The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror Read online

  STEPHEN JONES lives in London, England. He is the winner of three World Fantasy Awards, four Horror Writers Association Bram Stoker Awards and three International Horror Guild Awards as well as being a twenty-time recipient of the British Fantasy Award and a Hugo Award nominee. A former television producer/director and genre movie publicist and consultant (the first three Hellraiser movies, Night Life, Nightbreed, Split Second, Mind Ripper, Last Gasp etc.), he is the co-editor of Horror: 100 Best Books, Horror: Another 100 Best Books, The Best Horror from Fantasy Tales, Gaslight & Ghosts, Now We Are Sick, H.P. Lovecraft’s Book of Horror, The Anthology of Fantasy & the Supernatural, Secret City: Strange Tales of London, Great Ghost Stories, Tales to Freeze the Blood: More Great Ghost Stories and the Dark Terrors, Dark Voices and Fantasy Tales series. He has written Coraline: A Visual Companion, Stardust: The Visual Companion, Creepshows: The Illustrated Stephen King Movie Guide, The Essential Monster Movie Guide, The Illustrated Vampire Movie Guide, The Illustrated Dinosaur Movie Guide, The Illustrated Frankenstein Movie Guide and The Illustrated Werewolf Movie Guide, and compiled The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror series, The Mammoth Book of Terror, The Mammoth Book of Vampires, The Mammoth Book of Zombies, The Mammoth Book of Werewolves, The Mammoth Book of Frankenstein, The Mammoth Book of Dracula, The Mammoth Book of Vampire Stories by Women, The Mammoth Book of New Terror, The Mammoth Book of Monsters, Shadows Over Innsmouth, Weird Shadows Over Innsmouth, Dark Detectives, Dancing with the Dark, Dark of the Night, White of the Moon, Keep Out the Night, By Moonlight Only, Don’t Turn Out the Light, H.P. Lovecraft’s Book of the Supernatural, Travellers in Darkness, Summer Chills, Brighton Shock!, Exorcisms and Ecstasies by Karl Edward Wagner, The Vampire Stories of R. Chetwynd-Hayes, Phantoms and Fiends and Frights and Fancies by R. Chetwynd-Hayes, James Herbert: By Horror Haunted, Basil Copper: A Life in Books, Necronomicon: The Best Weird Tales of H.P. Lovecraft, The Complete Chronicles of Conan and Conan’s Brethren by Robert E. Howard, The Emperor of Dreams: The Lost Worlds of Clark Ashton Smith, Sea-Kings of Mars and Otherworldly Stories by Leigh Brackett, The Mark of the Beast and Other Fantastical Tales by Rudyard Kipling, Darkness Mist & Shadow: The Collected Macabre Tales of Basil Copper, Pelican Cay & Other Disquieting Tales by David Case, Clive Barker’s A–Z of Horror, Clive Barker’s Shadows in Eden, Clive Barker’s The Nightbreed Chronicles, The Hellraiser Chronicles and volumes of poetry by H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard and Clark Ashton Smith. A Guest of Honour at the 2002 World Fantasy Convention in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and the 2004 World Horror Convention in Phoenix, Arizona, he has been a guest lecturer at UCLA in California and London’s Kingston University and St Mary’s University College. You can visit his website at www.stephenjoneseditor.com

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  Constable & Robinson Ltd

  3 The Lanchesters

  162 Fulham Palace Road

  London W6 9ER

  www.constablerobinson.com

  First published in the UK by Robinson,

  an imprint of Constable & Robinson, 2010

  Collection and editiorial material copyright © Stephen Jones 2010 (unless otherwise indicated)

  The right of Stephen Jones to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library

  UK ISBN 978-1-84901-372-7

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  First published in the United States in 2010 by Running Press Book Publishers

  All rights reserved under the Pan-American and

  International Copyright Conventions

  This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or hereafter invented, without written permission from the publisher.

  9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Digit on the right indicates the number of this printing

  US Library of Congress number: 2009943390

  US ISBN 978-0-76243-997-3

  Running Press Book Publishers

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  Printed and bound in the EU

