These Things That Walk Behind Me

by David Surface, John Langan (introduction)

Strange stories, yes, and dark, too. Stories with fine prose and sympathetically drawn characters give them an emotional heft and resonance not always found in this type of fiction. Stories that follow you. Stories that cannot be easily forgotten because they haunt you. In These Things That Walk Behind Me, David Surface crafts stories where the familiar succumbs to the strange. Each tale builds an eerie sense of wrongness, where something unsettling stirs beneath the surface, growing more intense with every page.

Genres: Short Stories, Horror

312 pages, Paperback

Published October 1, 2024

About the author

David Surface lives in the Hudson Highlands in a 160-year-old brick house that he shares with his wife, the author Julia Rust.

David is the author of These Things That Walk Behind Me, a Shirley Jackson Award-nominated collection of short stories published by Lethe Press, Terrible Things, a collection published by Black Shuck Books, and two paranormal YA mystery novels co-written with Julia Rust; Saving Thornwood and Angel Falls. His stories have appeared in Best Horror of the Year, Shadows & Tall Trees, Supernatural Tales, Nightscript, Twisted Book of Shadows, Uncertainties III, Nightmare Abbey, and other publications. He is also author of the Substack newsletter STRANGE LITTLE STORIES.

David enjoys writing, old movies, obscure bookstores, good coffee, bare trees in winter, vintage Halloween decorations, and medieval sacred music, not necessarily in that order. He also enjoys talking with other people about writing––his and theirs.

Reviews

[Rebecca Mann · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic collection of 14 dark tales. I stumbled across this collection when searching for John Langan's new story collection on the Kindle store and thought I would give this a try as it was only £3! I read quite a lot of short fiction and this is my favourite collection that I have read recently. I enjoyed every story and each one was memorable and distinct. I appreciated the story notes at the end of the book that explained his inspiration for each story. I have seen that he has another short story collection, Terrible Things, which I look forward to reading. I highly recommend this to anyone who enjoys literary horror and short fiction.

[Irene Well Worth A Read · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a collection of 14 dark tales.

Some were familiar to me from previous publications. Most were new to me.
Fear and apprehension collide with suspense in these grim little slices of perfection.

A few of my favorites were Give Me Back My Name, about a man who has built a new life for himself, but his happily ever after is starting to unravel and his past is catching up.

Lost River Boys, in which the parents of some missing boys find a way to ease their grief by leaving gifts for their lost children.

Little Gods To Live In Them, is about some unbearably loud construction noises that rattle a neighborhood, but what are they really building?

The Devil Will Be At The Door, I can't say too much about this one, or maybe I'm just afraid to. We all have those stories of abandoned houses we were warned to stay away from, that we dared each other to enter. This is why you don't talk about it. This is why you stay away!

How The World Works, High School buddies are separated when one suffers financial hard times and disappears for a while. When he reappears with very little explanation of where he's been or his current situation, his friend is at first impressed and then terrified.

These were just a few of my favorites, but truly, I loved them all.

Disturbing customs, otherworldly beings, grief, loss, revenge, and ghosts of the past fill the pages and make for a chilling good time.
These unique stories hold a wondrous mix of anticipation and dread.

My thanks to David Surface for the advance copy.

[W.A Parkin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A perfect collection of stories. Deserves to be read by anyone who likes their fiction dark, and anyone aspiring to write in that genre. Flawless.

[Joshua Rex · Rating 5 out of 5]

David is one of our finest practitioners of the strange, the eerie, the terrible. For me, his work is the antidote to post-modernism and the ironic; it is fiction grounded in Meaning and shared experience rather than solipsism and isolation. He draws a big heart on the page, and fills it with all the shades of life, from red to green to blue to black.

These Things that Walk Beside Me wants to tell you things—large important truths that you have probably felt before, but did not recognize as they were playing out right before you in real time. Rooted in each harrowing, haunting, beautifully crafted piece is a fundamental human experience, and often a pithy condensation of the latter: Example: “Because when someone you love is in trouble, you do everything you can to help them. Even if it means you have to do something wrong.” Or: “In the end, the world outside is not so different from the one inside. You just have to learn to negotiate them both.” Some of these stories have ties to the narratives in David’s sensational newsletter Strange Little Stories (which, if you haven’t already subscribed to, you must immediately)—which are all true stories, by the way.

