The two I absolutely loved were “In the Absence of Murdock” by Terry Lamsley and “What Happened to Me” by Joe R. Lansdale.  These left me in awe long after reading them.

Here is a brief synopsis of the stories:

1- “Objects in Dreams may be Closer than they Appear” by Lisa Tuttle (2011) – A woman and her ex-husband attend an event in the town where they used to live.  They’re both haunted by the strange cabin they saw from an overpass in the early days of their marriage but could never reach. 

2- “Pied-a-Terre” by Stephen Volk (2011) – A self-conscious woman travels to view a perspective house without her husband, who tells her she should be able to make decisions on her own.  She hears and experiences strange things inside as the real-estate agent shows her around.

3- “In The Absence of Murdock” by Terry Lamsley (2011) – When successful mystery co-author Murdock suddenly vanishes from a room, Franz is asked to check it out.  What he finds in Murdock’s house is bizarre and supremely creepy.  This fantastic story is reminiscent of M.R. James.

4- “Florrie” by Adam L.G. Nevill (2011) – A man buys his first house, a definite fixer-upper.  It, however, seems to be changing him more than vice-a-verse.   

5- “Driving the Milky Way” by Weston Ochse (2011) – A group of kids on summer break hang out in Arizona.  They congregate at an abandoned RV.  After being told some Indian legends claimed stars were actually traveling spirits, they decide to look for ancient, buried bones.  This is a well-written Ray Bradbury-esque tale.

6- “The Windmill” by Rebecca Levene (2011) – A hardened prisoner witnesses strange things at the windmill visible from his cell.

7- ”Moretta” by Garry Kilworth (2011) – A man inherits a gothic mansion.  Its history includes the suffocation death of several people, making it impossible to sell or rent.  He and a friend decide to stay the night to solve the mystery.

8- “Hortus Conclusus” by Chaz Brenchley (2011) – After the death of a close friend, a group goes to help his widow repair his house to sell.  When they start on the old greenhouse, they seem to encounter resistance from his spirit.

9- “The Dark Space in the House in the Garden at the Center of the World” by Robert Shearman (2011) – A take-off of the Adam and Eve story with ghosts.

10- ”Muse of the Copenhagen” by Nina Allan (2011) – An uncle calls his nephew to warn him to get rid of the house he will inherit upon his death without going there or taking anything from it.  This seems prophetic as the uncle dies soon afterwards.  The nephew, however, fails to do as promised.  This tale reminds me of Oliver Onion’s “The Beckoning Fair One”.

11- ”An Injustice” by Christopher Fowler (2011) – A group of amateur ghost hunters investigate a house where the apparition of a woman’s face appears in the window.

12- “The Room Upstairs” by Sarah Pinborough (2011) – A thief stays at a bed and breakfast awaiting a job.  He finds himself attracted to the demure widow who runs it but is woken every night by mysterious cries and pounding from the unoccupied room above.

13- “Villanova” by Paul Melroy (2011) – A father takes his daughters to a campground for vacation.  The over-helpful attendant shows signs of having suffered terrible burns, and the area is surprisingly devoid of other campers.

14- “Widow’s Weeds” by Christopher Priest (2011) – A stage magician travels to meet a beautiful woman at her mansion.  A sign in front of her house details an amazing list of skills and abilities she has mastered.   

15- “The Doll’s House” by Jonathan Green (2011) – A woman’s life begins down a dark path when her mother brings the childhood doll house, which she always hated, for her newly-born granddaughter. 

16- “Inside/Out” by Nicholas Royle (2012) – A man, obsessed with a beautiful twin since they shared a passing kiss, follows her in this surreal story.

17- “The House” by Eric Brown (2011) – A writer believes an old play he wrote is haunted.

18- “Trick of the Light” by Tim Lebbon (2011) – A terminally-ill woman buys a house seven years after her husband vanished.  When she arrives, she thinks she sees a figure watching from the tower window.

19- “What Happened to Me” by Joe R. Lansdale (2011) – A college student rents a house near the college he and his three roommates are to attend.  The other two abandon the place quickly after spending time there.  They won’t say what changed their minds but were obviously terrified by something.  The remaining student is left alone to deal with increasingly bizarre and threatening occurrences.  What resides in the nearby forest is far older and more dangerous than a ghost.

Reviewed by Matt Cowan

I became aware of Leiber the same way I did M.R. James, when author Ramsey Campbell listed him as a major influence on his writing.  Leiber (1910-1992) was a prolific writer who won multiple prestigious awards during his long career.  He was also an actor, poet and champion chess player.  His work has been adapted to film (The Girl with the Hungry Eyes 1949, 1967, 1995 as well as a classic Night Gallery television episode in 1972) and radio programs such as X MINUS ONE (“A Pail of Air” and “Appointment in Tomorrow” both in 1956).  He’s had several other adaptations over the years as well, but now it’s time to delve into a few of his great stories.

1- “Smoke Ghost” (1941) – A man begins to notice a dark, shapeless thing on the rooftops of buildings during his ride into work.  It starts moving closer, increasing his fear.  This isn’t your average ghost, however, as the protagonist describes it: “I don’t mean that traditional kind of ghost. I mean a ghost from the world today. With the soot of the factories in its face and the pounding of machinery in its soul. The kind that would haunt coal yards and slip around at night through deserted office buildings like this one. A real ghost. Not something out of books.”  This fantastic tale is credited with reinventing the classic ghost story for an urban setting. 

2- “Alice and the Allergy” (1946) – A man tries to help his wife find the cause of severe allergies she’s suffered since being attacked by a serial rapist.  There seems to be some connection between the two.  

3- “Mr. Bauer and the Atoms” (1947) – A man, concerned about the dangers of unlocking the secrets of the atom, worries people could become walking nuclear bombs.  Once the idea takes root, it overwhelms him.

4- “The Girl with the Hungry Eyes” (1949) – A photographer is approached by a model who asks him to take pictures of her.  He does so without believing much will come of it.  When his clients see her picture, they insist she be used for their project.  Gradually, people who see her image become obsessed with her.  She refuses to allow any of them to see her in person other than the photographer and tells him she will leave him forever if he follows her.  This is a unique, well-written vampire story. 

5- “In the X-Ray” (1949) – A woman goes to her doctor after her ankle begins to swell up.  He’s astounded by what he sees in her X-rays.  She tells him about her vindictive identical twin sister who has recently died.  This is a fantastic, creepy little story.

6- “A Pail of Air” (1951) – This science fiction tale is set in a future where a cosmic cataclysm has frozen Earth’s atmosphere into a sort of snow.  A family has to bring in pails of it to heat over a fire for breathable air in their shelter. 

7- “Mariana” by Fritz Leiber (1960) – A woman discovers a hidden panel inside the breaker box of her house.  It has a set of switches.  One is labeled “Trees”.  When she flips the switch, she learns her world is not what she thought it was.   

8- “The Glove” by Fritz Leiber (1975) – When a rape occurs in an apartment house, the surrounding neighbors pull together to try and solve the mystery.  The lone piece of evidence left behind is a glove.  It is given to the protagonist for safe-keeping until the police come to collect it.  The glove isn’t content to wait during the night, however.     

9- “Belsen Express” by Fritz Leiber (1975) – A man has a deep seated fear of Nazi’s despite the war having ended years earlier.  He receives a package of books about the holocaust, reigniting his fears.  This story won a World Fantasy Award.

10- “The Terror from the Depths” Fritz Leiber (1976) – A crippled man from California sends his book of poetry to Miskatonic University, where he spent time as a student.  He receives a response from an old English professor he had there who has taken interest in his work, even pointing out things about the strange creatures and lands that insinuates they may be real.  The two correspond about strange dreams of underground tunnels and winged worms among other oddities.  They decide to partake in an experiment designed to uncover these mysteries.  A plethora of characters and creatures from Lovecraft’s stories are referred to herein, as is Lovecraft himself.  

Article by Matt Cowan

The lake near their new house has an unusual feature. A staircase ascends out of the center of the water. A young boy, who lived in the house before Travis moved in, disappeared while playing on this floating staircase. When Travis begins to witness signs the house is haunted by a child’s ghost, he becomes obsessed with uncovering exactly what happened to the boy. This obsession further strains his relationships with his family. His wife worries he’s descending into a despair similar to what he’d gone through in the past which nearly lead to their divorce. His brother shares her concern and balks at having the results of his department’s original investigation challenged

Parallels between the boy’s case and that of what happened to his younger brother years before, drives Travis relentlessly forward. The search for what happened at the house before he moved in takes him down a perilous path into the depths of his soul to find the answers he seeks.

I generally avoid novels written in the first person because I thinks it’s tough to pull off for an extended piece, but it can be done well. Graham Masterton’s PREY did an outstanding job of it, and this novel did as well. It maintains the right feel throughout, and the voice used is never distracting. This novel contains an intriguing mystery, a variety of interesting characters, and some good supernatural happenings. I would have preferred more supernatural elements than were present, but that’s probably just because I’m a hopeless supernatural junkie. Overall it was a good, fast paced read that kept the pages turning.

Review by Matt Cowan

The first, titled The Greatcoat, was written by Helen Dunmore and will be released February 2nd.

This one sounds like paranormal romance –  a woman finds an old RAF greatcoat inside a cupboard of the house her and her family recently moved into.  From the Hammer site:

One cold winter night when her husband is out on call, Isabel finds an old RAF greatcoat in the back of a cupboard that she uses to help keep warm. Once wrapped in the coat she sleeps and is beset by dreams. She wakes to hear a knock at her window, and to meet for the first time the intense gaze of a young Air Force pilot, handsome and blue-eyed, staring in at her from outside.

His name is Alec, and his powerfully haunting presence both disturbs and excites Isabel. Her initial alarm soon fades, and they begin a delicious affair. Isabel gets lost in Alec and starts to question what is real and what is not.

It will be interesting to see what other novels are released.

1- “Brickett Bottom” (1921) – A vicar’s daughter spies a house on her way home she hadn’t noticed before.  Her nearsighted sister is unable to see it.  They plan to visit the following day, but the nearsighted sister injures her foot and can’t go.  When the other goes alone, she fails to return.

2- “Mr. Kershaw and Mr. Wilcox” (1921) – A business arrangement between two neighbors sours, leading to dark consequences in this tale of subtle supernatural underpinnings with a twist ending.

3- “In the Woods” (1921) – A lonely 17 year old girl finds herself enthralled by the woods near her home.  She spends her spare time there and begins to view the trees as her only friends.  She yearns to learn their mysteries and begins to sense the area observing her.  As she slips further from normal life to become more in tune with the woods, she starts to feel that although the woods have great beauty, it also hides powerful evil.

4- “The Late Earl of D.” (1921) – A solicitor witnesses a phantom reenactment of a violent crime.   

5- “Mr. Mortimer’s Diary” (1921) – The diary of a man found dead under bizarre circumstances tells of his being haunted by a diabolical ghost.

6- “The House in the Woods” (1921) –Two men are forced to spend the night in a secluded house in the woods.   

7- “The Steps” (1921) – A young woman is haunted by the approaching footsteps of a man whose love she spurned.  

8- “The Young Lady in Black” (1921) – An artist is approached by a young woman in black who implores him to paint her portrait but is unable to sit for him longer than a half hour.  He encounters her a few times afterwards, each under strange circumstances.

9- “The Downs” (1921) – A man traveling through downlands at night finds himself accompanied by a mysterious stranger.

10- “The Late Mrs. Fowke” (1921) – A man secretly follows his wife on one of her journeys out of town to find her partaking in occult activities.

11- “The Picture” (1921) – A girl becomes enthralled by the portrait of a dead Count in a manor house.

12- “The Governess’s Story” (1921) – A governess keeps hearing someone running and opening a window from a room above her every night.  These unearthly footfalls are tied to a grim family secret.

13- “Mr. Oliver Carmichael” (1921) – A man enters a shop to buy a handkerchief and meets an unattractive, female clerk.  When their eyes meet, he is filled with an inexplicable dread.  From that point on, he is haunted by her and begins to feel evil growing in his soul as it is tormented each night as he sleeps.  

