The Grin of the Doll Who Ate his Mother's Face in the Dark and Other Dreadful Tales

By Lamblake Heinz

Have you ever watched a ram in the sea? Have you ever witnessed a ewe in a pond? Pretty damn impressive, aren't they? But they are nothing compared to the dark woolliness of a lamb in a lake, swimming like a champion in pursuit of a canoe. Well, Lamblake Heinz is the ultimate souped-up lamb in a lake! And he's back!

For the past fifty years, the legendary Lamblake Heinz has been astounding the world with his amazing tales of incredible horror! Readers have exploded when reading his work or turned into literal gibbons! And now, at long last, all his finest short-stories are available in a single volume! Dare you penetrate the portals of his darkness and explore the inner core of his fiendish imagination? Or are you too much of a timid scaredy cat?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lamblake Heinz
• Release date: Jun 7, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476037264

Lamblake Heinz

Lamblake Heinz is a reclusive horror novelist born in a tent on the Gower Peninsular sometime in the 1940s. Known primarily for his standalone novels such as NOT ALL ZOMBIES EAT MEAT, DR FRANKENSTEIN STITCHED ME UP and RAT ON A HOT TIN COT, he also has written a trilogy of five books which have yet to see light of day as they are "only readable in the dark." (His own description). Heinz is also famous for his eccentricity and aversion to prunes. He also has an unspecified problem with aardvarks. He is fond of saying, "Inside every thin man is a fat man crushed to death in an oubliette." In his youth he founded the British Society of Weird Fantasy in order to increase the number of awards he was eligible to win. He has won all of them since. He has also written more than 900 stories that have been highly praised by such luminaries as Stephen Kong, James Sherbert and M. John Horrorson, who issued the following joint statement: "Lamblake Heinz writes of things beyond the ken of mortal man even more effectively than ken himself does."

Book preview

ALL PROFITS FROM THIS EBOOK WILL BE DONATED TO ANIMAL AID

People call me King of the Realm of Horror and it’s true, that’s what I am. But it’s also true that Lamblake Heinz is the President of the Republic of Fear. — Stephen Kong, author of Carry on Menstruating and Pest Seminary

He’s every bit as good as he says I am. — Peter Strawberry, author of Spook Tale and Another Blandly Titled Novel

He’s every bit as good as he says I am. — Clive Barking, author of Bumraiser

I’m every bit as good as I say he is. — Dennis Etchings, author of The Dark Tripe

Whenever I’m required to blurb a book I ask myself the question, ‘What’s in it for me?’ Various unethical benefits, was the answer in this case. This is a very good book. — Tom Libbon, author of Dusk, Blue, Mauve and Teapot.

I hope to network my way one day to the same position of respect and influence as Heinz currently enjoys. I love his work accordingly. — Simian Kurt Upstart, author nominated for some award or other

"Years ago, when the television show I successfully scripted, Phantom View, became a national phenomenon I told everyone that Lamblake Heinz had been the biggest influence on Phantom View. More than two decades after Phantom View got all the country talking about Phantom View, I am happy to reaffirm what I said back then. By the way, have you seen Phantom View?" — Stephen Vulk, financially acclaimed scriptwriter of Phantom View

Although I haven’t read his book yet, I know it’s brilliant. I also know which side my bread is buttered on. Both sides. — Peter Lodger, chief reviewer for Black Stasis magazine

Because I wear sunglasses all the time, even indoors, I can’t actually read books but only write them. Nonetheless this collection by the amazing Lamblake Heinz richly deserves the forthcoming award that has already been secretly arranged for him to win. — Sarah Pongborough, author of The Dog-Eared Gods

I’m proud to be part of his clique together with Tom Libbon, Stephen Vulk, Gary McMadman, Sarah Pongborough and others. — Murk Murris

I used to think he was rubbish and couldn’t write at all and didn’t know what he was talking about, but then he praised my first book and I suddenly realised he was an incomparable master of supernatural terror! — Sam Markuels, author of The Sticky White Hands

