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Post by dem bones on Aug 21, 2022 12:01:22 GMT
John Reppion - Anthony Clarke Is Sick: Anthony's office job is so pointless that after five years employment with the company, he's still not found out his duties. Bedridden with flu, he calls accounts and asks Debbie on the desk to put him through to 'Anthony Clarke,' to see if anyone actually realises he works there. Maybe now he'll finally get to learn the big secret.
Wendell McKay - Brierley Day: Brierley Hall, Mettleford village on Ramble Fens. Sir Geoffrey Houghton welcomes home his beautiful 18-year-old granddaughter, Elizabeth, for her participation in the annual festivities. Back in 1565, the paladin Sir Edward Houghton liberated both the Hall and Lady Margaret Carthorpe from the clutches of evil Henry Burlison, necromancer and sorcerer, and his heroics have been yearly celebrated in period costume pantomime ever since. You'll have guessed the star role set aside for Elizabeth.
Drinkers at The Shorn Badger avoid The Hall and it's grounds as cursed, haunted or both, and within hours of her arrival Elizabeth is unnerved by a dark figure watching her from the trees. Meanwhile, Sir Geoffrey and Jenkins, the faithful retainer, prepare to fulfil a terrible bargain with an ancient foe.
Albie Swain - Beneath You : No idea. Fixation with what lies beyond? The yearning to get the whole pointless exercise over and done with? I like the ghost train bits.
Christopher Wood - Edward: Kevin and Cindy enduring a budget caravan park holiday in the Loire Valley, weather, wet. Kevin liberates a six-foot wooden cut-out of a human figure by the roadside, thinking it makes for a neat souvenir. He names it Edward. Back at the caravan site, a mystery Peeping Tom disturbs the couple during the night, before Kevin is viciously attacked by the old woman who works in the cafe. The site manager explains that it is because he took the black wooden man. "They are to mark the site of bad car accidents, and each figure represents a life lost on the road." Celine, his assailant, is the bereaved mother of a boy commemorated in such fashion. A horrified Cindy insists her husband put Edward back where he found it, but Kevin has no intention of doing so, until .... Didn't think much of Mr. W's story in Vol 2, but this one is outstanding. Also enjoyed Brierley Day.
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Post by dem bones on Aug 22, 2022 15:25:35 GMT
Wayne Mook - Family Man: Another brain-strainer. The huntress (a vampire?) is captured by bizarre and terrible game.
Neil Christopher - Surface Tension: Two fishermen are stranded on Harpers Spit, a small island off the Suffolk coast, once commandeered by the MOD as a base to conduct an ill-considered experiment in particle physics. Mindful that the pair face death by hypothermia - or far worse - two game retired seamen attempt a rescue. They might see tomorrow, provided they keep clear of building six.
Billy Turner - Fresh Souls: Billy Turner - Fresh Souls: A trout-fishing break at Stoke Abbot, Dorset, for Bob Gates and Charlie Potter. Unfortunately, they book in at Mabel's Guest house, a vampire in brick and mortar requiring fresh souls for nourishment.
James Brough - The Man: Mum and Dad drag son to the Department store to meet Santa. After queueing outside for ages, the little boy is welcomed to the grotto by a creepy fatso in red suit and fake white beard who promises to visit his room on Christmas Eve, and, oh yes, he'll bring his special sack.
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Post by dem bones on Aug 23, 2022 11:33:15 GMT
Billy Turner - The Hermit: Hartford, Devon. Tony, newly moved in on Taylor Lane, pays a courtesy call on the next door neighbour. Mr. Oliver Ranbaldi, an aged recluse, is a practitioner of DIY plastic surgery. From the hideous results, it's clear he's yet to master the basics. And would it really hurt him to open a window? Place stinks like an abattoir!
Matt Bowdler - The Case Of The Fragrant Phantom: The erratic, Dairy Cow-addled Baker Street detective investigates a ghost at Christmas. The groans you hear may be your own.
Neil Christopher - Secret Recipe: Granny Pearl's homemade jams have won the WI's best preserve award three years running. Two thugs posing as gasmen discover the secret of her success. Paul Newman - Storm Dog: "It's death, or the sure foretelling of it." Sea Palling, Norfolk. When John Marlowe, a capable landscape painter, passes around his sketch of the sand dunes, he's thrown out of 'The Rising Sun' into a bitter gale. Marlowe eventually reaches a second inn, 'The Fisherman's Return,' where the few locals are friendlier — until they take a look at his work from earlier in the day. Marlowe forcibly evicted from a second premises, and left to the mercies of "the storm dog." A top-notch terror tale of East Anglia. Joins Edward and Brierley Day as a personal pick of the volume.
Billy Turner - Sidney: Helen hasn't seen her next door in days and wonders if husband has done her in. Bert says it's more likely she's left the miserable git. Helen's inquisitive nature gets the better of her. Despite lack of gore, the book's most mid-period Pan horror vignette to date.
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Post by dem bones on Aug 24, 2022 9:51:41 GMT
Next batch. Out of sync, but unlikely anyone will be the least bothered.
Christopher Wood - Spaghetti Head: A horrible and deadly haunting in a plush hotel room ruins three young mens' Christmas. Told straight.
James Stanger - Beggar's Banquet: "Look, sit by the table and I will cook you some of my homemade burgers." The war on poverty continues. Calvin Vickery, angel of mercy, taking the destitute from the frozen streets to spend the night at his warm, if disgusting, Hammersmith flat. Gore, vomit and gloating sadism with a social conscience. A Pan horror of the nasty Norman Kaufman school
Billy Turner - The Calling of the Sea: Suicide ain't romantic. James Brough - Quiet Desperation: Will a dopey, gentle fat lump of Labrador retriever make for an effective murder weapon?
Just the two stories to go ...
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Post by dem bones on Aug 26, 2022 8:03:54 GMT
Daniel McGachey - They That Dwell In Dark Places: "Please do not laugh when I state that I cannot abide partially open curtains during the hours of darkness." Halloween at a gentlemen's club. The jovial exchange of ghost stories and penny dreadful horrors gravely upsets Ashbourne, whose youthful determination to experience supernatural adventure was rewarded this time last year. Ashbourne's employment at a firm of solicitors took him North to the former Greymarsh Priory, long since empty and proving impossible to let on account of it's evil repute ... He's not known peace of mind since. Another stand-out story from a strong selection. Revived the following year as title story in Mr. M's debut collection. Wendall McKay - Hotel Naiade: An American tourist plays Sir Galahad to Antonia, a beautiful young Italian whose mother, Guiletta, is apparently being held captive by members of her own witch-cult. What is now the Hotel Naiade was a palace built by the sorcerer, Giacomo Carcara, during the papacy of Alessandro Borgia. Carcara's spirit has since lived on in its bricks and mortar, but despised renovation threatens to destroy him unless one can be found to act as a - technically - willing blood sacrifice.
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Post by dem bones on Aug 29, 2022 14:22:17 GMT
Anon [Christopher Wood] - Gory Tales from England's Gaols: IV: November, 1894. Colonel Sebastian Chambers and his Bosworth, Mr. Ambrose Dubois, investigate a locked room mystery at the East End home of Magnus Rocester, the world-famous industrialist who has been torn to pieces before the mirror. Blood everywhere. Entrails all spilled out. Giblets tossed about the room. It's disgusting! Who could have done such a thing — and how?
A note appended at foot of the MS and concerning the fate of Mr. Dubois is signed 'R.C-H.'
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