Suspended In Dusk (39 page)

The spectre nodded patiently. The woman beside him looked like an aging cheerleader and pointed at Sweet Bobby.

“Yes, Mama,” she said with barely veiled impatience. “Miz Melba May Adams, pointing, pointing, pointing, just like she did in life.” But Annabel stubbornly refused to pay attention, which is why Sweet Bobby fell so hard, hitting his head on the corner of the bench. Melba’s movements headed into semaphore.

Annabel sighed and nodded. “Yes, Mama, I should have listened to you.”

She bent over and the shades leaned forward too, so all Bobby saw was a circle of faces, staring down with various degrees of curiosity.

“It was nice to talk to you, Mr Tate, if only for a little while. My family don’t say much—well, nothing really. But I do appreciate them sticking with me even after all that happened. I left them til last, you realise, because I love them; did not touch them until no one else was left in Wolf’s Briar for me to take in the night. They were kind in life, and very forgiving in death. They gave up the ghost for me, so I could keep my strength up until things get better.”

Bobby’s eyes drooped and drooped.

“That’s the temazepam, it’s a hypnotic to send you off to dreamland. Tastes awful bitter though—that’s why the lemonade needs so much sweetening.”

Bobby tried to talk, although what he might have said he wasn’t certain. He might have cursed, or maybe offered his admiration for a game well-played. He thought he might have said
You’re the girl I always dreamed of
. The light from the window was dimming, the dusk creeping in like a heavy secret.

“Don’t you worry, Mr Tate, you won’t even know what happens to you, and I won’t be so cruel as to tell you. You’ll sleep forever––” She broke off, distracted by the waving of her father’s head, then nodded, “You’ll sleep like an innocent baby taken up to paradise. Now, isn’t that the best gift anyone’s ever given you?”

She smiled and as he drifted off, Bobby heard Annabel Adams’s final words on the matter: “He shouldn’t have thrown that rock and made all that noise.”

Her family nodded in agreement.

“Nice round buttocks, juicy and firm. He’ll keep in the cellar with some salting and drying. I’ll get a year off him if I’m not greedy—yes, Daddy, I learned that lesson. Going to be heavy, though; pity none of you have the wherewithal to help me.”

And because the words had lost all meaning for him, they sounded, to Bobby’s drowsing ear, like the sweetest lullaby in the world.

About the Editor

Simon Dewar was born and bred in Canberra, Australia. He lives there with his wife and 3 daughters. He has fiction published in the
Bloody Parchment: The Root Cellar and Other Stories
, as well as the forthcoming anthologies
The Sea
and
Death’s Realm,
from Dark Continents Publishing and Grey Matter Press, respectively.

By day, he is an ICT systems engineer; by night he writes, and edits, the literature of anxiety.

You may find him on twitter: @herodfel

http://simondewar.wordpress.com

About the Authors

Alan Baxter ~ A
uthor of dark fantasy, horror & sci-fi. Kung Fu instructor. Personal Trainer. Motorcyclist. Dog lover. Gamer. Heavy metal fan. Britstralian. Misanthrope.

Alan is a Ditmar Award-nominated British-Australian author. He writes dark fantasy, horror and sci-fi, rides a motorcycle and loves his dog. He also teaches Kung Fu. He is the author of the dark urban fantasy trilogy,
Bound, Obsidian
and
Abduction
(
The Alex Caine Series
).
Bound
was released by HarperVoyager Australia in July 2014.
Obsidian
and
Abduction
are forthcoming from the same publisher.

His short fiction has appeared in
Fantasy & Science Fiction (forthcoming),
Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Daily Science Fiction, Postscripts, Wily Writers
and
Midnight Echo
, among many others, and more than twenty anthologies, including the
Year’s Best Australian Fantasy & Horror
(2010 and 2012).

You may find him on twitter @AlanBaxter

Or on his website: www.alanbaxteronline.com

Anna Reith ~
lives behind a keyboard in the far southwest of England, drinks far too much coffee, and writes across a range of genres, with particular emphasis on fantasy and speculative fiction. On the rare occasions she isn’t writing, Anna enjoys taking long, muddy walks with her dogs, playing guitar really badly, and falling off horses. Not all at the same time, obviously.

Her website is: www.annareith.co.uk

Armand Rosamilia ~ is a New Jersey boy currently living in sunny Florida, where he writes about everyone around him getting eaten by zombies. He has over 100 releases currently available, including a few different series, like his
Dying Days
extreme zombie books. He also loves to talk in third person… because he’s really that cool. He’s a proud Active member of HWA.

You can find him at http://armandrosamilia.com for not only his latest releases but interviews and guest posts with other authors he likes! And e-mail him to talk about zombies, baseball and Metal: [email protected]

Icy Sedgwick
~ was born in the North East of England, and lives and works in Newcastle, where she teaches design and social media. She has been writing for over ten years, and has had several stories included in anthologies, including
Short Stack
and
Bloody Parchment: The Root Cellar & Other Stories
. She favours Gothic horror, but is not averse to writing fantasy, steampunk or historical fiction!

Icy had her first book, a pulp Western named
The Guns of Retribution
, published through Pulp Press in September 2011, and re-published through Beat to a Pulp in May 2013. Her latest novella, a horror fantasy called
The Necromancer’s Apprentice
, was published by Dark Continents Publishing in March 2014. Sequels to both titles are in the pipeline, and she is also in the process of editing her YA ghost adventure about a Cavalier named Fowlis Westerby.

