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Halloween Haunts 2013: Halloween Should Be Banned by Mick Simms

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Halloween should be banned. Hold on that’s not my opinion. There’s a government agency in the UK called Department 18 and they want our fun curtailed, even stopped. We overheard this conversation—

“What’s this? The start of the apocalypse?”

Simon Crozier, Director-in-Chief of Department 18, looked up from the bundles of files on his desk as Harry Bailey entered his office. “Don’t joke,” he said. “Bloody Halloween. Every year’s the same.”

“I’m surprised you don’t try to get it banned,” Harry said cheerily as flopped down in the chair across the desk from his boss.

“I would if I could. Halloween is silly season, and our workload is increasing year on year. What can I do for you, Harry?”

“I was looking for Robert Carter.”

“No, he’s out, dealing with one of these.” He picked up a file and opened it. “A vampire spotted in Dulwich.”

“A vampire? On Halloween?” Harry Bailey stared at a photo in the file “It looks like Bela…”

“Lugosi, yes.”

We followed the trail and saw and heard this—

“Vampire?” Robert Carter said, an edge of bitterness in his voice. He slapped his hand against the car’s steering wheel. “It’ll be kids. Last year it was zombies who turned out to be four students doing the Walk of the Undead for charity.”

“Wait, Rob, what’s that?” Jane Talbot said.

A figure was moving stealthily in the shadow of the high rise. Keeping to the pools of shadow left by the inadequate streetlights. The figure moved through the darkness.

They left the car and started to follow.

On the third floor of the high-rise they spotted the figure again, and in the dimly lit passage they get their first clear look at him.

Dressed for the opera, complete with flowing cape, the man had a deathly white face, slicked back hair, ruby lips and piecing eyes “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Carter muttered.

The figure turned to face them, hissed at them and started to run.

Carter and Jane chased him through the maze of corridors and up three fights of stairs to the top of the building. On the top floor the cornered him.

The man had his back pressed against the window at the end of the final corridor. The eyes in the white face were glowing red. “Now, this Halloween stunt has gone far enough,” Carter said.

The man hissed again and looked poised to leap at them.

Jane Talbot pulled a large silver crucifix from her coat and brandished it in front of her. The man seemed to hurl himself backwards. The glass behind him shattered and the man fell backwards into the night with a cry. They heard the sickening crunch as his body hit the spiked railings below.

Carter and Jane ran to the opening and stared down at the empty suit of clothes hanging from the railings and the latex Bela Lugosi mask tumbling across the grass caught by the cold October wind.

Halloween!

TODAY’S GIVEAWAY: Mick is offering one free print copy each of StrongholdShelter, Demon Eyes, Black Cathedral and Night Souls.

Giveaway Rules: Enter for the prize by posting in the comments section. Winners will be chosen at random and notified by e-mail. You may enter once for each giveaway, and all entrants may be considered for other giveaways if they don’t win on the day they post. If you would like to comment without being entered for the giveaway, include “Not a Giveaway Entry” at the end of your post. You may also enter by e-mailing memoutreach@horror.org and putting HH CONTEST ENTRY in the header.

MAYNARD SIMS: The two authors writing as Maynard Sims have had novels, novellas, collections and stories published over forty years. Catch the fun at www.maynard-sims.com

Simms_cover_StrongholdStronghold is out now from Samhain.

http://store.samhainpublishing.com/maynard-sims-pa-1679.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69Ed3I9S_PQ

www.maynard-sims.com

BLURB

Safe Haven is about to become a slaughterhouse!
Welcome to Safe Haven, a brand new luxury complex built on a remote island off the California coast. Fully automated, with the latest in high-tech security, Safe Haven is the perfect refuge for people who can afford to live a better life, free from the crime and dangers of the modern world. But can the complex protect its residents from the far worse dangers of a forgotten world? Ancient creatures have awoken from their long hibernation, hungry and driven by bloodlust. And the tenants of Safe Haven are the perfect prey.