One of the collection’s greatest strengths besides being a highly original and stellar work of horror, is that it prompts one to consider the weird narrative of one’s own life: to cull from our own moments bright and dark the instances of bravery, greed, friendship, loss, cruelty, and revenge in order to come to terms with how they define us for better or worse. In his Story Notes at the end of the book, he writes: “In most horror stories, the protagonist either survives by defeating or escaping the monsters or is defeated by them.” The lesson of David’s work is not how to flee or to vanquish such monsters, but how to live with the ones we’ve made and have been made for us.

[Brian James Lewis · Rating 5 out of 5]

THESE THINGS THAT WALK BEHIND ME
David Surface
10/1/2024
Lethe Press
Reviewed by Brian “Skull” Lewis

Hello horror fans, it’s your old pal Skull with a brand-new release from Lethe Press! These Things That Walk Behind Me by David Surface is packed with 14 speculative tales that will latch onto your brain and stick around long after you’ve finished reading. Or, if you’re at all like me, you’ll find yourself rereading this awesome collection again and again. The stories are really that good! Ready to take a walk on the wild side? Then let’s get to it.

Inside These Things That Walk Behind Me by David Surface you’ll find stories about things that shouldn’t exist, but they do. A fallen angel hidden in an airplane hangar that takes care of those who cannot help themselves, Angelmutter. A town whose boys disappear into a large network of caves that exist underneath them and a mother who knows more about it than she should, The Lost River Boys. How about construction company that builds unique structures that transport creatures from another realm into your hometown? Little Gods To Live In Them, is that story. We all watch those shows on TV about people suddenly disappearing only to show up thousands of miles away decades later. Give Me Back My Name shows us what it’s like to be that person and it isn’t at all pretty. Losing your mind is often viewed as losing touch with reality, but what if it actually shows us how life really is and why people act the way they do? These Things That Walk Behind Me gives us insight into that.

One of my favorite tales in this great mix is The Devil Will Be At The Door. You know that ghost story many of us hear at YMCA Camp, in Boy Scouts, or in the case of this story on the church school bus during a long ride home? It’s about a horribly haunted house in the middle of nowhere and ends with a jump scare scream. The details are usually filled in to fit the location, but it’s pretty much the same tale. Eventually we grow up and decide such terrifying things don’t exist. But what if they do, and you just haven’t found it yet? Or, worse, it’s out there looking for you? Oh, and if you’ve heard that story in your lifetime…There’s no getting away.

Another story I really dug was, When The Circus. Danny escapes from a small southern town and a meaningless life by going to New York City, a giant metropolis that never sleeps and you can get whatever you want 24 hours a day. But such a vast place is dark, dangerous, and ready to eat newbies alive. Danny needs a place, somewhere to take shelter, and he finds it in a ghost bar hidden under some scaffolding. There he meets Lenny, an old school tough New Yorker who holds court nightly teaching valuable lessons and telling stories. But a person can only hide so long in the middle of a hurricane. Events unfold in front of Danny that threaten to steal his sanity. His happiness has already fled. One night when Lenny starts telling everyone about a bizarre event that happened right on that particular night many years ago, Danny refuses to buy it. Back in the old days, the circus would come to Madison Square Garden and people lined 34th street at midnight to see the elephants walk from the train to the garden. But one year, things went horribly wrong, and the results were bad enough to drive a person mad. The Big Apple doesn’t let go of the scary things, it holds them tightly trapped in its dark bosom of night, then shows them to fragile minds like a demented flasher in a black raincoat. GOTCHA! Lenny says that the only way to avoid being sucked into the flames of Hell is to shelter in place. Danny says he’s full of shit and makes a break for it. Will he see what he’s looking for, or is it all just a hoax to scare newbies?

How The World Works, is another great story. Many people think the world is an efficient machine that can easily be explained by science or their particular brand of religion. Yet, every year, strange things happen that defy logical explanation. This story is a tale about secrets and friendship. The narrator’s friend, Mike, hasn’t had a very good life and isn’t exactly Mr. Manners. Still the narrator cares about him and is pleased to hear that he’s returned to town after a long absence. When he goes to visit Mike in his new place, it’s entirely rad, especially to a couple of teenage boys. Mike’s story is that he’s housesitting for a guy and has free run of the house. But what’s with all the freaked-out cats? More importantly, what’s that damn thing in the basement? Will Mike’s explanation clear things up or just make it worse? One thing is for certain, the piper must be paid. That’s just How The World Works.

