So happy to WELCOME BACK Author Michael Bray today and hear all bout his latest endeavor into the realm of horror! It's a frightfully fun anthology called (appropriately enough) Funhouse.
Here is some info. on Michael and Funhouse and then we will have an excerpt from one story as well as a full short story on another (very generous of Michael)!
About Michael Bray
Michael Bray is a Horror author based in Leeds, England. Influenced from an
early age by the suspense horror of authors such as Stephen King, and the
trashy pulp TV shows like Tales From The Crypt & The Twilight Zone, he
started to work on his own fiction, and spent many years developing his style.
In May 2012, he signed a deal with the highly reputable Dark Hall Press to
print and distribute his collection of interlinked short stories titled Dark
Corners, which was released in September 2012. His second release was a Novella
titled MEAT which was initially self-published before being picked up by J.
Ellington Ashton Press. His first full length novel, a supernatural horror
titled Whisper was initially self-published, and following great critical
acclaim, sold to Horrific Tales publishing where it went on to reach as high as
#3 in the amazon paid best sellers list.
EXCERPT - CANDYLAND
“So, what ya think of Candyland?” Clayton asked.
“It’s different to what I’m used to.”
“You from
the city?”
“Yeah. L.A.”
“We manage to avoid all the troubles of the wider world
here in Candyland. Nobody really notices us out 'ere on our slice of the world.”
“You must have some kind of trade though, right?”
Clayton glared, and again, Norton saw that little flicker
of pure rage bubbling beneath the surface.
“Actually, ma family have worked 'ard to make sure
Candyland remains entirely self-sufficient. We look after our own, and are
quite happy for the world to go on without knowing we exist.”
Nobody knows
I’m here.
It was the first time such a thought had entered Norton’s
head, and the reason for it was simple.
Clayton Candy scared him.
As a physical presence, he wasn’t in the least bit
intimidated, but there was something
about him that was making the hairs on the back of Norton’s neck stand up as
they picked their way through the crowd. He no longer wanted to speak to
Clayton, and with Christine’s words still fresh, he turned to Herb.
“Mind if I ask what happened?”
Herb opened his mouth, but before he could speak, Clayton
interjected.
“Ol' Herb 'ere had a nasty fall around twenty years back.
Broke his spine in three places.”
Norton looked at Clayton, searching his face for any hint
of a lie.
“Can't Herb speak for himself?”
“Oh he can, but he doesn’t like to say much these days. Do
ya Herb?”
“No, Mr Candy sir.” Herb said, looking at Norton with such
desperation, that he decided not to push the subject.
The trio walked back past the barbecue, which despite
everything still smelled as good as ever. Norton could see the blue paintwork
of the caddy, glittering in the sunlight, and his mood lifted at the thought of
leaving such a backwards little town behind.
“Oh my…”
Norton’s Cadillac was exactly where he had left it,
except now it was without wheels. They had all been removed, and the car was
propped up on bricks.
“God damn it! God
damn kids!” Clayton raged, looking into the throng of people at the fete.
“Messin’ with our guests like this, wait till I get my
hands on the little bastards…”
For all of Clayton’s flapping and making a show of his
dissatisfaction, Norton was more interested in Herb’s reaction.
Unlike Clayton, he didn’t seem in the least bit
surprised.
For the next few hours, Clayton made a song and dance
about trying to find out who had removed Norton’s wheels. He stalked around the
fete, asking questions, and demanding answers. Norton was certain that the
entire performance was for his benefit. He leaned against his car, watching
Clayton stalk around the fete, and keeping a watchful eye on the sun as it
started to get lower in the sky.
“Mr Norton?”
He looked at Herb.
“Yeah?”
At first, he didn’t respond. He simply sat in his
wheelchair, chewing at his filthy, overgrown thumbnail. Just when Norton
thought that he had only imagined Herb speak, the old man looked at him, his
eyes wide and frightened.
“This is how it always goes.”
“How what goes?”
“'Ere in
Candyland. It always works like this.”
“What is it Herb? Tell me what to do and I can help you.”
The old man smiled without humour and shook his head.
“Ain’t nobody 'ere who can help you, me or anyone else.”
“As soon as I get back on the road, I’ll come back. I’ll
bring help.”
“You don’t get it do ya son?” Herb said as he held
Norton’s gaze. “You ain’t never getting outta Candyland now.”
