Ten Tall Tales

By Ramsey Campbell, Michael Marshall Smith, Sarah Pinborough and 7 more

The final anthology produced in celebration of NewCon Press’ 10th anniversary. Ten Tall Tales of horror, dark fantasy and dark science fiction, commissioned from some of the most twisted imaginations writing today. Each story is inter-leafed with a Twisted Limerick from that master of terror, Ramsey Campbell.

Contents:
1. Introduction – Ian Whates
2. Ten Twisted Limericks – Ramsey Campbell
3. The Power Of… – Paul Kane
4. We Know By the Tenth Day Whether They Live or Die – Simon Clark
5. One Little Mouth to Kiss You Goodnight
– Lynda E. Rucker
6. The Fruit of the Tree – Maura McHugh
7. 9 + 1 – Michael Marshall Smith                              
8. The Book of Sleep – Edward Cox
9. For The Win – James Barclay      
10. Do You Believe in Ghosts? – Mark West                          
11. The Loathing of Strangers – Sarah Pinborough                    
12. The Marble Orchard – Andrew Hook                                   
    

• Language: English
• Publisher: NewCon Press
• Release date: Oct 3, 2016
• ISBN: 9781536519235

Book preview

Ten Tall Tales

And Twisted Limericks

Edited by Ian Whates

NewCon Press

England

First edition, published in the UK September 2016

by NewCon Press

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NCP 105 (hardback)

NCP 106 (softback)

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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Compilation copyright © 2016 by Ian Whates

Introduction copyright © 2016 by Ian Whates

Ten Twisted Limericks copyright © 2016 by Ramsey Campbell

The Power of... copyright © 2016 by Paul Kane

We Know By the Tenth Day Whether They Live or Die copyright © 2016 by Simon Clark

One Little Mouth to Kiss You Goodnight copyright © 2016 by Lynda E. Rucker

The Fruit of the Tree copyright © 2016 by Maura McHugh

9 + 1 copyright © 2016 by Michael Marshall Smith

The Book of Sleep copyright © 2016 by Edward Cox

For The Win copyright © 2016 by James Barclay

Do You Believe in Ghosts? copyright © 2016 by Mark West

The Loathing of Strangers copyright © 2016 by Sarah Pinborough

The Marble Orchard copyright © 2016 by Andrew Hook

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All rights reserved, including the right to produce this book, or portions

thereof, in any form.

ISBN: 978-1-910935-25-5 (hardback)

978-1-910935-26-2 (softback)

Cover art copyright and front cover design © 2016 by Sarah Anne Langton

Back Cover Design by Ian Whates

Text layout by Storm Constantine

Contents

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Introduction by Ian Whates  7

The Power Of... Paul Kane  9

Twisted Limerick 1 – Ramsey Campbell    45

We Know By the Tenth Day Whether They Live or Die

– Simon Clark  47

Twisted Limerick 2 – Ramsey Campbell    65

One Little Mouth to Kiss You Goodnight – Lynda E. Rucker  67

Twisted Limerick 3 – Ramsey Campbell    81

The Fruit of the Tree – Maura McHugh    83

Twisted Limerick 4 – Ramsey Campbell    95

9 + 1 – Michael Marshall Smith  97

Twisted Limerick 5 – Ramsey Campbell    99

The Book of Sleep – Edward Cox  101

Twisted Limerick 6 – Ramsey Campbell    117

For The Win – James Barclay  119

Twisted Limerick 7 – Ramsey Campbell    137

Do You Believe in Ghosts? – Mark West    139

Twisted Limerick 8 – Ramsey Campbell    153

The Loathing of Strangers – Sarah Pinborough    155

Twisted Limerick 9 – Ramsey Campbell    161

The Marble Orchard – Andrew Hook  163

Twisted Limerick 10 – Ramsey Campbell    179

About the Authors181

Ten Tall Tales

An Introduction

Ian Whates

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At some point in 2015 I sat down and started to consider how best to mark NewCon Press’ tenth anniversary in 2016 (ten years, really? How the heck did that happen?). In the early days, NewCon’s output consisted exclusively of anthologies – I love a good short story, me – so of course there would have to be an anthology... or two... or three...

Presumably it must have seemed a good idea to my 2015 self to schedule twice as many titles for 2016 as in any previous year. With the benefit of hindsight, I’d like to travel back in time twelve months and give my past self a slapping.