Here’s the Amazon listing for this collection: http://www.amazon.com/Ghostly-Company-Mystery-Supernatural-Tales/dp/1840226439/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1326598677&sr=1-1

Reviewed by Matt Cowan

You can read my review by following the link: http://vintagehorror.com/2011/08/looking-at-the-world-with-broken-glass-in-my-eye-by-mark-justice/

December 2007: http://vintagehorror.com/2007/12/ghosts-of-christmas-past/

December 2008: http://vintagehorror.com/2008/12/more-christmas-horror-tales/

December 2009: http://vintagehorror.com/2009/12/christmas-weird-tales-continue-2009/

December 2010: http://vintagehorror.com/2010/12/christmas-horror-stories-4-2010/

1. “The Dead Sexton” by J. Sheridan LeFanu (1871) – A sinister stranger arrives in the small town of Golden Friars shortly after the discovery of a body in the church bell tower around Christmas time.  The deceased man died attempting to rob the church.  The devious stranger arrives on an eerie steed looking to obtain the corpse for unknown purpose.
2. “Between the Lights” by E.F. Benson (1912) – Friends gather to celebrate Christmas at Everard Chandler’s house.  After a day filled with Billiards and playing hide and seek, the members of this party gather around the fireplace to tell each other ghost stories.  Everard’s is the most unsettling, however, as he recounts a disturbing vision he had the previous Christmas Eve, and the strange being he later encounters.  This story balances both festive and eerie atmospheres perfectly.  A prime example of what I’m looking for in a Christmas-themed horror story.  Here’s a snippet of Benson setting the scene where Everard is beginning to tell his story. “The room still remained in dubious darkness except for the sudden lights disclosed on the walls by the leaping flames on the hearth, and there was wide field for conjecture as to what might lurk in the dim corners.  Everard moreover, who had been sitting in the bright light before, was banished by the extinction of some flaming log into the shadows.  A voice alone spoke to us, as he sat back in his low chair, a voice rather slow but very distinct.”
3. “Transition” by Algernon Blackwood (1913) – A man embarks on a bizarre and nightmarish journey home to his family with a bundle of newly purchased Christmas presents for them.
4. “An Appearance and a Disappearance” by M.R. James (1919) – Told in the form of letters written from one friend to another, the writer laments that he cannot attend their usual Christmas gathering because he is looking into the disappearance of his uncle.  The man tells of a disturbing dream he had involving a dark version of the famous Punch and Judy puppet show.  His terrifying nightmare proves to be more than just a meaningless dream.
5. “Someone in the Lift” by L.P. Hartley (1955) – A boy and his family are spending the holidays in a hotel.  The lift (elevator) has a see-through bared door.  The boy is the only one who keeps seeing a tall figure when the lift moves into view.  His mother becomes concerned with this fixation and asks his father to talk to him about it.  He does so by suggesting the figure in the lift is possibly Father Christmas.  This is a very short but good classic tale of holiday horror.
6. “The Christmas Present” by Ramsey Campbell (1969) – A young student joins a group of festive partiers at an establishment without being invited.  Feeling obliged by the holiday, they invite him to continue to revel with them as their party moves to a house.  The student gives the homeowner a wrapped present but tells him not to open it until midnight.  As the group walks to the house, they notice the power going out behind them and strange shadows moving from a recently moved graveyard.

I hope you’ll give some of these stories a read around the Christmas tree to recapture the lost tradition of telling ghost stories during this festive season.  There’s something about the rich history and tradition of Christmas that begs for a little eerie seasoning.

Merry Christmas,

Matt Cowan

1-“The Wood of the Dead” (1906) – A man traveling through a town encounters a mysterious older gentleman who speaks lyrically of the area.  The older man tells him to come to a place he calls “The Wood of the Dead” later that night, and he will teach him something of his purpose for being there.  This older man, who has an aura of secret knowledge about him, vanishes when the traveler isn’t looking.  When he asks the maid about the mysterious man and his “Wood of the Dead”, she tells him of the strange history attached to both.

2-”A Suspicious Gift” (1906) – A poor, but generous, journalist is visited by a strange man who says he’s been sent to deliver 100 thousand dollars to him from someone who wishes to remain anonymous.  This mysterious benefactor says he’s doing so because the benefactor is aware of his great need for it.  All is not as it at first appears in this crime oriented story.

3-“Wendigo” (1910) – This novella is a masterpiece of setting and atmosphere.  A group goes into a Canadian forest to hunt.  The descriptions of the vast wooded wilderness are tremendous, as is the creeping sense of dread that something ominous lays in wait ahead.  The trouble starts when the group splits up.  A strange odor is the precursor to a force that seeks to overwhelm them.  Here is a brief example of Blackwood’s ability to set a scene.  “Deep silence fell about the little camp, planted there so audaciously in the jaws of the wilderness.  The lake gleamed like a sheet of black glass beneath the stars.  The cold air pricked.  In the draughts of night that poured their silent tide from the depths of the forest, with messages from distant ridges and from lakes just beginning to freeze, there lay already the faint, bleak odors of coming winter.  White men, with their dull scent, might never have divined them; the fragrance of the wood fire would have concealed from them these almost electrical hints of moss and bark and hardening swamp a hundred miles away.”  A truly eerie story of horror set amongst the vastness of nature.

4-“The Transfer” (1912) – A different take on the vampire tale.  A man, who somehow seems to absorb the energy, ideas and prosperity of those around him to his own benefit, comes across a mysterious dead spot of ground.  The dead spot is also hungry, and the two forces are drawn into conflict with each other.

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving,

Matt Cowan

Burn, Witch, Burn!

From the wikipedia article:

The New York Times called Night of the Eagle “quite the most effective ‘supernatural’ thriller since Village of the Damned” and perhaps the “best outright goose-pimpler dealing specifically with witchcraft since I Walked with a Zombie…in 1943.” and noted:

Simply as a suspense yarn, blending lurid conjecture and brisk reality, growing chillier by the minute, and finally whipping up an ice-cold crescendo of fright, the result is admirable. Excellently photographed (not a single “frame” is wasted), and cunningly directed by Sidney Hayers, the incidents gather a pounding, graphic drive that is diabolically teasing. The climax is a nightmarish hair-curler but, we maintain, entirely logical within the context.

Are we talking about the same movie here?  Even while putting aside my 2011 horror sensibilities, there are no frights in this movie.  It is seldom even weird.  It’s just kind of, well, up until the very end you could have replaced the allusions to witchcraft with another man, and had the ‘wife gets caught seeing another guy on the side’ kind of domestic melodrama.  But I’ve gotten ahead of myself.

The movie opens with a black screen, and the distinctive voice of Paul Frees offering a few words to ward off the evil that may be attached to what we’re about to see.  I fear his words may have worked too well: not only was there a disappointing lack of evil, but Mr. Frees seems to have chased away any notion of having a good time while watching it as well.

The story starts in the classroom, where psychology professor Norman Taylor is teaching his class about superstition, and the supernatural.  Norman, being a learned man of science, doesn’t believe in any of it and tells the class all that is required to defeat the powers of the supernatural are four words, “I do not believe”.  We’ll see about that Norman.

After learning his wife Tansy has been practicing witchcraft behind his back to assist his career, and protect him from harm, Norman demands she collect all her witchy accoutrements (dead spiders, vials of graveyard dirt, animal skulls, bells) and together they burn it all in the fireplace.  Here’s when things start going south for old Norman Taylor.

After dodging a few close calls of various natures, Tansy becomes convinced Norman is in physical danger, especially since she is no longer practicing her protective magic.  It turns out there are other witches running around, and Tansy takes action.  Will they be able to defeat the forces of evil?  Will Norman ever believe in the supernatural?

Who cares?

Burn, Witch, Burn! is an 87 minute wait.  The opening spell cast by Paul Frees had me hopeful, but it was all going down the slide in slow motion from there.  There are no scares here, and even those interested in witchcraft will be let down by the lack of any of that classic imagery.  No pointy hats, no cauldrons, no mention of spells (other than the opening), nothing.  The only thing tied to a stake and threatened here was my patience.  In fact, there may have been more witchcraft performed in Bell, Book, And Candle.  You know, that romantic comedy with Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak?

Maybe things were too subtle here for my taste.  Or, maybe there was just nothing there.  This is a horror movie for those who don’t like horror movies.  It’s a ‘thriller’ that revolves around the nature of belief with a sprinkling of the supernatural.  There’s nothing wrong with that if it’s what you’re after, but I’m still trying to figure out how they filled an hour and a half with it.

Ghost Story, directed by John Irvin, was released December 18, 1981 by Universal Pictures and runs 110 minutes.  It’s based on the novel by Peter Straub first published in 1979, and later praised by Stephen King as one of the finest horror novels of the 20th century (according to Wikipedia).

The film begins with the scene of a small town that must have been ripped straight out of Norman Rockwell’s sketchbook, and lets us know we’re in snow-covered New England, where four aging friends, the Chowder Society, gather around a fireplace with no real fire, and tell frightening tales to each other with no real ghosts despite the fact they all are apparently suffering from nightmares already, as is revealed as we’re taken away from the Rockwellian picture of tranquility.  But more than just fitful sleep and ghost stories are shared between the four men, there’s a terrible secret as well.

We spend a good portion of this film with Don Wanderley, played by Craig Wasson, who is the son of one of the Chowder Society members, and drawn into their world by his own strange experience (and a death in the family).  The story pretty much comes out to and through him.  The film spends a fair amount of time on Don’s experience, and as events unfold we quickly see the connection between that and the big secret that haunts the foursome.  Which is really no secret to anybody who’s gotten this far in the movie.  In fact, you’ll probably unravel this one very early on, but it’s still worth seeing the details revealed.

Like many, many ghost stories before it this one is a tale of atonement and revenge.  But it’s also a story of guilt.  The older men, unable to repress the memory as they could when younger, are forced to finally acknowledge their past deeds when it comes back to haunt them decades later.  This begs the question as to why things stayed dormant for so long, but if it’s explained I missed it.

As for scares Ghost Story is pretty tame, but the chills are effective when they are applied.  Most of the horror type imagery is reserved for the end, which may have helped increase it’s impact.  If you’re looking for blood and gore pass on this one.  It’s not that type of story.  But parents be warned, despite its old-timey stars there’s quite a bit of nudity (thankfully not the old guys).

All in all an enjoyable film, especially on a rainy October night.  Though it ends without answering a few questions I had, I easily recommend watching this one, even if only to see John Housman in something other than a Smith Barney ad.

1. “Feet Foremost” by L.P. Hartley – A group assembles at newly-renovated Low Threshold Hall for a housewarming.  There they encounter the malicious ghost of an ill-treated former mistress.  Legend says she arrives at the front doors looking like a normal, flesh and blood person and asks to be carried inside across the threshold.  If someone agrees, she possesses and eventually kills them.  Once dead, she must leave the hall inside the body, carried out feet first.  She is a particularly malevolent entity who shows no mercy towards her victims in this great haunted house story.  - http://donaldcorrell.com/hartley/ffeet.html?vm=r

2. “The Sweeper” by A.M. Burrage (1931) – A young lady takes a job working as an attendant to a rich, older woman.  The elderly woman is viewed by most as difficult but shows a propensity to give generously to beggars.  After some time, the younger lady befriends her boss.  The older woman grows nervous when the season changes to fall, telling her attendant she believes she will die during the fall season, either that year or one soon after.  She’s more disturbed when she hears someone sweeping the leaves on a path near her house.  It’s peculiar because of the lateness of the hour and the fact that none of the servants admit to doing it.  When the younger lady goes to see who is sweeping the path the next evening, she encounters a gaunt, semi-transparent man with a malicious stare. – No link

3.  “Apples” by Ramsey Campbell (1984) – A group of kids become the target of an undead thing around Halloween after they cause a cantankerous old man to have a heart attack.  The old man was upset that the kids were stealing apples from his trees.  – No link

4. “The Ash Tree” by M.R. James (1904) – The curse of a woman, executed as witch years before, effects the new lord of a manor.  Something nasty seems to be coming from a nearby tree to exact her vengeance from beyond the grave. - http://www.horrormasters.com/Text/a0357.pdf

5. “Pigeons from Hell” by Robert E. Howard (1934/ published 1938) – Two men traveling through the South from New England spend the night in a moldering old plantation manor they come across.  That night they hear someone whistling upstairs.  One of the men goes up the stairs only to return soon after with a mortal head wound and a hatchet in his hand.  This sends the other racing from the house where he is met by a police officer.  He tells him the story, and they return to the house to investigate.  The history of the house is a dark one, tainted by voodoo.  This is an eerie story with some effectively creepy scenes. – No link