FULL SHORT STORY - THE BOY WHO SAW SPIDERS
The party on Pointer Street
was where Andy had planned to tell Jenny how he felt, and perhaps take the next
step in their relationship. But now, any idea of such things had evaporated,
disappeared into the ether as he sat and tried to come to terms with the
situation. He tried to regain focus, but it was no good.
All he could think about
were the spiders.
When he arrived at the
party that night, he was just like everybody else. An average, run of the mill
student who didn’t really excel at anything in particular, and had made an
academic career of remaining almost completely anonymous. However, none of that
mattered. Not anymore. He chewed at his
bottom lip, scratched at his greasy mop of brown hair, and tried to make sense
of it all. He was perched on the end of the sofa, his beer long forgotten and
clutched in his hand, as he
watched the spiders scurrying over the carpet and skittering across the walls
with horrible, jerky urgency. They were far too numerous to even attempt trying
to count. The big ones were hanging back in the corners, peering out from the
dark places and watching, their smaller, olive-sized cousins were bolder, and
exploring the room as if the throng of people were nothing more than enormous
lumbering obstacles.
He took a slow, dazed look
around the room and wondered why nobody else was making a fuss. He would have
expected screams or panicked yelps of disgust, but with sick realisation, he
understood why.
Only he could see them.
He reflexively curled his toes
as one darted past his shoe and into Melissa Freese’s Handbag. Melissa didn’t
notice, she was too busy jawing with that smart mouthed, pig faced friend of
hers — Alison something-or-other — who was blathering on and on about some
personal injustice that had conflicted with her narrow minded view of the
world. He looked to his left. On the
opposite side of the sofa, Jonny Marshall, and whichever unfortunate girl’s
face he was chewing off, were slobbering as they groped at each other and
tongue wrestled in the way that horny teens did.
One thing for certain was
that the pair hadn’t noticed the spiders either – even the one that was working
its way into Jonny's ear, its thin legs kicking and scrabbling for purchase as
it delved deeper. Completely oblivious, Jonny and his date continued swapping
spit and feeling each other up. Andy
half wanted to warn him, but Jonny was a jock, and more than that, he was an
arrogant, bullying son of a bitch who was at his happiest making the less
gifted, less attractive, less ‘Jonny’ type kids’ lives miserable.
Fuck him.
Let it burrow.
He saw a flicker of
movement, whipped his head around just in time to see it, and immediately
wished he hadn’t. He watched as a plump,
ugly looking funnel web spider darted into an open pack of Cheetos that were on
the table. Once again, he had half an urge to call out and tell someone, but
held his silence. Other than Jenny, he didn’t really care for anyone at the
party anyway, and none of them were people who he could actually call friends.
They were just acquaintances, some of which he barely knew. So he swallowed his
words and watched in morbid fascination
as
Chip Denning — who if rumor
was to be believed, preferred boys to girls and had a homophobe of a brother
who would break your teeth if you ever asked about it — picked up a handful of
the cheesy snack. Andy saw the plump spider wriggling as Chip shoved the
snacks, spider, and all, into his mouth and crunched down, then turned back to
his conversation.
Andy’s stomach quivered a
little, and he suddenly wanted to run away from both spiders and classmates
alike, but he knew he would never be able to pluck up the courage. He was also
sure that if he tried, his legs would refuse to cooperate, and he would be left
standing like an idiot frozen to the spot.
And they would know.
The spiders that only he
could see.
He
became
conscious of the fact that he was holding his breath, and let it out slowly.
His eyes flicked to the door, the thought of escape still lingering in his
mind, but even if he could move, what he saw made the point moot, as that route
was already being cut off.
Hundreds — no, thousands
of the spiders were constructing an intricate web which covered the entire
doorway.
The scale of it was too
much to bear, and he forced himself to turn away. His stomach lurched, and he
let out a shallow, booze-flavored belch. It was only then that he noticed the
bottle of Budweiser still clutched in his fist, and he took a long, grateful
swig, just about managing to keep his trembling hand steady enough to get the
bottle to his lips. It was warm and flat, but made him feel better
nonetheless.
Still the party went on.
Still the spiders
scurried.
Dale Thompson crossed the
room, standing in front of Andy with a distracted, uncomfortable look on his
acne-ravaged face.
