Can’t Fool Me – By Fiona Glass

We have a cracking short for you on the blog today, revisiting Greystones from Got Ghosts by Fiona Glass. Enjoy.

***

Karen saw the advert on Twitter while looking for something else. Ghoulish type-face, cute ghost graphics, a picture of a wobbly-looking old stone house. And words that might have been meant for her:

Can you handle the ghosts of Greystones Hall? Spend a whole night in the house this Halloween and win £5,000. We bet you can’t!

Smug, she thought. So sure of themselves. Probably got a whole load of special effects set up to scare decent folk out of their own bodies and into someone else. Well, she was above all that. She’d seen it all before, she was Ms Cynicism, she ate special effects for breakfast. And dinner. And probably lunch, too.

It cost £50 to take part, apparently, but that was a mere snowflake in the wider storm. Fifty quid could buy her those box sets she’d been looking at, or a decent meal with a couple of bottles of plonk. But neither of those came with a sure and certain hundred-fold return.

“Ghosts? Pfft.” She clicked her fingers at ghosts, and filled in the form.

Halloween came around and she followed the directions she’d been sent down a maze of country lanes. Tall hedgerows, clumps of woodland, pretty villages where old stone cottages huddled around fords. All very idyllic, all so very roses-around-the-door. And Greystones fitted in perfectly. Mellow stone glinting gold in the last of the October sunshine and yes, there was even a rose. But not much sign of ghosts.

There were three other cars parked up on the gravelled driveway. Karen wedged her BMW into the last remaining space, grabbed her hold-all and headed for the door. Before she could knock or ring the bell it opened, swinging on ancient hinges with a lusty squeal.

“Hello?” But there was no one there. She grinned. Clever, that. Must be set up with sensors or a pressure pad, and pulleys from another part of the house. She’d seen it before, at work. She stepped inside, half expecting a shower of bats or a bucket of water on her head, but there were no more surprises. Just a hallway full of ancient furniture, smelling of polish, gleaming in the sun. The same low sun picked out dust motes dancing in the air. And something more. A blur… some movement… was that a face?

Karen’s skin prickled, just for a moment, until sanity came back. A film projector, no doubt, casting a diffused picture across the dusty air. More cleverness. Whoever ran this place was quite a pro. The money was a bonus. She was going to enjoy tonight.

There was a bell on the table; she tinkled it and after a pause a door swung open. More dodgy electrics? Another movie show? Not this time, just a quiet-looking bloke of about forty or so, whose face was instantly familiar. “Guy Beaumont. It’s good to meet you at last.”

He advanced with a smile. “You too. It’s not often we get fellow professionals staying here.”
“Especially ones with so much insider knowledge?”
The smile became wry. “There is that. Can I take your bag? You’re in the Blue Room.”

She followed up a winding flight of stairs and along a creaking corridor. The room was cosy, with modern radiators (thank God), forget-me-not wallpaper and a solid four-poster bed. And probably a raft of devices set to deliver shocks and weirdness in the middle of the night. She eyed the bed hangings, the pictures, the wooden panelling, weighing up which to start searching first.

“Don’t worry, you won’t find anything out of place in here.”
Damn, Beaumont had caught her at it. “Sorry, was I that obvious? Force of habit, I suppose.”
“The crew used to say you were harder than anyone to convince.”
“I didn’t realise I was that famous.” She had a feeling they used to call her Smartypants Kaz behind her back, but there was no need to mention that.
Beaumont grinned. “I’m told the series took a downward turn after you left.”
“It wasn’t that great to start with.”
“Ah. Not a fan?”
“Let’s just say I’m not keen on things that pretend to be something they’re not.”
“And was it all a pretence?”
“Well of course. There’s no such thing as ghosts.”

Too late, she realised he was a medium and probably did believe in ghosts. Would he be angry? No, he was too much of a professional for that. A blankly pleasant mask slid over his face. “Of course not. Right, I’ll leave you to unpack. I hope you enjoy the show.”

You bet, she wanted to yell, but was too polite. And make sure you have your cheque book ready. You’ll be needing it.

She unpacked her holdall into a creaky wardrobe, noting the sounds it made. No surprising her later with squeaks and groans. Then she checked every corner of the room for wiring, bugs, or hidden microphones. But Beaumont had been right – apart from a stray leaf near one of the windows nothing was out of place. Except… a sudden tang of pipe smoke on the air. But that was probably drifting in from somewhere else. The garden, through that same open window. Someone walking down below. She grinned. If that was the best they could come up with, this would be even easier than she’d thought.