6. “The Screaming Skull” by F. Marion Crawford (1911) - A retired sea captain is haunted by the vengeful skull of a woman, whose murder he may have inadvertently had a hand in.  Afterwards, the husband who committed the murder died under mysterious circumstances.  The skull screams when ill-respected and always returns by rolling back into the house if thrown away. - http://www.horrormasters.com/Text/a0323.pdf

7. “The Hound” by H.P. Lovecraft (1924) – A pair of grave robbers embark on a mission to exhume the corpse of a legendary grave robber from years past.  Upon doing so, they find a strange amulet around the neck of his remarkably preserved body.  They take it and return home to add to their secret ‘museum’ of grave stolen items.  Unfortunately for them, a relentless creature begins to pursue them after their most recent treasure. -http://www.yankeeclassic.com/miskatonic/library/stacks/literature/lovecraft/stories/hound.htm?vm=r

8. “All Souls’” Edith Wharton (1937) – Sara Clayburn encounters a woman she doesn’t recognize walking towards her house one cold October evening.  When she asks the woman what she wants, the lady says, “Only to see one of the girls.”  Shortly afterwards, Sara injures her ankle in a fall and is confined to her bed.  The next morning none of her servants attend her.  She is forced to walk on her damaged ankle through the house in search of assistance, but the place deserted.  Time drags on with no one around and no clue to their whereabouts.  A year later she again encounters the strange woman and begins to piece together the meaning of the strange days of solitude endured in the house. – No Link

9. -“Up Under the Roof” by Manly Wade Wellman (1938) - A boy hears something dragging itself about in the area above his bedroom.  It sounds like something large and amoeboid.  He begins to suspect it is aware of him and has evil intentions.  No one else in the house hears it. – No Link

10.  “The Yellow Sign” Robert W. Chambers (1895) - This wonderfully creepy tale revolves around a painter who is falling in love with his young model Tessie.  He becomes distracted by an odd watchman who patrols the churchyard near his house.  When the watchman looks up and meets the artist’s gaze, the artist is repelled, saying he reminds him of a “coffin worm”.  When he returns to his painting, he finds he has somehow ruined the image of Tessie.  In the painting, her arm has taken on an unhealthy look which spreads to the rest of her the more he tries to fix it.   From then on things become much worse for the couple. -http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/YellSign.shtml?vm=r

At the beginning of the novel, Bailey has retreated to a secluded forest cabin with her dog Thor without telling her boyfriend Andy.  He’d been becoming increasingly distant from her since their ordeal with Mace, the mass murderer from Apparitions.  Soon after arriving at the cabin, Bailey is visited by the spirits of some horribly ravaged locals.  Something dreadful has been unleashed on the forest.  The town of Whisper, where this all takes place, has been searching for a group of missing teenagers.  When their remains are found in a nearby abandoned mine, they have been ripped apart and largely devoured by something with inhuman strength.  The supernatural entity that stalks the forest terrorizes the area and seems to number Bailey among its desired victims.  She meets new allies along the way, all of whom are intriguing.  She’s joined by stalwart Police Chief Trace and reluctant Native American spiritualist Daniel.  Old friends from Apparitions get involved as well.  Together they form a party of diverse talents to oppose the powerful force that threatens them.

I love stories that involve the Wendigo legend.  Algernon Blackwood’s great novella by the same name is a favorite of mine, so I was glad to see the diabolical wilderness spirit in action again.  This is a fun adventure filled with interesting characters, romance, and lots of spine chilling horror all rolled into one.  It’s well worth picking up.

Reviewed by Matt Cowan

and

My short story “The Dark Attraction”, which appears in INDIANA HORROR ANTHOLOGY 2011 is still available as well.  http://www.amazon.com/Indiana-Horror-Anthology-2011-1/dp/1466200723/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1318021680&sr=1-1

The story is primarily told to the protagonist by his elderly college professor, who owns a unique painting.  It depicts a street carnival scene in Venice filled with an assortment of masked revelers celebrating along the waterways.  If examined too closely, however, one will begin to discover ominous details in the characters peopling the scene.  They also run the risk of awakening the notice of a demonic force that inhabits the painting.  This tale is rich with atmosphere.  You can feel yourself sitting before a crackling fire in a book filled room listening to the dark tale or wandering along the crowded streets of Venice swarming with peculiar, often threatening, masked denizens.  There is a strong influence of M.R. James at play, although it never attains the level of horror his best tales inspire.  I enjoyed learning the history of how the painting came to reside with the professor, or more importantly, how its previous owner came into possession of it for a time and the terrible toll it exacted.  If you are a fan of M.R. James, J. Sheridan LeFanu, or even The Twilight Zone, I believe you will enjoy this eerie quick read.

Reviewed by Matt Cowan

1. “Balgrummo’s Hell” (1967) – A thief breaks into a secluded, dilapidated mansion to steal valuable artwork from its walls.  The owner of the house is an ancient nobleman who was sentenced many years ago to remain inside the house for the rest of his life due to his diabolical black arts practices.  The house is rotting away around him, but he refuses to part with his valuable art collection.  The house isn’t well guarded, so the thief enters with ease.  The visit turns out to be far more damning than the art-thief could possibly have imagined in this atmospheric tale.
2. “There’s a Long, Long Trail A-Winding” (1976) – A gentle giant of a man, who has been homeless for a long time, comes upon a deserted town during a heavy snow storm.  He takes shelter in a house there and reflects on the vagabond life he’s led with regret.  Now in his 60’s, after having spent time in prison and owing money to a lot of people, he wonders where his soul is headed after he dies.  He begins to see things in the house.  Long forgotten memories and strange dreams tell him of a connection he has with it and its former inhabitants.  This is a powerful tale of regret, love and perhaps redemption.
3. “The Peculiar Demesne” (1980) – Manfred Arcane, a recurring character in some of Kirk’s fiction, tells a group of colleagues about a bizarre encounter he had years before with an Arch-vicar accused of killing a group of beggars after testing a new alchemical concoction of his on them.  The man has a dark history in many places under different names, so Arcane has no real alternative than to sentence the Arch-vicar to death, despite their long talks during his incarceration.  The evil Arch-vicar has a secret, unconventional escape plan however, that involves utilizing his knowledge of dark magic.  Soon Arcane finds himself in strange places pursued by a mysterious glowing entity.

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1. “Deadnecks” – This humorous tale brings zombies to Possum Hollow.
2. “Black Wings” –An elderly mother confesses to her daughter the most horrible thing she ever did in this bleak tale.
3. “Life’s Work” - An executioner’s tool becomes sentient.
4. “Closure” – A grieving mother travels to the Middle East searching for the ghost of her son who died there 20 years previous.
5. “Father’s Day” – A man has his abusive father raised from the dead, but for what purpose?
6. “Nursing Home for the Gods” – Anubis longs to leave a rest home for forgotten gods in this humorous tale.
7. “Auschlander’s Gem” – An American soldier finds a gem while liberating a Nazi concentration camp.  The gem has magic abilities, but those abilities are bought at a steep price in this grim tale.
8. “Looking at the World with Broken Glass in My Eye” – A man with low self esteem tries to cope after his girlfriend breaks up with him in this tragic tale.
9. “Hell is a Lonely Street” – A cop obsessed with taking down bad guys finds himself in Hell.
10. “The Losers vs. Beelphegor” – A group of slackers planning to get their band back together encounter a demon.
11. “Song of the Bones” – A post-apocalyptic tale from the viewpoint of a man who has chosen to wait out the troubles in his now vacant apartment complex.  The new aboriginal man who moves in to the empty room next to his has other plans for him, however, in this evocative, surreal horror tale.
12. “Deadtown” – This novella centers around an artist who wakes up one morning to find most of the world around him has vanished.  Only a small stretch of land remains.  He and a few others from his apartment complex decide to seek out answers to what has happened.  Things grow more ominous when a massive red obelisk appears out of the nothingness with a path leading to it.
13. “Agent of Death” – When the angel of death arrives to take a powerful movie agent to Hell, the agent makes him an offer to avoid that fate.
14. “Hole in the Sky” – A New York city cab driver begins to see a mysterious hole in the sky where the two towers once stood.  Stranger still, he sees people and places in the hole, but no one else seems to see it.  This is my favorite Mark Justice story.  It’s bizarre and ominous, a true masterpiece of weird fiction.
15. “The Truths We Cannot Bear” – A man realizes he cannot recall any aspects of his life other than the time spent at his favorite bar in this weird tale.
16. “Das Hollenfeuer” – In an alternate-reality Earth where Nazi’s won WWII through the use of necromancers and demons, a pair of plant workers plot their revenge against their powerful oppressors.
17. “The Autumn Man” – A harrowing tale about a young boy growing up in the 70’s who must deal with a brutal bully, as well as a dangerous supernatural force in the woods nearby.  This is a very nostalgic, riveting tale that keeps the pages turning.
18. “Deadneck Reckoning” – More redneck zombie fun in this sequel to “Deadnecks”.

Reviewed by Matt Cowan

1. “Vandy, Vandy” (1953) – While searching for the secrets behind an old song called “Vandy, Vandy”, Silver John finds a family located in a remote Appalachian valley with a young daughter named Vandy.  He quickly wins over their trust by joining in with their music playing.  When a caller comes by named Mr. Loden, it becomes immediately obvious the family fears him, despite his polite words and gift offerings.  This is how he is first described in the story “Maybe he’d come down the stream trail, maybe he’d dropped from a tree like a possum.  He was built slim and spry, with a long coat buttoned to his pointed chin, and brown pants tucked into elastic-sided boots, like what your grand-sire wore.  His hands on the cane looked slim and strong.  His face, bar its crooked smile, might could be called handsome.  His dark brown hair curled like buffalo wool, and his eyes were as shiny pale gray as a new knife.  Their gaze crawled all over us, and he laughed a slow, soft laugh.”  The creepy man has come to court the young Vandy, and John will have his hands full trying to stop the evil caller.
2. “The Little Black Train” (1954) – During his travels, John is asked to play his guitar for a party that has lost its band due to some unexplained fear.  He agrees.  It turns out the party is being held to celebrate the end of a curse placed on them by an attractive but sinful woman.  He discovers the curse is tied to a song he’s heard before about a little black train that’s said will bring about her death.
3. “Owls Hoot in the Daytime” (1980) – John travels to a secluded spot where owls hoot by daylight.  A small man stays there with his pet possum to warn people away from a structure on the rocks.  It has the façade of a dilapidated house but actually hides the entrance to a cave that houses a deadly demon.
4. “Where Did She Wander?” (1987) – This is the last tale Wellman wrote prior to his death.  This time John comes across an odd tombstone as he travels into a new town.  He finds it belongs to a beautiful young woman who was lynched by the townspeople many years ago after she was believed to have used witchcraft to kill a suitor.  John learns of a song written about her and performs it before a crowd of locals.  They don’t receive it well, as it is believed to portend bad luck.  Soon afterwards, John decides to investigate deeper into the legend and comes up against a very creepy adversary.  This wonderfully weird and eerie tale is my personal favorite Silver John story.

1. “Spooky Tooth” by Randy Chandler – A successful rock and roll reporter gets an interview with a legendary rock star who is also reputed to be a wolf man.  Lots of rock and roll histories here with an inventive take on classic heavy metal album covers.
2. “Iron Maiden” by Matthew Fryer – A band preparing for a gig in London find themselves lured aboard a mysterious old ship docked nearby.  This is no ordinary ship, however, as it has an undying captain at its helm and carries a deadly cargo from a mythical age.  This is a great tale, thick with atmosphere, mystery, adventure and horror.
3. Black Sabbath by Steven L. Shrewsbury – This story begins at the end of a devastating zombie apocalypse.  The protagonist finds himself at odds with a rival who, driven by jealousy, will go to any lengths to get his revenge, even if means initiating a new zombie threat onto the world.  This is a high tension tale of survival with a great villain.
4. “Judas Priest” by David T. Wilbanks – A woman finds herself drawn into a conflict between two ancient, dark forces in order to save her rogue brother’s life.  This adventurous story contains lots of black magic, exciting action and mystical horror.
5. “Motorhead” by Kent Gowran – A man, with the ability to animate his snake tattoo to surrealistic proportions, uses it and his motorcycle to hunt down a group of thieves who attempted to rob his gas station in this psychedelic, high speed chase story.
6. “Slayer” by L.L. Soares – The lives of an aging, dysfunctional rocker and the disciple of a vicious, bloodthirsty saint intersect in this grim tale of death and destruction.

