Tony Richards - Three Dozen Terrifying Tales

[dem bones]

Tony Richards - Three Dozen Terrifying Tales (Shadow Realms, 2021, originally 2014)

Steve Upham

Preface: Thirty Years of Horror

Headlamps
The Waiters
The Spanish Portrait
Birchiam Pier
Beautiful Stranger
Hamadryad
At the Church of St. Jack the Ripper
The Crows
The Cat, the Ladder, & the Man Mo Shrine
Mr. Smyth
Shadows
By a Dark Canal
The Black Lake
Too Good to be True
Lightning Dogs
Siafu
The Moon Also Rises
The Lords of Zero
Child of Ice
Misdirection
Discards
Night Game
The Cure
At the Circus of the Dead
The In-Betweeners
Non-Existent Cats
The Brother
Man, You Gotta See This
The Sentinels
The Irrigators
Gone-Away Bay
Streets of the City
Our Lady of the Shadows
After Dark
Pages From a Broken Book
A Matter of Avoiding Crowds

Where these terrifying stories first appeared

Blurb:

An old man makes a strange deal with the Devil. A harmless-looking woman proves to be a lot more dangerous than she first appeared. A dark lake holds a devastating secret, as does a dismal housing project and a beautiful secluded beach. Learn the origins of vampire-hunter Abraham van Helsing. Visit a weird circus and face your worst fears. What in heaven's name is a 'lighting dog'? And surely crows can't hurt you ... can they?

There’s some gore, murder, and mayhem to be found here, but an awful lot more atmosphere and psychological horror in these stories. And all of them first saw publication in professional magazines, anthologies, and e-zines.

Survive the cover, and you're in for a treat.

The Lightening Dogs: (Jenny & Helen Barber [eds.], Here & Now #2, Autumn 2002). Dave Meecham, a lonesome Whetstone schoolmaster, first learns of the lightening dogs in a West End pub via the resident bore. Legend has it that, back in the'forties, the local hunt was dramatically abandoned when four beagles were frazzled on a live rail near Totteridge Common. But never fear! It only takes a lightening storm for their vicious phantoms to rise and stalk the Northern line for ... sustenance.

Misdirection: (Richard T. Chizmar [ed.], Cemetery Dance #49, Summer, 2004). A last minute addition to the Edinburgh Festival. Chopper, a one-man Jim Rose Circus, does things with a circular saw, scimitar, air-powered nail gun, axe, meat hook, bolt cutters .... And he's big on audience participation.

By a Dark Canal: (Elizabeth Counihan [ed.], Scheherazade #29, 2007). "I believe it to be a scientific fact that, if a grown man should retain his health and sanity, then he must go through the motions of breeding at least once a week." Blown out by Matti the barmaid and desperate to meet his quota, 20-year-old Abraham Van Helsing picks up a prostitute. Eadie proves an inspired choice. She's a self-loathing vampire, desperate for death but incapable of suicide. Can her client perform the necessary? Van Helsing persuades Eadie to meet his brilliant mentor, Prof. Andrew Vander Hoog, who will surely rid her mind of ridiculous delusions ....

The Spanish Portrait: (Elizabeth Counihan [ed.], Scheherazade #30, 2008). Tod Webster, struggling US artist in Madrid, is approached by the descendant of a Count who once sat for Velasquez. 'Juan' offers a whopping $1000 plus expenses for Tod to paint his likeness. There simply has to be a horrible catch.

The Waiters: (George H. Scithers & Darrell Schweitzer [eds.], Weird Tales, March-April 2006). "Look at this nice view. I wouldn't mind a room her myself." Escape from the Ivydene Care Home for the Elderly, Birchiam-on-sea, where fiends in white uniform feast on the souls of those who die in their care.

To be continued

[dem bones]

Keith Minnion, Siafu, Cemetery Dance, 2003.

