C.M. Saunders's Blog, page 32
June 17, 2017
Apartment 14F – Reviews
I recently released a new, updated and uncut version of my novella Apartment 14F: An Oriental Ghost Story. Here is a selection of reviews of the first release.
“Christian takes you by the hand and drags you deep into a world that most of us will never experience and then thrusts you headlong into a mystery we are never sure will be solved. The climax is a twisted view of love and needs unsatisfied, which leaves you wanting to keep the light on. The surrealism within this story is something I haven’t personally experienced in literature since H.P. Lovecraft and Algernon Blackwood.”
– J.F. Taylor, The Monsters Next Door
“In this short story the author tries to illustrate what most humans are afraid of. We fear death and at times we are afraid of dying alone. Saunders also points out a belief of many, that when we die there is another side whether it’s good or bad. The author also great job does in showcasing the Chinese culture and their beliefs and traditions.”
– The Horror press
“Saunders has written a frightening tale full of thrills, chills and unabashed terror ready for avid horror readers to devour. The author shows amazing depth and realism supported by interesting and well developed characters as well as a plot that will require a night light after reading. You might also want to consider checking under the bed. For anyone interested in a chilling tale Apartment 14F: An Oriental Ghost Story is the way to go.”
-Bitten By Books
“Saunders needs to be credited for doing a professional and credible job in this short novella. His portrayal of China and its culture is top-notch.”
-Blood of the Muse
“I thoroughly enjoyed Apartment 14F. It was a much more melancholy tale than I had expected going in, considering it was a ghost story. But this is not a bad thing. You won’t find any horrific slice’n dice special effects in this graceful and intelligently told tale; instead you will experience a story dripping with atmosphere, loaded with tension and just enough foreshadowing to shock you with its surprise ending.”
-Mark Edward Hall, author of the Haunting of Sam Cabot, The Lost Village, The Blue light series and others
“I liked that Saunders brought a little more depth to the classic Asian horror story. In a lot of Asian fiction, the story gets lost in translation, so the unfamiliar Westerner doesn’t see the whole cultural picture. Saunders kept the story clear and comprehensible.”
-Swamp Dweller Book reviews
“I quite liked Saunders’ writing – there is a slightly sarcastic sense of humour throughout, as well as a sort of modernity (one exposition scene is done through Facebook. It’s kinda cool. The future is now!) and real-ness. He doesn’t bull-shit around with unnecessarily complex weirdness, rather, the writing is straight and to the point, and the story is punctuated by some cool and accurate comments.”
-Sketchy Sketch Blog of Horror
“The way C.M. Saunders has written this book is pretty spectacular. I could almost feel myself in Apartment 14F.. The story gave me goosebumps and tears in my eyes. I give this book a 5 star review. Brilliant.”
-Amazon reviewer
“I first saw this book as a recommend in a magazine. I hadn’t read a book for a while and being a horror story fanatic, I was instantly intrigued by the write up. I read the whole book over 2 days. Quite an original story line, and for once I couldn’t double guess the ending! Well done. With a twist in the tale, I would even liken the style of writing to the master James Herbert.”
-Amazon reviewer
“ANYONE WHO LOVES ASIAN HORROR, NEEDS TO READ THIS BOOK!!! EXCELLENT!!”
-Amazon reviewer
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June 9, 2017
Matt Hickman’s Sinister Scribblings
Matt Hickman has burst onto the UK horror scene in the past few years, gaining quite the reputation for both his collaborations with other authors (notably Stuart Keene and Andrew Lennon) and his solo efforts Amnesia and Jeremy. His latest release is the short story collection Sinister Scribblings, which also features bonus stories by the aforementioned Keane and Lennon, as well as Michelle Garza & Melissa Lason (aka The Slaughter Sisters), Daryl Duncan, Mark Nye, Dale Robertson, and myself. My contribution, Jumping at Shadows, is a previously-unpublished tale about the perils of the LDR. The long-distance relationship. I’m sure anyone who has ever tried it will agree they are never easy, even without the intervention of a supernatural entity.
