Spinetinglers Anthology 2008 Read online

  “What? Mad?”

  “I was going to say in an institution.”

  “Sheltered housing.”

  “You didn’t really kill anyone then?”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Just a rumour.”

  “No, I didn’t kill anyone, or fiddle with any kiddies, or sleep with my mother. I just had a breakdown. I had a lot to deal with. Parents splitting up, being put in a children’s home, stories being rejected, dragging people into my dreams all the time, and having them treat me like a freak afterward.”

  “It could not have been easy.”

  “Don’t patronise me. The only thing I want from you is a publishing contract.” Something shrieked above them, and a gust of wind blew several pages of the manuscript across the field. Andrew looked up. A thirty-foot-long dragon was flying across the pink sky.

  “Is that one of your creations?” he asked.

  “Well it isn’t one of yours, is it?”

  “Is there a dragon in The Tower?”

  “No. I’m writing something else. Something shorter. Around 8,000 words or less. There’s a dragon in that.”

  Andrew felt a burst of compassion for the man.

  “I’ll be glad to read it,” he said. “But I can’t promise anything. Dragons are a bit overexposed.”

  A second, stronger gust of wind blew even more of the manuscript from the toadstool. David swore, and jumped down to retrieve them.

  “David, you are in control of that thing, aren’t you?” said Andrew, watching the dragon swoop down, seemingly toward them.

  “I usually am,” said David, grabbing pages from among the corn, “But I’m a bit distracted tonight. You’d better make a run for it.”

  Andrew ran. He could hear the great, leathery wings of the beast beating, and feel the draught they created on the back of his neck.

  “Run!” screamed David and then he began to laugh. “Did I mention that it breathes fire? Bit passé, I know, but still deadly.”

  Andrew chanced a glance backward. The dragon was hovering a few feet from the ground, its forked tail curled underneath it, front legs raised like a dog begging. It opened its cavernous mouth and took a long, deep breath.

  “Shit,” said Andrew, as the flames burst forth.

  He closed his eyes, squeezing until his head buzzed. Intense heat engulfed him.

  He sat up in bed, gasping for breath. His skin was still burning.

  David sat up next to him.

  “Jesus! What are you doing here?”

  “It’s my dream.”

  “This can’t be a dream. This is my flat. How could you dream about my flat? You’ve never been here.”

  “Haven’t I?” said David.

  Andrew shuddered and shut his eyes again. This time he woke up to his real flat, still bathed in semidarkness, and the realisation that David Black knew where he lived. That David Black had been here.

  “Do we have to talk about David Black?” Catherine slumped onto the sofa and reached out for the mug of coffee Andrew was holding.

  “I think he’s been here. I don’t like the thought of him knowing where I live.”

  “Don’t you print your address in the magazine?”

  “No, I use a P.O. Box number. Do you know the kind of people that read small press horror/fantasy magazines?”

  “People like you?” ventured Catherine.

  Andrew paced the length of the room, slopping coffee onto the laminate flooring.

  “What if he is dangerous? What if he comes back, and tries to kill me for not publishing his awful book. I don’t even publish novels, just short stories, 8,000 words and under.”

  “Calm down, Andrew. I don’t think he’s a killer. He always seemed quite sweet, really.”

  “He had me burnt to a crisp by a dragon.”

  “That was just a dream.”

  “It felt bloody real.”

  “I’m sure you’ve dreamed of killing someone before. It doesn’t mean you’d actually do it in real life.”

  “Comforting, very comforting.”

  “Do you want me to stay tonight?” asked Catherine.

  “I always want you to stay, but not because you think I need mothering. Anyway, if he is planning to come back, it might be better if you weren’t here. He wasn’t very nice about you.”

  “Why did you mention me?” Catherine slammed her mug down on the coffee table. “Thanks a lot, Andrew. What’s the betting he’ll start dragging me into his dreams now?”

  “He hasn’t bothered to in about fifteen years. I don’t see why he’d bother now. I think it’s me he’s interested in these days.”