EXCERPT

80

Not long before the two people now floating lifeless on the surface of the pool were cradled in each other’s arms.

Slashes of cool light crackled over the glass-domed roof of the swimming pool, the ochre colors mingling with the dancing reflections of playful dots of color from the blue water. The inside of the glass roof was a shifting pattern of shapes, white, blue, pale and shadow. Subdued wall lighting was a pale imitation of the glare of the full moon, hanging like a judge in sessions from the dark sky.

There was something unsettling about the movement of the water in the silence and half dark. Ripples like breathing troubled the surface, lines of age on a flawless face. Soft liquid sounds of gentle movement as water lapped against smooth stone sides. The water seemed to whisper. It almost seemed to rustle, water can’t rustle, but to the woman that was the sound she could most liken it to.

“I’m not so sure this is a good idea,” Grace Toomey said.

Steve was already half undressed, hopping from foot to foot as his trousers snagged on his ankles. “Of course it is. You’re just nervous in case anyone comes in.” An office filing room, lunchtime, furtive fumbling with clothing and with feelings, excited by the forbidden fruit, fearful of the consequences. It was always he who reassured her then as well.

Grace watched the shadowed images the water created on the white tiled walls. Then she looked at her husband, frantically disrobing, letting the moon’s rays play like mistresses fingers on the hairs on his chest, on the firm muscles of his back. He was almost naked.

“Come on, you’re overdressed for a swim.”

It had been her idea, as the drinks had given her courage, and the inhibitions had loosened. She had whispered in his ear, and he had squeezed her thigh. Propelled along by this gesture of intimate acquiescence, she had taken his hand and led him from the apartment.

The complex was quiet, still as the night outside, lit with discreet wall-lights, stars in the sky. Everywhere was glass, windows that by day gave light and space, but which at night gave back just their own reflection.

She heard a splash and saw a pair of feet disappear beneath the surface. As quickly as she could she unzipped her dress and let it fall to the floor. She kicked off her shoes and reached behind her to unhook. A sudden feeling overtook her. She was being watched. She spun round but the door was closed, as they had left it. They would have heard if someone had come in. The walls were mainly glass but she would be able to see if anyone was outside looking in. Surely there was no one out there. She even looked up to the ceiling, but only the lonely eye of the moon gazed back at her.

Steve burst from the water in a tangle of droplets and spluttering. “Come on, slowcoach!” he called as he got back his breath. “That’s lovely underwear but I’d rather see what’s inside it.”

“…and don’t wear anything underneath it.” The little notes he used to pass to her inside files, or “…are you wearing what I bought you?” The enquiries about the outrageous things he would buy for her and expect her to wear under her office clothes.

Grace stripped off the last of her clothing and, abandoning all vestiges of uncertainty, she dived into the pool.

They played like mermaids in the warm water. Splashing as children, swimming in circles, pulling one another under. Ducking, jumping, playing with an innocence that was as natural as the day’s cycle. He pulled her legs and floated her in circles; she put both her hands on his head and pushed him under. They hugged and caressed, kissed and laughed.

“Right,” he called. “I’m going to get you now.”

She swam, half ran, away from him, towards the deep end. He created a shark’s fin with his hand and made menacing noises. She screamed with delight. Then he disappeared.

One moment he was there, fooling around, the next when she turned to see why it had gone quiet, he was gone. Everything was still. She trod water, pumping her legs slowly, meandering her hands over the surface, getting nervous.

“You’re scaring me.”

There was no reply, just the smooth rustling of the water.

“I’m not joking now, I don’t like it. Where are you?”

The water lapped teasingly against the steps at the other end of the pool. Footsteps out of the fear, an escape. Still she was treading water, trying to keep afloat and not make any ripples at the same time. Not draw any attention to herself.

Then he burst from the bottom of the pool where he had been holding his breath and showered her in crystals of blue, white froths of surprise. He coughed and held her, laughing and hugging her. Enjoying her naked breasts pressed against his skin.

She pushed him away. “You fool. I was terrified.”