Blurb:
From the vivid imagination of Matt Hickman comes a collection of thirteen short horror stories that are guaranteed to leave you feeling unsettled and disturbed. Featuring a foreword from Kyle M. Scott, Sinister Scribblings brings together a unique blend of stories, some of which have been previously published, others that are original pieces and only available within this collection.
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In this collection we meet a whole host of broken, deranged characters in a sequence of horrific circumstances, including a mother who is determined to seek vengeance upon the school thugs that are bullying her only daughter; a woman who’s lifestyle has spiralled out of control after finding her boyfriend in a more than compromising position; a man who once spent his life in the public eye, has fallen from the heights of stardom and is slowly rebuilding himself; a teenage boy, a daydreamer who enjoys chocolate eggs for breakfast, who finds himself unravelling a unique Easter gift; a cave dwelling creature who has a taste for young flesh; a mischievous young boy who finds himself upon the naughty list at Christmas; a man, who after recently losing his job, makes a compelling agreement with a strange figure in a bar; two twin sisters who battle it out in brutal style after a major misunderstanding; a group of friends on their friends stag night, who get more than they bargained for upon entering an abandoned hospital for a prank; a man who awakens in a terrifying situation, in a strange location following a party with his friends; a woman abandoned in her friend’s cabin at a picturesque lake during a thunder storm; a man who crashes his car whilst driving home and spotting the figure of woman in amongst the trees beside the road; a serial killer enduring complications whilst receiving the lethal injection.
Sit back, relax and immerse yourself in these Sinister Scribblings.
May 27, 2017
The J-Horror Movie Marathon
I have a thing for Japanese horror. It’s pretty unique, partly because ghost stories have permeated Japanese culture for millennia and been granted more respect and freedom to evolve than in most other societies. Other than that, Japan is one fucked up place. Have you ever seen Japanese porn? There’s more incest, rape, and sex with crustaceans than you can shake a stick at.
Because they so often work within limited budgets, Japanese film-makers are forced to rely on plot, atmospherics and pure acting ability to make their work shine. Things that are sadly often neglected in Hollywood these days. One recent Saturday night, with a pathetically empty social calendar and a storm raging outside, I decided a J-Horror marathon (with English subs, obvs) was in order.
5:55 pm
Title: One Missed Call
Year: 2003
Director: Takashi Miike
Running time: 112 mins
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On the back of successful fore-runners like Koji Suzuki’s classic Ringu (The Ring), Pulse, and Dark Water, in 2008 One Missed Call became the latest Japanese horror movie to be remade by an American studio for an international audience. I’d watched the remake for comparison a couple of days earlier, and though the basic storyline pretty much stays true to the original, it’s more of a sugary teen flick lacking any real resonance and emotional impact. In short, the movie stinks.
The original is something else entirely.
On the surface the premise is pretty standard fare; a young student receives a voicemail on her mobile on which she can hear herself screaming. Putting two and two together, she decides the message must be from her future self warning of her imminent demise. When the message proves prophetic, it soon transpires that it’s just the latest in a long line of similar events and the girl’s friend Yumi takes it upon herself to solve the mystery. The result is a pretty intense, suspenseful, psychological experience, rather than the kind of uninspired gore fest we are so often subjected to. Typically of J-horror, there is a curse involved, some rogue technology, and hot girls in danger. We’re off to a decent start.
7:48 pm
Title: Uzumaki (Spiral)
Year: 2000
Director: Higuchinsky
Running time: 90 mins
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No rest for the wicked, it’s straight into movie number two, which proves to be one of the weirdest, creepiest, most fucked up films I have ever seen. It was adapted from a Junji Oto manga series, so I should have expected as much. His other notable works include Tomie, about an immortal girl who is so beautiful she drives people insane, and Gyu, about killer fish with metal legs. Yep, that’s the kind of guy we are dealing with.
