Review: The Caretakers

Title: The Caretakers

Author: Adrian Chamberlin

Publisher: Dark Continents Publishing

Buy link: http://darkcontinents.com/2011/04/28/the-caretakers/ (paperback)

http://www.amazon.com/The-Caretakers-ebook/dp/B004XTX01A/ref=sr_1_1_title_1_ke?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1309682671&sr=1-1 (Kindle edition)

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-caretakers-adrian-chamberlin/1031019015# (Barnes and Noble)

Blurb: Hear the screams. Feel the pain. Face the evil.

As a Cambridge College celebrates a midwinter feast, four uninvited strangers uncover a devastating secret. A secret that must never be revealed… for the love of humanity.

Andy Hughes: a man with a dark past and an even darker future. His search for a missing student will lead him to a confrontation with an evil beyond human imagining…

Rob Benson: a van driver who discovers a dead wild boar in the back of his Transit. A boar that just won’t stay dead…

Jennifer Callaby: Andy’s estranged girlfriend, who discovers the shocking truth of The Caretakers — and the sacred task that they perform…

Jason Franklin: a prisoner who holds the key to the fates of them all, and who may well be their only salvation — if he doesn’t destroy them first…

A disturbing thriller that questions the nature of evil and the price to be paid for the continued survival of the human race – a price that, for some, is too great to pay…

The Caretakers… a Master’s Degree in terror.

Review: The Caretakers plunges readers into a visceral world of horror situated in the fictional college of All Souls in Cambridge. Adrian Chamberlin knows his stuff with regard offering a well-realised setting. Those who’ve read his short story, The Bodymen, in Dark Continents’ The Spectrum Collection, will pick up on certain themes involving delivery truck drivers, forklifts and dead beasts. But any more said on that and it will ruin the nasty surprise. The Caretakers offers a Cambridge you’ve never seen before and, thankfully, never will. All Souls College is suitably gloomy, with a dark history hidden behind the clunch stone walls.

Overall, Chamberlin’s prose is tight, highly descriptive and fast-paced. There were times when I felt he could have gone for a tighter third-person point of view, when viewpoint characters withheld key information as a method to build tension, but the fast pace and incipient sense of horror carried the story through. If gore isn’t your thing, watch out for the finger- and eye-violence. Chamberlin delights in a bit of well-aimed splatter, which had me wriggling in horrified delight.

The main characters, Andy and Rob, are fully developed and, although not likeable, at least admirable. Both go through hell, in some cases almost literally, in an attempt to overcome the evil they have inadvertently been tangled in. At times I felt Chamberlin could have cut back a little on the amount of secondary viewpoint characters he employed, but overall he’s handled the large support cast well with a high degree of authenticity in such a way that you can’t help but engage with them.

The Caretakers combines Lovecraftian themes with the Green Man myth in a reversal of female energies being active/destructive and male energies passive/fertile. The cosmic entity Andraste, is suitably frightening, especially with how she demands that her victims “sing” for her in a novel form of torture that will stay with me for a long, long while. Themes of death/rebirth abound, often in rather grisly situations.

As with all the offerings I’ve encountered from Dark Continents Publishing, The Caretakers is a return to horror in the classic sense. If you’re looking for a gritty, bloody and thought-provoking horror offering then this title will remain in your mind long after you’ve turned the last page. This is a strong first offering for a novel-length work and it can only get more dark and terrifying from here.

Bloody Parchment horror anthology

We interrupt the usual Toad's Corner schedule with news hot off the virtual press about the SA HorrorFest Bloody Parchment anthology volume one, which was released this past week. This marks the fruits of the first short story competition hosted by the SA HorrorFest in conjunction with its literary component, Bloody Parchment, which began life as a horror reading event each year at the Book Lounge in Cape Town.

While many of the contributors to the anthology are South African, the competition is open to any writer of horror fiction around the world, the winner receiving free edits for his or her novel- or novella-length work. A selection of the top stories will appear in the next anthology, when it is released.

