She said, “Do you love me?”
I said, “No, I don’t love you.”
She nodded at that. She didn’t wait for an explanation. She turned, she walked into the cloud, and she was gone.
I said that I regretted one lie I told. I said I loved her, I said I didn’t love her. And whichever one was the lie, that’s the one I regret.
There is little else to add.
Saras has not been seen since. The authorities now suspect he is dead, but he hasn’t been given a funeral yet, everybody is still hanging on waiting to see. Green and Grant think this is another one of his games, that he will pop out into the limelight again before too long, it’s some new piece of art with Saras as the subject. Gladwell thinks Saras has killed himself. Gladwell thinks Saras couldn’t bear the thought of old age, of the fading powers of his artistic vision, of his oeuvre measured against the eternity before him, etc, etc, he thinks Saras has done an Arbus, he’s done a Rothko or a Kahlo, he’s done a Van Gogh. “Why are artists such depressives?” he said to me. “Why are they all so fucked up?” And he laughed, and said he and I were better off just collecting the money! But Gladwell wasn’t there, Gladwell doesn’t know anything, Gladwell was never hugged by Saras and called his friend, and I don’t care that Gladwell is an executive and my immediate senior, as time goes on it strikes me that Gladwell is something of a complete fuckwit.
Gladwell, Green and Grant are all in agreement, however, about shelving plans for the exhibition. If Saras couldn’t hang on until he was eighty, there’s no point in hosting an eighty year retrospective of his life. Just a few months longer, maybe, and his art would have been of use to us.
Mrs. Saras was seen again. The police in Brazil began an investigation into her husband’s disappearance, and for a couple of days the international newspapers had pictures of Mrs. Saras on the cover. But there is no evidence of foul play, and the great love Mrs. Saras showed her husband does not seem to be in doubt. She is in mourning, just as the whole of her country is in mourning. Mrs. Saras has told the press that the greatest tribute she can pay him is to explore her own interest in fine art; her painting was a talent her late great husband encouraged and nurtured all the years of their tragically short marriage; his work will live on through hers. Her first exhibition was a small one, admittedly, but it had a lot of media attention—she was photographed, all smiles, such pride, heavy make-up concealing the scars on her face, a big German shepherd dog her constant companion.
And she now has a first name. It’s Jessica. Jessica Saras. It’s not the name I would have chosen for her.
Margaret tells me she wants a baby, and I am doing my best to provide. It would be nice to create something, I think.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The new stories in this collection were written whilst enjoying a year’s residency at Edinburgh Napier University, attached to the Creative Writing MA course. For all the friendship, support, and meaty literary discussions (and food! and expeditions in the snow!), thanks to Sam and Stuart Kelly, and to David Bishop. And also to the wonderful talented students, who sometimes took what I said with great seriousness, and just as often, when I most needed it, laughed at me.
These new stories are part of my hundred stories project, in which one hundred bold people have volunteered their names as characters. So thanks to Jason Zerrillo, Laura Marshall, Steven Baird, Craig Boardman, Simon Harries, Andrew Kaplan, and Sarah Hadley for allowing me to do terrible things to their namesakes—and Edward Wolverson, whose own name got cut from this edit! If you want to read the rest of the venture, it’s being showcased as justsosospecial.com.
Thanks to all the past editors who worked on these stories—but, in particular, to Xanna Eve Chown and Steve Jones. Xanna has ploughed her way through no less than three complete books of mine now, and greets all of my stupidest schemes with cheerful diplomacy. She’s back for more soon. She’s nuts. Steve keeps on commissioning me for horror stories, no matter how rude I am to him personally, and introduced me to this whole genre with such great generosity. He also wrote the introduction to this book, for which I am very grateful—even though everything within it is a specious lie.
To Helen Marshall, who’s edited this book—and besides being a smashing editor, is also one of the very best short story writers I know. She worked with me on this whilst polishing off her frankly rather brilliant collection, and I felt a strange mixture of guilt and relief that I was taking her away from her own work, and yet that there was someone looking over my words who so innately understood them and got the rhythm. For the past couple of years she’s been the best and most loyal of friends, always encouraging my ideas and inspiring me with her own. Helen, I am at once hugely jealous of how good you are, and even more hugely proud that I know you. You’re one in a million.
To Suzanne Milligan, my agent and pal. Always supportive, always patient, Suze has the remarkable ability to listen to all my little writing paranoias and make me feel I can beat them all. I’ve had quite a few agents over the years, and some of them were really good, but Suze is the first one that I really want to impress. She’s also the first one to introduce me to the joys of Argentinian red wine. (Which reminds me, we must really share a bottle of Malbec again soon, preferably somewhere very swanky and tall with an impressive view of London.)
