Tales From the Graveyard
Page 1
Tales From The Graveyard
Guy N. Smith
Also by Guy N. Smith:
WEREWOLF OMNIBUS
THE CHARNEL CAVES: A CRABS NOVEL
SABAT 6: THE RETURN
Further reading by the Sinister Horror Company:
MARKED – Stuart Park
HELL SHIP – Benedict J. Jones
THE UNHEIMLICH MANOEUVRE – Tracy Fahey
CORPSING – Kayleigh Marie Edwards
FOREST UNDERGROUND – Lydian Faust
CANNIBAL NUNS FROM OUTER SPACE! – Duncan P. Bradshaw
KING CARRION – Rich Hawkins
MANIAC GODS – Rich Hawkins
MY DEAD AND BLACKENED HEART – Andrew Freudenberg
TERROR BYTE – J. R. Park
PUNCH – J.R Park
UPON WAKING – J. R. Park
DEATH DREAMS IN A WHOREHOUSE – J. R. Park
MAD DOG – J. R. Park
BREAKING POINT – Kit Power
I DREAM OF MIRRORS – Chris Kelso
Visit SinisterHorrorCompany.com for further information on these and other titles.
PRESENTS
Tales from the Graveyard
Copyright © 2020 Guy N. Smith
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.
Edited by J. R. Park
Interior design by J. R. Park
Cover art by Matthew Morris
Published by The Sinister Horror Company
Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.
Tales from the Graveyard -- 1st ed.
SinsiterHorrorCompany.com
This book is dedicated to all my fans over the past forty years.
My sincere thanks for continuing to read my novels.
Contents
Introduction
The Shooting on the Moss
The Ghouls
The Lurkers
The Executioner
Cannibal Island
Mr. Strange’s Christmas Dream
The Case of the Ostrich Slasher
The Werewolf Legend
The Howling on the Moors
Hounds from Hades
I Couldn’t Care Less
Sabat: The Robber’s Grave
Gallery
Introduction
Back in 1992 Andy Hurst, a GNS fan, launched Graveyard Rendezvous, a fanzine devoted to virtually everything concerning my work and lifestyle. It was an in depth look at how I became a professional author and covered my years living on the remote Black Hill in the wilds of South Shropshire.
By the time Graveyard Rendezvous saw publication I had written 60 novels starting with Werewolf by Moonlight (New English Library) up to Witchspell (Zebra USA). The second issue saw the start of the serialization of Night of the Werewolf previously only published in Germany by Erich Pabel. In 1976 issue No.3 was a special Crabs issue. No 4 introduced The Black Fedora and No.5 had The Old Bride’s Column written regularly thereafter by Jean, my wife, about what GNS had been up to and what it was like living with him!
However, the immense amount of work involved in publishing a regular fanzine was proving difficult for Andy in conjunction with all the other demands on his time so, commencing with issue 6, it was taken over by Black Hill Books in 1995. It then increased in size from 31 to 60 pages and was in A4 format.
From then on Graveyard Rendezvous covered a much wider field. This included stories by fans as well as originals by myself, an in depth look at my lifestyle, including our donkeys, goats and feathered stock. I also wrote a long running series on advice to budding writers, Successful Horror Writing. This covered devising a plot, suitable characters and the preparation of a detailed synopsis. Only then are you in a position to begin writing the novel. Working from the synopsis, which you will undoubtedly change as the novel progresses, ensures that you will arrive at the correct wordage for the finished book.
Basically, though, Graveyard Rendezvous is the ultimate in all types of horror.
Sadly this publication became much smaller with issue 23. This was solely due to advanced technology, primarily the website where all GNS information appeared and a continuation of Graveyard Rendezvous would only have been a repetition of this.
However, Graveyard Rendezvous lasted up until issue 41 which was published in the summer of 2012. Throughout its lifetime, though, it featured some truly gruesome horror in virtually every field of the genre.
Hence I decided to publish a selection of these stories in book form rather than allow them to disappear into the mists of time. Tales from the Graveyard contains stories which I consider to be the most diverse and gruesome to appear in Graveyard Rendezvous.
Black Hill Books still has a small stock of back issues numbers 7,8,9,11,13,14,15,19,20,21,34,40 & 41. These are available by post at £2.00 each including postage, and can be ordered from www.guynsmith.com *
(*Availability and cost are correct at time of going to print but may change, please check website or get in contact for most up to date information.)
In the meantime, enjoy a good read of the stories within these pages.
Happy Nightmares!
Guy N. Smith
The Shooting on the Moss
(from Graveyard Rendezvous 1)
Evil lurked deep down on the slime.
The glorious twelfth had done it’s damnedest to bely tradition, Charles decided as the Range Rover splashed its way down the rutted, muddy track which meandered along the mist enshrouded slopes of the valley from the main road a mile and a half behind. The purple heather had taken on a shade of depressing greyness, visibility was reduced to less than fifty metres. The monotonous whine of the wipers was getting on his nerves, cutting swathes through the opaque film of fast drizzle on the windscreen. Neither he nor Peter had spoken for the last half hour, just muttered curses each time they came to a gate.
