The Future of Horror Read online

  THE FUTURE OF HORROR

  THE COLLECTED SOLARIS HORROR ANTHOLOGIES

  HOUSE OF FEAR • MAGIC • END OF THE ROAD

  INCLUDING STORIES BY

  AUDREY NIFFENEGGER • CHRISTOPHER PRIEST • CHRISTOPHER FOWLER • SARAH PINBOROUGH • ZEN CHO • ADAM NEVILL • LISA TUTTLE • LAVIE TIDHAR • ROCHITA LOENEN-RUIZ • GAIL Z. MARTIN • DAN ABNETT • SARAH LOTZ • STEVE RASNIC AND MELANIE TEM AND MANY MORE

  EDITED BY

  JONATHAN OLIVER

  Edited by

  Jonathan Oliver

  The End of the Line

  House of Fear

  Magic

  End of the Road

  Dangerous Games

  This collected edition published 2015 by Solaris

  House of Fear first published 2011 by Solaris

  Magic: An Anthology of the Esoteric and Arcane first published 2012 by Solaris

  End of the Road first published 2013 by Solaris

  an imprint of Rebellion Publishing Ltd,

  Riverside House, Osney Mead,

  Oxford, OX2 0ES, UK

  www.solarisbooks.com

  ISBN: 978-1-84997-953-5

  Original cover art for House of Fear by Luke Preece

  Original cover art for Magic and End of the Road by Nicolas Delort

  Introduction, story notes and arrangement for House of Fear copyright © 2011 Jonathan Oliver.

  Introduction, story notes and arrangement for Magic copyright © 2012 Jonathan Oliver.

  Introduction, story notes and arrangement for End of the Road copyright © 2013 Jonathan Oliver.

  “Objects in Dreams may be Closer than they Appear”

