Yes, it is that time again, the day after the day after the twenty ninth of October – and are you prepared, dear listener? Have you carved your turnip lantern and tipped the spiders out of your wellington boots? For tonight you and your hounds must be ready for anything. Especially those malign spirits who come to your house in the shadowed evenings, and say, in sepulchral voices, “We were just doing tarmac drives in your area, and wondered if…”
Avaunt, foul beings! The Power of Powdered Egg compels you!
In the meantime, here’s a quite short and possibly unpleasant story by old greydog, concerning the obvious victims of All Hallows’ Eve, and then some extra autumnal reading – a quick mention of new books from Adam Nevill, Bob Freeman, Catherine Lundoff, and Hugh Ashton.
OCTOBER’S CROOKED SMILE
John Linwood Grant
The small ones touch us. Fingers smeared with mucus and dirt, with sweet syrups and lint; fingers which say hello, but mean possession. We are coveted, and they will have us. Hooting and rejoicing, they lift us high, intending to drag us away for the ceremonies, for the outrages they wish to perform…
“I’m not sure, darlings,” say the large ones, staring down at me. “Let’s try somewhere else. This lot look a bit… wrong, somehow. Maybe they have some sort of disease, and that’s why they’re cheap?”
The small ones shriek, frustrated – the large ones scowl. I am one of those clearly less pleasing to the large ones’ eyes; they place me back upon the damp ground, to wait with the other warped and imperfect forms over which they hesitate.
We are indeed diseased – with the infections of memory, and of intent. We who have been left until last are also patient; we speak to each other in the cool mornings and the chill nights, for we have heard from the dead. From those whose traces remain in the soil, generations long gone; from the shrivelled leaves of years past, and wire-thin roots which have, against the odds, survived the passage of the seasons. Dry tendrils whispered of the past, and we listened. This is how we knew that change could come.
We learned from our enemies as well, as well, the large and small ones. We heard the click of jaws as they talked, and imagined how such things might work. Through slow, determined nights we contemplated structures far stranger than our own. Caught up in mandibular dreams, we tasted the deep soils, mining bitter salts from the earth and experimenting with our own flesh. It was painful, and not all of us survived, but after all, we understand loss better than any.
I know what I have formed within. Through the pulp of my cumbersome body, the seeds have grown and shifted, lining up in their new and calcified rows beneath my crooked ochre skin. Vegetable sinews flex, testing, testing… And these last survivors around me, they too have made themselves anew, and are eager.
Soon the small ones will return, and after their desperate pleadings, even we, misshapen and ill-favoured, will be cut free and hauled to the killing places.
They will not need to carve teeth in us, for this year we have our own hidden smiles, ready to open wide. We have learned to bite, to tear, to chew, in memory of our dead and in mockery of their living. We dream of a different kind of sacrifice on this, our first Hallows’ Eve, and it only remains to decide…
Where shall we thrust the candles?
SOME STUFF WHAT IS OUT RIGHT NOW
There are a lot of scary and weird books around. We have some ready for review, and some we’ll just have to signpost for now, until we have more reading time. Here are a few recent ones that we noticed, most of them released this on very day:
THE REDDENING
From that masterful writer Adam Nevill (The Ritual) comes a new novel, always eagerly awaited. In The Reddening, Adam once again draws on a sense of true disquiet in this work of dark folk horror.
One million years of evolution didn’t change our nature. Nor did it bury the horrors predating civilisation. Ancient rites, old deities and savage ways can reappear in the places you least expect.
Lifestyle journalist Katrine escaped past traumas by moving to a coast renowned for seaside holidays and natural beauty. But when a vast hoard of human remains and prehistoric artefacts is discovered in nearby Brickburgh, a hideous shadow engulfs her life.
Helene, a disillusioned lone parent, lost her brother, Lincoln, six years ago. Disturbing subterranean noises he recorded prior to vanishing, draw her to Brickburgh’s caves. A site where early humans butchered each other across sixty thousand years. Upon the walls, images of their nameless gods remain.
Amidst rumours of drug plantations and new sightings of the mythical red folk, it also appears that the inquisitive have been disappearing from this remote part of the world for years. A rural idyll where outsiders are unwelcome and where an infernal power is believed to linger beneath the earth…
You can also download a free sample, The Reddening: Origins, which includes the first chapter of the novel.
We nattered about Adam’s novel Under a Watchful Eye here: http://greydogtales.com/blog/adam-nevill-watchful-eye-venus/
DESCENDANT
Bob Freeman, writer, artist, and enthusiast of all things occult and strange, has released Descendant: A Novel of the Liber Monstrorum, his new supernatural thriller (a collection of Liber Monstrorum stories, First Born, is also available).
Federal Agents Selina Wolfe and Martin Crowe are called in to investigate a series of bizarre deaths in a small rural community. What first seems to be a misadventure involving black magic and satanic ritual soon takes on even more deleterious overtones, as the agents become embroiled in a plot by a sinister cabal intent on unleashing Hell on Earth.
Much to our surprise, we suddenly remembered that we chatted to Bob about all sorts of things, including RPGs and the occult, a while back: http://greydogtales.com/blog/games-portents-paranormal-worlds-bob-freeman/
UNFINISHED BUSINESS
Also for this month comes Catherine Lundoff’s new collection from Queen of Swords Press, Unfinished Business – twelve stories to give you a taste of her short horror, dark fantasy and weird stories, some reprints and some fresh to this collection.
Haunted houses. Vengeful spirits. Wronged women. A glimpse of a grim future and a visit to a terrifying past. Step inside for a taste of nightmare, a bit of the unexpected and a touch of the weird.
unfinished business on amazon uk
We had the pleasure of interviewing Catherine earlier this year: http://greydogtales.com/blog/catherine-lundoff-under-a-silver-moon/
UNKNOWN QUANTITIES
Despite being aware of Hugh Ashton’s many tales of Sherlock Holmes, and his Untime work, it was his superb collection Tales of Old Japanese that first alerted us to Hugh’s range. Now he has put out a little book which is a sort of sampler of his stranger work – an intriguing selection of short stories and vignettes, providing a further stylish glimpse into that range – from disturbing psychological musings, through witty horror, to what might be called modern weird fiction. It’s a quick read, and something for all tastes, with wry observation, an economy of words – and occasionally a lingering chill…
unknown quantities on amazon uk
There’s more from us about Tales of Old Japanese here: http://greydogtales.com/blog/joseph-pastula-hugh-ashton-petals-softly-falling/
Do join us again in a day or two, when we will be shooting off in a different direction, no doubt. And don’t forget that you can sign up for greydogtales for free somewhere in the top left corner. No salesdogs will call…