Sport Is Horror! (much revamped version)
Horror & ghostly shorts built around a sporting theme. I'm using the word 'sport' fairly loosely here as I don't consider the hunt, cock-fighting and the like as 'sports' although some people might. Same goes for chess and fishing.
John Rublowsky - Prison Ball (football)
Robin Smyth - The Dooley Street Centre Forward (football)
Micheal Marshall Smith - Sorted (football)
Stephen Dedman - The Wind Sall Blow For Ever Mair (football)
John Blackburn - Dad (ex-footballer, bit of an all rounder)
Patrick McGrath - Cleave the Vampire, or, A Gothic Pastorale (Cricket)
Daphne Froome - Last Innings (Cricket)
Lord Dunsany - Autumn Cricket
Tod Robbins - Wild Wullie The Waster (billiards)
Richard Marsh - The Fifteenth Man (Rugby)
H. R. Wakefield - The Seventeenth Hole At Duncaster (Golf)
Richard Christian Matheson - Third Wind (Marathon Running)
L. T. C. Rolt - New Corner (Motor Racing)
H. H. Ewers - Tomato Sauce (Bloodsports)
George Hitchcock - An Invitation To The Hunt
Ken Dickson - The Snorkel, The Starfish And The Salt, Salt Sea (scuba-diving)
H. R. Wakefield - A Fishing Story
Wayne Rogers' - The Devil's Prize Ring (boxing)
Arthur Conan-Doyle - The Bully Of Brocas Court (boxing) John Rublowsky - Prison Ball: Rudolf Baumer hates it when a new warden takes over at the State Prison of the Criminally Insane. They always bring their new ideas with them, change the smooth running of the place and upset the maximum security psycho's on D wing. And you really don't want to rile
them. The last time they kicked off poor Mike Miloski, only three years off his pension, was killed and "we never did find enough of him for a decent funeral".
Mr. Kurtz is the worst yet. His penny-pinching and pettiness have cranked up the tension something horrible. And now, following a minor incident in the mess room, he's cancelled tomorrow's football match. But Angel and his mates are determined and if he won't let them have a ball, well, there's this thing called 'improvisation' ...
A very welcome 'soccer' variation on the notorious
EC classic,
Foul Play.
Robin Smyth - The Dooley Street Centre Forward: The local kids hone their football skills on the bombsite. One evening they're joined by Harry Todd, new to the area, a reluctant Boy's Brigade recruit with a pathological hatred for Mr. Fairweather from said establishment and, most of all, his own mother. Narrator Smiffy is about to get toughed up by his chums for shinning the leather straight over the warehouse roof but Harry saves his skin by supplying a new 'ball' ....
Reminiscent of
Prison Break and just as deliciously horrid.
John Blackburn - Dad: Dad was a first division footballer, cross-country runner and all-round brilliant sportsman. His son was born with one leg, the other terminating in a stump just below the waist. Throughout his life the son is tormented by the sight of his fathers medals and trophies which are kept in a state of polished perfection.
When Dad dies - he either fell or was pushed under a bus by his offspring and failed to survive the operation to amputate his legs - his son gloatingly locks away all the silverware and hacks down the tree the old man used to climb.
But the old man returns. In the guise of a surgeon.
Stephen Dedman - The Wind Sall Blow For Ever Mair: Minister of Police and Deputy Minister Sir John Brisbane ('Jack the Ripper', 'Randal the Vandal' or 'the headkicker' to opponents and colleagues alike) disappears after leaving his Office, never to be seen again. Several scandals have attached themselves to his name down the years - using an Aborigine's head as a football, hanging a second in his cell and instigating the gang-rape of a third - and the rumourmongers reckon that, his past catching up with him, he's absconded to Spain. The key to the mystery is a Scottish ballad covered by popular artist Karen Rose, the girl believed to have been the victim of the rape. The narrator, journalist Michael Griffin, learns the truth at a charity football match which Karen is refereeing. Excellent.
From Ramsey Campbell, Jack Dann & Dennis Etchison (eds.) -
Gathering The Bones (Voyager, 2003)
Michael Marshall Smith - Sorted: What with all that diving and off the ball mayhem - to say nothing of 'roasting', 'bungs' and coke-binging, those Premiership footballers get away with murder! Or they do if they're Gavin Mate, anyhow. His only regret is that his sister had to die along with his parents. Because he'd still like to give her one.
While we're on the subject, Bernard Capes'
The Ghost-Leech (which I've not seen) sounds promising: A game of football played by ghosts in a cemetery, with skulls and bones as the equipment. A hapless mortal is stuck between the sticks.
