Foreword
Dear Reader (as the heroine of Vampire’s Lady would say),
Thank you for choosing Sinister Shorts; I hope you enjoy these stories, some of which have gone through various incarnations, starting or being adapted as scripts for stage or radio, but winding up here, stretched out on a rectangular slab for your examination – all their beauty and ugliness laid bare … on the page.
Monstrous might describe them, but I hope they’re fun too – after all, what’s more fun than being scared (if you know you’re really safe)? You can’t always get off a rollercoaster or ghost train when you want to, but you can always pause a movie or put a book aside. It’s my job to keep you riveted, turning pages, at least until the end of each tale. At which point, I’d love it if you dip into another of these poisoned soufflés without delay.
Savouring each fatal morsel, I hope you’ll “see” the locations, hear the dialogue and feel the emotions of the characters … the human and the non- (or in-) human ones too; if you’ve ever seen Creature from the Black Lagoon or King Kong, you will have felt sympathy for the monster. So please keep your minds and hearts open – and your eyes too … because you never know what’s hiding in the shadows at the bottom of the stairs just waiting to slither up and get you!