Uzumaki is about a town obsessed with spirals. To be ‘at one’ with uzumaki, one character commits suicide by crawling inside a washing machine. The result is not pleasant. His wife then becomes so anti-spiral that she chops off all her fingertips so as not to have anything resembling a spiral on her body. That plan falls apart when she learns that there is a spiral-esque vortex buried in the deepest part of the human ear. I won’t say anymore so as not to spoil it, but you can probably guess it doesn’t end well for her. Oh, and then all the students at the local school start turning into giant snails. What the absolute fuck? I’m glad I watched this early on in the marathon. It’s the kind of thing that can make a grown man go scurrying off crying for his mother.
9:20 pm
Title: Carved: The Slit-Mouthed Woman
Year: 2007
Director: Koji Shiraishi
Running time: 90 mins
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After a quick pit-stop to make coffee and grab some Dorito’s, it’s straight back on it. The subtitles were out of synch on this one. I didn’t know what people were saying until about three minutes after they’d said it, which made the whole experience even more surreal. Someone would do something, then you’d find out why they were doing it later. The name alone is enough to give you shivers. The Kuchisake-Onna (slit-mouthed woman) is a bi-product of a real playground legend. Those Japanese kids, huh? A tall, skinny woman wearing a long trench coat, pointy shoes and a surgical mask covering her horribly disfigured face is said to appear and ask ‘Am I pretty?’ before carting off unruly school kids and doing unspeakable things to them with a massive pair of scissors. So far, so creepy. But things take a nasty turn when the urban legend turns out to be real, and one-by-one kids start disappearing. A pair of intrepid young teachers then set out to uncover the truth, and reveal one shocking secret after another. Harrowing and atmospheric, The Slit-Mouthed Woman (aka Carved) contains most of the elements audiences have come to expect from J-Horror. Curses, vengeful spirits, abused children, disused buildings, a haunting musical score and cold, brutal violence. It’s all here. If one film sums up post-Ringu J-Horror, it’s this. The last scene will chill you to the bone.
Am I pretty?
10:50 pm
Title: Ju-on: The Final Curse
Year: 2015
Director: Masayuki Ochiai
Running time: 90 mins
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More coffee and more Doritos.
You might not know this, but whereas the turgid American incarnation of the Grudge franchise was wisely curtailed after three instalments, the Japanese juggernaut just kept on rolling. And rolling. If you include that trio of western Grudges, this is the eleventh Ju-On (Grudge/Curse) film in the series originally created by Takashi Shimizu, and a continuation of last year’s Ju-On: The Beginning of the End, itself a reboot of the earlier films.
Phew. Now that’s all cleared up, on with the show. This latest (and allegedly last) instalment is a Paramount Pictures production, meaning it’s much more polished than you would normally expect. No shaky camera work or sub-par special effects here. Without getting too much into it, the plot evolves around Mai, who goes in search of her missing younger sister, the elementary school teacher from the last film (which is helpfully re-capped at the beginning). Let’s just say she gets more than she bargained for when Toshio, the terrifying little kid who makes those annoying cat noises, puts in an extended appearance. The plot is a bit stretched, as it would be after ten previous outings, but overall this film is pretty slick.
12:20 am
Title: Grotesque
Year: 2009
Director: Koji Shiraishi
Running time: 73 mins
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It’s that man again. Our friend Koji of the Slit-Mouthed Woman fame. To be honest, I don’t know what he was thinking with this. This film is banned in the UK, which is usually a good sign. I’m a horror fan, and I’ve seen some pretty far out shit. I’ve developed a reasonably strong stomach, or so I thought. Not this time. This is way out of my league. It’s downright fucking nasty, and I was soon sorry I munched all those Doritos.
I’m no prude, I believe violence has it’s place. In literature, art, films and even in real life. But there has to be a reason for it. This is exploitive torture porn, plain and simple, and has no redeeming qualities whatsoever.
Two young lovers are walking down the street, minding their own business, when they are kidnapped by a mad doctor who then proceeds to do the most awful, sadistic, depraved things to them. That’s the whole storyline right there, and it’s not fun to watch. In fact, it’s extremely fucking hard to watch. Which I guess is the point. If so, mission accomplished, Shi Shiraishi. You twisted fuck. This is the only film I’ve ever not been able to finish. I don’t know if that’s a criticism or an accolade.
