Mammoth Books presents Cold to the Touch

Book 436: Mammoth Books

by Simon Strantzas

Genres: Horror

Synopsis

A stand-alone story of Arctic Horror (excerpted from the full collection with the same name). "Stories often find their origins in unexpected ways," Strantzas reveals. "I was inspired in this case by a photograph of a Zen garden I once used as my computer's desktop background. After staring at it day-in and day-out while I worked, I began to wonder about that dark circle of rocks and just what its true purpose might be. "There was something there in the coldness of the photograph, something that brought to mind the barren vistas of the Canadian Arctic, which ended up being the perfect setting for my tale of tested faith."

Release date: July 26, 2012

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 160

Sample

SIMON STRANTZAS’ MOST RECENT short-story collection, Cold to the Touch, was published by Tartarus Press in 2009. Meanwhile, his first collection, Beneath the Surface, has recently been reprinted by Dark Regions Press. The author’s work has also appeared in the previous two volumes of The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror, as well as Cemetery Dance, PostScripts and elsewhere.

“Stories often find their origins in unexpected ways,” Strantzas reveals. “I was inspired in this case by a photograph of a Zen garden I once used as my computer’s desktop background. After staring at it day-in and day-out while I worked, I began to wonder about that dark circle of rocks and just what its true purpose might be.

“There was something there in the coldness of the photograph, something that brought to mind the barren vistas of the Canadian Arctic, which ended up being the perfect setting for my tale of tested faith.”

Along with its appearance here, “Cold to the Touch” will appear in Holy Horrors, a two-volume anthology of religious horror edited by T.M. Wright and Matt Cardin, from Ash-Tree Press.

ANDREW LAUZON STOOD surrounded by his equipment on the tarmac of a small airport just beyond Iqaluit. He had gone as far north as aeroplanes could take him, but he still needed to go further, deep into the Nunavut Territory, to the edge of the Arctic itself.

He shivered uncontrollably as he waited for Luis to arrive. The cold October wind scratched his face like sandpaper and, beneath his crossed arms, he felt the shape of the small book pressed into his ribs.

God, at least, had a plan for him.

Andrew spotted the truck moving towards him through the greyish landscape of the northern brush, and when it arrived it was mottled with a haze of salt and snow. Behind the wheel the thick dark-skinned Inuk was barely older than Andrew himself, yet his face was broad and wrinkled, as though. . .