Not that I haven’t loved working on the three (and a half) anthologies, you understand. The first two (and a half) enabled me to feature many of the authors who have supported NewCon throughout the past decade – Adam Roberts, E.J. Swift, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Jaine Fenn, Eric Brown, Nina Allan, Gavin Smith, Una McCormack, Neil Williamson, Mercurio D. Rivera, Donna Scott, and Tim C. Taylor among them, while also working with several authors, who are new to NewCon, both established and less familiar: Peter F. Hamilton, Nancy Kress, Ian McDonald, Genevieve Cogman, Tade Thompson, Janet Edwards, Nik Abnett, Christopher Nuttall, Jack Skillingstead, J.A. Christy, Allen Stroud, and Bryony Pearce included...

So why the need for a further anthology?

Because, great though these first two (and a half) volumes are, they haven’t told the full story. Crises and Conflicts is all about military SF and space opera, Now We Are Ten takes a broader approach to science fiction and genre, and X Marks the Spot is as much non-fiction and stats as it is about fiction; so what about the darker side? What about stories that unsettle and cause the reader to glance warily into dark corners or imagine a gentle breath on the back of their neck when there’s no one else around? What about the horror, the dark fantasy and science fiction? Well, for all of that, we have Ten Tall Tales and Twisted Limericks.

As with the earlier volumes, it’s a pleasure to work once again with such astute observers of the darker aspects of humanity as Sarah Pinborough, James Barclay, Maura McHugh, Edward Cox, Simon Clark, Paul Kane, Andrew Hook, and Mark West, and to welcome others to NewCon’s pages for the first time: Ramsey Campbell, Michael Marshall Smith, and Lynda E. Rucker.

So here it is, the third and final full volume of fiction celebrating NewCon’s tenth birthday: ten stories that veer from dark crime to shocking horror, from mystical portent to breathless combat in alien realms, from a man struggling to come to terms with the sins of his past to woman striving to accept the implications for her present... All punctuated by limerickal interludes courtesy of Ramsey Campbell.

This is a book I’m proud of. A book I hope you enjoy.

Here’s to the next ten years.

Ian Whates

Cambridgeshire

August 2016

To The Power Of...

Paul Kane

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The ferry rocked again as the waves rose and fell.

It matched the movement of his stomach, the feeling in his guts that had forced him on deck in case he needed to throw up. Charles Mansfield clutched the railing again as another huge wave battered the vessel.

Are... are you okay, Inspector?

It was a stupid question – quite clearly he was not – but Mansfield appreciated the thought. He looked to his right, where a fresh-faced young officer called... Stewart, if he remembered correctly, was watching him with concern. Christ, he couldn’t even remember what it was like to be that young – that innocent. Certainly not since he joined – was headhunted by – the SCI. He’d seen things in that time which would turn most men’s hair white in seconds, then cause it to fall out; a different kind of headhunting altogether (literally in one particular investigation). And though he had only just turned 40, he felt about 100; those years gone now, forever.

Mansfield held up a hand and nodded a couple of times – although that didn’t do much for the way he felt. When the uniformed man just stood there, gaping, he clarified this with: I’m fine. He managed to wait until the man had turned away before putting a hand to his mouth, stemming the rising bile – which coincided with yet another upswing of the ferry.

Wasn’t just the seasickness that was causing his stomach to lurch, however, it was the thought of this mercy dash they were on, a life or death race across this stretch of sea. The thought of what might be waiting at the other end for him and the handful of men he’d managed to round up on such short notice during the holiday period.

And those thoughts brought back others – about the case, about how all this had started. About how he’d got too close to things at one point, and about how he’d failed all those people. Failed her. How he was determined not to fail again; that would at least go some way to making things right... though not much.

Mansfield fought down the queasiness, but wasn’t able to do the same with the memories. They came crashing back as hard as the sea was pummelling their craft.

The first one, he hadn’t been around for, of course. In fact it had pretty much gone under the radar, had almost been missed. Mainly because it had been a John Doe, a homeless person living rough on the streets of New York. Police there had looked into the matter but hadn’t really given it top priority – and you couldn’t actually blame them. Didn’t flag as suspicious at first; it just looked as if he’d died of a combination of exposure under that bridge in a freezing cold winter and alcohol poisoning, the empty bottle of meths lying not too far away from the body. Open and shut case...

Only it wasn’t – far from it. The authorities there wouldn’t have even made the connection if there hadn’t been a second one, this time a lawyer called Melanie Frakes who was just starting to make a name for herself in the windy city of Chicago. Sadly, the way she was making that name had caused more waves than Mansfield was currently enduring. Going after people who were known to have links to organised crime, hitching her wagon to a hotshot DA’s star for a fast-track to the big time.

Instead, all it had got her was a fast-track to the morgue.

A single bullet to the back of the head at close range, as she was entering her apartment. Textbook execution-style killing, the detectives had said at the time. Only there were certain... curiosities. The missing finger, for instance, and the mark. A mark that Mansfield would become intimately acquainted with.