  “You sound almost happy about it. Maybe the two of you could become real chums and swap notes about me.”

  “Actually, Catherine, I’m pretty knackered. “I may turn in.”

  “It’s nine o’clock!”

  “Sorry, been a tough couple of days.”

  “You actually want to go to sleep so you can talk to him, don’t you?”

  “No! If I wanted to talk to him, I could just call him.”

  “That would mean admitting you wanted it. One minute you’re saying you’re freaked out by the fact that he may know where you live; the next, you’re going to bed in the middle of the afternoon, so you can be with him.”

  Catherine stood, drained her coffee cup, and grabbed her coat from the arm of the sofa. “Sweet dreams,” she said, heading for the front door. “Let’s just hope your new best friend has turned in early, too.”

  “Catherine, I didn’t mean you had to leave right away. I just said I was tired. Stay and have a glass of wine.”

  Catherine closed the door behind her. Even her footsteps clattering down the communal stairs sounded angry.

  For several hours, Andrew couldn’t sleep, and when he did, he slept dreamlessly. It was well into the night before he found himself in a “David” dream. The scene was a forest, a dense, dark forest that closed in around Andrew as he walked, searching for its architect.

  “Andrew!”

  Andrew recognised David’s voice, but couldn’t see him. “I’ve got her, Andrew,” said David, still just a voice. “I have her in the tower, and I’m going to kill her, unless you do what you know you have to do.”

  “Who have you got?” asked Andrew, still searching the gloom for a sign of David.

  “You know who! The other great rejecter. The cock teaser, the little Miss ‘I can’t stay the night, I’ve got marking to do!’”

  “How could you know about that?”

  “Lucky guess.”

  “What do you mean, you’ve got her? Got her in your dream or in reality?”

  “Both.”

  “Let me see her.”

  Catherine stumbled toward him. Her hands were tied, her hair tangled with leaves and twigs. She fell into his arms, breathing heavily, then stepped back and kicked him.

  “That’s for reminding the sick freak that I exist!”

  Andrew rubbed his thigh where Catherine’s foot had made contact and proceeded to untie her hands. She had a point.

  “Where does he have you?”

  “I was tied up in this tower, and then I was suddenly stumbling toward you.” Catherine shook her hands to draw blood back into them.

  “No, I mean in real life.”

  “He has me in real life?”

  “That’s what he said.”

  Catherine looked pensive. “I remember leaving yours, someone calling to me, and then... being here.”

  “What do you want, David?” called Andrew. “Just tell me.”

  “Surely to God you don’t need to ask me that. I want my work published, and I’ve decided you’re the man to publish it. I want The Tower serialised, and I want every short story I send you given prime position inside that rag of yours.”

  “But The Tower was terrible, David,” said Andrew.

  “Careful,” whispered Catherine.

  “You didn’t even read it.”

  “I didn’t
need to. The first two chapters were so dire.” The forest fell silent.

  “You’ve upset him,” said Catherine. “He better not take it out on me.”

  “David!” called Andrew.

  “What?” David was standing just a few feet from them, still clutching his weighty manuscript. Two men stood either side of him – Giles and Nathan, Andrew guessed.

  “Why don’t you tell them that you don’t like The Tower,” said David. “Tell them they’re destined for a life stuck in a drawer, gathering dust. And him....” David jerked his head upward to where the hideous blob creature was floating, vomiting forth jets of what looked like custard.

  “Good God,” said Catherine.

  “David,” said Andrew, “Why are you writing all this stuff about monsters and towers. The first rule of good writing is to write what you know. Most writers have to interpret that advice loosely, but you could do exactly that and still write an amazing fantasy story.”

  “What are you talking about?” David clicked his fingers and the characters from his book disappeared.

  “Think about it, David. Your dreams are so vivid, it’s like being part of a movie, and you can share them with other people. You use them to revise your fiction. Can you not see a story there, somewhere?”

