choice.

Rachel’s eyes narrowed as she glared at Noah. His skull filled with opaque fuses and felt as though it was burning. He touched his forehead; it was strangely cold.

“I have to go, Rachel. We’ll talk about this later.”

“Get the fuck out of here,” she said, and threw the brightly-coloured toy at him. It bounced off his temple, catalysing his anger before it smashed to the ground.

“With pleasure,” he bellowed, then stormed out.

Muñoz was sitting in the waiting room, speaking quietly with the strange staring couple. It was clear by the look of guilt on his face that he’d heard part of the argument. Noah didn’t stop. Full of burning embers, he stormed outside. Muñoz followed close behind.

“Is she okay?” Muñoz dared.

“You don’t need to worry about it. Just get me to the church and to Sonia. Nothing else is going to come between me and Eli.”

The sharp shadow of the steeple lay across the front of the church, cutting the path to its door like a giant razor. Noah had been anxious on the journey there from the doctor’s office, still carrying his burning anger over what Rachel had said, and his nervous anticipation at seeing Eli again. He and Muñoz passed the rundown houses and saw few people outside. Most moved as if they were still asleep, staring off into space. On the stoop of a house, a woman sat surrounded by broken toys and the half-formed piñata she was building. Her hands were caked in pink plaster, and they covered her face as she wept uncontrollably.

Muñoz led Noah on without comment, along the dirt road to the towering church. Heat warped its height until the spire climbed forever into the sky. Out front, a shirtless man was working the arid ground, planting grass and flowers where it was clear nothing could grow. His back was tanned and broad, his muscles tight along his barrel chest, and it wasn’t until the two men were almost upon him that Noah realised it was Father Manillo.

“You came back!” he said, his grin wide, lenses reflecting the sun into Noah’s eyes. “Did you find everything you needed?”

Noah hesitated. “Almost.”

“Good, good!” he said. Not once did he look at Muñoz.

“And your wife? How is she?”

“My girlfriend is fine,” Noah said curtly. “But you know why I’m here, don’t you?”

“¿De verdad?“

“My wife. My ex-wife. She’s here, isn’t she?”

Noah watched the priest’s eyes, hoping the revelation would shake the man, but instead the older man dug his shovel into the ground and leaned on the handle. Then he laughed.

“What do you think is going on here? This is a place of God.”

“I don’t know about that, but I know you’ve been sheltering the Tletliztlii here. It’s probably why we didn’t find them up on the heath. Were they ever there?”

The priest laughed again, the sound as paternal as it was cold.

“Oh, they come and go. They come and go.” Then his face grew still, the laugh lines fading back into tanned leather skin, and he grabbed Noah’s arm and pulled. Noah tried to resist, but the sudden snatch had unbalanced him.

“You want to go inside, yes? I will not stop you—everyone is free to worship at Ometéotlitztl’s altar—but no matter what you find you must respect the sanctity of the church. There is no anger among the Tletliztlii, only shared purpose. Do you accept?”

He held out his hand for Noah to take. Noah shook it, but his own hand felt inadequate inside Manillo’s giant paw. When the priest let go, Noah wiped his fingers across his chest, trying to erase the feel of Manillo’s sweat and calluses. Noah turned to Muñoz, but the teacher remained cautiously and infuriatingly mute.

Though its windows were pointed away from the sun and let only indirect light inside, the interior of the church was an oven. There were more people in the pews, more people praying than ever before, many with plaster-covered hands, working on piñatas of various sizes and shapes; each was a colourful reminder of all the children Noah had not seen, had not held in so long. Each was a painful memory of what he had lost. He wondered about Rachel, about how she was, about whether what she’d said was true, but the thought was interrupted by the sight of the woman kneeling before the church’s towering black altar.

Her auburn hair was pinned back, but wisps of it fell over her apple face. Lines had been carved where he had never seen them, and dressed in meagre clothes she bore little resemblance to the woman he’d known. But the way she hung her head, the awkward turn of her nose, made it all too clear who she was. He would never forget her. Not the woman who had stolen his son from him.

“Sonia!”

Everyone stopped to look at him. A hundred eyes all staring. All eyes but two. Those remained transfixed on the altar.

“Sonia! Where is he? Where is Eli?”

The kneeling woman did not answer, did not turn. A shadow from the door spread across the room, and Noah saw Manillo standing there, filling the frame. The priest slowly wiped his hands on the cloth hanging from his belt. The church shrank to half its size. Muñoz stepped back, but Noah did not. He would not back down until he found Eli. He had come too far, travelled too long.

“Sonia! Where?”

The crowd became agitated as Noah’s anger intensified. Manillo took a few steps forward, and Noah glared at him in warning. Manillo paused, but the smirk on his face was disconcerting. The shirtless old man looked more than capable of snapping Noah in two. Nevertheless, Noah carried on undeterred, his voice increasing in volume with every step he took toward his ex-wife.

“Sonia!”

She stood slowly as he stalked toward her, and her expression looked both irritated and bored.

“Hello, Noah.”

He was momentarily startled. Her eyes—her eyes were bloodshot and circled with red, as though she’d been crying, but it was clear she hadn’t. It had only been a few years, but the changes were immense. She’d been beaten by the sun until her face creased, and by something else that had bruised her across the side of her body.

“What are they doing to you here? Are they keeping you here? Are they keeping Eli here?”

“Of course not. Nobody’s being ‘kept’ anywhere. I need you to calm down. I have to talk to you.”

“Calm down? Calm down? You kidnap my son from me, take him to another country where you hide in case I come looking, and when after three years I find you, all you can tell me to do is ‘calm down’? I ought to—” Flustered, the anger welled up inside of him, like a geyser of flame waiting to erupt. His muscles twitched; he was desperate to throttle her, but before he could act Manillo was there, chest glistening with sweat, jaw set with concrete. He stared into Noah’s eyes until the younger man grudgingly backed down.

Noah sighed.

“I just want to know where Eli is, Sonia. I just want to take him home. He has no place here.”

Sonia sat in an empty pew, pushing aside a crude elephant-shaped piñata, and looked down at her plastered and wrinkled hands. Noah felt a twinge of confusion, then he saw the flicker of a smile. It re-ignited his rage, but Manillo would not tolerate it.

“If you cannot control your emotions, Noah,” he said, “I will have to control them. You are a guest under this roof. Act that way.”

Noah did not care.

“I want Eli. I want to know where he is right now.”

“He’s fine. He’s safe. Ask his teacher.”

Noah looked at Muñoz, but the man would not lift his head to meet the gaze. He seemed smaller than before.

“You see, Noah,” Manillo said, resting a burning hand on the back of Noah’s neck that couldn’t be shaken, “Eli’s fine. You can calm down.”

“Yes, calm down, Noah,” Sonia said, a hint of mockery so slight Noah suspected only he could notice. “There’s nothing wrong with Eli. He likes it down here.”

“I don’t care if he likes it or not. He shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t have taken him. He doesn’t belong to you.”

“He’s a boy, Noah; not a car. He doesn’t belong to anyone.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Do I?” She glanced at Muñoz. “Haven’t you even wondered why, Noah?”

“Why what? You took my son? No, I just want him back.”

“You don’t understand.”

“Make me understand.”

She looked at Manillo, who only nodded in response. Then the priest put his sweating hand on Noah’s shoulder and glared at him. The message was clear.

“Muñoz,” he barked at the shrinking teacher. “Venga conmigo.“

The two men retreated, leaving Noah and his ex-wife alone. The rest of the spectators resumed their crafts.

Sonia’s head was in her hands, the greasy wisps of hair falling over her unwashed arms. She did not seem capable of being awake, let alone taking care of their son.

“After we—after the divorce, I can’t explain to you how lost I felt. I was doing what I could to keep up appearances, but inside I was broken. I think if I’m being fair, I was always broken; you just had the bad luck to come across me when I was hiding it better. There’s always been something missing, some piece of me left empty, unfilled. I’ve always felt hollow, but I’d been that way for so long I thought that was how everybody felt. Do you feel that way, Noah? Do you feel hollow?”

“I can’t say I do.”

She looked up at him, her sunken eyes bloodshot and pleading. He’d never seen her like that before; it unnerved him. “Seriously. Think about it. Don’t you feel like something is missing?”

“I do, Sonia. I’ve felt it ever since you took Eli from me.”

She looked down again with what he hoped was a grimace, but might have been something worse.

“I had to take him. You won’t understand.”

“Probably not.”

She stood and paced, rubbing her hands along the legs of her jeans. She moved back and forth between pews, fidgeting with one of the large papier-mâché creatures that were perched on them. She tenderly ran her fingers across the coloured tissue paper.

“I needed something to fill the hole, Noah, and I found it, of all places, in the Coniston Public Library. Or at least in the newspapers there. It was a tiny article, no bigger than a column, and it laid out the plight of the Tletliztlii and their worship of Ometéotlitztl. Something about it spoke to me. Maybe because of the way they described the country, vast but lonesome, or maybe I just felt the need to fill the hole with experience. Anything to recharge my battery. By that point, there was nothing left for me anywhere.”

“And some cult saying God was born from the other Mexican gods was the best place for you?”

“It’s not a cult, Noah. And who told you about the child?”

“Your friend Father Manillo did. If he’s even a priest.”

“Oh, he is. But he didn’t tell you the whole story.

“Even if I understood why you’d want to join a cult—”

“I told you: it’s not a cult.”

“Even if I understood why,” he continued, “I don’t understand why you’d want to steal Eli from me, too. Why did you have to take him? What good could have come from that, other than to hurt me?”

She put her hand on his, and though his skin instinctively curled away from her touch, he did not move.

“Noah,” she said. “I didn’t want to hurt you. Honestly, you didn’t cross my mind at all.”

Noah felt the baking heat multiplied tenfold across his skin, igniting the fire in his brain. He thought he might burst into flame. Manillo’s warnings echoed in his clouded mind, the only thing keeping him from unleashing his fury. That, and the number of Tletliztlii around him and Sonia.

“There was something about the Tletliztlii that spoke to me as soon as I read about it. People from all walks of life came on a pilgrimage, all needing to fill the hole in their lives. Ometéotlitztl offered something nothing else did. Ometéot-litztl offered fire. But when I got here I realised it was much more than that. So much more. I don’t know if I can explain it. I don’t know how to make you understand what my sisters and brothers and I understand. I came down to Mexico an empty shell and found myself transformed by what filled me. I’m so much more than I once was. I like this feeling, Noah. I want to keep hold of it.”

“What about Eli?”

“What about him? I’ve always felt a strange connection to him. Not like mother and child but something else. I can’t explain, and he’s too young to do it for me, but Eli and I have a relationship that is built on different foundations. This is one of the things I realised while I waited for my life to begin again, and I wondered what that made me. Was I some sort of a monster?”

“You don’t want me to answer that.”

Sonia let go of his hand and paced again, lightly stroking the animal effigy. Noah watched closely for signs of the woman he’d once known, once been married to and shared a child with. But it wasn’t her. It wasn’t who he remembered. This woman, this person in the shape of Sonia, was a stranger, and he did not understand her. He could not predict her. She had his son hidden somewhere, and Noah knew then that Rachel was right: she would never tell him where.

“You can keep your crazy cult for all I care. I just want our son back.”

“Noah, you don’t understand anything. You’ve never understood anything. That’s always been your problem. You move without thinking about what you’re doing, about who you’re hurting. You’re like a blind bull, and I hate to tell you this but you can’t always get what you want.”

“Where is he?” He was becoming more agitated, his head spinning on his shoulders. “Where’s that fucking Manillo gone?”

“Noah, stop it. Look at me.”

“I want Eli. I need him and I’m not leaving without him. Nobody is kidnapping my son!”

“I told you: he’s not kidnapped. Everything is fine. Eli needs to stay here with me. I need him more than you ever could.”

But Noah was not listening. His fists clenched in rage, he screamed for Manillo to show his face. All the Tletliztlii were watching, and they started to laugh, and their laughter only further fuelled his anger. He grabbed Sonia by the wrist hard so she could not struggle away and jerked her close. Her breath was foetid but barely registered through his bloody haze.

“You could never need him as much as I do. Take me to him now, or—”

“Or what? What are you going to do? Besides turn around and leave? Save yourself: Get the fuck out of here and take care of the other Eli you have on the way.”

Noah stood and punched one of the misshapen piñatas with all his strength, breaking it in half.

“I don’t want another Eli. I want mine!”

“You can’t have him,” she said. Laughing.

Noah’s brain shut down, unable to comprehend what Sonia was saying, what she was doing, how far he had travelled only to be blocked by a wall of insanity. He heard the crying of children filling his mind, even though he knew their voices couldn’t be real. But the cries only grew, intensified, bursting his skull amid Sonia’s mocking laughter. He squeezed her wrist tighter, squeezed his eyes shut tighter still, trying to surface in the tidal wave of anger flooding over him. He was drowning in it, deaf and blind and dumb and full of hatred. He opened his eyes long enough to see Manillo had returned, and his enormous fist was travelling straight at Noah’s face.

Noah remembered little after that. Just an endless series of fists and feet raining down on his crumpled body.

“Where’s Eli?” he tried to spit out, but the blood in his mouth choked him, and he could barely emit a gurgling cough. “Oh, God,” he cried, and Sonia laughed even harder.

“You stupid man. Don’t you get it? There is no child of a hundred gods. He was aborted; never born. There is no God.”

She then spat on him and kicked him hard in the face. He felt the clammy lithe arms of unconsciousness grab hold of him from the cold darkness below, and they pulled him close into her waiting bosom.

V. This Blasted Heath

Noah and Eli lay on the soft green grass, staring up at the clouds slowly moving across a picture-perfect sky.

“See that one? That’s a horse, Eli. What sound do horsies make?”

Eli brayed, then laughed uproariously. Noah laughed too, the feeling of his son’s body wriggling against him filling him with never-ending bliss. Noah couldn’t remember how long they’d been lying there—it seemed like forever—but he never wanted it to end. Couldn’t imagine the world any better.

“Are you two going to goof off in the grass all day?”

Noah rolled over and looked up at Rachel sitting on her wooden chair. She wore a deep, knowing smile and had one hand over the edge of the crib beside her, the other wrapped around her full belly. She sat in the afternoon light, the nursery around her so bright he wondered if he should draw the blinds.

“We’re seeing animals playing in the air!” Eli shouted, then cackled at his own antics. Rachel smiled too, then gently shushed him.

“You’re going to wake the baby, Eli.”

He laughed again.

“You don’t want to do that, do you?”

Only laughter. Noah grabbed the boy around the waist and threw him into the air.

“Of course you don’t. That’s my favourite boy. That’s my favourite Eli.”

Then they both laughed, both rolled on the green grass, and Noah could smell it on them like the smell of summer, and knew that if he kept rolling nothing would ever change.

But there was a noise, the sound of a tree branch breaking. Noah put Eli down and looked at the beach but saw nothing out of the ordinary. Just Sonia walking along the shore, holding the hand of a small child he knew looked familiar, but could not place.

The park around them was crowded with people, all standing on the grass barefooted, all staring up at the sky. Some wore old clothes, worn away to almost nothing, while others were dressed in suits and evening dresses. All stared up at the clouds expectantly.

“They must be looking for the horsies too,” Noah said, but when he turned he found Eli had vanished. Noah’s smile faded. “Eli?” he called, looking for someone who might have his son. But no one would look at him. They each held a small child by the hands, all staring upward. Noah cast a glance too, long enough to see that the white clouds were moving past so swiftly he barely recognised their shapes.

“Eli, where are you?” he called out.

More people crowded the beach, packed to its edges, some up to their knees in water, and when he called out Eli’s name they gathered around him, all holding a small faceless child by the hands, cutting him off.

“Eli!” he screamed, squeezing his way through the throng of immovable bodies. Through gaps he saw Sonia in the distance, wispy auburn air fluttering as she led a small boy by the hand, a small curly-haired boy dressed in his favourite green cap and blue Oshkoshbigosh overalls. Somewhere behind Noah was the sound of Rachel crying, the crackling sound of paper being crumpled, and a heat that blanketed everything, charring bodies and the ground to deep black ash. Noah was thrown forward by the wave, landing in the darkened nursery. Rachel had gone, the crib was empty, the shelves with nothing left. There was just a window, a large rectangle framing the blasted heath beyond. The sky was a deep blue, the air so clear he could make out every detail of the world beyond in excruciating detail. Insects creeping, rodents scurrying, grains of sand blowing though mounds of ash, and in the distance speeding toward him at an impossible rate was a column of black flame, stretching from the ground upward into oblivion. The dervish spun and spun, consuming everything in its path. And it was aiming straight toward the house Noah was hiding within. But where was Eli? A mewling sound behind him, coming from the crib, and Noah felt the joy of relief. He turned around and put his hands into the crib, so full of shadows it was like putting his hands into a well of tar. He felt something squirm in his grip, resist him, but he struggled to get Eli free. A small body broke the surface, covered in paper and shaped like some amorphous, brightly coloured animal. It mewed again, staring upward with painted-on eyes before catching fire and burning to cinders in Noah’s quivering hands.

Noah’s swollen eyelids did not part easily, and when they finally did he wished they hadn’t. The fluorescent lights were harsh and they stung, and he turned his head from them to see where he was. Somehow he had made it back to the doctor’s house, though he had no clear recollection of how or why. His half-memories were of manic and leering faces, all laughing at him. He tried to lift a hand, but it felt weighted down, and it wasn’t until he gathered enough strength to move his head that he realised why. His arm, from elbow down, was wrapped with thick plaster and bandages.

The air was sour with sweat and ash, and his entire body felt overrun by a dull aching pain. He called for help, but his shrivelled tongue prevented anything more than a choked grunt and cough. His chest exploded in pain.

Noah slowly pulled himself up to sit, resting every few inches to rediscover his equilibrium and slow the shards of pain that sank deeper with each jarring movement. He began to remember what happened and everything that had come before. He only felt sicker.

It took work, but he managed to get his legs over the side of the bed, and after a few minutes more to get to his feet. Every inch ached from his ordeal, but beyond the broken arm and his taped-up chest he seemed to be intact. His bloodied clothes were draped over an empty chair, and as slowly as he could he slipped into them. In the far corner of the room, hidden from sight until he was able to stand, was a crudely made piñata, left there by some previous patient. It looked up at him with its mismatched eyes, as though it judged him for all that had transpired. He had to find Rachel. He had lost Eli, probably forever, and couldn’t face losing her as well.

His shuffling echoed in the short corridor. The nurse was nowhere to be found, but he dimly remembered which was Rachel’s room and stumbled down the empty hall toward it, tears blurring his vision, heavy breathing making his ribs ache. He had nothing left without her, and as he found her room he starting apologising before he even entered.

There was no trace of her, nor of their unborn child, just as she promised. The bed was made and room straightened, and the odour of disinfectant still hung strong. Noah sat on the visitor’s chair, exhausted, dumbfounded, staring at the empty bed. Beneath it he saw something the cleaners had missed, something small and colourful that had rolled under the bed after Rachel had ricocheted it off Noah’s temple. He raised his good hand to his brow and could still feel the bruise. The pain felt good because it felt different, because it wasn’t the pain that was going to tear him in two.

Astilla de la Cruz met Noah with creeping daylight and an unbearable heat that glued his clothes to his flesh. He felt vile and dizzy, and wondered if he had suffered a concussion in the assault. The broken church loomed like a vengeful spirit, and those few houses he saw along the street he hoped would lead him back to the hotel. Each window was dim, haloed by the wavering burning air, and as he slowly passed curtains were quickly drawn closed. Yet the rest of the houses seemed vacant, large paper creatures hanging from windows or sitting in the dirt outside the doors, dead eyes watching as no one walked by. The odour of something burning wafted through the air, a greasy smell not unlike grilled pork; it could have been coming from anywhere.

The bleeding had stopped, at least. He coughed, choking on the mucus that had flowed back from his nose before spitting it onto the dirt road. He felt so alone without Rachel beside him. Perhaps she was right: maybe he should never have gone after Eli. It had only made things worse. He’d waited so long to be with his son, sacrificed so much of himself, of his life, dreaming of the day they’d be reunited, that the realisation he might never see the boy again was devastating. His body revolted at the thought, releasing in a flood all the unbearable emotion he’d pent-up or plastered over. He dropped to his knees in the middle of the street and wept for the years of loss and hopelessness he could see laid out before him. Each hitch of his body brought a new throb of pain from his taped ribcage, but it barely registered through his grief. He’d lost everything he’d built of his new life, sacrificed on the altar of his old, and those arms he’d held wide for so long would never be filled, but neither would they ever close.

When he reached the hotel, he was a mess. Covered head to toe in dirty bandages, his clothes ripped and bloodied—had Señora Alvarez still been there, she would likely have called the police. But she wasn’t there. No one was. No one but another gaudy piñata, silently watching him hobble.

With some awkwardness, he was able to retrieve his key and open the door to his hotel room. When he saw the empty hangers and missing suitcase he understood the futility of the hope he’d been harbouring—Rachel had gone to Sarnia without him. What little remained of his strength dwindled, and he dropped onto the bed where springs stuck him as penance. From his pocket he removed the article he had been carrying with him so long and unfolded it. He stared at the blurry photograph of Sonia, of the heath, of everything he had tried and failed to rescue. Noah had come so far to find the piece of himself that was missing, and instead the rest of him fell apart, scattering those pieces far and wide with no hope of gluing them back together. He stared at the worn article and wondered why it should be any different, why it should be spared the same fate. He had done everything he could, and there was only one thing left unfinished. Noah took the article in both hands and tore it to shreds. He let the fragments rain down around him.

He hadn’t noticed the sound at first, his head still ringing from despair, but as it cleared the scraping of burning wind against brick faded, uncovering the hush of a mumbling crowd moving through the blistering heat. Noah squinted out the window into the distance and saw flickering light dotting the gentle slope toward the blasted heath. That was where the entire town had gone, or at least those not cowering in their ramshackle homes. They went to celebrate with Sonia and her cult of kidnappers. As if on cue, a streamer of yellow tissue paper drifted across the street, and he heard a woman’s distant careless laughter.

The ground was not easy to cover by foot, even in the growing daylight, but Noah had no car, nor was Manillo’s truck at the church when he passed. Dirt was hardened to rock, cracked with fissures that gaped like a series of ever-widening mouths, each hungry for him to step inside. Thirst came upon him slyly, and it wasn’t until he had travelled far beyond the village’s outskirts that he realised how dangerous a trek he had embarked upon. The sound of rattlesnakes thundered in Noah’s ears so close he tensed for a strike. But his eyes did not deviate from where the ruins should be. He trailed the lights ahead of him as best he could, but they moved quicker than his injured legs could manage, and the ground radiated heat like burning coal. It did not take long before he was left behind, alone under a baking sun that bore down on his unprotected body.

Had he not known where they were headed, Noah might have lost them forever, but he never questioned that the heath was their destination. Manillo had spoken so lovingly of the site that it could only have come from someone who knew it well. As well as any of the Tletliztlii, if not better. Noah wondered how long Manillo had been leading the movement, if he had always been one of them or had been turned from God once he arrived. The church had been desecrated by their cult worship, yet no one from the archdiocese had intervened. Or, at least, Noah hoped. The alternative—that the agents had been murdered to keep the Tletliztlii’s secret—was one revelation too many for him. He knew he would have to tread carefully, far more so than he had previously.

He crept closer to the ruins, and as he did so he slowed, moving as quietly as his injuries allowed. He didn’t know what he was going to encounter further up the increasing slope—there was virtually no noise on the heath except the crackle of flames and the howl of wind around the stone ruins. Noah crawled the last few feet to the brush that surrounded the site, wanting to keep from being spotted. He wiped the sweat from his eyes and lay still on his back, dehydrated, trying to preserve his energy and formulate a plan. From his hidden vantage-point, he hoped to spot Eli once the Tletliztlii appeared and determine how best to liberate the boy from his captors. Rachel was wrong: There was no way Eli would be better off with Sonia, not while she was under the spell of that unholy cult. Noah had sworn a vow to protect his son at all costs, and would not fail again. No matter how much everything else in his life was falling apart, he would not fail again.

Noah lay still, listening for any sound that might give him an idea of what was happening. He knew he eventually had to look over the brush, if only to determine what might be waiting on the rocky heath, but he was terrified. If one of the Tletliztlii were to see him, the game would be up, and he doubted he could survive another beating. But he also knew he had no choice. Slowly he rolled onto his side, wincing as his weight rested on his broken ribs, and, getting his good hand underneath him to push upwards, he raised his head to peek over the brush. He meant to look only for an instant, but was unprepared for the bizarre spectacle that awaited him. Instead of ducking down, he simply stared, trying desperately to will the landscape to make sense.

Nothing of the heath’s structure had changed, and yet when it finally came into view it was unmistakably altered. The ground was still baked, the brick surfaces cracked and brittle, and the petrified tree in the rent stone tableau at its centre seemed no more or less insubstantial than ever, but instead of the bare rock that once surrounded the tree, Noah saw a series of small figurines left on the ridges of the altar openings, each staring back at the centre of the heath. But what startled Noah most was what encircled the petrified tree and spiralled in a hazy pattern outward—a sight he would not have imagined was real had he not witnessed it. Around the tree, their sizes ranging up to a few feet wide, was an ever-tightening arc of piñatas. They stood, backs to him, all different shapes and sizes and colours. But they shared the same plastered appearance and the same lifeless eyes, and all were pointed toward the petrified tree that stood like a priest on a pulpit.

Eli had to be hidden somewhere close, but Noah saw no sign of him, no proof the boy was there at all. His heart sank, but he forced himself to ignore it. It was his own fear of failure trying to control him. Eli was there. He had to be. And yet the voice in his head remained. What proof did he have that Eli was in Astilla de la Cruz? A painting? The words of a teacher, a priest, and an ex-wife, all of whom had betrayed him? Noah had been driven on faith and nothing else, and that blinding faith had cost him Rachel and his unborn child. There was something else, though, that bothered him. Something not just about Eli, but about the children of Astilla de la Cruz as well. Had he seen sign of any of them since arriving at the village? He tried to recall, but his swimming head made it difficult to think. He ran through all the faces he could remember—Señora Alvarez, the waiter at the cantina, the station agent. Each was older than the last. He recalled the broken stroller, the crying women, the empty swings. All asking questions he didn’t want to think about. How could they all be at the heath, hidden behind those stone ruins? He scratched his head and felt the blisters on his scalp. The world slowly rocked back and forth, and it took more concentration than he could muster to keep it all in focus under the blinding light of day.

Tiny squares of tissue paper wrapped the piñatas, and the sight of them fluttering in the waves of heat compounded the surreality of the situation, giving the plaster effigies the appearance of taking breath, but it was clear from Noah’s perch that it was a trick of the light. Still, he could not shake the feeling something was wrong with them, something beyond their painted, dead-eyed stare, past that crooked tree they were facing. They were like sheep, row upon row of them, all black-eyed and still, making no noise beyond the rustle of coloured paper. The sight evoked an ever-deepening dread in Noah. It silenced all sound on the blasted heath, stole so much noise from the air that Noah could not hear the sound of his own breathing. There was nothing but silence; it buzzed and burned inside his head so intensely he thought he might cry out. The only thing that stopped him was the sight of shadows moving at the entrance to the ruins.

At first, he mistook the distant thumping in his ears for the beating of his own heart, blood rushing faster as Noah stared at the scene wavering before him. Then that single muted sound intensified, came closer, and what once was background slid to the forefront of his consciousness. It was the sound of a hidden drum being beaten, old leather thwopping deep and hollow. It echoed in his head, vibrated the broken bones beneath his plaster cast, shook loose clots and stitches and ushered in near-unbearable pain. The drum was everywhere, crashing in on him, stretching the world outward from that blasted heath, from that petrified tree, from that circle of pseudo-idols, blurring it further until there was nothing left beneath the rising sun but the barren hell before him.