Lamblake is a genius. He and I go back a long way. We invented nepotism at roughly the same time. — Some Bloke Called Pete

I don’t like him. — Shaun Hutsoff, author of Snails, Crayfish and Midges

Western Society is incredibly arrogant. Scientists like Einstein, Bohr, Dirac, Pauli, Fermi, Heisenberg and Gödel thought they were clever and had lots of smart answers to big problems. But in fact we know nothing and we’re all just children groping in the dark, and Lamblake Heinz, an acknowledged master of horror even though he’s not physically tough and goes on package holidays when he travels abroad instead of roughing it like a hero, is fortunately on hand to remind us that our arrogance is wrong and that his arrogance is better and that he is right instead of those scientists mentioned above and that’s why we should all be grateful and praise him. — Gary Boil, managing editor of Gray Boilers Press.

I like to stamp my foot and announce how I’m willing to defend the rights and dignity of women to my final breath! But when Lamblake Heinz aggressively castigates a shop girl at an event where he’s doing a reading because the turnout was low, I won’t say anything in protest. That’s how brilliant a writer he is. And how timid a political activist I am. — Beston Simwick, horror author and communist

I love Heinz’s work so much that I kissed and married it in a civil partnership ceremony. — Joel Alley, another horror author and communist

That squelch was the sound of my buttocks dropping off my body in sheer shock at how superb and amazing his writing is! — Simon Clunk, author of Nailed by the Fart and The Travesty of the Triffids

The Grin of the Doll Who Ate His Mother’s Face in the Dark and Other Dreadful Tales

by

Lamblake Heinz

Edited by Rhys Hughes

With a Foreword by James Sherbert

Cover Art by Gonzalo Canedo

Published By Gloomy Seahorse Press at Smashwords

Copyright 2012 Lamblake Heinz

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Dedicated to

all horror readers with a sense of humour

Table of Contents

Foreword

Loafing Around

A Tale of Terror

The Matchmaker

White Rabbit

Go West, Young Ripper

Eggs

The Grin of the Doll Who Ate his Mother’s Face in the Dark

Matryoshka

Knees

And Now a Word from Lamblake Heinz Himself

The Hideous Cackle

The Count of Eleven Boobies

A Greek Haircut

One Better

Whistle and I’ll Come Inside You, My Lad

Three Dancers

A Warning to the Bi-Curious

The Terrors that Creep in the Night

Lamblake Heinz Speaks

The Birth of Opera

The Sink Monster

The Landslide

Chainsaw for Sale, Lightly Used

The Hidden Sixpence

Lovecraft’s Chin

The Wrexham Chainsaw Massacre

A Fistful of Parables

Excerpt from Shadow of the Tory

More Poetry

Towards a New Arcana

The Cottage in the Cottage

Morphometasis

The Most Utterly Romantic Monstrous Horror Story Ever

I’m Lovecraft, Woe is Me

Genetic Crocodiles on the Rampage

The Nefarious Matter of Smelly Darkly

Necessity is the Mother

Cut Me Up, My Darling!

Lamblake Recalls How he Helped to Establish the British Society of Weird Fantasy

Interview with Lamblake Heinz

A Message from the Editor

Another Message from the Editor

FOREWORD

I was living in a cottage when I first discovered the work of Lamblake Heinz. Living in a cottage was very spooky! Have you ever lived in a cottage on your own? I have. Spooky indeed! When I started reading the book I suddenly realised that the cottage was even spookier than before. What an amazing coincidence! I said to myself, as I poured another glass of Malt whisky for my pet slipper. My cottage is spooky and this book is spooky! How does he do it?

And I’ve been trying and failing to answer that question ever since, especially on those days when I remember to ask it. That was back in the 1960s and I’ve followed the career of Lamblake Heinz ever since. It goes without saying he’s the best horror writer in the entire world and that his books ought to be on the shelves of every reader and even on the shelves of those other people who don’t read and even on the shelves of people who don’t have shelves. Just my view.