Download your free copy of Bloody Parchment, volume one here.

If you are a writer of short horror fiction (entries open to stories of up to 3 500 words, as well as flash and drabbles), you are welcome to check out our submission guidelines. The closing date is October 31, 2011, so you have ample time to get cracking with those scary tales.

Feel free to mail me at nerinedorman (at) gmail (dot) com if you have any queries.

Book review: The Left Hand

Title: The Left Hand

Author: Serenity J Banks

Publisher: Dark Continents Publishing, 2011

Buy link: http://darkcontinents.com/2010/11/15/left-hand/

Blurb: Meet Eddie Kane: ex-cokehead and current, clueless sidekick to the enigmatic Calif Cryste, badass vampire hunter extraordinaire—and unforthcoming warrior of God. In the midst of a two-man crusade to put a kibosh on the vampire populations currently besieging the tribal lands of the Midwest, Eddie can’t help but notice that the string of death and destruction in their wake has begun to draw a certain, uncomfortable amount of attention from the local media. Enter obsessed FBI Special Agent Doug Degulchi, suspended from the agency over his proofless conviction that these two are “the guys,” and Eddie finds himself an unwilling player in an over-arching drama as Calif’s own misguided sort of apostles begin to fall into place. Meanwhile, the vampire hordes race to multiply their ranks in anticipation of a coming battle even Calif cannot (or will not) predict, and Eddie hasn’t even had a chance to face his own demons yet. Whether or not Eddie’s prepared to accept the truth, though, the second-born is here to wage war… on his own, if he has to.

Review: This novel is so much more than just a badass vampire hunter with a clueless sidekick playing Robin to his Batman. Serenity J Banks plunges readers into a dystopian vision of the American Midwest that left me feeling scratchy behind the eyes by the time I’d finished reading.

Eddie starts out as a weak character who chain-smokes his way through the story. Not only does he have an addictive personality, but he has demons from his dysfunctional upbringing he needs to process before he can take on the undead demons he and his partner hunt. While he may seem passive at first, he slowly grows into himself as he makes sense, in his own way, of the horror that surrounds him and Calif. He is very much an unreliable narrator, and therein lies the beauty of following the tale from his perspective.

Calif is the mystery man, the hero with a purpose who shows rather than tells Eddie what their quest is all about. All I can say, without revealing spoilers, is that all will be revealed, and there is a very poignant raison d’etre for Calif. Though his silence is maddening, readers will later come to and see why exactly. All I can say is that the story is so much stronger for Banks having resisted the temptation of making the man a viewpoint character.

Delgulchi, the hapless FBI agent, follows in the wake of the vampire-busting pair, whose very existence spell the end of his career. His obsession with discovering the truth drives him to the brink of madness.

But Banks returns the undead to the realm of horror, which is a refreshing change in perspective after all the glitter we've experienced in the media. There's nothing sexy about the vampires readers encounter in this story. They're mean, hungry and are more apt to rip your throat out than pause to share pleasantries. Her vampires are frightening and overwhelming.

Threaded through this tale is an alternative viewpoint on the Christian mythos that is not mired in the tired Hollywood ideals of light and dark. Our heroes are tattered, tired and face overwhelming odds.. Mankind is doomed, and its savior is not here at the behest of their redemption. From a broader perspective this appears to be a development of the vampire mythos, but I sense it’s far more than that. Eddie, as the narrator, tries to explain but the only terminology he has available, is based on a Western viewpoint. We view this tale through his subjectivity and I gain the idea that a different character would have applied a totally different explanation to the tale.

In closing, I'll say this much. The Left Hand is not an easy read. But it's definitely one of the most thought-provoking stories I've read all year and I recommend it to readers who like substance, grit and despair in their reading matter. Serenity J Banks is a masterful storyteller and I'll be keeping my eye on her from here on in.

