Hauntologies: ALPHA: Hauntologies Omnibus, #1

By David Rees-Thomas

Hauntologies ALPHA contains volumes 1-3 of my Hauntologies chapbook series.
14 tales of the weird and eerie set in South Wales with a new introduction by the author.
If you love classic British horror and the weird, this collection is a must read!

David Rees-Thomas has written many short stories in a variety of genres, including horror, mystery, science fiction, and even the occasional literary foray.
He has also worked as an editor and first reader on magazines such as Waylines, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and Nightmare.
He is currently at work on a new mystery novel series, and also writes under other names.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Acid Publishing
• Release date: Aug 12, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201159535

Book preview

Table of Contents

Introduction to Hauntologies: ALPHA

Hauntologies Volume 1: Cleaner and other Weird Tales

Introduction to Cleaners

Cleaners

Introduction to Bleeding Through the Shadows

Bleeding Through the Shadows

Introduction to To Pretend, We Actually do the Thing

To Pretend, We Actually do the Thing

Introduction to Last Phone Box in Glynafon

Last Phone Box in Glynafon

Hauntologies Volume 2 Unfinished Stories in a Seaside Town and other Weird Tales

Introduction to Unfinished Stories in a Seaside Town

Unfinished Stories in a Seaside Town

Introduction to Mamgu

Mamgu

Introduction to A Signal for Meirion

A Signal for Meirion

Introduction to Rhiannon

Rhiannon

Hauntologies Volume 3 The Secret of Trains and other Weird Stories

Introduction to The Secret of Trains

The Secret of Trains

Introduction to Jebediah's Brood

Jebediah’s Brood

Introduction to The Winter Boys

The Winter Boys

Introduction to Gethin's Books

Gethin’s Books

Introduction to Things in the Periphery

Things in the Periphery

Introduction to Train Freaks

Train Freaks

About the Author

Original Introductions to Hauntologies Volumes 1-3

END

Introduction to

Hauntologies: ALPHA

Titles. The Weird. The Eerie.

Titles.

Sometimes they come to me first, and a story will arise form the nifty sounding collection of words.

Sometimes, a vague idea of a title will coalesce as I’m writing, with perhaps a hint of it, maybe a word, or a sound, before I start.

Then there are the times when I get to the end of a story, and realize I have no title. This is not always easily solved, and some of the titles in literature are far less interesting, outside of context, than what we now understand them to be.

Take, for example, Misery, by Stephen King. The title, by itself, if you didn’t know the author and you hadn’t read the book, nor watched the film, is fairly bland. It says little, and what it does say, doesn’t sound like anything most fun-loving people would want to engage with.

That’s because, titles sometimes need context. So, once you connect it with Stephen King, your mind now gives this somewhat drab word extra weight. As a reader, you know something intriguing is going to transpire. Then, once you get into the book, and realize all the other connections, the title comes alive, and your mind decides, that, really, no other title would have sufficed for this tale.

Sometimes, the title shines without context. If we take, In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead by James Lee Burke, we can tell straight off that this title sings. It intrigues on many levels.

But, unlike Misery, where it feels as though all the themes are boiled down to one high concept word, with In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead, the feeling is more that the line is part of a longer poem. There are aspects to be understood either side of the prose. The title alone does not encapsulate everything.

I choose these two books because I think they both work so well with their titles. They are memorable for different reasons, and work in different ways upon our reader brain.

So, I’m going with Hauntologies: ALPHA for this first omnibus, and I’m also reserving the right to change my mind later down the road if I find a title that’s far more interesting.

Titles are weird. Titles are eerie. They are merely words, sometimes not even very interesting words, but they breathe both space and life into the story, and, also, harness stories into tight thematic structures, which the stories might seek to push against.

This tension can be interesting. Perhaps, we should examine, and even doubt, titles more than we usually seek to do as readers.

The Weird. The Eerie.

This omnibus brings together the first three chapbook collections of short stories. It includes all the stories from those collections, along with this new introduction. I have kept the individual story introductions just before the story itself, but I’ve moved the three collection introductions to the back of the book, so you can still read them if you so desire.

All of these stories are set in South Wales. It’s a mythical South Wales, it’s one which is built of my memories, my extrapolations, and the borderland between. These are weird stories, they are horror stories, in a way, and they inhabit the eerie spaces. As Mark Fisher wrote in The Weird and the Eerie, these two ideas allow us to see the inside from the perspective of the outside.