Here’s the Amazon link to LIVING AFTER MIDNIGHT: HARD AND HEAVY STORIES. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B004HIM2QG/craigsbookclu-20/ .

Review by Matt Cowan

1.  Tell us about your short story collection LOOKING AT THE WORLD WITH BROKEN GLASS IN MY EYE?

MJ: Originally, I had approached a publisher because I’d written a novella called DEAD TOWN, which was about an artist living in Greenwich Village who goes to bed one night, and when he wakes up, there is no sky.  There’s just blankness where the sky should be, and he notices that only a small part of the block that he lives on is still in existence.  The rest of the novella is trying to figure out where they are, he and his neighbors, and where everyone else went.  I submitted that to a publisher, and they said they didn’t publish anything novella length, but if I were to submit more stories and make a collection out of it, they would take a look at it.  They decided they would publish it and gave me an advance, but with a downturn in the finances they decided they couldn’t.  I got the rights back and submitted it to GRAVESIDE TALES, and they wanted to publish it.  By that time I had added to it.  I had a book that came out a few years ago called DEADNECK HOOTENANNY that was made up of two long stories.  I added that to the collection to bookend it.  I had a second novella I wanted to include, plus some other unpublished stories that for one reason or another had never found a home.  It ended up being a pretty hefty collection.  I think the book ended up being better because of the material I got to add to it, and I think the cover by a Kentucky native Billy Tackett is a great cover.  Another one of my idols as far as writing goes, Gary Braunbeck, wrote an outstanding blurb for the book that serves as the back cover copy.  I’m proud of the book, and I’m looking forward to it coming out.

2. How would you describe it to those who haven’t read your work before?

MJ: It is mostly horror.  Sometimes when I write, some humor creeps into it.  Or at least stuff that I think is funny.  In some cases it’s intentional.  There’s some funny stuff in the DEADNECK stories, and there are some other stories in the book that are humorous horror stories and were intended to be that way.  And there is some stuff that is very bleak.  There’s a story called “Father’s Day” that I think is very dark.  There’s another one called “Black Wings” which is also very dark.  I think it kind of runs the gamut from straight horror to some horror with a humorous tint to it. 

3. What was the process involved in choosing which stories to include?

MJ: When it came to the finished product, I just looked at things that were favorites of mine.  I had a story published years ago that was called “Hole in the Sky”.  I had always enjoyed that story, and I picked stories that I thought worked really well, stories that I was proud of, stories that I thought represented what I do.  There’s another story in there called “The Losers vs. Beelphegor”, which was in one of the volumes of HORROR LIBRARY.  It’s about a bunch of stoners from a rock band that have an encounter with an ancient god.  That’s another story that has a lot of humorous overtones, and I was real happy with how it turned out.  I still have enough stories that have been rattling around that have been published since the book was put together and some other things I just didn’t include for space reasons, that if there would ever be a clamor somewhere down the road for a second collection, I think that I could put something pretty substantial together. 

4. Tying us in with Vintage Horror, do you have a favorite classic horror writer?

MJ: As a kid I read a lot of Edgar Allen Poe.  I was exposed to him first through the Vincent Price movies, and that lead me to the books and then in high school they had more than one English class and one of them was Edgar Allen Poe.  So I attended that class.  As far as classic horror writers, he is probably at the top of my list.

5. When did you discover a love for the horror genre?

MJ: As far back as a young child I remember being fascinated by horror.  I was growing up in the 1960’s, and there wasn’t that much network TV programming, so almost every television market ran horror or science fiction movies on the weekends.  When I was finally allowed to watch them, which I think was when I was around four years old or so, I started seeing these monster movies, and I was incredibly drawn to horror for some reason.  I think it’s the same reason people are drawn to ride a roller coaster, or go to haunted houses on Halloween, or things like that.  We like being scared with that safety net knowing that probably something bad is really not going to happen.  Of course there were comic books.  DC comics had a lot of horror titles.  I wasn’t too exposed to those because I was more of a Marvel guy.  In the late 60’s and early 70’s when the comics code authority relaxed its stand on horror, there were a lot more monster books available, and I really got into that.  Once I read Stephen King’s SALEM’S LOT and THE STAND, my path was kind of locked.  I knew I wanted to write horror and try to inhabit the stories with real characters.  That’s where I feel like Stephen King really created a subgenre all of his own, where he would create a world in his fiction that was like the way the world really was and then introduce a horrific element.  I was just totally blown away by that.

6. What can you tell us about The Dead Sheriff?

MJ: It’s coming out from Evil Eye Books.  It’s sort of a take on The Lone Ranger story turned inside out and backwards.  It’s set in the West right after the Civil War, and there’s the legend of The Dead Sherriff, who the story says was a lawman who was murdered along with his family and he came back from the grave to avenge them.  He’s got a faithful Indian sidekick, like The Lone Ranger.  When the truth comes out, it’s the sidekick who had discovered a mystical artifact that allowed him to reanimate corpses.  He does this and presents to the world this undead lawman.  They travel from town to town as bounty hunters.  They collect the bounties, and that’s what the faithful Indian sidekick makes his living with.  He’s the puppet master for this reanimated corpse that everyone thinks is the avenging lawman, who actually is not moving of his own free will.  Although in the first book there are some hints that there are some other things going on there.  The first book will be called ZOMBIE DAMNATION.  It is finished, and it’s being put together right now.  Hopefully it will be out sometime this summer. 

7. You’ve also been working on a pulp adventure called DONOVAN PIKE AND THE LOST CITY OF GOLD.  Can you give any details on this project?

MJ: Another big influence when I was a kid was the reprinting of pulp characters, and the biggest certainly was DOC SAVAGE.  I collected all of them when I was a kid.  They had amazing covers by an artist named James Bama, who later became one of the greatest western landscape artists.  All these books were reprinted from pulp magazines from the 30’s and 40’s.  There was THE SHADOW and later THE AVENGER.   There were other reprints too; THE SPIDER, and G8 AND HIS BATTLE ACES, which was a World War 1 pulp.  It was all basically big adventure and science fiction elements.  I’ve always loved that. There’s a couple of companies that publish modern pulp fiction, and I’ve contributed some to those anthologies.  I just wanted a venue where I could write something like that without dealing with publishers, without any restrictions, so I set up a website called Pulp Nocturne (http://pulpnocturne.blogspot.com), and I do that.  I write it as often as I can, whenever I have a hole in my schedule. 

8. You and David T. Wilbanks also collaborated on the Dead Earth series of books, which has done very well.  How’s the third book coming along?

MJ: People find it kind of curious that I’m working on my third book in a collaboration with another writer who I’ve never met, but we have a pretty good working relationship.  We’ve worked out a good system for writing the books and we’re having a great time with them.   

9. You and David Wilbanks were pioneers in the horror podcasting field with Pod of Horror, how did that come about?

MJ: I don’t know how many other horror podcasts were out there, but we originally started Pod of Horror to kind of promote our writing and ended up with a program that has a very healthy audience for every episode.  As you and I are talking today, I’m getting ready to put together our 65^th episode.  Because of time reasons, David Wilbanks had to drop out awhile back, but he still stays in touch.  We had him on when DEAD EARTH: THE VENGENCE ROAD came out last fall, and we had a long conversation with him on the podcast talking about how the thing came together.  Pod of Horror has turned out to be something that is bigger than I had anticipated it becoming, and I do enjoy it quite a bit.  I get to talk to a lot of established writers and up and coming writers.  Things that I take away every time I interview one of these guys is it leaves me pumped up to get back to my own writing. 

10. With all these projects and a full-time radio job, where do you find the time to get it all done?

MJ: The day job, which pays the bills, has to come first.  It’s not a traditional 9 to 5 job, so it becomes difficult at times to set aside time to write.  I just have to find my opportunities wherever I have a few free minutes.  Then there will be days when I can’t get any writing done.  One thing over the last couple years that I’ve been a little better at is not beating myself up so much when I have a day I can’t write, because I used to really be hard on myself, and that would lead to frustration.  The truth is there are just sometimes when it’s not going to be able to happen. 

11. I recently read on your blog that you’re working on a novella called The Ghosts of Logan County.  Are you able to give any details on this?

MJ: I have a specific publisher in mind for it, and it’s something that has taken a little bit of research.  It also involves the civil war, although it is set in modern times.  It’s something I’m real happy with how it’s progressing.  I hope to have it finished in a couple weeks.  It’s about a father who’s lost his son and is trying to start a new life and encounters some unexplained events, and we’ll see where it goes from there. 

12. What horror creature or element consistently gives you the chills?

MJ: When I was a kid my parents had either TIME LIFE or READER’S DIGESTS coffee table sized books.  This particular book was THE WORLD OF NATURE.  This huge book had a full page close up of a praying mantis’ head and, when I was a child, it was the most frightening thing I had ever seen.  Also, for a number of years I had a recurring dream.  I don’t know why it started or why it ended, but I would be going through the house and each room I went into the lights would not come on.  Eventually, I had the dreams so many times, that when I would flip the switch and the lights wouldn’t come on, I’d realize I was in a dream.  I couldn’t do anything about it, but I would realize it. 

13. Is there anything you would like to add?

MJ: From the time I was a kid, the only two things I really wanted to do was be on the radio and write.  Now I get to do both, so I’m a really lucky guy in that respect.  The third thing I wanted to do was draw Marvel comics, but it turned out I have no artistic talent.  So that quickly went out the window, but I’m enjoying what I’m doing, and I hope I’m able to keep doing it for a long time. 

14. Link info:   
    1. Mark’s blog: http://www.markjustice.blogspot.com/
    2. Mark’s message board: http://horrorworld.org/phpBB3/viewforum.php?f=78
    3. Pod of Horror: http://www.horrorworld.org/poh.htm
    4.  LOOKING AT THE WORLD WITH BROKEN GLASS IN MY EYE:http://gravesidebooks.com/index.php?_a=viewProd&productId=22
    5. DONOVAN PIKE AND THE LOST CITY OF GOLD site:http://pulpnocturne.blogspot.com/

1.ALONE WITH THE HORRORS by Ramsey Campbell (2004) – This collection of tales by Ramsey Campbell is a masterpiece. All the stories contained within are terrific and some absolutely amazing. Highlights include: “The Scar”, “Down There”, “The Ferries”, “Just Waiting”, “Mackintosh Willy”, and “The Other Side” to name a few.

2.NIGHT THINGS by Michael Talbot (1988) - I read this novel early in novel reading life. It was everything I was looking for: A haunted mansion on a secluded mountain that contains ancient secrets with threats looming from all directions. This is the only novel I reread every 5 years or so.

3.SUMMER OF NIGHT by Dan Simmons (1991) – A brilliant novel about a group of young boys who reminded me of The Three Investigator’s from my favorite childhood series. However, these boys are up against an actual supernatural entity which some of them will not survive encountering.

4.INCARNATE by Ramsey Campbell (1983) – This tale about the future ramifications on a group who participated in an experiment on prophetic dreaming is filled with reality-warping eeriness that is imprinted with Campbell’s brilliant ability to unnerve. I can’t image anyone else pulling off such an intricate, surreal story the way Campbell does here.

5.THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF HAUNTED HOUSE STORIES Edited by Peter Haining (2000) - What could be more up my alley than this? Containing such classic tales as: “Ghost Hunt” by H.R. Wakefield, “No. 252 Rue M. Le Prince” by Ralph Adams Cram, “Feet Foremost” by L.P. Hartley, “Happy Hour” by Ian Watson, “The Grey House” by Basil Copper, and “The Whistling Room” by William Hope Hodgson to name a few. This book is a treasure trove of dark things that lurk in old houses.

6.ANCIENT IMAGES by Ramsey Campbell (1989) – This was another novel I read early on when I got into horror and it helped to shape my love of the genre. This story about a woman whose search for a suppressed Boris Karloff/Bela Lugosi film touched by supernatural evil was a fun, spooky ride. This began my admiration of Campbell’s genius.