Tea with Lee Mather

Today Toad welcomes horror author Lee Mather to the corner. Welcome, Lee, and thank you for dropping by.

The Green Man touches on the theme of belief in the supernatural, but also on fears. Care to elaborate?

The story centres on the uncertainty of death and how we use religion, faith and our spiritual beliefs as safety nets. The protagonist in The Green Man is a product of the modern world, where we find it increasingly difficult to place trust and faith in anything not easily explained. It was a natural progression that he would see death, viewed without any support system, as a pretty terrible and hopeless concept. Generally speaking, I think we find comfort in control. We like to have answers to our questions. The fear in death comes from not knowing, from not having control.

Are there any events that sparked off The Green Man?

Not specifically The Green Man – in terms of an origin for the story my Mum once claimed to have seen a "little green man" when I was younger and this used to annoy me as a boy. Her tall tale stuck with me and this is where I got the idea of the clash between two belief systems, and in essence two cultures. I adapted this to be spiritual rather than alien and brought in the premonition and plane crash elements to suit the themes I wanted to address. With regard to writing in general, this is only my second published piece and I guess I got to a point in my life where I wanted to stop thinking about writing something and actually go out and do it instead.

Who are some of your favourite authors, and what is it about their books that keeps you reading?

I do enjoy horror, fantasy, science fiction – but to be honest I’ll read anything with a good heart. As a reader I want to care. As a child, when I first became interested in reading (and writing) I used to love stories with a sense of adventure and heroism – Enid Blyton, Willard Price, that kind of thing. Stories that stick with me these days are usually ones that can operate on a number of levels and make me think.

In terms of modern authors, then Joe Hill is someone I would recommend, in particular his short stories. Twentieth Century Ghosts is a must read, but only a few of the shorts I would class as pure horror so don’t buy it expecting a fright-fest. John Ajvide Lindqvist is also a writer to watch – it’s already had two successful film interpretations but Let The Right One In is a stunning book, particularly juxtaposed against the tween horror culture that is so massive right now. The works of Alan Moore are also well worth a read for the uninitiated out there.

When did you know you had to be a writer?

I remember writing a short called Blue Fire when I was twelve years old for a school project (I drew a lizard man in chainmail for the front cover!). It was a fusion of fantasy and horror thriller – kind of a rubbish fusion of Terry Brooks and Dean Koontz. But I loved piecing it together – and after that my grades in the creative writing bits of English got better and better and I thought that writing was something I could do for a living one day. But my path didn’t take me there straight away. I studied business, went to university, got a job, met a girl, bought a house. But there was an itch – the desire to be a writer never left me, and only recently have I been able to draw enough focus to sit down and actually write. To be honest, what I’ve found is you don’t need much to start a story, the trick I’m still learning is being able to finish one.

How do you approach your writing: do you plot beforehand or write however the story flows?

A bit of both really! I have a concepts file where I’ll jot abstract ideas – and these could range from anything from a full outline, to an idea for a character, or a place, or a scene. I then select one and focus on what I think is particularly interesting about that idea and try to put it in the context of a story. If I don’t have an outline at that point I’ll pull something loose together, with a few points on the qualities the key characters should have as well as any crucial plot points. Sometimes I can have quite a tight focus at this stage and the outline may not differ too much from the end product, but even in the few things I have written to date, I have been flexible enough to let the story or the characters take over. I think you have to be as a writer – the characters need to be as real to you as possible and it makes sense to me that their decisions may take you in a slightly different direction to what you originally planned. The challenge comes from reshaping, from adapting and improving until you come up with something you’re proud of as a writer.

Any useful links?

My website is www.leemather.org.uk which contains details about me and has excerpts of my writing.

I also have a blog site http:\\leemather.livejournal.com where I post articles, interviews and the occasional short story.

And if anyone wants to look me up on Facebook then they are more than welcome!

