To celebrate the hallowed day and night of Halloween, Ginger Nuts of Horror is honoured to host an exclusive short story "Where We Will Never Be"  by George Daniel Lea.  George​ has been one of the most prolific contributors to the website, with some of the finest articles on horror I have had the pleasure of reading, erudite, elegant,  insightful, and fascinating are just some of the words that spring to mind to describe his writing.  

Where We Will never Be will feature in George's upcoming collection of short stories titled Essential Atrocities, if his previous collection / mixed media book Born in Blood (click here for our review) is anything to go by this will be a must read recommendation from us. 

George has this to say about about the collection and the short story featured here:  

At the beginning of this year, caught up in a state of mouldering depression and anxiety at not only my own future, but that of our civilisations, our species, I decided to throw myself into creative work. The initial project began as a challenge to write a short story a day for my blog over at strangeplaygrounds.com, which lasted from January 1st of 2018 until my birthday on February 8th.
 
Realising that, not only could I keep up with that work pace but that it provided both distraction from and expressions for the pollution in my mind, I decided to continue by producing the first draft of a short story collection every month until the end of the year.
 
Essential Atrocities is the first of those collections to be completed, and was collated under the over-arching idea that, much as we try to insulate ourselves against atrocity, experiences that wound and traumatise us, sometimes, they are essential to our development, to not making us who we are, but allowing us to transcend that very notion.
 
An uncomfortable concept that I sincerely hope makes for uncomfortable reading.
 
 
 
Where We Will Never Be
 
Synopsis
 
An infection that may or may not be real, a parasite that Doctors deny, that no one else can see. With nothing and no one to help him, Kevin Yentson descends into despair, beginning to doubt his own sanity. That is, until a young boy in his junior school class erupts into hysterics, the only one who sees as he does, who confirms his affliction. Drawn into mysteries far beyond his apparent disease, Yentson finds his life disintegrating around him, the creature invading his body, that his morbid obsession with almost eclipses everything else, far more than a mere parasite. 

Nothing there. Nothing.
     “Have you been looking up pictures on the Internet?” She asks me, her fingers still in my mouth, tasting of rubber and chemicals.
     “No, nothing like that.” I lie. “It’s just… I can feel something back there.”
     Sighing, pursing her lips, glancing at her computer screen.
     “Hmm. Well, there’s certainly nothing that gives me concern. You don’t smoke, do you?”
     I shake my head.
     “No. Well… I can proscribe you some antibiotics, but I doubt they’ll do much. There is some faint irritation, but that’s all.”
     “Could it be, like, an allergy or something?”
     Sighing again, her indifference fast swelling to impatience.
     “I suppose it could be. Do you have pets?”
     “A cat.”
     “Hmm. We’ll try you on some antihistamines, yes? That might help.”
     “Okay. Thank you, Doctor.”
     She doesn't even glance from her computer screen as I quietly leave, trying not to slam the door.
 
*
 
Herpes. Throat cancer. Thrush. Oral Gonorrhoea. Pictures sailing across the screen, grotesque, none quite right, none looking like what I see when I gape in front of the bathroom mirror.
     “There’s no damage to the soft tissue, no swellings or rashes. Try gargling with salt water once a day; that should ease any discomfort. Beyond that…”
     I check my dentist, not having been for twenty-odd years, finding myself amazed at the advancement in technology: x-rays that appear ten seconds after being taken on the monitor behind me, showing my impacted wisdom teeth, which she says will have to be removed, as and when.
     No mention of my throat, though I try to tell her: 
     “It’s pretty much every day, now. I wake up and I can feel it; a scratching, as though there’s a hair lodged somewhere.”
     “I’m sorry. I can’t see anything unusual. In fact, you’ve got quite a healthy mouth, all told.”
     Forty pounds and don’t come back for another six months. Thank you.
     Nothing. Nothing that even resembles what I see. What they don’t.
     Home. The cat mewls to be fed (again), mewling to be petted (again), mewling to be let out (again). I oblige all three,  a good and obedient slave, the creature bounding up onto the outer wall, hissing at passing dogs and their walkers, chittering at birds on the roof. Later, there’ll be gifts: headless sparrows on the stairs, eviscerated mice on the carpet.
     I do as they’ve told me, swilling my mouth with warm salt water, trying not to gag, to swallow the brine. A hideous, stinging sensation at the back of my throat, something tangibly moving.
     Spitting, I swill out the sink, head upstairs, to the bathroom with its porthole windows, its glaring, surgery light.
     The small shaving mirror is the only one I have, the only one I need. Gaping wide, noting with distress the spreading rawness at the back of my throat. How could they not see? The cause of it spread out from where my tongue dips away; the legs of a black widow, some spidery growth, reaching up from my gullet, digging into the flesh of my throat, whatever they anchor hidden in the dark, something I can’t see, no matter how I manoeuver the mirror, the light. Twitching as I watch, digging deeper.
     I hack, cough, trying to dislodge it. No hope, the thing only battening more earnestly, its legs pricking me deeper.
     How can none of them see?
     I’ve asked others to look; friends and relatives, some of the guys I meet off Grindr. None of them say a thing, none of them brave enough. As though afraid of offending me, weirded out by the question. The Grindr guys in particular don't care, unconcerned enough by it to allow their tenderest anatomies where the thing sits.
     Still there, still the same, after they've finished and gone. Maybe they do see, maybe they’re just afraid to say. Too polite, too British about it. Just one of those things that crops up from time to time. Best to just ignore it, get on, let it run its course. Maybe tomorrow it'll be gone, maybe tomorrow it'll seem different, not so raw, not so infected.
     I could almost cry.
 
*
 
A day off, needed, begged for. I lose patience with it all; the noise, the shrieks, the stink. The penetrating glares of the Autistic children from their corners, their isolated spaces on the play mats, in the classroom's alcoves. Endless questions. Endless competition for attention and approbation: good boys, good girls; well dones, gold stars. Straining to explain the simplest concepts in ways they might understand, called to the Headmistress’s office when I find a way, told it’s not proscribed in the current curricula, the fact that it works besides the point.
     A day to sleep. To sit and do nothing. Except worry. To examine myself in the mirror again and again, checking if the thing has dislodged itself or gone away.
     Swilling with hot honey and lemon, with salt water, the latter concentrated enough to raise salt burns on my tongue.
     But it's still there, clinging on.
     I feel it, every time I swallow or mutter to myself, every time words rise in my throat: the thing tremors, repositioning. 
     Trying to dislodge it with a cotton bud, I almost choke myself, spluttering for almost twenty minutes after. The thing still in place, no matter how violently I hack or wretch.
     Time becoming molten, inconsistent, a red and swirling haze, not knowing who calls, who knocks on my door or why. Only tears and frustration, rusted saws and ragged razor wire sifting through my mind, my diseased, decomposing body. Feeling it, a rot that scrapes me apart, atom-by-atom, that sickens me to the marrow, the soul, that no doctor can detect or medicine treat.
     Nothing, they say.
 
*
 
The saws and razors don't still, even in sleep: I dream of things crawling from the darkness, invading every orifice, setting up parasite nurseries in my throat, my ears, cockroach things hollowing out my heart and brain, seeping white worms swelling and mating in the loops of my entrails, the frothing bath of my stomach.
     Just enough of me left to appreciate the horror of it, to watch through eyes that are no longer mine as they puppeteer my body, carry me from bed, out into the night, to kiss, to bite, to rape, their eggs in my spit and semen, infecting, to make more walking-hive kind.
     The sensation of them crawling, worming and burrowing through my skin, my bone, so vivid, so real. Waking to nausea, to scratches earnest enough to draw blood, I vomit black into the toilet bowl.
     Even that isn't enough, the thing still there, still there, no matter how powerfully I wretch, how forceful the torrent I vomit up. Stinking and pathetic, I collapse against the tiles, my head on the toilet bowl. Sobs no one will hear or pity me for.
 