In simple terms, we might say that the weird can be placed within a context of things which don’t belong, or aspects which shouldn’t exist. With this definition, the concept can encapsulate a great number of ideas.

The eerie is a little more subtle. As Fisher suggests, it’s more a failure of absence or a failure of presence. A haunted house is eerie for this reason, but we can reach much further with this concept. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, the place of my own past is different for me and the people who still reside there. We inhabit exactly the same physical plane (perhaps!) and we see the same shops, the same streets, and the same people.

But, I see traces when I go there. And, it’s these traces which are far more real to me than anything currently existing in that space. Our lives are crafted from the fabric of traces. This is why the weird and the eerie intrigue us so much, and also, sometimes, terrify us so much.

Everything is always, as Derrida once said, the question of ghosts.

David Rees-Thomas

Nishinomiya, Japan

August, 2021

HAUNTOLOGIES

VOLUME 1

Cleaners

and other

Weird Tales

Introduction to Cleaners

As a child growing up in the South Wales valley’s, I always remember being struck by this strange sense of wonder and unease regarding the natural landscape, and also the history.

The town of Caerphilly is ringed by hills. To the south, beyond what came to be known as Caerphilly Common once the tourist board worked out how to brand the hills and forests for the glossy brochures, stands Cardiff. There are only seven miles between Cardiff’s town center and Caerphilly, but in those miles the accent changes dramatically from proper valley’s to the unique Cardiff sounds.

To the north of Caerphilly are the long tendrils that reach toward the valleys, branching off into ever narrowing villages where sometimes the only boundary line between villages is a sign, seemingly arbitrarily, placed in the middle of a row of dark stone terraced houses.

These are the valleys of the old coal mines, an industry dismantled in the 1980s, these are the valleys of Oscar winning Hollywood movies (How Green Was My Valley; an 80 acre replica of a Welsh mining town was built in Santa Monica for filming,) and these are also the valleys of a history much older than the industrial revolution.

In the center of Caerphilly, just opposite Glanmors bakery, the Tesco supermarket, and the post office is the second largest castle in the UK (Windsor is the largest). Although it has had extensive restoration work done over the years, it was always a source of amazement to me, as we trudged past it on our way to school, that the castle was 700 years old.

So, within the more modern mythology of the South Wales valley’s with its industrial imprint, its destructive poverty, and its halting glances toward the (dis)information age, there is a feeling, a dread one might even say, that there is, and always has been, something else deep within the earth.

The image of the house in this story is based on an actual house, which stood at the side of the mountain road, on the very edge of town. It was a modern home but it loomed over you as you drove the winding roads at night. Not a scary house by itself, but in the imagination of children it can become something ominous.

There was a weird shop in town as well, sometimes a carpet showroom, sometimes a furniture showroom, sometimes something else housecentric. And just like this shop seemed to constantly be discounting everything inside, the house on the hill always seemed to be for sale.

The image of the house implanted in my child mind, and left to nurture all those years, was what started me off on this story, but that’s where the similarity ends.

Part of what got me thinking about this story was that there is a danger in the modern world that we spend too much time observing, and being directed to observe, all the wrong things. We are faced with the Twitterverse and it frightens us. It seems like real life, and perhaps it might soon dictate real life, but meanwhile, the world still turns, and the mysteries that reside within are still capable of kindling our curiosity and our fear.

Enjoy!

David Rees-Thomas,

Nishinomiya, Japan

May 2021

Cleaners

Llinos viewed the house through tired eyes. She wished for sleep in the way that others wished for a bloody good holiday. The house itself was another one of those she would never be able to afford, the good life easily witnessed but always remaining distant, out of touch.

The house was on the side of the mountain, overlooking the Welsh valley’s town below. It was on a narrow plateau, and seemed to rise like a medieval castle out of the ground as if it had planted firm roots as old and gnarly as the great oaks that dotted the commons, silhouetted against the sky, always watching over the town.

It had dark heavy stones, wide windows of warping glass, with intricate faux vintage carvings in the wood, and it always seemed to have a for sale sign planted firmly on the lawn. The wind whipped up the sweet and earth-rich scents of the forest, the death and rot nurturing new life within. The sounds of the town came to Llinos as if echoes bathed in reverb, a car horn, a dog barking, then just the wind and the birds, and the occasional, unsettling moment where the wind dropped altogether, and she truly heard silence.

She'd never actually seen anyone living in it.

But, apparently someone had bought the place, and thus Llinos found herself standing next to her van, looking up at the house, and shielding her eyes from the sun.

She opened the doors at the back of the van and rummaged around the cleaning supplies. This was going to be a month-long deep clean.