If you’ve read this far, then you probably already know what your old pal Skull thinks of this book, but let me just put it into words: Wow, what an awesome collection of short horror stories! Damaged Skull Writer and Reviewer gives These Things That Walk Behind Me a BIG 5 STARS! David Surface writes stories that stick with you and grow as time passes. It’s not excessively gory or easy to stick in one box, but his words lodge into your brain and blossom into images and feelings that hang on long after you put the book down. Or you’ll keep picking it up to savor again and again. These Things That Walk Behind Me will make it to the Wall of Fame eventually, but for now it follows me from room to room, and I can’t help reading just one more story. Bottom line: get this collection and enjoy the work of awesome storyteller, David Surface!

Thanks for visiting the Skullcave, if you enjoyed this review please consider subscribing and following us on social media to help more independent authors get more exposure and spread the word that Indy Horror Rocks! For more information about this book and other great titles from Lethe Press go to: www.lethepressbooks.com
For more information about David Surface and to sign up for his newsletter, Strange Little Stories, go to: www.davidsurface.net

About your reviewer:
When darkness falls Brian James Lewis becomes his alter ego, Skull, and burns the midnight oil reading and reviewing recent arrivals to his lair, the Skullcave! You can catch up with him on social media at: https://facebook.com/DamagedSkullWrit... where he’d really appreciate some follows to get more exposure for Indy horror writers and presses!
You can also find him on: X/Twitter@skullsnflames76
And we’re also on Goodreads and leave reviews on Amazon under the mortal’s name Brian James Lewis

[Anthony Watson · Rating 5 out of 5]