*
 
Smiles and sunshine, azure ties and salmon-pink shirts. Little blonde boys and girls, little dark haired and dark skinned and shuffling and uncertain, scratching their heads as though to burrow through, distracted by cats or butterflies at the windows, by the barks of dogs from the nearby footpath.
     “Okay, guys. That’s enough for today; make sure you’ve put the date in your workbooks and… Jamiel, would you collect them, please?”
     The boy frowns, sat slightly apart from the rest. Fat and doughy, perpetually afraid. Spoken about, in the relative solitude of the staff room: something not right, we all agree. Something to keep an eye on. Something that makes me roll my eyes and grind my teeth and wish I could drink bleach.
     The fright in his eyes at the sound of his name, the look of stunned betrayal on his face: as though I’ve commanded him to eat the class hamster whole, to cut out his Mother’s eyes and bring them for show and tell tomorrow.
     The rest of the class bustle about their business, happily chattering, one or two bouts of laughter, quiet titters.
     Jamiel slinks from his chair, every motion awkward and uncertain, as though he doesn’t fit into his own stretched taught skin, as though every step is an exercise.
     Dyspraxia? Some sort of Autism Spectrum Disorder? I don’t know. I watch as he breathlessly collects the exercise books, refuses to meet the eyes of the others, glancing from them to the windows, the pictures on the walls, as he ignores their hellos and jokes and gestures.
     “Okay, guys, when you’re done, come and sit on the mat, and we’ll carry on with The Silver Chair, yeah?”
     Quiet settles, Jamiel seating himself at the back of the group, noticeably apart. Not looking, not focusing, glancing away, to the toy cupboard, the walls, ceiling, as though distracted by butterflies or spiders only he can see.
     I begin to read. Where did we leave off? Oh, yeah, on our way to the City of the Giants, through snow and cold and hunger…
     On autopilot, for the most part, until the argument, Jill and Eustace haranguing Puddleglum for his misery and mistrust, the class squirming where they sit, looks of consternation…
     I cough, a tickle at the back of my throat, Jamiel’s eyes on me as I lower the book.
     “…sorry, guys; just got a bit of a…”
     The boy melts into tears, great, fat droplets rolling down his face, the folds of his cheeks and neck wobbling. I sip from my mug of Fennel tea, which helps to calm the irritation.
     The others turn to him, some asking what’s wrong, others smiling evilly.
     “It’s… it’s all right, guys. Settle down. Jamiel?”
     The boy doesn't hear, continuing to cry, closing his eyes, lightly shaking his head.
     “Jamiel, mate, I can’t help if you don’t…”
     The boy shrieks so loudly, those seated nearby leap away from him across the carpet, some slapping their hands to their ears, looking to me with expressions of earnest terror.
     So strange, so rare. I've never seen this before, not from him.
     Rising from my seat, the class parts as I make my way to him. “Jamiel…”
     The boy is on his feet, moving faster than I’ve ever seen, shrieking as he backs away.
     “What’s wrong with him, Mr. Yentson?”
     “I don’t know, Connie. It’s okay, guys. Just… go back to your seats for now, please.”
     The class complies, most of them without complaint or hesitation, though they continue to stare, to swap conspiratorial glances, furtive whispers.
     “Is everything all right, Mr. Yentson?” asks Alison Fisher, from the classroom next door. Several kids make to answer before I silence them.
     “I think Mrs. Fisher was asking me, guys. Everything’s fine, Mrs. Fisher. Jamiel over there is just having a bit of a turn.”
     “Would you like me to take him to the nurse’s office?”
     “I… yes, if you would. I think that would be best.”
     The skinny, scarecrow woman sifts into the room, rearing up almost as tall as the ceiling, pale skin stretched across the bone beneath, lending her a certain hollow, skeletal look.
     Jamiel shivers, but noticeably calms as she speaks to him, focusing on her.
     “There now, there now, Jamiel. Why don’t you come with me, and we’ll see if we can’t make it better, yeah?”
     The boy nods, fervently, accepting her hand, casting suspicious, frightened glances my way as he allows her to lead him from the room.
     I curse myself after he's gone, in the fractious silence of restored sanity, a question buzzing around my skull like a captive fly:
     What did you see, Jamiel? What did you see?
 
*
 
An impromptu meeting, after the last of them disappear, with Mrs. Fisher, Claire Houghton, the headmistress, Jamiel’s parents. The boy noticeably absent.
     Strange glares from the parents as I enter the office, as though I have a Swastika drawn on my face.
     “Hello, Kevin. Take a seat, would you?”
     I nod a greeting to Mrs. Fisher and Houghton, to Jamiel’s parents, who continue to glare.
     “We… understand there was an incident in the classroom, earlier today. Mr. Yentson, would you like to give us your account of what happened?”
     Your account.
     Taking a moment to clear my throat, that hideous, tingling itch, that rasping soreness, intense as always, after a day at school.
     “Of course, of course…”
     I recount what I saw; Jamiel’s strange and preoccupied behaviour, his outbursts that disrupted the class. I select my language carefully, the boy’s parents glaring at me like wolves waiting their moment to pounce. His Mother in particular has the eyes of a hawk or buzzard, observing for any wound or opening through which to press her hooked beak.
     “He was very, very upset when we came to fetch him, Mr. Yentson. Very upset. You said you were reading a book with the students?”
     “That’s right, yes; we’re working our way through The Chronicles of Narnia.”
     The Mother shifts in her seat, sighing as though the problem is self-evident. “He’s… a very sensitive boy; he gets upset easily. Is there maybe something in the book that might have set him off?”
     “I doubt it, Mrs. Kahbul. We’ve already done the first five books and he’s not had a problem with them.”
     “He was saying some very strange things when he got home. Very strange things.”
     Refusing to rise to her implication, reverting instead to placation and protocol.
     “I’m very sorry he was upset, but the other children will be able to corroborate: he just exploded out of nowhere. One moment, he’s fine, the next, he starts crying and screaming…”
     Mrs. Fisher jumps in: “That’s what alerted me; I was in the classroom next door.”
     “There must have been something. He wouldn’t be this upset over nothing.”
     All of us exchange glances, the same confession hanging in the air.
     “I will say, we have noticed some… unusual behaviour regarding Jamiel, of late.”
     The Mother perks up at this, bristling in her seat, becoming more angular.
     “Unusual? What does that mean?”
     “He… tends to be rather unfocused, very easily distracted.”
     “I’m sure most boys are at that age…”
     “He often seems anxious; he doesn’t tend to communicate with the other children…”
     The Father folds his arms, huffing something non-committal, though I think it has something to do with the apparent nature of the other children in the class. “No wonder.” I catch.
     “We do think that it might be wise to seek… specialist help when it comes to Jamiel, with your permission, of course.”
     The woman dabs her eyes with a handkerchief, shaking her head. “I’m sorry… this is not what I expected today at all. First, your teacher terrifies my son…”
     “Excuse me, Mrs. Kahbul, but I…”
     “… then, you dare to tell me that there’s something defective about him? You do understand that we’re quite close friends with the Lotkins, who are on the board of directors for this school?”
     Mrs. Houghton seeths, the room darkening with her temper.
     “We’re well aware, but what that has to do with your son’s wellbeing, I don’t know.”
     “Oh, you will, believe me. I’m not tolerating this, quite frankly.”
     Clare rises from behind her desk, leaning over it, her eyes serpentine.
     “Tolerating what Mrs. Kahbul? The advice of people who are genuinely concerned about your son? Quite frankly, given his conduct and outbursts, you’re lucky we haven’t called in a specialist ourselves, which we're well within our rights to do. Mr. Yentson and Mrs. Fisher have both told you what happened. If I need to get the testimonies of the children, I will. But what I won’t have is you threatening me or my staff; I happen to know Linda and Carlton, too, very well, as it happens, and I’ll be sure to bring this matter up with them myself.”
     Not here, I am removed from it all, idly scratching at my throat, Mr. Kahbul following every motion, his eyes not quite as frightened as his son’s, but…
     “I don’t think this is helping. Mrs. Kahbul, I’ve been watching your son for quite some time, now, and he exhibits behaviours that…”
     “Excuse me, Mr. Yentson, but I’ve been watching my son since he was born. I think I’d be aware if there was anything defective about him.”
     “Please don’t use that word.”
     Mrs. Fisher, raising her head, fixes Mrs. Kahbul with her eyes.
     “Excuse me?”
     “That word. It’s not one we use concerning children who have learning difficulties or special needs.”
     The woman gapes, gasping as though slapped, glancing between us before rising from her seat, storming through the office door.
     Her husband lingers, slowly sighing, shaking his head. “I… apologise for her. My wife… she finds bad news very hard to take. You tell me, yes? What you think is wrong with Jamiel?”
     A glance to Clare, for approbation, wanting nothing more than to go home, to sit in silence, to sleep.
     Clare nods, sighing as she slumps back in her chair, absently cleaning her glasses. 
     “Mr. Kahubl, I’m going to assume you’re passingly aware of Autism Spectrum Disorders?”
     “Jamiel’s autistic?”
     “Oh, we can’t say that, yet; it’s far too early. But he does present certain signifiers.”
     The man glances between me and Alison, furrowing his brow, his interlaced fingers fretting and fidgeting in concern.
     “My wife… she is going to find this very hard. Very hard.”
     The others likely don’t notice, but I do; the way he occasionally glances at my mouth, his eyes lingering momentarily on my throat, before darting away again.
     Clare interjects. “I’ve no doubt. But, for Jamiel’s sake, it would be best if he could be diagnosed as soon as possible, then both you and we can start putting special measures in place for him.”
     The man nods, deflating in his chair. “Thank you. Thank you, all. My wife may not understand or want to see, but I know; I’ve noticed things.”
     “We can give you advice on what to do next, if you like.”
     Already rising from his seat, taking both Clare and Alison's hands, shaking vigorously. “That would be very much appreciated. And I'll talk to my wife; she'll come around, whether she wants to or not.”
     He returns me after taking numbers and leaflets, a small folder of papers on the subject of children with autism.
     “I would very much like to speak with Mr. Yentson alone, if I may.”
     Clare and Allison share glances. I interject before they can protest:
     “That’s fine by me; I might be able to give Mr. Kahbul a little more information.”
     “All right, you can use the office, if you like. We’ll go get a coffee.”
     Allison rises, following Clare as they leave, the looks they throw me pitying, almost accusing. Weary, the day already thrown off-kilter, things waiting back home: washing to get out of the machine, tea to be made, the cat to be fed. Aching to be elsewhere, anywhere other than here.
     Mr. Kahbul continues to stare at me, his eyes—that seem somewhat overlarge for his rounded face—unblinking, reptilian in their intense green.
     “How long has it been, Mr. Yentson?”
     The man taps his throat with the fingers of one hand. Cold, a wash of something toxic down my spine. I half believed them, until this moment; the ones who say there’s nothing there.
     Automatic denials, feeling so hideously exposed, so naked.
     “I don’t…”
     The man sighs, shifting in his seat. “All right, if you don’t want to talk about it…”
     A strange, wrenching sensation, a shimmering thread, slowly drawn out of my reach. “No! No, I… I don’t know. Maybe a year, now.”
     “A year? Goodness.”
     The man is genuinely startled, blinking, looking away from me.
     “I take it my son saw, yes?”
     “I’m not sure, but I think so, yes.”
     Kahbul grunts, his head lolling back on his neck, raking a hand over his face.
     “Damn it. Damn it. I was hoping it might skip him, you know?”
     “I’m… I’m sorry, Mr. Kahbul…”
     “Wilfred, please.”
     “Wilfred?” I'm unable to keep myself from smiling at the incongruity.
     “My Mother was English, she named me after my Grandfather. And I’m sure you don’t understand, Mr. Yentson. I’m sure you don’t. Neither do I, to tell you the truth. But I see. Like my Mother could and her Grandmother. Like Jamiel, apparently.”
     Shaking my head, rubbing my temples, I lose patience with the entire encounter. “Look, Mr… Wilfred, I’m very tired and very confused; all I want to do is go home and collapse in front of the computer. Will you please just tell me what this bloody thing is?”
     The man interlaces his fingers again, looking at me with open and obvious pity. 
     “I don’t know. They don’t have names; most people can’t see them, don’t even know when they have them. Some sort of parasite, I would guess. I don’t know, Mr. Yentson; I just see things. I’ve learned to ignore them, for the most part, over the years. I’m going to have to try and teach Jamiel the same.”
     “So, you don’t know what it is. How do I. . ?”
     “…get rid of it? I wish I knew, Mr. Yentson. I wish I knew. You’d be surprised how many people have them without knowing it. I’ve seen this type before, but it’s not the most common, not by far.”
     “There must be people who know how.”
     “If there are, I’ve never met them. Like I say: most people don’t even realise. For some reason, you do.”
     Rising from his chair, he pulls on his coat.
     “I’ll speak with Jamiel. Maybe I can teach him not to be afraid.”
     The man doesn't offer his hand, understandably, leaving me with a pitying smile.
 
