David Ludford - A Place of Skulls & other tales

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David Ludford - A Place of Skulls and other tales. (Parallel Universe, 2016)

Matthias Grünewald

A Place of Skulls
Ain't No Grave Can Hold My Body Down
Almost Human
Bonestaff
Bridesmaids
Dummies
Heretics, Neophytes and Nemesis
Killings Clowns
Skinnybones
Sleepwalker
The Box
The Burning Tree.

Blurb:
Parallel Universe Publications presents twelve tales of terror published in Schlock! magazine.

The loss of Gary Fry's consistently rewarding Gray Friar Press earlier this year was a terrible blow, but by God are PUP doing more than their bit to fill the void! Since this time last year the Riley's have launched collections from Kate Farrell, Ezeiyoke Chukwunonso, Adrian Cole, Andrew Darlington, Steve Lockley & Paul Lewis, Richard Stains, Johnny Mains. Most, if not all, have been raved over elsewhere on this supremely popular forum by our resident non-critic (no names, no pack-drill, it was me, etc.), but, happily, several have attracted favourable proper reviews in places like Fear magazine too. And now this, the debut from David Ludford, is off to a most promising start.

A Place Of Skulls: Can a nightmare be inherited across several generations? The people of a certain Eastern European country have long memories where the despised Prince Berezovsky is concerned. The mad monarch, whose role model was evidently Vlad Tepes, will neither be forgotten or forgiven for his excessive cruelty, which is very bad news for his descendant, Janis. The young man suffers the persecution of an ancient witch who may not believe that the sins of the father's father's father's father should be laid upon the children but she'll perform a duty by her people regardless. Welcome, Janis, to the place of skulls!

A sprightly opener, liked it well enough, but little did it prepare me for this next, the very wonderful story of Mr. Skinnybones

Ain't No Grave Can Hold My Body Down: Skinnybones, the last of an ancient race, is weary of his solitude and wonders if he dare risk abducting a woman-human to provide him with children. To do so would require his leaving Donnithorpe woods and entering the town which has not been safe for his kind since the Dark Ages. Decisions, decisions .... the ghoul murders, robs and gnaws on a stranger while he thinks it over.

On taking the plunge, Skinnybones' first port of call is The Fox Inn where he inadvertently chats up Sally Robertson, barmaid-cum-prostitute, and makes an enemy of George Jones, who has recently taken to stalking her. When the pub shuts, a humiliated Jones jumps Skinnybones in the dark, battering him with a baseball bat until certain the cowled freak with the weird teeth won't be getting in anyone's way from now on. Jones disposes of the corpse in his tip of a back garden. The makeshift grave attracts crows, scores of crows, making a racket fit to raise the dead ....

Meanwhile Sally and her formidable big sister Kate decide it's time to put George in his place once and for all ....

Almost Human: As the name suggests, a Humeleon is a half human, half chameleon, the result of covert biological experiments at Larksoken laboratories thirty years ago. When a whistle-blower leaked the story to the press, it brought down a government. But what happened to the children spawned in the lab?

Old timers Chester and Tyler are patrons of Marlon's Cafe. The highlight of their day is when the very lovely young Janine Garvey stops by for a coffee and chat before continuing on her morning jog. Today on removing her track-suit top she briefly exposed something Tyler wishes he'd not seen. A patch of tell-tale reptilian skin on her arm. Unfortunately, Marlon, nosey parker that he is, also caught a glimpse. He's read all about these humeleon scum in the Daily Sentinel who only print the truth and are never further than a phone-call away. Ace reporter Dan Challis agrees that this is too good an opportunity for his quality rag to miss.

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Bonestaff: Friend Skinnybones alluded to the uprising versus Avric, the Tyrant King, in tipsy conversation to Sally at The Fox's Arms, and here we have an account of a particularly grim episode from those dark days. A party of five soldiers, fresh from butchering a boy, arrive at the Abbey, demanding Bonestaff identify any Deniers (those who dispute Avric's right to the throne) among the Brotherhood. The Abbot assures the Sergeant that, the Order are loyal to a man, and invites the troops to dine as his guests. Brothers Yewing and Marsden have cause to be poisonously unhappy with this arrangement ...

Bridesmaids: As children , twin sisters Nicola and Jayne were abducted by Semirg, a lecherous, damnably ugly demon. They've remained in his scaly clutches to the present day, but, for one of them, all that is about to change. Semirg is to wed Alice, a human (for the time being), and it is the groom's pleasant dilemma to choose which of the young women is to serve as bridesmaid, which to be butchered and fed to the hounds, the prospect of which has him drooling in imbecile ecstasy. Nicola is tough and resilient as Jayne is fragile and sensitive but, truth is, we don't want to lose either.