They, her and her business partner and friend from circumstance, Mair, had landed the job through Mair's new friend. Not boyfriend, no, she certainly wouldn't go that far, at least not yet. Not with Mair's track record. And for that, Llinos could hardly blame her.

What do you reckon? asked Llinos.

Mair pulled out the vacuum attachments, dumped them on the ground, and reached further in for the carpet shampoo, the special box of stain removers they referred to as the deep shit, and what appeared to be a set of extendable poles with a bag of various-colored and various-shaped sponges hanging off.

I reckon this is going to be a big one. The estate agent said there hasn't been anyone actually living here for years.

Llinos looked up at the house. It was on a raised area higher than the garden that ran down toward the road. The road itself was also on a slope all alone on the mountainside, so the whole scene almost had an air of an old German castle standing impossibly on the edge of an abyss. We used to play around here when we were kids. She took a box of gloves and old sheets from Mair. You remember?

Mair paused, and stared at the house and beyond into the woods. She had her meaty hands on her thick hips, embodying the essence of a well rooted tree. Her face had a drawn quality that suggested years beyond her actual age, but always something glowed within her eyes, a rage and energy that the observer felt would engulf them if unleashed.

I remember doing bloody cross-country running up here, said Mair. Me and Caitlin Jones would always stop for a ciggy. She paused again and turned to Llinos, smiling now, that energy channeled so that Llinos always felt she was the only thing in the world that mattered at that point.

A smile twitched on Mair’s lips. Your sister though, she was actually bloody good at running. Always used to tell me she only ran fast to win the race because she wanted to get back and have a shower in peace, without them other slags.

Llinos laughed. Sometimes she was able to laugh or smile when she thought of Angharad, but not always, not even most of the time. Twenty years, and the pain still gripped her at the weirdest times.

They trudged up the garden path, careful not to trip on broken bricks or slip on the weeds and wet grass that spilled over from the garden itself.

You see yourself in a place like this? asked Llinos.

Mair grunted and shoved the key in the lock. The door swung open before she had a chance to turn the key.

They exchanged a look and a shrug, and headed inside.

Estate agent must have left it open.

Why give us the key then? Llinos gazed around the hallway.

The stairs looked like something she'd seen in films, but nothing waited for them on the top step, or peered at them from between the balustrade of the wide landing at the top.

We'll have to lock up when we leave, I suppose, said Mair. Reckon there's a good chance it's just us in here for the next few weeks anyway.

The world glowed with unusual energy for a Welsh autumn morning, turning the summer sun-dried ferns on the mountainside into a honey gold, instead of the parched beige of August.

Llinos left the door open. Might air the place out a bit, she said. We should open some windows while we're at it. Musty in here, a century of dust and grime to shift.

She glanced at Mair and headed up the stairs.

Mair came after, moving a little slower, the few years older that she was, and her larger bulk making her short of breath by the top stair.

Llinos unfurled the large house plans and laid them out on a fold-out table she placed against the wall. The landing was in between all the upstairs rooms, and they'd used the plans to divide up their labor and the time allotted so the work would be broken into manageable chunks. They'd learned early on as cleaners that they couldn't just rock up to a place and start cleaning. It took a whole lot more organizing than that.

Outside the wind picked up, sifting through the fir trees in the forest behind the back garden, with a sound like a lazy tide against seashells.

Llinos headed into one of the bedrooms. Heavy, dark wallpaper plastered the walls making the room feel instantly oppressive, and the smell was like recently turned earth. She put on her mask and pulled the curtains, surprised to feel them move so easily on the runners, not surprised at the great plumes of rancid, aged dust that rose like a feral cloud all around her. The sunlight poured in doing little to dent the cloying nature of the space, enough just to make Llinos feel a little less dread.

Something solid rebounded off the brickwork that framed the window, a hollow sound reverberating through the walls, followed by muffled childish laughter. Llinos rushed toward the window, a faint memory of her sister and trees and running, pure running, flitting through her mind.

Outside, two boys stood on a forest path just beyond the hedgerow that bordered the garden and the swaying woods beyond. They watched her with unsmiling faces. Both had the same black bowl style haircut, and although it was summer they wore dark heavy knit sweaters on top of their shirts and ties. School uniforms, but she didn't recognize the colors.

The boys lifted their hands and two stones flew from their fingers rattling off the window just in front of Llinos. She flinched and reached for the clasp, ready to flick it open and pull the window up, ready to berate the little bastards.

