Ramsey Campbell - Ghosts and Grisly Things

[dem]

Ramsey Campbell - Ghosts and Grisly Things (Pumpkin Books1998)

Les Edwards: Photo J. K. Potter

Introduction - Ramsey Campbell

The Same in Any Language
Going Under
The Alternative
Out of the Woods
A Street Was Chosen
McGonagall in the Head
Through the Walls
This Time
The Sneering
Between the Floors
Where They Lived
Root Cause
Looking Out
The Dead Must Die
A Side Of The Sea
Missed Connection
The Change
Welcomeland
See How They Run [aka 'For You to Judge']
Ra*e

Another 'borrowed it from the library, didn't finish it in time before it had to go back' affair, although I've some more of these stories spread over a number of mixed anthologies, including the extraordinary Spinalonga tale with which he begins this collection. I love these collections: they're beautifully written and however dark, there's a comedian in Campbell struggling to get out and sometimes - in the psycho vampire-hunter outing The Dead Must Die - the Charlie Chuckles in him gets the upper hand. Nowt funny about the deadly Ra*e, though.

Includes:

The Sneering: A retired, childless middle-class couple can only watch in frustration as first a council estate and then a busy main road are built next to the house on which they spent their life-savings. Their lives take another bad turn when Emily distractedly wanders into the road and a young motorist is killed when he swerves to avoid her. She remembers little of the tragedy at first, but Jack can't forget the look of hatred on the driver's face as he bore down on the old dear. Now his ghost is looking for revenge ...

Missed Connection: Campbell's Dr. Terror's House Of Horrors? The horrors of a train journey. As if being wedged in next to a fat lady snoring convulsively and opposite a squalling brat and its exasperated mother in a packed carriage isn't bad enough, Ted also has to endure a ghost train, glimpsed infrequently out of the window.

Ra*e: Nasty, non-supernatural horror. A fourteen year old is raped and murdered on a golf course. Her distraught mother suspects one of the neighbours and tips off the police via an anonymous phone call. When they fail to arrest the man (who is, in all probability, innocent of being anything other than creepy), she takes matters into her own hands. Reminiscent of the "Thriller" episode, Screamer, unless I'm becoming obsessive myself.

A Street Was Chosen: A ghastly social experiment on the blissfully unaware residents of a randomly selected street. The results are inconclusive, the effect on the guinea pigs pretty terminal in most cases.

So far, he hasn't gone all obscure on me at all!

Root Cause: A well-meaning, do-gooder Librarian on his probation period in the job, cracks under the strain after reporting a number of undesirables - a mother pimping her daughter, teenage dog torturers - and having an iron bar thrown through the window for his pains. He discovers that the overpass is built on the site where Druids performed human sacrifice - obviously, that's why the locals play up so abominably. Now a bus-load of schoolkids are heading straight for the dreaded spot ...

[sean]

Here's the cover for the 2001 Tor paperback edition:




As usual, this collection contains some absolute gems. 'The Alternative' and 'A Street Was Chosen' spring immediately to mind.

[sean]

Here's a few more...

The Same in any Language
During a dull holiday in in Greece, a boy, his father and the new lady in his life take a boat trip across to Spinalonga, the site of a former leper colony. Somewhat drunk, the adults leave the boy to explore whilst passing the time by having an argument which leads to the woman departing on the next available boat.

Unfortunately, there seems to be something lurking almost out of sight amongst the rocks. Eventually, the boys father gets to meet the inhabitants of the island.

Creepy stuff, this one. Nice atmosphere.

Going Under
A charity walk through the Mersey Tunnel goes badly for Blythe, as he has to make an important phone call and the signal is fading...

Cringeworthy (in a good way), the disintegration of Blythe's reason is especially well done. One of those stories that you occasionally read where you want to shout 'No! Dont do that!' at the characters.

The Alternative
Highton, a reasonably well-off businessman has a series of dreams in which his family are transposed into one that live in a rundown block of flats which belong to a landlord whom he does accounts for in his 'real' life. As time passes, and Highton begins to feel more and more responsible for his 'dream' family, the line between the two becomes blurred.

One of my favourite Campbell tales.

[dem]

The Same In Any Language would be among the first I'd pick for an imaginary Best Of R.C. collection. Have you read John Ware's much admired (by Vault people!) Spinalonga from the Pan Horrors, Sean? Not your typical Van Thal pick by any means but a series highlight. I think Ramsey and Ware's efforts compliment each other perfectly.

