Paul Finch Ed. - Terror Tales of the West Country (Telos)

[davidjhowe]

Now up for pre-order

telos.co.uk/shop/horror-dark-fantasy-and-science-fiction/dark-endeavours/terror-tales-of-the-west-country/

[helrunar]

Ooohhh! LOVE the creepy Druid!

cheers, Hel.

[davidjhowe]

Now at the printers and available for Halloween ... your annual selection of top terror tales curated by the masterful Paul Finch 🙂

www.telos.co.uk

[dem bones]

The line-up. Due .... soon.

Paul Finch [ed.] - Terror Tales of the West Country (Telos, Oct. 2022)

Neil Williams

Dan Coxon - The Darkness Below
Unto These Ancient Stones
Lisa Tuttle - Objects in Dreams May Be Closer Than They Appear
The Horror at Littlecote
John Lindwood Grant - The Woden Jug
And Then There Was One
Sarah Singleton - Chalk and Flint
When Evil Walked Among Them
Thana Niveau - Epiphyte
The Hangman’s Pleasure
Adrian Cole - In the Land of Thunder
The Thing in the Water
Stephen Volk - Unrecovered
Priests of Good and Evil
S. L. Howe - Gwen
The Pixie’s Curse
Mike Chinn - Watcher of the Skies
Vixiana
Paul Finch - Bullbeggar Walk
The Tedworth Drummer
Andy Briggs - The Pale Man
By the Axe, He Lived
Lizzie Fry - Little Down Barton
Hounds of Hell
Steve Duffy - Certain Death for a Known Person
The Blood Price
A. K. Benedict - Knyfesmyths’ Steps
Lonesome Roads
John Llewellyn Probert - Soon, the Darkness

Blurb:
The West Country. England’s mystical heart. Hill-forts, ancient circles. Blessed by age-old powers, sanctified in blood. Where woods and pools stir to whispered summonings, forbidden names are carved in rock, and rebels died en masse, hanged and butchered, their gore-dabbled ghosts wandering vengeful in the rural night …

The drumming demon of Tedworth
The ocean predator at Ilfracombe
The sleeping bones at Wilcot
The creep-about killer on Burgh Island
The hateful entity in Cheddar Gorge
The flesh-rotting curse at Blackdown
The stalking spectres on Dartmoor

Includes terrifying stories by AK Benedict, Andy Briggs, Mike Chinn, Adrian Cole, Dan Coxon, Steve Duffy, Paul Finch, Lizzy Fry, John Linwood Grant, SL Howe, Thana Niveau, John Llewellyn Probert, Sarah Singleton, Lisa Tuttle and Stephen Volk.

[dem bones]

Fourteenth volume in this exceptional series, quite my favourite since the Black Books of Horror. The tried and tested formula. Stories by regular 'Terror Tales' contributors supplemented by as many again by series newcomers. Three reprints, otherwise all original material. A rousing start!

Dan Coxon - The Darkness Below: A family trip to Gough Cave, Cheddar Gorge turns to anguish for the parents when the troubled thirteen-year-old son goes missing. A false alarm; the lad turns up unharmed, but his father, our narrator, grows increasingly terrified that the Luke returned to them is an imposter. Can it be that the boy was snatched in the dark and replaced by a changeling?

Unto These Ancient Stones: Human sacrifice at Stonehenge, ghostly dancers on Salisbury Plain, and the night of the frazzled flower children.

Lisa Tuttle - Objects in Dreams May Be Closer Than They Appear: (Jonathan Oliver [ed.], House of Fear: An Anthology of Haunted House Stories, 2011). House-hunting in rural Devon, a young married couple catch a glimpse of an old-fashioned, whitewashed thatched cottage, which, for some inexplicable reason, is uncharted on the OS map. No matter how they attempt to reach it, the property remains elusive. Frustrated, they consult an estate agent in nearby Marystow. Initially affable, Mr. Yeo grows agitated to the point of hostility when they enquire about the cottage. "Tis bad luck to see 'im. Worse, much worse, to try to find 'im. You'm better go 'ome and forget about 'im. Tis not a good place for you'm."

Some years later, the couple, now long divorced, are reunited at a party. Michael claims to have finally nailed down their property on Google Earth and fed the exact coordinates to the sat nav. It would be a sin not to drive out there after all these years.

The Horror at Littlecote: 'Wild' Will Darrell, the phantom serving maid and the burning baby of Littlecote house.

TBC

[dem bones]

Early days, and it's not unlikely I've said the same thing about other volumes, but West Country is shaping up like it wants that 'strongest selection of series' crown.

John Lindwood Grant - The Woden Jug: Adventure of Justin Margrave, antiquarian, art critic, "ageing queen," a person prone to unsought brushes with the supernatural. At the request of a mutual friend, Justin joins forces with Beth Trethick, a Cunning Woman and accounts clerk at Woolworths, to nullify the lethal forces bound within a 'witch-bottle.' The jug, bearing the carved likeness of Woden's bearded one-eyed face, was retrieved from the soil at Maes Knoll during WWII. Jethro Wheeler just as soon reburied his find behind a corrugated shed when he realised its capacity for evil. For to unbind the stopper is to set free the children of angles and corners, man-hating creatures from below who gain sustenance from war, misery and despair.