Hallmarks, it was thought, of a new assassin on the block; someone who could get the job done quickly and efficiently but left a calling card of sorts. The middle finger on the left hand he’d taken, was that some kind of message to the police, perhaps – flipping them the bird? Though wouldn’t the killer have actually given it to them rather than making off with it? But the mark – the brand that identified Melanie as a target, that was something else.

The ME had discovered the mark when doing his autopsy; it was only small but it was there. Burned onto the flesh after the murder, a single letter ‘X’ on her shoulder. They’d speculated that he’d done this to show that the woman was now an ex-lawyer; a warning to halt the investigation into such dangerous people. It had scared the DA enough for him to go into hiding under an assumed name, never to be seen or heard from again. Mission accomplished, then.

Only somebody somewhere made the connection; a morgue attendant from New York who was an old school buddy of one of the cops working Melanie’s case. The homeless man, the John Doe, well, he’d been missing a finger and he had the mark. They’d assumed back then that his digit (the first finger on the right hand) had been missing a while, something that had happened on the streets. And they’d thought the ‘X’, which on that occasion was located on his calf, was a birthmark. They hadn’t really been looking for anything else. So no photos had been taken, nothing really recorded about that – and the body had already been incinerated; there was only so much room in the morgue and the Grim Reaper had been particularly busy that winter.

But the attendant remembered and he told his friend.

There had been some rumblings about looking into a possible connection but it never really went any further. As far as the Chicago PD were concerned they had their motive, they had people they were looking at for this – pin something on the family who were responsible for hiring the hitman, you might find the hitman – and that was that. Besides, there was a power struggle going on between rival factions in the city, whipped up by all this attention, which was pretty much occupying most of their time.

So the whole thing was swept under the carpet – not intentionally, it had to be said, just forgotten about.

Until LA. Until a nightclub owner called Brandon Palmer was killed as well. Alone and up in his office above his club, Hotwings, it happened in the early hours of a Saturday morning while the place was chock full to capacity, according to witnesses. Palmer had retired to take care of some business, he’d told his manager, but would be down later on to take care of a different sort – which usually involved him ushering two or three choice ladies upstairs. When the evening finally drew to a close and he hadn’t ventured down again, his manager had gone to see if everything was okay.

It wasn’t. Brandon Palmer had been garrotted, left sprawled over his desk on his back, head lolling over the edge with an expression of surprise still plastered across his features. The little finger of his left hand was gone, a fresh cut that had left blood splattered all over the papers he’d been perusing, creating miniature Rorschach tests for his discoverer to find. When the ME examined the body he found a small ‘X’ burned onto the skin on Palmer’s side.

Officers trawled through CCTV footage but saw nobody entering the private chambers apart from the owner himself. Whoever had gained entrance and done this must have come in through the skylight on the roof, they reasoned, exiting the same way. But they could find no trace of any interloper, no forensic evidence of any kind, in fact.

There was no denying the link this time – it was too blatant. But because of the club’s connection with drugs, the authorities returned to the theory that this was a hired assassin and he’d left his calling card again. Someone had wanted Palmer out of the picture for whatever reason, and somebody else had obliged. Whoever you wanted bumped off, they could make them an ex-person.

But why kill a tramp with no ties to anyone? And why take those fingers...? It made no sense. Unless, as one Federal Agent called Edmonds – who was looking into the affair – posited, they were dealing with a serial murderer. Same MO each time, same markings: an X, as in crossing victims off? A trophy taken from each crime scene...

Mansfield recalled talking to Edmonds, asking him why he’d made that particular leap; the only person to have done so in those first few months.

The man had oddly hawk-like features – crooked nose and beady eyes. He’d frowned, as if to say it had been obvious. "It just seemed... I don’t know, I just got a sense about it. Different methods of killing, yes – and we still have no way of knowing how the original vic was murdered now, or if indeed he even was – but the ‘X’, the missing fingers. A hitman wouldn’t bother with all that, they’d be long gone. This was somebody who wanted something from his kills, and wanted people to know."

Sitting opposite him in that office in Washington, Mansfield had nodded and made a mental note to put this man’s name forward to the powers that be; skills like that were treasured at the SCI, not ignored. Skills like his own.

Once the idea had been floated, it had been a case of everyone claiming to have thought it was a serial crime all along – and Edmonds had gradually been squeezed out of the frame. He didn’t appear bitter about that, though, probably because the investigation had got nowhere anyway. They did what they did, he’d told Mansfield. I moved on.

Definitely SCI material.

Of course, Mansfield was coming to all this after the fact. He’d been given access to the files, to all