Exciting news from IS&T founding editor Charles Christian:
This is The Quickest Way Down is a new collection of dark fantasy, dystopian sci-fi and urban gothic ghost stories by Ink Sweat & Tears‘ founding editor Charles Christian. According to an independent 5-star review on Amazon… “Christian has put together an intriguing collection of stories here. Its a short book, with eleven stories, but its a classic example of quality over quantity. What I will say is I love the way Christian writes. Its smooth and elegant without being overly literary. Sometimes it feels as though literary authors can be shoving how clever they are down your throat, but Christian eases you along and makes it very difficult to put the book down.”
The collection is published by Proxima Books, an imprint of Salt Publishing and is available on Amazon, price £8.99 or direct from the author.
Extract –
“I told you your Uncle Charlie would get us all back to the city safe and sound.”
And fast, I could have added. We’d had to leave Dereham in a hurry – the BMW was hot – in every sense of the word. And you know how bad some of these bloody Norfolk roads can be. For fuck’s sake, it’s the Twenty-First century yet some of them are still hardly much better than cart-tracks! I mean, what are we paying our taxes for? OK, strike that last remark, I’ve never knowingly paid a penny of tax in my life.
“Yeah,” says Mikey, “but I never know whether it’s Uncle Charlie driving the car – or the charlie that’s driving Uncle Charlie. You certainly cut it a bit close when you overtook that Merc coming off the dual-carriageway. You sure we didn’t hit it?”
“Ah shut the fuck up. Of course we didn’t. We’re back in our flat aren’t we?” I reply.
I say ‘our flat’ – actually we’re looking after it for the owner who works out in Dubai. Or Delhi. Or Durban. Anyway, somewhere foreign. At least that’s what we tell the neighbours when they complain about the noise, particularly when there’s a Canaries game on. Did I mention the apartment block conveniently overlooks the Carrow Road football ground? Besides, we’re doing it out of the kindness of our hearts – and not charging the guy a penny. In fact it’ll come as a total surprise to him when he finds out we’ve been staying here.
I get some tinnies of Newky Brown from the fridge, pass one to Mikey and toss the other to Jezza, the third member of our little group tonight. “Hey, Jez, you’re quiet – and as white as a sheet. What’s up, you seen a ghost or something?” I hear Mikey snigger in the background. “Get this beer down you,” I say, “it’ll put some colour back in your cheeks.”
“I’m not feeling too good,” says Jez, as he fiddles with the ring-pull on his beer-can, “I’m feeling cold, really, really cold.”
Mikey’s switched on the TV. Boring. Just some Anglia local news bulletin bleating on about the A47 being closed by a traffic accident. “Find something more exciting,” I say.
“I’m trying to,” says Mikey, stabbing at the remote control with his fingers – but the channels aren’t changing. “There’s something not right with the remote. Batteries must be dead,” he adds, as he starts trying to pull open the remote’s battery compartment.
“There’s also something not right with the ale,” says Jez. I take a swig from my tin. It does taste foul. Like it’s been left open for way too long and gone stale.
And there’s also something seriously not right with Jez.
As I look at him, his outline somehow changes, becomes less distinct, blurry I suppose. And then I see him begin to slowly fade before my eyes. I can even start to see the patterning, on the chair he’s slumped in, begin to show up right through him.
I look down at my own hands. Do a quick double-take and look again. Like some nightmare X-ray I can see the beer-can through my own increasingly transparent flesh. “What the fuck?” I say.
On the TV, the yellow headlines ticker at the bottom of the screen is now displaying a report saying the emergency services have just recovered three bodies from the wreckage of a stolen car.
I look back over to the couch where Mikey had been sitting. But Mikey has already gone.