by Adam Nevill
By the time I began writing the book in late 2016, during the shoot of The Ritual in Romania, I was over two years into walking the local stretches of the South West Coast Path, swimming the coves and beaches near my home and exploring the fabulous estuaries and valleys, or combes. By the time I said ‘enough is enough’ and signed off on the final draft of this book in August 2018, I’d walked from just under Topsham near Exeter to East Prawle in South Hams, was swimming further afield and for longer, and kayaking Torbay’s coastline, and the Dart from the sea to deep inland. I spend a lot of time outdoors and what never fails to surprise me is how the landscape, and its flora and fauna, changes dramatically (as does its geology). Within a few miles I can walk from the sub-Tropical to the volcanic and forbidding. I’ve taken hundreds of pictures and studied the light and atmospherics, the coast, valleys, woods and open expanses, the skies, cliffs, caves and farms, before trying to define and recreate it all in language. Feebly, I'll admit, but this story was the formal start I needed to make in recreating a particular landscape. If you decide to visit Brickburgh or Divilmouth, or anywhere that lies between these two harbours, you won’t find them on any map save the one in my imagination and this book: they have been fashioned anew from the places that I’ve spent four years investigating.
The Eureka moment that became a compulsion to vividly capture a sense of the place in which I live, as well as the vast passages of time that have acted upon the landscape, occurred underground, in a cave: Kents Cavern, in Torquay. This happened in late 2015. Until that descent beneath the surface on a guided tour, I had only wandered around down here, in something of a daze, marvelling at the trees, rocks, the colour of the water, while reading Geopark signs about fossils, geology, the changes occurring in Devon across hundreds of millions of years. Though I’d experienced an expansion of my imagination out to the horizon, across the landscape and back in time, my inspiration had remained formless and had yet to yield more than a couple of short stories that incorporated much of what my senses were continually reeling from when outdoors. I lacked a specific image that might lend itself to horror – though time itself, and a sudden revelation of one's insignificance within a vast landscape, or before an enormous body of water, can be pure horror of the most sublime type, that involves equal parts terror and wonder. But, for a novel-length story, I needed something localised, specific, more tangible, a kind of metaphor for time, our origins and those incomprehensible stretches of time existing before we stood upright and systematically rid the planet of its mega fauna and flora.
The penny dropped inside Kents Cavern, on the guided tour, and in a few moments of sensory deprivation when the guide turned the lights off to return us to a world without electric light. This occurred shortly after we’d heard the recorded shriek of a hyena; an animal that once topped the food chain here. The guide had also informed us that early Homo Sapiens cohabited within the cave with these very animals, then the size of African lions, as well as giant cave bears, cave lions and the great scimitar cats. Each species used a different entrance and our ancestors would probably have huddled near the surface and around a large fire that was never allowed to go out. The earliest remains of modern humans (us) in Northern Europe were also found in that cave: part of a male jawbone that I have seen. And, we were told on the tour, the fragment of bone was either torn from a human face or scavenged from a grave by a giant hyena.
And I had my ‘in’. My imagination latched onto a sense of the cavern’s horror in a heartbeat and the legend of The Old Creel and her White Pups was born right then, underground. Not an un-Lovecraftian theme because the nature of the very material imposed a cosmic dimension.
Amidst my persisting claustrophobia and desire to get back above ground, away from the dank, dripping walls and infernal sinuses of Kents Cavern, burrows forming naturally in the Pleistocene epoch, that terrible hyena scream lingered in my imagination too. In it, existed the horror that endured for at least a million years for early human species, before the last surviving human race, Homo Sapiens, found itself in the current Anthropocene era. But the scream was also a reminder that despite the best efforts of industrialisation and urbanisation over the last few centuries, animals we remain, ever a part of nature and ever beholden to our ancient nature too. From that point, so much more of this story evolved while I was out walking and using my feet to cross rural landscapes and coastal vistas, some not much changed to human eyes since The Younger Dryas mini ice-age, 12,000 years before. And at times I have felt myself walking back into prehistory and my imagination would crowd with scenes, ideas and characters. So this story came out of the land and sea itself, while I was mobile. As a result, the circumstances of its creation make The Reddening my least sedentary story; it was imagined as I moved, apart from my own kind and the developed world, even more so than The Ritual, its closest relative in the circumstances of its imagining.
The folk elements and characters steadily appeared as I went along and fashioned my own alternative history of this tiny part of the earth. At times, while out walking, I have also blundered and trespassed. Though once my ineptitude as a hiker had been established by landowners, the farmers were always kind and helped me find my way to where I needed to be. But from such encounters, and from the many abandoned buildings I’ve found along the way, the Red Folk were given life. A tribe further embellished by what I discovered in books about prehistory.
Anyway, I have let lose the hounds and I hope that the Red Folk will sing loudly out there and catch the ears of all willing to follow me back underground.
Thank you for your time and patronage.
Manes exite paterni
Adam Nevill.
South Devon.
December 2018.
Acknowledgements
In my stories, fact and fiction often merge and get lost within each other. And my intention to create a sense of prehistorical authenticity in this story was greatly helped by Chris Stringer’s fascinating works: Homo Britannicus, The Origin of our Species and One Million Years of the Human Story. Timothy Darvill’s Prehistoric Britain and Dr Alice Roberts’s Evolution: The Human Story were also key texts for expanding my feeble knowledge of the earliest years of our species. Devon County Council's website was very useful in enabling me to correctly name the rocks I often walk across or scramble over, on my explorations of this wonderful coastline.