On the eve of her nuptials, Alice is having second thoughts. Meanwhile, Semirg's stag party is in full swing and Danok, his conniving nephew, fancies some action with Nicola, or Jayne, or Alice or, preferably, all three ....

Around this time last year, PU published the excellent And Nobody Lived Happily Ever After by Kate Farrell, an author "pathologically incapable of writing a happy ending." On this showing, David Ludford is the opposite. The title story and, arguably, Bonestaff apart, these Gothic fantasy tales are as optimistic as 'horror' fiction gets. Which is not to say they lack moments of unpleasantness!

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Dummies: A trio of mannequins, left behind in the store on the death of its proprietor, make good their escape by smashing through the shop window. With the female dummy taking the lead, they embark on a yuletide murder spree, striking first outside The Plough Inn. Colm McKenzie, the town's undisputed #1 drunk, never knew what hit him other than it was bald and naked.

Three years on, Brian Kellwood, a reporter on the local newspaper, is researching a book on folklore and murder. Kellwood links the fatal assault on Colm to that of several subsequent unexplained deaths in the vicinity, and approaches the police with his suspicions that the dummies are involved. DS Bryant good as boots him off the premises, but only because he knows the hack is on to something . There's many a twist and turn before this one is resolved. Not being up on contemporary horror, hadn't heard of Schlock! magazine until now, but if they have any more like this guy they are onto something good.

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Heretics, Neophytes and Nemesis: The Archbishop Macarius and his men offer the villagers a stark choice. Convert to the new one true religion or face death at the stake as "heretics." Serena, a powerful Black witch, is among those who choose to die in excruciating agony rather than renounce their Pagan beliefs, but urges adopted daughter Tabatha to go through with the charade and live to see the Old Gods' revenge. Rest assured, it is suitably bloody and spectacular.

Killer Clowns: " ... you would not like what you saw underneath were you, by some misfortune, to observe it!"
A bona fide circus horror of the most unpleasant stripe. It is a long-standing tradition among the townsfolk of Zemerzy that, once a year, they take the performers of the travelling circus into their homes and lavish hospitality upon them to the point of lunacy. Failure to provide complete satisfaction warrants dreadful "justice."

So it is that Mayor Zola's family are obliged to entertain obnoxious, Whiskey-sodden clowns Bendrick and Chalfont. The imposition becomes intolerable when the lecherous pair take a shine to Amelia Zola and, especially, her fatally attractive daughter, Eloise ....

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Skinnybones: Since last we caught up with him the ghoul has relocated to Saltham Forest, otherwise, business as usual. Val takes a dim view of Mr. Bones' latest outrage and, with the dubious assistance of her brother, prepares to torch him from the face of the earth. Between action sequences we learn a little more of Skinnybones' back-story and what he looks like with his clothes off.

Sleepwalker: Another creature from hereditary nightmare is unleashed to commit murders of barbarous cruelty. The pathologists agree that whatever ripped up the sisters was neither recognised beast or human. Ray, who was sweet on Becky, even suspects some kind of Minotaur, but that way lies madness. Meanwhile in a café across town, the catalyst plots further atrocities.

The Box: Peter Sheldon-Norris is too decent and sensitive for this hateful world of ours. He'd do well to last a day were it not for his protector, a magic TV set. The box solves all his problems, dispenses sound advice, fixes those who give him a hard time so they'll never do it again. No matter how bad it gets, he can rest secure in the knowledge that the box will never stab him in the back.

Sucker.

[Warning. The Box contains scenes of an M. R. James fan in peril of extreme violence which some readers may find distressing]

The Burning Tree: A great sacrilege has been committed on Nairn Hill. Some heretic fiend has cut down the silver birch marking the grave of Matthew, the murdered Wise-Child. Cal, the official village idiot, feared some great calamity was imminent when he beheld a spectral youth muttering gibberish on the hill, the solitary part of which he could decipher being the name "Sophia." The only Sophia hereabouts is married to Joseph, the judicious district elder. Can it be that this kind-hearted woman is about to perform some heinous crime?

[Shrink Proof]

This all sounds like great stuff. Just when I'm in the process of moving house and trying to reduce the amount of stuff around me, another one for the "buy it soon" list. Sigh...

[vaultadventcalendar]

Dec 1, 2016 6:43:59 GMT Shrink Proof said:

This all sounds like great stuff. Just when I'm in the process of moving house and trying to reduce the amount of stuff around me, another one for the "buy it soon" list. Sigh...

I enjoyed the collection a lot. Was alternating between A Place Of Skulls and 100 Creepy Little Creatures' Weird Tales content which made for a rewarding reading experience. That Riley's are publishing début collections by, among more established names, gifted, relatively 'unknown' authors bodes well for the genre, not least the forthcoming PUP anthology. Can they top the genre-bending Kitchen Sink Gothic? Big shoes to fill.

Hope we get to see some more of Skinnybones in action!