In the early days, Lamblake’s stories were often about dinosaurs and werewolves and poisonous ducks. But a writer worth his salt and also his pepper and also his mustard is never satisfied to stand still with the topics and themes that have made him famous. He is always wanting to push the envelope, sometimes pushing it so hard that it goes out of shape and it’s no longer possible to stick a stamp on it. Lamblake quickly evolved and started dealing with all sort of subjects.

But no matter what the subject of those subjects was, he still managed to make it spooky! Like my cottage! Sometimes even worse than that, so inherently spooky is his work, and I have to admire that, whether I want to or not, and I do want to, believe it or not, as it happens, a lot. But none of this is getting us where we want to go, which is into Lamblake’s tales themselves, each one a carefully crafted little gem that sparkles like some sort of star that looks like an evil jewel.

I’ll just say that among the nine hundred or so stories he has written I was delighted to be given this opportunity of writing this Foreword to a selection of a handful of the best of all. This collection that you hold now in your hand is the definitive volume of Heinz’s shorter work in the field of the horror short story! This isn’t to say that horror is really a field. It’s more of an urban zone overgrown with weeds and each weed might be a monster, a psycho or some sort of ghost.

And the realisation of that is truly spooky! The first time I realised this for myself, while I was sitting alone in my cottage during a spooky night, it became subsequently impossible for me to sleep the night away in bed, because I was too scared to get any sleep. The following morning I wrote a letter to Mr Lamblake Heinz good naturedly complaining with a tongue in my cheek that he had stopped me getting any sleep. To my amazement he replied a few months later with a letter!

Dear James, the letter began, thanks so much for your hilarious and funny epistle, which made me laugh and amused me very much as well. I am sorry to hear about your hideous insomnia that was occasioned by my highly crafted tales of horror and ghosts and stuff and so I wish to pay for the damage I have caused. Please accept and cash this postal order and by all means write to me again as often as you like telling me what you think of all my books in the order you read them.

It was signed at the bottom by Lamblake Heinz himself! And attached to the letter by a paperclip was a postal order for one old penny! That was back in the 1960s, when the cost of living was much cheaper, and when you spent a penny you still got change from a penny. Can you even begin to start to imagine my feelings when I saw that the great Lamblake Heinz had deigned to write to me, a mere nobody only beginning to write horror tales of my own? Seriously, can you imagine?

I imagine I felt the same feelings felt by a sorcerer or wizard from the long gone olden days of yore when he called forth, thanks to the use of spells and rituals and things, an ancient demon by name and then a demon answering to that name appeared in a puff of vaporous smoke! Lamblake Heinz is a demon to me, a good demon, the sort of demon one would like to have in the house all the time, telling stories by the guttering glow of a flickering thick stub of an antique black candle.

We have been fine friends since that moment back in the 1960s, which seems such a long time ago but isn’t as long ago as, say, the time of those weird fellows called Egyptians who made mummies and pyramids to put them in and worshipped gods with funny heads. And I guess it’s true for me to say that Lamblake is my god and that I worship him. Every time he writes a new tale he sends it to me to read and then even comes round in person to my cottage where I live to test me on it.

The following collection of brilliant stories that you still hold in your hand, if you haven’t dropped it for whatever reason, is a magnificent and perfect showcase of the diverse and enormous talents of the huge genius of Lamblake Heinz. The stories in this book are arranged in chronological order and demonstrate how his style has evolved from amazing to superb in the space of only fifty years. I envy the reader new to the work of this literary deity. Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy and be scared!

JAMES SHERBERT, THE COTTAGE, 2012

…and now prepare yourself for the best that Lamblake Heinz has to offer!

Are you ready?

Ready or not, here it comes…

Er… there has been a small technical problem but we’re sure everything will be working again very soon.

Right, we’re ready now…

But are you?

Um… the problem wasn’t fixed.

Bear with us one moment.

OK, that should do it.

No? In that case…

I’m sorry, I really don’t know what to do

Ah… maybe we should say a little prayer to the great god Cthulpoo?