She spends her non-writing time working on a PhD in Film Studies, considering the use of set design in contemporary horror, with a focus on haunted house films. Icy also knits, crochets, and makes jewellery, including a new merchandise range to support her published titles. She spent some time working on paranormal investigations and is keen to infuse her fiction with the supernatural wherever possible.

She spends a lot of time using social media, so you can email her at [email protected], or follow her on Twitter @IcySedgwick. Her blog is at www.icysedgwick.com, where she posts weekly free fiction, and you can find her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/miss.icy.sedgwick.

Rayne Hall ~ has published more than fifty books in several languages under several pen names with several publishers in several genres, mostly fantasy, horror and non-fiction. She is the author of the bestselling
Writer’s Craft
series and editor of the
Ten Tales
anthologies.

Having lived in Germany, China, Mongolia and Nepal, she has now settled in a small dilapidated town of former Victorian grandeur on the south coast of England where she enjoys reading, gardening and long walks along the seashore. She shares her home with a black cat adopted from the cat sanctuary. His name is Sulu and he’s the perfect cat for a writer––except when he claims ownership of her keyboard.

You can follow here on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/RayneHallAuthor and Twitter @RayneHall where she posts advice for writers, funny cartoons and cute pictures of her cat.

Chris Limb ~
is a writer and designer based in Brighton, UK. After many years hovering on the periphery of the music industry -originally just going to gigs but eventually graduating to selling
 t-shirts and badges plus operating the lighting rig for bands––in 2011 he published a pop memoir
I Was A Teenage Toyah Fan
which went down well with its core-audience, received good reviews and continues to sell at a steady rate.

Chris’s full length novel
Comeback
––in which the UK music industry and the mythological underworld collide––is currently being submitted to agents and publishers and he recently completed work on the first draft of the follow up
Ghostdance
.

Chris reviews books and audiobooks for the British Fantasy Society and has blogged on a regular basis since mid-2009. In addition he writes short stories a number of which have been published over the past 18 months with more to come over the next six months.

When time allows, Chris also plays bass guitar in a couple of bands as well as performing random acts of web and graphic design for a diverse selection of clients in the comedy and theatre scenes.


You can find him at www.chrislimb.com or on Twitter @catmachine

Toby Bennett ~ was born in 1976 in Cape Town, South Africa. He holds a degree in philosophy from the University of Cape Town. Like many writers he has had a varied career that has included graphic and web design, database administration and technical writing. His true passion lies in creative writing and to date he has written eight novels and appeared in a few collections of short stories, including the
Bloody Parchment
and
Dark Harvest
anthologies. He has a story in the upcoming anthology
The Sea
and is looking forward to the release of his serialized novel––Viral, co-written with Benjamin Knox. (Release date to be announced).

His website is www.thedragontower.co.za.

S.G Larner ~
is a denizen of sunny Brisbane, Australia, where she wrangles three children and complains about the heat. As an antidote to her relatively mundane life she revels in exploring the dark underbelly of the world through her short fiction and poetry.

Her work has appeared in Aurealis, SQ Mag, Tincture Journal, Vine Leaves Literary Journal
,
and the Grey Matter Press anthology
Equilibrium Overturned
, among others. Upcoming publications include
Fictionvale Episode 4
and
Phantazein
, a new anthology by Fablecroft Publishing.

In her non-existent spare time she knits, sews, runs, bakes, grows things and co-ordinates a school library. You can find her at http://foregoreality.wordpress.com and on twitter @StaceySarasvati.

J.C. Michael ~
lives in rural North Yorkshire with his wife, who encourages him to write, and his young son, who distracts him from getting on with it.

His debut novel,
Discoredia
, was published by Books of the Dead Press in 2013, and his flash fiction piece,
Insufficient
, won the 2014 St. Valentine’s Day Massacre Competition run by Grey Matter Press.

Ramsey Campbell ~ The
Oxford Companion to English Literature
describes Ramsey Campbell as “Britain’s most respected living horror writer”. He has been given more awards than any other writer in the field, including the Grand Master Award of the World Horror Convention, the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Horror Writers Association and the Living Legend Award of the International Horror Guild.

Among his novels are
The Face That Must Die
,
Incarnate
,
Midnight Sun
,
The Count of Eleven
,
Silent Children, The Darkest Part of the Woods, The Overnight
,
Secret Story
,
The Grin of the Dark
,
Thieving Fear
,
Creatures of the Pool
,
The Seven Days of Cain
,
Ghosts Know
and
The Kind Folk.
Forthcoming are
Think Yourself Lucky
and
Thirteen Days at Sunset Beach
, and he is working on a trilogy,
The Three Births of Daoloth
.
Needing Ghosts
,
The Last Revelation of Gla’aki
and
The Pretence
are novellas.
His collections include
Waking Nightmares
,
Alone with the Horrors, Ghosts and Grisly Things
,
Told by the Dead
,
Just Behind You
and
Holes for Faces
, and his non-fiction is collected as
Ramsey Campbell, Probably
. His novels
The Nameless
and
Pact of the Fathers
have been filmed in Spain. His regular columns appear in
Dead Reckonings
and
Video Watchdog
. He is the President of the Society of Fantastic Films.