  David looked coy. “Isn’t that a bit egotistical?”

  Andrew laughed. “I’d forgotten about your insufferable modesty.”

  “And The Tower?” asked David.

  “Put it in that drawer, and let it gather dust,” said Andrew.

  “And that’s your final piece of advice?”

  “It is.”

  Andrew woke up.

  He tried calling Catherine all of the following day. She hadn’t turned up for work and wasn’t at home. Her mobile was switched off.

  He thought about calling the police, but what would he tell them? That a grown woman had gone missing for less than twenty-four hours, after having rowed with him? That he suspected a crazed, horror writer had abducted her, because he’d told him so in a dream?

  He didn’t sleep that night. He was about to drift off early the next morning but was jolted back to consciousness by the intercom. It was the postman, with a recoded recorded delivery. Andrew ripped open the brown envelope, throwing the remnants onto the floor and reading the letter that accompanied the thin manuscript.

  Dear Andrew,

  Thanks for your invaluable advice. I wrote this the very next morning. Hope you like it. It is exactly 8,000 words long.

  Yours,

  David Black

  The story was called The Writer Who Didn’t Take Rejection Very Well.

  “Definitely autobiographical then,” thought Andrew, and he began reading David Black’s tale.

  The first few paragraphs told of a torturous childhood: a violent father, an alcoholic mother, culminating in his being taken in to care, at age nine.

  In the children’s home, he was violently bullied and abused by one of the carers. It was around this time that he began to escape into his dreams, and learned that here he was the strong one. Shortly after this discovery, the bullying stopped and the other children began to avoid him rather than taunt him. The bullies had all been plagued by vivid dreams, in which David orchestrated terrible events, usually ending with the dreamer’s violent death.

  At age sixteen he met the lovely Catherine. Andrew smiled at the description of this beautiful, vivacious girl, tinged with retrospective bitterness.

  The bitterness poured onto the page following his rejection by Catherine, who became Catherine, the bitch.

  The story skipped events directly following school, perhaps these memories were too painful for David to draw inspiration from.

  And soon the tale brought the story almost up to date, telling of David’s desperation to be recognised as a great writer, his penning of The Tower, and efforts to find a publisher.

  Soon, Andrew himself made an appearance and the references were not flattering. Patronising, talentless prick being one description.

  The story told of David inadvertently dragging Andrew into his dreams, and the discovery that the “talentless prick of a publisher” was married to the “whore, bitch schoolgirl.”

  David managed to fool the patronising wanker into thinking he had been inside his home, when all he had done was recreate the idiot’s own thoughts into the fabric of a dream. Discovering Andrew Mandrake’s address hadn’t involved any mysticism. David had phoned directory enquiries.

  Andrew made a mental note to go ex-directory.

  Catherine’s abduction followed next – a simple exercise, involving chloroform and a van.

  She wriggled and cried like a cat that didn’t want to be picked up, until the drug knocked her out.

  Next came an account of the final dream in which Andrew had passed on the advice – good, advice judging by the improvement in David’s writing.

  David decided to take notice of the prick-publisher. He woke himself and set about writing something real – of 8,000 words or less. It went well until the last paragraph. How could he end his story? It needed a punchy ending. The prick-teasing whore from school moaned from the sofa, where she lay bound and gagged, and David had his ending.

  He used the chloroform to silence her, and carried her back to the van.

  He used the prick-teaser’s keys to enter Andrew Mandrake’s pathetic little apartment and found him sleeping. A quick sniff of chloroform and David knew he would sleep for long enough.

  He slipped back to the van and carried the still unconscious Catherine up to the publisher’s flat, where he gutted her with the publisher’s own bread knife. He thought he would never be able to clear up the mess.

  He shoved the dead whore into the publisher’s wardrobe, and pushed the door closed.

  Andrew stopped reading.

  He suddenly felt sick. He turned and stared at the door to his cramped wardrobe, and tried to remember if he had opened it in the past two days.