“I’m sorry. I was only playing around.”

“Well I don’t think it’s funny. I’m going to have a swim. I’ve had enough of your messing about.” With that she struck out with strong confident strokes, swimming away from him, towards the shallow end.

Deflated, and out of breath from the pressure of waiting a long enough time at the bottom of the pool, Steve pulled out of the water and sat on the edge, feet dangling in, like floats on a fishing line. His body warm from the exertions and the atmosphere.

Grace swam a lazy crawl, then flipped over and did the backstroke for a while before stopping and letting her body float into the shallows near the steps.

Steve looked around the pool, admiring the diamonds of light and reflected water playing on the glass ceiling, and on the white walls. Coated with the black of night the pool was a safe haven.

When he turned back to watch his wife, he saw it immediately. A long gray shape, sleek and deadly, submerged beneath the surface. It was swimming directly for her.

“Get out!” he yelled. “Grace, get out of the water.”

Unable to act as fast as his words urged her to she stopped swimming and stood. The water at this depth was just up to her waist. She stood, droplets of silver suspended from her nipples, her hands brushing the hair away from her eyes. Eyes that were half shut from the chlorine stinging them.

“Get out now!” The gray shape was smooth under the surface, moving with economic motions, moving incessantly towards the woman.

He ran towards the shallow end, waving and gesturing for his wife to get out. Calling her, pleading with her, but not actually diving in to assist her.

Panicked now by his tone and actions, she was splashing frantically on the top of the water, causing noise and froth to mask the bottom of the pool, to hide whatever it was he had seen.

Steve moved down two steps into the shallow end, his ankles barely covered by the turbulent waters. His hand reached out and she caught it, first time. They pulled together and she fell into his arms, heart beating with the force of a waterfall. Gradually the water subsided, calmed into a natural stillness.

There was nothing in the water.

“I saw it,” he insisted.

“You frightened me.”

“It was there, I saw it. A long gray shape. It was…”

She pulled a little away from him. “There isn’t anything.”

Their nakedness suddenly seemed inappropriate and they looked for their towels, wanting to cover themselves, Adam and Eve, an unseen serpent causing them to open their eyes for the first time.

Moving off the steps in silence they failed to see the ripple on the surface of the pool. It was followed by a second, and then others, until quietly but with eager urgency the blue water was alive with white froths of movement.

Grace was terrified. The water of the pool was frantic with movement now, gray shapes weaving patterns beneath the surface. Misshapen heads breaking through the clear blue frothing water, droplets of white caught in the rough skin.

The humans never had a chance.

REVIEWS

“A brutal revenge fantasy against the ultra-rich.” Publishers Weekly

Simms_cover_PlagueA Plague Of Echoes is out from Samhain August 2014

http://store.samhainpublishing.com/maynard-sims-pa-1679.html

www.maynard-sims.com

BLURB

Department 18 book 4. The clock is ticking. In London, Department 18 Chief, Simon Crozier, is brutally stabbed and left for dead. Billionaire businessman, Pieter Schroeder, has laid his first card in a deadly, high-stakes game. The secret past of Department 18 comes back to haunt the present day. Whether Crozier lives or dies, whether Department 18 has a future, is in the hands of a few. In a battle against an evil both ancient and modern, Robert Carter and his team has to play the winning hand, where immortality is the ultimate prize, and death to those who lose.

EXCERPT

Chapter Three

Susan Tyler showed Fiona Meredith into the interview room, and the young woman scanned the room quickly. There was no one-way glass set into the wall, but she immediately spotted the camera in the corner by the ceiling, its red light blinking.

“I’ll have that switched off,” Susan Tyler said following the solicitor’s line of sight.

“Yes, you will,” Fiona said. Only then did she look at the elderly woman sitting at the wooden table, still dressed in the tweed coat that covered an expensive cerise twin-set.

As she watched the two women who had just entered the room, Mae Middleton played with the string of large cultured pearls at her throat, rolling the beads between her fingers. She looked every one of her eighty-two years; frail, rheumy-eyed, white hair tightly permed.