Title: The Spectrum Collection

Publisher: Dark Continents Publishing

Authors: Simon Kurt Unsworth, John Irvine, Sylvia Shults, Tracie McBride, Adrian Chamberlin, Carsin Buckinham, Maureen Irvine, David M Youngquist, Serenity J Banks and John Prescott.

Buylink: http://darkcontinents.com/2010/11/15/spectrum-collection/

If a collection of well-realised horror is your cup of tea, then The Spectrum Collection won’t disappoint. Tightly edited and engaging, these stories and poems are slivers of horror offering glimpses into other worlds readers can enter knowing that things can end very badly, in all the right ways.

First up is The Elms, Morecambe by Simon Kurt Unsworth. The author sets about weaving his story in a manner that isn’t often as successful as this example: a story told within a story. We learn about Wisher, a haunted man, who tells his story to Nakata, whom I assume to be a journalist of some stripe in an eatery. Although slow-moving, the story nonetheless conveys the sense of a great sadness and a mystery that is never quiet explained. No great denouements here but still thought-provoking.

The direction of Wild Goat Curry by John Irvine became very clear early on in the story and although the concept of a hunter getting his just deserts is an old, dear one, I feel this story misses the mark slightly. It’s well written but the plot needed just that little extra push to give it a stronger twist, because I wasn’t all that surprised or horrified at the ending.

Wicked Appetites by Sylvia Shults takes a playful nod at the current fascination with vampires in contemporary fiction, and elicited a few chuckles on my part although I had a good inkling as to how wrong the tale would go. Once again, I feel the ending could have been stronger but overall Shults delivers an entertaining tale.

Although I’m no fan of poetry, The Tooth Fairy by Tracie McBride is deliciously nasty for my tastes. I was suitably moved to read it out to my partner, and we shared a quiet chuckle.

Adrian Camberlain’s The Bodymen is on my shortlist for one of my favourites in this collection. Offering a nod to classic splatterpunk and Stephen King, and although by no means unique in its subject matter, this little yarn tells the grim tale of an unfortunate series of events surrounding a pet crematorium. To say any more would lead to spoilers.

Another story about just deserts, Lemminaid by Carson Buckinham is quite vivid when it comes to evoking the setting but it was another where I could see the twist coming from a mile away. Still, the end is suitably inevitable for the main character and Buckinham provides some fine, sold writing.

Lost by Maureen Irvine, although offering me the enjoyment of seeing typical husband-and-wife interchanges, didn’t work for me. One of the major issues I had with it was the omniscient point of view, of head-hopping between the wife and the husband. The obvious horror element also didn’t do much to scare me or build tension. Other than that, it’s still an evocative piece.

Archi’s Story by David M Youngquist hit all the right spots for me. Maybe it’s because I’m a big fan of the Rodriguez brothers’ films, or just that zombies are the “it” thing at the moment. This is a novel masquerading as a short story, so in the shorts stakes, it’s not a classic fit for the vehicle. However, Youngquist has created a compelling tale with characters I immediately loved. This is begging for treatment into a longer format or, dare I say it, a screenplay. This one also hits my favourites list.

Maureen Irvine’s Gift from a Vampire is pretty. As far as poetry goes, I’m a poor judge but I did like this piece.

With the current literary trend showing preference for end times-themed stories, The End, by Serenity J Banks, addresses all the issues plaguing modern culture. This is not so much a post-apocalyptic tale of horror as an examination of the futility of human existence in the light of absolute finality. Thoroughly depressing, this tale is not for the squeamish. Well done, Serenity. You’ve got a winner here.

Lest We Forget by Tracie McBride is also on my short list for the hits from this collection. Stark, the tale hints at the horrors of a twisted Orwellian future at the hand of a mysterious dictatorship, it examines the emotions of people who have accepted their lot. There are many subtle undercurrents in this story, which begs a second read.

My Sister Doesn’t Live There Anymore by John Irvine is a haunting mood piece. While it doesn’t have a heavy horror element, the story did offer a somewhat poignant illustration of sorrow.

