The Outsiders Read online

  Table of Contents

  DR. CHADWICK’S PARTY - Barry J. House

  LURKER - Peter Mark May

  OLD SLIPPERY - Stuart Neild

  OLD COGNAC & NEW LEATHER - David Niall Wilson

  MAN’S BEST FRIEND - Stephen James Price

  HAUNTED - Scott Nicholson

  THE GROWLING - David Jeffery

  THE CURIOUS OBSESSION OF MATTHEW DEACON - Richard Tyndall

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  2

  3

  MYTH - Ian Faulkner

  THE SUN TRAP - Rhys Hughes

  CELESTE - Neil Jackson

  BROTHERHOOD OF THE THORNS - William Meikle

  More works from Ghost Writer Publications

  THE OUTSIDERS

  Selected and Edited by Neil Jackson

  The Outsiders is a collection of 13 dark fantasy stories from some of the best names and bright new names in dark fiction. An eclectic mix of styles and genres lurk within these pages...so uncork a glass of wine, dim the lights, sit back in a comfy chair...and enjoy this offering from Ghostwriter Publications.

  This Compilation Copyright © Ghostwriter Publications 2010

  This eBook edition published 2010 at Smashwords by Ghostwriter Publications

  www.ghostwriterpublications.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. The moral right of the authors has been asserted in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  ISBN 978-1-907190-18-6

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  DR. CHADWICK’S PARTY – Barry J. House

  LURKER – Peter Mark May

  OLD SLIPPERY – Stuart Neild

  OLD COGNAC & NEW LEATHER – David Niall Wilson

  MAN’S BEST FRIEND – Stephen James Price

  HAUNTED – Scott Nicholson

  LUCKY – Brooke Vaughn

  THE GROWLING – David Jeffery

  THE CURIOUS OBSESSION OF MATTHEW DEACON – Richard Tyndall

  MYTH – Ian Faulkner

  THE SUN TRAP – Rhys Hughes

  CELESTE – Neil Jackson

  BROTHERHOOD OF THE THORNS – William Meikle

  DR. CHADWICK’S PARTY - Barry J. House

  Dr. Simon Chadwick strode over to the bar and helped himself to another vodka, neat, the way he saw himself. A Led Zeppelin CD was playing on the Hi-fi and his eardrums were thrumming in unison. He glanced at his watch irritably; it was 1:05 am.

  What am I still doing at this debacle? he thought. It was only the outside chance of screwing Susan that brought me here in the first place. He grabbed a couple of chunks from the ice bucket, popping one in his drink and the other in his mouth. There’s hardly any food here, either. I’m bloody starving. I’m going to drink this and then I’m off. I can pick up a kebab on the way home, and maybe, if I look in the right places, it might not be too late to pick up something else to take home for the night.

  Crunching the ice cube between his teeth, Chadwick made his way back across Dr. Susan Clarke’s lounge, eyeing the mottled, dark red carpet, scornfully, trying to work out whether or not it was heavily stained or was just supposed to look like that. Most of the other party goers, he noticed, had moved into the kitchen or dining room, hours ago. Looking at the state of this carpet I’m not bloody surprised, he thought.

  Chadwick rejoined the other three doctors, all from the same practice, who had earlier made themselves comfortable, lounging on a couple of their host’s sofas. He had only been with them for a few short, weeks but was already beginning to regret the move. He sat opposite Susan Clarke. She was young, pretty, and single, giving her two of the qualities that guaranteed Chadwick’s attention; he didn’t give a toss whether she was married or not. He had already tried it on a few times with her, to no avail, but Simon Chadwick didn’t consider himself to be the type who gave up easily.

  Those other two imbeciles are a right pair of tiresome, ugly bastards, he thought. They’re both hitched-up and stitched-up, anyway, so I’m the one with the best chance of humping her, one day.

  While Chadwick had been getting his refill, the rest of the group had started a conversation about unusual medical experiences they had come across over the years. Dr. Leigh Flood, a lean, sallow-skinned man, was recounting a story about a friend of his, not a doctor herself, who had visited her GP for a smear test.

