Chris Murray - The Acid Test - Basic horror brutality with revenge wrapped inside out and ending with a searing shock - it opens the door for the chasing collection of chillers - it is just an average piece though.

AGJ Rough - Something in the Cellar - Adultery, Poe-esque confinement, a double twist that is straight out of the cop-out movie arena, this is a decent tale that keeps one involved up until the last.

John Christopher - Ringing Tone - A military man leads a double life as a telephone pervert and rings up numerous random women to spout off his filthy spiel.  Unluckily for him he finds a lady on the line who is lost in life and in desperate need to hear a voice also with need.  The finale is wonderfully delivered and this short tale really sticks in the cerebral matter.

Dulcie Gray - The Necklace - A mentally deficient young boy is prone to temperamental outbursts and has a desire to construct beaded necklaces.  After a special dinner the beads are exchanged for fish eyes and after a spell in an institution during a visit home the fish eyes are joined by...well read the gory but quite sad tale and find out.

Walter Winward - Self-Employed - An adulterous tale that shatters true love and causes a long term festering hatred that finally gets its desires through a closure that is more than a little coincidental and loaded with convoluted karma.

Rosemary Timperley - Supper With Martha - A two timing man ends up losing both his wife and mistress in a short episode of twisted wandering. One he loses to the law, the other to his own insatiable appetite - a warped tale with a somewhat farcical ending.

James Connelly - Punishment By Proxy - 2 businessmen and a female friend take a trip to the Persian Gulf to seal a deal with an all powerful Sheik. The men are given a sexual treat as part of the whole hospitality package but the women they choose are not only slaves to the sex but are taking a far worse punishment for crimes not of their own making - a cruel story indeed.

Frances Stephens - The End Of The Line - A cracked mind looks back at the final strains that broke the cerebral camels back. Loaded with regret and doom laden tension this is a sobered cutlet with subtle psychological horror.

Martin Waddell - The Fat Thing - What is the 'Fat Thing'? Who is the rubber faced man that leaves a trail of slime? Who knows, who cares - delve deeper and what you will find here is a slice of black humour done with tongue in cheek and B-movie stupidity at the fore - there is a place for this basic horror though.

B. Lynn Barber - The Flatmate - A woman moves into a flat and becomes obsessed with the previous sexually troubled tenant who killed himself after being rebuked by his flatmate. The obsession turns into twisted love which forces a revenge that is nicely suggested.

Diana Buttenshaw - The Ski Lift - 2 friends fall apart after having strong amorous designs on the same woman. They take a skiing holiday together out of the object of desires range and become close again only for it to turn literally cold again when the obvious tease turns up.

C. A. Cooper - Magical Mystery Trip - A psychedelic LSD induced bout of madness is had whilst dealing with the problems of the mind - a strange account lacking any true effect other than abstract experimentation.

Frances Stephens - Pussy Cat, Pussy Cat - a short account of a woman trying to put up with her troubled sons needs and keep at bay the threat of a scabby stray cat. If you hold no favour for felines you will find something very agreeable here.

David Lewis - Long Silence, Old Man - An abused child becomes a man and decides that his aging father ought to be taught a lesson. A brutal story that will hit a nerve for those who have been on the wrong end of many a beating.

William Sinclair - Terror Of Two Hundred Below - The thirst for knowledge, the desire for the coin, the delights of being a deranged scientist. One young girl tastes all these flavours before becoming victim to some truly icy horror - a winter time read for sure.

Dorothy K Haynes - The Cure - Superstition and peoples need for juicy gossip and the pleasure at someone else's distress make for a tale seeped in disturbing threat.  A young boy needs to be cured of a mental malady and it is suggested that if he touches the flesh of his recently hung father all will be well - take care, this is a distinctly unsettling read.

Alex Hamilton - The Image Of The Damned - The Honourable James Beresford is a gambling man and a cad to boot.  He finds himself up for a hanging due to a recent misdemeanour whereupon he meets our narrator who has a penchant for creating wax models of the condemned.  Beresford see a way out of his dire situation, he plans for one last gamble, the outcome is the ultimate loss.

Norman P Kaufman - A Sharp Loss of Weight - A wrongly jailed man is released and sets about gaining revenge by gun.  He is a man on a mission but it turns out he his not the only one aiming at the same target - what he discovers is a true example of a premeditated payback.

Desmond Stewart - An Experiment in Choice - A bizarre tale based on a man who finds himself suddenly placed in precarious position and forced to make a life or death 50/50 decision.  On the edge stuff albeit in a terse and somewhat transient way.

Robert Duncan - The Evil One - A woman has a one night stand and pays a fair price when the man she throws herself away on is more than she bargained for.  Alas the curse she uncovers doesn't end with a frolic under the covers and in some round about way a moralistic tale is unearthed.
 
Joan Aiken - Marmalade Wine - Starting with gentle open air naturalness and the meeting of two strangers but where we end up is in a place of madness with the final paragraph full stopping a short, but quite unnerving account, of a mind gone astray.

John Arthur - Monkey Business - A tour guide in Singapore shows an American client around and leads him to what promises to be a secret sideshow of shocking proportions.  The shock in store is more powerful than suggested and leaves the brainless Yank quite literally just that - a fine finale.