The creation of this artefact and the other editions wouldn’t have been possible without the managing editorial skills of Tony Russell and Robin Seavill, the text design of Peter Marsh (Dead Good Design Company) and the artwork and designs of Simon Nevill. The wisdom, expertise, knowledge and mentorship I have received from Brian J. Showers of Swan River Press remain priceless.
Ritual Limited’s publications to date have been kindly championed by a long list of reviewers and signal-boosters, to whom I am indebted again, not least: Tony Jones and Gingernuts of Horror, This is Horror, Des Lewis at Dreamcatcher: Gestalt Real-time Reviews, Lovecraft eZine, The British Fantasy Society, Ramsey Campbell, Pop Mythology, Ellen Datlow, Stephen J. Clark, Postcards from Asia, Diala Atat and Blogging from Dubai, Oddly Weird Fiction, The Eloquent Page, Carmilla Voiez, Dark Musings, James Everington at Scattershot Writing, Horror Novel reviews, Confessions of a Reviewer, Bookaholics Refuge, The Grim Reader, Reluctantly Freaky, Terror Tree, Sci-Fi Bulletin, Writing in Starlight, Literature Works, Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, WordPress and BookBub.
For their eyes, time and thoughts, I sincerely thank my first readers: Clive Nevill, Anne Nevill, Mathew Riley and Hugh Simmons.
Of the highest possible value to me and my literary frights, are you readers, who make it all possible and worthwhile. Thank you for allowing me to haunt you again.
More Horror Fiction from Adam L. G. Nevill at Ritual Limited.
Available in print, audio and eBook at major book retailers.
Some Will Not Sleep
Selected Horrors
A bestial face appears at windows in the night.
&nbs
p; 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.
“Great storytelling, but across a wider palate and range of styles than you might have expected, leading to some delightfully unexpected visions and hellscapes.” Gingernuts of Horror
“There is not one single tale which feels less than the others, none which seem to be mere ‘filler’. They are beautifully crafted, original and complete works which nevertheless fit well together as arranged by the author.” This is Horror
“In 'Some Will Not Sleep' nothing is sacred, nothing is safe, and goodness me, if you like horror fiction you’re going to absolutely love every damn minute.” Pop Mythology
Limited edition signed hardback and the Ritual Limited Black Metal Tee are available from https://www.adamlgnevill.com/ - ISBN: 978-0-9954630-0-4
Trade Paperback: UK US
eBook: UK US
Audio Book: UK US
Hasty for the Dark
Selected Horrors
Hasty for the Dark is the second short story collection from the award-winning and widely appreciated British writer of horror fiction, Adam L. G. Nevill. The author's best horror stories from 2009 to 2015 are collected here for the first time.
The hardest journeys in life and death are taken underground.
No blackmail is as ghastly as extortion from angels.
A swift reckoning often travels in handheld luggage.
Once considered inhumane and now derelict, this zoo may not be as empty as assumed.
A bad marriage, a killer couple, and part of a wider movement.
No sign of life aboard an abandoned freighter, but what is left below deck tells a strange story.
The origin of our species is not what we think.
In destitution, the future for revolution and mass murder is so bright.
Your memories may not be your own, and your life nothing more than a ritual that will compel you to perform an atrocity . . .
“The nine tales are cleverly varied, exhibiting varied pace, chills which deal with the supernatural in both every day and altogether freakier situations, and other curve-balls which drop feet into other genres.” Tony Jones, Gingernuts of Horror.
“These tales are dark, starkly violent, but also subtle and ambiguous, often at the same time.” This is Horror.
“His stories weave their way inside of your head and plant seeds of doubt and terror. He is a master of creating oppressive, creepy atmospheres and of taking your imagination to places you would rather he didn’t.” The Grim Reader
Limited edition signed hardback and the Ritual Limited Black Metal Tee are available from https://www.adamlgnevill.com/ - ISBN: 978-1-9997242-0-7
Trade Paperback: UK US
eBook: ASIN: UK US
Audio Book: UK US
Author Biography
Adam L.G. Nevill was born in Birmingham, England, in 1969 and grew up in England and New Zealand. He is the author of the horror novels 'Banquet for the Damned', 'Apartment 16', 'The Ritual', 'Last Days', 'House of Small Shadows', 'No One Gets Out Alive', 'Lost Girl', 'Under a Watchful Eye' and 'The Reddening'. He has two collections of short stories: 'Some Will Not Sleep' (winner of the British Fantasy Award for Best Collection, 2017) and 'Hasty for the Dark'.
His novels, 'The Ritual', 'Last Days' and 'No One Gets Out Alive' were the winners of The August Derleth Award for Best Horror Novel. 'The Ritual' and 'Last Days' were also awarded Best in Category: Horror, by R.U.S.A. Several of his novels are currently in development for film and television, and in 2016 Imaginarium adapted 'The Ritual' into a feature film.
Adam also offers three free books to readers of horror: 'Cries from the Crypt', downloadable from his website, and 'Before You Sleep' and 'Before You Wake', available from major online retailers.
Adam lives in Devon, England. More information about the author and his books is available at: www.adamlgnevill.com
Free Download
If you like horror stories, missing chapters from an award-winning author's novels, advice for writing horror, articles on horror fiction and films, and much more, click the link and register on the next page to seize your next Free Book today.
Click here to summon Cries from the Crypt
adamlgnevill.com
Start reading Adam Nevill's Horror Companion right away