  “Before she went,” Flood was saying, “she had a shower and then sprayed some deodorant down below…”

  Chadwick was watching Susan as she listened to the story. I’ll have her eventually, one way or another, he thought. Even if it means resorting to my little concoction; a few drops of Liquid Heaven in her drink and she’s mine. Then she’ll do anything I want. Anything. God knows it’s worked enough times in the past.

  “…and when he finished up,” continued Flood, “the doctor thanked her for taking the trouble to make herself look nice for him. It wasn’t until she got home that she discovered she’d applied glitter hairspray all over her pubes by mistake!”

  Everybody laughed at this. All except for Chadwick, of course; he had other things on his mind.

  “Well, I’ve got a story for you that’s a little bit nastier than that, and it happened to me,” Dr. Trevor Selman said, a short, fat, balding man, who, at fifty-three, was the oldest person at the party. “It was about twenty-five years ago, now, and I had been called out to a mammoth of a woman who’d suffered a minor stroke. Nothing strange in that, I know, but it turned out she’d been keeping her husband imprisoned, naked, in the bathroom, with nothing to live on but the scraps of putrid food she occasionally pushed under the door. He was a right sorry state, like a living skeleton, a death-camp survivor. The neighbours hadn’t seen him for five years; they’d assumed he’d moved out ages before!”

  What a fucking bunch of morons they all are, eh? thought Chadwick. Is this how they get their kicks? By telling silly little stories? I’ve got absolutely nothing in common with these people.

  “That’s a nasty story, indeed,” Susan Clarke said. But there was something about the tone of her voice that, to Chadwick, suggested insincerity. She turned to him, now. “Have you got any tales you’d like to share with us, Simon?”

  “No, I don’t have any funny stories, Susan. Look, are we going to have anything to eat, tonight? I’m famished. I’ve had one measly handful of peanuts all evening!”

  “Bear with me awhile. I intend to prepare some food later. But first I would like to tell you my own story. It’s a bit more unpleasant than Trevor’s, I can assure you.”

  “Well, I’m sorry, Susan, but I have to go, now,” Chadwick said, getting to his feet. He had had enough. “You can tell me another time!”

  “Oh, please stay, Simon. It’s important I tell this story to all of you, together. I haven’t told anybody else about this, ever!”

  For a moment the woman looked so anxious, so desperately unhappy, that Chadwick almost felt sorry for her.

  Almost, but not quite.

  “Yes, of course, Susan,” Dr. Flood said, sensing her distress. “I was just about to leave, myself, but I guess I can hang on for your story, if it’s important to you.”

  “Me too,” Dr. Selman agreed. “Come on, Simon, stay a few minutes longer!”

  Chadwick stood there, bemused, looking from one doctor to the next.

  “Oh, all right, then,” he said, resignedly flo
pping back down on the sofa. “This story had better be good!”

  “I’m sure it will be,” Flood murmured.

  Susan Clarke took a sip from her drink. She pulled her blouse out a little at the waist, rearranged the lay of her skirt across her legs, and began.

  “This is a true story, I swear it. It happened almost three years ago, when I was working at a practice in London. Surgery had finished for the day and I was clearing my desk when a man barged in, demanding to speak with me. I saw real trepidation in his eyes, so I agreed to see him in my room. He told me he was suffering from a terrible affliction, one he could no longer cope with. He said he had something wrong with his stomach.”

  Clarke paused to take another sip of her drink. She smiled nervously at Chadwick. The man had been watching her lips move as she spoke, imagining those very lips kissing him all over. His hand was resting absently on his leg, toying with the little phial of Liquid Heaven in his pocket. He never went anywhere without it.

  God, but she’s a sexy bitch. If I hang around tonight until the others have gone I might get her into bed, yet.

