Mammoth Books presents The Unexpected

Book 204: Mammoth Books

by Michael Marshall Smith, Nicholas Royle, Ramsey Campbell, Robert Shearman, Rosalie Parker

Genres: Horror

Synopsis

What Happens When You Wake Up in the Night - Michael Marshall Smith For Michael Marshall Smith, this was one of those stories that dropped straight into his head, but the problem was that he didn't want it: "It wasn't an idea I liked. It was clearly some part of my brain serving up a notion simply because it could, and because it knew it could frighten me with it."It did frighten me, and so I did what I always do when that happens - which is write it down, in the hope it will go away." Respects - Ramsey Campbell "'Respects' was suggested by a local incident in which a car thief in his early teens killed himself while fleeing the police," recalls Campbell. "A lamp standard at the site of his demise is still decorated with flowers years after the incident, and the tributes on the obituaries page of one Wallasey newspaper were at least as grotesque as the ones I've invented - the romanticisation of a petty criminal. Cold to Touch - Simon Strantzas "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."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." The Reunion - Nicholas Royle "'The Reunion' is based on actual events," reveals the author, "but the story only really came into focus for me when I was invited to contribute to Ellen Datlow's Poe anthology."Poe is brilliant. I was at a conference recently where a teacher revealed that she had read Poe's 'The Black Cat' to a lecture theatre full of schoolchildren. She switched off all the lights and used a torch to read by. A number of parents lodged complaints, which she took as a measure of the event's success. My tale is inspired by a different Poe story." Granny's Grinning - Robert Shearman "I love Christmas," says Shearman. "Always have done, and always a bit too passionately. The intensity with which I loved Christmas was delightful when I was eight years old, slightly unusual by the time I was eighteen, and increasingly disturbing thereafter."I was the last one to grow up. It suddenly dawned on me one year, looking into the faces of my parents, and of my sister, that they were all older, and fatter, and less and less festive. And that they were trying so hard to keep me happy each Christmas, pretending they wanted all those presents I'd bought, all those sausage rolls and Quality Street chocs. That what I was trying to do, each December, was somehow reach back into the past and resurrect a time that was dead, that was long dead."I still love Christmas. But now I recognize - as I still make them perform party games, as I still make them open their gifts and smile and say thank you - that they're zombies now. All of them, zombies. I'll never get my childhood back again, not really, or the innocence of that family get-together. So I'll make do with the dead, and pretend."This is a story all about that." In The Garden - Rosalie Parker "'In the Garden' was written after I challenged myself to write a horror story about gardening," explains the author. "It emerged more quickly and easily than anything I've ever written. I think of it more as a prose poem than a story."

Release date: July 26, 2012

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 160

Sample

MICHAEL MARSHALL SMITH IS a novelist and screenwriter. Under this name he has published seventy short stories and three novels – Only Forward, Spares and One of Us – winning the Philip K. Dick, International Horror Guild, August Derleth and British Fantasy Awards, as well as the Prix Morane.

Writing as “Michael Marshall”, he has published five internationally best-selling thrillers, including The Straw Men, The Intruders and Bad Things, while 2009 saw the publication of the supernatural novel The Servants under the name “M.M. Smith”. His most recent Michael Marshall novel, The Breakers, is forthcoming.

“‘What Happens When You Wake Up in the Night’ was one of those stories which come along once in a while,” reveals Smith, “the kind that drops straight into your head, fully-formed, as if fulfilling a forgotten order you made from the great Ideas shop in the sky.

“The only problem was that, once this one had dropped on my mental doormat, I didn’t want it. It wasn’t an idea I liked. It was clearly some part of my brain serving up a notion simply because it could, and because it knew it could frighten me with it.

“It did frighten me, and so I did what I always do when that happens – which is write it down, in the hope it will go away.”

THE FIRST THING I WAS unhappy about was the dark. I do not like the dark very much. It is not the worst thing in the world, but it is also not the best thing in the world, either. When I was very small I used to wake up sometimes in the middle of the night and be scared when I woke up, because it was so dark. I went to bed with my light on, the light that turns round and round, on the drawers by the side of my bed. It has animals on it and it turns around and it makes shapes and patterns on the ceiling and it is pretty and my mummy’s friend Jeanette gave it to me. It is not too bright but it is bright enough and you can see what is what.