This article first appeared on the Deviant Dolls website.
May 14, 2017
Subject #270374 in DOA III
After six years and more than fifty authors, the Unholy Trinity is complete. This third instalment in the DOA series offers thirty stories from the originators of splatterpunk as well as the newest voices in extreme horror.
You’ll laugh…you’ll cry…you’ll vomit
Don’t say we didn’t warn you.
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Last year, I wrote one of the most twisted short stories I’ve ever attempted. It’s too twisted to even go into much detail here. Suffice to say it involves clinical drug trials, revenge and dismemberment, among other things. I called it Subject #270374.
Coincidentally, just as I finished it I saw a submission call from Blood Bound Books who were putting together another volume of their legendary DOA anthologies of extreme horror. Because they had published another of my stories in a previous volume, and because I honestly thought I had crossed too many lines for the story to interest any other publishers, I sent them Subject #270374 and sat back to wait for the rejection slip.
It didn’t come. Instead, a few weeks later, I received an email. They liked Subject #270374, but it wasn’t gory enough for them. They didn’t want me to tone it down, they wanted me to tone it UP. So that’s exactly what I did, even though I was sick in my mouth a couple of times.
After some discussion, and a few rounds of edits, Subject #270374 was finally accepted for DOA III where it sits with a veritable who’s who of extreme horror writers including Jack Ketchum, Bentley Little, Wrath James White, Shane McKenzie, Richard Christian Matheson, Edward Lee, Jeff Strand, Betty Rocksteady, and a whole host of others. I am very proud, and humbled, to be in such renowned and illustrious company.
So if you like your fiction bloody and bizarre, and have a strong stomach, come and check out DOA III.
We’ll be waiting.
May 6, 2017
The Paperbacks are Here!
The environment won’t be happy about it, but I’ve finally bowed to pressure and released my indie titles which were previously only available as ebooks on paperback. Benefiting from the treatment and now ready for purchase are Out of Time, Sker House, No Man’s Land: Horror in the Trenches and my latest offering, Apartment 14F: An Oriental Ghost Story (Uncut).
The links will take you to the UK Amazon site, but you should be given the option there to click off it and go to whichever Amazon store is most appropriate to your location.
Take it from me, getting these paperbacks to market wasn’t an easy task. Formatting and getting the covers to fit properly represents a whole new level of fuckery. As you can see, I didn’t succeed every time, and the paperback of Apartment 14F (Uncut) now sports a completely new minimalist look. Ho-hum.
My X Book collections won’t be issued in paperback in their current form. I am still a huge ebook advocate and want to have some e-exclusive stuff in my repertoire. Besides, the plan is to put out book 3 early next year, then combine all three into one bumper volume at some point thereafter. That will represent a much meatier proposition, and better value for money.
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April 27, 2017
Film Review – The Evil in Us
A police unit is called to a house party to find a bunch of dumb horny teenagers have literally torn each other to pieces. When the lone survivor is giving a police statement from her hospital bed, she pukes up someone’s finger. So far so good, right? The police eventually work out that the party-goers had ingested some very, very sketchy coke, and through the magic of police work manage to trace the supplier who happens to be a very nasty individual indeed. What’s more, they find out he’s heading off to a secluded cabin by a lake with a pocketful of said sketchy coke and another group of dumb horny teenagers in tow. Just what would horror movies do if it wasn’t for dumb horny teenagers? Anyway, as you can probably imagine, things degenerate pretty quickly. As the genius dual-meaning tagline says: Worst. Trip. Ever.
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This film reminded me a lot of Eli Roth’s classic Cabin Fever. It has the same claustrophobic feel, and is shot-through with the same kind of smutty humour and devil-may-care attitude. It’s actually three story arcs in one: the police investigation, the bunch of dumb, horny teenagers at the cabin, and the obligatory origin thread about where this batch of coke came from. It gets pretty gruesome in places and if you can overlook some cringey dialogue and general predictability, there are certainly some shocks on offer. Considering what we essentially have here is a first-time director working with an unknown cast on a limited budget, the results are extremely impressive and could herald the start of at least one very promising career. Remember, don’t take drugs, kids.
