Stephen Jones - The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror. Vol 15

I would like to thank David Barraclough, Kim Newman, Hugh Lamb, Nick Austin, Pete Duncan, Ellen Datlow, Gordon Van Gelder, Barbara Roden, Rodger Turner and Wayne MacLaurin (sfsite.com), David J. Schow, Dennis Etchison, Mandy Slater,Brian Mooney, Ray Russell, Ramsey Campbell, Richard Dalby, Sara and Randy Broecker, Robert T. Garcia, Andrew I. Porter, Kelly Link, Peter Coleborn, Douglas E. Winter, Basil Copper, Sue and Lou Irmo, Harris M. Lentz III, Andy Cox, Robert Morgan and David Pringle for all their help and support. Special thanks are also due to Locus, Interzone, Classic Images, Variety and all the other sources that were used for reference in the Introduction and the Necrology.

INTRODUCTION: HORROR IN 2003 copyright © Stephen Jones 2004.

FEAR THE DEAD copyright © Ramsey Campbell 2003. Originally published in The Fear Within. Reprinted by permission of the author.

THE HANGED MAN OF OZ copyright © Steve Nagy 2003. Originally published in Gathering the Bones. Reprinted by permission of the author.

MARA copyright © Michael Chislett 2003. Originally published in Conventional Vampires. Reprinted by permission of the author.

CELL CALL copyright © Marc Laidlaw 2003. Originally published in By Moonlight Only. Reprinted by permission of the author.

IN THE TUNNELS copyright © Pauline E. Dungate 2003. Originally published in Beneath the Ground. Reprinted by permission of the author.

HUNGER: A CONFESSION copyright © Spilogale, Inc. 2003. Originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, March 2003. Reprinted by permission of the author.

SEVEN FEET copyright © Christopher Fowler 2003. Origin-.illy published in Demonized. Reprinted by permission of the author.

THE CENTIPEDE copyright © Susan Davis 2003. Originally published in All Hallows 33, June 2003. Reprinted by permission of the author.

THE GOAT CUTTER copyright © Joseph E. Lake, Jr. 2003. Originally published in Greetings from Lake Wu. Reprinted by permission of the author.

MAYBE NEXT TIME copyright © Michael Marshall Smith 2003. Originally published in More Tomorrow & Other Stories. Reprinted by permission of the author.

STORY TIME WITH THE BLUEFIELD STRANGLER copyright © John Farris 2003. Originally published in Borderlands 5: An Anthology of Imaginative Fiction. Reprinted by permission of the author.

HUNTER LAKE copyright © Gene Wolfe 2003. Originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, October/November 2003. Reprinted by permission of the author and the author's agents, the Virginia Kidd Agency, Inc.

MR. SLY STOPS FOR A CUP OF JOE copyright © Scott Emerson Bull 2003. Originally published in Gathering the Bones. Reprinted by permission of the author.

THE BEREAVEMENT PHOTOGRAPHER copyright © Steve Rasnic Tem 2003. Originally published in 13 Horrors: A Devil's Dozen Stories Celebrating 13 Years of the World Horror Convention. Reprinted by permission of the author.

KISSING CARRION copyright © Gemma Files 2003. Originally published in Kissing Carrion. Reprinted by permission of the author.

THE WHITE HANDS copyright © Mark Samuels 2003. Originally published in The White Hands and Other Weird Tales. First published in substantially different form as «Amelia» in Black Tears No. 1, 1993. Reprinted by permission of the author.

WAYCROSS copyright © Caitlin R. Kiernan 2003. Originally published in Waycross. Reprinted by permission of the author.

LUCY, IN HER SPLENDOR copyright © Charles Coleman Finlay 2003. Originally published on MarsDust.com. Reprinted by permission of the author.

DEAD BOY FOUND copyright © Christopher Barzak 2003. Originally published in Trampoline: An Anthology. Reprinted by permission of the author.

THE HAUNTING copyright © Spilogale, Inc. 2003. Originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, April 2003. Reprinted by permission of the author and the author's agents, John Hawkins and Associates.

DANCING MEN copyright © Glen Hirshberg 2003. Originally published in The Two Sams: Ghost Stories and The Dark: New Ghost Stories. Reprinted by permission of the author and the author's agents, Anderson Grinberg Literary Management,Inc.

BITTER GROUNDS copyright © Neil Gaiman 2003. Originally published in Mojo: Conjure Stories. Reprinted by permission of the author.

CHILD OF THE STONES copyright © Paul McAuley 2003. Originally published on SciFi.Com, November 2003. Reprinted by permission of the author.

THE SILENCE OF THE FALLING STARS copyright © Mike O'Driscoll 2003. Originally published in The Dark: New Ghost Stories. Reprinted by permission of the author.

EXORCIZING ANGELS copyright © Simon Clark and Tim Lebbon 2003. Originally published in Exorcizing Angels. Reprinted by permission of the authors.

NECROLOGY: 2003 copyright © Stephen Jones and Kim Newman 2004.

USEFUL ADDRESSES copyright © Stephen Jones 2004.

Ramsey Campbell has been named Grand Master by the World Horror Convention and has received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Horror Writers Association. Tor Books recently reprinted his landmark collection Alone With the Horrors, and a new edition of his Arkham House collection The Height of the Scream has been reissued by California ’s Babbage Press.

His latest supernatural novel, The Overnight, is now available from PS Publishing, and forthcoming from Sutton Hoo Press of Winona is a limited edition of an original ghost story, “The Decorations”, for Christmas 2004. The author is currently at work on a new novel, Secret Stories.

About the following story, Campbell explains: “I was asked to write a new tale for an anthology of stories about fear. I still have some I haven’t told yet. I’ve published a few recently that touch on the afterlife. We must hope they’re fiction.”

Someone else he didn’t think he’d ever seen before leaned down as if to let him count all her wrinkles. “I wish I’d had the chance to say goodbye to my grandmama, Jonathan.”

Another lady dressed in at least as much black and holding her wineglass askew parted her pale lips, which looked as though they had once been stitched together. “Now you know she’s at peace.”

As he remembered how his grandmother’s cheek had felt like a cold crumpled wad of paper he had to kiss, the winner of the wrinkle competition said “What a brave little soul. He’s a credit to his mother.”

“And his father.”

“Careful or you’ll drip.”

The stitched lady straightened up her glass. “We don’t want stains on your lovely carpet, do we, Jonathan? They don’t make them like that any more.”

He thought the elaborate carpet felt like the rest of the house — furtively chill and damp. “I can just hear her saying that, old Ire,” his father joined him to remark.

“Her friends never called Iris that,” the stitched mouth objected. “Oh, whatever’s wrong, you poor little fellow?”

While Jonathan struggled to think of a reply that wouldn’t be the truth, his mother hurried over to confront his father. “Are you upsetting him, Lawrence?”

“Only saying I could hear your mother pricing the contents of the house. Half of it Jonno wasn’t supposed to touch,” he confided to the wrinkled ladies. “You must have felt like you were living in a museum, did you, Jonno?”

Jonathan was yet more afraid to speak. The wineglass slouched again as its lady crooked her other thin arm around his shoulders and murmured “Don’t worry, your daddy wasn’t really hearing her. She’s gone to Jesus and she’ll be talking to him.”