But then it started that when I woke up in the middle of the night, the light would not be on any more and it would be completely dark instead and it would make me sad. I didn’t understand this, but one night when I’d woken up and cried a lot my mummy told me that she came in every night and turned off the light after I was asleep, so it didn’t wake me up. But I said that wasn’t any good, because if I did wake up in the night and the light wasn’t on, then I might be scared, and cry.

She said it seemed that I was waking every night, and she and daddy had worked out that it might be the light that woke me, and after I was awake I’d get up and go into their room and see what was up with them, which meant she got no sleep any night ever and it was driving her completely nuts.

So we made a deal, and the deal said I could have the light on all night, but I promised that I would not go into their room in the night unless it was really important, and it is a good deal and so I’m allowed to have my light on again now, which is why the first thing I noticed when I woke up was that it was dark.

Mummy had broken the deal. I was cross about this, but I was also very sleepy and so wasn’t sure if I was going to shout about it or not.

Then I noticed it was cold.

Before I go to bed, mummy puts a heater on while I am having my bath, and also I have two blankets on top of my duvet, and so I am a warm little bunny and it is fine. Sometimes if I wake in the middle of the night it feels a bit cold but if I snuggle down again it’s okay.

But this felt really cold. My light was not on and I was cold.

I put my hand out to put my light on, which was the first thing to do. There is a switch on a white wire that comes from the light and I can turn it on myself – I can even find it in the dark when there is no light.

I tried to do that, but I could not find the wire with my hand.

So I sat up and tried again, but still I could not find it, and I wondered if mummy had moved it, and I thought I might go and ask her. But I could not see the door. It had been so long since I had been in my room in the night without my light being on that I had forgotten how dark it gets. It’s really dark. I knew it would be hard to find the door if I could not see it, so I did it a clever way.

I used my imagination.

I sat still for a moment and remembered what my bedroom is like. It is like a rectangle and has some drawers by the top of my bed where my head goes. My light is on the drawers, usually. My room also has a table where my colouring books go and some small toys, and two more sets of drawers, and windows down the other end. They have curtains so the street lights do not keep me awake, and because in summer it gets bright too early in the morning and so I wake everybody up when they should still be asleep because they have work to do and they need some sleep. And there is a big chair but it is always covered in toys and it is not important.

I turned to the side so my legs hung off the bed and down on to the floor. In my imagination I could see that if I stood up and walked straight in front of me, I would nearly be at my door, but that I would have to go a little way . . . left, too.

So I stood up and did this walking.

It was funny doing it in the dark. I stepped on something soft with one of my feet, I think it was a toy that had fallen off the chair. Then I touched one of the other drawers with my hand, and I knew I was close to the door, so I turned left and walked that way a bit.

I reached out with my hands then and tried to find my dressing gown. I was trying to find it because I was cold, but also because it hangs off the back of my bedroom door on a little hook and so when I found the dressing gown I would know I had got to the right place to open the door.

But I could not find the dressing gown. Sometimes my mummy takes things downstairs and washes them in the washing machine in the kitchen and then dries them in another machine that makes them hot, so maybe that was where it was. I was quite awake now and very cold, so I decided not to keep trying to find the gown and just go wake mummy and daddy and say to them that I was awake.

But I couldn’t find my doorknob. I knew I must be where the door is, because it is in the corner where the two walls of my room come together. I reached out with my hands and could feel the two sides of the corner, but I could not find the doorknob, even though I moved my hands all over where it should be. When I was smaller the doorknob came off once, and mummy was very scared because she thought if it happened again I would be trapped in my bedroom and I wouldn’t be able to get out, so she shouted at daddy until he fixed it with a different screw. But it had never come off again, so I did not know where it could be now. I wondered if I had got off my bed in the wrong way because it was dark and I had got it mixed up in my imagination, and maybe I should go back to my bed and start again.

Then a voice said: “Maddy, what are you doing?”

I was so surprised I made a scared sound, and jumped.

I trod on something, and the same voice said “Ow!” I heard someone moving and sitting up. Even though it was in the dark I knew it was my mummy.

“Mummy?” I said. “Where are you?”

“Maddy, I’ve told you about coming into our room.”

“I’m not.”

“It’s just not fair. Mummy has to go to work and daddy has to go to work and you have to go to school and we all need our sleep. We made a deal, remember?”

“But you broke the deal. You took away my light.”

“I haven’t touched your light.”

“You di. . .