Our special Halloween issue has just crawled out and is making it’s way through letterboxes all over the World. Here’s a little peep at the contents….

Timothy Granville’s terrifying tale, ‘The Children’ resonates with that of the true accounts of the Enfield hauntings and the Battersea poltergeist – an exhausted mother notices strange and disturbing goings on surrounding her children; something their father does not wish to acknowledge, at first. In ‘Stick’ by Matthew G. Rees, a tenant of a dilapidated old cottage cannot pay his rent. Eviction is on the cards. One day, on a usual stroll along the beach, he finds a walking stick, then a pair of glasses and then he doesn’t seem quite so alone as before … Janice Leadingham’s superb ghost story of pearls and cats, ‘The Keeping of Pearls’, a lady buys a house, but soon after moving in it seems clear that the previous owner has not yet fully moved out, or on … a psychic convinces her the only way to solve the problem is by getting a cat. Verity Holloway’s ‘Fireman’, a ghost story set in the late 19th century aboard a ship, The Anvil, travelling through Portugal whose inhabitants are plagued with misfortune: accidents and strange visions. The ship’s doctor is overwhelmed. One patient reports seeing a man inside the furnace and the story unfolds with a delicious creepiness and mounting anxiety – not a good combination when aboard a ship … ‘Oasis’ by Anna Ojinnaka is a story set in the harsh and beautiful terrain of the desert. The lives of a married couple are shaken when one day she disappears only to reappear nine days later apparently unscathed – almost revitalised – by her experience but it soon becomes clear that something is very different about her, not least her appetite for meat and sex … Ashley Stokes’ brilliantly mind-bending story and future-folk horror, ‘Black Slab’ is a distorted tale – electric with paranoia – of a couple existing in a post apocalyptic bubble of madness, which is exacerbated by the arrival of a large black wardrobe. Well, we’ve all done it haven’t we? We’ve all ordered something we don’t need in a fit of desperation, right? In Mike Adamson’s eery timeslip tale, ‘The Heaviest Burden’ a thief-to-order is commissioned to steal a WWII document belonging to Hitler from an aviation museum, but as he gets closer to the task in hand things get really creepy and he is reminded of what once inhabited these museum artefacts … Simon John Parkin’s tale, ‘The Ran-tan Man’ tells of some squatters moving into an empty house, wreaking havoc with the neighbours. Something needs to be done about them so someone suggests they make a Ran-tan Man and try to oust them. But things take a very sinister turn in this Wickerman-esque folk-horror. Sinéad Persaud’s horror story, ‘Thread’, set against the backdrop of Victorian London and the Whitechapel murders, tells the tale of a dressmaker’s apprentice and her unfortunate and very unusual demise. Note: if you think a mannequin’s eyes are following you, they probably are … 

And if the stories weren’t enough ‘scare’ for you, this issue also includes a ‘Cut-out-and-keep’ Ouija board so you can summon your own spirits at home…

Order your copy for Halloween now: https://theghastling.com/the-ghastling-book-fourteen/

Enjoy!