The Power of Three - 23rd Installment

Well … weeks of turmoil have now passed in terms of what can only be described as a supercharged workload, but I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to spoil another of your Friday morning coffee breaks. Not that most of you will be having one today, of course, because yet again we’re on the Bank Holiday trail. But I’ve already missed one ‘Power of Three’ this month, and certainly can’t be allowed to do it again.

So here, for your delectation – whether you recollect them over desk-side coffee, or while sitting with a laptop on your knee, watching the Royal Wedding on the goggle box in the corner - are three more of the world’s greatest scary stories.

Remember them and shriek.


The Long-Term Residents by Kit Pedler

A stressed scientist takes a break in a charming seaside hotel, but the attractive landlady is someone he thinks he remembers committing suicide, and why are his fellow guests content to remain in the hotel lounge, rarely conversing? Only when it’s too late does he realise why he’s been lured here.

An ingenious but thoroughly unpleasant little chiller from Kit Pedler, famous for his work on Doctor Who but also in his capacity as a medical scientist. In fact, Pedler’s scientific training comes through strongly here. He doesn’t just write with an economy of words that would do justice to any lab report, but he also presents us with complex chemical and biological issues, though rather helpfully it’s all expressed in language a layman can understand. We’re also dealing with a significant philosophical argument. It’s been done before – particularly in vampire stories, though this is not a vampire story by any means – but just how generous is a person being when they extend your life indefinitely but for their own purposes? The hero, Riker, has a reached a stage where he doesn’t know if he wants to go on. His love life’s a mess, his career dissatisfactory. He’s mentally and emotionally exhausted, and how will prolonging things improve that, especially when it looks as if the next century at least will be spent in this pokey little hotel lounge, which like any good greenhouse, is stultifyingly hot and humid? Understated sci-fi horror at its finest.

First published in THE SEVENTH GHOST BOOK, 1971.


The Man Who Drew Cats by Michael Marshall Smith

A peaceful atmosphere in a small town is spoiled by the presence of a drunken bully, who frequently beats his wife and step-son. Then a mysterious artist gets involved; a laconic guy who one day starts work on the image of a terrifying tiger.

When first published, this masterwork of sumptuous Bradbury-esque prose was seen as Mike Marshall Smith’s signature story. But he’s gone on to produce so many visionary tales since then, all so different from each other in terms of tone, style and subtext, that it’s now regarded as just one of his many milestones in strange fiction. However, I suppose the big question must be – can you class this as horror? Well what else? At the end of the day you’re dealing with extreme offences, which can only be countered by extreme measures. You’re talking horrific parental and spousal cruelty, but an even more horrific reckoning for those responsible. You’re also of course dealing with the paranormal, the supernatural, the demonic, the angelic – call it what you will. Just because it has a happy ending, that doesn’t mean it isn’t a horror story. It’s not exactly gore-free, either. By the same token, Tom, the brooding street-artist who almost by virtue of his own dark will is able to create monsters with chalk and paint, rapidly emerges as one of those iconic figures of weird literature. Michael Moorcock would have been proud.

First published in DARK VOICES 2 (pictured), 1990.


The Signal-Man by Charles Dickens

A traveller visits a lonely signal box in a deep railway cutting, only to meet a disturbed signal-man, who insists that whenever he sees a mysterious hooded figure at the entrance to the nearby tunnel, disaster soon strikes. Unfortunately, he has seen the figure again that very week.

Probably one of the most famous and most popular ghost stories ever written, but neither the world’s familiarity with it nor its great age will lessen the impact if, by some remote chance, you have yet to experience it. Dickens was a lover of ghost stories, of course, but here he boxes clever, choosing to leave the matter open. Is there a genuine supernatural power at work? If there is, we are never told why it has chosen this spot or this particular individual to haunt. Or has the signal-man, a lonely character somewhat bereft at his isolated post, simply invented the spectral shape that always seems to precede a tragedy? The traveller is undecided, and by the end so is the reader. For all that, it’s a superbly eerie and atmospheric piece. Dickens utilises the misty moorland location and the bleak, echoing canyon to great effect. A survivor of a terrible railway accident himself, he also recalls with shattering clarity the horror and carnage of such incidents. One of the oldest tales we’ve featured on this blog, but still one of the best.

First published in ALL THE YEAR ROUND, 1866.

Next catapult-load of MEDI-EVIL mayhem

The latest edition in my historical horror ebook trilogy, MEDI-EVIL 2, is now available. As with MEDI-EVIL 1, these are not exclusively tales of the Middle Ages, but come from various periods of our history, primarily those eras when terror and turmoil lay close at hand.