Noah stared, mesmerised by the radiating vision. It shimmered in the boiling sun, slowly losing cohesion, and the world slipped from one reality into another. The rocky heath took on a foreign aspect he did not recognise, some alien world of ancient creatures, clumsily moving through endless and boundless time. There was no heath, no rocky ground, but a vast barren plane that occupied numerous worlds simultaneously, one stepping-stone to many, a portal both spatial and temporal. It induced dizziness and nausea, compounded by the motion he detected in the distortion, shades of the past and future cohabiting a space that was and always would be dead deep below its surface. A place of endless nothing. He tried to wipe away the sweat that drenched his face, but his broken limb was leaden, anchored by its immovable weight.

The visions that played out before him seemed no more real than a dream. He watched hazily from between branches of the scrub, entranced by the vibration of the heath before him, the pulse of the earth, giant and consuming, fighting to maintain some hold on what he knew. He gritted his teeth, struggling to ground himself in the present, and when that failed he used his own wounds against the vision, struck his arm against the ground until the razor-sharp pain focused him icily, righted the world, and threw closed doors that should never have been opened.

And in that clarity he saw what the visions had attempted to hide from him, what he was never meant to see. From between the branches of the scrub he witnessed the spectre of his nightmares made flesh, loping across the baked rock. Father Manillo’s bald pate was unmistakable, his thick barrel body obscured by the dried and cracked grey mud that coated his naked form. Bare feet moved in time with the ever-present drum, and Noah could not help but wonder if it was they that were the source of the excruciating noise.

Manillo, though, was only the first of the desecrated men and women to appear. Close behind, an overweight and stocky man followed, his face obscured by a painted mask that revealed yellowed eyes sharp and narrow. The man’s stomach protruded, blissfully hiding his member beneath rolls of stretched skin, but he used his girth to dance in a series of graceless jerks that never once drew Manillo’s attention. And from behind the overweight man more figures emerged, figures of all shapes and sizes, all naked and all chanting the hypnotic rhythm that throbbed from the ground, from that empty space beneath the petrified tree. Mud-smeared grey figures, cracked and dry, continued to dance forward, navigating through the crowd of vibrating plaster animals with reverent care, silently drawing life from what occurred before the rows of dead painted eyes.

The endless beating of the tired calloused feet continued, pounding out an appeasement to their half-dreamed Ometéotlitztl, and accompanying the sound were those faint notes of a pipe, reverberating off the stone walls, calling out with arms held wide. Their singing was like no song Noah had ever heard. The language was impenetrable—grunts and clicks as if Nature herself were in revolt, throwing off her suffocating yoke. Still more figures spilled forth from the ruins, multiplying in the burning height of day, each one solidifying into a grey, mud-covered mockery of humanity. But none were shaped like children. None were his Eli.

The discordant music elicited an orgiastic fury from the Tletliztlii, their cracked flesh drumming the world into submission. Every note, every image served to further dwindle Noah’s rationality until he doubted the truth of what he witnessed. All his anchors were gone, abandoning him when he needed them most, leaving him to stare at events his sun-stroked mind could not fathom. Nothing on the heath could be trusted. Nothing on the heath could be real. There were familiar screams, but in the chaos of impossible events they retreated into moorless oblivion. A scattering of ashes, motes of dark dust, filled the air. Lifeless, shapeless piñatas vibrated, painted-on faces distorted by the blaze. Fire raged white and pure inside his skull, and yet Noah felt the cold fear of being trapped in an elaborate Goldbergian web of events. He sweated profusely as before his eyes the twisted figures danced harder, faster, and from within their multiplying childless numbers the terrified screaming resurfaced, demanding his flailing attention. It was a voice he knew frighteningly well.

Rachel was as naked as the mob that dragged her struggling from the ruins, her body covered in streaks of coloured paint radiating from her swollen pregnancy, and they held her high above their heads. Noah opened his mouth wide, but nothing emerged, all sound lost somewhere inside his dried throat. He was trapped in an ever-worsening nightmare, far beyond his breaking point, and yet could do nothing but watch the woman he loved, the mother of his unborn child, as she was carried across the baked earth and placed onto that cloven altar the petrified tree loomed over. Noah stared impotently as Muñoz appeared, covered in the same cracked grey mud, and bound Rachel’s hands over and over with thick loops of rope. The chanting of the others grew louder as Muñoz wrapped the rope between Rachel’s arms and pulled so tight her hands slammed together. He then threw the other over the worn branch of the petrified tree where other muddy hands waited to receive it, clamouring for a grip. Noah tried to will himself to stand, to scream for help, to do anything to disrupt the nightmare that was unfolding, but his paralysis held firm, the drone of the plaster creatures overpowering him. With a sudden jerk of the rope by the dancing Tletliztlii, Rachel was hoisted violently from the ground to hang from the branch of the tree, her mouth contorted in a drawn-out scream that Noah could not hear. Rachel’s legs kicked and thrashed, her round belly thrust forward by the angle, and Noah wanted to call out to her, but his bruised and broken body would not comply. Even his tears dried before they emerged. He was held fast to the spot, rooted by ineffectuality and torment.

The village danced in chaotic ecstasy to the tribal rhythms and Rachel’s feeble kicking, while around them the rows of plaster piñatas continued to vibrate from the pounding of so many villagers shaking the rocky terrain. Noah felt it slipping up into his body as he lay powerlessly immobile. Each of those dead-eyed creatures stared at the proceedings, and in his sun-baked delirium Noah wished they would act, do what he could not and stop the horror. But though the piñatas shook, they took no action, not even when, from the depths of the crowd, a lone muddy figure appeared. She moved differently from the others, her limbs flailing as though in the throes of deep spasm, as though the stifling heat was consuming her from within. From beneath the tangles of mud-caked auburn hair her face flashed, revealing a darkly painted countenance blacker than was possible. And yet, within that empty void two bright eyes burned; he did not have to see them to know their owner. His battered body bucked with the strange sensation running its length, crawling into his pelvis, shrinking him in terror. “No,” he rasped as Sonia’s darting hand grabbed hold of Rachel’s face and smeared the coloured paint into chaos, her fingers leaving wet black streaks in their wake. Then Sonia stretched her head back and screamed a word into the black night, a word that echoed across the heath, a word that seemed to fracture the very air. It was a word so large Noah’s mind could not comprehend it. Tears finally erupted from his eyes as though to cleanse them of the unholy blasphemies they had witnessed, but did nothing more than streak his dusty face. Sonia raised her arms toward the orb burning above and for an instant it went dark, became its antithesis, a solid ball of pure emptiness, of burning space and countless overlapping aeons. The sun burned bright, burned black, and the sound itself was like thunder rolling across the heavens. Then a glint from Sonia’s upheld hands filled the sky, bursting through walls and shores like an exploding sun, and from that flash her arms emerged, swinging down in a purposed arc, one hand over the other, so swiftly Noah did not know where they had gone until Rachel’s swollen belly burst open, blood and flesh spraying, the grue of his unborn child tumbling forth soundlessly to die on the heat of the ancient pedestal.

Noah found his voice then, but it was too late. And had been before he and Rachel and their unborn child arrived in Astilla de la Cruz. Before Eli had been taken, before Sonia saw any articles. The series stretched back further, each piece, each cog, tumbling in time, lined up one before the other. So far back, there was no beginning, simply causality stretching back into something else, something so distant that were Noah to scream forever the sound of the last dregs of his sanity would never reach it. Instead, they would spew into the æther until his body was burned clean through. But even the sound of his shattered sanity was eclipsed by what followed.

The rock of the blasted heath raised a foot beneath Rachel’s lifeless swinging legs, a jump that shifted the earth beneath so many. The villagers stopped, the drumming ceased, and all were mesmerised by the stained altar. Even Noah, to whom words and noise had recently returned, stared dumbly at the wet mass covering the stone, at what remained of his unborn child and at the petrified tree growing impossibly from rock. The sense in the air dragged down on the world, blanketed everything in oppressive dread, and the group of villagers and their offering of piñatas could do nothing but watch as the distant thunder grew louder. And louder. And louder still. Then, with no warning, a deafening crack. As loud as the world at its end. Everything shook, the Tletliztlii stumbling over themselves in confusion, some dropping to their hands and knees as everything became unstable. The altar fell to thousands of pieces, Noah’s unborn child consumed instantly by the fissure that grew down the middle of the heath, wrenching the earth apart with a horrible sound. The petrified tree tottered, its weight too much for the crumbling, receding earth, and it too fell forward into the widening chasm, the remnants of Rachel’s empty body tumbling alongside. The Tletliztlii stumbled over one another as stable ground collapsed, some swallowed into its depths without a sound.

The rows of piñatas danced on the vibrations, their twisted faces smirking at the destruction. Sonia staggered across the baked uneven ground, screaming incoherently at the sky, covered in Rachel’s blood. Her eyes were wide, crazed, confused by the chaos around her. Other Tletliztlii bumped into her in their mad scramble to escape, but one by one the collapsing ground took them—took Muñoz and Manillo and all the rest—until only Sonia remained. Sonia, and those endless rows of misshapen piñatas. She looked around, desperate for help, but no one was there. No one but Noah, who remained hidden. She stumbled, looking for somewhere safe she could step, and as her eyes scanned the crumbling landscape he froze, convinced she had spotted him in the midst of the brush staring at her. If their eyes locked, it was only for the fraction of a second before the ground beneath her feet wrenched open and swallowed her whole.

Noah’s head continued to swim, faster and faster. Had what he witnessed been real, or had the horror and the heat finally broken him, filling his sight with the impossible? The rocky ground could not be yawning wide, swallowing chunks of the barren heath into its endless void. The ruins could not be crumbling, not after so many years of standing, crushing anything that still remained—everything but those piñatas. Those plaster abominations that shook and rattled but did not fall, not one of them into the ever-widening crack into the centre of the world. Instead, they served as silent, multicoloured witnesses to what Noah had to endure. He wondered how any of it was possible, any of the death and destruction that lay before him on the thundering ground, and for the briefest instant he felt hope. Perhaps he was mad. Perhaps nothing was real, and Rachel and Eli were somewhere else, somewhere far away from the boiling destruction, from the ground bubbling up, throwing rocks outward. Perhaps they were on that beach, relaxing and looking at the animals in the soft clouds. Noah looked up and saw nothing in the sky but a sole burning orb in endless blankness; the only animals left on the ground twisted, ugly and dead inside.

Noah’s entire body was racked with pain, but as rocks rained down around him he knew he had to escape. He slid his legs to the side, then under him, enough to push himself back up. Exploding lights filled his eyes as he felt the knives of his bones slicing into his insides, but he managed to stand on a pair of unsteady legs. Stand and survey the end of everything before him.

The plaster effigies were vibrating so quickly on the quaking earth that they appeared as blurs, so insubstantial as to no longer be part of the world. Like ghosts, they hovered over the broken ground, and the sound they made was a strange-pitched and deafening howl. Deep black cracks formed across the piñatas, widening and deepening before Noah’s disbelieving eyes, and from those long black cracks dark ichor flowed. It bubbled out, slow and viscous, but instead of falling to the rutted ground it moved unnaturally upward, up and across the plaster backs of the faux animals, and Noah realised it was not blood or liquid that he saw but fire. The piñatas were burning. But the flames were as black as night. They grew higher, burning clean everything they touched, destroying any life that still remained on that rocky barren heath. The brush that surrounded it lit as well, Noah’s hiding spot quickly becoming an inferno, further obscuring his vision.

The flames grew higher, enveloping the entire heath, and in the centre of it the deep chasm that had swallowed so many spewed something back to the above world, the world of living. It was small, the size of an orange, burnt black and still afire. The flames, those black burning flames, had destroyed everything to bring it life, and as the cold fire grew so did it. First it doubled its size, then doubled again, growing exponentially before Noah’s fracturing psyche. It grew and metamorphosed as the black fire that enveloped it burned—arms that became a pair of writhing serpents, an encephalitic head perched precariously on sloped shoulders. Along its newly formed ebony back, curved spines jutted in odd patterns, each alight with burning phosphorescence. But its eyes were the most horrifying of all. Deep pits of nothing, they scoured the blasted heath that was its nursery, blind to all the horrors that had transgressed, and as that giant misshapen skull panned toward Noah those two deep wastes stayed. Though the fire burned unfettered, uncontrolled, Noah’s being became ice and he averted his gaze in pain.

There was a wrenching sound then, and the thing bellowed an indescribable noise that echoed across the empty wasteland. It lifted one of its many bent legs out from deep within the earth—a pillar of black fire that filled the sky with the dark storm of night, a storm that lasted forever—and stepped over its father below and into the blistering day. Each footfall struck the ground with the force of the heavens, the first laying waste to the circle of piñatas that had acted as its host. Small bones spilled forth, some very old and some very fresh, many generations of bones all kept, all hoarded for one particular day, one particular set of events, bones no bigger than a child’s. Seeds for the rebirth of an aborted god brought forth to reclaim the future it had lost. And to deliver unto all everything it had promised.

But Noah would know none of it, trapped as he was in the prison of his broken mind. Eli was there, smiling, laughing, dancing in circles around the edges of the world while Noah desperately tried to catch him before the boy was lost forever.

NECROLOGY: 2014

(Stephen Jones & Kim Newman)

ONCE MORE WE note the passing of writers, artists, performers and technicians who, during their lifetimes, made significant contributions to the horror, science fiction and fantasy genres (or left their mark on popular culture in other, often fascinating, ways)…

AUTHORS/ARTISTS/COMPOSERS

American author Alexander Malec, whose SF fiction was collected in Extrapolasis (1967), died on January 1, aged 84.

British author Elizabeth Jane Howard CBE died on January 2, aged 90. In 1946 she joined the newly created Inland Waterways Association as a part-time secretary to co-founder Robert Aickman. After three years of marriage to naturalist (Sir) Peter Scott (the son of the famous Antarctic explorer), she walked out on her husband and baby daughter and began an affair with the already married Aickman. Together they wrote the collection We Are the Dark: Six Ghost Stories (1951) before the relationship ended. She then went on to become a successful novelist, while her collections included Mr. Wrong and the omnibus volume Three Miles Up and Other Strange Stories. Howard had a reconciliatory meeting with Aickman shortly before his death from cancer in 1981, and her third husband was novelist Sir Kingsley Amis. Her auto-biography is entitled Slipstream (2002).

American playwright and SF and fantasy author and critic Michael Hemmingson died of apparent cardiac arrest in Tijuana, Mexico, on January 9. He was 47. Hemmingson was an expert on the works of Robert Silverberg and published critical works on Star Trek and Barry Malzberg. His books include The Mammoth Book of Short Erotic Novels (co-edited with Maxim Jakubowski), Poison from a Dead Sun/The Chronotope and Judas Payne: A Weird Western.

American science fiction and mystery author Neal Barrett, Jr. died after a long illness on January 12, aged 84. He began his writing career in 1960, and his novels include the “Aldair” and “Through Darkest America” series, along with the short story collections Slightly Off Center: Eleven Extraordinarily Exhilarating Tales, Perpetuity Blues and Other Stories, A Different Vintage, Way Out There and Other Seasons: The Best of Neal Barrett, Jr. He also wrote “Tom Swift” novels under the house name “Victor Appleton” and “Hardy Boys” books as “Franklin W. Dixon”, along with Batman, Judge Dredd and Babylon 5 tie-ins, although the latter was actually written by Al Sarrantonio. Barrett was named SFWA Author Emeritus at the Nebula Awards in 2010.

59-year-old Janrae Frank, who co-edited the 1994 feminist anthology New Eves: Science Fiction About the Exraordinary Women of Today and Tomorrow with Forrest J Ackerman and Jean Marie Stine, died of a stroke in hospital the same day. Her first short story appeared in the World Fantasy Award-winning anthology Amazons! (1979) and introduced her character Chimquar the Lionhawk, while her short fiction was collected in In the Darkness, Hunting (2004).

Prolific Danish-born artist Erik Blegvad, best known for his pen-and-ink illustrations for Mary Norton’s 1957 novel Bed-Knob and Broomstick and The Complete Book of Dragons by E. Nesbit, died in London on January 14, aged 90. He also illustrated his own translation of Hans Christian Anderson and more than 100 other children’s books, including many by his wife, Lenore Blegvad (who died in 2008). His short illustrated memoir, Self-Portrait (1979), is only nominally aimed at children.

Norwegian law professor, academic, and SF author and editor Jon Bing died the same day, aged 69. With his close friend Tor-Åge Bringsværd, he was instrumental in creating Norwegian fandom in the mid-1960s. Bing and Bringsværd went on to edit around twenty anthologies and create and edit a genre line for publisher Gyldendal from 1967-80. His short story collections and novels (again in collaboration with Bringsværd) include Rundt solen i ring (Ring Around the Sun) and Oslo 2084, and he was a Guest of Honour at the 1997 Eastercon in Britain.

American comedy writer and producer Ben (Benjamin) Starr died of congestive heart failure on January 19, aged 92. He scripted episodes of TV’s Mr. Ed, My Favorite Martian and Mork & Mindy, along with the movies Our Man Flint and William Castle’s The Busy Body and The Spirit is Willing.

Italian film composer Riziero “Riz” Ortolani died of bronchitis on January 24, aged 87. His many credits include Horror Castle, Castle of Blood and its remake Web of the Spider, Seven Blood-Stained Orchids, The Dead Are Alive, Seven Deaths in the Cat’s Eye, Death Steps in the Dark, Cannibal Holocaust, House on the Edge of the Park, Fantasma d’amore, Revenge of the Dead and Killer Crocodile and Killer Crocodile 2.

American author Stepan Chapman, who made his debut in 1969 in Analog, died on January 27, aged 63. He had earlier suffered a couple of heart attacks that he had reportedly kept hidden, even from his wife. Chapman’s short fiction was collected in Danger Music and Dossier, and his 1998 novel The Troika won the Philip K. Dick Award.

American soundtrack composer, songwriter and arranger John Cacavas died on January 28, aged 83. His movie credits include Horror Express and Hammer’s The Satanic Rites of Dracula (both starring Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing), Airport 1975 and Airport ‘77, The Time Machine (1978), Hangar 18, Once Upon a Spy, Cry for the Strangers and Mortuary, along with episodes of TV’s The Bionic Woman and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.

American editor, artist, film-maker and fan Larry Ivie died of lung cancer in January, aged 77. He co-edited (with Ken Beale) the first three issues of Calvin T. Beck’s Castle of Frankenstein magazine in the 1960s, as well as supplying the cover paintings for several early issues. Ivie later went on to edit seven issues of his own magazine, Monsters and Heroes (1967-70), featuring his character “Altron Boy”, and contributed scripts to Warren’s Creepy and Eerie, as well as Tower Comics’ T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents and several Marvel Comics titles. His artwork also turned up in 1960s fanzines and issues of Galaxy, If and Astounding/Analog.

The death was announced in January of British experimental author and former libel lawyer Alan Burns, who was 83. He began his career writing for such SF magazines as Authentic and New Worlds, and his genre background influenced such novels as Europe After the Rain, Babel and Dreamerika! A Surrealist Fantasy. In 1982 he co-edited The Imagination on Trial: British and American Writers Discuss Their Working Methods with Charles Sugnet, which included interviews with J.G. Ballard and Michael Moorcock.

61-year-old American writer and artist Mark E. (Earl) Rogers, best known for several illustrated “Adventures of Samurai Cat” volumes beginning in 1980, died of an apparent heart attack on February 2 while hiking with his family in Death Valley. Rogers’ novella ‘The Runestone’ was filmed in 1990, and his novels include Zorachus, The Nightmare of God, The Dead, Yark and “The Blood of the Lamb” and “Zancarthus” series.

Emmy Award-winning American scriptwriter, producer and crime novelist Eric Bercovici, who adapted Shogun as a TV mini-series, died of a heart attack in Hawaii on February 9, aged 80. He also came up with the story for The Man from U.N.C.L.E. episode ‘The Fox and Hounds Affair’ featuring Vincent Price, and co-scripted Change of Habit starring Elvis Presley and the TV movie The Fifth Missile.

Oscar-winning documentary film-maker and screenwriter Robert M. Fresco died of cancer on February 14, aged 83. Back in the 1950s he co-scripted such movies as Universal’s Tarantula and The Monolith Monsters, worked uncredited on The 27th Day, The Alligator People and Invasion of the Animal People, and wrote three episodes of TV’s Science Fiction Theatre.

American fantasy, SF and horror witer Michael Shea died on February 16, aged 67. He won World Fantasy Awards for the novel Nifft the Lean (1982) and the novella ‘The Growlimb’ (reprinted in The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror #16), and his other books include A Quest for Simbilis, the Lovecraft-inspired The Color Out of Time, In Yana the Touch of Undying, The Mines of Behemoth and A’rak, while Polyphemus from Arkham House, The Autopsy and Other Tales and Copping the Squid and Other Mythos Tales collected some of his short fiction. Shea reportedly completed a fourth novel in his “Nifft” series shortly before his death.

American publisher and comics historian Bill Baker died on February 20, aged 55. Along with conducting interviews with Neil Gaiman, Alan Moore, George Perez and others, Baker also wrote Icons: The DC Comics and WildStorm Art of Jim Lee.

Spanish author Juan José Plans [Martínez], whose novel El juego de los niños was made into the 1976 film Island of the Damned (aka Would You Kill a Child?) and the 2012 remake Come Out and Play, died of an aneurysm February 24, aged around 70. He also scripted six episodes of the TV series Crónicas fantásticas (1974).

American writer, editor, cartoonist, underground film-maker and fan Bhob Stewart, who is credited with originating the term “underground comics” during a convention panel in 1966, died in a nursing home of emphysema the same day, aged 76. In 1953 he published the early comics fanzine The EC Fan Bulletin, and from 1960-63 he was co-editor and art director for the Hugo Award-winning fanzine Xero. He edited Castle of Frankenstein from 1963 into the 1970s, and he wrote a column for Andrew I. Porter’s Algol/Starship on film and other visual media, as well as contributing to such magazines as Cinefantastique, Heavy Metal and TV Guide. Stewart co-authored The EC Horror Library of the 1950s (with Bill Gaines), Screen Queens: Heroines of the Horrors (with Calvin [T.] Beck), and he also wrote Against the Grain: MAD Artist Wally Wood and MAD Style Guide. His artwork appeared in Venture Science Fiction, Cavalier and the Village Voice, and he created a number of series of trading cards.

American Star Wars author and spin-off role-playing game designer Aaron [Dale] Allston suffered an apparent heart attack at a convention and died on February 27, aged 53. He wrote the computer game Savage Empire, and his books include Web of Danger, Galatea in 2-D, Doc Sidhe and its sequel Sidhe-Devil, and the “Bard’s Tale” novels, Thunder of the Captains and Wrath of the Princes, both written with Holly Lisle.

French-born Belgium SF writer Philippe Ebly (Jacques Gouzou) died on March 1, aged 93. His many novels include the “Fantastic Conquerors” series (more than nineteen titles) and the “Time Runaways” series (ten titles). Since 1971, his books sold more than two million copies and were translated into a several languages.

Austrian-born American author, editor and publisher Peter A. Ruber died on March 6, aged 73. He had been suffering from diabetes and congestive heart failure. Ruber knew and published Arkham House founder August Derleth from 1962 until Derleth’s death in 1971, often under his Candlelight Press imprint. After James Turner left to found Golden Gryphon Press, Ruber became the editor for Arkham House in 1997 until he suffered a stroke seven years later. He wrote the biographies The Last Bookman: A Journey Into the Life and Times of Vincent Starrett: Journalist, Bookman, Bibliophile (1968) and King of the Pulps: The Life & Writings of H. Bedford Jones (with Darrell C. Richardson and Victor A. Berch, 2003), compiled the collections Reunion at Dawn and Other Uncollected Ghost Stories by H. Russell Wakefield and Night Creatures by Seabury Quinn for Ash-Tree Press, and edited the controversial anthology Arkham’s Masters of Horror: The 60th Anniversary Anthology for Arkham House in 2000.

American screenwriter S. Lee Pogostin died on March 7, the day before his 88th birthday. He scripted the movies Golden Needles, Nightmare Honeymoon and The UFO Incident.

American author and editor Alan [Paul] Rodgers died on March 8, aged 54. He had spent more than two years in hospital following a series of strokes and other illnesses. Rodgers won a Bram Stoker Award in 1987 for his first story, ‘The Boy Who Came Back from the Dead’, while Blood of the Children (1990) was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel. His other novels include Fire, Night, Pandora, the Stoker-nominated Bone Music, Her Misbegotten Son, The River of Our Destiny, Alien Love and Battlestar Galactica: Rebellion (with Richard Hatch), and his short fiction was collected in New Life for the Dead and Ghosts Who Cannot Sleep. Between 1984-87 Rodgers was Associate Editor at Rod Serling’s The Twilight Magazine, and he edited the companion title Night Cry from 1985-87. He was married to editor and author Amy Stout for fifteen years.

American television writer Don Ingalls (Donald G. Ingalls) died on March 10, aged 95. He scripted episodes of Star Trek, The Sixth Sense and Fantasy Island, the TV movies The Initiation of Sarah (1978) and Captain America (1979), and the disaster movie Airport 1975. Ingalls was also executive story consultant on the series The Sixth Sense (1972) and Fantasy Island (1977-84), producing the latter in the early 1980s as well as directing two episodes.

British commercial artist Sam Peffer (Samuel John Peffer), who signed his artwork “Peff”, died on March 14, aged 92. Through the 1950s and ‘60s he painted hundreds of paperback books covers (including the James Bond titles and the film tie-in to Midnight Lace for Pan Books) and moved on to film and video posters over the following two decades (the Creatures of Evil/Blood Devils double-bill, Prisoner of the Cannibal God, Flesh Gordon etc.). Peffer would often use himself and his wife Kitty as models, along with his movie stuntman brother-in-law, Jack Cooper.

British comics writer Steve Moore, who created the UK’s first comics fanzine, Orpheus, in 1971, died on March 16, aged 64. He worked for Marvel UK and such titles as 2000 AD, Doctor Who Weekly, Warrior and Sounds (in collaboration with Alan Moore, who he is credited with teaching how to write comics). Moore was also an editor at Fortean Times and Fortean Studies, and he novelised the 2006 movie V for Vendetta.

Acclaimed American fantasy, SF and magical realism author Lucius [Taylor] Shepard died after a short illness on March 18, aged 70. Recent health complications had included a stroke and a spinal infection. He made his genre debut in 1983 and his first novel, Green Eyes, was published the following year. It was followed by, amongst many other titles, Life During Wartime, The Scalehunter’s Beautiful Daughter, Kalimantan, The Golden, Floater, Louisiana Breakdown, Softspoken, Trujillo and Other Stories and the Arkham House collection The Jaguar Hunter. Shepard also wrote a long-running film review column for The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and his many awards included the John W. Campbell Award, the Nebula Award, the Hugo Award, the World Fantasy Award, the International Horror Guild Award and the Shirley Jackson Award.

American author, journalist, English professor and playwright Stewart H. Benedict, who edited the 1963 anthology Tales of Terror and Suspense, died on March 19, aged 89.

British children’s author John Rowe Townsend died on March 24, aged 91. He won an Edgar Award for Best Juvenile Mystery in 1971 for The Intruder, and his other titles include Widdershins Crescent, Forest of the Night, Noah’s Castle (filmed for TV in 1980), The Visitors, The Creatures and The Invaders.

