The Spinetinglers Anthology 2009
Page 1
Peyne stared at his reflection in the mirror of the lift as it took him back to the surface of the complex. He did not know it, but he was staring into the face of God....
— Richard Smith
The Spinetinglers Anthology 2009
The second annual anthology from the depths of the darkest minds in horror
Introduced and complied by Nolene-Patricia Dougan
Stories by the Spinetinglers competition winners
Adam Shiels, Andrew Males, Terry John Ward, Max J. Einhorn II, Matt Leyshon, Gary Power, Simon Wicks, Hayley J. Sheldon, John McAllister, Dave Paul, Daniel Llorin Stauffer, Niall McMahon, Steven Beeho, Lisa Hinsley, Nolene-Patricia Dougan, Luke Fisher, James Brooks, Richard Smith, Claire Slomski, Gerald J. Tate, Philip Graham King, Austin de Brou, Phil Buck, Emlyn Boyle, Paul Johnson-Jovanovic
Spinetinglers Elite Publishing
22 Vestry Road, Co. Down
BT23 6HJ, UK
www.spinetinglerspublishing.com
This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events and situations are the product of the imagination of the authors. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events is purely coincidental.
© 2009 Spinetinglers All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the authors.
First published by Spinetinglers Elite Publishing 31st October 2009.
ISBN: 978-1-906657-03-1 HB
ISBN: 978-1-906657-04-8 PB
Printed in the United Kingdom
This anthology is dedicated to all the members of Spinetinglers.co.uk, without whom this anthology would never have been written. Whether you are a writer, or a reader, or even a critic, your voice has been heard in the pages of this book.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Nolene-Patricia Dougan
Fate of the World
Adam Shiels
Repeat Chance
Andrew Males
The Tethered Goat
Terry John Ward
Psyche-Pathos
Max J. Einhorn II
Changing Faces
Matt Leyshon
Phasma
Gary Power
A Moment in Time
Simon Wicks
Tarot Truth
Hayley J. Sheldon
The Artist
Dave Paul
Eleven Minutes, Forty-Seven Seconds
John McAllister
Papercut
Daniel Llorin Stauffer
Incubus
Niall McMahon
You are Mine
Steven Beeho
Where Angels Sing
Lisa Hinsley
The House of My Childhood
Nolene-Patricia Dougan
Night Train
Luke Fisher
Fairy Lights
James Brooks
Broken
Dave Paul
Genesis
Richard Smith
The Whistler
Claire Slomski
When the Dead Call
Gerald J. Tate
Wooden Wheel
Philip Graham King
Daddy Long Legs
Austin de Brou
Inhumanity
Phil Buck
Night Train to Holland
Emlyn Boyle
The Contract
Paul Johnson-Jovanovic
Special Thanks
The Spinetinglers Anthology 2009
Introduced and Compiled by Nolene-Patricia Dougan
Another year has passed, and it has been an eventful one for all of us at Spinetinglers. We have done away with the entry fee for our monthly short story competition, and we have “upped” the prize money, which is excellent news, I hope, for those of you suffering from “credit crunch blues.”
Also, we have launched our publishing Web site and anticipate great success for us and for our authors. The ethos of SpinetinglersPublishing.com is to produce the highest quality publications at the lowest possible price. As a writer, I cannot stress how difficult it is to find a good publisher who will help you to fashion your book into the best it can be. Publishing is a cruel world and, unfortunately, your book will get dismissed by potential readers if it does not look like it has been professionally produced. I believe the cardinal rules for a high-quality publication are these. One, find a good editor, the more meticulous and pedantic they are, the better! A simple trick to separate the wheat from the chaff is if they suggest changing your alrights to all right – very meticulous, very annoying – very good editor. Second, you need your book to have a professional layout. If the inside of your book looks like you have knocked it up on your home computer over a weekend, people, unfortunately, will not want to read it. I suppose the main thing with regard to typography and formatting is be consistent and to follow the rules. How do you know if you have a good interior book designer? Again, a simple trick is to check your titles – when you get your book back from the formatters, check that all chapter numbers or story titles are spaced the same from the top of the page. Third, you have to have a great eye-catching cover; unfortunately, books are judged by their covers. There is no simple trick to knowing that you have a good cover designer. However, if they do not use templates and spell your name correctly, that is a good start. Again, good cover design is not an exact science. I think the most essential thing is that if your cover designer takes your ordinary idea and makes it extraordinary, then you have arrived at the right place. Finally, now that you have gone through the long process of finding the right editor, typographer/formatter, cover designer, you need to address the issue of major distribution. What is the point of seeing your book into print if no one can buy it? So, find a publisher who will ensure that your book is selling at all the major retail outlets.
