gemmamawdsley

PROLOGUE

These stories are not meant to soothe you. There’ll be no tranquil closing of the book as eyelids droop and senses surrender to sleep. These sensations belong to another time, when you believed such things the work of fiction and the horror within them beyond the bounds of probability.

Now you’ve chosen to enter another world, a place where tales unfold from the pages of everyday life and Death. There’s no pretence and they require little imagination in the telling. The human monsters, and you will encounter a few, are real. At times one or more personalities combine, but each one is made up of man’s cruellest traits. I make no excuses for their depravity, they have no redeeming features. Sadly, we all know such loathsome creatures.

The dead choose to speak for reasons of their own and I allow them free rein. It takes a sensitive ear to distinguish the muffled cries from the spirit world, above those of the general hum-drum. It requires an open mind to realise internment beneath the cold earth is not the end.

So read on and listen as only you can to the voices from beyond the grave. Share with them the human emotions of love, hate, fear, revenge and in the end, the most important of all acceptance and forgiveness.

Try to ignore the shadowy corners of the room; there’s nothing there. They are what they appear to be, empty pockets of darkness. Sleep well.