“Who’s looking after my cat?” she asked in a querulous voice. “Who’s taking care of Barney?”

“Don’t worry, Mae,” Fiona said, pulling out a chair on the opposite side of the table and sitting down. “Barney’s going to be just fine.”

“I’ll leave you to it then,” Susan Tyler said to Fiona Meredith.

“And the camera?”

“I’ll attend to it. When the red light goes out it’s off.” Detective Inspector walked from the room, closing the door behind her. In the anteroom she went across to the recording equipment and switched off the camera feed. The audio link she left running. They wouldn’t be able to use the tape in court but what it captured might just speed up the investigation, and Susan Tyler needed a quick result on this one. The Home Office had already been on the phone demanding just that.

She circumnavigated the reception area, went straight back to her office and pressed a button on her intercom. “Andy, send Jim Barnes along to Interview Room 2. Tell him to wait in the anteroom and let me know immediately the solicitor finishes with Mrs. Middleton.”

“Will do. Ma’am.”

Susan Tyler pulled her bag up from the floor and started to rummage through it. Her fingers closed around a cigarette packet. Flipping the lid she pulled out a cigarette-shaped plastic tube, stuck it between her lips and started to suck. The tip of the tube glowed red, smoke-like water vapor eddied out from around the fake plastic filter and the atomized nicotine hit the back of her throat, making her cough. Taking the electronic cigarette out of her mouth she tossed it onto her desk, watching it roll to the edge and drop to the carpeted floor. “Bloody thing,” she said when the coughing subsided. “No substitute at all.”

“And what makes you think I’m going to talk to you?” Howard Middleton said to McKinley.

“Because you want justice for your mother, and you don’t think you’re going to get it from the police.”

“Mae’s harmless,” Carol Middleton said. “I can’t believe she’s done what they say she’s done.”

“That’s enough, Carol. Keep your mouth shut,” Middleton said. “Our solicitor will deal with these people.”

“Only your solicitor seems to have palmed you off onto his assistant,” Bailey said. He’d come to join them, placing himself next to Carol Middleton.

“That’s right” Carol said, emboldened by Bailey’s presence. “Rufus Sangster’s an old drunk. He should have given up law a long time ago.”

“Carol,” Middleton said warningly.

“But it’s true, Howard. You were saying as much on the way over here.”

Middleton flushed. “So who are you people?” he said to McKinley.

“We work for the man your mother assaulted,” McKinley said.

“Then why would you want to help her?”

Jane Talbot came across and sat down next to McKinley. “We just want to get to the truth,” she said. “At the moment none of this makes much sense. Apparently your mother targeted Simon Crozier specifically; just stepped out in front of him and plunged a kitchen knife into his stomach. You live in Highgate Village. How did she end up on the South Bank?”

Howard Middleton dry-washed his face with his hands. “You people,” he said. “You can’t begin to imagine what it’s like living with someone who suffers from dementia. My wife does her best with mother, but it’s a full-time job, and Carol has a very busy life, what with the church and her various charity committees.”

“So you’re saying that this…attack, is another manifestation of your mother’s dementia.”

“It has to be,” Howard Middleton said. “What other explanation could there be?”

“Possession is one,” Harry Bailey said. “I can think of a few others.”

“Possession?” Carol Middleton said. “What do you mean?”

“Demonic possession,” Bailey said.

“Like The Exorcist?”

“A little less extreme perhaps, but essentially, yes.”

“You’re not listening to this claptrap, are you?” Middleton said to his wife, exasperation in his voice. “Haven’t we got enough to worry about without these idiots spouting all this supernatural crap? Mother had an episode. End of story. She’s had them before; I’m sure she’ll keep having them until the day she dies.”

“Howard! Don’t say such things,” Carol Middleton said. “I believe there’s more than this life. It’s as Father Connolly says, ‘there is much more to life than the purely physical’.”