*
 
There must be people. Someone who knows. If not what to do, then at least what the fuck it is.
     Home, weary beyond belief, I leave the washing to moulder in the machine, the cat to meow at her food bowl.
     I need to know, to find something.
     An hour, sifting through web pages, journals and blogs… nothing. Barely even a reference or mention, the ones that chime with my experience idiot, paranormal or conspiracy theory pages that consist of more paranoid fantasy than anything actual.
     Though I begin to wonder, the deeper I delve, the longer I pour over them: What if some are onto something? What if, beneath the distortions and hyperbole, there’s some truth?
     That way lies insanity, a gaping rabbit hole ready to swallow me. Ha! Already scrabbling at the edges, soil and grass giving way beneath my fingers…
     Nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing.
     Maybe… maybe some conspiracy? Someone in power knowing about this shit, afraid it’ll cause mass panic, deleting anything of credence relating to it, some program or government agency, editing the web from afar…
      Ha! Barely an evening immersed in their madness  and I'm already thinking like them, sounding like them in my head; the cranks and crazies, the conspiracy nuts. Why the Hell didn't I ask Wilfred when I had the chance: what’s going to happen to me?
     Maybe nothing. Perpetual discomfort the extent of it, occasional spikes of pain, but nothing I can’t endure. Maybe I can learn to live with it.
     But at least I know, now, don’t I? At least I know.
 
*
 
I wake in the dark, not the usual tingling itch in my throat, but motion, the parasite tangibly swollen and stirring, pricking my flesh with its needle feet, scrabbling up to haul itself free.
     It feels larger, much larger than before, as though swollen from recent feeding, or maybe with…
     The thought makes me nauseous, gaping wide until my jaw aches, reaching inside with desperate fingers...
     I jerk them back with a yelp as something bites, stings, almost weep as cold fire spreads through my hand and up my wrist.
     A wet, pulsating mass fills my mouth, tasting like rotten fruit and meat left to sweat in the sun. Something forces its way up and out; barbed limbs that creep across my lips, my cheeks, forcing my mouth wide to allow the mass to protrude.
     I can’t see, too dark, too dark; can only feel; the mass slick and foul, hideous, hideous pulsations rippling through it.
     Get up. Get up, you idiot! Rip it out, flush it away.
     I want to. I want to, but I can’t; something holds me fast, making me grip the bedclothes as though in the midst of a fit.
     I weep as the thing sways and pulses, as some foul matter dribbles down it, across my cheeks, gumming up my eyes.
     I feel them: worming, scurrying things, spilling across my neck, my shoulders, so many I can barely discern one from the other.
     Several spasms, the protrusion diminishing with each one, until it’s barely a scrap of quivering matter, lolling from my stretched open mouth. Withdrawing, it trails effluent across my tongue, the limbs that clamp me open receding into whatever hollow they emerged from.
     I want to vomit, to claw myself open and rip the fucking things out of me. Can't, a prisoner in my skull, so distant from the body that has betrayed me in so many ways. Hurling myself against its bone walls, not to escape, but in suicide, seeking to dash myself open, to burst sanity and have it seep out with the rest of the effluent.
     Sedative sleep follows, though I fight it, though I…
 
*
 
Sunshine streams gold and amber through the partially open curtains. Ayla clambers over me, mewing and purring in my face.
     Something surges inside, sunlight-laced blood illuminating every recess.
     Laughing, breathing deep, my throat unconstricted, somehow whole again for the first time in months.
     I scratch behind the cat’s ears, the animal flopping down on my chest, stretching, pawing at the quilt.
     “All right, all right, shit-bag. I’ll get you some food. Just let me get up first, okay?”
     The cat’s eyes blaze in answer, catching the light of the morning. “What time is it? I don’t remember the alarm going off…”
     I smile at a distant foam of concern in my belly, the kind that would have frothed to blind panic yesterday. Those shores are so far away, now; regarding them as though seated amongst the clouds and storms above, I don't care how earnestly they eat away at the world, how close the cliff-crowning towers come to collapse…
     8:15AM. Plenty of time. More than two hours later than my usual workday schedule. I smile, the expression become so unfamiliar in recent months, it hurts my face.
     Habitually checking my throat before I brush my teeth, I furrow my brow at what the shaving mirror tells me: nothing, the twitching, partially buried legs gone, the soreness they elicited likewise. Checking from as many angles as possible, I stretch my mouth as wide as anatomy allows. There's no sign of them, not even a stripe of soreness or infection.
     Smiling all the more lavishly, I brush and floss and swill, sing in the shower, something by Pink Floyd, half the lyrics murmured or slurred for never being known.
     I enjoy a glutton’s breakfast: three cups of coffee, left over frittata, toast from homemade bread, a banana. Time flows like sludge, every second an eternity in which to enjoy relief, calm, this moment of sunshine.
 
