All nightmare long, p.1
All Nightmare Long, page 1
Table of Contents
All Nightmare Long
INTRODUCTION
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
IN STONE
TRICK OF THE LIGHT
CLOWN’ S KISS
RELICS
SOLE SURVIVORS
SKIN AND BONE
STRINGS
STRANGE CURRENTS
A MAN WALKING HIS DOG
EMBERS
FLOTSAM
INTO THE DEATH ZONE
EMERGENCE
LAND OF MANY SEASONS
THE LONELY WOOD
IN THE DUST
MAY THE END BE GOOD
SLEEPER
THE GLEEFUL ONES
THE FLOW
THE PROTECTOR
CARRIED AWAY ON A SUNBEAM
SEARCHING FOR THE ROOM YOU CAN NEVER FIND
STORY NOTES
STORY CREDITS
ALL NIGHTMARE LONG
Tim Lebbon
Introduction by Sarah Pinborough
For Dad
1931-2021
INTRODUCTION
I have known Tim Lebbon for over twenty years now. That’s a mind-blowing amount of time and yet it has passed in the blink of an eye. One minute you’re the young guns of the genre and the next you’re the old guard and wondering what the hell TikTok is and how are people using it to sell books.
Tim and I started out together really, he was a couple of years ahead in publishing terms, and I still call him Bruv because he was like a big brother to me back around 2003/4 when I was starting out. He told me which cons to go to, he introduced me to people, we drank and smoked (he didn’t do triathlons then—as an aside, reader, I had to look up how to spell that word!) and talked about conquering the world and creeping people out with our stories.
Twenty something years on, we still have those conversations. Tim is still as ambitious and fired up as he was when I first met him in person, in a pub in Wales, at his launch for The Nature of Balance. He’s still as excited about work, as driven, as relentless as he was then. But has he changed? Sure. Everyone does. We get older. More knots in the wood. Time has more meaning now. We’ve seen more changes in the world, the people around us, the lives we live.
Tim’s writing has changed too. I was a fan of his early work and I’m still a fan now, especially of his short form writing. Tim has a real knack with novellas and short stories that I’m quite envious of, and he clearly loves writing them.
How can I describe this collection? I guess, grown up, springs to mind. I remember reading Stephen King’s Hearts in Atlantis when it came out and loving it but thinking, this is grown up Stephen King, and I had the same feeling reading the stories in this collection. Tim’s grown up.
Are the stories still creepy? Oh yes, of course. Clown’s Kiss in particular absolutely terrified me with its quietly building dread. Tim Lebbon can do creepy all day—or night—long. But now his tales are not about the jump scares or potential boogeymen under the bed. These are stories that chill, I feel. Like reading an M.R James short story before bed and thinking, that wasn’t too bad, and then staring at the ceiling in the dark as your skin prickles with the aftereffects. That’s how I felt reading these. And so of course I read them before bed and let my skin prickle.
But I found that the after-effects weren’t just the prickling of my skin. They’re rich these stories, thick with things learned through the passing of time. The ache of loss. The pain of mourning—mourning of a person, a place, a time gone by, a person we once were. The ghosts that walk with the living who grow closer as we age. The loss of things we realise we may never have, that in the flush of youth seemed so close within grasp. This is a grown-up collection and it deals with grown up themes. These stories have been written by a man in the decade between his forties and fifties—the move from young to middle-aged—and Tim has clearly mined the seam of emotions that comes in that decade when curating this collection.
The titles of the stories he’s chosen reflect these themes too—Relics, Skin & Bone, In the Dust, May the end be Good—the phrases ache with a sense of the inevitable march of time and how we change with its heavy footsteps.
There is nothing complacent and middle-aged here. Thoughtful, skilled and crafted, yes. I would even say elevated. All that drive and energy that Tim had when I first met him is still there in these stories, but now they’re written with a defter hand. With more experience behind them. With more life and loss bound into the words.
Yes, we’re older. Yes, we’re more weighed down with the problems of life and the ticking of the clock than we were when we first met all those years ago. But for Tim at least, nothing in his storytelling has slowed. He’s maturing like a fine wine. His tales are richer and deeper and more full-bodied. So, pour yourself a glass and take a seat. Sip this book or down it in one, whichever way is your preference, you’re in for a heady experience.
And it will last All Nightmare Long.
Sarah Pinborough
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
A big thanks to all the editors who first bought or commissioned the stories contained in this collection. And huge hugs to all the very great friends I’ve made through writing––too numerous to mention without the risk of missing some out, but you know who you are. Honestly, there are no better people on the planet, and I feel blessed.
Eternal gratitude to my lovely wife Tracey, and kids Ellie and Dan. Yeah, okay, they’re 23 and 18 now, but I still get to call them kids for a while yet. My family kept me grounded during the pandemic and lockdown, because honestly, having the mind and imagination of a horror writer is not advisable during such a worldchanging event. But exercising with my family in the garden, racing each other around a local 5k route, cocktail parties at home, all helped keep things on an even keel.