  copyright © Lisa Tuttle 2011

  “Pied-à-terre” copyright © Stephen Volk 2011

  “In the Absence of Murdock” copyright © Terry Lamsley 2011

  “Florrie” copyright © Adam L. G. Nevill 2011

  “Driving the Milky Way” copyright © Weston Ochse 2011

  “The Windmill” copyright © Rebecca Levene 2010, 2011

  “Moretta” copyright © Garry Kilworth 2011

  “Hortus Conclusus” copyright © Chaz Brenchley 2011

  “The Dark Space in the House in the House in the Garden

  at the Centre of the World” copyright © Robert Shearman 2011

  “The Muse of Copenhagen” copyright © Nina Allan 2011

  “An Injustice” copyright © Christopher Fowler 2011

  “The Room Upstairs” copyright © Sarah Pinborough 2011

  “Villanova” copyright © Paul Meloy 2011

  “Widow’s Weeds” copyright © Christopher Priest, 2011

  “The Doll’s House” copyright © Jonathan Green 2011

  “Inside/Out” copyright © Nicholas Royle 2011

  “The House” copyright © Eric Brown 2011

  “Trick of the Light” copyright © Tim Lebbon 2011

  “What Happened to Me” copyright © Joe R. Lansdale 2011

  “If I Die, Kill My Cat” copyright © Sarah Lotz 2012

  “The Wrong Fairy” copyright © Audrey Niffenegger 2012

  “Shuffle” copyright © Will Hill 2012

  “Domestic Magic” copyright © Steve Rasnic Tem and Melanie Tem 2012

  “Cad Coddeu” copyright © Liz Williams 2012

  “Party Tricks” copyright © Dan Abnett 2012

  “First and Last and Always” copyright © Thana Niveau 2012

  “The Art of Escapology” copyright © Alison Littlewood 2012

  “The Baby” copyright © Christopher Fowler 2012

  “Do As Thou Wilt” copyright © Storm Constantine 2012

  “Bottom Line” copyright © Lou Morgan 2012

  “MailerDaemon” copyright © Sophia McDougall 2012

  “Buttons” copyright © Gail Z. Martin 2012

  “Nanny Grey” copyright © Gemma Files 2012

  “Dumb Lucy” copyright © Robert Shearman 2012

  “We Know Where We’re Goin” copyright © 2013 Philip Reeve

  “Fade to Gold” copyright © 2013 Benjanun Sriduangkaew

  “Without a Hitch” copyright © 2013 Ian Whates

  “Balik Kampung (Going Back)” copyright © 2013 Zen Cho

  “Driver Error” copyright © 2013 Paul Meloy

  “Locusts” copyright © 2013 Lavie Tidhar

  “The Track” copyright © 2013 Jay Caselberg

  “Dagiti Timayap Garda (of the Flying Gardians)” copyright © 2013 Rochita Loene-Ruiz

  “I’m the Lady of Good Times, She Said” copyright © 2013 Helen Marshall

  “The Widow” copyright © 2013 Rio Youers

  “The Cure” copyright © 2013 Anil Menon

  “Through Wylmere Woods” copyright © 2013 Sophia McDougall

  “Bingo” copyright © 2013 S. L. Grey

  “Peripateia” copyright © 2013 Vandana Singh

  “Always in Our Hearts” copyright © 2013 Adam Nevill

  The rights of the authors to be identified as the authors of these works have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owners.

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  CONTENTS

  House of Fear

  Introduction, Jonathan Oliver

  Objects in Dreams may be Closer than they Appear, Lisa Tuttle

  Pied-à-terre, Stephen Volk

  In the Absence of Murdock, Terry Lamsley

  Florrie, Adam L. G. Nevill

  Driving the Milky Way, Weston Ochse

  The Windmill, Rebecca Levene

  Moretta, Garry Kilworth

  Hortus Conclusus, Chaz Brenchley

  The Dark Space in the House in the House in the Garden at the Centre of the World, Robert Shearman