     Far from late when I saunter into work; just less early than usual. Clare calls me to her office before the day begins.
     “So, yesterday?”
     “Yeah. Listen, Clare, I’m really sorry. I don’t…”
     “It’s fine. It’s fine. Jamiel won’t be in for the rest of the week. Apparently, his Mom and Dad are having difficulty getting him to come back to class.”
     “Shit.”
     “Yeah. Still no idea of what set him off?”
     You should speak to his Dad about that. “Sorry, no. It just came out of nowhere.”
     “Nothing much we can do about it, at this point. If he does come back, I want to start some special measures with him, if his bloody Mother will let us.”
     “I think that’d be a great idea.”
     “Glad you’re on board with it. Listen, I know it’s just one of those things, but try to go easy on any material that might spook or upset any of the kids, okay?”
     Sniffing, almost laughing. “It was The Chronicles of Narnia, Clare; most kids have read the books by Jamiel’s age.”
     “Yeah, I know, I know, but I’ve got to say it; you know how it is. I’ll make a record that we had this conversation, blah, blah, blah.”
     “Ah. Covering our own arses, yes?”
     “Exactly that.”
     Her eyes linger on me, a faint wrinkling of her brow.
     “What?”
     “Nothing, nothing. You just look good today. Like you got a good sleep last night.”
     “Thanks. I really did.”
     “I’ll keep you updated on the Jamiel situation.”
     Her eyes are still on me as I exit the office and head to class.
 
*
 
It's a good day. A great day; lots of laughs, silliness, but not too much. Lessons made into games that require rearranging the classroom, herding desks and chairs against the walls, which the kids love.
     Not a moment, not an incident. Some of the more empathetic—or gossip-mongering—ask me about Jamiel, wanting to know what was wrong, if he’ll be back.
     Placating, I assure them that he’s fine, that he will, sending them back to their classmates smiling, with other concerns (what sweets they’ll be picking from the shop on the way home, what games they’re going to play after homework).
     Storytime, as the day winds down.
     The Silver Chair, picking up where we left off; Harfang, the city of giants, our unknowing heroes  waiting to be devoured.
     Every pair of eyes rapt, none afraid, as we build to the revelation. There are faint gasps and mutters, some shifting where they sit, none screaming or whimpering. How it should be; kids like Jamiel… no hope for them, if they can’t cope with something so innocuous. The world itself will be a horror story for them, stepping outside the door or walking down the street an invitation to insanity.
     Poor, poor boy.
     Some scattered, nervous laughter as we come to Jill Pole’s discovery of the giant’s cookbook, open at a page that depicts a staple of the giant's Autumn Feast:  
     “Man Pie.”
     Looking up from the page, grinning at them, I love the shock on their faces, the smiling, mock-dread in their eyes.
     A tickle shatters that smile, something catching in my throat. Setting the book open in my lap, I reach for my fennel tea.
     Distant murmurs, uncertain glances, as it comes, rising in my throat: a vomit of scrabbling pins and living needles. The book flies from my lap as it bursts from me, the children shrieking, scrabbling back, protective hands raised to their faces.
     No more pain. If anything, a bizarre pleasure, almost sexual in its intensity, quivering from my lower belly to my throat, exploding behind my eyes with every convulsion.
     Black fluid, glutinous, congealed matter, crawling with parasites, the children scrabbling away, crawling for the doors and windows as it finds them, spattering against their appalled faces, their raised hands.
     Barely able to see through tears as I stagger, clutching at my stomach. The children flee, some of them already at the doors and windows, though none without infested foulness clinging in their hair, bubbling on their faces.
     I glimpse them through tears as they claw and rake at themselves, trying to peel away parasites that crawl into screaming mouths and gaping eyes, as they collapse and vomit on the carpet where they played and laughed only minutes ago…
     “What in the name of Christ?”
     Allison, pausing at the door, clutches at it, a hand rising to her mouth. Turning to her, unable to help myself; an arc of black sputum spatters her, a scream rising as a centipede-like thing uncoils from within, seeking out her lips, her eyes.
     Those that can flee screaming into the playground, the field behind the classroom. I stagger after them, to the open doorway, out into blinding sunlight.
     Others emerge, now; children and teachers from neighbouring classrooms, disturbed by the noise, the sight of children wretching on their hands and knees in the yard.
     I ignore them, staggering for the front gate, still quivering in my strange ecstasies, the convulsions diminishing by the time I make it onto the street.
     Distantly, people call my name, their voices strained and distorted, the world likewise; wavering and rippling around me, strings of matter, clots of living things still slopping from my mouth.
     Home. Impossible; where they’ll come for me, sedating me, strapping me down, cutting me open… maybe burning me alive, blaming it on a faulty gas pipe or anonymous arson.
     I can't make it, anyway; my legs quiver, seconds away from pitching me to the broken concrete where I’ll burst, the things inside scurrying and swarming away, eager to find new hosts in which to make their nurseries.
     The car that pulls up is small, bile-yellow, barking and shuddering like it’s seen better days.
     Wilfred gestures to me from the driver’s seat, ushering me into the back. He tears away from the school before I’ve managed to shut the door behind me, sirens already wailing in the distance.
 