Buy it (or check it out) HERE

Medi-Evil 3 will hopefully be out in the next week or so. I must admit, creating these ebooks proved a little more testing than we expected, but it's all still pretty new, I suppose. For those not yet sold on the electonic reading revolution, the plan is still to do print versions of these three collections in the next month or so.

Anyway, here's the slug ...


MEDI-EVIL 2

Three tales of historical mystery interwoven with horror, fantasy and adventure

Twilight In The Orm-Garth

Even as they gazed at it, the abhorrence clutched the bars with hands the size of shovels, each knotted finger surmounted with a dirt-encrusted dagger for a nail. An eye-watering stench poured off it …

When Norman baron Dagobert of Caux assembles his family to celebrate his fiftieth birthday, he faces the double-threat of a Saxon uprising and a Viking incursion. But a far greater menace is posed by the Korred, a blood-soaked monster from the mists of Britain’s pagan past.


The Amphibians

Often, when I was walking, I’d sink as deep as my knees, sometimes my thighs. Once or twice I went clean through … into brine as black and cold as swamp-water, only the luminous eyes of fish to light the chasms beneath.

A gunsmith’s apprentice leads a busy but mundane existence, until he joins forces with a roguish seaman who is being hunted by a murderous foe from the dark, weed-choked waters of the Sargasso Sea, the deadliest and most exotic ocean in the world.


For We Are Many

Another creak followed, another and another – and suddenly it was plainly obvious that they were footfalls. Somebody was moving about up there, padding stealthily. Flavia peered at the plaster ceiling, clutching the candle so hard that it squashed out of shape …

When a Roman officer learns that the new Christian god has power over disembodied spirits, he rescues Flavia, a condemned Christ follower, from the dismemberment block – but only on the condition that she will help him exorcise the violent and mysterious entity that haunts his country manse.

Fearful fun as dark secrets are revealed

Well … everyone survived.

Apart from someone fainting during the tour of the top floor, our Haigh Hall horror night passed without any unsavoury incidents. I’m glad to report that my rendition of The Upper Tier (pictured) also went without a hitch.

Various members of the audience assured me afterwards that it was a clear, well-paced presentation, and that they enjoyed the story immensely. I’m quite pleased by that as Wigan audiences are nothing if not honest. Two years ago, I performed a different reading at a library in Wigan, and one of the ladies who’d turned up told me afterwards, in a very frank tone, that she hadn’t enjoyed it at all, as it was “much too horrible for her”. So hopefully this time I hit all the right notes.

A couple of people have emailed to ask if, now the night is complete, I can explain the background to The Upper Tier, which is based very loosely on a disastrous ghost-hunting expedition to Haigh Hall in 1947. Basically I can’t, or rather I won’t – not yet. I’m hoping to publish The Upper Tier later this year as part of a new collection, and it wouldn’t be cool if I gave away too much detail at this early stage. Put it this way, the 1947 event had a very, very serious outcome for several of those involved, while the paranormal activity reported was apparently astonishing. (I’ll keep everyone informed regarding progress with this publication – it won’t be for a few months yet, I’m sorry to say).

Interestingly enough, I spent some of last night in company with a modern-day paranormal investigator, who is now very keen to get his team into Haigh Hall despite the embargo on this kind of activity that the local authority have imposed. Last night for example, though we got permission to tour the top floor, the legendary Noah’s Ark Room remained firmly closed. Nobody was allowed to enter, ostensibly because it isn’t safe, though I suspect the real reason is because there have been so many alleged incidents in there. Anyway, my ghost-hunting pal, who has held vigils in northwest ghostly locations as varied as Muncaster Castle, Chingle Hall and the Morecambe Winter Gardens, was very impressed by the look and feel of Wigan’s own version of Borley Rectory, and feels he may be able to pull enough strings to gain entry. If so, he will be the first for about 20 years. He’s already enquired if I’d be prepared to accompany him. Well … what kind of horror writer would I be if I refused?

As I said before, nothing seriously odd was reported from last night’s tour of the upper tier, apart from the brief fainting fit and a couple of folks complaining that they felt ill up there, though a former newspaper editor of mine, who was also present, said that there was definitely an atmosphere in that place. He was at the rear of the group, and told me afterwards that he constantly felt as if somebody was walking behind him. He reckons he won’t be going back up there in a hurry.