  The Muse of Copenhagen, Nina Allan

  An Injustice, Christopher Fowler

  The Room Upstairs, Sarah Pinborough

  Villanova, Paul Meloy

  Widow’s Weeds, Christopher Priest

  The Doll’s House, Jonathan Green

  Inside/Out, Nicholas Royle

  The House, Eric Brown

  Trick of the Light, Tim Lebbon

  What Happened to Me, Joe R. Lansdale

  About the Authors

  Magic: An Anthology

  of the Esoteric and Arcane

  Introduction, Jonathan Oliver

  If I Die, Kill My Cat, Sarah Lotz

  The Wrong Fairy, Audrey Niffenegger

  Shuffle, Will Hill

  Domestic Magic, Steve Rasnic Tem and Melanie Tem

  Cad Coddeu, Liz Williams

  Party Tricks, Dan Abnett

  First and Last and Always, Thana Niveau

  The Art of Escapology, Alison Littlewood

  The Baby, Christopher Fowler

  Do as Thou Wilt..., Storm Constantine

  Bottom Line, Lou Morgan

  MailerDaemon, Sophia McDougall

  Buttons, Gail Z. Martin

  Nanny Grey, Gemma Files

  Dumb Lucy, Robert Shearman

  About the Authors

  End of the Road

  Introduction, Jonathan Oliver

  We Know Where We’re Goin, Philip Reeve

  Fade to Gold, Benjanun Sriduangkaew

  Without a Hitch, Ian Whates

  Balik Kampung (Going Back), Zen Cho

  Driver Error, Paul Meloy

  Locusts, Lavie Tidhar


  The Track, Jay Caselberg

  Dagiti Timayap Garda (of the Flying Gardians), Rochita Loenen-Ruiz

  I’m the Lady of Good Times, She Said, Helen Marshall

  The Widow, Rio Youers

  The Cure, Anil Menon

  Through Wylmere Woods, Sophia McDougall

  Bingo, S. L. Grey

  Peripateia, Vandana Singh

  Always in Our Hearts, Adam Nevill

  About the Authors

  Also from Solaris

  INTRODUCTION

  JONATHAN OLIVER

  I’VE NEVER SEEN a ghost, I’ve never stayed in a haunted house, and I don’t believe in revenants seeking revenge from beyond the grave, yet the supernatural in fiction continues to fascinate me. There’s nothing better than the fright you get from a really good ghost story; certain scenes in Stephen King’s novel The Shining took my breath away and the last line of Ramsey Campbell’s classic ghost story, ‘The Trick,’ froze me with fear. However, while the ghost story has the fear of ‘the other’ at its heart, it is also fundamentally concerned with ourselves, for what are ghosts but the memories of lives lived and losses suffered? Grief and coping with loss are at the heart of several stories here: Chaz Brenchley explores the tragic death of a friend in ‘Hortus Conclusus’; in ‘An Injustice’ by Christopher Fowler, a haunting provides more than an intrepid group of ghost-hunters could have hoped for, while in ‘The Room Upstairs’ Sarah Pinborough explores a locked-room mystery through the sorrow of a grieving widow, and Eric Brown shows us that there is indeed a life after death in ‘The House.’

  Revenge is often a theme that crops up in ghost stories and in this collection we have some unusual takes on this trope. ‘The Windmill’ by Rebecca Levene is a genuine howl of anger that speaks eloquently about crime and punishment; ‘Moretta’ by Garry Kilworth reveals an interesting twist that I certainly didn’t see coming the first time I read the tale, and while ‘Pied-à-terre’ by Stephen Volk isn’t necessarily a story of supernatural revenge, its warning from beyond certainly speaks of a desire for justice.

  Ghosts as symbols of our own mortality also speak to us of ageing and the failure of the mortal flesh. This theme is chillingly and powerfully explored by two stories in this collection: ‘Florrie’ by Adam Nevill, in which the past tenant of a house draws the new owner into its influence, and ‘Trick of the Light’ by Tim Lebbon where the sight of a face at a window prompts a journey into darkness.

  With two of our American contributors we have something a little more outré, an encounter with entities that may not be entirely human. The influence of Ray Bradbury is evident in a story that is really about a yearning for the hereafter and the fantastical, ‘Driving the Milky Way’ by Weston Ochse, while Joe R. Lansdale channels the spirit of Arthur Machen into a story that nevertheless has its roots in Texas. The figure of the unknowable other is also present in the Aickmanesque ‘The Muse of Copenhagen’ by the brilliant Nina Allan.

  Let us not forget in our discussion of the supernatural, however, that the location of the haunting is often as important as the haunting itself. Lisa Tuttle’s unsettling ‘Objects in Dreams may be Closer than they Appear’ features a house that may or may not exist, but which still draws on the desires of the characters in the tale; ‘Villanova’ by Paul Meloy takes us on holiday to a static home in France, there to reveal a terrible family secret; ‘In The Absence of Murdock’ by Terry Lamsley features a very strange house and a haunting that verges on the comic and surreal; Jonathan Green takes us into the territory of gruesome horror with a visit to ‘The Doll’s House,’ while Robert Shearman’s ‘The Dark Space in the House in the House in the Garden at the Centre of the World’ sees our protagonists learning what it is to be human through their encounters with the supernatural.

  Questions of what constitutes a haunting, and even what constitutes a house, are explored in the compelling and complex stories by Christopher Priest, ‘Widow’s Weeds’ in which a stage magician finds himself possessed by a most unusual haunting, and ‘Inside/Out’ by Nicholas Royle, where that which the protagonist perceives and the spaces he finds within and outside of himself comes together in a truly unsettling tale.

  So now that you know what awaits you within, dear reader, it only remains for you to step up the front door, knock and await for that which lives here to answer your call.

  OBJECTS IN DREAMS MAY BE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR

  LISA TUTTLE

  Lisa Tuttle understands that, for a ghost story to work, it has to be as much about the human protagonists as any supernatural entities that arise. It’s all very well going for the scare or the sudden chill, but at the end of the day a house is a place where people live, whether it’s haunted or not. In the disturbing story that follows, Lisa writes about two people falling out of love and how the strange house they find affects them in a way they couldn’t even begin to imagine

  SINCE WE DIVORCED twenty years ago, my ex-husband Michael and I have rarely met, but we’d always kept in touch. I wish now that we hadn’t. This whole terrible thing began with a link he sent me by e-mail with the comment, “Can you believe how much the old homestead has changed?”