Best-selling American non-fiction writer Jonathan Schell, whose 1982 book The Fate of the Earth was the primary inspiration for the nuclear holocaust TV film The Day After (1983), died of cancer on March 25, aged 70. Schell was also a staff writer on The New Yorker for two decades.

American screenwriter Lorenzo Semple, Jr. (Lorenzo Elliott Semple, III), who created the 1960s Batman TV series and scripted the 1966 spin-off movie, died on March 28, the day after his 91st birthday. He began his career in the early 1950s writing short stories for The Saturday Evening Post and Collier’s Weekly. Semple also scripted a two-part episode of The Green Hornet, along with the movies Thompson’s Ghost, Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting, King Kong (1976), Flash Gordon (1980), Never Say Never Again and Sheena.

British film and music journalist Phil Hardy (Philippe George Hardy) died of a heart attack on April 8, aged 69. He co-founded The Brighton Film Review and wrote for such magazines as Time Out and Variety. His many book projects include editing the seminal reference works The Aurum Film Encyclopedia: Science Fiction and The Aurum Film Encyclopedia: Horror.

Acclaimed Colombian-born author Gabriel [José de la Concordia] García Márquez, who won the Nobel Literature Prize for his works of magic realism, died at his home in Mexico City on April 17. He was 87 and had been hospitalised earlier in the month for an infection and dehydration. Márquez’s best-known novel is One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), and his other books include The Autumn of the Patriarch, Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Of Love and Other Demons and the memoir, Living to Tell the Tale.

58-year-old British editor and writer Andy [W.] Robertson, who was the assistant editor of Interzone for almost twenty years from 1984, died in hospital of a heart attack and stroke the same day. He had been suffering from Parkinson’s disease. Robertson also published a number of works as part of The Night Land Project, based on the writings of William Hope Hodgson, including the British Fantasy Award-winning anthology William Hope Hodgson’s Night Lands, Volume 1: Eternal Love (2003).

William H. Patterson, Jr., one of the founders of the Heinlein Society and its first president, died on April 22, aged 62. His massive study Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century, was published by Tor Books in two volumes (2011 and 2014).

American SF writer and fan George C. (Clifford) Willick died on April 26, aged 76. He had been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. In the 1950s Willick edited the fanzine Parsection, and during the following two decades he published a handful of short stories in Galaxy and elsewhere. In later years he maintained a number of online research sites, including the Spacelight website.

Legendary EC comics artist, writer and editor Al (Albert Bernard) Feldstein died on April 29, aged 88. Best known for his work on such horror and SF titles as Tales from the Crypt, Vault of Horror, Weird Fantasy and Weird Science, he was also editor of MAD Magazine from 1965-85. Feldstein later became a wildlife and landscape painter, and he received an HWA Bram Stoker Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011.

American comic book artist Dick Ayers (Richard Bache Ayers) died on May 4, aged 90. After studying art under Burne Hogarth in the late 1940s, he co-created (with Ray Krank) the horror-themed Western character Ghost Rider and began drawing strips for such Atlas Comics titles as Adventures Into Terror, Astonishing, Journey Into Mystery, Journey Into Unknown Worlds, Menace, Mystery Tales, Mystic, Strange Tales and Uncanny Tales, and Charlton’s The Thing. Teaming up with Jack Kirby as an inker, when Atlas became Marvel Comics Ayers found himself working on such titles as The Fantastic Four, Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos, The Incredible Hulk, Journey Into Mystery, Strange Tales (‘Fin Fang Foom!’), Tales of Suspense and Tales to Astonish. When writers Roy Thomas and Gary Friedrich revived a version of The Ghost Rider for Marvel in 1967, Ayers was chosen to illustrate it. The artist was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2007.

American scriptwriter Stanford Whitmore died on May 8, aged 88. His credits include The Eyes of Charles Sands, Hammersmith is Out and The Dark, along with episodes of TV’s The Wild Wild West, Night Gallery and The Hitchhiker.

British romantic historical author Mary Stewart (Mary Florence Elinor Rainbow, aka Lady Stewart), best known for her Arthurian “Merlin Chronicles” (The Crystal Cave, The Hollow Hills, The Last Enchantment, The Wicked Day and The Prince and the Pilgrim), died at her home in Scotland on May 9, aged 97. Her 1962 suspense novel The Moon-Spinners was filmed by Disney, and she also wrote a number of Gothic romances and children’s books.

British fantasy and surreal artist Patrick [James] Woodroffe died after a short illness on May 10, aged 73. During the 1970s he produced nearly 100 book covers for such authors as Michael Moorcock, Peter Valentine Timlett and Roger Zelazny. He also illustrated a number of record cover sleeves, including those for the Judas Priest album Sad Wings of Destiny (1976) and David Greenslade’s symphonic The Pentateuch (1979). The artist’s luminous, detailed work is collected in such volumes as the best-selling Mythopœikon: Fantasies Monsters Nightmares Daydreams (1976), A Closer Look at the Art Techniques of Patrick Woodroffe (1986), Pastures in the Sky, Patrick Woodroffe: Master of Fantasy and Benign Icons: Patrick Woodroffe’s World.

Acclaimed Swiss artist H. (Hansreudi) R. (Rudolf) Giger died on May 12 from injuries suffered during a fall. He was 74. Giger is best known for his iconic Oscar-winning designs for Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979), and his conceptual work was also featured in Alien³, Species, Killer Condom, Alien: Resurrection, Species II, AVP: Alien vs. Predator, Alien vs. Predator: Requiem and Alejandro Jodorowsky’s ill-fated adaptation of Dune in the mid-1970s. Giger also directed documentary shorts, including Giger’s Necronomicon and Giger’s Alien, and his distinctive “biomechanical” artwork has been featured in such books as A Rh+, H.R. Giger’s Necronomicon, H.R. Giger’s Alien, H.R. Giger’s Biomechanics and Baphomet, amongst other titles. He was named a Spectrum Grandmaster in 2005 and inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2013.

Innovative American graphic designer and illustrator Tony Palladino (Anthony Americo Paladino), who created the fractured logo type for Robert Bloch’s 1959 novel Psycho (and the subsequent movie series), died of complications from pneumonia on May 14, aged 84. “How do you do a better image of Psycho than the word itself?” he once said.

British comics editor Vanessa “Vee” Morgan died of cancer on May 17, aged 63. During the late 1970s and early ‘80s she edited a number of DC Comics reprint magazines for London Editions Magazines, including The Super Heroes Monthly and Superman Spectacular, for which she also commissioned original material by such newcomers as Alan Moore, Brian Bolland, Garry Leach and others. She later compiled reprints from 2000 AD for Dez Skinn’s Quality Communication and edited the children’s newspaper Scoop.

Romanian academic and historian Professor Radu [Nicolae] Florescu died of complications from pneumonia in France on May 18, aged 88. With his colleague Raymond T. McNally (who died in 2002), he wrote the 1972 bestseller In Search of Dracula: The History of Dracula and Vampires, which linked Bram Stoker’s fictional character to the historical 15th-century voivod Vlad Tepes. Florescu’s other books included In Search of Frankenstein: Exploring the Myths Behind Mary Shelley’s Monster, In Search of the Pied Piper, Dracula’s Bloodline (with Matei Cazacu) and, again with McNally, Dracula: A Biography of Vlad the Impaler, The Essential Dracula: A Completely Illustrated & Annotated Edition of Bram Stoker’s Classic Novel, Dracula: Prince of Many Faces: His Life and Times and In Search of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

British SF fan Ken Brown, who regularly reviewed books for Interzone when the magazine was edited by David Pringle, died of pancreatic cancer on May 19, aged 57.

American publisher Oscar Dystel, who turned around failing US imprint Bantam Books in the early 1950s and remained as Chairman until 1980, died on May 28, aged 101. Among his best-selling acquisitions were William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist, Peter Benchley’s Jaws and the Star Trek franchise.

American movie and television historian and critic Steven H. (Henry) Scheuer died of congestive heart failure on May 31, aged 88. He edited seventeen editions of the innovative reference guide Movies on TV (1958-93), and his other books include Who’s Who in Television and Cable and The Complete Guide to Videocassette Movies.

American SF and fantasy author Jay Lake (Joseph Edward Lake, Jr.) died on June 1, aged 49. He had been suffering from cancer since 2008. His novels include Rocket Science, Trial of Flowers, Mainspring, Escapement, Madness of Flowers, Green, Pinion, Endurance, Kalimpura and Lady of the Islands (with Shannon Page). He also edited the anthologies All-Star Zeppelin Adventure Stories (with David Moles), TEL: Stories, Spicy Slipstream Stories (with Nick Mamatas), The Exquisite Corpuscle (with Frank Wu), Other Earths (with Nick Gevers), Footprints (with Eric T. Reynolds) and the first six volumes of Polyphony (with Deborah Layne, 2002-06). Lake’s acclaimed short fiction was collected in Greetings from Lake Wu, Green Grow the Rushes-Oh, American Sorrows, Dogs in the Moonlight, The River Knows Its Own, The Sky That Wraps and the posthumous The Last Plane to Heaven, while his stories ‘The Goat Cutter’ and ‘The American Dead’ appeared, respectively, in volumes #15 and #18 of The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror. In 2004, Lake received the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer.

Herb (Herbert) Yellin, who founded the Californian literary imprint Lord John Press in 1978 to publish signed limited editions of modern authors, died on June 13, aged 79. Amongst the many writers he published were Ray Bradbury, Stephen King, Ursual K. Le Guin, Dan Simmons, Joyce Carol Oates and John Updike. Dennis Etchison edited the original anthology Lord John Ten in 1987, which included contributions from Bradbury, Robert Bloch, Ramsey Campbell, William F. Nolan, Whitley Strieber, Roberta Lannes and many others.

American author Daniel Keyes died on June 15, aged 86. He was best known for his Hugo Award-winning SF short story ‘Flowers for Algernon’ (in the April 1959 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction) and the Nebula Award-winning expanded novel version in 1966. It was subsequently filmed as Charly (1968) starring Cliff Robertson, who won an Academy Award for his performance. In the early 1950s, Lester del Rey helped Keyes get a job as an associate editor with the pulp publisher Stadium Publications, where he worked on Marvel Science Stories and the struggling Atlas Comics line. Under the pen names “Kris Daniels” and “A.D. Locke”, he also wrote scripts for such EC comics as Shock Illustrated and Confessions Illustrated. ‘Flowers for Algernon’ was adapted for radio and TV, and as a stage play, a modern dance work, and a musical. Keyes received the SFWA Author Emeritus Life Achievement Award in 2000.

74-year-old American film historian John Cocchi (John Robert Cocchi, Jr.), author of the ground-breaking reference work Second Feature: The Best of the ‘B’ Films (1991) from Citadel Press, was determined to have died circa June 16 after having gone missing on April 25. His body was found in a shipping channel off Sandy Hook, Staten Island. Cocchi also wrote The Westerns: A Picture Quiz Book, contributed to such magazines as Castle of Frankenstein, Box Office and Classic Images, and worked (uncredited) on publicity for Al Adamson’s 1969 movie Five Bloody Graves.

Ditmar Award-winning Australian SF author Philippa [Catherine “Pip”] Maddern died of cancer the same day. She was also an expert on, and teacher of, medieval history.

American graphic designer Anthony Goldschmidt died of liver cancer on June 17, aged 71. Through his firm Intralink Film Graphic Design he created many iconic movie posters, including Steven Spielberg’s E.T. The Extra-terrestial, and worked on the title designs for such movies as Young Frankenstein, Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, The Witches of Eastwick, Spaceballs, The Lost Boys, Scrooged, Stargate, Batman Forever and Batman & Robin.

British publisher Felix Dennis, whose roster of magazines included Fortean Times, died on June 22, aged 67.

American YA, children’s and LGBT author Nancy Garden (Antoinette Elisabeth Garden) died on June 24, aged 76. Her controversial 1982 novel, Annie on My Mind, was banned in the Kansas City school system because of its teen lesbian characters. Her many other books include Vampires, Werewolves, Witches, Devils and Demons, Fours Crossing, Mystery of the Night Raiders, The Ghost Inside Me, Prisoner of the Vampires, My Sister the Vampire and My Brother the Werewolf.

American musical composer and children’s author Mary Rodgers, the daughter of composer Richard Rodgers, died on June 26, aged 83. She is best known for her body-swap fantasies Freaky Friday (which has been filmed by Disney three times), A Billion for Boris and Summer Switch. Rodgers also collaborated with lyricist Sammy Cahn on the children’s album Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves for Little Golden Records, which featured performances by Bing Crosby. Her other projects include Once Upon a Mattress (1959), based on the story ‘The Princess and the Pea’ by Hans Christian Anderson; The Mad Show, a 1966 Off Broadway musical review based on MAD Magazine; the screenplay for Disney’s The Devil and Max Devlin (1981), and a 1991 musical adaption of her own novel Freaky Friday.

Jan Shepherd (Janet E. Evenden), who was the first art editor of British comic 2000 AD in 1977 (she created the iconic ‘Judge Dredd’ title logo), died on June 27, aged around 79. She also worked as a designer on such comics as Valiant, Starlord, Tornado, Eagle and Scream!.

American author Jory [Tecumseh] Sherman (aka “Cort Martin”), best known for his series of “Gunn” adult Westerns, died on June 28, aged 81. He published more than 300 books, including seven psychic investigator “Chill” Chillders titles between 1978-80, beginning with Satan’s Seed.

Author, editor and pulp magazine collector Frank M. (Malcolm) Robinson died on June 30, aged 87. He had suffered from health problems, including heart trouble, in recent years. In the early 1940s Robinson had worked as an office boy at Amazing Stories before World War II intervened. His first SF sale was to Astounding Stories in 1950, and his first novel, The Power (1956), was filmed by George Pal in 1967. With Thomas N. Scortia he co-wrote the techno-thrillers The Glass Inferno (filmed as The Towering Inferno), The Prometheus Crisis, The Nightmare Factor, The Gold Crew and Blowout!, while his own books include The Dark Beyond the Stars, Waiting and The Donor, along with the collections A Life in the Day of…and Other Short Stories, Through My Glasses Darkly and The Worlds of Joe Shannon. Robinson was an expert on pulp magazines, and he shared his knowledge in Pulp Culture: The Art of Fiction Magazines (with Lawrence Davidson), the Hugo Award-winning Science Fiction of the Twentieth Century: An Illustrated History, Art of Imagination (with Robert Weinberg and Randy Broecker) and The Incredible Pulps: A Gallery of Fiction Magazine Art. He was also managing editor at Rogue (1959-65) and Cavalier (1965-66), a staff writer for Playboy (1969-73), and during the 1970s he was a speech-writer for openly gay San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk (Robinson basically played himself in a cameo in the 2008 movie).

British fan writer and editor Di Reynolds (aka Di Wathen) also died in June. She had been suffering from bowel cancer for a couple of years. With her former husband, Mike Wathen, she was involved in running the British Fantasy Society and various Fantasycons during the 1980s and early ‘90s, and they were in charge of registration and hotel bookings for the 1988 World Fantasy Convention in London.

American YA and children’s author Walter Dean Myers (Walter Milton Myers), died on July 1, aged 76. He wrote more than 100 books, including the fantasies Shadow of the Red Moon and Dope Stick, along with the ghost story ‘Things That Go Gleep in the Night’.

American space expert Frederick I. (Ira) Ordway, III died the same day, aged 87. Inspired by the SF pulp magazines as a child, in his early twenties he met and befriended Arthur C. Clarke. Fifteen years later Ordway was a top official at NASA, working closely with the rocket scientist Wernher von Braun, when on Clarke’s reccomendation he became the chief technical consultant and scientific advisor on Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). Ordway wrote more than two dozen books, including History of Rocketry and Space Travel (1975) with von Braun and 2001: The Heritage and Legacy of the Space Odyssey (2014) with Robert Godwin.

41-year-old Hachette Australia CEO and Hachette New Zealand chairman Matthew Richell was was killed in a surfing accident in New South Wales on July 2, when he was swept onto rocks and suffered a fatal head injury. Richell worked in the UK for such imprints as Bloomsbury, Pan Macmillan and John Murray before taking over as marketing director of Headline and Hodder in Australia in 2006. He was promoted to CEO in 2013.

American horror, hard-boiled crime and comics writer C. (Christopher) J. (John) Henderson (Christopher Henderson) died of cancer on July 4, aged 62. Best known for his “Teddy London” supernatural detective series (written as “Robert Morgan”), under his own name he also wrote the “Jack Hagee” and “Piers Knight” series, along with Misery and Pity, Baby’s First Mythos, To Battle Beyond, The Reign of the Dragon Lord, A Rattling of Bones, The Spider: Shadow of Evil and a Quantum Leap tie-in. His short fiction is collected in numerous volumes, including The Occult Detectives of C.J. Henderson, The Tales of Inspector Legrasse (with H.P. Lovecraft) and Degrees of Fear and Others. Henderson co-edited the anthology Hear Them Roar (with Patrick Thomas), wrote the graphic novel William Shatner Presents Man O’ War, contributed to such comics series as Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight and Neil Gaiman’s Lady Justice, and combined investigative journalist Carl Kolchak with various Lovecraftian horrors in a series of illustrated novellas for Moonstone Books. His non-fiction includes The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction Movies: From 1987 to the Present and Breaking Into Fiction Writing! (with Bruce Gehweiler).

Hungarian-born British children’s author and illustrator Val Biro (Balint Stephen Biro) died the same day, aged 92. Best known for his adventures about the vintage car “Gumdrop”, which appeared in thirty-seven picture books between 1966-2001, he also published such titles as Charles Perrault’s Mother Goose Fairy Tales and Tales from the Arabian Nights, illustrated numerous book covers (most notably for the “Hornblower” series), and was a regular contributor to Radio Times magazine for twenty-one years.

American author James H. (Harvey) Cobb, best known for his quartet of “Amanda Garrrett” futuristic naval techno-thrillers starting with Choosers of the Slain (1996), died of cancer on July 8, aged 61. He also “collaborated” with Robert Ludlum on the “Covert-One” thriller The Arctic Event (2007).

American author Curt Gentry, whose 1968 disaster novel The Last Days of the Late, Great State of California saw most of the West Coast disappear into the sea following a giant earthquake, died after a long battle with lung cancer on July 10, aged 83. His other twelve books include the Edgar Award-wining Helter Skelter (co-written with Vincent Bugliosi), about the Charles Manson murders.

Reclusive American author Thomas [Louis] Berger, best known for his satirical Western Little Big Man (1964), subsequently filmed starring Dustin Hoffman, died on July 13, aged 89. His books also include the horror novel Killing Time, the fantasies Being Invisible, Changing the Past and Arthur Rex: A Legendary Novel, and the SF-themed Vital Parts, Regiment of Women and Adventures of the Artificial Woman. Berger’s serio-comic novels Neighbours (filmed in 1981), The Houseguest, Meeting Evil and Suspects also contain nightmarish elements.

British book collector and film fan Jeffrey Myers died in an East Sussex nursing home on July 15, aged around 67. A stalwart of the British Fantasy Society and H.G. Wells Society for many years, he had been suffering from multiple sclerosis for some time. From 1987-88 Myers was the publisher of the groundbreaking genre movie magazine Shock Xpress, allowing the title to move to professional design and full-colour covers.

Best-selling, but often controversial, British Western author J. (John) T. (Thomas) Edson died after a long illness on July 17, aged 86. He had 137 books published, selling more than 27 million copies around the world. Between 1975-90 he published four novels in the Tarzan-related “Bunduki” series (a fifth title remains unpublished), along with four short stories. The first three books were issued with permission of both the Edgar Rice Burroughs Estate and Philip José Farmer due to connections with those authors’ work.

Nancy Carrigan who, with her husband Richard, collaborated on the 1971 SF novel The Siren Stars and had a story in a 1976 issue of Analog, died on July 18, aged 81.

American horror author, actor, director and podcast host Lawrence P. Santoro died of cancer of the duodenum on July 25, aged 71. His 2000 novella God Screamed and Screamed, and Then I Ate Him was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award, as was his audio-drama version of Gene Wolfe’s The Tree is My Hat (2002) starring Neil Gaiman, P.D. Cacek and Gahan Wilson. He also published the novel Just North of Nowhere in 2007 and Drink for the Thirst to Come, a collection of short fiction, appeared four years later. Santoro was known as the “Vincent Price of Podcasts” for his award-winning Tales to Terrify series, and during the 1990s he wrote a Weekender section on film for the Chicago Sun-Times.

American author, radio journalist and Wiccan high priestess Margot Adler, whose books include the non-fiction study Vampires Are Us: Understanding Our Love Affair with the Immortal Dark Side (2014), died of cancer on July 28, aged 68. In 1972, Adler founded the Hour of the Wolf radio show, devoted to SF, fantasy and related fields. As a correspondent for National Public Radio she interviewed J.K. Rowling for the first time on American radio, and her best known book is the neo-paganism study Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America Today (1979).

Italian film composer Giorgio Gaslini died on July 29, aged 84. His credits include Night of the Devils, So Sweet So Dead (aka The Slasher), Five Women for the Killer, Dario Argento’s Deep Red and the TV series La porta sul buio (Door Into Darkness).

Indian-born British journalist and espionage author [Harry] Chapman Pincher died on August 5, aged 100. He had suffered a small stroke seven weeks earlier. He joined the Daily Express in 1946, and worked for the newspaper for thirty years reporting on science and defence. His books include the SF novel Not With a Bang (1965), while The Giantkiller, The Penthouse Conspiracy, The Eye of the Tornado and One Dog and Her Man by Dido contain genre elements.

American literary agent and anthologist Kirby McCauley died of renal failure on August 30, aged 72. He had been suffering from diabetes. In the 1980s he famously represented such soon-to-be-Big Names as Stephen King, Peter Straub, George R.R. Martin, Roger Zelazny and others, including many of the older pulp authors. He edited the horror anthologies Night Chills and the World Fantasy Award-winning Frights and Dark Forces. McCauley helped found, and chaired, the first World Fantasy Convention in 1975 in Providence, Rhode Island. He received the Special Convention Award at World Fantasy in 1979.

American comics artist Stan Goldberg who, in the 1960s, created the original colour designs for Spider-Man, the Hulk and the Fantastic Four, died on August 31, aged 82.

Frederic Mullally, British author, journalist and publicist (clients included Frank Sinatra and Audrey Hepburn), died on September 7, aged 96. Amongst his books is the 1975 alternate-history novel Hitler Has Won. Mullally was married to actress Rosemary Nicols (TV’s Department S).

British scriptwriter Jane Baker died on September 8. With her husband Pip she scripted the movie Captain Nemo and the Underwater City, along with additional scenes and dialogue for Night of the Big Heat (aka Island of the Burning Damned, starring Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing). For TV the couple also worked on Doctor Who, creating the character of renegade female Time Lord “The Rani” (memorably portrayed by Kate O’Mara), as well as an episode of Space: 1999. The pair also co-wrote the Doctor Who novelisations Mark of the Rani, Ultimate Foe, Time and the Rani and Terror of the Vervoids, along with the Doctor Who “find your fate” book, Race Against Time.

British author Graham [William] Joyce died of aggressive lymphoma on September 9, aged 59. He made his debut in 1991 with the novel Dreamside, and followed it up with the British Fantasy Award-winning Dark Sister, Requiem, The Tooth Fairy, The Stormwatcher, Memoirs of a Master Builder (as by “William Heaney”), Some Kind of Fairy Tale and the World Fantasy Award-winning The Limits of Enchantment, along with House of Lost Dreams, Spiderbite, Indigo, Smoking Poppy, How to Make Friends with Demons, The Silent Land and The Year of the Ladybird (aka The Ghost in the Electric Blue Suit). Joyce’s books for teens include TWOC, Do the Creepy Thing (aka The Exchange), Three Way to Snog an Alien and The Devil’s Ladder. His short fiction was collected in Partial Eclipse and Other Stories and the retrospective 25 Years in the Word Mines from PS Publishing, and he had stories in The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror #4, #12, #13 and #14.

American screenwriter [Allison] Sam(uel) Hall died on September 26, aged 93. He was a head writer on the daily Gothic soap opera Dark Shadows (1967-71) and also wrote the spin-off movies House of Dark Shadows and Night of Dark Shadows. Hall co-scripted (with producer Dan Curtis) the pilot for Dead of Night: A Darkness in Blaisedon (1969), which starred Kerwin Mathews as psychic investigator “Jonathan Fletcher”, and he wrote the TV movies Frankenstein (1973) and The Two Deaths of Sean Doolittle. He was married to Dark Shadows star Grayson Hall (who died in 1985) and was a creative consultant during the show’s brief revival in the early 1990s.

Nebula Award-winning American short story writer Eugie Foster died of respiratory failure on September 27, aged 42. She had been diagnosed with a cancer in her sinuses a year earlier. A director of Dragon*Con and editor of their newsletter, The Daily Dragon, her stories appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, including A Vampire Quintet: Five Sinister and Seductive Vampire Stories, and her short fiction was collected in Returning My Sister’s Face (2009).

Claire Walsh (Claire Churchill), the long-time companion of author J.G. Ballard, died on October 6, aged 73. A well-known figure in the London literary and artistic world during the 1960s and ‘70s, she was introduced to Ballard in 1967 by Michael Moorcock and acted as a sounding-board for the writer’s ideas long before he started writing them down. Walsh worked as a publicity manager for Studio Vista, Michael Joseph, Gollancz, Allen Lane and other publishers.

American children’s writer Zilpha Keatley Snyder died of complications from a stroke on October 8, aged 87. Best known for her Newbery Honor titles The Egypt Game, The Headless Cupid and The Witches of Worm, she published more than forty books, including Black and Blue Magic, The Changeling, A Fabulous Creature, Song of the Gargoyle, The Unseen and William’s Midsummer Dreams.

Brazilian comic book artist André Coelho died in mid-October, aged 35. He worked for both Marvel and DC Comics on a number of titles, including X-Men, Suicide Squad, Ms Marvel and The Flash.

American screenwriter, producer and actor L.M. Kit Carson (Lewis Minor Carson) died after a long illness on October 20, aged 73. He scripted The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 and two episodes of TV’s The Hitchhiker, as well as co-producing The Crow: Wicked Prayer. Carson was married to actress Karen Black from 1977-83.

American SF author [John] Hayden Howard died on October 23, aged 88. He made his debut in a 1952 issue of Planet Stories, and went on to contribute short fiction to If, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Galaxy and Analog. Howard’s only book was the fix-up novel The Eskimo Invasion (1967).

Romanian author, editor, translator and radio host Stefan Ghidoveanu died on October 27, aged 59. For Romanian Public Radio he hosted the SF and fantasy show Exploratorii Lumii de Miine (Explorers of Tomorrow’s World) from 1990 onwards.

