Born in 1958, Simon Clark is a horror author from Yorkshire, England who has penned over 20 novels and countless short stories in his very successful career. His story “Goblin City Lights” won him a British Fantasy Award for Best Short Story in 2002. He won another British Fantasy Award (Best Novella) for Humpty Bones in 2011.
Simon’s stories always offer up a treasure trove of well-written, inventive terrors for his readers. I highly recommend them.
The Stories (Listed By Order of Publication):
“Gerassimos Flamotas: A Day in the Life” (1993) – A destitute father accepts an offer to allow his young, mentally handicapped daughter to spend an afternoon on a yacht with a rich man, not knowing precisely why. While he does receive the cash, the price he pays is the nightmarishly altered way his daughter is returned to him. This one is short and quite horrific.
“… Beside the Seaside, Beside the Sea …” (1985) – Something deadly, which takes the appearance of an attractive young woman, arrives in a seaside resort town.
“Swallowing A Dirty Seed” (1997) – A widowed man is surprised when a couple show up seeking food and shelter at the remote cabin in Wales he recently moved to. They appear to have undergone some traumatic experience which they avoid talking about. He obliges them and learns how their recent misfortune came about, as well as the source of their abject fear. This is a very intriguing story which involves the surrounding trees and an innocent mistake they made.
“The Derelict of Death” by Simon Clark and John B. Ford (1998) – The crew of the Jenny Rose notices what appears to be a giant, leering face on the horizon and a dark ship which floats out from it. Once they get close enough, they see it’s a derelict named Death. After a group of them board it, screams are heard and they do not return. There’s a lot more strange things in store for the Jenny Rose as the tale continues. This is one of the strangest, and best, sea stories I’ve ever read. It’s fantastic! You can read it here for free: https://williamhopehodgson.wordpress.com/2012/09/21/the-derelict-of-death-by-ford-and-clark/
“The Coniston Star Mystery” (2011) – A beautiful young woman convinces a pair of treasure hunters to join her as they dive to the wreck of a ship that went down in 1910. It sunk during a publicity stunt where a famous escape artist named Iskander Carvesh let himself be strapped to the ship alone in the water during a lightning storm. He went down with the ship. The woman says she often goes out in her canoe, letting her hands drift in the water where something reaches up from below to touch them. This is an excellent, spooky tale that reminded me of the anthology ghosts story comic books I used to read.
“The Shakespeare Curse” (2012) – A woman becomes concerned after her rather childish husband discovers a secret door hidden in the bedroom of the house they’ve recently purchased in Stratford-upon-Avon. The door has the phrase “Despair and die” painted on it (a quote from Shakespeare’s “Richard the Third”). What they find behind that door hints at something terrible which occurred there hundreds of years ago.
“The Rhubarb Festival” (2014) – A man is the only one who can see and talk with the ghost of a boy who was his best friend when he was young. The boy mysteriously vanished when, on a dare, he and some friends ran through some long dark huts where rhubarb plants are forced to grow. This event has haunted the man’s entire life and now he’s returned to the Rhubarb Festival, complete with a cartoonish mascot named Ruby Rhubarb.
“Running The Nerve Ghost” (2021) – Trapped in a sanitarium after recovering from a long illness and a coma, a young man named Edward befriends another patient called Piggy. Piggy says he’s discovered something in the lower regions of the sanitarium and takes Edward there. It turns out to be a crypt filled with deceased young people. A powerful, brutish specter appears and comes after them, grabbing Piggy and running off to the surrounding forest. This is an intriguing tale that hits tones both of dark fantasy and of horror.
Article by Matt Cowan
Horror Delve 