[sean]

I haven't Dem, but I'll have a look later (which volume is it in?) It gets a mention in the intro to 'G & GT' so I would be interested to read it.

[dem]

Sorry, should've mentioned that it's in Pan 13, the one with the werewolf portrait on the cover. Quite a lively collection as it turns out!

[sean]

Splendid, just checked and 13 is one we've got! Must put aside a few minutes to read it.
_______________

Out of the Woods
Thirsk, a publisher of cheap children's books, receives a visit from a strangely wooden character who wants him to consider buying his own book. Disposing of the visitor, Thirsk begins to feel that there is something out in the woods that surround the place. And as the books he keeps in the warehouse turn to pulp, the lights go out...

McGonagall in the Head
Working on the Birth Marriages and Deaths desk of the local newspaper, Don gets a call which he feels has to be a hoax. A Mr Moore is dictating an eighteen line poem of rememberance which is so bad it just can't be serious. When the payment to print the piece doesn't arrive the next morning, Don deletes it from his computer. Unfortunately, it turns out that the man who Don talked to on the phone was sending in his own death notice, and that he died shortly after the call. And now Don can't stop himself from making silly rhymes all the time...

Pretty funny, this one.

Through the Walls
A minor car accident outside their house throws the Pear family into panic, but the fathjer, Hugh, feels there is something deeper wrong. Is he going mad, or have the terrible feelings and hallucinations he is suffering from got something to do with the drug-addled chemist next door?

Apparently written before RC took acid, this is quite a trippy tale, although it is no fun at all for those involved.

[dem]

my friend the back of the van man, has been playing a blinder where this customer is concerned. Last Sunday's vampire themed mini-haul - Live Girls, Dracula Cha Cha Cha, an Italian I Am Legend - was crowned by Ghosts & Grisly Things, a nice signed one no less, which i'd only ever had on loan from the library and never got to finish. Anyway, back-to-back, two tales of obsession. I find Les Edwards' cover painting suitably disturbing - he of gnome-like stature and excruciating tight perm bears an uncanny resemblance to a Screaming Lord Fauntleroy of my brief acquaintance - though, as is the case with the pitch black comedy which follows, any resemblance to Dracula: AD 1972-casualties living or undead is doubtless entirely unintentional.

The Dead Must Die: Born again 'George Saint' (formerly Thomas Vincent), world's most sanctimonious man and God's spiritual advisor, wages a one-man campaign versus self-manufactured "vampires." Saint's initial victim is his own brother, Paul, who, in defiance of the Saviour's design, has committed the ultimate blasphemy in accepting a liver transplant. Saint next concerns himself in the welfare of Mary, his niece, who, with a heathen for a mother, is clearly in grave danger of contamination. Will no-one protect the soon to be orphaned teenager from this ghastly little man?

See How They Run: (Robert Bloch [ed.] Monsters In Our Midst, 1993). With the festive season almost upon us, Foulsham sits on the jury at the trial of Fishwick, a five times torture-murderer whose victims include a bully from school-days who'd mocked his gammy leg, and his father, font of all his misery. The man is clearly mentally ill, but Foulsham's fellow good men and true want vengeance. His suggestion that, as Fishwick would never be released from a secure psychiatric hospital they might extend a degree of clemency is met with incredulity, so Foulsham goes with the flow.

Fishwick's violence is not restricted to his victims and, sentenced to life imprisonment, he commits spectacular, bloody suicide. As he chokes his last, Foulsham wakes from troubled sleep with a sensation of impending doom. The girls in the office treat him differently, while minor acquaintances feign a renewed interest, fishing for the inside dirt on the trial. It is shaping up to be a miserable Christmas. He's no-one to spend it with, his leg is playing up, and all he can think of is Fishwick, Fishwick, Fishwick, Fishwick, Fishwick .....

[dem]

The Change: (Pat Cadigan [ed.], Shayol #4, 1980). "Very little pressure is needed to break the spell of civilisation - five minutes more of that bloody radio playing upstairs was about all it would take." Don, a married author working as an Inland Revenue tax accessor to make ends meet, is writing a book on lycanthrope. Everyday pressures conspire to prove his observations fatally correct. Few of us require a potion to become Dr. Hyde. In his introduction to Ghosts & Grisly Things, Ramsey shares that he considers The Change "my darkest tale."