Belgium-born author and editor Michel [Patrick] Parry died of cancer at his home in Banbury, England, on November 1. He was 67. He began his career in the 1960s as the British correspondent for the monster movie magazine Castle of Frankenstein (as “Mike Parry”), before editing his first anthology, Beware of the Cat: Weird Tales About Cats, in 1972. He followed it with The Hounds of Hell: Weird Tales About Dogs, Strange Ecstasies, Dream Trips, The Devil’s Children: Tales of Demons and Exorcists, Jack the Knife: Tales of Jack the Ripper, The Supernatural Solution, The Roots of Evil: Beyond the Secret Life of Plants (as “Carlos Cassaba”), The Devil’s Kisses and the controversial More Devil’s Kisses (both as “Linda Lovecraft”), Waves of Terror: Weird Stories About the Sea, Savage Heroes: Tales of Sorcery and Black Magic (as “Eric Pendragon”), The Rivals of Dracula: A Century of Vampire Fiction, The Rivals of Frankenstein: A Gallery of Monsters and The Rivals of King Kong: A Rampage of Beasts, Spaced Out, Superheroes and Sex in the 21st Century (with Milton Subotsky), along with the YA titles Santa 2000 and Ghostbreakers. With actor Christopher Lee, Parry compiled Christopher Lee’s ‘X’ Certificate, Archives of Evil, The Great Villains: An Omnibus of Evil and Lurking Fear, and he also edited six volumes of The Mayflower Book of Black Magic Stories (1974-77) and four volumes of Reign of Terror: The Corgi Book of Great Victorian Horror Stories (1976-78). He novelised the Hammer film Countess Dracula in 1971, and his other books include Sloane: Fastest Fist in the West and Sloane: Fistful of Hate (both as “Steve Lee”, with Steve Moore), Agro (as “Nick Fury”), and with Garry Rusoff he co-wrote the SF novels Chariots of Fire and Throne of Blood. Some of his short fiction was collected in the chapbook Three Demonic Tales. For several years Parry was a junior story editor at American International’s London office and worked as a part-time consultant for Anthony Cheetham’s Sphere Books. He wrote and directed the 1969 short film Hex; scripted the 1977 anthology movie, The Uncanny, starring Peter Cushing, Ray Milland and Donald Pleasence; came up with the original story for Xtro (1982), and adapted Manly Wade Wellman’s story ‘Rouse Him Not’, starring Alex Cord as John Thunstone, for the TV series Monsters (1988).

American academic, critic and author George [Edgar] Slusser died on November 4, aged 75. Co-founder and Curator Emeritus of The J. Lloyd Eaton Collection of Science Fiction & Fantasy Literature, amongst the books he wrote or edited are Robert A. Heinlein: Stranger in His Own Land, The Farthest Shore of Ursula K. Le Guin, The Bradbury Chronicles, Harlan Ellison: Unrepentant Harlequin, The Space Odysseys of Arthur C. Clarke, The Delany Intersection: Samuel R. Delany Considered as a Writer of Semi-Precious Words, and Nursery Realms: Children in the Worlds of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror. He taught the first courses in science fiction studies at UC Riverside and originated the Eaton Conference, which he chaired for more than twenty years. In 1986 Dr. Slusser was a recipient of the Pilgrim Award from the Science Fiction Research Association for Lifetime Achievement in the field of science fiction scholarship.

American actress turned scriptwriter Leigh Chapman (Rosa Lee Chapman), who portrayed Napoleon Solo’s secretary “Sarah Johnson” in six 1965 episodes of TV’s The Man from U.N.C.L.E., died of cancer the same day, aged 75. Chapman scripted episodes of My Favorite Martian and The Wild Wild West, as well as several action-adventure movies.

Brazillian SF writer André Carneiro died of respiratory failure on November 4, aged 92. His stories were translated in such anthologies as The Best SF of the Year, The Penguin World Omnibus of Science Fiction and Tales from the Planet Earth.

German publisher and publicist Eckhard Schwettmann, who was head of publishing for the “Perry Rhodan” franchise, died the same day, aged 57.

45-year-old Karen Jones, who was the art director for the online magazines Lightspeed and Nightmare, was found dead of natural causes in her Brooklyn, New York, home in early November.

American writer and publisher R. (Raymond) A. (Almira) Montgomery died on November 9, aged 78. As co-publisher of Crossroads Press with his former wife Constance Cappel, he was the first publisher of the series that eventually became Bantam Books’ best-selling “Choose Your Own Adventure” line. Montgomery also wrote more than thirty volumes in the series.

American horror writer and editor J. (Jesus) F. Gonzalez died of cancer on November 10, aged 50. With Buddy Martinez he founded and edited the early 1990s horror fanzines Iniquities and Phantasm, which lasted for three and four issues respectively, before going on to publish many short stories and novels. Clickers, written with Mark Williams, was a tribute to Guy N. Smith’s “Crabs” series that led to three sequels written with Brian Keene. His other titles include Conversion, Shapeshifter, Maternal Instinct, Old Ghosts and Other Revenants, Survivor, Fetish, The Beloved, Bully, When the Darkness Falls, The Killings and Hero (both with Wrath James White), Primitive, The Corporation, The Summoning and Other Eldritch Tales, Back from the Dead and Libra Nigrum Scientia Secreta (with Keene again). Gonzalez also edited the 2002 anthology Tooth and Claw.

American writer, artist and comic bookstore-owner Edward [Toby] Summer died of cancer on November 13, aged 68. Founder of the Buffalo International Film Festival, he wrote for Marvel Comics during the 1970s and ‘80s, and DC Comics in the 1980s and ‘90s. He was an associate producer on the 1982 movie Conan the Barbarian and wrote the original treatment, appeared in John Landis’ Schlock, and worked as a marketing consultant on Phantom of the Paradise, The Towering Inferno and the first Star Wars.

Charles Champlin, influential film and book critic for the Los Angeles Times, died of complications from Alzheimer’s disease on November 16, aged 88. His own books include George Lucas: The Creative Impulse. Lucasfilm’s First Twenty Years (1992).

American TV writer Ernest Kinoy died of pneumonia on November 19, aged 89. He began his career as a staff writer for the NBC science fiction radio series Dimension X and X Minus One. He moved on to TV with scripts for such shows as Lights Out, Fireside Theatre (an adaptation of Shirley Jackson’s ‘The Lottery’) and Alcoa Premiere (‘The Witch Next Door’). Kinoy also worked on TV movies Brigadoon (1966), Pinocchio (1968), Crawlspace (1972) and The Henderson Monster, along with the 1971 feature film Brother John.

American SF writer and pagan priestess Kris Jensen (Kristine Marie Jensen) died of breast cancer on November 21, aged 61. Her 1990s “Ardel” trilogy comprised FreeMaster, Mentor and Healer.

American aerospace physicist and film historian Walt Lee (Walter W. Lee, Jr.) died of complications from Alzheimer’s disease on November 23, aged 83. In the early 1970s he wrote (assisted by Bill Warren) and self-published three volumes of the influential Reference Guide to Fantastic Films: Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Horror, which received a Worldcon Special Convention Award in 1975. Lee also co-authored the 1987 horror novel Shapes with Richard Delap.

American writer John Tomerlin died of a heart attack on November 25, aged 84. A close friend of the late Charles Beaumont and a core member of “The Group” in the 1950s (which also included Richard Matheson, William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson), he wrote several novels, including Run from the Hunter (with Beaumont, 1957) and The High Tower (1980). Tomerlin also scripted the classic Twilight Zone episode ‘Number 12 Looks Just Like You’, even though it is credited solely to Beaumont, whose story it is based on.

British author and parapsychologist Peter Underwood died on November 26, aged 91. A leading authority on Borley Rectory (“the most haunted house in England”), he published more than fifty books about ghost-hunting and the paranormal, along with The Vampire’s Bedside Companion: The Amazing World of Vampires in Fact and Fiction, Jack the Ripper—100 Years of Mystery, Favourite Tales of the Fantastical and Horror Man: The Life of Boris Karloff (aka Karloff: The Life of Boris Karloff, 1972), the first hardcover biography of the actor. Underwood was life president of the Ghost Club Society (founded in 1862) and president of the Unitarian Society for Psychical Studies, where Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s daughter Jean would introduce him as “the Sherlock Holmes of psychical research”. His autobiography, No Common Task: The Autobiography of a Ghost Hunter, was published in 1983.

Hugo Award-winning fan artist Stu (Stuart) Shiffman died the same day, aged 60. Following various medical problems over the years, he had suffered a fall the previous month, from which he never regained consciousness after an operation. Shiffman was nominated for a Hugo in the Best Fan Artist category fourteen times, appearing on the ballot every year from 1979-86 and 1989-94. In the late 1970s he published the fanzine Raffles with Larry Carmody.

British crime and mystery writer P. (Phyllis) D. (Dorothy) James OBE (aka Baroness James of Holland Park) died on November 27, aged 94. Best known for her character of Scotland Yard Inspector “Adam Dalgliesh” in fifteen novels (1966-2008), she introduced murder to the sedate world of Jane Austen with Death Comes to Pemberley, while her 1992 SF novel Children of Men was filmed in 2006 starring Julianne Moore and Clive Owen.

New Zealand-born Horror Writers Association president (2010-14) and Stephen King expert Rocky Wood died of complications from amyotophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in Melbourne, Australia, on December 1. He was 55. His non-fiction books include The Complete Guide to the Works of Stephen King, Stephen King: Uncollected Unpublished, The Stephen King Collector’s Guide, Stephen King: The Non-Fiction and the Bram Stoker Award-winning Stephen King: A Literary Companion. Wood assisted King with research on Doctor Sleep, the author’s sequel to The Shining, and he also wrote the Stoker Award-winning non-fiction graphic novel Witch Hunts: A Graphic History of the Burning Times. The HWA announced the formation of the Rocky Wood Memorial Scholarship for non-fiction writers.

Commercial space artist Roy G. Scarfo, who was creative art director at the General Electric Space Technology Center and illustrator/consultant for NASA, Voice of America, the U.S. Senate and others, died of pancreatic cancer on December 8, aged 88. He collaborated with such scientists and authors as Wernher von Braun, Isaac Asimov and Willy Ley, and his illustrations appeared in more than forty books, most notably Dandridge M. Cole’s Beyond Tomorrow: The Next Fifty Years in Space (1964). Scarfo was a fellow and trustee of the International Association of Astronomical Artists.

American author Donald Moffitt died on December 10, aged 83. He made his SF debut in 1960 in Fantastic, and his novels include The Jupiter Theft, The Genesis Quest, Crescent in the Sky, A Gathering of Stars and Jovian. Under the pen name “Paul Kenyon” he also wrote the Modesty Blaise-inspired “Baroness” series of eight spy novels (1974-75).

American attorney and literary agent Sidney Kramer died the same day, aged 99. The co-founder of Bantam Books and, later, New American Library, he famously refused to publish Richard Nixon’s biography “because we thought he was a rascal”.

American animation inker and painter Martha [Goldman] Sigall died on December 13, aged 97. During her fifty-three year career, she worked on many classic “Looney Tunes” and “Merrie Melodies” cartoons before moving over to MGM studios. Her autobiography, Living Life Inside the Lines: Tales from the Golden Age of Animation, was published in 2005.

French journalist Michel Caen, co-founder and editor-in-chief (with Alain Le Bris) of the influential magazine Midi-Minuit Fantastique, died on December 15, aged 72. Midi-Minuit Fantastique ran for only twenty-four issues from 1962-71, but it influenced many publications that came after it, including Cinefantastique and Video Watchdog. Caen also wrote for Cahiers du Cinema.

Spanish publisher, editor and translator Francisco Porrú a died on December 18, aged 92. His genre imprint Ediciones Minotauro published his own translations (under various pseudonyms) of The Lord of the Rings, The Martian Chronicles, The Left Hand of Darkness and many other titles. Between 1964-68, Porrúa published and edited ten issues of Minotauro (Minotaur), which took its contents from The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

68-year-old American children’s author Robert [Daniel] San Souci died on December 19 after suffering a head injury due to a fall in San Francisco earlier in the week. His retellings of supernatural folktales included Short & Shivery: Thirty Chilling Tales, More Short & Shivery: Thirty Terrifying Tales, Even More Short & Shivery: Thirty Spine-Tingling Tales, A Terrifying Taste of Short & Shivery: Thirty Creepy Tales, Dare to be Scared: Thirteen Stories to Chill and Thrill and Haunted Houses (Are You Scared Yet?). San Souci also wrote picture books (often illustrated by his brother Daniel), including Young Merlin, N.C. Wyeth’s Pilgrims and Cinderella Skeleton, and he created the original story for Walt Disney’s Mulan, for which he also acted as consultant.

American writer, film historian and teacher Mark A. (Andrew) Miller died of cancer on December 24, aged 58. His special interest in post-war British cinema led to articles in Filmfax and Shivers magazines and the reference works Christopher Lee and Peter Cusing and Horror Cinema: A Filmography of Their 22 Collaborations and The Christopher Lee Filmography: All Theatrical Releases, 1948-2003 (with Tom Johnson). Miller also wrote “The Druid Legacy” fantasy fiction trilogy.

American alternate history author [Joseph] Robert Conroy died of cancer on December 30, aged 76. His novels include the Sidewise Award-winning 1942.

PERFORMERS/PERSONALITIES

Veteran American character actress Juanita Moore died on January 1, aged 99. She began her film career in 1939 and was cast in uncredited roles in Cabin in the Sky and Tarzan’s Peril before going on to appear in Abby (1974) and Disney’s The Kid (2000), along with episodes of TV’s Ramar of the Jungle, Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. She was nominated for an Oscar for her role in Imitation of Life (1959).

American character actress Carmen [Margarita] Zapata died of heart failure on January 5, aged 86. She appeared on TV in episodes of Kolchak: The Night Stalker, Wonder Woman, The Phoenix, Fantasy Island and Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction.

91-year-old Canadian-born character actor and voice artist Larry D. Mann died on January 6 in Los Angeles. In a prolific career, he appeared in Disney’s The Strange Monster of Strawberry Cove and Charlie and the Angel, along with episodes of TV’s The Unforeseen, My Favorite Martian, Get Smart, Captain Nice, The Green Hornet, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Bewitched and Night Gallery.

Former “Marlbro man” Eric [Layton] Lawson, who appeared in print and billboard ads for the cigarette brand during the late 1970s and early ‘80s, died of smoking-related respiratory failure due to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease on January 10. He was 72, and gave up the habit when diagnosed with COPD. Lawson was also a character actor, often playing sheriffs or cowboys, in Rattlers, Skeeter, Tall Tale, Rumplestiltskin (1995), When Time Expires, King Cobra and Invisible Mom II, along with episodes of TV’s Automan and The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.

Dependable British character actor Jerome [Barry] Willis died on January 11, aged 85. His film credits include The Magus, Doomwatch, Lifeforce, Sherlock Holmes and the Leading Lady and Incident at Victoria Falls (both as “Mycroft Holmes” opposite Christopher Lee’s Sherlock) and Perfume: The Story of a Murderer. On TV Willis was a regular on Gerry Anderson’s Space Precinct (as “Captain Podly”) and he also appeared in episodes of Out of This World (hosted by Boris Karloff), The Avengers, Out of the Unknown, Adam Adamant Lives!, Doctor Who and Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales of Mystery & Imagination (hosted by Lee).

Striking British actress Alexandra Bastedo, who starred as “Sharon Macready” in the TV sci-spy series The Champions (1968-69), died after a long battle with cancer on January 12, aged 67. She appeared in William Castle’s 13 Frightened Girls!, the Bond spoof Casino Royale (1967), The Blood Splattered Bride (as “Mircalla Karstein”), The Ghoul (with Peter Cushing), Stigma, La veritat oculta and Batman Begins. The actress was also in episodes of Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) and The Starlost.

British character actor Roger Lloyd-Pack, the son of Hammer actor Charles Lloyd-Pack, died of pancreatic cancer on January 15, aged 69. His numerous TV credits include episodes of The Avengers, Survivors (1976 and 2010), Archer’s Goon, U.F.O., Murder Rooms: The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Who. Lloyd-Pack was also in the films The Magus, Hamlet (1969), Fright (1971), Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984), Interview with a Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles, The Young Poisoner’s Handbook, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (as “Bartemius ‘Barty’ Crouch”) and The Living and the Dead, while his scenes as a scientist were cut from The Avengers (1998). He later became a popular comedy actor on British TV.

American character actor Russell [David] Johnson, who played “The Professor” in TV’s Gilligan’s Island (1964-67) and several spin-offs, died of kidney failure on January 16, aged 89. He appeared in the movies It Came from Outer Space, This Island Earth, Roger Corman’s Attack of the Crab Monsters, The Space Children, The Horror at 37,000 Feet and The Ghost of Flight 401. On TV Johnson was in episodes of Adventures of Superman, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Thriller (‘The Hungry Glass’), Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, The Invaders, Wonder Woman, Beyond Westworld, ALF, Monsters and Meego.

Another American TV legend, Canadian-born comedy actor Dave Madden (David Joseph Madden) who co-starred in The Partridge Family (1970-74), died of congestive heart and kidney failure the same day, aged 82. Madden was a regular on Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In (1968-69) and appeared in episodes of Bewitched, Fantasy Island and Sabrina the Teenage Witch. He was also in the TV movies Skinflint: A Country Christmas Carol and More Wild Wild West, and contributed voice work to the animated Charlotte’s Web (1973).

Ruth Robinson Duccini, the last female member of the diminutive troupe of actors to portray Munchkins in The Wizard of Oz (1939), also died on January 16 after a short illness. She was 95.

British-born actress Sarah [Lynne] Marshall died in Los Angeles of stomach cancer on January 18, aged 80. She appeared in episodes of Thriller (‘God Grante That She Lye Stille’), Twilight Zone (‘Little Girl Lost’), Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, My Favorite Martian, Get Smart, The Wild Wild West, Star Trek (‘The Deadly Years’), Strange Report and Orson Welles’ Great Mysteries. Many years later she turned up in the horror movie Bad Blood and its sequel, Bad Blood: The Hunger.

Cuban-born character actor Luis Ávalos died in California on January 22, aged 67. He had recently suffered a heart attack. Between 1972-77 Ávalos played “Igor” on PBS’ The Electric Company, and his other TV credits include episodes of Highcliffe Manor and The Incredible Hulk. He was also in The Ghost of Flight 401, Ghost Fever, The Butcher’s Wife and Wishcraft.

British character actress Lisa Daniely (Mary Elizabeth Bodington), who co-starred in the TV series H.G. Wells’ The Invisible Man (1958-60), died on January 24, aged 83. She was in the film Curse of the Voodoo (aka Curse of Simba) and episodes of TV’s The New Adventures of Charlie Chan, Out of the Unknown, Doctor Who (‘The Space Pirates’), Strange Report, Menace and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. In her late seventies she recorded some audio shows of Sapphire and Steel with David Warner and Susannah Harker.

Former child actress Ann Carter, who appeared in Val Lewton’s production The Curse of the Cat People (1944), died after a long battle with ovarian cancer on January 27, aged 77. She also appeared in I Married a Witch, The Two Mrs. Carrolls, The Boy with Green Hair and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1949). She retired from acting in the early 1950s after contracting polio in her early teens.

American cult star Christopher Jones (William Franklin Jones), who starred as the rebel rock star in Wild in the Streets (1968), died of cancer on January 31, aged 72. He also appeared in 3 in the Attic and an episode of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. before suffering a nervous breakdown following Sharon Tate’s murder and retiring from acting in 1970. In later years Jones was described as “reclusive and eccentric”. He was married to actress Susan Strasberg between 1965-68.

Oscar-winning Austrian actor and director Maximilian Schell died of pneumonia on February 1, aged 83. His film credits include Hamlet (1960), The Castle, Disney’s The Black Hole, The Phantom of the Opera (1983, as the “Phantom”), The Eighteenth Angel, John Carpenter’s Vampires, Deep Impact and Darkness (aka T.M.A.).

46-year-old American actor Philip Seymour Hoffman was found dead with a hypodermic needle in his arm in the bathroom of his New York apartment on February 2. He died from acute mixed drug intoxication, with heroin, cocaine, benzodiazepines and amphetamines all found in his system. The Oscar-winning Hoffman appeared in My Boyfriend’s Back, Red Dragon, The Invention of Lying, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 and Part 2 (as “Plutarch Heavensbee”). In the 2012 movie The Master he basically played L. Ron Hubbard.

American actor Richard Bull, who was often cast as doctors, died of pneumonia on February 3, aged 89. Best known for his recurring roles on TV’s Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and Little House on the Prairie, he also appeared in Hammer’s failed pilot Tales of Frankenstein, The Satan Bug, In Like Flint, The Andromeda Strain (1971), Sweet Sweet Rachel, Heatwave!, Mr. Sycamore and The Golden Gate Murders, along with episodes of Men Into Space, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, Bewitched, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Herbie the Love Bug, Amazing Stories and Highway to Heaven.

Chinese actor and director Wu Ma (Hung-Yuan Feng) died on February 4, aged 71. His many films include The Demons in the Flame Mountain, Spooky Encounters, Mr. Vampire, Xiao sheng meng jing hun, A Chinese Ghost Story (1987) and Mr. Vampire Saga.

Former Hollywood child star Shirley [Jane] Temple, who received a special Academy Award when she was six, died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease on February 10, aged 85. She made her movie debut in 1932 and appeared in The Bluebird (instead of The Wizard of Oz) and the TV series Shirley Temple’s Storybook (1958-61) before retiring from acting in the early 1960s. Her signature song, ‘On the Good Ship Lollipop’, sold 500,000 sheet music copies. A staunch Republican and vocal supporter of the Vietnam War, she became an American ambassador to Ghana and later, Czechoslovakia. Temple’s first husband (1945-50) was actor John Agar.

Pioneering American comedian and actor Sid Caesar (Isaac Sidney Caesar) died on February 12, aged 91. In a long show business career he appeared in William Castle’s The Busy Body and The Spirit is Willing, Curse of the Black Widow, America 2100, The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu, The Munsters’ Revenge, Alice in Wonderland (1985), The Wonderful Ice Cream Suite (based on the story and play by Ray Bradbury) and Mark Hamill’s Comic Book: The Movie, along with episodes of TV’s General Electric Theatre (‘The Devil You Say’) and Amazing Stories.

American actor and director Ralph [Harold] Waite, who starred as the patriarch on The Waltons (1972-81), died on February 13, aged 85. He was also in the movies Red Alert, Crash and Burn, Timequest and Spirit, along with episodes of Time Trax, the revived The Outer Limits and Carnivàle.

British character actor Ken Jones died of bowel cancer the same day, aged 83. He had small roles in the films Murder by Decree, Whoops Apocalypse and Stanley’s Dragon, and appeared in episodes of TV’s The Guardians, Thriller (1974), Dead Ernest, Mr. Majeika and Goodnight Sweetheart.

48-year-old John [Paul] Henson, the son of Muppets creator Jim Henson, died of a heart attack while building a snow igloo with one of his daughters on February 14. As a Muppet performer and the voice of “Sweetums” he contributed to Muppet Treasure Island, Muppets from Space, It’s a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie and The Muppets’ Wizard of Oz.

American character actress Mary Grace Canfield died of lung cancer on February 15, aged 89. Best known for her recurring role on TV’s Green Acres (1965-71), she also appeared in the 1983 movie of Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes and episodes of Thriller, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Bewitched and Tabitha.

Scottish-born character actor Christopher Malcolm, who portrayed one of the rebel pilots in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, died of cancer the same day, aged 67. His other credits include A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1968), The Spiral Staircase (1975), Shock Treatment (1981), Superman III, Highlander, Labyrinth, Eat the Rich, and episodes of Strange Report, Thriller (1975) and Whoops Apocalypse. Malcolm played the first “Brad Majors” in the original 1973 stage production of The Rocky Horror Show, and he was artistic director for the Rocky Horror Company from 1989-2004, responsible for world-wide licensing and production rights of the cult stage musical.

British actor Malcolm Tierney died of pulmonary fibrosis on February 18, aged 75. He appeared in Star Wars, The Medusa Touch and Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, along with episodes of TV’s Out of the Unknown and Doctor Who.

American actor, writer and director Harold [Allen] Ramis died of complications of autoimmune inflammatory vasculitis on February 24, aged 69. Best remembered as the writer of Ghostbusters (1984) and its sequel, in which he co-starred as “Dr. Egon Spengler”, Ramis also directed the comedies Groundhog Day, Multiplicity, Bedazzled (2000) and Year One.

Canadian-born ballet dancer turned actress Gail Gilmore (Gail Gerber, aka “Gale Gerber”/”Gail Gibson”) died of lung cancer on March 2, aged 76. She arrived in Hollywood in 1963 and made just ten films, including Village of the Giants, The Loved One and The Magic Christian (both co-scripted by her long-time companion, Terry Southern) and a couple with Elvis Presley.

British-born character actress Sheila MacRae (Sheila Margaret Stephens, aka “Sheila Stephenson”) died in New Jersey on March 6, aged 92. She had been suffering from dementia and had recently undergone surgery. Best known for her role as “Alice Kramden”in the revived 1960s series of The Honeymooners, MacRae also appeared in Bikini Beach, How to Stuff a Wild Bikini, and an episode of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Her first husband was actor Gordon MacRae (1941-67).

American voice-over Hal Douglas (Harold Cone) died of pancreatic cancer on March 7, aged 89. His distinctive baritone voice can be heard on thousands trailers intoning “In a world…” and he also provided the narration for Waterworld.

82-year-old Belfast-born character actor James Ellis, best known for his role as “Sgt. Bert Lynch” in BBC-TV’s Z Cars (1962-78), died of a stroke in Lincolnshire on March 8. His other credits include Where the Bullets Fly, Leapin’ Leprechauns! and its sequel Spellbreaker: Secret of the Leprechauns, and Dragonworld: The Legend Continues, along with episodes of TV’s Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense (‘Mark of the Devil’), Doctor Who, Woof! and Eternal Law.

Irish character actress Eileen Colgan died after a brief illness on March 10, aged 80. She was in The Secret of Roan Inish and I Sell the Dead.

American actor Richard Coogan died on March 12, aged 99. A former radio announcer and stage actor, he became the first “Captain Video” in 1949-50 for the daily TV series Captain Video and His Video Rangers, and went on to appear in episodes of several TV series during the 1960s.

Japanese actor Ken Utsui died of respiratory failure on March 14, aged 82. He portrayed his country’s first superhero, “Super Giant” (aka “Starman”), in a series of short films in the late 1950s, which were edited into the 1965 US movies Invaders from Space, Evil Brain from Outer Space, Attack from Space and Atomic Rulers of the World. Utsui was also in the 2013 SF film Time Scoop Hunter.

65-year-old American actor James [Robert] Rebhorn, who had a recurring role in TV’s Homeland, died of complications from melanoma on March 21. He also appeared in He Knows You Are Alone (1980), Cat’s Eye, Shadows and Fog, Independence Day, The Adventures of Pluto Nash, Anamorph, The Box and Real Steel (both based on stories by Richard Matheson), and the 2012 mini-series Coma.

American actress and cattle rancher Patrice Wymore, the widow of actor Errol Flynn, died of pulmonary disease in Jamaica on March 22, aged 87. Her credits include small roles in Chamber of Horrors and an episode of TV’s The Monkees.

British leading lady Kate O’Mara (Frances Meredith Carroll) died of ovarian cancer on March 30, aged 74. Her credits include Corruption (with Peter Cushing), Hammer’s The Vampire Lovers and The Horror of Frankenstein, and episodes of TV’s Adam Adamant Lives!, The Champions, The Avengers, The Adventures of Don Quick and Doctor Who (as renegade Time Lord “The Rani”).

South African-born actor, scriptwriter and author Glyn Jones died in Greece on April 2, aged 82. He not only wrote a four-part Doctor Who serial ‘Doctor Who and the Space Museum’ in 1965, but ten years later he appeared as “Krans” in the two-part story ‘The Sontaran Experiment’.

50-year-old American comedian and actor John Pinette was found dead from a pulmonary embolism in a hotel room in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on April 5. He had been suffering from heart and liver disease. Pinette appeared in The Punisher (2004) and an episode of TV’s ALF.

