by Adam Nevill
Despite some hints of telepathy, most of the material supporting this short story has a scientific basis. In fact, I believe I attempt to tie Lovecraft’s premise of great and unfathomable alien creatures lying semi-dormant in our solar system to the natural history of the Earth – but all of it, through every age. This is possibly the most ambitious story that I’ve written in its scope and the most uncharacteristic in style and intent, and so probably the one I am the most undecided about.
It’s highly detailed, and requires much patience on behalf of the reader; it is not a dramatic story but an alternative history created out of testimony, dreams, faux scientific histories. What occurs in the story may only be something concocted in an elderly woman’s mind, a mind stricken with dementia.
The story took an age to write, and adopted a purer, more traditional form of tribute to Lovecraft than I thought I’d have been able to write. I surprised myself. But I hope ‘Call the Name’ finds some readers who appreciate it.
‘White Light, White Heat’ is the third story in this collection that was written in tribute to an existing writer: this time, Mark Samuels, a British writer of the weird. Justin Isis invited me to write a story inspired by Mark’s work, and since I had appreciated his writing for some years, particularly his first-class collections The White Hands and Glyphotech, I thought I’d like to have a go. I remember reading The White Hands during one of my own bleak London phases and, much like Ligotti, I thought Mark Samuels had a good line and angle on the horror of cities, organisations, corporations, institutions and systems, and their weird and catastrophic effects upon our minds.
This story also gave me an opportunity to vent about my own unfortunate episodes in publishing. I worked as an editor, senior commissioning editor or editorial director continuously for eleven years, and received the ‘white envelope’ from my corporate overlords no fewer than three times, including twice in one year during the aftermath of the financial crash. My final receipt of the white letter will truly be my last, as they’ll never have an opportunity to give it to me again. I quit. After receiving that last letter, I remember thinking that I’d rather pick up dog mess in a park for a living than ever go through that again. But, publishing aside, I wager than anyone who reads this story and has ever worked for a large company will be able to relate to some of my observations.
D. S. Lewis, one of the most perceptive and venerable critics and reviewers of the weird tale, gave the story his annual Dreamcatcher Award in 2016. A very proud moment for me as a writer.
‘Little Black Lamb’ has connections with the tale ‘Eumenides’. The first connection is that it is a tribute story to another legend of the British weird and horror story, Ramsey Campbell. It takes its title from the name attributed to a young woman in ‘Eumenides’. As these stories were written in homage to a pair of great writers who have written much of the best fiction in our field, they needed to remain enigmatic in approach and execution; the aesthetic aim was to leave the mystery lingering after the final sentence. The reader needed a sense of something undisclosed that endures vaguely but uneasily in a kind of half-understanding in their imagination. I think Aickman and Ramsey Campbell do this so often that it is probably their trademark.
Writing this kind of story successfully – and I make no claims to have done so – might result in the height of what weird fiction can achieve. A transportation of the reader’s mind, at some deep imaginative level, into glimpsing something sublime, divine or damned; the wonder, the awe (and the terror therein) of Machen and Lovecraft, who are significant guides and articulators of this very principle. Essentially, I think this type of story must try to emulate the effect of poetry.
So I found writing this story a challenge. One doesn’t want to mimic or defame a living writer, a master of language and of the weird tale. Tribute stories are exciting to write, but they are daunting too. Fools rush in.
I accepted the invitation to write a tale for Joe Pulver’s Darker Companions, the tribute to Ramsey Campbell, without having an idea of what I might write. In fact, my reticence and fear of messing this story up delayed my start. Although I have read Ramsey Campbell’s fiction for most of the time that I have been writing, and know the author personally, I struggled to think of a story. This perplexed me. Imitating other writers is strewn with many pitfalls: it’s too easy to slip into the trite, or even an insulting impression of the author’s aesthetic values and creative goals, or their voice.
I never knew Robert Aickman. And although I know Mark Samuels, when I wrote ‘White Light, White Heat’ I hadn’t seen him in years. So many have attempted Lovecraftian fiction that any new attempts almost raise a groan. Writing all of those tribute stories felt safer. They didn’t daunt me so much, despite how easy it is to cheat in an Aickman-style story, and how easy it is to fall into the Aickman trap of creating strangeness that is detached from a fully realised story (and I often come across those stories).
My Eureka moment for the Campbell came during an exhibition curated by the Museum of London and Scotland Yard. During a three-day trip to London, packed with meetings with publishers and a film company, I still found time to visit the exhibition ‘The Crime Museum Uncovered’ at the Museum of London. In fact, I spent an entire morning there. And an affecting experience it was too, one that made me feel an acute remorse and sadness for the near-forgotten victims of so many ghastly crimes. History often celebrates the villains far more than the victims, who become secondary – an imbalance I attempted to explore and reverse in No One Gets Out Alive. The exhibits also made me loathe the seedy banality of the criminals who’d perpetrated so many hideous, sordid crimes, from dissolving their victims in bathtubs filled with acid to carrying little fold-out, homemade ladders inside their trenchcoats, in order to gain entry to the homes of their victims.
