And I saw there was film in it. There hadn’t been film earlier. I had checked. Who had put the film in?
I hesitated.
I took out the film, and had it developed.
~*~
I haven’t destroyed the camera.
I’ve told Cook to keep it in the kitchen. And if the cats get in, and sometimes they do, she is to remove them from the house. But she must be gentle with them. She must give them milk first, and treat them with respect.
I haven’t used the camera, either. Though one night I woke up, and I was downstairs, in the kitchen, and I was holding the camera with both hands. And I had never walked in my sleep before. I woke up in time, I went back upstairs, I locked my bedroom door. I keep the door locked every night now.
Maybe I’ll destroy the camera anyway. One day. We’ll see. I just don’t think that would make the cats very happy.
There are African tribes I’ve heard of, savages really, who don’t like the white man taking photographs of them. They fear that it takes their souls. But I worry that the reverse may be true. What if the camera brings a dead soul back? What if every picture confers a little immortality, and the world simply cannot support the weight of all those never-to-be-forgotten memories?
I destroyed the photograph that I had found in the camera. No one else need ever see that. For my part, though, it might as well still exist. For my part, I might as well have framed it, and hung it over my bed. It’s not as if I’ll ever forget what was in that photograph, not one single detail.
The picture was of Simon Harries. And I now know how he died. And I now know why his mouth was open so unnaturally wide, because there was something forcing the bulk of its entire body in. It knew what it was doing, too – the photograph had caught a little jaunty wave of the tail. And I don’t think it was the first that had crawled inside Harries’ mouth, I think that Harries’ bloated body was full of them.
And I remember how I had forced his jaws shut, and the resistance I felt, and I think I must have had that ghost body bitten clean through.
I’ll destroy the camera one day. I will. But for now, I treat all cats well, and I sleep with the door locked, and my mouth taped up.
~*~
No one can take photographs of babies either. Babies have no souls. But no one wants a picture of a baby.
About the Authors
Theresa Derwin has lived in Birmingham since birth and has held a variety of jobs, including warehouse packer, bar worker, being a (crap) waitress, various jobs in retail and admin, and a spell as a professional student. In 1999 she entered the civil service, but, thirteen years later, has now left to pursue a career as a writer.
Amanda Hemingway started writing stories when she could first write and long before she could spell. Published young, her work has covered a range of fiction from psychological thriller, romcom and neo-Gothic melodrama to her favourite genre, Science Fiction/Fantasy. Under the pen-name Jan Siegel she wrote the Prospero’s Children trilogy (available on Kindle and iPad), and she has a new fantasy novel out next year, The Devil’s Apprentice, first of a quartet (just for a change). She leads a gypsy existence between London and the country, and loves riding horses and hanging out with both humans and aliens.
Paul Kane is the award-winning and bestselling author of books such as The Arrowhead Trilogy, The Hellraiser Films and Their Legacy and The Butterfly Man and Other Stories. He is co-editor of Hellbound Hearts and The Mammoth Book of Body Horror. His work has been optioned for film and television and his story “Dead Time” was adapted for the LionsGate/NBC show Fear Itself. His website – which has featured Guest Writers such as Stephen King, Dean Koontz and Charlaine Harris – can be found at: http://www.shadow-writer.co.uk
Kim Lakin-Smith’s dark fantasy and science fiction short stories have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies including Black Static, Interzone, Celebration, Myth-Understandings, Further Conflicts, Pandemonium: Stories of the Apocalypse, Mammoth Book of Ghost Stories By Women, with “Johnny and Emmie-Lou Get Married” shortlisted for a BSFA Award in 2009. She is the author of the gothic fantasy Tourniquet; Tales from the Renegade City, the YA novella Queen Rat, and Cyber Circus, which has been shortlisted for both the 2012 BSFA Best Novel Award and the British Fantasy Award for Best Novel.
Tanith Lee was born in 1947, didn’t learn to read until she was nearly 8, and started to write aged 9. Since becoming a fulltime writer in 1974, she has written some 100 books, about 270 short stories, 4 radio plays and 2 episodes of Blake’s 7. Her latest publications include the novels Greyglass, To Indigo, L’Amber, and Killing Violets (Immanion), and the short story collection Cold Grey Stones (NewCon Press). She lives on the Sussex Weald with husband writer/artist John Kaiine, in a house full of books, stained glass, plants and cat fur.
Alison Littlewood is a writer of dark fantasy and horror fiction. Her first novel, A Cold Season, is published by Jo Fletcher Books, a new imprint of Quercus. Alison’s short stories have appeared in magazines including Black Static, Crimewave and Not One Of Us, as well as the British Fantasy Society’s Dark Horizons. She also contributed to the charity anthology Never Again as well as Read by Dawn Vol 3, Midnight Lullabies and Festive Fear 2. Visit her at www.alisonlittlewood.co.uk.