Siafu: (Cemetery Dance, #45, 2003). "They are God's creatures, and like all His creatures have their special purpose." Father Liam McCullum takes a post at a Tanzanian mission fifty miles from the nearest town, the solitary male working alongside six medically-trained nuns. The priest is concerned at the presence of siafu, twenty-million strong colonies of female driver ants —"one vast grinding and devouring machine." Sister Helen, who makes little attempt to conceal her contempt for the newcomer, explains that the male ants are an evil necessity for breeding purposes, but otherwise hopeless—. She insists Father McCullum hear confession, as it's been five long years since the sisters' last. With each 'sinful' revelation it becomes ominously apparent that, as with the driver ants, the brides of Christ still have ... needs.

Night Game: (Andy Cox [ed.], Black Static #5, June-July 2008). One for the Sport is Supernatural dept. Eric Menway, veteran salesman, is stranded overnight in a post-industrial (trans: stone dead) Midlands town of soul-annihilating grimness. The place would have absolute zero to justify its continued existence were it not for two fantastic football teams - Shadderton Atheletic and Shadderton Rovers - who very few bar locals will ever be aware of. Their latest match seems to have lasted an eternity.

The Moon Also Rises: (James R. Beach [ed.], Dark Discoveries #9. Winter 2007). Three tourists roll up drunk in the small town of Sangue de Dois shortly before midnight, as the locals prepare for the Bullfight from Hell ....

At the Church of St. Jack the Ripper: (Shadows and Other Tales, 2008). Narrator rents a video nasty from a dodgy London dealer and inherits Anna Crouch, a scaly-skinned demon taken human form, soon to achieve world-wide notoriety as 'The Torture Teacher,' serial murderess of homeless youths. Her work done, the demon hands over to the apprentice to continue the butchery.

[mrhappy]

Nice to see Tony Richards getting a little bit of love on the vault. Always enjoyed his short stories. Just one of authors that seems to have a knack for telling a good story.

Mr Happy

[dem bones]

May 10, 2022 17:12:44 GMT mrhappy said:

Nice to see Tony Richards getting a little bit of love on the vault. Always enjoyed his short stories. Just one of authors that seems to have a knack for telling a good story.

Mr Happy

I was delighted to find so many of his stories compiled in one place. Personal favourites to date are Headlamps (still regard it as one of his finest), The Lightening Dogs, Misdirection, and creepy nun classic, Siafu. Particularly looking forward to a rematch with The Black Lake.

Headlamps: (Mary Danby [ed], 14th Fontana Book of Great Horror Stories, 1981). Northern Colorado. Back in the autumn of 1934, old Harry was scorched and disfigured in a car accident caused by a drunk driver. He’s remained on the mountain ever since, shunting lone drivers off the narrow road and into the abyss with his decrepit, dynamite-laden truck. Tonight it's the turn of victim number fifteen, John Turrell, lost en route to Pikes Peak.

Child of Ice: (Herbert van Thal [ed.], 22nd Pan Book of Horror Stories, 1981). "Christ, what a night to have a baby." The car breaks down in a snow blizzard as Jack drives heavily pregnant wife Celeste to Toronto General Hospital. While Jack sets off on foot to raise the alarm, the snow moves in on the stranded vehicle. It has big plans for baby ...

The Crows: (Trevor Denyer [ed], Midnight Street #12, Spring 2009). Howard and Marjorie move from London to the tiny Hertfordshire village of Little Baddew to live out retirement in peace. The weird behaviour of the massed crows should serve as a warning that there's little prospect of that for anyone, anywhere in the world. Proper pessimistic, this one.

Hamadryad: (Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Dec. 1991). Fuller, press photographer, and Rod Mackenzie, reporter, join a snake hunt on Tai Mo Shan mountain after a King Cobra kills two men. Mackenzie, who is ophidiophobic, doesn't know that Fuller knows the journo has been sleeping with his wife ...

[dem bones]

The Cure: (Stephen Jones & David A. Sutton [ed's.], Dark Terrors 6, 2002). A cancer victim with six weeks to live pays a visit to Madame Celeste, faith healer, as a last throw of the dice. Initially, he believes it to be the best £50 spent in all of his thirty-two years. But then ....

