Inferno: New Tales of Terror and the Supernatural
Ellen Datlow
Language: English
Pages: 384
ISBN: 0765315580
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Mission accomplished. Datlow has produced a collection filled with some of the most powerful voices in the field: Pat Cadigan, Terry Dowling, Jeffrey Ford, Christopher Fowler, Glen Hirshberg, K. W. Jeter, Joyce Carol Oates, and Lucius Shepard, to name a few. Each author approaches fear in a different way, but all of the stories' characters toil within their own hell. An aptly titled anthology, Inferno will scare the pants off readers and further secure Ellen Datlow's standing as a preeminent editor of modern horror.
carpets were worn, and there was a smell of damp. Its few items of furniture were shoddy and ill-matched, and thrust carelessly to one side. Here and there, Mark could identify faded patches on the walls where pictures might once have hung. Then he heard movement close by. He spied a pair of open double doors, and looking through them saw a large parlor or lounge area—though it appeared to have been converted into a multipurpose living and working environment. In one part of it, a sofa and coffee
he thought. We’d do what he instructed. If we tried hard, we’d learn more about writing than any other students in Silver City. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t. If we bothered him, he’d invite us to go fishing in his trash can. Questions? There were none. We still had ten minutes left of class. Two minutes before the bell, when I think every one of us had figured out that Mr. Valway really had closed his eyes and that his breathing through the mask had gone even and slow, Matt Janus climbed carefully
shape and measure to the night. He waited for the phone to ring with a glad summons to the station. He played out scenarios, tried on different outcomes, guessed at his own reactions. He gained weight and lost time. Sometimes he would get out of bed in the middle of the night, careful not to wake his wife, and get into the car. He would drive at dangerous speeds through the city, staring into the empty sockets of unlighted windows. He would get out of the car and stand in front of some of these
the company. When I woke up the next morning, they had already vacated the room. There was only a lipstick-scrawled message from them on the bathroom mirror—plenty of kisses but no contact numbers. I picked up the industry dailies in the IHOP on Santa Monica, and there on page five found a report of the party I’d attended the night before. Some high-society singer I’d vaguely recalled seeing drunkenly arguing with his girlfriend had fallen down the stairs as he left the party, gone all the way
smell of burning flesh stronger. And I know what’s happening … I finally know. She’s not just dreaming them, the bodies in the fire and the smell and the sounds, she’s doing what the amber-eyed woman told her to do … she’s remembering them. I can hear the crackle of the nightmare fire as I crawl into the cot next to her. Her body is hot, the flannel nightgown I outgrew three years ago soaked through with sweat. She groans when I wrap my arms around her, but doesn’t wake up, so the nightmare