Thanks to my agents and friends Michael Prevett, Ed Hughes and Caspian Dennis, and especially the splendid and incomparable Howard Morhaim, for whom I still maintain a red phone.
Finally, a huge thanks to Pete, Nicky and the rest of the PS Publishing crew. It’s always a delight working with you, and here’s to many more.
IN STONE
Several weeks following the death of a close friend, I started walking alone at night. I was having trouble sleeping, and I think it was a way of trying to reclaim that time for myself. Instead of lying in the darkness remembering Nigel, feeling regret that we’d let the time between meetings stretch further each year, I took to the streets. There was nothing worse than staring at the ceiling and seeing all the bad parts of my life mapped there in cracks, spider webs and the trails of a paint brush. I thought perhaps walking in the dark might help me really think.
On the fifth night of wandering the streets, I saw the woman.
I was close to the centre of town. It was raining, and the few working streetlights cast speckled, splashed patterns across the pavement, giving the impression that nothing was still in the silent night. Over the past hour I’d seen several people. One was a night worker—a nurse or fireman, perhaps—hurrying along the street wearing a backpack and with a definite destination in mind. A couple were youths, so drunk that they could barely walk or talk. One was a homeless woman I’d seen before. Two dogs accompanied her like shadows, and she muttered to herself too quietly for me to hear.
They all saw me. The worker veered around me slightly, the youths muttered and giggled, and the homeless woman’s dogs paused and sniffed in my direction.
But the new woman didn’t look or act like everyone else. At three or four in the morning, anyone left out in the streets wanted to be alone. Closeness was avoided, and other than perhaps a curt nod, no contact was made. It was as if darkness brought out mysteries and hidden stories in people and made them solid, and that suited me just fine. I wasn’t out there to speak to anyone else; I was attempting to talk to myself.
There was something about her that immediately caught my attention. Walking in a world of her own, she followed no obvious route through the heavy rain, moving back and forth across the silent main street, sometimes walking on the pavement and sometimes the road. The weather did not appear to concern her. Even though it was summer, the rain was cool and the night cooler, but she walked without a coat or jacket of any kind. She wore loose trousers and a vest top, and I really shouldn’t have followed her.
But Nigel told me to. It was his voice I heard in my head saying, Wonder what she’s up to? He had always been curious and interested in other people, the one most likely to get chatting to strangers if we went for a drink. Last time I’d seen him he’d been more garrulous than ever, and I wondered if that was a way of hiding his deeper problems and fears. He could say so much, but still didn’t know how to ask for help.
The woman drifted from the main street to a narrower road between shops, and I followed. I held back a little—I had no wish to frighten or trouble her—but tried to make sure I kept her in sight. The rain was falling heavier now, and I had to throw up my hood to shield my eyes and face. The side street was not lit. Rain blanketed the night, making everything even darker and giving a constant shimmer to reality. Her movements were nebulous and fluid, slipping in and out of the darkness like a porpoise dancing through waves.
To my left and right, large spaces opened up. These were the service yards of big shops, covered delivery and storage areas that I barely noticed if walking these streets during the day. Now, they were pitch-black burrows where anything might exist, and I was pleased when the woman passed them by.
As she neared a smaller street, she paused. I also stopped,
I was about to turn and walk back the way I’d come when something gave me pause.
The street ahead was a place I knew well, home to a series of smaller, independent shops, a couple of nice pubs, and a few restaurants. Nigel and I had eaten and drunk there, and I’d walked that way more times than I could recall. In the stormy night, it glowed with reflected neon from shop windows. A rush of memories washed over me, and I gasped.
The woman seemed to hear. She tilted her head slightly, then walked out into this narrower road. I followed. I had the sudden sense that I was witnessing something secret. I felt like an intruder, emerging from my safe, warm home to stroll dark streets I knew nothing about.
During the day, this place was a bustling centre of commerce and fun. Now it was a whole new world.
By the time I moved out onto the street, the woman had paused beside a series of bronze sculptures on plinths. They’d been placed fifteen years before as part of the millennium celebrations, and I hardly ever noticed them. Seeing them at night, flowing with water that shimmered and reflected weak light, gave them a strange form of life.
The woman was staring past the sculptures and into the mouth of a narrow alley. I knew the place. It was a dead-end passageway between a fast-food joint and a newsagents. I’d stumbled down there once years ago, drunk, a young woman holding onto my arm as if I could be more stable than her. I had vague memories of what we’d done. Shambolic, clumsy sex amongst split bags of refuse and broken bottles did not make me particularly proud, and I’d only ever spoken of that moment with Nigel.
As I wondered what her interest might be in that grubby place, and just what it was about her that troubled me, she began to take off her clothes.
I caught my breath and pulled back around the corner. I felt unaccountably guilty witnessing the woman’s shedding of clothing, even though she was doing it in the middle of the street. Her shoes came off first, then her vest and trousers. Naked, she stretched her arms to the air and let the rain run across her body. She might have been beautiful.