And yet another bloody gate! Peter slammed the passenger door shut as he jumped down into a puddle, splattered his new plus-twos, hurried forward to the obstructing barricade, tugged at a rusted bolt, left the gate to swing shut on its grating hinges as the vehicle clattered over the cattle grid. In the back of the Range Rover a Labrador dog whined its impatience. Like its master, it was overweight, lacking regular exercise but the weather had not dampened its enthusiasm.
‘We’ll never find any grouse in this, Charles,’ Peter broke the long silence. ‘And even if we do, they’ll be lost in the mist before we can even get a shot.’
Charles did not reply because there was nothing to add to his companion’s logical observation. This was the outcome of a whim which had started in the claustrophobic atmosphere of a stockbroker’s London office one afternoon last spring. Nostalgic memories of youthful grouse shooting on a rolling sun-drenched moorland, where you sweltered in shirt sleeves and the scent of the heather was sickly sweet in your nostrils, of coveys of whirring grouse, salvos of gunfire, beaters and pickers up, panting dogs lapping thirstily in a rushing burn. One phone call to Stewart, the land agent in Invernesshire, and it could all become reality again, a return to those halcyon days for Peter and himself.
Just one phone call could bring it all back. It had, and was in the process of destroying it all in a matter of hours. Mankwill wasn’t a ‘proper’ grouse moor, Stewart had pointed that fact out with true Scottish bluntness and honesty at the outset. Just an expanse of moorland inhabit
ed by a flock of scraggy sheep for which the tenant, Macgregor, paid a pittance of a rent. The agent added, with a touch of dour humour, that, ‘If it wasnae for the mountains in the way, ye’d be able to see Loch Ness from the Moss!’ The sporting rights had never been leased because they, ‘were na worth guid money,’ but the factor was open to any offers, ‘and if ye bag a brace, then ye’ve got the best o’ the bargain!’ Two hundred pounds for a three-year lease on two thousand hectares, the offer was accepted within three days, starting from August 12th. And perhaps Macgregor, the crofter, would act as beater and guide for a tenner and the occasional nip from there hip flasks.
And here we bloody well are, Charles thought, two hundred quid for a walk in the mist, every possibility of falling down the mountainside or blundering into a bog, and if we’re lucky enough to escape either of those then we’ll be back in London by tomorrow night, totally disillusioned. But at least they would have Macgregor to safeguard their welfare, he surely would not spurn the opportunity.
‘No-oo,’ the ageing shepherd gave the impression of trying to withdraw his sparse and bent frame in the saturated smock that dripped rainwater into the tops of his patched wellingtons. He leaned up against the doorway of the tumbledown farmhouse at the apex of the valley, stared down at the ground. ‘No-oo, sir, not for a tenner, not for a hundred pounds, would I go up to the Moss wi’ye, neither in mist nor sunshine, summer nor winter. Even the sheep have more sense than that.’
‘Why?’ Peter asked, and there was a hint of relief in his voice. An excuse, a god-sent escape route from this miserable place; a let off. After all, it had been Charles’s idea from the start, he had only gone along with his old school friend in order not to offend him. Peter had not really wanted to go grouse shooting. Back in the city it had seemed a pleasant enough diversion from the stress of an artificial existence; up here, at the mercy of the elements, it wasn’t so appealing. All the same he was curious to discover why the flockmaster was refusing to go up to the Moss. And, of course, the raw dampness was responsible for that tiny shiver that began at the base of his spine and goose pimpled its way right up to his scalp.
‘Ye’ve na’ heard aboot Ferguson, what happened to him up on the Moss?’ Toothless mouth agape with incredulity, those grey eyes now elevated and staring, seeming to shy away from the mist that was creeping down the mountainsides and encircling the tiny farm. ‘Ye din’na know about Ferguson?’
‘We’ve never even heard of this Ferguson,’ Charles spoke with a note of irritation. In fact, we don’t give a damn about him, all we’re interested in is getting some sort of value for two hundred quid which we’ve chucked down the drain. All the same, he was unable to suppress a shiver. It was the weather, of course. ‘It was during the Great War, I was a wee boy then ma father lived here. Ma mother died at childbirth,’ Macgregor had stepped back a pace, clutched the rickety door as if he had a mind to drag it shut and have done with the foreigners from the city. ‘Just as ma dear wife did, her baby with her. There was a shortage of meat and the Laird turned a blind eye to anybody who helped himself to a deer or grouse, so long as it was’na too many. Ferguson, he lived over at Cornharrow, just a we holding. One day, a day just like today with the mist covering the mountains he turned up here with his gun. They was pretty near to starvation over at Cornharrow and the deer were all up on the Moss.
‘He wanted ma father to go with him to find a beast, so the two of them set off. By late afternoon, there was no sign of them, so I went up the slope as far as the start of the Moss to look for them. I heard a shot. Just one. And then i heard ‘em screaming!’
Macgregor was inside the house, the door scraped forward so that the others could only see his outline in the gloom as he peered round it. Any second he might force the door shut. Peter glanced at Charles, the big man’s usually ruddy complexion had paled slightly. He sensed himself trembling. Which was ridiculous, these were the ramblings of a senile farmer who, anywhere else, would have been committed to a geriatric hospital. Yet, it was the expression in those eyes, the sheer terror, which rooted them to the step, the power of the Ancient Mariner reborn in a remote valley.