We did take some photographs during the course of the tour, but all the ones I’ve seen this morning are too dark. You can’t really see anything except shapes in the dimness, and the odd rotted doorway.

One final thing – it may be nothing, but it’s got to be worth mentioning. At the end of the night, one of the downstairs staff (only specially designated staff will go upstairs) asked me if everyone had now come down. I replied that I thought they had. She then asked me “whose is the child?” When I replied that no children had attended, she laughed as if she thought I was joking. I assured her that I wasn’t, and she said that it didn’t matter. I later found out that, as everyone had been leaving by the Hall’s main door, she’d heard what had sounded like a child whimpering in the dark recesses above. When I spoke to the lady again, she said that she’d probably just been mistaken.

Yeah, right ...

Tonight's the night - no turning back now!

In 1947, part of the parapsychology team made famous by their enquiries at Borley Rectory attempted to investigate Haigh Hall, a Regency Gothic built on the site of a medieval manor house on the outskirts of Wigan, Lancashire, reputedly one of the most haunted properties in the whole of the north of England. What happened to that team has become the stuff of ghost-hunting legend.

Without doubt, this is one of the most disturbing episodes in the entire history of paranormal enquiry. To call this investigation ‘a disaster’ would be underselling it in a big way, though the actual details are rarely leaked as the local authority, who now own Haigh Hall, have clamped down on it hard.

Subsequent vigils there have also had bizarre outcomes, with investigators hospitalised or frightened out of their wits – in one case, a very experienced chap had to be sectioned in an asylum. Though none of these events (most of which are detailed in earlier posts on this blog) can even compare with the truly terrible incident in 1947, Wigan Local Authority decided in the early 1990s that enough was enough and issued an order that no further paranormal enquiries could be held at Haigh Hall. Not only that, they closed the upper tier of the building to all but essential staff, as this was deemed to be the epicentre of very violent ghostly (though would also call it ‘demonic’) activity.

Since then, of course, there have been occasional reports about Haigh Hall, though as the public are only normally admitted to the downstairs area, which is still open for official functions, these have been few and far between. But nobody believes that the evil lurking upstairs has gone away, least of all the staff responsible for maintaining the venerable old mansion. They are the unwilling protectors of this ancient building’s secrets, though these secrets won’t remain secrets for much longer. Tonight, as part of the Wigan Literature Festival, and as dusk descends on the lush, overgrown woodland that surrounds Haigh Hall, I shall be hosting a special ghost story evening in its main ballroom, and reading my new novella, The Upper Tier, which draws directly on the ghastly horror that struck this place way back in 1947. (It’s a ticket-only event, of course, so unfortunately no-one can just turn up at the door, if they haven't already booked).

When I was initially approached to do this, I was obviously delighted but I also felt a little trepidation. So frightening are some of the stories concerning Haigh Hall that witnesses have supposedly never recovered from them. Others who’ve experienced things here have refused ever to return, even in daylight. It was always going to be a challenge, but in preparing for this night I’ve had the chance to look the Hall over thoroughly, including the upper tier, which I’ve now visited several times. It is achingly eerie up there: derelict, web-shrouded and groaning with disuse. It is also easy to imagine that you aren’t alone while traversing its gutted rooms and bleak corridors. Whether this owes to what people like me already know about this place, or to a genuine supernatural presence is a matter for debate. But there are so many tight corners, so many dark and narrow passages, so many curious markings on the mottled walls that the aura of brooding menace is all but tangible.

Perhaps because of this, it soon became plain to me that I couldn’t just reveal to our guests the mysteries of this uncanny place without allowing them to have a look for themselves. So tonight – for the first time in a long time – the general public, at least those members of the public who have tickets for my presentation, will not just hear the full, uncensored account of what happened there in 1947, but they will be admitted to the upper tier, where it all occurred.

It took all our powers of persuasion, but we finally got permission for this. And in case anyone thinks this is a joke, we then found that we had another problem to contend with – only one of the tour guides volunteered, and now that the day is upon us, he is far from comfortable about going up there.

It’s now lunchtime as I write this. The clock is ticking. I too am beginning to wonder if we maybe we’ve all made the biggest mistake of our lives …

For those who haven’t visited this blog before, the above pic, which comes to us courtesy of ‘Wigan Observer’ snapper, Nick Fairhurst, shows yours truly in the much-feared Noah’s Ark Room, regarded by many as the malevolent heart of Haigh Hall’s notorious upper tier.