Get the original version of this review, as well as many others, in the FREE Morpheus Tales supplement.
April 14, 2017
Apartment 14F: An Oriental Ghost Story (Uncut)
My latest book, Apartment 14F: An Oriental Ghost Story (uncut) is out now on ebook and paperback. As the title suggests, it’s a partially re-written and expanded version of an earlier release. The original Apartment 14F: An Oriental Ghost Story came out on Damnation Books back in in 2009. I was never truly happy with that version.
By the time Damnation Books was absorbed by another publishing house and consequently vanished off the face of the earth a few years later, the contract we had decreed that all rights regarding the book had reverted back to me. That meant, it was free for me to do with what I wanted, and I felt a remix was in order.
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When Jerry leaves his old life in London behind and travels to Beijing to take up a teaching position, at first he is enchanted by the brave new world he finds waiting for him. However, things soon take a turn for the worse. Upon his arrival he learns of the mysterious disappearance of his predecessor, and after he moves into his new apartment he is plagued by strange dreams in which he shares the dwelling, and his bed, with a ghostly entity. Then things start going bump in the night, and Jerry soon finds himself embroiled in the kind of supernatural drama that had previously been unthinkable to him.
An encounter with a fortune teller with a difference proves the catalyst for a new wave of terror and eventually, he is forced into the accepting the realization that something else was waiting for him on the other side of the world, and perhaps even in the next world. What’s more, his time is quickly running out.
Apartment 14F: An Oriental Ghost Story (Uncut) is out now.
Bonus content:
Inside Apartment 14F (essay)
Little Dead Girl (short story)
April 8, 2017
No Man’s Land Review
Mallory Heart kindly reviewed my recent novella No Man’s Land: Horror in the Trenches in The Haunted Reading Room.
Review copied below.
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Review: NO MAN’S LAND: HORROR IN THE TRENCHES by C. M. Saunders
Told as a series of continuing vignettes, NO MAN’S LAND relates the experience of Harry Doyle, a young Welsh soldier in the First World War. As terrifying as are the usual horrors of any war, Harry and his cohorts face additional horrors of an implacable nature. Harry is a wonderful protagonist, because he’s not a one-dimensional fearless hero, but rather he is a true human, fearing, loyal, emotional, introspective. NO MAN’S LAND is a literate and vivid narrative of an ugly war, a war which for Harry Doyle and his fellow soldiers extends beyond the boundaries of consensus reality.
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
April 2, 2017
Cover Reveal – Apartment 14F (Uncut)
Later this month, I am re-issuing a new version of my 2009 book, Apartment 14F: An Oriental Ghost Story. I’ll tell you more about why I re-wrote it and some of the back story another time, but for now I wanted to share the new artwork with you.
When the book was first released it did pretty well, and was nominated for several industry awards. This was mostly thanks to the great cover, which was designed by a very talented lady called Annie Melton.
This is the original:
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As successful as it was, I was never truly happy with Apartment 14F. Long story short (pun intended), I had to make a lot of editorial compromises. So when the rights reverted back to me from the publisher last year, I couldn’t wait to release it the way it was intended.
I contacted Annie and asked if I could use the original artwork. She graciously agreed, but there was some uncertainty about who actually owned the rights and neither of us wanted to get caught in a legal minefield. After a bit of push and shove with the rather unhelpful publisher, I decided the best thing to do was to commission another cover. Annie has now moved on from doing commercial covers, so I called on my old friend and collaborator Greg Chapman, who I’ve worked with several times in the past, most recently on X SAMPLE and No Man’s Land: Horror in the Trenches.
I was interested to see what Greg would come up with. It’s always fascinating to see how other people process and interpret various things. He hasn’t let me down yet, so I gave him a blurb and let him loose. The result is very different from the original cover art, but equally as impressive. [image error]
What do you think?
Released on April 14th, Apartment 14F: An Oriental Ghost Story (Uncut) is available for pre-order now.