The case studies within the exhibition, including the aged artefacts that had been buried in a police vault, for a century in some cases, overdosed my imagination with that peculiarly British domestic horror. As Ramsey is a peculiarly British writer too, one whose vast body of work often focuses on the ordinarily evil and strange, and the sinister in the domestic, this exhibition gave me my first lead.
I looked at a multitude of photographs of murder sites, and at the crude improvised implements of some of London’s notorious criminals, and began to muse on what it would be like to have such things appear in your mind. Images occurring like memories without any attachment to your own experiences or life, images of waste ground and the kind of places where bodies are often found, flashing into a character’s mind. These scenes are murder sites, projected from somewhere else by something unknown. Subsequently, one character in this story receives alien memories of dismal places where the innocent were murdered, or at least buried outdoors; the second character receives banal but oddly unpleasant interiors, sites connected to ritual murder. These are the memories of killers that Douglas and Sandra receive.
But there still wasn’t enough enigma for me, so I returned to the gradually forming personal mythos of the Movement, who are alluded to in no fewer than three of the stories in this collection. Is this an organisation, one surreal yet homicidal? Or is it a force with an almost indefinable source? I’ll let you know. There are movements afoot on that front.
This story required some quintessential Campbell paranoia, and black humour too. I hope I did justice to those special qualities without being overbearing. But finally, it feels good to have paid my respects, and these are genuine respects, to a few writers whom I admire and who have inspired my own writing.
Publication History
‘On All London Underground Lines’ originally appeared in End of the Line, edited by Jonathan Oliver (Solaris, 2010).
‘The Angels of London’ originally appeared in Terror Tales of London, edited by Paul Finch (Gray Friar, 2013).
‘Always in Our Hearts’ originally appeared in End of the Road, edited by Jonathan Oliver (Solaris, 2013).
‘Eumenides (The Benevolent Ladies)�
�� originally appeared in New Fears, edited by Mark Morris (Titan Books, 2017).
‘The Days of Our Lives’ originally appeared in Dead Letters, edited by Conrad Williams (Titan Books, 2016).
‘Hippocampus’ originally appeared in Terror Tales of the Sea, edited by Paul Finch (Gray Friar, 2015).
‘Call the Name’ originally appeared in The Gods of H. P. Lovecraft, edited by Aaron J. French (JournalStone, 2015).
‘White Light, White Heat’ originally appeared in Marked to Die, edited by Justin Isis (Snuggly Books, 2016).
‘Little Black Lamb’ originally appeared in Darker Companions, edited by Joe Pulver (PS Publishing, 2017).
Acknowledgements
A very special acknowledgement goes out to the editors and publishers who have prised these stories out of me, and who also supplied themes that I found inspirational: Jonathan Oliver, Paul Finch, Gary Fry, Johnny Mains, Mark Morris, Conrad Williams, Aaron J. French, Justin Isis and Joe Pulver. Heartfelt thanks to maestro Ellen Datlow, who reprinted two of these stories, ‘Hippocampus’ and ‘The Days of Our Lives’, in her excellent The Best Horror of the Year series. Thanks also to my father, Clive Nevill, who first read ghost stories to me and opened that door.
In order to better publicly appreciate the many people who created the hardback, I want to warmly acknowledge again the patience, expertise and wisdom of Brian Showers of Swan River Press, Dublin, who has been my mentor on producing the hardback editions and pretty much shone a light onto every aspect of independent publishing, from the printers to postage concerns and every detail in between. Couldn’t have done it without him and his considerable experience in producing collectable books. And thanks to CPI (hardback), IngramSpark (paperback) and Bluewave (eBook) for helping me turn these horrors into editions that aren’t horrible to hold, look at or read. I want to thank Christopher Payne and JournalStone for producing a fourth, unanticipated, bonus edition of Some Will Not Sleep as an audio book. And without Amazon, I probably wouldn’t be publishing this book at all in eBook or reaching so many new readers. Thank you, Amazon.
The endless creativity of my brother, the artist, designer and cartoonist Simon Nevill, is also much appreciated in designing the cover, jacket and endpapers of the various editions. Highly prized again are the text design skills of Peter Marsh of The Dead Good Design Company Limited; thank you for all of your time, expertise and patience, Pete.
Many thanks to the managing editorial team of Tony Russell and Robin Seavill, whom I have relied upon for many years during my professional life in traditional publishing, and now do so as an independent publisher too.
A very special mention must go to my clever wife Anne, who continues to assist me with the development of Ritual Limited into more than just a name on the files at my accountants. Could not have cantered into my second year without her help.
A clatter of my hooves and a snort from my nostrils go out to the reviewers who took such an interest in the first collection and wrote so intelligently and enthusiastically about those stories.
Finally, let me thank every reader who has decided to own and read any of the editions of this second collection of selected horrors, stories that have bellowed or just seeped out of me over the last eight years.
More Horror Fiction from Adam L. G. Nevill
Available in print and eBook at major book retailers.
SOME WILL NOT SLEEP
SELECTED HORRORS
A bestial face appears at windows in the night.
In the big white house on the hill angels are said to appear.
A forgotten tenant in an isolated building becomes addicted to milk.
