In Competition No. 2793 you were invited to submit a short story featuring an animal written in the style of James Herbert.
Herbert, much loved by teenage boys of a certain generation, died last month and the tributes came in thick and fast. Crime writer Ian Rankin spoke for many when he tweeted: ‘Sad news about James Herbert — as a teen, I scared myself silly reading him. He led me to King, Barker, others. RIP.’
Herbert’s first novel, The Rats, published in the mid-Seventies, sold 100,000 copies within the first fortnight. Its stars were flesh-eating mutant rodents the size of dogs. Your contributions to the genre featured vampire tortoises, homicidal magpies and vengeful badgers.
On the whole, you captured the Grand Master of Horror well. Honourable mentions go to Basil Ransome-Davies, George Simmers, Shirley Curran and Anne du Croz. The prize-winners, printed below, are rewarded with £30 each. Bill Greenwell takes £35.
They moved in an ungainly fashion, arching towards the hospital, bristling across the derelict play-park. The superintendent and the major watched in disbelief as the first caterpillar, with livid red eyes, ripped at the mound of half-frozen corpses unloaded from the morgue. Soon its lumbering accomplices joined in, salivating. Their sections began to swell and throb.
‘How long have we got?’ asked the major.
‘Five minutes.’
‘We may have underestimated the number of carcasses.’ And yes, their process seemed only to have been impeded.
But as body parts flew upwards, there came a rumbling and the beasts began to turn into pupae, huge and hairy. A vicious stillness filled the limb-strewn concourse. The diapause might be only two weeks, yet England would be safe. Flame-throwers moved into position.
‘Oh God,’ murmured the superintendent. ‘Early eclosure.’
‘You mean…?’
His voice was drowned out by the gigantic beating of wings.
Bill Greenwell
Mannion woke with a start. He was drenched with sweat and the pulsating pain in his head was so severe he thought his cranium would explode. Then a mighty spasm took control of his body and he retched again and again until his insides hurt. He tried to sit up, but he was so weak his muscles felt like jelly. He sensed something suck at his right nipple. Something with bristles. The ‘thing’ was moving slowly but deliberately towards his nether regions. Then — oh no! — another was piercing his left nipple. And a third was making its way on the pillow towards his left earhole. His mind screamed the word: Hedgehogs. It had been a fatal error to leave the skylight open. He counted them as they dropped in platoons from the ceiling: 26 … 37 … 42 … Evidently, yesterday’s secret laboratory experiment by Animal Bio Research had gone terribly wrong.
John O’Byrne
The chicken shed is pitch dark. George gropes through the gloom, surrounded by scolding hens, trampling over a soft, seething mass of feathers. They peck him, pulling at his laces, strafing legs and ankles. He lurches towards the nest boxes, smells the damp rot of mouldering beams, startled by retreating, stilt-legged spiders. Hens swarm over his back, squawking and jabbing at his head. George whimpers, falls into the choking putrefaction of guano and straw. Something strikes his face, he feels a weight on his chest, hears susurrations and rustlings, the swish and throb of wings. Wan light stripes the floor. George sees the gathering, a glint of curved beaks, small, round, red-rimmed eyes, reptilian legs and feet, the monstrous, bladed talons. He screams, contorts in fear, his nightmares wired, his flesh skewered, ripped and slashed, heart-meat impaled, shredded, his fresh-plucked eyeballs pursued across the floor, dripping blood and ichor.
Lesley Quayle
Their existence had been known for a long time, but they were so small that no one paid them any attention. And apart from provoking the occasional allergy, they seemed perfectly harmless.
But now a massive mutation was under way. People began to notice that their mattresses had become lumpy, and that strange protuberances had appeared beneath the carpets.
The genetic revolution completed itself overnight. Grown suddenly to the size of small rats, present in their thousands in every household, they tore their way through the mattresses and ripped out the throats and entrails of their sleeping hosts. The carpets erupted, and the creatures that had been skulking beneath them scuttled to join the feast. Those that were already living in eyelashes simply reached out with their steely pincers and snatched the eyeballs from their sockets, slurping contentedly on the delectable jelly.
It was the dawning of the Age of Acarians.
Brian Allgar
A dark street, its once grand Victorian terraces scarcely visible. Number 13. A cautionary red fanlight. I pulled the bell, growing more uneasy as its echoes reverberated. ‘An experience to die for,’ Petronella had promised. Though no novice to bondage sessions, these surroundings disturbed me. The woman who finally opened the door was dark-skinned, musky. Wordlessly she indicated a room, a couch, and stood while I undressed. Then the ropes. They felt wet, wet and thick, as her oiled hands wound them round me. She stood back and the bonds tightened. Then she was gone. The loops contracted further. One, round my neck, pulsed with my erratic breathing. Tighter and tighter. A sudden white light revealed my body entwined with shining black snakes, evil eyes holding mine as the breath was squeezed from my chest. They began biting my groin. The promised orgasmic thrill obliterated by pain, I screamed.
Alanna Blake
No. 2796: malade imaginaire
You are invited to submit a poem about a minor ailment written by a hypochondriac (16 lines maximum). Please email entries, wherever possible, to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 1 May.
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