*
 
Sleeping, for a time, swaddled in a dreaming cocoon, feeling my wings swell, simultaneously aching for and dreading the moment when I evolve beyond its bounds, take flight…
     I wake far less celebratory, the intense evening sunlight burning my eyes, hard, uneven earth biting into my buttocks, the bark of a gnarled, dead tree rasping my back.
     Woodlands. Deep, by the look of it, florid with signs of late spring.
     Empty, I'm so empty; not the butterfly, but a hideously sentient chrysalis, spent and impotent, now that those pupating within have unfurled and fled.
     Hungry. So hungry, it feels like a knife is in my guts, scraping what's left from inside.
     Unblinking owl eyes flicker in the murk, a whisper of crushed leaves, stepped-on twigs, a shimmer of heart-racing silver.
     “J… Jamiel?”
     My voice is strange, deep and croaking, the fluctuations in my throat even moreso.
     I try to stand, yelping as I snare against the chains wrapped and clasped around me.
     “Jamiel? What the…”
     “You wanted to help my boy, Mr. Yentson? You did say that, yes?”
     Wilfred ambles into view, the man overdressed, given the warmness of the early evening, rubbing his hands as though perpetually cold. Standing next to his son, he pats him on the shoulder, smiling lavishly.
     “What? Of course I do, I…”
     I’m his teacher.
     I feel it rise; what little is left within, the familiar convulsions, so sore inside, now, my entire body tender, as though from a night’s nausea.
     An impotent dribble seeps down my chin in black strands, what swims and scrabbles in it barely worthy of note.
     Wilfred’s smile dies as he urges his son back a few steps.
     “Yes, I see that. Well, I want to help him, too, like my Mother helped me. You know what she used to say? No point in telling kids monsters aren’t real, when they know they are. You teach them how to deal with the monsters themselves, then they’re never afraid again.”
     The boy’s eyes are distant and unfocused, the knife trembling in his hands.
     “I… I’m not a monster, Wilfred. I… I’m sick.”
     “Oh, I know, Mr. Yentson, I know; like I said: I’ve seen this before. Not as many times as my Mother did, but enough. The monster is the sickness, I’m afraid. It’s too late, now.”
     Gently nodding, be puts a hand to Jamiel’s back.
     “Go on, son. Just like I showed you.”
     Jamiel frowns, the expression aging his face by at least thirty years. I strain against the chains, the ragged bark grazing my back.
     “Jamiel… Jamiel… “
     The boy walks slowly, stumbling in the leaves and grass, the knife wavering and clumsy in his hands.
     “Come on now, Jamiel. Your Mother’s going to be wondering where we are.”
     Consternation flashes in his eyes as he looks down at the knife in his hands, letting it fall, turning to his Father. “I don’t want to, Dad.”
     Wilfred sighs, turning his eyes to the boughs overhead. “I know, son. I know. I didn’t, either. But it’s for the best. For him, as well! He’s not going to get better, you know that? And after what he did to your classmates? He made all of them sick, too. We’re going to have to help them, just the same.”
     The boy shudders, shaking his head, starting to weep. His father goes down on one knee before him, taking him by the shoulder. “There’s no one else who can do this, son. No one else. You understand? If you let him go now, then whatever he does after, whoever he hurts… that will be our fault. It will be your fault.”
     Plucking up the knife from where it lies, he hands it to his boy. Jamiel rubs his nose with the back of his arm.
     “Can we get pizza after?”
     Wilfred smiles squeezing his son’s shoulder. “Pizza and ice cream. You’ll have earned it. Just don't tell your Mother.”
     The boy turns to me with a lunatic smile, the light in his eyes making me shudder, recoil.
     Crying out, my ragged throat making noises I didn’t know it was capable of.
     “Quickly, son, quickly.”
     The boy ambles towards me, the knife so awkward in his pudgy fist. 
     “Jamiel, Jamiel… this is… you can’t do this, Jamiel! People will find out! They’ll know, and then…”
     The boy isn't listening, still grinning at the promise of pizza and ice cream. Nothing else his Father has said taking hold, gaining traction: only that promise.
     Coughing, spluttering, something crawling up from my raw and ragged depths, that flaps as it emerges in my mouth, forcing my lips wide.
     Wilfred’s face visibly palls, growing slack on the bone. He starts forward, but too late, too late.
     “Jamiel!”
     The newborn flies, a black and ragged moth, trailing beads of matter through the air. Jamiel barely has time to stumble, to drop the knife, before it’s on him, fluttering against his face, the boy squealing like a pig.
     Straining against my chains, I cry out, the metal biting into the spongy flesh of my wrists.
     Wilfred seizes the boy, spinning him around, wrenching his jaw so forcibly the boy cries out, squealing as he reaches into his mouth…
     The boy bites down instinctively, clamping his jaws shut. The man pulls away, parting company with his fingers, strings and strands of bloody fibre stretching between them as he collapses back in the grass, clutching at himself.
     Jamiel staggers and stumbles, hands at his belly, moaning in the back of his throat.
     My wrist slips free, my chest and belly deflating, as though boneless, the organs they contain ferreted to other brackets around my body. The most bizarre sensation, feeling every rearrangement and reconfiguration; organs as they uproot themselves and uncoil, bones as they stretch and swell and make way for them.
     Obscene, strange to the point of unpleasant, yet entirely not, making me giggle like a school boy hearing a filthy joke for the first time.
     Slipping free from the chains like a snake, I rise to my feet, swelling again. Smiling.
     Wilfred turns to me with lunatic pain, mindless fear in his eyes, glancing momentarily at the knife his son has dropped.
     “J… Jamiel…”
     The boy hears, lurching upright, spitting out the mangled stumps of his Father’s fingers, glancing between us.
     I see, long before he does: the boy’s dark skin grows transparent, as though illuminated from within by a pulsing, purple light: shapes flitter around his interior like moths caught beneath a lampshade. The boy sees too, smiling, laughing legitimately for perhaps the first time in his life.
     His Father wails, sweeping up the knife before I can stop him, hurtling at the boy.
     A hideous sound, wet tearing, the boy grunting as though punched in the belly. The light in him flickers, fades, as the Father collapses back, the knife falling from his hand.
     I'm on him before he can speak, before he can scrabble away, hurling him against a nearby tree, the bastard no heavier than a bag of feathers, despite his bulk.
     His eyes widen as the back of his head cracks from the bark, leaving a dark, wet smear. Blinking, he staggers forward, about to fall to his hands and knees before I catch him, hoisting him up.
     The man shudders, raking at my hands, gobbets of meat falling away with every stroke. There is no pain, that matter redundant, now, just like this mask, this life.
     “What have you done? What have you done?”
     Snarling, seeping through clenched teeth, that same orgasmic ecstasy as my stomach convulses, as something squirms its way up my throat.
     No. He doesn’t deserve this.
     Unable to help it, some instinct beyond reason, beyond conscious thought, urges me to throw back my head, to open my mouth wide…
     “Mr. Yentson?”
     Turning, I see the boy bleeding, but smiling. Wet, black butterflies emerge from the wound in his chest, spreading their newly formed wings, mingling, intermating to form a living bandage. 
     Wilfred thrashes, wailing in my hands, hot tears pouring down over my new skin.
     The boy frowns again, that perpetual mist in his eyes clearing. Blinking, he gasps, looking around as though for the first time, before his eyes settle on his Father.
     “Don’t hurt him. He doesn’t mean it.”
     Obeying, I lower the man to the grass, where he collapses on all fours, clutching at his throat, wretching.
     Stepping away, I watch as the boy approaches, smiling down at him. “Dad.”
     His voice so adult, that of a middle aged man catching his ageing parent in some moment of dementia, some frustrated confusion.
     Wilfred glances up, his face quivering, almost melting beneath his tears.
     Distantly, a child weeps, not in the woods; deep, deep in the back of my mind.
     Jamiel reaches out with a hand that swarms and crawls, his Father recoiling from it in disgust.
     “Don’t… don’t touch me.”
     Scrabbling back, he stirs up the leaves and soil, so much more child-like than his son, now.
     The man they used to call Kevin Yentson peels away, more and more of him steaming on the ground at my feet. It isn't painful; ecstatic, if anything, as though I’ve been wrapped in smothering, too-tight clothes all my life, their seams finally giving, allowing me to breathe and feel the air for the first time.
     I meet Wilfred’s appalled eyes as they flicker between his son and me.
     “Look! Look, Jamiel! That’s what it means! That’s their sickness.”
     The boy turns to me, his skin pulsing translucent once more, the purple light shining through his eyes, seeping through his pores to coalesce as beads of liquid luminescence on his skin.
     Beautiful. But far from finished, any more than I am: barely a chrysalis stage, neither one of us daring to dream what might follow.
     He smiles, sweetly sincere, as others move in the surrounding woods, now, singing strangely familiar hymns. 
     Taking advantage of our momentary distraction, Wilfred scrabbles away, whimpering like an absconding, autistic child as others emerge from the shadows, taking hold of him, dragging him back.
     Jamiel leaps up and down for joy at the sight of them; things that only yesterday would have raised shrieks from both of us now giving birth to smiles.
     The two that take hold of Wilfred are as distinct from one another as I am from Jamiel: a gelatinous, shifting blob of compost-like matter, fragments of semi-human anatomy emerging before being subsumed once more, the other a hunched creature, its lower half that of a woman, naked, beautiful, its upper half swelling into a wasp's nest mass, swarms of albino hornets emerging from its dripping apertures, describing shimmering circuits in the air.
     The pair drag the trembling Wilfred back to us, setting him gently down on his knees. Quivering at their touch, at the sight of them, of us, he rips a handkerchief from his pocket, pressing it to his mouth.
     Others emerge, sifting and slithering between the trees, descending from the boughs, coalescing from mist and smoke, from beams of light. No two alike; all species of one, leaving me to wonder what I might see were I to observe myself through their eyes.
     Jamiel turns to me, smiling as though catching the echo of my thoughts, closing his eyes.
     A vertical split appears in his forehead, a furrowed expression of discomfort as one of the black butterflies emerges, flapping its wet wings as though newly hatched. Wilfred audibly weeps as it takes flight, landing on my outstretched palm, lingering for a moment before my own coldly lambent skin parts to accept it: a mirror of the same wound, the insect easing its way inside.
     A sensation that is simultaneously ecstatic and repellent, echoing the first time I consented to join another man in bed, the same trembling uncertainty, the same blind want.
     Shuddering as the wound seals, Jamiel opening his eyes.
     Gasping, I laugh, unable to help myself, my sight split, originating from two separate sources: my eyes and his, the pair of us seeing as ourselves and one another, the sensation so strange, it steals my breath.
     But nowhere near as strange as what the sight he lends reveals: a creature that’s at least three feet taller than Kevin Yentson, tatters of him still clinging to it around the face, the hands: a flickering, luminous thing of pale blue skin, veins and circuitry of sunlight visibly worming beneath, elaborating in response to unknown designs and imperatives, leaving it with the distressing impression of never being quite still, areas where the light bleeds out through orifices in its throat, its flanks, its back. Reaching up with many-fingered hands, it paws and peels away what remains of the screaming, lonely man, the condition beneath pulsing and pregnant, already swollen with life, suggestions of it protruding from the orifice of its mouth and throat; black, scrabbling legs, centipede-like antennae. From its shoulders erupts matter that flows and twists in the air like the skirts of deep-sea fish, arcing with rainbow colour, lashing its back and limbs… my back and limbs, cleansing them of the filth that remains.
     The man that was, Kevin Yentson, still screams, though there’s so little of him left now.
     “Please, please, Jamiel…”
     Wilfred sobs, pleading with his eyes, though for what, I can’t imagine.
     The boy laughs, the others echoing him in their strange and myriad ways.
     “You made me so afraid, Dad.”
     “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t mean to…”
     The boy approaches him, hunkering down in the leaves and grass. Portions of him slough away as his back and head swell, pulsing like blisters about to burst.
     “Yes, you did. But it’s all right; I’m not afraid any more. Not of you or anything.”
     The man attempts to struggle back as his son reaches to embrace him, arousing growls and moans of displeasure from his audience, including me.
     Even now, even now, he can’t bring himself to do it, seeing how beautiful his boy has become.
     Something stirs inside of me, those same spasms of pain and pleasure: labour-pangs unlike any that the Mothers of humanity have experienced, that Fathers ever will: agony and ecstasy intermingled, being torn apart from the inside out, deliriously fucked in the same instance, soaring high on the sweetest of narcotics.
     Not denying it any longer, I allow my children to come: slopping from me, wet and newly formed, scrabbling and many-legged, an entirely different species from those Jamiel hosts.
     I watch as they unfurl in the leaves and long grass, swarming towards the only host present. Wilfred howls, the terror in his eyes barely dimming as his son takes hold of him, wrapping his arms around him as the swarms emerge, bursting through apertures in his back and head, flanks and limbs.
     The pair are momentarily enveloped, the swarms obscuring them as the boy embraces his Father, as the Father tries to prize himself away, denying all Jamiel has to give.
     Wilfred somehow struggling free, Jamiel staggers back, calling after the man as he crawls from within the swarm, raking at himself, reaching into his own mouth to make himself vomit. My children find him, rearing up from the grass, mewling ecstasy as they fasten to his face, crawl up his back, beneath his clothes.
     Going to Jamiel, I wrap my arms around him, holding him tight as his Father screams and screams, thrashing on the ground. The others step back, allowing revelation to take its course.
 