  CONTENTS

  Acknowledgments

  Introduction: Horror in 2009

  The Woods

  MICHAEL KELLY

  Throttle

  JOE HILL and STEPHEN KING

  Out and Back

  BARBARA RODEN

  Respects

  RAMSEY CAMPBELL

  Cold to the Touch

  SIMON STRANTZAS

  The Game of Bear

  M.R. JAMES and REGGIE OLIVER

  Shem-el-Nessim

  An Inspiration in Perfume

  CHRIS BELL

  What Happens When You Wake Up in the Night

  MICHAEL MARSHALL SMITH

  The Reunion

  NICHOLAS ROYLE

  Mami Wata

  SIMON KURT UNSWORTH

  Venturi

  RICHARD CHRISTIAN MATHESON

  Party Talk

  JOHN GASKIN

  Two Steps Along the Road

  TERRY DOWLING

  The Axholme Toll

  MARK VALENTINE

  Granny’s Grinning

  ROBERT SHEARMAN

  In the Garden

  ROSALIE PARKER

  After the Ape

  STEPHEN VOLK

  The Nonesuch

  BRIAN LUMLEY

 
Princess of the Night

  MICHAEL KELLY

  Necrology: 2009

  STEPHEN JONES and KIM NEWMAN

  Useful Addresses

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I would like to thank David Barraclough, Kim Newman, Mandy Slater, Amanda Foubister, Sara and Randy Broecker, Andrew I. Porter, Rodger Turner and Wayne MacLaurin (www.sfsite.com), Peter Crowther, Gordon Van Gelder, Ray Russell, Bill Schafer, Andy Cox, Johnny Mains, Steve Holland and, especially, Duncan Proudfoot and Dorothy Lumley for all their help and support. Special thanks are also due to Locus, Variety, Ansible and all the other sources that were used for reference in the Introduction and the Necrology.

  INTRODUCTION: HORROR IN 2009 copyright © Stephen Jones 2010.

  THE WOODS copyright © Michael Kelly 2009. Originally published in Tesseracts Thirteen: Chilling Tales from the Great White North. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  THROTTLE copyright © Joe Hill and Stephen King 2009. Originally published in He is Legend: An Anthology Celebrating Richard Matheson. Reprinted by permission of the authors.

  OUT AND BACK copyright © Barbara Roden 2009. Originally published in Northwest Passages. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  RESPECTS copyright © Ramsey Campbell 2009. Originally published in British Invasion. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  COLD TO THE TOUCH copyright © Simon Strantzas 2009. Originally published in Cold to the Touch. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  THE GAME OF BEAR copyright © Reggie Oliver 2009. Originally published in Madder Mysteries. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  SHEM-EL-NESSIM: AN INSPIRATION IN PERFUME copyright © Chris Bell 2009. Originally published in This is the Summer of Love: A Postscripts New Writers Special. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU WAKE UP IN THE NIGHT copyright © Michael Marshall Smith 2009. Originally published in What Happens When You Wake Up in the Night. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  THE REUNION copyright © Nicholas Royle 2009. Originally published in Poe: 19 New Tales of Suspense, Dark Fantasy and Horror Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  MAMI WATA copyright © Simon Kurt Unsworth 2009. Originally published in Exotic Gothic 3: Strange Visitations. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  VENTURI copyright © Richard Christian Matheson 2009. Originally published in He is Legend: An Anthology Celebrating Richard Matheson. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  PARTY TALK copyright © John Gaskin 2009. Originally published in Strange Tales Volume III. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  TWO STEPS ALONG THE ROAD copyright © Terry Dowling 2009. Originally published in Exotic Gothic 3: Strange Visitations. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  THE AXHOLME TOLL copyright © Mark Valentine 2009. Originally published in The Nightfarers. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  GRANNY’S GRINNING copyright © Robert Shearman 2009. Originally published in The Dead That Walk: Zombie Stories. Reprinted by permission of the author and the author’s agent.

  IN THE GARDEN copyright © Rosalie Parker 2009. Originally published in The Fifth Black Book of Horror. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  AFTER THE APE copyright © Stephen Volk 2009. Originally published in The British Fantasy Society Yearbook 2009. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  THE NONESUCH copyright © Brian Lumley 2009. Originally published in The Nonesuch and Others. Reprinted by permission of the author and the author’s agent.

  PRINCESS OF THE NIGHT copyright © Michael Kelly 2009. Originally published in Undertow and Other Laments. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  NECROLOGY: 2009 copyright © Stephen Jones and Kim Newman 2010.

  USEFUL ADDRESSES copyright © Stephen Jones 2010.

  This edition of Best New Horror is dedicated

  to the memory of my other “brother” in Chicago

  – JAY BROECKER –

  (1946–2010)

  whose support of my career and many kindnesses

  to me over the years will never be forgotten.

  INTRODUCTION

  Horror in 2009

  ALTHOUGH THE HORROR GENRE has been going from strength to strength in recent years, the global recession hit the publishing industry and booksellers very hard in 2009.

  In the UK, Penguin laid off around 100 people from its London office, while Games Workshop sold its Solaris Books imprint to fellow game company Rebellion, also the publisher of Abaddon Books.

  In America, Barnes & Noble closed the final fifty of its B. Dalton bookstores, which were primarily located in shopping malls, and Borders Group Inc. announced plans to close 200 Waldenbooks stores.