Downstairs the group – two middle aged woman and a man with an impressive beard – had gathered in the Drawing Room. It was a pleasant space with faded floral curtains and a real wood fire. The logs crackled and spat, a cat washed itself on the hearth rug, and it couldn’t be less ghostly if it tried. There was no sign of the owners, but the other guests had bagged the best sofa and were out-bragging one another with wild tales of nights spent in other supposedly haunted properties. She listened with half an ear to the talk, which was all fifty seven floating orbs in one corner of the room and I’m telling you, her head just wasn’t there. Ridiculous the rubbish people could make themselves believe if they wanted it badly enough. She poured herself a G & T and headed for another room.

The first door she tried led into the Great Hall, a magnificent space with a minstrels’ gallery and softly-playing Medieval music, which made her smile. The next was a library, full to bursting with books, plus a desk, a comfortable armchair – and a complete lack of ghosts. What a relief. She picked up a slim volume about the history of the hall and settled in the chair, sipping her gin and flicking through pages about every period of British history from the Normans on. It was only as she was getting to the Georgians that she realised she wasn’t alone. An old man stood by the fire, puffing on a pipe. She jumped. The first time she’d actually been startled since she’d arrived, but only because she hadn’t heard him come in. Had he been here all along?

“Sorry, I hope I’m not intruding. It’s just the others were telling ghost stories and I couldn’t, you know…”
The old man smiled. He had a nice smile, she thought – warm and slightly conspiratorial. “It can get tiresome.”
“You must hear a lot of it if these weekends are a regular thing.”
“One of my grand-daughter’s more… challenging ideas. But I believe it’s proving very popular.”

She’d almost finished her drink; the refills were in the other room. A toss up. Stay thirsty, or venture back? But it had been good – one of the new artisan-type gins. She put the book back and stood up. “Can I get you one?”

The old man’s smile became wistful. “Thank you, my dear, but these days I don’t drink.”

She was about to say something about a pipe being okay when there were voices outside the door. “…this the dining room? I heard someone talking…” It was the rest of the gang, led by the bloke with the beard. He looked faintly startled. “Oh, sorry. I was sure I heard… Who were you talking to?”

 “The owner’s grandfather, I think he said. That’s right, isn’t it, Mr…?” But a quick glance at the fireplace showed there was no one there. How typical. And how clever. The best trick yet. She grinned ruefully. “There’s more to this place than I thought.”

“That’s why it’s the most haunted house in England, you know.”

She laughed it off, but all through dinner it continued to puzzle her. How had the owners made that one work? If it had just been the old man’s figure it could have been a projection, like the face in the dust – and a hidden transmitter could even have provided some sound. But that would have been stock phrases, while she’d had a whole conversation with him, question and answer, back and forth. Surely there was no way of programming that. Unless she was losing her touch.

Dinner was excellent but the atmosphere anything but. The beardy guy challenged her over the tiger prawns. “Do I get the impression you’re not a Believer, then?”

Usually she’d have launched into ‘no such thing as ghosts’ but in deference to the company she paused, shredding breadcrumbs off her roll. “I design special effects for films and television,” she said at last. “It’s hard to believe when you can spot the fakes a mile off.”

“But there must have been some times when it wasn’t faked?”.

“Not that I’ve ever come across.” She could have said more, but even that was too much judging by the frosty stares. At the end of the meal, full but far from satisfied, she headed back to the library to find the secret passage the old man must have used. That would explain how he’d got into the room unheard, and how he’d left again without her noticing. It probably came out somewhere just beneath her bedroom since that’s where she’d first smelled smoke. All she had to do was orientate herself, then bang on all the panelling until something moved.

It was harder than she’d thought. The house was such a maze that working out what went where was almost impossible. Eventually she thought she’d start with the wall next to the fireplace – and that’s when she had her second shock. The old man was there! Staring right at her out of the gloom and looking, dare she say it, mischievous. The room wasn’t well lit, just one small lamp on a side table near the door. It was a good few seconds before she realised what she was looking at. A painting! Of course. She took a deep breath and stilled her pounding heart. How ridiculous, to get herself so wound up. Everything had a logical explanation. She needed to remember that.

A sudden outbreak of screaming made her jump again. No special effect this time, by the sound of it, but the rest of the group elsewhere in the house.

“I think we can safely say they won’t be collecting their cheques.”

