Ghosts and Grisly Things (1998) by Ramsey Campbell

Twenty stories from 1978 -1998

Readers unfamiliar with Ghosts and Grisly Things may wish to read my notes only after reading the collection.

“The Same in Any Language” (1991) is a closely observed vacation horror story. Ten-year-old Hugh gets a much-anticipated tour of Greece and nearby islands, but is stuck with a "joke-loving" dad who loathes any person, place, or situation outside the UK (and probably quite a few there, too). The story observes Hugh, his dad, and dad's girlfriend Kate as they visit Spinalonga, an offshore island once used as a leprosarium. The ride in a small boat in the "hour twixt dog and wolf" gives Campbell plenty of time to play with shadows and misinterpreted glimpses. But as soon as the sun sets, the island's tunnels and ruined housing structures, its walls and grave-shaped excavations, shift to black-shadowed points of ambush. Voices echo and deceive; certainties about directions - and the actual identity of companions sharing a gravel path - erode.

As was the case with L.P. Hartley's superb story "Podolo," not everyone will make it back to the mainland alive.

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“Going Under” (1995) Blythe picks the wrong day to join a charity walk through a tunnel under the Mersey River. And the wrong day for a force 10 nervous breakdown. His fellow walkers assume the role of flagellants cast from a series of Daumier prints. Within the confines of the tunnel Campbell creates a mad cacophony of voices, bodies, and maddening bodily contacts. Tactile horror, not to mention body horror, at its most subtle.

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“The Alternative” (1994) is about a man (named Highton) who has a successful life as husband, father, and accountant for slumlords. But in dreams at night Highton is an unemployed electrician who cannot even provide a tv for the family apartment in a squalid housing project; his teen daughter turns tricks to pay for her younger brother's drug habit.

The dream Hightons live in a property owned by one of the waking Hightons’ clients, the despicable O'Mara. Successful Highton becomes increasingly obsessed with the idea that his dream family actually lives at the property. When he takes a step to reach out to them with cash, the act destabilizes waking life: good fortune flows from one existence to another.