John Burke - More Tales Of Unease

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John Burke (ed.) - More Tales Of Unease (Pan, 1969)

Andrea Newman – She’ll be Company for You
Herbert Harris – The Escort
Virginia Ironside – The Young Squire
Miles Tripp – Snow
John Christopher – A Cry of Children
Arnost Lustig – The Beginning and the End
Jeffry Scott – He Said I Could
John Brummer – Speech is Silver
Stewart Farrar – The Girl in Question
Christine Hickman – So Dark the Rose
Alexander Walton – Clegson’s Folly
Elizabeth Lemarchand – Time to be Going
Penelope Wallace – Tell David…
Alex Hamilton – The Flies on the Wall
Victor Lucas – Here Comes a Candle
R. Andrew Hall – Split Image
E. C. Tubb – Little Girl Lost
Michael Cornish – They’ll Have to Go
Alan C. Jenkins – The Blind Man
Stephen Meadows – Frances
Arthur Sellings – Jukebox
John Burke – Be our Guest

Blurb:
Here are twenty-two inventive destroyers of tranquillity, all specially selected for PAN and more than half now appearing for the first time.

Singly they tell of murder, witchcraft, madness, incest and the supernatural. Together they challenge your complacency, invading your secret thoughts to make you chary of solitude ...

"Nightmares are worse when you're wide awake ..."

Several of us have raved over the cover photo (Lucinda Cowell?) but what of the stories? Like Alex Hamilton/ Douglas Speed's various anthologies, the 'Tales of Unease' series reads like "quiet horror" a decade-plus early. Seems that way to me, anyhow.

Andrea Newman – She’ll be Company for You: Barbara, who blames brother-in-law Henry for the death of her terminally ill sister, insists he look after her cat while she travels abroad to convalesce. The malevolent moggy is her demonic familiar. Revived by Mary Danby for 15th Fontana Book of Great Horror Stories.

Herbert Harris – The Escort: She missed the last bus home from Winterbridge and foolishly attempted the short cut via the wood. Happily there's a Good Samaritan at hand to see her safely home. A variant on 'Alex White's Never Talk To Strangers, and minus the torture porn ending.

. ".... pop concert in the grounds and the Rolling Stones stayed for a night at Haworth, do you know they were terribly nice, Daddy was simply charmed by the ..."

Virginia Ironside – The Young Squire: The castle is haunted by the ghost of a young serving girl seduced by the squire, searching in vain for her lost infant. She finds her way to the bedchamber of Ronald, the present day lord of the manor. Ronald is a sadistic chip off the old block. Plenty of bonus pop culture references including conversation snippet quoted above. The idle rich are apparently big fans of P. G. Wodehouse and "old copies of The Saint."

Jeffry Scott – He Said I Could: (London Mystery Magazine #61, June 1964). Look at that poor little mentally handicapped kid building a jumbo sandcastle. Honestly, sometimes I think they're happier than the rest of us! Bless.

Stewart Farrar – The Girl in Question: Blundering hoodlums Max and Bernard resolve to kidnap a rich heiress and hold her for ransom. Unfortunately they abduct the wrong woman. Or do they?

John Burke - Be Our Guest: A desperate Philip and Miriam quit London for a quiet place in the country to be rid of Bob, their parasitic unfriend. But Bob is so determined a pest that distance proves no obstacle and very soon he's taken up residence in the guest room. An exasperated Miriam finally buries him in the pet cemetery, but that only half solves the problem. With no Bob to detest, their existence is meaningless.

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E. C. Tubb - Little Girl Lost: (New Worlds Science Fiction #40, Oct. 1955). The Professor refuses to accept that Ginny, his ten-year-old daughter, was killed in a hit and run accident, and continues to behave as though the little girl were still around, brushing her hair, taking her out for treats & Co. Desperate that he perfect his formula for a bigger, better A-bomb, the MOD hire a crippled former soldier to humour the Professor's delusion and play nursemaid to the ghost. Bob performs his role with aplomb - it gets so that he can almost see Ginny smiling beside him. Placated, the Professor knuckles down to work ....

Miles Tripp - Snow: A dying man, who has spent his entire adult life eagerly awaiting the end as it will mean reunion with his lost sweetheart, belatedly realises that he's loved his wife all along.

Arthur Sellings - Jukebox: As flying saucers fill the skies, a small town Don Juan is failing miserably to chat up a redhead in a bar. Henceforth their twin existence will consist of the same frustrating three minutes repeated on a loop.

Little Girl Lost is a best-of-volume contender along with the conte cruel He Said I Could and the editor's own contribution. The others are "good" but not really my thing (though they may of course be yours).