Hollywood legend Mickey Rooney (Ninian Joseph Yule, Jr.) died on April 6, aged 93. A former child star, he made his movie debut in 1926 and his credits include the 1934 serial The Lost Jungle, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935, as “Puck”), The Atomic Kid (which he also produced), Francis in the Haunted House, Pinocchio (1957), How to Stuff a Wild Bikini, Pete’s Dragon, Arabian Adventure (with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing), Silent Night Deadly Night 5: The Toy Maker, Sinbad: The Battle of the Dark Knights, Babe: Pig in the City, Phantom of the Megaplex, Night at the Museum, The Thirsting, The Muppets (2011), The Voices from Beyond, Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb and a new version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (2015). On TV Rooney appeared in episodes of Twilight Zone, Night Gallery and Conan, and in the early 1930s he supplied the voice of “Oswald, the Lucky Rabbit” in a series of cartoon shorts made by Walter Lantz. His eight wives included actresses Ava Gardner (1942-43) and Martha Vickers (1949-52) and he received two special Oscars.

American character actor Darrell Zwerling died on April 11, aged 85. He was in Miracle on 34th Street (1973), George Pal’s Doc Savage The Man of Bronze (as “Ham”), The Ultimate Warrior, Capricorn One and High Anxiety, along with an episode of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (‘Planet of the Amazon Women’).

Exotic-looking British actress and ballet dancer April Olrich (Edith April Oelrichs) was born in Zanzibar, Tanzania, and died after a long illness in London on April 15. She was 80, and had small roles in Macbeth (1960), Amicus’ The Skull, and Supergirl, along with episodes of TV’s The Avengers and She-Wolf of London. She was married to actor Nigel Pegram.

American actor Craig Hill [Fowler] died in Spain on April 21, aged 88. After co-starring with Kenneth Tobey in TV’s Whirlybirds (1957-60), Hill eventually moved to Europe, where he appeared in such films as Assignment Terror (aka Dracula versus Frankenstein), Bloodstained Shadow, Stigma and Anguish. He was married to actress and model Teresa Gimpera.

73-year-old American TV character actor Doug (Douglas) Hale died on April 25. He appeared in episodes of The Bionic Woman, The Incredible Hulk, Galactica 1980 (aka Conquest of the Earth), The Greatest American Hero, Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1985), Highway to Heaven, Max Headroom, Misfits of Science, Weird Science and Babylon 5.

British actor Bob Hoskins (Robert William Hoskins) died of pneumonia on April 29, aged 71. His films include Pink Floyd The Wall, Brazil, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Heart Condition, Hook (as “Smee”), Super Mario Bros., Rainbow, The Lost World (2001), Son of the Mask, Hollywoodland, Doomsday, A Christmas Carol (2009), Pinocchio (2010) and Snow White and the Huntsman, before he retired from acting after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. On TV Hoskins starred in the series Pennies from Heaven (1978) and appeared in episodes of Thriller (1976) and Tales from the Crypt (which he also directed), along with the mini-series Neverland (as “Smee” again).

American leading lady Judi Meredith (Judith Clare Boutin) died on April 30, aged 77. Discovered by comedian George Burns, she appeared in Jack the Giant Killer (1962), William Castle’s The Night Walker, Dark Intruder and Queen of Blood, along with an episode of TV’s Shirley Temple’s Storybook. Meredith was married to director Gary Nelson.

American leading man Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., who starred in the TV series 77 Sunset Strip (1958-64) and The F.B.I. (1965-74), died on May 2, aged 95. He appeared in Wait Until Dark, Terror Out of the Sky, Disney’s Beyond Witch Mountain, The Tempest (1983), and episodes of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, Fantasy Island, Babylon 5 and The Visitor. For twelve years he was the voice of Bruce Wayne’s butler “Alfred Pennyworth” on the animated TV series of Batman and various spin-offs, and he also voiced “Doctor Octopus” for the 1995-97 Spider-Man cartoon series.

American character actress Pauline [Cynthia] Wagner died the same day, aged 103. A contract player for RKO Radio Pictures and a founding member of the Screen Actors Guild, she was Fay Wray’s stunt double on King Kong (1933) for a re-shoot of the climactic sequence on top of the Empire State Building.

American-born actor Les Carlson (Leslie M. Carlson) died of cancer in Toronto, Canada, on May 3, aged 81. As well as appearing in the David Cronenberg films Videodrome (as “Barry Convex”), The Dead Zone, The Fly (1986) and the short Camera, he was also in The Neptune Factor, Deranged, Black Christmas (1974), Deadly Harvest, The Girl from Mars, The Wishing Tree, Anonymous Rex and Bag of Bones. Carlson’s TV credits include episodes of The New Avengers, War of the Worlds, The Twilight Zone (1988), Friday the 13th: The Series, Highlander, The X Files, PSI Factor: Chronicles of the Paranormal, Odyssey 5, Haven, Lost Girl and Murdoch Mysteries (‘The Ghost of Queen’s Park’).

Former American child actress Jacqueline [Devon] Taylor died of Alzheimer’s disease on May 5, aged 88. She was in a number of “Our Gang” comedy shorts in 1934, along with an uncredited role in Laurel and Hardy’s Babes in Toyland.

American actor, producer and bookseller Magoo Gelehrter, who portrayed “Garou”, the werewolf henchman of New England horror host “Penny Dreadful” the witch (his wife Danielle S. Gelehrter) on cable TV show Penny Dreadful’s Shilling Shockers, died after a long battle with cancer on May 16. He was 51.

British leading lady Barbara [Ann] Murray died of a heart attack in Spain on May 20, aged 84. Her credits include A Christmas Carol (1950), Meet Mr. Lucifer, The Curse of King Tut’s Tomb and The Power (1984). On TV she appeared in the 1961 BBC-TV series The Escape of R.D.7, The Indian Tales of Rudyard Kipling, Strange Report, The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, Tales from the Crypt and Doctor Who. She was married (1952-64) to actor John Justin.

Hollywood actress Jane Adams (Betty Jean Bierce), who played hunchbacked nurse “Nina” in House of Dracula (1945), died on May 21, aged 94. Her other movies include the Universal serial Lost City of the Jungle, The Brute Man (with Rondo Hatton), Tarzan’s Magic Fountain (uncredited), the Columbia serial Batman and Robin (1949) and Master Minds (with the Dead End Kids). She turned up on TV in a 1953 episode of The Adeventures of Superman before retiring from the screen.

American character actor Matthew [Chandler] Cowles died of congestive heart failure on May 22, aged 69. He appeared in the movies They Might Be Giants, Crawlspace (1972), Brenda Starr, She’s Back, Season of the Hunted, Shutter Island and the American TV series of Life on Mars (2008-09). His second wife was actress Christine Baranski.

American actor and singer Herb Jeffries (Umberto Alejandro Ballentino) died of heart failure on May 25, aged 100. During the late 1930s and early ‘40s he starred as Herbert Jeffrey, “The Sepia Singing Cowboy”, in a handful of low-budget black Westerns with titles like The Bronze Buckaroo and Harlem Rides the Range. Jeffries went on to appear in an episode of I Dream of Jeannie and he wrote and directed the 1967 sex-murder mystery Mundo depravados starring his then-wife, legendary stripper Tempest Storm (Annie Blanche Banks). He was also the last surviving member of The Great Duke Ellington Orchestra.

German-Austrian actor Karlheinz Böhm (aka “Karl Boehm”), who starred in Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom (1960) under the name “Carl Boehm”, died of Alzheimer’s disease on May 29, aged 86. He was also in Alraune (aka Mandragore, 1952), The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm and The Venetian Affair (with Boris Karloff). Since the early 1980s he was involved with charitable work in Ethiopa and was made an honorary Ethiopian citizen in 2001.

Hong Kong-born American actress Joan Lorring (Madeline Ellis) died in Sleepy Hollow, New York, on May 30, aged 88. Nominated for an Oscar for her supporting role in The Corn is Green (1945), she also appeared in Three Strangers and The Verdict (both with Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre), The Lost Moment and an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents (as Lizzie Borden’s sister).

American actress Martha Hyer died on May 31, aged 89. She made her movie debut in 1946, and amongst her credits are Abbott and Costello Go to Mars, Riders to the Stars, Francis in the Navy, Mistress of the World, Pyro, First Men in the Moon, Bikini Beach, Picture Mommy Dead and House of 1,000 Dolls (with Vincent Price), along with episodes of TV’s The Alfred Hitchcock Hour and Bewitched. Her second husband was film producer Hal B. Wallis.

American stuntman Tap Canutt (Edward Clay Canutt), the son of legendary stuntman Yakima Canutt, died on June 2, aged 81. His credits include The War Lord, Planet of the Apes, Beneath the Planet of the Apes and The Omega Man, all starring Charlton Heston, and the TV movie Planet Earth.

American supporting actress Marjorie Stapp, who worked as a receptionist for mobster Bugsy Siegel before his murder in 1947, died the same day, aged 92. She had small roles in Port Sinister, Indestructible Man (with Lon Chaney, Jr.), The Werewolf (1956), Kronos, The Monster That Challenged the World, Daughter of Dr. Jekyll and an episode of TV’s Quantum Leap. Stapp retired from acting in 1991.

Romanian-born actress Veronica Lazar died in Rome on June 8, aged 75. She was in Dario Argento’s Inferno and The Stendhal Syndrome, and Lucio Fulci’s The Beyond. She was married to actor Adolfo Celi from 1966 until his death twenty years later.

British actor and comedian Rick Mayall (Richard Michael Mayall), best remembered for his anarchic TV series The Young Ones (1982-84), The Comic Strip Presents…(1983-2012), The New Statesman (1987-94) and Bottom (1991-95), died on June 9, aged 56. The cause may have been an acute cardiac event after Mayall had been for a morning run earlier. He was also in such TV shows as Whoops Apocalypse (and the spin-off movie), Murder Rooms: The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes and Jonathan Creek. Mayall also appeared in the films An American Werewolf in London, Shock Treatment (1981), Drop Dead Fred, The Canterville Ghost (1997), Merlin: The Return, The Legend of Harrow Woods, Evil Calls, Eldorado (aka Highway to Hell) and Errors of the Human Body. His role as “Peeves the Poltergeist” in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was cut out before release.

American actress and activist Ruby Dee (Ruby Ann Wallace) died on June 11, aged 91. She was in the remake of Cat People (1982), A Simple Wish and the 1994 TV mini-series of Stephen King’s The Stand (alongside her husband Ossie Davis).

Former ballet dancer Ken Tyllssen died the same day, aged 75. During the 1960s he appeared as various aliens, including a Sensorite, a Mechanoid and a Dalek, in episodes of Doctor Who opposite William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton’s Time Lords.

Carla Laemmle (Rebekah Isabelle Laemmle), the niece of Universal Studios founder Carl Laemmle, died on June 12, aged 104. She appeared in small roles in The Phantom of the Opera (1925), Dracula (1931) and Mystery of Edwin Drood (1935). Decades later, Laemmle had cameos in such direct-to-video titles as The Vampire Hunters Club and Mansion of Blood, tying with Mickey Rooney for the longest career in movie history (eighty-nine years).

Likeable British leading man Francis [Joseph] Matthews died on June 14, aged 86. Best known for playing the title character in Paul Temple (1969-71), the first colour series on BBC TV, he also appeared in episodes of The New Adventures of Charlie Chan, The Avengers, Out of the Unknown and Jonathan Creek. Matthews’ film credits include Hammer’s The Revenge of Frankenstein (with Peter Cushing), Dracula Prince of Darkness and Rasputin: The Mad Monk (both with Christopher Lee), Corridors of Blood (with Boris Karloff and Lee), The Hellfire Club (again with Cushing) and Five Women for the Killer. He was also the voice of “Captain Scarlet” (which he based on Cary Grant) in Gerry Anderson’s puppet TV series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons (1967-68). Matthews was married to actress Angela Browne from 1963 until her death in 2001.

French-born Underground celebrity and artist Ultra Violet (Isabelle Collin Dufresne) died of cancer in New York City the same day, aged 78. Having spent the 1960s hanging out with the likes of Andy Warhol and Salvador Dali, she appeared in a few movies, including Simon King of the Witches, Curse of the Headless Horseman and James Ivory’s Savages. Reportedly exorcised in her early teens by a Catholic priest when she rebelled against her religious upbringing, in the 1980s she rejected her experiences as part of Warhol’s “Factory” and became a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

British character actor Sam Kelly (Roger Michael Kelly) died of cancer on June 14, aged 70. He appeared in episodes of TV’s Rentaghost, Virtual Murder (‘A Dream of Dracula’) and The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles (‘Transylvania, January 1918’), along with the films Tiffany Jones and Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang (aka Nanny McPhee Returns). He portrayed “The Wizard” in the London stage production of the musical Wicked from 2009-10, and briefly returned to the role in 2013.

British stuntman and actor Terry Richards (David Terrence Richards), best known for playing the Arab swordsman shot by Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark, died the same day, aged 81. He did stunts in seven James Bond films, starting with From Russia with Love, along with The Empire Strikes Back, Superman II, Krull, Brazil, Red Sonja, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, The Princess Bride, Willow, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Clive Barker’s Nightbreed, Total Recall (1990) and Shadowchaser. Richards also appeared in Flash Gordon (1980), Haunted Summer and episodes of TV’s Adam Adamant Lives!, The Avengers, Blakes 7, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles and Space Precinct.

82-year-old American actor, presenter and radio disc jockey Casey Kasem (Kemal Amen Kasem), the voice of Scooby-Doo’s sidekick “Norville ‘Shaggy’ Rogers” for forty years and Batman’s partner “Robin” for seventeen years, died of complications from Lewy body dementia on June 15. He had been suffering from Parkinson’s disease. Kasem was in the movies The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant, Doomsday Machine, The Night That Panicked America and The Dark, and episodes of TV’s The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries (‘Mystery of the Hollywood Phantom’) and Fantasy Island. A prolific voice actor, he contributed to such animated TV shows as The Batman/Superman Hour, Scooby-Doo Where Are You!, Super-Friends, Yogi’s Space Race, The Flintstones Meet Rockula and Frankenstone, Battle of the Planets, Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels, The Transformers and Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated. In the late 1960s, Kasem executive produced and appeared in two exploitation biker movies, The Glory Stompers and The Cycle Savages.

French actor Jacques Bergerac died the same day, aged 87. He starred in the 1960 movie The Hypnotic Eye, and also appeared in episodes of TV’s Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Get Smart and Batman. Bergerac was married (1953-57) to American actresses Ginger Rogers and (1959-64) Dorothy Malone.

82-year-old American comedian Steve Rossi (Joseph Charles Michael Tafarella), one half of a comedy team with Marty Allen, died of cancer of the aesophogus in Las Vegas on June 22. The duo appeared in the sci-spy spoof The Last of the Secret Agents? while Allen and Rossi Meet Dracula and Frankenstein was announced in 1974 but apparently never made. Rossi was also in the low budget comedy The Man from O.R.G.Y.

American character actor Eli [Herschel] Wallach died on June 24, aged 98. Best remembered for his role as “Tuco” the bandit in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, he was also in the movies The Angel Levine, A Cold Night’s Death, The Sentinel (with John Carradine) and Circle of Iron (with Christopher Lee). On TV, Wallach appeared in episodes of Lights Out (‘Rappaccini’s Daughter’), Shirley Temple’s Storybook, Batman (as “Mr. Freeze”), Orson Welles’ Great Mysteries, Tales of the Unexpected, Worlds Beyond, Highway to Heaven, Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1988) and Veritas: The Quest. He was also the reader of the audio book of Stephen King’s Insomnia. Wallach was married to actress Anne Jackson and received an honorary Academy Award in 2010.

Norma McCarty, who was briefly married to film-maker Edward D. Wood, Jr. from 1955-56, died on June 27, aged 93. She appeared as “Edith” the stewardess in Wood’s infamous Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959) and was featured in such documentaries about the cross-dressing director as The Incredibly Strange Film Show, The Haunted World of Edward D. Wood, Jr. and E! Mysteries & Scandals.

American actor Meshach Taylor, a regular on the CBS-TV sitcom Designing Women (1986-93), died of cancer on June 28, aged 67. He appeared in the movies Damien: Omen II, The Howling, The Beast Within, Explorers, Warning Sign, Mannequin, Ultra Warrior, Mannequin On the Move, Double Double Toil and Trouble, Virtual Seduction and Hyenas. Taylor was also in episodes of TV’s The Incredible Hulk and ALF, while on Broadway he played “Lumiere” in the stage production of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast.

American actor Don Matheson, who starred as “Mark Wilson” in Irwin Allen’s TV series Land of the Giants (1968-70), died of lung cancer on June 29, aged 84. A former Detroit policeman and Korean war veteran, he also appeared in The Alfred Hitchcock Hour and Allen’s Lost in Space, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and Alice in Wonderland (1985), along with the 1990 movie Dragonfight. His second wife was his Land of the Giants co-star Deanna Lund.

American character actor Bob Hastings (Robert Francis Hastings), a regular on TV’s McHale’s Navy (1962-66), died of prostate cancer on June 30, aged 89. He appeared in the 1950s science fiction TV shows Captain Video and His Video Rangers, Atom Squad and Tom Corbett Space Cadet, along with episodes of Twilight Zone (‘I Dream of Genie’), Batman, I Dream of Jeanie, The Flying Nun, Kolchak: The Night Stalker (‘The Werewolf’), The Amazing Spider-Man, Wonder Woman, The Incredible Hulk and The Greatest American Hero. Hastings began his career as the voice of “Archie Andrews” on the radio show based on the Archie comic books. He was also the voice of “The Raven” in The Munsters (1964-66) and, for ten years, the voice of “Commissioner James Gordon” in various animated Batman TV shows and video games. The actor was also in the movies The Bamboo Saucer, Disney’s The Strange Monster of Strawberry Cove and Charlie and the Angel, The Billion Dollar Threat and The Munsters’ Revenge (as the “Phantom of the Opera”). Hastings made a point of never charging fans for his autograph at nostalgia conventions, saying: “I am pleased that people remember the shows I did”.

The body of 50-year-old British actor, wrestler and cage fighter Dave Legeno was discovered at Zabriskie Point, in California’s remote Death Valley, on July 6. He had apparently died of heat exhaustion while hiking. Best known for playing werewolf “Fenrir Greyback” in the films and video games Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 and Part 2, he was also in Batman Begins, Stormbreaker, The Cottage, Dead Cert, Asylum Blackout, The Raven (2012) and Snow White and the Huntsman.

Former child actor Dickie Jones (Richard Percy Jones), who was the uncredited voice of the wooden puppet in Walt Disney’s Pinnocchio (1940), died on July 7, aged 87. He appeared in Babes in Toyland (1934), Life Returns, Queen of the Jungle, On Borrowed Time and Beware Spooks! before retiring from acting in the mid-1960s.

Italian-born actress, writer, poet and inventor Vanna [Marie] Bonta died in Los Angeles on July 8, aged 56. She had a small role as Zed’s mother in The Beastmaster (1982), and her other credits include Time Walker and voice work for Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, An American Tail: Fievel Goes West, Demolition Man and the TV series Revelations. Bonta also made two uncredited appearances in the 2002 series of The Twilight Zone, and she wrote the controversial 1995 book Flight: A Quantum Fiction Novel.

American actor James Mathers died of cancer on July 11, aged 77. He starred as “Dr. Henry Jekyll” in Dr. Jekyll’s Dungeon of Death (1979), which he also scripted, and he was in an episode of TV’s SeaQuest 2032.

British TV actor Ray Lonnen (Raymond Stanley Lonnen) died of cancer the same day, aged 74. He was in episodes of TV’s Menace, The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, Doctor Who, Hammer House of Horror (‘The Guardian of the Abyss’), Tales of the Unexpected, Johnny and the Dead (based on the book by Terry Pratchett), Crime Traveller and Starhunter.

American stage and screen actress Elaine Stritch died of stomach cancer on July 17, aged 89. She began her acting career in the late 1940s, and her credits include the movies The Spiral Staircase (1975), Christmas Spirits, Cocoon: The Return and ParaNorman, along with episodes of Tales of the Unexpected and 3rd Rock from the Sun.

American leading man James Garner (James Scott Bumgarner), who starred in the TV series Maverick (1957-62) and The Rockford Files (1974-80), died of acute myocardial infarction on July 19, aged 86. Garner also appeared in the movies The Fan, Fire in the Sky and Space Cowboys, and he was a voice performer in Disney’s Atlantis: The Lost Empire, The Land Before Time X: The Great Longneck Migration and Battle for Terra, as well as such TV shows as God the Devil and Bob (as “God”) and DC Showcase (as “Shazam”).

21-year-old American actress Skye McCole Bartusiak died the same day of an accidental drug overdose. She had recently been suffering from epileptic seizures. Bartusiak made her acting debut in the 1999 mini-series of Stephen King’s Storm of the Century, and her other credits include the movies The Darkling, Firestarter 2: Rekindled, Boogeyman and Sick Boy, plus episodes of TV’s Touched by an Angel and Lost.

Spanish comedian Álex Angulo (Alejandro Angulo León) was killed in a car accident on July 20, aged 61. He had roles in Acción mutante and Pan’s Labyrinth.

British character actress Dora Bryan OBE (Dora May Broadbent) died on July 23, aged 91. She made her film debut in 1947, and her credits include The Perfect Woman, Old Mother Riley Meets the Vampire (with Bela Lugosi), Mad About Men, Hammer’s Hands of the Ripper, Screamtime and Dave McKean’s MirrorMask. In 1963 she recorded the hit novelty song, ‘All I Want for Christmas is a Beatle’.

American character actor Jack Walsh (Raymond J. Walsh) died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease on July 25, aged 80. He was in John Walters’ Multiple Maniacs, George Lucas’ debut THX 1138, David Lynch’s Eraserhead, and Insidious: Chapter 2, along with episodes of TV’s Early Edition (‘Halloween’) and Medium.

American character actor Lew Brown died on July 27, aged 89. His movie credits include Colossus: The Forbin Project, The Resurrection of Zachary Wheeler, The Man, Planet Earth and The Clone Master. On TV Brown was a familiar face in episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Twilight Zone, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, The Invaders, The Wild Wild West, I Dream of Jeannie, Night Gallery, Shazam!, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries (‘The Mystery of the Haunted House’ with Richard Kiel) and Project U.F.O.

Hawaiian-born American actor and singer James [Saburo] Shigeta died on July 28, aged 85. His movies include the musical remake of Lost Horizon (1973), The Questor Tapes, Tomorrow’s Child and Space Marines. On TV Shigeta appeared in episodes of The Outer Limits, Matt Helm, Fantasy Island, The Greatest American Hero, The Hitchhiker, SeaQuest 2032 and Babylon 5, and he contributed voice performances to Disney’s Mulan, The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest and Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Maverick American character actor Dennis Lipscomb died on July 30, aged 72. He appeared in WarGames, Eyes of Fire, The Day After, Crossroads, Retribution, Perry Mason: The Case of the Sinister Spirit, The First Power, The Force, Without Warning and Automatic. On TV he was in episodes of The Greatest American Hero, The Powers of Matthew Star, Amazing Stories, Highway to Heaven, SeaQuest 2032, The X Files, Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, The Invisible Man (2000) and Roswell.

59-year-old British TV and radio presenter Mike Smith (Michael George Smith) died on August 1 of complications following major heart surgery. Smith was one of the co-presenters of Stephen Volk’s infamous Hallowe’en spoof Ghostwatch, along with his wife Sarah Greene and Michael Parkinson, which the BBC broadcast live in 1992.

Canadian character actor Walter [Edward Hart] Massey, the cousin of veteran actor Raymond Massey, died on August 4, aged 85. A prolific voice actor, his films include Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang, Happy Birthday to Me, Zombie Nightmare, Whispers and Secrets of the Summer House, and he was also in episodes of the TV anthology series The Twilight Zone (1989), The Hidden Room and Are You Afraid of the Dark?.

American actress Marilyn Burns, who survived Tobe Hooper’s Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), died on August 5, aged 65. She was also in Hooper’s Eaten Alive plus Helter Skelter (1976), Kiss Daddy Goodbye (with Fabian), Future-Kill, Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation, Butcher Boys, Texas Chainsaw 3D, Sacrament and In a Madman’s World.

Northern Irish character actor J.J. Murphy died on August 8, aged 86. Days earlier he had started work on HBO’s Game of Thrones as “Denys Mallister”, the oldest member of the Night’s Watch. He also had an uncredited role as a village elder in Dracula Untold.

American actor Ed Nelson (Edwin Stafford Nelson), who starred in the TV soap opera Peyton Place (1964-69), died of congestive heart failure on August 9, aged 85. He began his career as a member of Roger Corman’s unofficial stock company in such movies as Swamp Women, Attack of the Crab Monsters (as the crab!), Rock All Night, Teenage Doll, Carnival Rock, Teenage Cave Man, She Gods of Shark Reef, I Mobster and A Bucket of Blood. His other credits include Invasion of the Saucer Men, Night of the Blood Beast, The Brain Eaters, Devil’s Partner, The Screaming Woman (based on a story by Ray Bradbury), The Girl the Gold Watch & Everything, Brenda Starr, Deadly Weapon and The Boneyard, plus episodes of TV’s Thriller (‘The Cheaters’), Twilight Zone, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, The Outer Limits, Rod Serling’s Night Gallery, The Sixth Sense, The Bionic Woman, Gemini Man, Logan’s Run and Salvage 1.

Veteran British-born soap opera actor Charles [Patrick] Keating died of lung cancer in Connecticut the same day, aged 72. He appeared in episodes of The Mind Beyond (‘Meriel, the Ghost Girl’), Supernatural (‘The Werewolf Reunion’ and ‘Countess Ilona’) and Tales of the Unexpected before moving to America in the mid-1980s, where he was featured in such popular soaps as All My Children, Port Charles and Another World. He also portrayed the god “Zeus” in cross-over episodes of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess.

63-year-old comedic film and TV star Robin [McLaurin] Williams committed suicide by hanging on August 11. He had been suffering from severe depression. Williams was an immediate hit as the offbeat alien “Mork” in the TV sitcom Mork & Mindy (1978-82), a spin-off from Happy Days, and he went on to appear in such films as Popeye, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Dead Again, The Fisher King, Hook, In Search of Dr. Seuss, Jumanji, Hamlet (1996), Flubber (1997), What Dreams May Come (based on the novel by Richard Matheson), Bicentennial Man (based on the novel by Issac Asimov), One Hour Photo, Insomnia, The Final Cut and The Night Listener, and he portrayed “Teddy Roosevelt” in the fantasy trilogy Night at the Museum, Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian and Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb. He was presented with an Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role in 1998. Williams’ other TV credits include an episode of Faerie Tale Theatre, he was the voice of the “Genie” in Walt Disney’s animated movies Aladdin and Aladdin and the King of Thieves, and he also gave voice performances in A.I. Artificial Intelligence (based on the story by Brian Aldiss), FernGully: The Last Rainforest, Robots, Happy Feet, Happy Feet Two and Absolutely Anything.

Hollywood actress Lauren Bacall (Betty Joan Perske) died of a stroke on August 12, aged 89. Best known for her co-starring roles with future husband Humphrey Bogart in such classic 1940s movies as To Have and Have Not, The Big Sleep, Dark Passage and Key Largo, she also appeared in Blithe Spirit (1956), Shock Treatment (1964), The Fan, Misery (based on the novel by Stephen King), Presence of Mind (based on Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw) and Birth. Bacall also voiced witches in both Howl’s Moving Castle (based on the novel by Diana Wynne Jones) and Scooby-Doo and the Goblin King. She was awarded an Honorary Oscar in 2010, and her second husband was actor Jason Robards.