The Irrigators: (Richard Davis [ed.], Space 9, 1985). Only the blind are equipped to realize that the fall of invisible rain amid a freak heatwave heralds alien invasion!

Too Good to be True: (William P. Simmons [ed.], Vivisections, 2003). In the wake of his wife's desertion, Alex books a short holiday in Rome. On his first night, Ginny, a gorgeous college girl in the hotel room next door, invites herself in while he's watching an adult movie on cable. Her verdict of the action; "Not bad. But a little tame." Their next 48 hours are a protracted orgy with shower and dining out interludes — Alex is having the time of his life! Best enjoy it while it lasts because, when something seems too good to be true, it surely is.

The Black Lake: (Mary Danby [ed.], Realms of Darkness, 1985). Three best pals on a fishing trip in Missouri defy the hick's warning and set up camp beside the shunned black lake. They live just long enough to learn that its waters are an all-devouring ever-morphing ooze ....

[dem bones]

Streets of the City: (R. Chetwynd-Hayes [ed.], 18th Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories, 1982). Fiorella Hotel, Lexington New York. For twenty-one years, Marshall Harris, Broadway director, has lived with the guilt and shame that he ran while his fiancé, Kris, was gang-raped and dismembered in the park. Now his engagement to Patty coincides with a random murder epidemic across the city, the bewildered culprits, soon apprehended, each claiming to have heard the voice of a young woman urging them to kill. The victims — a chorus girl, gifted actress, crippled barman, the detective investigating the case — have a common denominator. They're all on friendly terms with Marshall Harris.

Shadows: (Richard Davis [ed.], Space 7, 1981; As by 'Richard Faust'). A creepy companion piece to The Irrigators, I guess. This time, the alien body-snatch menace originates in the coal cellar beneath the Rakers' house in Tennsville. Young Terry Raker and his best pal, Peter, are the first to realize that all around them are being replaced by their shadows, but who is going to listen to the ravings of two imaginative kids?

After Dark: (R. Chetwynd-Hayes [ed.], 17th Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories, 1981). Greenwich Village, New York. Jazz legend Jaybee Klane has been dead twenty years when his new, ground-breaking album After Dark is released to a mixture of rave reviews and outraged cries of "hoax!" Jaybee died of a bullet wound to the head. The verdict was suicide although his manager, Kenneth Zoth, knows this to be nonsense. Now the pair are reunited in the crumbling Bleeker Street slum that Klane called home ...

Discards: (MF&SF, Sept. 1983). "When a sufficient number of people believe in a new god, then that new deity comes into existence. Necessity is the mother of invention, even of the holy and supreme." Alcoholism has cost 32-year-old Robin Brook his wife and kids, his home, his career. Destitute in London, he falls in with a group of winos sat, as though in worship, around a fire on a patch of waste ground. The tramps' desperate needs have brought into being a terrible god who is theirs alone. This is bad news for human beings. "Perhaps we shall outnumber the clean people one day."

Streets of the City is nasty. Add this, the raunchy Too Good to be True and Discards to personal picks of a top notch selection.

[dem bones]

Latest news from Birchiam-on-sea, pretty vacant, etc.

Birchiam Pier: (Christopher Golden, Tim Lebbon & James A. Moore [eds.], British Invasion, 2009). Stifled by overprotective parenting, pre-teen Sam and his friends embrace danger on the sea-front.

In-Betweeners: (Charles Black [ed], Seventh Black Book of Horror, 2010). A sequel of sorts to the above. Darkly clad youths malinger in the shadow of the pier, and you would do well to leave them to their business. Through no fault of his own, our narrator is present when they were set upon by beered-up louts, and witnesses something he shouldn't. Something impossible.

Beautiful Stranger: (Gothic.net, 2002: Walter Diociaiuti & Paul Kane [eds.], Albions Albträume: Zombies!, 2005). In the wake of the bloodless zombie uprising, the living come to accept that the walking dead have no interest in eating their brains or flesh, they're just harmless, passive, strangely beautiful cold people. Our narrator, an unashamed womanizer, inadvertently takes in Cheryl, the most drop dead attractive creature he's ever seen, and falls hopelessly in love with an emotional vacuum.