“Hey Andy, you drinking that or what?” Thompson said
pointing to the bottle clutched in Andy’s hand.
“Uh...Yeah. No... I don’t think so.” Andy replied,
unable to rationalise his thoughts.
“Mind if I have it?”
“No, go ahead.” Andy mumbled, handing Dale the barely
touched, too warm beverage.
“Thanks. Take it easy Andy.”
“Yeah. You too.” He said as he watched Dale swagger
away.
Dale’s T-shirt was
swarming with hundreds of spiders, crawling over and under each other as they explored
their host’s portly frame.
How could he not have noticed? Andy wondered, and as he
considered the question, that little voice — the one that went so often ignored
– popped up in his mind.
Dale can’t see them because they aren’t there. Not
really. But you already know that, don’t you?
The thought sparked
another question, which presented itself in his inner monologue with much less
subtlety.
Am I insane?
He considered the
question. He was nineteen. Reasonably intelligent, no history of mental-health
problems. In fact, life had been pretty uneventful until he arrived at the
party that night. But no matter how he tried to spin it, there was no
explanation for them.
The spiders.
They were now everywhere,
swarming out from behind furniture, and covering almost every wall and surface.
He glanced at Andrea Gill, she who had cheated in last month’s
chemistry exam by reading his answers. He had let her, because he didn’t care.
He was going places, and regardless of her cheating ways, the Andrea Gill’s of
the world were destined to become single parents, welfare scrounging fuck-up
losers for life.
He watched in fascination
as a fat house spider with disproportionately long, spindly legs scurried up
her body, finally coming to rest in her hair. One thin black leg clung onto her
cheek as the spider paused above her ear.
Andrea carried on talking
to her friends, none of them spotting the new addition to the party.
Yes.
He thought to himself as
he looked at the table full of half-eaten buffet food, now pulsing and flexing
with a life of its own as the arachnid mass explored the fleshy sandwiches and
small containers of dips and breadsticks.
Yes indeed.
He supposed that the
little voice in his head might be right. He could well have lost the plot, gone
mad, bought himself a ticket to the funny farm, lost a few vital sandwiches out
of the picnic basket. Because the world ticked on as normal, but for him, it
was filled with spiders.
Spiders here, spiders there, spiders everywhere.
He felt a shrill, giddy laugh
begin to move up to his throat, and he knew that if he let it out they would
hear, and like the words smallest army they would come for him. He knew it as a
certainty.
The laugh was close now,
and he lifted a clenched fist to his mouth and bit down hard enough to draw a
little blood and make his eyes water. The pain didn’t bother him though, in
fact, he welcomed it, because the laugh had gone, and the status quo was
maintained.
He started to relax, and
then drew a sharp breath.
There was one of them perched
on his knee.
He looked at it, too
afraid to swat it away, and
the spider looked back. He
could feel its glassy multi eyed stare boring into him, and could do no more
than wait to see what would happen.
It was as if time had
stopped, and even though the party and its oblivious guests went on with the
business of drinking, pairing off and trying to boost their popularity, his
world was no more than the small square of denim on his left knee.
The spider skittered
forwards, just a few inches, but it was enough to make Andy try to push himself
back into the sofa. He was going to scream. He knew it and knew there was no
way that he would be able to stop it this time.
When it came, he knew he would be gone — his mind broken as he fell into
the black hole of perpetual insanity – but at the last second, the spider
changed direction and ran instead off his leg and down out of sight into the
dark place between the seat cushions.
He felt sick and saw small
white spots dancing in front of his eyes. He was going to faint, and knew he
couldn’t allow it to happen, because if he did they would come for him.
He laughed.
A short, shrill, cackle
which went unheard amid the thumping bass and the constant stream of party
chatter. Yes, he was sure of it. Something in his brain was defective.
Something had broken, and now he could see them everywhere. He imagined how his
life would be; living in his own personal world filled with spiders.
He heard a groan. Jonny’s
date had come up for air, and when she smiled, thousands of tiny newborn
spiders streamed out of her mouth and nose, covering her face and neck as they
looked for dark places to shelter.
The terror bubbling in
Andy’s guts told him that his brain was on the verge of shutting up shop and
refusing to play ball, and so he closed his eyes, trying to regain a little
composure and maybe bring himself under a modicum of control, but even that was
no good.