7.COUNT MAGNUS AND OTHER GHOST STORIES by M.R. James (2005) – I’ve read several James’ stories in various anthologies, but this book contains most of my favorites, including: “The Ash Tree”, “Number 13”, “Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to you, My Lad”, “The Mezzotint”, and “The Treasure of Abbot Thomas”. M.R. James is my 2nd favorite writer behind Ramsey Campbell.

8.HAUNTED by James Herbert (1988) –David Ash (who will return in the quasi-sequel THE GHOSTS OF SLEATH) is a man intent on disproving the supernatural. His resolve is sorely tested after he is invited to stay at a haunted mansion. The first part of the book follows several of his strange investigations which are fun in their own right, but things really pick up once he begins investigating the house and the strange family that lives there. This was made into a pretty faithful film of the same title in 1995 with Aidan Quinn and Kate Beckinsale.

9.NIGHT STONE by Rick Hautala (1986) –I couldn’t put this novel down. I found myself invested in its characters and loving all the ancient supernatural weirdness that was going on. It also contains one of the single most claustrophobic, terrifying scenes I’ve ever read.

10. PREY by Graham Masterton (1999) – This novel about a man restoring a 19th century house has all sorts of bizarre things going on. Something keeps scampering around in the attic. Vintage pictures change of their own accord. Dead people are seen on the front lawn. Masterton manages to weave in time travel as well as some appearances by entities created by H.P. Lovecraft.

1-“The Strange Ride of Morrowbie Jukes” (1885) – An Englishman, out for a night ride on his steed, falls down a deep sand slope. There he finds himself trapped in a crater filled with people believed to be dead. He is forced to live among them when he cannot find a way out. The only one to whom he regularly talks to is named Gunga Dass, who cannot be trusted. Dass supplies him with crows to eat and agrees to do whatever Morrowbie commands but often taunts him and seems to know more than he reveals.

2-“The Phantom Rickshaw” (1888) – The tale of a man who is haunted by the ghost of a woman he once loved but who he cruelly discarded after his feelings changed. Losing him destroyed her, leading to her death soon afterwards. Even that could not prevent her from pursuing him. This is a classic story about a tragic, obsessive ghost whose relentless appearances have devastating results on the haunted man.

3-“My Own True Ghost Story” (1888) – Is there an assembly of ghosts playing pool in the room next door?

4-“The Mark of the Beast” (1890) – An Englishman named Fleete finds himself in India because he has inherited property there. He drinks too much alcohol during a New Years Eve celebration and on leaving comes upon a temple dedicated to Hanuman, a monkey god worshipped by local priests. He dishonors the worshippers by running up the temple steps and putting his cigarette out on a big red statue of Hanuman. A leper with silver skin and disintegrated facial features emerges from a recess of the statue, making “mewing” sounds. The silver man touches the offender. Afterwards, Fleete begins to smell a strong scent of blood, animals become terrified of him, and he starts to undergo physical changes. His friends notice the alterations and seek to help him before it’s too late. This is a great tale about a powerful supernatural curse.

5-“At the End of the Passage” (1890) – A man is tormented by horrible nightmares.

6-“The Return of Imray” (1891) – Imray, a man of importance and influence, disappears one day without a trace. Eventually, another man takes up residence in his old bungalow. The narrator is a friend visiting the new owner. He finds the place unsettling with half-glimpsed figures moving about at night pulling on doorknobs and seemingly trying to communicate.

7-“The Disturber of Traffic” (1891) – A lighthouse keeper begins to lose his mind as he obsesses on how boats passing through his strait make the water “streaky”. He puts a plan in motion to divert the boats in this tale of madness.

8-“A Matter of Fact” (1893) – A group of journalists endures a harrowing time at sea when they find their boat flanked by a pair of sea serpents awakened by an underwater disturbance.

9-“They” (1904) – A man becomes lost driving through a forested area and comes upon a house where he sees children about. They scamper off to hide from him while he meets the beautiful woman of the house, who is blind. His interest in her and the mysterious children prompt future visits. This ghost story is more a strange tale with interesting characters than it is a horror story.

10-“The House Surgeon” (1909) – After a brief stay in a house that is routinely “haunted” by a permeating veil of depression, a man begins to investigate the cause. No one seems aware of any tragedy occurring in its history. This is an intriguing psychic mystery tale.

While I enjoyed all the stories in this collection, some stood out as personal favorites.

•“A Different Morecambe” – I found this story about a man taking his young son on a routine daytrip to a seaside resort to be the eeriest. The resort is in bad shape and perhaps not so deserted as it first appears.
•“The Old Man’s Pantry” – An avid runner comes across a disturbing dummy dressed like a man who used to ambush and kill travelers centuries before. This encounter is only the beginning of the danger to come.
• “Stevie’s Duck” – I didn’t expect to like this story based on its title. How could a story about a duck be remotely scary? After reading this dark, forbidding tale, I found the answer.
•“Forest Lodge” - A father takes his son away to a forest lodge after a fight with his wife. The boy begins to see a disturbing ghost that seems to take interest in him. This spooky ghost story has a great twist ending.
•“The Animal Game” – A support group plays a game where they pick an animal that most represents them. The game has unexpected and terrifying results. A great concept masterfully realized.
•“An Afternoon with Danny” – A young, divorced father delights in the time spent with his toddler son at Pirate World. The fun day turns grim when a dark presence makes its presence felt.
•“The Pennine Tower Restaurant” – An unusual architectural tower has a bizarre and dangerous history. All the deaths, disappearances, and ethereal glimpses that revolve around the structure are documented here. This riveting tale, presented as fact, comes complete with detailed, collaborating footnotes.
•“The Church on the Island” – This story was nominated for the 2008 World Fantasy Award for best short story. It’s about a woman on vacation in Greece who becomes obsessed with a lonely church built on a small island nearby. She swims there and is met by the caretaker, who shows her the secret purpose behind the church’s existence.

Review by Matt Cowan

This is a riveting tale of supernatural horror that blends romance, mystery and action with well developed characters throughout. Raven Bower hits on all cylinders here. The horror elements are chilling; in particular is a scene on the lake that may cause you to second guess that next trip on the water. Her ability to make secondary characters interesting is a tremendous strength. I often found these fringe characters so interesting I wanted them to take on a bigger role. This in no way implies a weakness in the main characters, just the opposite. Bailey Kane is a great protagonist who finds her supernatural abilities to be a burden despite the financial benefits she’s gained from them. The story moves fast and keeps the intensity up as the threats zero in on Bailey. Her adversaries are varied enough she can’t defend against them all with her usual defenses, be it sea salt around her doors, silver doorknobs or even her guard dog Thor. A sequel to this book is scheduled to be released in early 2011 titled WENDIGO. Based on the strength of APPARITIONS, I’m looking forward to it with great anticipation.

Matt Cowan

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1-“The Ghost of the Blue Chamber” by Jerome K. Jerome (1891) – A nephew insists on spending Christmas Eve night in the haunted room of his uncle’s house. Every year on Christmas Eve the ghost of a man who murdered several musicians at various times arrives in the room to battle the ghosts of those he callously murdered in life. Sure enough, the nephew finds the murderous ghost in the room, and the two chat. This is not so much a horror story as it is a dark comedy.

2-“Smee” by A.M. Burrage (1931) – A group plays a game on Christmas Eve. It’s similar to hide and seek but done without knowing who they are seeking. Each participant is given a folded piece of paper. Most are blank, but one has the word “Smee” on it. That person will be the hider sought by the other players. The lights are turned off, and the one designated Smee sneaks away to hide. When the signal is given, the search begins. Whenever another player is encountered they ask if they’re Smee. If they aren’t, they say so. If they are, they don’t answer, and the one that found them joins Smee while others seek them out. In this story it’s played in a darkened house, and they seem to have acquired an unknown extra player.

3- “The Chimney” by Ramsey Campbell (1977) – A skittish boy, attached to his dotting mother, at odds with his disapproving father, starts to think something ominous is moving around in his bedroom fireplace. It comes to a head one Christmas Eve when he witnesses a hideous thing emerging from it. Many years later, the bizarre events of that night will be given meaning. This story won the 1978 World Fantasy Award for best short story.

4-“Within the Walls of Tyre” by Michael Bishop (1978) – This is a dark, non-supernatural tale about an older woman whose life revolves around her work at a department store. She has lived alone ever since the love of her life died in World War II. Things change when a handsome young man arrives to try and sell merchandise to her store. His resemblance to her lost love is extraordinary, and despite their great age difference the man asks her out on a date. The story progresses as an odd love story, but darker things lurk just below the surface. Painful secrets have long been held by both involved which cumulates in an extremely bleak ending. This work was nominated for both the Locus Poll Award for Best Novelette and The World Fantasy Award for Best Short Fiction in 1979.

5-“Granny’s Grinning” by Robert Shearman (2009) – An ill-tempered grandmother comes to spend the holiday with her son and his family. She is opinionated and blunt until the kids open their presents, which are a werewolf and zombie costume that actually transforms their wearer into the beasts for real but with their mind in tact. The girl was hoping for a vampire but needed to play along to keep Granny happy. Indeed, Granny seems thrilled by the transformation. It’s easy to identify with these characters and I love the idea of costumes that make you into what they portray. The ending of the story is both touching and unsettling.

I replied that I included all the Wharton stories I had in my various anthologies. To that Ron was kind enough to send me a copy of THE GHOST STORIES OF EDITH WHARTON, a collection that includes 11 of her spookiest tales. The book was terrific. Each story includes eerie artwork which adds to the atmosphere that pervades each story, along with great characters and mysteries that draw you in. My favorites were: “The Triumph of Night”, “Mr. Jones”, “Pomegranate Seed”, “All Souls” and “The Eyes”. I’d like to thank Ron again for sending me the book and for going above and beyond to let more people know about these wonderfully creepy stories. This article is a direct result of him. The three stories covered in my previous article (which also contains a brief bio of Edith Wharton) can be found by following the link above.

1.“Kerfol” (1916) – A woman visiting a house she may buy encounters a pack of somber, mysterious dogs. The house, called Kerfol, has a strange history to it involving a woman who was accused of killing her husband. Upon further study of the court records and testimonies, it is discovered that the woman loved dogs, but her husband hated them (for reasons explained in the story). Mysteries and answers unfold as they plunge deeper into the past of Kerfol and its previous residents.

2.“The Triumph of the Night” (1914) – A man is dropped off at a train station in a town where he has found employment. To his dismay, the woman who hired him to be her new secretary failed to send a coach to pick him up from the station. To make matters worse, it is a cold, wintery evening, and there doesn’t seem to be any way for him to get to his destination other than a long frigid walk. A young man pulls up before he departs, however, and extends an offer for the man to stay with him at his uncle’s house until the following day. He gladly agrees and accompanies the young man, who is in obvious bad health. The large house inexplicably fills the traveler with dread. Later, when he meets the uncle, he is further disturbed to see an evil double of the affluent man constantly glaring at his ill nephew. His fear grows once he realizes he is the only one who can see this doppelganger. A spooky tale set in a rich, snowy atmosphere.

3.“Miss Mary Pask” (1925) – A woman traveling abroad in Europe goes to visit the house of her friend’s sister. The sisters were inseparable until one got married and moved away. The sister who remained in Europe, Miss Mary Pask, became a lonely recluse. When the woman goes to visit the house, it is dark and ominous. Shortly after being greeted by Mary Pask, the traveler remembers hearing she had died a year ago. Mary Pask is desperate for companionship, but her caller wants nothing more than to escape the house where she finds herself talking to a woman who should be cold and buried.

4.“Bewitched” (1925) – A woman brings a group together to help find a way to save her husband. He is being drawn to meet the ghost of a woman to whom he was once engaged. The pale, gaunt husband is in obvious distress over these meetings with the dead woman. The group converges on the spot of these meetings to find the prints of a barefooted woman in the frigid snow.

5.“Mr. Jones” (1928) - A woman inherits a house from part of her family she knows little about. When she first goes to see it, she is turned away at the door by a servant who says Mr. Jones won’t allow her in. When she later does move in, she learns Mr. Jones is a very old, head servant who has a strong hold on the house and servants despite the fact the new owner isn’t aloud to see him. The house and Mr. Jones seem to be concealing secrets from her. The question of how old Mr. Jones is and how he stays hidden away are at the core of this supernatural mystery.

