Конрад Уильямс - Decay Inevitable

It lives alone, Will said. It’s lost. It’s lonely. It’ll go without a struggle. It needs this. And it’s this way, Sean. Come on…

He powered the car too quickly for an hour and a half until he had reached the outskirts of a conurbation hanging on the edge of Birmingham like a wart on a scarred face.

Make a left here, Sean. Keep going. Just keep going…

There had been months of this. Closed doors, lonely motorways, miles and miles of self-doubt and nausea. He didn’t seem to be getting anywhere. He asked Will once, do the dead breed? and Will had laughed hard and for a long time without answering him.

…keep going…

He knocked at the door this time. He knew he didn’t need to break it down. He waited for an age, but that was okay. He didn’t mind waiting. It gave him something else to do. Something different. He clenched the rope in his fist as he heard footsteps approach the door.

She opened it wide. Late at night, all alone, but what did she have to be frightened of? He gazed at her for a long time.

“I wondered if it might ever happen,” she said.

“I have something I need to do,” he told her.

“I know. I know.”

She didn’t fight him, or plead with him. She even helped him to get the rope over a branch of the ash tree in the garden. He kissed her beforehand because she asked him to, and he would have backed out of it if she hadn’t coaxed him to carry the job through.

As she swung, just before the end, she reached out her hand and he took it. He held it until it closed and shuddered into a fist. Lifting it to his face, Sean pressed his lips against the tiny aperture that her forefinger had made behind the curled thumb, and whispered a message and a promise.

A proposal.

CONRAD A. WILLIAMS was born in Cheshire in 1969. He sold his first short story at the age of eighteen and has gone on to publish around eighty more to a variety of magazines and anthologies. He is the author of three novels, four novellas and a collection of his best short fiction. His book The Unblemished won the International Horror Guild Award for Best Novel. He is also a past recipient of the British Fantasy Award and the Littlewood Arc Prize.

One

The Unblemished

London Revenant

The Scalding Rooms

Rain

Head Injuries

Nearly People

Game

Use Once Then Destroy

Pilot Paul Roan is in command of a Boeing 777 involved in a near miss. Nerves shot, he opts for a new life running a B&B in a coastal village with his girlfriend, Tamara. Not long after they arrive, Paul is involved in a serious accident.

Emerging six months later from a coma, Paul discovers that Tamara is gone and a child killer is haunting the beaches. The villagers, appalled by Paul’s cheating of death, treat him as a sin-eater. They bring him items to dispose of, secrets far too awful to deal with themselves. At least he has local nurse, Ruth, to look after him. And Amy, a damaged soul with a special gift. She befriends Paul and together they unearth clues that might explain the shocking history of the village, and suggest the murders are anything but.

Meanwhile, Paul begins to suspect there is more to Tamara’s disappeareance than meets the eye…

It knows where you live…

Imagine a place where all your nightmares become real. Dark urban streets where crime, debt and violence are not the only things to fear. Picture a housing project that is a gateway to somewhere else; a realm where ghosts and monsters stir hungrily in the shadows. Welcome to the Concrete Grove.

This deprived area is Hailey’s new home, but when an ancient entity notices her, it becomes something much more threatening. She is the only one who can help her mother as she joins in a dangerous dance with loanshark Monty Bright. Only Hailey can see the truth of Tom’s darkest desires as he tries to become part of their family. And only Hailey can lead them all to the heart of the estate where something older than this land stirs and begins to wake…

First published 2009 by Solaris, an imprint of Rebellion Publishing Ltd, Riverside House, Osney Mead, Oxford, OX2 0ES, UK

www.solarisbooks.com

ISBN (ePUB): 978-1-84997-309-0

ISBN (MOBI): 978-1-84997-310-6

Copyright © 2011 Conrad Williams.

Cover image by Dave McKean.

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

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owners.