Welcome to the haunted and peculiar world of Book 17. This issue is guaranteed to slip you a bit of the weird, the uncomfortable, the creepy, topped up with a garnish of terror. I think it’s what we all need right now – a little distraction, a little something fun to raise the heart-rate and set our imaginations alight. The stories within will twist your perspective and leave you with a funny feeling in your gut. That’s fear for you. 

In Warren Benedetto’s ‘Uncle Pumpkin’s Tongue’, a seemingly innocent fairground ride turns into something revoltingly sinister – you wouldn’t want your kids having a go on that ride… but the fairground: is it ever really a safe place for children? In Paul Buchanan’s thoroughly disturbing tale, ‘The Bynum Girl’, a community anticipates the release of one of its most terrifying members: a girl who once tormented them all. They prepare for the worst, wondering, will she ever really be safe enough to be let out…?  JP Relph’s mind bending story, ‘Delirus’, tells of a doll, kept out of sight in the basement of a house gathering dust. She is discovered by a little girl who becomes quite taken with her. But what the little dolly harbours inside will make your skin crawl… Reggie Chamberlain-King’s, ‘Living With It’, is a deeply troubling story of a mother unravelling in her domestic surroundings. Has she really just committed the most unmotherly act? Where is her son, really? Rory Say’s thought provoking story, ‘The Other Door’, tells of a boy who keeps finding a door in strange places, but one that he cannot ever open. In Mark Blayney’s, eerie story, ‘Coin, Mirror, Manoeuvre’, a man lives alone in the woods surrounded by his memories of an unrecognisable past – familiar, yet, unfamiliar. Something utterly life-changing has happened, but what? And which version of events is correct… ? ‘The Catafalque’ by Victoria Dowd is a spine-chilling story of a couple who convert a disused chapel, novel indeed, but is it ever a good idea to use a catafalque as a dining table? In Eve Chancellor’s story inspired by true events, ‘The Resurrection Man’, a corpse-hauler delivering freshly dead bodies receives a visit from someone unexpected prompting a series of disturbing events. It is 1916 in Neil A. Wilson’s, ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’, and an invalid soldier is convalescing in Marsham Hall after a mustard gas attack. He should be improving but the nightmares keep leaking in, getting worse, almost as though something is tormenting him on purpose… 

I do hope you enjoy these nine brilliant stories from both new and seasoned Ghastling authors. And thanks to each and every one of you for purchasing a copy of this magazine – we appreciate you to the grave and back!

Buy HERE: https://theghastling.com/the-ghastling-book-seventeen/