Massacres and mayhem, MEDI-EVIL style

Here's a brutal scene of medieval mayhem, which will be repeated many times, occasionally even more graphically than is is here, in MEDI-EVIL, my new trilogy of ebooks exclusively packed with historically themed novellas and short stories.

They aren't just medieval stories; they come from all periods of Earth's history, but I liked the title, so there. However, I can guarantee that all are full-blooded horrors, chillers and suspensers. The first volume is now available HERE.

The above picture is nothing to do with it, I should add, but you must admit it's rather eye-catching. For further detail concerning the synopses in MEDI-EVIL 1, check the post below this one (and keep an eye out in the next week or so for MEDI-EVIL 1 & 2).

On a slightly different subject, I've just completed had a busy two days on the DOCTOR WHO scene. At Waterstone's in Wigan yesterday, I signed 30 copies of my new novel HUNTER'S MOON for the fans (pictured below), which was a very rewarding experience. Thanks to Kate and Cherryl for looking after me so well. All the kids who came into the shop also enjoyed playing with a transistorised Dalek, running it around a specially laid-out obstacle course (pictured at the bottom) - until some bloke came striding in and accidentally kicked it like a rugby ball, smashing it to bits while a couple of youngsters were actually in the process of ussing it. (I suppose it's just a good job he didn't kick one of them).

Today, meanwhile, I was down in leafy Chesham, at the 'Act III' (Dr Who again) Convention, signing copies of SENTINELS OF THE NEW DAWN, my latest audio drama from Big Finish. It was another enjoyable day, made all the more pleasant by the presence on my table and panel of top writer and all-round good egg, the indefatigable Rob Shearman, Big Finish producer David Richardson, writer and script-editor John Dorney, and actors John Banks and Beth Chalmers.

It was also a lot of fun to meet Katy Manning and Lousie Jameson, but that would be name-dropping, wouldn't it, heh heh heh ...

Tales of torment from a tumultuous past

It’s been more of a challenge than I expected, but I’m at last in a position to reveal the name and look of my new ebook trilogy.

This is the first volume of MEDI-EVIL, and it contains three horror/fantasy novellas all set in recognisable periods of Earth’s history (not just the Middle Ages, despite the title).

Those who know my work, will know that I pride myself on recreating moments of history as authentically and atmospherically as I can, but that I rarely dwell on the mundane.

Even if there isn't some supernatural horror for my protagonists to grapple with, you can be sure there's a battle to fight, a city to sack, or a king to cast down from his blood-stained throne. In short - and even if I say so myself - it's nearly always a fun ride.

In this first volume:

The Blood Month

It ripped back its hood with withered claws, and gazed upon him with luminous eyes fixed at different levels in a face divided into two halves: one side the sickly green-black of corrupted flesh; the other a livid, cadaverous white …

When Radnar and Ljot, two Christian Vikings, flee the vengeance of the pagan King of Denmark, they seek refuge with their uncle on his Greenland farmstead. But all is not well here. An ancient power is stirring in the icy vapour, and one by one their kinfolk are dying in unspeakable ways …


Flibbertigibbet

Little more than a twisted trunk swathed in tattered bandaging, his face shrivelled and wrinkled like a walnut, he was more a puppet than a real man …

Elizabethan master-spy Robert Urmston is weary of hunting for heretics whose religious beliefs will see them brutally executed. But when a nameless assailant starts ripping his way through the fallen women of Southwark, Urmston is put on the trail of a far deadlier and more elusive prey …


The Gods of Green And Grey

Bellowing frenziedly, she bore down upon the dying man with her full weight, squeezing his flesh until the bones within popped …

Ambitious Roman officer Livius doesn’t fancy the building detail he is given in the fens of eastern Britain. The memories of Boudicca’s bloody revolt still linger in this fog-shrouded region. But something else lurks out here too. Something far more terrible than the wild Britons or the bottomless bog-pools.


The finished book is now in the process of being proofed, and the moment it's up and available for download (which will be imminent), you folks on here will be the first to know. It will be available in this first instance via Kindle and Smashwords - I will post direct links - while for those not yet in synch with electronic literature, we will have a printed version available in about a month’s time.

Also, watch this space for MEDI-EVIL volumes 2 and 3, which will be published very soon.

The Power of Three - 22nd Installment

So, having failed to deliver a ‘Power of Three’ last week, I’m now delivering this week’s a day early. Sorry about that, but with this Friday being Good Friday I thought it only proper to send this latest missive out on a day when most of you will still be in your place of employment and thus will have plenty time to mess aronud on the internet.