And lastly—but, really, never lastly—to my wife, Janie. We first began dating fifteen years ago, when I cast her in a play I was directing. It wasn’t a very good play, actually, but she was very good in it, and made it seem better. She’s always been great at that, making the bad things better. Over the years she’s seen me change from someone writing domestic comedies for the theatre to writing—well, this—a bunch of weirdy wobbly horror stories. And she’s never minded, and has trusted me all the way. I write obsessively, and sometimes that makes me grumpy, and more often, rather distracted and selfish—and every single time she forgives me. Especially if the story I turn out has a good scare in it. She likes good scary stories. I hope she enjoys these.
ABOUT
THE AUTHOR
Robert Shearman has worked as a writer for television, radio and the stage. He was appointed resident dramatist at the Northcott Theatre in Exeter and has received several international awards for his theatrical work, including the Sunday Times Playwriting Award and the Guinness Award for Ingenuity, in association with the Royal National Theatre. His plays have been regularly produced by Alan Ayckbourn, and on BBC Radio by Martin Jarvis. His two series of The Chain Gang, his short story and interactive drama series for the BBC, both won the Sony Award.
However, he is probably best known as a writer for Doctor Who, reintroducing the Daleks for its BAFTA-winning first series, in an episode nominated for a Hugo Award.
His collections of short stories are Tiny Deaths, Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical, and Everyone’s Just So So Special. Collectively they have won the World Fantasy Award, the British Fantasy Award, the Edge Hill Short Story Readers Prize, and the Shirley Jackson Award, celebrating “outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic.”
Several stories in this collection have been compiled in annual anthologies as diverse as Best New Horror and Best British Short Stories. “Damned if You Don’t” and “Alice Through the Plastic Sheet” were shortlisted for a World Fantasy Award; “Roadkill,” “Alice Through the Plastic Sheet,” and “George Clooney’s Moustache” all for the British Fantasy Award. Robert has also been nominated for the Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Award, the most highly prized award for the form in the world.
PUBLICATION
HISTORY
MORTAL COIL © 2006. First published in Phobic, edited by Andy Murray, and subsequently collected in Tiny Deaths, both published by Comma Press.
DAMNED IF YOU DON’T © 2007. First published in the collection Tiny Deaths, published by Comma Press, and shortlisted for the World Fantasy Award.
SO PROUD © 2007. First published
in the collection Tiny Deaths, published by Comma Press.
FAVOURITE © 2007. First published in the collection Tiny Deaths, published by Comma Press.
PANG © 2008. First published in The Lifted Brow, issue 5, edited by Ronnie Scott, and subsequently collected in Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical, published by Big Finish.
ROADKILL © 2009. First released as a novella by Twelfth Planet Press, and subsequently collected in Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical, and shortlisted for the British Fantasy Award.
GEORGE CLOONEY’S MOUSTACHE © 2009. First published in the British Fantasy Society Yearbook 2009, edited by Guy Adams, and subsequently collected in Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical, and shortlisted for the British Fantasy Award.
COLD SNAP © 2010. First published in The Lifted Brow, issue 7, edited by Ronnie Scott, and subsequently collected in Everyone’s Just So So Special, published by Big Finish.
FEATHERWEIGHT © 2010. First published in Visitants: Stories of Fallen Angels and Heavenly Hosts, edited by Stephen Jones, published by Ulysses Press; subsequently reprinted in The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 22, and collected in Everyone’s Just So So Special.
GRANNY’S GRINNING © 2009. First published in The Dead That Walk, edited by Stephen Jones, published by Ulysses Press; subsequently reprinted in The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 21, and collected in Everyone’s Just So So Special.
ALICE THROUGH THE PLASTIC SHEET © 2011. First published in A Book of Horrors, edited by Stephen Jones, published by Jo Fletcher Books, shortlisted for a British Fantasy Award and World Fantasy Award.
GOOD GRIEF © 2011. First published in Haunts, edited by Stephen Jones, published by Ulysses Press.
THE DARK SPACE . . . © 2011. First published in House of Fear, edited by Jonathan Oliver, published by Solaris; subsequently reprinted in The Best British Short Stories 2012, edited by Nicholas Royle, published by Salt.
ELEMENTARY PROBLEMS . . . © 2012. First published in Hauntings, edited by Ian Whates, published by Newcon Press.
The remaining stories are all new to this collection, and are © 2012.