The End of Leonard Bangston by John Prescott didn’t quite work for me. Perhaps the shades of a Roald Dahl story were too fresh in my mind, but I saw the ending’s shape very early in the piece. Also, while I applaud the visceral detail the author gives in describing the house, I almost felt there was too much style and not enough substance to the tale. Nonetheless, visceral is possibly the right word to go with the story.

Overall, this is a pleasing collection of short stories and, in my opinion, well worth the investment. It reads quickly and, in general, the tales are suitably grim, grisly and dark, as one would expect from a good horror anthology. Go buy this and read it on a rainy night, at your own peril!

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Have a novel in the F/SF/H genres you'd like reviewed. Email nerinedorman@gmail.com with "Toad's Corner" in the subject.

Short Fiction: The Accident by WJ Hill

It was an accident. Daniel never meant to hit the hitch-hiker who had suddenly jumped out in front of him with his thumb held out. He slammed on the brakes and tried to swerve. The screech of tyres on the tarmac – followed by the thud of the hitch-hiker's body hitting the bonnet would ring in his ears for the rest of his life. Trembling, he got out of the car and went to look at the scene. The long, winding country road was empty. No witnesses. He swatted the idea away. Daniel Moynahan was a decent, law-abiding citizen and would do right by this person, whoever he was.

The hot summer day was drawing to an end and, despite the hazy heat, Daniel shuddered. Nausea welled up in his belly as the implications of the accident began to filter through the sense of dissociation that was taking over. On autopilot, he rounded the front of the car and, to his surprise, saw no visible damage.

The sickening thud of the hitch-hiker hitting the bonnet, followed by the brief darkening of the windscreen as he rolled over the front of the car replayed in Daniel's mind. He had just hit someone and possibly killed him. Why was there no damage to the car? He walked around to the back, fascinated and a little scared. Was he losing his mind? Had he imagined the collision?

Well, he had definitely hit the brakes. The stink of burning rubber wrinkled his nose before he even saw the twin lines where he had skidded to a halt. A feeling of being watched crept into his consciousness, nudging him to look further into this. It occurred to him to check the overgrown ditch. There should have been a smell of blood – or worse – his logic told him. If he had really hit someone, that was. Still, Daniel pushed aside all notions of just writing it off as an hallucination and decided to investigate. He knew that, if he didn't, he would spend the rest of his life asking himself why not. Besides, there was always the chance that it was just an hallucination. He had to be sure.

There was a crowbar in the back, behind the driver's seat. He went back to the car and took it out, then went along the ditch, using the crowbar to pull away the berry-laden brambles, starting from where the bonnet of the car was, and working backwards. When he reached the end of the skid marks, he almost gave up, but curiosity and a desire to resolve this compelled Daniel to continue the search for the hitch-hiker's body, which he just knew was somewhere along here. On the fringes of his awareness, he could sense a pleading to keep going, to uncover the truth of the matter, as if the hitch-hiker was standing beside him, urging him on.

Unwilling to let him down, Daniel kept walking along, poking and pulling at the undergrowth along the ditch, ignoring the cold fingers of fear that were creeping up his spine. The hitch-hiker was somewhere along here, he just knew it. A brief glimpse of dirty blond hair and intense blue eyes widened in surprise and horror flashed through Daniel's mind. The feeling grew stronger, as if the hitch-hiker was waiting for him in the ditch, ready to spring out and shout, “Gotcha!”

But it wasn't quite like that after all. The next pull at the brambles and bindweed revealed a dirty trainer and a bit of denim. Daniel gulped and pulled the curtain of weeds up anyway, and uncovered more denim, soaked, rotten and stuck to the maggot-eaten corpse. Flies buzzed up in an angry cloud as he yanked at the undergrowth. Light glinted off the frame of a pair of broken spectacles that hung halfway off the ruined face. Horrified, Daniel stepped away and threw up. He put his hand on his heart as he passed by the spot where the body lay on the way back to his car, then called the police. As he waited for them to arrive, the oppressive feeling of being watched faded, as if the hitch-hiker was glad to have been found at last.