     Amber and scarlet light shear through the boughs, between the trees, by the time Wilfred grows silent. Time in which Jamiel and I come to know one another better than we ever could have separate in our own skulls and skins. In which we come to know those around us likewise, sharing the children that have transformed us, which we now cultivate inside. Some have existed in this state for years, decades, beyond the eyes and judgement of those that would burn us alive. Drawn here by us, the promise of new children, by what happened back in the classroom…
     The children.
     Laughter, as those that have been saved emerge through the trees. A handful only, the rest…
     Taken, sealed away, hurt and undone in the name of some idiot notion of purity. Seeing it, experiencing it in flashes of vicarious memory from those who followed when they were taken, those responsible for stealing them from harm.
     Rachael. Timothy. Paula. Raoul.
     Four left, from a class of twenty-five. They flock about us, now, each and every one of them beautiful, their own strange works of art.
     We laugh with them, weep with them for those they felt die. Jamiel joins them, barely glancing back as his Father stills, panting and quivering in the steaming afterbirth of the man he was.
     I go to him, extending my hand. The thing that was Wilfred Kahbul unfurls a head that resembles the centipede-like children that helped him shape it. The tremors of that old fear, of that hereditary loathing: the stink of diseased flatulence in the air, the tang of urine, fading.
     A hand like a scrabbling wolf spider’s legs envelopes mine, the now nameless thing—as nameless as I am and we all are—allows me to haul it to its feet, shreds and tatters of Wilfred Kahbul falling away, leaving it naked, stretching and flexing in its new condition, staring after the child it once sired as new and more needing ones take shape in its body.
     Yesterday, we were so separate, so far apart; lunatics in our own asylum-cell skulls, our straightjacket skins. Today? More intimate than any twins or lovers, more utterly ourselves than the idiot, biological impositions of our parents and ancestors could allow.
     Following in the children’s wake, laughing as they laugh, we are children ourselves once again, naked and newborn in this world we hardly know, where we will never be old and evil again.

Tony Tremblay: Moore House

Tony Tremblay’s Moore House turns the old-fashioned haunted house tale into a very fresh and convincing horror novel with dysfunctional priests, lesbian nuns and powerful demons. This guy knows the genre inside out, so enjoy the ride, as once you’re in the house there’s no escape.  Moore House of the title is a terrific location, which is vividly described from the outset, and dominates the majority of the book, In many haunted house novels I’ve read or reviewed I’ve quickly become tired of authors reiterating that their setting is “creepy”. The best haunted house stories do not tell the reader creepy things are afoot, the reader feels that mood soaking out of the page through the words. The crackling and foreboding atmosphere which surrounds Moore House does exactly this. There are some outstanding sequences before and after the characters enter the building, and this is considerably more effective than being told something is “creepy”, instead it just naturally is. 

Plot-wise, an exorcist priest leads a paranormal unit of three excommunicated nuns into a haunted house and before long they are up to their necks in nastiness and hallucinations as they encounter a very powerful demon. The problem is the exorcist and nuns have their own secrets which the demon is keen to exploit. And remember, whatever you do, NEVER say the name of the demon out loud, always spell out that bad boy, nobody wants that kind of unwanted attention… whatever you do, don’t say it… don’t even type it…. S*%t that’s done it….. B-E-L-P-H-E-G-O-R
​
Happy Halloween everyone!
Tony Jones

Another title that will certainly feature multiple times in this series, the often over-looked 1999 PC horror, System Shock 2, is largely regarded by those who were fortunate enough to experience it at the time to be one of the most abiding and powerful horror games ever created. When console markets were still largely predominated by derivatives of Resident Evil and Silent Hill, System Shock 2 demonstrated that there were alternatives to be had, alternatives that might even prove themselves superior to what we knew.
 
A sequel to the original System Shock, the game is a cyberpunk affair set aboard the starship Von Braun, the most ambitious -not to mention expensive- endeavour ever carried out by humanity. Effectively a giant, intergalactic city, the Von Braun is a functioning eco-system and civilisation, designed to traverse the stars and claim intergalactic territories in the name of humanity (or, more specifically, the company Tri-Optimum, which is responsible for its construction and owns more or less everything on Earth, at this point).
 
Beginning with the anonymous player character awakening with amnesia aboard the vessel (apparently after a protracted and unpleasant period of involuntary surgery), we find the Von Braun in a state of advanced disrepair, warning sirens flashing, monitors streaming data from various failing systems, the ship's on-board computer, Xerxes, spouting an almost non-stop stream of warnings, saftey announcements and curious snippets of what sound like quasi-religious insanity.
 
Guided to safety by voice-mails from Doctor Janice Polito, it is our task to explore the ship, find out what has gone wrong and deal with the various muttering, hissing, chittering abominations that haunt the darkened corridors.
 
The game is nigh-legendary for its use of sound, shadow and voice-work to create a sense of unparalleled tension: unlike many of its contemporaries, the game boasts enemies that follow no particular route or pattern and often spawn randomly. Furthermore, the various creatures infesting the Von Braun react to sound in a way that was rarely seen at the time, meaning that every step or action might potentially draw their attention, especially if they happen to be lurking just around the next corner...

As you might expect, the game is absolutely bursting at the stitches with moments of the most sublime horror, from the emergence of the truly terrifying Cyborg Midwives to an encounter with chittering, alien spiders in a cramped ventilation shaft (some of which we'll be exploring later), but the one that never fails to send a shiver up my spine, that remains so prominent in my memory, is the first time the player is directly addressed by the collective intelligence that calls itself The Many.
 
What makes the encounter so effective is that it occurs very early on, when the player still only has fragments of explanation for what is happening aboard the Von Braun, and before The Many itself has crystallised as a concept:
 
Walking through the sputtering, sparking corridors of the engineering deck, the player suddenly pauses involuntarily, a white light erupting, sweeping them away from the Von Braun to a disembodied condition in which they float through a cavern of flesh and bone, the pulsing ground below infested with entities that they've yet to encounter in game, but know that they will, eventually. Carried around the surreal chamber by some invisible force, the player is subject to the whims of The Many, which has clearly made contact as much to demonstrate its influence as anything else.
 
