Contents

That Ghoul Ava by TW Brown
Kin by Kealan Patrick Burke
The Colony: Genesis by Michaelbrent Collings
Chronicler of the Undead by Mainak Dhar
Painted Darkness by Brian James Freeman
Chasing Spirits by Glynn James
The Home by Scott Nicholson
Preta’s Realm: The Haunting (The Hidden Evil Trilogy, #1) by J. Thorn

There is an old man sitting in a bed on Angel ward, telling stories. He says he has to tell someone, because he is dying. He says he doesn’t care if you believe the tales are true or not, because he is not sure that half of them ever happened at all. Reg Weldon claims that he has seen things that would make your skin crawl. He claims a lot of things…”I was born four seconds before the strike of midnight, on the 31st December 1900. As far as I know that makes me the last person to be born in that century. My mother, god bless her soul, she may well have been the first person to die in the century that followed, because no sooner had I taken my first breath, than she took her last.”

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Reginald Weldon is 101 years old and as he’s sitting in the aptly named Angel Ward, he reckons it’s time to tell his life story and all the things he had learned.

Why did I wait so long to say anything? What possessed me to hide everything away without speaking a word, right up until death was taking its first glances at me? I don’t know really, but I do know that my time is nearing an end. I can feel it approaching as the days pass, a light caress as I lay sleeping, a sharp nudge as I’m sitting up trying to eat, and a lingering glance as I struggle on my way to the lounge for my afternoon read. It’s always there, waiting, just waiting, always ready to remind me that it won’t be long now.

He was born in a “village [..] called Temperance, and it was a tiny place, just a few miles off what is now the M1 motorway, in Northamptonshire, tucked away in that ambling countryside, that for most folks just drifts past you through a car window.”. His mother died at childbirth, his father left them behind shortly before. He lived with his auntie in London until she passed too and then he moved from home to home. He describes himself as an angry child without cause – maybe just the world in general. He hasn’t been dealt a good hand but it’s something that builds up a strong character.

During his rather long life he has done some things he isn’t very proud of both witnessing and committing murder before his eighth birthday. He has done one thing he is very proud of – falling in love with only one woman in his whole life. He has seen some very strange things including corpses reanimating themselves during the First World War

Across the clearing three of the other bodies were now pushing themselves to their feet.

, a cloven hoofed eight feet tall monster, and a doorway into another world – but most of all he feels he missed the chances that were given to him.

Now on his deathbed, Reg has decided it is time to tell the truth to anyone who will listen.

This is another brilliant urban fantasy from Glynn James and is related to  Diary of the Displaced , although it is not really a sequel as it does not directly continue that story line. If anything it pre-dates that story and adds a small amount of background. It is not necessary to read either one to enjoy the other, although for completeness I would recommend reading both.

What I enjoyed most about this story was the language the author used. It wasn’t really flowery prose, but it was distinctly elegant and definitely fitted in perfectly with the premise of an elderly man writing his memoirs.