American actress Arlene Martel (Arlene Greta Sax, aka “Tasha Martel”), who played Spock’s Vulcan bride “T’Pring” in the classic Star Trek episode ‘Amok Time’ (1967), died of complications from heart bypass surgery and breast cancer the same day, aged 78. Her other credits include Angels from Hell, Conspiracy of Terror, the softcore Chatterbox!, Dracula’s Dog and Star Trek: Of Gods and Men, plus episodes of TV’s Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits (Harlan Ellison’s ‘Demon with a Glass Hand’), The Man from U.N.C.L.E., My Favorite Martian, I Dream of Jeannie, The Wild Wild West, The Flying Nun, The Monkees (‘Monstrous Monkee Mash’), Bewitched, The Six Million Dollar Man and the original series of Battlestar Galactica.

Actress Columba Domínguez [Alarid], who starred in the influential Mexican horror film Ladrón de cadáveres (1957), died on August 13, aged 85. She also appeared in La loba, Adventura al centro de la tierra and the 1962 TV series Las momias de Guanajuato.

Maltese-born Madeleine Collinson, who co-starred with her identical twin sister Mary and Peter Cushing in Hammer’s Twins of Evil (1971), died on August 14, aged 62. The former October 1970 Playboy Playmate of the Month also appeared in a few sexploitation films before her short-lived acting career was over.

American character actor Stephen Lee died of a heart attack the same day, aged 58. He appeared in WarGames, Dolls, RoboCop 2, The Pit and the Pendulum (1991), Ghoulies Go to College, Prehysteria!, Black Scorpion (1995), Victim of the Haunt (aka The Uninvited), Carnosaur 3: Primal Species and Black Scorpion II: Aftershock, plus episodes of TV’s Amazing Stories, Hard Time on Planet Earth, Quantum Leap, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Babylon 5, Dark Angel, Invasion, Threshold, Fear Itself (Peter Crowther’s ‘Eater’) and Ghost Whisperer.

American radio and TV announcer Don Pardo (Dominick George Pardo), best known for his work on such shows as Jeopardy! and Saturday Night Live, died on August 18, aged 96. In the 1940s he was the announcer for the radio series Dimension X and X Minus One.

British character actor, producer and Oscar-winning director Sir Richard [Samuel] Attenborough died on August 24, aged 90. He appeared in A Matter of Life and Death (aka Stairway to Heaven), Brighton Rock (as the psychopathic “Pinkie”), Seance on a Wet Afternoon, Doctor Dolittle, The Magic Christian, 10 Rillington Place (as real-life murderer John Christie), Ten Little Indians (1974), Miracle on 34th Street (1994), Hamlet (1996), Jack and the Beanstalk: The Real Story, and Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park and The Lost World: Jurassic Park. As a director Attenborough’s credits include Magic (based on the novel by William Goldman) and Shadowlands (the biography of C.S. Lewis). He was married to actress Sheila Sim since 1945.

American character actor John [Edward] Brandon died on August 25, aged 85. In 1966, he played the first victim of the Cybermen in the initial episode of the Doctor Who serial ‘The Tenth Planet’. His other credits include Battle Beneath the Earth, Billion Dollar Brain, Star Hunter, The Lake and The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle, along with episodes of TV’s Wonder Woman, The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries, The Bionic Woman, Fantasy Island, The Greatest American Hero, Goliath Awaits, Knight Rider, Voyagers!, Tales from the Darkside and Charmed.

South African-born character actor and comedian Bill Kerr (William Henry Kerr) died in Australia on August 28, aged 92. For many years he worked in Britain, where he became one of Tony Hancock’s regular radio sidekicks. He also appeared in episodes of TV’s Adam Adamant Lives! and Doctor Who, plus the movies The Night My Number Came Up, Tiffany Jones, House of Mortal Sin (aka The Confessional), Razorback and Peter Pan (2003).

German actor Gottfried John, who played Russian general Arkady Grigorovich Ourumov in the James Bond film GoldenEye (1995), died of cancer on September 1, aged 72. He was also in the short-lived SF series Space Rangers (1993-94), an episode of Millennium, and the TV movies Flood and Rumplestilzchen.

Acerbic American comedian Joan Rivers (Joan Alexandra Molinsky) died of anoxic encephalopathy on September 4, following throat surgery a week earlier. She was 81. Rivers’ movie credits include The Muppets Take Manhattan, Spaceballs (and the subsequent animated TV series), Shrek 2, The Smurfs, Iron Man 3 and R.L. Stine’s Mostly Ghostly: Have You Met My Ghoulfriend?

Lithuanian actor Donatas [Juozas] Banionis, who co-starred in Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris (1972), died of heart problems the same day, aged 90. He was also in The Vampire, a 1991 version of Aleksei Tolstoy’s often-filmed novel, and portrayed Rex Stout’s detective “Nero Wolfe” in Poka ya ne umer (2001).

Memorable American character actor Stefan Gierasch died on September 6, aged 88. He appeared in High Plains Drifter, Carrie (1976), Blue Sunshine, Blood Beach, Spellbinder, Megaville and Legend of the Phantom Rider, along with episodes of TV’s Play of the Week (‘The Dybbuk’), The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, Holmes and Yo-Yo, Lucan, Fantasy Island, The Incredible Hulk, The Greatest American Hero, Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1985), The Twilight Zone (1986), Werewolf, Tales from the Crypt, Dark Shadows (1991, as “Joshua Collins”), Star Trek: The Next Generation, Touched by an Angel and Brimstone. Gierasch portrayed Hollywood director Michael Curtiz in the 1985 TV biopic My Wicked Wicked Ways: The Legend of Errol Flynn.

American character acator Don(ald) [Hood] Keefer died on September 7, aged 98. He appeared in Woody Allen’s Sleeper, The Car, Mirrors, Creepshow and Liar Liar. On TV, Keefer was in episodes of One Step Beyond, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, ‘Way Out, Twilight Zone (‘It’s a Good Life’), My Favorite Martian, The Munsters, Bewitched, Star Trek (‘Assignment: Earth’), Night Gallery, The Incredible Hulk, Time Express (with Vincent Price), Highway to Heaven and Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.

American actor Denny Miller (Dennis Linn Miller), who portrayed the first blond Tarzan in the 1959 Tarzan, the Ape Man, died of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis on September 9, aged 80. As “Scott Miller” he was a regular on Wagon Train (1961-64), and he also appeared in episodes of The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. (Richard Matheson’s ‘The Atlantis Affair’), I Dream of Jeannie, The Wide World of Mystery, The Six Million Dollar Man, Wonder Woman, Quark, Battlestar Galactica (1978), Fantasy Island, Beyond Westworld, The Incredible Hulk, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Voyagers!, V, Knight Rider, Outlaws and Werewolf, along with the movies Doomsday Machine, Disney’s The Island at the Top of the World and Dr. Scorpion.

Big Richard [Dawson] Kiel, who portrayed steel-toothed James Bond villain “Jaws” in The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker, died of possible acute myocardial infarction on September 10, aged 74. The distinctive seven-feet, two-inch tall actor also appeared in the movies The Phantom Planet, Eegah, House of the Damned, The Nutty Professor (1963), Two on a Guillotine, The Human Duplicators, Brainstorm (1965), The Humanoid, Hysterical, Phoenix, Pale Rider, The Princess and the Dwarf, Inspector Gadget and BloodHounds Inc. #5: Fangs for the Memories. His many TV credits include episodes of Thriller (‘Well of Doom’), The Phantom, Twilight Zone (‘To Serve Man’), The Man from U.N.C.L.E., I Dream of Jeannie, My Mother the Car, Gilligan’s Island (‘Ghost-a-Go-Go’), The Monkees (‘I Was a Teenage Monkee’), The Wild Wild West, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, Land of the Lost, The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries (‘The Mystery of the Haunted House’), Out of This World and Superboy.

German leading man Joachim Fuchsberger died on September 11, aged 87. He starred (often as various Scotland Yard inspectors) in such Edgar Wallace krimi films as Face of the Frog, The Terrible People, Dead Eyes of London (1961), The Devil’s Daffodil, The Inn on the River, The Black Abbot (1963), Room 13, The Mysterious Magician and The Zombie Walks, along with The Carpet of Horror, The Face of Fu Manchu (with Christopher Lee), The College Girl Murders, Schreie in der Nacht, What Have You Done to Solange? (aka Terror in the Woods) and Trance. Fuchsberger was reportedly offered the role of “James Bond” in 1960, but advised the German producer to turn the project down because it was too expensive.

Plummy-voiced British actor Sir Donald [Alfred] Sinden died of prostate cancer on September 12, aged 90. He was in Mad About Men, Disney’s The Island at the Top of the World, The Canterville Ghost (1996 and 1997 versions) and Alice in Wonderland (1999), along with the TV series The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1960) and episodes of The Prisoner, Late Night Horror and The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes.

American Broadway actor and singer Steve Curry (Steven Michael Curry), whose curly-haired head was immortalised on the original poster and album cover art for the hit musical Hair in 1968, died of sepsis on September 13. He was 68. Curry also starred as “Glen” in the 1971 post-apocalyptic movie Glen and Randa. From 1980-81 he was married to actress Patti D’Arbanville, and he also fathered a daughter with actress Susan Anspach.

Scottish character actor Angus [Wilson] Lennie died in London on September 14, aged 84. He appeared on TV in episodes of Target Luna, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe (1967) and Doctor Who (‘The Ice Warriors’), along with a small role in Disney’s One of Our Dinosaurs is Missing.

American actress Audrey Long, who co-starred in A Game of Death (1945, a remake of Richard Connell’s story ‘The Most Dangerous Game’), died in England on September 19, aged 92. She retired from the screen in 1952 when she married her second husband, author Leslie Charteris, creator of “The Saint”.

Austrian-born actress and dancer Peggy Drake (Liesl Lotte Mayer), who appeared in a few films and the 1942 Republic serial King of the Mounties, died the same day, aged 91.

American actress and singer Polly Bergen (Nellie Paulina Bergin) died after a long battle with emphysema on September 20, aged 84. She co-starred in the original Cape Fear (1962) with Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum, and her other movie credits include Death Cruise, Making Mr. Right, The Haunting of Sarah Hardy and Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde. On TV she appeared in episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Thriller (1973), Fantasy Island and Touched by an Angel.

Canadian actress and playwright Linda [Pauline] Griffiths died of breast cancer on September 21, aged 57. She appeared in episodes of TV’s Friday the 13th: The Series and Beyond Reality.

American actress Sarah Danielle Madison (Sarah Goldberg), who had recurring roles in the TV series Judging Amy, 7th Heaven and the revived 90210, died in her sleep of a suspected heart ailment on September 27, aged 40. She also appeared in the movies Jurassic Park III, Savage Planet and Pig.

74-year-old British-born actor David [William] Watson, who replaced Roddy McDowall for one movie as “Cornelius” in Beneath the Planet of the Apes, died of a heart attack in New York City on October 5. He had been attending the opening night of the Broadway play The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Watson was also in episodes of TV’s The Girl from U.N.C.L.E., The Time Tunnel (as Rudyard Kipling), The Bionic Woman and Project U.F.O. As a boy chorister, he was one of three treble soloists who sung at the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.

Trinidad-born dancer, choreographer and actor Geoffrey (Lamont) Holder died in New York City of complications from pneumonia the same day, aged 84. Best remembered for his colourful role as James Bond villain “Baron Samedi” in Live and Let Die (1973), his other credits include Doctor Dolittle, Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex** But Were Afraid to Ask, The Gold Bug (1980), Alice in Wonderland (1983), Jon Grin’s Christmas, Ghost of a Chance, and two episodes of the 1960s Tarzan TV series. The baritone-voiced Holder also narrated Tim Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), and in 1975 he won Tony Awards for Best Direction of a Musical and Best Costume Design for the Broadway stage production of The Wiz.

32-year-old Native American actress Misty [Anne] Upham was found dead in a ravine in the woods in Auburn, Washington, on October 16 after being reported missing earlier in the month. The King County medical examiner ruled that she died on October 5 of accidental blunt-force trauma to her head and torso, despite reports that she feared harassment by local police. Upham appeared in the movies Skinwalkers and DreamKeeper.

Tony Award-winning stage and screen actress Marian [Hall] Seldes died on October 6, aged 86. In a busy career, she appeared in episodes of TV’s Shirley Temple’s Storybook, Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Murder She Wrote (‘The Witch’s Curse’), along with the movie The Haunting (1999), based on the novel The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. Seldes, who was married to writer and director Garson Kanin, is in the Guinness Book of World Records for appearing on Broadway in 1,809 performances of Deathtrap from 1978 until late 1982 without ever missing a show.

Italian character actor Fedrico Boido (aka “Rico Boido”) died on October 7, aged 74. His credits include the peplums Hercules and the Treasure of the Incas and Maciste il vendicatore dei Maya, Mario Bava’s Planet of the Vampires and Danger: Diabolik, Spirits of the Dead and numerous spaghetti Westerns. Boido also regularly appeared in many of the Killing/Satanik/Sadistik photo-novels.

American actor Paul Lukather died on October 9, aged 88. In the early 1960s he starred in Dinosaurus! and Hands of a Stranger, and later appeard in Shock Treatment (1964) and Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter. Lukather was also on TV in episodes of Science Fiction Theatre, The Outer Limits, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Get Smart, The Invaders and Gemini Man, and he was a voice actor in numerous videogames (including “Vorador”, the vampire elder of the Blood Omen series).

American actress and comedian Jan Hooks (Janet Vivian Hooks), who appeared on TV’s Saturday Night Live from 1986-91, died of throat cancer the same day, aged 57. She appeared in the movies Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, Batman Returns and Coneheads, and played recurring characters on TV’s 3rd Rock from the Sun and The Simpsons.

Veteran American stuntman Gary McLarty, who was stunt co-ordinator and Vic Morrow’s stunt double on the ill-fated Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983) when the actor was killed, died in a traffic accident along with fellow stuntman Bob Orrison on October 11. McLarty, who was 73, testified at the Robert Blake murder trial in 2005 that the actor had offered him $10,000 to murder his wife, who Blake was accused of shooting to death four years earlier. Orrison, who was 86, was the stunt double for Leonard Nimoy and DeForrest Kelley on the original Star Trek TV series.

55-year-old Cuban-American actress Elizabeth [Maria] Peñ a died of liver cirrhosis due to alcohol abuse on October 14. Her movie credits include *batteries not included, Vibes, Blue Steel, Jacob’s Ladder, The Invaders (1995), It Came from Outer Space II, Strangeland and Dragon Wars: D-War. She was also in episodes of TV’s The Outer Limits (1995) and Ghost Whisperer.

Irish-born Canadian actor Gerard Parkes (aka “Gerry Parks”), who played inventor “Doc” on Jim Henson’s Fraggle Rock (1983-87), died October 19, aged 90. He was in the movies The Pyx, Spasms (aka Death Bite), A Muppet Family Christmas and Short Circuit 2. On TV, Parkes appeared in episodes of The Twilight Zone (1988), War of the Worlds, Friday the 13th: The Series (aka Friday’s Curse), The Ray Bradbury Theatre and Storm of the Century.

Canadian-born British actress Lynda Bellingham OBE (Meredith Lee Hughes) died in London the same day, after a very public battle with colon cancer. She was 66. Best known for appearing on a series of gravy commercials during the 1980s and ‘90s, Bellingham also appeared in episodes of TV’s Blakes 7, Doctor Who and Robin Hood (2007).

American tough-guy character actor William Bonner (Pierre Maurice Prenatt) died on October 23. His many movies, often for director Al Adamson, include the Edward D. Wood-scripted Orgy of the Dead, Psych-Out, Satan’s Sadists, The Mighty Gorga, Hell’s Bloody Devils, Bigfoot (1970), The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant, The Female Bunch, Dracula vs. Frankenstein and Psychic Killer. Following an on-set accident, he was in a wheelchair for nearly forty years.

American actress Marcia Strassman died of breast cancer on October 24, aged 66. Her movie credits include Brenda Starr (1976), Brave New World, Haunted by Her Past, Honey I Shrunk the Kids, Honey I Blew Up the Kid, Earth Minus Zero and Reeker. On TV she was a regular on Tremors (2003) and appeared in episodes of Fantasy Island, Time Express (with Vincent Price), Shadow Chasers, Amazing Stories, Touched by an Angel and Highlander.

British actress Renée Asherson (Dorothy Renée Ascherson) died on October 30, aged 99. She was in the films The Day the Earth Caught Fire, Hammer’s Rasputin: The Mad Monk (with Christopher Lee), Theatre of Blood (with Vincent Price) and The Others, along with episodes of TV’s The Strange Report and Tom’s Midnight Garden. She was married to actor Robert Donat from 1953 until his death in 1958.

American comedy actor Richard Schaal died on November 4, aged 86. A member of Chicago’s Second City troupe, he appeared in the movies Slaughterhouse-Five, A Knife for the Ladies, Song of the Succubus, Americathon and Once Bitten, along with episodes of TV’s I Dream of Jeannie, The Wide World of Mystery and Shadow Chasers. Schaal also co-starred with his second wife, Valerie Harper, in the CBS series Rhoda (1974-76).

American character actress Carol Ann Susi, best known as the voice of the unseen “Mrs. Wolowitz” in TV’s The Big Bang Theory, died of cancer on November 11, aged 62. She was working as a waitress in a restaurant when she met Darren McGavin and his wife, and the actor offered her the role of his secretary, Monique Marmelstein, in three episodes of ABC-TV’s Kolchak: Night Stalker. She also appeared in Donor, Death Becomes Her, Cats & Dogs and Red Velvet (with Forrest J Ackerman), along with episodes of TV’s Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Journeyman.

British leading man Richard [Edward] Pasco CBE, who was in Hammer’s The Gorgon and Rasputin: The Mad Monk (both with Christopher Lee), died on November 12, aged 88. His other credits include Disney’s The Watcher in the Woods and an episode of TV’s Out of This World (hosted by Boris Karloff).

British actor Warren Clarke (Alan James Clarke) died in his sleep the same day, aged 67. He began acting in his late teens, and his credits include Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange (as “Dim”), O Lucky Man!, The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1976, as “Quasimodo”), The Tempest (1980, as “Caliban”), Hawk the Slayer, Firefox, The Case of the Frightened Lady (1983), The Cold Room, Top Secret!, Hands of a Murderer and Angels (1992). On TV Clarke appeared in episodes of The Avengers (‘Invasion of the Earth Men’), Hammer House of Horror (‘The Thirteenth Reunion’), Tales of the Unexpected and Worlds Beyond.

British actress and painter Joanna [Elizabeth] Dunham, the wife of actor, playwright and author Reggie Oliver, died after a long illness on November 25, aged 78. Marilyn Monroe recommended her to director George Stevens for the role of “Mary Magdalene” in The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), and her other film credits include Amicus’ The House That Dripped Blood (with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing). On TV she appeared in episodes of H.G. Wells’ Invisible Man (1959), A Choice of Coward (‘Blithe Spirit’, as the ghostly “Elvira”), Thriller (1973), Space: 1999, ITV Playhouse (M.R. James’ ‘Casting the Runes’, 1979) and the Gerry Anderson pilot The Day After Tomorrow (aka Into Infinity).

Japanese actor Bunta Sugawara died on November 28, aged 81. He appeared in the movies Girl Diver of Spook Mansion, The Bloody Sword of the 99th Virgin and The Cursed Pond. As a voice actor, Sugawara contributed to the animated productions Spirited Away and Tales from Earthsea.

American actor Loren Ewing (William Russell Ewing) died on December 2, aged 77. He had roles in The Last of the Secret Agents? and Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks (as “Goliath”), and played The Archer’s henchman “Big John” in a two-part episode of TV’s Batman. His acting career ended after he suffered a serious head injury while filming a Western in the late 1970s.

Former American child actor Ken Weatherwax (Kenneth Patrick Weatherwax), who played “Pugsley” in the original ABC-TV series The Addams Family (1964-66) and the 1973 animated show, died of a heart attack on December 7, aged 59. Weatherwax also appeared in the 1977 TV movie Halloween with the New Addams Family, and he later became a camera grip at Universal Studios.

30-year-old Canadian-born actress and dancer Stephanie [Elyse] Moseley was shot to death in a murder-suicide in Los Angeles on December 8. Her rapper husband Earl Hayes believed she had cheated on him before turning the gun on himself. Moseley appeared in Catwoman, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1, Mirror Mirror and Girl vs. Monster.

American actress and former Miss America Mary Ann Mobley died after a long battle with breast cancer on December 9, aged 77. She played “April Dancer”, the original “Girl from U.N.C.L.E.”, in a 1966 episode of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (‘The Moonglow Affair’) but was later replaced by Stefanie Powers, and she was originally cast as “Batgirl” in Batman, but the role eventually went to Yvonne Craig. Mobley also appeared in episodes of TV’s The Smothers Brothers Show (‘The Ghost is Clear’), Search, The Sixth Sense, The Fantastic Journey and Fantasy Island, and she co-starred with Elvis Presley in the movies Girl Happy and Harum Scarum. She was married to actor Gary Collins from 1967 until his death in 2012.

British leading man Tom Adams (Anthony Frederick Charles Adams) died of prostate cancer on December 11, aged 76. He starred as “Charles Vine” in the 1960s James Bond spoofs Licensed to Kill (aka The 2nd Best Secret Agent in the Whole Wide World), Where the Bullets Fly and Somebody’s Stolen Our Russian Spy, and his other movie credits include The House That Dripped Blood (alongside Joanna Dunham, who died sixteen days earlier). On TV, Adams appeared in episodes of The Avengers, Hammer’s Journey to the Unknown (Robert Bloch’s ‘The Indian Spirit Guide’), Strange Report, UFO, Doctor Who (‘Warriors of the Deep’) and Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense (‘Mark of the Devil’).

British character actor Gerald [Grant] Sim, the brother-in-law of Richard Attenborough, died the same day, aged 89. Best known for his role in Hammer’s Dr Jekyll & Sister Hyde (1971), he also appeared in Seance on a Wet Afternoon, The Man Who Haunted Himself, Alfred Hitchcock’s Frenzy, Dr. Phibes Rises Again (with Vincent Price), The Slipper and the Rose: The Story of Cinderella, Jack the Ripper (1988) and Shadowlands, along with episodes of TV’s The Avengers, It’s Dark Outside (‘Wake the Dead’), Adam Adamant Lives!, Out of the Unknown, Hammer’s Journey to the Unknown, Doomwatch, Thriller (1974), The Wide World of Mystery, The New Avengers and Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense.

82-year-old Italian leading man Giorgio Ardisson (aka “George Ardisson”) also died on December 11. He appeared in Mario Bava’s Hercules in the Haunted World (with Christopher Lee) and Erik the Conqueror, along with the obscure Katarsis (with Lee again), Antonio Margheriti’s The Long Hair of Death (with Barbara Steele), Agent 3S3: Passport to Hell, Hercules and the Princess of Troy, Federico Fellini’s Juliet of the Spirits, Operation Counterspy, Agent 3S3: Massacre in the Sun, Eyes Behind the Stars, Don’t Look in the Attic and Cross of the Seven Jewels.

American character actress Mary [Dawne] Arden died on December 13, aged 81. While a fashion model living in Italy during the 1960s, she appeared in Mario Bava’s seminal giallo Blood and Black Lace, Fellini’s Juliet of the Spirits and Umberto Lenzi’s Kriminal. She also turned up in the 2012 movie Bloody Christmas.

American character actor Booth Colman, who played “Dr. Zaius” on the short-lived TV series Planet of the Apes (1974), died on December 15, aged 91. He was in Them!, The Silver Chalice, Fritz Lang’s Moonfleet, World Without End, Time Travelers, The Return of the World’s Greatest Detective and Return to the Secret Garden, along with episodes of The Veil and Thriller (both hosted by Boris Karloff), The Outer Limits, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Wild Wild West, The Monkees, I Dream of Jeannie, The Invaders, Tarzan (1968), The Flying Nun, Project U.F.O., Galactica 1980 and Star Trek: Voyager.

Italian actress Virna Lisi (Virnia Lisa Pieralisi) died of lung cancer on December 18, aged 78. Her films include Dual of the Titans, The Possessed and Bluebeard (1972). The actress was reportedly offered the title role of Barbarella (1968), but turned it down.

British character actress Billie [Honor] Whitelaw CBE died on December 21, aged 82. She made her acting debut in the 1952 BBC-TV series The Secret Garden, and her many other credits include the films The Flesh and the Fiends (aka Mania, with Peter Cushing), The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1968, with Jack Palance), Twisted Nerve, Alfred Hitchcock’s Frenzy, Night Watch, The Omen (1976), The Water Babies, The Dark Crystal, The Secret Garden (1987), The Cloning of Joanna May, Jane Eyre (1996), Merlin (1998), Quills and Hot Fuzz, along with episodes of BBC Sunday-Night Theatre (‘Gaslight’), Wessex Tales, Space: 1999, Supernatural (‘The Werewolf Reunion’/ ‘Countess Ilona’) and Imaginary Friends. She was married (1952-66) to actor Peter Vaughn and later to playwright Robert Muller.

British stuntman and stunt arranger Richard Graydon died on December 22, aged 92. Staring with From Russia with Love, he worked on ten James Bond films, along with Don’t Look Now, The Man Who Fell to Earth, Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Ladyhawke, Dream Lover, Willow and Batman (1989). Additionally, Graydon had small roles in Déjà Vu (1985) and an episode of TV’s The Avengers.

American voice actor Christine Cavanaugh (Christine Josephine Sandberg) died the same day, aged 51. Her credits include Darkwing Duck, A Flintstone Family Christmas, Babe (as the titular porcine), The Spooktacular New Adventures of Casper, Dexter’s Laboratory (as “Dexter”) and Rugrats (as “Chuckie”), amongst many other titles. Cavanaugh also appeared in an episode of TV’s The X Files.

British actor and comedy scriptwriter [John] Jeremy Lloyd OBE died of pneumonia on December 23, aged 84. A regular on Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In (1969-70), he had small, often uncredited, roles in the Beatles films A Hard Day’s Night and Help!, A Study in Terror, The Magic Christian and TV’s The Avengers. Lloyd came up with the original idea for the Adam Faith Loch Ness Monster comedy What a Whopper (1961), and he also scripted Vampira (aka Old Dracula), starring David Niven as the Count. His second of four wives was actress Joanna Lumley.

British character actor Bernard [Frederic Bemrose] Kay died on Christmas Day. He was 86. Kay’s film credits include They Came from Beyond Space, The Shuttered Room (based on a story by H.P. Lovecraft and August Derleth), Torture Garden (based on stories by Robert Bloch), Witchfinder General (aka Conqueror Worm, with Vincent Price), Trog (with Joan Crawford and Michael Gough), Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger, Puritan and Psychosis. On TV he appeared in episodes of TV’s Hamlet (1961), Doctor Who (opposite William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee), Out of the Unknown, Object Z, Adam Adamant Lives!, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe (1967, as ‘Aslan’), The Champions, Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) (aka My Partner the Ghost), Space: 1999, Survivors (1977), Tales of the Unexpected, Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense, World’s Beyond, A Very British Coup (1988) and PSI Factor: Chronicles of the Paranormal. Kay was married to actress Patricia Haines from 1963 until her death in 1977.