Man, You Gotta See This!: (Going Back, 2007: Stephen Jones [ed.] Best New Horror 19, 2008). When Old Man Hubert, reclusive artist, dies, opportunist housebreaker Jerry Mullingrew breaks in as the hearse pulls away, makes off with five from several hundred lethally bewitching canvasses ... and destroys mankind.

The Lords of Zero: (Ramsey Campbell, Jack Dann & Dennis Etchison [eds.], Gathering The Bones, 2003). Different decade, alternative Discards, these being eight close-cropped spawn of the notorious Craven Estate. As with the tramps in the earlier story, these youths are the no hopers, merely living out their days to zero purpose, until their desperate need births a new God.

[dem bones]

At the Circus of the Dead: (John Pelan [ed.], Lost on the Darkside: Voices from the Edge of Horror, 2005). Knight's Travelling Circus is unique in that it gives the audience exactly what they've come to see, even though they might be loath to admit as much. Simbata the lion-tamer, the Human torch, the Flying Ramones and their colleagues don't do death defying. An instant favourite.

Non-Existent Cats: (Andy Cox [ed.], The Third Alternative #32, Autumn 2002). Black comedy interlude. Megan, an eighteen-year-old Goth,"into S&M clothes and imagery though not the reality," is frightened of, and allergic to cats. Doubly bad luck, then, that the ghost in her flat is an invisible, curtain-shredding, furniture-clawing feline.

Our Lady of the Shadows: (R. Chetwynd-Hayes [ed.], 20th Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories, 1984). Mary-Jane Potter, a young American tourist, becomes the sixth and final victim of Black Magicians operating in the shadow of Notre Dame cathedral. Centuries-old diabolist Michael Le Vant and cronies are bent on resurrecting a Goddess, their Goddess.

The Cat, the Ladder, & the Man Mo Shrine: (Darrell Schweitzer & George H. Scithers, [eds.] Weird Tales, Spring 2002). A young Aussie living in Hong Kong is entrusted with the egg from which a God will rise to create a new universe .... at the cost of this one. A Taoist priest begs him to pass it to his safe keeping.

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The Brother: (Mary Danby [ed], Nightmares, 1983). A lonesome only child, five-year-old Charley Dean wills into existence a brother only he can see. The invisible boy is fiercely protective. The invisible boy is not very nice.

Mr. Smyth: (Johnny Mains [ed], Back From The Dead, 2010). Well into his eighties with zero dress sense, terminal cancer and an unsightly paunch, Mr. Martin Edward Smyth still has an irresistible way with the most attractive young women London's West End can offer. What's his secret?

The Sentinels: (Andy Cox [ed.], Black Static #3, Feb. 2008). Rick, stranded in the Sonora desert, need no longer fear predators now he is at one with six giant cacti.

Just three to go.

[dem bones]

Gone-Away Bay: (This Way Up #4, 2002). A love letter to Jamaica. Against local advice, a tourist malingers at Samuelson's Cove after nightfall and very nearly falls prey to a monster from outer space. A huge dreadlocked fisherman patiently learns him the error of his ways.

Pages From a Broken Book: (Andy Cox [ed.], Black Static #7, Oct/ Nov . 2008). When his partner of twelve years unexpectedly walks out, Rob, a tutor at the Birchiam Adult Ed College, takes up internet dating. Beginners luck hooks him up with Lara, a statuesque, stylish woman with similar literary tastes - except one. She owns a vast collection of rare occult titles.

A Matter of Avoiding Crowds: (Trevor Denyer [ed.], Roadworks #16, Summer/Autumn 2003). Reclusive Soho resident Frank Lancey determination to keep off the busiest thoroughfares gets him trapped on the mazy streets of an alternative London.

No hesitation in recommending this one. I'm sure fans of the Pan & Fontana horror and ghost books in particular will have as good a time with these Three Dozen Terrifying Tales as I just have.