Rain flowed into my eyes. I wiped them and looked again. There was something wrong.
The woman was moving past the bronze statues and heading towards the entrance to the alley. Her motion seemed strange. She drifted rather than walked, limbs swinging slightly out of time, her movements not quite human. Her pale skin grew darker. Her hair became a more solid cap around her head. She slowed before the alley—hesitant, or relishing the moment—then stepped into its shadows.
As she passed out of sight, I had the very real sense that she was no longer there.
I ran into the night.
“And you ran all the way home?”
“Yeah.”
“Dude. You. Running.”
I laughed. “Who’d have thunk it?”
Ashley licked her finger and used it to pick up cake crumbs from her plate. Finger still in her mouth, she caught my attention and raised an eyebrow. I rolled my eyes. Ash had been my best friend since we were both babies, and although I couldn’t help but acknowledge her beauty, I’d never been drawn to her in that way.
“Still not sleeping?” she asked.
“No. Not well at all.”
“Hence the walking at night.”
I nodded.
“You’re very, very weird.”
We both sipped at our coffees, comfortable in our silence. The café around was filled with conversation and soft music, merging into a background noise that kept our own chat private.
“Maybe she was a prostitute.”
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
I nodded.
“So you’d recognise one?” She had that cheeky glint in her eyes, and I couldn’t help but smile. Ashley called herself shallow, but I knew that wasn’t true at all. She was simply someone who knew how to regulate her depths. She’d been a levelling force in my life forever, and never more than since Nigel stepped from that ledge.
“It’s only around the corner,” I said. “Will you come with me?”
“And search for the mysterious vanishing woman? You bet!”
We left the café. It had stopped raining and the town was alive with lunchtime buzz. Ash and I met for lunch at least once each week, working within ten minutes of each other making it easy. I dreaded her leaving to work elsewhere. She’d mentioned it once or twice, and I knew that she’d had a couple of interviews. It was only a matter of time. Ash was not someone that life held back, and the world was calling.
“It will get easier,” she said, hooking her arm through mine as we walked.
“Yeah, I know.”
“Wish I’d known him better.”
I nodded. Felt a lump in my throat and swallowed it down. “Me too.”
As we approached the place where I’d seen the woman earlier that morning, I heard the cheerful shouts and laughter of a group of school kids. They were maybe nine or ten, posing around the bronze statues as teachers took photos. They probably shouldn’t have been up on the plinths, but no one would tell them to get down. Who would intrude in such excitement and joy?
I headed past the statues and children, aiming for the alley between the newsagents and the fast-food joint, which was doing a busy trade. People queued out the door. A young woman emerged from the alley, wearing an apron with the takeaway’s name emblazoned across the front. She offered us a quick smile, then pushed past the queue and back into the shop. I felt a release of tension from my shoulders, a relaxing in my gut. Ash must have felt it too.
“See?” she said. “No gruesome murders.”
I turned to her and nodded, and then something caught my eye. A litter bin stood beside a bench close to the statues, and splayed across its lip was a dirtied white vest.
“Oh,” I said. I blinked, remembering the woman lifting the vest up over her head.
“What?” Ash asked.
I pointed at the vest. “Why wouldn’t she dress again afterwards?” After what, I did not say, or even wish to consider. She must have walked home naked. If she had walked home at all.
I headed for the alley, and Ash came with me. It smelled of piss. No surprise there. But it also smelled of rain, fresh and sharp, even though it had stopped raining well before I’d finished running home eight hours before.
“Delightful,” Ash said. She stepped over a pool of vomit on the ground.
It was unremarkable, a narrow alley with a dead end thirty feet in, dirty rendered wall on one side, old bare brick on the other. A couple of metal doorways were set into the walls, without handles and looking as if they’d been locked for decades. There were a few black bin bags, one of them split and gnawed at by night creatures—cats, rats, foxes. A pile of dog crap held a smeared shoe print. A dead rat festered against the blank end wall.
“She didn’t come out again,” I said.
“Not while you were watching.”
“But her clothes.”
Ash shrugged.
I walked the length of the alley, fearing what I might see, eager to make sure there was nothing there. I shifted a couple of rubbish bags with my foot, releasing a foul stink that made me gag.
“Jesus, what a wonderful smell you’ve found!” Ash said.
I covered my mouth with the collar of my coat and went in deeper, shoving bags aside with my feet. Old wrappers spilled, slick with rotting food. Things crawled in there, dark and wet, reminding me of the nude woman flowing with rainwater, silvery, flexing and shifting like something inhuman. I bent down to look closer and saw a nest of slugs, leaving trails like slow echoes and pulsing like something’s insides.
“Weird,” Ash said. She was looking at a spread of brickwork close to the ground, a few feet from the end of the alley. I went to her and stood close, our coats brushing. She grabbed my hand.
“What?”
“Don’t know,” she said. She shivered. “Let’s go.”
“Hang on.” I crouched, leaning in closer, trying not to block out precious light so that I could see what she’d seen.
“Come on. Let’s go.”