Fellow British character actor David [John] Ryall died the same day, aged 79. His films include The Elephant Man, Jack the Ripper (1988), The Woman in Black (1989), Truly Madly Deeply, Witchcraft (1992), Around the World in 80 Days (2004), The League of Gentleman’s Apocalypse, City of Ember, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 (as “Elphias Doge”), The Tractate Middoth (2013, based on the story by M.R. James) and Autómata. On TV he was in episodes of Once Upon a Time (‘Frankenstein’, 1973), Blakes 7, The Singing Detective (1986), The Borrowers (1992), Goodnight Sweetheart, Bonekickers and Mark Gatiss’ Crooked House.

84-year-old American actor Rhodes Reason, the younger brother of actor Rex Reason, died of lymphoma cancer on December 26. His movie credits include Voodoo Island (with Boris Karloff) and King Kong Escapes. On TV Reason appeared in episodes of Science Fiction Theatre, The Time Tunnel and Star Trek.

British actress Bridget [Joanna] Turner died on December 27, aged 75. She appeared in two Terry Pratchett TV adaptations—Hogfather and The Colour of Magic—and was also in an episode of Doctor Who. Her film credits include The Gathering (2003).

American character actor Terry Becker (Solomon Becker), who played “Chief Sharkey” on TV’s Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1965-68), died on December 30, aged 93. He was also in an episode of Twilight Zone and the 2010 movie Infection: The Invasion Begins. In 1974 Becker produced and directed the low budget horror film The Thirsty Dead, based on his own story.

American-born actress Yolande Donlan (aka “Yolande Mollot”), who appeared with Bela Lugosi in Monogram’s The Devil Bat (1940), died in London the same day. She was 94. Donlan’s other movies included Turnabout (based on the novel by Thorne Smith), Mister Drake’s Duck, Tarzan and the Lost Safari and Expresso Bongo. Her second husband was Val Guest, who directed many of her films.

German-born Luise Rainer, the first actress to win back-to-back Oscars in 1937 and 1938, also died in London on December 30, aged 104. In 1954 she appeared in an episode of TV’s Suspense with fellow German émigré Martin Kosleck.

American actor Edward [Kirk] Herrmann, who played “Herman Munster” in the 1995 TV movie Here Come the Munsters, died of brain cancer on December 31, aged 71. He was also in The Day of the Dolphin, Ray Bradbury’s The Electric Grandmother, Death Valley, Woody Allen’s The Purple Rose of Cairo, The Lost Boys, My Boyfriend’s Back, The Shaft, The Skeptic and the 2014 remake of The Town That Dreaded Sundown, along with a 1987 episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and the 2011 pilot for Wonder Woman.

FILM/TV TECHNICIANS

American movie producer Bernard Glasser died on January 2, aged 89. A former high school teacher, during the 1950s and ‘60s he produced Space Master X-7, Return of the Fly (starring Vincent Price), The Day of the Triffids (1963, uncredited) and Crack in the World.

Mike Vraney, a former comic bookstore-owner, convention organiser and founder of video distributor Something Weird Video (SWV), died of lung cancer the same day, aged 56. He was also an associate producer on Herschell Gordon Lewis’ belated sequel Blood Feat 2: All U Can Eat (2002).

Chinese movie producer and philanthropist Sir Run Run Shaw (Ren-leng Shao) died on January 7, aged 106. During a prolific career that began in the mid-1950s, he produced or executive produced numerous films with his elder brother Runme Shaw (who died in 1985), including Hammer’s The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (with Peter Cushing as “Van Helsing”), Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold, The Oily Maniac, The Web of Death, Lady Exterminator, Meteor (1979), Blood Beach, Hex vs. Witchcraft and Blade Runner. The Shaw Brothers are credited for bringing kung fu movies into popular culture.

American animation director Hal Sutherland died on January 16, aged 85. After working at Walt Disney on such films as Peter Pan, Lady and the Tramp and Sleeping Beauty, Sutherland founded Filmation Studios with Lou Scheimer and Norm Prescott, which produced countless hours of TV cartoons from 1960s to the 1980s, including such shows as The New Adventures of Superman, The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure, Journey to the Center of the Earth, The Batman/Superman Hour, Fantastic Voyage, Sabrina and the Groovie Goolies, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, My Favorite Martians, Star Trek: The Animated Series, The Fat Albert Halloween Special, Space Sentinels, Flash Gordon, Gilligan’s Planet and He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. Sutherland also directed the animated movies Journey Back to Oz (1974) and Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night (1987).

German-born film director Gordon Hessler, best known for his inventive horror films for AIP in the late 1960s and early ‘70s, died on January 19 in London, aged 88. His movies include three collaborations with actor Vincent Price: The Oblong Box (also featuring Christopher Lee), Scream and Scream Again (with Lee again, and Peter Cushing) and Cry of the Banshee, along with Catacombs (aka The Woman Who Wouldn’t Die), De Sade (uncredited), Murders in the Rue Morgue (1971), Medusa, Scream Pretty Peggy, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, The Strange Possession of Mrs. Oliver, KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park, Evil Stalks This House (aka Tales of the Haunted) and The Girl in a Swing (based on the novel by Richard Adams). Between 1964-65, Hessler was an associate producer on TV’s The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, and he directed episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, Wonder Woman (‘Gault’s Brain’, featuring John Carradine) and Tales of the Unexpected.

American animator, director and producer Michael Sporn died the same day, aged 67. His many cartoons for children include The Trolls and the Christmas Express, The Red Shoes (1990), The Emperor’s New Clothes, ‘Twas the Night and Poe (2013).

Adult film-maker Tony Lovett (aka “Johnny Jump-Up” and “Antonio Passolini”) died on January 26, aged 55. Beginning his career as a publicist and production manager at VCA, he scripted The Devil in Miss Jones 3 and 4, Dr. Penetration, Latex, Shock and the mondo Inhumanities 2: Modern Atrocities. As a director, Lovett’s credits include Cafe Flesh 2 and 3, The Devil in Miss Jones 6 and New Wave Hookers 6. With Matt Maranian he co-authored the books L.A. Bizarro! The Insider’s Guide to the Obscure, the Absurd and the Perverse in Los Angeles and L.A. Bizarre: The All-New Insider’s Guide to the Obscure, the Absurd and the Perverse in Los Angeles.

American animation producer and director Arthur [Gardner] Rankin, Jr. died in Bermuda on January 30, aged 89. His numerous credits include such perennial holiday specials as Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964) and Frosty the Snowman (1969), along with Return to Oz (1964), Willie McBean and His Magic Machine, The Daydreamer and Mad Monster Party? (both featuring the voice of Boris Karloff), The Wacky World of Mother Goose, Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town, ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas, J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit (1977) and The Return of the King (1980), The Flight of the Dragons, Peter S. Beagle’s The Last Unicorn (with the voice of Christopher Lee) and the cartoon TV series The New Adventures of Pinnochio, Tales of the Wizard of Oz, King Kong (1966) and Thundercats, amongst many others. Rankin, Jr. was also a producer on the live-action movies King Kong Escapes, The Last Dinosaur, The Bermuda Depths and The Sins of Dorian Gray.

British TV director Christopher [Chisholm] Barry, who began his career at Ealing Studios as a producer’s assistant on The Man in the White Suit (1951), died on February 7, aged 88. His credits include Out of the Unknown (John Wyndham’s ‘Random Quest’), Moonbase 3, The Tripods and numerous episodes of Doctor Who (1963-79). In 1974 he became the first director to shoot Doctor Who on videotape for location sequences.

American animator and movie director Jimmy T. Murakami died in Dublin, Ireland, on February 16, aged 80. His films include Humanoids from the Deep (uncredited) and Battle Beyond the Stars for Roger Corman, along with the animated productions The Snowman and When the Wind Blows, both based on books by Raymond Briggs, Heavy Metal (Dan O’Bannon’s ‘Soft Landing’), The Lion the Witch & the Wardrobe (1988) and Christmas Carol: The Movie (2001).

American producer and scriptwriter Don Safran (Donald Bernard Safran) died of congestive heart failure on February 17, aged 84. In 1984 he produced the short-lived TV series of Blue Thunder.

27-year-old camera assistand Sarah [Elizabeth] Jones was killed on February 20 in an on-set accident involving a train, while working on a low-budget movie in Georgia. The February 26 episode of the CW’s The Vampire Diaries was dedicated to Jones, who worked on that production, along with the movie Dante’s Daemon.

American music and movie producer Saul Zaentz, who won three Academy Awards for his films, died of Alzheimer’s disease on February 28, aged 92. In 1978 he produced the animated version of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and kept the rights to the books tied up for decades.

Acclaimed French film director and editor Alain [Pierre Marie Jean Georges] Resnais died on March 1, aged 91. His many acclaimed films include the avant-garde masterpiece Last Year in Marienbad (1961) and the time travel romance Je t’aime je t’aime (1968).

Swedish producer, director and composer Calvin [James] Floyd died in early March, aged 82. He is best remembered for the 1975 documentary In Search of Dracula (narrated by Christopher Lee), the 1977 movie Victor Frankenstein (aka Terror of Frankenstein) and the 1980 film The Sleep of Death (based on Sheridan Le Fanu’s story ‘The Room in the “Dragon Volant”’).

Acclaimed Oscar-winning British cinematographer Oswald “Ossie” Morris OBE died on March 17, aged 98. He began his career at Wembley Studios as a clapper boy in the early 1930s, before moving up to camera operator on such filems as Green for Danger. His many credits include Moby Dick (scripted by Ray Bradbury), Scrooge (1970), Sleuth, Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1974), The Man with the Golden Gun, The Man Who Would Be King, The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, The Wiz, The Great Muppet Caper and The Dark Crystal, after which he retired.

Legendary American exploitation and sexploitation producer Harry H. Novak (aka “H. Hershey”), founder of Boxoffice International Pictures (1964-78), died on March 26, aged 86. His many credits include Kiss Me Quick! (as “Seymour Tuchus”), The Toy Box, Please Don’t Eat My Mother!, Wham! Bam! Thank You Spaceman!, Rattlers, The Child and Rituals (aka The Creeper).

British TV and theatre director Derek Martinus (Derek Buitenhuis) died of Alzheimer’s disease on March 27, aged 82. His credits include episodes of Doctor Who (1965-70) and Blakes 7. With the debut of Jon Pertwee’s Doctor in 1970, he shot the first Doctor Who serial entirely on film and in colour.

70-year-old Richard Broke, who executive produced Stephen Volk’s memorable 1992 Hallowe’en spoof Ghostwatch, died on April 14. His other credits include the science fiction drama The Plant (1995).

American assistant director Paul Wurtzel died on April 18, aged 92. He began his career in 1942 with the Laurel and Hardy film A-Haunting We Will Go, and his other credits include The Black Sleep, Voodoo Island and Pharaoh’s Curse. He later worked as a unit production manager on the TV series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century and The Twilight Zone (1985-87), along with the 1982 Disney TV movie Beyond Witch Mountain.

American TV director Gordon [Wyatt] Wiles died on April 27, aged 84. Along with a number of episodes of Land of the Lost, he also directed episodes of Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In and Bigfoot and Wildboy, as well as the 1971 musical film of Li’l Abner.

American cinematographer Gordon Willis died of cancer on May 18, aged 82. Known as “The Prince of Darkness” for his use of shadowy lighting, he worked on the movie version of Pennies from Heaven (1981) and Woody Allen’s Zelig and The Purple Rose of Cairo. He received an honorary Academy Award in 2009, alongside Roger Corman.

69-year-old American screenwriter, director and video game producer Michael [Bernard] Gottlieb was killed in a motorcycle accident on May 23. His movie credits include Mannequin and Disney’s A Kid in King Arthur’s Court.

Former Hasbro executive Donald Levine, credited with creating the “G.I. Joe” action figure, died of cancer the same day, aged 86.

American pin-up model turned glamour photographer Bunny Yeager (Linnea Eleanor Yeager), best known for her iconic photographs of model Bettie Page in the early 1950s, died of congestive heart failure on May 25. She was 85. Yeager was also a still photographer on several movies, including Nude on the Moon and Dr. No (she took the photographs in Jamaica of a bikini-clad Ursula Andress coming out of the sea).

American sound editor James M. Falkinburg (aka “James Nelson”) died on June 18, aged 81. He worked—often uncredited—on such movies and TV series as Rock Around the Clock (1956), Shirley Temple’s Storybook, The Three Stooges Meet Hercules, The Three Stooges in Orbit, Beach Party, The Comedy of Terrors, Muscle Beach Party, Bikini Beach, Pajama Party, Beach Blanket Bingo, How to Stuff a Wild Bikini, Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet, Planet of the Vampires, Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine, Queen of Blood, Tarzan and the Valley of Gold, Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs, The Bubble, Tarzan and the Great River, Get Smart, Captain Nice, The Trip, Psych-Out, The Monkees, Tarzan (1966-68), Tarzan and the Jungle Boy, Head, The Monitors, H.R. Pufnstuf, Sole Survivor, Simon King of the Witches, Johnny Got His Gun, Werewolves on Wheels, The Fearmaker, The Exorcist, Coonskin and The Judas Project. Falkinburg was also involved, in various capacities, with the special effects on Ghostbusters, 2010, Fright Night (1985), Poltergeist II: The Other Side, Big Trouble in Little China, The Boy Who Could Fly, Solarbabies, Masters of the Universe and The Monster Squad.

Martin Varno, the son of veteran actor Roland Varno, died of cancer on June 24, aged 77. In 1958 he scripted Night of the Blood Beast for producer Roger Corman, he was make-up supervisor on Nightmare in Wax (1969), and he was a sound effects editor on various TV cartoon series in the 1980s.

American writer, producer, director and actor Paul Mazursky (Irwin Lawrence Mazursky), co-creator of The Monkees, died of pulmonary cardiac arrest on June 30, aged 84. He also wrote and directed Alex in Wonderland (1970), acted in three episodes of TV’s Twilight Zone, and voiced characters in the animated movies Antz and Kung Fu Panda 2.

American-Irish producer and director Noel Black died of bacterial pneumonia on July 5, aged 77. He directed Pretty Poison (1968), Mirrors (1978) and Ray Bradbury’s The Electric Grandmother. His TV credits include episodes of The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries, The Twilight Zone (1986-87) and Nightmare Classics (Ambrose Bierce’s ‘The Eyes of the Panther’), along with an unsold pilot for The World Beyond (1978) featuring a golem.

American writer, producer and director John [Michael] Fasano died of heart failure in his sleep on July 19, aged 52. After acting in Blood Sisters and Zombie Nightmare (both 1987), he scripted Universal Soldier: The Return and Megiddo: The Omega Code 2, directed Rock ‘n’ Roll Nightmare, Black Roses, The Jitters and the TV series Kamen Rider: Dragon Knight, and produced The Hunchback (1997), Darkness Falls (which he also scripted), The Lost Episode and the digital zombie show Woke Up Dead for Sony’s Crackle. Fasano was also involved in the development of Alien³, Alien vs. Predator, Hostel: Part III and Marvel Comics’ unfilmed Werewolf by Night.

American film director Phillip Marshak died of complications from diabetes, heart disease and leukemia on July 24, aged 80. His credits include the 1978 adult films Dracula Sucks (starring Jamie Gillis as the Count and a pseudonymous Reggie Nalder as “Dr. Van Helsing”) and Space Virgins, and the 1980 horror film Cataclysm (aka The Nightmare Never Ends/Satan’s Supper), which five years later was edited into Night Train to Terror (‘The Case of Claire Hansen’ segment).

Legendary Oscar-winning Hollywood make-up artist Dick Smith (Richard Emerson Smith) died of complications from a broken hip on July 30, aged 92. Although he began his career in movies in the early 1940s, Smith began to develop his own revolutionary make-up techniques for television a decade later. His many credits include Alice in Wonderland (1951), The Flame Barrier, The Alligator People (with Lon Chaney, Jr.), Miracle on 34th Street (1959), The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1968), Arsenic and Old Lace (1969), House of Dark Shadows, The Exorcist, The Stepford Wives (1975), Exorcist II: The Heretic, Altered States, Scanners, Ghost Story, The Hunger, Spasms, Starman, Poltergeist III, Tales from the Darkside: The Movie, Death Becomes Her and House on Haunted Hill (1999), along with episodes of TV’s Fireside Theatre (‘A Christmas Carol’, 1951), Way Out, Golden Showcase (‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’, 1961), Dark Shadows, Monsters and Stephen King’s Golden Years. In 2012 he was presented with an Honorary Academy Award by his protégé, Rick Baker.

Hungarian-born producer Robert Halmi, Sr. died in New York of a brain aneurysm the same day, aged 90. With his son, Robert Halmi, Jr., he produced or executive produced such movies and mini-series as The Phantom of the Opera (1983), Svengali (1983), The Night They Saved Christmas, White Dwarf, Harvey (1996), Gulliver’s Travels (1996), 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1997), Tidal Wave: No Escape, The Odyssey, Merlin (1998), Alice in Wonderland (1999), Animal Farm (1999), The Magical Legend of the Leprechauns, A Christmas Carol (1999), The 10th Kingdom, Arabian Nights (2000), Jason and the Argonauts (2000), The Land of Oz, Voyage of the Unicorn, The Lost Empire, The Infinite Worlds of H.G. Wells, Prince Charming, Snow White: The Fairest of Them All, Dinotopia, Mr. St. Nick, Snow Queen (2002), A Christmas Carol: The Musical (2004), The Five People You Meet in Heaven, Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea, Hercules (2005), Merlin’s Apprentice, The Final Days of Planet Earth, Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather and The Color of Magic, Son of the Dragon, Hybrid, Eye of the Beast, Something Beneath, Grizzly Rage, Croc, Tin Man, Black Swarm, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (2008), Journey to the Center of the Earth (2008), The Hive, Swamp Devil, Vipers, Infected, Knights of Bloodsteel, Rise of the Gargoyles, Hellhounds, High Plains Invaders, Alice, The Phantom (2009), Phillip Jose Farmer’s Riverworld, Killer Wave, Neverland, The Haunting of Radcliffe House (aka Altar) and Olympus, along with the 2007-08 TV series Flash Gordon.

Polish-born production designer and director Voytek (Wojciech Roman Pawel Szendzikowski) died in London on August 7, aged 89. During the 1960s he designed episodes of TV’s The Avengers, Out of This World and Mystery and Imagination (‘The Body Snatcher’), along with Roman Polanski’s Cul-De-Sac and a 1975 TV movie of The Canterville Ghost starring David Niven. Voytek also directed the 1968 Mystery and Imagination adaptation of ‘Frankenstein’ featuring Ian Holm as both creator and monster.

Palestine-born movie producer Menahem Golan (Menahem Globus, aka “Joseph Goldman”) died in Israel on August 8, aged 85. After working as a production assistant to Roger Corman, he teamed up with his younger cousin, Yoram Globus, making and distributing films as The Cannon Group, Inc. during the 1980s. Amongst the numerous titles they produced were The Godsend, Schizoid, Dr. Heckyl and Mr. Hype, New Year’s Evil, Hospital Massacre, House of Long Shadows (the only teaming of Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing and John Carradine), Treasure of the Four Crowns, Hercules (1983), Sword of the Valiant, Ninja III: The Domination, Lifeforce, Invasion U.S.A. (1985), King Solomon’s Mines (1985), America 3000, Invaders from Mars (1986), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold, Aladdin (1986), Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, Masters of the Universe, Alien from L.A., Journey to the Center of the Earth (1988), Haunted Summer and Sinbad of the Seven Seas. After having purchased the UK’s Thorn-EMI Screen Entertainment in 1986, which led to their ownership of the ABC cinema circuit and Elstree Studios, Cannon was virtually bankrupt when it was bought out from the cousins three years later. As 21st Century Film Corporation, Golan went on to produce The Phantom of the Opera (1989), Night of the Living Dead (1990), Captain America (1990), Dance Macabre (1992), Prison Planet, Invader and American Cyborg: Steel Warrior, before that company also folded. Golan also wrote and directed more than forty movies, and he continued working until 2009.

61-year-old Oscar-winning American special effects and pyrotechnics designer Joe (Joseph) Viskocil died of complications from liver and kidney failure on August 11. He worked on Flesh Gordon, Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back, The Day Time Ended, The Terminator and Terminator II: Judgment Day, The Return of the Living Dead, Critters, Vamp, House, The Blob (1988), Cast a Deadly Spell, Batman Returns, Interview with the Vampire, Independence Day, Godzilla (1998), Armageddon, Scream 3, Battlefield Earth, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Journey to the Center of the Earth (2008) and The Prey, amongst many other titles.

British-born screenwriter, producer, editor and director Michael A. Hoey, the son of veteran character actor Dennis Hoey (“Inspector Lestrade” in the Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes films), died in California of cancer on August 17, aged 79. He is best known for his 1966 movie The Navy vs. the Night Monsters starring Mamie Van Doren.

British sculptor and puppet designer John Blundall, who created several distinctive characters for Gerry Anderson’s “Supermarionation” TV series Fireball XL5, Stingray and Thunderbirds, died on August 18, aged 77.

79-year-old American actor turned director Brian G. (Geoffrey) Hutton died on August 19, following a heart attack some days earlier. He directed Night Watch (1973) starring Elizabeth Taylor and The First Deadly Sin (1980) starring Frank Sinatra, while as an actor, Hutton appeared in two episodes of TV’s Alfred Hitchcock Presents. He left the movie business in the mid-1980s.

British-born director Andrew V. (Victor) McLaglen, the son of veteran Hollywood actor Victor McLaglen, died in Washington State on August 30, aged 94. Along with numerous TV and movie Westerns (including several with John Wayne and James Stewart), he also directed Stowaway to the Moon (with John Carradine) and the pilot episode of The Fantastic Journey. The second of McLaglen’s four wives was actress Veda Ann Borg.

British TV director Graham Theakston died of cancer on September 2, aged 62. His credits include the 1984-85 BBC series The Tripods (based on the SF books by John Christopher) and the 2002 TV movie Sherlock starring James D’Arcy as Holmes.

American director, writer and actor Theodore “Ted” J. (Jonas) Flicker died on September 12, aged 84. His credits include episodes of TV’s The Man from U.N.C.L.E., I Dream of Jeannie, Night Gallery (in which he also appeared as “The Devil”), The Twilight Zone (1985) and the movies The President’s Analyst and Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang.

British film production designer and art director Assheton [St. George] Gorton died of heart failure on September 14, aged 84. He worked on such movies as Blow-Up, The Bed Sitting Room, The Magic Christian, Zachariah, The Pied Piper (1972), The Martian Chronicles, Legend, 101 Dalmations (1996), Shadow of the Vampire and 102 Dalmations, along with two episodes of TV’s Mystery and Imagination (‘The Flying Dragon’ and ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’). Gorton also wrote and illustrated children’s books.

85-year-old British TV producer and director [Terence] Michael Hayes died on September 16. A former Shakespearean actor, he directed the 1961 BBC series A for Andromeda, Tales from the Thousand and One Nights, and episodes of Sherlock Holmes (1965) and Doctor Who.

84-year-old French-born director George Sluizer died in Amsterdam, Holland, after a long illness on September 20. He is best known for his 1988 Dutch thriller The Vanishing (aka Spoorloos) and the inferior 1993 American remake, which he also directed. His other films include Crimetime and The Stone Raft. Sluizer also directed River Phoenix’s long-delayed final film, Dark Blood.

American stage and screen producer Stanley Chase died on October 7, aged 87. His movie credits include Colossus: The Forbin Project, Welcome to Blood City and An American Christmas Carol. In 1965 he executive produced the NBC-TV pilot Dream Wife, in which Shirley Jones’ character could read minds and see into the future.

American-born movie producer Alain Siritzky died in Paris, France, on October 11. He was 72. As producer of the popular “Emmanuelle” erotic film sequels, his films include Emmanuelle Queen of the Galaxy, Emmanuelle vs. Dracula, Emmanuelle in Wonderland and the Emmanuelle Through Time series. Amongst his other credits are The Sex Files series (a softcore spoof of The X Files), Sex Wars, Aliens Gone Wild, She Alien, Alien Ecstasy, The Final Alien Files, and the TV series Click, based on Milo Manara’s adult comics.

American animator Larry Latham died on November 2. He worked on numerous TV shows, including The World’s Greatest SuperFriends, Godzilla, Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo, The Smurfs and Challenge of the Go-Bots, and directed the direct-to-video movies An American Tail: The Treasure of Manhattan Island and An American Tail: The Mystery of the Night Monster. Latham also created the web comic Lovecraft is Missing (2008-14).

Canadian visual effects supervisor and documentary film-maker Michael Lennick died of a brain tumour on November 7, aged 61. He worked on the effects for such films as The Last Chase, David Cronenberg’s Videodrome, The Dead Zone and The Fly, Millennium and Earthquake in New York, along with episodes of Friday the 13th: The Series, My Secret Identity, War of the Worlds and The Adventures of Sinbad.

Hugely influential and successful American writer and producer Glen A. (Albert) Larson died of aesophageal cancer on November 14, aged 77. Amongst the many shows he created were Battlestar Galactica, The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Galactica 1980, Manimal, Automan, Knight Rider, The Highwayman and NightMan. Larson also scripted The Six Million Dollar Man: Wine Women and War, Mission Galactica: The Cylon Attack, Conquest of Earth and Millennium Man, and he produced Team Knight Rider and episodes of McCloud (‘McCloud Meets Dracula’), B.J. and the Bear (‘A Coffin with a View’) and The Fall Guy (‘October the 31st’), all featuring John Carradine. Author Harlan Ellison infamously called him “Glen Larceny”, accusing him of stealing movie concepts for his TV shows, while James Garner reportedly got into a physical altercation with Larson after he copied scripts and the theme tune from The Rockford Files.

German-born Oscar-winning director Mike Nichols (Michael Igor Peschkowsky) died of a heart attack in New York on November 19, aged 83. His movie credits include Catch-22, The Day of the Dolphin, Wolf and What Planet Are You From?. Nichols was married to Diane Sawyer.

American film producer and former President of Paramount Pictures (1971-75) Frank Yablans died on November 27, aged 79. His credits include The Fury and Congo.

Oscar-winning special effects designer Danny Lee (Daniel West Lee) died on November 28, aged 95. Starting in 1960, he worked on numerous Walt Disney movies, eventually becoming head of the studio’s special effects department from 1969-81. Lee’s other films included Murderers’ Row and The Ambushers, and he was noted for his revolutionary use of synthetic blood squibs in the climax of Bonnie and Clyde (1967).

British cinematographer Gerry (Gerald) Hill died on December 2, aged 88. He began his career as a camera assistant and then operator on such films as Daughter of Darkness (1948), Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure, Suddenly Last Summer, The Road to Hong Kong, Night Must Fall (1964), Bunny Lake is Missing, Modesty Blaise (1966) and Casino Royale (1967). Hill went on to shoot Hamlet (1969), Malpertuis, Blind Terror (aka See No Evil), the short The Man and the Snake (based on the story by Ambrose Bierce), The Amazing Mr. Blunden, The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother, The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977), The Ninth Configuration, Wolfen, Highlander, Black Rainbow and The Exorcist III. He retired in 1998.

Italian screenwriter and director Giulio Questi died on December 3, aged 90. His films include Arcana, Death Laid an Egg and Vampirismus, and he also co-wrote the 1965 movie The Possessed. Questi’s TV episode L’umo della Sabbia (1981) was based on E.T.A. Hoffman’s story ‘The Sandman’.

Japanese cinematographer Takao Saitô died of chronic lymphocytic leukemia on December 6, aged 85. His credits include The Lost World of Sinbad and The Killing Bottle.