Yoggy-soggy-lamblakey-heinzy!

LOAFING AROUND

They paddled the canoe up the creek to the rotting jetty. In the last rays of the setting sun, they climbed onto the creaking planks and made their way to dry land. The town was silent. No light shone in any window. The rain still dripped from the sagging balconies.

Looks like we’re too late, said Worthington.

Nashe shook his head. We can’t be certain of that yet. We’ll have to check every single house one by one.

Worthington puffed out his cheeks. This town has been cut off from civilisation for hundreds of years. Who knows what affect the toxins had on the people who lived here? I mean—

That’s what we’re here to find out. Come on.

But Worthington was wary. The people of the last town had evolved into giants; and in the town before that, they only had one eye each; and in the town before that… Hideous!

Nashe shrugged. You knew the risks.

Yes, I suppose I did. All the same, it’s frightful.

Let’s get it over with, shall we?

The beam of his heavy torch swinging ponderously in the twilight, his boots squelching dockside mud, he led the way along the waterfront to a row of buildings that turned out to be shops. It was weird seeing them in such a place, in a town surrounded by bubbling green swamps; they were too quaint, pleasant and picturesque.

Bakers’ shops! breathed Worthington.

Nashe frowned. All of them, without exception.

Worthington licked his dry lips.

Look at this display. Braided bread! Seeded rolls and baguettes! And they look fresh. This means that people still live here! The town isn’t dead. But where is everyone? Are they hiding?

Nashe pushed at the front door of every shop. They were all locked for the night with the exception of one at the end of the row. The hinges were oiled and the door swung smoothly open. The two men entered the shop. The torch beams played over shelves packed with bread and cakes. Then Worthington jerked his head and said:

Shhh! I think I heard something, a rustling…

Nashe froze, his ears prickling.

He nodded slowly, pointed at one of the largest loaves that stood on a low shelf. The noise was coming from inside it. Worthington joined him and rested his head against the crust.

He hissed, There are voices within it!

Nashe reddened, whether from rage or embarrassment was impossible to determine, and he used his free hand to claw apart the loaf. Fistfuls of fluffy bread were scattered in all directions. Worthington retreated a few steps in fear, but his companion was oblivious to danger. He tore with a primal savagery at the whispering loaf.

At last the truth was exposed. A cavern in the heart of the loaf, some sort of cunning refugee for mutants…

The people that were exposed were recognisably human — but none of them were taller than half an inch.

They have degenerated over many generations!

The toxins did this! The toxins!

No, I think it was something even worse…

Nashe was aghast and he rapidly retreated to where Worthington was standing. Both of them crowded the doorway of the shop. They took one last look at the miniature humans; then they ran out into the street, back to the jetty and the safety of the canoe.

The worse outcome for any isolated community, growled Nashe as he paddled with all his strength to propel them back into the labyrinth of the bubbling swamp, home of snakes with arms and birds with plumage that flashed in colours that hadn’t existed before the disaster. It took ten minutes of furious work before they felt secure enough to slow the pace and talk properly again to each other.

Yes, the worst outcome, agreed Worthington.

They were tiny! Like imps!

Smaller than that. Smaller than my thumb…

Nashe shuddered and said in an undertone, I’ve only ever seen such a situation once before. Down south.

Horrible. Who could imagine that the entire population… I mean, the entire population… would be…

In bread, nodded Nashe with tragic eyes.

A TALE OF TERROR

Laura was running. She ran.

She ran through the forest. Through the forest she ran. Laura ran.

She was running through the forest. The forest was dark. It was scary. Her name was Laura. She ran.

A monster was chasing her!

She ran from the monster. Laura ran away from the monster. Through the forest.

The forest was large. It was dark.

The monster ran after her!

After Laura ran the monster, through the dark forest. It was running. Laura was running. They both ran.

Through the forest.

She tripped as she ran. She picked herself up and resumed running. She tripped again. She tripped because she was running! Through the dark, creepy forest.

She picked herself up and ran.

The monster was behind her. It ran after her. It