  After the sale of all its fifty-one UK stores earlier in the year in a management buy-out, the Borders high street bookshop chain, which also included the Books Etc. brand, went into administration at the end of November. The chain had been on the brink of collapse since a rescue deal to sell some of its forty-five stores to WH Smith fell through, and such major publishers as Hachette UK and Random House cut off book supplies, leading to the suspension of the Borders website online orders. The collapse of Borders was blamed on declining sales as a result of competition from online retailers such as Amazon and cut-price offers on best-sellers from supermarkets.

  London specialty bookstores Murder One and Fantasy Centre both closed their doors in 2009, and the last branch of Woolworth’s ceased operations in January, 100 years after the retailer began trading. During the 1930s, Woolworth’s used to sell American pulp magazines which were brought over as ballast on returning ships, and the chain is credited as launching the Penguin paperback imprint when it purchased 63,000 copies of the first title in 1936.

  Reportedly adding to the decline in secondhand booksellers was the rise in the number of Oxfam charity bookstores in the UK, which number around 130, making it the largest used book dealer in Europe. With Oxfam earning an estimated $32 million from just its book operation, it is perhaps no wonder that Britain’s secondhand booksellers have declined from around 3,000 thirty years ago to about half that number now.

  Still, it wasn’t all doom and gloom: in July HarperCollins launched its new SF and fantasy imprint, Angry Robot, in the UK, and in the rest of the world two months later.

  Meanwhile, as a result of ongoing restructuring at the Random House Publishing Group, the Bantam Spectra imprint changed its name to Ballantine Spectra.

  On June 10, a Texas-based web-monitoring firm declared the millionth word in the English language to be “Web 2.0”, which stands for the next generation of web products or services. The word beat out such other terms as “Jai ho”, “slumdog” and “N00b”.

  However, many linguists rejected the claim as being unscientific, pointing out that it was impossible to count the number of English words currently in use or even agree on what constitutes a legitimate English word.

  RDR Books finally withdrew its appeal against a New York court’s decision blocking publication of The Harry Potter Lexicon. As a result of the judgment, the book was re-edited and expanded, and it appeared as The Lexicon: An Unauthorized Guide to Harry Potter Fiction in January.

  The chair on which J.K. Rowling wrote the first two books in the “Harry Potter’’ series went up on eBay in July and sold for £19,555. Before the sale the author personalized the chair with a message, and a fifth of the proceeds went to the Books Abroad charity.

  In September, former George W. Bush speechwriter Matt Latimer claimed in a book that Rowling was denied the Presidential Medal of Freedom because the Bush administration feared that her “Harry Potter’’ volumes “encouraged witchcraft”. However, the author was made a knight in the French Legion of Honour in February, in a ceremony hosted by President Nicolas Sarkozy.

  Stephenie Meyer’s fourth “Twilight” novel, Breaking Dawn, was reissued in America in a hardcover special edition that included a poster on the reverse of the dustjacket, a Brea
king Dawn concert DVD and a twenty-seven page supplement containing lyrics and an interview.

  In a USA Weekend interview, Stephen King claimed that the real difference between the “Harry Potter’’ and “Twilight’’ series was that “Jo Rowling is a terrific writer and Stephenie Meyer can’t write worth a darn . . . She’s not very good.”

  Despite King’s pertinent observation, a depressing statistic in USA Today claimed that Meyer’s novels accounted for 16 per cent of all book sales in the first quarter of 2009.

  At least one good thing to come out of the “Twilight’’ phenomenon was a massive boost in sales of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights and William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, after both classics were repeatedly referenced by the main characters in Meyer’s series.

  In August, Meyer was sued for plagiarism by Jordan Scott, who claimed that Breaking Dawn, the fourth in the best-selling author’s “Twilight’’ series, was influenced by her own 2006 novel The Nocturne. The US District Court judge subsequently dismissed the lawsuit, stating that the two books were “vastly different”.

  As he did earlier with The Tommyknockers, Stephen King revisited some old memories (in this case, John Wyndham’s The Midwich Cuckoos or more likely the film version, Children of the Damned) for his blockbuster SF novel Under the Dome. When the inhabitants of the small Maine town of Chester’s Mill found themselves imprisoned beneath an invisible barrier, they fractioned into opposing groups, each attempting to seize control for very different reasons.

  Echoing similar themes found in King’s The Stand, the novel originally began life in the 1980s under the title The Cannibals, and film rights were quickly snapped up by executive producer Steven Spielberg for television.

  In a one-man attempt to stem the decline in bookselling, King delayed the release of the e-book version of Under the Dome for more than a month “to give bookstores a chance to make some money”.