“Give me strength!” Middleton said. “What with my mother and her delusions and you with yours, I’m surprised it’s not me in custody for knifing someone. I’d start with bloody Father Connolly and his bible bashers. You’ve never been the same since he came to the parish. Who invited him here anyway?” He turned to McKinley, opened his mouth to speak, then changed his mind and turned to address Bailey instead. “I’ll thank you to keep your bloody fairy stories to yourself. As you can see, my wife is very impressionable.”

Harry Bailey ignored him and instead spoke directly to Carol Middleton. “Does your mother-in-law go to church with you?”

“Every Sunday, while Howard plays golf. She can’t be left, you see.  I genuinely believe she takes comfort from Father Connolly’s services. And Patrick… Father Connolly has such patience with Mae. He gives her an awful lot of his time. A true Christian, that man. I know he hasn’t been with us long but he’s made a huge difference to Mae’s quality of life.”

“You’ll be asking him to exorcise her next,” Middleton sneered. “Just make sure he does it when I’m out on the green.”

Further conversation stalled as a young PC rushed into the reception area, threw open the door leading to Tyler’s office and hurried through.

Susan Tyler looked up from the file she was reading as the door to her office burst open and a breathless and white-faced Jim Barnes ran in.

“You’d better come quickly, Ma’am. Something’s going on in Interview Room 2,” he said breathlessly.

Susan Tyler frowned. “What do you mean, something’s going on?”

“Noises. Crashing about. A scream.”

“And you didn’t investigate?”

“I couldn’t get in there. The door’s locked, or jammed. I tried.”

Susan pushed herself out of her executive chair. Now what? she thought. God, how I hate the evening shift.

“Andy, I need your assistance,” she said to the desk sergeant as she ran through reception with Jim Barnes leading the way.

Andy Foster was behind them in seconds and the three of them took the corridor leading to the interview room.

“What the hell was all that about?” Middleton said, getting to his feet.

McKinley grabbed his arm to restrain him. “I’d sit down if I were you, and let the police handle it, whatever it is.”

“It’s my mother in there,” Middleton said, yanking his arm away. “If something’s happened to her, I swear I’ll sue the Metropolitan Police for every penny it has.”

“It could be her heart,” Carol said. “She has angina attacks.”

“Let’s just wait and see, shall we?” Jane Talbot said calmly. “I’m sure Inspector Tyler has things in hand. She seems very competent.”

At that moment the very competent Susan Tyler was struggling with the door handle, trying to gain access to Interview Room 2 but, like PC Jim Barnes had said, the door was either locked or jammed. There were no noises coming from inside, not even the murmur of conversation.

“Ms Meredith, Mae,” she called. “Would one of you please open this door? It appears to be locked.”

There was nothing but silence from the room.

She called again and listened hard.

This time there was something. It sounded like a low crooning, a song without words.

“Ms Meredith!”

No response.

“Andy, Jim, break it down.”

The men put their shoulders to the door and it flew inwards with the sound of splintering wood.

Susan Tyler stepped into the room.

Mae Middleton still sat at the table, but this time she looked serene. She was humming a gentle lullaby as she stroked what looked like a cat curled in her lap.

“It’s all right, Barney, you’re safe now,” she said between verses. Looking up at Susan Tyler she smiled beatifically. “Everything’s better now. Birney’s come home.”

“Oh my Christ!” Susan Tyler heard Jim Barnes say, followed a second later by the sound of him retching noisily.

She turned in the room slowly. Jim Barnes was bent double, losing his lunch on the linoleum floor. Andy Foster was just standing stock-still, white-faced, staring at something in the corner. Something that looked like it had just come from an abattoir.

It took Susan Tyler a full three seconds to realize he was staring at the mutilated and decapitated remains of Fiona Meredith.

Behind her the humming continued as Mae Middleton crooned a lullaby to Fiona Meredith’s disembodied head, nestled carefully in her lap. Gently and lovingly, she stroked the auburn hair and continued to smile at them.

5 comments on “Halloween Haunts 2013: Halloween Should Be Banned by Mick Simms

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