Samantha Lee - Worse Things Than Spiders (Shadow Publishing, 2013)
Preface
David Sutton - Of Spiders And Cats And Other Nasty Things: An Introduction To Samantha Lee
Worse Things Than Spiders
Take-Five
The Island Of Seals
Jelly Roll Blues
Silent Scream
Scoop
Cat's Cradle
Bon Appetite
Over My Dead Body
Catcawls [verse]
Sea Change
Which Witch
Nobody Thinks He's A Bad Guy
About Samantha Lee"To me horror is not about monsters and mad axemen. it's about finding out the nice bloke you've been living with for twenty years is a serial killer. Or that your granny is something even worse." - Samantha Lee.
Thirteen slick, snappy tales of the bizarre macabre by one-time scripter of popular kids Tv show
Rainbow, though it's doubtful that even their impromptu rave with an off his face Shaun Ryder could have prepared Zippy, George and Bungle for this nightmare experience. Black jests, full-on horrors, conte cruels, a poem, and even a feelgood fantasy rooted in a ribald joke. Author's chatty commentary throughout adds to the morbid entertainment.
Worse Things Than Spiders: (
Me magazine, 1991). A singular cure for arachnophobia. Jenny, a year out of drama school and struggling, reluctantly accepts two days role-play work on a management skills training program at a plush Hampstead hotel. Jenny hates playing the lowly role of downtrodden maid/ skivvy as it accurately mirrors her own situation. Worse, there's a massive, incredibly weird human-spider hybrid haunting her room, a very needy one at that, who has mistaken her for its mother ....
Take-Five: (Stephen Jones & David A. Sutton [eds.],
Fantasy Tales #15, Winter, 1985). Sax-ace Zoot recovers from a mid-set black-out to find himself sat among an exclusive audience in the coolest jazz club watching his heroes jam on-stage. The manager encourages him to step up and join them. As read by none other than the Man In Black, Valentine Dyall on Capital Radio's
Moments Of Terror in 1977.
Jelly Roll Blues: (Stephen Jones & David A. Sutton [eds.],
Fantasy Tales #7, [Robinson series], 1991). Should you meet a tramp on Oxford Street who claims to be Santa Claus, be nice to him and he'll grant you a wish. Just remember to speak up as he's a little deaf!
In other news, Pete cops off with that buxom barmaid at
The Hollybush.
The Island of the Seals: (Herbert Van Thal [ed.],
The 18th Pan Book Of Horror Stories, 1977). Who'd be a were-seal during the culling season? The sad story of Miss Moira Spencer, a reclusive fifty year old author whose body was washed up on the shore of a wildlife sanctuary shortly after she made a terrible discovery on the beach.
Silent Scream: Stephen Jones & David A. Sutton [eds.],
The Anthology of Fantasy and the Supernatural, Tiger, 1994). "Rats everywhere, thriving on dead flesh, sharpening their teeth on human bones, turning on each other when the corpses got too skinny, cycling and recycling themselves in an obscene orgy of cannibalistic gluttony."
Fifty years after she and her family were marched off to Auschwitz, Mrs. Irma Longford is committed to a padded cell, suffering from the worst case of DT's the staff have ever seen. Refusing any form of counselling, Irma is discharged on the understanding that she's a chronic alcoholic and one more drink will kill her. Everyone agrees its tragic that this lovely woman should have endured the death camps, but what they can't know is that Irma found her time there extremely enjoyable. Taken by a sadistic guard named Blucher, she'd assisted him in torturing her fellow Jews. Now her life is almost done, Irma's one regret is that she can't shake the memory of the corpse-eating rats from her mind ...
Cat's Cradle: Original to this collection and inspiration for Dave Carson's cover illustration. Bastit the cat, who has been around since the pyramids were a work in progress, realises that Maria's son, the new addition to the family, is an evil piece of work destined to become one of the most infamous tyrant's in history unless he's snuffed out. The child's grandmother is of similar mind.
Bon Appetite: (Stephen Jones & David A. Sutton [eds.],
Fantasy Tales #16, Winter, 1986). Fat, loud, speciesist Earthlings Fred, Martha and perpetually bawling baby Fred jnr., visit a backstreet restaurant on Celphi. True to form, Fred demands. He demands a menu in English. He demands the waiter put the toddler some place where he doesn't have to hear it. Most of all, he demands something - anything - to eat RIGHT NOW.
Catcawls: (Stephen Jones & Neil Gaiman [eds.]
Now We Are Sick: An Anthology Of Nasty Verse, Dreamhaven, 2005). Children, don't be wicked or this could happen to you! To be honest, tiny me would have been thrilled by such a Hell-sent opportunity to inflict terror.
Over My Dead Body: (
Bella, 1994). Adulterer and his mistress holidaying in Morocco are stalked by menacing figure in a long white robe ...
Sea Change: (Richard Davis [ed.]
Spectre 4, Abelard, 1977). Jellyfish-hunting child is swept out to sea to be rescued by a beautiful ghost-girl desperate to make amends for a past tragedy.
Which Witch: (
Me magazine, 1995). Drama at Gareth and Olwyn's Halloween Party. Their marriage went off a cliff when 'Devil Woman' Meredith Hughes cast her spell over the faithless Gareth, and for his wife, tonight is the final straw. Bad enough "their" guests consist entirely of his old Uni crowd, worse they act as if she's not even there. And to crown it all, there's his scarlet woman flaunting everything she has at all comers. After a few hits on the Whiskey, ugly thoughts turn to murder ...
And saving the most uncomfortable read to last:
Nobody Thinks He's A Bad Guy:(Stephen Jones & David A. Sutton [eds.],
Dark Terror 6, Gollancz, 2002, as
Aversion Therapy). Unnamed protagonist endured violent abuse at the fists and belt of his brutal father throughout childhood, perfect training for his eventual career as state torturer.
To read
Worse Things Than Spiders is to wonder why it's taken this long for a selection of this prolific author's short horror stories to see the light of day, so another well done to Shadow Publishing who have recently issued a second edition with three additional stories which we'll come to shortly ...