She leaped so hard she banged her hip on the desk. “You’re going to have to stop doing that. My heart can’t take much more.” Then she looked at him. Really looked, past the smug expression and the inevitable pipe. He seemed solid enough. How was he getting in and out? “That’s the best one yet. False fireplace? Is it painted on? Then you just open it up and step through the panelling?”

He waved his pipe, a thin coil of smoke dissipating into the air. “Why do you insist on avoiding the obvious?”

“What, ghosts, you mean? Pull the other one.” She rubbed her hip. That had hurt. But the money would make it all worthwhile. Five thousand quid, and the rest of the group had left. Nobody to share it with. The old man was looking at her as though he could hear her thoughts. An odd, quizzical look, but one tinged with sadness too.

“Does money mean so much to you?”

“I, er, no, of course not.” Damn him for seeing through to her soul. “I’m not that shallow if that’s what you mean. I can’t say it won’t be useful – bills to pay, things to sort out. But it’s my professional integrity at stake. You can’t fool a fooler, you know. And I’m the best there is at fooling everyone else.”

The scent of pipe smoke was very strong, suddenly. He seemed to loom over her, larger than the portrait, larger than life, larger than was really possible. “Perhaps not everyone, my dear. Or perhaps you’re simply better, in the end, at fooling yourself.” And he turned, waved the pipe one last time, and walked straight through the solid slate fireplace, leaving her in a completely empty room.

In the hall Guy Beaumont watched the tail lights of the BMW speed away from the house and grinned. Not only had he put one over on Smartypants Kaz, but it was another night when they wouldn’t have to pay the five grand out. This scheme of Em’s was working better than he’d dared to hope.

There was a faint shift in the air beside him; when he looked, Gramps was back from his escapades in the library. “You’re a terrible old rogue, you know that, don’t you?”

The old man smiled. I do my best.

Girls and Ghosts, Release Day!

It’s that time of year, Halloween just past and in the UK Bonfire Night is upon us. It’s a time when ghosts may wander abroad and fires offer more than a place to burn the unfortunate Mr Fawkes, they give us safety against the drawing dark and the things that move within it.

So it’s the perfect time to release the Ghosts volume of Anne Michaud’s trilogy of short story collections.

Five Girls, Five Ghosts. Five Tales of hauntings and secrets. In this collection Anne Michaud brings us empathy and horror. Never underestimate the anger of the dead or the resilience of the living.

‘Anne Michaud’s writing is haunting, powerful and often beautiful’ – Amanda Rutter

Get it now
Amazon Canada
Amazon UK
Amazon US
Fox Spirit E store

Women in Horror : Round Up

Well, this wraps up Women in Horror month and our series of guests posts, by women about horror.

Elvira, Hostess of Horror

We will do a quick link round up of all the posts so you can make sure you haven’t missed anything on our tour of movies, books and horrors from mythology, but first we just wanted to state the obvious. Women don’t only do horror in February. There are a huge number of talented writers, musicians, directors, artists and other female creatives out there living and breathing the horror genre. So while we hope our month of celebration has got you thinking about where you can find women doing horror and how women are treated or mistreated by the genre, we hope you won’t stop there. 

We recommend checking out, The Cultural Gutter, Popshifter, Ginger Nuts of Horror as great starting points. 

The blogs

K.A. Laity : The Haunting of Hill House
Snippet Sunday : Winter Tales
Kim Bannerman : Disability, Motherhood and Personal Autonomy
C.A. Yates : A Monstrous Love, Crimson Peak & The Writer
Jan Siegel : Fear of the Female in Vintage Fiction
Aditi Sen : Bengali Ghosts
Interview of Emma Bridges By Margret Helgadottir : Making Monsters 
Snippet Sunday : Respectable Horror
Su Haddrell : The Weird in the Normal
Jenny Barber : Short Fiction Queens
Kerry Fristoe : My Bloody Valentine 
Sharon Shaw : Women who Fight Back
Leslie Hatton : ‘What Have You Done to Solange’ Exposes the Legacy of Misogyny 
Snippet Sunday : Pacific Monsters
Angela Englert : Once, Twice, Three Times a Villainess: Karen Black, Sex, and Twist Endings in Trilogy of Terror
Amelia Starling : Female Spirits and Emotions in Japanese Ghost Stories
Snippet Sunday : Asian Monsters
Zoe Chatfield : Lost Cities (Unfriended)
Carol Borden : Cat People

Women in Horror : Bengali Ghosts

Ghost story from Bengal 

by Aditi Sen

Bengalis love ghosts. In fact, ghost stories are a part of Bengali heritage. Ghosts are serious creatures, they are very particular about where they live, and have unique haunting habits. Bengali folklore is full of spooky tales—let me share a very popular one.