Michael Avallone - The Graveyard Nine: The Ravenswood Ravens baseball team put on a dismal performance against the Melville Hawks but at least they have an excuse. They were killed an hour before the game when their team bus crashed through the safety barrier on Melville Bridge and plunged into the river.
Richard Marsh - The Fifteenth Man: With Brixham R. C. unable to field a full team due to the skull fracture sustained by half-back Frank Joyce in the previous weeks game, Steyning are hot favourites to win. In a game played in thick fog, Joyce's 'replacement' plays a blinder although he's teammates insist they're a man down. As they leave the field victorious a telegram arrives from the hospital: Frank Joyce passed away an hour ago.
Ken Dickson - The Snorkel, The Starfish And The Salt, Salt Sea: The night prior to leaving for their holiday on the Costa Brava, Robert celebrates his birthday by making love to wife Moira on the carpet after a romantic meal. Then he cuts her throat.
In Spain, he meets up with widower Maureen and her little boy, Terry. His holiday romance is progressing when he decides to go diving wearing the snorkel Moira bought him as a present. Alone in the deep he encounters a starfish with a sickle scar like that on his late wife's face which seems to have been following him since his vacation began. And worse is to come ...
Elliott O'Donnell - The Ghost in the Ring: Prize fighter Jim Rogers disposes of his next opponent Eddy O'Malley by nudging him into a quicksands. Two years later O'Malley's ghost comes to the assistance of a novice who is fighting Rogers for the Californian heavyweight championship.
Wayne Rogers - The Devil's Prize Ring:
"They called him Sunny Jim, until he entered the ring in the devil's gym and fought an inhuman, lust-crazed brute for a priceless trophy - his own lovely bride!" An absolute gem from
Terror Tales for Jan-Feb 1937.
Tod Robbins - Wild Wullie the Waster: Branstaun Tower, Scotland. A pointless argument during a billiards match leads to the premature ends of Wild Wullie Campbell and his friend Roderick Dingwall. As ghosts the "doddering old fossils" hide away in the attic by day and enjoy nightly billiards, but then the new owners arrive ...
Delightful. It's like some kind of literary precursor to the
Shiver & Shake comic strip!
Lord Dunsany - Autumn Cricket: Old Modgers, retired groundsman, spends two hours a night at the once-famous Long Barrow cricket field, watching a game only he can see. His friends are so concerned for his health that they try to get him certified. On his ninetieth birthday, W. C. Grace and fellow ghostly players make him an honorary member of the club and invite him to play for them. From what his wife - watching from the window - understands of the game, he hit a century before dropping down dead. Definitely the way he would have wanted it.
Daphne Froome - The Last Innings: Kay, a reluctant spectator at her fiancee Bill's cricket match, is startled to witness several players slowly fade to nothing or, in one case, reduced to a skeleton as he leaves the pitch. When a fierce storm greets the final innings she realises she's had a premonition of a disaster that's about to unfold and must prevent Bill and his tedious uncle Tony from entering the pavilion.
H. R. Wakefield - The Seventeenth Hole At Duncaster: A golf club on the Norfolk coast. The course has recently been extended at the expense of a strip of woodland, but members complain the hole is unplayable and a particularly foul stench periodically emanates from the vicinity. The secretary, Mr. Baxter, suffers nightmares in which he is gloatingly informed of who will be next to die at the 17th, and the voices are never wrong. After a woman is stripped and murdered by persons unknown at the blighted spot, he wisely obtains a transfer to London, where he later learns that 'Blood Wood' - as it is known locally - was once the haunt of Druids.
H. H. Ewers - Blood: If you've read his account of
The Execution Of Damiens, you'll already be all too aware that the going can get vile in a Ewers story. After vivid accounts of cock and bullfight atrocities, we are treated to the main spectacle: two men hacking each other to pieces before an avid audience, at the forefront of which stands a vampiric English clergyman nicknamed 'The Pope'.
George Hitchcock - An Invitation To The Hunt: Fred Perkins is aghast to receive the printed invitation to the local knobs’ biggest social event of the year and can’t fathom why he’s been acknowledged. Wife Emily is delighted and, when he tells her he’s not going, she reminds him of his duty to the children, his perpetual moaning that he has no contacts and the fact that the neighbours are seething jealous. She even buys him a smart huntsman’s uniform so he won’t feel left out. Come the eve of the big day, Fred is too nervous to sleep. And, as it transpires, not without good reason.
Any more?
