Vault Advent Calendar 2019

[Swampirella]

Dec 15, 2019 6:40:14 GMT vaultadventcalendar said:

Day Fifteen

Shrinkproof The moon, looking like it’s leaking, seen from Inverness in August 2018.

We've friend darkbrabo to thank for not only suggesting, but providing a first English translation of Gris-Gris, the late and very great Eddy C. Bertin's horrible tale of love, jealousy, voodoo, and ... but that would be telling. Most English and American readers got their first taste of Eddie's love when his The Whispering Horror (aka The Whispering Thing) was published almost simultaneously by Van Thal and Robert Lowndes in The Ninth Pan Book of Horror Stories and Weird Terror Tales #1 respectively, having been rejected by John Spencer's Supernatural Stories! To best of my knowledge, the superb The Whispering Horror (Shadow Publishing, 2013), remains his only English Language collection to date. Charles Black featured a Bertin original, The Eye in the Mirror, in Second Black Book of Horror ("he wasn't cheap!").

Thanks to darkbrabo for translating this story & Shrinkproof for the photo; I enjoyed the twist at the end even more than Ramon getting his comeuppance.

[darkbrabo]

Dem also deserves praise for editing my grammatical errors! Enjoy the story!

[dem]

Dec 15, 2019 17:23:38 GMT darkbrabo said:

Dem also deserves praise for editing my grammatical errors! Enjoy the story!

Not at all. I barely touched the text file. Sure, a professional proof reader would maybe tighten it up still more, but you've done a wonderful job. Eddy C Bertin on top My Fingers Are Eating Me form, too. Thank you so much for sharing.

[jamesdoig]

Dec 15, 2019 6:40:14 GMT vaultadventcalendar said:

Shrinkproof The moon, looking like it’s leaking, seen from Inverness in August 2018.

Gee, that's crackingly good photo.

[ripper]

Thanks to Darkbrabo for translating. I really enjoyed this one. I like tales with a twist, and Gris-Gris had a deliciously ironic one. Also thanks to Shrinkproof for another fine pic.

[dem]

For any slowcoaches, the story so far:

1. Ogden Nash - The Three D's

2. Anon - His Wife Had Left Him

3. Lindsay Stewart - Strictly For The Birds

4. W. Baker Evans - The Children

5. Alex White - The Clinic

6. Fay Woolf - Slowly

7. Alphonse Courlander - The Graveyard

8. Joseph Payne Brennan - Black Thing At Midnight

9. Frederick H. Christian - I'll Kiss You Goodnight

10. Norman Kaufman - Lady on Display

11. Patrick Carleton - Dr. Horder's Room

12. Charles Black - The Con

13. David A. Riley - The Corpse-Maker

14. Angela Blake - Stiff

15. Eddy C. Bertin - Gris-Gris

[vaultadventcalendar]

Day sixteen

Alan Hunter The Cambridge Beast, Dark Dreams #6, 1988

I am hugely grateful to dear Ro Pardoe for again coming to the rescue and somehow persuading the notoriously 21st Century-shy Mary Ann Allen to provide another of her excellent stories for Vault annual travesty. The Cambridge Beast first appeared in David Cowperthwaite & Jeff Dempsey's Dark Dreams, #6, 1988 and is reprinted, in slightly amended form, in the expanded version of The Angry Dead, (Richard H. Fawcett, 2000). No Jane Bradshawe, church restorer, this time, but one Penny Cole, Cambridge graduate, with a warning against the pursuit of any and all healthy college activity.

Attachments:

Mary Ann Allen - The Cambridge Beast.pdf (66.91 KB)

[Swampirella]

Dec 16, 2019 6:45:56 GMT vaultadventcalendar said:

Day sixteen

Alan Hunter The Cambridge Beast, Dark Dreams #6, 1988

I am hugely grateful to dear Ro Pardoe for again coming to the rescue and somehow persuading the notoriously 21st Century-shy Mary Ann Allen to provide another of her excellent stories for Vault annual travesty. The Cambridge Beast first appeared in David Cowperthwaite & Jeff Dempsey's Dark Dreams, #6, 1988 and is reprinted, in slightly amended form, in the expanded version of The Angry Dead, (Richard H. Fawcett, 2000). No Jane Bradshawe, church restorer, this time, but one Penny Cole, Cambridge graduate, with a warning against the pursuit of any and all healthy college activity.

Thanks to all concerned for another fine story. I have to say I had no idea people did such things!

[ripper]

Thanks to the elusive Mary Ann for this creepy tale. I, too, have not heard of Cambridge students climbing university buildings. I wonder what Monty James would have had to say about it.

[ropardoe]

Dec 16, 2019 16:25:05 GMT ripper said:

Thanks to the elusive Mary Ann for this creepy tale. I, too, have not heard of Cambridge students climbing university buildings. I wonder what Monty James would have had to say about it.

When Mary Ann wrote the story, night climbing wasn't all that well known outside of Cambridge, and Cambridge graduates, but it seems to turn up all over the place now.  I read a detective novel about it a year or so ago.  And Oleander Press has been issuing several reprints and new books on the subject: www.oleanderpress.com/climbing-cambridge.html

[Shrink Proof]

I remember reading a book about it called "Cambridge Night Climbing" (I think) many decades back. The original climbers were active in the 1930s and a bunch in the 1960s decided to resurrect (and hopefully better) the activities of their predecessors. One of their proudest achievements in the late 60s was managing to simultaneously climb the two towers of Kings College in total darkness and string a banner reading "Peace in Vietnam" between them, much to the annoyance of the University authorities when it was visible the morning after. Apparently the powers that be were unable or unwilling to take the risk of climbing the towers themselves to remove it, even in broad daylight, and eventually managed to get a line over the top and cut it, so it fluttered down. The ropes securing each end to the towers were visible for years afterwards though.

[helrunar]

Marvelous story and photo, Dr Shrink Proof! 

cheers, Helrunar

[cauldronbrewer]

I've finally caught up on the Vault Advent Calendar. Thanks to everyone who has contributed stories, photographs, or illustrations, and to Dem for pulling everything together.

I found "The Cambridge Beast" unsettling not just for the creature but also for the prospect of climbing those buildings. I have no head for heights, so any story that involves fear of falling (see also Robert Westall's The Stones of Muncaster Cathedral) has an edge at making me tense.

Dec 13, 2019 23:42:55 GMT helrunar said:

If you haven't read Wylding Hall by Elizabeth Hand, you might enjoy it. I've read it twice and been fascinated both times. Sandy Denny and Nick Drake are two of my favorite artists and I have a few "acid folk/psych" compilation waxings sitting around so I felt the novella had been written just to me...  references to old Faery lore, as well

I second this recommendation. Still my favorite among the horror novels I've read in 2019.

[Swampirella]

Dec 13, 2019 23:42:55 GMT helrunar said:

Scarfolk... more than ever, the face of Britain today. That's a pretty funny poster... not one I had seen before.

If you haven't read Wylding Hall by Elizabeth Hand, you might enjoy it. I've read it twice and been fascinated both times. Sandy Denny and Nick Drake are two of my favorite artists and I have a few "acid folk/psych" compilation waxings sitting around so I felt the novella had been written just to me...  references to old Faery lore, as well.

www.goodreads.com/book/show/25010941-wylding-hall

cheers, H.

I'm half-way through Wylding Hall; it's excellent!

[helrunar]

Yay! I had the feeling you'd like it!

H.