Then, the entity speaks, not with one voice, but, as its self-given name suggests, with many, offering  seductions as readily as it does threats, promising the player a place in its symphony, its collective, making what are, at that point, cryptic references to “...the Machine Mother,” serving not only to disturb and intimidate, but also provide clues as to what's occurring aboard the Von Braun and beyond.
 
Whilst the encounter itself is framed in such a manner as to be powerfully disturbing, what it implies is more unsettling still:
 
The Many makes psychic contact with the player directly, infesting their minds seemingly without a great deal of effort, allowing them to see what it intends, the merest portion of what it truly is. Moreover, the fleshy cavern and its interconnecting corridors suggest something far more hideous: that somewhere is an entity of truly gargantuan proportions, giving birth to and orchestrating those that have infested the Von Braun and its crew. 

That the moment comes out of nowehere, with no signfication, no build-up or even the slightest suggestion that it's about to occur, makes it all the more effective. This is our first encounter directly with the invading force that has wrought such havoc aboard ship, that has reduced its crew to such lamentable conditions that they plead to be killed even as they attack, but it is far, far from what we might expect:
 
The entity doesn't comport itself as an invading alien, doesn't speak in terms of threat (at least exclusively): it is a seducer and an evangelist, a collective, parasitic consciousness that seeks to unify all within itself, mentally, biologically and spiritually. It becomes clear even from this encounter that The Many believes itself to be essential, far beyond a mindless, atavistic or animal force in the universe, but a means of cleansing what it proclaims “...the tyranny of the individual” from the face of creation, uniting all within the joyous unity of the mass.
 
And nor is it a liar in that regard: as we come across data logs and vid messages from various crew members infected with the parasites (initially, a fairly grotesque, worm-like entity that physically infests its host whilst also mentally warping their perspectives via a form of collective telepathy), it becomes clear that more than a handful have consciously embraced The Many, finding in the gradual dissolution of their individuality a kind of freedom, a species of rapture. Those that progress to the ultimate conclusion of this absorption express ecstasies that transgress beyond human notions of love or power, ambition or inspiration: they are rapturous at their transformation, their loss of humanity, and also provide some fairly convincing arguments as to why surrender to The Many is not only desirable, but essential to humanity's survival.
 
The initial encounter leaves some troubling implications for the player, that only mount as the game progresses: what if, by fighting The Many, we're murdering humanity's one and only chance for survival, for a kind of transcendence? What if The Many is the future of humanity and the only means it has of attaining one? Whilst the game is from an era when elements of choice were limited by technological constraints, there's little doubt that, were the game to be made now (or maybe remade, which is entirely possible, in the current climate), there would be a far greater element of choice regarding player loyalty: do we side with The Many as so many others have against The Machine Mother? Do we find ourselves inviting and facilitating their infestation, gradually becoming more and more one with their bio-mass, their collective?
 
The moral and philosophical quandaries the mere existence of The Many poses are uniquely troubling, in that they throw into question assumptions and limitations that underpin what it means to be human:
 
What if the individuality and isolated consciousness we so prize is a sincere limitation, a source of suffering rather than of joy? What if the only means of becoming more is to eradicate that limitation by whatever means we can? What if there is liberation to be found in the abandonment of humanity, consciousness, will? What if the means of our renaissance is not merely ideological, but biological?; Something that alters the states of our genetics and biology as well as our modes of perception?
 
All of this, threading out from that initial encounter, which is in itself powerfully disturbing. This is a prime example of how unique the horror of System Shock 2 is: what begins as familiar, survivalist shocks and fear for our character's well-being expands as the game progresses into far more ideological concerns and fears, culminating in a question that, sadly, the game provides no answer to:
 
What if we're wrong? What if we're the villain of our own story, fighting to destroy something that is beautiful and transcendental?
 
A wonderful concept for any piece of horror media to tackle, let alone one ostensibly labelled as a “game.” 

​It's that time of the year once again. Fans of the original Thirteen for Halloween might have noticed a peculiar absence of the series last year. For that, you have my deepest apologies: life et al conspired to distract me from this most essential and significant of tasks, but, rest assured, its resurrection shall be fittingly epic and distressing.
 
So, to this year's subject: we're going to be taking a look at those isolated moments within video games that have, in the internet age, become nigh legendary for their ability to unsettle, distress and disturb. Just as mainstream culture is saturated with imagery from horror cinema and literature that are so familiar, even people who have never read the books or seen the films are aware of them to some degree (largely thaks to the frequency with which they are referenced or parodied), so too have certain moments in video games become enshrined within the ever-swelling, shifting chaos of our digital collective consciousness.
 
On the other hand, some are far more personal, more intimate: moments that elicit a less definable degree of reaction, that were perhaps never intended to be distressing at all, yet that manage to be so owing to the crudity of their rendering, some happy accident in design or implementation.
 
For the first entry in this series, let's take a look at one we're likely all familiar with, and is peculiarly resonant right now, given that the game's reimagining is due to be released some time in 2019: 

 
You all know this moment. At least, those of you that were old enough to experience the transition from 2D, 16-bit home consoles to the gloriously experimental days of early 3D and 32-bit do:
 
Resident Evil 2 is chock full of distressing, gory, shocking and hideous moments (as well as more B-movie, bleak horror-comedy and pastiche than you can shake a severed limb at), but one of the earliest that genuinely unsettled players occurs very early in the game:
 
Having escaped the zombie-infested desolation of Racoon City's streets and suburbs, the player finds themselves barricaded in the local police station, an incongruously gothic structure that distressingly echoes the design and décor of the original game's Arklay Manor. 
 
Whilst the route by which we come to it is different depending on the character in play (Clare Redfield or Leon Kennedy), the player will eventually find themselves in an eerily quiet, claustrophobic corridor with a darkened window at one end.
 
There are no cut scenes at this point, no orchestra stings or signifying music: the game just lets the player progress down the corridor as and how they wish.
 
Then you see it:
 
Too quick to know quite what it is: something moving past the window, crawling over it like an immense spider, but whose flayed, red form contrasts wildly with the comparatively sterile, colourless environment.
 
It comes and goes so quickly, the player is left in some confusion as to whether they saw anything at all, and precisely what it was, even if they trust the testimony of their eyes.
 
This is an example of the quiet, suggestive horror the otherwise B-movie, “big scare” laden series consists of does occasionally boast: the fact that the player now knows there's something outside the building, something beyond the zombies that might be numerous but currently can't get in, something with the capacity to scale the outer walls of the police station and that moves in a distressing, arachnid fashion, is uniquely distressing. From that moment on, the player is on tenterhooks, waiting for the inevitable encounter.
 
But the game is too clever to throw it at you immediately, to have a window smash and the beast hurl itself through.
 
Oh no: the game lets you progress in relative safety and silence for a while, building up the verisimilitude of the police station with tiled corridors, notice-board tacked walls, briefing rooms and supply closets, until you come to a corridor that turns sharpely right at the end, again, the silence, the lack of music, presaging something, though the player doesn't yet know what.
 
Progressing down the corridor (cautiously, if you're a horror fan, because you're wise to the beats and rhythms of horror fiction), the only sound occurs in the form of an ominous, sticky, drip-drip-drip. 

That's the point at which you know. You know the creature is inside the building, you know it's close, and that it's just a matter of waiting for the game to reveal it to you.
 
That reveal comes when you turn into the adjacent corridor: the game shifts to a cut scene, the player character bending down to examine a puddle of blood dripping onto the floor.
 
Then, a tormented, breathless hiss.
 
Cut to an FMV sequence, in which the character looks up to find the creature splayed out across the ceiling:
 
A far cry from the zombies they've thus far encountered, this thing looks more like a reject from a Hellraiser project: an almost boneless, lizard-like entity, limbs splayed out, bony talons grappling onto pipes and beams, the creature looks tormented, its skinless body a bundle of raw nerves and muscle, its exposed spine undulating. From its head erupts a mass of brain matter, too vast for its skull to contain. From its lipless, toothy mouth emerges an obscenely long, reptilian tongue.
 
Cut back to the game engine in which the creature that fans would come to know as The Licker drops down directly in front of the character, writhing low against the floor, hissing and chittering.
 
Whilst not fantastically dangerous, the Licker, like many of the monsters and encounters in the game, is designed to make the player panic, to have them flail around wildly, wasting ammunition, trying to retreat whilst the licker assaults them with its tongue and claws.
 
Given its framing, this was hardly an uncommon occurrence, back in the day, before the moment became crystallised in video game horror lore as one of the most effective “creature reveals” in Survival Horror's history.
 