Terracotta Cottages in West Bengal

In Colonial Bengal, it was fairly common for men to work in cities and live in temporary lodgings often referred to as “messes” in Calcutta, while their families remained in rural Bengal. The men would work all week, go home on Friday evenings, then catch the Sunday afternoon train to get back to the city to work. Sometimes, when there was a lot of work, they would not be able to go home for a month or so. This story is about Gopal Das, who lived in a mess and was unable to go home for almost a fortnight.

Gopal took the early afternoon train home. When he reached the station in his rural town, it was almost dusk. His home was a mile-long walk from the station. One thing that caught his attention this time was the eerie silence at the station. There would always be a few people sitting there, but the station was empty, something he had never seen before. The little shanty around the corner that sold tea was closed, adding to the silence. He had never seen the station completely empty before. The silence created a strange sense of unease, as if the whole village had fallen asleep. It was already night when he reached home.

The house seemed unusually dark and quiet. Electricity had not reached his village yet, but there were always oil lamps outside the door. His mother opened the door. She had a small lamp in her hand, that hardly lit anything; he could barely see her. She seemed extremely reluctant to answer his questions, mostly replying in monosyllables. But she did inform him that the rest of the family wasn’t feeling too well, so they had all gone off to bed early. She was waiting to serve him his dinner, and she too would go to bed afterwards.

He washed himself quickly and sat down to eat. Dinner was rice and dal (lentil soup). After a few bites, he realized that the dal was unusually bland. His mother was sitting by his side waiting for him to finish his meal. He asked her if there was any lemon to flavour the dal. She nodded her head and stretched her arm to fetch the lemon. It stretched, stretched, stretched and stretched… first it reached the window, opened it, then reached the lemon tree, plucked a lemon, and came back inside and gave it to him. End of story.

There is a post-script to this tale. The entire village had died of an epidemic. It was now a ghost village. The mother’s ghost was waiting to feed her son who she knew was coming home that day. This a very common theme for ghost stories.  My grandmother told this story to me when I was a child; later, I heard it from many others. The context differed but the core idea was always the same.

Bengali folklore has no shortage of large spaces that are completely occupied by spooks: villas, forests, marshlands, hamlets. One major reason for Bengali ghosts having huge spatial benefit is simply because they died in large numbers to guarantee it. Bengal was so often afflicted by epidemics that in a fortnight everyone in a village could be dead. In 1896, the plague struck Bengal. This was followed by cholera and malaria in 1906. The 1921 census revealed the average death rate to be around 30.3%. In 1925, 4,97,473 people had died of malaria[i]. It is only natural that haunted landscapes would be an integral part of Bengal’s collective memory.

Only recently, I realized how almost every ghost story I loved as a kid is an important piece of history. There is no glory in dying of small pox or plague. This is not a dramatic, memorable death. Epidemics often get reduced to mere statistics. These ghost stories exist as an attempt to move beyond those deaths, and allow the victims to somehow continue to live. A man may lose everyone he loves, but there is comfort in the idea that, even though she has died, a mother will make sure that her son doesn’t go to bed hungry.

[i] Palit Chittabrata, Popular Response to Epidemics in Colonial Bengal in Indian Journal of History of Science, 43.2, 2008, 277-283.

Women in Horror: The Haunting of Hill House

The Haunting of Hill House - Shirley Jackson

The Haunting of Hill House - Shirley JacksonI would probably vote Shirley Jackson’s novel The Haunting of Hill House the finest American novel if I were the kind of person who believed those sort of hierarchies mattered. All that matters is that this book is enormously good. Jackson was a stunningly skilfull writer who wove a kind of magic that retains all its astonishing power half a century later. There are ghost stories long before it, and of course many after, but there aren’t many I’d mention in the same breath. Jackson would be remembered forever just for writing ‘The Lottery’, a short story that still packs a wallop, but she didn’t stop there.

She wrote several novels that shine with a rare genius for dislocating reality just enough to make you trip over your assumptions. Sometimes I think We Have Always Lived in the Castle is just as brilliant as THHH but then I think who cares? They’re both brilliant. And then there’s Hangsaman and The Bird Nest — and all the humour, too. Horror and humour both require impeccable timing.

There’s something indelible about the experience of wandering through Hill House. I’ve taught it before and each time I have had students become firm fans of Jackson. I can’t read the opening lines without shivering:

No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.