Hollywood art director Robert Kinoshita died of congestive heart failure on December 9, aged 100. Credited with designing the iconic “Robby the Robot” for Forbidden Planet (1956), “Tobor” for the TV pilot Here Comes Tobor and the “Robot” from TV’s Lost in Space (1965-68), Kinoshita began his career as a set designer on such movies as The Black Sleep and Pharaoh’s Curse, and the TV series Science Fiction Theatre. As an art director he worked on Roger Corman’s The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent, William Castle’s Macabre, The Six Million Dollar Man: Wine Women and War, Planet Earth and The Dead Don’t Die! (based on the story by Robert Bloch), along with the TV series Men Into Space, Lost in Space and Project U.F.O. Kinoshita was credited as an associate producer on The Phantom Planet (he was also production designer) and Al Adamson’s biker film Hell’s Bloody Devils. He and his wife were sent to a Japanese internment camp in Arizona during World War II, but were freed early thanks to a sponsor.

American producer Arthur Gardner (Arthur Harold Goldberg) died on December 19, aged 104. A former bit-player in such movies as Mr. Moto’s Gamble and The Brute Man, with Jules V. Levy and Arnold Laven he co-produced The Vampire, The Monster That Challenged the World, The Return of Dracula (aka The Fantastic Disappearing Man) and The Flame Barrier in the 1950s before moving into TV Westerns. Gardner was the last surviving cast member of All Quiet on the Western Front (1930).

87-year-old Roberta Leigh (Rita Shulman), best-selling British romance and children’s writer (under a variety of psuedonyms), died the same day. She sold more than 25 million books in twenty-three languages, but is best known for being the first British female producer with her own production company, creating such children’s TV puppet series as Torchy the Battery Boy and The Adventures of Twizzle (both with Gerry Anderson) and Space Patrol (aka Planet Patrol), along with the SF pilots Paul Starr and The Solarnauts. Leigh also founded the comic Fun’n’Games and the teen magazine Boyfriend.

Dependable American director Joseph Sargent (Giuseppe Daniele Sorgente) died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease on December 22, aged 89. A former actor, he directed One Spy Too Many, The Spy in the Green Hat, Colossus: The Forbin Project (based on the novel by D.F. Jones), The Man, The Night That Panicked America, Tomorrow’s Child, Nightmares, Jaws: The Revenge and Salem Witch Trials, along with episodes of TV’s The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Girl from U.N.C.L.E., Star Trek, The Invaders and The Immortal.

Spanish cinematographer Raúl Artigot [Fernández] died on Christmas Day, aged 78. His many credits include Jesús Franco’s The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein and Les démons, along with The Cannibal Man, Horror of the Zombies, Perversión and El misterio de Cynthia Baird. Artigot also scripted and directed the 1972 film The Witches Mountain.

The death was announced in 2014 of veteran Spanish film editor Antonio Ramírez [de Loaysa]. His many credits include Face of Terror, Devil of the Desert Against the Son of Hercules, Vengeance of the Zombies, The Dracula Saga, The Vampires’ Night Orgy, The Night of the Sorcerers, Devil’s Possessed, Exorcismo and Island of the Damned (aka Would You Kill a Child?).

USEFUL ADDRESSES

THE FOLLOWING LISTING of organisations, publications, dealers and individuals is designed to present readers and authors with further avenues to explore. Although I can personally recommend many of those listed on the following pages, neither the publisher nor myself can take any responsibility for the services they offer. Please also note that the information below is only a guide and is subject to change without notice.

—The Editor

ORGANISATIONS

The Australian Horror Writers Association (www.australianhorror.com) is a non-profit organisation that was formed in 2005 as a way of providing a unified voice and a sense of community for Australian writers of dark fiction, while helping the development and evolution of this genre within Australia. They also publish an excellent magazine, Midnight Echo, and offer a mentor programme, critique group and short story competitions. Email: ahwa@ australianhorror.com

The British Fantasy Society (www.britishfantasysociety.org/www.fantasycon .co.uk) was founded in 1971 and publishes the BFS Journal, featuring articles, interviews and fiction, along with occasional special books only available to members of the Society. Run by volunteers, the BFS also enjoys a lively online community—there is an Email news-feed, a Facebook community, a forum with numerous links, and a CyberStore selling various publications. FantasyCon is one of the UK’s friendliest conventions and there are social gatherings and meet-the-author events organised around Britain. For yearly membership details, Email: secretary@britishfantasysociety.org

The Friends of Arthur Machen (www.arthurmachen.org.uk) is a literary society whose objectives include encouraging a wider recognition of Machen’s work and providing a focus for critical debate. Members get a hardcover journal, Faunus, twice a year, and also the informative newsletter Machenalia. For membership details, contact Jon Preece, 9 Ridgeway Drive, Newport, South Wales NP20 5AR, UK (machenfoam@yahoo.co.uk).

The Friends of the Merril Collection (www.friendsofmerril.org/) is a volunteer organisation that provides support and assistance to the largest public collection of science fiction, fantasy and horror books in North America. Details about annual membership and donations are available from the website or by contacting The Friends of the Merril Collection, c/o Lillian H. Smith Branch, Toronto Public Library, 239 College Street, 3rd Floor, Toronto, Ontario M5T 1R5, Canada. Email: ltoolis@tpl.toronto.on.ca

The Horror Writers Association (www.horror.org) is a world-wide organisation of writers and publishing professionals dedicated to promoting the interests of writers of Horror and Dark Fantasy. It was formed in the early 1980s. Interested individuals may apply for Active, Affiliate or Associate membership. Active membership is limited to professional writers, although a recent change in the bylaws allows self-published work to qualify authors for membership under certain conditions. HWA publishes a monthly online Newsletter, and sponsors the annual Bram Stoker Awards and StokerCon.

World Fantasy Convention (www.worldfantasy.org) is an annual convention held in a different (usually American) city each year, oriented particularly towards serious readers and genre professionals.

World Horror Convention (www.worldhorrorsociety.org) is a smaller, more relaxed, event. It is aimed specifically at horror fans and professionals, and held in a different city (usually American) each year.

SELECTED SMALL PRESS PUBLISHERS

The Alchemy Press (www.alchemypress.co.uk)

American Fantasy Press (www.americanfantasypress.com), 919 Tappan Street, Woodstock, Illinois 60098, USA.

Bad Moon Books/Eclipse (www.badmoonbooks.com), 1854 W. Chateau Avenue, Anaheim, CA 92804-4527, USA.

BearManor Media (www.bearmanormedia.com), PO Box 1129, Duncan, OK 73534-1129, USA.

Bibliofear, 13 Macclesfield Road, London SE25 4RY, UK.

BigTime Books (www.bigtimebooks.com).

Black Dog Books (www.blackdogbooks.net), 1115 Pine Meadows Ct., Normal, IL 61761-5432, USA. Email: info@blackdogbooks.net

Borderlands Press (www.borderlandspress.com), POB 61, Benson, MD 21018, USA.

The Borgo Press (www.wildsidebooks.com).

Cemetery Dance Publications (www.cemeterydance.com), 132-B Industry Lane, Unit #7, Forest Hill, MD 21050, USA. Email: info@cemeterydance.com

Chaosium, Inc (www.chaosium.com).

ChiZine Publications (www.chizinepub.com). Email: info@chizinepub.com

Chômu Press (info@chomupress.com), 70 Hill Street, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1TW, UK. Email: info@chomupress.com

Crowded Quarantine Publications (www.crowdedquarantinepublications .co.uk), 34 Cheviot Road, Wolverhampton, West Midlands WV2 2HD, UK.

Cycatrix Press (www.jasunni.com), JaSunni Productions LLC, 16420 S.E. McGillivray Blvd., Ste 103-1010, Vancouver, WA 98683, USA. Email: jasunni@jasunni.com

Dark Horse Books (www.darkhorse.com), 10956 SE Main Street, Milwaukie, OR 97222, USA.

Dark Moon Books (www.darkmoonbooks.com), 13039 Glen Ct., Chino Hills, CA 91709-1135, USA. Email: eric.guignard@gmail.com

Dark Regions Press LCC (www.darkregions.com), 6635 N. Baltimore Ave. STE 241, Portland, OR 97203, USA.

Dark Renaissance Books (www.darkrenaissance.com), 315 Paige Court, Colusa, CA 95932, USA. Email: darkrenbook@gmail.com

Donald M. Grant, Publisher, Inc. (www.grantbooks.com), 19 Surrey Lane, PO Box 187, Hampton Falls, NH 03844, USA.

DreamHaven Books (www.dreamhavenbooks.com), 2301 East 38th Street, Minneapolis, MN 55406, USA.

Earthling Publications (www.earthlingpub.com), PO Box 413, Northborough, MA 01532, USA. Email: earthlingpub@yahoo.com

Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing/Hades Publications, Inc. (www.edgewebsite.com), PO Box 1714, Calgary, Alberta T2P 2L7, Canada. Email: publisher@hadespublications.com

Edgeworks Abbey (www.harlanellisonbooks.com).

Egaeus Press (www.egaeuspress.com). Email: egaeuspress@gmail.com

Ex Hubris Imprints (www.pstdarkness.wordpress.com). Email: postscripts2 darkness@gmail.com

Exile Editions Ltd. (www.exileeditions.com), 144483 Southgate Road 14—GD, Holstein, Ontario, N0G 2A0, Canada.

Fedogan & Bremer Publishing LLC (fedoganandbremer.com), 3918 Chicago Street, Nampa, Idaho 83686, USA.

Gray Friar Press (www.grayfriarpress.com), 9 Abbey Terrace, Whitby, North Yorkshire Y021 3HQ, UK. Email: gary.fry@virgin.net

Hippocampus Press (www.hippocampuspress.com), PO Box 641, New York, NY 10156, USA. Email: info@hippocampuspress.com

IDW Publishing (www.idwpublishing.com), 5080 Santa Fe Street, San Diego, CA 92109, USA.

Immanion Press (www.immanion-press.com), 8 Rowley Grove, Stafford ST17 9BJ, UK. Email: info@aimmanion-press.com

Innsmouth Free Press (www.innsmouthfreepress.com).

JournalStone (www.journalstone.com)

Kymera Press, Inc. (www.gatesofmidnight.com).

The Limbury Press (www.limburypress.co.uk), 43 Neville Road, Limbury, Luton, Beds LU3 2JG, UK. Email: info@limburypress.co.uk

McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers (www.mcfarlandpub.com), Box 611, Jefferson, NC 28640, USA.

Medallion Press, Inc. (www.medallionmediagroup.com).

Mortbury Press (mortburypress.webs.com/), Shiloh, Nantglas, Llandrindod Wells, Powys LD1 6PD, UK. Email: mortburypress@yahoo.com

Mythos Books, LLC (www.mythosbooks.com), 351 Lake Ridge Road, Poplar Buff, MO 63901, USA.

NewCon Press (www.newconpress.co.uk).

Noose and Gibbet Publishing/Karoshi Books (www.nooseandgibbet publishing.com). Email: info@nooseandgibbetpublishing.com

Nightjar Press (nightjarpress.weebly.com), 63 Ballbrook Court, Wilmslow Road, Manchester M20 3GT, UK.

Night Shade Books (www.nightshadebooks.com), 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018, USA.

Overlook Connection Press (www.overlookconnection.com), PO Box 1934, Hiram, Georgia 30141, USA. Email: overlookcn@aol.com

Pleasant Storm Entertainment, Inc. (www.pleasantstorm.com).

Plexus Publishing, The Studio, Hillgate Place, 18-20 Balham Hill, London SW12 9ER, UK.

Prime Books (www.prime-books.com), PO Box 83464, Gaithersburg, MD 20883, USA. Email: prime@prime-books.com

PS Publishing Ltd/Stanza Press/Drugstore Indian Press/PS ArtBooks Ltd (www.pspublishing.co.uk), Grosvenor House, 1 New Road, Hornsea HU18 1PG, UK. Email: editor@pspublishing.co.uk

Salt Publishing (www.saltpublishing.com), 12 Norwich Road, Cromer, Norfolk NR27 0AX, UK.

Sarob Press (sarobpress.blogspot.com), La Blinière, 53250, Neuilly-le-Vendin, France.

Shadow Publishing (www.shadowpublishing.webeasysite.co.uk/), 194 Station Road, Kings Heath, Birmingham B14 7TE, UK. Email: david.sutton986 @btinternet.com

Small Beer Press (www.weightlessbooks.com), 150 Pleasant Street #306, Easthampton, MA 01027, USA. Email: info@smallbeerpress

Spectral Press (spectralpress.wordpress.com), 5 Serjeants Green, Neath Hill, Milton Keynes, Bucks MK14 6HA, UK. Email: spectralpress@gmail.com

Spectre Press, 56 Mickle Hill, Sandhurst, Berkshire GU47 8QU, UK. Email: jon.harvey@talktalk.net

Subterranean Press (www.subterraneanpress.com), PO Box 190106, Burton, MI 48519, USA. Email: subpress@gmail.com

Tachyon Publications (www.tachyonpublications.com), 1459 18th Street #139, San Francisco, CA 94107, USA. Email: tachyon@tachyonpublications.com

Tartarus Press (www.tartaruspress.com), Coverley House, Carlton-in-Coverdale, Leyburn, North Yorkshire DL8 4AY, UK. Email: tartarus@ pavilion.co.uk

Ticonderoga Publications (www.ticonderogapublications.com), PO Box 29, Greenwood, Western Australia 6924.

Turtle Point Press (www.turtlepointpress.com).

Valencourt Books (www.valancourtbooks.com).

Wildside Press LLC (www.wildsidebooks.com).

Written Backwards (www.nettirw.com).

SELECTED MAGAZINES

Ansible is a highly entertaining monthly SF and fantasy newsletter/gossip column edited by David Langford. It is available free electronically by sending an Email to: ansible-request@dcs.gla.ac.uk with a subject line reading “subscribe”, or you can receive the print version by sending a stamped and addressed envelope to Ansible, 94 London Road, Reading, Berks RG1 5AU, UK. Back issues, links and book lists are also available online.

Black Static (www.ttapress.com) is the UK’s premier horror fiction magazine, produced bi-monthly by the publishers of Interzone. Six- and twelve-issue subscriptions are available, along with a new lifetime subscription, from TTA Press, 5 Martins Lane, Witcham, Ely, Cambs CB6 2LB, UK, or from the secure TTA website. Email: andy@ttapress.com

Dark Discoveries (www.darkdiscoveries.com) has a new Editor-in-Chief and publishes fiction, interviews and non-fiction quarterly. JournalStone Publications, 1261 Peachwood Court, San Bruno, CA 94066, USA. Email: christopherpayne@journelstone.com

The Ghosts & Scholars M.R. James Newsletter (www.pardoes.info/ roanddarroll/GS.html) is a scholarly journal published roughly twice a year. It is dedicated to the classic ghost story and, as the title implies, to M.R. James in particular. Two-issue subscriptions are available from Haunted Library Publications, c/o Flat One, 36 Hamilton Street, Hoole, Chester CH2 3JQ, UK. Email: pardos@globalnet.co.uk

The Horror Zine (www.thehorrorzine.com) is a monthly online magazine edited by Jeani Rector that features fiction, poetry, interviews and reviews.

Illustrators (www.bookpalace.com) is a beautifully designed and published full-colour periodical devoted to art and artists. The Book Palace, Jubilee House, Bedwardine Road, Crystal Palace, London SE19 3AP, UK. E-mail: IQ@bookpalace.com

Locus (www.locusmag.com) is the monthly newspaper of the SF/fantasy/horror field. Contact: Locus Publications, PO Box 13305, Oakland, CA 94661, USA. Subscription information with other rates and order forms are also available on the website. Email: locus@locusmag.com. You can also now subscribe to a digital edition at: weightlessbooks.com/genre/nonfiction/locus-12-month-subscription

Locus Online (www.locusmag.com/news) is an excellent online source for the latest news and reviews.

The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (www.fandsf.com) has been publishing some of the best imaginative fiction for sixty-seven years. After eighteen years, Gordon Van Gelder has now relinquished the editorship to C.C. Finlay. Published bi-monthly, single copies or an annual subscription are available by US cheques or credit card from: Fantasy & Science Fiction, PO Box 3447, Hoboken, NJ 07030, USA, or you can subscribe via the website.

Morpheus Tales (www.morpheustales.com) is billed as “the UK’s darkest and most controversial fiction magazine” with quarterly print issues and reviews appearing on the website and myspace versions (www.myspace.com/ morpheustales).

Nightmare Magazine (www.nightmare-magazine.com/) edited by John Joseph Adams is an excellent monthly online site for fiction (both new and reprint), interviews and podcasts.

Rabbit Hole is a semi-regular newsletter about Harlan Ellison® that also offers exclusive signed books by the author. A subscription is available from The Harlan Ellison® Recording Collection, PO Box 55548, Sherman Oaks, CA 91413-0548, USA.

Rue Morgue (www.rue-morgue.com), is a glossy monthly magazine edited by Dave Alexander and subtitled “Horror in Culture & Entertainment”. Each issue is packed with full colour features and reviews of new films, books, comics, music and game releases. Subscriptions are available from: Marrs Media Inc., 2926 Dundas Street West, Toronto, ON M6P 1Y8, Canada, or by credit card on the website. Email: info@rue-morgue.com. Every Friday you can log on to a new show at Rue Morgue Radio at www.ruemorgueradio.com and your horror shopping online source, The Rue Morgue Marketplace, is at www.ruemorgue marketplace.com

Shadows & Tall Trees (www.undertowbooks@gmail.com) is now an annual anthology series co-published by ChiZine. c/o Michael Kelly Editor, 1905 Faylee Crescent, Pickering, ON L1V 2T3, Canada. Email: undertowbooks @gmail.com

Space and Time: The Magazine of Fantasy, Horror, and Science Fiction (www.spaceandtimemagazine.com) is published at least twice a year. Single issues and subscriptions are available from the website or from: Space and Time Magazine, 458 Elizabeth Avenue #5348, Somerset, NJ 08873, USA.

Supernatural Tales (suptales.blogspot.com) is a fiction magazine edited by David Longhorn, with subscriptions available via PayPal, cheques or non-UK cash. Supernatural Tales, 291 Eastbourne Avenue, Gateshead NE8 4NN, UK. Email: davidlonghorn@hotmail.com

Tor.com (www.tor.com), publishes new fiction, articles, novel excerpts, artist galleries, reviews and a lot more.

Video WatcHDog (www.videowatchdog.com) describes itself as “The Perfectionist’s Guide to Fantastic Video” and is published bi-monthly from PO Box 5283, Cincinnati, OH 45205-0283, USA. One year (six issues) subscriptions are available from: orders@videowatchdog.com

DEALERS

Bookfellows/Mystery and Imagination Books (www.mysteryandimagination .com) is owned and operated by Malcolm and Christine Bell, who have been selling fine and rare books since 1975. This clean and neatly organised store includes SF/fantasy/horror/mystery, along with all other areas of popular literature. Many editions are signed, and catalogues are issued regularly. Credit cards accepted. Open seven days a week at 238 N. Brand Blvd., Glendale, California 91203, USA. Tel: (818) 545-0206. Fax: (818) 545-0094. Email: bookfellows@gowebway.com

Cold Tonnage Books (www.coldtonnage.com) offers excellent mail order new and used SF/fantasy/horror, art, reference, limited editions etc. Write to: Andy & Angela Richards, Cold Tonnage Books, 22 Kings Lane, Windlesham, Surrey GU20 6JQ, UK. Credit cards accepted. Tel: +44 (0)1276-475388. Email: andy@coldtonnage.com

Richard Dalby issues an annual Christmas catalogue of used Ghost Stories and other supernatural volumes at very reasonable prices. Write to: Richard Dalby, 4 Westbourne Park, Scarborough, North Yorkshire Y012 4AT. Tel: +44 (0)1723 377049.

Dark Delicacies (www.darkdel.com) is a Burbank, California, store specialising in horror books, toys, vampire merchandise and signings. They also do mail order and run money-saving book club and membership discount deals. 3512 W. Magnolia Blvd, Burbank, CA 91505, USA. Tel: (818) 556-6660. Credit cards accepted. Email: darkdel@darkdel.com

DreamHaven Books & Comics (www.dreamhavenbooks.com) once again has a storefront (open Tuesday through Saturday) as well as a mail-order outlet, offering new and used SF/fantasy/horror/art and illustrated etc. with regular catalogues (both print and Email). 2031 E. 38th Street, Minneapolis, MN 55406-3015, USA. Credit cards accepted. Tel: (612) 823-6070. Email: dream@dreamhavenbooks.com

Fantastic Literature (www.fantasticliterature.com) mail order offers the UK’s biggest online out-of-print SF/fantasy/horror genre bookshop. Fanzines, pulps and vintage paperbacks as well. Write to: Simon and Laraine Gosden, Fantastic Literature, 35 The Ramparts, Rayleigh, Essex SS6 8PY, UK. Credit cards and Pay Pal accepted. Tel/Fax: +44 (0)1268-747564. Email: simon@fantastic literature.com

Ferret Fantasy, 27 Beechcroft Road, Upper Tooting, London SW17 7BX, UK. Email: george_locke@hotmail.com. Tel: +44 (0)208-767-0029.

Horrorbles (www.horribles.com), 6729 Stanley Avenue, Berwyn, IL 60402, USA. Friendly Chicago store selling horror and sci-fi toys, memorabilia and magazines that has monthly specials and in-store signings. Specialises in exclusive “Basil Gogos” and “Svengoolie” items. Open Tuesday through Sunday. Tel: (708) 484-7370. Email: store@horrorbles.com

Hyraxia Books (books.hyraxia.com), 34 Harwill Avenue, Churwell, Leeds LS27 7QQ, UK. Dealing in rare and collectible modern first editions, including many genre titles. Tel: +44 (0)7557-652-609. Email: shop@hyraxia.com

Kayo Books (www.kayobooks.com) is a bright, clean treasure-trove of used SF/fantasy/horror/mystery/pulps spread over two floors. Titles are stacked alphabetically by subject, and there are many bargains to be had. Credit cards accepted. Visit the store (Wednesday-Saturday, 11:00am to 6:00pm) at 814 Post Street, San Francisco, CA 94109, USA or order off their website. Tel: (415) 749 0554. Email: kayo@kayobooks.com

The Iliad Bookshop (www.iliadbooks.com), 5400 Cahuenga Blvd., North Hollywood, CA 91601, USA. General bookstore that has a very fine selection of new, used and rare books, with an emphasis on literature and the arts. Tel: (818) 509-2665.

Porcupine Books offers regular catalogues and extensive mail order lists of used fantasy/horror/SF titles via Email brian@porcupine.demon.co.uk or write to: 37 Coventry Road, Ilford, Essex IG1 4QR, UK. Tel: +44 (0)20 8554-3799.

Reel Art Collectibles (www.reelart.biz), 6727 W. Stanley, Berwyn, Illinois 60402, USA. Nicely designed Chicago store selling movie material, classic comics, vintage toys and rare books. They also host celebrity signings and have regular warehouse sales. Tel: 1-708-288-7378. Facebook: Reel Art, Inc.

The Talking Dead is run by Bob and Julie Wardzinski and offers reasonably priced paperbacks, rare pulps and hardcovers, with catalogues issued very occasionally. They accept wants lists and are also the exclusive supplier of back issues of Interzone. Credit cards accepted. Contact them at: 12 Rosamund Avenue, Merley, Wimborne, Dorset BH21 1TE, UK. Tel: +44 (0)1202-849212 (9:00am-9:00pm). Email: books@thetalkingdead.fsnet.co.uk

Terence McVicker Rare Books (www.batsoverbooks.com/?page=shop/index) is a mail-order business offering premium rare and collectible items—many H.P. Lovecraft and Arkham House-related. A weekly email reader features additions, updates and news. Email: info@batsoverbooks.com

Ygor’s Books specialises in out of print science fiction, fantasy and horror titles, including British, signed, speciality press and limited editions. They also buy books, letters and original art in these fields. Email: ygorsbooks@gmail.com

ONLINE

Cast Macabre (www.castmacabre.org) is the premium horror fiction podcast that is “bringing Fear to your ears”, offering a free horror short story every week.

Fantastic Fiction (www.fantasticfiction.co.uk) features more than 2,000 best-selling author biographies with all their latest books, covers and descriptions.

FEARnet (www.fearnet.com) is a digital cable channel dedicated to all things horror, including news, free movie downloads (sadly not available to those outside North America) and Mick Garris’ online talk show Post Mortem.

Hellnotes (www.hellnotes.com) offers news and reviews of novels, collections, magazines, anthologies, non-fiction works, and chapbooks. Materials for review should be sent to editor and publisher David B. Silva, Hellnotes, 5135 Chapel View Court, North Las Vegas, NV 89031, USA. Email: news@ hellnotes.com or dbsilva13@gmail.com

The Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies (irishgothichorrorjournal. homestead.com) features a diverse range of articles and reviews, along with a regular “Lost Souls” feature focusing on overlooked individuals in the genre.

The Monster Channel (www.monsterchannel.tv) bills itself as “the first and only independent interactive horror channel!” The 24/7 streaming channel includes first run indie horror movies, retro VHS gore and hosts horror classics.

Pseudopod (www.pseudopod.org), the premiere horror fiction podcast, continued to offer a free-to-download, weekly reading of new or classic horror fiction by a variety of voices. The site remains dedicated to paying their authors while providing readings for free and offering the widest variety of audio horror fiction currently available on the net.

SF Site (www.sfsite.com) has been posted twice each month since 1997. Presently, it publishes around thirty to fifty reviews of SF, fantasy and horror from mass-market publishers and some small press. They also maintain link pages for Author and Fan Tribute Sites and other facets including pages for Interviews, Fiction, Science Fact, Bookstores, Small Press, Publishers, E-zines and Magazines, Artists, Audio, Art Galleries, Newsgroups and Writers’ Resources. Periodically, they add features such as author and publisher reading lists.

Vault of Evil (www.vaultofevil.wordpress.com) is a site dedicated to celebrating the best in British horror with special emphasis on UK anthologies. There is also a lively forum devoted to many different themes at www.vaultofevil. proboards.com

About Editor

STEPHEN JONES lives in London, England. A Hugo Award nominee, he is the winner of three World Fantasy Awards, three International Horror Guild Awards, four Bram Stoker Awards, twenty-one British Fantasy Awards and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Horror Writers Association. One of Britain’s most acclaimed horror and dark fantasy writers and editors, he has more than 135 books to his credit, including The Art of Horror: An Illustrated History; the film books of Neil Gaiman’s Coraline and Stardust, The Illustrated Monster Movie Guide and The Hellraiser Chronicles; the non-fiction studies Horror: 100 Best Books and Horror: Another 100 Best Books (both with Kim Newman); the single-author collections Necronomicon and Eldritch Tales by H.P. Lovecraft, The Complete Chronicles of Conan and Conan’s Brethren by Robert E. Howard, and Curious Warnings: The Great Ghost Stories of M.R. James; plus such anthologies as Horrorology: The Lexicon of Fear, Fearie Tales: Stories of the Grimm and Gruesome, A Book of Horrors, The Mammoth Book of Vampires, the Zombie Apocalypse! series and twenty-six volumes of Best New Horror. You can visit his web site at www.stephenjoneseditor.com or follow him on Facebook at Stephen Jones-Editor.

BEST NEW HORROR VOLUME #26

Front cover illustration by Lee Elias.

Originally published in Chamber of Chills, #15, January 1953..

First published by Robinson Publishing in 1992. This eBook edition published in February 2016 by PS Publishing Ltd. by arrangement with Stephen Jones.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

ISBN 978-1-84863-361-2

Cover design by Smith & Jones

PS Publishing Ltd

Grosvenor House, 1 New Road

Hornsea HU18 1PG, England

editor@pspublishing.co.uk