Because even with his eyes
closed he could still see them, cast in stark white negative on the blank
canvas of his mind’s eye. He blinked away the image and found that his reality
was only marginally better than the squirming, scurrying mass that lived in his
brain.
He glanced towards the
corner of the room, and when he saw it — saw her, he felt something break, a sharp click as whatever small thread had been connecting him to his
sanity snapped.
Jenny was slumped in the
corner.
Jenny.
The girl he had known
since they were four-year-old neighbors.
Jenny who had always seen
him as more of a friend than the more serious thing that he one day hoped they
would become.
Jenny who had brought him
to the party, even though it was a place where a quiet, reserved kid like him
wouldn’t have otherwise been invited.
However, all of that was
before the spiders.
Her petite frame was
swollen, chin resting on her chest. As he watched and his broken mind processed
what was in front of him, he knew without doubt that he was irreversibly
damaged.
He could see them moving under her skin, making it ripple and
pulse, and bizarrely reminding him of childhood trips to the coast and the way
the tides ebbed and flowed as they crept up the beach. They were streaming out
of her nose and ears, and as he watched, her mouth slowly opened and a huge,
thick-limbed monster of a spider pushed its way out. Andy had seen them on
T.V.
Bird eaters.
He was sure that’s what
they were called.
The huge spider dragged
its immense body out of her gaping mouth, and flopped down on to her chest
where it stood in splayed legged triumph. Andy was beyond screaming, beyond
anything other than looking on with a sick and twisted fascination.
She’s the queen, and Jenny was her nest.
The thought danced, darted
and spun in Andy’s mind, and when he couldn’t make any rational sense out of
it, it danced and spun some more. He wanted to ask what it wanted. Why him?
What did he ever do to deserve this?
But he couldn’t move, and
his mouth remained tightly closed as still more of them came – a never-ending
procession from every conceivable place in the room.
His skin itched, and his
stomach danced as he tried to put the situation into some kind of order. But
his brain wasn’t cut out for dealing with such horror, and so it had decided to
leave Andy to his own devices.
He saw Jenny move, and for
a moment, there was hope, hope that she was ok, hope that he could get her out
of there and maybe then she would look at him in the same way he looked at her.
But it wasn’t Jenny that
was moving, not really.
It was the spiders.
The spiders in their Jenny
skin that were going about their business and making her loll and dance like a
macabre marionette.
Spiders.
Spiders Spiders Spiders
He would do anything. Anything to avoid having to watch the
jerky, skittish way that they moved in that horrible, stop start motion.
Anything to avoid having to watch the spider filled Jenny puppet that pulsed
and rippled along to the bass line of the party.
You know what it’s going to take. You know what you
have to do.
The voice in his head
whispered, and he did. As terrifying as the thought was, it was the only way.
He lurched out of his seat with a defiant roar and did it before he could
change his mind.
His scream brought the
party to a halt. The music cut out and his fellow classmates, students,
friends, and those that he was indifferent to were looking at him. He could
feel their judging gaze, and found a bitter irony that for the first time in
his life, he wasn’t an anonymous face. He was finally the center of attention.
The silence was broken by
a single high-pitched scream. He thought it might have been Andrea Gill — she
of the over the shoulder wandering eye on test days, but couldn’t be sure.
Whoever it was; they set off a chain reaction, and the silence morphed into chaos.
Andy simply stood where he
was and smiled. Because although the sounds of the screams were loud, at least
they were natural. They were normal, everyday things that he could rationalise
and make sense of.
He thought that the world
made more sense when it was rational. And he thought that he would be just fine
now that it was done. He began to laugh, a sound rich and hearty and full,
because he had won.
The chaos was a thick,
heavy thing and seemed to hang in the air like a physical entity. Yet, amid the
confusion, he heard several distinct things.
Someone shouting for help.
Someone else repeating ‘oh god, oh god, oh god’ like
it was some kind of bizarre mantra.
Someone quite close to him, crying.
He thought it might have
been Jenny, and hoped that it was, because that would mean he had saved her. He
would have looked for himself, but he had already torn out his own eyes.
He continued to laugh as
the sound of police sirens drew close.
Thanks so much for joining us today, Michael. All the very best of luck to you and please join us again soon.
In the meantime, here are links to purchase Funhouse and follow Michael Bray's latest exploits?
