Stephen Jones: Dark Terrors 5: The Gollancz Book of Horror

David Casewas born in New York but for the past few decades has lived in London as well as spending time in Spain and Greece. His acclaimed collection The Cell: Three Tales of Horror appeared in 1969, and it was followed by the novels Fengrijfen: A Chilling Tale (1970), Wolf Tracks (1980) and The Third Grave , which appeared from Arkham House in 1981. More recently, a new collection entitled Brotherly Love and Other Tales of Faith and Knowledge was published by Pumpkin Books. Outside the horror genre, Case has written more than three hundred books under at least seventeen pseudonyms, ranging from porn to Westerns. Two of his short stories, ‘Fengriffen’ and the classic werewolf thriller ‘The Hunter’ were filmed as — And Now the Screaming Starts! (1973) and Scream of the Wolf (1974), respectively. ‘Pelican Cay’ was originally going to be published by the late James Turner in an anthology he planned to edit in the mid-1980s for Arkham House entitled Summoning the Shadows. When the horror market changed in America, the book was shelved and Case’s powerful novella languished in a file for many years until its publication here. ‘I wrote “Pelican Cay” in a seedy hotel in downtown Chicago,’ remembers the author, ‘but had lived in the Florida Keys before that, which inspired the atmosphere and setting. The Red Walls, or maybe Doors, was an upmarket place when I was there, but there were plenty of tales from when it was the haunt of shrimpers and salad girls (girls who signed on shrimp boats but didn’t necessarily make salads). A fella was drowning his sorrows there once and, morose, said he would commit suicide if he dared. They hanged him from the rafters. My favourite: thirteen shrimpers are standing at the long bar. A guy runs in with a shooter and shouts “This is a stick-up!” The shrimpers turned around and twelve had shooters, the other had a billhook. The bandit says, “I guess I’ve robbed the wrong place.” But he bought a round of drinks and they let him go.’