Long Shadows, Nightmare Light [signed jhc] by Mark Morris

Short stories are the lifeblood of the horror genre. I grew up reading the Pan and Fontana books of horror and ghost stories, the Armada books of ghost, monster and SF stories, numerous anthologies edited by the prolific Peter Haining, John Burke’s wonderful Tales of Unease collections, and many more. I still adore unearthing obscure anthologies, particularly if they contain unread stories by favourite authors. And it still gives me a huge kick whenever I sell one of my own stories to an anthology, because by doing so I feel as though, in my own small way, I’m contributing to a rich, proud and long-standing genre tradition.

The stories in Long Shadows, Nightmare Light span a period of eighteen years. Most have been published before—in anthologies, magazines and online—though a couple have been written specifically for this collection. One of the things I love about old anthologies is the one-line teaser trailers you often get for some of the stories—so here are mine.