This issue is, I warn, far more gruesome than the previous three – far more ‘Grimmsian’ where the family unit is troubling, unsettling, terrifying even, and far from the bosom nest of comfort and love. These stories cut close to the bone of life: our internal conflicts, our demons, our dark sides; that little bit of wickedness that most of us, thankfully, are able to keep a lid on… These stories are a sequence of nightmares that are sure to delight your ghoulish minds:

Carly Holmes’ macabre tale, Dropped Stitches, resonates with Grimms’ about a girl born with an extra two fingers on each hand…

Mordechai Lazarus’ Butcher’s Stump is a horrifying tale of religious piety, folkloric in narrative, the story of a Butcher and his son that uncovers the chilling consequences of rebelling against your parent’s wishes – and being caught out…

Subashini Navaratnam’s disturbing tale of motherhood nods to far Eastern mythologies and folklore – beware of those assuming the female form, the shapeshifters we must be careful of around these parts. Horror at its best.

Nigel Jarrett’s ghost story tells of ‘bringing back’ more than you find as strange occurrences unfold during an archaeological dig. Something else wanted to be found…

Kirstin Mckenzie Berge’s story of a statue at the centre of a child’s game. Those stories that are passed down through generations – those dares we set with the things we are told to fear – by what, or whom- we don’t know, that’s just the way it’s always been and we’ve all been that child afraid to look, afraid to turn around…

Drew Buxton’s Bat Boy set on a remote farm in America will have you suspended in a state of tension to the very end. Beware of bats falling from the sky…

Matt Milone’s The Bereaved is a highly evocative and deeply moving tale of a future where the dead aren’t necessarily buried…

Louise Lloyd’s Mortus Sum where a young boy playing alone near a mausoleum by his house loses his ball. When he retrieves it, he finds more than just the ball, a spectre pursues…

A.S. Ford’s Burking explores the grubby gruesome world of Victorian graverobbers.

Chris Lambert’s peculiar and clever story, The Patient, where a husband believes his wife might actually be a ghost. Tip: paying attention has never been so important…

E.M. Edwards House on Sea Street tells the tale of an old sea captain’s haunting…

All of these stories will delight you, and some will likely keep you awake at night and perhaps we might consider, there are far more horrors, far more to fear in the living than the dead…

and it doesn’t do to ignore your nightmares…

Enjoy?

The Ghastling: Book Four [UK inc. P&P]  £10.00

The Ghastling: Book Four [Europe inc. P&P] £14.00

The Ghastling: Book Four [Rest of World inc. P&P] £16.00