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Toad welcomes submissions of guest blogs, short stories, poems, art and excerpts from published and (some) selected unpublished authors. Please mail nerinedorman@gmail.com for further information

Whispering Bones: an excerpt

Today Toad welcomes horror author Rita Vetere to her corner, to share an excerpt from her recently released Whispering Bones (Lyrical Press). Rita's writing offers the classic retro horror feel evident in such classics as The Omen, Rosemary's Baby and their ilk. Her characters are real, three-dimensional people who go through harrowing experiences. I'm happy to say this is not a book you read late at night when it's storming outside. Or you could... **grins**

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“Let’s get on with it. It’s the last load. I want to get back.”

The men began emptying the cart of its gruesome cargo, jostling her. Terrified, she listened to the sickening thuds as corpses were thrown into the pit, colliding with the bodies already there. Suddenly, shockingly, Isabella was lifted up. “No... No!” She felt herself falling. Then, the blinding pain of impact as she landed among the dead.

The stench, the slimy feel of rotten flesh... Death surrounded her. More bodies landed beside her, on top of her. Panicked, she screamed, “Take me to the Lazaretto... please! It cannot be far, I beg you.”

The cloaked and masked monster towering above the pit said as he grabbed a shovel, “There is no place at the Lazaretto for the sick any longer. It already overflows with the dead and dying. You have been brought to Poveglia.”

Isabella moaned in despair. Poveglia was a disposal site, nothing more.

The other man spoke. “Tomaso... We could try on our way back to the mainland. Perhaps the Lazaretto will take her. She is but a child—”

“Shut up. I’ve no intention of stopping there, only to be turned away. Then what? Return here to do what we should have done in the first place? No. Look at her. She is already dead.”

The cruel words struck Isabella like stones. Although close to death, a smouldering rage began to build inside her. She looked up at the pizzicamorti, leaning on their shovels at the pit’s edge. Her gaze slid back and forth between the two men and came to rest on the dark form of the man who had refused to help her.

In that moment, something happened.

Her delirious mind cleared. For a split second, Isabella perceived her situation with complete lucidity. She could surrender herself to God’s will. Accept her fate, knowing her immortal soul would soon be reunited with Mamma and Papa in the afterlife. Or she could choose another, darker path—one which had opened before her as a result of this outrage. Isabella heard a sinister whisper. Take revenge. The callous man showed no mercy, no remorse for what he was about to do. She could go unforgiving into the darkness, her soul be damned.

Perhaps if the evil man had not chosen that exact moment to fill his spade and send a shower of dirt over her; perhaps if he had not acted at that precise second, Isabella might have followed the path of light. Perhaps. But the man made his choice and Isabella made hers. She opened and allowed the dark entity which had spoken to her to slither inside.

When the earth struck her open sores, Isabella’s rage exploded. A powerful force surged in her, a roiling, dark energy that breathed life into her once again. Lifting her head, she spoke directly to the man, the one called Tomaso, who had condemned her to be buried alive.

“A curse on you...and on your house... You will be made to pay for this deed... With a death worse than that which you have decreed for me... All of you. Until the very last...perishes.”

Isabella fell back onto her deathbed. The knowledge dawned that she had only been a vessel for the dark power which had risen in her, causing her to speak the words. She found she did not care. A cold satisfaction took hold of her when she saw the masked man hesitate before lifting his spade again. For a moment, instead of the stink of corpses surrounding her, she smelled only his fear. Suddenly, spade after spade of earth rained down on her as the man began to rapidly shovel. He carried out his execution, cursing as he buried Isabella alive.

