Каарон Уоррен - The Best Horror of the Year Volume Ten

None of it makes any sense; it’s all constructed with playing cards, waiting for a sneeze to collapse it. I pay the bill, and we walk out of Pete’s. The sidewalks have filled with a mass of children and parents making their slow way up Main Street to the library to assemble for the Halloween parade. Zombies stagger along next to Clone Troopers, while Batman brings up the rear. Clown parents carry ladybug children. Frankenstein’s bride towers over the Hobbits surrounding her. Witches whose pointed green chins are visible beneath the broad brims of their black hats talk to fairies sporting flower crowns and wings dusted with sparkles. There’s a kid costumed as a hairy dog, an adult dressed as a boxy robot. The Grim Reaper swings a mean-looking scythe; Hermione Granger flourishes her wand. Vampires in evening dress walk beside superheroes in gaudier colors. A few old-fashioned ghosts flutter like sheets escaped from the clothes line.

A number of Bad Agathas are part of the procession, one of them quite small. This diminutive form darts through the crowd to where Sarah and I are standing. The mask the girl tilts at us is too big for her. It’s an older design, the features angular, the left eye socket a black cavern. Sarah’s eyebrows lift at the sight. The girl raises her right hand. She’s holding a Bad Agatha mask, which she offers to Sarah.

Sarah hesitates, then accepts the mask. Apparently released by her act, the girl sprints away into the costumed ranks. Sarah considers Bad Agatha’s stylized face, as if studying a photograph of an old acquaintance. She turns the mask over, tilts her head forward, and slides bad Agatha’s face over hers. She straightens, turns to me. Whatever witty remark I was preparing dies on my tongue. Without another word, Sarah turns and joins the parade.

For Fiona

Allan, Nina “Four Abstracts,” New Fears .

Arkenberg, Megan “But Thou, Proserpina, Sleep,” A Breath from the Sky .

Balázs, Thomas P. “Waiting for Mrs. Hemley,” Horror Library Volume 6 .

Barron, Laird “Swift to Chase,” Adam’s Ladder .

Benedict, R. S. “My English Name,” F&SF May/June.

Campbell, Rebecca “On Highway 18,” F&SF Sept/October.

Clark, Stephen J. Out of Bounds,” (novella) Murder Ballads .

Dowling, Terry “The Other Séance at Kenmyre,” The Night Shop

Dowling, Terry “Still Life, with Stranging Glass,” The Night Shop .

Edelman, Scott “Faking It Until Forever Comes,” Liars, Fakers, and the Dead…

Evenson, Brian “Sisters,” Haunted Nights .

Ford, Jeffrey “The Twilight Pariah,” (novella) Tor.comBooks.

Ford, Jeffrey “Witch Hazel,” Haunted Nights .

Hand, Elizabeth “Eat the Worm,” Mixed Up .

Hand, Elizabeth “Fire,” Fire. Plus .

Headley, Maria Dahvana “The Orange Tree,” The Weight of Words .

Hodge, Brian “I’ll Bring You the Birds From Out of the Sky” chapbook

Jakeman, Jane “In the Rigging,” Supernatural Tales 36.

Johnstone, Carole “The Eyes Are White and Quiet,” New Fears .

Johnstone, Tom “How I Learned the Truth About Krampus,” chapbook.

Jones, Stephen Graham “Alis,” Mad Hatters and March Hares .

Jones, Stephen Graham “Dirtmouth,” Haunted Nights .

Jones, Stephen Graham Mapping the Interior (novella) Tor.comBooks

Kassel, Mel “Weavers in the Cellar,” Interzone 268, Jan/February.

Khaw, Cassandra These Deathless Bones,” Tor.com, July 26.

Kiernan, Caitlín R. “Tupelo (1998),” (novella) Sirenia Digest 132.

Lanchester, John “Signal,” The New Yorker , April 3.

Little, John R. “The First Lunar Halloween,” Haunted Nights .

Madron, Suzanne “The Water Shed,” Shadows over Main Street volume 2 .

Malik, Usman T. “The Fortune of Sparrows,” Black Feathers .

Mills, Daniel “The Christiansen Deaths,” Looming Low .

Nevill, Adam L. G. “Little Black Lamb,” Darker Companions .

Nix, Garth “The Seventeen Year Itch,” Haunted Nights .

Oates, Joyce Carol “Great Blue Heron,” Black Feathers .

Rickert, M. “Everything Beautiful is Terrifying,” Shadows and Tall Trees 7 .

Royce, Eden “Sweetgrass Blood,” Sycorax’s Daughters .

Royle, Nicholas “Jizz,” Ornithology .

Salmonson, Jessica Amanda “The Ice Maiden of Snow Lake,” (poem) Anthony Shriek

Samuels, Mark “Moon Blood-Red, Tide Turning,” Terror Tales of Cornwall .

Schaller, Eric “Smoke, Ash, and Whatever Comes After,” Black Static Jan/ Feb 56

Schwader, Ann K. “Pothunters,” Black Wings VI .

Sharma, Priya “The Crow Palace,” Black Feathers .

Slatsky, Christopher “The Carcass of the Lion,” Darker Companions .

Slatter, Angela “Run, Rabbit,” Mad Hatters and March Hares .

Taylor, Lucy “Sweetlings,” Tor.com, May 3.

Vaz, Katherine “Moon, Memory, Muchness,” Mad Hatters and March Hares

Warren, Kaaron “Whither,” Darker Companions .

Williams, Conrad “Succulents,” New Fears .

Inna Effressis a former speechwriter who emigrated from Ukraine as a child. Her fiction appears in the Santa Monica Review, The Wron g, and the Nightscript anthology. She writes in LA.

“Liquid Air” was originally published in Nightscript III edited by C. M. Muller.

Marc E. Fitchis the author of the novels Paradise Burns, Dirty Water , and Old Boone Blood . His short fiction has appeared in publications such as Nightscript, Whispers from the Abyss 2 , and The Big Click .

Fitch is also the author of Paranormal Nation: Why America Needs Ghosts, UFOs and Bigfoot . Marc lives and works in Connecticut with his wife, four children, and three goats. For more information visit www.marcfitch.com, and he can be found on Facebook and Twitter.

“The Starry Crown” was originally published in Horror Library Volume 6 edited by Eric J. Guignard.

Philip Fracassi, an author and screenwriter, lives in Los Angeles and works full-time in the film industry and on his writing. He is the author of the novellas Fragile Dreams, Sacculina , and Shiloh . His short horror fiction is collected in Behold the Void . His feature film, Girl Missing , is currently available on demand via iTunes and Amazon.

His stories have been printed in numerous magazines and anthologies. You can visit his website at pfracassi.comfor more information. You can also find him via social media on Facebook, Instagram (pfracassi), and Twitter ( @philipfracassi).

“Fail-Safe” was originally published in his collection, Behold the Void .

Stephen Gallagheris a Stoker and World Fantasy Award nominee, winner of British Fantasy and International Horror Guild Awards for his short fiction, and is the author of fifteen novels including Valley of Lights, Down River, Rain , and Nightmare, With Angel . He’s the creator of Sebastian Becker, Special Investigator to the Lord Chancellor’s Visitor in Lunacy, in a series of novels that includes The Kingdom of Bones, The Bedlam Detective , and The Authentic William James .