  Clicking on the link took me to a view of the cottage we had owned, long ago, for about three years – most of our brief marriage.

  Although I recognized it, there were many changes. No longer a semi-detached, it had been merged with the house next-door, and also extended. It was, I thought, what we might have done ourselves given the money, time, planning permission and, most vitally, next-door neighbours willing to sell us their home. Instead, we had fallen out with them (they took our offer to buy as a personal affront) and poured too much money into so-called improvements, the work expensively and badly done by local builders who all seemed to be related by marriage if not blood to the people next-door.

  Just looking at the front of the house on the computer screen gave me a tight, anxious feeling in my chest. What had possessed Michael to send it to me? And why had he even looked for it? Surely he wasn’t nostalgic for what I recalled as one of the unhappiest periods of my life?

  At that point, I should have clicked away from the picture, put it out of my mind and settled down to work, but, I don’t know why, instead of closing the tab, I moved on down the road and began to discover what else in our old neighbourhood was different.

  I’d heard about Google Earth’s ‘Street View’ function, but I’d never used it before, so it took me a little while to figure out how to use it. At first all the zooming in and out, stopping and starting and twirling around made me queasy, but once I got to grips with it, I found this form of virtual tourism quite addictive.

  But I was startled by how different the present reality appeared from my memory of it. I did not recognize our old village at all, could find nothing I remembered except the war memorial – and that seemed to be in the wrong place. Where was the shop, the primary school, the pub? Had they all been altered beyond recognition, all turned into houses? There were certainly many more of those than there had been in the 1980s. It was while I was searching in vain for the unmistakable landmark that had always alerted us that the next turning would be our road, a commercial property that I could not imagine anyone converting into a desirable residence – the Little Chef – that it dawned on me what had happened.

  Of course. The Okehampton bypass had been built, and altered the route of the A30. Our little village was one of several no longer bisected by the main road into Cornwall, and without hordes of holiday-makers forced to crawl past, the fast food outlet and petrol station no longer made economic sense.

  Once I understood how the axis of the village had changed, I found the new primary school near an estate of new homes. There were also a couple of new (to me) shops: an Indian restaurant, wine bar, an oriental rug gallery, and a riding school. The increased population had pushed our sleepy old village slightly up-market. I should not have been surprised, but I suppose I was an urban snob, imagining that anyone living so deep in the
country must be several decades behind the times. But I could see that even the smallest of houses boasted a satellite dish, and they probably all had broadband internet connections, too. Even as I was laughing at the garden gnomes on display in front of a neat yellow bungalow, someone behind those net curtains might be looking at my own terraced house in Bristol, horrified by what the unrestrained growth of ivy was doing to the brickwork.

  Curious to know how my home appeared to others, I typed in my own address, and enjoyed a stroll around the neighbourhood without leaving my desk. I checked out a few less-familiar addresses, including Michael’s current abode, which I had never seen. So that was Goring-by-Sea!

  At last I dragged myself away and wrote catalogue copy, had a long talk with one of our suppliers, and dealt with various other bits and pieces before knocking off for the day. Neither of us fancied going out, and we’d been consuming too many pizzas lately, so David whipped up an old favourite from the minimal supplies in the kitchen cupboard: spaghetti with marmite, tasty enough when accompanied by a few glasses of Merlot.

  My husband David and I marketed children’s apparel and accessories under the name ‘Cheeky Chappies.’ It was exactly the sort of business I had imagined setting up in my rural idyll, surrounded by the patter of little feet, filling orders between changing nappies and making delicious, sustaining soups from the organic vegetables Michael planned to grow.

  None of that came to pass, not even the vegetables. Michael did what he could, but we needed his income as a sales rep to survive, so he was nearly always on the road, which left me to take charge of everything at home, supervising the building work in between applying for jobs and grants, drawing up unsatisfactory business plans, and utterly failing in my mission to become pregnant.