The book wraps you in that same mantel of unease. You can’t trust what you’re told and you’re right not to trust it, but Jackson is so meticulously precise like those firm floors and neat bricks that you start to believe and then just as suddenly you’re lost. And alone. Most of the story is filtered through the hapless Nell — Eleanor Vance. Freed from the shackles of her late mother’s sick room, and her sister and brother-in-law’s suffocating paternalism, she’s at first elated by the opportunity to be on her own with no one to tell her what to do. She’s thirty-two but finds herself on the side of the little girl who refuses to drink her milk in a roadside cafe because she doesn’t have her ‘cup of stars’:

…insist on your cup of stars; once they have trapped you into being like everyone else you will never see your cup of stars again; don’t do it.

It’s impossible not to sympathise with Eleanor and her fragile newfound freedom as she joins Doctor Montague’s psychic experiment crew which he hopes will prove the reality of spectral phenomena in the legendary house. The bohemian artist Theo offers a sharp contrast with her confidence and sophistication, alternately befriending Nell then growing impatient with her neediness. My students are always dead certain that Jackson tells us Theo is a lesbian, but being asked to prove how they know that brings them up against Jackson’s primary skill: leading the reader where she wants them to go without their realising how they got there.

Even now I find myself re-reading passages to figure out how she does what she does and the magic is often elusive.

It’s somewhat puzzling that Netflix has greenlit a series based on the book. Perhaps they will eschew the novel and invent a backstory. It’s hard to imagine a visual adaptation better than the 1963 film directed by Robert Wise with Julie Harris and Claire Bloom along with the irrepressible Russ Tamblyn. When I’ve taught it in my horror film course, students who sniff at B&W films end up breathlessly rapt during the ‘knocking’ scene. There’s nothing much in the way of special effects: the knocking on the walls, Harris and Bloom terrified, and a door that almost seems to breathe. But when Nell whispers, ‘Whose hand was I holding…?’

Shivers.

Book Launch : Got Ghosts

Halloween is nearly upon us! The pumpkins are carved, the cobwebs draped and the ghosts are dusting off their best hauntings. It is the perfect time to launch a spooky novella for a little Halloween fun. 

Welcome to Greystones. Do you believe in ghosts? You will.

Haunted manor house Greystones Hall is filled to the brim with ghosts.  It’s also falling to bits, and artist owner Emily doesn’t have the money to refurbish the place. When the makers of hit tv show ‘Got Ghosts?’ offer to pay for a weekend’s filming there she jumps at the chance, even though she and her ghostly grandfather Gramps have reservations.

The reservations seem to be misplaced when the film crew swing into action, and producer Carl turns out to be dark, handsome and very available.  But Emily soon starts to have doubts about the methods they use, which Carl won’t discuss. Then the show’s resident medium Stella stirs up a new and malevolent spirit, revealing a dark secret at the heart of the house that has been hidden for centuries.  And when Emily’s own safety is threatened, together with that of her ghosts and her beloved Gramps, will it be Carl who comes to the rescue, or someone much more unexpected?

Halloween Reads from Fox Spirit

In addition to our two upcoming releases, The Girl in the Fort with Fennec and Got Ghosts, we have several other titles perfect for curling up under a blanket with as the nights draw in. 

Of course, we have our 2017 anthology, Respectable Horror. Full of thrills and chills to make your blood run cold. 

Introduction by K. A. Kaity
The Estate of Edward Moorehouse by Ian Burdon
The Feet on the Roof by Anjana Basu

Respectable Horror front cover

Spooky Girl by Maura McHugh
Recovery by H. V. Chao
The Holy Hour by C. A. Yates
Malefactor by Alan C. Moore
A Splash of Crimson by Catherine Lundoff
In These Rooms by Jonathan Oliver
A Framework by Richard Farren Barber
Running a Few Errands by Su Haddrell
Miss Metcalfe by Ivan Kershner
The Little Beast by Octavia Cade
The Well Wisher by Matthew Pegg
Where Daemons Don’t Tread by Suzanne J. Willis
Full Tote Gods by D. C. White
Those Who Can’t by Rosalind Mosis
The Astartic Arcanum by Carol Borden

Or is you fancy something that is sure to make you feel the bite of oncoming winter… Winter Tales might be just what you need.