I certainly recall firing wildly with my shotgun when the thing first dropped from the ceiling, attempting to retreat as the thing lashed at my back and ankles, before it leapt and severed my head from my shoulders (one of several uniquely unpleasant death animations that can occur as a result of murder-by-Licker).
 
Later on, the game introduces evolutions of the creature that have congealed, black skin, more swollen brains and fused, crab-like claws. Whilst more dangerous, these entities aren't anywhere near as horrifying as this skinless, pupating specimen, the subtle introduction to which has ensured its place amongst horror video gaming's most distressing moments.
 
Concerning the Resi 2 remake, some fleeting video footage of this very sequence has recently been released. Whilst the Licker looks absolutely amazing rendered in PS4 graphics, in order for it to be as effective, the framing and build up of the creature is going to have to be as witty, as subtle, as quiet, but also somewhat removed from what we know in order for it to work. 

​ 
It's a monumental task that the developers have set for themselves: to create a game that simultaneously references the original enough to make it resonate with that inspiration but also sufficiently removed that the horror isn't too familiar.
 
Time will tell whether or not they succeed, and if we'll be here the same time next year, discussing the same sequence in updated form. 

Name: Les Vampires
 
AKA: That 7-hour silent epic film that isn’t actually about vampires.
 
Age: 103 years, good grief.
 
Hold on… how long is it? Don’t fret. Yes, Les Vampires regularly crops up in lists of the world’s longest films, and it’s epic in scope, sure, but it’s also a serial, not a single film. In fact, the ten episodes were released at cinemas months apart, spanning 1915 and 1916. It’s not as though the model should shock anyone these days – we’re using to bingeing on serials with far longer running times. Is Breaking Bad one of the world’s longest films? No, of course not. The Wire? Nope. Twin Peaks: The Return? Well, that’s a tough one, as the people behind the Sight & Sound annual poll will attest. Speaking of Twin Peaks, though…
 
You’re not going to tell me that Les Vampires has any relation to Twin Peaks. I absolutely am. Les Vampires was beloved of artists involved in the up-and-coming Surrealist scene. Rene Clair worked as Vampires director Louis Feuillade’s assistant; his short Surrealist film Entr’acte in turn inspired Salvador Dali’s and Luis Buñuel’s Un Chien Andalou, and Buñuel himself was a fan of Les Vampires, which he described as a transcription of ‘an unusual reality’. And what’s unusual for Luis Buñuel is nuts to anyone else. Track forward and the closest thing to the woozy lunacy of Les Vampires is the surreal, sensual and serialised Twin Peaks: The Return.
 
So is it good? It is good. It is very good. Oh, I love it.
 
You still haven’t told me what it is. Good point. While it’s primarily a crime film, it’s also essential viewing for horror film enthusiasts. I guess ‘proto-horror’ is a good term, dabbling in Gothic trappings, unnerving suspense and the threat of sudden, supernatural violence. But there’s so much more, too. Do you like crime stories? Underworld gangs? Heists? Detective tales?
 
Doesn’t everyone? I haven’t finished. Do you like action movies? Car chases?
 
Every once in a while, I guess. How about weird dream logic? Interspersed plot strands that disappear and reappear hours later? How about cutaways to films-within-a-film?
 
When did you say this was made? 1915. I know. Insane.
 
But then isn’t it terribly old-fashioned? I forgot to mention. How would you like to see the greatest female action star of her generation, performing her own stunts, acting like a badass, totally compelling in every frame and yet totally unknowable?
 
I think I’ve heard of the actress, Musidora. She has to be seen to be believed. While Les Vampires was commissioned by Gaumont as a riposte to an apparent wave of US female-led action films (such as The Mysteries of New York, starring Pearl White, the poster for which hangs on Chandler and Joey’s wall in Friends, Netflix nostalgia-binge-watchers), Musidora is only introduced in Episode 3 of Les Vampires. It’s no coincidence that that’s when the film really kicks off.
 
Is this the famous Irma Vep? Yup. The character ought to be a cheap joke (Irma Vep is an anagram of vampire, ha ha!) – but I swear she’s the best female villain in any film ever made. Actually, scratch the word ‘villain’. And ‘female’. She’s just the best.
 
Anything else? You bet. You’ve got a detective double act – straight guy Philippe Guérande and his hysterical assistant Mazamette. (The latter steals the show, gradually edging his way to centre stage to become the heart of the film, shoving his partner offstage.) You’ve got not one, not two, but three dastardly leaders of the Vampire gang – the recasting was prompted by actors’ squabbles with the director and, in one case, being conscripted to fight in the Great War.
 
World War I? And this was filmed in Paris, right? Right. If you find yourself wondering why the streets of Paris in Les Vampires are weirdly empty, that’s why. Filming started in July 1915; the city had been airbombed as recently as May of that year. The year before, Paris had been under siege by the German army. A sense of frozen panic pervades the film. That, and a preoccupation with giant cannons.
 
So there’s a lot going on in this film. So much.
 
Not bad for so-called ‘primitive cinema’. Don’t get me started. Early cinema might have been saddled with heavy cameras and acting styles better suited to being seen at a distance on the stage… but ‘primitive’? I promise you, Les Vampires is utterly, strikingly, incomparably beautiful.
 
Fine. But who made you the cheerleader for this film? Neil Snowdon, editor-in-chief at Electric Dreamhouse Press. He gave me the OK to write a book about the serial, so I did. Well, first I watched the film a crapload of times, until my dreams were its dreams. Then I wrote the book. And then I wrote ten pieces of weird fiction, one for each of the episodes – not quite fan-fiction, not quite covering the events of the film, but remixing its constituent elements in an order that seemed instinctively right.
 
Did it work out well? I honestly have no idea. Les Vampires is a fever dream, and last summer, I caught the fever. But I had a really, really nice time writing this book.
 
Good for you. One last question. Are there actual vampires in this film? There are not.
 
 
Tim Major’s book about Les Vampires is part of the Midnight Movie Monographs series from Electric Dreamhouse Press. The book features an idiosyncratic analysis of the film, along with ten new pieces of weird fiction. You can buy it direct from PS Publishing or from Amazon.
 
Tim Major’s novels include You Don’t Belong Here and Machineries of Mercy, and his spontaneous-clone thriller Snakeskins will be published by Titan Books in Spring 2019. Tim’s short stories have appeared in Interzone, Not One of Us and numerous anthologies, including Best of British Science Fiction and The Best Horror of the Year.

When I was a very young boy, I was afraid of the off-putting entity known as The Hairy Fairy. It, in fact, remains one of my earliest memories.


In my mind’s eye today, The Hairy Fairy seems the filthy, brown-grey mane of a freshly scalped hobo, with a pair of tiny wings and a lengthy, striped wand protruding from its matted depths. Mutely, it flies, weaving and bobbing, its intentions a mystery. What sort of spell might it cast, upon a human target?


The origins of such imagery have been swallowed by time. Did I see The Hairy Fairy on television, illustrated in a comic book, in a dream, or in some kind of bizarre street theatre? No fuckin’ clue. Perhaps the entity truly exists, and cast its image into my mind psychically. Or maybe my parents constructed one with a dirty wig and repurposed doll parts, and dangled it over the crib of my infant self.


At any rate, the idea of such an entity kept me shivering at night. In the dark, I’d imagine it plummeting down from an unwatched room corner, hurling itself upon my face to obstruct my respiration. Gagging on a mouthful of hair, I’d asphyxiate, terrified and confused. The Hairy Fairy’s murderous motives would forever go unexplained.


Prior to this Childhood Fears writing prompt, I hadn’t thought about The Hairy Fairy in quite some time. Certainly, I wouldn’t have expected the entity to have influenced my writing. But…


Now that I think about it, all of my male protagonists have been shorthaired and clean-shaven. Furthermore, my female characters tend to favor close-cropped hairstyles such as pixie and bob cuts. Perhaps The Hairy Fairy haunts me to this very day!


Author Bio:


Jeremy Thompson is the indie horror fictionist whose mind and fingers united to birth The Phantom Cabinet, Let's Destroy Investutech, Silent Minority, The Land of Broken Sky, Toby Chalmers Commits "Career" Suicide, and The Forever Big Top. His stories have appeared in magazines and anthologies such as Year's Best Hardcore Horror Volume 2, Into the Darkness Volume 1, DarkFuse, Journal of Experimental Fiction, This Book Ain’t Nuttin to Fuck With, and The Horror Zine. A San Diego State University graduate, Jeremy resides in Oceanside, California.


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