But the clasp was stuck with years of grime and neglect, so she settled for banging on the window and shouting curses at the boys instead.

She heard footsteps behind her.

What's going on? asked Mair.

Llinos watched the two boys merge with the forest until they disappeared and no amount of craning her neck would bring them back. Just some kids, she said, as clouds obscured the sun and the heavy atmosphere of the room settled over them again.

Always kids, said Mair. It's like the little sods are attracted to old houses, like poking about in them gives them sustenance.

Llinos wondered if the children ever thought about the dead life of abandoned houses when they poked about inside them. Maybe they made up their own stories, their own legends.

I'm going to make a start, said Mair and left the room with heavy clomping footsteps.

Llinos watched her strange friend leave the room. They'd known each other as children, though Mair had been Angharad's friend really, in the same year in school, and both of them five years older than Llinos.

The smile faded as the past slinked into her mind. Mair had been there when Angharad had been taken. The story, according to Mair, had been that both the girls had started running hand in hand as soon as they sensed danger. She said she remembered the smell of dead leaves, the rot of the peat swamp, and the hard footsteps behind them. After that Mair reckoned she must have tripped or something, because the next thing she remembered was coming to in a ditch by the side of the path with two police officers looking down on her.

Llinos knew it tortured Mair, that something lurked in the periphery of her memories, something that might allow her a restful sleep one day. Mair had always been there for her, even though Mair's own life was in tatters, a string of disastrous relationships, a son who had died in prison.

And though she knew this woman was in pain, Llinos also felt the anger as if she was jealous of Mair's final moments with her sister. She felt a deep need to hurt her at times, in the hope she could force her to remember, and maybe atone for leaving Angharad to die the way she did.

She shook away the thoughts, and headed out to check the plans, ready to begin phase one of the big clean up.

##

The room assigned to be cleaned first was on the north side of the building, with a view of where the road dipped down into the South Wales valleys town below. It had all been coal mining in this area at one time, and before that just farming. The coal industry had ballooned the population, inviting in outsiders from all over Britain, Ireland, the empire, and beyond. They displaced some of the small pockets of Welsh speaking communities so that in the middle of the twentieth century it was unusual to hear the native language spoken at all in the long, winding valleys, though some Welsh people from other parts of Wales had also migrated to the area, so it never truly died away.

Llinos guessed this house had once belonged to one of the mine owners, built as it was on the hillside where it overlooked the town and had a great view of the old mines on the mountainside across the valley. But all that was just history, and in this old house nothing remained that she could see of its cultured past.

Mair laid out all the tools, the sponges, the dusters, and the deep shit on another folding table. Both of them took a step back into the doorway, and surveyed the room. They had come up with a mathematical technique whereby they divided the room into sectors with the different cleaning needs highlighted. Llinos began on the windows. Mair grabbed the bulk of the fluorescent chemicals from the deep shit and started on the floor. She worked in grid like patterns starting in the far corner from the door.

Sometimes they'd just fall into a trance when working, each lost in their own thoughts, and they never listened to music. It didn't enhance Llinos's mood, just clouded her thoughts. They'd once tried listening to the radio only to both rush to turn it off as the retro hour came on, leading with one of Angharad's favorites.

Llinos brushed away the grit build up from the window frame and thought about all the things her and Mair rarely talked of, most of which was related to her sister. They never talked about the news, because the news was never peaceful or cheerful. They never talked about the future except regarding the business. And they certainly never talked about the past. They were friends and business partners.

Friends? Llinos never considered the foundation of their relationship too much. It hurt when she did, and she didn't really understand why..

Llinos felt like talking, perhaps it was the house. The oppressive quality of the old run down mansion resisted time, and seemed to resist the outside, the world of buses and pubs, and the enervating paroxysms of progress.

How's things with Huw? she asked, careful to keep a note of irreverence in her tone, not looking away from the dark trees framed in the window.

Mair didn't stop buffing away at a stubborn red stain on the floor. Fine, she said. He wants to meet you soon, says he's fascinated by our little venture, as he calls it.

Llinos thought the stain looked a little like a blob of wine colored wax that had previously been used to varnish the floor many years before. I like to think of this a big venture, she replied, trying to inject a sense of laughter in her voice, annoyed by the condescending critique this Huw seemed to have manifested.

Mair continued to scrub and buff the floor. She wore knee pads and her whole body swayed keeping a heavy beat. Soon they would slip back into their own solitude, their personal thoughts allowed to drift without encumbrance.

Llinos finished scraping away at the window frame, the grit and grime