And Then There Was One: Burgh Island, and the ghost of a 14th century wrecker and murderer who provided inspiration for Agatha Christie's enduring masterpiece.

Sarah Singleton - Chalk and Flint: Trapped in joyless marriage to an unfaithful, coercive bully and laughed at by "friends" whenever they think she's out of earshot, Janice, an artist, pays homage at the woodland shrine of the Flint God ...

When Evil Walked Among Them: Recalls the night the Devil's hot hooves trampled across snowbound South Devon over two nights in February and March 1855.

[dem bones]

"It's like a fairy tale."

Thana Niveau - Epiphyte: Kari and James camping overnight among the ruins of the prehistoric settlement at Grimspound. Kari is in search of an ugly yellow flower — "like a cross between an orchid and a thornapple" — as illustrated by her great-great-great-great-grandmother in her highly collectable An Elementary Treatise on the Cornubian Batholith, and Associated Intrusive Bodies on Dartmoor. Better for Kari that the Epiphyte eluded her. Sad as it is horrific, my favourite to date.

The Hangman’s Pleasure: Scenes from the grisliest episodes in the Prayerbook and Pitchfork rebellions of 1549 and 1685 respectively. The massacre at, and subsequent haunting of Sedgemoor, and Judge Jeffreys' Bloody Assizes steal the crown. Get the sense the editor enjoys writing these as much as I do reading them.

Adrian Cole - In the Land of Thunder: David Shorthouse, a newspaper columnist who writes under the name John Delve, visits Princetown to research an article on an infamous ancestor for a "Dig and Delve" article. In 1815, Thomas Shortland, the dissolute governor of Dartmoor Prison, was responsible for the massacre of several American's detained after the War of Independence. Ignoring the librarian's advice to keep off the moors until the impending storm has passed, Delve ventures out alone to fall foul of a vengeful chain gang. Ending took me a little by surprise. Delve's own battle to overcome alcoholism is convincingly depicted — or seems that way to me.

The Thing in the Water: That terrifying 'seventies public information film, and the siren of the River Dart, crying the name of the person it next intends to drown.

[dem bones]

Stephen Volk - Unrecovered: A shot at redemption for Luke Stubbings, twenty-seven, tortured by guilt over the appalling death of his best friend, Sabian Gates, in a Taliban ambush at Kandahar. Stubbings is among a group of physically and mentally damaged squaddies participating in the excavation of a Bronze Age burial mound at Conigre Hump under a 'Helping Veterans' Recovery through Archaeology' initiative. You can bet on extraordinary developments before they're done.

Priests of Good and Evil: The phantom Thomas Becket, oblivious to his fatal wounds, making haste toward Nymet village to take Vespers, and John Radford, the murder vicar of Lapford, whose ghost continues to pester lone women 160 years after his death.

S. L. Howe - Gwen: Eddie the tour guide, 42, a recovering alcoholic (lot of it about), is pursued by a mystery beauty only he can see. Gwen claims to be "a mermaid or a siren, whichever you prefer," who lives beneath the waves off the Ilfracombe coast. Is the girl even now climbing into his bed a hallucination born of his lost years, or have the bastards at the pub contrived a cruel, elaborate wind up?

The Pixie’s Curse: It's said the faerie folk hold their annual fair on the Blackdown Hills. We can neither confirm nor deny, as they are best left in peace to go about their business. The little people are notoriously merciless toward any nosey parker falls into their clutches.

[dem bones]

Mike Chinn - Watcher of the Skies: Freelance journalist Adil Kumar takes a room at the St. Aldhelm's well pub, Werechurch, to coincide with the sixtieth anniversary of an outbreak of unidentified aerial phenomena over Nods Hill and subsequent poltergeist activity across the village. Kumar, anticipating an invasion of sad "UFO nutters," has to settle for just the one. Roberta 'Bobbie' Richards, knows far more about the mysterious lights, the UFO, the attendant disturbances and invasion by extra-terrestrials than can possibly be healthy.

Vixiana: The phantom witch of Vixen Tor, raising mists, luring ramblers from the Tavistock-Chagford track to gloat over their cries as they sink in the mire!

Paul Finch - Bullbeggar Walk: (Allen Kosowski [ed], Inhuman #1, July 2004). Irked at those rich London interlopers buying up his village — indeed, most of Exmoor — retired fisherman Ned Pasco, a lifelong resident of Luxcombe Bay, challenges hoity-toity Mr. Hendon-Cooke to brave the treacherous and reputedly haunted pathway from the golf course to the sea. It's only when the City gent's girlfriend reports his disappearance that Ned reluctantly sets off in search. What's he got to be scared of? It's not like he believes the preposterous local legend ...

The Tedworth Drummer: Confiscation of a beggar's drum leads to an outbreak of violent poltergeist activity at home of magistrate, John Mompesson. Drury the drummer admits to demon-raising and insists he be tried as a witch.

It's been a joy, this one.

[dem bones]

Two new names (on me, at least), each with a supremely miserable tale to tell.