Mark Morris is the author of twenty novels, including Toady, Stitch, The Immaculate, The Secret of Anatomy, Fiddleback, The Deluge, and four books in the Doctor Who range. His short fiction, articles and reviews have appeared in various anthologies and magazines, and he won a 2007 British Fantasy Award after editing Cinema Macabre, a book of horror movie essays by genre luminaries. Recent and forthcoming work includes the official tie-in novel for zombie apocalypse computer game Dead Island, a novelisation of classic Hammer movie Vampire Circus, a story collection Long Shadows, Nightmare Light, and a follow-up to Cinema Macabre entitled Cinema Futura.
Marie O’Regan is a British Fantasy Award-nominated author and editor, based in Derbyshire. Her first collection, Mirror Mere, was published in 2006. Her genre journalism has appeared in magazines such as The Dark Side, Rue Morgue and Fortean Times, and her interview book, Voices in the Dark, was released last year. She is co-editor of the bestselling Hellbound Hearts and Mammoth Book of Body Horror, plus editor of the forthcoming Mammoth Book of Ghost Stories by Women.
Marion Pitman has been writing for most of her life and selling short stories and poetry since 1977. She is a Londoner now living in Reading, sells second-hand books on the internet, and has no car, television, or cats. If she won the lottery she would avoid winter altogether and watch a lot more cricket. Her short fiction has appeared in Wildstacks, Estranomicon, 19, 3SF, and anthologies from Sphere, Hutchinson, Fontana, Creeping Hemlock, Elastic Press, Ashtree, Mortbury, and Ebonvale Press.
Robert Shearman has written three collections of short stories, which have between them won the World Fantasy Award, the Shirley Jackson Award, the British Fantasy Award, and the Edge Hill Readers Prize. His latest, Remember Why You Fear Me, is published this autumn by Chizine. But he’s always going to be best known as the chap who brought the Daleks back to Doctor Who in its BAFTA winning return series, in an episode nominated for a Hugo Award. Exterminate!
Sarah Singleton is the award-winning author of eight YA novels, including Dark Storm, The Amethyst Child and Century, all published by Simon & Schuster UK, and one adult novel, The Crow Maiden (Wildside Press). She has published short stories in magazines and anthologies including Interzone, Black Static, The Bitten Word, and Timepieces. www.crowmaiden.plus.com .
Adrian Tchaikovsky was born in Lincolnshire, studied and trained in Reading, and now lives in Leeds. He is known for the Shadows of the Apt fantasy series starting with Empire in Black and Gold and currently up to book 7, Heirs of the Blade. Book 8, The Air War, is out in August 2012. His hobbies include stagefighting, and tabletop, live and online role-playing. More information and short stories can be found at:
www.shadowsoftheapt.com.
Mark West was born in Kettering, in 1969
and now lives with his wife and son in the town of Rothwell. Writing since the age of eight, he was first published in 1999 and has seen almost seventy short stories appear since then, as well as two novels, a collection, Strange Tales, and a novelette: “The Mill”. Several short stories, two novellas from Pendragon Press, and a chapbook from Spectral Press called What Gets Left Behind are forthcoming. Mark can be contacted through his website at www.markwest.org.uk
To see “Fog on the Old Coast Road” read aloud by the author in front of a live audience, please go here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=miesqwbTXFw
Ian Whates is the author of two novel series: The Noise Sequence (Solaris), and The City of 100 Rows (Angry Robot), and the editor of numerous anthologies. He is also the author of more than forty published short stories, many of which are collected in The Gift of Joy (2008). A selection of his more recent fictions are featured in a second collection, Growing Pains, due from PS Publishing early in 2013. Ian is still trying to figure out where NewCon Press came from. To see the original performance of “Don’t Listen” before a live audience, please go to: www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJctPHXJop4
Liz Williams is a science fiction and fantasy writer living in Glastonbury, UK, where she is co-director of a witchcraft supply business. She has had thirteen novels published to date via Bantam Spectra (US) and Tor Macmillan (UK), also Night Shade Press. Her short stories appear regularly in such magazines as Realms of Fantasy and Asimov’s, and are collected in The Banquet of the Lords of Night (Night Shade) and A Glass of Shadow (NewCon Press). Her novels have been shortlisted for the Philip K Dick and Arthur C Clarke Awards. Her latest novel, The Iron Khan, is released through Morrigan Press.
The original poster promoting the Hauntings readings
Designed by Vincent Holland Keen of the Un:bound team.
www.unboundve.blogspot.co.uk/
Table of Contents
Introduction – Adele Wearing
Don’t Listen – Ian Whates
The Cradle in the Corner – Marie O’Regan
On the Grey Road – Alison Littlewood
Not a Cat Person – Adrian Tchaikovsky
Fog on the Old Coast Road – Mark West
Dark Peak – Kim Lakin-Smith
The Things I See – Theresa Derwin
Presence – Paul Kane
Starcross – Liz Williams
Forward and Back, Change Places – Marion Pitman
Long Dene Mill – Sarah Singleton
The White Otter – Amanda Hemingway
The Ghost (In Two Letters) – Tanith Lee
The Scariest Place in the World – Mark Morris
Simon Harries – Robert Shearman
About the Authors
Hauntings Page 20