At Spinetinglers Publishing, we believe we have put together a great team. Our team consists of tried and tested editors, great formatters, and superb cover designers, all of whom we have the utmost confidence in. Having said this, if your Aunty Maude is a prize winning editor and your Uncle Joe has killer typography skills, then that is OK, as well. At Spinetinglers, you only pay for the services you require. And, if you do not want to pay for publishing, Spinetinglers Publishing has an annual publishing competition, which gives authors a chance to win a contract with Spinetinglers, so you do not have to pay for anything. Spinetinglers Publishing also offers free, impartial publishing advice to all authors, so if you get stuck or just want to know what your options are, we are only a phone call away. And, we guarantee that we will give you no sales pitch when you give us a call.
At Spinetinglers, we do not want our authors or our publishing house left behind, so this is why we have released the Spinetinglers Anthology 2008 on Kindle, Amazon’s electronic reading device. In the advent of the modern era, the way individuals read books will be changing over the next ten to twenty years. Perhaps books, as we know them now, will be a thing of the past, or at least a lot more rare. Instead of your book collection gathering dust on a musty shelf, you will have a light LCD screen that will store thousands of books on one little computer chip. Therefore, reading devices such as Kindle are definitely the future for publishing, and constitute a low cost way to get your book to market. At the moment, there are only 300,000 titles available on Kindle, so with just a little promotion, your book can storm up the charts and get into those coveted best- seller lists before you know it. Last time I checked, the Spinetinglers Anthology 2008 was in the top ten in ghost stories and the top twenty in anthologies. This is yet another way to reach new readers, but be careful formattin
g, because an electronic book is completely different from ordinary galley formatting. For example, there are no page numbers and readers can choose what size font they require. Again, if you are unsure how to proceed, do not hesitate to give us a call, and we will try our best to get you “Kindled.”
Unfortunately, it has not been all good news for us this year, as we have had major Web site issues at Spinetinglers.co.uk and have had to rebuild the site. We would like to just take a minute here to say “thank you” to everyone who has stayed loyal to Spinetinglers, despite our ongoing problems. We are now fully back up and running, and we hope to reach out to a whole new audience, as well as to provide valuable feedback to our existing members. Last year, I complained about agents in my introduction. This year, my “bugbear” is Web site designers. Either they do not know what they are doing, or they take forever to do it. However, I will move on, I hope that the Web site problems that Spinetinglers has encountered are well behind us, and that we are back to a smooth, day-to-day, up-and-running, going concern. I suppose Web site designers are like editors, agents, and dentists – a necessary evil. However, just because they are necessary does not mean I will stop complaining about them.
The Spintetinglers Anthology 2009 is another eclectic mix of all things out of this world. As always, we have got it all. There are tales of gods and devils, angels and demons, saints and sinners, and even the odd goblin or two. We have authors such as Simon Wicks, who illustrates a beautiful command of language to stimulate his audience, as well as other authors such as Dave Paul, who uses good, old-fashioned scare tactics to get a reader excited. We have stories that will give you chills, as well as the odd story that will cheer you up on a rainy day. So, settle down into your favourite comfy chair, and prepare to get spooked!
Good Luck and Keep Writing!
Nolene-Patricia Dougan
October 31st, 2009
Fate of the World
by Adam Shiels
The vampire sat on the beach, his knees drawn up to his chin and his arms wrapped around them. His pale blue eyes stared fixedly out at the sea as it crashed against the shore. He could sit for hours watching this, and indeed today had, lost in his thoughts.
Without realising that he was doing it, he wriggled his toes in the fine, white sand. His bare feet contrasted the rest of him. He was dressed in charcoal grey trousers and a khaki shirt. The trousers weren’t proper dress trousers or anything but were instead smartly casual. His shirt was completely untucked and unbuttoned exposing his white, hairless chest. If any were to pass him then and there, they would assume that he was a tourist recently arrived to the island of Barbados, as surely no one would sit on the beach here dressed like that? Besides, he was too pale to have been here long.
That, however, couldn’t have been further from the truth. He had been here for over six months and had frequently been in the sun during that time, just like this day. He, however, would never tan or burn but he did enjoy the intense heat of the midday sun.
The colour of the sea further out from the coast was a deep blue, getting lighter as it swept toward land, the waves rising out of the water with white surf before hitting the shore with a surprising force.
Throughout the span of his life he had been in nearly every country at one time or another, he had witnessed many things, some fantastic, some horrific, all unforgettable. After all this, here in Barbados in the middle of the Caribbean, was where he yearned to be, and indeed he found that over the last few years of his life he had been coming back here more and more often until six months ago, he had decided to return here, with the intention of dying.
Now after six months on the island, all of his affairs were in order, and here he was sitting on the beach watching the sea and thinking about whether he should go through with taking his own life. After all, what was there left for him to live for? His family were long dead, his friends, too, were all dead, and as if that wasn’t enough, he was the last of his kind. On the surface, he looked like he was only in his late thirties to early forties, but looks were very deceiving. He didn’t know how old he was himself, having long ago stopped counting the years but it was literally in the thousands. He had been alive, if you could call it that, since well before the birth of Christ.