6.“Pomegranate Seed” (1928) – A happily married woman becomes concerned when she notices notes being delivered to her husband several times over the course of their brief marriage. Her husband always reads the notes alone and is obviously disturbed afterwards. The handwriting used to address the envelopes is a woman’s, but she knows he has had no previous relationships with anyone save her and his first wife who died. When confronted about the notes, he refuses to give information about them or their author. She can tell it is tearing him apart to keep whatever dark secret they hold. What the notes say, who wrote them, and what terrible secret they hold causes the dread to mount as the story builds to its dark climax. This is my personal favorite Wharton story.

7.“The Looking Glass” (1935) – A woman recounts a time in her past when she convinced a friend she was able to contact the spirit of a man who died on The Titanic. The friend had let her unrequited romantic interest in the man haunt her for years. This is more a love story than a ghost story.

8.“All Souls’” (1937) – Sara Clayburn encounters a woman she doesn’t recognize walking towards her house one cold October evening. When she asked the woman what she wanted, the lady replied,“Only to see one of the girls.” Shortly afterwards Sara falls and injures her ankle. This confines her to her bed. Her maid Agnes insists on leaving food in her room overnight in case she gets hungry, which was something she hadn’t done in the past. The next morning none of her servants attend her. She is forced to walk on her damaged ankle through the house in search of assistance but finds the place deserted. Time drags on with no one about and no clue as to where they have gone. A year later, she again encounters the strange woman from the day she hurt her ankle and begins to piece together the meaning of the strange days of solitude she endured in the house.

Thanks again Ron. You are correct in your love of these less-circulated Wharton stories.

1-“Down There” (1978) – A woman working on the sixth floor of an old building finds herself working alone with her boss in the old building. Her fellow workers are on strike. Her boss becomes increasingly more nervous as time passes. One of the building’s two elevators doesn’t work and is stuck in the massive subbasement that used to be stock-piled with rotting food. Rumor has it that an amazing amount of the spoiled food disappeared one day with no logical explanation as to where it could have gone. As the two remain in the building during a thunderstorm, they start to notice clues that something is making its way up towards them from the lower levels.
* At one point, famed director Guillermo Del Toro was slated to adapt this for a horror anthology film. Unfortunately, the project went under before it was made. It’s a shame. I would love to have seen these hideous creatures on the silver screen.

2-“Worse Than Bones” (2001) – An older gentleman named Hammond loves books above all else, particularly used ones that have been written in by previous owners. It makes the books feel “lived in” to him. His recent purchase is titled TALES OF THE GHOSTLY, an anthology of ghost stories. The book’s previous owner made numerous comments on each story, much to Hammond’s delight. He becomes less enamored with the book when the notations grow dark, and even personal. He manages to track down some history of the book’s former owner, a woman named Hettie Close. This great tale looks at Hammond’s struggles with his domineering boss, difficulty in relating to his younger co-workers, and the interest of an unwanted supernatural presence.

3-“Just Waiting” (1983) – A successful writer returns to the wishing well hidden, deep in a forest where he made a wish as a child. The bizarre and tragic events of that day so long ago changed the course of his life. I love stories set in forests, and this is my favorite of that sort. It has the perfect mix of setting, characters you recognize, and weird supernatural beings.

4-“The Inhabitant of the Lake” (1962) – A man goes to visit a friend named Cartwright, who is a gifted, albeit morbid artist. Cartwright had moved into one of a line of deteriorating, secluded cabins by a lake to help him paint. As time passes he starts to hear unexplained sounds coming from the water and begins having nightmares. Something ancient and bizarre seems to be exerting an influence from the lake, which puts the men in horrific peril. This is vintage otherworldly horror that any fan of The Cthulhu Mythos should devour.

5-“The Scar” (1967) – Lindsay Rice begins to question whether or not his brother-in-law is still who he appears to be after spotting a nearly perfect lookalike on a bus. The only difference is that the doppelganger had a deep scar on his face. His vague suspicions are hampered by his debilitating social awkwardness. This story is about wonderful, everyday characters forced to deal with an insidious evil which seems to be closing in on their family.

6-“The Other Side” (1985) - A stern teacher watches the menacing actions of a mysterious, evil clown from the safety of his window. The clown is a malignant supernatural force that knows the teacher is watching.

7-“Above the World” (1977) – A man returns to the mountainous vacation spot he used to go to with his wife when they were still together. It is also the spot where she and her new husband died on a later visit. The man spends time remembering the good times he had with her and goes into the forested mountains for its breathtaking view from high above everything. As he does, he begins to notice hints that the area holds some essence of the lost couple. This is a wonderfully eerie tale.

8-“In the Bag” (1974) – A rigid school master doles out harsh punishments when his son who attends the school has had a plastic bag wrapped around his head by an unknown perpetrator. A dark secret from the school master’s past mirrors the incident. He has been plagued by mysterious sounds and visions ever since. He begins to suspect something from his past is coming back for revenge.
* This won the 1978 British Fantasy Award for Best Short Story.

9-“The Brood” (1976) – A veterinarian who likes to people-watch from his window becomes intrigued by an old woman who goes to a lamp post area every night. She seems to be collecting pets to take home which are never seen again. Eventually, she stops appearing. When he goes to investigate, he finds something he didn’t expect. The descriptions of the scenery and creatures in this tale are both poetic and eerie at the same time.

10-“The Ferries” (1978) – A man witnesses his uncle being hauled off by a mysterious boat across an open field when he awakens from a nap. This excerpt describes what he saw: “Its sails looked stained patchily by mould. It was full of holes, all of which were misshapen by glistening vegetation. Were its decks crowded with figures? If so, he was grateful that he couldn’t see their faces, for their movements made him think of drowned things lolling underwater, dragged back and forth by currents.” All he finds in the field afterwards is a bottle containing a miniature boat. From that point forward he begins to fear something is coming for him as well.

1.“ILL MET IN LANKHMAR” (1970) – This tale recounts the events that led to Fafhrd and The Gray Mouser becoming friends and teaming up. They met by chance as both were robbing members of the Lankhmar Thieves’ Guild who had stolen some valuable jewels from a merchant. They fought well together and became instant friends. After their successful foray, they went to The Gray Mouser’s loft to meet each others’ girlfriends before leaving to buy more alcohol. They returned to find the women conversing. Soon the two girls began to chastise their men for failing to slay Thieves Guild Master Krovas, who had incurred Fafhrd’s girlfriend’s wrath in the past. The tipsy duo finally set out on the task in order to stop the nagging. They infiltrated the thieves’ guild house disguised as beggars to remove Krovas of his head. The description of the Thieves’ House interior with its training rooms, map room, and magic room are well executed. They encounter a wizard employed by the Guild performing dark magic with a giant rat creature acting as his servant. This story won The Nebula Award for Best Novella in 1970, as well as The Hugo Award for Best Novella in 1971.

2.“THE CIRCLE CURSE” (1970) – Languishing in grief over a terrible loss, Fafhrd and The Gray Mouser leave Lankhmar vowing never to return. They spend three years traveling and partaking in different adventures before rethinking their previous vow.

3.“THE JEWELS IN THE FOREST” also called “TWO SOUGHT ADVENTURE” (1939) – The two follow directions from notes in the margin of a book on architecture that seems to taunt readers to try and obtain the author’s treasure. It lies in a tower in the forest. Its riddle states it is guarded but there is no monster or demon or traps. Along the way, they are ambushed by a rival group seeking the same treasure but manage to repel them. When approaching the tower, each feel a strong sense of dread emanating from it but remain resolved to obtaining the fortune within. The treasure itself and its bizarre defender are fun and inventive in this wonderful tale.

4.“THIEVES’ HOUSE” (1943) – The duo help steal a bejeweled skull and skeletal hands but are double crossed by the Thieves’ Guild member who contracted them. They follow him back to their headquarters to regain the stolen items and revenge themselves upon him. They find their loot being taken from a room by a red haired woman. The head of the guild, their hated rival Krovas, lies strangled to death in the same room. While hiding from pursuers, they overhear testimony saying the skeletal hands animated and killed the former guild master. Upon being discovered, the two flee through the guild house and become separated. Fafhrd eventually stumbles into the Thieves’ Guild tombs deep below the house. Here he is confronted by the ghosts of master thieves from long ago who task him with a mission. He must recover the lost skull with its hands and return them before the next midnight, or they will come for him.

5.“THE HOWLING TOWER” (1941) – The Gray Mouser is forced to follow Fafhrd when he finds he has been lured off overnight to a dreaded tower whose unearthly howling seems to have taken control of him. When he arrives, he finds Fafhrd unconscious and bandaged up despite having no visible wounds upon him. An old man greets The Mouser and says the ghosts that haunt the tower are attacking his friend on another plane of existence and offers to send him there to rescue him. The Mouser must decide whether or not to trust the old man with Fafhrd’s life hanging in the balance.

6.“THE SUNKEN LAND” (1942) – While at sea, Fafhrd finds a strange ring with a key attached to it in the belly of a fish he had caught. He sees it as good luck, but The Gray Mouser has a bad feeling about it and tells him he should get rid of it. He keeps it despite the warning. Soon afterwards Fafhrd is swept overboard by another ship that got too close. He pulls himself aboard it and is forced to fight off several of the crew who look like natives from his homeland. When the ship nearly capsizes, Fafhrd helps steady it and is allowed to remain. Soon the ship lands on a mysterious island. It is called Simorgya, a legendary sunken land that seems to have just resurfaced. The ship’s mad captain leads his crew ashore to plunder Simorgya’s rumored treasure hoard despite several ominous clues that the island is inhabited by strange creatures.

7.“BAZAAR OF THE BIZARRE” (1963) – Fafhrd and The Gray Mouser are individually summoned by their patron sorcerers Ningauble of the Seven Eyes and Sheelba of the Eyeless Face to deal with the threat of a peculiar curio shop that has sprung up in The Plaza of Dark Delights. When The Gray Mouser arrives earlier than expected, he falls under the spell of the magical place that is filled with items of his greatest desires. Fafhrd is told by the two sorcerers that his friend is in mortal danger inside the shop which is not what it appears to be. They give him a spider web blindfold that enables him to see things as they truly are, as well as a cloak that turns him invisible to protect him from the shops dark powers and magical guardians. He arrives to see hideous things everywhere, and The Mouser being consumed by a hellish black wall. This is a true classic!

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1-“The Dead Leman” or “La Morte Amoureuse” (1836) – A young priest questions his devotion to God on the day he’s being ordained after one look from a beautiful woman in the crowd. He proceeds with the ordination but can’t stop thinking of the woman. She passes him a note containing her name and residence. She is Clarimonde at Concini Palace. When he is being taken to the church through the bustling city, he sees her palace. The head priest tells him the following about it. “It is the ancient palace which Prince Concini has given to the courtesan Clarimonde; shocking scenes take place there.” At that time the young priest sees her pass by a palace window to watch him. Time passes, and he is taken to perform the last rites to Clarimonde after her death following a night of debauchery. He gives into a strong impulse to kiss her corpse. She momentarily returns to life and promises to see him again. Afterwards, the priest falls into a long spell of unconsciousness that lasts for several days. When attended by the head priest during this time, he warns his protégé of the dangerous path he’s headed down. “My son, I must warn you that you are standing on the brink of an abyss; beware lest you fall into it. Satan’s claws are long, and the grave is not always trustworthy. Clarimonde’s tomb should be sealed with a triple seal, for this is not the first time she has died.” As time goes on the powerful influence of Clarimonde puts the priest’s desire for her at odds with his vows to God. This is a powerful, well-written story that vampire fans will take great delight in. I’m personally not a huge fan of vampire fiction (I just think a lot of it has been retreaded too often), but I still found this to be a remarkably enrapturing read.

2-“The Mummy’s Foot” (1840) - A man buys the mummified foot of a 3,000 year old Egyptian Princess from a strange curio shop owner. The man sells the foot with an almost malicious glee over the fact that the long dead father of the princess would hate the thought of his daughter’s foot being used as someone’s paperweight. The man who purchased the foot finds himself visited by the princess in search of her missing limb. A brief visit to a mythic realm ensues. This is more of a fairy tale than actual horror but is interesting nonetheless.