March 27, 2017
Free Read – Monkey Man
“And they all lived happily ever after.”
Toby’s mother closed the story book and gazed down at her petrified son with a look filled with such compassion only a mother could give it. She knew he was scared. She could feel it. Since the moment he came home from school the fear had been slowly building up inside him, and as the afternoon marched relentlessly on towards night he became a dishevelled shell of a boy.
Toby wouldn’t tell her what the problem was. Throughout the evening she had gently poked and prodded at his defences trying to make him open up, but he remained tight-lipped. He was stubborn, just like his dad.
She leaned in closer to her son and planted a delicate kiss on his forehead. “Okay?” she asked. The boy nodded emphatically. He was tying to hide his fear, probably for her sake. But she knew he was quaking in his boots, she could almost smell the fear coming off him in cloying waves. It was in his voice, his eyes, the atmosphere. The fear was like a dense black cloud that threatened to engulf everything.
As a last resort, she decided on the direct approach. “Toby, tell me what’s wrong, love.” The boy remained silent, but the expression on his face spoke a thousand words.
“Monsters?” she asked, tentatively. “Is it the dark? Bogeymen? Did someone at school say something? What is it?” She fought to keep her voice from rising. Not in anger, but pure frustration. “Do you wanna sleep with the light on? Would that help any? For God’s sake, just tell me what you’re so scared of!”
No answer.
She was getting ready to give up when Toby spoke, quietly and deliberately, as if worried about who or what may be listening. “I’m not scared of the Bogeyman. I’m not a kid, I know its not real. I’m scared of the Monkey Man, because he’s real.”
Toby’s mother was momentarily stunned into silence. What a bizarre thing for a six-year old to say! In all her years, she had never even heard of anything called the Monkey Man but decided that it must be some variation on the Bogeyman theme. Adopting her softest, most understanding tone, she met his eyes and tried to look sincere. “Toby, listen,” she began. “Nothing and nobody is going to hurt you, okay? I promise. Not the Bogeyman, the Monkey Man, or any other kind of man. Do you trust me? Do you trust mummy?”
Toby nodded again, as if he had known all along such creatures didn’t exist, but didn’t look entirely convinced. There was more than a shred of doubt lingering in his mind, and that shred of doubt was causing all the problems. But what more could she do? With a sigh she stood and went to the door, then turned to look back at her son. She didn’t want to leave him alone like this but it was getting late, and surely this was the best way? She remembered reading an article in the Mail on Sunday. He would confront his fears, win the battle, and be all the better for it.
“Remember, Toby,” she said. “Monster’s aren’t real. I promise. They only exist on television and in your mind. So don’t you be afraid, okay?”
“Okay, mum,” Toby’s voice was small and weak.
“Okay, then. I’ll leave the landing light on until you drop off. If you want me, just call out.”
“Okay, mum.”
“Goodnight then, love.”
“G’night, mum.”
Alone in the semi-darkness, Toby lay still, listening. The old terraced house creaked and groaned around him and the muffled voices of his parents drifted up the stairs, but he was oblivious to them. His ears were cocked, his heart thudded in his chest, and every nerve was wound tighter than a spring. The first sign of the Monkey Man, and he was going to run for it.
There was such a thing as a Monkey Man, too. Adam Yates had told him at school. And Adam Yates had a cousin who had actually SEEN it with his own eyes. He said when it was dark, the Monkey Man climbed up the drainpipe of little boy’s houses, quietly opened their bedroom window, crept in and carried the boy off as he slept. Adam said after that, he did unspeakable things to them and they were never seen again. Toby wasn’t exactly sure what unspeakable meant, but it didn’t sound good. He secretly suspected that know-it-all Adam Yates didn’t know what the Monkey Man did to little boys either, and tried to disguise the fact by using words nobody else could understand. It was probably a made-up word, anyway. Suddenly there was a noise outside the window. A faint scrape.
He was coming! The Monkey Man!