Andy Briggs - The Pale Man: Narrator and friend, Sarah, drive from their northern hometown to Somerset to put distance between themselves and Michael, the former's husband, their abusive relationship having passed the point of no return. Exhausted, the satnav playing up, they stop at a decrepit tearoom in the hills fronting an automobile's graveyard. 'The Pale Man' takes its name from the chalk figure of a stooped man brandishing a cudgel. As the elderly, blind woman they take to be the proprietor prepares their snack, a shadow passes by the window .... Another personal best of contender, almost a darker, West Country equivalent of Guy Preston's celebrated The Inn.

By the Axe, He Lived: The grisly exploits of Ubba, Viking warlord, and the phantom re-enactment of a massacre at Bloody Corner. A torture jamboree in three pages.

Lizzie Fry - Little Down Barton: When Jenny leaves him, Evan returns to his parents' farm in response to a call from detested mother, though how she can know of his whereabouts and circumstances after two decades is not something he wishes to dwell upon. The twisted, sadistic bitch is probably wise to Evan's every move since he found the strength to walk out back in the 'nineties, soon after helping father burn the livestock when the foot and mouth epidemic hit Devon. Seems Mum and Dad have neither forgotten nor forgiven his final desperate act on departure.

Hounds of Hell: Arthur Conan Doyle, 'Sir Henry Baskerville' and the yeth-hounds, souls of children who died unbaptised now banded as a pack to roam the moors. Should you hear their mournful howl there's nothing can help you.

[dem bones]

And so we reach the end of another Terror Tales, perhaps the volume this reader has enjoyed most since the series' began. Can't bear to read back through my own crap, but were I to do so, bet there's not a story didn't work for me.

Steve Duffy - Certain Death for a Known Person: (Michael Kelly [ed.], Apparitions, 2009). Back in the 'eighties, Mike, a first year student at Exeter Uni, attended Cathy's eighteenth at her posh parents' place in Inwardleigh village, Cathy being his best mate's girlfriend. Mike fancies her younger sister, but it turns out the uninvited guest who calls on him in the night has prior claim. Death assures him the only way he can save Emily is offering another to take her place. So, he picks a stranger, someone he's never likely to meet. And now we cut to the present day ...

The Blood Price: An account of the horribly hilarious divine justice that befell Husa and his men in Glastonbury Abbey for their massacre of St Indract and fellow pilgrims.

A. K. Benedict - Knyfesmyths’ Steps: With just a week to go before Jess and Oliver tie the knot, the bride-to-be and three friends arrive in Bristol to enjoy a gothic-themed hen party weekend. Fern has booked them an apartment in the fifteenth century Fosters Almshouse. Enclosed in the info pack, a single sheet devoted to its history, on the back of which, the scrawled message; "Do not linger on the Knyfesmyth's Steps after dark, and never pick up the knife." Jess is still a little uneasy about this when they set out on the late night Ghost Tour ...

Lonesome Roads: Case histories of the vanishing hitch-hiker of the Fromme to Nunnery road, and Dartmoor's homicidal phantom disembodied hairy hands! Truly, the West Country is the home of the nasty bastard!

John Llewellyn Probert - Soon, the Darkness: Mr. Robertson suggests David the young surgical registrar cover his afternoon vascular surgery at Kempton Community Hospital, somewhere in remotest satnav-hostile Somerset. It is not improbable that Mr. Robertson hates David, for today, as nurse Becki explains, sees the annual visit of the local wood Deity. There's really nothing to worry about. "All you have to do is say the right thing and it's good luck for the community for the coming year .... You wouldn't want to spoil the tradition, would you?" The reader is unlikely to share Becki's idea of what constitutes "good luck." And, seriously, you do not want to look in on the gynaecology clinic ...

What an appropriately horrible note to close on!

[Paul Finch]

Thanks for a great round-up, DB.

Everyone involved did us proud on this one.

[helrunar]

Thus far, the tales that have struck the requisite chord for me:

John Linwood Grant, "The Woden Jug" -- a memorable entry in the Justin Margrave series, with a very satisfying ending.

Sarah Singleton, "Chalk and Flint" -- excellent work from an author who is new to me. I'll be keeping an eye out for further tales from her pen.

Stephen Volk, "Unrecovered" -- spectral terror may be more comforting than chilling when contrasted with such more immediate horrors as war, or the ravages of chemotherapy.

S. L. Howe, "Gwen" -- builds inexorably to a truly chilling, bone-crunching climax. Creepy! Note to unhappy older blokes drinking alone in their local watering-hole: watch out for strangely beguiling young women with long red hair dressed in the fashion of a decade ago.

Paul Finch, "Bullbeggar Walk" -- folk horror meets the ghastliness of "gentrification" and the stark bleakness of the Devonshire coast. The Victorian stained glass with the startling motif in the ancient church had a definite echo of the "James gang."

Wonderful tales to help pass the time on my commute. Thanks, Paul!

cheers, Hel.

[finchinfin]

Just wanted to thank dem bones for always coming through with his synopses and thoughts. Much appreciated! You’re a legend, sir.