THE INDIGO PHEASANT
VOLUME TWO OF LONGING FOR YOUNT
DANIEL A. RABUZZI
AVAILABLE SEPTEMBER 2O12
FROM CHIZINE PUBLICATIONS
978-1-927469-17-0
EVERY HOUSE IS HAUNTED
IAN ROGERS
AVAILABLE OCTOBER 2O12
FROM CHIZINE PUBLICATIONS
978-0-927469-19-4
THE BOOK OF THOMAS: HEAVEN
ROBERT BOYCZUK
AVAILABLE NOVEMBER 2O12
FROM CHIZINE PUBLICATIONS
HAIR SIDE, FLESH SIDE
HELEN MARSHALL
AVAILABLE NOVEMBER 2O12
FROM CHIZINE PUBLICATIONS
978-1-927469-25-5
IMAGINARIUM 2012:
THE BEST CANADIAN SPECULATIVE FICTION WRITING
EDITED BY SANDRA KASTURI & HALLI VILLEGAS
978-1-926851-68-6
SWALLOWING A DONKEY’S EYE
PAUL TREMBLAY
978-1-926851-70-9
BULLETTIME
NICK MAMATAS
978-1-926851-72-3
JANUS
JOHN PARK
978-1-927469-18-7
BEARDED WOMEN
TERESA MILBRODT
978-1-927469-02-6
* * *
A BOOK OF TONGUES
VOLUME I OF THE HEXSLINGER SERIES
GEMMA FILES
978-1-926851-82-2
* * *
BRIARPATCH
TIM PRATT
978-1-927469-00-2
* * *
CHASING THE DRAGON
NICHOLAS KAUFMANN
978-1-926851-80-8
* * *
CHIMERASCOPE
DOUGLAS SMITH
978-1-926851-81-5
* * *
THE CHOIR BOATS
VOLUME ONE OF LONGING FOR YOUNT
DANIEL A. RABUZZI
978-1-926851-76-1
* * *
CITIES OF NIGHT
PHILIP NUTMAN
978-1-926851-85-3
* * *
THE DOOR TO LOST PAGES
CLAUDE LALUMIÈRE
978-1-926851-95-2
* * *
ENTER, NIGHT
MICHAEL ROWE
978-1-927469-03-3
* * *
EUTOPIA
DAVID NICKLE
978-1-926851-94-5
* * *
EVERY SHALLOW CUT
TOM PICCIRILLI
978-1-926851-92-1
* * *
THE FECUND'S MELANCHOLY DAUGHTER
BRENT HAYWARD
978-1-926851-96-9
* * *
FILARIA
BRENT HAYWARD
978-1-926851-73-0
* * *
THE HAIR WREATH AND OTHER STORIES
HALLI VILLEGAS
978-1-926851-89-1
* * *
HORROR STORY AND OTHER HORROR STORIES
ROBERT BOYCZUK
978-1-926851-74-7
* * *
IN THE MEAN TIME
PAUL TREMBLAY
978-1-926851-91-4
* * *
ISLES OF THE FORSAKEN
CAROLYN IVES GILMAN
978-1-926851-98-3
* * *
ISON OF THE ISLES
CAROLYN IVES GILMAN
978-1-927469-07-1
* * *
KATJA FROM THE PUNK BAND
SIMON LOGAN
978-1-926851-83-9
* * *
MAJOR KARNAGE
GORD ZAJAC
978-1-926851-86-0
* * *
MONSTROUS AFFECTIONS
DAVID NICKLE
978-1-926851-79-2
* * *
NAPIER'S BONES
DERRYL MURPHY
978-1-926851-93-8
* * *
NEXUS: ASCENSION
ROBERT BOYCZUK
* * *
NINJAS VERSUS PIRATE FEATURING ZOMBIES
JAMES MARSHALL
978-1-927469-08-8
* * *
OBJECTS OF WORSHIP
CLAUDE LALUMIÈRE
978-1-926851-78-5
* * *
THE PATTERN SCARS
CAITLIN SWEET
978-1-927469-01-9
* * *
PEOPLE LIVE STILL IN CASHTOWN CORNERS
TONY BURGESS
978-1-926851-90-7
* * *
PICKING UP THE GHOST
TONE MILAZZO
978-1-926851-99-0
* * *
RASPUTIN’S BASTARDS
DAVID NICKLE
978-1-926851-66-2
* * *
A ROPE OF THORNS
VOLUME II OF THE HEXSLINGER SERIES
GEMMA FILES
978-1-926851-97-6
* * *
SARAH COURT
CRAIG DAVIDSON
978-1-926851-88-4
* * *
SHOEBOX TRAIN WRECK
JOHN MANTOOTH
978-1-927469-05-7
* * *
THE STEEL SERAGLIO
MIKE CAREY, LINDA CAREY & LOUISE CAREY
978-1-927469-04-0
* * *
THE TEL AVIV DOSSIER
LAVIE TIDHAR AND NIR YANIV
978-1-926851-75-4
* * *
A TREE OF BONES
VOLUME III OF THE HEXSLINGER SERIES
GEMMA FILES
978-1-926851-64-8
* * *
WESTLAKE SOUL
RIO YOUERS