At that time, his people had been much larger in numbers; they slept throughout the day and hunted the Humans at night, drinking the blood of innocent people to survive. No one knew how they had started or who the first of their kind was, but he was one of the first, he knew that. Human once, but turned against his will, he had quickly fallen in love with his new life style. He had loved the power it provided and had quickly asked his mentor why they didn’t just rule over the Humans; after all, they were gods in comparison.
He was told that although he had all these powers, he could still be killed; the Humans could cull them if they ever knew of their existence. Fire, beheading, a stake through the heart: it was known that these would certainly kill them and there could be more that they didn’t know of yet.
The years turned to decades, then to centuries, and finally millennia, and in all that time the man had grown stronger and more able to control his powers. He was an expert at hunting his prey. He thrived on it; on the moment of the kill when he would sink his fangs into their throat and start to drink their blood. At that stage, all of the memories, truths and lies of the prey would be revealed to him. How he loved it, knowing that they couldn’t hide anything from him.
Over all the years from time to time, the Humans did discover their kind. They were branded as evil, demons, and monsters. The people feared them and in their fear they tried to destroy them. Sometimes they were successful and sometimes they invited their own destruction as the vampire defended himself.
Sitting on the beach, the man watched as a rain storm began to lash down far out to sea, his keen eyesight making it out as if he were using binoculars. He glanced skywards at the sun far above, felt the heat beating down on him. Smiling, he thought to himself how much he loved this island.
He turned his thoughts back to his past. He remembered when it had all changed for him.
***
He had been a vampire for more than two thousand years by this point and he was in a foreign country, hunting. This time, he wasn’t just hunting any old person though; he was hunting a supposed miracle worker. Something about this man intrigued him. He wanted to know if the stories were true and he knew that all he had to do was drink the miracle worker’s blood to find out. The man was named Jesus.
He had stalked this Jesus and waited, biding his time until the moment was right. He had done this hundreds of thousands of times and he knew what he was doing.
Finally the moment arrived when he had Jesus alone and he stepped out of the shadows, expecting to see the usual look of fear on his prey’s face. Instead, what he got was a warm greeting and the miracle worker spoke to him in his native language, a language that the vampire hadn’t heard been used for hundreds of years.
The vampire balked slightly and finally replied in the same language. “You knew I was there?” he asked.
“Of course,” Jesus replied. “I’ve been expecting you.”
“Expecting me?”
“Yes. You think you’re here to drink my blood and find out if the stories are true.”
“What do you mean I think?” the vampire asked.
“I mean, that you are much more important than that. You have been sent to me.”
“I wasn’t sent. I’m here on my own.”
“You don’t think that you were sent, but you were. In time, you’ll come to understand that and of your importance to the future of Mankind.”
“What?”
Jesus moved towards him, rolling the sleeve of his tunic up and holding his arm out towards the vampire. “Drink,” he said. “Drink of my blood.”
The vampire’s eyes narrowed at this. He was suspicious of what was being offered here. “You’re offering to let me drink your blood, just like that?”
The vampire began to bristle at all of this. He didn’t like that he was losing control of the situation. He’d come here with a very simple purpose and now he felt as if he was the one being put on the spot.
“What have you to lose?” Jesus asked quietly. “You came to drink of my blood and I’m offering it to you. I’d advise you to take me up on it as I have very little time on this Earth left.”
“For someone who seems so sure of himself, you’ve just implied that you’re about to die.”
Jesus smiled at the misunderstanding. “I don’t mean by your hand,” he said. “Drink of my blood and see everything.”
He further extended his arm towards the vampire. The vampire again hesitated, unable to shake the feeling that there was something going on that he wasn’t aware of or that he couldn’t understand.
Finally, unwilling to back down, to concede defeat, he grasped the outstretched arm of the miracle worker and brought it up to his lips. He bared his fangs and brought them to rest on the inside of the lower arm. Throughout this he had expected Jesus to retract his arm back again, his bluff having been called, but the vampire was surprised when that didn’t happen.
His eyes flicked up to meet those of his target and their gaze locked with one and other.
“What are waiting for?” Jesus asked. “Do what you came here to do.”
Without waiting any longer, the vampire sunk his teeth into the flesh, easily bursting through and puncturing the veins and arteries. Blood immediately began to fill his mouth and a second later the truth was revealed to him.
The vampire wanted to break free but found that he was paralysed by the images that had started to flood his head. Some images made sense, others involved things that he couldn’t even name, but instinctively knew to be the future. No, this couldn’t be happening; this couldn’t be what was in store for him and the rest of the planet. The images came faster and faster, pushing further and further into the future.