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1-“The Kelpie” (1936) – A woman sees a hideous aquatic man-creature emerging from her boyfriend’s aquarium which grows as it leaves the water. He doesn’t see it. The woman senses the thing in the water hates her. This is a fun creature story.

2-“The Theater Upstairs” (1936) – A former actor and his companion come across a little theater playing a film starring an actress with whom he used to work, who killed herself after he ended their romance. The theater is strange, and they are the only ones who are at the showing. The movie is said to be an adaptation of Guy DeMaupassant’s “The Horla”. Things become disturbing when other deceased film stars from the past appear on the screen and seem to take notice of them.

3-“Up Under the Roof” (1938) - A boy hears something dragging itself about in the area above his bedroom. It sounds like something large and amoeboid. He begins to suspect it is aware of him and has evil intentions. No one else in the house hears it. This story reportedly terrified one editor who read it early on.

4-“The Cavern” (1938) – A man keeps being warned he will die in a cavern, and his friend will be there to witness it. He vows to avoid the possibility, but can he avoid this fate?

5-“These Doth the Lord Hate” (1939) – A farmer faces a tough decision between his love of God and his family when he realizes his wife and daughter are both practicing witchcraft.

6-“The Devil’s Asteroid” (1941) – A sci-fi tale about a man, falsely accused of murdering a Martian dignitary, who is sent to a livable asteroid as punishment. Once there he is named the leader of a group of other prisoners because he is the most recent arrival. This happens because the longer one stays on the asteroid the more they de-evolve into mindless monsters. He being the most recent arrival is the most evolved there. What continues from here is a great sci-fi adventure with a bit of mystery, political maneuvering and romance.

7-“The Frogfather” (1946) – A young man witnesses what happens when his mean-spirited boss forces him to maneuver their canoe into a portion of the swamp in search of frogs to eat. Unfortunately, it is the haven of what the Indians call Khongabassi, or The Frogfather.

8-“Parthenope” (1953) – A shipwrecked student washes ashore of a reef to the sound of music sang by a beautiful woman. She nurses him to health but for what reason, and what secret does she hide?

9-“Straggler from Atlantis” (1977) – This is the first fantasy tale involving Kardios, the last survivor of Atlantis. Manly would write more of his continuing adventures. Here Kardios is asked to help a society of Giants by slaying a strange amorphous creature that has been feeding on them. He gains a special sword to help him in this endeavor.

10-“Ever Faith Endures” (1978) – A man from America tracks down a British Manor that belonged to his ancestors. Once there he meets a beautiful distant cousin who tries to keep him from learning the dark task she has been entrusted to perform. The house holds something within that is a menacing presence from ancient times.

Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton (originally Edith Jones) was born in 1872 in New York City, New York to an upper class family. Her long marriage to Edward Wharton was an unhappy one that ended in divorce in1913. She enjoyed much mainstream success as a writer, publishing The House of Mirth in 1902, Ethan Frome in 1911, and became the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for Literature in 1920 for her novelThe Age of Innocence. She was good friends with many luminaries of the times, most notably being writer Henry James. After her divorce she moved to France. She died there of a stroke in 1937, writing from her bed to the end. In 1916 she was awarded the title of Chevalier in the French Legion for her tireless efforts to assist orphans, refugees and woman in need during World War I. During her lifetime she produced no less than 14 novels and novellas, 85 short stories and other poetry and non-fiction works. This article, however, will focus on some of her ghost stories. Surprising as it seems from one who produced such great works in the field, Edith claimed she couldn’t even sleep in a room that contained a book of ghost stories before turning 28.

1-“The Lady’s Maid’s Bell” (1904) – A woman takes a maid’s position in a house to replace one that recently died after serving there for many years. The woman of the house wants her maid to be someone who can also serve as her friend. The man of the house is gone often, and when he is there he is an unpleasant presence. There are hints of potential affairs going on by both, but none are ever spelled out. The new maid begins to hear the bell ring that means the lady of the house needs assistance, even though the Lady said she would never use it to summon her. When the maid arrives, she finds the Lady did not ring it. As things progress the new maid starts to see the apparition of the former maid she replaced. This is an enjoyable but confusing tale. It presents several “clues” as to what was actually taking place in the house without giving any definite answers.

2-“Afterward” (1910) – An American couple comes into a great deal of money after a big business deal is pulled off by the husband. They move to England and find an old, secluded house, low on amenities. The lady who brings their attention to the house says it is haunted, but that you would never realize you had seen the ghost until long afterward. She knows no further details other than that. Things go on leisurely until the wife learns of a lawsuit being brought against her husband involving the business transaction that brought them their newfound wealth. Soon afterwards a man comes to see her husband. After this meeting, she learns her husband unexpectedly and without explanation left the house with the man and disappears. The rest of the story revolves around the search for her husband, the mysteries surrounding his business dealings, and what involvement the previously mentioned ghost has to play in the whole affair.

3-“The Eyes” (1910) – A writer tells a group about a long time haunting he endured by a ghost that manifested itself as a pair of sinister eyes at the foot of his bed periodically. The timing of the eyes appearances is odd and disturbs him deeply whenever it happens. This is a well written story that draws you into the main character’s life and yet maintains a strong feeling of supernatural oddity involving the eyes. The ending requires some thought and isn’t spelled out. It’s a tale which is hard to put down and ultimately a satisfying read.

1-“The Sorcerer’s Jewel” (1939) - Originally published in Strange Stories Magazine under the pseudonym Tarleton Fiske, this story is about a photographer/artist obsessed with taking unique and bizarre pictures. He is a scientist who doesn’t believe in the occult, but his assistant is a devotee of such things. The assistant promises to bring in a gem used by ancient Egyptians to see into alternate dimensions, and have it made into a camera lens, so they can take pictures of what it shows. There are dangers involved in looking at such things as they soon find out.

2-“Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper” (1943) – A man in Chicago is approached by a gentleman from England who claims he is searching for Jack the Ripper. He says he believes the Ripper does not age because his murders are ceremonial sacrifices that keep him young. He believes The Ripper continues to murder and that he is presently among the man’s poet and artist friends. He enlists the man’s help to track down this evil, undying man. This is widely considered a classic of horror literature. This tale has been adapted for radio programs a few times (“The Kate Smith Hour”, “Molle Mystery Theatre”, and “Murder By Experts”).

3-“Floral Tribute” (1949) – A boy is raised by his Grandmother who lives by a graveyard. He is happy playing amongst the tombstones and brings fresh flowers from the graves to her every day. At night they are visited by some of the graveyard residents. They sit at the table and talk to his grandmother. When it is discovered the boy isn’t going to school, people come to investigate. The boy is taken from her, and she is institutionalized. The years pass, and the boy grows into a man, joins the military and eventually receives a message from his grandmother asking him to come back home. This is tale is more eerie and touching than scary.

4-“The Hungry House” (1951) – A couple moves into a house and begin to catch glimpses of something in any reflective surface within. At first they dismiss these occurrences as natural things or imaginings, but as time goes on it becomes more disturbing. The husband finds a locked closet in the attic filled with mirrors, apparently removed from the house by previous occupants. When they throw a dinner party, their guests begin to see things as well.

5-“Notebook Found in a Deserted House” (1951) – This story is written as if it were a notebook found in an abandoned house. The account is written by a 12 year old boy trapped in a secluded farmhouse by ancient evil beings that lurks in the dark forest outside. It’s firmly set in the Lovecraft Mythos with several references to his creations. This is a great tale of terror with monstrous, elder, creatures and dark secrets of the cursed forest.

6-“The Light-House” by both Edgar Allan Poe and Robert Bloch (1953) – Edgar Allen Poe started“The Light-House” but never finished it. Years later Bloch crafted his own ending for the atmospheric story. It’s about a noble gentleman who takes a job tending a light-house alone. He takes the job because he wants solitude to write. It isn’t long before the endless loneliness begins to wear on him. He devises a plan to concentrate all his mental energy in attempts to psychically call a companion to him. This is a unique and thoroughly satisfying weird tale that is well worth tracking down.

7-“House of the Hatchet” (1955) – An argumentative couple embark on a road trip for a second honeymoon to rekindle their relationship. On the way, they stop at a place billed as a genuine haunted house that is now a tourist attraction. It is said a husband killed his wife with a hatchet in one of the rooms. They go in and take the tour. In the room where the murder occurred, the husband feels a dark presence. This story has a nice twist at its conclusion.

8-“Terror in Cut Throat Cove” (1958) – This is a fairly long but riveting short story. It starts off with an American writer living abroad on the island of Santa Rita in the West Indies being approached by two American treasure hunters. They recruit him to help them locate a legendary lost ship that was carrying a massive ark/altar when it went down. It would be worth a fortune if recovered. The writer agrees in large part due to his attraction to the hunter’s girlfriend. When they successfully locate the ship, one of the divers that goes down to the wreckage returns missing his head. It is believed he either encountered a shark or had some freak mishap at the underwater site. The other divers believe it was something more sinister and refuse to dive. The leader is then forced to compel the writer to dive with him. The writer spends the next several days training and is soon diving down to the shipwreck. What they find below is a monstrous presence. This story is a great mix of horror and adventure with a hint of romance.

9-“The Animal Fair” (1971) – A drifter finds himself in the small town of Medley, Oklahoma during a carnival. Seeking shelter from the midway noise, he enters a tent where the main attraction is a live gorilla. The man who runs the attraction is a former Hollywood stuntman named Captain Ryder. He mistreats the gorilla, which seems ill to begin with. Later when the drifter leaves to move on, a storm hits, and he is picked up by Captain Ryder. During the ensuing conversation, Ryder tells the drifter about his life and inadvertently reveals a dark, horrifying secret. This story has nothing supernatural in it but remains a terrific weird tale with a shocking ending. Incidentally, the original version published in Playboy Magazine was so badly altered by their editors that Bloch said the story had been “brutally attacked and physically violated.” Luckily, the original version of the story has appeared in several anthologies since then.

For my write-ups on two more Bloch stories “The Shambler from the Stars” (1935) and “The Shadow from the Steeple” (1950) follow this link http://www.vintagehorror.com/node/93 .

1-“Rooum” (1910) – A man named Rooum shows up from time to time to do construction work for the narrator of this tale. Rooum was a nervous man terrified of any place likely to produce echoes. After spending a night abroad with Rooum, the narrator hears him saying peculiar things in his sleep. It comes to light that Rooum believes he is being pursued by a phantom runner which is driving him mad. Near the end of the story Rooum devises a plan to try and destroy his constant spectral pursuer.

2-“The Beckoning Fair One” (1911) – Writer Paul Oleron comes across a house for lease more convenient to his present situation. He takes the vacant house and settles in. His best friend is a woman named Elsie, who obviously has feelings for him. When she visits him at his new place, she gets a bad vibe from it and tells him he will never finish his present manuscript, which is one of great importance to his career. It also seems the house, or something inside it, dislikes Elsie as exposed nails mysteriously appear to cut her and previously solid wooden steps break beneath her. When alone, Oleron begins to hear the sound of a woman brushing her hair, and as time goes on his mind seems to become infected by an overwhelming obsession in regards to the evil, spectral woman. This novella is the work Onions is best remembered for and was even called the greatest ghost story in English by the Algernon Blackwood. I did enjoy the tale but not to the same extent as Blackwood. It deals primarily with the mental degradation of its main character, and there are few actual manifestations of the malevolent ghost he thinks resides in the house with him. Onions was inspired to write it after noticing the unique static sound generated when a woman (his wife in this case) runs a brush through her hair.

3-“IO” (1911) – A young woman, still recovering from an illness that brought her near death, reads a book of Keats poetry based on Greek mythology. She has been having strange dreams that she thinks will soon merge with reality. She begins to see all sorts of mythical beasts like Centaurs’, Satyrs’, and snake-people, as it seems a dark god may be coming to claim her.

4-“The Cigarette Case” (1911) – A man relates a strange tale from his past, spurred by a cigarette case of a friend. It involves a time when he and another man were traveling abroad and encountered an old house with two women with whom they both become infatuated. The whole affair is called into question when they return to the house on a following day.

