Mammoth Books presents That Haunted Feeling: Six short stories by Barbara Roden, Reggie Oliver & M.R. James, Chris Bell, Richard Christian Matheson, John Gaskin and Michael Kelly
About this ebook
Out and Back by Barbara Roden
An abandoned amusement park attracts unwary thrill seekers
The Game of Bear - Reggie Oliver & M. R. James
Reggie Oliver completes M. R. James' unfinished classic.
Shem-el-Nessim: An Inspiration in Perfume - Chris Bell
Venturi - Richard Christian Matheson
Party Talk - John Gaskin
Princess of the Night - Michael Kelly
About the author
Out and Back - Barbara Roden
"My cousin-by-marriage Sean Lavery, knowing my love for weird and outré websites, sent me a link to the Dark Roasted Blend site (www.darkroastedblend.com)," reveals the Barbara Roden, "where I found several pages featuring photographs of abandoned places.
"My imagination was fired by pictures taken at Chippewa Lake Park in Medina, Ohio, which opened in 1878 and was abandoned in 1978, with the buildings and rides left to rot where they stood, and I began looking around for some information about the park.
"I've always had a fondness for amusement parks, ever since I was a child visiting Vancouver's Pacific National Exhibition with my father and my brother: an annual trip which was one of the red-letter days on my childhood calendar. The photographs of Chippewa Lake Park were equal parts eerie and sad, for anyone who has ever thrilled to the sights and sounds of a midway, and the story sprang, almost fully-formed, into my head; one of the few times that's happened."
To see some of the pictures that inspired the following story, visit:www.defunctparks.com/parks/OH/ChippewaLake/chippewa-lake.htm.
The Game of Bear - Reggie Oliver & M. R. James
Shem-el-Nessim: An Inspiration in Perfume - Chris Bell
"Shem-el-Nessim' (subtitled 'An Inspiration in Perfume') was inspired by a real perfume of that name," reveals Chris Bell, "or at least by a framed advertisement for it that once hung in my girlfriend's parents' house. Now that we live together, it hangs above our bed.
"The story took a year to write. I began making notes in England in 2005. When I discovered more advertisements and packaging by J. Grossmith & Son, Distillers of Perfumes (the firm fictionalized in the story) on the Internet, Stan Tooprig, the mystery woman and the Cairo Gazette journalist narrator came alive.
"In a piece of synchronicity in the real world, Grossmith Ltd was recently resurrected and its managing director contacted me to ask how I came to write 'Shem-el-Nessim'. 'It was partly because of your description of Stan Tooprig in the story that I thought you had some special insight into the Grossmith family,' said Simon Brooke, a Grossmith descendant himself."
Venturi - Richard Christian Matheson
"Nineteenth-century physicist G.B. Venturi discovered a compressive phenomenon which effects fire, moving through a canyon, causing the flames to be intensified, feeding upon themselves," Matheson explains. "This acceleration, called the 'Venturi Effect', is as apt a metaphor for paranoia as I have encountered.
"When my own house in Malibu burned down, some years back, my senses altered. As fires ate hillsides and smoke drowned sun, I was forced to evacuate in twenty minutes and ultimately lost everything. I even watched my house go up in flames, on the TV news - a surreal pain.
"The loss awakened me to signs of oncoming fire - rising wind, distant scents of smoke, angry glows on mountains that rim the bay. To this day, even a burning cigarette, anywhere nearby, triggers a vigilant circuit within me.
"I still live in Malibu, aside its dreamy spell, but am never as completely at ease here as I once was. When winds convulse and fire engines wail, my heart races and I know everything could change."
Party Talk - John Gaskin
Princess of the Night - Michael Kelly
Michael Kelly recalls: "The genesis of 'Princess of the Night' is a little murky. It was written for an anthology of Halloween tales. Alas, it didn't make it into the book.
"The tale then sold to a slick new professional magazine, where it promptly languished for four years until the magazine (which published four issues, I believe) folded before publication. I forgot about the story for a while. Then, one day, as I was looking through my files for possible stories to include in a new collection, I chanced upon it again."