These Things That Walk Behind Me is the new collection of short stories from David Surface and is published by Lethe Press. I was a huge fan of David’s first collection, Terrible Things (and also his novel Angel Falls which he co-wrote with his wife Julia Rust) and so was looking forward to this new book very much. Sometimes too much expectation can result in disappointment but this most assuredly wasn’t the case here and These Things That Walk Behind Me delivers fourteen highly accomplished stories of weird fiction.
The title of the book is hugely evocative, conjuring images of entities lurking on the periphery of our vision, more likely than not with malign intent. Which is absolutely the case in the story which gives the collection its title. These entities are visible to Dean, the story’s narrator, courtesy of a kind of second sight, a “gift” which ultimately leads to a stay in a psychiatric ward wherein he discovers the true nature of the apparitions.
The germ of the idea for the story came from a personal experience of the author and this practical application of the “write what you know” tenet applies to a number of the other stories in the collection too, most notably The Armor of Light which uses David’s childhood memories of his father, who was a priest, to great effect. (Although it’s to be hoped that the supernatural prowess of the son in the story – as ambiguous as it may be – is fictional rather than based in reality). His father (or that of the narrator…) also makes an appearance in The Devil Will Be at the Door, possibly the most “traditional” of the ghost stories on display here, featuring as it does an actual haunted house. The priest/father character in this story provides a prologue of sorts, rather like John Houseman in John Carpenter’s The Fog, setting up the haunted house motif for the rest of the story.
Whilst that story is (partly) about facing up to the past – confronting childhood fears specifically – the opening story in the collection, Give Me Back My Name, features a character desperate on hiding his. It’s a mysterious story which deals with the subject of honesty within relationships – and the consequences of the lack of it – but also notions of identity. Loss of identity, of an awareness of oneself, is at the core of The Man Outside, the shortest of the stories in the collection but one which provides a real emotional punch.
Familial relationships, specifically parent/child dynamics, feature heavily. Most notably, this is seen the final story of the collection, The Skin You Were Born In, which, amidst its Sun Dance-esque rituals, is at heart a coming of age tale but one which breaks the mould of that particular trope by focusing on the emotions and innermost thoughts of the parent in the father/son relationship under scrutiny.
The fears expressed in that story are about what kind of man the son will become, the doubts the father has as to how well he has prepared him for his adult life. (Those preparations taken to extreme lengths it has to be said). This fear of being a bad parent is shared by the protagonist of Where The Monsters Are Lonely, adolescent guilt making him paranoid and damagingly over-protective towards his daughter.
Lost River Boys examines the impact of every parent’s worst fear: losing a child. The disappearance of a group of boys in caves next to the titular town at first brings the community together as they perform acts of remembrance but soon, as in all the best small towns, a dark secret begins to emerge…
Maya, the protagonist of Angelmutter, sees herself as a bad parent, even considers that her rescuing herself and her baby from an abusive relationship is an act of kidnapping. It’s to the author’s great credit that, when Maya pulls into a lonely gas station to seek help, the story goes in a completely different direction to that which readers might have been expecting.
The story veers towards the Cosmic come its conclusion and the same can be said for Little Gods to Live in Them, a Corporation Imposes Itself on Small Town With Horrific Consequences ™ story which put me in mind of King’s Needful Things and much of the early work of Bentley Little. Cosmic awe is even more apparent in the denouement of That The Sea Shall Be Calm, a slice of historical horror (which is a massive plus for me) which is presented as a series of diary entries from a scientist on board a sailing ship in the nineteenth century and which uses a figure from German nautical mythology to great effect.
Monsters are staples of Cosmic horror of course and a story which overtly features one is How The World Works. By his own admission, David has created very few monsters in his fiction – but when you’re as skilful at creating horror through atmosphere and suggestion you don’t really have to I guess – but this one is a corker, and with a very inventive raison d’etre.
The story, as many in the collection are, is told in first person, which of course raises the possibility of an unreliable narrator especially given the bizarre nature of the tale. (It might also explain an anachronism I think I spotted). It also features a relationship where one member is slightly in awe of the other, regarding them as much cooler. A similar dynamic is to be found in When the Circus in which country boy Danny moves to New York and encounters the ultra-cool guru Lenny who, it seems, is the font of all knowledge. I think this may be my favourite story in the collection, containing as it does an urban myth created especially for it by the author which allows for some startling imagery.
The imperative “don’t look!” has been employed effectively in tales of the fantastic from the legend of the gorgon to the opening of the Ark of the Covenant in Raiders of the Lost Ark - and much in between - and it has a significant part to play here too.
And it’s one I’ve ignored whilst writing this review obviously. Looking into the stories is all part of the process, discerning meaning and themes, allusions and metaphors. Which is very much part of the joy of reading David’s stories that are constructed in such a way as to invite analysis and interpretation. The stories in These Things That Walk Behind Me are, on the whole, apolitical, the main focus lying more in the relationships we form with each other (and the stories we tell to maintain them). It could be argued that the aforementioned The Skin You Were Born In has a political subtext in the way it addresses the patriarchy and also, to some extent, the right to be who you are irrespective of societal pressures, but the most overt political message is to be found in Small Black Eyes Like Stones which has as a main character an actual patriarch; entitled, arrogant and racist – an encapsulation of the worst of us, the frighteningly large number of individuals who now exist within society and whose votes are sought with zeal by the populist politicians who dominate the political landscape these days.
I loved this collection. The mark of a good story is that it has you thinking about it long after you’ve finished and that’s absolutely the case with many of the tales in this book. The horrors here are, on the whole, subtle – creating a sense of unease and, as mentioned earlier, open to different interpretations. (The story notes at the end of the book are very informative it has to be said).
The writing is crisp and confident and creates a real sense of atmosphere. Much of this is achieved by the use of sound; a subway suicide is heard, not seen in When the Circus; the hammering of the construction company in Little Gods to Live in Them and of the mysterious man rescued by the sailors in That The Sea Shall Be Calm are harbingers of the horrors to come, so too the sounds of an intruder in These Things That Walk Behind Me; the screams emanating from the haunted house in The Devil Will Be At The Door are terrifying, as are the wailing of tormented souls heard in… well, that would be telling. Much better to find out for yourself. This is a collection I highly recommend.

[Danielle Yvonne · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an absolutely incredible book. I’ve been reading a lot of collections this year, and I must say, they’ve all been amazing. And this one is definitely up at the top as well. With 14 short stories, there’s something for everyone.

The overall tone of the book is quite bleak, and really dark. In the best way possible. This was my first time reading David Surface, but certainly won’t be my last. I typically take each story one by one, but 14 could get daunting for the reader of this, lol. So I’ll highlight some of my favorite.

Give Me Back My Name:

“Rage—that was the first thing he felt. A wave of rage surging through his veins. Who was doing this? And why? It was horrible, some kind of cruel, sadistic joke.”

This story was a psychological mind penetration. I mean, this one REALLY messed with my head. The ENTIRE time. I don’t even think I got closure with the ending either, it was amazing. Obsessed with this story.

The Devil Will Be at the Door:

“The stories of ghosts and monsters that I loved were not so different from the stories I heard in church every week—miracles and curses, blood sacrifice, even the dead being raised up.”

When I mentioned above about the book having an overall bleak tone, in a good way. This story highlights that perfectly. It’s unsettling at best. It stunned me at times. With amazing prose, this story should be a hit with everyone.