A strange goddess is worshipped by a home-invading disciple.
The least remembered gods still haunt the oldest forests.
Cannibalism occurs in high society at the end of the world.
The sainted undead follow their prophet to the Great Dead Sea.
A confused and vengeful presence occupies the home of a first-time buyer . . .
In ghastly harmony with the nightmarish visions of the award-winning writer’s novels, these stories blend a lifelong appreciation of horror culture with the grotesque fascinations and childlike terrors that are the author’s own. Adam L. G. Nevill’s best early horror stories are collected here for the first time.
Limited edition signed hardback and the Ritual Limited Black Metal Tee are available from www.adamlgnevill.com - ISBN: 978-0-9954630-0-4
Novels
BANQUET FOR THE DAMNED
Few believed Professor Coldwell could commune with spirits. But in Scot-land’s oldest university town something has passed from darkness into light. Now, the young are being haunted by night terrors and those who are visited disappear. This is certainly not a place for outsiders, especially at night. So what chance do a rootless musician and burned-out explorer have of surviv-ing their entanglement with an ageless supernatural evil and the ruthless cult that worships it? A chilling occult thriller from award-winning author Adam Nevill, Banquet for the Damned is both a homage to the great age of British ghost stories and a pacey modern thriller.
ISBN: 978-1447240921
APARTMENT 16
Some doors are better left closed . . .
In Barrington House, an upmarket block in London, there is an empty apartment. No one goes in, no one comes out. And it has been that way for 50 years. Until the night-watchman hears a disturbance after midnight and investigates. What he experiences is enough to change his life for ever.
A young American woman, Apryl, arrives at Barrington House. She’s been left an apartment by her mysterious Great Aunt Lillian, who died in strange circumstances. Rumours claim Lillian was mad. But her diary sug-gests she was implicated in a horrific and inexplicable event decades before.
Determined to learn something of this eccentric woman, Apryl begins to unravel the hidden story of Barrington House. She discovers that a transforming force still inhabits the building. And the doorway to Apartment 16 is a gateway to something altogether more terrifying . . .
ISBN: 978-1447263395
THE RITUAL
When four old university friends set off into the Scandinavian wilderness of the Arctic Circle, they aim to briefly escape the problems of their lives and reconnect with one another. But when Luke, the only man still single and living a precarious existence, finds he has little left in common with his well-heeled friends, tensions rise. With limited experience between them, a shortcut meant to ease their hike turns into a nightmare scenario that could cost them their lives. Lost, hungry and surrounded by forest untouched for millennia, Luke figures things couldn’t possibly get any worse. But then they stumble across an old habitation. Ancient artefacts decorate the walls and there are bones scattered upon the floors. The residue of old rites and pagan sacrifice for something that still exists in the forest. Something responsible for the bestial presence that follows their every step. And as the four friends stagger in the direction of salvation, they learn that death doesn’t come easy among these ancient trees . . .
Winner of the August Derleth Award for Best Horror Novel and voted Best in Category: Horror by R.U.S.A.
ISBN: 978-1447263418
LAST DAYS
Last Days is a Blair Witch style novel in which a documentary film-maker undertakes the investigation of a dangerous cult―with creepy consequences.
When guerrilla documentary maker Kyle Freeman is asked to shoot a film on the notorious cult known as the Temple of the Last Days, it appears his prayers have been answered. The cult became a worldwide phenomenon in 1975 when there was a massacre including the death of its infamous leader, Sister Katherine. Kyle’s brief is to explore the paranormal myths surrounding an organisation that became a testament to paranoia, murderous rage and occult rituals. The shoot’s locations take him to the cult’s first temple in London, an abandoned farm in France and a derelict copper mine in the Arizonan desert where the Temple of the Last Days met its bloody end. But when he interviews those involved in
the case, those who haven’t broken silence in decades, a series of uncanny events plague the shoots. Troubling out-of-body experiences, nocturnal visitations, the sudden demise of their interviewees and the discovery of ghastly artefacts in their room make Kyle question what exactly it is the cult managed to awaken – and what is its interest in him?
Winner of the August Derleth Award for Best Horror Novel and voted Best in Category: Horror by R.U.S.A.
ISBN: 978-1447263401
HOUSE OF SMALL SHADOWS
Catherine’s last job ended badly. Corporate bullying at a top TV network saw her fired and forced to leave London, but she was determined to get her life back. A new job and a few therapists later, things look much brighter. Especially when a challenging new project presents itself – to catalogue the late M. H. Mason’s wildly eccentric cache of antique dolls and puppets. Rarest of all, she’ll get to examine his elaborate displays of posed, costumed and preserved animals, depicting bloody scenes from the Great War. Catherine can’t believe her luck when Mason’s elderly niece invites her to stay at Red House itself, where she maintains the collection until his niece exposes her to the dark message behind her uncle’s ‘art’. Catherine tries to concentrate on the job, but Mason’s damaged visions begin to raise dark shadows from her own past. Shadows she’d hoped therapy had finally erased. Soon the barriers between reality, sanity and memory start to merge and some truths seem too terrible to be real . . .
ISBN: 978-0330544245
NO ONE GETS OUT ALIVE