  He stood and walked on jelly-legs across the flat, gripping the wardrobe door handle.

  He wouldn’t!

  He saw her, guts hanging from her stomach like butcher’s offal, face fat and blue.

  He yanked open the wardrobe door, and screamed at the sight of his best wedding suit.

  “Jesus!” Andrew sank onto the sofa, hugging himself and rocking gently.

  Exhaustion finally got the better of him, and he fell into a doze. Soon the doze became a dream, and finally a “David” dream.

  “Well?” asked David, once again, perched on a luminous toadstool in the field of corn.

  “It was better,” said Andrew. “Where’s Catherine?”

  “She must be awake,” said David. “Not that there’s much difference between waking and sleeping when you’re locked in a dark cupboard.

  “She’s alive then. The ending was just made up?”

  “This time,” said David. “But it was a very powerful ending, don’t you think?”

  “Effective, in a primitive way.”

  “Don’t like that tone,” said David.

  “Sorry.”

  “I’ll let you have her back,” said David. “But you know the condition.”

  “The Tower?”

  “I’m sure you’ll grow to love it.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “I’ll expect to see the first instalment in the next issue. Once I do, I’ll take her home, and tuck her up in her own bed. I’d bring her to yours, but she doesn’t seem too keen on sleeping there.”

  “Whatever!” said Andrew.

  “Do we have a deal?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “Not as I see it.”

  “Then I suppose we have a deal.”

  A cheer rose up from amid the corn, and Andrew saw Giles and Nathan and the creature leaping (and bobbing) excitedly. There were others also celebrating that he didn’t recognise, although he was sure he’d come to know them.

  “Just one thing, that I won’t budge on,” said A
ndrew.

  “What’s that?” asked David.

  “The length of each instalment – it can’t go above 8,000 words.”

  Eyes in the Night

  by Theresa Curnow

  There was a monster in the closet.

  Clare knew that monsters weren’t supposed to exist, but she was beginning to think that there was no other explanation. At first, she had thought it was her imagination, but the strange noises and the moving shadows were too real to be her imagination.

  The noises sounded as if someone was standing in the closet and moving coat hangers around. When she had heard the rattling on the first night, she had thought it must have been part of her dream, so she had drifted back to sleep. The second time it happened, she had peered, with a frown, through the darkness toward the closet. The closet was slightly open and in that darker patch she’d seen what she had thought were the glistening whites of someone’s eyes. She had blinked hard, and when she’d looked back, there would be nothing there. Her imagination, she had convinced herself at the time. Too many late-night horror films. So she had dismissed it, until last night. Last night had been different.

  Clare thought about that now, as she sat staring at the closet door. In the cold light of day, it was just a closet, an ordinary wooden closet. She studied the white paintwork, the chrome handle. It was just wood and paint, she thought, and inside there were just clothes and boxes of her belongings. She stood up and stepped to the door; then, she opened it. Rows of her neatly-arranged clothes greeted her, along with a few empty hangers. She heard the rattling of them in her mind and shivered. On a shelf above the clothes and hangers were stacks of boxes, which contained letters; old diaries, shoes she never wore, and other bits that she should really just chuck out. On the closet floor were the shoes that she did wear and a couple of suitcases. Not a lot of room for someone or something to stand there but, nevertheless, there was someone standing there the night before. She had seen him or it. She had heard that noise again, the rattling of the hangers and something else. She had heard breathing: heavy, hoarse breathing. Terrified, she had lain there, duvet up to her eyes, staring at the closet, too scared to even swallow, when suddenly, the door started to slowly swing open and a shadow slipped out of the closet and stood in front of the bed, staring at her. Clare had wanted to scream, but she couldn’t. She’d felt paralysed with fear, barely able to breathe. She shut her eyes instead, praying that whatever it was would go away. When she half-opened her eyes again, the shadow had gone. Her prayer had worked, but she’d lain awake for the rest of the night, heart pounding, staring at the open closet.