The Outside Man:

“At least she’s not suffering. That’s what people said about the dead, wasn’t it? How do they know, he wondered.”

Isolation has become a big hit with me. So has grief. Now mix the two and you get this gem. It’s hard to say a lot without ruining this one, but it’s phenomenally done and will leave you staring at the wall in silence wondering wtf you just read.

When the Circus

“…There’s a lot of things you’ve never seen before. And you’re gonna wanna see all of them. But some things you don’t need to see. Maybe later, after you’ve been here a while. And some things… some things you don’t ever need to see.”

This was a huge stand out story for me as well. Very much a “look and die” type situation but damn, the story was curated brilliantly. Truly.

Lost River Boys

“Boys love forbidden places. Put a sign over the gates of Hell that says KEEP OUT and boys will run right into the fire, every time.”

This one had me saying “damn,” at every page turn. I wasn’t sure where this story was going at any given minute, but I wasn’t expecting it to go where it did. Once again, extremely bleak and incredible.

Overall I can’t praise this collection enough. Truly. It’s available on Godless and I implore you to go read and then tell me your favorites from the bunch! Such a great read and definitely a top 2025 book for me.

[James Bennett · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘These Things That Walk Behind Me’ by David Surface is a collection of 14 spooky, unsettling and occasionally brutal tales. With sharp, insightful and haunting prose, the author leads us through a sequence of weird traditions, supernatural entities and the lingering echoes of loss. Here, the bizarre and the otherworldly are given an emotional core that threads through a truly compelling collection.

Standouts for this reader were ‘The Devil Will Be At The Door’, in which we find a classic abandoned/haunted house yarn that while recognisable, won’t fail to send shivers up your spine. ‘How The World Works’ deals with friendship and absence juxtaposed with the inexplicable in a housesitting scenario – complete with creepiness in the basement. In ‘Lost River Boys’ a town grieves for the children missing in a local cave system by leaving them gifts, though dark secrets linger under the surface. The familiar, in these pages, is often turned on its head with aplomb.

Along with the intriguing title, the latter tale is typical of a collection that reflects ordinary life and everyday encounters, albeit with the whispers and hidden truths of the strange. The immediacy of first person narration builds a terrific connection whereby the stories draw you into these personal accounts where no one is to be trusted and nothing is quite what it seems. With sharp and economic prose, a literary flair and a rare emotional depth, ‘These Things That Walk Behind Me’ is a superb collection of tales for any discerning reader of horror and the weird.

[Clint · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I remember feeling shocked that there was still so much sunlight outside, that the sky hadn’t turned black already.” There are uncountable undercurrents of illumination within David Surface’s stories, moments where rippling light penetrates disfigured shadows, affording readers a reflective glimmer before the glow dims, obliging itself to darkness.

THESE THINGS THAT WALK BEHIND ME (Lethe Press, 2024), his second, may serve as an ideal entry point for Surface’s evolving body of work. There’s a continued reliability in quality his fans can trust—a trust that has been fostered following praise of his 2020 collection, TERRIBLE THINGS (Black Shuck Books), not to mention the literary fidelity of his newsletter project, STRANGE LITTEL STORIES. As a tale-teller, his dependability and writerly precision is why we come here to his work—“to be focused. And to be haunted.” (I’ve appropriated the previous line from his story, “The Man Outside,” which, in its climactic scene, contains an unsettling sequence, a depiction that lingers with electric irreality.)

With an introduction by John Langan, the fourteen pieces within THESE THINGS THAT WALK BEHIND ME are a stylistic and compassionate dissection of loss, duality, severance, and responsibility. And though Surface’s stories certainly compel readers to glance over their own shoulders—a curious inspection at the things that walk behind each of us in that familiar darkness—it’s best to keep one's eyes on the page.

[Christopher · Rating 5 out of 5]

In These Things That Walk Behind Me, David Surface gathers dark and haunting tales that explore the thin line between nightmares and daydreams. From unsettling encounters with the past to eerie whispers of otherworldly beings, each story lingers with a sense of dread and anticipation. A chilling exhibition you won't want to miss.

[Julia Rust · Rating 5 out of 5]

DARK, DISTURBING, and DELICIOUS!

Each of the stories in David Surface's wonderful new collection is like a dangerous, mysterious friend. Someone who takes you by the hand and leads you, step by step, into territory where you don't want to go. Something about the voice of his narrators makes you trust them, even as you realize something very bad is about to happen. Perfect for horror fans, weird fiction fans, and lovers of the literary.

**HIGHLY recommend!**