‘Aye,’ Macgregor's voice was a throaty whisper, ‘they screamed for maybe ten seconds and I heard the splashings, the threshings, of whatever it was that got them. Then there was just silence. I came back home and nobody has ever heard o’ my father or Ferguson since. The ghillies went to look for ‘em the next day, but there was nothing. I’ve no bin up to the Moss since, but I’ll no go agin. Ever!’
The door finally scrapped shut and they heard a bolt being forced into place, the old man shuffling away into his hermit abode. ‘Well, that’s that!’ Charles spoke with a quaver. ‘If you go up on the Moss something will get you and you’ll never be heard of again.’
‘They probably fell into a bog,’ Peter tried to speak louder than a whisper but somehow his vocal cords refused to function fully.
‘Just as we might without a guide. So we go back to the hotel, get paralytic in the bar, and drive all the way back to London tomorrow!’ Charles’s tone was scathing, trying to bolster his waning courage. ‘What a bloody waste of time and money!’ He consulted his watch. ‘Believe it or not, even if this landscape has the appearance of dusk, it is just after ten o’ clock in the morning. We have a full eleven hours of daylight...well, gloom, before us. Come on, Peter, a crazy old shepherd wouldn’t have deterred us in the old days and, damn it, we’re not fifty yet. Let’s give it a go. We’ll go up to the Moss and take care to keep a firm ground. And, you never know, this low cloud might clear. Another couple of hours and we could be sweltering in blistering August sunshine!’ He tried to laugh but it was spoiled by an uncontrollable gulp.
It was a steep climb up Mankwill hill. Remus, the Labrador, forged ahead, kept returning and staring quizzically at his human companions, mutely urging them to hurry. There were innumerable sheep tracks through the thick heather, all leading upwards, criss crossing, veering to both left and right. So long as one continued in an upward direction, Charles decided, they were bound to emerge on the Moss above eventually.
He recalled the place from the map which Stewart had sent him, a kind of plateau amidst the mountains. Like the agent had said, albeit jokingly, if those mountains had been removed they would doubtless have looked down upon the waters of Loch Ness on a clear day. The Loch could not have been more than a mile away, as the crow flies. And, as if to taunt his thoughts, a hooded crow cawed from somewhere up ahead.
They came to a patch of slippery scree, rocks draped with lichen and then, without warning, the land levelled. The mist had thinned temporarily, they could see maybe a hundred yards.
Scrubland, patches of heather dotted with stunted silver birch and rowans, clumps of gorse. Remus came back to them, whined with a renewed eagerness. They had reached their hunting ground at last.
‘What a strange place,’ Peter unslung his Purdey, opened the breech and slid in a couple of cartridges. ‘Who would expect to find a stretch of flat like this up here?’
‘There’s sure to be blackgame here,’ Charles loaded his own gun, his enthusiasm had returned. A bird or two in the bag and to hell with the weather, their feeling of satisfaction would be all the greater because of the difficulties they had surmounted.
‘Let’s start walking it up slowly, keep in sight of each other. And watch out for the boggy ground.’
‘I think Macgregor’s story was pure fantasy,’ Peter spoke loudly as if he had to convince himself as much as his companion. ‘That Ferguson chap and Macgregor’s father probably didn't even fall into a bog. They’re probably both buried in the local churchyard. All the same we’ll watch where we tread.’
Ten minutes later a blackcock clattered out of a clump of birch. Peter’s shot was a clear miss, Charles dropped it stone dead with his second barrel, thumped it onto the springy heather where Remus retrieved it seconds later.
‘Bravo,’ Peter called, ejecting a spent shell.
The mist was th
reatening to close in again as if to protect the wildlife of this forgotten mountain habitat. Charles licked his lips, you could taste the damned stuff, like stagnant water coating your palette. And his body was chilling beneath his barbour jacket in spite of their recent exertions. Not just the mist and the dank odour, something else... the stillness. Saplings dripped depressingly, even the crow had fallen silent. He shivered again. Thank God for Peter’s double shot, the reports blanketed by dense low cloud which crept across the moorland, but nevertheless the shots were a welcome sound.
‘Missed the devil!’ Peter was temporarily out of sight but he sounded close. ‘Should have had the bugger!’ Charles looked around, peered into the grey opaqueness. Where had that darned dog got to? Chasing after the unscathed blackcock, probably, and likely to flush more out of sight. He stopped to listen but there was no sound of a dog crashing around in the undergrowth.
‘Where’s Remus got to?’ He called out to Peter. The reply seemed distant, as though it floated back from beyond the next range of mountains.
‘Haven’t seen him old chap. No sign of him when I fired, which was unusual, to say the least. He’s probably put up a hare and chased it from here to…’ To where? Which, Peter thought, figured. Remus wasn’t properly trained, just a dog which hunted and retrieved by instinct. And then he heard the Labrador, a canine cry which embodied pain and terror, reached its peak and then cut off instantly, left only that eerie silence.