5-“Benlian” (1911) – A man who works sculpting miniatures of people he’s photographed meets his neighbor Benlian, a statue sculpture. At first he is put off by Benlian’s demanding personality but agrees to look at the man’s all-consuming endeavor. The statue he is shown is a grotesque thing with disproportionally large arms. Benlian claims it is his god. Further visits occur resulting in both men becoming obsessed with the statue and Benlian’s desire to transfer his soul into it.

1-“Gateway of the Monster” (1910) – Carnacki investigates a house with a room haunted by a vicious entity. People who sleep in the room are found strangled to death the next morning. Even when left unoccupied, the room’s bed is found disturbed as though slept in. The thing that haunts the room is one of Carnacki’s more monstrous encounters.

2-“The House among the Laurels” (1910) – Carnacki investigates a large manor house in disrepair and with a reputation for being haunted. It is said that just before the horrible things happen, blood starts to pour from its walls. Carnacki sets up his magical defenses to protect himself and several villagers who have been prompted to help out. He is shocked when these defenses fail, and the whole group is endangered.

3-“The Whistling Room” (1910) – This is the story that made me a fan of Hodgson’s work. In it, Carnacki investigates a room in a castle in Ireland where a disturbing whistling sound emanates. The room is haunted by something supernatural and extremely powerful that will push Carnacki to the limits of his skills. I love the imaginative form this thing takes and the spooky reason behind the haunting. This is my favorite Carnacki tale.

4-“The Searcher of the End House” (1910) – In this case, Carnacki is investigating his mother’s house. Doors slam at night when there should be no one there, and an inexplicable smell of mildew can often be smelled wafting about. The house is said to be haunted by the ghost of a woman searching for her ethereal son.

5-“The Horse of the Invisible” (1910) – The first born female of the Higgins family is said to be cursed by an apparition of a horse when she begins courting a mate. Much to everyone’s surprise, the legend appears to be true when Mary Higgins starts to hear mysterious hoof beats in the night. Things accelerate during Carnacki’s investigation when Mary and her fiancée are physically attacked by something with an enormous horse head.

6-“The Thing Invisible” (1912) – Carnacki is asked to look into a murder in an old chapel apparently carried out by a cursed, animated dagger.

7-“The Haunted Jarvee” (1929) – Carnacki investigates a friend’s old ship The Jarvee, which has a reputation for being haunted. This task is made more dangerous by the fact it is at sea during his investigation. This means he must not only deal with the ominous shadowy forms that swoop across the water from every direction towards the ship but also survive deadly supernatural storms that threaten to rip the ship apart.

8-“The Find” (1947) – This is a non-supernatural mystery solved by Carnacki about a rare, exceptionally valuable book of which only one copy of was supposed to exist. A second copy surfaces and is verified by three experts as authentic. It must be determined how a second copy from the same time period exists when everything pointed to there only being one made.

9-“The Hog” (1947) – This case puts Carnacki in great peril from a dark entity from beyond that takes the shape of an immense hog. It has been terrorizing the dreams of Carnacki’s client. When Carnacki uses new equipment to try and figure out what is causing it, he finds himself trapped in a small protective area against the powerful beast. He sees down into a hellish pit in the floor where the demonic Hog is moving towards the surface to try and gain access to our world.

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If you haven’t heard of Mr. Wilbanks, he and fellow scribe Mark Justice co-wrote the novella DEAD EARTH: THE GREEN DAWN that came out from PS Publishing in 2007. The two also co-hosted the Pod of Horror podcast for several years; although, he has since had to leave the show due to other commitments. He and Robert N. Lee edited the DAMNED NATION anthology put out by Hellbound Books in 2006. He has had several short stories published, including a couple coming out from Postscripts: “The Cacto Skeleton” in issue#19 and “Time Changes” from book #20/21. There is also an excellent interview with him after his story in the link below.

http://www.horrordrive-in.com/serendipity/index.php?/archives/405-THE-BL…

You can also keep up with David T. Wilbanks at http://ablogofmars.blogspot.com/ .

1-“The Other Bed” (1908) - A man travels to Switzerland just before Christmas to spend time at a resort enjoying its snowy sloops. Unfortunately terrible weather prevents him from being able to do much. Despite his being there alone, he is given a room with two beds. He has an ill feeling about one of the beds and refuses to sleep in it. Strange things begin to occur, as the bed often looks slept in, a hotel attendant keeps bringing him whiskey he claims was ordered for the room, and he starts to have disturbing dreams. It turns out the room has a dark history to it.

2-“Outside the Door” (1910) – A woman gives her theory on ghosts being similar to radio transmissions and then recounts an evening she spent in a haunted house and its ghostly sounds.

3-“The Room in the Tower” (1912) – A young man has a recurring nightmare of visiting a school friend’s house to stay. He is told he will be given the room in the tower to stay in by the friend’s mother. For reasons he does not understand, he dreads going to that room. He always wakes up before he can find out what terror this room holds. When a day comes where he finds himself at that friends house for real, everything progresses as it had in the dream. He is given the tower room and soon finds out for real what his dreams had been warning him about.

4-“The Light in the Garden” (1921) – A man inherits his uncle’s house that is in bad need of repair. He stays in a nearby lodge where he can see the house and its garden from the window. He is saddened to hear the family butler died shortly before his arrival. Soon afterwards he begins to see a lantern light moving through the garden when no one should be there. He also hears knocking at his door, which when opened reveals no one. Other strange phenomena occur which unveils a long lost secret.

5-“The Horror Horn” (1922) – A man vacationing at a ski resort finds himself forced to stay inside due to bad weather. There another man, who is an avid mountain climber, tells him how he encountered some small, stout, hairy man-creatures while atop a nearby area referred to as The Horror Horn. The legends of these sub-human creatures speak of horrible fates that befall anyone caught by them. Later, the man has an encounter of his own with the dreadful things.

6-“Negotium Perambulans” (1922) - An old church in the secluded, difficult to reach village of Polearn contains carved and painted wooden panels which are used to form an altar rail. The panels displayed the angel of Annunciation, the angel of Resurrection, the witch of Endor, and the last depicts a scene with a hooded priest holding a cross toward a hideous slug-like creature. Below it was written,“Negotium perambulans in tenebris” from the 91st Psalm which translates to “the pestilence that walketh in darkness.” A legend claimed the panels were originally part of an ancient church that sat nearby until an evil man tore it down to build himself a house out of its materials. He used the altar as a table to dine and play dice upon. One evening he screamed and was found a withered heap, dying on the floor quoting the same scripture as is below the panel. A large shadow crawled across the floor and out of the room. The main character of the story moves to Polearn which he had fond memories of from childhood visits. He is informed that another man died in a house built from the old church in a similar fashion. He even broke into the church and smashed the panel showing the creature in an attempt to rid himself of the dark thing he claims was stalking him. However, the panel was found reformed and undamaged. The man’s death followed soon afterwards. An artist has since moved into the house and shows the protagonist his paintings that depict the world through nightmarish eyes. This story comes to a swift conclusion after a great build up. It feels like an M.R. James story to me.

1-“The Temple of Death” (?) – A traveling Christian evangelist named Paullinus stops at the house of an old tribal warrior in Gaul. Paullinus works to convert the people as he goes from village to village. He is warned by the warrior to stay away from a place they call The Temple of the Grey Death. It is a place where criminals are taken to be fed to a dark god of the forest. He agrees to avoid it, but when traveling to the next village, he begins to hear a pack of wolves near him and ends up seeking shelter in the house of that temple’s priest. He soon encounters the devouring beast first hand.

2-“Basil Netherby” or “The House at Treheale” (1903) – A man receives a letter from an old friend named Basil Netherby. The envelope is distressed and stained in spots but more bizarre are the crosses roughly sketched in ink on all four of its corners. In it Basil, a musician, writes about how well his life going is and includes some samples of music he’s been working on. On the letter’s final page, its theme changes. It is written in a small, weak hand. The friend begs him to come to the house he recently moved into at Treheale and to come unannounced, indicting he is in dire need of help. Inside more crosses are drawn as is the credo “He descended into Hell”. The man decides to follow his friend’s request and goes to spend some time there. When he has his friend’s music looked at by a professor, it is found to be a work of genius but seems evil in some way. What follows at the house at Treheale is a good ghost story with several unnerving events including a surreal vision of the spirit world and the dark beings that reside there.

3-“The Closed Window” (1903) – A man takes possession of a house with an old tower attached to it. The tower has a bad reputation with the locals. The man and a friend decide to enter a room in the tower which has been shut up for a long time. Their dog is nervous in the chamber, and once the window is opened, they find it looks out into a world that is not their own.

4-“The Grey Cat” (1903) - A young boy feels himself drawn to a secluded pool of water that has an evil reputation. He goes to it despite promising his parents he wouldn’t. He finds a grey cat there that is very affectionate towards him and he becomes fond of it. He starts to have strange dreams involving the pool of water. He begins to sneak off when possible to see the cat. The cat refuses to follow him beyond a point where a large cross becomes visible. As time passes the cat seems to grow larger, and the boy finds himself in grave danger.

5-“The Slype House” (1904) – A man whose mother died at a young age is raised by a father who has little use for him. He goes to school abroad and there learns of dark arts from an old master. After the death of his father, he moves into Slype House. He has no friends, and those he passes on the street view him with fear. One night when he is in his fifties, he looks back on his life and regrets having no wife or children. He goes into a secret room he keeps and attempts to summon the spirit of the only woman who ever loved him, his mother. Unfortunately, in this attempt he encounters something else and crosses over into a dark realm where he is pursued by some demonic being, putting his soul in jeopardy.

6-“Out of the Sea” (1904) – A priest who serves a poor seaside village is approached by the richest family in the destitute place. They tell him they keep catching glimpses of a strange goat-like thing they never see clearly. It smells of sea salt and death and gives off an evil aura. They have glimpsed it ever since a wrecked ship drifted ashore. They even saw it cavorting about in a devilish fashion around the site. They plead with the priest to help them get rid of the thing. He agrees and goes to their house. He soon becomes convinced they are hiding some dark secret that may explain the reason for the demonic creature’s interest in them.

1.“The Prescription” by Marjorie Bowen (1928) – A group who gathers at a friend’s house to celebrate Christmas Eve welcomes a medium as part of the evening’s entertainment. They are disappointed in her when she gives details of a murder that couldn’t be related to the house. It is newly built, and no murder has occurred there. They dismiss the medium’s information as false. Later a doctor among them tells an unbelievable tale of a stranger who came to him in the house late in the night seeking medical help. It is odd because no one other than those in the house should even be aware of his presence in the town. The next day, he and his friend try and piece together what happened the previous night when he accompanied the stranger to offer his assistance.

2.“The Other Santa” by Thorpe McClusky (1949) – An advertising agency decides to put on a special Christmas radio program where they record their own “miracle”. They find a little girl who is paralyzed and needs an expensive surgery to repair her spine so she can walk again. They set the house up with recording equipment and hire a “Santa” to deliver gifts and a big check that will pay for the operation. Everything goes as planned, but before the Santa is about to leave he says some unscripted, unusual things. Immediately afterwards the hired Santa arrives with the exact same gifts, check, etc. Everyone is forced to try and figure out what has occurred.

3.“Ringing in the Good News” by Peter Ackroyd (1985) – A man keeps receiving phone calls re-playing his domineering mother-in-law’s original call announcing the birth of his son. He is suspicious a cruel joke is being played on him until he receives the call while his mother-in-law is in the same room with him. Not pure horror but definitely an eerie little tale.

4.“Red Christmas” by David S. Garnett (1985) – A police detective spends little time at home with his wife during a cold Christmas season because of a rash of seemingly motiveless murders. In each case the victim had unlocked the door to their assailant and their Christmas decorations were knocked about, but nothing was stolen. The answer to the mystery is an interesting concept and ties in with a common Christmas tradition.

5.“Snow” by Al Sarrantonio (1996) – The day before Christmas a brother and sister wish it would “snow forever!” It immediately starts to snow, and they soon begin to regret their wish.

To order a copy of the Mark Justice and Michael Knost edited anthology APPALACHIAN WINTER HAUNTINGS: WEIRD TALES FROM THE MOUNTAINS, follow the link below:http://www.woodlandpress.com/book/folk-lore/appalachian-winter-hauntings… .