It seems we have a trio of relatively recently-written selections this week, but as always that’s happened completely by accident. For this reason, they’ll probably be more familiar to you than many I've promoted recently. But if I’ve done nothing more than put grim memories into your head just as you were sitting back to enjoy your first coffee break of the morning, then I’ll consider that my work here is done.

Apologies again for my lapse last Friday. It’s the first time I’ve missed ‘Power of Three’, but I was simply overwhelmed by work. Amazingly enough, that does happen to us authors from time to time. I shall obviously endeavour to ensure that it doesn’t happen again, but of course I can’t promise anything. In the meantime, enjoy this nerve-wracking threesome. I know I did.


The Curse Of Kali by Cherry Wilder

A bereaved lady author takes a room with a bullish middle class family, but is disquieted by the underhand tactics they use to take possession of the house next door after its owner, a lady with connections to India, suddenly dies.

A gently paced and ultra-skilful variation on the theme of vengeance from beyond the grave. There is no violence here, no ghoulishness, no ‘in-yer-face’ horror. Even the supernatural moments are brief and spaced far apart (and are all the more effective for it), but this is still one of the best stories of its kind. Despite its civilised tone, it builds slowly and inexorably towards a shocking outcome. All the way through it is enriched by those tantalising mysteries of the East, and yet we spend much of its running time in the company of jabbering, assertive English folk whose main purpose in life, it seems, is to make minor material gains. I’m not one of these readers, by the way, who believes that Ranji the cat – one of the key characters – is actually evil; he just happens to be resourceful enough to make the best of his ‘Calcutta street-child’ type existence. So forget the cat. There is a much darker entity at the heart of this charming but chilling little ditty.

First published in INTERZONE 103, 1996.


Two For Dinner by John Llewellyn Probert

A wealthy but vindictive man discovers that his wife is having an affair with his son’s piano teacher. He invites this gullible third party to dinner, drugs him and then ties him into a specially-made torture chair. A night of unparalleled horror follows.

The first thing I should say is that this story doesn’t go the way you expect it to. Okay, it’s not exactly pleasant. There’s no question that John Llewellyn Probert is a big fan of the ‘Pan Horror’ sub-genre and in fact this story makes several overt references to the more grisly extremes of certain tales within the Pan pantheon. In terms of style and execution, it’s clearly cut from the same distasteful cloth – it’s about a gruesome and protracted revenge, it’s about what happens if you’re foolish enough to try and steal from a maniac. Familiar territory of course, but in actual fact this joyously camp thriller is firmly tongue-in-cheek. It’s written with great wit and charm, and despite its squirm-inducing premise it isn’t particularly gory. But don’t be too fooled. Appearances can be deceptive. The mental anguish to which our increasingly unmanly hero is subjected knows no limits. And no horror story written in tribute to the great Pans of old would be complete without a thoroughly nasty (and of course darkly amusing) sting in the tail.

First published in THE FIFTH BLACK BOOK OF HORROR (pictured), 2009.


The Overseer by Albert E. Cowdrey

A southern farming family is impoverished by the events of the American Civil War. The eldest son survives and must make his fortune in a new world, a task made easier by the evil spirit of his father’s one-time slave overseer.

If there was ever such a thing as an epic ghost story, this is it. The sweeping backcloth of major historical events commences in the backwoods of the 1850s and finishes in New Orleans in the 1900s, visiting the battle of Shiloh and the birth of the Ku Klux Klan along the way. But this is also a human journey, charting the gradual but total breakdown of one man’s personal morality. Though there are strong supernatural elements here, most if not all of the horror stems from an atmosphere of malevolent self-interest, which inevitably leads us to look below the beautifully written surface detail and into the turmoil of a tortured soul. Our anti-hero Lerner is in no doubt that his wicked deeds are influenced by the demonic ghost of Monsieur Felix, the murdered overseer. But is he? Sure, we see Monsieur Felix too. But we see him through Lerner’s eyes. Isn’t it more likely that, as a result of his horrific experiences – his world and family laid waste before him – Lerner has created the overseer’s ghost as his brutal alter-ego? It’s a long story, this, but it bears more than one reading to fully appreciate it. An old-fashioned saga, but a modern masterwork.

First published in THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION, 2008.

On a completely unrelated subject, I'd just like to remind anyone who happens to be in the Wigan area this coming Saturday that I'll be in the town centre Waterstone's store for most of the day, signing copies of my brand new Doctor Who novel, HUNTER'S MOON. Maybe see you there.