| Author | Message | ||
     Paul_finch (Paul_finch) Username: Paul_finch Registered: 11-2009 Posted From: 92.5.34.191 |
Don't know if anyone can help, but I've been trying to trace the title and author of a story I read about three or four years ago, which made a massive impression on me. I'm pretty sure it appeared in one of the Year's Best anthologies, though I wouldn't like to put my mortgage on that. It concerns a psychic chap who is asked to the house of a rather odd family (possibly on Christmas Eve) to help with their ghost-watching activities. Initially it's all quite genteel, but then he ends up playing a bizarre game of hide and seek, and being hunted around the house by quite a different kind of family ... Does that ring any bells of familitary with anyone? It's totally messed-up of me to lose the details - don't know what I was thinking of at the time, but it's one of the scariest modern stories I've ever read, and I'd really like to track it down. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.26.216.33 |
There was a hide and seek story in BNH by Nick Royle, but I think that involved children. So don't think it's that one. So sure not, mate. So bleeding hopeless, I'm afraid. | ||
| Paul_finch (Paul_finch) Username: Paul_finch Registered: 11-2009 Posted From: 92.5.34.191 |
Doesn't sound like that one, Gaz. Plus, I'm sure I'd remember if it was Nick Royle. I seem to remember they were trying to replicate a game during which someone had disappeared. It was something like that, at least. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.26.216.33 |
No idea, old chap. Maybe email Steve Jones or Ellen Datlow? | ||
| Di (Di) Username: Di Registered: 10-2009 Posted From: 109.157.133.148 |
Could it be "Smee" by A.M.Burrage? It's got Christmas Eve and hide and seek. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.176.127.208 |
If Di's right and it is Smee, you can check here:- http://www.scaryforkids.com/smee/ | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.176.127.208 |
...although if it was in one of the YBH collections it'll be modern. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
It sounds vaguely, distantly, like "The Specialist's Hat," by Kelly Link, which appeared in Ellen Datlow's anthology Darkness (2010). Even if this isn't it... it's a damn good story! | ||
| Paul_finch (Paul_finch) Username: Paul_finch Registered: 11-2009 Posted From: 92.5.34.191 |
Thanks for all the help so far, folks, but alas it's none of these. | ||
| Rosswarren (Rosswarren) Username: Rosswarren Registered: 11-2009 Posted From: 135.196.120.43 |
I posted this to the Shocklines forum as they are usually pretty good at this and Dan Waters suggested the following: That sounds like Elsewhere by William Peter Blatty, which was in the 999 anthology before it was a CD release |