Isabella could no longer move. Layer after layer of dirt covered her. It entered her nostrils when she tried to breath. It covered her open eyes, blinding her. Earth filled her mouth. It tasted like death, but her heart was cold now and she welcomed it.

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Liked this? Buy Whispering Bones here: http://www.lyricalpress.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1_52&products_id=275&zenid=6oecjfs9l3kpk2r4gannru6bq5

Flash fiction: Bethany by Carine Engelbrecht

This week Toad presents a delightfully wicked piece of flash fiction by South African author Carine Engelbrecht. Enjoy!

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Bethany

Cat liked the look.

For the three months before they began shooting, Hughie banned her off the beaches, which was how she got just the right translucent skin tone. It was also how her romance with Brandon Tardis got a serious knock when he fell for Brazilian supermodel Sylvana, with her topless tan in the Caribbean, but that’s another story. It hardly mattered now, anyway.

She absolutely loved the look.

The character, Countess Bethany, was supposedly based on a real-life villainess who had terrorised the county they filmed in with her cruelty and her bloodlust. That had been some time towards the end of the twelfth century. To get her into the part, Hughie made her read all sorts of yellowing tomes in archaic language about what the countess had been like.

He spent ages location scouting before he found the castle. For its use, they paid a tidy fortune to an impoverished lord whose family had owned it since the 1600s. The lord said no one knew who had originally built it, but Hughie thought he did.

At first the place gave Cat the creeps. It was draughty and the poor wiring sometimes caused lights to go off for no reason. That drove the gaffers crazy. Sometimes an icy breeze seemed to slip very real fingers under the bodice of Cat’s deep-crimson outfit.

She found a favourite nook between floors, though, a tiny secret room full of dust and bits of bones. A slit window seemed to look out directly to the road everyone used to approach the castle. Cat wiped some of the dust away and used the place to study her lines. No one ever bothered her there. It was as if nobody but her knew it existed.

One lazy afternoon she sat in her usual spot, imagining she was the real Bethany, a woman whose husband feared her, whose neighbours plotted against her, a woman who longed only to feed her insatiable hunger for beauty, but could not quite manage to escape the confinement of her gender. Not in that age.

Cat opened her eyes and found something glittering on the dusty floor, a necklace with a gem that looked exactly like a drop of blood. Strange that she had not noticed it before.

She cleaned it up and put it on. It complemented her costume perfectly.

That evening they shot the key scene, in which Countess Bethany first seduced Lord Roland, her main adversary, played by Eldridge Moore. He was, despite one night of surprisingly good sex, a bit of a drip and way too much in love with his latest bride.

Cat really got into the scene, only hearing Hughie the third time when he yelled, “Cut, cut, cut!” Apparently, Eldridge had started screaming long before then. She had his blood on her chin, but not that much of it.

Hughie sent the actor off to the medics for some stitches and a sedative, but he did not seem at all displeased with Cat.

Two nights later, a local teen disappeared from a rave. He had been a problem child and his parents suspected he had run away. Cat read about it in the papers, trying to brush away a hangover and some disturbingly violent flashbacks from a dream she only half remembered. She had been to the same rave.

By the time his mangled and badly decomposed body was found, there were other missing kids, in other cities… Cat kept clippings. A morbid obsession, her therapist called it. According to him, the violent dreams were stress related. Many young actresses suffered similar problems when their careers suddenly took off.

Her pallor became a trend that female fans were never quite able to duplicate. She never smiled in photographs, but that, too, became fashionable.

Did it really matter that her mind seemed like an empty collection of echoes, that she sometimes felt like a ghost haunting what she used to call her life?

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Carine Engelbrecht writes fantasy, horror and science fiction. Long ago she briefly played guitar for an all-girl metal band called Misery. Nowadays she mostly plays guitar in her room, and if there is an audience, it’s nothing more spectacular than the occasional cat and/or disincarnate spirit. From time to time she even commits visual expression of some sort. She is a member of Cape Town’s Adamastor Writers’ Guild.