Instead of running for it as planned, Toby buried his head beneath the bedsheets. In his mind’s eyes he saw the exterior of the house. A shapeless black mass, barely visible amidst the crawling shadows, clung to the drainpipe just below the upstairs windowsill. For the first time Toby noticed that his parents had kindly fitted his bedroom with rather a large window, easily big enough for the sly Monkey Man to squeeze through.
Mum had left the landing light on! How stupid! She was advertising him like a fresh lamb chop in a butcher’s window. Even worse then that, the beast outside was provided with enough light to enable it to open the window. Did she want him to get taken away and have unspeakable things done on him or what? But why would she want that? He had been good. Well, in the main. He had only been eight for two weeks and already he hated it. There was so much about the world he didn’t know. It was so BIG. And weird! Any thing could happen.
He wanted to get out of bed, run across the landing and turn off the light. Maybe then the Monkey Man would move along down the street in search of another, easier victim. But his body seemed frozen. Besides, this way least he would see the thing coming. Without the light there would be only darkness, and he would be defenceless.
Maybe, if he lay still, the Monkey Man wouldn’t see him. He would climb up the drainpipe, take a sneaky peak through the window and see only an unkempt, unmade bed. The seconds ticked by, agonizingly slowly. Surely, if the Monkey Man planned to come in he would have by now. It had been a long time since he heard that single scrape and he hadn’t heard any other suspicious sounds since. All was quiet now.
After a seemingly impossible amount of time passed, Toby found himself growing weary. His breathing slowed and his eyelids began to droop. Maybe mum was right, after all. Maybe the Monkey Man really isn’t real. She had promised, and mum never broke a promise. She always told him that was naughty. What was more, she would never let anything happen to him. He was safe here.
Adam Yates might have been lying. That was naughty, too. He had been caught lying in school before. He thought telling fibs made him sound clever, or made other people like him more or something. He was a sad case.
Now he was awfully tired. He could barely keep his eyes open. He was surprised to learn that he no longer cared about the Monkey Man. All he cared about was sleep. Glorious, peaceful sleep. He allowed his lids to close over his grainy eyeballs and almost immediately succumbed to the great dark abyss.
Later, the house was completely still. Nothing stirred, and the only sounds to be heard were the soft snores emanating from the master bedroom. Toby was in a different world now, a world of adventure and magnificent dreamscapes.
Nobody heard the strange, stealthy noises coming from just outside; the scrape of boot against brick, or the creak of the drainpipe as it struggled to bear a weight it was never designed for. Nobody heard the soft click as Toby’s bedroom window was tentatively opened.
Monkey Man was inspired by a story I read in a tabloid newspaper. One of those little ‘Strange But True’ fillers. The story was about an area of northern England being terrorized by a man often seen scaling the front’s of houses. It was probably either a peeping Tom or a burglar on the prowl. But maybe it was something worse, which is what my imagination did with the story. In a nod to his dexterity the media dubbed him the Monkey Man and put a cheeky, light-hearted spin on it. I decided to take it and add a dark twist, resisting the urge to place anyone in a gorilla costume.
This was the first thing I ever had published, by a man called Arthur Smith who ran the iconic Welsh fiction magazine Cambrensis. In fact, it was the first piece of fiction I ever submitted, which set me in a falsely confident state of mind until the rejections started piling up. I think the early success had more to do with Arthur feeling sorry for me than any real skill on my part. I remember submitting the whole manuscript in BLOCK CAPITALS on the suggestion of my dad. Dad, you’ve been right about most things in my life, but you were wrong about that. Readers, please don’t submit manuscripts in block capitals. Anyway, Arthur re-typed the whole thing, edited it, and put it out in an edition of Cambrensis in 1997. I was 23.
Cambrensis was a labour of love for Arthur. I can’t imagine he ever made any money out of his little enterprise. Especially when you take into account that the payment for publication was a lifetime subscription. As it turned out, the ‘lifetime’ in question was poor old Arthur’s, as he died a few years later and Cambrensis died with him. This is a shout out to you, Arthur, wherever you may be. Thanks for believing.
Monkey Man is available in X, my first collection of short stories.
© This is a work of fiction, copyright of the author, C.M. Saunders
