Fear Across the Mersey

ABOUT THE BOOK

Ramsey Campbell has been haunting Merseyside with stories of the supernatural for more than fifty years, in thirteen novels so far and a novella, THE PRETENCE. FEAR ACROSS THE MERSEY collects all of his shorter Merseyside tales.

A shelter in Newsham Park harbours a vengeful ghost, and a dog in another Liverpool park turns spectral too, while on the waterfront a pub mascot says more than it should. A monstrous influence lurks in cellars beneath the city centre, and something more ancient finds a home in a West Derby underpass. Toxteth finds room for a trio of horrors: an uncommon species of vampire, a familiar in search of a gruesome lair and another hungry presence carelessly invoked. A Beatles tour invades the life of a Scouse musician, and a controversial horror film continues to affect audiences, though not how rumour says it does. Drugs have devastating effects too, overwhelming neighbours with uninvited terrors or visiting disaster on anyone who comes too near. Even visiting a murder scene can infect the innocent, and the perpetrator of an occult crime seeks a new victim, while even death fails to deter a shoplifter in Liverpool One. A derelict cinema rouses more and worse than memories, and an old man’s reminiscences of sixties Liverpool may reshape the past. The Merseyside underground railway repeats a fatal incident, perhaps for eternity, and a sinister Christmas card takes us across the river. A ride in an abandoned fairground proves livelier than the rider likes, and elsewhere in New Brighton a childhood game revives a nightmare. A witchcraft survival roams Port Sunlight, and a fabled vessel brings something like the sea back to Parkgate, while a magazine in a Birkenhead library holds the key to a haunting that awaits you in this book.

The collection also includes Campbell’s early Liverpool tale “The Christmas Present”, unreprinted for more than thirty years.

CONTENTS

• The Cellars
• Concussion
• The Christmas Present
• The Whining
• The Height of the Scream
• The Man in the Underpass
• The Companion
• Through the Walls
• Baby
• The Invocation
• The Brood
• Mackintosh Willy
• The Show Goes On
• The Ferries
• The Depths
• This Time
• Calling Card
• Watch the Birdie
• Peep
• Chucky Comes to Liverpool
• The Rounds
• On the Tour
• Still Hungry
• Wherever You Look
• Afterword: A Chill off the River

Limited Edition: 100 signed, numbered and slipcased copies