Novelettes
Sometimes I have an idea for a book and I can’t think of any other big ideas to add to make it a proper book.
The majority of these stories have no relation to one another, though some have direct or indirect connections. Like all my books, these are all set in the same world.
THE SHADOW ROADS OF NIGHT
THEODORE
DEUS EX CHASMA
THE GALLOW MAN
IT FELL FROM ABOVE
MISTER NOBODY
THE SHADOW ROADS OF NIGHT
The drive from Dover to Edinburgh is a long one. The containers full of goods from the continent came into Dover by ferry and to Folkstone by train under the channel, then they all got divided up and sent out to different distribution centres for different companies and firms. Our lot, for example, got dumped in a little town just north-west of Dover, named Whitfield. That’s where my drive began. From there it’s seven and a half hours, 462 miles, to the supply centre in Edinburgh. It’s a route I’d done a thousand times before, easily. Ten years at the company and by now I was pretty familiar with all their routes. Dover to London, Dover to Cardiff, to Birmingham, to Manchester, and to Edinburgh. Suffice to say I knew what I was doing. I knew what lay ahead. You people that live in the light, that inhabit the daytime, you have no idea what’s out there. The dark is not empty. You’re just blind in it. This night, though… this night was different. Be warned: the tale within contains graphic references to death by road traffic incidents several times.
THE BEAST IN THESE PAGES
Working as an archivist for a home security company, one comes across some very strange records...
THE STRANGER NEXT DOOR
I have never once met Charlotte. Never. So why does everybody keep acting like she's living in our house?
DEUS EX CHASMA
The mountain is so very, very tall, and it is such a terribly long way down...
THEODORE
A fuzzy Valentine's day gift goes awry when a cuddly teddy bear becomes more of a handful than anybody expected.
THE IMPOSSIBLE DEATH OF CHRISSY DEAN
The sudden and recent disappearance of a bright young woman leads the police to investigate a death much older than they'd ever have expected.
THE BEAST IN THESE PAGES
THE STRANGER NEXT DOOR
THE IMPOSSIBLE DEATH OF CHRISSY DEAN
MISTER NOBODY
I don’t know that I can actually describe him to you, not really. I don’t mean that I don’t have the words to describe what he was – or rather, what he wasn’t – I know exactly how to describe him. It’s just that… well… that wasn’t what he was.
I say he, but there wasn’t a he to be there of course. Not a he to be there and not a he that wasn’t there. He wasn’t a man, and he wasn’t wearing a suit that never seemed to exist and also be a suit at the same time, only ever one or the other. Either it was real, or it was a suit, but there was never a man inside it to be wearing it, it just sort of wore itself in a way.
The suit – when it was a suit – wasn’t black, so black that the starless midnight sky was brighter, and it wasn’t immaculately clean, well-fitting, and the sort of posh three-piece suit that a royal prince or ancient duke might wear.
Whoever he wasn’t, he wasn’t standing right over my bed when I woke up.
THE GALLOW MAN
James Chroich, The Gallow Man, ran circles around Scotland Yard for decades, and now in her old age, his mother can't live with the truth of what her son became.
A warning for abuse, murder, and suicide.
IT FELL FROM ABOVE
I don’t know what that thing was.
I don’t know where it came from.
But it fell from above.
And now its cuttlefish eyes are everywhere.