Anthony Masters - Cries Of Terror

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Anthony Masters (ed.) - Cries Of Terror (Arrow, 1976)

“Chilling echoes from the world of fear and darkness”

Introduction - Anthony Masters

Thomas Burke - The Hands Of Mr. Ottermole
Saki - The Open Window
H. P. Lovecraft - In The Vault
Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle - The Brazilian Cat
William Hope Hodgson - The Whistling Room
C. M. Eddy - The Loved Dead
Jane Rice - The Idol Of The Flies
John Collier - Thus I refute Beelzy
J. D. Beresford - The Misanthrope
John Keir Cross - Music When Soft Voices Die
W. F. Harvey - August Heat
John Metcalfe - The Bad Lands
M. R. James - A School Story
W. W. Jacobs - The Interruption

Fear of the unknown - Man's timeless inheritance of pain.

We may surround ourselves with the trappings of technology - but in the face of the powers of darkness we are as helpless as our ancestors at the dawn of time. The concrete, plastic and metal cannot keep out the vibration of the unknown which lurks like a mad dog in unseen corners.

Here, in this chilling collection, are stories from writers who have plumbed the deepest, dank recesses of those terrors which haunt our sleep, and bring us suddenly awake, trembling and fearful.

Impeccable selection from the author of the 'non-fiction' The Natural History Of The Vampire (Mayflower, 1974) and, as 'Richard Tate', the epic film-crew-in-peril shocker The Dead Travel Fast (Sphere, 1972) .

Lovecraft abandons his tentacled monsters for five minutes to leave us locked In The Vault overnight with Birch the village undertaker and his dead nemesis old Asaph Sawyer, a vindictive character in life with “a tenacious memory for wrongs, real or imagined.”

C. M. Eddy charts a necrophilliac’s progress in the notorious, impossibly entertaining The Loved Dead. Burke's story is very reminiscent of Bloch’s Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper in plot, except this time we’re up against a London strangler. For sheer grim, over-compensatory retribution you’ll have to go a long way to beat the murderer in Music When Soft Voices Die - you'll never look at a pair of bongos in the same light again - and Jane Rice’s demonic Pruitt is among the least tolerable children in horror fiction. Trust me, you’ll be itching for the little git to get his from the moment you’re introduced to him.

Such a shame that this appears to be Masters' only anthology as it's far better than many.

[redbrain]

I bought this when it first appeared. Recently (within the last month) I bought my second copy from a 2nd hand bookshop. I have most of the stories elsewhere. Nice cover, though.

[dem bones]

Anthony Masters (1940-2003) is probably best remembered for his children's books and the 'non-fiction' Natural History Of The Vampire, but to some of us he'll always be celebrated as 'Richard Tate' who brought us film-crew-in-peril classic, The Dead Travel Fast, featuring the anti-dynamic Marcus Obadiah, "Policeman? Priest? Or psychotic killer?" Cries Of Terror seems to have been his only horror anthology for adults, and if so, he made the most of the opportunity.

Warning; usual spoiler orgy

J. D. Beresford - The Misanthrope: William 'the Misanthrope' Copely builds a hut on the treacherous Gallard Rock off the Cornish coast. Bored with merely gawping at him from Trevone beach, our nosey narrator just has to cross the water and disturb his solitude. He believes Copely to be either insane, criminal or hurt in love - a fourth alternative, that he's adopted it as a trendy pose to drum up sales for his latest flat-lining small press masterpiece doesn't come into play as this is circa 1918 - but the truth is, the man has a peculiar and terrible affliction. "My sight is perfectly normal except when I look back at anyone over my shoulder." That's when he sees people as they truly are, the sum of their sins and disgusting vices written all over their bestial faces. His nosey visitor believes he'll prove the exception.

John Keir Cross - "Music When Soft Voices Die ...": Ben Vrackie, near Pitlochry, Perthshire. After his second wife Bridgid vanishes, tattooed presumed fallen down a gully on Ben Vrackie, Sir Samuel, the last of the infamously violent 'Black Erskines', shuts himself away in the ancestral home, fast declines into lunacy, With his last hope of fatherhood gone, Vrackie Hall reverberates with his wails of self-pity and mad laughter as he pounds a set of native drums fashioned from human skulls is heard long into the night. Dead at fifty, he looks almost twice that, and his neighbours are not too upset at his passing.
Shortly after the funeral, Henderson attends an auction at the hall. Sir Samuel's library includes a first edition of The Monk, a signed Melmoth The Wanderer and a very early (pre-Four Square) edition of Vathek, but all eyes are upon the African drums, the skins of which bear a distinctive Zulu design of a coiled servant. Mr. Menasseh recognises it as the very same design he once tattooed on the breast of a certain young woman ....
some i made earlier ....

Thomas Burke - The Hands Of Mr. Ottermole: "That was the beginning of what became known as London's Strangling Horrors. Horrors they were called because they were something more than murders, and there was an air of black magic about them. Each murder was carried out at a time when the street where the bodies were found was empty of any perceptible or possible murderer ...."

Bare hands and a garrotte replace a sharp knife, but this is Burke's thinly disguised commentary on the Ripper murders and he offers one theory as to why the murder evaded capture. Having stalked Mr. Whybrow through Mile End after dark (here renamed 'Mallon End' possibly after Jimmy Mallon, a tireless campaigner for social reform in the area), the killer murders both he and his wife in their own home and the reign of terror is under way. Unlike the Ripper, the strangler is indiscriminate; men, women, even children are all fair game for his attentions. A young journalist at the Daily Torch thinks he knows who is responsible, and confronts his suspect on a quiet street corner ...

