Before You Wake: Three Horrors

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Before You Wake: Three Horrors

by Adam L. G. Nevill

Published by

Ritual Limited

Devon, England

MMXVII

rituallimitedshop@gmail.com

www.adamlgnevill.com

Stories © Adam L. G. Nevill

This Edition © Ritual Limited

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed Attention: Permissions Coordinator, at the address above.

Cover design and artwork by Simon Nevill

eBook formatting and conversion by Bluewave Publishing

Free eBook. Not for resale.

Before You Wake/Adam L.G.Nevill. —1st ed.

Contents

Author’s Foreword

The Angels of London

Always in Our Hearts

Hippocampus

Publication History

Free excerpt from The Reddening

More Horror Fiction from Adam L. G. Nevill

Author Biography

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Foreword

These three horror stories are an hor d'oeuvre before the main course that is Hasty for the Dark: Selected Horrors , my second full collection of horror short stories. Hasty for the Dark collects my later stories, those written between 2009 and 2016 (publication date October 2017). Hasty for the Dark is also a companion volume to my first full collection of selected horrors, Some Will Not Sleep ; together these two volumes collect a personal selection of my best short stories published across twenty one years. The three horrors in Before You Wake offer an insight into the other supernatural horror stories, occult horror stories, and weird tales that abound in Hasty for the |Dark. If they leave you curious about my first full collection, Some Will Not Sleep , then you can read a free eBook sampler of that collection too ( Before You Sleep ) that also contains three short stories. Before You Sleep is available at most online retailers and is also absolutely free.

A list of my horror novels can be found at the back of this eBook, and there is an offer front and back for horror readers to collect another free book from my website, Cries from the Crypt: Selected Writings. This is a full, seventy thousand word book compiled from short fiction, various articles featuring advice for writers of horror, some of my favourite interviews that I have given about horror and my own novels, features on horror, unpublished scenes and chapters from many of my novels. It's absolutely free and a companion miscellany to both my work and modern horror culture. Register for my newsletter (a spam-free monthly letter) and grab your copy at my home page www.adamlgnevill.com. Meanwhile, thank you for checking out Before You Wake and I hope that you enjoy these stories. If you were to leave a review or even just a rating at Amazon or Goodreads, I'd be immensely grateful too. I read all reader feedback.

Manes exite paterni.

Adam L. G. Nevill – July 2017.

The Angels of London

Still a little surprised such things were tolerated in the city, Frank stared at the mess.

At the base of the lamppost on the street corner, rubbish bags spilled their entrails across the pavement. Someone had once dumped a bin bag. Others followed their example until a pyramid of refuse rose up the lamppost to waist-height. The core of the structure had since rotted as if the body of the king that the pyramid honoured was poorly embalmed. A mattress had been thrown against the pile too. Rusted springs were visible and watermarks formed continents on the quilted fabric. Now a broken pushchair, with canvas rags hanging from the aluminium frame, augmented the installation. A disturbing element of squalor and human fragility, something London’s occupants became immune to or a part of. He wasn’t sure which of the two paths he would follow: indifference or collaboration.

He thought of submitting the entire mess to the Turner Prize but never had the energy to smile at his own joke. And he had no one to share it with.

Above his head the pub’s sign creaked. It was wooden, the mounting of iron nearly rusted through. He wondered how long it would stay up there. It was amazing how many old and broken things just kept going in the city.

The actual picture of The Angel of London was painted on the wood inside the corroded frame. The paint had weathered and given the picture a wholly different aspect from the one originally intended. With its scaly-looking face, tight skullcap and wreath of leaves, the angel now resembled something Francis Bacon might have painted. Whenever Frank saw the hideous peeling face he knew he was home.

The pub was dead, had been closed for years. Through the grimy window panes he could see the silhouettes of wooden chairs placed upside down upon tables, a bar that resembled an unused plinth inside a dusty tomb, and a poster for a long-expired competition connecting rugby to Guinness.

Indicating a high turnover of tenants in the rooms upstairs, a mass of uncollected post was slung upon a shelf inside the door next to the bar. Why was the old post not forwarded to past residents? Or did the current tenants operate a wilful resistance to the outside world? Few of his questions about people in the city were ever answered.

There was no post for Frank. Someone was taking his mail; not even junk reached him.

After four months as a tenant in a room above the derelict bar, Frank acknowledged that he was vanishing from the world entirely. Becoming a thing withered, gaunt and grey, shabby and less substantial. Anxiety about money, finding the right kind of work, his future, isolation – all of it was intent on reducing him to a ghost. And one that only a few dimly remembered.

He wondered if his image in photographs was disappearing too. If he didn’t find a better job and get