  “I asked him to unbutton his shirt and show me where the pain was,” Susan continued. “But he looked at me bizarrely. His whole demeanour had changed. He said I had got it all wrong. There was no pain; only an intense hunger. He pulled his shirt open, triumphantly, like a flasher in the woods, and then I saw it!”

  “Saw what, Susan?” Chadwick asked, apathetically. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Flood gazing at him, smirking. Selman, however, seemed to be listening attentively to Clarke’s story.

  “The mouth!” Clarke said. “In the middle of his stomach was a mouth, seven or eight inches across. I was frozen to the spot, just staring at it, morbidly fascinated. And then the lips began to open. They drew back to reveal row upon row of bright, needle-sharp teeth, receding into his torso, seemingly more deeply than the body, itself. I remember sucking in breath ready for the mother of all screams, but he clamped a hand over my mouth, mumbling something about making me one of his own. He pushed the grotesque maw towards me, but I managed to break away, kicking him in the balls and fleeing the surgery. I have never returned. I left London the same night and I shall never go back! I moved here soon afterwards and you guys know the rest.”

  “What an amazing tale!” Selman said.

  Flood didn’t say anything, though. He was still smirking, as if listening to a familiar joke and waiting patiently for the punchline.

  Simon Chadwick, however, had had enough. “Surely you don’t expect me to believe any of this, do you? You’ve got to be joking!”

  Susan Clarke leaned towards Chadwick until her face was inches from his. She looked deep into his eyes. “Do I look like I’m joking?” she asked. There was not even a hint of a smile on her lips.

  “Right, that’s it, I’m going,” he said, hurriedly standing. “And I hope you don’t truly believe what you’re saying, Susan, because if you do, then I would be obliged to question your professional integrity, and you, my dear, would need to see a psychiatrist PDQ!”

  Chadwick left the room, storming up the stairs to get his coat. The stairs and landing were covered with the same, blotchy, wine-red carpet as the lounge. He went into the bathroom first to relieve himself before the long drive home, and was just starting to pee when the door swung slowly open. Chadwick looked over his shoulder and saw Clarke. She was smiling, now. Without a word she stepped into the bathroom and stood behind him.

  “Look, I’m tired, Susan, and I’m going home. There’s no way you could change my mind, now.”

  “Are you sure I couldn’t, Simon?” Clarke began to unbutton her blouse. “Not even if I did this?”

  Okay, so I’m totally predictable but at the end of the day I’m only a man, thought Chadwick, smugly. And I’m a slave to my physical needs, just like any other.

  Chadwick turned, eager to share his erection with Susan Clarke.

  But Clarke had no interested in the man’s burgeoning member, or at least, not entirely. She undid her blouse at the wrists and shrugged her shoulders, allowing it to fall to the cold tiles.

  “Do you believe my story, now?” she asked.

  The mouth was wide open, almost perfectly circular, a monstrous travesty of a navel. And the teeth were unveiled in all their gruesome splendour - sharks within sharks.

  “Earlier, you said you were famished,” she reminded Chadwick. “Well, I’m ravenous!”

  She took a pace towards the horrified man, but as shocked as he was, he wasn’t the sort to go down without a fight. Chadwick grabbed Clarke by the arms, trying to wrestle the abomination back from the doorway. He shrieked for help but the music downstairs was so loud there was no way anybody was going to hear him. The bathroom door swung open, again, to reveal Flood and Selman.

  “Thank God!” Chadwick bellowed. “Help me!”

  The two men removed their own shirts to expose the gaping, serration-filled, holes beneath and Chadwick lost all hope of rescue. Their mouths were virtually identical to Clarke’s, except the female’s lips were fuller, redder.

  My God, she’s even applied a little lipstick, thought Chadwick. He felt the urge to laugh, laugh uncontrollably, laugh until he died. Instead, he continued to struggle until Flood and Selman managed to manhandle him to the floor, restraining him against the side of the bath.

  Clarke stared at Chadwick with an expression the man could only interpret as pity. When she spoke again, however, he knew he had been wrong.