Mat Joiner: The frost sermon

Cover by S.L. Johnson

Su Haddrell: The Bothy
Sharon Kernow: The Wolf Moon

Ruth Booth: The love of a season
Masimba Musodza: When the trees were enchanted
Fiona Clegg: Sunday’s Child
Tim Major: Winter in the Vivarium
Lizz-Ayn Shaarawi: Snow Angel
Amelia Gorman: Under your skin
B. Thomas: Among Wolves
Eliza Chan: Yukizuki
DJ Tyrer: Frose
G.H. Finn: Cold-Hearted
David Sarsfield: Voliday
Kelda Crich: Coldness Waits
K.N. McGrath: The Siege
Jonathan Ward: Spirit of the Season
James Bennett: The Red Lawns
Anne Michaud: Frost Fair
Jan Edwards: Shaman Red
Adrian Tchaikovsky: The Coming of The Cold
Verity Holloway: The Frost of Heaven
 
For shorter reads we have G. Clark Hellery’s murderous camping collection Weird Wild or Colin Barnes gothic novella A Heart for the Ravens. 
 
 
Or you might prefer to wonder paths unknown with Ian Whates in Dark Travellings
 
And for those of you who are having an urban Halloween, perhaps the fairy tale stylings of King Wolf, a short collection by Steven Savile
 

Of course, you may be in the mood for something completely different. A journey into outer space, a fun adventure to drive away the shadows. Have a browse, because the only thing we know for sure is dark evenings are perfect for reading. 

 

Release Day: Piercing the Vale

Today is the official release day for Fox Pocket no. 8 Piercing the Vale.

Piercing the Vale is a collection of stories crossing the veil of death and venturing into the worlds of the fae.

FS8 Piecing The Vale ebook 72ppi

Contents: Alasdair Stuart – Connected, Alec McQuay – All and Nothing, Jonathan Ward  – A Tale of Days Long Gone, Paul Starkey – Just Another Breakfast, Jennifer Williams – The Ghost Trap, Darren Goldsmith – Soul Punch, Ben Stewart – A Curious Tale of Life and Death, Tony Lane – Tentacles in Town, Rahne Sinclair – The Captain, Asher Wismer – Solid Glass, Chloe Yates – Intimacy, Colin Sinclair – Claudia, Tracy Fahey – The Cillini, Jenny Barber – Dead Women’s Tales, Craig Leyenaar – all Fun and Games, Jo Johnson Smith – For My Next Trick, Carol Borden – The Lost City of Osiris, Steven Poore – Take me with you

pockets

We are close to the end of the series now, with The Evil Genius Guide and Reflections coming out this summer, which will bring us to a total of 158 flash and short fiction stories and poems, over ten pocket sized volumes.

You can view who is in what title and some of their biographies here.

In order to celebrate we are working with DMU Bookshop on the Newarke in Leicester to bring you a Pocket Party on Thursday 25th August.

More information to follow but we can reveal there will be a special edition of the Super Relaxed Fantasy Club hosted by Den Patrick and Jen Williams, who both appear in the Fox Pocket series.

Call for Stories: Respectable Horror

Ghost Stories
Ghost Stories
Image via The British Library

Oh, another bloody slasher. Oh, more extreme horror. Oh, it must be Tuesday. BORED!

Whilst sipping a martini clarity arrives: one hungers for a change of pace, dash it all:

So we would like tales of civilised, gentle(wo)manly horror, cold, calculating and bloodless; spinechillers rather than slashers, enervating instead of eviscerating. Though a wee bit of the red stuff will not make us blanch, focus more on unshakeable dread. Make us afraid to investigate that noise downstairs. Cause us to shudder when we glimpse something move out of the corner of our eyes. Think Ann Radcliffe and the Gothics, Mary Shelley, Elizabeth Gaskell, Wilkie Collins, M.R. James and even those modern folks like Shirley Jackson and Fritz Leiber.

It’s all about the style. Mashups are the Fox Spirit specialty, so mix and match to your little heart’s content (Lovecraftian Wodehouse has been done). Just be sure to keep the theme uppermost.

Humorous attempts at horror are acceptable, but be warned that your editor’s sense of humour like her taste in martinis is most peculiar and exacting. You would be strongly advised to inform yourself of her tastes.

THE PARTICULARS for Respectable Horror

Follow our house style and submit via Word document attachment to katelaity at gmail dot com by December 31st, 2015. Selection of stories will happen in the spring; the publication itself will appear later in 2016. You will be expected to join in the publicity efforts as much as you are capable (social media mostly).

Word count: ~4-8K

Payment: £10 upon publication + digital and print copy of the volume

What ho! Ask any questions you have in advance of the closing date.