First (?) published in The Story-Teller for February 1929, certain aspects of the story may well have influenced Robert Bloch when he came to write Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper.

W. W. Jacobs - The Interruption: With his wife dead at last Spencer Goddard can get his hands on all of her lovely money! How happy he is! For all of twenty seconds. Hannah, his cook, wastes no time in letting on that she knows more about her late mistress's "illness" - and his part in it - than he'd prefer and neither is she slow in turning the situation to her advantage. Should she die suddenly - like poor Mrs. Goddard for example - she's left a letter with her sister , the contents of which he should regret being made known to the police. Now he must think of a way to save his own neck and see hers stretched. Goddard opts for a high risk solution ...

Filmed in 1955 as classic gloomy melodrama Footsteps in the Fog starring Stewart Granger and Jean Simmons.

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We learn from Masters' brief introduction that, yes, Cries Of Terror was intended as the first of a series, and that " Each story in these collections is selected for its atmosphere of dread, its hint of dark and unknown forces, and its malignity," which certainly explains the inclusion of:

John Metcalfe - The Bad Lands: Brent Ormerod has a bad case of nerves. On the advice of friends, he leaves behind the bustle of Kensington for the peace and tranquillity of Todd, a small village off the Norfolk coast, where nothing much ever happens. Ormerod, a man given to solitary strolls, is soon fixated on a derelict tower on the sand dunes. The place makes him uneasy, gives off evil vibes, but when he questions the locals, they insist as one that all that lies at back of the dunes is Old Hackney farm. It takes another tourist, Mr. Stanton-Boyle to confirm that he's not gone mad. Stanton-Boyle has seen the tower for himself, and doesn't much like it either. "The country at the back of that place is somehow abominable. It ought to be blown up or something."

Ormerod resolves to explore the tower and the road beyond. Eventually he arrives at a deserted house. Through the window he spots a spinning wheel and instinctively realises that this is the source of the evil. Egged on by Stanton-Boyle, that night he sets out to burn it down ...

C. M. Eddy - The Loved Dead: "Wow, are they all like this?" That, or similar, was my reaction on reading my first ever Weird Tale. The Loved Dead is a story I'd return to throughout my life, hoping to recapture the rare thrill; impossible, of course, but familiarity has yet to breed contempt. We follow our unnamed protagonist from cradle to grave. His first sixteen years are nothing particularly special: a typical Lovecraft/ Morrisey social outcast, pale, sickly, academic, his lack of enthusiasm for sport or anything else mark him down as Fenham village's resident weirdo before he's done anything remotely strange. The death of his grandfather proves the catalyst. It's his first open-casket funeral, and gazing down upon grandpa's remains has a profound effect. While others mourn, all he can think is "phwoar!" Such is the turn-on provided by his mother's passing shortly afterward, our teenage loner seeks gainful employment at the local funeral parlour, where - joy of joys! - his father is the first to receive his "gloating administrations". But village life is frustrating (small population, stiffs few and far between), so he heads for Bayboro, and straight into a job with the city undertaker. But his desire for the dead is an all-consuming thing, and even Mr. Gresham's thriving establishment has it's slow days. He takes to moonlighting as a serial killer.

All is well until old Gresham catches him in the act of molesting a corpse, discreetly fires him with the suggestion he learn an alternate trade. But already the first world war is upon us, an exhilarating experience for our ghoulish friend, who promptly enlists on the promise of unrestricted access to a never-ending supply of lovely corpses. All good things come to an end, and four years later he's back where it all began, kicking his heels in Fenham, the old unnatural lust's demanding gratification. One triple-homicide later, and he's on the run. The euphoria has worn off and now he needs another fix. Are you feeling lucky tonight?

Anthony Masters. Any man who can rate something as low-key as The Bad Lands and The Love Dead is OK by me.

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Jane Rice - The Idol Of The Flies: Been so long since first read this that I completely misremembered the ending, but there's no forgetting the protagonist, Pruitt. He really is among the most spiteful, despicable little shits in the entire genre. Orphaned after engineering the "accident" that claimed his parents, poor little Pruitt is adopted by his seriously overindulgent Aunt Mona who he's smart enough to suck up to, even though he despises her guts. Pruitt's attempts at a self-manufactured but effective form of black magic, coupled with his fondness for cruel pranks verging on attempted murder, visit a living hell upon Aunt Mona, the housekeeper, her invalid husband, and especially, his neurotic tutor, Miss Bittner, until you scream for someone to strangle the bastard.

Perhaps there's such a thing as reading too much Charles Birkin because the way I recalled it, Pruitt cycled off into the sunset at the end having exceeded his quota of misery for one day.

William Hope Hodgson - The Whistling Room: Never did get off on Carnacki, though that's most likely down to tearing through the Tandem Complete Ghost Stories in one hit, rather than dipping into them over a period of weeks. On this occasion, the Ghost-finder is invited to stay at Iastrae Castle, Galway, by Mr. Sid Tassoc, who has foolishly bought the property without first consulting the Society for Psychical Research. The servants desert as one due to an invisible but unmistakeably malevolent presence whose booming whistle is capable of lifting a man off his feet.

Carnacki's a bit of a windbag, but once he remembers he's relating the supernatural outcome of a really grisly episode in Irish history involving the torture murder of the King's jester, he certainly doesn't scrimp on the horror of it all.