  “You’re not married and you have no close family, so you’ll not be missed. You’re an ideal candidate, Simon Chadwick.”

  “Am I going to be t-turned into one of you?”

  “Oh, no, you could never be one of us. That’s impossible!”

  “B-But the story you told–”

  “Yes, there was some truth in it. I wasn’t attacked, though; I wanted to become like this. Ours is a club that can only be joined by special request, you see, and there’s no invitation extended to you!”

  “We are members of a race that has coexisted with mankind - the ignorant symbiont - for many thousands of years,” said Selman.

  “We skim the surface of humanity, removing scum such as you,” Flood informed him. “In return, we enjoy respectable positions within your society. Oh, and the occasional meal,” he said, leering at Chadwick.”

  “You’ve been identified as a human lowlife, Chadwick,” Selman continued. You’ve been marked for your criminal sexual activities. When your name came to the top of the list you were lured to this party.”

  “Now you know why we invited you here. There couldn’t be a party without you, because you are the party!” Clarke finished.

  With that, the creature that was Susan Clarke signalled to her underlings and Chadwick was dragged, gibbering, to his feet.

  Clarke pointed at each of the three slavering mouths, in turn. “These are the doorways to your destiny, Simon Chadwick.” And she said it so calmly that, for the condemned man, the impact somehow seemed even worse. “We are going to eat every single part of you, Chadwick…”

  “Bones and all,” interjected Flood.

  “…and I intend to begin, as one should, with the hors d’ouvres,” Clarke said. She suddenly grasped Chadwick’s penis, now flaccid, pulling him violently towards her.

  Flood and Selman began to tear the clothes from his body.

  And then the screaming began.

  Shortly afterwards, Dr. Susan Clarke strolled into the kitchen with her two colleagues. Some of the other guests, she noticed, were in the last throes of a cleaning-up exercise of their own. Dr. Selman was carrying some rolled-up clothes. He yanked a black bin bag from the cupboard under the sink, dropping the garments into it. Dr. Flood pulled a watch from his pocket, noting the time, before shoving it, too, into the bag. It was 1:26 am.

  “I’ve brought some more nibbles,” Susan said, dropping a number of fingers and toes into a stainless steel snack dish.

  There were already some i
n there.

  “Ah, I see I’ve missed Dr. Thompson’s departure,” she said. “The man from the Woolston practice. I so wanted to say goodbye to him!”

  LURKER - Peter Mark May

  Eddie Vaisey was a lucky man...and was totally oblivious to the fact.

  11.31pm and the family were long tucked up and he had just locked the house and turned off all the lights in readiness for his imminent slumber. There was little reason as to why he pulled back the dining room drapes. A full moon hung in the clear skies outside and shone down with such illumination, that Eddie initially thought one of the neighbours had left their car headlamps on.

  Barnes Street looked quiet and peaceful. But there was something... misplaced...not quite right. No other light seemed to shine from any of the other windows across the way. Then something caught his eye as he was about to close the curtains once more. Next to Dan Brummell’s pick-up was a small cherry tree that produced the loveliest blossom in Spring. And the taste of the fruit that followed was a sheer delight.

  The tree was tall, emaciated and usually cast an almost nightmarish shadow, yet on this night, it seemed to have two shadows. The second was shorter and seemed to be different from the shape one would normally associate with a tree...any tree He watched as the thin shadow suddenly rose up and then skipped away from the tree, leaving no connection, an independent entity of something that could not be seen.

  The thin, loping shadow seemed to have legs and thin spindly arms and a head with spikes on it like thorn bush. Then there came a briefest of double flashes from the head of the shadow, like two cats eyes suddenly flaring green and boring deep into Eddie.

  The strange shadow then leapt back into the tree as a car drove past and merged into the gloom and Eddie became the first person in Ohio to see a Lurker in close to fifty years - in fact it was the 2,168 sighting in history. On these facts, only the Lurkers themselves pondered such things, spending most of their lives flitting from the shadows of one tree to another under the cover of darkness.